From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Sep 19 23:16:24 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA10376; Thu, 19 Sep 1996 23:16:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 23:16:24 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199609200316.XAA10376@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #501 TELECOM Digest Thu, 19 Sep 96 23:16:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 501 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New Sponsor Joins Digest (TELECOM Digest Editor) Year 2000 Computer Problem (Tad Cook) Re: Formal FCC Action Filed to Stop I-Phone (Bill Sohl) Lexis-Nexus "P-Trak" Service Official Response (Rick Adams) Re: Junk E-mailers and 'Control' Newsgroup (Mickey Ferguson) Re: Junk E-mailers and 'Control' Newsgroup (John R. Levine) Re: Junk E-mailers and 'Control' Newsgroup (Marc Schaefer) Re: ZIPs Crossing NPA Boundaries? (Mark E. Kaminsky) Re: ISDN From Bell Atlantic (Dave Perrussell) Re: Increasing Phone Numbers Require New Area Codes (Scott Robert Dawson) Re: RJ12 Wiring Question (Benjamin W. Atkinson) Re: Philadelphia EXchanges, Circa 1946 (Lisa Hancock) Re: Sheath Slitter Tool Wanted (Bill Garfield) Re: Date Set For 818/626 Split (John Cropper) Internet Security Review Now Online (pluto@nso.org) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: New Sponsor Joins Digest Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 21:30:00 EDT In case you missed my message on this subject earlier in the day on Thursday, a new corporate sponsor has agreed to assist with funding the Digest at least for awhile. Zev Rubenstein and a business associate have started a new firm and will appreciate your support as much as I am grateful for theirs. Please see the details below. Their message will appear as part of the masthead or 'boilerplate' in each issue of the Digest. Please send Zev a note today letting him know you appreciate his help. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* In addition, ITU remains as a sponsor. Thanks very much for your indulgence. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Subject: Year 2000 Computer Problem Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 19:34:37 PDT From: tad@ssc.com Cyber Shock 2000: Software Calendar Problem May Have Been Overstated By Ann Saccomano, Traffic World Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Sep. 16--The buzz in computer circles is the ominous specter of the "Year 2000." At first it sounds like a tall tale from the cyber crypt: At the stroke of the double zero, computer software will experience a meltdown of monumental proportions as software coding embedded with the yearly date erases all data. The principal culprit is the COBOL programming language, the first business application to gain a foothold in the market. COBOL reads only the last two digits of a given year. Thus, when Jan. 1, 2000, arrives, the computer will read the data as "00" and assume it's time to start the year -- and the computer files -- with a clean slate. "It's mostly a problem with mainframes because they represent the older systems. There wasn't much packaged software put on mainframes and whatever was available was usually heavily customized. That's why you hear so much about the Year 2000 problem among older companies," said Jan Sapapas, vice president for manufacturing and distribution logistics for J.D. Edwards & Co., a business software developer. Just how much it will cost to fix the problem is a question mark. A scan of industry trade publications and consultants shows estimates that range from $2 million to $40 million, depending on the size of the system. Computerworld magazine has placed the nationwide cost at between $50 billion and $75 billion. The firms that will really take a hit, Sapapas said, are those in banking and financial services, where software for interest rate calculations are rife with date coding. Among transportation companies, the problem is not so dire. "It's a problem within internal systems, but most of the carriers are already dealing with the issue in some way," said Doug Anderson of the American Trucking Associations. Anderson chairs the ANSI ASC X12 transportation committee to establish electronic data interchange standards within the industry. Anderson said he knows of one carrier that has assigned one information systems person, out of an MIS staff of 10, to work on the problem full- time. "He won't finish in two years." Not everyone is buying the gloom- and-doom scenarios. Pam Kelley, director of information systems at Roadway Express, is skeptical about the extent of the problem. "There's a lot of hype within the computer industry about it. We don't think it's as big a deal as we're being told," she said. Roadway has already done an assessment of the impact the Year 2000 will have on its information systems, Kelley said, and is now drafting plan to deal with it. Instead of nailing down every date, Roadway is more concerned with handling the big problems. An internal memo that crops up with the wrong date isn't likely to traumatize anyone. "We feel we're out front of the eight ball. What we want to make sure is we don't spend time fixing programs where it's not a problem," Kelley said. ------------------------------ From: billsohl@planet.net (Bill Sohl) Subject: Re: Formal FCC Action Filed to Stop I-Phone Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 04:01:04 GMT Organization: BL Enterprises Last March, Pat TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > This is a special bulletin received Friday morning regards the > squabble between the telephone companies and the I-Phone people; > the ones who use the software which allows voice communication > via the Internet. The war has started! It appears the carriers are > serious about getting rid of this Internet feature. A formal > complaint has been filed with the Federal Communications Commission. Anyone have any idea what is happening with the action that ACTA filed with the FCC in an attempt to stop Internet Phone? Last I recall, ACTA was holding an annual meeting somewhere (Arizona?) at which this was supposed to be a topic leading to a collective position by ACTA. What was the result of that meeting? Bill Sohl (K2UNK) billsohl@planet.net Internet & Telecommunications Consultant/Instructor Budd Lake, New Jersey [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You know, that's a *very good* question. I have heard nothing further on it for quite awhile now. Perhaps if our regular reader/correspondent Jeff Buckingham sees this he will respond. He was/is part of the organization which filed the complaint although he stated that he himself was opposed to the action. PAT[ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 11:03:33 CDT From: Rick Adams Subject: Lexis-Nexus "P-Trak" Service Official Response For Lexis-Nexus's official response, look at: http://www.lexis-nexis.com/lncc/about/ptrak.html It appears that much of the information about their P-Trak (not P-Trax) service disseminated on the Internet was erroneous, though they did give out SSN's for a while. Rick Adams -- radams@winternet.com -- http://www.winternet.com/~radams/ ------------------------------ From: Mickey Ferguson Subject: Re: Junk E-mailers and 'Control' Newsgroup Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 13:52:17 -0700 Organization: Stac, Inc. Dave Keeny wrote: >> Registrations were last tallied at Wed Sep 18 08:44:49 EDT 1996 >> [STOP IT IMMEDIATELY!] had 05308 registrations. >> [MORE! SEND ME MORE!] had 00031 registrations. > 99.4% of respondants want the junk e-mail to stop. What a surprise. And of those 31 wanting more, how many of them were from people who either were too stupid to understand the question, or from people who had left their keyboards unlocked and unattended? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Sep 96 21:23 EDT From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Junk E-mailers and 'Control' Newsgroup Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > An interesting, if unscientific data point: on the web page > http://infobot.hartley.on.ca/dspam.html you can sign up for > *more* junk e-mail, or remove your address from their mailing list. Yeah, and I hear that if you are so foolish as to put your name on either of those lists, you'll get lots more spam. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - MIT econ prof ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 22:35:51 +0200 From: schaefer@vulcan.alphanet.ch (Marc SCHAEFER) Subject: Re: Junk E-mailers and 'Control' Newsgroup > It looks like one or more junk e-mailers may be generating their > mailing lists by filtering addresses from cancelled messages in the > 'control' newsgroup: Our policy at ALPHANET NF (Not for profit telecom research) is to warn the user, the postmaster and possibly the service provider's postmaster, and if the junk mail continues without any action from the service provider (even if the e-mail address From: is different), to CUT completely the feed from them (ie, trash ALL incoming e-mail from their domain, and possibly their service provider's domain). All trashed messages are sent back to the user, the postmaster and possibly the postmaster at the service provider. We continue this policy by exchanging 'black lists' with a few friends at remote domains, and by threatening trashing in all those domains. This is easily done with a few scripts (or could be done directly from sendmail). We are getting less and less junk e-mail; this is quite efficient. And for the moment no complaint for loss connectivity (after all, most of the trash sites sending junk e-mail and having no postmaster to contact, or unresponsive postmasters are probably bad service providers anyway). ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Sep 96 15:56:25 PDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Re: ZIPs Crossing NPA Boundaries? A most unusual (for me) occurrence: two messages on the same topic, sent by two different people, apparently crashed in mail processing. I do implement my own locking on files duirng mail delivery, and I have audit mechanisms to locate lost messages, who sent them, etc. That's what makes this all so strange. According to my audit records, I received this at 7:31 pm Thursday night, ostensibly from Valkenaar. A log showing the execution of my filter-rules says it arrived from him addressed to comp-dcom-telecom@somewhere. The filter-rules has no record of the other item sent by Mark Kaminsky at all. It was sent through a script to remove an extra blank line in the header, sent to the autoreply, and then after seizing and locking my mail spool it was dropped in there. I cannot see where the autoreply responded to either name, probably because it got confused by seeing both names. It may be that these two items crashed before they ever got to me. Please note the addresses for both writers is clipper.robadome.com and perhaps they converged there into one file. Both writers just responded to news rather than writing me directly. Anyway, here is the way it looks: Maybe you can figure it out! :) PAT] From: dougv@clipper.robadome.com (D. Douglas Valkenaar) Subject: Re: ZIPs Crossing NPA Boundaries? Date: 19 Sep 1996 From: kaminsky@clipper.robadome.com (Mark E. Kaminsky) Subject: Re: ZIPs Crossing NPA Boundaries? Date: 16 Sep 1996 22:01:31 GMT Organization: Siemens Rolm Communications Inc. Reply-To: kaminsky@best.com In article , dchapman@epix.net writes: > A colleague of mine has stated that the only time ZIPs cross into > neighboring area codes are in very rural areas, where there is minimal > effect. > Dave --- dchapman@epix.net > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Carl Moore keeps track of this sort of > thing in detail so he could probably tell you a lot more, however > the codes used in the one mprovement

lan instituted by the > post office in the late 1950's typically cover much smaller geographic > areas than telephone area codes and I think it is rare -- if it occurs > at all -- that a ZIP code would be in parts of two area codes. PAT] It does happen, though: I live in 415 :-(soon to be 650)-:, although the people across the street are in 408, and those two houses down (on another streetname; the street does a 90 degree turn at my house) are also in 408. I would bet that all of us are in the same 9 digit zip code, since we're all on the same carrier route. It's not rural at all: Sunnyvale is a city of over 120,000 people; I think it's the most populous city between San Jose and its smaller neighbor to the north (San Francisco, of course). I'm not clear on the entire length of the 408-415 boundary, but it does not follow the boundary between Sunnyvale (nominally 408) and Mountain View (nominally 415), although I don't know of any Mountain View addresses which are in 408. My memory of the map used by the PUC to describe the coming split of 415 suggests that when 415 splits, there will be many more of these cases, as the split goes through Daly City and other cities on its way across the peninsula. I don't often have anything to contribute to this group, but I do enjoy reading it. Pat, keep up the good work! Mark -- .sig stolen from Doug Sewell (doug@cc.ysu.edu): -- Nothing is foolproof. Fools are too ingenious. Douglas Valkenaar (408) 492-6119 doug.valkenaar@siemensrolm.com PhoneMail Development [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for the positive note. I will try to keep up the good work but there are times I get *so frustrated* with things here. I have not had two incoming peices of mail arrive at apparently the very same instant and crash like this before. So whoever said what, thank you. I guess I need some mail filtering soft- ware for the 1990's instead of using the stuff I wrote in 1986. :) The more I go back and look at the raw data though, the more I think this occurred at clipper.robadome.com on the way to me. PAT] ------------------------------ From: diamond@interserf.net (Dave Perrussell) Subject: Re: ISDN From Bell Atlantic Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 01:02:38 GMT Organization: The BBS Corner Rob Carlson wrote: > Found on nj.events, thought your readers might be interested in this. > ACCESS TO CYBERSPACE BECOMES MORE AFFORDABLE FOR > NEW JERSEY CONSUMERS > Residential ISDN Rates Reduced 14 to 80 Percent > for Bell Atlantic-New Jersey Customers > NEWARK, N.J. - High-speed access to cyberspace from home soon will be > more affordable and easy to get for New Jersey consumers. > Interim pricing plans for monthly residential ISDN service in New > Jersey include five packages ranging from $31 a month for 20 hours of > B-channel use to $108 monthly for 500 hours of B-channel use for > voice, data or video transmission. ISDN provides two B channels that > each transmit data at 64 kilobits per second (Kbps). > For those who need an ISDN data connection 24 hours a day, seven days > a week, an unlimited ISDN usage package now costs $239 monthly. > Consumers who plan to use ISDN for only a few hours a month can buy > measured service for $23.50 monthly plus a local usage fee of 1 cent > per minute per channel. Why does ISDN **STILL** cost so much? I don't see this as much of a "reduction" in rates. Does ISDN cost the phone company (i.e. Bell Atlantic) more than a regular POTS line? If so, how much does it REALLY cost? I heard in California that PacBell was charging rates less than $30 a month for unlimited ISDN usage. A far cry from the $239 that Bell Atlantic is charging. Any info on this would be appreciated. Dave Perrussel Webmaster - The BBS Corner http://www.vni.net/thedirectory ------------------------------ From: srdawson@interlog.com (Scott Robert Dawson) Subject: Re: Increasing Phone Numbers Require New Area Codes Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 01:55:25 GMT Organization: InterLog Internet Services Reply-To: srdawson@interlog.com tad@ssc.com wrote, quoting another article: > Texas started with five area codes: 214 for Dallas and Northeast > Texas; 817 for Fort Worth and North Texas; 713 for Houston and > Southeast Texas; 512 for Central Texas and South Texas, and 905 for El > Paso and West Texas. > The first change for Texas came in 1962, when West Texas was split > between 905 for El Paso and West Texas and 806 for Amarillo and the > Panhandle. In 1983, the area around metropolitan Houston was split off... This quoted article says that 905 was used in Texas itself, not Mexico, and seems to imply that it is still in use around El Paso! However, my phone number begins 905-842, and I can look around my neighbourhood and authoritatively state that El Paso, the Rio Grande and Mexico are nowhere in sight ... on the other hand, downtown Toronto is only a modest commuter-train ride away. Isn't El Paso in 915? ------------------------------ From: Benjamin W. Atkinson Subject: Re: RJ12 Wiring Question Date: 18 Sep 1996 16:15:04 GMT Organization: Reynolds & Reynolds Andy Rowan wrote: > I'm wiring up some jacks in my house for two lines, but I've gotten > conflicting answers on which way the wires should go. For the black > and yellow, which is tip and which is ring? Or in other words, does > the black correspond to the green, or does the yellow correspond to > the green, in terms of polarity? Robert Milton wrote: > Green is Tip and red is Ring. Yellow would be considered as T1 and black > as R1. On some very old systems you tied yellow to green to make the > ringer work on the phone. This would a very old phone. I hope this > helps. Michael Stanford wrote: > Yellow = Ring, Black = Tip. Okay, it's time for a source. Is there an authoritative document, preferably on-line, that has the answer? Ben Atkinson The Reynolds & Reynolds Co. Programmer/Analyst P.O. Box 1005 Dayton, OH 45401-1005 e-mail: ben.atkinson@reyrey.com voice: +1 (513) 443-2434 fax: +1 (513) 443-2489 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well you see, both are correct. The original question asked about black/yellow which are used for the second line, while red/green are used for the first line. If you have a third line then it would be blue/white. If you have only two lines but a six conductor/three pair cord then blue/white can be used for things like an exclusion key, or to light the dial on a Princess Phone (if they still make those), etc. The rule is as follows: Green/red = line one (or the wires to use on single line phone) Yellow/black = line two (or special purpose on one line phone) White/blue = line three (or special purpose on one/two line phone) If you have a single device being used for some special purpose on a multi-line arrangement (for example, an answering machine picks up one of several lines) then the yellow black pair would be used for A/A1 supervision. Its all relative, as long as you stay consistent in the colors, etc throughout. In a modular jack, the wires and pairs are as follows: Two outermost pins are 1&6 for blue/white line three. (often missing) 2&5 for yellow/black line two. Two innermost pins are 3&4 for green/red line one. That's why when you buy an answering machine or a cordless phone at Radio Shack the clerk tells you it will 'only work on your first line', because they are too cheap to include a two pair/four wire modular cord with whatever you bought. Look closely; the modular cord with the answering machine or cordless phone or whatever will only have two wires attached to the two innermost pins. Now the answering machine does not know the difference; if you get in the little box mounted on the wall and swap the r/g for the b/y at that point your new device will now start working on line two only. Make sure its an even swap though! ... don't go cross connecting the CO lines by accident. I have a case here where I have two modular boxes side by side, each with two lines coming in. The additional box is only there because in it the r/g and b/y are swapped so that a modem which only works on 'line one' (literally, in the back of the modem just two pins both in the center) can work on my line two which it thinks is line one. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Philadelphia EXchanges, Circa 1946 Date: 19 Sep 1996 18:06:56 GMT Organization: Philadelphia City Paper's City Net Per Mark's post ... In Phila, City Hall continues to be served by MUnicipal 6, now referred to 686. In the 1970s, this was a centrex with a 24 position 608 switchboard in City Hall. The operator's number if you didn't know the direct extension or for non-dialable extensions was MU 6-9700; after the bicentennial it became MU 6-1776. The City Govt had a lot of phones. In the 1970s, quite a few were five digit extension numbers, which were not diable directly from the outside, but dialable from other City Govt lines. Not too long ago the system was revised, and the five digit extensions were converted to a new exchange 685 (which makes sense.) A visit to Phila's main library (Logan Square) only a few years ago found plain 500 sets with the MUnicipal 6 number card still service. I'm told "most" such phones are replaced now with touch-tone models. The city also had, in addition to the Bell System provided centrex, a private network with old AE (model 40?) phones, known as PAX "Philadelphia Automated Exchange". At Phila Intl Airport, signs are posted to this day saying "In Case of Fire Dial ... on any city automatic telephone". The signs refer to the old system, but I suspect a reader today would assume it was any City Govt phone. In addition, there were sub-networks for police street corner call boxes (for the days before radios) and the fire department. The Fire Dept used a telegraph system as well, based on the street corner call boxes -- a pull on a box sent a numeric code to the fire dept dispatcher. I know in my mother's neighborhood in the NE those corner call boxes have been removed, I don't know about other sections of the city. False Alarms were a terrible problem. BTW, until just after WW II, Philadelphia had a competing local telephone company, Keystone, which served business customers. It's claim was that it provided business with flat rate calling, while Bell was message rate to businesses, and the Keystone system would be business calls only. Keystone was absorbed into the Bell System. To this day "KTC" manholes are all over downtown. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Ummm ... the /P/ did not stand for 'Philadelphia'. It means 'Private' as in

rivate utomatic echange. The difference between a PAX and PBX if they are still making the former is they have no connections to outside trunk lines. They are, quite literally, private intercom systems. The Chicago Police Department has one or did have. By the way, I just finished eating a bagel with Philadelphia Cream Cheese. Delicious! PAT] ------------------------------ From: bubba@|NoSpam|insync.net (Bill Garfield) Subject: Re: Sheath Slitter Tool Wanted Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 17:14:00 GMT Organization: Associated Technical Consultants On Wed, 18 Sep 1996 21:24:03 GMT, in comp.dcom.telecom Tim White wrote: > I am trying to locate the manufacturer or retailer of a sheath slitter > tool that we used when I worked for US WEST. The tool was silver in > color and had a razor blade type cutting blade in the middle. One > could hold this tool on both ends and draw it down on the cable to > open up the sheath(s). Then one could turn the blade perpendicular to > the tool and wring the sheath around the circumference of the cable. Harris Dracon Tool # 10204-000 Seems to fit the exact functional description though the main body of the tool is now a white, high-impact plastic with a silver-metal cable guide that slides in & out to accomodate various cable sizes up to perhaps 100 pr. The blade is in the center as you describe and can be rotated 90 degrees. I find it works extremely well. ------------------------------ From: psyber@usa.pipeline.com Subject: Re: Date Set For 818/626 Split Date: 18 Sep 1996 20:56:31 GMT Organization: Pipeline On Sep 18, 1996 11:12:20 in article , 'Lauren Weinstein ' wrote: > John Cropper's statement is correct. As of all recent reports, > fighting is still going on regarding the boundaries of the proposed > 818/626 split. Not so, if you read the post closely ... I reported the data as coming not directly from PacBell, but from faxback archives of *other* LECs. The fight still rages, but two LECs (USWest and BellSouth) are reporting the previously mentioned dates (6/14/97 and 1/17/98), based on information *given to them* by PacBell sometime in late June or early July. (My earliest reliable cross-reporting date is 7/7/96, from USWest). All inquiries directed at PacBell (by myself) to this point have been met by silence on the issue, presumably due to the pending courtroom decision. They will not say directly, but HAVE ALREADY TOLD OTHER LECs THE DATES, who in turn have released the data ... > The administrative law judge had already made a > determination which would have allowed the major portion of the San > Fernando Valley that is part of the city of L.A. to maintain long-time > code 818 (with a reasonbly clean split line approximately along > municipal boundaries). However, the various East Valley areas of > Glendale and their environs, which would have gotten 626 under the > plan, have protested, instead proposing a rather convoluted boundary > that would enable them to keep 818 instead, and cause the rest of the > valley to be split essentially arbitrarily. At last word, a decision > was due about now, but there's no way to know at this point whether > the delays will force a push back of the various split dates. Perhaps the public should be taken OUT of the decision-making process, and things returned to the way they were PRIOR to 1995. All this in-fighting while codes continue to exhaust is a sheer waste of time. Congratulations to Patrick Townson & * John Cropper, NiS / NexComm Telecom Digest on their 15th * PO Box 277 anniversary of public service. * Pennington, NJ USA 08534-0277 ************************************** Inside NJ: 6o9.637.9434 Check out Telecom Digest Online! * Toll Free: 888.NPA.NFO2 (672.6362) http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/ * Fax : 6o9.637.943o telecom-archives/ * email: psyber@usa.pipeline.com ------------------------------ From: pluto Subject: Internet Security Review Now Online Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 19:53:45 -0400 Reply-To: pluto@nso.org Organization: -nso- Internet Security Review is now available on the web. Check out: http://www.isr.net They offer free of charge Usenet newsgroups, anonymous remailing, and more. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V16 #501 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Sep 20 00:25:13 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id AAA17778; Fri, 20 Sep 1996 00:25:13 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 00:25:13 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199609200425.AAA17778@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #502 TELECOM Digest Fri, 20 Sep 96 00:24:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 502 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Archives CDROM Ordering Details (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: Help Me Replace my Watson Card With Something More Modern? (Geo Swan) Re: RJ12 Wiring Question (Jay Hennigan) Re: RJ12 Wiring Question (Eric Elder) Re: New Surcharge for Number Portability (Lionel Moser) Re: Reporting Email Chain Letters (Tad Cook) Signal Propagation (was Re: "Roaming" in Home Territory) (Bob Goudreau) Why Would Someone Send Junk E-mail With Return Receipt Requested? (D Wade) Cyber Promotions Apparently Off The Air (John R. Levine) Re: Database of Area Codes and Country Codes to Time Zones? (M. Stanford) Help Needed With Vomax 2000 (Craig Wiesner) Re: Positive ID Service From Southwestern Bell (Bryan K. Douglas) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Telecom Archives CDROM Ordering Details Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 18:42:16 -0700 From: TELECOM Digest Editor People have been asking how to order the Telecom Archives CDROM by mail order. Not everyone has been able to find it in a store as of yet. If you can find it in a store, you will save on the shipping charges, however it might simply be easier for you to order it direct from the publisher, so details are given below. The Telecom Archives is a fifteen year collection of the stuff which has appeared in TELECOM Digest since 1981 along with a few hundred other files of telecom related material. There are a lot of technical files, historical files, etc. Everything that was there through the end of 1995 is included. The cost is $39.95. Please buy a copy, as the royalties will help me a lot. Also, if sales are good, there will be an update with the 1996 material on it at some future point. ============================================================================ shipping information: ============================================================================ Shipping is $5 in the USA, Canada, and Mexico for First Class. Overseas is $9 PER ORDER. There is an additional $3 COD charge (USA Only). UPS Blue Label (2nd day) [USA Only] is $10 PER ORDER, UPS Red Label (next day) [USA Only] is $15 PER ORDER. Federal Express (next day) [USA Only] is $20 PER ORDER. For overseas courier rates, please email us. Ordering Information: You can order by sending a check or money order to Walnut Creek CDROM Suite E 4041 Pike Lane Concord CA 94520 USA 1 800 786-9907 (Toll Free Sales) [open 24HRS] +1 510 674-0783 (Sales-International) +1 510 603-1234 (tech support) [M-F 9AM - 5PM, PST] +1 510 674-0821 (FAX) orders@cdrom.com (For placing an order) info@cdrom.com (For requesting more information or for customer service questions) support@cdrom.com (For technical questions and technical support) majordomo@cdrom.com (Info Robot-automated product information and support) We accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, and Diner's Club. ALL credit card orders MUST include a phone or fax number. COD shipping is available for $8.00 in the US only, NO COD shipping to P O Boxes. Checks and Money Orders payable in US funds, can be sent along with ordering information to our normal business address. California residents please add sales tax. Shipping and handling is $5 (per ORDER, not per disc) for US, Canada, and Mexico, and $9 for overseas (AIRMAIL) shipping. Please allow 14 working days ( 3 weeks ) for overseas orders to arrive. Most orders arrive in 1-2 weeks. -------------------- Therefore, unless you want next day delivery by FedEx which would make it quite expensive you would send $39.95 plus $5 to Walnut Creek at thier address above, or authorize them to charge your credit card, etc. As noted also, customers outside the USA need to pay additional shipping costs. Write to Walnut Creek at the addresses above. If you can find it in a retail outlet then you save shipping and handling charges. In any event, please buy one today! PAT -------------------- The Telecom Archives remains a free resource for the Internet and is available using anonymous ftp massis.lcs.mit.edu. ------------------------------ From: gswan@io.org (George Swan) Subject: Re: Help Me Replace my Watson Card With Something More Modern? Date: 19 Sep 1996 13:52:16 -0400 Organization: Internex Online (shell.io.org), Toronto, Ontario, Canada About two and a half weeks ago I asked the group for advice concerning replacing my watson card. The Watson was an older DSP based answering machine card, it stored your incoming and outgoing messages on your PCs hard drive, and it could also be made to operate as a modem. It was too old to support caller-id, and the modem only ran at 1200 baud. The virtual rolodeck software that came with it allowed one to record messages, and then schedule the computer make a call and play the messages at a later time. I got twelve responses (thanks!) Four people offered to buy my Watson. I hadn't given it any thought prior to my message, but I've decided to hold on to it now. Two people mentioned the Delrina Talkworks software. I phoned Delrina and the sales-droid says that the software does support caller-id, but not the ability to schedule outgoing messages. Several people mentioned Dialogic boards, which I gather are expensive and not intended for the home market. Places to find more info on these boards would be appreciated. Thanks again to everyone who responded to my original message. If I learn more, I'll post a further summary to the moderator for submission to the group. Cordially, Geo Swan, 416 362 7641 ------------------------------ From: jay@west.net (Jay Hennigan) Subject: Re: RJ12 Wiring Question Date: 19 Sep 1996 18:20:27 -0700 Organization: West.Net Communications Andy Rowan (rowan@ocean.rutgers.edu) wrote: > I'm wiring up some jacks in my house for two lines, but I've gotten > conflicting answers on which way the wires should go. For the black > and yellow, which is tip and which is ring? Or in other words, does > the black correspond to the green, or does the yellow correspond to > the green, in terms of polarity? A two-line jack is actually called an RJ-14. The RJ numbers are often erroneously used to refer to the physical hardware. They do not, but to the term "Registered Jack" which describes the hardware and how it is wired. An RJ-12 is also a four-contact, six position miniature jack, but it is wired for a single line with A-lead control for old style key system compatibility. > I know that most new phones don't really care, but I have some old > Western Electric touchtone phones that won't dial if the polarity is > reversed. I know I can just figure out by trial and error to get it > to work, but I'd rather not wind up with the house and the phone both > wired backwards, so I wanted to know what the standard says. Line 1 Tip -> Green Ring -> Red Line 2 Tip -> Black Ring -> Yellow This is at the jack. Note that if you use a common telco-style modular cord to a second jack, the color codes will be reversed at the second jack. A close examination of the colors as terminated in the modular plugs will reveal why. -- Jay Hennigan jay@west.net -- WestNet: Internet service to Santa Barbara, Ventura and the world. 805-892-2133 805-289-1000 805-578-2121 "Witch parking only. Violators will be toad." ------------------------------ From: Eric Elder Subject: Re: RJ12 Wiring Question Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 16:30:17 -0700 Organization: AT&T Paradyne Reply-To: eelder@mailhost.is.paradyne.com Andy Rowan wrote: > Hi, > I'm wiring up some jacks in my house for two lines, but I've gotten > conflicting answers on which way the wires should go. For the black > and yellow, which is tip and which is ring? Or in other words, does I don't know the colors but pinouts are as folows: 1-h/w handshake transmit (optional) 2-transmit 3-transmit ground 4-receive ground 5-receive 6-hardware handshake receive (optional) _______________ | 1 2 3 4 5 6 | | | | | | | | | |__ __| _ |_______| front view [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think he was talking about a telephone set, not a modem connection. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 17:12:00 -0400 From: Lionel Moser Subject: Re: New Surcharge for Number Portability I have some questins about local number portability. In Volume 16, Issue 491, Message 3 of 11, an article from {Wall Street Journal} was quoted. The last quoted part read: > Today, the switches that route calls through the nation's telephone > network know instantly where to send them. The first three digits > identify a switch operated by the local phone company in a particular > area code. That system must change to accommodate customers who want > to buy service from a new local carrier while keeping their existing > numbers, rather than be assigned new ones. > The likely solution is a collection of centralized databases containing > all phone numbers in a given region or state. When someone makes a > call, the signal will zip first to a database to determine where the > call should go. If these databases are to be queried on every local call before routing the call, isn't there in fact a fixed cost associated with every local subscriber, whether the subscriber's number has been ported or not? > The extra costs lie in creating these databases and upgrading > network software to use them. If the actual work done by a switch on a local call is substantially increased, it seems reasonable to conclude that the capacity of that switch to process local calls is decreased. If all calls originating in an RBOC's switches require a database query before being routed -- since the originating switch has no way of knowing whether the called number is ported or not - there is an immediate need for the RBOC to increase the amount of switching equipment, say by X%. That X% is for the existing network and for all new network. An RBOC switch supporting N lines (before portability) would support fewer than N lines after portability, regardless how many of these N lines were ported. Does the RBOC have to install more switching capacity to handle the same number of lines? Do they need additional trunking capacity to handle the database queries? Is the cost of a single database node for a local calling area larger than the upgrade cost of the hundreds or thousands of switches that must query it on every local call? It might be true if these database switches are tremendously expensive, but it doesn't seem like an obvious conclusion. Is it just software that needs to be upgraded, or lots of hardware. as well? Lionel Moser ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Reporting Email Chain Letters Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 01:54:32 GMT From: tad@ssc.com Michael Chance wrote: > The U.S. Postmaster General has ruled that, if they ask you to send > anything (including the dollar) via the U.S. Postal Service, then it falls > under the "illegal chain letter" laws/regulations. > I check out the USPS Web page, and while it has info on the traditional > forms of chain letters, it doesn't say where to refer e-mail chain letters > for investigation. Anyone know? I've been calling the US Postal Inspection Service office in the area where the spam originates (check the last mailing address on the chain letter), telling them about the chain letter, and offering to fax it to them. I'll bet I could probably do the same with my local postal inspector's office and save the toll call. They always act interested, and some have told me that they watch the mail coming to the addresses on the letter. Sometimes I have to remind them that although I did not receive the chain letter via the postal mail, that the person sending it wants me to send them money via the mail. One time I found a SPAM that was soliciting money for investment in some sort of offshore gambling operation. The postal address was in Canada. I thought it looked fishy, so I called the office of the RCMP (the Mounties) in the town where the postal address was. I talked to a detective who called me back a couple of months later to tell me what happened. Sure enough, the address was a mail drop. The detective went in and flashed his badge, and got the name of the box renter. It turned out to be a 16 year old with a computer. I don't recall what happened, but I expect mom and dad were quite concerned about this. The RCMP shut down his operation. There was no company, no offshore gaming ... just a kid collecting money in the mail. I encourage everyone to take an active position on Make Money Fast spam. The more people make noise about this the greater chance that something will be done. Tad Cook tad@ssc.com Seattle, WA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Tad, that letter has been around long before computers. I remember Dave Rhodes and that letter in snailmail back in the 1970's. It would come to my post office box along with lots of other 'opportunity seekers' junk mail quite frequently. You and all the postal inspectors are not going to get rid of it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 13:54:04 -0400 From: goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) Subject: Signal Propagation (was Re: "Roaming" in Home Territory) joel@exc.com (Joel M. Hoffman) writes: > Yes, but cellular phone use is banned in airplanes even when they are > on the ground in the airport. >That's< what I don't understand. If > you're stuck in a plane, on the ground, waiting 90 minutes to take > off, it would be especially convenient to be able to call the pople > planning on picking you up. But you can't, at least not with your > cell phone. Hmm, the last several flights I've been on (using American Airlines and Midway), you *have* been allowed to use cellphones on the plane before takeoff. Right before departure, the crew does caution people to stop using electronic devices (including cellphones). Of course, once the plane has attained cruising altitude and other electronic devices are permitted again (laptops, Walkmans, etc.), you still can't use cellphones due to the cell-swamping problem. But that's an FCC rule, isn't it? Whereas using your phone on the ground or during takeoff/landing is something that the FAA needs to care about, for safety reasons. Airlines and captains appear to have a lot of discretion in this matter, so perhaps you've just run into airlines or pilots who impose a "no cellphones, period" rule instead of just banning them during instrument-critical periods such as takeoff. Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 12:27:35 -0600 From: djw@physics.lanl.gov (Dave Wade) Subject: Why Would Someone Send Me Junk E-mail With Return Receipt Requested? I've been reading your "fun" statements about Junk e-mail. I regularly receive one or two junk e-mails a day. I remember when one a year was alot. Then, one a month, one a week, and now I believe that it is possible to be overwhelmed. And that; plus what seems to me to be a new aberration, is why I am sending you this note. The first attachment is an unsolicited e-mail I received. Normally I would have thrown it away, and that would be all. However, the second attachment was the next letter in my mailbox. I am the postmaster for this particular subnet; and that's probably why I got the second letter. What's going on here? This appears to be a junk e-mail going out with a "Return receipt requested" to a garbage e-address. Why would someone do that? What information would this tell them? --836_4a04-6e4d_1cf7-2ca8_7b13 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-MD5: 1NJhXV/3Y+0A4MhbTzmWlw== Content-Description: Mailbox X-Sun-Data-Type: mail-message > From distrdm@mail.axess.com Thu Sep 19 04:07:43 1996 Return-Path: Received: from mail.axess.com by physics.lanl.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA08526; Thu, 19 Sep 96 03:54:32 MDT Received: from caligiuri.axess.com (caligiuri.axess.com [204.19.207.210]) by m ail.axess.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id RAA17189; Sun, 15 Sep 1996 17:30:27 -0400 Message-Id: <199609152130.RAA17189@mail.axess.com> Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "RGL Distribution" To: distrdm@axess.com Date: Mon, 9 Sep 1996 15:37:32 +0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Subject: Business on a disk Return-Receipt-To: "RGL Distribution" Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.42a) Content-Length: 450 Status: RO (Message deleted by PAT because it was ignorant) (Second header follows) Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-MD5: hXkvO+J7dumFr+iUI4bt5g== Content-Description: Mailbox X-Sun-Data-Type: mail-message From Mailer-Daemon Thu Sep 19 04:07:47 1996 Return-Path: Received: from mailhost.lanl.gov by physics.lanl.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA08552; Thu, 19 Sep 96 04:07:47 MDT Received: from localhost (localhost) by mailhost.lanl.gov (8.7.5/8.7.3) with internal id EAA10305; Thu, 19 Sep 1996 04:09:24 -0600 (MDT) Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 04:09:24 -0600 (MDT) From: Mail Delivery Subsystem Subject: Returned mail: User unknown Message-Id: <199609191009.EAA10305@mailhost.lanl.gov> To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/report; report-type=delivery-status; boundary="EAA10305.843127764/mailhost.lanl.gov" Auto-Submitted: auto-generated (failure) Content-Length: 2662 Status: RO The original message was received at Thu, 19 Sep 1996 04:09:22 -0600 (MDT) from aerie.lanl.gov [128.165.51.75] ----- The following addresses have delivery notifications ----- (unrecoverable error) ----- Transcript of session follows ----- ... while talking to mail.axess.com.: >>> RCPT To: <<< 550 ... User unknown 550 ... User unknown --EAA10305.843127764/mailhost.lanl.gov Content-Type: message/delivery-status Reporting-MTA: dns; mailhost.lanl.gov Received-From-MTA: DNS; aerie.lanl.gov Arrival-Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 04:09:22 -0600 (MDT) Final-Recipient: RFC822; mail.axess.com@mail.axess.com Action: failed Status: 5.2.0 Remote-MTA: DNS; mail.axess.com Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 550 ... User unknown Last-Attempt-Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 04:09:24 -0600 (MDT) --EAA10305.843127764/mailhost.lanl.gov Content-Type: message/rfc822 Return-Path: Mailer-Daemon@aerie.lanl.gov Received: from physics.lanl.gov (aerie.lanl.gov [128.165.51.75]) by mailhost.lanl.gov (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id EAA10301 for ; Thu, 19 Sep 1996 04:09:22 -0600 (MDT) Received: by physics.lanl.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA08547; Thu, 19 Sep 96 03:54:32 MDT Date: Thu, 19 Sep 96 03:54:32 MDT From: Mailer-Daemon@aerie.lanl.gov (Mail Delivery Subsystem) Subject: Returned mail: Return receipt Message-Id: <9609190954.AA08547@physics.lanl.gov> To: "RGL Distribution", ----- Transcript of session follows ----- <<< HELO mail.axess.com <<< MAIL From: <<< RCPT To: <<< DATA <<< QUIT ----- Message header follows ----- Return-Path: Received: from mail.axess.com by physics.lanl.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA08526; Thu, 19 Sep 96 03:54:32 MDT Received: from caligiuri.axess.com (caligiuri.axess.com [204.19.207.210]) by mail.axess.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id RAA17189; Sun, 15 Sep 1996 17:30:27 -0400 Message-Id: <199609152130.RAA17189@mail.axess.com> Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "RGL Distribution" To: distrdm@axess.com Date: Mon, 9 Sep 1996 15:37:32 +0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Subject: Business on a disk Return-Receipt-To: "RGL Distribution" Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.42a) --EAA10305.843127764/mailhost.lanl.gov-- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 13:41:17 EDT From: John R Levine Subject: Cyber Promotions Apparently Off the Air I see that attempts to ping cyberpromo.com via both Sprint and Alternet fall into a routing black hole, and a usually reliable source suggests that one of their upstream providers has made a small improvement to their network routing tables. This month it appears that a lot of people (including me) are now fed up enough with spam that we've just blocked all traffic from chronically annoying hosts and sites. For example, this let me stop any incoming spam from Moneyworld long before BBN finally pulled the plug. With luck this will hit spam-friendly ISPs in their pocketbooks as their users flee to more responsibly managed providers that aren't blocked all over the place. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Trumansburg NY Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies" and Information Superhighwayman wanna-be PS to Interramp users: if you try and send me an e-mail response or look at one of my web pages, and it doesn't connect, now you know why. But there are lots of other ISPs who'd welcome your business. ------------------------------ From: Michael Stanford Subject: Re: Database of Area Codes and Country Codes to Time Zones? Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 21:12:22 -0400 Chris Sells writes: > I'm looking for a database of area codes and country codes to time > zones so I can tell someone what time it is where they're about to > call. Anyone know of such a database?=20 There is one in our on screen phone, "PhoneKits," (try www.algocomm.com). It has a database of thousands of cities around the world and seven different kinds of daylight savings time. When you choose a number to dial you can see the time, date and city name at the location you are about to call. It works on incoming calls too, if they bear caller ID. Michael Stanford ------------------------------ From: Craig Wiesner Subject: Help Wanted on Vomax 2000 Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 09:44:17 -0500 Organization: WKMN Training Greetings, I have a Vomax 2000 system (which is an external modem that can receive and store faxes and voice messages) which I bought from Macronix a few years ago. The software that I used to use to retrieve the faxes from the Vomax does not work properly with Windows 95. Does anyone know where I can get either the Macintosh software (I can move the modem over to my Mac) or newer ComitFax software than the version I have (Version 1.05)? Unfortunately, the company that Macronix spun off the Vomax line to is unable to help at the moment. Thanks! Craig Wiesner - WKMN Training craig@wkmn.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Sep 96 10:03:15 CDT From: bkdougla@rockdal.aud.alcatel.com (Bryan K. Douglas) Subject: Re: Positive ID Service From Southwestern Bell On 18-Sep-96, dr@ripco.com writes: > You will leave an audit trail, but there are literally thousands of > unsecured phone lines available. You can just cruise around with three > to five old cordless phone handsets until you catch a dialtone. Our Moderator writes: > Am I wrong, David? As a practical matter, how far can one really > tamper with the switch via those ports without getting caught? PAT] Am I missing something here? It seems to me that the difference between criminal activity and citizenship is in attitude. Criminals engage in inappropriate behavior when they think they will not get caught. Citizenship is *defined* by appropriate behavior based on their society's norms. Bryan Douglas [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for a great closing thought to this issue of the Digest another week. Over the weekend in your mail look for a couple interesting history files prepared by our resident historian Mark Cuccia. I'll be busy much of Friday but will try to get them out to the net over the weekend, and I assume we will meet here again early next week. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #502 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Sep 23 11:54:22 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id LAA21149; Mon, 23 Sep 1996 11:54:22 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 11:54:22 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199609231554.LAA21149@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #503 TELECOM Digest Mon, 23 Sep 96 11:54:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 503 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson PRIVACY Forum Radio; Lexis-Nexis P-TRAK Interview/Update (Lauren Weinstein) Detailed Update Regarding Lexis-Nexis P-TRAK Database (Lauren Weinstein) The Story Behind a Country Code Without a Country Name (Vincent Kuo) Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street (Tad Cook) Ameritech, AT&T Blame Each Other for Billing Problem (Tad Cook) Excel Telecommunications Offer To School (Irene Simmons) Does Brand Loyalty Exist in Long Distance Phone Services? (Siyoung Chung) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: PRIVACY Forum Radio; Lexis-Nexis P-TRAK Interview/Update Date: Sun, 22 Sep 96 23:24:29 PDT From: Lauren Weinstein Greetings. In the message following this one, I've provided a detailed update on the current Lexis-Nexis "P-TRAK" personal information database furor, based on my own research. Since the situation has been changing very rapidly, this represents the most up-to-date information I'm aware of regarding both the service and your options for dealing with it if you so choose. With concerns over databases and personal information running at such a high level, this seems like the appropriate time to announce the first program from the PRIVACY Forum's new effort: "PRIVACY Forum Radio". As longtime readers of the forum know, one of my major concerns is getting the word out to people that privacy really matters, and that there are actions they can take to help protect themselves, *before* troubles arise. Whether related to computer, telecommunications, or database privacy issues, or the less esoteric aspects of privacy in our personal lives, to be forewarned is critical. PRIVACY Forum Radio will be an ongoing production of the PRIVACY Forum. It initially will include audio interviews, discussions, and other programs conducted with all manner of persons involved in the privacy, security, and related areas. Participants will include persons from business, industry, government, concerned organizations, and other individuals. Both the well-known "movers and shakers" and the unknown folks affected by privacy problems will be featured. All aspects of privacy in our personal, commercial, and public lives will be topics for various guests. Initial programs will be prerecorded, but shortly we'll begin live broadcasts offering listeners the ability to call in by phone, or send in e-mail queries, to directly participate in the discussions. The primary distribution medium for these PRIVACY Forum Radio materials is the Internet, via the Xing "Streamworks" system. Versions of the shows, including live programs, will be available for access by listeners at network connection rates as low as 14.4 Kbps per second. Some materials will also be made available at higher rates for those with the appropriate capabilities. In the very near future, we also plan to make some items available with accompanying video ("PRIVACY Forum TV"), using the same system. These shows are also available, by arrangement, for conventional radio syndication. Since my primary goal is to try get the word out about these issues as widely as possible, PRIVACY Forum Radio is also making available short (e.g. 60 second) "Privacy Bites", suitable for use by regular broadcast radio stations who want to help their listeners not only become aware of privacy risks, but to learn what they can do about them. Inquiries regarding any of these materials should be directed by e-mail to privacy-radio@vortex.com, or by voice to (818) 225-2800. The first special program from PRIVACY Forum Radio is an interview I conducted a few days ago with Lexis-Nexis Corporate Counsel Steven Emmert, on the subject of concerns over the "P-TRAK" database, and on the topics of personal information and databases in general. It provides fascinating insight into views of privacy from the "database industry" side of the fence. To hear this program, follow the PRIVACY Forum (and PRIVACY Forum Radio) links from http://www.vortex.com Links are present within the PRIVACY Forum Radio area explaining the technical details of hearing the interview and other materials, and for downloading the (free) Streamworks software for your system that you'll need if you don't have it already. This is an exciting step in the evolution of the PRIVACY Forum, one that I'm hoping will be a major stride towards helping people worldwide deal with the ever-encroaching loss of privacy that has become part and parcel of our modern societies. Please direct any questions about accessing or obtaining PRIVACY Forum Radio materials to the e-mail address or phone number mentioned above. Thanks much! --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Subject: Detailed Update Regarding Lexis-Nexis "P-TRAK" Database Date: Sun, 22 Sep 96 23:25:42 PDT From: Lauren Weinstein Greetings. This is going to be a long message, but I urge you to read it in its entirely. As many of you are no doubt aware, considerable controversy has been raging around the Internet, and now in the mainstream press, concerning the Lexis-Nexis "P-TRAK" personal information database. Since the transmission of P-TRAK related messages here in the PRIVACY Forum early this month, various information, some accurate, some inaccurate, has been widely disseminated. In some cases, I've seen versions of the original PRIVACY Forum items in excerpted and usually unattributed form, sometimes having been modified or addended in manners that significantly alter the original content. Concern over P-TRAK has mushroomed around the country, perhaps especially due to Lexis-Nexis' high visibility. Many people are concerned about their personal information, however innocuous some might consider it to be, residing in publicly accessible databases. They want some measure of control over their personal data. It is this concern that has brought this story to national prominence. Lexis-Nexis has put forth an official statement concerning P-TRAK (accessible via http://www.lexis-nexis.com) which is accurate as far as it goes -- but in my opinion leaves out some *very* important points which people should be aware of and that I'll describe in detail below. Adding to the confusion is the fact that over the last couple of weeks the mechanisms available for people to request removal from the P-TRAK database have been changing, largely due to the high volume of requests that Lexis-Nexis has been receiving. Callers to various Lexis-Nexis numbers were at times told conflicting or apparently inaccurate information, and the exact mechanisms for requesting removal, and what such a request really meant in practice, has been in a state of flux. Early deletion requests were taken by operators, then by voicemail systems, and then later callers were told all requests had to be by mail or fax. Most callers were asked for their Social Security numbers. Some were told that it was essentially useless to request removal, since they could easily pop right back on the database again later. Questions about how to verify removal persisted. Given all this, I decided to take it upon myself to go directly to the source, and had a number of detailed conversations with the Lexis-Nexis Corporate Counsel, Steven Emmert. Since Lexis-Nexis was in the process of making decisions on some of these issues, I held off this update until now to give Mr. Emmert time to get me the latest information, which he has done. As described in the previous message, I'm also pleased to announce that PRIVACY Forum Radio is presenting a detailed audio interview with Mr. Emmert, via the PRIVACY Forum web page (access via http://www.vortex.com). Mr. Emmert and yours truly discuss both the details of the P-TRAK controversy and some of the more philosophical aspects of personal information databases. If you're at all concerned about these topics, you will probably find the interview quite interesting. Where do the P-TRAK issues stand right now? First off, it should be noted that Lexis-Nexis is a reseller of the data in P-TRAK, not the collector. They don't verify or otherwise amend the original information. The information itself is the so-called "credit header" data which FTC and other decisions ruled were not covered under the FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) and could be openly disseminated. This includes name, address, phone number, Social Security number, and other related data. Lexis-Nexis obtains this info from one of the big credit data agencies (published reports have suggested that this is Transunion). Lexis-Nexis receives this data, which includes more than 300 million records, on a monthly basis. While Lexis-Nexis notes that their marketing focus is to government, law enforcement, and the legal profession, it's important to realize that the P-TRAK database is not *restricted* in any way to ensure that only persons in those categories are using the data. Anyone who wants to the pay the appropriate fee can obtain search data. This is a crucial problem in the database industry -- the almost total lack of even rudimentary "need to know" requirements before gaining access to information that many persons consider (obviously erroneously in many cases!) to be private. Lexis-Nexis points out that you cannot view Social Security numbers through P-TRAK. This is true. When the database was originally established in June of this year, SS#'s were available for viewing, but in short order concerns led to their display being terminated. So, you can't derive a SS# from someone's name via P-TRAK. HOWEVER--this does not mean that SS#'s are not in the P-TRAK database. In fact, they are there, and if you already have an SS# you can use it to search in P-TRAK for all of the other data associated with that number (e.g., name, address, phone number, and so forth). Lexis-Nexis considers the SS# to be the only reliable personal identifier, and in fact has told me that when a person requests removal from the P-TRAK database (more on this below) the best chance of actually getting removed exists when that person provides their SS#. Name and address are considered less desirable for this purpose, due to name duplications, name or address changes, etc. This is the reason that callers asking to be removed have typically been asked for their SS#'s. To Lexis-Nexis' credit, it should be noted that they have competitors (some on the Internet) who don't restrict SS# information at all, and don't offer any opportunity to be removed from their databases either. Still, it's important to understand that SS#s *are* in the P-TRAK database, and that you still can search *by* SS# in that database. Information available for direct view in P-TRAK includes name, maiden name (if any), current address, up to two previous addresses, phone number, and year/month of birth. Mother's maiden name is not included. The source of phone numbers is of particular interest. Lexis-Nexis in their statements has likened all this data to the telephone company "white pages", pointing out that it is all based on publicly available information. But the definition of "publicly available" is very broad--much broader than most people realize. Phone numbers in P-TRAK are *not* derived from telephone company (e.g. white pages) information. They are obtained from a variety of other sources, notably data provided by businesses that have conducted transactions or other business with a person, to whom that person may have provided their phone number. As such, unlisted (non-published) phone numbers *can* appear in P-TRAK, since an unlisted designation only affects phone company records, not all the other places where you have provided a number, probably with the expectation that the number would not be provided to commercial databases! There are no legal restrictions on the dissemination of such phone numbers, even though many persons keep their phone numbers unlisted for quite valid and serious reasons. OK, let's say you've decided that you consider the information in P-TRAK to be significant to you, and you want your record deleted. First off, be aware that it could take up to 60 days for a deletion to occur. This is due to the 30 day cycle on the database source; the deletion request needs to be present long enough for a complete cycle to process. Can you verify (for free) that a deletion has taken place? No, not easily; you need to pay for a regular P-TRAK search. Previously there was a contact person for verification of deletions, but due to the high volume of requests that option is apparently no longer being offered. Will you stay off the list once a deletion request has been processed? Maybe. It would seem to depend strongly on how much information you provided with your original request. If you provided a SS#, you probably have a better chance of not finding yourself with a new record in a future cycle due to non-identical name or address information appearing for you in a future load of incoming data. Do you want to provide your SS# with your request for deletion? That's a personal decision of course. What if perchance you don't currently have a record in P-TRAK? Will your deletion request be held until a record does come in? No, it will not. If you don't have a matching record at the time your deletion request is processed, that request will be flushed, and if a record for you appears in future data that record will enter the P-TRAK database. There is no mechanism present for a "permanent" deletion request that would deal with such situations. As noted above, the methods for requesting deletion have changed over the last two weeks. In fact, they've even changed in the few days since the recording of the interview with Steven Emmert (a different fax number and the re-establishment of voice requests on a new number). So be sure to use the information specified below, not the number that Mr. Emmert provided during the interview. The following is the most up-to-date information as of this writing, and comes directly from my communications with Lexis-Nexis. Here are your options: Telephone (toll free): 1-888-965-3947 Please note that this is a new number at Lexis-Nexis and is not scheduled to be working until this Monday morning (9/23) Eastern Time. It is currently scheduled to go to live operators, but if volume is very high it might be switched to voicemail. FAX (toll free): 1-800-470-4365 Again, this number is scheduled to become functional on the morning of 9/23, Eastern Time. Mail: P-TRAK, P.O. Box 933, Dayton, OH 45401 Email: p-trak@prod.lexis-nexis.com A web form for removal requests is also available at Lexis-Nexis via http://www.lexis-nexis.com. The minimum information required to request removal is full name and mailing address. As noted above, Lexis-Nexis feels that the strongest likelihood of a successful removal will occur when Social Security number is also provided. The web form (as of this writing) doesn't request SS#, and you of course should use your judgment about choosing to send your SS# in e-mail. My own recommendation would be to use the telephone or fax options. By no means is P-TRAK the most onerous database of personal information now available. But I believe the furor that has erupted demonstrates the deep-seated concerns that many people have with details of their personal lives being collected and sold merely as "information commodities", with the subject of that data having virtually no input on how it will be used, or abused. It's time for a detailed examination of what information should and should not be considered to be "public", who should have access to that data, and under what circumstances. Some database companies themselves admit that this is not an area that they can unilaterally address in any general way -- they have competitive concerns. Only through serious legislative efforts can we really begin working toward reasonable changes in the commercial database field. And we'd better get started now, unless we want the 21st century to be a time when the word "privacy" becomes nothing more than an amusing anachronism in the history books. --Lauren-- P.S. Be sure to check out my audio interview with Steven Emmert of Lexis-Nexis on PRIVACY Forum Radio if you can. Just follow the PRIVACY Forum links from http://www.vortex.com to PRIVACY Forum Radio. --LW-- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 09:08:51 -0800 From: vincent_kuo@stsl.siemens.com.tw (Vincent Kuo) Subject: The Story Behind a Country Code Without a Country Name I got the ITU-T country code listing in the mailbox, and looked immediately for my country code 886 in the list. Surprisingly, the code is marked with 'Reserved' without any comments. Let me tell you the story behind this only 'reserved-for-nothing' code. The code 886 is now being used by Taiwan, which is recognized as 'the Republic of China' to those countries that still take us as a country under the pressure of Mainland China. But neither Taiwan nor the ROC is visible to the UN. The code 886 is apparently tagged as 'Reserved' simply because the ITU-T is dominated by China, who wants the world to neglect the very existance of Taiwan. Maybe someday they will take this 'reserved' code away and force us to use a long distance area code under their 86 country code. Although Taiwan is every bit an independent country, has 21 million people and plays a significant role in the world, we remain anonymous in official occasions. This is just unfair. Maybe nobody can change this, but I want you all know that, and add a footnote to the ITU-T listing: The country code 886 is now assigned to Taiwan, but marked as 'reserved' because ITU-T is dominated by China, and neither 'Taiwan' nor 'The Republic of China' can appear in the context of any UN documents. Anyone with more comments can E-mail me or call me with the 'reserved' country code: +886 3 327 6519. Vincent Kuo Software Engineer Siemens Telecommunication Systems Ltd., Taiwan [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For various reasons, I am sure the ITU is not going to add the footnote or explanation you desire, and I for one agree that it is unfair. There is no reason however that each person with a copy of the list I distributed should not pencil in the note you have passed along in their individual copy should they wish to do so. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 18:18:27 PDT From: tad@ssc.com Hackers Sell Illegal Phone Access On The Street LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Hackers are breaking into telephone line boxes and tapping dial tones belonging to businesses and homes, selling access on the street using a special hand-held receiver. Victims sometimes find their lines tied up for hours and receive bills for tens of thousands of dollars in fraudulent calls. The practice emerged early this year. Authorities believe several million dollars in illegal calls have been rung up since January. The Los Angeles area, with its huge immigrant population, has been a particularly fertile area for the phone fraud. The scammers have a ready population of customers looking to make cheap overseas calls. Six people caught in the act have been arrested for phone-line hacking this year in Los Angeles, Burbank, Montebello, San Francisco and Toronto, said Patsy Ramos, manager of Pacific Bell's centralized fraud bureau. As many as 15 incidents a week are now reported in California alone, Pacific Bell said. One non-profit group victimized received bills for more than $30,000 in calls to South and Central America, Europe and Egypt. The highly skilled scam artists typically are former phone company employees or others with extensive knowledge of telephones, investigators say. They target so-called "b-boxes" that serve as junctions for the phone lines of hundreds of homes and businesses in a neighborhood. The hackers open the 4-foot-tall gray boxes on the sidewalk and clip onto the phone lines with special tools, diverting a dial tone into a hand-held receiver from which customers can make calls. In a more sophisticated version, the hackers forward a dial tone to a nearby pay phone, where customers line up to make calls for a fee of $5 to $20. The thieves attract customers by passing out fliers and through word-of-mouth. The Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles was hit June 15 when thieves broke into a nearby box and forwarded lines from its offices to several pay phones. Long distance and international calls totaling $11,000 were billed to the organization. Executive Director Juanita Tate said she suspected something was fishy when the 14 lines on her telephone system were tied up almost the entire day. "You would push a button and you'd hear somebody trying to dial a number and then you'd push another button and there would be a voice asking for somebody you never heard of," Tate said. Phone company officials tried to secure the box, but the bandits struck again two months later, running up nearly $20,000 in calls to places such as Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, Guyana and Honduras. "We're taking this very seriously right now and putting a lot of focus on the prevention end -- trying to secure the boxes," Ramos said. But there is currently no sure-fire way the companies can detect or prevent the crime. AT&T said it will credit victims for the fraudulent calls, but the cases must be verified by a local phone company whose equipment is being tapped. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So they are finally waking up to what was discussed in this Digest starting several years ago; that in any large, older urban/inner-city area, access to the phone lines of everyone on your block is often times as easy as getting access to the basement of an older high-rise building and patiently sorting through the wires and noting how they terminate in the head -- the big box mounted on the wall, as often as not with no cover on it, or certainly no *locked* cover -- and reading the cryptic notes written on little tags tied with string on some of the wires running in all directions. The cable serving the building serves quite a few other buildings in the area as often as not, and when it was installed many, many years ago the wires in the cable were 'multipled'; that is, they were opened at several locations along the cable-run allowing the same pair of wires to be used at one place for awhile then at some other place for awhile. That was certainly more economical than running two or three physical wire pairs all the way from the CO to every single possible place a phone might be installed, but I guess it did not occur to telco back then that someday people might be more sophisticated in the way telephone systems work. Certainly back in the days of stepper and crossbar central office switches telco did not think fraud would ever reach the point that the whole thing had to be junked and rebuilt from scratch using ESS (fraud was not the only reason for developing ESS but was a big consideration). Now I guess they need to think seriously about the vulnerabilities of the outside plant. To read what was said about this topic several years ago in this Digest, check the archives for the file 'find-pair'. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Ameritech, AT&T Blame Each Other for Billing Problem Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 18:27:54 PDT From: tad@ssc.com Ameritech, AT&T Blame Each Other for Improper Billing of 150,000 Customers By Jon Van, Chicago Tribune Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News CHICAGO--Sep. 21--About 150,000 Chicago-area people who expected free local toll phone service in August are being billed for their calls because of a computer snafu between AT&T Corp. and Ameritech Corp. The foul-up, which each phone company blames on the other, is the latest episode in a competitive rivalry that's been spawning technology gaffes with disturbing regularity. AT&T has petitioned the Illinois Commerce Commission, which regulates telecommunications in the state, for help in straightening out the mess, which affects about one-third of the customers who this summer picked AT&T to carry their local toll calls. Ameritech had 100 percent of local toll business for residential customers until April, when the ICC opened up that part of the market for competition in anticipation of full-fledged competition later this year. AT&T launched an aggressive campaign to win customers away from Ameritech by offering to let new customers make local calls of 15 miles or more free during August, September and October. More than 400,000 signed up. AT&T then electronically sent lists to Ameritech to get the customers switched from the Chicago-based Baby Bell. But from Aug. 6 to Sept. 3, the lists were rejected by Ameritech's computers, so some 150,000 residential customers who thought they were getting AT&T's promotional free service stayed with Ameritech's regular toll service. AT&T contends that Ameritech changed its computer protocols in August without notice. Ameritech responded that it was a change in AT&T's computer system that triggered the rejections. "Our records clearly show that AT&T changed its format, and that's the source of the problem," said Dave Poacholczyk, an Ameritech spokesman. "We aren't interested in getting into a game of finger-pointing with Ameritech," said Tom Hopkins, an AT&T spokesman. "We just want to get this straightened out so we can make our customers whole. However this happened, we don't want to see a repeat of it." Once AT&T sorts out which customers were affected by the foul-up, the firm will probably issue them credits for future phone use, he said. A few months ago AT&T got into another row with Ameritech over a computer glitch that caused thousands of customers to be misbilled. In that snafu, which was linked to software that enables local toll service competition, some customers' local calls were incorrectly classed as toll calls and billed at a higher rate. In other cases, toll calls were counted as local calls, giving customers a break. AT&T ran full-page newspaper advertisements at the time, calling attention to the snafu and urging its customers to check their bills for errors. Other billing errors this spring were linked to foul-ups associated with adoption of new area codes in Chicago suburbs. In its complaint to the ICC, AT&T warned that further confusion is possible when most of Chicago outside the Loop is given the new area code 773 next month. "All these matters may tend to confuse customers concerning billing and concerning AT&T service," said the complaint. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I'll tell you another one between the two which is apparently just now starting to come to light, or if it was known before, nothing much was done to correct it. Earlier this year AT&T decided to pull its billings away from Ameritech for long distance and handle it all themselves. There was about a two month period over which the conversion was done, but it appears AT&T ran a billing tape they had already run via Ameritech, meaning calls which Ameritech billed in the final month they handled it were also in some cases billed again by AT&T the first month they started doing it direct. Not too many customers were affected; a few were affected. So some people were billed twice for the same calls: once by Ameritech and once by AT&T either the same month in a later billing cycle or the next month, etc. No amount of talking and explaining has gotten that one straightened out. AT&T's answer was to send a couple bills to customers, cut off access to their long distance network with a sort of snotty intercept recording, and send all those customers to the Gulf Coast Collection Agency in Houston, Texas. AT&T says pay them and get credit from Ameritech; not their fault, etc. I guess finding yourself cut off from the AT&T network is supposed to be of earth- shaking consequence. I am told by an insider that GC Services (the official name of the collection agency) thought it would be a great chunk of business for them, collecting AT&T 'bad accounts'; at last report the agency was holding its nose and handing the whole thing back to Mother. There was no money in it for them! Why is AT&T shooting itself in the foot and working so hard it would seem to alienate itself from the telcos with whom it had a good relationship for so many years and the customers who were generally loyal to it? They want business; they could have cut some incredible deals with the local telcos which I believe would have been within the legal boundaries of divestiture. Between AT&T and the local telcos they could have recaptured much of the business they have lost in the past few years (especially where AT&T is concerned). Instead, the telephone war has gotten so far out of hand; with so much of their dirty linen hanging out for full public view -- a definite no-no in the past -- that they are going to lose even more business. People do not care whose fault it is when they get billed twice or billed for something they were told was free; they just make a mental note of it when a competitor comes along who soothes them and placates them. I have to wonder if in twenty to thirty years AT&T will be the same way Western Union is today: a once very powerful, very well-known company which controlled the industry it was in reduced to being a quaint, and rarely used relic of the past. If that sounds scarey to people who work for AT&T, then good. In the 1940-50's no one at WUTCO ever thought the company would go down the tubes either; it just does not happen to large, powerful corporations ... :) .... in WUTCO's case it was failure to properly integrate the newest technology into the business; if it happens to AT&T my feeling is because it will be because of some horrible business decisions as we round out this century. You consider that unthinkable, eh? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Irenesimm@aol.com (Irene Simmons) Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 20:54:04 -0400 Subject: Excel Telecommunications Offer to School Dear telecom: A rep from Excel Telecommunications was the guest speaker at a "Parents for Riverside Drive School" meeting that I recently attended. The pitch was something like this: If we (the board of directors of the school) could get every parent to switch their long distance carrier to Excel every month 5% of every person's long distance phone calls would go to the school! What a great and easy way to raise money for the school. Excel would charge us a $25.00 sign-up fee and give us a 90 day written guarantee. I know very little about Excel and what they are offering -- is this a good deal? Are there any other companies doing this? What questions should we be asking? Please E-mail me with any advice. Thank you, Irene Simmons (E-Mail irenesimm@aol.com) ------------------------------ From: sychung@hansol.co.kr (siyoung chung) Subject: Does Brand Loyalty exist in Long Distance Telephone Services? Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 00:28:20 GMT Organization: Hansol Telecom I am interested in brand loyalty in long distance telephone; does it exist or not? If it does, what is the most effective way in marketing strategies? (I am a telecommunication grad in Michigan State University). I did research on this question and I really want to share information with someone who does the same thing. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well tell me this: What was the results of your research on the topic? Years ago, there was kind of negative 'brand loyalty' which went like this: Until the early 1970's you *had* to use AT&T and your local telco. There was no choice in the matter. A number of people for a variety of reasons disliked AT&T. When MCI first went in business and introduced its very first offering called 'Execunet' around 1973 or so some people jumped over to them not so much out of love for MCI, but rather out of dislike for AT&T. Everyone was glad to 'get something over on Ma Bell ...'. Little did they know of course that in the 1970's and into the 1980's MCI was the single largest customer of AT&T. They didn't care; it was the idea of making a phone call not under the supervision of AT&T at AT&T's prices and terms of service. As for brand loyalty today, I don't personally think there is very much of it. AT&T still has a lot of customers who think of them as 'the telephone company' but I suspect MCI/Sprint/LDDS/others see a huge turnover among customers. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #503 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Sep 23 13:01:22 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id NAA29200; Mon, 23 Sep 1996 13:01:22 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 13:01:22 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199609231701.NAA29200@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #504 TELECOM Digest Mon, 23 Sep 96 13:01:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 504 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Bellcore Selling Out to Defense Contracter "SAIC" (WSJ via Danny Burstein) Strange Results with ACR and BellSouth "Call Selector" (Stanley Cline) "Father of the Internet" to Speak (Sean E. Williams) Delaware Judge Rules Bell Atlantic Can Lower Residential ISDN (R. Fajman) Articles Don't Flatter RBOCs or Cable (Greg Monti) Canada to BellSouth: Come in Please! (Chris Hudel) Annoying Phone Calls (WSJ via Tad Cook) Help Needed With Mexico Band Rates (Diego Betancor) Monday: Turkey Pot Pie, Oven Browned Potatoes, Steamed Cabbage (J Shaver) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 11:52:34 EDT From: danny burstein Subject: Bellcore Selling Out to Defense Contracter "SAIC" via WSJ recently: Note: SAIC also wears another hat, namely (the) Internic ... Report: Baby Bells Poised to Sell Research Arm to Defense NEW YORK (AP) - The seven Baby Bell telephone companies are poised to sell their research cooperative Bellcore to a defense contractor for about $700 million, {The Wall Street Journal} reported today. The sale would end a jointly-owned arrangement that began a dozen years ago with the breakup of the old AT&T empire. The newspaper said the sale of Bellcore to Science Applications International Corp., an employee-owned defense contractor based in San Diego, could be announced as early as this week. The deal is subject to approval by the boards of all seven phone companies, the newspaper said. Bellcore spokeswoman Barbara McClurken said today that "no decision to sell the company has been made at this time." "Bellcore cannot comment on prospective buyers or about any board deliberations as this information is confidential," McClurken said. Telephone calls to Science Applications also were not immediately answered early today. Bellcore, which is formally named Bell Communications Research, has a staff of about 5,800 people and a stellar reputation in communications network expertise. Its scientists pioneered fiber optic technology, advise companies on how to recover from network failures and are expert in foiling computer viruses. It is based in Morristown, N.J. "We are not a (research and development) lab," McClurken said. "Less than 10 percent of our work is research. A majority of our work is communication software engineering and consulting." Bellcore is owned by Ameritech Corp., based in Chicago; Bell Atlantic Corp., Philadelphia; BellSouth Corp., Atlanta; Nynex Corp., New York; Pacific Telesis Corp., San Francisco; SBC Communications Inc., San Antonio; and U S West Inc., Englewood, Colo. The Bellcore board announced in April 1995 "it was considering selling their interest in Bellcore," McClurken said. The Journal said others making early and serious inquiries about buying the unit were International Business Machines Corp. and Electronic Data System Corp., which McClurken would not comment on. Science Applications International employs about 22,000 people in 350 locations worldwide and generated about $2 billion in revenue last year. Its main business is consulting and providing technical advice to the government. -------------------- Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com ------------------------------ From: roamer1@pobox.com (Stanley Cline) Subject: Strange Results with ACR and BellSouth "Call Selector" Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 16:44:35 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services Reply-To: scline@usit.net My parents recently ordered BellSouth's Complete Choice plan (which allows "all-you-can-eat" calling features; in Tennessee and the extreme northwest Georgia areas of BellSouth, it's $27/mo.) Anyway, they subscribed to a number of services, including Repeat Dialing, Call Return, and Call Selector (which provides a distinctive ring for up to six calling numbers.) They also have Caller ID name/number with Anonymous Call Reject (ACR), which prevents "anonymous" (*67) calls from even ringing their phone. Anyway, I found out something strange about the mix of Call Selector and ACR: If a number's on the Call Selector list, it OVERRIDES ACR -- if I dial *67 + their number *from a number on the Call Selector list*, the call still rings at their house with the distinctive ring, and I do NOT get the "calling party not accepting blocked numbers" recording. Further, Call Return (which quotes back the last dialed number) READS BACK the *supposedly* blocked number, but the Caller ID unit shows "anonymous call"! Is this proper behavior, or should *ACR* override Call Selector and all other features on their line? If this *is* proper behavior, I may have found an easy solution to the problem of people who persistently block their numbers who call people with ACR! (Called person puts caller on Call Selector list, caller gets around ACR!) Stanley Cline (Roamer1 on IRC) ** GO BRAVES! GO VOLS! mailto:roamer1@pobox.com ** http://pobox.com/~roamer1/ CompuServe 74212,44 ** MSN WSCline1 All opinions are strictly my own! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It is working the way it is supposed to. The assumption is made that if you put someone on your special notification list -- that is, to have their call cause your phone to give a distinctive ring -- that you want to hear from that person. There is no real conflict with the person who wants to succeed in maintaining their privacy (i.e. *67 prepended to each dialing string) getting through to the person who does not wish to talk with such callers simply because there is little likelyhood of the privacy- seeker convincing the other party to add them to their distinctive ring list unless they happen to already know each other in which case the privacy-seeker probably would not bother with *67 on that particular call. It is nonsensical to say that someone you want to speak with is also someone you might not want to speak with. In the decision making hierarchy of how to process a call in the central office I suppose they could have gone either way with this; to honor the *67 request no matter what 'cost' (or undeliverable service situation) might occur to the called party or to honor the distinctive ringing request of the called party no matter what cost (or undeliver- able service situation) might occur to the calling party. You might also want to try the call-screening feature on the called party's phone where they add a number to the list of callers they do not wish to hear from and then have the calling party do it with and without *67. You'll note the results are the same: The called party's request to NOT connect with a given number is honored in deference to the calling party's request to 'not tell them what number I am'. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 19:01:51 EDT From: Sean E. Williams Subject: Father of the Internet to Speak Pat, I recently received this memo, and believe it maybe of interest to your readers. It is regarding a lecture which will take place at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology. Sean ----- "Father of the Internet" to speak at NTID October 1 Dr. Vint Cerf, "Father of the Internet," will speak at 1 p.m., Tuesday, October 1, in the Robert F. Panara Theatre, Lyndon Baines Johnson Building. The founder and developer of the Internet, Cerf will speak about taking advanced technology and turning it into products and services that people can use as well as where the future lies with these technologies and products. While at UCLA in the early 1970s, Cerf worked on the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency). He then went on to co-develop the computer networking protocols, later called TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/internet protocol), known collectively as the Internet. Cerf led the Internet Architecture Board, began the Internet Society and ran it until 1995, and was awarded the Silver Medal of the International Telecommunications Union in 1995. Cerf lost his hearing when he was born six weeks prematurely and placed in an oxygen-enhanced incubator. His hearing loss has been progressive, requiring hearing aids for correction from age 13, and he now has a binaural 60 dB loss. He is married to Sigrid Cerf, who is profoundly deaf, and they have two sons. Cerf holds a bachelor of science degree in mathematics from Stanford University and a master of science degree and a PhD in computer science from UCLA. He now is vice president of data architecture for MCI's Data and Information Services Division. For more information about Cerf, check the World Wide Web at http://www.mci.com/aboutmci/cerf/ Cerf's presentation is sponsored by the NTID Special Speaker Series and supported by the Rothman Family Endowment. Admission to the presentation, which will be sign language interpreted and real-time captioned, is free. The presentation also will be available via satellite. Downlink Technical Information: Ku-Band SBS 6 74 degrees west longitude Transponder 9 Downlink frequency 11921 MHz Horizontal polarity Audio 6.2/6.8 Help number: 716-475-7760 Broadcast times:Test 12:30-13:00, US Eastern Program 13:00-14:00, US Eastern ---------- mailto:sew7490@rit.edu http://www.rit.edu/~sew7490 Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, USA Mobile/Voicemail/Pager: +1 716 748-2960 Recycle yourself. Become an organ donor! ------------------------------ From: Roger Fajman Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 23:36:58 EDT Subject: 'Delaware Judge Rules Bell Atlantic Can Lower Residential ISDN Contact: Ells Edwards 302-576-5340 ellsworth.edwards@bell-atl.com DELAWARE JUDGE RULES BELL ATLANTIC CAN LOWER RESIDENTIAL ISDN RATES Company Proposed Rate Reductions Pending Appeal of Rate Decision DOVER, DE -- A Kent County Superior Court judge has granted Bell Atlantic-Delaware permission to reduce rates for Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) telephone service to the home while he reviews the company's appeal of a July 2 rate order by the Delaware Public Service Commission (PSC). Bell Atlantic asked Judge N. Maxson Terry to allow the company to charge the rates it proposed April 17 to the PSC. The company's proposal would reduce current rates by 15 to 86 percent for residential ISDN, a service that provides high-speed access to the Internet, on-line services and corporate computer networks. In his ruling, Judge Terry said Bell Atlantic-Delaware may bill customers for the following lower rates as of August 1: 20 Hours - $31 60 hours - $45 140 hours - $60 300 hours - $90 500 hours - $120 Unlimited - $248 Customers won't see the new rates on their bills right away. However, they will receive credits for the lower rates back to Aug. 1 at a future date. "We are pleased by the court ruling, because customers will clearly benefit from lower rates for residential ISDN," said Bell Atlantic-Delaware president Joshua W. Martin III. "Our goal has always been to make ISDN to the home as accessible and affordable as possible while covering the cost of providing the service." On Aug. 9, the court stayed the PSC's order that rejected the Bell Atlantic rate proposal and set a $28.02 flat rate for residential ISDN service. As a result of this stay, introductory rates that were implemented in November 1995 have remained in effect while the court considered the company's appeal of the PSC decision. Bell Atlantic Corporation (NYSE: BEL) is at the forefront of the new communications, entertainment and information industry. In the mid-Atlantic region, the company is the premier provider of local telecommunications and advanced services. Globally, it is one of the largest investors in the high-growth wireless communication marketplace. Bell Atlantic also owns a substantial interest in Telecom Corporation of New Zealand and is actively developing high-growth national and international business opportunities in all phases of the industry. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 23:36:24 -0400 From: cc004056@interramp.com (Greg Monti) Subject: Articles Don't Flatter RBOCs or Cable In {The Wall Street Journal} during the week of September 16 to 20, several articles appeared which don't bode well for the Bell Operating Companies or cable systems. On Monday 16 Sept, the {Journal} published an entire pullout section on telecommunications, with the lead article "It's War!" The special section is a good overview of the trials, tribulations, issues, technology and abbreviations of the newly-competitive industries. Well done for a general business publication. The results of several polls are presented in charts on page R4. One chart, titled "AT&T's Edge" lists the percent of consumers of each of the seven Baby Bells, who were asked which company they would like to be their single provider of local and long distance service. The results are damning for the RBOCs. For example, in Ameritech Territory, only 27% would like their single provider to be Ameritech, 4% would like it to be Sprint, 5% would like it to be MCI, 6% would like it to be GTE, and a whopping 41% would like it to be AT&T. 17% had no preference. The trend is even worse among Bell South customers, where only 18% would like their future single provider to be Bell South while 54% want AT&T. Scraping the bottom of the barrel is PacBell, among whose customers only 9% want to have PacBell as their single provider, while 54% want AT&T, a 6:1 landslide. The poll did not include residents in existing GTE territory, althouth GTE was given as one of the choices to the RBOC consumers. About 4% of them would prefer to have GTE as their single provider. Another chart, titled "Vulnerable Monopolies" asks consumers how likely they would be to jump to a different phone or cable firm than their current provider. If prices were the same, about 5% of phone customers would switch to a competing carrier. About 15% of cable customers would switch to a competing cable company if pricing were equal. The question was then re-asked with "if the competitor offered you a 10% to 15% discount, would you switch?" About 21% of phone custoerms said they'd switch. And a whopping 67% of cable customers would jump. Both polls were researched by the Yankee Group. Later the same week, another article, entitled "Nynex's Bad Service Is Issue in Bell Atlantic Deal" is unflattering of Nynex, which is being purchased by Bell Atlantic. Regulators in Nynex's states have to approve the merger and are loathe to do so. New York State, for example, sets benchmarks for customer service. The benchmarks get tougher with each passing year and cover items such as showing up on time for appointments, answering telephones in a timely manner, and fixing serious problems within the 24 hours observed by most other phone companies across the USA. New York State charges Nynex cash penalties for each shortfall. So far in 1996, Nynex has paid $19 million in penalties to New York. It has also paid $20 million in panalties to Massachusetts in the last two years. The article notes that Bell Atlantic has not paid any penalties [to its state regulators] within the last year. One regulator in Pennsylvania hopes that Bell Atlantic's resources are not spread too thin in attempting to bring Nynex up to snuff after the merger. --- Greg Monti Jersey City, New Jersey, USA mailto:gmonti@interramp.com ------------------------------ From: hudel@hppad.waterloo.hp.com (Chris Hudel) Subject: Canada to BellSouth: Come in Please! Date: 23 Sep 1996 12:47:27 GMT Organization: Hewlett Packard (Panacom Division) A frustrated hello to everyone. I'm having no end of problems trying to contact BellSouth in Charlotte, NC to arrange to install two phone lines before I relocate there from Ontario, Canada. To wit, I am having the following TELEPHONE woes when dialing +1.704.378.6000. (I have tried calling from home, from work, from an AT&T 800 access number, all the same): - The touch-tones don't get across to BellSouth's automated attendent. - The above happens and I "wait for an operator" to assist me. Receive one phonemercial and then a message like "you have been on the phone for too long. Hanging up" and then it hangs up on me! (The time is only about two minutes) - I get the above but somebody picks up before the the attendent hangs up on me. But the BellSouth rep can't hear a word I'm saying ... and proceeds to just talk to the rep beside him/her as if I'm not even there. - I actually _get_ a single touchtone across to BellSouth's attendent and get to speak to a customer service agent. We talk for about 60 seconds and the phone suddently issues a fast-busy. I must say, I'm not all that impressed so far with Bell South! So, would someone from there see this message and call _me_ (+1.519.883.3145) to arrange for service hookup and answer my rate inquiries? PS: when I *do* get through, the rep seems very nice, friendly, and helpful (for about 60 seconds before the phone hangs up on me) Thanks, Chris Hudel -- hudel@waterloo.hp.com -- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Try it this way ... when you are able to get through to someone, immediatly explain the difficulty in connecting (use the sixty seconds or whatever you manage to get) to explain this and relay your number to that person, getting their name in the process in case they don't call back and you need to prompt them a second time. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Annoying Phone Calls Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 11:25:02 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) (An excerpt from a {Wall Street Journal} article. My favorite approach with these guys, as I mentioned in TELECOM Digest several years ago, is to ask before they can get very far "May I have your name please? And how do you spell that? May I have your HOME TELEPHONE NUMBER PLEASE? You don't give out your home number? Why not? You called ME at home!" I understand that this same routine was used sometime later on the Jerry Seinfeld show. Does this mean that Seinfeld or one of his writers reads TELECOM Digest, or I have potential to be a brilliant stand up comic? -Tad Cook tad@ssc.com) The Front Lines: They Keep Workers Motivated to Make Annoying Phone Calls Via AP By THOMAS PETZINGER Jr. The Wall Street Journal WATERLOO, Iowa (Wall Street Journal) -- "C'mon you guys! Eight to go!" It is midafternoon, and the shift supervisors are stalking the aisles to pick up the pace. One hundred workers sit side by side in a big, gray room with only a few narrow windows. The minutes tick by. Anyone who beats quota gets to go home 15 minutes early today. They call this place the production floor, but it's not a manufacturing operation. It's a telemarketing center, an air-conditioned sweatshop of the '90s. On this day, the operators are cold-calling small businesses on behalf of a major long-distance company. Tomorrow they may be pitching credit cards or on-line services. The base pay: $5.75 to $8 an hour. The weekly bonus: maybe $30. "Four more!" calls another supervisor. "Four more!" This is the operating headquarters of Ron Weber & Associates, one of the oldest and most respected agencies in the telemarketing industry. The company invited me here to show off its success in recruiting and training a motivated work force. But I leave convinced that even under the industry's best conditions, this is a miserable way to make a living. I confess to a personal bias. These calls can wreck a few minutes of precious home time or vital work. So just imagine what it's like to spend all day placing them. Yet for the owners of these independent call centers -- and for their clients -- telemarketing has never been more profitable. "It just keeps growing because it works," says founder Ron Weber. In 16 years he has built a force of 1,000 employees in four locations, with three centers opening this year. (Some of the centers field in-coming calls.) So how does a business make so much money over the telephone when both parties to the conversation would surely rather be doing something else? How indeed does Weber & Associates keep the lines staffed and the staff motivated? Purely in commercial terms, telemarketing works because it is incredibly cost-effective. Database technology enables companies to compile ever-more-targeted calling lists (which is good news for consumers) and more and more such lists (the bad news). These prospect lists come to Weber & Associates on reels of nine-track tape, and the calls begin. The dialing is done by a bank of computers that wait until a person has answered before switching the call to an operator. The technology makes 30 percent more connections than straight dialing. And it accounts for the annoying delay you sometimes hear with sales calls, although they say it doesn't happen here. When calls are switched to the production floor, the prospects' names and vital data -- address and customer history -- appear on the agents' screens. "They are constantly being flooded with calls," says Jim Strong, computer chief. None of this would be economical without inexpensive labor. Unskilled workers are in tight supply nationwide, so call centers seek out pockets of unemployment. Like many such firms, Connecticut-based Weber & Associates began building up operations in Iowa and Illinois to hire victims of the 1980s farm crisis. The company has added medical and other benefits for full-time workers to help control costly turnover, and a number of employees have been with the firm five years or longer. But turnover still totals about 60 percent to 70 percent a year. One big reason, says Celina Peerman, the personnel chief, is "phone call after phone call after phone call of rejection." With some products, an operator will endure ten hang-ups, insults or polite brush-offs before winning a sale. Often, it's much worse than that. During my visit here, each operator was expected to complete two sales in eight hours of roughly 160 calls. "You come in and start getting hang-ups right away," says operator Charles Allen Pearson. "You've just got to deal with it." The company explicitly informs applicants that the work involves rejection and abuse. Still, says Mr. Weber, most people don't believe the warnings until "they come in and find it is as bad as they say." So in addition to their array of motivational courses and sales tips, new hires receive training in coping with insult. Supervisors watch for outbreaks of the blues, so despair doesn't become epidemic. "If someone's having a bad day, it spreads from one person to the next person to the next person," says the head trainer, Ellen Humphrey. "I got one!" "All right, Judy!" Sustaining the mood also involves a routine of small gestures -- a pie in the face of a supervisor, a free carwash for high performance, the addition of a second microwave for popcorn. But many of the morale boosters only highlight the drudgery of the work. A supervisor jumping in after someone has had a great hour, providing a bonus break of five minutes. A big producer winning the privilege of wearing jeans or sweats to work the next day. As I strolled the aisles here (always accompanied by a manager), I was moved by the spirited attempt at cheerfulness in everyone's voice. Clearly, the personnel department is making its mark. But there was no sugarcoating the tedium. A few operators slouched against the desk dividers. Others gossiped over the partitions during downtime. Mostly, people just wanted to go home. ------------------------------ From: dbetancor@twtel.com (Diego Betancor) Subject: Help Needed With Mexico Band Rates Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 15:20:13 GMT Organization: Digital Telemedia Inc. Anyone have the information or database that shows which Mexican area codes belong to which band rate? Thank you very much. Diego Betancor ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Sep 96 07:33:34 MST From: John Shaver Subject: Monday: Turkey Pot Pie, Oven Browned Potatoes, Steamed Cabbage ----- Forwarded message # 1: From: Keith Bostic Subject: Monday: Turkey Pot Pie, Oven Browned Potatoes, Steamed Cabbage. Forwarded-by: "Rob Pike" Call 704-377-4444, enter 1955 when you hear the recording. ----- End of forwarded messages [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I'll admit it is sort of funny. I do not know if it is for real or not; but it was worth 25 cents on the phone to listen for a minute or so. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #504 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Sep 23 16:18:05 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id QAA22025; Mon, 23 Sep 1996 16:18:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 16:18:05 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199609232018.QAA22025@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #505 TELECOM Digest Mon, 23 Sep 96 16:18:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 505 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New French Numbers (Marc Zirnheld) Northland Tel Buys Siemens CO (Tad Cook) Telephone Scam Referring to 809 (But What About Splits?) (Carl Moore) Three-Way Calling Scam (Tad Cook) Can Cordless Phone Crystals be Changed? (jenglund@qlink.com) Sub-interface Routing on IRX-111 (Scott King) Home PBX or Key System (David Siegel) For Sale: HP 3780A Pattern Generator/Error Detector (T1 and DS3) (Tim Bass) They Are Even More Stupid! (was Re: Stupid Spamster Tricks) (Wolf Paul) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Marc.Zirnheld@teaser.fr (Marc Zirnheld) Subject: New French Numbers Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 16:33:27 GMT Reply-To: Marc.Zirnheld@teaser.fr On October 18th, France will have a quasi-uniform 10-digit dialing plan (it should have taken place in April this year but was delayed). Although it has not be officially announced, it seems that present eight-digit number will still be effective (from France at least, and on a regional basis) until December 31 (a time-out has to occur after dialing, since some new and old numbers begin with the same strings). A voice recording is due to inform subscribers about the new form of misdialled numbers. The following table gives the numbering plan and the changes to happen. These informations are believed to be reliable, but are given with no warranty of any kind. In addition, I know there are many numbers missing in the "36" plan slice (many of them, including pay-pay-pay per call, are even not listed in the directory pricing information). The basic principle is to add two digits before the actual local number: - 01 for the Paris area wich has area code (1) - 02..05 for other areas - 06 for mobile - 08 for special services Most special two or four-digit numbers will remain unchanged. I was told the leading 0, which will not (yet?) be dialed when calling from foreign countries (sort of an area-code prefix, despite there are no areas) might be called an "operator-code". Does this mean numbers provided by companies other than France-Telecom will be assigned other leading digits? I don't think so, since it is considered allowing inter-operator number portability. Any information on this topic would be appreciated. Information in the table below is *for calls from continental France*, and believed accurate *for fixed subscribers* (mobile operators have various additionnal services available to their subscribers). You may find more (and other) information on http://www.francetelecom.fr/ which is bilingual French/English. Also, you may locate a subscriber upon the four or five first digits of its number on http://www.planete.net/cgi-bin/abpq : this unofficial service is provided by an ISP to help customers locate the its cheapest point of presence. (Information provided "as is" with no warranty ... usual disclaimer ... If you know a better source of information, please let me know. ------------------- Legend (1) : area code {1,3} : subset of digits [0..4] : interval of digits (equiv. to {0,1,2,3,4}) x : any digit in [0..9] y : same digit of an aforementionned set of digits Dpt : 'Departement' (administrative area) DOM : 'Departement d'Outre-Mer', Oversea Dpt CT : 'Collectivite Territoriale', French Oversea Territory that is not considered a DOM TOM : 'Territoire d'Outre-Mer', French Oversea Territory that is not considered a DOM or a CT. Ph : ordinary wire telephone service (wether POTS or ISDN, phone or fax...) Tl : 'Teletel' Data services (mostly V23, CEPT2) Mb : mobile : see note number 'n' c,cc,ccc: country-code (except 33 France) note : 0 is considered before 1, not after 9. ---------------------------------- The following table has four parts: * numbers in the Paris Area, having area code (1) * numbers outside the Paris Area, having no area code * non-localized numbers, to be dialed from both areas * numbers considered as "international" numbers (Classification made upon *actual* situation) ----------------------------------- * inside Paris Area =================== Actual number Assignment Will change to ------------- ---------- -------------- (1) 3{0,4,9} xx xx xx Ph, Val-d'Oise & Yvelines Dpt except Roissy/Charles- de-Gaule Airport 01 3y xx xx xx (1) 41 65 xx xx Mb, Messaging, 'Alphapage' pagers 06 41 65 xx xx (1) 41 77 xx xx Wireless local loop experiment at Saint-Maur 01 41 77 xx xx (1) 49 9{4,7} xx xx same 06 49 9y xx xx (1) 4x xx xx xx Ph, Paris & Val de Marne except & Hauts-de-Seine above-listed & Seine-Saint-Denis Dpt & above airport 01 4x xx xx xx (1) 51 0x xx xx Mb, pagers, Kobby 06 51 0x xx xx (1) 5{3,5} xx xx xx same 01 5y xx xx xx (1) 54 xx xx xx MbPh, Pointel (bi-bop) 06 54 xx xx xx <4> (1) 57 {2,4,5}x xx xx Mb, France-Telecom pagers 06 57 yx xx xx (1) 6{0,4,9} xx xx xx Ph, Essonne & Seine-et-Marne Dpt 01 6y xx xx xx * outside Paris Area ==================== Actual number Assignment Will change to ------------- ---------- -------------- 28 03 xx xx Mb, pagers 06 57 03 xx xx 2x xx xx xx Ph, Northern F. 03 2x xx xx xx except above-listed 3{1,2,3,5,7,8,9} xx xx xx Ph, Normandy 02 3y xx xx xx 40 10 xx xx Mb, pagers 06 57 10 xx xx 4{0,1,3,7,8}xxxxxx Ph, Mayenne & area except above-listed 02 4y xx xx xx 42 xx xx xx Ph, Bouches-du-Rhone Dpt 04 42 xx xx xx 44 xx xx xx Ph, Oise Dpt 03 44 xx xx xx 4{5,6,9} xx xx xx Ph, Charentes & area 05 4y xx xx xx 50 xx xx xx Ph, Savoie & Ain Dpt 04 50 xx xx xx 5{1,3} xx xx xx Ph, Vendee & Loir-et-Cher Dpt 02 5y xx xx xx 54 1{7,8,9} xx xx MbPh, Pointel (bi-bop), Lille 06 54 1y xx xx 54 xx xx xx except above-listed Ph, Indre dpt 02 54 xx xx xx 57 90 xx xx Mb, pagers 06 57 90 xx xx 58 1x xx xx MbPh, Prologos, Bordeaux 06 58 1x xx xx 5{5..9} xx xx xx except above-listed Ph, South-Western F. 05 5y xx xx xx 6{1,2,3,5} xx xx xx Ph, South-Central/Western F. 05 6y xx xx xx 6[6..9] xx xx xx Ph, South-Central/Eastern F. 04 6y xx xx xx 72 03 xx xx Mb, pagers 06 57 04 xx xx 79 97 xx xx MbPh, Pointel (bi-bop), Avoriaz 06 79 97 xx xx 7x xx xx xx Ph, Auvergne, Rhone-Alpes except above-listed & Central F. 04 7y xx xx xx 83 03 xx xx Mb, pagers 06 57 02 xx xx 88 77 5x xx MbPh, Pointel (bi-bop), Strasbourg 06 54 77 5x xx 89 99 xx xx MbPh, Pointel (bi-bop), Strasbourg 06 54 99 xx xx 8x xx xx xx Ph, Burgundy, Alsace, Lorraine except above-listed & Eastern F. 03 8y xx xx xx 91 01 xx xx Mb, pagers 06 57 01 xx xx 91 36 6x xx same 06 57 36 6x xx 9[0..5] xx xx xx Ph, South-Eastern F, except above-listed Cote-d'Azur 04 9y xx xx xx 9[6..9] xx xx xx Ph, Brittany 02 9y xx xx xx * non-localized numbers ======================= Actual number Assignment Will change to ------------- ---------- -------------- 01 1x xx xx Mb, pagers, Tam-tam 06 01 1x xx xx 02 0x xx xx MbPh, Bouygues Telecom (Paris) 06 61 6x xx xx 02 {1,2}x xx xx same 06 68 yx xx xx 02 [3..6]x xx xx same < what 06 60 yx xx xx 02 7x xx xx same a 06 61 3x xx xx 02 8x xx xx same mess ! > 06 61 4x xx xx 02 9x xx xx same 06 61 5x xx xx 0{3,9} xx xx xx MbPh, SFR 06 0y xx xx xx 0{4,7,8} xx xx xx MbPh, Itineris 06 0y xx xx xx 05 xx xx xx Toll-free 08 00 xx xx xx <3> 06 [0..3]x xx xx Mb, pagers, Tatoo 06 yx xx xx xx 06 4x xx xx Mb, pagers, Tatoo & Kobby 06 06 4x xx xx 06 5x xx xx Mb, pagers, Tam-tam 06 06 5x xx xx 06 [6..9]x xx xx MbPh, maritime (VHF) 06 06 yx xx xx 11 Tl, Electronic phonebook 36 11 <5> 12 Directory assistance 12 13 Repair 13 14 Salespeople 14 15 Ambulance 15 <1><2> 16 inter-area prefix (for reference only) no more ! 17 Police 17 <1> 18 Fire 18 <1><2> 36 01 1[3..7] 1y Tl, Computer, IP access 08 36 01 1y 1y 36 01 28 28 Tl, Computer access 08 36 01 28 28 36 05 xx xx Tl, toll-free 08 36 xx xx 36 10 F.-T. calling card, automated 36 10 36 12 Public Tl mail 36 12 36 1[3..5] Tl, menu page 36 1y 36 19 Tl, foreign services 36 19 36 21 Tl, ASCII 36 13 (add # prefix to service code) 36 22 Tl, Internet, from ISDN 36 22 36 23 Tl, high speed link 36 23 36 2[4..9] xx xx Tl, direct access 08 36 2y xx xx 36 3x xx xx Unlisted!! but some are voice servers 08 36 3x xx xx 36 44 Loop test, Callback (POTS only) 36 44 36 50 F.-T. calling card, automated 36 50 36 55 Ph, telegram service 36 55 36 56 Tl, telegram service 36 56 36 63 xx xx 'Azur' numbers (local call charge whatever the distance) 08 01 63 xx xx 36 6[4..9] xx xx 'Audiotel' voice servers 08 36 6y xx xx 36 70 xx xx same 08 36 70 xx xx 36 72 'memophone' public voice mail 36 72 36 75 10 10 'top message' voice mail checking/listening 08 36 75 10 10 36 8x xx xx Unlisted!! but some are voice servers 08 36 8x xx xx 36 99 clock service 36 99 52 11 10-digit numbering information, automated server 52 11 52 12 10-digit numbering information, operator 52 12 * international-like numbers ============================ 19 international prefix (+) 00 +590 xx xx xx Guadeloupe DOM 0 590 xx xx xx <6> +594 xx xx xx Guyane DOM 0 594 xx xx xx <6> +596 xx xx xx Martinique DOM 0 596 xx xx xx <6> +262 xx xx xx Réunion DOM 0 262 xx xx xx <6> +508 xx xx xx St Pierre et Miquelon CT 0 508 xx xx xx <6> +269 xx xx xx Mayotte CT 0 269 xx xx xx <6> +687 ... New Caledonia TOM +687 ... +681 ... Wallis-et-Futuna TOM +681 ... +689 ... French Polynesia TOM +689 ... 19 00 c Home Country Direct, operator 08 00 99 00 0c <7> 19 00 cc same 08 00 99 00 cc <7> 19 00 ccc same 08 00 99 0c cc <7> 19 02 c Home Country Direct, automated 08 00 99 20 0c <7> 19 02 cc same 08 00 99 20 cc <7> 19 02 ccc same 08 00 99 2c cc <7> 19 33 12 ccc Intl Directory assistance 00 19 33 12 ccc <8> 19 33 ccc Intl operator 00 33 ccc <8> Notes : ======= <1> Emergency services will eventually merge under 112 (already accessible from GSM and DCS1800 phones). <2> Numbers are usually routed to the same emergency answering point. <3> 08 05 xx xx xx may (???) also be permitted. <4> Could also be 01 54 xx xx - there's something odd here, could be a mistake. <5> 3611 already in service. <6> From continental/DOM/CT France only, I suppose. From other countries, consider international calls to respective 3-digit "country-like"-codes. <7> Some country codes need be replaced as follows : 1 (NANP)--> 16 for Canada 11 for USA, ATT 19 for USA, MCI 87 for USA, Sprint 81 (Japan)-> 81 for KDD 80 for IDC 043 for ITJ 44 (UK) --> 944 for Mercury 44 for BT 7 (CIS) --> 71 <8> Some country codes need be replaced as follows : 1 (NANP) --> 11 7 (CIS) --> 71 (CIS includes Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyztan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan). Additional Comments : ===================== * aspirin, please. * old analog mobile networks Radiocom-2000 and SFR : numbers look like fixed numbers and will change the same way. * DCS 1800 experiments will be assigned slices : 06 89 xx xx xx (Toulouse) 06 18 xx xx xx (Strasbourg). * dialing 10 digits with a rotary dial causes excessive finger stress, and will cause those few old devices to disappear. * eating fish should help remembering 10-digit numbers... * European-wide integration of numbering plan is considered, but I don't have any precise information regarding this. __________________________________ Marc Zirnheld AdressE: Marc.Zirnheld@teaser.fr (ISO-8859-1/Latin-1) Dazibaobab: http://www.teaser.fr/~mzirnheld/ Telecopie: [+33](1)60192380 - 18 oct. 96: [+33]0160192380 ------------------------------ Subject: Northland Tel Buys Siemens CO Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 10:13:27 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) (Here is a press release from Siemens on the sale of a CO to Northland Telephone Co. of Maine. Notice that instead of having a bunch of central offices, they will instead by ONE C.O. for their entire network, and then host *72* remotes off of it?? Does anyone know what the largest number of remotes off of a central office is? Tad Cook - tad@ssc.com - Seattle, WA) ------------------------- Northland Telephone chooses Siemens Stromberg-Carlson's EWSD switch to modernize Maine-based network BOCA RATON, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 23, 1996--Northland Telephone Co. will modernize its entire Maine-based network using Siemens Stromberg-Carlson's EWSD switch. The EWSD contract includes replacing existing switching equipment at a host and 72 remotes. Initial engineering phases already are completed, and equipment will begin shipping in October 1996. The entire project is expected to be completed by 2001. `Siemens Stromberg-Carlson is pleased to be Northland's strategic partner and a key supplier,' said Fred Fromm, president & CEO of Siemens Stromberg-Carlson. `The EWSD opens exciting new avenues of communication to Northland's customers. Besides intrastate and international Equal Access, they'll also enjoy advanced technologies such as SS7, ISDN and CLASS services. In the future, Northland can expand its capabilities with state-of-the-art products and services designed for the EWSD, such as Personal Communication Services; Inter-eXchange Carrier, and Local Number Portability.' `The Siemens EWSD will form the backbone of our entire network,' said John Duda, president and CEO of Northland Telephone. `Northland will be able to further modernize all of its facilities through this platform, and be positioned to provide for enhanced services and growth. Our customers will also notice improved dialing when making long-distance calls due to SS7 technology.' Northland Telephone and its affiliate, Sidney Telephone, are subsidiaries of MJD Communications. Northland, one of the largest independent telcos in Maine, serves more than 21,000 customers through 24 all-digital exchanges in Maine and New Hampshire. Headquartered in Portland, Maine, Northland's territory ranges from the Canadian border to the foothills of western Maine. Four business offices are located at key exchange complexes within the state: Fort Kent, Island Falls, Morrill and Fryeburg. Northland also serves more than 5,000 customers in northern Vermont. Siemens Stromberg-Carlson, headquartered in Boca Raton, is a leading provider of telecommunications equipment to the public network service providers in North America. The company designs and manufactures digital central office switching equipment, broadband switching systems, wireless solutions, end-to-end multimedia solutions, Internet solutions, telecommunication network management products, customer premise equipment and transmission products. Siemens Stromberg-Carlson is a subsidiary of Siemens AG, which has annual revenues of $61 billion and is present in 190 countries. See http://www.ssc.siemens.com. CONTACT: Siemens Stromberg-Carlson, Boca Raton Robert Bartolotta, 561/955-3140 robert.bartolotta@ssc.siemens.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Sep 96 13:00:42 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Telephone Scam Referring to 809 (But What About Splits?) I just received the following in email to my office. I am passing it along AS IS. It refers to 809 area code (note that Dominican Republic is apparently keeping that area code), but does not refer to the new area codes being spun off for the various countries that have used 809. ---------------------------- The National Fraud Information Center, a partnership of the National Association of Attorneys General, The Federal Trade Commission and The National Consumers League, is warning consumers about a telephone scam that entices callers to return calls to an "809" area code in the Caribbean. The scamsters are trying to get around U.S. restrictions and consumer blocks against "900" pay per call services. People are getting messages on their answering machines, in their voice mailboxes, and recently on their pagers, urging them to return an important call to a number with an "809" area code. Upon returning the call, the caller hears a lengthy marketing pitch, which in turn, generates a healthy long distance charge on their telephone bill. The marketing pitches are a worthless waste of time and money. The scamsters are making money merely by delivering U.S. long distance calls to telephone companies in the Dominican Republic and some of the other countries that share the "809" area code. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So far so good, but I think there are a few things not being considered here. How many calls must be made to answering machines, pagers, etc to get the owners of those devices to return a call? I doubt sincerely it is 1:1, where everyone who gets paged/called returns the call. Now with that thought in mind -- and even if it is 1:1 -- calls have to originate, *and be paid for* somewhere. They are not getting free service on their outgoing calls to the pagers/answering machines. Continuing this thought then, what are they spending on outgoing traffic to stir up incoming traffic? If the motive was merely to generate incoming traffic to the country in question, isn't any balance on the books (with AT&T probably) offset by the outgoing traffic? A call out to induce someone to call in ... ? Now if they have a confederate in the USA making the outbound calls for them to reduce the cost of the outgoing calls; or if they have confederates in several large urban areas in the USA where there is likely to be a huge concentration of voicemail making 'local calls' at local call rates in order to generate an expensive long distance call in return, then this makes sense. I can see where someone in Chicago for example, with a speed dialer or autodialer loaded full of all the number combinations in 312-659 (a Cellular One-Chicago exchange) could zap all those numbers, leaving voicemail wherever possible in a day or so and theoretically do it inexpensively enough that provided a good percentage of the recipients took the bait and called back there would be a profit generated at the 809 end. A message left in voicemail is going to 'sound like' a telemarketer to many people and they are not going to return the call, so our confederate had best concentrate on just zapping pagers so the person getting the page can't be certain what it is. Some are still not going to return the call. Now what if the rate of calls placed in an effort to prompt return calls is more like 3:1 or 4:1? Isn't the profit margin or bottom line for the 809 people getting a bit thin, even at the inflated rates charged for a call from here to there? You see, none of the newspapers which report these so-called scams really bother to investigate what it is they are reporting. They just chatter like a bunch of angry crows whose nest has been upset or invaded. Remember the one about 212-540 a few years ago and how people on those numbers were allegedly (and maybe they really were) calling pagers all over the country? Before it was finally forgotten about as the newspapers moved on to other things and all the memo- writers in corporations went on to writing memos about other topics, everyone everywhere was being warned about the terrible things that you would see on your phone bill if you dialed 212-540-xxxx. Not a single one bothered to check or note this simple thing: ** 212-540 like anywhere-976 is not dialable from anywhere except the areacode wherein it is located, or in the case in point, in Manhattan, NY. ** Therefore let them page you all they want (and they learned quickly not to bother) and let people in other places try all they want to return the call. They won't get through and there won't be any big charges, etc. Telecom admins, don't even *bother* to block 212-540; telco has already done it for you unless you are in 212/718/914. Still, the newspapers and corporate memo-writers went crazy. We must notify everyone now, leaving everyone frightened to death that they would be the next victim of the scam. And so it is with this latest 809 nonsense. *Of course* you can dial their number (unlike 976) from anywhere, assuming AT&T does not specifically block that given number which I understand has occurred. Anyone who stops to think about it should realize the 809 people are probably going to give up on this when their bookkeeper comes to work and lays it out for them if they have not already ceased and desisted. But something tells me I am going to be getting copies of corporate memos and newspaper stories for the next year or two warning of this terrible scam and how I really should post something on it at once so that there won't be any more victims. And everyone who writes me will think they are the first to have heard about it. Now, if they are running *newspaper advertising* asking people to call an 809 number then that is a somewhat different situation, but how many people do you know, seriously, who would respond to a help-wanted ad in the paper involving a long distance number that was not toll-free? They must be hard up for a job I guess. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Three-Way Calling Scam Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 19:01:05 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) (I wonder if the blocking they are describing is some sort of selective blocking of three-way calls from prisons? I have heard of this before, but don't know how it works. The outgoing prison phone calls must be class marked in some way. Tad Cook - tad@ssc.com) The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss., Tradewinds Column By Charles Busby, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Phone scam: BellSouth's new three-way calling feature has given criminals a new way to prey on the young, naive or mentally disabled. One man in Harrison County reports that his disabled granddaughter accepted collect calls from a jail inmate who then tricked her into engaging the three-way calling feature that's available to all customers. The inmate proceeded to run up a $700 bill to talk to his friends. Three-way calling, like some other features, is available to all customers but can be blocked. In this victim's case, the man said he asked BellSouth to block the feature. Others can take more precautions: If you wish to block a feature from your phone, make sure you document the name of the customer service representative you talk to and the time you call, and ask for documentation showing the feature has been blocked. (Charles Busby is business editor of The Sun Herald. You can reach him by mail at P.O. Box 4567, Biloxi, MS 39535-4567; by fax at 896-2104; by phone at 896-2358; or by e-mail at CaBusby@aol.com.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Someone should mention that the young, the naive and the mentally-disabled will be with us always. Maybe someone could stop the world so the rest of us can get off. I am not aware of three-way calling being a 'use on demand' feature available by default like (for instance) 'return last call'. Is it that way also? Perhaps it is at some telcos. I do know that centrex can be arranged so that if the originating end is forbidden to do something, any receipient of a call is forbidden to do the same thing. Let me explain further: a centrex extension is restricted from receiving incoming calls originating outside the subscriber's premises. Caller from outside receives an intercept to that effect. Caller from outside attempts to bypass this by dialing another extension on the centrex and asking to be transferred. The attempt to transfer will fail. Caller dials the centrex operator and passes the extension number. Again, generally the attempt by the oper- ator to transfer the call will fail. Another example: user of a centrex extension is restricted from dialing an 'outside' number. He asks a confederate to dial the number from an unrestricted extension and then transfer the call to him. The attempt to transfer will fail. It may or may not be possible to dial the centrex operator and ask that she complete the connection; the operator at least can supervise or oversee what is occuring on the centrex and respond appropriately. It is also the case that if 900/976 blocking is installed on a line the operator is unable to override the restriction. Ever notice how when you call 900 from a blocked phone the intercept message tells you the phone is blocked but continues by saying, " ... the operator will be unable to complete the call for you ..." I would think -- but I do not know for sure -- that it is possible to send information about the class of service on the phone of the person making the call and require that the central office receiving the call for one of its susbcribers honor that class of service, in effect giving its subscriber the same (if more restrictive) class of service as the calling party for the duration of that call. That is to say if you the prisoner cannot make a credit card call, then for the time we are connected I cannot make one either; if you cannot make a three way call, then I cannot make one either. If this were implemented, wouldn't that end a great deal if not all of the fraud committed from jail phones? PAT] ------------------------------ From: jenglund@qlink.com Subject: Can Cordless Phone Crystals Be Changed? Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 18:29:08 GMT Organization: Qlink First off, how many crystals are used in a cordless phone, two? --one in base and one in handset? My cordless is an old cheapy single channel style. If a person wanted to change the crystal in their cordless, do you have to replace both the handset AND base crystals? With remote controlled cars, they use a single frequency and hypothetically, can someone put in a R/C car crystal in the base and have it still work? Is there a specific reason for the pairings ie 49.670 (handset) --46.610(base)MHz? Would 49.670 (handset) -- 75.410 (base) MHz work? Do you have any examples that would work? Has anyone tried this? Since I had some extra r/c car crystals I thought I could "move" the frequency out of the typical cordless spectrum for free. You can answer here as I don't have e-mail access. (Its a friend's account.) Thanks for the information. Robert [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Within some reasonable parameters and assuming you know what you are doing, you can change crystals around in radio equipment. But after you do, you have to be sure to 're-peak' the radio to make sure it all comes together nicely. Some components or parts in the radio may be next to impossible to deal with short of expert assistance from a technician at his work bench with the proper tools and instruments, etc. For one example, Radio Shack now buries the things users used to 'tamper with' under lots of glue, etc to make them inaccessible. Years ago it was very common to do (what were called) 'the mods' on CB radios to expand their range from forty channels to eighty or more channels, or to take them out of eleven meter entirely and make yourself an inexpensive ten meter rig. It was easier to do it on the 'newer' (in 1978-80) forty channel radios than it was to do it on the older twenty-three channel units because of the different way the crystals were installed. The old radios had two crystals for each channel; one for transmit and one for receive. The newer forty channel radios only had like three or four crystals in all, and they were synthesized; the crystals would interact with each other in various combinations to get the desired channels or frequencies. A forty-position gang switch would connect and unconnect the crystals to each other, using some- thing like an 02-A chip from Motorola. By the way, the FCC got on Motorola's case and forced them to quit making that programmable chip, using instead a chip which had everything in ROM, or read-only memory. So, the guys learned they could get on the circuit board with an exacto-blade and carefully cut a trace here and a trace there to cause a certain pin which heretofore always was held high to go low or another pin which was always sent to the chassis ground or the floating ground to do something else instead. A couple of wires sold- ered in place to nice little mini-toggle switches on the side of the radio and bingo! Now the radio would tune all over the place, going all the way up to ten meters and down a distance also. Radio Shack sold everything you needed to do the job and even published 'the mods' in a handy little xerox copy of some other fourth generation xerox copy which invariably 'some customer' left in the store for the benefit of the other guys. Or at least they did until the feds got after Radio Shack and told them to can the s--t which is when Tandy took the hint and told their clerks to quit giving out those helpful pirate documents. Had there been computers and a Usenet in those days, I'm sure a newsgroup would have had all the instructions needed to operate a pirate CB radio station. There were thousands of pirate radios operating, every one of them quite loud and far-reaching with their radiation. Trouble is, all those pirate mods never seemed to mention one thing: Get the radio that far out of its intended frequency and it would sound like pooh! The modulation and the carrier was awful; that is if you could get the radio to oscillate at all on those distant frequencies. I had a radio like that which went all over the place -- it even would handle 5kc increments instead of the standard 10kc if you wanted to talk 'between channels'. I had a device called 'DigiScan' which got the frequencies instead of the usual channel selector. No matter how much I peaked and re-peaked that radio I could not get it to oscillate (that is, 'key up' or transmit) on the bottom or top ten or so channels without completely warping it in that direction. Finally I gave up on it and used the forty channels God's representative here on Earth (the Federal Communications Commission) intended for me to have, with maybe twenty or thirty extra frequencies but that was it. To make the changes you suggest would be illegal under FCC rules, but worse yet, you might really wind up with a piece of junk that sounded like pooh with about half the range of before and terrible modulation, etc. Maybe others who know something about radio will comment. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sking@galaxynet.com (scott king) Subject: Sub-Interface Routing on IRX-111 Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 22:56:09 GMT Organization: Connect Northwest Internet Services, LLC Hi! I'm trying to upgrade to full T-1 on a Livingston IRX-111 (PM 2) and give another client a 56K port from the single interface. It has the latest operating system in it, and I don't want the added expense of adding a separate serial port and CSU/DSU just to port to that client. I know it is done elsewhere, and of course Livingston says "Sure thing!" but they said the same about the PM-2e terminal server/router that did NOT do it reliably. Anyone with an authoritative answer (as in you've done it) PLEASE email a reply to "admin@galaxynet.com". Thank you very much! ------------------------------ From: David Siegel Subject: Home PBX or Key System Wanted Reply-To: David-Siegel@deshaw.com Organization: D. E. Shaw & Co. Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 18:48:45 GMT I'm looking for a home phone system. I'm going to be installing up to 16 phones (a mixture of regular phones, modems, fax machines, intercoms (on exterior doors) and answering machines). I'd like the system to support both analog phones, and "feature phones", that are specific to the system. The functions that I need include the following: 1) Support for at least four outside lines. 2) The ability to dial between internal phones. 3) The ability to "block" outside calls from certain lines. 4) Support for an intercom that can be used in place of a door bell. 5) Internal "intercom" mode, where you can blast something out of the speaker of all phones. 6) The ability to route incoming calls to certain phones. For example, I might want incoming lines one and two to go to 1/2 the phones in the system, and incoming line three to go to only a select few phones. 7) Dial "9" selection to get a free outside line. 8) The ability to route a number of incoming lines to one analog extension. 9) The ability to transfer calls by flashing a switch hook on an analog phone. I'm wondering if someone could recommend a system that can do things like this. I'm looking to spend around 2K for the system, plus more for the phones. Thanks! Dave ------------------------------ From: bass@cais.cais.com (Tim Bass) Subject: For Sale: HP 3780A Pattern Generator/Error Detector (T1/DS3) Date: 23 Sep 1996 03:13:34 GMT Organization: ValueRocket Labs Reply-To: bass@linux.silkroad.com Hi, I have HP 3780A Pattern Generator/Error Detector used for testing binary errors, code errors, and frequency offsets for fixed rate digital circuits. The unit is in excellent working condition and the front panels are almost flawless. Please e-mail me if you are intereted in the HP 3780A. The original HP price was over $8,700.00 (very nice units), but since it is used I will let them go for a much lower price or lease to qualified businesses. Regards, Tim (bass@silkroad.com) ------------------------------ From: wolf.paul@aut.alcatel.at (Wolf Paul) Subject: They Are Even More Stupid! (was Re: Stupid Spamster Tricks) Date: 23 Sep 1996 07:56:01 GMT Organization: Alcatel Austria AG In article , Marty Brenneis writes: > Here is another fool for the files. heh heh heh > I have included the full header for your amusement. Note the reply > address. This is where he has you send the remove requests. This one > is a real scum sucking bottom feeder. > ... > Comments: Authenticated sender is Then Pat adds the following comment: > Remember, spamming and junk mailing on the net will cease when the > perception that there is profit to be made by doing so is gone. The > spammers long ago learned they dare not give a valid email address > in their messages ... But you see, the guy's provider DID insert the valid email address in the "Comments:" line I retained in the quote above, and I am sure this nice operator of advertising services would not at all object to people sending lots of inquiries about his services to that authenticated sender address so thoughtfully provided in the header. (Although, since he is using Pegasus, which by default does not show a lot of headers, he probably is not aware that his real address got out after all!) W. N. Paul/KSRU * Alcatel Austria AG * Scheydgasse 41 * A-1210 Vienna, Austria wnp@aut.alcatel.at * +43-1-277-22 x2523 (voice)/x118 (fax) * +43-1-774-1947 (h) ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #505 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Sep 23 22:24:08 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id WAA01640; Mon, 23 Sep 1996 22:24:08 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 22:24:08 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199609240224.WAA01640@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #506 TELECOM Digest Mon, 23 Sep 96 22:24:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 506 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FBI Surveillance Demands Rejected on Privacy Grounds (Monty Solomon) Kevin Poulson Update (Tad Cook) Availability of Special ISDN Customer Premises Equipment? (Dave Schulman) Nynex Penalties (was Re: Articles Don't Flatter RBOCs) (Danny Burstein) Erata on EXchange Names in NYC/NJ (Mark J. Cuccia) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 01:32:57 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FBI Surveillance Demands Rejected on Privacy Grounds Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM ----- ---- --------- / ____| __ \__ __| ____ ___ ____ __ | | | | | | | | / __ \____ / (_)______ __ / __ \____ _____/ /_ | | | | | | | | / /_/ / __ \/ / / ___/ / / / / /_/ / __ \/ ___/ __/ | |____| |__| | | | / ____/ /_/ / / / /__/ /_/ / / ____/ /_/ (__ ) /_ \_____|_____/ |_| /_/ \____/_/_/\___/\__, / /_/ \____/____/\__/ The Center for Democracy and Technology /____/ Volume 2, Number 32 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A briefing on public policy issues affecting civil liberties online ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CDT POLICY POST Volume 2, Number 32 September 20, 1996 CONTENTS: (1) FBI Demands for Broad New Surveillance Power Rejected on Privacy Grounds (2) CDT Background Memo on the FBI Demands (3) How to Subscribe/Unsubscribe (4) About CDT, contacting us ** This document may be redistributed freely with this banner intact ** Excerpts may be re-posted with permission of ** This document looks best when viewed in COURIER font ** (1) FBI Demands for Broad New Surveillance Power Rejected on Privacy Grounds A telecommunications industry standards body on Thursday voted to reject a demand by the FBI to create a national tracking system out of the wireless telephone network. CDT applauds this decision as a significant victory for privacy and condemns the FBI's blatant efforts to subvert the specific requirements of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA, also known as "Digital Telephony"). "The FBI is demanding that every cell phone double as a tracking device, providing instant and continuous location information not just when a subject is talking but whenever a cellular phone is turned on. " said CDT Executive Director Jerry Berman. "The FBI is demanding real-time tracking of anyone suspected of committing a crime. This is a clear violation of the statute and the Fourth Amendment." Berman added At issue are technical standards currently being drafted to implement the 1994 law. The FBI, which holds an influential position within the industry standards process, has demanded that the wireless telephone network be designed in a way that would allow real time tracking of individuals suspected of a crime. Specifically, the FBI is demanding that wireless networks be designed to facilitate: * Tracking of the physical location of a subject any time a cellular phone is turned on (even if no call is being made or received) * Tracking of the physical location of a subject when a cellular phone moves within a service area or moves to another carrier's service area * Tracking of the physical location of a subject when a cellular phone makes or receives a call * Delivery of this information to law enforcement in real time (within 500 milliseconds) Although law enforcement currently has the authority to obtain certain location information through a search warrant, the standards proposed by the FBI would have allowed access to far more detailed location information under a lower standard. "The law was designed to freeze the FBI in time, not as a blank check to the FBI to design the telecommunications network any way it pleased." Berman said. "The FBI's demands go far beyond what's permitted under CALEA and contradict statements by Director Freeh before Congress 2 years ago." The drafters of CALEA specifically stated that the statute was not designed to expand law enforcement surveillance authority. The Committee report on the legislation notes: "The FBI director testified that the legislation was intended to preserve the status quo, that it was intended to provide law enforcement no more and no less access to information than it had in the past. The Committee urges against over broad interpretation of the requirements." -- House Judiciary Committee Report to Accompany H.R. 4922. Rept. 103-827 Part 1, Page 22 NEXT STEPS In order to ensure public oversight and accountability over the FBI's surveillance authority, CALEA requires the government to reimburse the telecommunications industry for the costs of meeting the statute's requirements. Congress is currently considering a mechanism to fund the implementation of the law. CDT urges the Congress to exercise its oversight role to determine whether the FBI is seeking to use CALEA to expand current surveillance capabilities contrary to the specific intent of the law. Unless and until the FBI clarifies its intent and justifies its demands, Congress should not allow the expenditure of any funds to implement CALEA. CDT and a ad-hoc task force of other privacy organizations and telecommunications industry representatives are currently conducting a review of electronic surveillance issues at the request of Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA). The task force report will cover the implementation of CALEA and will be released within the next few months. CDT stands ready to intervene again at the standards setting process and before the FCC if necessary in order to ensure that privacy is protected as CALEA is implemented. The Center for Democracy and Technology is a Washington DC based non-profit public interest organization focusing on free speech and privacy issues in new computer and communications technology. CDT can be found on the World Wide Web at: http://www.cdt.org/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (2) CDT BACKGROUND MEMO ON THE FBI DEMANDS FBI SEEKS TO USE CELLULAR TELEPHONES AS TRACKING DEVICES The FBI is demanding the telecommunications industry design cellular telephone networks in a way which would allow law enforcement to track the physical location and movements of individuals in clear violation of the law. This effort by the FBI raises grave privacy concerns and must be rejected by the telecommunications industry. In ongoing discussions with a Telecommunications Industry Association committee established to set technical standards to implement the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA, P.L. 103-414, also known as the "Digital Telephony" statute), the FBI is requesting surveillance capability far beyond current law enforcement capabilities and in clear violation of the scope of the law. CALEA was not designed as a blank check from Congress allowing law enforcement to design the telecommunications network to expand existing surveillance capability. Rather, the statute was carefully balanced to ensure that law enforcement maintain the status quo. This overreaching by the FBI raises serious privacy concerns and clearly violates the balance struck by CALEA. CDT strongly urges Congress to refrain from approving any funding for the implementation of CALEA until the FBI makes its intentions clear. FBI Demanding Location Information In Clear Violation of the Statute The FBI's request is contained in a proposal called the Electronic Surveillance Interface (ESI), which specifies the design of the interface between the telecommunications network and law enforcement's own surveillance equipment. The FBI has refused a formal request by CDT to view a copy of the ESI. However, documents obtained from a meeting of the FBI and the telecommunications industry on September 12 indicate that the FBI is demanding that cellular networks be designed to deliver location information to law enforcement. Specifically, the ESI states that cellular networks must be designed to provide the geographic location of a particular subject: The ESI states: R7-62 The SSM (Surveillance Status Message) shall be delivered to the LEA (Law Enforcement Authority) whenever the subject changes location or between systems and this location is available to the IAP (Intercept Access Point) In short, the FBI is requesting that the cellular network be designed to report the geographic location of an individual subject: 1. When a cellular phone is turned on (even if no call is made) 2. When a cellular phone moves within a service area or moves to another carrier's service area. 3. When a cellular phone makes or receives a call. The FBI claims that location information has to be provided to law enforcement under CALEA because it is part of "call setup information." However, in his testimony before a joint hearing of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees on March 18, 1994, FBI Freeh director stated exactly the opposite: "Several privacy-based spokespersons have criticized the wording of the definition (of call setup information)... alleging that the government is seeking a new, pervasive, automated 'tracking' capability. Such allegations are completely wrong.... In order to make clear that the acquisition of such information is not... included within the term 'call setup information' we are prepared to add a concluding phrase to this definition to explicitly clarify the point: '*** except that such information [call setup information] shall not include any information that may disclose the physical location of a mobile facility or service beyond that associated with the number's area code or exchange.'" (Testimony of FBI director Louis Freeh before a joint hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights and the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Technology and the Law, March 18, 1994. S. Hrg 103-1022). The drafters of CALEA noted in the Committee report that the statute was not designed to expand law enforcement surveillance ability: "The FBI director testified that the legislation was intended to preserve the status quo, that it was intended to provide law enforcement no more and no less access to information than it had in the past. The Committee urges against over broad interpretation of the requirements." (House Judiciary Committee Report to Accompany H.R. 4922. Rept. 103-827 Part 1, page 22) The FBI's demand that all wireless communications equipment provide the physical locations of a subscriber at all times goes raises obvious privacy issues and goes well beyond the scope of CALEA and the explicit statements of the FBI. No Funds Should Be Appropriated to Implement CALEA Until This Issue is Resolved In passing CALEA, Congress sought to preserve law enforcement's ability to conduct electronic surveillance as new communications technologies are developed. At the same time, Congress was very clear that the law was designed to preserve the status quo and not to expand law enforcement surveillance authority. In addition, Congress took the extra step of including substantial Congressional oversight and public accountability to the implementation process in order to ensure that law enforcement did not overreach and that privacy interests would be protected. The law requires the telecommunications industry to set standards for meeting the FBI's general requirements in an open process, allows interested parties to challenge any standard before the FCC if it fails to protect privacy, and requires Congressional oversight and accountability over the implementation of the law by mandating government reimbursement for expensive capability upgrades. We urge Congress to exercise its oversight role to determine whether in fact the FBI is seeking to use CALEA to expand its current surveillance capabilities contrary to the intent of the law. Unless and until the FBI clarifies its intent and justifies its demands, Congress should not allow the expenditure of any funds to implement CALEA. We look forward to discussing this issue with you further. If you have any questions please contact: Center for Democracy and Technology +1.202.637.9800 Danny Weitzner, Deputy Director Jonah Seiger, Policy Analyst ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (3) SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION Be sure you are up to date on the latest public policy issues affecting civil liberties online and how they will affect you! Subscribe to the CDT Policy Post news distribution list. CDT Policy Posts, the regular news publication of the Center For Democracy and Technology, are received by nearly 10,000 Internet users, industry leaders, policy makers and activists, and have become the leading source for information about critical free speech and privacy issues affecting the Internet and other interactive communications media. To subscribe to CDT's Policy Post list, send mail to policy-posts-request@cdt.org with a subject: subscribe policy-posts If you ever wish to remove yourself from the list, send mail to the above address with a subject of: unsubscribe policy-posts ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (4) ABOUT THE CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY/CONTACTING US The Center for Democracy and Technology is a non-profit public interest organization based in Washington, DC. The Center's mission is to develop and advocate public policies that advance democratic values and constitutional civil liberties in new computer and communications technologies. Contacting us: General information: info@cdt.org World Wide Web: URL:http://www.cdt.org/ FTP URL:ftp://ftp.cdt.org/pub/cdt/ Snail Mail: The Center for Democracy and Technology 1634 Eye Street NW * Suite 1100 * Washington, DC 20006 (v) +1.202.637.9800 * (f) +1.202.637.0968 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- End Policy Post 2.32 9/20/96 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Subject: Kevin Poulson Update Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 11:08:29 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Hacker is freed but he's banned from computers By Brandon Bailey Mercury News Staff Writer Convicted hacker Kevin Poulsen is out of prison after five years, but he still can't touch a computer. Facing a court order to pay more than $57,000 in restitution for rigging a series of radio station call-in contests, Poulsen has complained that authorities won't let him use his only marketable skill -- programming. Instead, Poulsen said, he's doomed to work for minimum wage at a low-tech job for the next three years. Since his June release from prison -- after serving more time behind bars than any other U.S. hacker -- the only work he's found is canvassing door to door for a liberal political action group. It's a big change for the 30-year-old Poulsen, once among the most notorious hackers on the West Coast. A former employee at SRI International in Menlo Park, he was featured on television's "America's Most Wanted" while living underground in Los Angeles as a federal fugitive from 1989 to 1991. Before authorities caught him, Poulsen burglarized telephone company offices, electronically snooped through records of law enforcement wiretaps and jammed radio station phone lines in a scheme to win cash, sports cars and a trip to Hawaii. Poulsen now lives with his sister in the Los Angeles area, where he grew up in the 1970s and '80s. But he must remain under official supervision for three more years. And it galls him that authorities won't trust him with a keyboard or a mouse. U.S. District Judge Manuel Real has forbidden Poulsen to have any access to a computer without his probation officer's approval. That's a crippling restriction in a society so reliant on computer technology, Poulsen complained in a telephone interview after a hearing last week in which the judge denied Poulsen's request to modify his terms of probation. To comply with those rules, Poulsen said, his parents had to put their home computer in storage when he stayed with them. He can't use an electronic card catalog at the public library. And he relies on friends to maintain his World Wide Web site. He even asked his probation officer whether it was OK to drive because most cars contain microchips. Living under government supervision apparently hasn't dampened the acerbic wit Poulsen displayed over the years. Prankster humor When authorities were tracking him, they found he'd kept photographs of himself, taken while burglarizing phone company offices, and that he'd created bogus identities in the names of favorite comic book characters. Today, you can click on Poulsen's web page (http://www.catalog.com/kevin) and read his account of his troubles with the law. Until it was revised Friday, you could click on the highlighted words "my probation officer" -- and see the scary red face of Satan. But though he's still chafing at authority, Poulsen insists he's ready to be a law-abiding citizen. "The important thing to me," he said, "is just not wasting the next three years of my life." He said he's submitted nearly 70 job applications but has found work only with the political group, which he declined to identify. Poulsen, who earned his high school diploma behind bars, said he wants to get a college degree. But authorities vetoed his plans to study computer science while working part-time because they want him to put first priority on earning money for restitution. Poulsen's federal probation officer, Marc Stein, said office policy prevents him from commenting on the case. Poulsen's court-appointed attorney, Michael Brennan, also declined comment. Differing view But Assistant U.S. Attorney David Schindler partly disputed Poulsen's account. "Nobody wants to see Mr. Poulsen fail," said Schindler, who has prosecuted both Poulsen and Kevin Mitnick, another young man from the San Fernando Valley whose interest in computers and telephones became a passion that led to federal charges. Schindler said Stein is simply being prudent: "It would be irresponsible for the probation office to permit him to have unfettered access to computers." Legal experts say there's precedent for restricting a hacker's access to computers, just as paroled felons may be ordered not to possess burglary tools or firearms. Still, some say it's going too far. "There are so many benign things one can do with a computer," said Charles Marson, a former attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who handles high-tech cases in private practice. "If it were a typewriter and he pulled some scam with it or wrote a threatening note, would you condition his probation on not using a typewriter?" But Carey Heckman, co-director of the Law and Technology Policy Center at Stanford University, suggested another analogy: "Would you want to put an arsonist to work in a match factory?" Friends defend Poulsen. Over the years, Poulsen's friends and defense lawyers have argued that prosecutors exaggerated the threat he posed, either because law officers didn't understand the technology he was using or because his actions seemed to flaunt authority. Hacking is "sort of a youthful rebellion thing," Poulsen says now. "I'm far too old to get back into that stuff." But others who've followed Poulsen's career note that he had earlier chances to reform. He was first busted for hacking into university and government computers as a teen-ager. While an older accomplice went to jail, Poulsen was offered a job working with computers at SRI, the private think tank that does consulting for the Defense Department and other clients. There, Poulsen embarked on a double life: A legitimate programmer by day, he began breaking into Pacific Bell offices and hacking into phone company computers at night. When he learned FBI agents were on his trail, he used his skills to track their moves. Before going underground in 1989, he also obtained records of secret wiretaps from unrelated investigations. Though Poulsen said he never tipped off the targets, authorities said they had to take steps to ensure those cases weren't compromised. According to Schindler, the probation office will consider Poulsen's requests to use computers "on a case-by-case basis." ------------------ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Carey Heckman's analogy is a very strange one indeed. I wonder what his reasoning was? He obviously does not know much about arsonists. Matches and various inflammable materials are available everywhere. One does not have to work in a match factory to obtain matches. Furthermore, arsonists are not tempted by matches. They commit that crime for various reasons, but the presence of matches has nothing to do with it. Next point: If Kevin Poulsen is not allowed access to computers, how is it he has a web page? I mean, they don't just pop out of nowhere. I suppose his friends might have worked on it for him, without him actually touching the keys on the computer, etc, but that would seem to violate the spirit of the injunction against him if not the actual letter of the injunction itself. Also: It certainly *is* the intent of the federal authorities to see Kevin fail in life. No law enforcement officer from the local police officer through Janet Reno ever want to see someone they have decided is a criminal to be able to climb out of the hole they toss them in and make any sort of recovery. Ask any police officer if an important thing is not to keep the people they arrest discredited, without any resources to fight back, and as incommunicado as possible. If the person is able to find a job anywhere, the first thing you know they are going to have some money and be hiring some private attorney to represent them and give some back-talk to the government. It is far better in the eyes of the law enforcement personnel in this country to keep the people they have decided are criminals in as precarious a situation as possible both financially and socially. That way there is a better chance the person will screw up and they can lock him up again. I do not mean to excuse what Kevin Poulsen did in the past or what he might choose to do in the future but it is very hypocritical of the government to talk on the one hand about paying one's debt to society and then fixing things so for all intents and purposes the debt never does get paid. Obviously the government has to do that to keep control over Kevin, but wouldn't a far better solution be to sit him down and tell him, "Kevin, do whatever you want with computers, but now you are a two-time loser and the next time makes three. If we catch you again, hell will freeze over before you get out of prison ... " and then let *him* decide where to go with his life. Does the government really think he could not obey the letter of their injunction against him while instructing friends what keys to press on the keyboard? Are they going to suggest he had no input into the contents of his web page? Probably law enforcement feels they would have been better off to convince the judge to let them give him a lobotomy; that would have ended his impure thoughts once and for all. By the way, did they also forbid him to use a touchtone phone? If not, why not? They seem to want to insure he fails in life and screws up again. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 13:46:56 -0400 From: capsalad@gate.net Subject: Availability of Special ISDN Customer Premises Equipment? Organization: Nortel DMS-10 Feature Test 1 - Morrisville, NC Hello there, I'm researching some new ISDN features for Nortel from a validation perspective, and I can't seem to locate any CPE equipment which makes use of User-to-User Signaling or Access Transport features (low- and high-layer compatibility, calling and called party subaddresses). Are there, in fact, any currently available Type I (BRI) devices that make use of this information? The 2/94 NIUF ISDN Solutions Catalog (is there a more recent edition?) lists only one UUS application, which involves call-center load balancing between PBXs using PRI. The catalog further notes that UUI transfer is a proprietary feature (AAARGGHH!), and that "NI-2 does not assure interoperable user-to-user information transfer. Each PBX must have PRI access onto switching systems with comparable UUI treatment. Similarly, PBXs that implement the application do so in a proprietary manner." Can anyone help me get a high-level understanding of what the UUS and ATP features are for, why anyone would want them, and how they might be used? I'm drawing a blank here. TR-845 and TR-444 are not exactly clarifying the issue, if you know what I mean and I think you do. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Dave Schulman Validation Engineer, Feature Test I Nortel, Inc. Dept. 3K57 (ESN = 263) 400 Perimeter Park Drive (919) 905-4844 (Voice) Morrisville, NC 27560 (919) 905-2549 (FAX) ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein) Subject: Nynex Penalties, was Re: Articles Don't Flatter RBOCs or Cable Date: 23 Sep 1996 14:52:56 -0400 In cc004056@interramp.com (Greg Monti) writes: > In {The Wall Street Journal} during the week of September 16 to 20, > several articles appeared which don't bode well for the Bell Operating > Companies or cable systems. > Regulators in Nynex's states have to approve the merger and are > loathe to do so. New York State, for example, sets benchmarks for > customer service. The benchmarks get tougher with each passing year > and cover items such as showing up on time for appointments, > answering telephones in a timely manner, and fixing serious problems > within the 24 hours observed by most other phone companies across > the USA. And which is also (the 24 business hour timeframe) specifically referenced in NYS law. > New York State charges Nynex cash penalties for each shortfall. So > far in 1996, Nynex has paid $19 million in penalties to New York. It > has also paid $20 million in penalties to Massachusetts in the last > two years. One key clarification should be added here: Nynex's penalty money doesn't merely go back into the gummint's endless wallet. Most of that money is, in fact, rebated to customers as a credit on a phone bill. Earlier this year people in the NYC area (aside from midtown, where service was supposedly good) got a (roughly) $9 credit on their bills. There's another (approx) $2 coming in the next round. Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 12:57:51 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Erata on EXchange Names in NYC/NJ In the transcription of the Engelwood NJ customer Long Distance Dialing booklet, I accidently mis-spelled a few EXchange names indicated in northern NJ and for New York City. The *significant* first two letters were okay, but the remainder of the name was accidently mis-spelled: I showed: It SHOULD be: (NJ) BEllville-2 BElleville-2 (add an "e" at the end of "Belle-") ^ ^ (NJ) BOnton-8 BOonton-8 (an extra "o") ^ (NJ) PRescot-x PRescott-x (TWO "t's" at the end) ^ (NYC) BEckman-3 BEekman-3 (the "c" should be an "e") ^ ^ (NYC) TOllenville-8 TOttenville-8 (double "t's", not double "l's") ^^ ^^ and for New York City, I also inadvertantly omitted "STillwell-x". There was the '*' indicated on this exchange rather than a *particular* numberical for the third, as there were more than one STillwell three-dialpull prefix used in the New York City area. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V16 #506 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Sep 24 18:09:05 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id SAA10927; Tue, 24 Sep 1996 18:09:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 18:09:05 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199609242209.SAA10927@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #507 TELECOM Digest Tue, 24 Sep 96 18:09:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 507 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AOL Wins Latest Round on Junk E-Mail (Curtis Wheeler) Re: The Story Behind a Country Code Without a Country Name (Jeff Colbert) Re: Bellcore Selling Out to Defense Contracter "SAIC" (John Cropper) Re: Three-Way Calling Scam (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street (Gary Sanders) Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street (GreivAngel) Re: Signal Propagation (was Re: "Roaming" in Home Territory) (D. Clayton) Re: Signal Propagation (was Re: "Roaming" in Home Territory) (B. Franken) Re: ISDN From Bell Atlantic (Joel M. Hoffman) Re: ISDN From Bell Atlantic (Bill Mayhew) Re: ISDN From Bell Atlantic (Stephen Balbach) Re: BANM Ends Equal Access (Mark Smith) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Curtis Wheeler Subject: AOL Wins Latest Round on Junk E-Mail Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 14:02:24 -0700 Organization: Just Me and My Own Opinions Reply-To: cwheeler@ricochet.net Excerpt from WSJ 9/23. America Online Wins Rounds In Suits Over E-Mail, Billing By THOMAS E. WEBER Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL America Online Inc., in the midst of an effort to revitalize its growth, won rounds in separate legal battles over electronic junk mail and the service's billing practices. In one of the cases, AOL received permission to resume blocking junk e-mail to its members as a federal appeals court in Philadelphia vacated a restraining order. In the other, a judge in San Francisco tentatively approved the proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit by members who alleged they had been improperly charged by AOL. [several more paragraphs follw but you get the idea] Curtis KD6ELA / GROL / PP-ASEL ------------------------------ From: Jeff Colbert Subject: Re: The Story Behind a Country Code Without a Country Name Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 16:45:48 -0500 Organization: Earthlink Network, Inc. Reply-To: jcolbert@earthlink.net That is just one of many reasons I "try" to not buy Chinese produced goods. I say try, because it is virtually impossible to buy almost anything with out it being made in China. Burns my barnacles, but until government is not beholden to big business, or consumers care about something more than price, this will continue to be a problem. Jeff ------------------------------ From: psyber@usa.pipeline.com (John Cropper) Subject: Re: Bellcore Selling Out to Defense Contracter "SAIC" Date: 23 Sep 1996 20:07:49 GMT Organization: Pipeline On Sep 23, 1996 11:52:34 in article , 'danny burstein ' wrote: > via WSJ recently: > Note: SAIC also wears another hat, namely (the) Internic ... > Report: Baby Bells Poised to Sell Research Arm to Defense > NEW YORK (AP) - The seven Baby Bell telephone companies are poised to > sell their research cooperative Bellcore to a defense contractor for > about $700 million, {The Wall Street Journal} reported today. > The sale would end a jointly-owned arrangement that began a dozen > years ago with the breakup of the old AT&T empire. > The newspaper said the sale of Bellcore to Science Applications > International Corp., an employee-owned defense contractor based in San > Diego, could be announced as early as this week. Why not? Jim Deak considers NPA information as if it's a military secret now, might as well 'close the loop'. (Talk about trying to get blood from a stone!) > The deal is subject to approval by the boards of all seven phone > companies, the newspaper said. > Bellcore spokeswoman Barbara McClurken said today that "no decision to > sell the company has been made at this time." > "Bellcore cannot comment on prospective buyers or about any board > deliberations as this information is confidential," McClurken said. See what I mean? I'm sure anyone found leaking info will be drawn and quartered on the south lawn at high noon ... John Cropper, NiS / NexComm PO Box 277 Pennington, NJ USA 08534-0277 Inside NJ: 609.637.9434 Toll Free: 888.NPA.NFO2 (672.6362) Fax : 6o9.637.943o email : psyber@usa.pipeline.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 16:17:19 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Re: Three-Way Calling Scam > (I wonder if the blocking they are describing is some sort of > selective blocking of three-way calls from prisons? I have heard of > this before, but don't know how it works. The outgoing prison phone > calls must be class marked in some way. Tad Cook - tad@ssc.com) (text deleted, about prison calls to unsuspecting customers requesting an additional three-way connection be added on.) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Someone should mention that the young, > the naive and the mentally-disabled will be with us always. Maybe > someone could stop the world so the rest of us can get off. I am not > aware of three-way calling being a 'use on demand' feature available > by default like (for instance) 'return last call'. Is it that way also? > Perhaps it is at some telcos. The blocking referred to is where you can get the 'per-use' three-way feature blocked/restricted, similar to requesting a blocking on 'per-use' "repeat-dialing" (*66=1166) or "call-return" (*69=11-69), or blocking access to 976, 1/0+900-, or blocking access to toll (1+), international (011+), or blocking access to other codes or pay-per-call codes or prefixes. Yes, Pat, BellSouth *does* offer 'per-use' three-way calling. I mentioned this in the Digest in an earlier article about a month ago. About ten years ago, Bell began 'per-use' three-way, but you had to dial *71 (=1171) first, before dialing the first 'leg' of the three-way call. When dialing *71/1171, you'd get the 'three beeps' and then a second dialtone. You'd dial the first 'leg' of the three-way call. When the party answered, you'd then flash, get the 'three beeps' and then a second dialtone, when you could dial the second 'leg' of the three-way call. You didn't have flash privilages on incoming calls to add a third party, and you couldn't add a third party on an already existing outgoing call unless you had originally dialed *71/1171. (Of course, you had full flashing privilages if you *subscribed* to three-way calling on a monthly basis). This feature code only works in non-digital central offices (#1AESS). The cost for a completed 'per-use' three-way call was about one dollar. Blocking against dialing the *71/1171 code has always been available upon request Late last year or early this year, BellSouth began to offer 'per-use' *66/1166 and 'per-use' *69/1169 to *ALL* lines, at 75-cents a pop, unless you already subscribed to them on a monthly basis. They also dropped the charge for 'per-use' three-way to 75-cents a pop. *AND* they added 'per-use' three-way to digital switches (#5ESS, DMS, etc), but NOT by requiring dialing *71/1171 before the call (which is still how you activate the 'per-use' three-way feature from non-digital #1AESS switches), but by *ADDING FULL FLASHING PRIVILAGES to ALL* non-coin or non-PBX or otherwise non-restricted lines. Three-way flashing can be done in the middle of a call, whether the original call was incoming or outgoing. If you do NOT subscribe to monthly three-way calling, any completed three-way with unrestricted flashing will cost 75-cents a pop. Blocking against the feature is available. Many parents have been hit with $20.00 or more of three-way calls activated by 'the kids', and many businesses have been hit by such done by their employees. However, this is three-way, but not call-transfer. Once the three-way 'controlling party' hangs up, whether they have monthly three-way or do a 'per-use' three-way', the full connection is dropped. 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: gws@monroe.cb.att.com (Gary Sanders) Subject: Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street Date: 23 Sep 1996 16:26:55 GMT Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Columbus Ohio. Reply-To: gary.w.sanders@att.com > LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Hackers are breaking into telephone line boxes and > tapping dial tones belonging to businesses and homes, selling access > on the street using a special hand-held receiver. Hmm, I wonder how many people on the list have a special hand-held receiver? Guess that makes up special people too -:) > The practice emerged early this year. Authorities believe several > million dollars in illegal calls have been rung up since January. You would have though that people would have though about tapping lines a long time ago.. -:) > As many as 15 incidents a week are now reported in California alone, > Pacific Bell said. > The highly skilled scam artists typically are former phone company > employees or others with extensive knowledge of telephones, investigators > say. Didnt know a butt set required that much extensive knowledge to use.. -:) Gary W. Sanders (N8EMR) gws@sunray.cb.att.com AT&T Columbus,Ohio 614-860-5965 Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine. ------------------------------ From: greivangel@aol.com (GreivAngel) Subject: Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street Date: 23 Sep 1996 20:03:38 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: greivangel@aol.com (GreivAngel) You think this is news? A suggestion. Lock all demarcation points! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, it is coming to that as new installations are done and secure boxes installed. The trouble is, there are lots of old installations dating from the 1930-50's era still around, and typically they tend to be in older inner-city areas where the problems described seem to be in abundance. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: Re: Signal Propagation (was Re: "Roaming" in Home Territory) Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 00:01:55 GMT Organization: Customer of Access One Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) wrote: > joel@exc.com (Joel M. Hoffman) writes: >> Yes, but cellular phone use is banned in airplanes even when they are >> on the ground in the airport. >That's< what I don't understand. If >> you're stuck in a plane, on the ground, waiting 90 minutes to take >> off, it would be especially convenient to be able to call the pople >> planning on picking you up. But you can't, at least not with your >> cell phone. > Hmm, the last several flights I've been on (using American Airlines > and Midway), you *have* been allowed to use cellphones on the plane > before takeoff. Right before departure, the crew does caution people > to stop using electronic devices (including cellphones). Of course, > once the plane has attained cruising altitude and other electronic > devices are permitted again (laptops, Walkmans, etc.), you still can't > use cellphones due to the cell-swamping problem. But that's an FCC > rule, isn't it? Whereas using your phone on the ground or during > takeoff/landing is something that the FAA needs to care about, for > safety reasons. Airlines and captains appear to have a lot of > discretion in this matter, so perhaps you've just run into airlines or > pilots who impose a "no cellphones, period" rule instead of just > banning them during instrument-critical periods such as takeoff. In Australia you are not allowed to use cellphones at any time while on board a plane, and the rules for other devices seem similar. I believe that the current theory is that the EMI, (Electro Magnetic Interference), emissions from these devices MAY find their way into on board systems, (that were designed long before anyone started taking their own EMI emitting devices onto planes). The EMI problem is cumulative, that is a small number of active lap tops, computer games, cell phones etc. may not cause a noticeable problem, but when 40 or more of these devices are operating then the background EMI "noise" may reach a problem level. This can be a bigger with GSM cell phones, whose Time Division Modulated carrier produces a noticeable and annoying interference compared to AMPS phones with their continuous carrier. In hospital Intensive Care Units in Australia, cell phone use is also banned, (although some hospitals themselves use low power internal PCS type systems connected to their PBX's). With a lot of the more modern aircraft now being 'fly by wire' i.e. computer controlled, I would not want to risk having EMI from a cell phone getting into any of the systems and causing problems, even if the risk is smaller than 1000:1, I do not want to take those odds when I fly. Until aircraft are designed to exclude EMI from inside, we may find the using any device that emits EMI an unacceptable risk. (E.G. waiting in queue on runway, cell phone call EMI gets into throttle control system, plane accelerates into the back of the aircraft in front of it - ouch!). Now back to signal propagation, a few years ago in Sydney, I was having dinner in the revolving restaurant at Centerpoint Tower, (a building which reaches the height of the tallest towers in town). I answered a call on my GSM phone and was involved in a conversation which went long enough to cause quite a lot of problems which I believe were due to my phone having good signal access to too many cell sites at the same time. As the restaurant rotated, I think that the network could not decide which cell to 'hand off' the call to, as the signal from my phone was reaching too many cells at the same time. Because the network was designed to expect a strong signal in one cell, with weaker signals in adjacent cells, simultaneous strong signals in many cells seem cause confusion, perhaps similar problem may occur when airborne?. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. ------------------------------ From: brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) Subject: Re: Signal Propagation (was Re: "Roaming" in Home Territory) Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 02:20:40 GMT In article , Bob Goudreau wrote: > Hmm, the last several flights I've been on (using American Airlines > and Midway), you *have* been allowed to use cellphones on the plane > before takeoff. Right before departure, the crew does caution people > to stop using electronic devices (including cellphones). Of course, > once the plane has attained cruising altitude and other electronic > devices are permitted again (laptops, Walkmans, etc.), you still can't > use cellphones due to the cell-swamping problem. But that's an FCC > rule, isn't it? Yes. And as such, using a cell phone from the air is illegal even in private aircraft. > Whereas using your phone on the ground or during > takeoff/landing is something that the FAA needs to care about, for > safety reasons. Airlines and captains appear to have a lot of > discretion in this matter, so perhaps you've just run into airlines or > pilots who impose a "no cellphones, period" rule instead of just > banning them during instrument-critical periods such as takeoff. Most airlines (i.e. any that I've flown) ban everything during takeoff and once aloft, ban everything designed to transmit or receive radio signals. This is all of their own accord -- the government doesn't have any requirements in this area (except the FCC ban on cell phone usage). A recent IEE Spectrum had a "cover story" on this issue. Brett (brettf@netcom.com) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Sep 96 14:30:00 EDT From: joel@exc.com (Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: Re: ISDN From Bell Atlantic Organization: Excelsior Computer Services > exceed your callpack. Genuine flat rate is $239/month in NJ, a > whopping $10 less than BA wanted, and only around $229 above analog. > Hit 'em hard with a wet noodle, that NJ BPU! This is about the same > result that BA got in MD, the state historically best known for competing > with NJ for the title of "finest government that money can buy". I don't understand why anyone uses ISDN. I can get a 28.8 modem connection for about $20/mo. Allowing for problems with the digital/analog interfaces, and problems with multiplexing, the bottom line is about $1/Kbaud of bandwidth. What do I get for $239/mo.? 64K? I don't see why this is good. Joel (joel@exc.com) ------------------------------ From: Bill Mayhew Subject: Re: ISDN From Bell Atlantic Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 16:17:40 -0400 Organization: TWC Roadrunner Service Reply-To: bmayhew@neo.lrun.com To call B-A's rates, "Stratospheric," would probably be putting it mildly. They'll probably be able to sell ISDN to, say maybe, a half dozen or so customers at those rates! Compare that to what we pay here in Ohio: http://www.ameritech.com/products/data/teamdata/pricing/7042ohrp.html My internet connection here at home is on a 2B+D residential ISDN with message rate service, which is about $40 per month with taxes. No limit on total number of hours, 30 calls per B per month. My router usually only has to make one or two calls per B per month, so I've never come anywhere near having to worry about paying the princely sum of $0.08 per call above the 30 per line! My average call duration is around 20 days. At least there are some advantages to living in the rust-belt! Bill Mayhew bmayhew@neo.lrun.com ... or ... wtm@itelcom.com http://www.itelcom.com on foot: 41 07' 45"N, 81 30' 05"W "If nothing is what I get, then that's what I want." - Frank Zappa ------------------------------ From: stephen@clark.net (Stephen Balbach) Subject: Re: ISDN From Bell Atlantic Date: 23 Sep 1996 21:13:44 GMT Organization: Clark Internet Services, Balt/DC, mail all-info@clark.net In article , Dave Perrussell wrote: > Why does ISDN **STILL** cost so much? I don't see this as much of a > "reduction" in rates. > Does ISDN cost the phone company (i.e. Bell Atlantic) more than a > regular POTS line? If so, how much does it REALLY cost? The question is not why does ISDN cost so much, but why do POTS line cost so little? Why do we get to stay online 24x7 for $20/month? Government regulation of "equal access" is why. Why does Bell Atlantic charge so much for ISDN? Because they can. Why? Because there is no-one else offering it. Why? Because of sixty years of government regulation in order to provide "equal access" POTS lines. So whats the REAL cost of a flat rate $20/month POTS line? Lack of competiton and price, lack of diversity of offerings. This is changing, but it takes a long time to dismantle the damage of so many years of government regulatory effects. Stephen Balbach VP, ClarkNet info@clark.net ------------------------------ From: Mark Smith Subject: Re: BANM Ends Equal Access Date: Tue, 24 Sep 96 15:00:22 EDT Organization: New Jersey Computer Connection, Lawrenceville, NJ In article , wrote: > I have a Bell Atlantic/NYNEX mobile phone subscription. I went to one > of their stores a couple of days ago to change my interexchange carrier > PIC. To my surprise I was told that they are no longer subject to Equal > Access rules and that if I wanted anyone other than BANM as my IXC it > would cost me $1.00 per month. I was told the same thing on their > customer service 800 line, but when I complained that they were trying > to change the terms of my contract, they "waived" the charge and changed > my PIC within a few minutes. This is due to the telecom bill. I was told by my BANM rep (in the Philly region) that anyone whose account was created before June, 1996 would be exempt from this charge, but that any new accounts had to use their carrier or pay. Mark ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #507 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Sep 24 20:48:46 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id UAA28614; Tue, 24 Sep 1996 20:48:46 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 20:48:46 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199609250048.UAA28614@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #508 TELECOM Digest Tue, 24 Sep 96 20:48:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 508 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "Core Java" by Cornell/Horstmann (Rob Slade) ISPs' Information on Users (Monty Solomon) Most Home Users Picking Independent ISPs (Tad Cook) Is Undesirable Internet Advertising Increasing? (Lisa Hancock) Text Processing Under Windows (Jeremy Parsons) Where to Find Orange Card HQ (Steve Pershing) Re: Excel Telecommunications Offer to School (John R. Levine) Re: Excel Telecommunications Offer to School (Mike Seebeck) Rolm Phone System and IVR (Bradley Clark) For Sale: Brooktrout QuadraFAX 4-Line Fax-on-Demand System (Robert Wilson) Re: Telephone Scam Referring to 809 (But What About Splits?) (Matt 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: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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, 24 Sep 1996 15:23:24 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Core Java" by Cornell/Horstmann BKCORJAV.RVW 960606 "Core Java", Gary Cornell/Cay S. Horstmann, 1996, 0-13-565755-5, U$39.95/C$53.95 %A Gary Cornell 75720.1524 %A Cay S. Horstmann %C One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 %D 1996 %G 0-13-565755-5 %I Prentice Hall %O U$39.95/C$53.95 +1-201-236-7139 fax: +1-201-236-7131 %P 622 %S Java Series %T "Core Java" Calling a six hundred page book an introduction sounds a bit like a joke about German essays. Still, that is what Cornell and Horstmann have produced, and a very good introduction it is. Particularly if you have Windows 95/NT, this package gives you everything that you need to start working with Java -- and working properly. Unlike all too many other Java texts, this one does not automatically assume that you know C, C++, and object-oriented programming. That fact alone makes it a first class choice for those budding Webmasters who want to get in on the Java game. The background and concepts behind the language are explained, as well as the necessary commands and syntax to get started. Object-orientation is presented and explained very clearly. Experienced programmers are not left out. Icons indicate special tips for those who have worked with C++ and Visual Basic. The text can therefore be rapidly skimmed when a programmer is practiced in coding already. The book is an introduction: it is not design in a reference format. Those who go on to serious Java programming will likely want to look at a guide such as Flanagan's "Java in a Nutshell" (cf. BKJAVANS.RVW), but this is definitely the place to start. The four titles in the Sunsoft Press Java Series share a common CD-ROM. In the case of the current book and a system running Windows 95 or Windows NT, you are provided with the software and instructions for three possible development environments: a "Lite" version of Symantec's Cafe, the raw Sun JDK (Java Developer's Kit) and your favorite editor, or the JDK integrated with a customized version of WinEdit. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKCORJAV.RVW 960606. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca Institute for rslade@vcn.bc.ca Research into Rob.Slade@f733.n153.z1/ User .fidonet.org Security Canada V7K 2G6 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 01:49:59 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: ISPs' Information on Users Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Forwarded to the Digest FYI: Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 01:18:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Phil Agre Subject: ISPs' Information on Users This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help@weber.ucsd.edu Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 19:16:19 +0200 From: steve@isys.hu (Steven Carlson) To: hungary-online-announce@hungary.yak.net Subject: (HOL-A) It's a Brave Old World ------------------------------ Brave Old World: Reflections on Europe in the Digital Age by Steven Carlson; 20 Sep 1996 ------------------------------ ** So Much Fuss About A Bottle Of Ketchup Hungarian police recently sent a fax around to the local Internet service providers (ISPs) asking them to provide lists of their users in Esztergom, a small town outside of Budapest. It seems somebody had planted a bomb in a bottle of ketchup. Since everyone knows you can download bomb-making instructions from the Internet, the police figured they should investigate the local users. No, I'm not making this up. What's more, nearly every local ISP gave the police this information. Fortunately my company has no users in Esztergom and so that's what we told the police. We got off lucky. Believe me, as much as might want to make a stand for privacy of information my company is NOT eager to do battle with the Hungarian authorities. But that's what it might take. Because if the Hungarian police really understood the Internet they could have asked for even more. For example, it would only take a few keystrokes to forward a users' mail to the authorities. The police might also have asked for old email, since many ISPs back this up routinely. But that's not all. Some ISPs run caching servers, machines that store frequently-viewed webpages so that users access them locally rather than across the net. An ISP's caching server could give the police a profile of what web pages the users have been browsing. I'm not trying to scare anyone. My point is that sharing information on the Internet is a two-way street. Computers keep extensive records. Using the Internet often means you leave a trail behind you. This is part of life in the digital age. This "electronic trail" is not unique to the Internet. Every time you use a credit card you create a record in several computers. Other computers may be storing information about you such as your medical history, driving record, tax filings and so on. The more we rely on computers to manage our affairs, the more information that may be "out there." This means citizens in the digital age should know their rights. Many governments already have laws to protect private information. For example, the US has many laws restricting access to sensitive information such as medical and credit records. You might be surprised to know Hungary passed a law in 1991 to prevent misuse of information associated with the national identity card. Yet the growth of new technologies is outpacing legislation. For example, Holland and other countries are experimenting with "smart road" systems that can identify the licence number of a moving car for purposes of toll collection. Cellular phones and satellite navigation systems can report the locations of their users. It's not difficult to imagine how these and other technologies could be abused. Of course, now you know that even your local Internet provider has access to some rather sensitive information about you. This leads me to ask: what sort of service is your Internet provider actually offering? When it comes down to it, your ISP is like your doctor, your lawyer, your accountant or your psychiatrist. Each of these professionals deals with your data; each profession is governed by a code of ethics, written or implicit. Moreover these limits are codified in law. If your accountant allowed your competitors to read the company books, you could take him to court. Similarly, your Internet provider has an implicit duty to protect the privacy of your communication. Most professionals in my industry recognize this. I know most of the people working in Hungarian Internet and I doubt very much that they are reading your mail or mine. But they don't know where they stand in the eyes of the law. Internet professionals should certainly assist the police in a legitimate investigation. But should every Internet user in Esztergom be investigated just because they could (theoretically) find bomb-making information on the Internet? To hammer that point home a local Internet-based magazine has published, in Hungarian, complete bomb-making instructions: . In other words, if you've read this far you may be the subject of a future investigation. Have a nice day! ** Further Links: The Electronic Frontier Foundation The International Electronic Rights Server The Electronic Privacy Information Center Copyright (c) 1996. Permission granted to redistribute this article in electronic form for non-profit purposes only. My byline and this message must remain intact. Contact me for reprint rights. ------------------------------ Subject: Most Home Users Picking Independent ISPs Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 15:40:26 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) U.S. households shift to direct Web access--report SAN FRANCISCO (Reuter) - U.S. households with direct access to the Internet via an Internet service provider (ISP) now outnumber homes where computer users reach the Internet via a commercial online service, according to a new study. Market research firm Odyssey said its latest Homefront survey, released Monday, found that 48 percent of households surfing the Internet from home are using an ISP, while 35 percent use a commercial online service for Internet access. The findings represent a sharp turnaround from six months ago, when it found 54 percent of at-home Internet surfers used commercial online services, the research firm said. At the time only about 30 percent of home computer users gained access to the Internet via Internet service providers. The new survey found that the Internet is changing the way consumers evaluate a commercial online service and that the importance of proprietary content is "clearly decreasing." When asked to choose between the importance of quality of access to the Internet and quality of proprietary content, 41 percent chose quality of access to the Internet while only 29 percent deemed quality of the online service's proprietary content more important, the researchers said. Six months ago 37 percent chose content over Internet access. Odyssey President Nick Donatiello said this indicates that online service providers have not risen to the challenge posed by ISPs. "Commercial online services have to convince consumers that they are better on some dimension that's important, if not proprietary content, then ease-of-use, or content packaging, or customization, or something," Donatiello said. "Pathetically slow Internet gateways and pricing schemes that seem to ignore the fact that they are now competing directly with ISPs just make it harder," he said. Odyssey also said its latest study showed that 14 percent of U.S. households are now on-line. The survey showed America Online's market share rose to 18 percent of the home PC market, up from 14 percent in January. CompuServe Corp. held 5 percent of the home PC market, down a point from January. CompuServe's recently introduced WOW! family-oriented service accounted for another one percent of the market. International Wireless's Prodigy users accounted for four percent, down from five percent. The market for direct Internet access remains extremely fragmented, the market researchers said. Even the most popular home consumer Internet service provider, Netcom On-Line Communications Inc., has only captured 8 percent of the ISP market, Odyssey said. AT&T Corp.'s WorldNet, the second most popular direct Internet access service, has attracted seven percent, while MCI Communications Corp. and Performance Systems International Inc. have 4 percent each. The rest of the market is divided among a myriad of smaller players. On the browser front, Odyssey's Homefront survey indicated that Netscape Communications Corp. still leads in the battle for at-home World Wide Web surfers versus Microsoft Corp. The Netscape Navigator is more popular than Microsoft's Internet Explorer, with 54 percent of households surfing the Internet using the Netscape version, compared to 6 percent using the Microsoft browser. Odyssey's Homefront study is the largest in-depth national survey tracking the home computing market. Research is based on interviews with 2,000 consumers. Tad Cook tad@ssc.com ------------------------------ From: hancock4@cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Is Undesirable Internet Advertising Increasing? Date: 24 Sep 1996 03:20:26 GMT Organization: Philadelphia City Paper's City Net When I first started browsing Usenet a few years ago, advertisements were relatively rare. Those who did advertise got flamed. Indeed, I remember one company getting nasty publicity in the newspaper for advertising on the 'net, breaking the "non-profit" taboo. But lately it seems every non moderated newsgroup gets a daily "MAKE MONEY FAST!" ad. Getting unsolicited ads in my email used to be rare, now I get several every day. Is there anything that can be done to discourage this sort of thing? Posting on Usenet is one thing, but I greatly dislike unsolicited email as I'm afraid of overflowing my mailbox and losing legitimate mail. Further, the toll meter of my ISP is running as I go through said messages. (It only takes a few minutes, but it still isn't fair to me.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Has the amount of advertising on the net increased lately? Gee, I hadn't noticed. :) Lisa, I get five or six 'Make Money Fast' messages daily. Appealing to the sysadmins seems pointless. Some have done all they in their power can do to stop it, and others are so overwhelmed with letters of complaint that they have been forced to quit responding. I do not know if it is the *only* thing one can do, but an effective thing one can do is help insure the spammers/junk mailers have nowhere to receive responses in any significant number. In the early days of this scourge, they would give legitimate email addresses, and a few (but very few) still do. After learning the power of an angry and vengeful net community they quickly started forging their return addresses to the best of their ability. Now toll free 800/888 numbers appear quite often, and it would be wise in my opinion to demonstrate the futility of using that method to receive replies as well as the quite expensive nature of a toll-free number when you get a lot of netters replying without ordering your product. I'm not that concerned about them using a regular phone number because the rate of response via a call the caller has to pay for and one the advertiser pays for is about 20:1. Likewise, if they want to give some post office box in Kalamazoo and Timbuk as well expecting people will send a dollar or a credit card number to it, that's fine with me. They will soon learn there is pretty slim pickings that way also. I offer here in this Digest a nice, informative service for a reasonable price ($20 voluntary donation per reader/year) and I can tell you my post office box is not exactly filled to overflowing each day. I don't have to go to the caller's window to receive my mail. Spam and junkmail on the net will cease when the perception that there is profit to be made by such postings no longer exists. Just as the junkmailers discovered this *is* an easy and cheap medium in which to disburse their messages, I think some of them are now beginning to see that you get what you pay for. There will, I am afraid, always be a few Make Money Fast letters to deal with now that the net has become a part of popular culture in America but I believe over the next year or two we may see a substantial decrease in the amount. I would remind you that although Usenet and CB Radio are different in many ways, the similiarities between CB twenty years ago and Usenet today are rather remarkable also. Originally a small number of people were involved in CB; they also prided themselves on being 'anarchists'; any number of gentlemen's agreements held the whole thing together such as informal arrangements for what sorts of topics were dicussed on which channels in the every night/all night 'American Town Hall' as some called it. There were bomb-makers and pirate radio enthusiasts on CB; there were pedophiles doing their thing hanging out on the frequencies the kids would use; there were people engaging in sexual activities with the microphone deliberatly left open -- a sex orgy in progress broadcast over the radio in real time if you wish; nothing now is new at all. And then America found out about CB Radio, when a popular singer named Johnny Cash sang a song about using CB radios in trucks on the highway. Soon, every American had to have a CB and every business place also had to have one to play their advertisments over the air. Have we gone full circle on anything yet? The airwaves became solid heterodyne with nothing but hash, static and dozens of people all talking on top of one another at all times. The loudest stations were the ones run by stores which would put their advertising message on an endless loop tape and play it continuously all night long. All the old gentlemen's agreements the anarchists had made among themselves meant nothing any longer. The fundamental Christians would from time to time go screaming to the FCC asking -- demanding really -- that the FCC ought to 'cut those heathens and their live sex broadcasts off the air ... my child heard one of those on his CB yesterday ...' Finally most people got tired or bored and unplugged the radio, putting it away on a shelf in the closet somewhere. If you turn on a CB today (and yes, CB is still around) there are large pieces of spectrum which just essentially wasteland; you hear nothing except static with an occassional very loud obnoxious person several hundred miles away hooting and hollering and looking for some other loud mouth to talk with. He is running a couple thousand watts of power, splashing all over the band on several channels besides the one he intends to be on. The 'spammers' and 'junkmailers' of CB gave up on it as any viable (for their purposes) advertising medium years ago. Give them time, they'll eventually go away from here also. I just hope too many computers do not get unplugged and stored away in the closet before that time how- ever. I love having so many people getting on the net, don't you? I hate so many people getting on the net, don't you? In the old times, I never imagined myself getting out of CB and giving up on it. I guess I cannot imagine getting out of the net community either. Hang in there people; I think it will get a little worse, and then start to get better, even if the net of the 1980's never is recovered. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jeremy Parsons Subject: Text Processing Under Windows Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 13:52:01 -0400 It may look a bit off-topic, but increasingly I am finding I need to process text into other applications (Word processing mostly, but also spreadsheets and databases), for instance, the very useful information on country codes and area code assignments posted here. I only have access to a Windows machine, and while just about everything I want to do can be done in time by Microsoft Word, it's always tedious and often error-prone. This is frustrating when I know exactly how to do what I want using one of the common UNIX shells and some of the standard tools (especially awk). After a long search I have failed to unearth any commercial software, shareware or freeware to do this - frustratingly a few years ago I used just such a package under DOS but can't remember what it was. Can anyone help me with this? You'll earn my undying gratitude and the prospect of a beer next time you're in the Cayman Islands! ------------------------------ From: sp@questor.org (Steve Pershing) Subject: Where to Find Orange Card HQ Date: 24 Sep 1996 16:49:44 GMT Organization: The Questor Project - Phone: +1 604 687 4777 A few years ago I subscribed to the "Orange Card", a service which provides $0.25/m calling via an 800 number, anywhere in the USA. Not too long ago, I changed my mailing address and wanted to inform Orange Card of the change. Thus far, all the numbers I have tried for them in Minnesota are either disconnected or go to a modem. The 800 number they list for "service" on the back of the card goes to "LCI" who know little of how to find them. Can anyone help with a working number for Orange Card, where I might speak with a human? :-) Thanks in advance ... Steve Pershing [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am told Orange Card is out of business as of a year or so ago. All they ever were from the beginning was a contractor marketing the long distance service of LCI, so I think you would be safe in giving your address change to the LCI people. The last I heard, LCI was continuing to honor the 25 cent per minute with no surcharge rate for those customers whose account numbers indicated they had been signed up via Orange and that promotion. The nice thing about that promotion was it was great for people needing to make a large number of very short (one to three minutes in length) calls each day from payphones, etc. Unlike the other calling card plans where you get cheap per-minute rates after the first minute and have to pay a surcharge per call, the gimmick from Orange was no surcharge, and somewhat more expensive per minute rates. I think we calculated here in the Digest a few years ago that the cross-over point was after a call of six or seven minutes, at which point AT&T's surcharge would have been amortized or leveled out per minute and the total cost of the call would then be less on AT&T/Sprint, etc and more expensive on Orange. You may recall they also had the 'Orange Phone' which was a COCOT rigged for 25 cents per minute rates all over the USA starting with a dollar for the first four minutes. Now, a lot of COCOTs have that rate for their long distance direct dial calls. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Sep 96 10:44 EDT From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Excel Telecommunications Offer to School Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > A rep from Excel Telecommunications was the guest speaker at a > "Parents for Riverside Drive School" meeting that I recently > attended. The pitch was something like this: If we (the board of > directors of the school) could get every parent to switch their long > distance carrier to Excel every month 5% of every person's long > distance phone calls would go to the school! What a great and easy > way to raise money for the school. Excel would charge us a $25.00 > sign-up fee and give us a 90 day written guarantee. > I know very little about Excel and what they are offering -- is this a > good deal? Are there any other companies doing this? What questions > should we be asking? The question is for whom is it a good deal. It's clearly a good deal for the school, if gets you some free money. It's probably a lousy deal for the parents, though. Excel remarkets long distance service which I believe they buy from Frontier, one of the "second tier" LD carriers. (Frontier is fine, I buy LD service from them through someone else.) Excel is by far the largest LD vendor that uses multi-level marketing, and is listed on the NYSE, but it has had its share of problems during its short existence. For example, yesterday's {Wall Street Journal} reports that the Dallas Better Business Bureau expelled Excel last week, mostly for slamming (switching customers without their consent), but also because customers complained of trouble getting refunds and of misleading information from Excel sales reps. In July, the FCC fined Excel $80,000 for slamming, saying that sales reps forged customer signatures. Earlier this year some of Excel's larger reps sued the company, apparently because they weren't getting the commissions they believed they were owed. Excel will doubtless say that these problems were and are due to a few bad apples in their very large sales force, although that argument doesn't seem to have impressed their home-town BBB. As far as to whether it's a good financial deal, the last time I checked, Excel charged about 16 cents/min for most calls, a little less if you happen to call another Excel customer. Other resellers offer the same Frontier long distance service for under 13 cents/minute, so even if you take off the 5% for the school, it's still not a very good deal for the parents. (Indeed, reports in the paper say that AT&T is considering 15 cent flat rate service.) I'd suggest that if you want your school to be in the phone business, you encourage people to sign up with the low-priced long distance carrier of their choice, and to increase their tax-deductable contributions to the school. Or you might well find a non-MLM phone sales agent, of whom there are many, who'll agree to split the commission on more reasonably priced service if you bring them your parents as a group of new customers. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - MIT econ prof ------------------------------ From: seebeck@lace.colorado.edu (Mike Seebeck) Subject: Re: Excel Telecommunications Offer to School Date: 24 Sep 1996 20:13:34 GMT Organization: University of Colorado at Boulder Irene Simmons (Irenesimm@aol.com) wrote: > I know very little about Excel and what they are offering -- is this a > good deal? Are there any other companies doing this? What questions > should we be asking? Is what a good deal? Did they mention any rates? I was just offered the same deal for the company I work for by a long distance carrier. I could beat the rates very easily. The IXC thought we would try to sign up employees just to make 5% while costing them more on their home bill. ------------------------------ From: Bradley Clark Subject: Rolm Phone System and IVR Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 14:22:16 -0700 Organization: KVI Has anyone used a voice response with a Rolm phone switch? If so, what vendor are you using? What type of application are you running? and what does your call volume look like? We are currently using a system by Talx Corp. and are looking for alternatives. I'm tired of hearing marketing BS and want to know from the masses what works and what doesn't. Thank you, Bradley Clark btcski@netins.net ------------------------------ From: dcomm@ix.netcom.com (Robert Wilson) Subject: For Sale: Brooktrout QuadraFAX 4-Line Fax-on-demand System Date: 24 Sep 1996 04:26:19 GMT Organization: Netcom This is the analog four-line unit. Extremely flexible and fully featured. Great for small or medium-sized businesses. Very easy to set up with a PC or fax machine. Truly plug-and-play. Full documentation included. I will call Brooktrout to transfer registration and update info. Used very little. Asking $3,500.00 OBO. Absolutely perfect, mint condition. Please respond by email with offers. I do not have regular access to this group. Thanks for your time, Robert Wilson dcomm@ix.netcom.com ------------------------------ From: mbl@mail.msen.com (Matthew B Landry) Subject: Re: Telephone Scam Referring to 809 (But What About Splits?) Date: 24 Sep 1996 17:32:07 GMT Organization: Flunkies for the Mike Conspiracy Our Beloved Moderator wrote: > Now if they have a confederate in the USA making the outbound calls > for them to reduce the cost of the outgoing calls; or if they have > confederates in several large urban areas in the USA where there is > likely to be a huge concentration of voicemail making 'local calls' > at local call rates in order to generate an expensive long distance > call in return, then this makes sense. I can see where someone in This is in fact how it is being done by at least one such company. Several people I know have reported receiving "recruiting" email messages, soliciting partners for this enterprise. As with all such scams, megabucks are promised while actual returns are probably small or nonexistent. But when one thinks of how many times MAKE.MONEY.FAST has been around, it's not hard to realize that there really isn't a meaningful limit on the number of gullible people who can be conned into aiding a scam like this. > an effort to prompt return calls is more like 3:1 or 4:1? Isn't the > profit margin or bottom line for the 809 people getting a bit thin, > even at the inflated rates charged for a call from here to there? Why? The cost is so close to zero that it's not worth measuring. Remember, the people doing the paging are being compensated in promises, not necessarily in actual money. Is there any reason to believe a scammer like this would be especially reliable in its payments to gullible co-conspirators? > They must be hard up for a job I guess. PAT] Lots of people are. Remember also that the target for this scam is not the (generally savvy and presumably able to keep good-paying jobs) readership of fora such as this one ... it's the more gullible people out there. Anyone who reads this publication most likely either knew already what 809 was, or would know at least a dozen places to check before calling an unknown phone number there (assuming they were in the habit of returning pages from unknown numbers to begin with ...) Matthew Landry [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, I guess you are right. And there are a lot of gullible people, and people who are desparately seeking employment. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #508 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Sep 24 23:25:39 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA15849; Tue, 24 Sep 1996 23:25:39 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 23:25:39 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199609250325.XAA15849@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #509 TELECOM Digest Tue, 24 Sep 96 23:25:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 509 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New Employment Opportunities Bulletin (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: Kevin Poulson Update (Gary Fancher) Re: Kevin Poulson Update (Rich Mulvey) Re: Kevin Poulson Update (Paul Thompson) Re: Exchange -> Location Map Wanted; NYNEX Still Ignorant (Seymour Dupa) Re: Exchange -> Location Map Wanted; NYNEX Still Ignorant (James Anderson) Re: ISDN From Bell Atlantic (Kenneth E. Gray) Re: ISDN From Bell Atlantic (Fred R. Goldstein) Re: The Story Behind a Country Code Without a Country Name (Rishab Ghosh) Re: Canada to BellSouth: Come in Please! (John R. Covert) Re: Canada to BellSouth: Come in Please! (Greg Ramsey) Re: Formal FCC Action Filed to Stop I-Phone (Kevin Werbach) Re: Database of Area Codes and Country Codes to Time Zones? (Paul Eggert) Re: Database of Area Codes and Country Codes to Time Zones? (A. Pritchard) Re: Does Brand Loyalty exist in Long Distance Telephone Services? (E Smith) Financial Cryptography '97 (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: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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, 24 Sep 1996 21:43:20 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: New Employment Opportunities Bulletin Starting today, and on a periodic basis, I'll be mailing out to the list (and making available to Usenet) a listing of telecom-related employment opportunities. This will come out to you from time to time as a separate mailing not part of the regular Digest. It is edited and completely prepared by Zev Rubenstein and his associates at NTR -- National Telecommunications Resources. It is intended to help you find employment in the telecommunications industry and to help find qualified employees for your job openings. National Telecommunications Resources is now a corporate sponsor of the Digest, and I hope when you have reason to correspond with Zev or others at NTR you will thank them for their assistance. I also hope the employment opportunities supplement which you receive from time to time will be a useful resource. The first issue will be sent out late Tuesday evening. PAT ------------------------------ From: Gary Fancher x95268 Subject: Re: Kevin Poulson Update Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 09:34:18 -0500 Organization: DSC Communications Corporation, Plano, Texas USA On Mon, 23 Sep 1996, Pat Townson wrote concerning hacker Kevin Poulsen: > Also: It certainly *is* the intent of the federal authorities to see > Kevin fail in life. No law enforcement officer from the local police > officer through Janet Reno ever want to see someone they have decided > is a criminal to be able to climb out of the hole they toss them in > and make any sort of recovery. [ much good text deleted for brevity ] > They seem to want to insure he fails in life and screws up again. Pat, reading your response reminded me of a conversation I had many years ago with a former office-mate of mine. He made the bold assertion that it was the job of the police to make criminals, not to solve crime. If they ever solved all of the crime, he reasoned, they would be out of a job. At the time, I was young and still idealistic, but I have sadly lived to see too much fulfillment of his words. In addition to that revelation about the courts and the judicial system, I have learned that Doctors really don't mind if you remain a little sick since it increases their income. Businesses of all kinds intentionally build obsolescence into their products so you will have to replace it with a new one. (Razors is a great example -- do your get as many shaves out of yours as you used to?) In the last two or three months, I have had several problems with my LEC (SWB) which I may write to you about some day. How can we ever teach morality to our youth and restore integrity to our society when we tolerate these things as though they were normal and to be expected? (My apologies for the sour notes. Today must be a bad air day.) Gary Fancher E-mail: gfancher@spd.dsccc.com DSC Communications Corporation 972-519-5268 voice 1000 Coit Road, MS 121 972-519-3563 fax Plano, Texas 75075 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Two points here. One, in the USA the Congress and various state legislatures long ago quit passing laws that had anything to do with morality or ethics. All laws written now (and they get created on a regular basis; many new laws each year) only have to do with corporate profits. They don't say it that way of course, but guess who always seems to be the beneficiary of whatever the lawmakers think up? Your point about police officers creating criminals is interesting. As a little child I remember a police officer coming to our school by the name of Officer Friendly. His talk was about the police and how it was the hope of police officers everywhere that someday crime would be eliminated. I thought that sounded kind of strange then, but just the other day Officer Friendly was giving a talk here in Skokie to some school children and I listened to some of it. Afterward I asked him who he *really* thought he was kidding with that little speech, which apparently they have made to school kids since whenever. The Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois has about five thousand people employed -- by the court alone -- in various administrative tasks. The Cook County Sheriff has over four thousand employees, about 75 percent of whom (about three thousand) are directly employed by Cook County Jail with its roughly ten thousand inmates. The Chicago Police Department has over three thousand sworn officers and about the same number of clerical/administrative employees. Then we have all the suburban communities. I asked Officer F. if he was really certain that twenty-thousand or so payrollers in Cook County would be happy when the day came they were out of work. And what about all the prison guards, and the witch-doctors they have in their psychiatric facility? All of them out of work? Of course police officers have to keep a steady flow going to the courthouse and the jail. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 19:12:39 -0400 From: Rich Mulvey Subject: Re: Kevin Poulson Update Reply-To: mulveyr@frontiernet.net > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Carey Heckman's analogy is a very strange > one indeed. I wonder what his reasoning was? He obviously does not know > much about arsonists. Matches and various inflammable materials are > available everywhere. One does not have to work in a match factory to > obtain matches. Furthermore, arsonists are not tempted by matches. They > commit that crime for various reasons, but the presence of matches has > nothing to do with it. I think you're missing the point of the analogy -- matches are used by the arsonist to facilitate their crimes, no matter what the original motivation happened to be. In the case of Poulsen, computers are used to facilitate the crime in exactly the same fashion. > Next point: If Kevin Poulsen is not allowed access to computers, how > is it he has a web page? I mean, they don't just pop out of nowhere. > I suppose his friends might have worked on it for him, without him > actually touching the keys on the computer, etc, but that would seem > to violate the spirit of the injunction against him if not the actual > letter of the injunction itself. Quite true - I wondered about that myself. :-) > Also: It certainly *is* the intent of the federal authorities to see > Kevin fail in life. No law enforcement officer from the local police > officer through Janet Reno ever want to see someone they have decided > is a criminal to be able to climb out of the hole they toss them in > and make any sort of recovery. They have not just "decided" that he is a criminal -- he is, in fact, a criminal, albeit one who is now free. He admitted that he committed the crimes. That is completely unambigious. Now, someone may argue that after a criminal has completed his term of incarceration and probation, that he may no longer be considered to be a criminal, but Poulsen is still on probation, and therefore, his debt to society has not yet been completed. Just like we don't allow people who are guilty of insider trading to sell stock, or people who are guilty of abuse to work in nursing homes and child-care centers, why should we allow someone who habitually committed crimes to work with the same mechanisms that they used in the first place? > Ask any police officer if an important thing is not to keep the > people they arrest discredited, without any resources to fight back, > and as incommunicado as possible. If the person is able to find a job > anywhere, the first thing you know they are going to have some money > and be hiring some private attorney to represent them and give some > back-talk to the government. It is far better in the eyes of the law > enforcement personnel in this country to keep the people they have > decided are criminals in as precarious a situation as possible both > financially and socially. That way there is a better chance the person > will screw up and they can lock him up again. Poulsen committed a huge number of crimes. Why should we assume that he is any different now than when he went into prison? There are a tremendous number of other occupations that he can work in that don't involve intensive use of computers. Please note that he has not been unilaterally forbidden from using a computer -- he just needs to have the job approved by the court. This is, in my opinion, far more than he had any right to hope for -- and very merciful on the part of the government. Rich [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Are you suggesting there is no penitence to be acquired in the penetentiary? And ' ... any right to hope for -- and very merciful on the part of the government ...' pardon me while I go gag. What a bad taste I got in my mouth from that final statment of yours. Now its a special privilege for people to get the government to show mercy on them is it? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 17:51:04 CDT From: Paul Thompson Subject: Re: Kevin Poulson Update TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > Also: It certainly *is* the intent of the federal authorities to see > Kevin fail in life. No law enforcement officer from the local police > officer through Janet Reno ever want to see someone they have decided > is a criminal to be able to climb out of the hole they toss them in > and make any sort of recovery. [.snip.] > It is far better in the eyes of the law enforcement personnel in this > country to keep the people they have decided are criminals in as > precarious a situation as possibleboth financially and socially. That way > there is a better chance the person will screw up and they can lock him > up again. Absurd blanket generalities such as this only serve to discredit your more sane comments elsewhere in the post. Law enforcement has been demonstrated at times to be ambivalent to achieving both its own priorities and those goals which might most benefit society, but a statement such as the above is certainly taking this concept too far. Paul ------------------------------ From: grumpy@en.com (Seymour Dupa) Subject: Re: Exchange -> Location Map Wanted; NYNEX Still Ignorant Date: 24 Sep 1996 14:24:36 GMT Organization: Exchange Network Services, Inc. Reply-To: =?US-ASCII?Q?=E5=B0=05?=@en.com tmitariffs@aol.com (TMITARIFFS) wrote: > Wire Center V&Hs from The National > Exchange Carrier Association (NECA) Tariff 4 (Filed with the FCC, monthly) Where can a person get a copy of this? How much does it cost? ------------------------------ From: James W. Anderson Subject: Re: Exchange -> Location Map Wanted; NYNEX Still Ignorant Date: 24 Sep 96 23:23:32 GMT That is kind of odd that NYNEX doesn't seem to have an exchange location map. I assume you want to know the extent of the coverage of a particular exchange. An example is that I live in Provo, Utah where part of the city has one set of exchanges and another part of the city (the north end) has other exchanges separate from the rest of the city. I have not seen an actual map here but in another example there at one time was a listing of the exchange names and which NXX's were in them (and a schematic map) showing roughly where those exchange names were and what they covered in the Minneapolis/St. Paul phone book years ago. I remember that that was a US WEST published book also. Hope this helps. James W. Anderson jander8@hotmail.com ------------------------------ From: kengray@interramp.com (Kenneth E Gray) Subject: Re: ISDN From Bell Atlantic Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 19:18:45 -0500 Organization: PSINet You think BA is expensive, try living in Connecticut. SNET does not distinguish between residential or business (I guess if you wanted Sprint Fridays Free, but thats another story ...). Install with a jack is about $305. Monthly fees are $57.50 and usage is .035 peak/.015 offpeak per B channel usage. They do have bulk packs of up to 100 hours that give an average rate of .028 per channel. No unlimited ISDN (a 20 day call would cost $32.4 per business day, or about $648) at all. So, by Connecticut standards, Bell Atlantic is the bargain basement! MCI and AT&T can't come in to the local market fast enough. Kenneth Gray ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 09:38:07 -0400 From: Fred R. Goldstein Subject: Re: ISDN From Bell Atlantic At 02:30 PM 9/22/96 EDT, Joel M. Hoffman wrote: > I don't understand why anyone uses ISDN. I can get a 28.8 modem > connection for about $20/mo. Allowing for problems with the > digital/analog interfaces, and problems with multiplexing, the bottom > line is about $1/Kbaud of bandwidth. What do I get for $239/mo.? > 64K? I don't see why this is good. For $239, it's not a good deal for anyone who doesn't *need* it. Around here, I pay NYNEX/MA $13/month above POTS for ISDN. Flat rate so long as I call the call "voice", which still works at 56k. The performance is worth it. Fred R. Goldstein k1io fgoldstein@bbn.com +1 617 873 3850 Opinions are mine alone. Sharing requires permission. ------------------------------ From: rishab@CERF.NET (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Subject: Re: The Story Behind a Country Code Without a Country Name Date: 24 Sep 1996 03:44:02 -0700 Organization: CERFnet Dial 'n' CERF Customer Vincent Kuo (vincent_kuo@stsl.siemens.com.tw) wrote: > Although Taiwan is every bit an independent country, has 21 million > people and plays a significant role in the world, we remain anonymous > in official occasions. This is just unfair. Maybe nobody can change I would like to point out that this is at least partly due to the "official" position of Taiwan's own government -- that it does not represent an independent country, and is the true government of all China. This fits in very conveniently with Communist China's bosses, who think _they_ are the government of all China. Naturally, other countries (and multilateral organizations such as the UN and ITU) can only recognise _one_ government of a single country; naturally most chose to recognise the one in Beijing. Beijing's own policy that other countries can only have diplomatic relations with either Taipei or Beijing but not both is quite logical if both governments ignore the reality of an independent Taiwan. In the elections earlier this year, the candidate supporting a declaration of Taiwanese independence, which is required before outsiders can even _try_ to recognise both China and Taiwan, was defeated by the incumbent supporter of an ambiguous policy towards nationhood. True, the missiles being "tested" off Taiwan's coast didn't help the cause of independence, but blaming the ITU for not officially recognising what even Taiwan does not doesn't make sense. OTOH I doubt that the ITU would ever derecognise 886 -- it is marked "reserved" rather than put to other use simply because it is a de facto standard anyway. All the countries of the world that do not have _diplomatic_ links with Taiwan do retain _business_ ties, including telecom links. Rishab First Monday - The Peer-Reviewed Journal on the Internet http://www.firstmonday.dk/ Munksgaard International Publishers, Copenhagen International Editor - Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (rishab@dxm.org) Pager +91 11 9622 162187; Fax +91 11 2209608 or 2426453 or 2224058 A4/204 Ekta Vihar, 9 Indraprastha Extn, New Delhi 110092 INDIA ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Sep 96 20:52:01 EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Canada to BellSouth: Come in Please! Chris Hudel wrote: > I'm having no end of problems trying to contact BellSouth in > Charlotte, NC ... when dialing +1.704.378.6000. > - The touch-tones don't get across to BellSouth's automated attendent. etc ... The problem is only partly BellSouth's problem. The number you're calling is not going off-hook (not actually answering, as far as the network is concerned -- and not starting billing). Since your calls appear to be routed via AT&T, you are running afoul of AT&T's insistance on being paid for calls before AT&T will allow you to transmit information towards the destination of your call. AT&T will also disconnect the call if it does not answer within about two minutes. MCI does not have this problem, so if you can find a way to route the call via MCI (1-800-COLLECT, maybe, if you can get around their automated system) you'll be able to get through. Bell South will accept your collect call. The good news is that you have not been billed for any of your attempts so far. john ------------------------------ From: Greg Ramsey Subject: Re: Canada to BellSouth: Come in Please! Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 12:14:26 GMT hudel@hppad.waterloo.hp.com (Chris Hudel) wrote: > A frustrated hello to everyone. > I'm having no end of problems trying to contact BellSouth in > Charlotte, NC to arrange to install two phone lines before I relocate > there from Ontario, Canada. Try dialing this number Chris, 800-767-2355. It is staffed 24 hours a day and is supposed to be functional outside North Carolina. I used it in July from Georgia to set up my service here in Charlotte prior to arrival. Hopefully you can access it also from Canada. Oh, and welcome to Charlotte. Greg Ramsey ------------------------------ From: werbach@access.digex.net (Kevin Werbach) Subject: Re: Formal FCC Action Filed to Stop I-Phone Date: 24 Sep 1996 10:31:50 -0400 Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA > Anyone have any idea what is happening with the action that ACTA filed > with the FCC in an attempt to stop Internet Phone? The FCC has not taken any action on the ACTA petition, other than soliciting public comment as we routinely do for rulemaking petitions filed with the Commission. Reed Hundt, the Chairman of the FCC, has given several speeches in which he has stated that his view is that Internet telephony should not be regulated like conventional circuit-switched telephony. The most recent was at the Wall Street Journal Business and Technology conference last week; you can find the speech (and a similar speech to the INET conference in Montreal) on our Web site at: . Kevin Werbach Federal Communications Commission kwerbach@fcc.gov kevin@werbach.com The -k- Page http://werbach.com/home.html Bare Bones Guide to HTML http://werbach.com/barebones/ ------------------------------ From: eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert) Subject: Re: Database of Area Codes and Country Codes to Time Zones? Date: 24 Sep 1996 12:36:56 -0700 Organization: Twin Sun Inc, El Segundo, CA, USA csells@teleport.com (Chris Sells) writes: > I'm looking for a database of area codes and country codes to time > zones so I can tell someone what time it is where they're about to > call. Anyone know of such a database? There's a free database for country codes at: ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzcode96l.tar.gz ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzdata96k.tar.gz To use it, extract the files onto a Unix host, modify the Makefile for your host, type `make install', and then run `./tzselect'. ------------------------------ From: apritchard@cix.compulink.co.uk (Alan Pritchard) Subject: Re: Database of Area Codes and Country Codes to Time Zones? Organization: ALLM Systems & Marketing Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 13:44:14 GMT Yes, we have such data as part of The Global Gazetteer. Where possible, we have coded automatically down to place level, but I am sure that you are aware of the fact that not only countries have multiple time zones, but so do administrative areas at both level 1 and level 2. I am sending some info over to you via email. Best wishes, Alan Pritchard The GLOBAL GAZETTEER: the world on file http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/geodata/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 18:10:59 PDT From: Eric Smith Subject: Re: Does Brand Loyalty Exist in Long Distance Telephone Services? In article sychung@hansol.co.kr (siyoung chung) writes: > I am interested in brand loyalty in long distance telephone; does it > exist or not? I used to think I had some brand loyalty to AT&T, until one day they started sending me a minimum monthly bill of $5 for a line which I didn't even know had AT&T service and on which I *never* make any outgoing calls, local or long distance. AT&T continues sending me bills for increasing amounts of money, and I keep sending them back with a notice that I am not an AT&T customer. They are threatening to turn my "account" over to a collection agency. The one time I called their customer "service" number, I was told that if I didn't want to keep getting billed $5 every month that I would have to switch to another long distance carrier. I told them that if they keep billing me I will start billing them at my usual consulting for the time I spend dealing with them. In the mean time, I have switched to Sprint on the phone line on which I do place about $100 of long distance calls per month. I mentioned that to the AT&T representative, but she didn't seem to care. Unsurprising, as that's undoubted trivial to them. I suppose if I could bill someone $5/month for doing nothing vs. $100/month for offering an actual service I would prefer the former. Cheers, Eric ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 02:04:53 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Financial Cryptography '97 Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Begin forwarded message: Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 09:35:27 -0700 (PDT) From: Phil Agre Subject: Financial Cryptography '97 [In any other universe this would be incredibly boring.] This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help@weber.ucsd.edu Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 17:43:04 +0200 From: R.Hirschfeld@cwi.nl Subject: Financial Cryptography '97 Call for Papers Sender: owner-ecash@digicash.com Financial Cryptography '97 February 24-28 1997, Anguilla, BWI CALL FOR PAPERS General Information: Financial Cryptography '97 (FC97) is a new conference on the security of digital financial transactions. The first meeting will be held on the island of Anguilla in the British West Indies on February 24-28, 1997. FC97 aims to bring together persons involved in both the financial and data security fields to foster cooperation and exchange of ideas. Original papers are solicited on all aspects of financial data security and digital commerce in general, including Anonymous Payments Fungibility Authentication Home Banking Communication Security Identification Conditional Access Implementations Copyright Protection Loss Tolerance Credit/Debit Cards Loyalty Mechanisms Currency Exchange Legal Aspects Digital Cash Micropayments Digital Receipts Network Payments Digital Signatures Privacy Issues Economic Implications Regulatory Issues Electronic Funds Transfer Smart Cards Electronic Purses Standards Electronic Voting Tamper Resistance Electronic Wallets Transferability Instructions for Authors: Send a cover letter and 9 copies of an extended abstract to be received by November 29, 1996 (or postmarked by November 15, 1996 and sent via airmail) to the Program Chair at the address given below. The extended abstract should start with the title and an abstract followed by a succinct statement appropriate for a non-specialist reader specifying the subject addressed, its background, the main achievements, and their significance to financial data security. Submissions are limited to 15 single-spaced pages of 12pt type. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be sent to authors no later than January 17, 1997. Authors of accepted papers must guarantee that their paper will be presented at the conference. Additional Information: Conference pricing and information on travel, hotels, and Anguilla itself will follow in a separate general announcement. A very limited number of stipends may be available to those unable to obtain funding to attend the conference. Students whose papers are accepted and who will present the paper themselves are encouraged to apply if such assistance is needed. Requests for stipends should be addressed to one of the General Chairs. Those interested in becoming a sponsor of FC97 or in purchasing exhibit space, please contact the Exhibits and Sponsorship Manager. A workshop, intended for anyone with commercial software development experience who wants hands-on familiarity with the issues and technology of financial cryptography, is planned in conjunction with FC97, to be held during the week preceding the conference. For information, please contact one of the General Chairs. Send Submissions to: Rafael Hirschfeld FC97 Program Chair CWI Kruislaan 413 1098 SJ Amsterdam The Netherlands email: ray@cwi.nl phone: +31 20 592 4169 fax: +31 20 592 4199 Program Committee: Matthew Franklin, AT&T Laboratories--Research, Murray Hill, NJ, USA Michael Froomkin, U. Miami School of Law, Coral Gables, FL, USA Rafael Hirschfeld, CWI, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Arjen Lenstra, Citibank, New York, NY, USA Mark Manasse, Digital Equipment Corporation, Palo Alto, CA, USA Kevin McCurley, Sandia Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA Charles Merrill, McCarter & English, Newark, NJ, USA Clifford Neuman, Information Sciences Institute, Marina del Rey, CA, USA Sholom Rosen, Citibank, New York, NY, USA Israel Sendrovic, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York, NY, USA General Chairs: Robert Hettinga, Shipwright, Boston, MA, USA Vincent Cate, Offshore Information Services, Anguilla, BWI Conference, Exhibits, and Sponsorship Manager: Julie Rackliffe, Boston, MA, USA Workshop Leader: Ian Goldberg, Berkeley, CA, USA Financial Cryptography '97 is held in cooperation with the International Association for Cryptologic Research. A copy of this call for papers as well as other information about the conference will be available at URL http://www.cwi.nl/conferences/FC97. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #509 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Sep 25 15:24:26 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id PAA27051; Wed, 25 Sep 1996 15:24:26 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 15:24:26 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199609251924.PAA27051@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #510 TELECOM Digest Wed, 25 Sep 96 15:24:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 510 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Signal Propagation (dstott@uswest.com) Re: Signal Propagation/Interference (Anthony S. Pelliccio) Information Needed on Public Telephones (sancmari@telefonica.com.ar) Multiplexors - Marathon, Netrix or Newbridge (david@eop.ie) Re: Kevin Poulson Update (Richard Mulvey) Re: Kevin Poulson Update (Tom Trottier) Re: Kevin Poulson Update (Mark Lottor) Re: The Story Behind a Country Code Without a Country Name (Bob Goudreau) Anybody Using Ericsson Freeset or D.N.A (Thomas Piper) Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street (Robert Sinclair) Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street (Ed Kleinhample) Override Caller-Id Block (Timothy D. Hunt) AT&T One Rate (Lawrence V. Cipriani) Re: Canada to BellSouth: Come in Please! (Chris Hudel) Re: ISDN From Bell Atlantic (Rick Cox) Charlotte, NC (was: Monday: Turkey Pot Pie...) (Stan Schwartz) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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: dstott@uswest.com Date: Wed, 25 Sep 96 09:37:46 MDT Subject: Re: Signal Propagation In TELECOM Digest #507, Brett Frankenberger writes: > Most airlines (i.e. any that I've flown) ban everything during > takeoff and once aloft, ban everything designed to transmit or > receive radio signals. This is all of their own accord -- the > government doesn't have any requirements in this area (except > the FCC ban on cell phone usage). Does anyone know of any airline that requires a person to turn off their pager during take off or landing? It seems like that is a radio reciever. I know my Skypager has gone off on a flight before; we were at 32,000 feet somewhere over the Midwest, heading for Chicago. Then I used the GTE Airphone to return the call, and that's a radio transmitter. Except for the cell phones, sounds kind of arbitrary to me. stott ------------------------------ From: kd1nr@anomaly.ideamation.com (Anthony S. Pelliccio) Subject: Re: Signal Propagation/Interference Date: 25 Sep 1996 09:29:52 -0400 Organization: Ideamation, Inc. In article , David Clayton wrote: > With a lot of the more modern aircraft now being 'fly by wire' i.e. > computer controlled, I would not want to risk having EMI from a cell > phone getting into any of the systems and causing problems, even if > the risk is smaller than 1000:1, I do not want to take those odds when > I fly. Until aircraft are designed to exclude EMI from inside, we may > find the using any device that emits EMI an unacceptable risk. (E.G. I think you've hit on the problem with the paragraph above. Until the aircraft manufacturers start building fly-by-wire systems with shielding that is above and beyond adequate. But it's not going to happen -- here in the U.S. we've noticed the same problem with consumer electronics and amateur radio operators. Most people don't bother to read the Part 15 sticker that says, in essence, "This device may not interfere with other services but must accept interference from other services." But that's another issue although there might be some risk of life involved in a dispute between a ham and an irate neighbor. Tony Pelliccio, KD1NR kd1nr@anomaly.ideamation.com ------------------------------ From: sancmari@telefonica.com.ar Subject: Information Needed on Public Telephones Date: Wed, 25 Sep 96 14:14:00 PDT Hi you all! We are preparing a document comparing the market divisions on telecommunications products around the world (what companies can provide each service). I need some information on public telephones in your country. Do they belong to the local providers or to the carriers? Can you choose the carrier if you desire from one of these telephones or are you just connected with a default one? If you can choose, how do they charge you the communication? All the answers are welcome through the Digest or my e-mail: sancmari@telefonica.com.ar. Thank you all. ------------------------------ From: European On-Line Partners Subject: Multiplexors - Marathon, Netrix or Newbridge Date: 25 Sep 1996 18:20:24 GMT Organization: European On-Line Partners Hi, I have a question wrt multiplexor selection. Which mux would people recommend for a data and voice link on a 256k line using 22 8k voice channels and 64k data, plus inter pabx signalling and overhead: 1. A Marathon Micom 5k Mux, statistical mux with dynamic bw allocation; 2. A Netrix 2210 Frame Access Mux, stat Mux with dynamic bw allocation; 3. A Newbridge 3600 series TDM mux with time of day bw allocation. Comments from current users would be particularly welcome. Are people having trouble with variable voice quality on the statistical muxes over leased lines when congested? Thanks for all replies. David ------------------------------ From: mulveyr@frontiernet.net (Richard Mulvey) Subject: Re: Kevin Poulson Update Date: 25 Sep 1996 18:16:57 GMT Organization: Frontier Internet, A reliable part of your life > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Are you suggesting there is no penitence > to be acquired in the penetentiary? Absolutely. The concept of a "Peniteniary" has been discredited for decades. That's why the preferred term is "correctional facility." Of course, most people are still well aware of the fact that prisons are primarily an institution to warehouse people who refuse to live by society's standards, and that the recidivism rate shows that. > And ' ... any right to hope for > -- and very merciful on the part of the government ...' pardon me > while I go gag. What a bad taste I got in my mouth from that final > statment of yours. Now its a special privilege for people to get the > government to show mercy on them is it? PAT] Yes, it most certainly is a "special priviledge." In an ideal society, Poulsen would never be allowed near a networked computer again. He is a *TWO-TIME* loser. If he didn't learn after his first brush with the law, there is no rational reason to assume that he learned after his second. How many chances should he be allowed? We expect a 10-year old to repeat grave mistakes. When an adult does the same, he has gone beyond the realm of learning to be a contributing member of society, to being a sociopath. How can you possibly assert that a sociopath is "deserving" of mercy? Poulsen has shown *repeatedly* that he cannot be trusted, and yet he will still have the opportunity, under the supervision of the court, to use networked computers again. That is the approximate equivalent of allowing a habitual burgler to posses lockpicking tools. Why, exactly, do you think that the burgler should be allowed to use his picks at will? Rich ------------------------------ From: Tom Trottier Date: 25 Sep 96 10:39:54 EDT Subject: Re: Kevin Poulson Update Many of the points people are making about the decision to subject Kevin's computer use to the court or the probation officer's judgment are good. But I consider that this current prohibition of computer use is a good way to help balance Kevin's life. He needs to find a life outside the bits & bytes. He needs to interact with people. It's not forever. It's only three years in which to break some bad habits and an focus which has been unhealthy for him. It's an opportunity to change, and he should enter a new phase. He can always go back later. This is part of his rehabilitation, not a life sentence. Ciao, Tom Trottier tom@act.ca ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Sep 96 11:46:25 PDT From: Mark Lottor Subject: Re: Kevin Poulson Update Hi- > It's not forever. It's only three years in which to break some bad > habits and an focus which has been unhealthy for him. It's an > opportunity to change, and he should enter a new phase. He can always > go back later. I think you forgot that he already spent a lot of time in jail. Why three more years of punishment? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: They are adding that three years to make sure that all their theories on recidivism come true and that they get him back in prison again. You can't be letting people who get out of prison after a few years have the tools and wherewithal to rebuild their lives. Law enforcement in the USA does not work that way. The punishment must go on and on. Ask any vindictive prosecutor or police officer if you don't beleive me. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 14:21:30 -0400 From: goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) Subject: Re: The Story Behind a Country Code Without a Country Name rishab@CERF.NET (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) wrote: > Naturally, other countries (and multilateral organizations such as > the UN and ITU) can only recognise _one_ government of a single > country; naturally most chose to recognise the one in Beijing. > Beijing's own policy that other countries can only have diplomatic > relations with either Taipei or Beijing but not both is quite logical > if both governments ignore the reality of an independent Taiwan. It's odd that the International Olympic Committee is able to overcome this hurdle where the ITU is not. In the Olympic Games, the team from Taiwan competes under the name "Chinese Taipei". Perhaps the ITU could use the same moniker for the island to which +886 is assigned? Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ From: piper@online.no (Thomas Piper) Subject: Anybody Using Ericsson Freeset or D.N.A Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 07:47:50 GMT Organization: Telenor Online Public Access We have currently installed a network of 3 MD 110 PBX with D.N.A. server and PC switchboard as well as a freeset network with a total of 26 basestations and 100 freeset handsets. I am looking for people using any of those systems to exchange informations and experience. Regards from Norway, Thomas ------------------------------ From: Robert Sinclair Subject: Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 01:43:12 -0700 Organization: Sinclair & Associates Reply-To: robert-s@gvn.net Gary Sanders wrote: >> LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Hackers are breaking into telephone line boxes and >> tapping dial tones belonging to businesses and homes, selling access >> on the street using a special hand-held receiver. > Hmm, I wonder how many people on the list have a special hand-held receiver? > Guess that makes us special people too -:) >> The practice emerged early this year. Authorities believe several >> million dollars in illegal calls have been rung up since January. > You would have though that people would have though about tapping lines > a long time ago.. -:) >> As many as 15 incidents a week are now reported in California alone, >> Pacific Bell said. >> The highly skilled scam artists typically are former phone company >> employees or others with extensive knowledge of telephones, investigators >> say. > Didnt know a butt set required that much extensive knowledge to use.. -:) Yes and in my area the price of admission to unlimited "free" phone service is a 1/2" socket and a phone set! Think they'd lock those cabinets wouldn't you? ------------------------------ From: edhample@sprynet.com (Ed Kleinhample) Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 06:10:12 -0700 Subject: Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street > LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Hackers are breaking into telephone line boxes and > tapping dial tones belonging to businesses and homes, selling access > on the street using a special hand-held receiver. (snip) > The highly skilled scam artists typically are former phone company > employees or others with extensive knowledge of telephones, investigators > say. Highly skilled -- ugh! It doesn't take that much smarts -- just a basic knowledge of how telephone systems work. Butt sets easily obtained in many electronics stores, catalogs, or at electronics swap meets/flea markets/etc. One can buy a book at Radio Shack that explains how to connect new wiring to your demarc, and even how to test your service at the demarc by taking a baseboard RJ11 jack and attaching a couple of gator clips to it. It doesn't take too much mental agility to extend this technique to cutting the plug off of a cheap hand-held phone and attaching a pair of gator clips to the cord in order to make a less-expensive replacement for a butt-set. With this simple device and a little bit of basic knowledge, you can connect to any phone line in any demarc block (as long as it is an analog line). While it is true that telco employees would know how to do such a thing, the authorities need to expand their profile to include anyone who has ever done any telephone, intercom, or local area network wiring. ------------------------------ From: tim@fsg.com (Timothy D. Hunt) Subject: Override Caller-Id Block Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 12:55:27 GMT Organization: Fusion Systems Group, Inc. Reply-To: thunt@fsg.com My in-laws have a permanent caller-id block on their outgoing calls. Is there a code they can use to override this on a per-call basis so I (or at least my spouse!) knows that they are calling. In case it makes a difference, they are in Florida and we're in New Jersey. The reason that I'm interested, is that I want to route unidentified calls to the machine, and they are they only unidentified caller that we may actually want to talk to. Thanks for any information. Tim Hunt Fusion Systems Group, Inc., One Wall Street Court, New York NY 10005 Phone: +1-212-376-6306 Fax: +1-212-376-6320 e-mail: thunt@fsg.com Main number: +1-212-376-6300 Voicemail: +1-212-293-1021 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The classic example of the unstoppable object meeting the unmoveable object ... your relatives in Florida should ask their local telco for the code to use. It might be something like *87 or possibly *67 prepended to their dialing string. PAT] ------------------------------ From: lvc@lucent.com (Lawrence V. Cipriani) Subject: AT&T One Rate Date: 25 Sep 1996 13:16:45 GMT Organization: Lucent Technologies, Columbus, Ohio Reply-To: lvc@lucent.com In article is written: > (Indeed, reports in the paper say that AT&T is considering 15 > cent flat rate service.) Call 1-800-4-ONE-RATE to sign up for the $0.15/minute anytime to anywhere in the US rate. Given my calling patterns I'd save only a few bucks a month /before/ the AT&T True Savings discounts. If you sign up for the "AT&T One Rate" you are not eligible for AT&T True Savings, or other calling plans. I stuck with my current AT&T calling plan. Larry Cipriani, lvc@lucent.com, Lucent Technologies ------------------------------ From: hudel@hppad.waterloo.hp.com (Chris Hudel) Subject: Re: Canada to BellSouth: Come in Please! Date: 25 Sep 1996 13:22:39 GMT Organization: Hewlett Packard (Panacom Division) I (hudel@hppad.waterloo.hp.com) wrote: > I'm having no end of problems trying to contact BellSouth in > Charlotte, NC to arrange to install two phone lines before I relocate > there from Ontario, Canada. Thanks to the replies on this group (and their email counterparts). The 800 number does work without any problems from Canada. John Cropper, who reads and posts to this Digest, was kind enough to "link me in" and I was able to obtain my two residential phone numbers. Thanks again to all! Cheers, Chris Hudel -- hudel@waterloo.hp.com ------------------------------ From: RICK.R.COX@x400gw.ameritech.com (Rick Cox> Date: 25 Sep 96 08:46:58 -0500 Subject: Re: ISDN From Bell Atlantic joel@exc.com (Joel M. Hoffman) wrote: > I don't understand why anyone uses ISDN. I can get a 28.8 modem > connection for about $20/mo. Allowing for problems with the > digital/analog interfaces, and problems with multiplexing, the bottom > line is about $1/Kbaud of bandwidth. What do I get for $239/mo.? > 64K? I don't see why this is good. Joel, I agree that the price difference seems huge and I can see why you would question the value of ISDN. But you have to ask yourself "What is my time worth?" Depending on what you use the connectivity for this may be a critical question for you. If you just surf the web while waiting to talk to a client than you're not getting much of a benefit. If, on the other hand, you routinely transmit quantities of data in any format, than ISDN is a huge bargain. Let's examine the time issue. In most cases a 28.8k modem will give you around 20k of throughput. It is also very sensitive to noise etc. and liable to drop file transfers, usually just before they would have been complete. There are few things more frustrating than having 98% of a multi-meg file transferred and then losing your connection. Now with ISDN in an optimal environment you get the full 128k. The worst I've heard of is approximately 94k due to serial port limitations and signalling requirements. Having an internal Terminal Adapter means you will get much closer to the full 128k. Also ISDN is much less liable to drop your call in progress. So what does this mean in time? We have a document available on our www page (www.ameritech.com/teamdata) called simply a Speed Comparison sheet. Looking at the 14.4k (28.8k was never added) row and halving the time it shows that a 100 Megabyte file will take approximately 7.7 hours to be transferred. That is with a full 28.8k throughput, which I have never seen. That same 100M file at 128k would take 1.7 hours. I am sure most folks could think of something else for the person and/or PC to do for the minimum 6 hour time differential reflected above. Something else that would benefit the business etc. Keep in mind that if the modem call drops you start over again, at least doubling the amount of time involved. I don't mean to preach here but I felt it necessary to point out that $$ isn't the only consideration for ISDN. My personal point of view is that even when I'm not on company time, my time is valuable enough to me to do whatever I can to not chain it down. ISDN is very helpful in that way. Rick Cox Data Design Consultant Ameritech Team Data 1800-TEAMDATA ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 11:06:27 EDT From: Stan.Schwartz Subject: Charlotte, NC (was: Monday: Turkey Pot Pie...) John Shaver quoted others: > Subject: Monday: Turkey Pot Pie, Oven Browned Potatoes, Steamed Cabbag> > From: Keith Bostic > Forwarded-by: "Rob Pike" > > Call 704-377-4444, enter 1955 when you hear the recording. > TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I'll admit it is sort of funny. I do > not know if it is for real or not; but it was worth 25 cents on the > phone to listen for a minute or so. PAT What you were listening to was "Lunch Menu Man". It's all on the level, and it's actually the menu for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. David Price (if I'm recalling his name correctly) started doing the recorded menus for the Cabarrus County schools a while back and about a year ago he started getting regional and some national notariety. "Morning Zoo" radio shows everywhere were calling and overwhelming the Cabarrus County Schools' switchboard. It was about that time that he was moved over to {The Charlotte Observer}'s "O-Plus" service, which is what the (704) 377-4444 number is. From the O-Plus directory hanging on my cubicle wall: 1955: "Lunch Menu" 1954: "Talk to Me" (leave a message for Lunch Menu Man) 1953: "I Sing Country" 1952: Order t-shirts (I guess that was inevitable) Press '*' to return to the main menu to make another selection without re-dialing. It's things like this that remind me what a small town Charlotte, NC is, compared to the New York Metro area (where I moved from last year). For Chris Hudel, if you haven't been able to reach BellSouth yet, try one of these two numbers: (1 800) 767-2355 if you can reach this from Canada. If not, try (1 704) 780-2355. The people there are quite helpful. It may be just me, but I like that they preserved the phone numbers that spell "BELL" (2355). Stan (stan@vnet.net) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #510 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Sep 25 16:07:15 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id QAA03082; Wed, 25 Sep 1996 16:07:15 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 16:07:15 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199609252007.QAA03082@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #511 TELECOM Digest Wed, 25 Sep 96 16:07:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 511 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson BellSouth Launches Suite of Conferencing Bridging Services (Mike King) Cell Phones in Aircraft (Mark Peacock) Re: Availability of Special ISDN Customer Premises Equipment? (L. Poulsen) Re: Availability of Special ISDN Customer Premises Equipment? (H. Sharp) DDS vrs T1 (What Makes the Difference Other Than Speed?) (Hugo Zambrano) Re: Nynex Penalties, was Re: Articles Don't Flatter RBOCs (John Cropper) Re: Home PBX or Key System Wanted (John Dearing) Re: Home PBX or Key System Wanted (Spencer Roedder) Re: Home PBX or Key System Wanted (Tom Thiel) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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: Mike King Subject: BellSouth Launches Suite of Conferencing Bridging Services Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 12:06:52 PDT Forwarded to the Digest FYI: Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 13:14:23 -0400 (EDT) From: BellSouth Subject: BELLSOUTH LAUNCES SUITE OF CONFERENCING BRIDGING SERVICES BellSouth Launches Suite of Multi Point Conferencing Bridging Services First to announce commercially viable, multi point document conferencing via the Internet Company aims to become 'Tier One' player in global voice, video and document conferencing services market Atlanta, GA, September 25, 1996 BellSouth Business Systems, Inc. (BBS), a subsidiary of BellSouth Telecommunications, today announced the availability of a complete suite of voice, video and document conferencing bridging services to allow business professionals to simultaneously collaborate in real time with multiple locations. BBS also stated that it plans to become one of the top three multi point conferencing service providers by the year 2000, when the global conferencing marketplace is projected to reach $2.5 to $3 billion. The company intends to achieve this positioning by following aggressive business strategies such as operating the world's largest commercial video conferencing network; charging service rates that are two to five times less than those of other current competitive offerings; and introducing innovative commercial features like multi point, Internet based document conferencing. "The launch of our conferencing services exemplifies BellSouth's resolve to devise and offer creative solutions that our customers can use to communicate instantaneously and globally," said Dick Anderson, president of BellSouth Business Systems. "This comprehensive family of service offerings will enable BellSouth to compete successfully in the evolving global telecommunications arena." Anderson noted that the new services also illustrate BellSouth's commitment to standards based, global communications that deliver real value and convenience to customers. "Our multi point conferencing services deliver viable, easy to use solutions that help business professionals make more effective daily decisions, increase process efficiencies and better leverage opportunities for meeting with customers and prospects," said Anderson. BBS Strategy Takes Cues from PC Industry To reach its goal of becoming a top three multi point conferencing service provider, BBS is employing a strategic approach influenced by the successful competitive tactics used by the personal computer industry, according to Anderson. Tactical approaches within the strategy include: Gaining share in the video, voice and document conferencing markets quickly and aggressively; Controlling service and operating costs by outsourcing and forging key strategic alliances to achieve broader market reach; and, Deploying rapid innovations such as Internet based, multi point document conferencing, scheduled for January 1997 general availability. Neil Hediger, vice president of marketing, BellSouth Business Systems, explained: "At BellSouth, we do not believe we have to 'make it' ourselves. We are working with strategic alliance partners, such as ConferTech International on voice and document conferencing service and VSI Enterprises on multi point video conferencing service. Leveraging the strengths of these alliance partners and our commitment to standards based services enables us to offer the best price and performance value in the marketplace." As an example, Hediger noted that BellSouth will provide services and pricing plans that match individual customer requirements. In terms of pricing, the company will offer per minute use plans as well as monthly use plans that are priced two to five times less than competitors' offerings. "With our approach, BellSouth is taking a leadership position to dramatically expand conferencing usage by making multi point video conferencing an affordable business communications tool," Hediger concluded. Commenting on the BellSouth introduction, Robert Mirani of the Yankee Group said, "BellSouth has made a bold entry into business conferencing services. The company's standards based approach will provide much needed leadership to this evolving market. Its family of video, audio and text services offers superior integration of advanced conferencing technology and customer support." BellSouth Operates Largest Commercial Video Conferencing Network A second cornerstone of BBS' conferencing services business plan is the company's commitment to operate an open standards, multi point video network that eclipses all other competitors' networks in size and capacity. BellSouth has engineered and built the largest commercial multi point video conferencing network in the United States, featuring four to 15 times as many multi point control units (MCUs) the key network component as its major competitors. With more than 30 MCUs deployed throughout the top 20 markets in its nine state region, BellSouth provides access to more than 1,000 ports of capacity four to seven times larger than that of any other provider. For video conferencing users, this number of MCUs delivers increased network availability which translates into greater freedom and convenience for scheduling video conferences, with some sites benefiting from the reduction or even elimination of long distance charges. In addition to establishing the world's largest commercial multi point video conferencing network, BellSouth already operates another industry leading multi point video conferencing network for the Georgia State wide Academic and Medical System (GSAMS). Consisting of more than 20 MCUs, the GSAMS network facilitates a variety of communications tasks, including distance learning and telemedicine. All GSAMS conference reservation and scheduling services are provided by BellSouth's strategic partner, VSI Enterprises. VSI's Video Administrator software package schedules more than 100 conferences per day, covering 400 sites. For BellSouth's commercial network, VSI also serves as the primary systems integrator and offers BellSouth video conferencing customers a number of services. These include site surveys, wiring/system installation, centralized service reporting, trouble analysis/ diagnostics and repair. Moreover, VSI's unique software based conferencing management system provides greater flexibility, ease of use, and the high degree of reliability that business customers demand. BellSouth is also teaming with Vtel Corp., another leader in video conferencing services and products, to provide desktop, roll about and room systems and consulting services to offer customized video conferencing solutions. Both Vtel and VSI are part of BellSouth's Network Complementary Applications Program (NCAP). BellSouth's conferencing network is based on VideoServer, Inc.'s Multimedia Conferencing Servers. One of the recognized leaders in open standards based multi point video conferencing, VideoServer specializes in networking equipment and associated software used to create multimedia conferencings that connect multiple users over wide area networks and allow them to interact as a group. The company's products provide multi point conferencing, as well as applications for conference control, network management and bandwidth management. Voice and Document Conferencing Alliance Emphasizes Enhanced Services In the voice and document conferencing arena, BellSouth selected ConferTech International, the largest dedicated multimedia teleconferencing company in the world. Based in Denver and one of the pioneers in a strong and rapidly growing technology industry, ConferTech's roots trace to 1978 with the invention of the first teleconferencing bridge. In 1995, ConferTech became the first service provider to expand its data conferencing services to support T.120 compliant software and room systems. Today, the company has an installed bridge capacity of more than 12,000 ports worldwide and has shipped more than 40,000 ports of bridging technology to customers around the world. For voice and document conferencing services, BellSouth will focus on providing customers with enhanced capabilities, such as audio bulletin boards, fax broadcast, fax on demand, translation services, transcription services and quick polling. Hediger explained, "Our voice and document conferencing services will help our business users create new opportunities for meeting with their customers and prospects. In essence, these services will benefit anyone interested in speeding up day to day business processes and enhancing relationships with colleagues and clients." The document conferencing offering is an open standards based T.120 service, which accommodates multi point document collaboration and high resolution image sharing over analog lines or the Internet. Access to document conferencing via the Internet an industry leading service feature will provide corporate customers with increased network flexibility and speed. BellSouth is a $17.9 billion communications services company. It provides telecommunications, wireless communications, directory advertising and publishing, video and information services to more than 25 million customers in 17 countries worldwide. BellSouth's telecommunications operations provide service over one of the most advanced networks in the world for nearly 22 million access lines in its nine state region that includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Visit BellSouth Corporation's web site at www.bellsouth.com. For Information Contact: David A. Storey, BellSouth, (205)977-5001 Debbie McGinley, Bozell Public Relations, (212)484-7774 --------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Sep 96 00:53:06 CST From: Mark Peacock Subject: Cell Phones in Aircraft goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) wrote: > Hmm, the last several flights I've been on (using American Airlines > and Midway), you *have* been allowed to use cellphones on the plane > before takeoff. ->snip<- > Airlines and captains appear to have a lot of discretion in this > matter, so perhaps you've just run into airlines or > pilots who impose a "no cellphones, period" rule instead of just > banning them during instrument-critical periods such as takeoff. dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) wrote: > With a lot of the more modern aircraft now being 'fly by wire' i.e. > computer controlled, I would not want to risk having EMI from a cell > phone getting into any of the systems and causing problems Once, while standing and waiting to de-plane, I powered up my cell phone to alert my ride that I had arrived. The flight attendent immediately told me to shut it off. I complied, but given that we were at the gate with the engines off, I told the flight attendent that she wasn't making a lot of sense. She told me that some captains get very sticky about the no-cellphone rule, especially on the new fly-by-wire planes, such as the Airbus A321 we were on. She said that the captains flying Boeing 727s and DC-9s were much less fussy about cell-phones on the ground. Mark Peacock Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group Chicago, Illinois mpeacock@dttus.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It sounds to me like she was the one getting very sticky about things. I wold have asked to speak with the captain to confirm that those were his instructions. PAT] ------------------------------ From: lars@anchor.RNS.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: Availability of Special ISDN Customer Premises Equipment? Date: 24 Sep 1996 22:32:50 -0700 Organization: RNS / Meret Communications In article capsalad@gate.net writes: > Can anyone help me get a high-level understanding of what the UUS > and ATP features are for, why anyone would want them, and how they > might be used? I'm drawing a blank here. ISDN setup requests are very much like X.25 call requests: They offer a number of fields intended to communicate next-higher-level-protocol. The reason there are so many, is probably because five different implementors on the committee each proposed a mechanism, and in the political give-and-take, they ended up including all of them, but making them all optional. Which means none of them are usable. In X.25, we had: - call user data (variable length, the first 4 designed to carry next-level-protocol selection from user to user). In the later variations, ("fast select") user data was expanded, and could be included even on call reject. This allowed a transaction protocol to be implemented in rejected call requests, which formed a sort of connectionless datagram protocol. While ths was elegant and efficient, it really bothered the telco, which felt that one would then have to charge for uncompleted call attempts, and since this bothered North American customers, they tended to strip out the user data instead. - network specific facility requests. Most networks processed and stripped all of these at the originating switch, but some passed them end-to-end. - subaddressing. Usually two extra address digits, not processed by the network, but passed end-to-end. Since none of these were guaranteed, user software had to be configurable to use any of these. (Call user data made the most sense, but subaddresses were more generally available worldwide.) My expectation is that we will converge on support for (and use of) UUI, so long as nobody expects to be able to do UUI on rejected calls. Meanwhile, your validation test should verify that arbitrary bit fields will be passed end-to-end. Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@RNS.COM RNS / Meret Communications Phone: +1-805-562-3158 7402 Hollister Avenue Telefax: +1-805-968-8256 Santa Barbara, CA 93117 Internets: designed and built while you wait ------------------------------ From: Hascall H. Sharp Subject: Re: Availability of Special ISDN Customer Premises Equipment? Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 17:48:11 -0400 Organization: Cisco Systems, Inc. capsalad@gate.net wrote: > I'm researching some new ISDN features for Nortel from a > validation perspective, and I can't seem to locate any CPE equipment > which makes use of User-to-User Signaling or Access Transport features > (low- and high-layer compatibility, calling and called party > subaddresses). Are there, in fact, any currently available Type I > (BRI) devices that make use of this information? I've been designing ISDN CPE for about ten years and I have avoided basing any CPE features on the services you describe because the CO switch vendors and the network providers did not and do not provide these services in a reliable fashion. I can think of lots of applications for these services (e.g., delivery of routing updates over UUS links instead of setting up a call), but it makes no sense to design and build a feature that is unusable because the network can't support it. I suppose its a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Hascall H. ("Chip") Sharp voice: +1 (919) 472-3121 Consulting Engineer fax: +1 (919) 472-2177 Cisco Systems email: chsharp@cisco.com 7025 Kit Creek Road http://www.cisco.com/ P.O. Box 14987 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-4987 USA ------------------------------ From: hzambrano@synapse.net (Hugo Zambrano) Subject: DDS vrs T1 (What Makes the Difference Other Than Speed?) Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 04:19:27 GMT Organization: Synapse Internet [www.synapse.net] Can sombody out there tell me what are the technical limitations of a DDS line that does not allow it to transfer T1 rates? Both use four wires; Both are digital transmissions; Both need a DSU/CSU; I already now that DDS can transfer up to 64Kbps (or 56Kbps) and that T1 can transmit up to 1.544 Mbps What are those technical differences that make the difference? ------------------------------ From: psyber@usa.pipeline.com (John Cropper) Subject: Re: Nynex Penalties, was Re: Articles Don't Flatter RBOCs or Cable Date: 24 Sep 1996 06:39:07 GMT Organization: Pipeline On Sep 23, 1996 14:52:56 in article , 'dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein)' wrote: > In cc004056@interramp.com (Greg > Monti) writes: >> In {The Wall Street Journal} during the week of September 16 to 20, >> several articles appeared which don't bode well for the Bell Operating >> Companies or cable systems. >> Regulators in Nynex's states have to approve the merger and are >> loathe to do so. New York State, for example, sets benchmarks for >> customer service. The benchmarks get tougher with each passing year >> and cover items such as showing up on time for appointments, >> answering telephones in a timely manner, and fixing serious problems >> within the 24 hours observed by most other phone companies across >> the USA. > And which is also (the 24 business hour timeframe) specifically > referenced in NYS law. Perhaps NY State should be looking at this from the *other* direction, namely that a merger with BA would IMPROVE response times, since NYNEX would then be able to draw on BA's labor pool and subcontractors more so than it does now. I personally have had extremely good experience with BA's service division on every call I've made. Of course, the flip side is that it would deepen NYNEX's pockets to pay bigger fines :-) >> New York State charges Nynex cash penalties for each shortfall. So >> far in 1996, Nynex has paid $19 million in penalties to New York. It >> has also paid $20 million in penalties to Massachusetts in the last >> two years. > One key clarification should be added here: Nynex's penalty money > doesn't merely go back into the gummint's endless wallet. Most of that > money is, in fact, rebated to customers as a credit on a phone bill. > Earlier this year people in the NYC area (aside from midtown, where > service was supposedly good) got a (roughly) $9 credit on their bills. > There's another (approx) $2 coming in the next round. Just a drop in the (Bell) Atlantic. How much did they raise in the last round of rate increases in all states they serve in the last 24 months? John Cropper, NiS / NexComm PO Box 277 Pennington, NJ USA 08534-0277 Inside NJ: 6o9.637.9434 Toll Free: 888.NPA.NFO2 (672.6362) Fax : 6o9.637.943o email : psyber@usa.pipeline.com ------------------------------ From: jdearing@netaxs.com (John Dearing) Subject: Re: Home PBX or Key System Wanted Date: 24 Sep 1996 02:18:55 GMT Organization: Philadelphia's Complete Internet Provider David Siegel (David-Siegel@deshaw.com) wrote: > I'm looking for a home phone system. I'm going to be installing up to > 16 phones (a mixture of regular phones, modems, fax machines, intercoms > (on exterior doors) and answering machines). I'd like the system to > support both analog phones, and "feature phones", that are specific to > the system. The functions that I need include the following: -=[ list of required features deleted ]=- I'm not sure if it's still made, but your list sounds like the feature list of the Panasonic "616" PBX. 6 C.O lines and 16 stations. Stations can be regular analog devices (phones, modems, fax machines, etc...) or "feature phones". I helped with an installation a few years back and know three folks that have the systems and they're all very happy with them. You'll probably have to contract with an installation company since (at the time I was involved at least) Panasonic only sold to Authorized Resellers. Good luck! John Dearing : Philadelphia Area Computer Society IBM SIG President Email : jdearing@netaxs.com U.S.Snail : 46 Oxford Drive, Langhorne PA 19047 (USA) Voice Phone : +1.215.757.8803 (after 5pm Eastern) ------------------------------ From: roedder@netcom.com (Spencer Roedder) Subject: Re: Home PBX or Key System Wanted Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 17:01:27 GMT David Siegel (David-Siegel@deshaw.com) wrote: > I'm looking for a home phone system. I'm going to be installing up to > 16 phones (a mixture of regular phones, modems, fax machines, intercoms > (on exterior doors) and answering machines). I'd like the system to > support both analog phones, and "feature phones", that are specific to > the system. The functions that I need include the following: This is a vague answer, but I would suggest looking in the various home automation catalogs. In one I got recently (it's at home now so I don't have the name) there was a Panasonic 16-line 6-trunk PBX that took feature and regular phones and had lots of smarts. And about 8 years ago some of my co-workers used and swore by the small Panasonic PBXs. roedder@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: tomthiel@aol.com (Tom Thiel) Subject: Re: Home PBX or Key System Wanted Date: 25 Sep 1996 02:45:24 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) In article , David Siegel writes: > I'm looking for a home phone system. I'm going to be installing up to > 16 phones (a mixture of regular phones, modems, fax machines, intercoms > (on exterior doors) and answering machines). I'd like the system to > support both analog phones, and "feature phones", that are specific to > the system. Seriously consider the AT&T (Lucent) Partner Plus or Partner II Telephone Systems. They will do everything you specify and more. I don't sell them, but I do install them, and have found it to be a very reliable, flexible, expandable system. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #511 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Sep 25 17:29:10 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id RAA12788; Wed, 25 Sep 1996 17:29:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 17:29:10 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199609252129.RAA12788@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #512 TELECOM Digest Wed, 25 Sep 96 17:29:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 512 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson ACLU Sues Georgia Over Net Regulation (Tad Cook) Ameritech -> Nynex Cellular Brownout (Rob Warmowski) Internet Phone Petition (Reed Miller) Re: 214/972 Confusion (D. Larry Martin) Re: Philadelphia EXchanges, Circa 1946 (Michael Muderick) Re: Strange North Georgia Phone Pricing (John R. Levine) Re: Shortwave Radio in the USA (Jim Haynes) Re: Sheath Slitter Tool Wanted (Mike Morris) A European Communications Group Has Openings in Research (Stephen Gallucci) Re: NANP - In or Out? (John R. Grout) Re: What Services Are Offered by Concert? (David Larsen) Re: Signal Propagation (was Re: "Roaming" in Home Territory) (Bill Newkirk) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: ACLU Sues Georgia Over Net Regulation Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 13:49:18 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Suit Challenges State's Restraint of the Internet Via AP By JARED SANDBERG The Wall Street Journal Can the state of Georgia hold sway over the global Internet? A federal lawsuit filed against the state Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union should eventually answer that question. The suit, filed in federal district court in Georgia, challenges a new Georgia law that makes it illegal in some instances to communicate anonymously on the Internet and to use trademarks and logos without permission. The ACLU, joined by 13 plaintiffs including an array of public- interest groups, contends that the Georgia law is "unconstitutionally vague" and that its restraints on using corporate logos and trade names are "impermissibly chilling constitutionally protected expression." The plaintiffs also argue that the Georgia law, which imposes a penalty of up to 12 months in jail and $1,000 in fines, illegally tries to impose state restrictions on interstate commerce, a right reserved for Congress. The legal challenge is one of the first major assaults on state laws that seek to rein in the Internet, despite its global reach and audience. Since the beginning of 1995, 11 state legislatures have passed Internet statutes and nine others have considered taking action. Connecticut passed a law last year that makes it a crime to send an electronic-mail message "with intent to harass, annoy or alarm another person" -- despite the Internet's hallowed tradition of "flaming" users with messages designed to do just that. Virginia enacted a bill this year making it illegal for a state employee -- including professors who supposedly have academic freedom on state campuses -- to use state-owned computers to get access to sexually explicit material. New York state has tried to resurrect prohibitions on "indecent material" that were struck down as unconstitutional by a federal appeals panel ruling on the federal Communications Decency Act three months ago. Most Internet laws target child pornographers and stalkers. Opponents argue the well-intended efforts could nonetheless chill free speech and the development of electronic commerce. They maintain that the Internet, which reaches into more than 150 countries, shouldn't be governed by state laws that could result in hundreds of different, and often conflicting, regulations. "We've got to nip this in the bud and have a court declare that states can't regulate the Internet because it would damage interstate commerce," says Ann Beeson, staff attorney for the ACLU. "Even though it's a Georgia statute, it unconstitutionally restricts the ability of anybody on the Internet to use a pseudonym or to link to a Web page that contains a trade name or logo. It is unconstitutional on its face." Esther Dyson, president of high-tech publisher EDventure Holdings Inc. and chairwoman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a high-tech civil liberties organization that is a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit, calls the Georgia law "brain-damaged and unenforceable" and adds: "How are they going to stop people from using fake names? Anonymity shouldn't be a crime. Committing crimes should be a crime." But Don Parsons, the Republican state representative who sponsored the Georgia bill, countered that the law is a necessary weapon to combat fraud, forgery and other on-line misdeeds. The groups that oppose it, he says, "want to present (the Internet) as something magical, as something above and beyond political boundaries." It is none of these things, he adds. Nor does the Georgia law seek to ban all anonymity, Mr. Parsons says; instead, it targets people who "fraudulently misrepresent their (Web) site as that of another organization." Misrepresenting on-line medical information, for example, could cause serious harm to an unsuspecting user, he says. But Mr. Parsons's critics, including a rival state lawmaker, Rep. Mitchell Kaye, say political reprisal lies behind the new law. They say Mr. Parsons and his political allies were upset by the Web site run by Mr. Kaye, which displayed the state seal on its opening page and provided voting records and sometimes harsh political commentary. Mr. Kaye asserts that his Web site prompted the new law's attack on logos and trademarks that are used without explicit permission. "We've chosen to regulate free speech in the same manner that communist China, North Korea, Cuba and Singapore have," Mr. Kaye says. "Legislators' lack of understanding has turned to fear. It has given Georgia a black eye and sent a message to the world -- that we don't understand and are inhospitable to technology." Mr. Parsons denies that the political Web site was the primary reason for his sponsorship of the new statute. The very local dispute underscores the difficulty of trying to legislate behavior on the Internet. "It creates chaos because I don't know what rules are going to apply to me," says Lewis Clayton, a partner at New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. "Whose laws are going to govern commercial transactions? You don't want to have every different state with the ability to regulate what is national or international commerce." In the case of the Georgia statute, while its backers say it isn't a blanket ban of anonymity, opponents fear differing interpretations of the law could lead to the prosecution of AIDS patients and childabuse survivors who use anonymity to ensure privacy when they convene on the Internet. "Being able to access these resources anonymously really is crucial," says Jeffery Graham, executive director of the AIDS Survival Project, an Atlanta service that joined the ACLU in the lawsuit. His group's members "live in small communities," he says, and if their identities were known, "they would definitely suffer from stigmas and reprisals." ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 11:54:15 CDT From: rob@tezcat.com (Rob Warmowski) Subject: Ameritech -> Nynex Cellular Brownout During a trip this week to Noo Yawk City, I took my trusty cellphone and the assumption that my carrier's (Ameritech) roaming policies were something approaching dependably ubiquitous among major metropolitan centers. I was, of course, wrong. Upon arriving in Manhattan, I announced my MIN and ESN to the Nynex network via dialing the usual #18 and was denied roaming service. A call to Ameritech customer service by landline led to the discovery that Nynex's service area had been "browned out" by Ameritech, the reason given by Customer Service supervisors being the "astronomical amount of cloning and piracy going on in Nynex's service area." Amusingly, an alternative cellular carrier _was_ made available, whose name I now forget, but I will never forget their outrageous prices: $1.75 for "call setup" and $1.50 / minute. Well, that's NY piracy, all right. I have three questions: - Is this brownout condition in existence between other carriers in other markets, - What effect might the new PIN-less RF signature authentication techniques have on the brownout condition in existence currently between Ameritech and Nynex? - How exactly may one most effectively scream and holler about the sudden, unannounced and uncompensated crippling of my Ameritech cellular service? Rob Warmowski Network Sales Consultant - Tezcat Communications, Inc. rob@tezcat.net / 1023 W. Jackson, Chi Il 60607 / (312) 850-0181 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Roaming between carriers is getting a little more 'iffy' than it used to be. I think what you need to do in some cases such as Chicago <==> New York is notify Ameritech in advance -- while you are still here in their territory -- of your plans. I also know that only a select few prefixes of Ameritech Cellular are able to roam outside Ameritech's territory; or let's say roam in the areas where there has been the most trouble. The prefix my cell phone is on is 847-727, and I am told that is a prefix eligible for roaming without any advance notice needing to be given. It is rare these days that I ever go anywhere other than this immediate area or Milwaukee (also an Ameritech point) so in a way I don't know why I bothered getting the 'roamable' prefix of 847-727, but I did. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 14:10:47 EDT From: reedm@ucg.com (Reed Miller) Subject: Internet Phone Petition The last I heard about the petition by ACTA was that Chairman Reed Hundt of the FCC had made a speech at INET in which he said, "We shouldn't be looking for ways to subject new technologies to old rules." He added, "Instead, we should be trying to fix the old rules so that if those new technologies really are better, they will flourish in the marketplace." Actually, Hundt had one of his cohorts make the speech for him because he couldn't make INET at the last minute. But, the effect is the same. Apparently the FCC is leaning away from regulating voice calls over the Net. I talked with the lawyer for America's Carriers Telecommunication Association (ACTA), Chuck Heilen, in early August about Hundt's speech, and he said ACTA is not going to drop the petition. So, the FCC will more than likely have to make a decision at some point, but who knows when with all the '96 act stuff they're tackling. I also interviewed reps from the Big Three long distance carriers in early August for a story I did on I-phones, and they said they're not concerned that the phones might wipe out regular long distance. MCI and AT&T even said they would consider offering Internet phones to customers if the FCC made a strong stand against regulating voice calls on the Net. MCI added that it's testing an I-phone. This stance by the Big Three sounded strange to me, but I guess it shows just how far they're willing to go to keep their ISP customers happy. They're buying big chunks of bandwidth, after all. Any other theories on why they'd take this position? Reed Miller Editor of 411 Newsletter CCMI (The Center for Communications Management Information) ------------------------------ From: DAmos@why.net (D. Larry Martin) Subject: Re: 214/972 Confusion Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 03:44:12 GMT Organization: Why? Network (817) 795-1765 psyber@usa.pipeline.com (John Cropper) wrote: > On Sep 10, 1996 21:00:00, 'gordon@sneaky.lerctr.org (Gordon Burditt)' > wrote: >> The traditional "permissive dialing period" in the case of 214 will be >> used solely as "pre-recorded re-direction to 972". That is if you have >> a soon-to-be 972 number, anyone dialing your 214 number after 9/14 >> will get a recording telling them to re-dial using 972. 214 still has >> about 60,000 numbers scattered throughout, and will exhaust those >> within the quarter after the cutaway. Here's something even more confusing. I dialed my home (now in the 972 NPA) from my office (in the 214 NPA) using seven digits (forgot to change my speed dial) and got through. I thought after the change that you HAD to dial ten digits when crossing NPA's. BTW, my wife confirmed that it works the other way around as well. So does that mean that some of the outlying offices may not have been fully converted yet? D. Larry Martin DAmos@why.net 74634.246@compuserve.com ------------------------------ From: am004d@netaxs.com (Michael Muderick) Subject: Re: Philadelphia EXchanges, Circa 1946 Date: 25 Sep 1996 04:09:22 GMT Organization: Philadelphia's Complete Internet Provider Lisa Hancock (hancock4@cpcn.com) wrote: > In Phila, City Hall continues to be served by MUnicipal 6, now > referred to 686. In the 1970s, this was a centrex with a 24 position > 608 switchboard in City Hall. The operator's number if you didn't > know the direct extension or for non-dialable extensions was MU > 6-9700; after the bicentennial it became MU 6-1776. > The City Govt had a lot of phones. In the 1970s, quite a few were > five digit extension numbers, which were not diable directly from the > outside, but dialable from other City Govt lines. Not too long ago > the system was revised, and the five digit extensions were converted to a > new exchange 685 (which makes sense.) A visit to Phila's main library > (Logan Square) only a few years ago found plain 500 sets with the > MUnicipal 6 number card still service. I'm told "most" such phones > are replaced now with touch-tone models. I think that many of the phones in the library, at least in the public areas are still rotary. Up until a few years ago, the main card catalog area had six button key strips with double headset jacks so that librarians could go with headset and lookup info. To this day, much of the library is still 1A2 equipment. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Sep 96 00:38:00 EDT From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Strange North Georgia Phone Pricing Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > Several COs on the Tennessee-Georgia border near Chattanooga have > customers with *different local calling areas* SERVED OUT OF THE SAME > SWITCH! Hey, there's a switch like that three blocks from here with nary a state line in sight. The Trumansburg Home Telephone Company has three exchanges, Trumansburg, Interlaken, and Ovid. T'burg is the most southerly and closest to Ithaca, the largest city in the area, then Interlaken, then Ovid. There's only one switch, here in Trumansburg. The local calling areas are: T'burg: T'burg and Ithaca Interlaken: Interlaken, Ovid, and Ithaca Ovid: Ovid, Interlaken, and Lodi (another small town nearby) Interlaken is local to Ithaca, but toll to T'burg, even though you have to go through T'burg to get from Interlaken to Ithaca. So if I call Interlaken, the call goes out of the switch on a toll trunk to NYNEX in Syracuse, where all the toll calls are switched, and back on another toll trunk to the very same switch, for which I pay about 9 cents/minute. Wow! The reasons for this wierd setup are historical. The three towns originally had separate manual exchanges with only intra-town calls considered local. The switches were consolidated about 15 years ago for cost savings. Interlaken and Trumansburg both petitioned at some point to add Ithaca to their local calling areas, and got it along with a small increase in their monthly rate, but never bothered to ask for each other since the call volume between the two is small. (Ithaca is about 10 times as big as T'burg, Interlaken, and Ovid together, although we have a diplomatic motif music club founded by ex-Woodstock hippies and they just have the extremely overrated Moosewood restaurant.) The telco's chief engineer has told me that they'd be much happier if they could treat all their intra-switch traffic as local and not send it out to NYNEX and back, but the cost of changing the tariffs and the political hassles involved therein aren't worth it. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - MIT econ prof ------------------------------ From: haynes@cats.ucsc.edu (Jim Haynes) Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 22:59:04 -0700 Subject: Re: Shortwave Radio in the USA Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz Here's a suggestion. Get a nice big world map and hang it on the wall. Get a supply of pushpins or map tacks or adhesive dots. When the kid hears a station on the radio help him find the location on the map and mark it. Maybe that will get him interested in hunting for more stations and in geography. If you have a globe, or an azimuthal equidistant map centered on Chicago, you can also see how far away the station is, and in which direction. You might also want to keep a log of stations heard, with date, time, frequency, call sign or name, location, and something about what you heard. Someone suggested World Radio-TV Handbook or Passport to World Band Radio. Fine books, but if you want to spend less just get Monitoring Times or Popular Communications magazine, as these have recent shortwave schedules. Which leads me to the soapbox for another campaign. I think it would be neat to get a whole school class and give them an assignment. Use an AM radio (because everybody has one). Listen for a non-local station. Hint - late night or early morning is the best time. Write down the date and time, call letters, frequency, and city. Then on a certain date everyone gets up and tells what station was heard, points it out on a map, and tells something learned about the city or area from listening to the broadcast. This might be as mundane as the weather and the names of some advertisers; but we could hope for something more interesting, maybe local business or politics. That's all the assignment, but the assumption is that some of the kids will be interested in keeping it up, adding more stations to the list of stations heard, getting into shortwave or amateur radio, and learning about geography and society in the process. With enough data there's also material for some science: what is the relation among frequency, distance, and time of day that stations are most likely to be heard? ------------------------------ From: morris@cogent.net (Mike Morris) Subject: Re: Sheath Slitter Tool Wanted Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 03:44:25 PDT In article tewhite@mailbox.syr. edu (T E White) writes: > I am trying to locate the manufacturer or retailer of a sheath slitter > tool that we used when I worked for US WEST. The tool was silver in > color and had a razor blade type cutting blade in the middle. One > could hold this tool on both ends and draw it down on the cable to > open up the sheath(s). Then one could turn the blade perpendicular to > the tool and wring the sheath around the circumference of the cable. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No guarentees, but you might check with > Mike Sandman. His mail order catalog of telephone tools is very complete > with things like this. Known as "Chicago's Telecom Expert", he has > operated his business for several years and is pretty well known both > here in this Digest and in general on the Internet. To get one of his > catalogs see http://www.sandman.com or mailto:mike@sandman.com or > contact his shop at 630-980-7710 in Roselle, Illinois. PAT] Try: Neuses, P. K., Inc. Rolling Meadows, IL 60008 USA 847-253-6555 FAX: 847-253-6652 They make a lot of off-the-wall stuff like crossbar adjusters, cable slitters, etc. ------------------------------ From: stepheng@scom.com (Stephen Gallucci : S-Com) Subject: European Communications Group Has Openings in Research Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 15:15:23 GMT Organization: S-Com CSE Ltd. A European Communications Group has a number of openings in its research and analysis department. Contact Stephen Gallucci 01296 311402 http://bigweb.scom.com/scom/advert/95_00833.html S-COM Computer Systems Engineers Ltd. Phone (+44) 01296-311411 Fax (+44) 01296-436895 Location UK, Europe, USA, or work from home The company A leading supplier of business and market information to worldwide customers The project 1. Broadband communication. 2. Network services. 3. Wide area communication. 4. international telecommunications (regulatory issues). 5. General voice telecommunications (PBX, CTI, etc) The role 1. Research and analysis of vendor product lines and of related markets. 2. Work as part of a global team (ie with others in other countries). 3. Participation in custom research projects. 4. support of sales activity Rates Dependant on experience Start Date Ongoing Contract length Long term Contract or permanent Other lures Chance to work remotely from home Please mail your CV to Stephen Gallucci mailto:stepheng@scom.com contact me direct 01296 311402 ------------------------------ From: grout@polestar.csrd.uiuc.edu (John R. Grout) Subject: Re: NANP - In or Out? Date: 25 Sep 1996 10:17:36 -0700 Organization: Center for Supercomputing R and D, UIUC In article Jeremy Parsons writes: > International is international, so really if there is a concern, the > option has to be either: > (a) The NANP countries part company and seek separate unique codes, and in > all likelihood no-one would stay in +1; > (b) +1 to be restructured by agreement of the NANP countries, so each > country has a unique prefix (not presently the case for US and Canada, > which each has multiple prefixes), to make international destinations > obvious; > (c) NANP remains as it is, and carriers endeavour to ensure that their > customers understand that 1-XXX may be domestic or international. In my opinion, if there is to be a change in the NANP, the most likely outcome is: (d) The NANP countries part company and the USA (which uses the vast majority of its numbering space) gets to keep +1. John R. Grout Center for Supercomputing R & D j-grout@uiuc.edu Coordinated Science Laboratory University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ------------------------------ From: larsendg@mcgraw-hill.com (David Larsen) Date: Wed, 25 Sep 96 11:05:17 EDT Subject: Re: What Services Are Offered by Concert? Formed in July 1993 by BT and MCI, Concert was established to provide comprehensive telecommunications services on a global basis. Concert began marketing data services in June 1994 and introduced Concert VNS in November 1994. Under terms of the Concert joint venture, the MCI sales force is responsible for marketing Concert services in North, Central, and South America while BT is responsible for marketing Concert services in Europe, Asia, and the rest of the world. Concert provisions network services in over 800 cities in more than 50 countries and through approximately 6000 nodes. Concert currently offers a portfolio of networking services that consists of: 1) Concert Virtual Network Service (VNS); 2) Concert Managed Data Services including Concert Packet Services, Concert Frame Relay Service, and Concert Managed Bandwidth Services; and 3) Concert applications Services including Concert Message Switching, Concert EDI, and Concert Enterprise Integration. According to Concert, demand for international telecommunications services is expanding at three times the rate of demand for services within the United States or within the United Kingdom. With its sizable network infrastructure and its already-deployed global billing and network management systems, Concert believes that it is well positioned to compete in this rapidly growing market. Further information is contained in Datapro's report "Concert Network Services". Regards, David Larsen larsendg@mcgraw-hill.com Tel: +44 1628 773277 Fax: +44 1628 26865 Datapro Information Services Group Singapore Tel: +65 538 4432 Fax: +65 538 4436 ------------------------------ From: Bill Newkirk Subject: Re: Signal Propagation (was Re: "Roaming" in Home Territory) Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 10:36:27 -0400 Organization: Rockwell Avionics/Collins Reply-To: wenewkirk@rodes.cca.rockwell.com Joel M. Hoffman wrote: > Yes, but cellular phone use is banned in airplanes even when they are > on the ground in the airport. >That's< what I don't understand. If Because some people (even trained professionals) can be such dunderheads when it comes to use of radios. I would bet there are people that could be convinced that jet airplanes don't really fly but are really fast elevators or trains. So to make the rules simple enough for everyone to understand and enforce fairly, they said that if you're on the plane, you can't use the cell radiophone. That way you don't get into discussions along the lines of like "well, we're in the pattern, so we're ALMOST on the ground, and my need to call is so important that I just gotta call in." (For those just tuning in, the reason you don't use a cell phone in flight is because the typical transport aircraft flies high enough that the cell radiophone would contact more than one cell radio site. The problem with this is that cell radio system wasn't designed for this and doesn't like it and grief to others is experienced since folks don't get that a plane at 30,000 feet has a good line of sight distance ("...but captain, I'm only 5'9", how could I be putting out a signal at 30,000 feet?"). I could see adding another status light and gong to every aircraft that would say something like "No Cell Phones"..."Welcome to Melbourne International Airport, the time is 8:23 PM EST and you'll see that the captain has turned off the cell phones sign...") bill newkirk rockwell avionics/collins wenewkirk@rodes.cca.rockwell.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #512 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Sep 26 12:57:06 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA13586; Thu, 26 Sep 1996 12:57:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 12:57:06 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199609261657.MAA13586@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #513 TELECOM Digest Thu, 26 Sep 96 12:56:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 513 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Cancelbots Flood Net; Thousands of Messages Lost (Tad Cook) Some Carriers Slow to Recognize New NPAs (Tad Cook) FTC Seeks Privacy Safeguards In Response To P-TRAK Flap (Monty Solomon) Phone Sex Goes Global With Help of Technology (Stan Schwartz) Selling ATM to Cable TV is Like Selling Shoes in Third World (CIR Web) Like, INVITE Someone to Phreak, Willya? (Elana Beach) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. 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Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Cancelbots Flood Net; Thousands of Messages Lost Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 00:35:58 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) By Rory J. O'Connor Knight-Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON -- Vandals swept through the Internet last weekend, wiping clean dozens of public bulletin boards used by groups of Jews, Muslims, feminists and homosexuals, among others. In one of the most widespread attacks on the international computer network, the programs automatically erased copies of more than 27,000 messages from thousands of servers, before operators stopped the damage. The identity of those responsible for launching the apparent hate attacks -- some of the programs were titled "fagcancel" and "kikecancel" -- is unknown. The incident further illustrates the shaky security foundation of the Internet, which has mushroomed from academic research tool to international communications medium in just three years. And it raised the ire of many Internet users furious at the ease with which a user can erase someone else's words from worldwide discussion groups, known as Usenet newsgroups, in a matter of hours. "There's nothing you can do as an individual user to prevent someone from canceling your message," said John Gilmore, a computer security expert in San Francisco. "We need something added to Usenet's software that would only allow a cancellation from the originator." The incident follows closely three other well-publicized Internet attacks. In two cases, hackers altered the World Wide Web home pages of the Justice Department and the CIA, apparently as political protests. In the third, a hacker overloaded the computers of an Internet service provider called Panix with hordes of phony requests for a connection, thus denying use of the service to legitimate users. The latest attacks -- called cancelbots -- were launched sometime over the weekend from a variety of Internet service providers, including UUNet Technologies in Fairfax, Va., and Netcom Inc. in San Jose, Calif. One attack was launched from a tiny provider in Tulsa, Okla., called Cottage Software, according to its owner, William Brunton. "The offending user has been terminated and the information has been turned over to the proper (federal) authorities," Brunton said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "It's now in their hands." Legal experts said it's unclear if the attacks constitute a crime under federal laws such as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. "It's really a difficult issue," said David Sobel, legal counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. "Can you assign value to a newsgroup posting? Because most of the computer crime statutes assume you're ripping off something of value." A spokesman for the FBI in Washington said he was unaware of any federal investigation of the incident, although it is the agency's policy not to comment on investigations. While some of the deleted messages have been restored on certain servers, where operators have retrieved them from backup copies of their disks, users of other servers where the messages haven't been restored will never be able to read them. The fact that a user can stamp out the words of someone else is an artifact of the original design of the Internet, begun as a Department of Defense project in 1969. The Internet consists of tens of thousands of computers, called servers, that act as repositories for public messages, private electronic mail and World Wide Web home pages. Servers throughout the world are interconnected through telephone lines so they can exchange information and route messages to the individual users, or clients, of a given server. Each server stores a copy of the constantly changing contents of newsgroups, which function as giant electronic bulletin boards dedicated to particular subjects. There are thousands of them, covering everything from particle physics to soap operas. Any Internet user is free to post a contribution to nearly any newsgroup, and the posting is rapidly copied from one server to another, so the contents of a newsgroup are identical on every server. Almost the only form of control over postings, including their content, is voluntary adherence to informal behavior rules known as "netiquette." The idea of cancelbots originated when the Internet and its newsgroups were almost exclusively the domain of university and government scientists and researchers. Their purpose was to allow individuals to rescind messages they later discovered to contain an error. The action took the form of an automatic program, itself in the form of a message, because it would be impossible for an individual to find and delete every copy of the posting on every Internet server. But the Usenet software running on servers doesn't verify that the cancel message actually comes from the person who created the original posting. All a malicious user need do is replace their actual e-mail address with that of someone else to fool Usenet into deleting a message. That counterfeiting is as simple as changing an option in the browser software most people use to connect to the Internet. "It's pretty easy. There's no authentication in the Usenet. So anybody can pretend to be anybody else," Gilmore said. It takes only slightly more sophistication to create a program that searches newsgroups for certain keywords, and then issues a cancelbot for any message that contains them. That is how the weekend attack took place. The use of counterfeit cancelbots is not new. The Church of Scientology, embroiled in a legal dispute with former members, last year launched cancelbots against the newsgroup postings of the members. Attorneys for the church claimed the postings violated copyright laws, because they contained the text of Scientology teachings normally available only to longtime members who have paid thousands of dollars. Net users have also turned false cancelbots against those who violate a basic rule of netiquette by "spamming" newsgroups -- that is, posting a message to hundreds or even thousands of newsgroups, usually commercial in nature and unrelated to the newsgroup topic. "This technology has been used for both good and evil," Gilmore said. But an individual launching a wholesale cancelbot attack on postings because of content is considered a serious violation of netiquette -- although one about which there is little recourse at the moment. "For everybody who takes the trouble and time to participate on the Internet in some way, I think it is not acceptable for somebody else to undo those efforts," Sobel said. "But what are the alternatives? Not to pursue this means of communications? Unintended uses and malicious uses seem to be inevitable." What's needed, some say, is a fundamental change in the Internet that forces individual users to "sign" their postings in such a way that everyone has a unique identity that can't be forged. "The fatal flaw is that newsgroups were set up at a time when everybody knew everybody using the system, and you could weed out anybody who did this," Brunton said. "This points out that flaw in the system, and that there are unreasonable people out there who will exploit it." --------------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Nothing was affected in the comp.dcom. telecom newsgroup, nor as far as I know in the a.d.t. or c.d.t.t. groups. To some extent I am able to backup or replace missing items if that were to happen in c.d.t. although it would be a real nuisance. If there were several people involved in this, as the newspaper article would seem to imply, I am curious to find out how they coordinated their efforts. It might very likely have all been the work of just the one person in Oklahoma since cancels can be mailed to other servers just like news items and then redistibuted from the site to which they were mailed. It is pretty sad, watching Usenet falling apart at the seams as it has been doing for quite awhile now. My own cancelbots which are located at a few very well connected news servers are always watching for stuff in c.d.t. which was not correctly approved with my own encryption scheme as the 'approved-by', and they likewise watch for cancels sent by unauthorized parties and notify me of those as well so that the message can be reissued. There was no unusual activity that I saw over the weekend. Of course I guess since we don't use this space to talk in a sympathetic way about gay people and Jews -- nor in an unsympathetic way for that matter; it just is not the theme here -- the vandal(s) saw no reason to bother us. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Some Carriers Slow to Recognize New NPAs Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 01:09:22 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Some Long-Distance Companies Slow to Recognize New Area Codes By Mark Krewatch, Daily Press, Newport News, Va. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Sep. 26--Three months after the 757 area code went into effect, some residents and businesses who heeded Bell Atlantic's advice to start using it right away still aren't getting all their calls. Voluntary use of the code began July 1; 757 will permanently replace 804 for Hampton Roads' customers on Feb. 1. Bell Atlantic, the local phone company for most people in the area, now gives out 757 as the local area code through its directory assistance, but some people report that the area code isn't working for all out-of-state callers. Jim Byrd, a wind tunnel engineer, said his parents in Texas were unable to reach him recently for about two weeks using the code. His family would hear a ring but not even the answering machine would pick up, Byrd said. They didn't realize they weren't getting through until they eventually tried the old 804 code and reached him. Fortunately, there were no family emergencies during the period, but around the region, "I imagine there's been calls missed that were critical," Byrd said. Brenda Epes, spokeswoman for Waters Advertising Agency Inc. of Newport News, said one of the firm's printers, located in Iowa, couldn't place a call to Waters using 757. The printer figured out the problem after calling the client Waters was representing, a Peninsula business still using the 804 code, Epes said. The communication glitch could mean some potential customers are unable to respond to ad materials distributed out of state, though Epes said none of Waters' clients has reported that happening. If out-of-state customers aren't getting through, however, they're unlikely to figure out why and report the trouble, she added, because people don't normally keep up with area code changes in other states. "You're blind -- you don't know there's a problem," Epes said. Paul Miller, a spokeswoman for Bell Atlantic-Virginia, said the problems are generated at the caller's end and are limited in scope. Some 30 new area codes are scheduled to be put in place across the country in the next 18 to 24 months, and though big long-distance companies such as AT&T, MCI and Sprint stay on top of the changes, other smaller companies may not. "There are literally hundreds of long-distance companies in the country; most people think there are only three," Miller said. Even with Bellcore, a company owned by the seven Baby Bells, administering area code changes in North America, there's a chance some long-distance companies haven't gotten the word yet, Miller said, though he guessed "a very small percentage" of residential callers would be affected. Miller said a more prevalent problem is that many businesses have outdated in-house switchboards that can't place calls to the newest area codes -- ones such as Virginia's 540 and 757 that have a middle digit other than a 1 or 0. While Bell Atlantic has informed its own business customers about potential shortcomings of switchboards manufactured before 1992, it can't ensure others outside its territory are aware. "To try to get word to everyone is difficult," Miller said. Bell Atlantic has encouraged customers to begin distributing their numbers with the new area code as early as possible. Miller said it's typical to have some lingering problems at the midpoint of the six-month grace period, and they should be worked out before February. "We never had any problems with 540 with any long-distance carriers after it became mandatory," he said, referring the new code instituted last January in the western and north-central parts of the state. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 01:54:51 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: FTC Seeks Privacy Safeguards In Response To P-TRAK Flap Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Excerpt from Edupage, 24 September 1996 FTC SEEKS PRIVACY SAFEGUARDS IN RESPONSE TO P-TRAK FLAP The Federal Trade Commission has recommended broader privacy protections, responding to public outcry over an information service offered by Lexis-Nexis Inc. that critics say provides individuals' Social Security numbers, mothers' maiden names, and other confidential data to anyone willing to pay a nominal fee. "The ready availability of this information through a tracking service may facilitate identity fraud, credit fraud and other illegal activities," says the FTC. The P-TRAK service says it eliminated access to Social Security numbers earlier this year following consumer complaints, but users can still call up information by typing in a Social Security number. P-TRAK also says it doesn't provide mothers' maiden names (often used by credit card companies as a safeguard against unauthorized access), just individuals' maiden names, as part of its service. The FTC has recommended that credit-reporting agencies would no longer be able to supply this information to database operators such as Lexis. (Wall Street Journal 24 Sep 96 B7) ------------------------------ From: Stan Schwartz Subject: Phone Sex Goes Global With Help of Technology Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 20:49:51 -0400 THE WASHINGTON POST There's a boom in exports under way in the poor tropical country of Guyana. Rather, make that X-ports, of a product the world can't seem to get enough of -- phone sex. This year, Guyana's lone telephone company could take in nearly $100 million from its burgeoning trade in specialized information services, such as telephone sex, as dialers in the United States and other countries place international calls to X-rated services in Guyana. New technology often has unforeseen consequences. But few business trends are as strange as what has resulted from the increasing ease and reliability of international calling: Phone sex has gone global. Americans who dial numbers for sexual talk with strangers may be reaching halfway around the world, often without realizing it. This has sent hundreds of millions of dollars flowing out of the United States and other industrial countries, experts said, and into faceless phone sex operations in places such as Guyana, the Philippines, Poland, the Netherlands Antilles islands and the tiny African country of Sao Tome. These telephone services have become an important source of foreign exchange for the smaller countries. It's a huge business for Atlantic Tele-Network Inc., a U.S. company that bought 80 percent of Guyana's national phone company, Guyana Telephone & Telegraph, for $16.5 million in 1991. In 1992 it began making circuits available to those offering "adult" chat, sports scores, weather, horoscopes and other audiotext services. ATN is incorporated in Delaware but has headquarters in the Virgin Islands and operates that country's phone system. "When we bought the [Guyana] phone company, we planned to run it just like a regular old phone company," company spokesman Edwin Crouch said. Then, he said, "audiotext found us," referring to the dozens of service providers in the United States and elsewhere that look for offshore places to handle calls. "We started marketing it and treating it as a serious business." In 1991, Guyana was receiving no audiotext calls from abroad. In 1995, it logged 102 million minutes of calling, according to ATN. That accounted for $91 million of Guyana Telephone & Telegraph's total revenue of $131 million. The figures continue to grow: The count had reached 60 million minutes of international audiotext by June of this year. Estimates differ as to what proportion of international audiotext calls involve sex. The London-based International Telemedia Association, an industry trade group, said only 35 percent, while Jason Kowal of Telegeography Inc., a Washington market research service, said the figure is more than 90 percent. Whatever the split, Guyana now is tied with the Netherlands Antilles as the world leader in a $1.8-billion international market for all types of audiotext services, according to Telegeography. They are followed by the little-known nations of Niue in the South Pacific and Sao Tome. The countries are playing to maximum effect an international payments system set up years ago that splits the cost of handling overseas calls. Under this system, the charges that an American pays for dialing Guyana, or any other country, are shared with that person's American long-distance company and the foreign phone company that picks up the call and routes it to the recipient. For years, many smaller countries have set high per-minute rates for incoming international calls, in hopes of maximizing the revenue they get from abroad. Sometimes this turns out to be counterproductive, because high rates mean that fewer people call the country. But by setting up these chat lines, the economics change. Waves of new calls into the country are generated, placed by people who are willing to pay high per-minute charges. The country's phone company then turns around and shares a portion of that money with the operator of the sex lines. In Guyana's case, U.S. long-distance companies pay Guyana Telephone & Telegraph 85 cents a minute for calls they send into the country, one of the highest rates in the Caribbean. The Guyana phone company, in turn, pays about 50 cents of that money to the audiotext service provider. In Guyana, the phone company has taken steps to insulate the chat-line business from the country's population. Residents are blocked from calling any of the services, GT&T's Crouch said, and the company has a rule barring service providers from mentioning Guyana in advertisements. Guyanese political and opinion leaders said residents are barely aware of the lucrative revenue stream that flows to the local phone company. "There was some stir about it the year before last, but it soon blew over," said W. Henry Skerrett, editor of Kaieteur News, a weekly in the capital of Georgetown. Instead, he said, people are too concerned with deteriorating social conditions - rampant crime, joblessness and political instability - to worry about the phone system. Pamadath J. Menon, chairman of Guyana's Public Utilities Commission, said his main complaint is that GT&T has not used enough of the earnings from chat services to upgrade the country's phone system. GT&T is fighting Menon's attempts to get the company to reserve 15 percent of its revenue for upgrades. "I'm unhappy that the large cash flows are not being reinvested for the benefit of the people of Guyana," he said. "It doesn't matter to us where the revenue comes from." Crouch said the audiotext revenues "have helped toward the expansion of Guyana's phone system. Guyana certainly has a far better telephone system today than it did five years ago, and audiotext is a significant part." Few Guyanese are employed as sex chatters, experts in the industry said. One reason may be that many international services promise, but do not deliver, truly live conversations. A call to an advertised Guyana number connected to a six-minute recording promising "live" adult-oriented talk, only to refer the caller to a number in Niue, where a seven-minute recording ended with directions to dial a third number. The third number also was a recording. The total bill for the three calls: $71.33. ------------------ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And as often as not -- perhaps more often than not -- the calls is a source of double revenue for the proprietors, since it is quite likely one will find a gay guy from a small town in Iowa chatting with some other gay guy from a small town in North Dakota via the conference bridge in Guyana, both of them paying the $3.99 per minute or whatever rates are in effect. PAT ------------------------------ From: CIR Webmaster Subject: Selling ATM to Cable TV is Like Selling Shoes in Third World Date: 25 Sep 1996 18:11:14 -0400 Organization: Mail to Usenet Gateway [ News release reposted from http://www.cir-inc.com/news/ATMv2.html ] Communications Industry Researchers, Inc. PO Box 5387 Charlottesville, VA 22905 Contact: Lawrence Gasman (804) 984-0245 (804) 984-0247 (fax) Phone: (804) 984 0245 x 11 http://www.cir-inc.com/ e-mail: ldg@cir-inc.com September 23, 1996 Selling ATM to the Cable Television Industry is Like Selling Shoes in the Third World Charlottesville, VA--There is an old story about two shoe marketing executives discussing the potential for selling their products in a particularly poor Third World country, where hardly anyone wears shoes. One executive sees this as a wonderful situation -- a whole country full of people who do not yet have his products. The other executive claims that the situation is hopeless -- everyone knows that no one in the hypothetical country buys shoes. This situation is much like the one that holds in the cable television industry. So says a new report from Communications Industry Researchers, Inc. (CIR), a leading high-tech market research house based here. The new CIR report, ATM Markets: A Vertical Market Analysis -- Volume 2 (see ), points out that, the potential for selling ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) switches to the industry is potentially huge. According to Lawrence D. Gasman, president of CIR and the project manager for this study, "there are 11,000 cable systems in the U.S. and hardly any of them are using ATM. If every one of these systems bought an ATM switch, this segment of the ATM market might actually turn out to be the killer app for ATM." This, of course, is the view of the optimistic executive -- the one who thinks he will sell a lot of shoes. Yet the cable television industry shows no rush to buy ATM switches. ATM Markets: A Vertical Market Analysis -- Volume 2 claims, however, that many cable companies believe that ATM is where they are ultimately headed. The Trials -- And Tribulations -- of ATM The pessimistic executive -- the one who expects to sell no shoes -- will point out that, in practice, there has been very little actual activity in terms of ATM deployment in the cable industry, merely a few trials. And he will tell you that cable companies have been fiddling with ATM for several years, with no major rollouts resulting. Time Warner, which has been the only cable company to make a significant verbal commitment to ATM, has now stepped back quite smartly from its original plans. The contrast between the potential and actual level of ATM deployment in the cable television industry makes for a great deal of uncertainty in projecting the cable television industry's use of ATM. The question is not just when, but if? However, CIR believes good estimates can be made based on the recent behavior of the major players in this market. For example, the potential market for ATM switches in the cable television industry depends on how one assesses the likely future architecture of residential video systems. For the most part ATM in cable systems has been deployed in the form of one centralized ATM switch for a video trial. But CIR says that as ATM moves beyond the trial phase in this industry, networks will become more decentralized with perhaps as many as 10 switches in a single cable system. A Plausible Scenario CIR believes that trials of ATM switches will probably continue for the next three to four years, and ATM deployment will not go much beyond such trials, so that the deployment will not reach much more than 0.5 percent during that period. However, what happens after that point is far from clear. There seems a widespread belief, however, even among those who are skeptical about the future deployment of ATM in the cable television industry, that ATM switches will eventually take hold in this industry. A plausible scenario -- and the one that is adopted in ATM Markets: A Vertical Market Analysis -- Volume 2 -- that the market begins to take off in 2001 with the top 1,000 systems being ATM-based by the end of the forecasting period. This would represent approximately 6,000 switches, or 10 percent of the market. The adoption of ATM by cable television companies must be seen in the context of other changes, in particular the efforts of cable companies to emerge as suppliers of a broad range of interactive multimedia services including video-on-demand, consumer information services, home shopping/banking, etc. ATM is just one component of the future cable architectures that will supply such services and may turn out to be an unnecessary component. ATM Markets: A Vertical Market Analysis -- Volume 2 provides an in-depth analysis of ATM deployment in the cable television industry with detailed ten-year forecasts of switch shipments to the industry by type of switch and in volume and value terms. ATM Markets: A Vertical Market Analysis -- Volume 2 also provides similar analysis and forecasts for the telephone industry and the Internet Service Provider industry. A summary of CIR's forecasts for the all three industries is provided below. ATM Markets: A Vertical Market Analysis -- Volume 2 is part of a two-volume study of the ATM business. ATM Markets: A Vertical Market Analysis -- Volume 1 (see ), which was also just published, looks at the use of ATM in five end user industries: financial services, health care, education and training, and retail and wholesale. Each volume is priced at $5,000 and provides detailed volume and value forecasts and also case studies on leading network users. Further details of these studies can be obtained from Robert Nolan at 617-484-2077. Communications Industry Researchers, Inc. has been in business since 1979 and publishes market studies and newsletters and carries out demanding custom market research assignments on the commercial aspects of new communications technologies. EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: AN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND GRAPHICS FOR THIS REPORT CAN BE OBTAINED ON REQUEST TO LAWRENCE GASMAN AT 804-984-0245 X 11 OR ldg@cir-inc.com, OR ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB AT . ------------------------------ From: elana@netcom.com (Elana Beach) Subject: Like, INVITE Someone to Phreak, Willya? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 00:45:13 GMT Sometimes ya GOT to wonder if they are simply askin' for it ... Somewhere in downtown Portland Oregon, located at a parking lot located kitty-corner from one of the bigger buildings around here (I ain't sayin' NUTHIN' more cluewise than that!) is an ordinary light-pole with a small phone box attached to it ... and not one, but TWO new phone cords complete with new phone plugs hanging from it ... just waiting for someone with a nice, handy phone to come along and plug them plugs right into their phone and call Madagascar or something. I can't believe it. One wouldn't even have to buy alligator clips. The lines are for some particular bus or RV that seems to park there sometimes. It's not there all the time. I really HOPE that they have some sort of long-distance blocking on those lines. Or SOMEthing. Sheesh! I mean, it's right there on a busy corner by day, where anyone can see the situation and go "Hmmmmm ...!" Situation: Should I do the right thing and attach a note to the line saying: "To whoever owns this line, this is a STOOOOOOOPID idea!!!" or should I ignore it, let stupidity have it's own reward and let the hackers and the phreakers give them a clue instead? Elana [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Up to your old tricks again I see, Elana. I remember when you were scoping out the phones in Union Station in Chicago, checking out the phones on people's desks in the customer service area. While I agree that the configuration you describe is not very clever on the part of whoever put it there, you might want to go in on the line and see *if you actually get anywhere* before you put up a note to them, etc. You may find it is just a tie-line to the bus company garage or an extension from the switchboard at the bus company offices or something like that and it is limited to about two places it can reach. In Chicago for many years the city busses did not have radio links to security and maintainence as they do now. Now every bus here has a regular phone receiver on armored cable attached to something hanging on the wall next to the driver which is a two-way radio. He can lift the receiver and talk to the garage, etc. But before they had that, the drivers would communicate via 'regular' phones which were in weather-proof, metal boxes attached to telephone poles every six or eight blocks. The boxes were supposedly locked and could only be opened with a 'CTA key' (a master key the CTA issues its drivers to open the door of their private bathrooms at the end of the line on their route in the turn-around zones, etc, as well as the telephone boxes and a few other things.) People thought it was smart to break into the phone boxes in some cases just to vandalize them and in other cases to make free calls. Imagine their surprise when they found out the phones were just extensions on a PAX, a little switchboard somewhere that connected all the various CTA offices, garages, security agents, etc, with no connection to outside lines at all. I would be surprised if the people are as dumb as they look, and if those handy-dandy connection points were any more than one termination of a ring-down to somewhere or an extension on the bus company PBX. That's just my guess. Followup and let us know, won't you? :) PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #513 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Sep 26 22:03:28 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id WAA08983; Thu, 26 Sep 1996 22:03:28 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 22:03:28 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199609270203.WAA08983@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #514 TELECOM Digest Thu, 26 Sep 96 22:03:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 514 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson 214/972 Split Observations (Mark Tenenbaum) Re: 214/972 Confusion (John Cropper) Re: Signal Propagation (Bill Newkirk) Lucent Technologies: To Speak to a Webmaster, Press 1 (Robert McMillin) LATA Area Codes and Prefixes (Michael D. Emerson) ISDN in Argentina and Chile (Jefe Oficina Planeacion) Marathon Takeover by Nortel? (david@eop.ie) New French Numbers (Erratum) (Marc Zirnheld) Re: They Are Even More Stupid! (was Re: Stupid Spamster Tricks) (J. Levin) Telephone Scam Referring to 809 (But What About Splits?) (Ray Normandeau) Re: Is Undesirable Internet Advertising Increasing? (Craig Nordin) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Sep 96 10:24:47 -0500 From: Mark Tenenbaum Subject: 214/972 Split Observations Mr. Townson: We're almost two weeks into the 214/972 split in the Dallas area and I have a few very random PERSONAL (not company for as you can see I do work for GTE) observations, questions and experiences to relate: 1) As is human nature, though all media, telephone company correspondence, etc. says to do so, I still have not re-programmed my speed dials either at home or at work. 2) I think I recall that only new cellulars and pagers will have 972. Now tell me this, in the future, if I am told to page someone at XXX-XXXX, how in the heck am I going to know which area code to use? I guess if I know the person has had the particular pager for a long time, I'd try 214 first. I see frustration ahead ... 3) What are Caller ID boxes showing for cross area code calls: ten digits with the new area code? Ten digits with the old area code? Only seven digits? Does it even matter because you're getting the person's name anyway? 4) Why is it that even though I have changed the appropriate 214s to 972 on some fax lists that I use from my computer, I am getting the faxes back undelivered? I changed those lists back to 214 and no problem. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fax machines on the other end needing to be re-programmed. 5) Because I am familiar with D/FW geography, I am not running into much difficulty in knowing when to dial ten digits (in my case when I call 214) or seven (in my case to any 972). Just in case, I have posted a list of 214 exchanges on the bulletin board next to one of my phones at home for possible reference. Haven't had to even look at it yet. I can just imagine what difficulties the geographically challenged D/FW tele-consumer is facing and certainly will face when the permissive period ends. Not to mention the frustrations out-of-towners will encounter. 6) One of the most common arguments against geographic splits is that businesses will have to have new stationery, business cards, etc. made. Just driving around town, I've noticed that another major expense for businesses will have to be re-painting their fleets to reflect correct area codes on the phone number on the sides of their trucks/cars. 7) How's this for confusing? My PLANO BASED burglar alarm monitoring company informs its customers that to reach them we need to dial 214-XXX-XXXX. Hello! Let's really try to confuse our customers! 8) Not only did the City of Plano (referring to my local government) change area code, but also due to growth beyond its phone system, its exchange changed as well. I must say, they handled the necessary PR very well -- apprising the citizens of both the exchange and area code change at the same time. Nice job. 9) The local sports call in station is very often running a "If you're in the new 972 area code, remember to put a 214 in front of our number." However, the sports jockeys are not getting the hang of using 214 in front of their number the 30 times an hour they state it. 10) When I hear someone complain about having to remember ten digits, I quickly remind them of something I picked up in TELECOM Digest. "No, you don't have to remember ten, just seven. You need only to remember what to put in front of the seven -- either 214 which you already know or 972 which will soon become second nature." 11) I think that it is kind of funny that to call Dallas from Irving where I work, say maybe two miles in distance, I have to dial ten digits (well eleven with the 9 to get an outside line), but to call my wife at home in Plano -- 20 miles away -- I only need to dial seven (well eight). 12) The world did not come to an end when the split occurred. 13) You'll note my new sign off as a result of the split. Comments welcome. Mark D. Tenenbaum Plano, TX (972, at least til the next split!) ------------------------------ From: psyber@usa.pipeline.com (John Cropper) Subject: Re: 214/972 Confusion Date: 25 Sep 1996 22:52:57 GMT Organization: Pipeline On Sep 25, 1996 03:44:12 in article , 'DAmos@why.net (D. Larry Martin)' wrote: > psyber@usa.pipeline.com (John Cropper) wrote: >> On Sep 10, 1996 21:00:00, 'gordon@sneaky.lerctr.org (Gordon Burditt)' >> wrote: >>> The traditional "permissive dialing period" in the case of 214 will be >>> used solely as "pre-recorded re-direction to 972". That is if you have >>> a soon-to-be 972 number, anyone dialing your 214 number after 9/14 >>> will get a recording telling them to re-dial using 972. 214 still has >>> about 60,000 numbers scattered throughout, and will exhaust those >>> within the quarter after the cutaway. > Here's something even more confusing. I dialed my home (now in the > 972 NPA) from my office (in the 214 NPA) using seven digits (forgot to > change my speed dial) and got through. I thought after the change > that you HAD to dial ten digits when crossing NPA's. BTW, my wife > confirmed that it works the other way around as well. So does that > mean that some of the outlying offices may not have been fully > converted yet? BINGO! Most of the conversions of outlying areas will not be completed until late October or early November. That, coupled with an expected addition of as many as fourty duplicate prefixes before the end of permissive dialing, and you can see what a headache this is going to be for SBC, especially in the billing department! Congratulations to Patrick Townson & * John Cropper, NiS / NexComm Telecom Digest on their 15th * PO Box 277 anniversary of public service. * Pennington, NJ USA 08534-0277 ************************************** Inside NJ: 6o9.637.9434 Check out Telecom Digest Online! * Toll Free: 888.NPA.NFO2 (672.6362) http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/ * Fax : 6o9.637.943o telecom-archives/ * email: psyber@usa.pipeline.com ------------------------------ From: Bill Newkirk Subject: Re: Signal Propagation Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 18:44:32 -0400 Organization: Rockwell Avionics/Collins Reply-To: wenewkirk@rodes.cca.rockwell.com dstott@uswest.com wrote: > In TELECOM Digest #507, Brett Frankenberger writes: >> Most airlines (i.e. any that I've flown) ban everything during >> takeoff and once aloft, ban everything designed to transmit or >> receive radio signals. This is all of their own accord -- the >> government doesn't have any requirements in this area (except >> the FCC ban on cell phone usage). > Does anyone know of any airline that requires a person to turn off > their pager during take off or landing? It seems like that is a radio > reciever. I know my Skypager has gone off on a flight before; we were > at 32,000 feet somewhere over the Midwest, heading for Chicago. Then > I used the GTE Airphone to return the call, and that's a radio > transmitter. > Except for the cell phones, sounds kind of arbitrary to me. Ah, but the airphone system is a system designed to work on the aircraft in harmony with the other equipment on board. It's specif- ically designed for use in the aircraft and there's been system testing done to show that the airphone system works w/o interfering with or receiving interference from other equipment on the aircraft. The problem with receivers is that the VHF navigation band is immediately above the end of the VHF FM broadcast band. One of the fears is that the person using the radio will have a high-side injection local oscillator that will end up being tuned to the same frequency as the navigation system frequency the aircraft is trying to use. The frequency setup for the pager's superhet receiver shouldn't present a problem. bill n. ------------------------------ From: rlm@netcom.com (Robert McMillin) Subject: Lucent Technologies: To Speak to a Webmaster, Press 1 Organization: Charlie Don't CERF Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 07:05:00 GMT I have spent a good deal of time brushing up on telephony technology lately, and in particular, the merging of voice and data, mainly because my company is going to make the big switch to T1 and I'm in a position to make both purchase and engineering decisions. I know that Lucent is the hardware end of AT&T, and that they make a number of products that might be useful to me. However ... a trip to http://www.lucent.com yields next to no information on this subject, unless I want to buy a 5ESS. (Even if I did, it provides nowhere near enough on that, either!) What about their Paradyne modems and CSU/DSUs? (Does Lucent make those? They don't say.) I pointed out earlier in this forum that Lucent's space ads in the {Wall Street Journal} (among other publications) make no mention of their website. Could that be because they don't think about the Internet much? Here's a great example of a giant company that could be really helped by serious Internet presence, yet they're still way, way behind the curve. Here's a free clue, if anyone at Lucent is listening: surf the sites put up by 3Com, Ascend, or (even) Cisco as an example of what to do, or in the latter case, where to start. Robert L. McMillin | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: domingo7@cyberg8t.com (Michael D. Emerson) Subject: LATA Area Codes and Prefixes Date: 27 Sep 1996 01:12:22 GMT Organization: Cyberg8t Internet Services (800) 399-4NET Reply-To: domingo7@cyberg8t.com Hello, I'm developing a call accounting system for my company and need to determine the area codes and prefixes contained within a given LATA. I've tried the local carrier office (GTE) without success. If anyone has a source for such information I would appreciate it greatly. Also, I'm curious about who determines what constitutes a LATA? Thanks for the help. Michael D. Emerson domingo7@cyberg8t.com ------------------------------ From: JEFE OFICINA PLANEACION Subject: ISDN in Argentina and Chile Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 11:45:27 -0500 Hello you all, I am very interested in knowing the current situation of the ISDN market in Chile and Argentina, including national availability of ISDN BRIs and PRIs, number of ISDN ports, standards supported, type of services provided, etc. Any information or pointers to written or on-line sources will be appreciated. Best regards, Mario A. Castano Director, Planning Office CINTEL Centro de Investigaci=F3n de las Telecomunicaciones Av. 9 118-85 Bogota Colombia Telefax: +57 1 6208307/6208178=20 Email: m.a.castano@ieee.org ------------------------------ From: European On-Line Partners Subject: Marathon Takeover by Nortel? Date: 26 Sep 1996 18:19:23 GMT Organization: European On-Line Partners Hi, Did I hear on the grapevine today that Nortel are taking over Marathon? If so can anyone from either of these companies tell me if they are going to support the Marathon multiplexors through Nortel. Thanks in advance, David ------------------------------ From: Marc.Zirnheld@teaser.fr (Marc Zirnheld) Subject: New French Numbers (Erratum) Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 15:20:14 GMT Reply-To: Marc.Zirnheld@teaser.fr There were some mistakes in the long list of changes to French phone numbers ... 19 33 12 ccc Intl Directory assistance 00 19 33 12 ccc is, of course, wrong, and should be read as follow : 19 33 12 ccc Intl Directory assistance 00 33 12 ccc (Thanks to John R. Levine ) 36 05 xx xx Tl, toll-free 08 36 xx xx should be read : 36 05 xx xx Tl, toll-free 08 36 05 xx xx (Thanks to Patrick Raffin ) Also, here is a few additionnal information regarding the (actual) "36" slice of the numbering plan. Info courtesy of Patrick Raffin . 36 02 Transpac 2400, 4800 bps 36 02 36 03 Transpac X32 ? 36 03 36 06 xx xx Transpac, variable speed ? 08 36 06 xx xx 36 07 xx xx Tl, test acces point 08 36 07 xx xx 36 08 xx xx Transpac <-> ISDN Gateway ? 08 36 08 xx xx 36 09 xx xx Tl, messaging 08 36 09 xx xx 36 43 xx xx Tl, access point from not to be called Foreign countries from France ? 36 58 salespeople, billing information 36 58 36 60 xx xx Mb, pagers, alphapage 08 36 60 xx xx 36 61 xx xx Mb, pagers, "operator"(TM) 08 36 61 xx xx 36 73 xx xx Public voice mail, same as 36 72 but for remote access 08 36 73 xx xx 36 88 Wake-up service 36 88 36 89 xx xx Conference service 08 36 89 xx xx 36 92 Directory assistance (multiple/unusual research) 36 92 36 99 Hour service 36 99 Marc Zirnheld AdressE: Marc.Zirnheld@teaser.fr (ISO-8859-1/Latin-1) Dazibaobab: http://www.teaser.fr/~mzirnheld/ Telecopie: [+33](1)60192380 - 18 oct. 96: [+33]0160192380 ------------------------------ From: levin@bbn.com (Joel B Levin) Subject: Re: They Are Even More Stupid! (was Re: Stupid Spamster Tricks) Date: 26 Sep 1996 16:04:56 +0000 Organization: BBN Systems and Technologies In article wolf.paul@aut.alcatel. at (Wolf Paul) writes: > Comments: Authenticated sender is Then Pat adds the following comment: > Remember, spamming and junk mailing on the net will cease when the > perception that there is profit to be made by doing so is gone. The > spammers long ago learned they dare not give a valid email address > in their messages ... Then this response: > But you see, the guy's provider DID insert the valid email address in > the "Comments:" line I retained in the quote above, and I am sure this > nice operator of advertising services would not at all object to > people sending lots of inquiries about his services to that > authenticated sender address so thoughtfully provided in the header. > (Although, since he is using Pegasus, which by default does not show a > lot of headers, he probably is not aware that his real address got out > after all!) Doesn't matter. Many of these guys are using throwaway accounts, so they don't care what comes back -- the business reply is either a maildrop address or web server elsewhere, or it's a phone number or snailmail address. Interramp no longer gives out free trial account, though some are still hanging around. Still, I've heard that there are spammers paying for accounts to throw away in this fashion -- the setup plus one month fee is apparently worth it to them. JBL Internet: levin@bbn.com | USPS: BBN Systems and Technologies or jbl@levin.mv.com | Mail Stop 6/2D Telco: (617)873-3463 | 10 Moulton Street ARS: KD1ON | Cambridge, MA 02138 ------------------------------ Subject: Telephone Scam Referring to 809 (But What About Splits?) From: ray.normandeau@factory.com (Ray Normandeau) Date: Thu, 26 Sep 96 19:06:00 -0500 Organization: Invention Factory's BBS - New York NY - 212-274-8110 Reply-To: ray.normandeau@factory.com (Ray Normandeau) > Now, if they are running *newspaper advertising* asking people to call > an 809 number then that is a somewhat different situation, but how > many people do you know, seriously, who would respond to a help-wanted > ad in the paper involving a long distance number that was not toll-free? > They must be hard up for a job I guess. PAT] Such ads are being run in NEW YORK CITY right now. For both Mystery Shoppers (stores and restaurants) and Movie Theater watchers. The ad says to call an 818 number which I did call for about twelve cents. A recording then tells you to call an 809 number which I did not call. Why did I call? I am an actor (same for my wife) with a lot of lime on our hands between acting jobs. We have both been invited this year to a free meals at restaurants as part of training for their employees before public opening. I have been in the past a PAID "mystery shopper". We have in the past been invited to film previews where I suspect audience reaction is being watched. We have been in the past PAID participants in focus groups. So I thought that there was a good possibility that the offers were legit. What I found strange was that you would call a California (818) number for a NYC ad, but then Pinkertons (who also hire for restaurant and bar U/C work) have you apply inter-state. Ray Normandeau, Rita Frazier Normandeau ray.normandeau@factory.com http://www.buzznyc.com/actors/res.normandeau.raymond.html http://www.buzznyc.com/actors/res.frazier.rita.html ------------------------------ From: cnordin@vni.net (Craig Nordin) Subject: Re: Is Undesirable Internet Advertising Increasing? Date: 25 Sep 1996 01:41:42 -0400 Organization: Virtual Networks I've closed down approximately 40 e-mail spammers and here are the tools and tactics I use: * whois queries, find contact mailing addresses ... * recursive whois queries based on domain name of nameservers, find more contact mailing addresses ... * traceroutes to what is being offered (web pages or mail addresses) recording providers of spam offer domain. Use whois to grab more mailing addresses. * bounce (not forward) copies of e-mail spam to all found e-mail addresses. Either one of two things happens: * provisioners of spam master like spam, so should "eat what they support" or * provisioners outraged that their own customers are mail spamming and so talk to them or shut them down. What I like about this approach is that it takes me far less time than drafting some special note. I also really can't be blamed for much as I'm sending the provisioners just the same type of junk-crap that their network is supporting. Using my elm "Bounce" technique, you have to really eyeball the header to find the "Sender:" line which identifies me -- that way the outrage at the mail spammer can be expressed more directly and appropriately :). Please do this as well. Nothing like the network admin receiving 550 copies of the same dastardly spam from their customer ... Jobs - Graphic Arts - Commercial Production -> http://studio.vni.net/jobs/ Virtual Networks Premier Internet Services cnordin@vnii.net Indianapolis Indianapolis Indianapolis Metro http://www.vnii.net/ Indiana Indiana Indiana Washington DC Washington DC Washington DC Metro http://www.vni.net/ Virtual Networks Incorporated Virtual Networks of Indiana, Incorporated ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #514 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Sep 27 11:29:24 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id LAA03083; Fri, 27 Sep 1996 11:29:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 11:29:24 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199609271529.LAA03083@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #515 TELECOM Digest Fri, 27 Sep 96 11:29:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 515 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Second Line Wiring Problem (Chris Barr) Re: Excel Telecommunications Offer to School (Phil Stanley) Re: Internet Phone Petition (Michael R. Ward) Re: Is Undesirable Internet Advertising Increasing? (Andrew C. Green) Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street (Andrew C. Green) Re: Home PBX or Key System Wanted (Jay R. Ashworth) Re: Help Needed With Mexico Band Rates (Keith Brown) Re: Kevin Poulson Update (Rich & Katy Mulvey) Re: Home PBX or Key System Wanted (Anthony S. Pelliccio) Re: Dave Rhodes and Make Money Fast (rolf@clark.net) A Reader Annoyed With My Commentary (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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: cbarr@world.std.com (Chris Barr) Subject: Second Line Wiring Problem Organization: Aarathorn Enterprise Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 01:41:59 GMT Is there a FAQ or book about possible pairings and wire colors? I'll plan on getting the AT&T tester mentioned in another thread. We've got *old* wiring. A second line was put in a few years ago, using, I was told, the second pair from the street -- although as I look at incoming wires now, it's not at all that simple. Noises occured on the first line. A repairman came and clipped off connections to a jack for the second line in a far corner of the house, which I was no longer using. Now -- surprise -- I'd like to use that jack again for line two, for my modem, etc. Line one still works there. Two jacks exist. I tried connecting some likely-looking pairs to no good effect. Even lost all the good jacks for a while. Some of these have three-wire connections. No nice switch box, just the little clear crimp-down connectors. The main line comes in and goes to three hot jacks. Second line goes to one hot jack, with yellow and black unconnected (cut). Thanks, in advance, Chris Barr Boston, MA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The yellow/black should be the second pair however from the way you describe things, at some point in the past a technician may have 'improvised' somewhat to get around some bad wiring. You may want to simply install new wiring from the point where you can pick up the second line rather than attempt to use what is there presently given the noise problems you had earlier which the technician fixed by cutting the wires, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Phil Stanley Subject: Re: Excel Telecommunications Offer to School Date: 26 Sep 1996 02:38:49 GMT Organization: MagicNet, Inc. Reply-To: travlr@magicnet.net John R Levine wrote: >> A rep from Excel Telecommunications was the guest speaker at a >> "Parents for Riverside Drive School" meeting that I recently >> attended. The pitch was something like this: If we (the board of >> directors of the school) could get every parent to switch their long >> distance carrier to Excel every month 5% of every person's long >> distance phone calls would go to the school! What a great and easy >> way to raise money for the school. Excel would charge us a $25.00 >> sign-up fee and give us a 90 day written guarantee. >> I know very little about Excel and what they are offering -- is this a >> good deal? Are there any other companies doing this? What questions >> should we be asking? I once was curious about Excels' offerings myself. Since it cost nothing to try the service, why don't you try it before recommending it to your organiztion. This way, you don't have to take other people's opinions. You can always switch back if the service and rates don't appeal to you. I found them to be excellent myself after I tried it. Just because a company is MLM or has been fined doesn't make them a bad deal for you. All the carriers have been fined. Most more than Excel. In the end, the service you recieve and the cost are what counts. Give them a try and see what you get. Professional World Wide Web Hosting & Development Adgrafix Virtual Servers|http://www.adgrafix.com/info/pstanley 407-870-2526|1-800-683-1802 Pin 2438 Phil Stanley|pstanley@adgrafix.com ------------------------------ From: Michael R. Ward Subject: Re: Internet Phone Petition Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 09:13:52 -0500 Organization: University of Illinois Reed Miller wrote: > I also interviewed reps from the Big Three long distance > carriers in early August for a story I did on I-phones, and they said > they're not concerned that the phones might wipe out regular long > distance. MCI and AT&T even said they would consider offering Internet > phones to customers if the FCC made a strong stand against regulating > voice calls on the Net. MCI added that it's testing an I-phone. > This stance by the Big Three sounded strange to me, but I > guess it shows just how far they're willing to go to keep their ISP > customers happy. They're buying big chunks of bandwidth, after > all. Any other theories on why they'd take this position? If the 'big three', or any facilities based carrier, gets reimbursed equally for transmiting the signal either way, they should be indifferent to internet phone availability. If I make a traditional call, I pay them directly. If I use the Internet, somewhere down the chain, someone is leasing LD facilities. The LD rates for the first method are much higher because: LD carriers must pay access charges to local telcos; as a retail rather than wholesale product, selling and marketing expenses are higher; as customers are smaller and tend to be less knowledgable, profits may be higher. That is to say, reimbursement rates are likely not equal across technologies and we might expect some LD resistance to internet phones. Since ACTA members typically are not facilities based carriers, the see no benefits from internet phones and their resistance is understandably more adament. The response by Reed Hundt encourages the 'big three' to hold their tongues. Rather than ban internet phone technology, he has indicated a willingness to reduce access charges paid to local telcos to put traditional LD carriage on an equal footing with internet phones (i.e., change the old rules to the new technology). Since access charges comprise about 40% of the cost of LD service, even with some callers substituting towards internet phones, the LD industry stands to gain from a general increase in demand for their services if access charges were reduced. This could be worth lobbying for. Just my $0.02, Michael R. Ward (217) 244-5667 Dept. of Ag. and Consumer Econ. ward1@uiuc.edu University of Illinois http://www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/ward1 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 01:26:15 -0500 From: Andrew C. Green Subject: Re: Is Undesirable Internet Advertising Increasing? hancock4@cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) writes: > But lately it seems every non moderated newsgroup gets a daily "MAKE > MONEY FAST!" ad. Getting unsolicited ads in my email used to be rare, > now I get several every day. > Is there anything that can be done to discourage this sort of thing? It depends. In Usenet newsgroups, certain types of postings such as MMF, spams and excessive crossposts above generally-agreed-upon thresholds get Cancel Advisories issued in the control newsgroup by one or more of several participating organizations around the world. Sites that honor these advisory messages will cancel the offending posts; possibly your particular site chooses to ignore them, which results in significantly more advertising, as you've seen. Your local postmaster or SysAdmin should be able to tell you whether Cancel Advisories are honored at your site. Junk email is harder to stop, although you have some recourse after the fact if you want to take the time. Certain domain names can be associated with known junk email and scam outfits such as moneyworld and cyberpromo, and inbound email from those domain names can be bounced or ignored at your site's firewall, such that you never see it at all. If you do receive it, examining the headers of the message can reveal something about who sent it and where it came from (simply reading the "From:" address is not likely to tell you much; it's often faked), identifying in the Path which domains have handled the email along the way, and you can forward copies of the offending email to the Postmaster or Abuse accounts at the original domain. Sometimes the originating site was set up simply for junk email, and action would have to come from their provider, the next step up the chain. As for how they get your address in the first place, I'd have to say that in my experience, it still seems to come primarily from Usenet. My address appears here and on several web pages around the world, and yet the only time I get junk email is when an article of mine appears in comp.dcom.telecom via Telecom Digest, and is picked up by someone's skimming software. Keeping a low profile on Usenet seems to be a way to minimize (though not eliminate) junk email. Recently some posters have tried deliberately mangling their return addresses in some machine-unfriendly way (e.g. "acg@dlogics.remove.this.to.email.me.com") but I have no idea how effective that strategy is. Finally, let me publicly acknowledge one outfit which seems to be using TELECOM Digest poster info in a more responsible manner: Dataprobe, Inc. of Paramus, NJ. Seems that every time something of mine appears in TELECOM Digest, they lift my postal address from my .sig line below and send me via First Class mail a spiffy new catalog of their products. I have five copies so far. :-) Andrew C. Green (312) 266-4431 Datalogics, Inc. 441 W. Huron Internet: acg@dlogics.com Chicago, IL 60610-3498 FAX: (312) 266-4473 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not like the idea of any company collecting email addresses (or actual street addresses) which appear in the Digest and using them for their own commercial purposes. The only reason addresses of any sort appear in the Digest is to facilitate correspondence between participants; it is not to facilitate anyone building a mailing list. I do not know what, as a practical matter I can do about it other than to remove all email addresses and .signature lines entirely, requiring everyone who wants to respond to someone else to come through me. :( PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 08:39:59 -0500 From: Andrew C. Green Subject: Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street Robert Sinclair writes: > Yes and in my area the price of admission to unlimited "free" phone > service is a 1/2" socket and a phone set! Think they'd lock those > cabinets wouldn't you? *splutter* You'd be surprised. I was. A couple of weeks ago my doorbell rings, and it's a new neighbor who was referred to me by another neighbor for some help with his phone wiring. It seems he'd called Ameritech to get his townhouse service connected, and settled for a minimum hookup at the demarc, whereupon he'd take care of the inside wiring. Ameritech's men had of course shown up while they were out of the house for about .4 nanoseconds, and left the usual "Sorry We Missed You!" card on the doorknob. It did, however, indicate that they'd verified service up to the demarc ... which was not on his townhouse, or even his building, but was behind #910 at the end of the building next door, about seven units away. Guided there by the address scribbled on the card, we did indeed find the box, opened it (it doesn't lock), and found a helpful paper tag attached to the terminals we were to use and the wires we (?) were to connect. The interesting thing was that this box served both his building and #910; a fat cable runs through the basements of both, diverting pairs as required to each unit. If we wanted, we would have been free to, well, you get the idea. The only conclusion I can draw here is that Ameritech seems to be banking on security through anonymity in some way, relying on our, well, good nature, or something, to not mess around with the other lines, and trusting that strangers to the area would not recognize the anonymous little box for what it was. Andrew C. Green (312) 266-4431 Datalogics, Inc. 441 W. Huron Internet: acg@dlogics.com Chicago, IL 60610-3498 FAX: (312) 266-4473 ------------------------------ From: jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) Subject: Re: Home PBX or Key System Wanted Date: 26 Sep 1996 12:31:25 GMT Organization: University of South Florida Spencer Roedder (roedder@netcom.com) wrote: > David Siegel (David-Siegel@deshaw.com) wrote: >> I'm looking for a home phone system. I'm going to be installing up to >> 16 phones (a mixture of regular phones, modems, fax machines, intercoms >> (on exterior doors) and answering machines). I'd like the system to >> support both analog phones, and "feature phones", that are specific to >> the system. The functions that I need include the following: > This is a vague answer, but I would suggest looking in the various > home automation catalogs. In one I got recently (it's at home now so > I don't have the name) there was a Panasonic 16-line 6-trunk PBX that > took feature and regular phones and had lots of smarts. And about 8 > years ago some of my co-workers used and swore by the small Panasonic > PBXs. A company called BBS makes a 16x4 PBX for this market. Black Box is private labelling it as a "modem switch" (!), for less than I'd heard that BBS was selling it for (!!). They want a grand, roughly. It uses standard phones, although I gather there are keysets available, too. Cheers, Jay R. Ashworth jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us Member of the Technical Staff Junk Mail Will Be Billed For. The Suncoast Freenet *FLASH: Craig Shergold aw'better now; send no cards!* Tampa Bay, Florida *Call 800-215-1333x184 for the whole scoop* +1 813 790 7592 ------------------------------ From: Keith Brown Subject: Re: Help Needed With Mexico Band Rates Date: 26 Sep 1996 00:41:57 GMT Organization: CallCom International Diego Betancor wrote in article : > Anyone have the information or database that shows which Mexican area > codes belong to which band rate? Diego: Here you go! Prefix=Band 100-119=7 120-122=6 123=5 124-126=6 127=5 128-139=6 140-145=4 146-149=5 150-153=6 154=5 155=4 156=5 157=4 158-159=5 160=4 161-166=1 167-169=4 170-179=5 180-189=6 190-231=7 232=8 233-237=7 238=8 239-270=7 271-272=8 273-282=7 283-289=8 290-370=7 371=6 372-377=7 378=6 379-400=7 401=6 402-418=7 419=6 420-460=7 461-468=6 469-471=7 472-487=6 488=5 489-497=5 498=5 499=6 500-608=7 609=4 610-619=7 620=6 621=4 622=5 623=4 624-630=5 631=1 632-636=3 637=4 638-639=3 640-649=5 650-656=1 657=4 658-665=1 666=4 667=3 668-669=1 670-673=6 674-679=7 680-683=6 684=3 685=5 686-687=6 688-740=7 741-748=8 744=7 745-746=8 747=7 748=8 749-771=7 772=6 773-781=7 782=7 783=8 784-785=6 786-799=7 800-822=4 823-824=3 825-826=4 827=1 826-860=4 861=3 862=2 863-869=4 870-894=1 895-899=2 900-999=8 ----- --------- --------- Keith Brown CallCom International URL: http://www.callcom.com ------------------------------ From: mulveyr@ll.aa2ys.ampr.org (Rich & Katy Mulvey) Subject: Re: Kevin Poulson Update Date: 26 Sep 1996 00:49:44 GMT Organization: Mulvey Home Node Reply-To: mulveyr@frontiernet.net On Wed, 25 Sep 96 11:46:25 PDT, Mark Lottor wrote: >> It's not forever. It's only three years in which to break some bad >> habits and an focus which has been unhealthy for him. It's an >> opportunity to change, and he should enter a new phase. He can always >> go back later. > I think you forgot that he already spent a lot of time in jail. Why > three more years of punishment? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: They are adding that three years to > make sure that all their theories on recidivism come true and that > they get him back in prison again. You can't be letting people who get > out of prison after a few years have the tools and wherewithal to > rebuild their lives. Law enforcement in the USA does not work that > way. The punishment must go on and on. Ask any vindictive prosecutor > or police officer if you don't beleive me. PAT] Come on -- statements like that are simply paranoid. Putting convicts on probation after serving time in prison is standard procedure - and with very good reason. As I stated before, it's a good bet that very few people believe that criminals are reformed in prison. As such, it makes sense to supervise them for varying lengths of time when they get out. You're conveniently ignoring the fact that the job of a probation officer is not simply to keep a checklist of when the criminals report in to him. His job is also to see they they receive as much assistance as possible in completing ( or starting, for that matter ) an education, finding a job, locating housing, and so on. Have you ever actually met a probation officer, or spent more than ten minutes discussing their jobs? I have -- and the ones I have spoken to are uniformly concerned about making sure that their clients are getting every chance possible to succeed. The problem comes in when the clients themselves don't want to succeed. And since probation officers are uniformly overworked, they have to concentrate on the people who have a reasonable chance of being helped. It's through no fault of their own that some of the former criminals are too sociopathic to ever have a hope of being redeemed. Rich ------------------------------ From: kd1nr@anomaly.ideamation.com (Anthony S. Pelliccio) Subject: Re: Home PBX or Key System Wanted Date: 26 Sep 1996 20:06:19 -0400 Organization: Ideamation, Inc. In article , Tom Thiel wrote: > Seriously consider the AT&T (Lucent) Partner Plus or Partner II Telephone > Systems. They will do everything you specify and more. I don't sell them, > but I do install them, and have found it to be a very reliable, flexible, > expandable system. I'll second that one. I found the Partner Plus to be a joy to both install and to program. One hint though -- if you're going to be programming it get at least one MLS-10D phone. From what I remember the Partner Plus will take the AT&T phones (MLS-5, MLS-10(D), MLS-34(D) etc.) which use a two pair setup (analog voice/data), and any other phone so long as you program the port properly. And the nice thing is it's VERY expandable. On the other hand while I think the Lucent Definity switches are great the 7410 digital sets aren't worth the plastic they're made out of. Tony Pelliccio, KD1NR kd1nr@anomaly.ideamation.com ------------------------------ From: rolf@clark.net Subject: Re: Dave Rhodes and Make Money Fast Date: 26 Sep 1996 01:38:10 GMT Organization: Clark Internet Services, Inc., Ellicott City, MD USA tad@ssc.com wrote: > 'Make Money Fast' Chain Letter Nets On-line Users > By James Romenesko , Saint Paul Pioneer Press, Minn. > Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News > All attempts to stop the MMF phenomonon over the years have failed. A > "Make Money Fast Hall of Humiliation" Web page was intended to shame > those who've spammed the Net with the posts, but its keeper eventually > gave up; he had too many names and too little time. Imagine my surprise when I read this! I haven't updated the page in more than a week, but I certainly hasn't given up. The writer is correct on one point; "too many names and too little time" definitely applies. The URL for said page is in my sig. Rolf e-mail: rolf@clark.net MMF Hall of Humiliation: http://www.clark.net/pub/rolf/mmf/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 02:21:20 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: A Reader Annoyed With My Commentary In an issue of the Digest on Thursday, Elana Beach, a long time reader/correspondent in the Digest sent a note about finding telephone jacks in a public place that apparently anyone could use/abuse. Seeing the note reminded me of a message from Elana about a trip to Chicago and Union Station which had been published here a couple years ago. In that earlier message, Elana had mentioned that a phone was available in a waiting area which anyone could use without any restrictions on the places called. When the message appeared here yesterday I added a sort of unthinking, meant be humorous comment about Elana 'being up to your old tricks again' and referenced the Union Station messages which had appeared here long ago. Elana was offended by this and after an exchange of correspondence on Thursday evening I extended my apologies for any unintentional distress which was caused. I told Elana that I would publish my apology in the Digest so that any archives or message/name- gathering services on the net which saw the original message would also see my retraction of the comments about 'being up to old tricks again.' Elana is concerned that with the growing number of services which archive old messages and make them available, those comments could be taken out of context, with the implication being that Elana has in the past stolen phone service or committed phone fraud. I am sure nothing could be further from the truth. So Elana, I am sorry for the offense taken. Certainly none was intended on this end. PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #515 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Sep 27 13:52:16 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA08963; Fri, 27 Sep 1996 12:09:02 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 12:09:02 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199609271609.MAA08963@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #516 TELECOM Digest Fri, 27 Sep 96 12:09:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 516 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New Software Has No Time for Chat (Stan Schwartz) Switch 64 == X.21? (in Brazil and Argentina) (movers@vaherdon1.btna.com) Voice Response System Advice Needed - Please Help (Meir I. Green) Multilink PPP on Win3.11? (Dick Tam) Re: Cancelbots Flood Net; Thousands of Messages Lost (Evan Champion) Re: Cancelbots Flood Net; Thousands of Messages Lost (Marc Farnum Rendino) Re: 214/972 Split Observations (Kevin Autrey) Re: The Story Behind a Country Code Without a Country Name (Rishab Ghosh) Re: The Story Behind a Country Code Without a Country Name (Dan Herrick) Re: The Story Behind a Country Code Without a Country Name (lr@access4.net) Re: BA-NJ Proposes "Overlay" in 609 Area Code (John Cropper) Re: Exchange -> Location Map Wanted; NYNEX Still Ignorant (Rob Wood) Re: Text Processing Under Windows (Jeremy Parsons) Re: Text Processing Under Windows (Stan Brown) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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: New Software Has No Time for Chat Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 22:25:30 -0400 Newsday, 9/24/96 By Tom Incantalupo. STAFF WRITER "Welcome to NYNEX directory assistance," says an unwaveringly polite voice. "What town?" Don't be nervous: answer the question. If you're not sure, just say so. Don't worry if you hem, haw or hesitate. NYNEX' newly automated directory assistance system, now in effect everywhere in the company's service area, will edit most of the "uhs" and "ums" and dead time out of your request. The system's not entirely automated, though. And while it may give the impression that you're talking with a computer, that's only partly true. What you say is recorded and played back in edited form into the headphones of an operator -- probably a person in Port Jefferson, Hempstead or Patchogue, if you're requesting a listing in Nassau or Suffolk Counties, says NYNEX spokesman John Bonomo. The operator then keys your request into the console as before and the number is relayed to you in the choppy, computer-constructed form we've gotten used to. You might or might not talk to an operator at all before the number is relayed to you; it depends largely, says Bonomo, on whether the operator needs more information to provide the proper number -- the spelling of the name, for example. Inaugurated in June in Manhattan, the system has been phased in throughout NYNEX' territory, which covers all or part of seven states. Some other regional phone companies also use it. The intent, says Bonomo, is to handle more calls without more operators. In essence, it does that via computer software called Store and Forward that removes redundant speech and compresses dead time. So, says Bonomo, it might record the first "um" but the remainder will be edited out. NYNEX estimates that the time savings will allow operators, who now handle about 950 calls a day, to take about 75 a day more. Bonomo says it seems to be working. "I think we're at that level or at least getting close to it," he said. Bonomo says it's OK to say so if you're not sure of the answer to the question "What town?" Whatever you say - "Somewhere in Nassau," or "I think Levittown," for example - will be followed by the question "What listing?" And you can, at any time, press "O" to be connected immediately to an operator, although Bonomo says that is intended primarily for emergencies and is not encouraged. About 400 people, mostly operators but also including some supervisory personnel, staff the three Long Island facilities. Bonomo says the system enables operators to spend less time talking on the phone, although, if they are handling more requests for information, they also are typing more. An official of the union representing operators says, however, that they are worried about how the system could affect their job security. "They're kind of concerned about it," said Larry Mancino, the Manhattan-based vice president of District One of the Communications Workers of America. He said operators also believe that customers prefer speaking to a person rather than a machine and that the immediate availability of an operator is particularly important in emergencies. ------------------------------ From: mouers@vaherndon1.btna.com Subject: Switch 64 == X.21? (in Brazil and Argentina) Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 14:55:18 GMT Organization: BT Visual Images Hello all, I was recently asked to get one of our video conferencing systems working in South America (Brazil and Argentina) the customer said the ISDN wasn't readily available and we would have to use "Switched 64". After asking around the office I was told that it was most likely an X.21 interface. Well X.21 is a 15 pin interface, and I wondered if a PTT would provide a 15 pin interface coming out the wall (like a POTS line). The answer I got was no/yes, an RJ-45 or RJ-11 would come out the wall and the PTT would provide a adapter box that had a X.21 interface and the customer would plug his equipment into the adapter. So the PTT does provide the customer with an X.21 interface. So my questions are: 1. Is the above correct? 2. Is switched 64 another name for X.21, if not what is "Switched 64"? 3. Is the assumption correct that ISDN is not readily available in most Latin America counties. Thanks a bunch in advance. You can post a reply on these newsgroups or email me: mouers@vaherndon1.btna.com Simon ------------------------------ From: mgreen@world.std.com (Meir I Green) Subject: Voice Response System Advice Needed - Please Help Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 14:48:50 GMT My company is adding Touch Tone telephone access with Interactive Voice Response to our product line. We are looking for the following: - text to speech, but light duty initially. - We will want FAX capability soon as well. - The system must be scalable and expandable to handle more lines and throughput, but only a couple of lines initially. - We prefer a PC based application, which runs under Win95 and NT. - We are looking for a high level application generator, to allow speedy development and modification of the product, preferably without coding. e.g. something with functional object modules that can be tied together and perhaps an outline/flow editing of the prompt logic, etc. - Access to the code should be possible in order to add new functionality to the system and integrate with our products, e.g. Visual Basic or equivalent. - The product should be able to access a database using a standard interface e.g. ODBC or equivalent. - Should interface to standard telephony device, e.g. TAPI, Dialogic, etc. I would greatly appreciate your comments and recommendations as well as any experiences with VBVoice Win32, ShowNTel, VoiceKonnects, or any suitable product. Thank you very much! Meir I Green Internet & WWW Specialist, Programmer, Technician ------------------------------ From: thetam@unixg.ubc.ca (Dick Tam) Subject: Multilink PPP on Win3.11? Date: 27 Sep 1996 07:27:43 GMT Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada I've just read about the multilink PPP connection feature on NT and was rather interested in trying it out. However, I'm only running Win3.11 with an Intel 14.4 and USR 33.6. What should I do (or is it possible) to enable this feature on a Win3.11 machine? Thanks! Dick Tam thetam@unixg.ubc.ca http://web.ucs.ubc.ca/thetam ------------------------------ From: Evan Champion Subject: Re: Cancelbots Flood Net; Thousands of Messages Lost Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 19:52:37 -0400 Organization: Synapse Internet [www.synapse.net] Tad Cook wrote: > "There's nothing you can do as an individual user to prevent someone > from canceling your message," said John Gilmore, a computer security > expert in San Francisco. "We need something added to Usenet's software > that would only allow a cancellation from the originator." I'm sure this won't comfort anyone who had their messages cancelled, but you can set up INN 1.5, which is just about to go in to its first public beta, to ignore cancels completely. The only problem is that its usefulness will be very limited unless your provider also ignores cancels. I would love it if the default behaviour had INN ignore cancels but I'm not sure that I'll be able to convince the maintainer to make that change. People have been talking about authenticated cancels for a long time now on news.software.nntp, but unfortunately it seems that no one really has the desire to dive right in and write an Internet draft and produce a patch set for INN to do it. If anyone is interested, I encourage you to visit DejaNews and dig up the old threads from news.software.nntp. Evan Champion * Director, Network Operations mailto:evanc@synapse.net * Directeur, Exploitation du reseau http://www.synapse.net/ * Synapse Internet ------------------------------ From: mvgfr@netcom.com (Marc Farnum Rendino) Subject: Re: Cancelbots Flood Net; Thousands of Messages Lost Organization: mvgfr Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 13:06:21 GMT > The incident further illustrates the shaky security foundation of the > Internet... Horse hockey. And alarmism. What _needs_ to be secure _is_ (or the admin in charge isn't doing the job properly) and what isn't secure doesn't need to be. The answer to the _real_ question is education - users need to know what's secure (by design) and what's not (by design). Email, usenet, etc. are not secure, nor were they designed to be. The sky is not falling. Marc ------------------------------ From: exukev@exu.ericsson.se (Kevin Autrey) Subject: Re: 214/972 Split Observations Date: 27 Sep 1996 11:21:52 GMT Organization: Ericsson North America Inc. What is even more interesting about the 214/972 split is its apparent lack of consistency among the two companies that serve the D/FW area (GTE and Southwestern Bell (SBC)). Both my work and a friend's house are in the new 972 area code. My home is in 214. If I call home from my work (where both are SBC exchanges), I only have to dial 7 digits (although 10 does work as well). If I call home from my friend's house (which is a GTE exchange), I get a message informing me that that number is no longer in service. I never really thought that the whole area-code split was going to be too much of a problem -- but that was before I realized how much of a mess the phone companies could make out of it. \/ Kevin Autrey | exukev@exu.ericsson.se | +1 972 997-6865 Ericsson Inc. (USA), Richardson, TX Radio Systems - Research & Development EUS/RD/KD Design Services - Design and Verification Tools ------------------------------ From: rishab@CERF.NET (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Subject: Re: The Story Behind a Country Code Without a Country Name Date: 26 Sep 1996 02:55:31 -0700 Organization: CERFnet Dial 'n' CERF Customer Bob Goudreau (goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com) wrote: > It's odd that the International Olympic Committee is able to overcome > this hurdle where the ITU is not. In the Olympic Games, the team from > Taiwan competes under the name "Chinese Taipei". Perhaps the ITU > could use the same moniker for the island to which +886 is assigned? The IOC is not an organization of governments. And it would, I presume, be difficult for the ITU to grant some official recognition of "Chinese Taipei" without allowing Taiwan to participate in other ITU activities. OTOH all sorts of funny uses are made of country codes, so assigning one to a city in an indeterminate country may well be a way out -- except that Taiwan itself could object. First Monday - The Peer-Reviewed Journal on the Internet http://www.firstmonday.dk/ Munksgaard International Publishers, Copenhagen International Editor - Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (rishab@dxm.org) Pager +91 11 9622 162187; Fax +91 11 2209608 or 2426453 or 2224058 A4/204 Ekta Vihar, 9 Indraprastha Extn, New Delhi 110092 INDIA ------------------------------ From: daniel lance herrick Subject: Re: The Story Behind a Country Code Without a Country Name Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 12:04:33 -0400 Organization: Allen-Bradley Company Rishab Aiyer Ghosh wrote: > Vincent Kuo (vincent_kuo@stsl.siemens.com.tw) wrote: >> Although Taiwan is every bit an independent country, has 21 million >> people and plays a significant role in the world, we remain anonymous >> in official occasions. This is just unfair. Maybe nobody can change > I would like to point out that this is at least partly due to the > "official" position of Taiwan's own government -- that it does not > represent an independent country, and is the true government of all > China. This fits in very conveniently with Communist China's bosses, > who think _they_ are the government of all China. I know this is off topic, Pat, but you might have some fun with it on your soapbox: I've thought for a few years now that Her Majesty's government should return Hong Kong to the government in exile when the lease expires in 1997. The government of China in Taiwan has more continuity with the government of China that wrote the lease and would be likely to allay the fears of those who are eye-ing the exits and wondering how they can get out. Of course, the government in Taiwan might be willing to renew the lease for another term. If Tom Clancy reads the TELECOM Digest, he is welcome to share the idea with President Ryan. dan dlh@dlh.com ------------------------------ From: lr@access4.digex.net Subject: Re: The Story Behind a Country Code Without a Country Name Date: 26 Sep 1996 16:51:33 GMT Organization: Intentionally Left Blank Bob Goudreau (goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com) wrote: > It's odd that the International Olympic Committee is able to overcome > this hurdle where the ITU is not. In the Olympic Games, the team from > Taiwan competes under the name "Chinese Taipei". Perhaps the ITU > could use the same moniker for the island to which +886 is assigned? Yes, but it caused Taiwan a lot of heartburn because they want to appear under "Republic of China" and there was a big stink over that in the 70's. Frankly, I'm not sure of the UN's position. Certainly, there are UN member nations who both claim to own rights to the same piece of land (there are even stranger recognitions made in the case of the middle east) and the mainland government was certainly recognized by virtue of a permanent seat on the security council long before Taiwan was replaced in the General Assembly. Ron ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 21:31:37 GMT Subject: Re: BA-NJ Proposes "Overlay" in 609 Area Code From: psyber@usa.pipeline.com (John Cropper) On Sep 25, 1996 17:44:19, 'Carl Moore ' wrote: > You have said 201 was created in 1951 and 609 in 1963. > This disagrees with the setup of area codes in 1947, and > I have 1958 for setup of area 609. For 609, notice the > following New York Times reference: > 201/609 New Jersey, 1958 (New York Times, page B4, 27 April 1989) The closest info I can provide on this is a 'late winter' implementation of relief in NJ in 1958. My guesstimate is in the NPA.XLS (Feb), issued monthly to my mailing list. Eventually, this will be converted to a kind of web document; I am gathering bids for service at this time. Target date is the first of the year ... Remember Carl, we are dealing with the press, who thinks Clinton is the best thing since sliced bread . John Cropper, NiS / NexComm PO Box 277 Pennington, NJ USA 08534-0277 Inside NJ: 6o9.637.9434 Toll Free: 888.NPA.NFO2 (672.6362) Fax : 6o9.637.943o email : psyber@usa.pipeline.com ------------------------------ From: Rob Wood Organization: Rob Wood - Minnetonka, MN USA Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 09:29:24 -0500 Subject: Re: Exchange -> Location Map Wanted; NYNEX Still Ignorant James W. Anderson worte: "That is kind of odd that NYNEX doesn't seem to have an exchange location map. I assume you want to know the extent of the coverage of a particular exchange. "An example is that I live in Provo, Utah where part of the city has one set of exchanges and another part of the city (the north end) has other exchanges separate from the rest of the city. I have not seen an actual map here but in another example there at one time was a listing of the exchange names and which NXX's were in them (and a schematic map) showing roughly where those exchange names were and what they covered in the Minneapolis/St. Paul phone book years ago. I remember that that was a US WEST published book also." And I can see where this might be useful. The Twin Cities area directories still contain that detailed map of the calling area and an extensive list of prefizes and their locations as well. In fact, I lost phone service for a few hours on Monday. My next-door neighbor did as well (the CO I'm connected to covers the 906, 934, 937, 949, and 975 NXX's). Knowing where the boundary was between service areas of CO's was located pointed me to a payphone from which I could call repair (that CO services the 401, 470, and 474 NXX's). I was able to convince one of the managers at US West to move this repair up on the priority list, based on the potential for an emergency to require a line from that area. I had no idea how many lines were out, perhaps a few, perhaps five NXXs' worth. Service was back a few hours later. Rob Wood robwoo19@skypoint.com Minnetonka MN USA http://www.skypoint.com/~robwoo19 ------------------------------ From: Jeremy Parsons Subject: Re: Text Processing Under Windows Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 12:48:17 -0400 I can't believe how many people took time to respond with advice, information and offers of help. Some I have replied to, but may I reply generally here and say thank you all? Although I found a few shareware or freeware awk implementations, I have finally decided to follow the recommendation of several of you and get myself Perl, from ftp.perl.hip.com, which looks like exactly what I want (short of installing a UNIX variant such as LINUX). If I were willing to pay for a more full commercial solution, I would definitely have gone for MKS Toolkit (http://www.mks.com), which is what I used some years ago but had forgotten until some of you reminded me. For $349 you get a Windows 95 implementation of Korn shell plus almost 200 UNIX utilities including awk, sed and the other key text processing tools. I was directed to several shareware sets of similar tools, including a number on http://www.winsite.com, None of these quite did enough of what I wanted (a number of utilities designed for DOS crashed when I tried them under Windows 95). Finally I am going to keep an eye on the CYGWIN32 project (http://www.cygnus.com/misc/gnu-win32/) to put GNU programs onto Win32 (including Windows 95) - GNU is another UNIX-inspired system. Thanks again to all who took the time to help -- I really appreciate it. Jeremy Parsons ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 19:27:53 -0400 From: stbrown@nacs.net (Stan Brown) Subject: Re: Text Processing Under Windows Reply-To: stbrown@nacs.net In article was written: > I only have access to a Windows machine, and while just about everything I > want to do can be done in time by Microsoft Word, it's always tedious and > often error-prone. This is frustrating when I know exactly how to do what > I want using one of the common UNIX shells and some of the standard tools > (especially awk). You're in luck. There are DOS-hosted tools to do many UNIX tasks. In particular, there's an AWK at http://www.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/txtutl/awk320.zip There's also an excellent vi clone, Vim (VI IMproved), http://www.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/editor/vim42p32.zip which runs in DOS or in a DOS box under Windows. Both are free. I have used AWK somewhat and use Vim many times every day. The URL I gave is for the version of Vim that runs in protected mode, so it can process really big files. Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cleveland, Ohio USA email: stbrown@nacs.net Web: http://www.nacs.net/~stbrown/ Can't find FAQ lists? See my Web page for instructions, or email me. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #516 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Sep 30 22:01:22 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id WAA11069; Mon, 30 Sep 1996 22:01:22 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 22:01:22 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610010201.WAA11069@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #517 TELECOM Digest Mon, 30 Sep 96 22:01:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 517 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson NPA-NXX Data For 4Q96 (John Cropper) Pacific Telesis Declares 3rd Quarter Dividend (Mike King) Caller ID From Europe (Ed Hew) Big Changes at Bell Atlantic (Tad Cook) Omaha Exchange Name History, etc. (Jack Winslade) "Just Say Yes" (Mike King) Phone News From Chattanooga (Updates) (Stanley Cline) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 15:38:37 GMT Subject: NPA-NXX Data For 4Q96 From: psyber@usa.pipeline.com (John Cropper) In the traditions of David Esan, who used to regularly analyze NPA/NXX information and release a report (usually) quarterly, here is my analysis data for the 4th quarter of 1996. The top 20, and their activity since last quarter - NPA NXXs CHG NPA NXXs CHG NPA NXXs CHG NPA NXXs CHG 713: 767 +24 619: 707 + 2 403: 669 + 5 617: 637 +40 214: 763 + 7 809: 701 +31 817: 665 +12 410: 628 +16 804: 761 +13 212: 692 + 5 414: 655 + 6 415: 623 +12 312: 725 +22 310: 691 + 7 412: 648 + 6 916: 620 +15 604: 722 --- 501: 675 + 2 407: 637 +23 201: 616 +21 206: 616 +17 NPA/NXX USAGE RANKING AS OF OCTOBER 1, 1996 (for letter designations, see notes below) NPA NXXs NPA NXXs NPA NXXs NPA NXXs NPA NXXs a 713: 767 h 408: 530 404: 421 715: 337 807: 110 c 214: 763 h 801: 530 406: 420 903: 328 242: 51 c 804: 761 303: 528 503: 414 812: 327 246: 27 c 312: 725 516: 527 217: 411 954: 326 441: 20 c 604: 722 209: 524 703: 408 218: 321 268: 9 a 619: 707 913: 524 615: 407 901: 319 758: 9 d 809: 701 910: 523 203: 406 509: 318 345: 6 212: 692 h 908: 520 701: 406 315: 317 869: 5 a 310: 691 972: 519 519: 402 518: 316 562: 4 501: 675 h 301: 516 605: 399 814: 312 664: 3 h 403: 669 770: 513 419: 396 712: 310 240: 1 b 817: 665 205: 512 909: 396 507: 302 443: 1 a 414: 655 704: 512 517: 395 902: 302 626: 1 f 412: 648 h 213: 511 418: 392 705: 301 760: 1 c 407: 637 402: 505 250: 388 573: 298 248: h 617: 637 504: 504 905: 387 706: 298 253: f 410: 628 515: 493 304: 386 309: 295 264: a 415: 623 716: 490 618: 385 608: 293 284: a 916: 620 416: 487 207: 384 603: 289 340: h 201: 616 616: 486 409: 384 937: 288 425: b 206: 616 306: 472 630: 384 806: 287 440: 717: 610 305: 469 204: 383 561: 286 473: a 317: 609 512: 466 540: 378 970: 283 530: 405: 609 h 610: 462 917: 378 707: 277 649: b 210: 600 847: 462 941: 377 709: 276 650: c 513: 596 919: 460 808: 376 787: 274 670: 816: 582 914: 459 757: 373 719: 249 671: h 818: 580 314: 458 319: 372 417: 248 724: h 508: 577 805: 456 541: 370 773: 248 765: h 514: 575 219: 453 334: 368 864: 247 767: a 810: 570 502: 452 423: 368 308: 223 781: h 215: 565 708: 451 915: 367 506: 216 784: h 714: 564 216: 450 208: 366 307: 208 843: 612: 557 907: 447 860: 366 802: 196 867: 904: 554 h 702: 444 815: 363 320: 195 868: h 510: 551 912: 438 360: 356 607: 194 876: 601: 545 318: 432 918: 356 401: 187 978: h 313: 543 505: 431 202: 353 302: 177 614: 542 316: 430 613: 346 352: 172 h 803: 540 h 609: 427 606: 345 413: 162 718: 535 520: 424 330: 340 906: 120 602: 531 813: 424 819: 340 281: 118 Notes: a - singular split planned; number will be reduced by split b - multiple splits planned; number will be reduced by splits c - singular split in progress; number will be reduced by split d - multiple splits in progress; number will be reduced by splits e - unknown form of relief planned f - overlay planned; number will peak just before overlay g - overlay code active in conjunction with; minor changes expected h - method of relief under review by state regulators and/or LEC Items of interest: You might want to gear up for a SECOND split in 1997 on the following (already) split (in 1995) NPAs: * CO - 303 (528 NXXs assigned as of 10/1) * AZ - 602 (531 NXXs assigned as of 10/1) * MN - 612 (557 NXXs assigned as of 10/1, JUST SPLIT IN 03/96!!) * FL - 305 (460 NXXs assigned as of 10/1) * FL - 904 (551 NXXs assigned as of 10/1, OVER 70% FULL!) * TX - 972 (519 NXXs assigned as of 10/1, STILL IN PERMISSIVE!!) Those are just the *critical* ones (as per OLD BellCore notes on the subject ... a few others are starting to move rather quickly as well: * PA - 215 (565 NXXs, split in 1994, 610 is close behind with 462 NXXs) * GA - 770 (513 NXXs, split in 1995) * IL - 847 (462 NXXs, split in January, mandatory in April) * NC - 910 (523 NXXs, split in 1993, 919 is close behind with 460 NXXs) John Cropper, NiS / NexComm PO Box 277 Pennington, NJ USA 08534-0277 Inside NJ: 609.637.9434 Toll Free: 888.NPA.NFO2 (672.6362) Fax : 609.637.9430 email : psyber@usa.pipeline.com ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: Pacific Telesis Declares 3rd Quarter Dividend Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 00:15:52 PDT Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 12:00:00 -0800 From: Marcia.Flint@pactel.com (TELESIS.EA_SF_PO:Marcia Flint) Subject: Pacific Telesis Declares 3rd Quarter Dividend Pacific Telesis Board of Directors today approved a third quarter dividend of 31.5 cents per share. The dividend is payable on November 1 to shareowners of record on October 9. Pacific Telesis Declares 3rd Quarter Dividend Pacific Telesis Board of Directors today approved a third quarter dividend of 31.5 cents per share. The dividend is payable on November 1 to shareowners of record on October 9. --------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: edhew@xenitec.xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew) Subject: Caller ID From Europe Reply-To: vances@motivity.ca Organization: Motivity Telecom Inc. Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 07:19:06 GMT Recently callers from Europe have been showing up on my phone with thier calling telephone numbers intact. I have received calls from Switzerland and Germany with the full international number being displayed (eg. 41xxxxxxx). I believe this has been coincident with Teleglobe (Canada's international monopoly carrier) having upgraded signaling links to these countries to CCS7 ISUP signaling. I have an ISDN telephone on my desk which I thought might be the only way these numbers were visible so I asked a caller to call again on my house line. I have a Nortel Vista 350 telephone, their most current residential product, aquired only one month ago. The number did show up but not quite right. The set seemed to have decided from the "long distance indicator" (the phone rang with that special ring Bell gives to identify long distance callers) that it should place a '1' in front of the number. The number displayed was "1-412-xxx-xxxx". The last digit was missing as well. You can imagine the fun I'm going to have with Bell when I complain about this telephone's CLID not working properly. :) Vance [I'm in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada] ------------------------------ Subject: Big Changes at Bell Atlantic Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 10:37:02 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Big Changes in Store for Bell Atlantic By Otesa Middleton, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News NORFOLK--Sep. 28--Bell Atlantic Corp. is poised to enter new markets, accept competition, merge with Nynex Corp. and grow rapidly, according to Raymond W. Smith, the company's chairman and chief executive officer. Smith was in Norfolk yesterday to speak at the opening of the Consortium of Information and Telecommunications Executives' conference. Customers continue to want enhanced services, Smith said, which has the company playing catch-up. Use of ISDN, high-speed data telephone lines, has gone up 60 percent; customers added 800,000 second lines this year, and Smith expects one million second telephone lines to be installed next year. Smith also talked to the group about Bell Atlantic's planned merger with Nynex. Bell Atlantic's shareholders will vote on the merger at Richmond's Landmark Theater on Nov. 8. Ironically, the consortium's conference came a week after 48 black Bell Atlantic employees filed a lawsuit in Washington, accusing the company of racism in its training and promoting practices. "We take (the accusations) very seriously," Smith said. "If employees feel something is wrong, enough to take action, and if there is something wrong, we'll fix it. "Equal opportunity in a diverse work force is not an altruistic issue," he said. "It is vital. We have a huge African-American employee body and customer base ... We've made very good progress, but I'm still not satisfied." Maurice Brown, president of the consortium, said he was happy to have the group's only white member welcome the organization for its annual meeting. ------------------------------ From: jsw@ivgate.omahug.org (Jack Winslade) Subject: Omaha Exchange Name History, etc. Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 23:44:37 CDT I recently ran across some notes regarding Omaha's conversion from named exchanges to numbered prefixes. The cutover apparently occurred in the fall of 1960. Prior to 1960, Omaha used a 2-4 scheme with the first two letters of the exchange name being used. Omaha went to an all-number scheme in 1960 where the numbered prefixes had no correlation to the former names. I was quite surprised at the low number of dialable prefixes that were in service at the time. Omaha ain't BosWash, but it currently has well over 100 dialable prefixes in the local calling area. This simply shows how the phone system has grown faster than the human population. Here's the chart, showing the CO locations and the prefixes after the cut in 1960. The numbered notes are mine, compiled from odd sources. ;-) Downtown Omaha office, 19th & Douglas: (new) 221 (new) 271 (1) (new) 281 (1) ATlantic 341 (2) JAckson 342 EXpress 344 HArney 345 WEbster 346 (3) YEllowstone 347 (3) (new) 348 West Central Omaha, 45th & Izard: WAlnut 551 GLendale 553 REgent 556 CApitol 558 North Omaha, 30th & Fowler: PLeasant 451 PRospect 453 KEnwood 455 (4) South Omaha, 23rd & O: MArket 731 ORchard 733 West Omaha, 90th & Western: TErrace 391 HUdson 393 Bellevue, NE: BEllevue 291 CDOs added to local calling area: (Millard) 334 (Papillion) 339 Notes: 1. 271 and 281 are kind of enigmatic to local phone buffs. Of the two, only 271 exists today. They were used to service Union Pacific's step DID system. Although any extension could be dialed with either prefix, 281 was listed for the main UP numbers, and 271 was listed for the individual departments. 281 disappeared in the 1980's when UP went to a newer system. 2. ATlantic was Ma Bell's first full-scale panel switch installation. Cutover was in 1921. See story in Telecom Archives. 3. Notice that WEbster and YEllowstone are both dialed with the numerical sequence 93. Yep, same prefix, different name. WEbster served downtown Omaha while YEllowstone served the community of Carter Lake, IA. Carter Lake is geographically on the Nebraska side of the river, but politically in Iowa. In 1960, WEbster was given 346 and YEllowstone was given 347. An occasionally recurring topic here in the Digest is the speculation that the 347 prefix could be dialed for a while using either the 402 or 712 area code. But wait! There's more! This story has another twist that I recently learned. In the 1940's, Carter Lake was dialed using LAke. Note that LAke has the same two digits as JAckson, (52) another in the downtown Omaha area. Sometime before 1960, all phones in Carter Lake were apparently switched from JAckson-LAke to WEbster-YEllowstone. The reason for this will be an exercise for the student. ;-) (I have NO idea.) 4. This was the last Omaha area office to be converted from manual to dial service in the late 1950's. Another note is that Council Bluffs, IA was at the time a toll call and not dialable directly. Calls between Omaha and Council Bluffs finally became toll free in 1971. Good day JSW ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: "Just Say Yes" Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 00:08:00 PDT Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 08:34:49 -0700 From: sqlgate@list.pactel.com Subject: "Just Say Yes" FOR MORE INFORMATION: Dave Miller (916) 972-2811 dnmille@legal.pactel.com "Just Say Yes" Pacific Bell Expands Express Call Completion Service For 4-1-1 SACRAMENTO -- More than 1 million consumers and businesses in 18 Northern and Central California counties can `let their fingers do the talking' -- or simply say `yes' -- to use the newly expanded Pacific Bell Directory Assistance Express Call Completion service, which automatically connects calls to 4-1-1 to the requested phone number. The service is now being offered in all or portions of Sacramento, Yolo, El Dorado, Placer, Sutter, Solano and Nevada counties. When customers in those areas call 4-1-1 for directory assistance, they will hear a recorded voice announcement offering automatic call connection following receipt of their requested number. Among the communities where the service is now available are downtown Sacramento, Fair Oaks, Orangevale, Rancho Cordova, Folsom and Rio Linda in Sacramento County; West Sacramento, Davis and Woodland in Yolo County; Lincoln, Loomis, Newcastle, Dutch Flat, Auburn, Truckee, Soda Springs, Tahoe City and Brockway in Placer County; South Lake Tahoe, Meyers, Shingle Springs, Diamond Springs, Camino, Pollock Pines, Kyburz and Placerville in El Dorado County; Yuba City, Live Oak, Meridian and North Yuba in Sutter County; Smartsville and Wheatland in Yuba County; Dixon in Solano County and Nevada City and Grass Valley in Nevada County. To use the service, callers need to press 1 on their telephone keypad or say `yes' in response to a recorded voice prompt. With recent improvements in voice recognition technology, customers with rotary dial phones also can use the service by responding to a recorded voice prompt. The service costs 35 cents per call completion, but there is no charge for uncompleted calls because of a busy line or no answer. "We're offering this service as an added convenience for our customers," said Rick Bradley, vice president and general manager of Pacific Bell Operator Services. "We know some customers may be in a hurry, have their hands full or standing at a pay phone when calling directory assistance. Having the ability to automatically connect your call will undoubtedly be helpful to people in a variety of situations, not the least of which are those who don't have a pen and paper handy to write the number down." Bradley said customers can bill the 35 cent charge to their home phone, a calling card, a third number, make it collect or use coins if they're calling from a pay phone. The service blocks all calls to 900 and 976 pay-per-call programs. The next expansion phase for the service is scheduled for October in the San Joaquin Valley, where parts of Modesto, Fresno and Stockton will be added as well as all of Lodi, Tracy and Escalon in San Joaquin County; Riverbank, Turlock and Oakdale in Stanislaus County; San Andreas, Mokelumne Hill, Arnold, Murphys, Angels Camp, Bear Valley and Valley Springs in Calaveras County; Sutter Creek, Plymouth, Jackson and Ione in Amador County; La Grange, Groveland, Sonora, Twain Harte, Pinecrest and Jamestown in Tuolumne County; Coulterville in Mariposa County; Caruthers, Selma, Riverdale, Kingsburg, Parlier, Orange Cove, Del Rey and Laton in Fresno County; Avenal, Lemoore and Hanford in Kings County; Los Banos, Gustine, Newman, Atwater and Merced in Merced County; Goshen, Orosi, Porterville, Tulare, Visalia and Dinuba in Tulare County and Madera in Madera County. The service, which first became available in parts of Alameda and Contra Costa counties in 1990, is expected to be very successful and a customer favorite because of the convenience factor and the busy California lifestyle, Bradley said. "In the Bay Area, the service is one of the most popular we have -- rivaling some of our more established custom calling features that have been around for years." Bradley said he expects use of the service to grow rapidly because 5,000 Pacific Bell Directory Assistance operators handle several million 4-1-1 calls each day, although specific projections are not being disclosed for competitive reasons. "While we can't divulge exact numbers, we expect the service to mirror the nationwide industry average, which is up to 20 percent," he said. The service, which connects calls placed and completed within the same service area, will continue to be deployed in other parts of the state as equipment is upgraded and new software features are added to company call processing centers. Pacific Bell is a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis Group, a San Francisco-based diversified telecommunications corporation. ------------------ Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: roamer1@pobox.com (Stanley Cline) Subject: Phone News From Chattanooga (Updates) Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 21:34:26 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services Reply-To: scline@usit.net Last Friday was a rather interesting day for telephony in the Chattanooga area -- mainly, BellSouth is now offering Call Waiting Caller ID, BellSouth Mobility (finally) announced a "statewide" calling plan (while at the same time charging interLATA LD rates for calls that are local from landline phones in Chattanooga), and the Georgia PSC has decided to investigate the Trenton [GA]/Chattanooga phone situation (which I wrote about in the Digest a few weeks ago.) BellSouth (the LEC) =================== They're now offering Call Waiting Caller ID in (at least) the #5ESS switches in this area. This includes me (for some strange reason I *thought* that I was on a DMS-100, but we're actually on a #5E. There *are* some DMS's scattered around, though.) The Rossville, GA CO (split-state, #5E) is getting "native" ISDN capability within two weeks, according to a BellSouth regional rep. (I also found out that when they FX'd lines out ["ANSA"] to other CO's in cases where ISDN is not "native," that they *do* assign a number in the area code of the customer -- unless remote call forwarding is requested, etc. In this case, they're probably using the Brainerd [706-891, 423-510/855/89x/954] CO.) BellSouth Mobility ================== Starting last week, they now offer statewide "local" calling throughout Tennessee, much as CellularOne has done for the past six months or so ... 1) Calls from Chattanooga to anywhere in Tennessee (or the north Georgia areas local to Chattanooga, of course) no longer incur a long distance charge. 2) Calls from anywhere in Tennessee [outside the Chattanooga system] to anywhere in Tennessee (and the north Georgia areas local to Chattanooga) are billed at "home" airtime rates; there is no long distance charge for calls received or placed. **This applies even in US "Hell"ular areas (Knoxville and Shelbyville)!!!** :^) 3) The $3.50 monthly "roamer administration fee" charged to BellSouth customers when they roam outside of BellSouth markets is waived for all Tennessee markets. (That is, all of Tennessee is considered "BellSouth" for purposes of imposing the fee.) There are two caveats to this, though: 1) Customer must subscribe to BellSouth Long Distance (not everyone quite yet; I switched as soon as they began offering it!) (This really sounds like a bit of a ploy to get customers to switch to BSLD...for one, this appears to have nothing to do with how calls *placed from* non-BellSouth areas are handled.) 2) Customer must be on a price plan that is > $20 monthly (almost everyone, except for some "special" promotional rates. My current employer's "corporate" rate is $24.95/mo + 25c/min, but I'm still on an old "traditional" price plan [higher monthly rate, lots of free airtime], mainly because I was grandfathered into that rate plan and a related discount offering.) I hoped that they'd eliminate long-distance charges to Atlanta (where BellSouth provides service in most of the huge LATA), but they instead decided to counter CellOne's pricing. What really surprises me is that they could be *losing* money for those who roam in non-BellSouth areas heavily -- it is VERY hard for me to believe that USCC (especially) or other carriers would undercut their (usually ridiculously high) rates so much. (For example, I would be charged 38c/min for a call from Knoxville to Chattanooga. Figuring that they pay around 8c/min for LD, that's 30c/min "airtime" rate; with the 25c/min "corporate" users, that's 17c/min!) There are still bad points to the BellSouth plan: the BSLD restriction (whose rates are *not* all that great) and the fact that coverage in certain non-BellSouth areas (read: US Cellular's) is still abysmal ... still no coverage in Ocoee, along I-75 north of Knoxville, etc. But it's certainly better than before. Am I giving up my CellOne number? Not yet -- until *USCC* cleans up their coverage, I am loath to. ... BTW, BellSouth Mobility is again(?) charging *intERLATA* long distance on some otherwise *intRALATA, LOCAL* calls! Specifically, they are sending calls from the Chattanooga system to Villanow, GA [706-397] through IXC trunks, *even though* the area is WITHIN the Chattanooga LATA and is a *LOCAL* call from landline phones in Chattanooga, and from CellOne phones. Villanow can call TO most BellSouth prefixes as local, but the cellular can't call the landline (I could dial 0 [the LEC operator] and bill to a calling card, I guess, to prevent paying per-minute LD charges if I wished.) I asked a BellSouth rep about this (again; I was originally told to "dial 10 digits; we won't charge long distance"); he said that "it may be local on landline, but not on our system." I think this is BS ; I have called ALLTEL (the LEC in Villanow and adjoining areas which ARE local calls) twice, but they have never called me back. They've done this on other intraLATA calls (to Ocoee/Copperhill); I believe they are using a rather strict definition of "local" -- if the area does not have a *cell site*, then it is not "local" and is handled as interLATA. But under that definition, Spring City, Jasper, and Decatur, TN (where coverage is either poor or nonexistent) would all become "interLATA long distance" as well. Something is wrong here! ... Last week BellSouth began offering a Nokia (forgot the model number) digital phone for $99.95 (with new activation, includes "up to" 1500 minutes of free airtime, which can be used anywhere in Tennessee.) BellSouth Chattanooga, though, isn't even up and running on TDMA yet; the rep I spoke to said they were "trying to get phones in the customers' hands" first) and that they would probably *not* be offering lower airtime rates for digital traffic, or an upgrade path from analog to digital (he referred to digital as the "Cadillac of cellular") -- even though digital reduces fraud problems and improves cell site efficiency. IMHO this is no way to prepare for the onslaught of PCS next year -- they aren't doing much for existing customers, who may be lured away to PCS, cloned, or whatever! Trenton Telephone ================= I mentioned a few weeks back about customers of Trenton Telephone Co. (about 15 miles from Chattanooga) having to pay for FX lines in a CO eight miles away (at a cost of ~$70/mo) for "unlimited" local calling to and from Chattanooga. About this time, I also sent a short inquiry letter to the Georgia PSC in Atlanta -- just to find out what action (if any) was being taken on this. Today, I received a response from the PSC: They have ordered a traffic/cost study for calls between Chattanooga and Trenton, and have formally requested that Trenton Telephone provide at least a one-way (TO-Chattanooga) calling option, *without* the ridiculous, unnecessary FX charges. (This appears unrelated to my inquiry; it appears to be coincidence.) It seems to me that the PSC has probably been *inundated* with complaints about the high pricing. ... Oh well, the cable company's working in my neighborhood this week; we just got about 15 more channels -- now I'm looking forward to *cable modems* next year! This will probably be a really good week ... :^) Stanley Cline (Roamer1 on IRC) ** GO BRAVES! GO VOLS! mailto:roamer1@pobox.com ** http://pobox.com/~roamer1/ CompuServe 74212,44 ** MSN WSCline1 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #517 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Oct 1 00:23:04 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id AAA24988; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 00:23:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 00:23:04 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610010423.AAA24988@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #518 TELECOM Digest Tue, 1 Oct 96 00:23:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 518 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FCC Rejects TX Request For Wireless Overlays (John Cropper) BellSouth.net Internet Service Launches in Four New Markets (Mike King) SBC's 972 Press Release (John Cropper) Ongoing Wrong Numbers. Arrrrrgh! (pheel@sprynet.com) An Overview of NSFNET 4090 Awards 1986-1996 (Tim Bass) Emergency Radio Interoperability (Joe Hersey) PCS and Cellular Tariffs in the USA (Mariana Sanchez) Does Radio Shack Wireless Phone Extension Work With Modem? (B. Weissborn) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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: psyber@usa.pipeline.com Subject: FCC Rejects TX Request For Wireless Overlays Date: 30 Sep 1996 13:50:26 GMT Organization: Pipeline From the Texas PUC: FCC rejects PUC's proposal for wireless only area codes AUSTIN, Sept. 11 -- The Federal Communications Commission has rejected Texas' request for area codes to serve wireless customers in the Dallas and Houston areas. In action taken today, the three commissioners at the Texas Public Utility Commission agreed not to appeal the case. In February, the Texas PUC voted to split the existing Dallas 214 and Houston 713 calling areas in two and add an another area code for each area for wireless uses such as cellular and mobile phones and pagers. The additional wireless codes would have been implemented as overlays in the current calling areas, and would have relieved the exhaustion of numbers by several years. The proposal was based on widespread public support for the concept in numerous public hearings held by commissioners in Dallas and Houston in January. "We were listening to the citizens of Texas when we proposed the wireless overlay," said PUC Commissioner Judy Walsh. "During the nine public hearings that we attended in both calling areas last winter, the comment we heard most frequently was: 'Why not assign the cellular and pager numbers to a separate area code, since the demand for these numbers is what is creating the need for new area codes?' " The FCC's order did not affect the implementation of new areas codes for the 214 and 713 areas. Still set to go are plans to introduce the new 972 code in Dallas and 281 in Houston in donut-shaped geographic splits around the metro areas of the cities. The new 972 area code is scheduled for implementation on Saturday in the existing 214 Dallas area. A six-month permissive dialing period extending until March 14, 1997, will give customers time to adjust to the change and still complete calls without dialing the new area code. The 281 area code is scheduled for implementation in the existing 713 Houston area on Nov. 2, with permissive dialing extending until May 3, 1997. Both of these codes were implemented through a traditional geographic split, in which the geographic area using an existing area code is split into two parts, and roughly half of the telephone customers continue to be served through the existing area code, while the other half changes to the new code. Both areas have been at number exhaustion for so long that many prefixes will be duplicated in the two areas at the time of implementation. In the Dallas area, 53 prefixes will be duplicated on Saturday affecting about 170,000 customers, and in Houston the number of duplicated exchanges is estimated to be about 200. The commissioners voted to follow the traditional approach to implementing the two new codes until a more permanent solution to number exhaust becomes feasible, such as permanent number portability. In its order approving implementation of the new codes, the PUC included plans for wireless overlays as a means of extending the life of the new codes and postponing future number exhaustion. "We believed the wireless overlay would have given the people of Dallas and Houston years of additional relief," stated Commissioner Robert Gee. With an overlay, the new area code covers the same geographic area as an existing area code. Customers in that area may thus be served through either code, although ten-digit dialing would be necessary for all customers in the areas. "We thought our plan for a service-specific overlay was an innovative approach that balanced the interest, benefits, and burdens of all interested parties," noted Chairman Pat Wood III. A wireless overlay was devised in the Chicago area in 1993 by Ameritech, Southwestern Bell's counterpart in Illinois, but was found to be anticompetitive by the FCC. No other state has attempted to use an overlay for wireless carriers since that decision. In light of the FCC's Ameritech Order, the commissioners asked the FCC for further clarification of the federal and state role in numbering. The PUC's request for a declaratory order was filed after the North American Numbering Plan Administrator (Bellcore) refused Southwestern Bell's request for new area codes for prospective wireless overlays in both Houston and Dallas. The Commission specifically requested that the "FCC clarify the states' role in number administration by expanding on statements in the Ameritech Order and elsewhere regarding the balance of authority between the FCC and the states." In the FCC's Order 96-333 issued August 8, 1996, the FCC found that the Texas Commission's wireless-only overlay violates the FCC's Ameritech Order and the prohibition on wireless-only overlays. "Like the plan proposed in the Ameritech Order, the Texas Commission's plan would unreasonably discriminate against wireless carriers," the order states. The Aug. 8 order cited elements of exclusion, segregation, and take-back of numbers as reasons for rejecting the Commission's wireless overlay plan. At the same time, the FCC found that the states could continue to implement area codes because "they are uniquely positioned to understand the local conditions and what effect the new area codes will have on those conditions." They went on to say that each state is subject to FCC guidelines, including the guidelines in the Ameritech Order. New area codes are becoming a fact of life in the United States. Since January 1995, more than 25 new area codes have been implemented across the country, and the need for new telephone numbers continues to grow with the explosive demand for cellular phones, mobile phones, fax machines and pagers. Texas' started out with five area codes and added four more in 38 years from 1947 through 1995. The Dallas and Houston codes will expand Texas' area codes to 11 this year. Plans are currently underway to implement new area codes in 1997 in two other areas of Texas: the 817 area that includes Fort Worth, Wichita Falls, and Waco; and also in the 210 area that includes San Antonio, Brownsville, Laredo, and Kerrville. The Public Utility Commission regulates 155 electric and telephone utilities in Texas to ensure that rates, operations and services are just and reasonable for both consumers and the utility industries that serve the state. John Cropper, NiS / NexComm PO Box 277 Pennington, NJ USA 08534-0277 Inside NJ: 609.637.9434 Toll Free: 888.NPA.NFO2 (672.6362) Fax : 609.637.9430 email : psyber@usa.pipeline.com ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: BellSouth.net Internet Service Launches in Four New Markets Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 00:15:09 PDT Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 12:10:55 -0400 (EDT) From: BellSouth Subject: BellSouth.net Internet Service Launches in Four New Markets For Information Contact: Lyn BressBill Anderson BellSouthGCI/Atlanta (770) 391-2484(404) 870-6783 BellSouth.net SM Internet Service Launches in Four New Markets Ahead of Schedule BellSouth Builds Record of Early Success ATLANTA, September 26, 1996 -- BellSouth today launched its Internet service, BellSouth.netSM service, for four new markets two weeks ahead of schedule. The company pointed to its early success and smooth launch in Atlanta and New Orleans in late August as the reasons for launching the service in Orlando, Jacksonville, Nashville and Memphis earlier than expected. "We've had thousands of calls for the service, and we're answering the phones for service ordering and technical support very quickly," says John Robinson, president of BellSouth.net Inc. "Unlike some large companies entering this business for the first time, we have had a very smooth launch. Our systems have worked flawlessly, and our response times have been excellent. We're delivering the high levels of service quality our customers have come to expect from BellSouth." In addition to Internet access, BellSouth.net service offers a customized version of Netscape Navigator, electronic mail, an optional site-blocking feature, and an easy-to-use Web site that points to local information on Internet sites of businesses and institutions in their community. "BellSouth.net service is locally focused and globally connected," says Robinson. "We will help our customers find useful and interesting information on the Internet while focusing on providing them with easy access to information about their individual city. BellSouth will provide a much needed connection between consumers and businesses locally and globally." BellSouth already offers Internet services for larger businesses, called CommerceLink SM services, in all ten markets. BellSouth.net service offers two attractively priced plans: 1) an unlimited usage plan priced at $19.95 per month; and 2) an hourly plan that provides ten hours of access per month for $9.95, plus $1 for each additional hour. BellSouth will offer customers who sign up for the service in 1996 one free month of service, and the one-time service set-up charge of $10.00 will be waived. Customers can have the service billed to their BellSouth telephone bill or charged to a credit card. Customers can order the software to sign up for the service by calling 1-800-4DOTNET (368638), or they can download the software by visiting the Web site, www.bellsouth.net. --------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: psyber@usa.pipeline.com Subject: SBC's 972 Press Release Date: 30 Sep 1996 12:14:13 GMT Organization: Pipeline FROM SOUTHWEST BELL: (unedited, as you will see by the spelling :->) Reminder: New 972 Area Code, 10-Digit Dialing For North Texas Starts This Weekend Dallas, Terxas, Sept. 12, 1996 -- Beginning Saturday, Sept. 14, the new 972 area code will be introduced in North Texas, serving northern and southern portions of Dallas and surrounding areas. The central part of Dallas, plus small parts of western Mesquite and western Garland, will retain the 214 area code. The new area code will not impact 9-1-1 services, directory assistance, long-distance rates or local charges. It will, however, require callers to dial 10 digits (the area code and seven-digit phone number) when placing local calls between the 214 and 972 area codes. Local calls within the same area code can be made by using either seven-digit or 10-digit dialing. Customers whose numbers are switching from the 214 to the 972 area code will have a six-month grace period during which they will continue to receive calls placed to their old 214 numbers. Current plans call for this grace period to end on March 14, 1997, giving these customers additional time to notify relatives, friends and business associates of the number changes and to make necessary changes to letterhead, stationery and business cards. However, the assignment of approximately 70 duplicate telephone "prefixes" -- the block of three numbers that follow an area code -- means that customers should make immediate changes in how they dial calls beginning September 14. The duplications are a result of unprecedented demand for new telephone numbers throughout the telecommunications industry. The number of duplicate prefixes will continue to increase to accommodate customer demand. When dialing to duplicate prefixes between area codes, 10 digits always should be used. Customers who use only seven digits on calls between area codes run the risk of calling someone they had not intended. Local calls placed to non-duplicated prefixes will be completed to either area code with seven-digit dialing through March 14, 1997. To ensure correct call completion, however, Southwestern Bell is encouraging all callers to begin using the new area code and 10-digit dialing this weekend. To help educate its residential and business customers, Southwestern Bell recently mailed notices to nearly one million customers outlining the changes. The informational campaign will run about six months with additional mailings, bill inserts and news announcements. The company has also created a Southwestern Bell Helpline for customers with questions regarding the area code changes. That line will be open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. However, Southwestern Bell is taking calls on the line this weekend to handle customer inquiries. The Helpline number is 1-800-758-3688 for residential customers and 1-800-758-5388 for business customers. Information on the area code changes also can be obtained on Southwestern Bell's Internet site: http://www.sbc.com/dfw. Both residential and business customers are being encouraged to reprogram speed dial and auto dial services on telephones and fax machines and to modify voice messaging and voice dial services as well. Alarm companies will be working with their customers to reprogram security codes for residences and businesses as necessary. Bell Communications Research assigned the 972 area code to the Dallas area last year as the first step to replenish the dwindling supply of available phone numbers in the region. John Cropper, NiS / NexComm PO Box 277 Pennington, NJ USA 08534-0277 Inside NJ: 609.637.9434 Toll Free: 888.NPA.NFO2 (672.6362) Fax : 609.637.9430 email : psyber@usa.pipeline.com ------------------------------ From: pheel@sprynet.com Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 10:44:44 -0700 Subject: Ongoing Wrong Numbers. Arrrrrgh! I need some advice on the tactful way to handle an annoying situtation. I've had my current home phone number for almost three years. When I was first assigned the number, I checked the reverse directory to see who had the number before I did. It showed that the number belonged to a gentleman of Middle Eastern origin, based on the name. I assume he moved, because the current directory shows he still lives in the same town as I, but he is now within the territory of another CO, so he had to get a number. I thought nothing of it. Until the wrong numbers came in. Apparently, although the line had been out of service for the required perioid of time (with all the usual "...has been changed" and "...is not in service" intercepts on it), not all of this man's correspondents had made a note of the new number like they were told. So for the past three years my telco voice mail has logged numerous foreign language messages, with equally foreign names on the Caller-ID box, for this man and his family. From the few English messages I've gotten, I know when his daughter is absent from school, as well as how she's performed on her Regents exams. I've also learned that his credit card company is looking for him. My initial course of action was to call AT&T's Language Line to identify the language and translate the messages, and to have them record a bilingual outgoing message for my voice mail informing callers that this guy no longer has this number, and they should call directory assistance. The calls continued. Next, I wrote a letter to the gentleman who used to have my number, and included a list of the names and numbers (from the Caller-ID box) of people that called for him. I asked him to please call these people and give them his new number. I received no response, and the calls continue. Okay, it's so it's not the end of the world, but it's annoying. And because I have the resources to know who's calling me and who they really want to call, I'd like to do something about it. So, what should I do? Should I: a) call the intended recipient and ask him to please make sure his friends, educators and creditors have his new listed number? b) call the folks who call me and attempt to explain to them that this guy has a new number? c) call the guy and three-way call my voice mail and play his messages to him? d) ignore the whole thing and let him wonder why his daughter does so poorly in school and why his credit cards have been cancelled? Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks, Mike [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would go with (d) because as soon as you start with (a), (b) or (c) you are going to be expected to do it on a regular basis for him as his personal secretary/answering service. To cut your own wasted time in the matter, learn to zap those messages out of your voicemail at the first hint the message is for him and when you are there and actually receive calls intended for him learn to say somewhat abruptly 'you have the wrong number' and promptly hang up with no further explanation. You have done all you need to do, and in fact have gone above and beyond and reasonable parameters of courtesy in the matter. PAT] ------------------------------ From: bass@cais.cais.com (Tim Bass ) Subject: An Overview of NSFNET 4090 Awards 1986-1996 Date: 30 Sep 1996 03:43:23 GMT Organization: ValueRocket Labs Reply-To: bass@linux.silkroad.com [ Article crossposted from info.ietf ] [ Author was bass@cactus.silkroad.com ] [ Posted on 29 Sep 1996 04:15:55 -0500 ] I promised NANOG a paper on NSFNET funding and then dropped off the map (to get some real work done...). It is now available: An Overview of NSFNET 4090 Awards 1986-1996 ------------------------------------------- http://www.silkroad.com/papers/ (postscript format only) There is certainly plenty of controversial issues for the readers enjoyment ;) Comments, both positive and negative welcome (however the chances of getting a reply are better with positive comments :-). Best Regards, Tim ------------------------------ From: gttm@cais3.cais.com (USCG TELECOMMS) Subject: Emergency Radio Interoperability Date: 30 Sep 1996 21:36:00 GMT Organization: Sent via CAIS Internet Emergency Public Safety Radio Interoperability The Coast Guard is seeking comments on its plans to modernize its VHF radio National Distress System. This system, which consists of over 300 radio high sites operated by approximately 50 rescue coordination centers, is used for command and control communications, broadcasts urgent marine information, and receices over 20,000 distress calls from boaters each year. The system, which covers all U.S. coastal areas, including those surrounding the Great Lakes and major inland waterways, has reached the end of its useful life and needs to be replaced. Since this system covers most major U.S. population centers, an opportunity exists to include cross-band repeaters in this system, allowing radiocommunication interoperability between federal, state and local public safety agencies in an emergency. The modernized Coast Guard radio system will likely operate in the 156-174 MHz bands, used by maritime interests and Federal agencies; adding a UHF transceiver in bands used by state/local public safety agencies/organizations could conceivably resolve a long-standing national communications interoperability problem among these different agencies during an emergency, such as that which occurred in the Washington DC Air Florida disaster, etc. The modernized CG system, as currently planned, does not include this capability. If you think it should, please let us know. For more information, see http://comms.rdc.uscg.mil/NDS.html. Comments from users are especially wanted, even if received after the October 15th deadline. Regards, Joe Hersey Chief, Spectrum Mgt, USCG email: cgcomms@comdt.uscg.mil Spectrum Management Division (G-SCT) U S Coast Guard Washington, DC 20593 ------------------------------ From: sancmari@telefonica.com.ar Subject: PCS and Cellular Tariffs in the USA Date: Mon, 30 Sep 96 17:51:00 PDT Dear Pat and all of you reading these lines, Here I am, once again, looking for some information about your country. I have read an article in the IEEE Computer Magazine (August, 1996, page 16) about wireless revolution, standards being used and carriers policies. There is a paragraph saying that users must pay a connection charge whether they are making or receiving calls; it also says that cellular carriers are asking to the FCC to change that policy but it is not probable that would happen soon. I have two questions: 1.- "Connection charge" refers to a fee you pay for the radiolink usage (when you call or you are called)? 2.- I thought that many companies in the US have implemented "calling party pay" (at least we named it like this): the one who calls, the one who pays this additional charge; it does not mind if you are calling from a mobile service or a fixed one but if you are calling TO a cellular phone. Was this concept wrong? Thank you all (but specially Pat) to give this place to reduce my ignorance. Regards, Mariana Sanchez ------------------------------ From: bill.weissborn@ons.octel.com (Bill Weissborn) Subject: Does Radio Shack Wireless Phone Extension Work With Modem? Date: 30 Sep 1996 14:03:13 GMT Organization: OcteLink I was looking thru the latest Radio Shack Catalog yesterday and noticed that they have a device that will allow me to add an extension to my phone utilizing the house-wires. Does anyone know if this would work for modem use? It would sure save me having crawl thru the attic to add a phone jack where I now have my computer. Thanks, Bill W. bill.weissborn@ons.octel.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The latest -- 1997 -- edition of 'Answers', the annual Radio Shack catalog is now available. The price is $2.95 and this time there is no coupon on the front good for the same amount in merchandise as in the past. At the store here in Skokie they are giving it away however. Pick up a copy today if you can. As always it is a pretty nice looking, very large and thick catalog with everyone's wish-list inside the pages. :) To answer your question, I think you will find a modem attached under the circumstances will operate much like a modem attached to a 'slic' phone line, or a modem attached to a cellular phone. Transmission will be slower than usual, and subject to interference, unreliable data transfer, etc. Nothing beats regular hard wiring where a modem is concerned. It will probably work but you wioll get frustrated with it especially if you have a very fast modem and you cannot get it to go over 2400 or maybe 9600 baud with reliability. Try it and see; it may serve your purposes. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #518 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Oct 1 02:30:06 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id CAA03964; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 02:30:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 02:30:06 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610010630.CAA03964@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #519 TELECOM Digest Tue, 1 Oct 96 02:30:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 519 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Invention & Technology; The Birth of Cable TV (Neal McLain) Second Line Installation Problems (Nate Smith) CinBelTel 937 News Release (John Cropper) Telephone Company Executive Threatened With Extortion (Tad Cook) How Do I Build a Phone in Use Light? (Chris Eng) Book Review: Personal Videoconferencing (Evan Rosen) Re: Override Caller-Id Block (Lynne Gregg) Re: Override Caller-Id Block (Robert G. Schaffrath) Re: Override Caller-Id Block (Derek J. Tarcza) Re: Cell Phones in Aircraft (Lynne Gregg) Re: Cell Phones in Aircraft (razell@worldnet.att.net) Re: New Software Has No Time for Chat (Ronnie Grant) Re: New Software Has No Time for Chat (Fred Atkinson) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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: 30 Sep 96 22:25:21 EDT From: Neal McLain <103210.3011@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Invention & Technology; The Birth of Cable TV The Fall, 1996 issue of {American Heritage of Invention & Technology} contains an article titled "THE BIRTH OF CABLE TV" by George Mannes, a reporter for the New York {Daily News}. The article relates the history of the world's first commercial cable television system, located in Astoria, Oregon. The Astoria system was constructed in the 1940s by Ed Parsons, a local TV dealer. Like many other TV dealers of the day, Parsons figured he'd be able to sell more TV sets if his potential customers could receive TV signals. I'd like to add a few personal reminiscences about Astoria. Astoria is located at the mouth of the Columbia River, about 60 miles northwest of Portland (95 miles by public roads, according to my Oregon State map). My wife and I visited Astoria a few years ago. We made the obligatory trip up Coxcomb Hill to visit the Astoria Column, a 125-foot lookout tower offering a spectacular view of the surroundings, including the Columbia River, the Pacific Ocean, and Mt. St. Helens. Thinking this might be the site of Parsons' original headend, I looked around for some evidence of its presence. If there was ever a headend there, it's gone now. But I was delighted to discover a prominent granite monument near the entrance to the tower. The monument bears the following text: A bronze plaque on top: SITE OF THE FIRST COMMUNITY ANTENNA TELEVISION INSTALLATION IN THE UNITED STATES COMPLETED, FEBRUARY 1949 ASTORIA, OREGON Engraved into the vertical front face: CABLE TELEVISION WAS INVENTED AND DEVELOPED BY L. E. `ED' PARSONS ON THANKSGIVING DAY 1948 THE SYSTEM CARRIED THE FIRST TV TRANSMISSION BY KRSC-TV CHANNEL 5 SEATTLE. THIS MARKED THE BEGINNING OF CABLE TV KRSC-TV is now KING-TV, Seattle's NBC station. The bronze plaque states pretty clearly that Coxcomb Hill was the site of the first "installation" -- presumably the headend. But according to the I&T article, the original headend was on the roof of a building down in the valley, in Astoria itself. So maybe I was looking in the wrong place. Astoria is also home to another important historical site: Fort Clatsop National Memorial, a reconstruction of the original fort constructed by Louis and Clark in 1805. Having successfully discovered the mouth of the Columbia River (and having established that the legendary "northwest passage" didn't exist), they built Fort Clatsop as winter quarters, and returned to St. Louis the following year. For readers not familiar with {AMERICAN HERITAGE OF INVENTION AND TECHNOLOGY}, it's a fascinating magazine. Published by Forbes, it is sponsored by a single advertiser, General Motors. The title says it all: it covers the history of invention and technology in the United States. The editors at Forbes are solely responsible for editorial content: articles about the automobile industry get equal billing with articles about any other industry. Neal McLain 2305 Manor Green Drive Madison, WI 53711 E-mail: 103210.3011@compuserve.com ------------------------------ From: nate@scus1.ctstateu.edu (Nate Smith) Subject: Second Line Installation Problems Organization: Southern Connecticut State University, CS Dept. Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 05:58:26 GMT I'm in the process of installing a second line at my home. The existing wiring for the first line is very old and it is a bit difficult to determine how it fits into my "two-pair" "Green-Red, Black-Yellow" understanding of phones and wiring. Wiring at the demarcation point is as follows (3 bolts/screws on a plate): /---\ /---\ /---\ | O | | O | | O | \---/ \---/ \---/ A B C Two wires lead into this plate and apparently five lead out. The two wires that lead in from the telco are thick and black; one is connected to A, the other is connected to C. Small, black wire pairs also lead out of A and C and into the rest of the house. One, thicker white wire is connected to B and also leads into somewhere else in the house. I am not quite sure what to do to install a second line with this configuration. Perhaps A is tip and C is ring (or vice versa) and B is ground or something? Without the other pair for the second line (usually yellow and black) easily visible, are they even there? Apparently there is only one ring/tip pair here, and I can only assume that the telco needs to bring an additional pair on the premises. Any help or suggestions are much appreciated. Cheers, Nate Smith || www.scsu-cs.ctstateu.edu/nate Systems Admin., Southern CT State University, Computer Science Dept. "Those who do not understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it -- badly." -- Henry Spencer [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you only have two wires coming in to your house from outside, then you only have one pair for telephone purposes, and telco needs to bring a second line at least as far as your 'demarc' or the place where the wires enter your property. From the way you describe it, it sounds as though at some point the one incoming line was sent somewhere in your house and a second 'extension' phone (on the one single incoming line from telco) went to some other place in your house. Most likely at some point in the past it was decided there should be a ground as well, which is what the single wire in the center used to do (or maybe still does; have you looked at the boxes where your phones are located now?). That old-fashioned junky demarc which you have there now will be useless when telco brings a second line to you. You will pretty much need to just wire things from scratch all over your house unless you are willing to have one of the existing A<==>C wire pairs feed a single line phone which serves as your 'first line' and the other A<==>C wire pairs feed a single line instrument somewhere as your 'second line'. Forget about the single wire on 'B'; you could just cut it off entirely at this point. Once telco gets a second line there, you will want lots of four conductor wire of the red/green/yellow/black variety. If you are happy with your phones where they are located now, run the new wire right along the same path as the old wire, terminate it in a new box next to the existing box on the wall by each phone, attach the wires accordingly, and install a new two-line phone. At the demarc end, attach the red and green to the existing wires coming in from outside now, and attach the yellow/black to the new service which telco brings. You might even go ahead and do the wiring now, getting the new phones in place, etc and have everything done except for attaching the yellow/black wires which will have to wait until telco brings you something to attach them to. Note that after the new four conductor wire is installed, you will have a spare pair of wires in two locations; namely the old wire which previously had fed the two single line phones. Keep it in place; do not bother to rip it out since you can now use it for something like an intercom line between those two points in your house, etc. Of course you have to be sure to disconnect it at the demarc. Instead of just running new four-conductor wire all over your house, you may want to run six- or eight-conductor wire, since this will give you an option at a later time to install a third or fourth line if you wish or other special arrangements such as intercom signalling, etc. I wish I could give you better news, but from your description, it sounds like your house was wired back in the middle ages. :( PAT] ------------------------------ From: psyber@usa.pipeline.com Subject: CinBelTel 937 News Release Date: 30 Sep 1996 11:58:11 GMT Organization: Pipeline A little late, but I've been busy ... FROM Cincinatti Bell Telephone (www.cinbelltel.com): Sept. 16, 1996: Education Program Details 513 Area Code Split for Customers. Cincinnati Bell Telephone and other southwestern Ohio telecommuni- cations providers are proceeding on schedule with a planned split of the 513-area code beginning on Saturday, Sept. 28. On that date, a new area code -- 937 -- will be created and a permissive dialing period implementing the code will begin. During the permissive dialing period, individuals will be able to make calls to residential and business customers living in the affected area code using either the 513 or new 937 area code. Mandatory dialing, meaning calls will only be connected using the 937 area code, is scheduled to begin on June 14, 1997. The new 937 area code is necessary because 513 area code numbers will be exhausted sometime during the first quarter of 1998. Cincinnati Bell Telephone has stepped up its efforts to educate customers about the area code split through a series of mailings that began last week. The first mailing is a letter that is being sent to all CBT business customers. The second mailing is a bill insert that is being sent to all residential and business customers as part of the company's September billing cycle. Both the business letter and bill inserts advise individuals that no CBT customers' area code will change, but that calls to Dayton and areas north, east and west of that city will be switching to the 937 area code. Directory Assistance information for CBT's service territory will still be obtained by dialing 411. Customers also will be informed that even with the new area code, all local calls will remain local calls although new, 10-digit dialing will be necessary to complete some calls. As part of its area education program, CBT is producing several public service announcements for radio and television that the company hopes to air prior to the permissive dialing period. CBT has established an information line -- 397-5823 -- for customers to call if they have questions about the area code plan. John Cropper, NiS / NexComm PO Box 277 Pennington, NJ USA 08534-0277 Inside NJ: 6o9.637.9434 Toll Free: 888.NPA.NFO2 (672.6362) Fax : 6o9.637.943o email : psyber@usa.pipeline.com ------------------------------ Subject: Telephone Company Executive Threatened With Extortion Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 19:34:42 PDT From: tad@ssc.com Reno Man Sentenced in Alleged Extortion Scam RENO, Nev. (AP) -- A Reno man who admitted that he tried to blackmail the owner of a small California telephone company was sentenced to five months in prison by a judge who called him "bullheaded" and a fraud. The sentence handed down Friday in Sacramento by U.S. District Judge Edward J. Garcia also ordered Michael Sunde to spend one year of supervised release following the prison term, including five months in a halfway house, and to pay a $10,000 fine. Sunde, 53, was arrested here July 25, 1995, for a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney's office in Sacramento. Sunde, who was president of Westcom Long Distance Inc., and operated Silver State Telecom Inc., was accused of demanding $70,000 from a California telephone executive in exchange for not contacting the Internal Revenue Service with accusations that the executive failed to pay federal excise taxes. The executive, Paul Lindahl, who owns Nevada Discall in Pine Grove, went to authorities and Sunde was arrested after Lindahl came to Reno last year to supposedly make the payoff. The judge called it "a classic extortion scheme." ------------------------------ From: Chris Eng Subject: How Do I Build a Phone in Use Light? Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 02:42:40 -0700 Organization: Official Harry Connick Jr. Fan Site Reply-To: cje@csua.berkeley.edu I need to know how to build some simple device, probably hooked up between the phone and the jack on the wall, which would light up if any extension in the house was picked up. I guess all it has to do is light up an LED when the voltage drops (?) but I'm not sure how everything works. Can anyone help? Thanks, Chris Eng cje@csua.berkeley.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is a question which comes up quite often in my mail, although I have not published anything about it here in the Digest lately. There are plans for doing this in the Telecom Archives, in the directory dealing with technical topics. I would note however you can buy these devices very cheaply at Radio Shack and other places dealing in telephone trinkets, so you might like to obtain one that way rather than going to all the trouble yourself. Probably readers who have been involved in this discussion here before will write you direct with the schematic, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: erosen@ix.netcom.com (EVAN ROSEN) Subject: Book Review: Personal Videoconferencing Date: 30 Sep 1996 18:55:15 GMT Organization: Netcom My new book 'Personal Videoconferencing' is hot off the presses. Thanks to all of you who have been sending e-mail and asking about it. I have collaborated with over a hundred users of desktop and laptop videoconferencing in putting the book together -- it was really a massive collaborative effort. The book describes how more than seventy companies use the technology to achieve results. It also covers technologies and how they fit together, including ADSL, HDSL, ISDN, ATM and LAN options. There are also chapters on home videoconferencing and an insider's history of personal videoconferencing. The book also includes about 50 photos and illustrations. You can see the table of contents and a chapter of the book at the Manning Publications site at http://www.browsebooks.com where you can even order it if you like. Bookstores should begin to have it on the shelves next week. If you don't find it, ask for it (the best thing is to give them the ISBN: 0-13-268327-X). If you have suggestions of any kind, I'll be glad to receive them. Send me e-mail at mailto:erosen@impactvid.com Evan Rosen ------------------------------ From: Lynne Gregg Subject: Re: Override Caller-Id Block Date: Mon, 30 Sep 96 14:06:00 PDT tim@fsg.com (Timothy D. Hunt) wrote: > My in-laws have a permanent caller-id block on their outgoing calls. > Is there a code they can use to override this on a per-call basis so > I (or at least my spouse!) knows that they are calling? It's actually *82 that should be prepended to the dialed number. That should be common across the U.S., since that Feature Code is FCC mandated. The FCC also ordered *67 for Per Call Blocking (prepend *67 to dialed number to block display of your number). Regards, Lynne ------------------------------ From: rgs@kraft.com (Robert G. Schaffrath) Subject: Re: Override Caller-Id Block Date: 30 Sep 1996 23:46:34 GMT Organization: Kraft Foods, Inc. Reply-To: rschaffrath@kraft.com Timothy D. Hunt (tim@fsg.com) wrote: > My in-laws have a permanent caller-id block on their outgoing calls. > Is there a code they can use to override this on a per-call basis so > I (or at least my spouse!) knows that they are calling. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The classic example of the unstoppable > object meeting the unmoveable object ... your relatives in Florida > should ask their local telco for the code to use. It might be something > like *87 or possibly *67 prepended to their dialing string. PAT] Here in NYNEX land, *82 enables "per-call display service". *87 disables "Anonymous Call Rejection". I'm not sure if *82 is one of the standard CLASS features or unique to NYNEX. Robert G. Schaffrath, N2JTX * Kraft Foods, Inc. (914) 335-2777 * White Plains, NY 10625-0002 mailto:rschaffrath@kraft.com * http://www.rye.kraft.com/rgs.htm ------------------------------ From: dtarcza@ix.netcom.com (Derek J Tarcza) Subject: Re: Override Caller-Id Block Date: 30 Sep 1996 23:54:31 GMT Organization: Netcom In tim@fsg.com (Timothy D. Hunt) writes: > My in-laws have a permanent caller-id block on their outgoing calls. > Is there a code they can use to override this on a per-call basis so > I (or at least my spouse!) knows that they are calling. Tell them to use *82. Works for most areas ... ------------------------------ From: Lynne Gregg Subject: Re: Cell Phones in Aircraft Date: Mon, 30 Sep 96 14:54:00 PDT There's been a bit of discussion surrounding use of cellphones in commercial aircraft. The FCC does have regulations regarding the use of cellular phones while in aircraft. The commercial airlines frequently cite these regulations. Generally, most airlines want you to power off cellphones when you step on the airplane and leave them off until you deplane. I agree with a number of you who expressed your dissatisfaction over the fact that some airlines won't allow the phones to be used while still on the ground. However, bear in mind, a couple of facts. First, cellular phones use radio waves for transmission and although they may not interfere with flight controls while at the gate, they *may* pose some interference with cockpit to tower communications. That is debatable. It's also probably why the "captain" is so "very sticky about the no-cellphone rule". Secondly, and most importantly, the captain or pilot-in-command always has first and last word. While you're on that airplane -- commercial or private aircraft -- whatever the captain says, goes. That's the bottom line. There's no room for debate. Recently, a number of airlines have been "very sticky" about compliance to their rules and are pressing charges against their customers. I've heard frequent reports of passengers met by local police at the door on deplaning. It's always some non-compliance issue (lighting up in the lavatory, getting surly with flight attendants after being cut-off on cocktails, etc.). Frankly, I wouldn't want to get into a heated debate over use of a cellphone with airline staff. Instead, I'd suggest that you write to the president of the airline to express your views. Regards, Lynne ------------------------------ From: Ray Subject: Re: Cell Phones in Aircraft Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 22:36:16 -0700 Mark Peacock wrote: > goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) wrote: >> Hmm, the last several flights I've been on (using American Airlines >> and Midway), you *have* been allowed to use cellphones on the plane >> before takeoff. ->snip<- >> Airlines and captains appear to have a lot of discretion in this >> matter, so perhaps you've just run into airlines or >> pilots who impose a "no cellphones, period" rule instead of just >> banning them during instrument-critical periods such as takeoff. > dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) wrote: >> With a lot of the more modern aircraft now being 'fly by wire' i.e. >> computer controlled, I would not want to risk having EMI from a cell >> phone getting into any of the systems and causing problems > Once, while standing and waiting to de-plane, I powered up my cell > phone to alert my ride that I had arrived. The flight attendent > immediately told me to shut it off. I complied, but given that we > were at the gate with the engines off, I told the flight attendent > that she wasn't making a lot of sense. > She told me that some captains get very sticky about the no-cellphone > rule, especially on the new fly-by-wire planes, such as the Airbus > A321 we were on. She said that the captains flying Boeing 727s and > DC-9s were much less fussy about cell-phones on the ground. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It sounds to me like she was the one > getting very sticky about things. I wold have asked to speak with > the captain to confirm that those were his instructions. PAT] Pat, Mark: I'm not really sure, but if the plane is "unattached", it's the captain's plane. He has sole authority. His word is enough for the air marshal to arrest you, legally. However, if the door's open and the stair or entry-way is in someway connected to the plane, power is from the airport facility, or fuel is being delivered, the plane is under the jurisdiction of the airport facility. The captain isn't the "absolute" authority. Now, to obscure things further, an episode of "LA Law" had one of the partners arrested for defying the captain's instructions concerning the use of a cellular phone. Point was made, though, that the plane was away from the gate. It was just sitting away from the gate, at the captain's descretion, when the flight delay warranted returning to the gate. Mark, the stewardess was probably out of line. Maybe a case where too little information was the rule. I once was told by a BART (San Francisco) employee that my (SP) packset (hand-held radio) had to be turned off because it interfered with the train operation. Same frequency band (one shared frequency!) as the communications band used for BART communications. Like Mark, who was I to argue. Ray ------------------------------ From: ronnie.grant@mogur.com (Ronnie Grant) Subject: Re: New Software Has No Time for Chat Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 01:37:00 GMT Organization: TGT Technologies / The MOG-UR'S EMS: 818-366-1238 Stan Schwartz : > "Welcome to NYNEX directory assistance," says an unwaveringly polite > voice. "What town?" [snip] > Don't worry if you hem, haw or hesitate. NYNEX' newly automated > directory assistance system, now in effect everywhere in the company's > service area, will edit most of the "uhs" and "ums" and dead time out > of your request. > The system's not entirely automated, though. And while it may give the > impression that you're talking with a computer, that's only partly > true. > What you say is recorded and played back in edited form into the > headphones of an operator -- probably a person in Port Jefferson, > Hempstead or Patchogue, if you're requesting a listing in Nassau or > Suffolk Counties, says NYNEX spokesman John Bonomo. The operator then > keys your request into the console as before and the number is relayed > to you in the choppy, computer-constructed form we've gotten used to. GTE California's had that on my line here in Los Angeles for some time now. "What city, please?" "What number, please?" If there is a long que, and you're stuck waiting, the same voice randomly says four or five different phrases such as "Thank you for waiting. An operator will assist you shortly," and "Please hold. An operator will be with you shortly," at ten to twenty second intervals. Once a number has been found, and read to you twice, the voice offers to dial that number for me for *only* 30 cents more! Golly gee wiz! I can press 1 to approve, or say "yes" at the tone. Ronnie [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The difference here is that I have never heard an instance of a waiting queue long enough that it played out any 'please hold for an operator' messages. Maybe the staffing is done better here. The other difference is it does not read the number twice and then offer to dial it; it reads the number *once* and goes into a spiel about getting connected for seventeen cents. Only after it has given its complete spiel and waited a second or two for you to respond does it come back somewhat more impatiently and respond: "I will repeat! I will connect you to the number for seventeen cents!" So if you missed the number the first time, you have to wait several seconds for it finish talking about its service before it says the number again. If you want a second listing (we can get two for the price of one call to directory assistance) or you want an additional listing for the same customer or you dispute the answer given in the first place there is no way to bail out to an operator until after the 'I will repeat' message with the first number given a second time. Then by doing nothing and just waiting on the line, a live operator will come on. A good part of that however is that the operator who responds at that point already has your previous request on the screen so you do not have to start all over from scratch. You can say something like, 'please see if there is another number for the same party on X street' or 'see if they have a listing for the customer service department'. The operator already knows at that point the name/address and basic details you are seeking, even though you had to wait through the robot's presentation twice before you reach a live person. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Fred_Atkinson/SkyTel_at_SkyTelNotesPO@mtel.com Date: Mon, 30 Sep 96 09:00:00 CST Subject: Re: New Software Has No Time for Chat... Regarding this new directory assistance system, I must say that it is much more personable than what was done by Southern Bell in the seventies (when I was living in South Carolina). The apparent *intent* was to *reduce* the number of directory assistance requests (this was before they were charging for directory assistance requests). When the information operator saw that a number you had requested was listed in the printed directory, the operator would say to the caller (in what I considered a very rude and offensive manner as they sounded like they were holding their noses when they would say this), "It is currently listed in the directory as: ... ". I also heard other people complain that it was offensive and rude. Finally, they discontinued the practice. Frankly, I don't have a problem with the new automated system. If I need more help I just say so. I find it works very well and is *certainly* better than the method previously used by Southern Bell. If it increases their productivity without offending their callers, more power to them. Fred ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #519 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Oct 2 13:13:07 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id NAA16024; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 13:13:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 13:13:07 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610021713.NAA16024@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #520 TELECOM Digest Wed, 2 Oct 96 13:12:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 520 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Digital Wave Modulation (Tad Cook) Mitnick's Plea: NOT GUILTY (Tad Cook) Critics Clamor for More Net Controls (Tad Cook) BellSouth Unveils New-Look Small Business District (Mike King) Employment: General Manager for Mid East Telecom Firm (Nishad Hussain) Effect of High BER on PCM Audio? (Jerry Serviss) Telex and FAX PADs (Gregory E. Federline) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Digital Wave Modulation Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 12:39:07 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Here is an update on IAS, covered a few months back in another TELECOM Digest posting. Tad Cook tad@ssc.com Utah's Troubled International Automated Systems to Release Financial Report By Lisa Carricaburu and Steven Oberbeck, The Salt Lake Tribune Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News AMERICAN FORK, Utah--Sep. 30--International Automated Systems does not fit most notions of a company set to lead a worldwide communications revolution. Its office is a tiny, refurbished log cabin off American Fork's beaten path, just down the road from a huge pumpkin patch. Most of IAS' 18 employees work in a nearby aluminum warehouse, a blue-and-white structure company executives say houses its top-secret "digital wave modulation" technology. Digital wave modulation is a discovery, they contend, that will allow data to be sent at up to 1.3 gigabytes per second -- a speed many electronics experts consider impossible. "We are not looking for quick profits," says Neldon Johnson, IAS president and chief executive officer. "We do not want to be like the typical high-tech company -- one that grows quickly and then declines, one like WordPerfect. We are developing a company for the long-term." IAS' financial statements are as unimpressive as its headquarters. It lost $199,554 on revenue of $6,000 for the year ended June 30, 1995. Its assets were worth just $53,226. The company had a negative net worth of $128,558. Monty Hamilton, IAS head of investor relations, who was busy last week painting stripes in the company parking lot, says updated financial figures will be available this week. "They won't show much improvement since we are still a development-stage company," he says. Johnson, a former grocery-store owner and AT&T electronics technician, says the world is selling short his discovery -- and his company. "If this technology does not work," he says, simply, "then I'm going to jail." Such pronouncements, however, have not stopped hundreds of IAS investors from bailing out of the company -- especially following its disastrous June 27 extravaganza in Orem to unveil DWM. In the face of widespread doubts and ridicule, IAS took a bold stand. It boasted to the world in national publications directed toward investors it was near unveiling its breakthrough. "We have enjoyed creative insults directed at us by skeptics," the company's advertisement in Investor's Business Daily and other publications said. "We encourage those of you who have missed the opportunity to ridicule us to hurry -- you only have about two more months." But when the big day arrived, IAS failed to demonstrate its promised prototype to a packed auditorium at Utah Valley State College. Company executives said there were last-minute problems with its patent application. Investors deserted the company in droves. Its stock plummeted 56 percent the next day. Its market value dropped a whopping $367 million. Three months later, company executives are eager to put a positive spin on the event, even though it was followed by a proposed shareholder class-action lawsuit and a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation. "From our standpoint it was a highly successful meeting," Johnson says. "Before, no one would even look at our technology." Now, IAS management maintains it is entertaining representatives of major high-tech companies worldwide. And dozens of electronics experts, from Utah and elsewhere, have signed nondisclosure documents to get a peek at DWM technology. Like its technology, however, the company is keeping secret the names of many of those who have viewed its DWM product. "We don't want them flooded with telephone calls," Johnson says. Barry M. Lunt, a professor of electronics engineering technology at Brigham Young University, has seen it though. He was asked by a worried IAS investor to evaluate the claims. Lunt says within the electronics field there are widely accepted theorems that establish upper limits on the rate of data transmission, limits well below those IAS claims are possible. Nevertheless, he came away convinced DWM has promise. "They did not convince me through any electronic wizardry," he says. "I asked some pretty tough questions. They were able to resolve the conflicts I had." For all of its other products -- IAS also is marketing a fingerprint identification machine and building a self-service grocery store in Salem set to open in January -- it has been its soaring stock price amid speculation surrounding DWM that has defined the company recently. IAS stock rose from 14 cents a share in early 1993 to a $52 high on May 31, a few weeks before the promised DWM unveiling. At $52 a share, the market was valuing IAS at $929 million, a staggering price for a company with a negative net worth. IAS stock closed this week at $9.25 per share. Randy Johnson, IAS senior executive vice president and Neldon Johnson's son, says executives, "do not know what made the stock go up. And we do not know what made it go down." There are some, however, who think they know. On July 8, IAS was sued by a shareholder for alleged securities fraud. The lawsuit, which is pending in the U.S. District Court for Utah, seeks class-action status on behalf of investors who bought the company's stock between May 13 when it was trading for $34 a share and June 27 when it closed at $37.50. IAS and its president are accused of artificially inflating the price of IAS stock by issuing false statements about the introduction of the promised revolutionary technology. And on July 16, IAS acknowledged it was under investigation by the SEC. IAS' president pooh-poohs the SEC inquiry. "I've been investigated by the SEC before," Johnson says, indicating that probe also concerned the price of IAS stock. "I just wish they would not call it an investigation. I wish they would call it an audit." Johnson is quick to point out IAS is not "a one-product company." Standing in the corner of the company's warehouse, he quickly scans several items and fills a shopping cart with the precision of an experienced grocer. IAS received a patent for its automated self-service checkout system in 1988. It has spent the past several years perfecting and testing it, Johnson says. If the new store in Salem proves successful, IAS hopes to operate a chain of U-CHECK stores and eventually hopes to sell franchises, he says, adding investors will be attracted by the system's ability to increase store profits by dramatically reducing labor costs. "It's technology that makes it possible for a 16-year-old kid to operate an entire grocery store with two weeks of training," Johnson says. But even that technology is not without its challenges. At least two other companies -- Optimal Robotics of Montreal, Canada, and Stores Automated Systems Inc. of Bristol, Pa. -- are testing versions in East Coast stores and promise to soon make them widely available. Johnson says both are violating IAS patents. His attorney has written them letters. But spokesmen for each company say IAS has no hold over them. "There are no patent problems I know of," says Holden Ostrin, Optimal Robotics vice chairman. SASI spokeswoman Patricia Vekich says her company developed its checkout system as an extension of the point-of-sale systems it has made since 1983. It did a patent search and found nothing to suggest it would have problems. SASI has a patent pending, she says. "I know nothing about IAS," she says. "But I do know they are not a player in the market we're talking about." Meanwhile, IAS says it is negotiating with several companies for the use of its Automated Fingerprint Identification Machine, a product developed as part of the automated checkout system. The product digitizes a fingerprint onto a card's magnetic strip. When identification is required, the card holder places a finger on a reader that compares the print to the digitized one on the card. IAS last week announced that it has signed a product development and marketing agreement with GIGA-TMS Inc., a Taiwanese company that makes door locks, mag-stripe readers, time clocks and other security equipment. James Biorge, IC One chief executive officer, says he also is including IAS fingerprint technology in his bids to gain a smart-card contract from the Utah Division of Motor Vehicles. Dave Berger of the Cincinnati-based Emerging Systems Ltd. says he understands why IAS has come under scrutiny. But he believes its DWM and fingerprint technology have potential. As an agent certified to sell IAS products, he is marketing them to clients who seek his help improving banking security. "IAS has had its problems, but its products are good," Berger says. "If they didn't have merit, I wouldn't be adding them to my product line." Still, there are few sales to speak of, and despite all its problems, IAS' primary message to stockholders still is "Trust us." "We're not saying we're perfect. We are not a perfect company," Randy Johnson says. "But a lot of our stockholders know us and they know we have integrity. They are the ones we care about. We know they'll stick with us." ------------------------------ Subject: Mitnick's Plea: NOT GUILTY Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 12:28:51 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Hacker Mitnick denies indictment charges LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The notorious computer hacker Kevin Mitnick pleaded innocent Monday to charges he mounted a multimillion-dollar crime wave in cyberspace during 2 1/2 years as a fugitive. Mitnick, 33, held without bail on a fraud conviction, told the judge not to bother reading the indictment, which includes 25 new counts of computer and wire fraud, possessing unlawful access devices, damaging computers and intercepting electronic messages. "Not guilty," Mitnick said. His indictment, handed up Friday by a federal grand jury, follows an investigation by a national task force of FBI, NASA and federal prosecutors with high-tech expertise. It charges Mitnick with using stolen computer passwords, damaging University of Southern California computers and stealing software valued at millions of dollars from technology companies, including Novell, Motorola, Nokia, Fujitsu and NEC. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Schindler said Mitnick would be sentenced to "multiple years" if convicted. He declined to be more specific, saying that computer crime was a new area of the law. Mitnick disappeared in 1992 while on probation and was tracked by computer and telephone security experts who caught him in Raleigh, N.C. The story of his arrest in February 1995 made national headlines. Mitnick pleaded guilty in April to a North Carolina fraud charge of using 15 stolen phone numbers to dial into computer databases. Prosecutors dropped 22 other fraud charges then but warned that new charges could follow. Mitnick also admitted violating probation for a 1988 conviction in Los Angeles, where he served a year in jail for breaking into computers at Digital Equipment Corp. At 16, he served six months in a youth center for stealing computer manuals from a Pacific Bell switching center. Mitnick also got a new lawyer Monday: Donald C. Randolph, who represented Charles Keating Jr.'s top aide, Judy J. Wischer, in the Lincoln Savings swindle. ------------------------------ Subject: Critics Clamor for More Net Controls Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 12:19:04 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) (The article below claims that Fortuna Alliance collected millions in profits in their Ponzi scheme from websites. This isn't widely known, but all of their money actually came from old style pyramid networks, and none from the web sites, although the web sites were numerous and had some role in promotion. Another thing that hasn't been widely publicized is that all of those charged had some kind of loose association with the so-called "patriot" movement, and many had in fact filed Freeman-style "sovereign citizen" paperwork with local county clerks here in Washingtone State which they believe severed their relationship with the government. Tad Cook tad@ssc.com) Critics Clamor for More Controls in Cyberspace Via AP By ALBERT R. KARR The Wall Street Journal Like the American West in the 1800s, cyberspace has mostly operated like an open range. But these days, a growing number of companies and consumer advocacy groups are calling on federal regulators to impose order on the fast-growing electronic frontier. The proposals include everything from efforts to curb "indecency" on the Internet to attempts to raise the cost of sending messages and crack down on alleged consumer fraud. On-line advocates fear any regulation could stunt the growth of the Internet and other on-line services, and limit their potential for technical innovation. "No form of electronic media in history has grown as fast as the Internet, and the Internet has grown precisely because it isn't regulated," says Larry Irving, an assistant secretary of Commerce and head of its National Technology and Information Administration. Yet in recent months, four regional Baby Bells -- U S West Inc., Bell Atlantic Corp., Nynex Corp. and Pacific Telesis Group -- have complained to the Federal Communications Commission that Internet users are getting a relatively free ride for sending messages, while overloading their phone lines. Both Bell Atlantic and U S West suggest that prices should increase to better reflect heavy Internet costs and phone-line usage. Clyde Heintzelman, chief operating officer of DIGEX Inc., a Beltsville, Md., Internet business-access provider, disagrees. He says other heavy users, like telephone reservations systems, also clog the phone lines. And he believes any new fees paid to phone companies would have to be passed on to Internet customers, which could discourage its use. Meanwhile, the America's Carriers Telecommunication Association, a group of 130 long-distance companies, wants the FCC to block or control on-line users' ability to make long-distance voice calls on the Internet. Without FCC regulation, the group complains, such calls can be made at almost no cost. Computer firms are opposed to such controls, as is FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, who doesn't want Internet providers to pay high access charges like those paid by long-distance firms. "We want to encourage competition," Mr. Hundt says. Still, proposals for such controls are coming fast. "We'll have one a month -- we're going to be dealing with such issues for the next five to ten years," says Rep. Rick White, Republican of Washington, who represents Microsoft Corp.'s home district and is a staunch defender of Internet freedom. He has tried twice, and failed, to get Congress to ban all FCC regulation of the Internet. Rep. White also tried unsuccessfully to block the Computer Decency Act, part of the massive telecommunications law passed early this year and the most prominent effort so far to control on-line activity. Federal courts later struck down its clauses curbing on-line porn as violating free-speech rights, though the U.S. Supreme Court will review those decisions. So far, few regulatory restrictions are actually in force. But businesses do complain about an existing government policy that limits the extent to which messages sent over the Internet can be encoded, which was intended to help intelligence agencies fight terrorists. Critics say it limits the ability of businesses to encode their own messages for security reasons. Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission has begun cracking down on Internet fraud; in recent months, it has filed about a dozen cases under existing consumer protection statutes. "The Internet will not achieve its commercial potential if this new (marketing) frontier becomes the Wild West of fraudulent schemes," warns Jodie Bernstein, head of the FTC's bureau of consumer protection. For example, the agency halted an alleged pyramid scheme by Fortuna Alliance, L.L.C. of Bellingham, Wash; it said Fortuna used a Web page to collect over $6 million from customers who paid up to $1,750 a month for promised "profits" exceeding $5,000 a month. Robert Sailer, an attorney for Fortuna Alliance, said the company denies the allegation and is seeking to have a court injunctions against it lifted. The FTC is also conducting workshops to develop its policy on Internet privacy issues. That's partly because the Center for Media Education, a consumer group, asked it to crack down on what it claims are attempts by companies like PepsiCo Inc. to persuade children to buy products like Frito-Lay snacks with Web site games. (Frito-Lay officials say that its Web site is for fun, not for selling snacks.) In reaction, Rep. Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, has offered a bill directing the FCC and the FTC to curb collection and sale of personal information about children or other consumers. Deciding who should regulate cyberspace, and how, can be confusing. Following President Clinton's call for controls on cigarette advertising, four different agencies began looking into possible curbs on Internet tobacco ads. But so far these four -- the FTC, FCC, Food and Drug Administration and Justice Department -- mainly bounce phone queries on the issue back and forth. Meantime, the FDA is concerned about the potential for Web sites maintained by drug manufacturers to be linked to on-line "chat rooms" that may tout prescription drugs for uses which aren't approved. But legislative and regulatory proposals can face fierce opposition; the growing hordes of on-line users are a potent lobbying force. "They are a libertarian group that can generate enormous pressure -- at the press of a button," says Scott Cleland, managing director of the Washington Research Group, an investors' analysis firm. William Neukom, a Microsoft senior vice president, doubts that extensive Internet regulation is practical. "This is not like regulating trucking. Things are moving so fast, there are so many players. It's got to get to a level of stability ... before people (even) understand how they're going to use it," he says. Others say widespread Internet regulation is inevitable. "Nearly every federal department is going to have a beef, because one of their laws or another is being violated. There will be increasing government intervention -- the question is when," says the Washington Research Group's Mr. Cleland. ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: BellSouth Unveils New-Look Small Business District Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 22:01:13 PDT Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 10:51:02 -0400 (EDT) From: BellSouth Subject: BELLSOUTH UNVEILS NEW-LOOK SMALL BUSINESS DISTRICT BELLSOUTH COMPLETES CYBER RENEWAL; UNVEILS NEW-LOOK SMALL BUSINESS DISTRICT ATLANTA-Speed, change and information are the hallmarks of the Internet. They're also the defining characteristics of BellSouth Small Business Services' presence on the Internet's user-friendly World Wide Web. Launched less than a year ago, BellSouth's "Small Business District" web site has been a powerful source for on-line information on starting and managing a small business. But time moves at a different speed in cyber space and BellSouth felt the small business district was ripe for a makeover. Using suggestions and comments contributed by entrepreneurs who accessed the site during its first ten months, BellSouth Small Business Services has renovated its "Small Business District." The new BellSouth Small Business District takes the concept of providing valuable information to small businesses to the next level. "We had a good resource for individuals seeking information on all aspects of owning and operating a small business, and we've made it better," says Cynthia Price, director of advertising and marketing communications for BellSouth Small Business Services. Improving the BellSouth Small Business District's design involved increasing the interactivity of the web site, as well as adding new features. Among the site's most popular new features are: Small Business Forum, where noted small business expert Alf Nucifora, presents articles, leads open discussions and answers questions about small business; BizLinks, where a single subject is discussed each week, and links-rated according to content, usability and design-are provided to some of the best authorities on small business for insights, tests, check lists, etc. on that topic; News Stand, providing links to newspapers, business publications, news wires and other news sources to help users stay current with local, regional, national and international news; Latest news on BellSouth product offerings and special promotions. Another noteworthy feature of BellSouth's Small Business District is Small Business Solutions, which provides a Communications Needs Analysis to help users identify solutions best suited to the ways their businesses operate. BellSouth's Small Business District web site uses the same graphics and "hot buttons" throughout its pages to provide continuity and ease of use. A list server has been added to alert repeat visitors when new material, promotions or products have been added to or changed on the site. BellSouth worked with Interweb, an Atlanta-based web presence provider, and WestWayne advertising agency, to develop the Small Business District web site (www.smlbiz.bellsouth.com). BellSouth Small Business Services is a division of BellSouth Telecommunications. BellSouth provides telecommunications services in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. With its headquarters in Atlanta, BellSouth serves approximately 22 million local telephone lines and provides local exchange and intraLATA long distance service over one of the most modern telecommunications networks in the world. For Information Contact: John Goldman, (205) 977-5007 ------------------ Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: Nishad Hussain Subject: Employment: General Manager for Middle Eastern Telecom Firm Date: 2 Oct 1996 11:50:11 GMT Organization: Internet Development Services >>>Wanted General Manager for Middle Eastern Telecom Firm <<<< >>>>>>>>>>>> U R G E N T L Y R E Q U I R E S <<<<<<<<<<<<< A New company headquartered in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates dealing in Communication, Telecommunication and other state-of-the-art technology products and services requires a GENERAL MANAGER to lead a team of professionals. The Ideal candidate should posses the following qualities: a) Bachelors Degree in Telecommunications Engineer from a reputed university. b) Eight to Ten years experience in managerial cadre. The Ideal Candidate would be offered excellent salary and benefits. Apply to the following E-mail Address: nishad@emirates.net.ae ------------------------------ From: serviss@tazdevil.cig.mot.com (Jerry Serviss) Subject: Effect of High BER on PCM Audio? Date: 1 Oct 1996 15:00:26 GMT Organization: Cellular Infrastructure Group, Motorola I am looking for information on the impact of a high bit error rate/ratio on PCM encoded audio. Can someone tell me what sort of quality degradation does a voice conversation experience as the BER rises? Intuitively, I know that there will be some degradation in the audio. I would like to know what that degradation "looks like". Here is what I do know: Bellcore says that a BER of one per ten million is the long term service objective for a T-1 facility. Further an errored second is any one second interval where a bit error occurs. Finally, a severely errored second is a rate of one bit error per thousand. So what happens if say the BER is in the severely errored second range? Is the audio totally unusable at that point? I have already looked at Notes on the Network to no avail. Any help would be appreciated. Jerry Serviss Motorola Inc serviss@cig.mot.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Oct 1996 12:14:12 -0400 From: Gregory E. Federline Subject: Telex and FAX PADs I have an application where I need to carry Telex and FAX data transparently through a private data network. Do you know of any pads that allow access to the data network via Frame Relay or X.25? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #520 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Oct 2 15:15:34 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id PAA28963; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 15:15:34 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 15:15:34 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610021915.PAA28963@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #521 TELECOM Digest Wed, 2 Oct 96 15:15:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 521 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson More on Pager Scam (Tad Cook) New Scam to Watch For (Rich Greenberg) Scam Has Pager Customers Beeping Mad! (Tad Cook) Unpaid Bill Scam (Doug Sewell) Today's Wacky Spam (John R. Levine) New 809 Fraud via Email (John B. Hines) Warning: Scam Alert About Calling a 1-809 Number (john) Taking SPAM One Step Further (John Cropper) Re: Is Undesirable Internet Advertising Increasing? (Seymour Dupa) Re: Is Undesirable Internet Advertising Increasing? (Rob Carlson) Re: Is Undesirable Internet Advertising Increasing? (Dave Keeny) Re: Is Undesirable Internet Advertising Increasing? (Hank Karl) Re: Cancelbots Flood Net; Thousands of Messages Lost (Spencer Roedder) Re: Why Would Someone Send Junk E-mail Return Receipt Requested? (D Botkin) Re: Telephone Scam Referring to 809 (Marty Brenneis) Re: Cyber Promotions Apparently Off the Air (Mark Crispin) Spam With PO Box Only! (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Business Friendly Internet Service Provider (Robert A. Virzi) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: More on Pager Scam Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 23:39:17 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Fake Pages Plague Beeper Owners with Urgent Requests for Payment By Robin Fields, Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.--Oct. 1--Your beeper goes off and you call the flashing number, starting with the 809 area code. "Hello, just a moment," a harried man says in a pronounced British accent. Then he yells, "Can someone get that phone? ... I've only got two hands." His attention swings back to you. "Listen," he says, "I've been waiting for this other call, and now I've got you on the line. I need the check by end of pay today." Got no idea what he's talking about? You're not alone. Thousands of beeper owners nationwide are receiving fake pages to dial international numbers. When consumers call back, they are gulled into sitting through bogus conversations similar to the one above which run up their bills, phone company officials say. "There are companies out there profiting by tricking people," AT&T spokeswoman Julie Spechler said. "If people suspect they're being tricked, they should hang up as quickly as possible." U.S. phone carriers are forgiving charges the first time consumers fall victim to the scheme, but officials say account holders will bear subsequent costs. Several variations on the scheme have emerged since late August. When customers called one number, since blocked by several carriers, they heard a message about impotence. Other consumers dialed domestic phone numbers for what they thought was a reply to newspaper ads to apply for department store jobs. In reality, they were connected to international lines. "You learn later that you've been charged up to $25 for the call," said Gordon Coffman, an attorney for the Federal Communications Commission. The charges are similar to those for domestic 900 numbers, but because the lines are outside the country, the operators avoid U.S. regulations requiring rate disclosure. "With these numbers there is no cost disclosure, or it's inadequate," said Eileen Harrington, associate director for marketing practices for the Federal Trade Commission. Officials with U.S. carriers say international phone companies also benefit from the scheme by collecting a surcharge to connect calls. Federal officials say they can do little to halt the fraud since their jurisdiction does not extend past the border. U.S. phone companies have blocked some of the numbers, but they acknowledge the step brings only temporary relief. "The people who start them can start others almost immediately, so it's just a Band-Aid," MCI spokeswoman Jennifer Adams said. Instead, carriers are warning consumers to think twice before calling numbers starting with 268, the prefix for Antigua; 664, the prefix for Montserrat; and 809, the prefix for much of the remaining Caribbean -- including Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. "The best thing for consumers to do is not call an area code they're not familiar with," Coffman said. In South Florida, where calls to the Caribbean are commonplace, Spechler acknowledged it might be tough to separate out the bogus beeps. "Try to make sure it really is a friend or a relative," she said. ------------------------------ From: richgr@netcom.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: New Scam to Watch For Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 22:29:38 GMT One of my fellow netcom users, jonzonk@netcom.com, has received two identical copies of the following email. He has no connection to Global, and given the 809 NPA, it is assumed to be a scam. Watch out for a similar note coming your way. (Posted here with his permission.) Note the lack of a "To:" line. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Return-Path: Received: from office.demon.net (office.demon.net [193.195.224.1]) by mail5.netcom.com (8.6.13/Netcom) id OAA01216; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 14:12:49 -0700 Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 14:12:49 -0700 Received: from [194.222.75.163] ([194.222.75.163]) by office.demon.net id ga19166; 1 Oct 96 16:43 BST From: "Global Communications"@demon.net Subject: Unpaid account Message-ID: <844184592.19166.164@[194.222.75.163]> I am writing to give you a final 24hrs to settle your outstanding account. If I have not received the settlement in full, I will commence legal proceedings without further delay. If you would like to discuss this matter to avoid court action, call Mike Murray at Global Communications on +1 809 496 2700. ----------------- Rich Greenberg N6LRT TinselTown, USA Play: richgr@netcom.com 310-649-0238 Pacific time. I speak for myself & my dogs only. VM'er since CP-67 Canines: Val(Chinook,CGC), Red(Husky,(RIP)), Shasta(Husky) Owner:Chinook-L ------------------------------ Subject: Scam Has Pager Customers Beeping Mad! Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 16:14:37 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Phone Scam Has Pager Customers Beeping Mad By Audra D.S. Burch, The Miami Herald Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Sep. 28--Your pager beeps and a number with an 809 area code appears. Don't know anybody in the Caribbean? Don't call back. Know somebody in the Caribbean? Check the number first. Phone company officials say thousands of consumers have received fraudulent pages to dial a number in the 809 area code of the Carribbean, which includes the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Jamaica. When people return the call, they receive an offensive or lengthy recorded message -- then a costly phone bill. "These schemes are the latest in a never-ending series of attempts by con artists to line their pockets by tricking unsuspecting people into dialing messages that offer no real value," said Rich Petillo, AT&T's corporate security manager. Your friendly call back is the backbone of a new phone scam in the $2 billion telecommunication fraud industry, a simplistic way to steal your long-distance dollars. In one variation of the con, callers hear a recorded message made to sound like a person conducting a casual conversation. "First you hear the person say, 'Hello,' then 'Hang on for a minute.' It gets quiet and the voice comes on again and says 'Hold on.' You think you are on hold, when all the while the minutes are ticking and money is being wasted," said Julie Spechler, an AT&T spokeswoman. Suppliers of the recorded information profit from revenue shared with them by the overseas phone company, Spechler said. South Florida consumers are especially vulnerable because the area has strong ties to the Caribbean. "People in your region may not think twice about using the area code simply because they are familiar with it," said Cleo Manual, spokeswoman of the National Consumers League, which tracks fraud complaints. Although officials are not sure how the telephone swindlers obtain the pager numbers, they say paging is basically a new twist on overseas telephone schemes, all of which involve consumers unwittingly making expensive calls. "They the scammers benefit from the fact that the prefix looks like a regular area code," said Manuel, whose organization is planning to launch a public education campaign by the end of the year. The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission both are looking into the scam. And the Better Business Bureau of South Florida reports it has received a few complaints and inquiries. Now aware of the pager trap, long distance companies such as AT&T and Sprint have blocked calls over their networks to the number sent to the pagers. Last week, Sprint blocked an "impotency" hotline number out of Antigua. The company also issued a notice to its employees warning them of the scam. Last month, AT&T blocked a number based in the Dominican Republic. Phone companies are facing a real pickle: Consumers who complain about the outrageous phone bills actually made the call, but they didn't necessarily realize they were overseas calls. So complaints are being handled on a case-by-case basis. Charges may be removed or a payment plan set up. And officials say staying ahead of the phone crooks is difficult: As soon as a number is blocked, they establish a new one and start paging people again. So officials are issuing this universal warning: Be suspicious of any pages using the 809, 268, 664 area codes or the international access code, 011. "Frankly, it's really a situation where consumers have to beware. We can't shut down whole area codes," said Larry McDonnell, a Sprint spokesman. "We are telling customers to be careful." ------------------------------ From: doug@cc.ysu.edu (Doug Sewell) Subject: Unpaid Bill Scam Date: 1 Oct 1996 23:06:44 -0400 Organization: Youngstown State University One of our users received the following letter (I've X'd his login ID). 194.222.75.163 resolves to imme.demon.co.uk, so I'm forwarding this to postmaster@demon.co.uk as well. | From MAILER-DAEMON@yfn.ysu.edu Tue Oct 1 12:24:56 1996 | Received: from office.demon.net (office.demon.net [193.195.224.1]) by | yfn2.ysu.edu with SMTP id MAA06345 | (8.6.13/IDA-1.6 for ); Tue, 1 Oct 1996 12:24:49 -0400 | Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 12:24:49 -0400 | Received: from [194.222.75.163] ([194.222.75.163]) by office.demon.net | id by19166; 1 Oct 96 16:03 BST | From: "Global Communications"@demon.net | Subject: Unpaid account | Message-ID: <844182217.19166.51@[194.222.75.163]> | | I am writing to give you a final 24hrs to settle your outstanding | account. If I have not received the settlement in full, I will | commence legal proceedings without further delay. If you would like | to discuss this matter to avoid court action, call Mike Murray | at Global Communications on +1 809 496 2700. This is a scam. First, a letter of this importance would not be sent via e-mail. Second, the recipient had no business relationship with Global Communications. Third, the e-mail came from an invalid address (but see above). Finally, area code 809 is a Carribean area code, probably with a high per-minute rate. I suspect what will happen is you'll call, be put on hold, run around a bit, and then "gee, we made a mistake, sorry". I suspect there's a kick-back from the phone company to this business. Doug Sewell (doug@cc.ysu.edu) (http://cc.ysu.edu/~doug/) Youngstown Ohio is now area code 330. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 23:19:25 EDT From: John R Levine Subject: Today's Wacky Spam A threatening letter that tries to get you to call a number in the British Virgin Islands. I thought the BVI's telco belonged to Cable and Wireless; hard to believe they're playing rebate games. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Trumansburg NY Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies" and Information Superhighwayman wanna-be Date: Tue, 1 Oct 96 13:22 EDT Received: from [194.222.75.163] ([194.222.75.163]) by office.demon.net id dj19166; 1 Oct 96 16:17 BST To: From: "Global Communications"@demon.net Subject:Unpaid account I am writing to give you a final 24hrs to settle your outstanding account. If I have not received the settlement in full, I will commence legal proceedings without further delay. If you would like to discuss this matter to avoid court action, call Mike Murray at Global Communications on +1 809 496 2700. ------------------------------ From: jhines@enteract.com (John B. Hines) Subject: New 809 Fraud via Email Date: Tue, 01 Oct 1996 19:37:12 GMT Organization: EnterAct L.L.C. Turbo-Elite News Server I just got a email message from a company I've never heard of, "Global Communications" @demon.net giving me 24 hours to settle my "outstanding account" before legal procedings will commence. If I want to avoid "court action" I'm to call 1-809-496-2700 and talk to Mike Murrary. Fortunately, being an avid reader of the TELECOM Digest, I'm aware that 809 is an expensive international call, and laughed at it, rather than calling the number to ask what's going on. What do you want to bet that, I'd be put on hold for a while, before someone finds the correct file, and tells me there has been a mixup, and I really don't owe them any money. And then next month, there is a whopper of an LD bill, which I can not dispute, since I did call. And I bet some people will fall for it. ------------------------------ From: john@a3bgate.nai.net (john) Subject: Warning: Scam Alert About Calling a 1-809 Number Date: 1 Oct 1996 15:51:37 GMT Organization: North American Internet I got something in the mail that I didn't know about. I dialed the number and got people arguing(?) Seems like a recording to me. I asked AT&T about the number and they told me it's from the British Virgin Islands. I should have called AT&T first. AT&T cancelled my call. AT&T also tried the number and somebody picked up (after two rings). When I called, there was five rings then I got a recording. Seems like those people have caller-id or something. Here's the email (I am including all headers): Received: from a3bgate.nai.net (wlfd-sh.nai.net [205.139.0.5]) by usa.nai.net (8.6.12/8.6.5) with ESMTP id NAA18789 for ; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 13:12:13 -0400 Received: from office.demon.net (office.demon.net [193.195.224.1]) by a3bgate.nai.net (8.6.5/8.6.6) with SMTP id NAA22713 for ; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 13:33:03 -0400 Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 13:33:03 -0400 Received: from [194.222.75.163] ([194.222.75.163]) by office.demon.net id dj19166; 1 Oct 96 16:17 BST X-UIDL: 844197511.031 From: "Global Communications"@demon.net Subject: Unpaid account Message-ID: <844183038.19166.89@[194.222.75.163]> Apparently-To: Status: U X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 I am writing to give you a final 24hrs to settle your outstanding account. If I have not received the settlement in full, I will commence legal proceedings without further delay. If you would like to discuss this matter to avoid court action, call Mike Murray at Global Communications on +1 809 496 2700. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Oct 1996 22:43:02 GMT Subject: Taking SPAM One Step Further From: psyber@usa.pipeline.com (John Cropper) After reading some of the articles on the prevalence of junk posts, and junk e-mail, I thought I'd offer my two cents. I took one user's 'nasty reply' letter one step further; I added a sentence warning the sender's ISP against harassment of my account in response to my formal complaint against them. Here is my 'canned message': !!!! Good Day: The following junk mail was sent to me UNSOLICITED and UNWANTED by a user from your site. This is the same as unwanted and unsolicited junk faxes and telemarketing calls--all of which are ILLEGAL under federal law: By US Code Title 47, Sec.227(a)(2)(B), a computer/modem/printer meets the definition of a telephone fax machine. By Sec.227(b)(1)(C), it is unlawful to send any unsolicited advertisement to such equipment, punishable by action to recover actual monetary loss, or $500, whichever is greater, for EACH violation. Please stop this. You have been put on notice. I have recorded your site name; further UNSOLICITED and UNWANTED junk mail from your site will force me to follow up under federal law. Please take note that I will entertain ONLY reply messages indicating your compliance with my wishes, all other replies from you will constitute harassment, and be dealt with as such. Nasty responses to my ISP will also be considered harassment against me, and be dealt with as such. Thank you for your time & compliance with my request. cc: jccheezum@uspis.gov, postmaster@mindspring.com !!!! All readers of TELECOM Digest are welcome to use any/all in an attempt to get some of these bulk mailers to stop their tirade of unabated SPAMMING. Free speech is one thing, its abuse is another issue entirely. John Cropper, NiS / NexComm PO Box 277 Pennington, NJ USA 08534-0277 Inside NJ: 6o9.637.9434 Toll Free: 888.NPA.NFO2 (672.6362) Fax : 6o9.637.943o email : psyber@usa.pipeline.com ------------------------------ From: grumpy@en.com (Seymour Dupa) Subject: Re: Is Undesirable Internet Advertising Increasing? Date: 02 Oct 1996 11:05:09 GMT Organization: Exchange Network Services, Inc. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not like the idea of any company > collecting email addresses (or actual street addresses) which appear > in the Digest and using them for their own commercial purposes. The > only reason addresses of any sort appear in the Digest is to facilitate > correspondence between participants ... Yea, just like Social Security Numbers were supposed to be used just for out retirement accounts. But we all know what happened with that. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Is Undesirable Internet Advertising Increasing? From: Rob Carlson Reply-To: rob@cola.castle.net Date: Tue, 02 Oct 96 03:03:47 GMT Organization: The Cola Mail System South Plainfield, NJ USA Andrew C. Green writes: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not like the idea of any company > collecting email addresses (or actual street addresses) which appear > in the Digest and using them for their own commercial purposes. The > only reason addresses of any sort appear in the Digest is to facilitate > correspondence between participants; it is not to facilitate anyone > building a mailing list. I do not know what, as a practical matter I > can do about it other than to remove all email addresses and .signature > lines entirely, requiring everyone who wants to respond to someone > else to come through me. :( PAT] I don't see what the problem is with people skimming paper mail addresses from the Digest. As always, the materials sent are on the dime of Dataprobe, for both printing and sending. All Mr. Green has to do is dispose of the catalogs and no expense is occured with him or with his mail provider needlessly. It's a shame that Usenet has turned into a liability for your mailbox rather than a benefit. I can remember only a few years ago posting questions to Usenet groups and eagerly awaiting a flood of answers rather than a flood of junk mail as is the case today. Rob Carlson .. Mail rob@cola.castle.net Pager 908-937-0452 .. Mail over 16kb to rob@cola.westmark.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Saying that 'all Mr. Green has to do is dispose of the catalogs' is like saying in the case of junk email all you have to do is hit the delete key to get rid of it. His 'mail pro- vider' (in this case the Postal Service) delivered a piece of mail at some ridiculously low rate for 'bulk mail' which cluttered up his mail box. Not only that, but I will maintain that the text appearing within this Digest and its style of organization and presentation -- including the display and method or style in which I present the email/other mail addresses of the correspondents is compilation-copyrighted by myself. I do not include email/other addresses here for the purpose of some company ripping off whatever they want and using it for their own purposes. A lot of good it does to talk about it I guess; commercial interests have by and large ripped off most of the internet for their own use by now anyway, making it nearly impossible for the rest of us to conduct our exchanges of correspondence in any way resembling the style we used to have here in the past. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Keeny Subject: Re: Is Undesirable Internet Advertising Increasing? Date: Tue, 02 Oct 1996 11:28:44 +0500 Organization: Telecommunications Techniques Corporation Reply-To: keenyd@ttc.com Craig Nordin wrote: > I've closed down approximately 40 e-mail spammers and here are the > tools and tactics I use: [snip] In addition to that I try the following, at least when I get particularly torqued (e.g., forged return address on a get rich quick scheme): - finger xxx@yyy.zzz from return address to see if it's real; - finger @yyy.zzz. Some sites return a list of users, some users put their real names in their messages (esp. get rich quick messages). It's a longshot, but I've matched the two on a few occasions. Phone number search engines can help here, as can Deja News searches. - Look at the first (chronological) routing header. If the user has a static IP address, it should be logged. Then go to http://www.bankes.com./nslookup.htm and see if it returns a xxx.yyy.zzz address where xxx is typically the user's account or login name. If xxx is something like "ppp23" or "dialup_29_whatever", it's a dynamically assigned IP address. If it's a Usenet spam, look at the NNTP-Posting-Host for the same information. - If you're lucky enough to get a login name, you can finger again or check if they have a web page or FTP directory. If user pages aren't listed try http://www.yyy.zzz/~xxx or http://www.yyy.zzz/pub. My goal here is to get some personal information like first names to include in an e-mail ("Dear John and Cathy..."). If the person involved is not a hardcore bulk e-mailer, letting him/her know they can be found freaks them right out and has led to a couple of appologies and promises to stop. - Send the complete routing headers to abuse@, postmaster@, or admin@. Sysadmins don't always bother trying to correlate dynamic IP addresses, for example, with their logs, but on one occasion I did receive a thank you from a sysadmin at interramp.com letting me know it took a while to track him down, and the user was terminated. - Some things I haven't tried (really) because I'm not quite ready to sink to their levels are: - If they mention an autoresponder for getting more information, send it a message with the return address set to as many *other* such autoresponders as you can. - Post a message to news:control with their e-mail address and 'cmsg version' in the subject line. I have fought the urge to do that so far, but my resolve is weakening. When I get junk e-mail with a good return address, I just request to be taken off the mailing list. But when the address is forged, I will do what I can to ferret out the user. It's time consuming and not often successful, but between the thrill of the chase and the occasional success, I personally find it worth the effort. On a practical level? It's a spit in the ocean, unfortunately. Dave ------------------------------ From: hankkarl@ix.netcom.com (Hank Karl) Subject: Re: Is Undesirable Internet Advertising Increasing? Date: Tue, 01 Oct 1996 22:27:39 GMT Organization: Telenetworks Reply-To: hankkarl@ix.netcom.com On Fri, 27 Sep 1996 01:26:15 -0500, in comp.dcom.telecom Andrew C. Green wrote: > Finally, let me publicly acknowledge one outfit which seems to be > using TELECOM Digest poster info in a more responsible manner: > Dataprobe, Inc. of Paramus, NJ. Seems that every time something of > mine appears in TELECOM Digest, they lift my postal address from my > .sig line below and send me via First Class mail a spiffy new catalog > of their products. I have five copies so far. :-) Gee, Pat. I wouldn't mind getting catalogs, etc. from datacom-related sources. :-) Seems that you could get a (snail)mailing list together by _voluntary_ subscription, and use the sales of that list to finance the Digest. You could add even more value by categorizing the members' desires (e.g. data line monitors, chips, telephone services.) Hank Karl Opinions mine, not my company's. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am not running a commercial service here. I am attempting to operate an educational resource for the internet. Remember when that used to be the thing the internet was intended to be, instead of all the trash that it carries now? I attempt to operate this educational resource with the very limited financial resources available to me. I have never been pleased with the prospect of begging for money or accepting commercial advertising of any sort, but I do what I need to while keeping in mind what it is I am trying to accomplish here. I am not going to get into the sale of the mailing list so companies can send out catalogs and all that; and frankly I wish they would quit ripping off the names and addresses they find herein. If I had an endowment for the Digest I would quit accepting what sponsorships there are presently as their terms expired. But the corporations who are in any position to help on any sort of permanent, long-term arrangement are unlikely to materialize anytime soon. Most of the gifts I receive from individual readers here come to me from people who can ill-afford to give what they do but they want to help out. An article appeared in the Digest a few days ago which was one of the press-releases PacBell is always sending out. It met the disapproval of a reader who wrote to me saying he could not imagine what possible interest it would have had to anyone 'other than a few people on the west coast ...'; but then the real gist of his message followed: ' ... or is the reason you ran it because PacBell is one of your sponsors now? ....' What a laugh! PacBell as a sponsor here? As the late Hollywood star Jack Benny would have replied, "Really, Mary ..." No, the 'sponsors' here in large part are like the person who sent me a note the other day with a money order for five dollars enclosed and a note saying, "I skipped lunch one day last week and enclosed is what I would have spent for lunch ..." You can imagine how I chortled with glee when I deposited it in the ATM on the way home from my own lunch at the nearby hotdog stand. I do appreciate the letters and gifts which arrive in the mail from readers and I encourage you all to stay in touch even though there are times I wonder if this Digest will someday become just like much of the internet has already become. PAT] ------------------------------ From: roedder@netcom.com (Spencer Roedder) Subject: Re: Cancelbots Flood Net; Thousands of Messages Lost Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 17:05:39 GMT > Of course I guess since we don't use this space to talk in a > sympathetic way about gay people and Jews -- nor in an unsympathetic > way for that matter; it just is not the theme here -- the vandal(s) > saw no reason to bother us. PAT] Unfortunately the attack wasn't even selective by newsgroups. There was a fair amount of damage in sci.astro.amateur, and speculation there was that certain _people_ got the cancels. Possibly it was because of the ethnicity of their names or perhaps their names "got on the list" because of some other post in Usenet. What a waste of mental energy must have gone into planning and implementing this act of vandalism! Spencer Roedder roedder@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: dbotkin@probe.net (Dale Botkin) Subject: Re: Why Would Someone Send Junk E-mail Return Receipt Requested? Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 12:38:13 GMT Organization: Probe Technology Inc. Reply-To: dbotkin@probe.net djw@physics.lanl.gov (Dave Wade) wrote: > What's going on here? This appears to be a junk e-mail going out with > a "Return receipt requested" to a garbage e-address. Why would someone > do that? What information would this tell them? Perhaps, as we've often suspected, they're just total and complete morons with no clue as to what they're doing. It would fit the pattern. Dale Botkin, President | Internet Services for Mid-America Probe Technology Inc. | Voice (402) 593-9800 10159 J St. | FAX (402) 593-8748 Omaha, NE 68127 | http://www/probe.net/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 06:40:45 PDT From: Marty Brenneis Subject: Re: Telephone Scam Referring to 809 I am aquainted with a slightly slippery fellow in the SF Bay Area who has a computer set up to war dial numbers looking for pager exchanges. It then sends numbers to the pagers that result in charges. It is sort of pager spam. He gets paid by some Scamco to run this program on his local calling area. We have flat rate here in CA so it costs him nothing extra to make the spam calls. I hate to think what will happen when the spamsters and spambots start sending to our alpha pagers. Marty 'The Droid' Brenneis droid@well.com Industrial Magician droid@kerner.com (415)258-2105 ~~~ KAE7616 - 462.700 - 162.2 ~~~ KC6YYP ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: Cyber Promotions Apparently Off the Air Date: Tue, 01 Oct 1996 17:51:19 -0700 Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing On Thu, 19 Sep 1996, John R Levine wrote: > PS to Interramp users: if you try and send me an e-mail response or look > at one of my web pages, and it doesn't connect, now you know why. But > there are lots of other ISPs who'd welcome your business. By the way, for those people who receive mail on their workstation, but can't control what their router does, you can cut off Interramp very easily with the command: /usr/etc/route add net 38.0.0.0 localhost 0 while su'd to root. Yes, it cuts off all of PSI, but after careful examination I concluded that there was nobody that I care to talk to who uses PSI. Other methods may have more finesse, but this one is perhaps the easiest. Who knows. Perhaps if a lot of folks cutting off routing from PSI, it might hurt their profits to take complaints about spam seriously. I've done the same thing to NETCOM. ------------------------------ Subject: Spam With PO Box Only! Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 02:13:21 PDT From: rishab@dxm.org (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Reply-To: rishab@dxm.org Pat, I wonder what we can do about spams like this latest one (for free Net access worldwide for $24.95) which have no phone number to call. You are simply asked to fill out an order form and send with a cheque to a PO box number in California. Will the postal service accept complaints? Perhaps someone should send a legal notice instead of a cheque -- because you can't really reply to the post. The From line on different copies of the spam differs, and they're all fake (or false) addresses), as the top From line (from oz.net) shows. FYI here's a bit from a copy that landed in my mailbox. I don't know how it got there -- it's addressed to dummy@dxm.org, an id on my virtual domain that I don't remember using, certainly not recently. Rishab PS: Note the innocuous subject line, which made me think it was something I'd asked for! From aaa@emerald.oz.net Fri Sep 27 05:58:58 1996 Received: from dns2.noc.best.net (dns2.noc.best.net [206.86.0.21]) by nic.cerf.n et (8.7.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id FAA01272 for ; Fri, 27 Sep 1996 0 5:58:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shellx.best.com (shellx.best.com [206.86.0.11]) by dns2.noc.best.net (8.6.12/8.6.5) with ESMTP id FAA09885 for ; Fri, 27 Sep 199 6 05:37:58 -0700 Received: from mail1.best.com (mail1.best.com [206.86.8.14]) by shellx.best.com (8.6.12/8.6.5) with ESMTP id FAA09170 for ; Fri, 27 Sep 1996 05:37:55 -0700 Received: from emerald.oz.net (emerald.oz.net [198.68.184.2]) by mail1.best.com (8.6.12/8.6.5) with ESMTP id FAA06870 for ; Fri, 27 Sep 1996 05:3 7:49 -0700 Received: from Work_Station_1 (Cust65.Max22.Los-Angeles.CA.MS.UU.NET [153.34.81. 65]) by emerald.oz.net (8.7.6/8.7.3) with SMTP id FAA28869; Fri, 27 Sep 1996 05: 22:23 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199609271222.FAA28869@emerald.oz.net> From: Frank65@aol.com Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 05:27:53 PDT Subject: Here it is... Apparently-To: !!!!!!!!!!! FREE INTERNET ACCESS !!!!!!!!!!! NEVER EVER pay for Internet Access AGAIN!!! E-V-E-R! Amazing Course on Audio Tape describes STEP by STEP what your Internet Service Provider doesn't want you to know! [...stuff we might expect to see in Phrack elided...] LSAT Productions PO Box 2747-453A Huntington Beach, CA 92648 USA WE ACCEPT Check or Money Order. $24.95 Delivered (WORLDWIDE) (US FUNDS ONLY) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 08:41:21 +0100 From: rvirzi@gte.com (Robert A. Virzi) Subject: Business Friendly Internet Service Provider This may be business friendly, but it sure stinks for the rest of us. Any ideas (besides blocking all mail from slip.net) on how to deal with these bozos? -Bob >X-Authentication-Warning: relay.gte.com: postman set sender to > using -f >Comments: Authenticated sender is >From: bulk@slip.net >To: bulk@slip.net >Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 12:00:51 +0000 >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Subject: BUSINESS FRIENDLY INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER >Reply-to: bulk@slip.net >Priority: urgent >BUSINESS FRIENDLY INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER >REACH YOUR TARGET MARKET FOR PENNIES! >Save A Tree, Send Your Message Electronically >*******BUSINESS FRIENDLY INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER********* >*******NEVER LOSE YOUR VALUABLE SALES LEADS AGAIN !******** >BULLET PROOF E-MAIL ACCOUNT, AUTO RESPONDER, WEB SITE, >DOMAIN AND IP ADDRESS. >* The Only Flat Rate Bulk E-Mail System Available! >* Friendly POP Provider & Postmaster > Help Pacify Complaints about Commercial E-mail >* YOU GET IT ALL FOR ONE LOW PRICE! >IMPC, THE BUSINESS FRIENDLY POP PROVIDER NETWORK! >*Less Complaints From Your Dial-up Provider. >*No More Closed Commercial Web sites And E-mail Accounts! >ALL THE E-MAIL YOU CAN SEND FOR ONE LOW PRICE!!! >* Direct Marketing Heaven! >* Unlimited POP Mail Usage! >AUTO RESPONDER >*Perfect For Follow-Up Requests For Information. >YOUR OWN INTERNET DOMAIN AND WEB SITE! >Promote Your Products And Services With A Web Site. Your Business >Activities Will Never Jeopardize your Web Site. Sleep Tight, About >Your Website! It Is Always Safe And Secure With IMPC. >HASSLE FREE BULK E-MAIL POP PROVIDER SERVICE. >All Bulk E-Mail Software Packages Welcome. Use What Ever Mailing >And Collection SoftwareYou Want!! >*** THE IMPC BULLET PROOF ACCOUNT. >*** YOU WILL NEVER LOSE YOUR VALUABLE SALES LEADS AGAIN !!!! >LOOK AT ALL YOU GET FOR ONLY >$99.00 SET-UP AND $169.00 A MONTH!!! >POP ACCOUNT WITH 10 Mb E-MAIL BOX >***(SMTP / POP3 Protocol. NOT A DIAL-UP ACCOUNT) >Use Your Current PPP Dial-Up Account And Your Favorite E-mail >Software (i.e. Eudora, Pegasus, etc.) To Send Your Messages And Pick >Up Sales Leads Through Our Mail Server. >AUTO RESPONDER >Automatically Responds To E-Mail Received At Your POP Auto Responder >Account. >CUSTOM DOMAIN NAME & 5 Mb WEB SITE (more available) >Your Own Domain With An Assigned IP Address. Internic Registration >Handled For You, i.e. www.Your-Domain.com. >BUSINESS FRIENDLY POSTMASTER. >**YOU GET ALL OF IT FOR ONE FLAT RATE! >***CALL MR. MAIL FOR MORE INFORMATION (415) 440 2987 0r (415) 771 >9928**** >Integrated Media Promotion Corporation >PO BOX 470441 >San Francisco, CA. 94147 >http://bulk-e-mail.com rvirzi@gte.com Think Globally. === +1(617)466-2881 === Act Locally! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe readers will want to nip this one right in the bud by adding the information shown above to their mail filters, and start refusing mail right from the beginning. With some luck the firm will go out of business in the near future. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #521 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Oct 2 17:33:02 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id RAA15109; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 17:33:02 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 17:33:02 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610022133.RAA15109@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #522 TELECOM Digest Wed, 2 Oct 96 17:33:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 522 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson 403 Alberta NPA Relief Plans (Mark J. Cuccia) Edmonton Alberta EXchange History (Mark J. Cuccia) Old Calgary Alberta Exchanges (Mark J. Cuccia) Pacific Telesis Says $2.1 Billion Refund Would Stop Merger (Mike King) Email on Universal Service to Senator Jay Rockefeller, FCC (Ronda Hauben) Next Area Code Not LD: Dialing Patterns? (Eric Florack) Looking For Info on a "Unified" European Toll-Free Service (Robt. Nowak) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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, 02 Oct 1996 13:08:47 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: 403 Alberta NPA Relief Plans In a recent mailing I received from a Canadian telecom industry forum, there were some submissions from Telus' AGT (formerly Alberta Government Telephone), the LEC for the province of Alberta in Canada. These submitted pages regarded the relief plans for Alberta's 403 Area Code. Area Code 403 for Alberta was one of the 'original' 86 NPA codes assigned in 1947 by AT&T in preparation for Operator Toll Dialing and later customer DDD. Sometime in the late 1950's or early 1960's, the Yukon Territory and the western/southern regions of the Northwest Territories were included in Area Code 403, but on a *numbering plan* basis only, to have customer toll dialing to/from at a later date, which was accomplished sometime around 1972. The telecommunications division of Canadian National Railways provided the telephone service in the Yukon and the 403 (western/southern) portions of the Northwest Territories. Bell Canada provided the service in the Arctic and eastern portions of the Northwest Territories, which had been identified by Area Code 819, one of Quebec's three area codes. CN created the subsidiary, Northwestel, circa 1979 to handle its Yukon and NWT telecommunications services. Circa 1988, CN sold Northwestel to BCE, Bell Canada's holding company. In 1992, BCE transferred Bell Canada's NWT operations into Northwestel, now a BCE subsidiary. Recently, it was announced that 867 will be a new *single* area code for Yukon and *all* of the Northwest Territories, to take effect on 21 October 1997 (permissive dialing), with mandatory dialing on 26 April 1998. Even though the central office codes in Yukon and the old CN portion of the NWT will be leaving Area Code 403 effective 26 April 1998, thus 403 will serve *exclusively* Alberta, it is anticipated that 403 will exhaust its supply of some 792 possible central office codes by 1998 or 1999. By the way, Alberta has been using 'interchangeable' central office codes (N0X/N1X form, in addition to the 'traditional' NNX form) for several years now. Telus/AGT has started the process for relief of 403 within Alberta. This will the first time Alberta needed area code relief. Two plans have been submitted. Both are splits of the province. I would have been surprised to see an overlay for a province as geographically large as Alberta. Both plans are also quite similar in the way the province is divided. I am also surprised in that both plans have Edmonton/central and northern Alberta *keep* 403, with Calgary/southern Alberta split into the new NPA code (the numericals weren't announced). The metro areas of Edmonton and Calgary are now roughly the same size, both geographically and in population, although I think that Calgary was tradtionally larger. However, Edmonton has been the provincial capital, and maybe that had something to do with their being able to remain 403, forcing the Calgary area to split from the 403 area code. Both plans show a boundary line which runs roughly east/west, from the Saskatchewan border, to the British Columbia border. One plan keeps the towns of Red Deer and Stettler in the 403 area code (along with Edmonton, central and northern Alberta), while the other plan puts Red Deer and Stettler in the new area code (along with Calgary and southern Alberta). Regardless of either plan, some other southern Alberta towns (in addition to Calgary) which will be moving into the new area code include Banff, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge and Fort Macleod. There is still more to be worked out, such as which of the two relief plans will be adopted (i.e. exactly where the boundary will be), as well as getting a code *specifically* reserved/assigned by the North American Numbering Plan Administration (still presently handled by Bellcore), setting the permissive and mandatory dialing dates, etc. 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, 02 Oct 1996 14:25:36 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Edmonton Alberta EXchange History The telephone company in Edmonton Alberta had for *DECADES* been owned by the city government. Early last year (1995), Telus, now the parent company of AGT purchased EdTel from the city government of Edmonton. Edmonton had dial service since about 1910 or so, using Step-by-Step equipment. It was originally supposed to have a "Lorimer" system which was a 'rotary' version of the future panel switch, however the purchase order wasn't fulfilled by the time the telephone company wanted to begin converting some exchanges to dial. The Edmonton District Telephone Company thus purchased Stroger step equipment from Automatic Electric of Chicago. Originally, Edmonton's dial equipment was 'three-wire'. Ringing was NOT provided by machines, but still by either turning a magneto crank (although power was common battery), or by pressing a button after dialing the local number. Thus it was possible to press or crank out 'coded' rings to identify *who* was calling, which individual at a number was *being* called, or to 'telegraph' out family messages without even having to verbally converse! (Something like what could be done on a 'party line') Eventually, this system was converted to standard two-wire connections, along with central office based automatic 'ringing machines'. I don't have the years any particular exchange was introduced, nor when an exchange was converted from manual to dial. However, I do have information here regarding Edmonton's conversion to 2L-5N (seven digit) numbers, which occurred in one night, on 15 March 1959. Edmonton had five and six digit local numbers prior to this. No names had been used, although the exchange was identified by the first digit for five digit local numbers, or first two digits for six digit local numbers. In 1959, Edmonton began to use *named* exchanges, rather than simply converting to seven numerical digits. AT&T and the other North American telephone companies had been considering eliminating 'names' for exchanges about this time (ANC, All Number Calling), so it does seem ironic that they would have gone from all numbers (although less than seven digits) to *named* exchanges at such a late date when converting to seven dialpulls. 2-xxxx became GArden-2-xxxx (422) 4-xxxx became GArden-4-xxxx (424) 9-xxxx (provincial government offices) became CApital-9 (229) (Sometime by the late 1960's, 229 for the provincial offices was changed to an "Edmonton" form 4NX exchange, although I don't know what it would be. All Calgary numbers were of the form 2NX by that time.) All other numbers were six digits, with the first digit being converted to a letter: 3x-xxxx became GEneva x-xxxx (43x) 5x-xxxx became GLendale x-xxxx (45x) 6x-xxxx became HOmestead x-xxxx (46x) 7x-xxxx became GRanite x-xxxx (47x) 88-xxxx became HUnter 8-xxxx (488) 89-xxxx became HUdson 9-xxxx (489) It does seem from the 'numbering arrangement' that Edmonton was still exclusively a "step-by-step" city at the time of conversion to seven dialpulls, although Edmonton Telephones might have begun introducing #5XB offices at the time. Maybe someone has further details to fill in any gaps. I also want to thank Geoff Capp who supplied me with most of this Edmonton exchange history. 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, 02 Oct 1996 13:55:05 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Old Calgary Alberta Exchanges I recently received a copy of "Singing Wires, the Story of the Telephone in Alberta", published by AGT in 1973. It is now out of print. There is a picture of an early 1940's AGT public announcement in the book, which has the Automatic Electric version of WECO/NECO's model #302 desk telephone, with and a hand reaching over to lift the handset to place a call. BIG BLOCK LETTERS at the top of the advertisement state "STOP!". Underneath the telephone are "WAR CALLS COME FIRST!". Text continues stating that while it has become a happy family custom to place telephone calls at Christmas and New Years' to relatives and friends across North America, to please mail or telegram such holiday greetings to relatives and friends *outside* of the province during "the war", as the long-distance circuits are needed for 'important war business purposes'. It continues to state that if it is an *important* out of province call, AGT's operators will be happy to place the call, as well as *any* type of call *within* the province. What is unusual about the telephone is the arrangement of *letters* to the numbers on the dialface: 1=A; 2=M; 3=S; 4=W; 5=E; 6=R; 7=H; 8=L 9 and 0 had *no* letters, not even the word "Operator". I spoke with the author the the book, who told me that this was the old "Calgary" dial. Calgary had started converting its manual office to Step-by-step dial as early as 1912. I don't have the years of introduction of individual Calgary exchanges, nor do I have conversions from manual to dial. But I was told the *names* of each exchange's dial letter. And until sometime in the 1950's, Calgary used 1L-4N local numbers, using this dial arrangement. M on the 2 was Main S on the 3 was South W on the 4 was West E on the 5 was East R on the 6 was Riverside H on the 7 was Hill L on the 8 was Louise The author didn't remember what the A on the 1 was used for. And usually, an initial digit of '1' was 'absorbed', due to various technical problems. Of course, service codes of the form 11X were frequently used. The first digit '1' was 'absorbed', while the second digit '1' was switched to 'miscellaneous codes'. Accroding to the AGT book, Calgary went to North American 'standard' 2L-5N local numbering (seven pulls of the dial) sometime in the 1950's. Also, a 'telephone man' had to visit *all* Calgary businesses and residences to either change out the dialface to a 'standard full-alphabet' one, or change out the telephone entirely to one which already had the standard dialface. In the late 1950's (circa 1957 or 58), Calgary began to add #5XB local switches, as well as a Crossbar Tandem (XBT) switch to handle full integration into the North American DDD network. I don't have any info as to *what* the old Calgary exchanges were changed to, other than I do know that in the 1960's, 70's, and 80's, *all* Calgary exchanges began with the digit '2'. AGT began to 'break-out' of that pattern sometime in this decade. I would hope that there is a reader out there who has further information to fill in some of the gaps here. Thanks. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: Pacific Telesis Says $2.1 Billion Refund Would Stop Merger Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 13:37:41 PDT Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 10:56:39 -0700 From: sqlgate@sf-ptg-fw.pactel.com Subject: Pacific Telesis Says $2.1 Billion Refund Would Stop Merger FOR MORE INFORMATION: Jerry Kimata 415-394-3739 Pacific Telesis Says $2.1 Billion Refund Would Stop Merger SAN FRANCISCO--Pacific Telesis and SBC Communications issued the following statement in response to a recommendation that the company refund $2.1 billion as a condition of the merger of their two companies. "We haven't had the opportunity to review the testimony of the Public Utilities Commission's Office of Ratepayer Advocates. We understand that while they do not argue that the PUC should deny approval of the merger, they contend that the PUC should require a number of conditions, including payment of billions of dollars. "Phil Quigley, Pacific Telesis chairman and chief executive officer, said that the conditions argued for by ORA would, if adopted, deny California the benefits of the merger, including thousands of new jobs, and clearly mark California as anti-business. In fact, as the ORA knows full well, imposition of such a payment requirement would stop the merger dead in its tracks." ---------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: rh120@bonjour.cc.columbia.edu (Ronda Hauben) Subject: Email on Universal Service to Senator Jay Rockefeller and FCC Date: 1 Oct 1996 19:16:33 GMT Organization: Columbia University Release to the online Information Renaissance Seminar on the FCC rulemaking on universal service. It seemed to have been sent by Barbara Pryor as a message from Senator Jay Rockefeller. It was interesting that Jay Rockefeller didn't send it himself, and yet he was one of those in Congress drafting and passing the new Telecommunications Act setting the future of the U.S. Congress actions on the future development and regulation of the Internet. There seems a serious need for those in Congress who feel they want to determine the future of this important new mass medium, to take up to be willing to learn both how they can be users themselves and what its history and potential is so they don't squelch it in responding to special interests demands rather than the public interest. Below is an effort to begin some discussion about what is the public interest. I welcome comments and discussion on this open email.) ------------------ An open letter to Barbara_Pryor@rockefeller.senate.gov and to the FCC and to the online seminar In response to the email to the Information Renaissance Seminar received on Sept. 26, 1996 > From: Barbara_Pryor@rockefeller.senate.gov [156.33.203.30] > Senator Jay Rockefeller > Message to participants in the Information Renaissance Seminar Is there some reason that Senator Jay Rockefeller didn't write directly if he wanted to communicate with people? Are you on his staff? If so in what capacity? Also, I wondered why the U.S. Senate and House didn't make any effort to ask for the views of the U.S. citizenry before passing the Telecommunications Act which takes away universal service from the home user. In Nov. 1994, there was an online NTIA hearing (which was uncensored, as opposed to this tightly controlled online seminar) where numerous U.S. citizens expressed their views about the need to extend universal service to include the ability of people to have home and public site access to the communications aspects of the Internet, including email, Usenet newsgroups and a text based browser like lynx. Unfortunately, it seems no one in Congress working on the new telecommunications law was interested in learning the views of the citizens on the issues before them, and so they ignored the NTIA Nov. 1994 online hearing. If you are interested, there is a summary of the hearing at http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/ It is chapters 11 and 14 of the draft version of the netbook. > This on-line seminar on Universal Service illustrates the > potential -- and the power -- of access to the Information > Superhighway. As someone trying to make sure public policy > promotes access, I appreciate the ideas, energy and interest > generated by the group. If Senator Jay Rockefeller was trying to promote access to the Internet and continue universal service, he would have not only consulted citizens and the online NTIA Nov. 1994 hearing, but he would have written into the new law strong protection for the continuation and extension of universal service both to the telephone and Internet for the home user, as well as providing for community networks or Free-Nets that would help make public access widely and freely available to a minimum set of Internet communications. > To be specific, I feel passionately about providing access to > every American through the Snowe-Rockefeller provision of the > Telecommunications Act. We have an enormous opportunity to > promote access and enhance education with proper implementation > of this bold new law. Thanks to this seminar, To the contrary, the law is undertaking a substantial change of the telecommunications infrastructure in the U.S. and was drafted and is being implemented with no consultation with those to whom universal service for the home user is important and necessary. The home users have been denied the right to any say in the process whereby they are losing a right they have had and continue to need. And the way the FCC is being encouraged to draft rules for universal service despite the fact that the home user has been denied access to any part of their hearing process demonstrates that the new law is an attack on, rather than an extension of universal service in telecommunications for the home user. > you understand the issues that we are debating as the Federal > Communications Commission seeks to implement this important provision. Unfortunately there are those who do understand the issues set before the FCC by Congress and feel that it is a swindle of the highest order for Congress to have undertaken to rewrite the telecommunications laws by seeking opinions and views from those who had a vested interest in ending universal service to the home user and the POTS concept that has made it possible to build a significant and valuable telephone infrastructure in the U.S. over a longer period of time. Also, Congress failed to examine the history and development of the Internet and to take on to build on that history and development, which involved a great deal of U.S. government investment and oversight as well as an Accepible Use Policy directing that the infrastructure service educational and scientific needs. And Congress failed to examine the great social value of Bell Labs as a research institution that could and did invent and bring to the world important new technological developments which have continued to make possible telephone service at low cost in the U.S. The U.S. Congress reneged on the lessons of the importance of the commitment to supporting a large scale research laboratory that could and did develop the needed scientific and technological advances necessary to maintain an advanced telephone infrastructure. Instead we are being promised the pie in the sky of "the so called market". > I urge you to take the next steps after this seminar to > generate the decisions and commitment we want to see as the > Telecommunications Act is implemented. I urge you to contact > public policymakers, at both the state and federal level > regarding your views on access to telecommunications. Your > voice can and should be heard. My best regards to you. After the law has been written we are being told to be in contact with state and federal officials who will be charged with implementing a law created in a process that excluded our input and interests. Also, instead of the FCC being urged to have had an open hearing process where it would welcome the views of all those who understand the importance of universal service and extending the concept of POTS in the telephone infrastructure to an Internet infrastructure, we are being told that we should now better understand the law you have passed. But we understand that we continue to have the right to and the need for POTS and for a regulated telecommunications infrastructure that provides universal service to the home user. The law makers drafting the Telecommunications law ignored this important obligation, and now the FCC is being instructed to ignore this as well, and instead those who have made the effort to speak out are being told that we have spoken to continually deaf ears. When will you and others in Congress acknowledge that you have an obligation to hear from the citizens you are supposed to be representing, rather than the narrow business interests that are concerned with only their own profits rather than the broader social interests in the U.S? When will you recognize that you have an obligation to represent the interests of citizens, rather than corporate entities that are not citizens? Unfortunately this new law contains the seeds to destroy the communications infrastructure that is crucial to the health and welfare of the entire population of the U.S. It will give corporate entities all kinds of ways to lower their phone costs at the expense higher rates for the poorer home telephone user. And now we are also being burdened with subsidizing the schools and libraries and other entities telephone and telecommunications costs so they can subsidize private telecommunications entities. The U.S. government, not the home telephone user, should be charged with providing the help needed for the schools and libraries in the U.S. to be connected to the Internet. That was done in a very helpful way by the NSF, but instead of building on those experiences, the financial burden is being shifted to home users who are supposed to be the recipient of not the providers of universal service. Obviously, higher costs for home users for phone and Internet access is not a way to provide access for all or universal service. I am asking that you request that the FCC hold an open online hearing of the public (including public access locations for those who don't have Internet access now in the way that the NTIA Nov. 1994 online hearing was held) and that the online hearing be unmoderated so you can get the full range of views of those who stand to loose the most under the new special interest promoted telecommunications Act passed by Congress in Feb. 1994. Twice in the process of this online hearing I was told that my posts wouldn't be sent to the online seminar, and I had to spend my time protesting this process rather than being encouraged to contribute to the process. Clearly this is not a way to solicit the views of citizens in a public hearing, but it is a way to dampen ones desire to participate. Also, the issues that were allowed to be discussed during the online seminar were very narrow, and the crucial issue of maintaining and continuing the commitment to universal service for the home user, we were told was not the issue of this online seminar. When will it be the issue of an open hearing process? Sincerely, Ronda Hauben P.O. Box 250101 New York, N.Y. 10025-1531 rh120@columbia.edu ronda@panix.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 13:47:06 PDT From: Eric_Florack@xn.xerox.com (Eric Florack) Subject: Next Area Code Not LD: Dialing Patterns? Perhaps an issue that has come up before, but with the area code splits it's likely to come up again ... so ... I am currently supporting a proprietary software package that is used by literally thousands nationwide, and about to get whole bunches bigger. At the moment, the package assumes that: I called area code <> local area code, then dial= 1+ xxx-xxx-xxxx With the AC splits (ex; 404/770/706) that's not the case all the time. Clearly, we need to allow for such dialing ... but what IS the standard pattern for such dialing? Does it depend on what telco is doing the job? Ex; SWBT serves the above mentioned area, if I recall. Will the same thing happen in, say Chicago? (I know, I know ... but I promised I'd ask, and relay the results ...) /E [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As far as I know, and the way it is now here in the Chicago area is 'dial one plus the areacode if the areacode is different than your own, and we don't care if it is only across the street from you.' Either seven digits or eleven digits here; nothing in the middle. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Robert Nowak Subject: Looking For Info on a "Unified" European Toll-Free Service Date: 2 Oct 1996 10:13:46 GMT Organization: ARTHUR ANDERSEN TECHNOLOGY PARK Hi, Does anyone know if any of the Western European telco's have gotten together and are offering a unified toll-free number service - i.e. callers can call one common toll free number from any of the major Western European countries (Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Austria, Switzerland) and be connected to one call centre? I am aware that, at least in the past, this type of service was not possible because the European telco's did not put much priority in unified, pan-European service offerings. However, the telco situation is changing here in Europe almost as rapidly as in North America and other areas, so perhaps there are some new services/alliances on the horizon that might make this type of service (or a subset of this service) a possibility. Any information, guidance or advice would be greatly appreciated. Best Regards, Robert Nowak Tel: (+33) 92 94 88 24 Internet: robert.nowak@ac.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #522 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Oct 2 20:53:10 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id UAA06255; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 20:53:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 20:53:10 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610030053.UAA06255@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #523 TELECOM Digest Wed, 2 Oct 96 20:52:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 523 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Gangstas Move From the Hood to the Net? (Tad Cook) SW Bell Starts Internet Service (Tad Cook) Junk E-mail Wars Heat Up Again (John Shaver) Switching Fees (Fiona Hanington) Where Can I Find 5ESS Professionals? (Lloyd D. Songne, Jr.) NPA/NXX Information and Cross Reference (Shawn Chandler) For Sale: Two Gandalf 5240i ISDN Bridges (Chris Mitchell) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Gangstas Move From the Hood to the Net? Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 14:16:25 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Gangs are going high tech with web sites BY TESSIE BORDEN Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel Sinister, a gang member from Detroit, is scrawling his graffiti on a new wall that stretches across the nation -- the Cyber 'Hood. He belongs to Glock3, a gang that's vying, on the Internet, for the most accessible yet most uncharted turf to date. Glock3's is part of a crop of "gangsta sites" cropping up on the Internet, with names like Gangsta Net Crew and Hustlerz Crib. Gangs are using World Wide Web sites to reach out for new recruits, promote street gang alliances, and post the names and addresses of those they consider enemies. And kids are logging on. "We've been averagin' about 40 hitz per day since tha site went up five monthz ago," wrote Sinister, 19, who agreed to an interview only through e-mail and declined to give his real name. Brandon Opalka, a student at Boca Raton High School who uses the 'Net to find new graffiti, said he is aware of Glock3's web site. Police who track cyber-gang efforts say the potential exists for these formerly territorial groups to build a nationwide network of franchise gangs that then could turn to crime on a grand scale. "Used to be gangs were traditionally very parochial in nature," said Capt. David Gonzales, an anti-gang officer for Arizona's Department of Public Safety who has been tapping into the trend since the beginning of the year. "They were only in their own neighborhoods. That's not the case anymore." Gonzales said he fears the communications networks these gangs are building could later turn into drug distribution networks. In South Florida, investigators and school principals fighting a budding gang problem in neighborhoods and schools are just becoming aware of gangs on the Internet. "It's definitely something we're going to have to monitor and keep a close watch on," said Sgt. Brad Ostroff, head of the Broward County Sheriff's gang unit. When Art Johnson, principal at Spanish River High School, saw Glock3's site for the first time, he said he felt discouraged. "It's a pretty sad example of the abuses of our First Amendment," Johnson said. "Teen rebellion, broken families, experimentation, bonding of teens in groups -- all those things lead to gangs. It just so happens that this particular person capitalized on that and put it in a computer." Gang investigators say it was only a matter of time. "Gangs are a lot more spread out and in some cases a lot more organized than we think," said Roberto Gutierrez, a Houston prosecutor who specializes in gangs. "There's a lot more movement and communication than we know." Even so, Gonzales said, it takes a certain kind of gang member to embrace computers. "Obviously, it's the most sophisticated gang member that becomes involved with the Internet," he said. "It's not going to be the traditional gang banger who is down for the 'hood ... People on Internet are going to be more the ones that have leadership capabilities, those that are looking down the road a couple of years on how they can use gang influence for financial gain." Sinister, who updates and manages the Glock3 web site, said he learned about computers through an anti-gang program that was part of a court sentencing. "They taught us various life skillz an' usin' a computa wit' tha Internet waz part of it," he said. "So I got myself a computa an' someone to teach me some basic HTML (programming language to design web sites) an' tha rest iz history." Glock3's web site is sophisticated. From it, one can access links to other "gangsta" sites, a description of "core beliefz," photos of gang members throughout the country, the group's trademark graffiti to use on real walls, even a "disclaima" and a warning about the X-rated language. The cyber-gang trend began years ago, and much more mildly. Kim Ogg, a former prosecutor and gang specialist in Houston, said she first found "tag crews" -- groups of teens who specialize in spray- painting graffiti who may or may not be affiliated with hard-core gangs -- on the Internet. On web sites like Art Crimes, taggers trade ideas and pictures of graffiti art from all around the world. That's how Opalka, a former tagger, hooked up with the phenomenon. "I liked to be able to see different (graffiti) without having to travel to Miami to take pictures," said Opalka, who is about to graduate high school and hopes to turn his former tagger ways into a lucrative silk-screen T-shirt business. Opalka, whose tag name was Hest, said he's not a member of Boca Raton's suburban gangs, though he used to run with a tag crew that scrawled on traffic signs up and down Interstate 95. Since those days, Opalka has worked with John Victoravich, a school police officer at Boca Raton High who found "legal" walls -- mainly school murals -- for him to paint. Opalka said he shies away from the hard-core gangs on the Internet because he doesn't agree with their violent outlook. "I'm into a more positive vibe now," he said. "I don't like what they stand for." For now, Glock3's philosophy is only tough talk. Gangsters like Sinister know they are under surveillance. "They're feeling their way through the Internet and what they can get away with," Gonzales said. "They know they're being monitored. It's not what they say on there. You kind of try to read between the lines." On Glock3's site, Sinister pushes for aiding in the "decay of the suburbz," getting some "juice for your click" (money for your gang) and starting some "business." But to avoid being implicated in any crimes, he doesn't elaborate. The gang sites now are among a slew of notorious sites on the Net. Hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi organizations, and those offering bomb recipes, also are online. But efforts to censor or control gang sites on the Net could prove difficult. In June, a special three-judge federal court panel ruled that the Internet is entitled to as much protection under the First Amendment as newspapers. The ruling struck down parts of the U.S. Communications Decency Act, which was to impose a ban on undefined "indecent" or "patently offensive" material on the Internet and other media. Gonzales said gang investigators throughout the country are logging on to sites like Glock3 to keep a finger on the pulse of gang culture. "It's a good resource," he said. Ogg said there's a chance that, just as criminals use computers to forge a network, the World Wide Web also could be used to snare them. If a plan to commit a crime can be linked to the subsequent act through transcripts of e-mail conversations, then the 'Net can become a real tool for law enforcers, she said. But there are two catches. First, prosecutors have to prove the person who sent the e-mail is the same person who committed the crime before the information can be admitted as evidence in a case. That can be difficult in an age of faceless communications in which passwords and logons still are not tamper-proof. Second, they would have to show that the message crosses the line from constitutionally protected free speech into conspiracy. "It's a tough balancing act," Ogg said. "It's hard to know in the Internet what's legitimate and what is emulation -- folks on there just talking about how a crime was done." ------------------------------ Subject: SW Bell Starts Internet Service Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 14:33:32 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Southwestern Bell Kicks Off its Internet Access Service By Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Oct. 2--Southwestern Bell today kicks off its Internet access service with aggressive pricing and eventual plans to make house calls to get customers online. The Dallas-Fort Worth area will be the first to get access to the Net via Southwestern Bell Internet Services. Service in Houston could be available as early as next month. Southwestern Bell Internet Services, a new subsidiary of the parent SBC Communications, also will be a content provider: Dallas-Fort Worth customers who use access software provided by Bell will see news and information provided by WFAA-TV, Reuters and other news services. Spokesman Chris Talley said Bell will charge a flat fee of $19.95 a month that can be added to existing customers' phone bill. Customers can pay the equivalent of just under $17 per month if they pay $199.50 for a year's service in advance. An additional discount is available for those who pay with a Southwestern Bell-branded Visa card, Talley said. "This brings us one step closer to being a full communications provider," he said. "We will be able to provide you with a variety of services you can put all on one bill." Bell will provide customers with a copy of the popular Netscape Navigator software for browsing the Internet's World Wide Web, and SurfWatch, which allows the blocking of undesirable Net sites. Talley also said Bell plans to provide an additional service called Home Assistance in which Southwestern Bell employees, for a fee, will come to Internet customers' homes, set up the connection and provide a basic tutorial. Details have yet to be worked out, he said. Analysts say Southwestern Bell is the first phone company to include house-call service as part of its Internet offering. But as aggressive as Bell's Internet package is, a few items are missing from the list of services offered by many of its local competitors: Bell initially won't let customers post their own home pages on the World Wide Web, as do most local Internet service providers. Talley said the company hopes to offer that by the end of the year. Only computers using Microsoft's Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 operating systems will be able to connect via Southwestern Bell Internet Services. A Macintosh connection package is being developed and will be available, again, by the year's end. Although Bell has been vigorously marketing DigiLine -- a digital phone line that allows speedy access to the Internet through a technology called ISDN -- you won't be able to get there from here. Southwestern Bell Internet Services will use 33,600-baud modems, but no ISDN access -- at least until the end of the year. Bell plans to have the service available in major cities in its five-state area by the end of the year, but many rural areas served by Southwestern Bell won't have local phone numbers to access the Internet. Bob Casali, president of the Dallas-based Southwestern Bell Internet Services, said the system eventually will include a local Internet dial-up number in the extended areas around cities, known as LATAs. Some even more rural areas might get their own local dialup numbers for the Internet service, Casali said. Other big companies that have gotten into the Internet access business, including AT&T, have stumbled on customer service issues. AT&T had trouble meeting demand when customers flooded its switchboard to sign up for service, and also had technical problems that frustrated customers. Casali said Bell's city-by-city rollout of the service should help control demand, and additional technical support personnel will be hired as the service is expanded across the region. The phone company's entry into the increasingly competitive Internet access business could mark a turning point for the hundreds of small providers in Bell's five-state area that includes Texas, many of whom charge significantly more than Bell. Houston alone has more than 50 providers, most of them small startup companies who already face competition from giants such as AT&T, MCI and Sprint. But so far, small providers have not seen much impact from these 500-pound gorillas. Tom Jenkins, an analyst with TeleChoice, a New Jersey-based telecommunications consulting firm, said big companies entering the Internet access business don't seem to cause shakeouts among local providers. "They tend to attract a lot of users that would not have typically considered Internet use," Jenkins said. "They lend a level of credibility to the whole Internet services arena." Local Internet service providers agreed. "Specifically, we have seen little or no churn (customers leaving) with AT&T and MCI getting into the market," said Billy Holbert, chief operating officer at Charter Communications, which owns Phoenix Data. "I don't expect we'll see it with Bell." "I say all the other low-priced providers haven't seemed to hurt us at all," said Ellyn Jones, president of NeoSoft, Houston's largest Internet service provider. "Over time, Internet users become more savvy, and about that time they need the kind of increased services we can provide." Southwestern Bell, considered by analysts to be among the most marketing-savvy of all the "Baby Bell" phone companies, received some advice in crafting its service from Pacific Telesis, the California phone company, a Pacific Telesis spokesman said. The two telecommunications giants are in the process of merging. Pacific Telesis launched its own Internet service earlier this year. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Oct 96 14:28:16 MST From: John Shaver Subject: Junk E-mail Wars Heat up Again Forwarded to the Digest FYI: From: Keith Bostic Subject: Junk e-mail wars heat up again Forwarded-by: "Gregory S. Halbrook" From: moneyadm@pathfinder.com (MONEY Daily) at Internet Date: 9/26/96 9:43 PM Friday, September 27, 1996 Junk e-mail wars heat up again AOL reinstitutes its shield against marketers' bulk mailings, but the case is still being fought in the courts -- and on the Web -- by Michael Brush The battle between junk e-mailers and long-suffering online users has flared again, as America Online regained permission to block certain mass mailings to its members. However, a survey of online services and Internet service providers shows that the junk mailers still hold the edge. That may not be news to you, if you've been unlucky enough to have your e-mail address land on someone's bulk mailing list. If so, you're used to opening your mail box and finding dozens of unsolicited messages a day -- ranging from Incredible Free Offers for useless gewgaws to Golden Business Opportunities that will make you a million dollars at home in your spare time. In net parlance, you've been spammed -- or hit with lots of e-mail that you don't want or need. Junk mail on the 'Net is not only annoying, it's costly. Many services offering e-mail charge by the amount of mail you receive, or at least for the time it takes to download the stuff. For some spam haters, life got a little easier on Wednesday when AOL re-instituted its shield against all incoming messages from domains used by one of the more aggressive bulk e-mailers, Cyber Promotions Inc. The online service had obtained permission last Friday from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to put its screen -- which had been mounted earlier and then pulled down owing to court order -- back in place. Within minutes after the screen went up Wednesday, Cyber Promotions was back in court asking for a temporary restraining order. But a judge eventually denied that request. Now the two sides will have to file briefs addressing the First Amendment issues raised by the case. David Phillips, an AOL associate general counsel, predicts the service will eventually win the right to block such mailings. "The First Amendment right that's being violated is AOL's right not to be compelled to carry the communications of another," Phillips says. Cyber Promotions counters that AOL is violating *its* right to free speech. Cyber says the online service should function like the U.S. Postal Service, and simply pass along any mail that it receives. The company's president, Sanford Wallace, has argued that AOL already markets to its own members -- by sales messages that pop up when you log in, among other ways. He contends that AOL is fighting Cyber Promotion because it sees the company as a competitive marketing threat. Even if the AOL shield stays up, though, the strategy of imposing a wholesale blockade of certain domains (the part of a 'Net address that follows the @ symbol) can't really prevent spamming. Reason: Spammers can fool the shields by simply using a false domain name -- much as anyone could write a false return address on a paper envelope. "Using the Internet open protocols, you can pretend to be anybody you want to be," notes Teemu Kolehmainen, marketing manager for electronic communications at CompuServe. "All a sender has to do is change the domain in the header, and that previously-blocked domain is irrelevant." What's more, some programs allow bulk mailers to change return addresses continually -- much like the flu virus changes its coat each season -- and thus stay one step ahead of the electronic defenses. Still, there are other ways to slow down bulk mailers -- though many Internet service providers (ISPs) are reluctant to talk about the subject for fear of tipping off mass mailers. "It's really a cat-and-mouse game," says Kolehmainen. Some of the approaches, however, are obvious. One is simply to block any incoming mail package that contains a lot of messages. "We don't read messages, but from the sheer volume we sometimes can detect spam," said Charles Ardai, the president of Juno Online Services, which offers free e-mail to customers. "We are developing a system that will only permit a certain amount of e-mail to arrive in one mailing." Another way is to use programs that can detect certain patterns in the addresses of e-mails in a package, notes Ardai. Names of recipients in a bulk mailing, for example, might be listed in alphabetical order. Several e-mail service providers allow their customers to use software filters (like Procmail) that let them chose from among a list of suspect domains to be blocked. Any mail arriving from those domains is diverted into a file which can simply be thrown out. Public Access Networks Corporation (Panix), for example, has 22 domains on its list of areas that can be blocked, including cyberpromo.com, moneyworld.com, dbbiiizzz.com and bulk-e-mail.com. Customers of the New York-area ISP can refuse mail from any or all on the list, says Okolo Schwinn- Clanton, director of corporate services. Giving users the ability to block large chunks of incoming traffic inevitably raises the thorny issue of censorship. If systems are available to stop e-mail from certain domains, what's to stop activists from seeking bans on traffic from websites they think are offensive? Because of this potential problem, those in charge of spam-control at places like CompuServe, Panix, Juno and even AOL agree that it should be up to the individual user to choose which domains to block. Some ISPs are also taking steps to assure that customers do not use their systems as a launch pad for spam. Most of them make users agree that they will not use the system for mass mailings. These systems, of course, are used by spammers to launch bulk mailings from time to time. But management can take steps to shut down the offending accounts if the people who receive the junk mail complain to the ISP (in general, you can write to "postmaster" at the domain to register such a complaint). Is there anything you can do as an e-mail or 'Net user to keep your name off spam lists? Some bulk mailers -- including Cyber Promotion -- offer an address with each mailing that you can write to in order to get your name dropped from their list (incidentally, instructions for subscribing and un-subscribing to Money Daily always appear at the bottom of our e-mail). Other than that, there is little you can do -- aside from avoiding public areas, such as bulletin boards and chat rooms. One way bulk mailers get names is by using programs that collect addresses in such places. They also grab lists from Unix operating system public files that contain names of users. Others simply take advantage of the fact that e-mail addresses often follow certain patterns. Since CompuServe addresses are just numbers, it is easy to guess what active addresses might be. Others simply guess there is a George@aol.com, for example, filling in names at random before the AOL domain. For more on how to protect yourself against junk e-mail, see the Money Daily of February 7, 1996 at http://pathfinder.com/money/moneydaily/1996/960207.moneyonlin e.html. For more Web-formation, visit: http://www.panix.com/e-spam.html Public Access Network ------------------------------ From: Fiona Hanington Subject: Switching Fees Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 16:03:49 -0700 Organization: MPR Teltech Ltd. Hi, When a CLEC switches a customer over to its own service, a fee has to paid to the telephone company that the customer is switched from, correct? Who pays this switching fee, the customer or the CLEC, or does it vary depending on the CLEC? Also, how much is the fee? Does it vary, depending on the RBOC? Is it more if the CLEC is paying it than if it is the customer? I would appreciate any information, even if that information is to direct me to the correct place to ask this question. Thanks, Please respond directly to my email address (since I haven't mastered newsgroups yet): haningto@mpr.ca Fiona Hanington ------------------------------ From: volt1@ix.netcom.com (Lloyd D. Songne, Jr.) Subject: Where Can I Find 5ESS Professionals? Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 21:08:23 GMT Organization: Volt Services Group Reply-To: volt1@ix.netcom.com I am trying to find a web site or newsgroup where I can post positions I have available for 5ESS Support Engineers. The misc.jobs ... types of newsgroups are too generic (and flooded) and do not return the type of quality we are looking for. Get quantity, but what good is quantity when it does not come with quality? Thank you for your time and consideration. Lloyd Songne Volt Services Group View our searchable employment web site at http://www.volt-tech.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One thing you -- and others reading this -- might want to investigate is the Employment Opportunities supplement to this Digest which is issued periodically. Edited and coordinated by Zev Rubenstein of Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, it has already in its short existence begun to attract attention from telecom professionals. I have an update from NTR in my queue now, to be sent out Thursday morning and you may want to watch for it. Full contact information will be provided for all the employment opportunities listed. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 13:09:26 -0400 From: Shawn Chandler Subject: NPA/NXX Information and Cross Reference After searching high and low, I finally found a source of local calling area informaion (ie is a call from 555-123-4567 local or long distance to 555-456-7890.) Check it out: (This is Canadian only.) http://www.freenet.hamilton.on.ca/Information/NEST/technol/communic/lca/ Does anyone know of or have similar reference info for the United States? Also, how common are areas where you can dial from one area code to another area code and still be local? (ie in Toronto Ontario, a call from 416-123-4567 to 905-456-7890 may be local or long distance) Shawn Chandler schandler@ciaccess.com ------------------------------ From: Chris Mitchell Subject: For Sale: Two Gandalf 5240i ISDN Bridges Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 11:47:09 -0400 Organization: Scamahama Studios For Sale: 2 Gandalf 5240i ISDN Bridges, new price $2605 each like new, I pay shipping, sale price $1250 each Thanks, Chris Mitchell Scamahama Studios, Boone, NC 704-262-3939 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #523 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Oct 2 23:48:17 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA23253; Wed, 2 Oct 1996 23:48:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 23:48:17 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610030348.XAA23253@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #524 TELECOM Digest Wed, 2 Oct 96 23:48:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 524 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Kevin Poulson Update (Leonard Erickson) Re: "Just Say Yes" (Howard Pierpont) Re: "Just Say Yes" (bashley@ktb.net) Re: "Just Say Yes" (Robert Bulmash) Re: "Just Say Yes" (Dave Miller) Re: PCS and Cellular Tariffs in the USA (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: PCS and Cellular Tariffs in the USA (Glenn Shirley) Re: Excel Telecommunications Offer to School (John R. Levine) Re: Excel Telecommunications Offer to School (Robert Wolf) Internet Problems on October 1st (James E. Bellaire) Re: Does Radio Shack Wireless Phone Extension Work With Modem (Kleinhample) Re: Does Radio Shack Wireless Phone Extension Work With Modem (D. Wilson) DECT Protocol Questions (Arularasan Ramasamy) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: Kevin Poulson Update Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 10:19:32 PST Organization: Shadownet mulveyr@frontiernet.net writes: > Just like we don't allow people who are guilty of insider trading to > sell stock, or people who are guilty of abuse to work in nursing homes > and child-care centers, why should we allow someone who habitually > committed crimes to work with the same mechanisms that they used in > the first place? So what about people who use *automobiles* in the commision of a crime? Do we forbid them to drive cars? Rarely, and usually only if the crime was some form of "vehicular assualt". We certainly don't forbid them to *ride* in them! And even we restrict the use of automobiles, often an exception can be made for using them to in conjunction with work (and woe unto the person in such a situation caught using the car for even something as mundane as a trip to the store!) And that's the problem here. Yes, he did things he shouldn't have with computers. But computers are almost as useful/necessary as cars these days. Yet the restriction is just a bit overboard. As others have pointed out, Kevin can't do the sort of thing he is infamous for if his computer isn't networked in some manner. So he could own a computer (without a modem), and use it quite safely. Sure, modems are easy to get, and easy to hide. On the other hand, if you install a bus mouse, and set the system up without a serial port, a simple seal on the case will keep him from using a modem. If he needs the case opened, he'll have to get permission from his parole officer, and have it done under supervision and then re-sealed. If a random check shows the seal broken, Kevin goes back in jail. > Poulsen committed a huge number of crimes. Why should we assume > that he is any different now than when he went into prison? Because if we *don't* assume that criminals have learned their lesson and just *might* have reforned, there's no point in turning them loose! I'm *deeply* disturbed by the way the "he's a convicted XXX, he can't be allowed to live in our neighborhood" attitude has spread. Aside from the fact that there are probably several XXXers who *haven't* been caught, this makes it impossible for the ex-con to start a "new" life, and certainly discourages any effort at going straight if this is the response. Even more disturbing are the growing number of cases of illegal actions being taken to *force* such people out of neighborhoods. Such as the case where two *different* neighborhoods in different towns forced an ex-con to move by burning down the house he was living in! Sure, he'd been guilty of a nasty murder. But it'd also been 20 years or so. They can't expect that doing such things makes him *less* likely to murder again, they just want him somewhere else. Then it's not *their* problem. > There are a tremendous number of other occupations that he can work > in that don't involve intensive use of computers. Please note that > he has not been unilaterally forbidden from using a computer -- he > just needs to have the job approved by the court. Strange. That's *not* what was posted here. He is *attempting* to get the terms of his probation changed to something like that. Even assuming that you are correct, how many of those jobs involve skills he *has*, or can pick up quickly, *and* pay enough to make any sort of dent in the restitution he is supposed to pay? > This is, in my opinion, far more than he had any right to hope for -- > and very merciful on the part of the government. Working at unskilled jobs long enough to pay off $150,000 is mercy? Do you understand the word "equitable" as it applies to "justice"? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Are you suggesting there is no penitence > to be acquired in the penitentiary? While it isn't terribly likely, as I point out above, treating it as a *given* that it hasn't been acquired is making things *worse*. Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for saying it better than I could. It used to be that when someone was released from a prison that was the end of the matter. That is not true any longer. The object of law enforcement in the United States today seems to be to create as many criminals as possible, and keep them in that status -- with a never ending stream of punishment -- for as long as possible. Police officers love to whisper nasty innuendo and vicious half-truths to dimwitted members of the community who they can then rely on to do things of (at best) marginal legality the police officer could never get away with doing himself, i.e. your example of burning the person's house down, which isn't even a marginally legal act, but no matter. A great example recently in the Chicago area which warms my heart: A person arrested on charges of sexual activity with a minor was found not guilty of that charge and released after several months in jail. Police were of course furious that someone they had declared to be a 'pedophile' was found not guilty. The guy temporarily moves in with his brother in an effort to repair the disaster made of his life by the police. He only needs to stay there a week or so before moving into a place of his own elsewhere. In the meantime some cop who was involved in the case sees the guy entering and leaving the premises where his brother lives. The cop knows how to stir up the pot alright ... he goes across the street to a Catholic elementary school and visits the nun who is the principal of the school. He tells her (in carefully scripted words to keep himself from committing slander and libel) that 'the guy living across the street was arrested and investigated for pedophilia.' So far so good, but you know which words the nun heard and which ones she did not hear. She right away puts a little blurb in the school newsletter sent home with the students to all parents informing them of the 'pedo- phile menace' in the neighborhood ... 'right across the street from the school' and although she did not give the street address it was rather obvious who she meant because there is only one house across the street. By this time, the guy who had been arrested, tried, found not guilty, etc, had moved elsewhere. The guy who lives in the house saw a copy of the newsletter and went ballistic. He filed suit against the nun individually, her religious order, and the school ... for three million dollars. At last report, the nun was squealing like a stuck pig about how the lawsuit was going to bankrupt the religious order, and cause the school to have to close if he was successful in it. Her defense is that all she did was let the parents in her school know what the police told her. She feels 'if he wants to sue anyone, he should sue the police ...' (imagine that!). The police did not publish the little newsletter sent out to parents, she did. The carefully crafted plan by the police officer intended to make sure the punishment and criminal status of the 'alleged pedophile' con- tinued backfired. Even the police have now talked to the guy living in the house and tried to 'convince him' to drop the lawsuit against the nun and the religious order but the guy, to his credit IMO, won't do it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Howard Pierpont Subject: Re: "Just Say Yes" Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 14:31:56 -0400 Organization: ISS, Digital Semiconductor Now, let's suppose that you have a company with lots of employees so you have negotiated a great rate for call completion. Can you get the "Just say YES!" turned off for your lines? I am told that some states will not allow blocking of the "JSY" feature. Howard Pierpont ------------------------------ From: bashley@ktb.net Subject: Re: "Just Say Yes" Date: 3 Oct 1996 00:52:54 GMT Organization: Loose Ends Again Isn't it cute how the 35-cent charge for this wonderful service was cleverly hidden in the middle of that posting? Bev bashley@ktb.net ------------------------------ From: prvtctzn@aol.com (Robert Bulmash) Subject: Re: "Just Say Yes" Date: 2 Oct 1996 02:21:45 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) In article , Mike King writes: > "Just Say Yes" > Pacific Bell Expands Express Call Completion Service For 4-1-1 > SACRAMENTO -- More than 1 million consumers and businesses in 18 > Northern and Central California counties can `let their fingers do the > talking' -- or simply say `yes' -- to use the newly expanded Pacific > Bell Directory Assistance Express Call Completion service, which > automatically connects calls to 4-1-1 to the requested phone number. > The service is now being offered in all or portions of Sacramento, Yolo, > El Dorado, Placer, Sutter, Solano and Nevada counties. When customers in > those areas call 4-1-1 for directory assistance, they will hear a > recorded voice announcement offering automatic call connection following > receipt of their requested number. This same service, which has been available in the Chicago area for about two years, has been costing businesses hundreds of thousands of dollars due office employees using the service despite the employer's request that it not be used. Since the employee does not have to pay the bill, they find it easier to `push the button' than to dial the number. When Ameritech (the RBOC) was contacted by various businesses concerning having this service blocked to thier particular numbers, Ameritech refused to accomodate them. The result ... Ameritech profits from the misbehavior of another firm's employees. Private Citizen, Inc. http://webmill.com/pci/home Robert Bulmash http://webmill.com/prvtctzn/home [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The call completion part has been avail- able for some time here by pressing a button, but I don't know about the 'say yes' part. Actually there is a limit to how much of this should be considered Ameritech's problem and how much should be considered the companies' problem. The employer did trust the employee with a phone on his desk and live dialtone after all. If the employee put in a personal call to an international point and talked to a friend for three hours, should Ameritech be blamed for that also? A prominent and quite large Chicago company dealt with this problem about three months ago by firing *twenty-seven* employees on the same day for 'abuse of company telephones'. Everyone had been warned prior that the use of 'press one to complete this call' would not be tolerated. When the phone bill came a month later, some people obviously had not taken the earlier warning seriously. 'Pen register'-like devices were installed on trunk lines and those records matched up with other company phone records of who was dialing what. When '411' showed up followed a few seconds later by a single digit '1' it became easy to see which extensions were involved. Another month or two goes by and the abuse continues with definite patterns of who was doing it being collected on the printouts. The twenty-seven employees were all called to a special meeting in a conference room where the chairman of the board and the telecom manager were waiting for them along with someone in the Personnel Department. The printouts were distributed to each person, their company identification cards and any keys, etc were collected, and they told they were fired. Gather your personal things and leave now. Period, end of discussion. A couple of senior super- visors were included and they were told not to worry, replacements could be found for them quite easily also. When news got back to others throughout the day, the rest of the employees were in a state of shock, and I am told the phone bills since have shown a remarkable decrease in charges for things like personal phone calls, etc. and the payphones in the company lunchroom have a lot more quarters in the box than they used to have. If a company wants to see a decrease in phone abuse, instead of blaming Ameritech for it what they need to do is firmly establish with their employees what the company policy will be and then follow up over a period of a month or two with equipment in place to verify who is doing what. Fire a couple of the abusers promptly as an example, and watch the other frightened employees start towing the line. In the case at hand, 27 provided a great example for the other 800 or so clerks working in that office. PAT] ------------------------------ From: davem@whidbey.net (Dave Miller) Subject: Re: "Just Say Yes" Date: 1 Oct 1996 13:02:38 GMT Organization: WhidbeyNet In message Mike King writes: > SACRAMENTO -- More than 1 million consumers and businesses in 18 > Northern and Central California counties can `let their fingers do the > talking' -- or simply say `yes' -- to use the newly expanded Pacific > Bell Directory Assistance Express Call Completion service, which > automatically connects calls to 4-1-1 to the requested phone number. Now, it would be nice, if the directory assistance "just say yes" function could be blocked on a per line basis. We have a T-1 and rates in the sub 10 cents area for all calls. My users dial d/a, press 1, and get billed 35 cents PLUS ungodly rates of around 30 cents a minute for LATA calls. So, we pay 35 cents plus TRIPLE our normal rates, IF users ignore my memo on the subject! Good money maker for the phone company. Lousy value for the unwary consumer! Regards, Dave Miller Firefighter, EMT-IV Marysville, WA USA Yamaha TW-200 Rider davem@whidbey.net My account, my opinion! [TELEOCM Digest Editor's Note: See my note with the article before yours. Take action accordingly. Ask senior management at your organization to support you on it. Hold a meeting, send another memo, make it very plain what the policy is, and then start monitoring. Fire the abusers and let everyone else know about it. Don't blame telco because you cannot get your employees under control. This reminds me of the guy reported on here several months ago who was angry at telco because his employees were using 'return last call' and 'repeat dial'. His anger should have been directed at the employees who were unable or unwilling to follow his simple instructions. The same should be true for you. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: PCS and Cellular Tariffs in the USA Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 01:31:27 -0700 Organization: Wilkinson, Barker, Knauer & Quinn Reply-To: mds@access.digex.net sancmari@telefonica.com.ar wrote: > Here I am, once again, looking for some information about your > country. I have read an article in the IEEE Computer Magazine (August, > 1996, page 16) about wireless revolution, standards being used and > carriers policies. There is a paragraph saying that users must pay a > connection charge whether they are making or receiving calls; it also > says that cellular carriers are asking to the FCC to change that > policy but it is not probable that would happen soon. > I have two questions: > 1.- "Connection charge" refers to a fee you pay for the radiolink > usage (when you call or you are called)? The prevailing practice in US cellular systems is that the cellular customer pays for "airtime" (what you refer to as a "connection charge") on both incoming and outgoing calls. This is a per-minute (or per-fractional-minute, perhaps) fee. Different carriers and different calling plans, as well as time-of-day pricing, result in widely divergent per-minute airtime fees, ranging from perhaps 10-15 cents per minute at the low end to 99 cents or even several dollars per minute at the high end (particularly when roaming on some systems). Some carriers also charge customers an additional fee of 10 cents or so for outgoing calls on the local telephone network. Many carriers offer a specified number of "free" or "included" minutes (sometimes split between prime and non-prime time) in monthly service contracts. For example, a carrier may offer plan A at $15 per month, with no included minutes, airtime costing 75 cents peak/50 cents off-peak; plan B at $25 per month, with no included minutes, airtime 35 cents peak/20 cents off-peak; plan C at $50 per month, with 50 included minutes peak, free off-peak, additional airtime 33 cents peak/18 cents off-peak; etc. All or some of these plans may also be subject to volume discounts for a group or corporate purchase. Only some of this information will be included in the standard price list ("tarif" in Spanish), but there is no "tariff" (in the U.S. sense) per se -- i.e., no official, comprehensive, binding price list filed with the government. A 1993 law ended state regulatory authority over cellular pricing, precluding filing of state tariffs, and the FCC banned the filing of federal tariffs as well. > 2.- I thought that many companies in the US have implemented "calling > party pay" (at least we named it like this): the one who calls, the > one who pays this additional charge; it does not mind if you are > calling from a mobile service or a fixed one but if you are calling TO > a cellular phone. Was this concept wrong? Calling party pays has been implemented in a few markets in the U.S. but is not common. Under this scheme, the "airtime" charge, or its equivalent, is billed to the landline customer calling a cellular number. The cellular industry has not been overly enthusiastic over this (except as one option), and landline telephone companies have not either. After full implementation of the new telecommunications law, there may be changes in cellular charges and billing schemes, though. > Thank you all (but specially Pat) to give this place to reduce my > ignorance. Lack of knowledge is not ignorance. Failing to assimilate knowledge available to one is ignorance. Michael D. Sullivan, Bethesda, Maryland, USA mds@access.digex.net / avogadro@well.com / 74160.1134@compuserve.com ------------------------------ From: Glenn Shirley Subject: Re: PCS and Cellular Tariffs in the USA Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 18:55:04 -0700 Organization: ADI Limited Reply-To: Glenn.Shirley@sg.adisys.com.au Australia definitely only has calling party billing ie. the person called is not charged at all. This is possible because mobiles have distinct "area" codes so that anyone dialling an 018 xxx xxx or 0411 xxx xxx number know they are dialling a mobile. The situation is blurring as these ranges are used up though. Some of the systems I have worked on in China, Kazakhstan, and even Argentina (CTI) have air time billing where both parties are charged but this would be configurable and up to the operator of the equipment. I'd be interested in the situation in the U.S. as well if other people want to respond. Is it only the calling party (and not the called party) that is charged on all systems or do some providers do both. Can you tell a mobile because of specific dialling prefixes? Do you get distinctive tones (like long distance calls) when calling a mobile? Regards, Glenn ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Oct 96 20:09:00 EDT From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Excel Telecommunications Offer to School Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > All the carriers have been fined. Most more than Excel. This is a most curious statement. I know that the big three have been fined for slamming, but most resellers (at least the ones that are still in business) haven't. For example, I get services from WATS International who resells Frontier, like Excel does but at lower prices, and Unidial who resells Wiltel/LDDS/whoever they are this week. I'd be most interested to hear reports of fines against them. Incidentally, I see on Unidial's home page that like most LD companies they also have an affinity program. Look into it if you want. > In the end, the service you recieve and the cost are what counts. No argument there. That's why I'd be concerned about an outfit that got kicked out of their home town BBB, even though they seem to have papered it over recently. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - MIT econ prof ------------------------------ From: Robert Wolf Subject: Re: Excel Telecommunications Offer to School Date: 02 Oct 1996 19:25:05 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services > I once was curious about Excels' offerings myself. Since it cost > nothing to try the service, why don't you try it before recommending > it to your organiztion. Unfortunately, it is not a free trial. It costs $25 per person signing up. Within the 90-day trial period you may have received one or at most two bills to determine if you are happy with Excel's rates. Excel normaly quotes its rates as a percentage discount off some unspecified rate. Any legitimate IXC should be willing to provide you with its complete rate structure, specified in cost per minute. The IXC should also tell you the minimum billing increment (1 minute, 6 seconds, 1 second). If you press hard enough, Excel will provide you with those rates. Determine where you place most of your calls (intra-LATA, intra-state or inter-state) and then compare Excel's rates with your current IXC or with any other proposal you have received. Then, without signing any agreement you can determine if it will save you money. Remember that you have to save enough on your calls to recover the $25 sign-up fee to come out ahead. Robert Wolf rwolf@millenniumtel.com Millennium Telecom Voice: 818-790-7339 Consulting in Voice, Video, Data Fax: 818-790-7309 URL: http://www.millenniumtel.com A member of The Society of Telecommunication Consultants ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Oct 96 12:48:00 EST From: James E. Bellaire Organization: Twin Kings Subject: Internet Problems October 1st The following came from the local University's ISP: Subject: Sprint Router Problem About 2:00 today, Sprint developed a router problem at their Chicago NAP which is impacting several hundred users. Most of our traffic is being re-routed to New Jersey. Those routers have now reached their thresholds and traffic is being dampened. We have opened a trouble ticket with Sprint and should be getting updates on an hourly basis. The NOC will be manned all evening should you have any questions or need addional information. We will notify you as soon as we have confirmation from Sprint that this problem has been resolved. Thanks for your patience. --------------------------- I did not notice any problems this morning, but this may answer a few of today's "why is the net slow" questions. James E. Bellaire (JEB6) bellaire@tk.com WebPage available 23.5 hrs a day http://user.holli.com/~bellaire ------------------------------ From: edhample@sprynet.com Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 11:47:06 -0700 Subject: Re: Does Radio Sack Wireless Phone Extension Work With Modem? bill.weissborn@ons.octel.com (Bill Weissborn) writes: > I was looking thru the latest Radio Shack Catalog yesterday and > noticed that they have a device that will allow me to add an extension > to my phone utilizing the house-wires. Does anyone know if this would > work for modem use? It would sure save me having crawl thru the attic > to add a phone jack where I now have my computer. I helped a friend install a DSS receiver several weeks ago. As he did not have a phone jack near his television (the DSS system has a built-in 2400bp modem and requires a telephone connection for certain services -- pay-per-view, etc), he elected to use the telephone jack "extender" that RCA markets for use with the DSS system -- the same unit that RadShack sells. We connected a standard touch-tone phone to the remote end of the jack extender to test it and were able to make outgoing calls, but there was a definite background hum (60Hz AC line noise). On a whim, I connected my notebook computer's 28.8 modem to the jack and tried connecting to my office computer via the extended jack. I was able to establish a connection at 9600bps, but the carrier dropped after 30 to 40 seconds. I limited the modem's speed to 2400 and was able to establish a solid connection. Rates above 9600 failed completely. Based on these results, we got together a week later and pulled new telephone runs through the guys attic (not a pleasent experience in Florida in the middle of August) and installed several new jacks around his house. The Extender was put back in it's package and returned. Based on the experience detailed above, I would not suggest using one of these devices for a modem connection unless there is no other feasible means of connecting to the phone line. Ed Kleinhample Consultant - Land O' Lakes, FL. ------------------------------ From: david@cs.uow.edu.au (David E A Wilson) Subject: Re: Does Radio Shack Wireless Phone Extension Work With Modem? Date: 2 Oct 1996 14:33:35 +1000 Organization: University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The latest -- 1997 -- edition of 'Answers', > the annual Radio Shack catalog is now available. The price is $2.95 > and this time there is no coupon on the front good for the same amount > in merchandise as in the past. At the store here in Skokie they are > giving it away however. Pick up a copy today if you can. As always it How long has RS been charging for their catalog in the US? Here in Australia Tandy still does not have a price on the front and just gives them away (unlike most other similar catalogs from Jaycar, Altronics, Dick Smith etc). When I first saw this year's edition I did not realise it was the catalog with the name "Answers" emblazoned on the front cover. David Wilson Dept CompSci Uni Wollongong Australia david@cs.uow.edu.au [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: They've charged $2.95 for the catalog now for about three or four years, however in there has always been until this year a coupon on the front good for $3.00 in credit on merchandise 'on your next visit' ... they have run into a bit of controversy about it also, but the fact was that many people were taking several copies of the catalog 'to give to friends' in the past and there was a horrible waste as a result. It is a rather expensive catalog to produce as those things go with the glossy paper and very nice colorful illustrations, etc. Even though they seem to give them away to their 'better customers' at least now they can tactfully request that you take only one copy, or they cal 'sell' it to you and then give you immediate credit on a purchase to get their point across. I never did really fault them for putting a price on it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: cwcar@leonis.nus.sg (Arularasan Ramasamy) Subject: DECT Protocol Questions Date: 2 Oct 1996 07:21:23 GMT Organization: National University of Singapore Is anyone out there familiar with the DECT protocol? I would like to discuss some things with pepole familiar with the protocol. Are there any mailing lists for the topic? e-mail me at cwcar@nus.sg Thanks, R.Arul Centre for Wireless Communications, National University of Singapore ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #524 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Oct 3 16:33:21 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id QAA13350; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 16:33:21 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 16:33:21 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610032033.QAA13350@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #525 TELECOM Digest Thu, 3 Oct 96 16:33:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 525 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Directory Assistance Charges (was Re: "Just Say Yes") (Mark J. Cuccia) AT&T LD Billing Problems (John Nagle) Northwest Territories to Split Into Nunavut ... and Bob? (David Leibold) Lucent 9510 Performs Poorly (Kevin R. Ray) Teleglobe Gets FCC Approval as a U.S. Carrier (David Leibold) Re: "Just Say Yes" (Michael J. Wengler) Re: "Just Say Yes" (Andrew Robson) Re: "Just Say Yes" (James E. Bellaire) Re: PCS and Cellular Tariffs in the USA (Linc Madison) Re: PCS and Cellular Tariffs in the USA (Mario A. Castano) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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, 03 Oct 1996 11:23:59 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Directory Assistance Charges (was Re: "Just Say Yes") Here in Louisiana, BellSouth's 1+411 charges are 31-cents per call if from a non-coin wireline phone, with one for free per month. From *BELL* (or *telco*) payphones, the charge for 1+411 is 25-cents. If you drop a quarter and dial 1-411, the local central office *returns* your quarter, and then connects you via *TOPS* which requests your quarter! I'm not sure about the coin charge for 1-411 from telco payphones in hospitals and nursing homes, as local POTS calls from payphones there are still just a dime. When Bell began charging for 1-411 from payphones in 1986 or 87, they might have been told by the PSC that 1-411 from hospital and nursing home payphones were to remain free. From cellular phones (at least "B"-side BellSouth Mobility), the 411 charge recently went up (in April). I seem to remember that it was going up from 31 cents to 75 cents. There were *no* one-free-a-month as long as I've had a cellular phone. Automated call-completion is included in the charge. I recently had to call local information (and used the auto-call-completion) from my cellphone for someone else who needed a number and connection, and also paid me for the charge, and I seem to remember a charge of about 40 or 45 cents on my BSMobility bill for it. Incidently, the recorded message after I requested the number from the operator stated "Thank you for using Bell South *Mobility*" before connecting me to the number. (Auto call completion on 411 when calling from a wireline simply states "Thank you for using BellSouth". I rarely call local directory assistance anymore. I usually wait until I have two requests, and try to keep it only to my 'one-free-a-month'. I also do *NOT* like to use auto-call-completion (except in the cellular case described above). I don't know how auto-comletion works from a telco payphone (or even a damned COCOT). Using a traditional calling card (or bill to a third party) to call 0-411 is also 31-cents, and I would assume that call-completion adds an additional 31-cents. Of course, this assumes that everything from the originating line goes through Bell's TOPS system, such as originating from a PBX or COCOT. From what I remember about BellSouth's auto-call-completion, you can DTMF (touchtone) a '1', say "Yes", or *even pulse-dial* (rotary) out a '1'. A friend visiting me at home one time called 1-411 (which I permitted), but then he dialed out a '1' for auto-completion. The charge *is* announced for this "service". I scolded him for being *TOO LAZY* to write down the number and dial it himself! He offered to pay me the 31-cents for the call completion, which is a matter of principle. Also, our local 411 directory is now semi-automated, in that a recorded voice asks "What City?", "What Listing?". I always say "Operator, Please" to the automated requests, so as to get my *two* listing requests on the single 31-cent call (or my one-free-a-month). And I have to *TELL* the 411 operator *UP FRONT* that I want two listings. If you simply respond to the automated requests/prompts, when the operator keys up the info, she comes on the line for a split second saying "Please hold for the number" before you can even tell her you want *two* lookups. And once they put you on the automated digit-by-digit quote, they don't "come back to you" anymore. They used to a few years ago. And now they go right away to the option for auto-call-completion. When I use AT&T for NPA-555-1212 (North American Numbering Plan NPA codes), whether I dial it 1+ station-sent-paid or 0+ bill-to-card/other, I get the reqest for the "AT&T Directory Link" option, which allows an auto-call- completion. It requests to 'press 1' to accept, 'press 2' to decline. I've *never* accepted, so I cannot describe how it works. I'm not exactly sure of the cost for "Directory Link" but it is quoted in the announcement to 'press 1' or 'press 2'. When I use AT&T to call other NPA's 555-1212, sometimes the directory operator is that of the inward Local telco, but *other* NPA's when dialed via AT&T get an *AT&T* employee (operator) who has access to a listings database! Presently, the charge via AT&T (from the US) is 85-cents for US area code's directory assistance (including Hawaii 808, Alaska 907, and 809), and $1.00 for a Canadian area code's directory assistance. I'm not sure what will happen costwise with the Caribbean, as Puerto Rico (NPA 787) still has permissive dialing via 809, and the US Virgin Islands is still (officially) area code 809 (although it will probably be changing to NPA 340 at some point in the next couple of years). It does seem that the 'international' (non-US) Caribbean points will have their own local telcos (mostly Cable & Wireless) providing their own inward directory operator as they establish their own routings via their new NPA codes. When one dials 809-555-1212 from the US, regardless of whether their primary carrier is AT&T or some other IXC, they go to an *AT&T* Caribbean Directory Intercept Operator, "AT&T, What island please?" recording. When the live human operator hears your island request, she connects you with that isalnd's inward directory operator. AT&T's charges to call directory in a country *outside* of the NANP have gotten *quite outrageous*. I remember that they started charging for this around 1992, and it was about $2.00. Now it has gone up to FIVE dollars! And you *have* to have the AT&T operator connect you with the inward directory operator, as there are special operator dial codes for each individual country's (or region/city's) directory operator. Sprint and MCI operators also now say that they can give you international directory operators, for roughly the same cost AT&T charges. I don't know if Sprint and MCI have 'direct' access to other countries' inward directories or if they actually 'pass the call' to an AT&T operator. As for businesses who are concerned about the extra charges for directory assistance auto-call-completion when done by their employees, many companies *altogether block access* to (1)-411 and maybe even (NPA)-555, at their PBX, or via telco's "code restrictions" at the telco central office. I'm surprised that state regulatory agencies won't authorize a capability where one could have "Just Say Yes" or "press 1 to accept" blocked out, while still having access to local directory. This could be handled in a LIDB database for those customers who would want regular access to (1)-411 while restricting use of auto-call-completion. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am told a new marketing gimmick may be coming along soon to enhance the 'say yes' product. It will function a lot like Ameritech cellular directory assistance does now, with a single charge for DA plus call completion. Ameritech Cellular does not offer these unbundled. When you dial 411 the number is given to you and the call is completed, all for one dollar. The telcos thinking about this have a scheme in mind where DA will initially be charged at the regular rate but when the 'yes' or 'press 1' option is given the terms will be DA and the first minute of the call for some price (probably one dollar as a bundled offering) and additional minutes billed at whatever price would normally prevail at the phone you are using. It would be much like the expensive first minute charge on long distance calls when an operator is used with additional minutes at the same rate as if you had dialed the call directly. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: AT&T LD Billing Problems Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 19:07:55 GMT I've been having major problems getting AT&T LD to post payments to my account. At least in PacBell territory, AT&T is now billing via mail, instead of via the PacBell bill. Now they have to process millions of checks themselves, for which they have a processing center in Arizona. So far, they've been unable to locate my last two payments, even though I sent one by certified mail and got the certified mail receipt back, signed by an AT&T employee. Customer service says I shouldn't send payments by certified mail because it interferes with normal processing. Anybody else seeing problems like this? I just switched to MCI. John Nagle [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A lot of people are seeing the same thing. AT&T has broken off all their old alliances and friendships of many years standing to go and do their own thing. Around here in Chicago they yanked their billing from Ameritech several months ago to do it themselves and promptly began by double-billing a large number of customers who got billed for the same calls the previous (final) month of Ameritech handling it. Any customer whose account was not paid -- double billing and all -- in about six weeks or so was promptly cut off from the AT&T network with an intercept message (service via AT&T is denied) and sent to the Gulf Coast Collection Agency in Houston, Texas. Complainers were told the problem would have to be straightened out with Ameritech. AT&T has been shooting itself in the foot with its tactics lately, and they don't seem to care at all. It will obviously be a few more years before it happens, but watch for them to go the way of Western Union sometime in the early 21st century; just a hollow shell of what they used to be, in and out of bankruptcy, and some tiny fraction of the long distance market provided grandma is still around to give them her business. And as long as they still have money they'll continue to hand out $35/50/100 checks trying to win back the people they have alienated. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 20:54:52 EDT From: David Leibold Subject: Northwest Territories to Split Into Nunavut ... and Bob? In 1999, the Northwest Territories in Canada will undergo a political split, with the eastern portion to be called Nunavut and the western portion whose name is presumably not officially set yet. The Northwest Territories government held a recent contest regarding the name to be given to the western area. This involved an 800 number phone-in and an Internet poll, according to the {Western Report} (2 & 16 Sept 1996). The result was that over 6000 voted to retain the Northwest Territories name for the western portion. The name Denedeh received 71 votes and third place in the poll. This leaves a rather notable second-place finisher at 81 votes - Bob. That's right, the new territory name of Bob had its campaigners, and the vote-Bob website is at http://www.ssmicro.com/votebob/ - that website leads to official info on the NWT naming. Phone-wise, Canada's north (Northest Territories and Yukon) will be under a new NPA 867 over the next few years (the areas are currently under NPAs 403 and 819). The political split into Nunavut and residual NWT (or Bob) should not affect the area code split. David Leibold aa070@freenet.toronto.on.ca ------------------------------ From: kevin@eagle.ais.net (Kevin R. Ray) Subject: Lucent 9510 Performs Badly Date: 3 Oct 1996 02:07:31 GMT Organization: American Information Systems, Inc. Save yourself time and money. DO NOT BUY THE LUCENT 9510 (brand new) 900mhz spread spectrum phone. I've had mine on back order since I first heard about it and its claims to 4000 ft. range. It came in today and I've gone through TWO (the second one is going back for good). Points: - 75 minute recharge time on battery. This works and I *LIKE* this! - You have to "register" the phone. Kind of like the "old" phones when you put them in the base and they agreed on each other for security measures. With this one you have to push a little button on the back of the base (almost need a pin) and then press "MENU, #, PHONE" on the hand set. Could they make this ANY more confusing? - No warning when you go out of range. Just dead air. No warning at all. - Cheap plastic flip on the handset which does **NOTHING**. Just waiting to be broken off. Looks and feels CHEAP ... all for $400. - Clicking sounds in the ear (not tones of warning) when you DO get close to the limit. That and really bad "breaking up". - 4,000 feet? HA! I got 800 feet. My Motorola 49mhz phone beats this one out. My GE 900mhz spread spectrum (office) blows this one away (and they both WORK too :). - Has a nice LCD display -- with no Caller ID capabilities. Nice. Registering the phone. Good luck. I had to wrap my hand around both base and handset for this to work. Tried it in multiple locations. I was about one foot away when trying to register it. On my third phone it finally registered (I learned the "trick"). Phone couldn't find the base after all seemed OK. I was two feet away now. Finally got it to register and got a dial tone. I walked with it until I lost the connection with my neighbor whom I was using as a test to talk to. She tried calling me back. "Incoming Call" after I got back within range (800 feet from base). Press phone: "Can't find base". Huh? One phone and I would say I had a defective one. Two phones and I would say I had really bad luck ... and I'd say Lucent was trying to get a product on the market and didn't test it properly, develope it, and have their QC people on the ball. If this is how they are going to do business they will fail. And I will do all I can (here) to make sure of it. $400 for this phone? I figure they owe me $200 (plus a refund) for my time spent running around all day ... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 00:38:20 EDT From: David Leibold Subject: Teleglobe Gets FCC Approval as a U.S. Carrier The {Toronto Star} reports that Teleglobe, the monopoly Canadian overseas carrier, can now be a full international services carrier in America. The FCC gave Teleglobe the go-ahead on Tuesday (1 Oct 96). Teleglobe USA previously offered a limited service to American long distance resale companies. Meanwhile, Teleglobe in Canada is likely to face competition soon, pending some review and decisions by government authorities. David Leibold aa070@freenet.toronto.on.ca ------------------------------ From: Michael J. Wengler Subject: Re: "Just Say Yes" Date: Thu, 03 Oct 1996 08:33:43 -0700 Organization: QUALCOMM, Incorporated; San Diego, CA, USA Dave Miller wrote: > We have a T-1 and rates in the sub 10 cents area for all calls. My > users dial d/a, press 1, and get billed 35 cents PLUS ungodly rates of > around 30 cents a minute for LATA calls. > So, we pay 35 cents plus TRIPLE our normal rates, IF users ignore > my memo on the subject! > [TELEOCM Digest Editor's Note: .... > Don't blame telco because you cannot get your employees under > control. This reminds me of the guy reported on here several > months ago who was angry at telco because his employees were > using 'return last call' and 'repeat dial'. His anger should have > been directed at the employees who were unable or unwilling to > follow his simple instructions. The same should be true for you. PAT] Spoken like a true monopolist, PAT! Dave and others are customers paying for a basketful of services. It certainly makes sense to look critically at that basketful of services, and identify at the prices charged, which ones you'd want to buy, and which ones you'd want to lose. If there were competing phone companies, and lets face it, there aren't yet, just a lot of talk about how it will happen, then Dave could look at the different plans from different companies, and those companies would have to bundle and unbundle services in such a way as to attract and keep customers. Obviously, an employer wishing to provide some phone connectivity for business, would value, and even pay for the ability to purchase certain options and BLOCK certain others! In lieu of the market, we have regulated monopolies. It makes perfect sense for Dave and others to get mad at being unable to purchase the phone connectivity that they want without also having to put up with the "anti-product" of "Say Yes." I say anti-product because they would probably be willing to PAY to block this and other revenue producers for the phone company. Dave and others should complain to their PSC's. These are the poor substitute for market forces set up under law, and market forces are not something Dave can use against a monopoly. IMHO PS - PAT - do you think it was "wrong" of companies to complain about 900 numbers until blocking became available? In principle, blocking 900 numbers and blocking "say yes" are the same thing, just different priced "anti-products" foisted on many of us by the monopoly. How would you distinguish if you think blocking 900 makes sense? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The thing is, people who would never dream of stealing from the company they work for -- would never for a minute consider sticking their hand in the cash box when no one was looking -- seem to feel that a handful of office supplies now and then or a few personal phone calls each day are somehow different, and not to be con- sidered an abuse. Many companies allow certain employees to drive a company vehicle for business purposes, and some of those employees will invariably use the car for personal purposes without permission. I do not advocate going back to the way companies at the start of this century treated their employees, but it occurs to me there are times when otherwise dedicated and loyal employees seem to forget who it is that signs their paycheck and in essence provides for their well-being. If someone is paying for eight hours per day of your time, give them those eight hours to the best of your ability and do not abuse or misuse the tools they provide you to do your job including a telephone if one is assigned to you. PAT] ------------------------------ From: arobson@nv2.uswnvg.com (Andrew Robson) Subject: Re: "Just Say Yes" Date: 3 Oct 1996 17:18:28 GMT Organization: U S WEST NewVector Group, Inc. Robert Bulmash (prvtctzn@aol.com) wrote: > The result ... > Ameritech profits from the misbehavior of another firm's employees. And Pat replied: > If a company wants to see a decrease in phone abuse, instead of blaming > Ameritech for it what they need to do is firmly establish with their > employees what the company policy will be and then follow up over a > period of a month or two with equipment in place to verify who is > doing what. Fire a couple of the abusers promptly as an example, and > watch the other frightened employees start towing the line. In the > case at hand, 27 provided a great example for the other 800 or so > clerks working in that office. PAT] In most cases that would be a bad business decision as well as offensively harsh treatment of the employees. It is bad business to fire a valuable employee (and incur hundreds of dollars in recruiting cost at best) over a few dollars a month excess cost. Not to mention the effect on morale -- it makes the company look like it cares more about the few dollars than the employee. Harsh, to my mind, would be taking the cost out of their paycheck. Your suggestion, and example, are beyond what is reasonable. I am really glad you don't have any employees, Pat. It sounds like you would really make them suffer. Andy ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Oct 96 06:07 EST From: James E Bellaire Subject: Re: "Just Say Yes" In TELECOM Digest 524, prvtctzn@aol.com (Robert Bulmash) wrote: > This same service, which has been available in the Chicago area for > about two years, has been costing businesses hundreds of thousands of > dollars due office employees using the service despite the employer's > request that it not be used. > Since the employee does not have to pay the bill, they find it easier to > `push the button' than to dial the number. > When Ameritech (the RBOC) was contacted by various businesses concerning > having this service blocked to thier particular numbers, Ameritech refused > to accomodate them. > The result ... > Ameritech profits from the misbehavior of another firm's employees. Pat responded... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The call completion part has been avail- > able for some time here by pressing a button, but I don't know about > the 'say yes' part. Actually there is a limit to how much of this > should be considered Ameritech's problem and how much should be considered > the companies' problem. The employer did trust the employee with a > phone on his desk and live dialtone after all. Firing people for phone abuse is difficult unless you can PROVE who is doing it. Proof requires a lot of tracing of details, and may even need to prove that the employee was at their desk at the time of the call. Unless you are willing to make an employee responsible for every call leaving their desk phone, regardless of their presence, it is much easier to program the PBX to prevent calls that the company does not wish to be made. The trouble with call completion is that it cannot be easily trapped. Unless a company is willing to give up all access to directory assistance, which would make it difficult to locate contacts who have moved or had their area code changed, they have to allow 411 or 555-1212 numbers. Turning off tones after the dialing string would prevent an employee from pressing anything to complete a call, but would also prevent them from connecting to an extension number at another company without waiting for a voice operator. The extra time being added to the bill, as well as cutting down productivity, of course. There are too many companies with that "dial the extension you wish to contact or wait for an operator" on their indial number. Killing tones could also prevent the employees from paging a contact to call them back. I suppose if your PBX would handle a special class of service for calling out to 411 that would not allow extra digits ever, and would allow extra digits on other calls it would work. But this would not stop a simple voice response. The RBOC is adding a service to the phone that was not planned for by the PBX owner. They could always get a new software package upgrade, if available. Then RBOC would just 'upgrade' their services again. Not economical. > If the employee put in a personal call to an international point and > talked to a friend for three hours, should Ameritech be blamed for > that also? Only if Ameritech violated their agreement for providing service. ie: If they sold 'International call blocking' and then ignored it. Ameritech and the other LECs need to come up with a bare-bones PBX line that allows NO extra services unless specified by contract with their customer. As new services debut they would not be added to the bare-bones line unless the customer agreed to it. Sure, the company could fire all of its workers. And try to find another batch that was more 'honest'. After a while moralle would be at a point where nobody would care about their job, since it could end the next time the phone bill came. They may even pay more training the new employees than they would lose on the completed calls or other unplanned services. The point is that the LECs are changing the service and making business with them more difficult to plan. Changes of service should be agreed to by both parties, not just one. James E. Bellaire bellaire@tk.com Webpage Available 23.5 Hrs a Day!!! http://www.holli.com/~bellaire/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You're fired! Have a nice day. :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: PCS and Cellular Tariffs in the USA Date: Thu, 03 Oct 1996 02:31:48 -0700 Organization: Best Internet Communications In article , Glenn.Shirley@sg.adisys. com.au wrote: > I'd be interested in the situation in the U.S. as well if other people > want to respond. Is it only the calling party (and not the called > party) that is charged on all systems or do some providers do both. Can > you tell a mobile because of specific dialling prefixes? Do you get > distinctive tones (like long distance calls) when calling a mobile? With few exceptions, it is the party on the cellular phone who pays for the airtime. If I call from my home phone in San Francisco to a cellular phone that is based in San Francisco, I pay nothing at all for the call; the person receiving the call pays for the airtime. If I call a cellular phone in Los Angeles, I pay the same long-distance rates that I would pay for a call to a landline in Los Angeles, but the person receiving the call still pays for the airtime. If you call from a cellphone to a cellphone, each user pays for airtime. As for distinctive tones, we do not get distinctive tones on long distance calls of any description, much less on calls to cellular phones. There is no audio indication whatsoever of a toll charge, except in some areas where you reach a recording if you attempt to dial a toll call without an initial '1' or '0'. Here in San Francisco, though, I can dial Point Reyes as a seven-digit toll call, but a local call to Oakland requires eleven digits (1-510-xxx-xxxx). Toll billing in the U.S. has never been based on "metering pulses" as used in many parts of the world. There are a few areas that offer an option whereby airtime on calls to a cellular phone is charged to the caller, but these arrangements are a very small percentage of the US market, and there are problems with working out the rates and billing if the caller is not in the local area. In most cases, cellular phones take up an entire prefix, but there are some cases where a prefix is subdivided by "thousands" (the fourth digit of the seven-digit number). There is absolutely no consistency whatever from one area code to another as to which prefixes are cellular; it is entirely random. Thus, in general, you have no easy way of knowing just by looking at the number whether or not it is a cellphone. (Databases do exist, but they are necessarily quite large.) Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: Mario A. Castano Subject: Re: PCS and Cellular Tariffs in the USA Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 10:06:28 -0500 Colombia also has calling party billing. We have a different area code (93) for the cellular system, so you are always sure that you are dialing to a mobile terminal. The current per minute cellular airtime tariff for local calls is aproximatly US$ 50 cents. If the call is not local, you are charged long distance fees. It has to be noted that in Colombia the most expensive national long distance charge is about US$ 35 cents per minute. Roaming increases this tariff: - if you call from a mobile, you have to pay a fixed daily charge (aproximatly US$ 2.5) plus long distance charges plus cellular airtime. - if you call a mobile from a PSTN terminal, you pay cellular airtime plus long distance charges. Colombia's current cellular density is almost 1% and the average airtime per mobile user is about 195 minutes in Bogota. Regards, Mario A. Castano Director, Planning Office CINTEL m.a.castano@ieee.org ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #525 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Oct 3 19:49:10 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id TAA07163; Thu, 3 Oct 1996 19:49:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 19:49:10 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610032349.TAA07163@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #526 TELECOM Digest Thu, 3 Oct 96 19:49:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 526 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson SW Bell Wants EAS For OK (Tad Cook) Help Kevin Poulson (Steve Schear) Suggestions Fro Proper Phone Wiring (Michael N. Marcus) Re: Sub-Interface Routing on IRX-111 (Lars Poulsen) Re: DDS vrs T1 (What Makes the Difference Other Than Speed?) (Bill Sohl) Re: Text Processing Under Windows (Lars Poulsen) Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street (Tony Toews) Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street (Dave Levenson) Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street (greivangel@aol.com) Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street (Thomas P. Brisco) Re: Caller ID From Europe (Meyer Toole) Is Reselling Good? (Thomas Peters) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: SW Bell Wants EAS for OK Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 14:00:23 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Southwestern Bell Seeks Approval For Call Option Tulsa World, Okla. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Oct. 3--Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. filed an application Wednesday with the state Corporation Commission to offer Oklahoma customers an optional calling plan within their area codes. Southwestern Bell officials said the service, to be known as Local Plus, if approved by the commission would be offered at a monthly rate of $30 for residences and $60 for businesses. The service would allow customers to make unlimited calls within their area code for the flat fee. Commission Chairman Cody Graves said, "In a best-case scenario, this would be adopted and implemented by the end of the year. A worst-case would be it taking six months," he said. The proposal is in direct response to a recommendation of the Corporation Commission, said Dave Lopez, president of Southwestern Bell of Oklahoma, "for the telephone industry to offer a simple and optional service for Oklahomans to call as wide a geographic area as possible." "This is a flexible calling plan at a fair price," Lopez said. "In addition, this is convenient because customers who subscribe to Local Plus will need to dial only seven numbers to call anywhere within their area codes at any time of the day." Regular long-distance charges would continue to apply to calls made from one area code to another. Currently, Southwestern Bell is prohibited from handling such calls between area codes. Upon approval from the commission, an implementation schedule to begin the service would be developed, Southwestern Bell said. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 03 Oct 1996 10:27:00 GMT From: azur@netcom.com (Steve Schear) Subject: Help Kevin Poulson I recently wrote the following letter to Kevin. If anyone on this list is an published author who feels he can be a service to Kevin please feel free to contact him (by mail since he, of course, doesn't have direct email access). 15 September 1996 Mr. Kevin L. Poulsen 13601 Ventura Blvd., #428 Sherman Oaks, CA 91423 Dear Mr. Poulsen, I am happy you have recently been released and distressed at what has been circulated on the Net regarding your outlook for employment. I can understand the reluctance of authorities to permit you access to your former 'tools of the trade', but feel that every citizen must be able to given the opportunity to earn a liveable wage using those skills at which they are most practiced. Having read the court's conditions of release, which appear inflexible insofar as computer access, I suggest you seriously consider becoming an author. Your largest useable asset, at this time, is the notariety which your deeds have generated. Your exploits are well known and I am sure many readers of a technical bent and fellow hackers would be greatly interest in hearing about them first-hand. I especially think they would be interested in details of some of your more arcane techniques (including a diskette). Publishers are always looking for good topical works. Although a fair number of successful books about hacking have recently been printed, little has been written from the hacker's perspective. I am not an author, although some of my friends are, and am not looking for an opportunity in this area. I'm told a good 'treatment' could net a considerable up-front money for completion of the work. Likewise, they can provide competent 'ghost' writers to organize and polish the manuscript. Best of luck, Steve Schear ------------------------------ Date: 03 Oct 96 08:11:33 EDT From: Michael N. Marcus <74774.2166@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Suggestions For Proper Phone Wiring > Once telco gets a second line there, you will want lots of four conductor > wire of the red/green/yellow/black variety. Outmoded advice. Any new installation should have twisted pair wiring, not just multi-conductor. Twisted pair is much less-likely to produce inductive crosstalk between the lines. Even cheapie telcos are switch- ing over. The following is a section from a book I'm writing: "The death of quad" For many years, most phone companies installed four-conductor wire, known in the business as "quad," and this is what you'll usually find hanging on racks in electronic stores. Instead of having multiple pairs, they have four wires twisted together. This is a bit cheaper to make than twisted-pair, but is more likely to result in "crosstalk," where voices, sounds or signals from one line leak through and are heard on the other line. Some four-conductor wire, such as AT&T's, is quite good and unlikely to cause crosstalk. Other seemingly-identical wire is often sold for alarm installations, but is not twisted properly for phone use, and can cause terrible crosstalk problems. To be safe, go with twisted pairs, and the more pairs the better. With four conductor wire, the first line uses the green and red wires, and the second line uses black and yellow. Service technicians from United Telephone of Florida (UTF) have provided comments to the FCC that may have far-reaching implications in the telecommunications industry and the residential telephone pre-wiring business. National inside wiring guidelines may be set as a result of the presentation to the FCC/Industry Part 68 Administrative Procedures Ad Hoc Working Group. The UTF service technicians, members of a company quality improvement team, recommended four-paid, twisted wire ("UTP," or unshielded twisted pair) be used in all residential prewiring. Currently, Part 68 does not address transmission requirements for inside residential wiring. Prewiring has become an issue since industry deregulation because four-conductor non-twisted wire has been used increasingly by non-telephone company contractors performing the work. One UTF survey of an Orlando, Fla. suburb, showed that nearly 80 percent of prewire in apartments and 100 percent of prewire in new homes was the four conductor non-twisted variety. When used for two lines in a home, four-conductor non-twisted wire often causes "crosstalk." A common example of crosstalk is a faint conversation heard in the background while another call is in progress. Crosstalk can result in everything from garbled fax transmissions to angry or confused callers as one telephone line in a home interferes with another line when both are in use at the same time. The UTF service technicians related several examples of customer complaints in which crosstalk created problems with phone service. In one example, a businessman operating from his home lost a prospective customer's business after he called a vendor on a second line and the customer overheard through crosstalk the vendor giving the businessman the wholesale price and the retail markup. Crosstalk is being experienced by an increasing number of telephone customers around the country as more of the four-conductor wire is used. "Once considered adequate for residential telephone wiring, four-conductor non-twisted wire is no longer appropriate in today's advanced telecommunications network," said Brian Craven, spokesman for United Telephone of Florida. The use of multiple-pair, twisted wire (UTP) eliminates the crosstalk problem while allowing for additional lines to be installed. Specifically, the UTF service technicians recommend four-pair, twisted wire because it can meet the growing demand from customers for multiple telephone services. Orders for second, third and even fourth telephone lines in a home are becoming increasingly common, based on studies by the technicians and their quality team. "Four-pair, twisted wire can handle the high-speed data transmission the new voice, data and video technologies require," Craven said. " It costs only about $2.64 more per home in material cost to pre-wire with the four-pair, twisted wire. That compares to an average cost of $240 per home for UTF to rewire a four-conductor prewired home with four-pair, twisted wire." "The higher standard would ensure the adequacy of the last critical link in the telecommunications infrastructure -- to the phones," according to the UTF quality team's recommendation. Michael N. Marcus michael@ablecomm.com www.ablecomm.com ------------------------------ From: lars@anchor.RNS.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: Sub-Interface Routing on IRX-111 Date: 03 Oct 1996 10:49:09 -0700 Organization: RNS / Meret Communications In article sking@galaxynet.com (scott king) writes: > I'm trying to upgrade to full T-1 on a Livingston IRX-111 (PM 2) and > give another client a 56K port from the single interface. Honestly, I can't figure out what it is you are trying to do. Is this about setting up a configuration with an upstream data link on an un-channelized T-1 (with PPP) and a client on a DDS (56K) running PPP? If so, the two separate leased lines are two separate serial ports and each requires a separate CSU/DSU to attach them to their separate telco demarcation jacks. > It has the latest operating system in it, and I don't want the added > expense of adding a separate serial port and CSU/DSU just to port to > that client. I know it is done elsewhere, and of course Livingston > says "Sure thing!" but they said the same about the PM-2e terminal > server/router that did NOT do it reliably. In the above context, this paragraph does not make the slightest sense. Might you be talking about Frame Relay? Is the question really ... "The connection to my upstream provider comes in on a Frame Relay, which has until now had only one virtual circuit at 384 Kbps. I have now signed up a client for 56Kbps service. If I upgrade the CIR on the upstream link to 1544 Kbps, will I still be able to bring the virtual circuit from that customer in on the same FR access line ?" The answer is yes. Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@RNS.COM RNS / Meret Communications Phone: +1-805-562-3158 7402 Hollister Avenue Telefax: +1-805-968-8256 Santa Barbara, CA 93117 Internets: designed and built while you wait ------------------------------ From: billsohl@planet.net (Bill Sohl) Subject: Re: DDS vrs T1 (What Makes the Difference Other Than Speed?) Date: Thu, 03 Oct 1996 21:52:45 GMT Organization: BL Enterprises hzambrano@synapse.net (Hugo Zambrano) wrote: > Can sombody out there tell me what are the technical limitations of a > DDS line that does not allow it to transfer T1 rates? > Both use four wires; > Both are digital transmissions; > Both need a DSU/CSU; > I already now that DDS can transfer up to 64Kbps (or 56Kbps) and that > T1 can transmit up to 1.544 Mbps > What are those technical differences that make the difference? DDS circuits use channels that are part of a T1 system. In short a DDS channel is a small chunk of the larger T1 system for inter-office transmission systems. Bill Sohl (K2UNK) billsohl@planet.net Internet & Telecommunications Consultant/Instructor Budd Lake, New Jersey ------------------------------ From: lars@anchor.RNS.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: Text Processing Under Windows Date: 3 Oct 1996 09:19:11 -0700 Organization: RNS / Meret Communications In article Jeremy Parsons writes: > I only have access to a Windows machine, and while just about everything I > want to do can be done in time by Microsoft Word, it's always tedious and > often error-prone. This is frustrating when I know exactly how to do what > I want using one of the common UNIX shells and some of the standard tools > (especially awk). MKS Toolskit for DOS (Mortice Kern Systems). A unix-style shell and utilities ... more, grep, awk, lex, uucp, ksh, pipes ... about $150. Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@RNS.COM RNS / Meret Communications Phone: +1-805-562-3158 7402 Hollister Avenue Telefax: +1-805-968-8256 Santa Barbara, CA 93117 Internets: designed and built while you wait ------------------------------ From: ttoews@agt.net (Tony Toews) Subject: Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street Date: Thu, 03 Oct 1996 06:22:01 GMT Organization: AGT Ltd. edhample@sprynet.com (Ed Kleinhample) wrote: > While it is true that telco employees would know how to do such a > thing, the authorities need to expand their profile to include anyone > who has ever done any telephone, intercom, or local area network > wiring. Or readers of this thread of messages. Tony Toews, Independent Computer Consultant Jack of a few computer related trades and master (or certified) of none. Microsoft Access Hints & Tips: Accounting Systems, Winfax Pro, Reports and Books at http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Thu, 03 Oct 1996 13:26:08 GMT tad@ssc.com writes: > Hackers Sell Illegal Phone Access On The Street > LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Hackers are breaking into telephone line boxes and > tapping dial tones belonging to businesses and homes, selling access > on the street using a special hand-held receiver. I installed a COCOT in a grocery store in New Jersey. Bell Atlantic provided a network interface box in the basement -- the grey plastic kind with a place for a padlock on the customer-side access cover. I ran conduit from the box to the phone mounting box, and attempted to make the installation vandal-proof. Unfortunately, there was no way to lock the telco-side access cover (which only requires a thin-wall socket wrench). There was also no way to secure the telco-owned box where the six-pair feeder to the building terminates and a piece of exposed station quad runs to the telco side of my interface box. Less than six months after this was installed, I found a few calls on the bill that did not originate from the payphone. I went to the location and discovered an extra extension, with a dial, behind the counter. I explained to the store employees that the U.S. Secret Service takes a very dim view of wire-fraud, and that I would be removing the payphone if this practice continued. I also told the store owner about it, and pointed out that his employees were stealing from me, and from him (because his commission from the payphone revenue is paid based upon the profit after the phone bill is paid). The problem has not happened again (that I know of). I do watch the phone bills, and I do compare them agains the SMDR from the payphone. I have wondered, however, if Bell Atlantic could be required to provide anti-tampering security on their side of the network interface. If not, perhaps if I can prove that the attack occurred on their side, they will kindly absorb that part of the bill! Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: uunet!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ From: greivangel@aol.com (GreivAngel) Subject: Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street Date: 03 Oct 1996 10:31:45 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: greivangel@aol.com (GreivAngel) Gee ... the phone company has about fifty thousand splicing points that anyone can hook into. Handsets are dirt cheap to make, and are the staple of every 12 year old phone phreak that ever there was. "Security" on most of the very large trunk boxes are a 7/16th hex screw (7/16 hex wrenches aren't sold in stores. High security!) Bell should LOCK all cabinets, and put a dial alarm to the CO on the door. Regards, Dr. Seuss ------------------------------ From: Thomas P. Brisco Subject: Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street Date: Thu, 03 Oct 1996 13:54:24 -0400 Organization: IEEE Aw, C'mon PAT. I live out in the suburbs, when I was moving in, and getting the telephone service activated, I took one look at the old flip-top box that was my demarc and said to the tech "Secure that box". I wandered off doing more move-in type of stuff, leaving my wife to finish up with the fellow. I was in the backyard later that day, and took a look at the box. It had been secured -- with a wire-tie. (Sigh!). We need to make sure that the technicians are aware that these boxes are a risk. In my neighborhood, everyone has their demarc out back -- with very easy access. I don't have a butt-set -- but I've a home-brew version (a $9.00 phone from radio shack, a connector, pig tails, and alligator clips). I was discussing with my neighbor the problems with the boxes, and he was looking thoroughly confused -- I asked him to wait a moment, ran in and got my home-brew butt-set, popped open his box, and in two tries got dial-time for him. He looked surprised. It is even worse around the newer neighborhoods in my area -- the boxes come with a RJ11 jack! Jeez, even a "vaguely clueful" person like myself wouldn't even require *two* tries to get the right pair ... While not telecom related, but along a similar vein, walk down any California suburban street and notice the exterior mounted electrical boxes (required by law, I believe). In a state that has about the highest cost for electricity ... Hmmm ... now that I'm thinking. Late one night I could dig a little trench from my sewage line to my neighbors ... Tp [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Telco in days of old was like the early Unix guys in the sense of security through obscurity. What people didn't know about the phone network was what kept it from being abused. And I think some of you would be amazed to find out even today how little the average person knows about telephones other than how to lift the receiver and make/receive a call. For example, although there were various reasons for the development of ESS in the 1960-70's, some cynics contend it was not so much so telco could sell you all the nice services like call- waiting and three-way calling; it was to combat fraud which had reached epidemic proportions. By that point in time, literally everyone -- most certainly all the phreaks and the curious-minded people -- knew everything there was to know about crossbar and stepping switch phone systems; they knew how easy it was to rip off telco and how little telco could do stop it or even locate them easily. Telco's response was to just scrap it all and build everything over from scratch using new technology (at that time) available to them. Outside plant however remains a thorn in their side. You can sit in the CO at a terminal and watch all your subscribers (and pretend-subscribers who are actually thieves) as they make their calls and with a tap or two on the keyboard now and then attend to business quite nicely. But with outside plant, you can't be everywhere, looking at everything at once. Thousands of old high-rise apartment buildings in (name of your city here) and every one of them with a junky old rotted-out phone box in the base- ment with a couple hundred pairs coming in which also terminate in every other building up and down the block and across the alley. Dialtone on every one of them, and cryptic handwritten notes left by phone men from forty years ago letting everyone know that 'these fifty pairs go to

' ... An aquaintence of mine several years ago lived in a single room he rented in a larger house owned by others. He had his own single line phone. One day he looks in the little phone box mounted on the wall in his room and sees the yellow/black wires there, doing nothing; hooked up to nothing on his end. He hooks up a phone to them and gets ... dialtone. Curious, he dials the ringback code and lets it ring a few times until someone answers. He asks them where they are at and what number he reached. Turns out to be a lady who lives at the other end of the same block and across the alley. Some phone man working in the area must have forgotten to open (disconnect) the multiples in the process of installing the lady's phone. Outside plant records are in notoriously bad condition at every telco, and always in need of reconciliation. But unlike cable companies, telcos do not have 'outside auditors' who every year or two make their rounds past your house to see who has been tampering with what. Cute, and true story in conclusion: several years ago in Chicago, two friends lived across the street from each other, each in a highrise building. They like to chat a lot on the phone and each had a second pair in their apartment which was unused. Two cheap telephones were bought at Radio Shack, and a clean (filtered) DC power supply. Phones are attached in series to the power supply via the second pair in each person's apartment. In the basement of one building, the second pair is located and connected to an unused pair in the cable which happens to be multipled to the building across the street. Now go across the street to the basement of the other building, and ring out or locate that same pair. Attach it to the second house pair to the the person who lives in that building. With a little bit of fancy wiring in the two phones, fix things so that when either phone goes off hook, the circuit to the other phone via the power supply in series is completed and a little buzzer in the other phone sounds continuously until the phone on that end is taken off hook. Once it goes off hook also the battery is diverted through the handsets and the two people talk. If you don't like the idea of the buzzer sounding continuously until the other end is picked up then somewhere in the buzzer part of the line (which is actually in 'series-parallel' to the rest of it) install one of those little gimmicks you put in the plug for the lights on a Christmas tree that make the lights blink off and on. Now instead of a continuous buzzzzzzzzzzzz on the opposite end (of whatever phone was offhook first) you get an interuppted buzz .....buzz/buzz .... buzz effect. Neither end hears battery or sidetone until the other end goes off hook also and the circuit is completed. It worked fine for a couple years, then one day in the central office some tech went on that pair at his end. That caused the buzzer to sound on one end of the pirate hotline. The guy answers and this sends battery to the tech in the CO who was quite intriqued at this point. "Hello? Who is this?" ... "Sorry, you got the wrong number" yeah, wrong number, you bet. The next day their pirate hotline seems to be out of order. Looking in the basement of both buildings reveals a phone man had been there and disconnected it all. The pair they had used to get across the street to each other was no longer to be found in either box. :( PAT] ------------------------------ From: meyer@idirect.com (Meyer Toole) Subject: Re: Caller ID From Europe Date: 3 Oct 96 00:52:02 UTC Ed Hew (edhew@xenitec.xenitec.on.ca) wrote: > Recently callers from Europe have been showing up on my phone with > thier calling telephone numbers intact. I have received calls from > Switzerland and Germany with the full international number being > displayed (eg. 41xxxxxxx). I believe this has been coincident with > Teleglobe (Canada's international monopoly carrier) having upgraded > signaling links to these countries to CCS7 ISUP signaling. --SNIP-- I too have numbers from Germany showing up on my normal caller ID. No name, but the full number data is accurate. I first noticed this in mid-August. Probably because THEIR system has been upgraded. Internet Direct. Realms of Despair! (416)233-2999, 1000 lines telnet realms.game.org 4000 T3 bandwidth, 9600-33,600bps+ISDN Endless medieval enjoyment! Stop by for a drink at the Internet TeleCafe -- telecafe.com 9000 ------------------------------ From: tpeters@hns.com (Thomas Peters) Subject: Is Reselling Good? Date: 3 Oct 1996 18:50:22 GMT Organization: Hughes Network Systems Inc. If resellers didn't exist, the Big Three would have to invent them. Long distance service is a typical example of a business with high fixed costs and low incremental costs. Other familiar examples are airlines and hotels. You can increase your profit by adding one more caller/passenger/guest even if you charge him very little, because he didn't cost you very much extra expense. Only problem is, when the rest of your customers -- the ones who paid full price -- find out about the discount, they are going to be upset. You can't make any money by giving the extra customer a discount if everyone else demands the same discount. This simple problem is the underlying reason for the maze of discounts, special deals, and arbitrary rules which govern all three industries' marketing. Enter the resellers. They allow AT&T and the other underlying providers to offer lower rates to those customers which demand them without passing on the same deal to your grandmother or taking a big PR hit. Other considerations, such as resellers' ability to market and manage accounts efficiently and provide extra services, are secondary to the question of why there are resellers. Of course, these considerations are very important in determining the outcome of competition *between* resellers. Tom Peters ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #526 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Oct 4 11:33:09 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id LAA15366; Fri, 4 Oct 1996 11:33:09 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 4 Oct 1996 11:33:09 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610041533.LAA15366@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #527 TELECOM Digest Fri, 4 Oct 96 11:32:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 527 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Latest Bellcore NANPA Information (Mark J. Cuccia) National Awards Center Scam (Tad Cook) Seeking Information on American Communications Network (Michael Hayes) DS1 Interpretation of ifTable Columns? (Chuck Irvine) Re: Switch 64 == X.21? (in Brazil and Argentina) (Lars Poulsen) Re: "Just Say Yes" (Jack Decker) Re: "Just Say Yes" (Stanley Cline) Re: "Just Say Yes" (David Clayton) Re: How Do I Build a Phone in Use Light? (vikingelec@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: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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, 03 Oct 1996 18:23:59 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Latest Bellcore NANPA Information Bellcore NANPA has revised some of their webpages as of 2 October 1996. There is the Planning Letter (PL-NANP-013) regarding the new 867 area code for Yukon and the Northwest Territories, which will be splitting from 403 and 819 next year. Permissive dialing begins 21 October 1997, with mandatory dialing beginning 26 April 1998. However, I couldn't find this PL via Bellcore's "CAT-10" search, which would give the price information (most likely US$10.00) and number of pages. I don't know if there is any information in this PL regarding Inuvik (western part -- to become Denendeh? remain NWT? change to 'Bob'? change to East Yukon?) NWT's change of central office code 971, presently in area code 403. Iqaluit (eastern part, to become Nunavut) NWT's central office code is also 979, but presently in area code 819. I understand that Inuvik's 403-979 will change its central office code to a yet to be determined code, as well as its area code to 867, so as to avoid the central office code conflict of 979. Southwestern Pennsylvania's (including Pittsburgh) new area code 724 (to overlay 412) is now indicated on Bellcore NANPA's webpages now, however there are no dates indicated for introduction, nor the test number(s). Bellcore NANPA webpages now indicate permissive/mandatory dialing dates and test numbers for Anguilla (264) and the British Virgin Islands (284). Anguilla (264) begins permissive dialing 31 March 1997, mandatory dialing 30 September 1997. Test number is 264-672-8378 (TEST). British Virgin Islands (284) begins permissive dialing 01 October 1997, mandatory dialing 30 September 1998. Test number is 284-493-4800. Dates and test numbers are still not yet indicated for Grenada/Carricou (473) and St.Vincent/Grenadines (784), although the NANPA webpages have indicated these codes for some months now. The U.S. Virgin Islands (340) and Turks & Caicos Islands (649) still aren't (yet) indicated on their webpage. A test number is now indicated for 248's split of 810 in Michigan. However the test number shows it at 810-253-9717. I think this is in error, and it should be 248-253-9717. Test numbers are still not yet indicated for the two splits off of 206 in the Seattle WA area. (253 for Tacoma/southern; 425 for Everett/northern). Neither is a test number yet shown for 440's split off of 216 in the Cleveland OH area. There aren't yet any entries for 626's split from 818 in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles metro, nor 650's split from 415 in the west bay area south of San Francisco, nor 530's split from 916 in northeastern CA (with Sacramento metro retaining 916). These codes (as well as a few others not yet indicated on the NANPA webpage) have already been announced elsewhere. Bellcore NANPA's webpage is http://www.bellcore.com/NANP, and click away. Also, Dave Leibold mentioned the possible names of the western political split of the Northwest Territories in Canada. A friend who lives in Whitehorse Yukon told me the reason for the possibility of the name "Bob". There is a town in that part of the NWT named "Rae". A recent premiere or prime minister of I think Ontario was named Bob Rae. As is the usual custom, names are written . So his name was printed on forms as "Rae, Bob", which is excactly how the town of Rae in the western NWT would be displayed as if the western NWT would change its name to "Bob". Regardless of whatever names are chosen for the NWT's political splits, area code 867 will serve Yukon, western NWT (Denendeh? Bob? (West) NWT? East Yukon?) and the eastern NWT (Nunavut) for *quite* some time before any split relief would be necessary. I don't know if Prince Edward Island will also ever need its own area code to split from 902, which it has shared with Nova Scotia since the area code format began in October 1947. 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 ------------------------------ Subject: National Awards Center Scam Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 23:54:47 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) New Mexico Man Admits Role in Phone Hoax that Bilked Elderly By JEFFREY GOLD Associated Press Writer NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- Once they hooked a victim, a ring of crooked telemarketers based in Las Vegas tried to bleed even more money from their prey. In one instance, they had scammed an elderly woman in Wyoming by telling her she had won $75,000 but that to collect the prize she had to send $11,000 in "taxes." Once they had F.R's. cash -- they only took cash -- they called back and said the prize was actually $150,000 so she should send $16,000 more. She did. She never got the $150,000. These admissions came Thursday in U.S. District Court in Trenton, as a New Mexico man admitted his role in a nationwide scheme that investigators believe sucked as much as $250,000 from about 25 elderly victims across the nation. "If they get somebody who is a willing victim they will go back and back and back again. They are totally unscrupulous," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael A. Guadagno, who is prosecuting the case. "We've noticed an alarming increase in the focus of unscrupulous telemarketers who are targeting elderly victims," said Guadagno, chief of the fraud division of the U.S. attorney's office in New Jersey. "They are targeting elderly victims because they are the most vulnerable to their scheme," he said. Troy Neal Thompson, who pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, is cooperating with the government's continuing investigation, Guadagno said. He could not say how many participated in the scheme, which billed itself as the "National Awards Center," which had an 800-number based in Beverly Hills, Calif., although the "boiler room" from which calls were made was based in Las Vegas. The ring got names of potential victims from list brokers, who sometimes compile names, ages and phone numbers from bogus sweepstakes entries, Guadagno said. They then made "cold calls" telling the victims that they had won money or a luxury car, but had to pay the taxes before getting their prize. "People had to send cash. They were very specific," Guadagno said. Other victims included a New Jersey man, identified only as R.W., who sent $7,300 after being told he had won his choice of $75,000 or a Cadillac. National Awards Center began operating in January and collapsed in April when Albuquerque police arrested Thompson while he was picking up money sent to a mail drop there that he maintained under the alias of "Terry Mason," Guadagno said. Thompson, 22, of Albuquerque, N.M would keep an unspecified portion of any cash he collected, and would forward the remainder to unnamed co-conspirators, the prosecutor said. Thompson faces up to five years in prison, restitution, and a fine of up to twice the amount lost or gained from the scheme when sentenced Jan. 10 by U.S. District Judge Garrett E. Brown Jr. The actual penalties, however, would be far lower under federal guidelines, especially if he gives significant assistance to investigators. He remains free on $50,000 bond. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The only thing is, they really should not call these people 'telemarketers'. Painting them all with the same brush is like saying that 'hackers' are all dishonest computer users. There are hackers who do honest work, and there are telemarketers who do honest work, regardless of what one may personally think of the product being sold or the method in which it is being marketed. If you order from them, you get what you ordered, etc. The people who are described in this story should just be described as con artists who used the phone as a way to hide from their victims. By the way, I have received phone calls telling me I won things and asking me to send 'taxes', etc. I always tell them to take the taxes out of the prize I won and remit the proceeds ... they don't like that kind of answer. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Oct 96 17:28:07 -0400 From: Michael Hayes Subject: Seeking Information on American Communications Network Hello: I am trying to find out if anybody has heard of a new network marketing opportunity called ACN (American Communications Network)! This new group markets long distance service for LCI International: they also market paging services for Pagenet; operator services for Opticom & many other services to say the least! I'm interested in the opportunity, but of course, I would like to get some feed back on what kind of reputation LCI International, Pagenet, & Opticom have in the market place! Also if anybody has any info on the company ACN (American Communications Network) please respond a.s.a.p.! Thank You! MMH ------------------------------ From: Chuck Irvine Subject: DS1 Interpretation of ifTable Columns? Date: 4 Oct 1996 13:23:30 GMT Organization: Sprint/BITS/BNMD The interpretation of the columns in the MIB-II ifTable isn't clear to me in the context of DS1 interfaces. I was wondering if anyone knows of a write-up anywhere that suggests a proper interpretation. If you know of one, I'd appreciate a pointer very much. Thanks, Chuck Irvine ------------------------------ From: lars@anchor.RNS.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: Switch 64 == X.21? (in Brazil and Argentina) Date: 4 Oct 1996 09:29:13 -0700 Organization: RNS / Meret Communications In article mouers@vaherndon1.btna. com writes: > I was recently asked to get one of our video conferencing systems working > in South America (Brazil and Argentina) the customer said the ISDN wasn't > readily available and we would have to use "Switched 64". After asking > around the office I was told that it was most likely an X.21 interface. I, too, am quite puzzled as to what "Switched 64" may be. In North America, we have "Switched 56", and this is obviously a service intended to meet similar goals; but it would have to be implemented quite differently. Switched 56 steals the low-order bit of the DS-0 for signalling. Two bits in each direction encode a variety of interface conditions, which can be translated to analog interface conditions as "on-hook/off-hook", "polarity", "ringing voltage", "answer supervision" etc. Call setup signaling can be done either with in-band DTMF tones or with pulse dialling opening and closing the (simulated) off-hook relay. Clearly this won't work in an environment with a 64Kbps clear channel. It is my understanding that some countries use digital access loops with more framing bits, so that a complete out-of-band signalling path can be set up outside of the 64Kbps DS-0 stream. Other countries have built circuit-switched networks specifically for data; in these networks, there is a call-setup phase before the circuit is set up, and once the call completes, the full bandwidth is available for data. When the circuit is closed, a timing violation is seen, the network termination unit resets, and another call can be set up. The X.21 interface specification was designed for this application. I have previously heard of X.21 dialing being used in Germany (Datex-L) and Scandinavia. Most customer premise equipment that claims adherence to X.21 does NOT include support for call setup; it is designed for use on leased lines, and it just implements X.21 as a compact pinout for RS-422. The most user-friendly network termination unit would provide a V.25bis dialing interface. Another common option is a network termination unit that can be pre-programmed with the number to call, and which sets the call up, as soon as the terminal equipment presents DTR. I would be very interested in what you learn about switched-64 service in Brazil or elsewhere. Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@RNS.COM RNS / Meret Communications Phone: +1-805-562-3158 7402 Hollister Avenue Telefax: +1-805-968-8256 Santa Barbara, CA 93117 Internets: designed and built while you wait ------------------------------ From: jack@novagate.com (Jack Decker) Subject: Re: "Just Say Yes" Date: Fri, 04 Oct 1996 08:06:34 GMT Organization: GTE Intelligent Network Services, GTE INS On Thu, 03 Oct 1996 08:33:43 -0700, Michael J. Wengler wrote: > Dave Miller wrote: >> We have a T-1 and rates in the sub 10 cents area for all calls. My >> users dial d/a, press 1, and get billed 35 cents PLUS ungodly rates of >> around 30 cents a minute for LATA calls. >> So, we pay 35 cents plus TRIPLE our normal rates, IF users ignore >> my memo on the subject! > Dave and others are customers paying for a basketful of services. It > certainly makes sense to look critically at that basketful of services, > and identify at the prices charged, which ones you'd want to buy, and > which ones you'd want to lose. > If there were competing phone companies, and lets face it, there aren't > yet, just a lot of talk about how it will happen, then Dave could look > at the different plans from different companies, and those companies > would have to bundle and unbundle services in such a way as to attract > and keep customers. Obviously, an employer wishing to provide some > phone connectivity for business, would value, and even pay for the > ability to purchase certain options and BLOCK certain others! It seems to me that there's a golden opportunity here for someone to start a business offering "filtered" directory assistance. Basically, it would require companies to program their PBX's to intercept calls to 411 (or 1-555-1212 or whatever) and send those calls to another company, perhaps over a dedicated circuit. At this company, operators would take the calls and look up numbers using a commercial database (or even the Internet, using one of the directory services provided via the World Wide Web). In the case of a new listing, the "private" DA operator would extend the call to a telephone company operator and repeat the request, but would monitor the connection and disconnect as soon as the number had been read. Too low-tech for you? Okay, here's another thought. Every phone company that offeres Directory Assistance uses a synthesized voice to read the number back to the calling party. Suppose you called and requested a few numbers, and each time sampled (recorded) the reply. With only two or three calls you could probably get a sample of all the possible digits in a number (it might take a few more calls if various inflections are used). Now you design a computer to do pattern matching on the audio (hey, if telco can recognize "yes" spoken by a wide variety of voices, it should be a piece of cake to design something that would recognize any of ten digits that are always spoken by the same voice!). The idea is, when someone calls D.A., the PBX at the caller's company would send the call out via a line that has a computer monitoring device attached to it. This would recognize the audio coming from the called party (specifically, the computerized D.A. voice) and match it agains the stored patterns of the various digits. As soon as that synthesized voice started reading back any numbers, the computer would recognize one or more of the spoken numbers and would immediately shut down the outgoing audio path (so that neither touch tones nor the word "yes" could pass through). The only potential pitfall here is that the phone company could change their computerized voice every so often to thwart such efforts ... although if they actually did that, I think that a case could be made that they were actively encouraging phone fraud (to me, a phone company that deliberately attempts to thwart a company's call restriction mechanisms is no better than anyone else who attempts to commit phone fraud - what's sauce for the goose, etc.) Then there is the middle ground ... design the intelligent monitoring system I just described, but put it at a service bureau of some sort. D.A. calls from a number of companies go to the service bureau; and the service bureau has the equipment to do the matching and blocking. But I have another thought. It seems to me that that some provision must be made for COCOT (Private Payphone) lines -- obviously it would kill the COCOT business if people could "just say yes" and the COCOT operator would get charged an extra 35 cents. So maybe a company could order a few COCOT lines and then just "accidentally" hook them up to the PBX instead of actual payphones, and then "accidentally" divert their DA traffic to those lines ... :-) Mind you, when all is said and done, I think it is really sleazy of the phone companies to offer this service without offering blocking. My guess is that a few companies will block access to local DA entirely, and tell their employees to use the Internet to find phone numbers (and failing that, go use the pay phone in the lunchroom). But others will be looking for another solution. That may be an alternate local service provider, an alternate provider of directory assistance only, or even an on-site hardware/software solution. Somebody's going to make some money off of this! It's really too bad that we phone customers don't have a way to impose "surprise charges" on the phone company officials that dream this stuff up. Maybe if THEY had to pay a few unanticipated high bills, they might not be so quick to try and stick it to others! Jack [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The reason COCOTs are relatively safe from this is because if a COCOT owner so specifies, he can have a line which is treated as 'coin service' from the telco. Originally long ago, COCOTs were just on regular lines and had very poor protection against a variety of frauds involving calling the operator to place a call 'and bill it to this number please', etc. Now the operator knows it is a coin line. You'll notice on telco (that is 'genuine bell') pay phones there is no such 'say yes' option when calling directory assistance. COCOTs don't get it either if they are shown as coin service. PAT] ------------------------------ From: roamer1@pobox.com (Stanley Cline) Subject: Re: "Just Say Yes" Date: Thu, 03 Oct 1996 23:48:28 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services Reply-To: scline@usit.net > Now, it would be nice, if the directory assistance "just say yes" > function could be blocked on a per line basis. In the Chattanooga area (BellSouth), the service can APPARENTLY be blocked on a per-line basis. For example, it doesn't work from payphones (either Bell or COCOT), from CellOne's cellular phones (BellSouth Mobility has offered the service to its cellular customers -- at no "extra" charge, just the normal cellular DA charge -- for quite awhile, and CellOne just moved to using its "own" DA operators for most calls), or from *some* business PBX trunks. Much of this blocking (particularly payphones and PBX trunks) may already be implemented in the LIDB in some way, rather than using an explicit "block me" flag or option. In addition, the service is unavailable to customers of independent LECs (even if local calls to BellSouth territory), or those whose calls come in via an IXC (that is, dialing 1+NPA+555-1212) -even- if their LEC is BellSouth! I don't think the service can be blocked on residential lines, however. :^( BTW, BellSouth recognizes calls to DA *throughout Tennessee* from BellSouth Mobility cellular phones (when in BellSouth Mobility territory)...the greeting is different ("Thank you for using BellSouth *Mobility*...") and the call-completion service is enabled by default. This may have something to do with their new statewide local calling ... (I have never called DA from US Cellular's or other carriers' territory...AFAIK call completion is not available from USCC, mainly because their calls are routed through a TDS Telecom CO [Concord, TN] and not a BellSouth CO.) Stanley Cline (Roamer1 on IRC) ** GO BRAVES! GO VOLS! mailto:roamer1@pobox.com ** http://pobox.com/~roamer1/ CompuServe 74212,44 ** MSN WSCline1 ------------------------------ From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: Re: "Just Say Yes" Date: Thu, 03 Oct 1996 22:27:32 GMT Organization: Customer of Access One Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The call completion part has been avail- > able for some time here by pressing a button, but I don't know about > the 'say yes' part. Actually there is a limit to how much of this > should be considered Ameritech's problem and how much should be considered > the companies' problem. The employer did trust the employee with a > phone on his desk and live dialtone after all. If the employee put in > a personal call to an international point and talked to a friend for > three hours, should Ameritech be blamed for that also? > A prominent and quite large Chicago company dealt with this problem > about three months ago by firing *twenty-seven* employees on the same > day for 'abuse of company telephones'. Everyone had been warned prior Does anyone else think that *firing* people for this is sort of thing is over the top? If this organisation has the details of the calls then maybe they could have just billed the offending employees for the extra call costs, perhaps with an additional amount to cover the costs of gathering this information. Would not this have provided the example this company so obviously desired?, perhaps not so drastic, but with less trauma to the people dismissed. I quite agree that employees should minimise costs associated with using their employers phones, but human nature will usually guide people to use something that will make their life easier, even if it costs (especially costs someone else) a little more. If an organisation does not actively manage their communications system, by using call barring, by using CDR monitoring, and by letting their employees know what costs they can incur, then I believe that is just plain bad management. As more new products arise that can be accessed by the existing phone network, such as this charge for dialling numbers, then this sort of thing will only occur again and again. Whilst the "prominent" company may now have a saving on call costs and extra money in the pay phone, what effect has this action had on staff morale and productivity?, and how long will the benefits last? Will the remaining employees now think of another, harder to detect, method of using the companies phone system and using the justification of "if those bastards sacked people for something this minor, then I might as well get all I can out of them before they sack me"? Also, while I hope this never happens, if someone goes nuts with a gun in that office, and when arrested they say "they sacked me for making phone calls, it ruined my life etc.. - so I wanted revenge" are the managers who made that original decision going to take responsibility. I'll get off my soap box now. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. ------------------------------ From: vikingelec@aol.com Subject: Re: How Do I Build a Phone in Use Light? Date: 3 Oct 1996 03:01:10 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Chris Eng writes: > I need to know how to build some simple device, probably hooked up > between the phone and the jack on the wall, which would light up if > any extension in the house was picked up. Viking Electronics already makes such a device called the VR-1A Visual Status Indicator. The VR-1A can be used as an "on the phone" indicator and a visual ring indicator for both headsets and standard analog telephones. In addition, the VR-1A will also detect Stutter Dial tone provided by voice mail systems to indicate a message has been left.(FCC Approved) In your application, you would simply interface the VR-1A ahead of all the extensions in the house. In this configuration, the VR-1A would light whenever an off-hook on those extensions was initiated. ... For more information try VIKING's new 24 Hour Fax Back System!!! It's as easy as 1-2-3 ... 1.) Dial (715) 386-4345 2.) Select up to three documents. (Document # 000 is a menu of all products) 3.) Enter your fax number. VR-1A Fax Back Document # 1695 Check out Viking's NEW On-Line Catalog at http://www.VikingElectronics.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #527 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Oct 4 12:27:13 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA21498; Fri, 4 Oct 1996 12:27:13 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 4 Oct 1996 12:27:13 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610041627.MAA21498@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #528 TELECOM Digest Fri, 4 Oct 96 12:27:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 528 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Please Support AOL in Fighting Spammers (Monty Solomon) Re: Spam With PO Box Only! (Dave Keeny) Re: Spam With PO Box Only! (Robert Bulmash) Re: More on Pager Scam (Anthony S. Pelliccio) Re: More on Pager Scam (Chris Mauritz) Re: New 809 Fraud via Email (Peter M. Weiss) Re: New 809 Fraud via Email (Hillary Gorman) Re: New 809 Fraud via Email (Venkatesh Raju) Re: New 809 Fraud via Email (Alex Tomlinson) Re: New 809 Fraud via Email (Stan Brown) Re: Warning: Scam Alert About Calling a 1-809 Number (john@a3bgate.nai.net) Re: Subject: New Scam to Watch For (Mike Pollock) Re: Cyber Promotions Apparently Off the Air (Charles McGuinness) Re: Today's Wacky Spam (Jeremy S. Nichols) Re: Unpaid Bill Scam (John Cropper) Re: Is Undesirable Internet Advertising Increasing? (Rob Carlson) Another Spammer Revealed (Noah VanLoen) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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, 4 Oct 1996 01:18:32 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Please Support AOL in Fighting Spammers Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Forwarded to the Digest FYI: Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 13:13:38 -0700 (PDT) From: Phil Agre Subject: messages on spam [I have enclosed two messages about resisting spam. The first is from Stanton McCandlish at EFF (but writing on his own, and not as an EFF representative). The context is that he had written a little manual about tracing the route by which a spam message travelled into your mailbox, and I asked him to add some examples. Another is from someone I don't know well. I do not endorse everything he says, but the message is full of useful information and seems reasonable. Please use your own judgement and check your facts before doing anything serious. And, of course, please don't do anything illegal.] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help@weber.ucsd.edu =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 14:16:47 -0700 (PDT) From: Stanton McCandlish To: pagre@weber.ucsd.edu (Phil Agre) Subject: Re: traceroute These are genuine examples. I do not mean to imply that cyberpromo.com *is* a spammer and should be targeted, though others accuse them of being spammers on a grand scale. I just picked them as an example more or less randomly. > Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 20:32:40 -0700 (PDT) > From: Stanton McCandlish > To: pagre@weber.ucsd.edu (Phil Agre) > Subject: Re: spam service > Note apparent spammer's site name. > at Unix prompt (or with Mac or whatever traceroute util if not on unix): > % traceroute site.name > You get a list of all the intermediate hops to the site. Last one on list > is the site's net feed. An example of the traceroute maneuver: % traceroute www.cyberpromo.com traceroute to cyberpromo.com (208.9.65.20), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 gw.eff.org (204.253.162.1) 3 ms 3 ms 3 ms 2 Loopback0.GW1.SCL1.Alter.Net (137.39.2.71) 7 ms 6 ms 17 ms 3 Fddi0-0.CR2.SCL1.Alter.Net (137.39.19.6) 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms 4 107.Hssi4-0.BR1.NUQ1.Alter.Net (137.39.70.125) 12 ms 13 ms 10 ms 5 sl-mae-w-F0/0.sprintlink.net (198.32.136.11) 25 ms 17 ms 20 ms 6 sl-stk-6-H3/0-T3.sprintlink.net (144.228.10.45) 26 ms 88 ms 113 ms 7 198.67.6.5 (198.67.6.5) 96 ms 245 ms 33 ms 8 sl-dc-6-H1/0-T3.sprintlink.net (144.228.10.1) 111 ms 89 ms 92 ms 9 sl-dc-15-F0/0.sprintlink.net (144.228.20.15) 89 ms * 131 ms 10 sl-cybrprom-2-S0-T1.sprintlink.net (144.228.125.66) 95 ms * * 11 cyberpromo.com (208.9.65.20) 91 ms 96 ms 85 ms www.cyberpromo.com is obviously served by cyberpromo.com, which is the same folks, so the "last" hop on the list should be considered sprintlink.net. > Next email abuse@site.name and abuse@net.feed's.site.name, and note > politely that a user at site.name, which appears to be getting its feed > from net.feed's.site.name is spammin' the globe, sorry if you've already > been notified. It's generally important to send to the admins of the "master" host for a domain, since "sl-cybrprom-2-SO-T1.sprintlink.net" and the like may just be routers or something. You need, in this example, to talk to abuse@sprintlink.net. In this example, cyberpromo itself is accused of spamming, so no point in mailing them. If cyberpromo appeared to be an ISP serving a spamming user, perhaps joe@cyberpromo.com, you'd want to mail abuse@cyberpromo.com, too. > If you get a bounce (not all ISPs have "abuse" aliases yet) resend the > message to postmaster@site.name (or postmaster@net.feed's.site.name - > whichever bounced.) > If you suspect the site.name is actually a one-man operation of the > spammer himself, do: > % whois site.name > (or use a GUI whois application) and see if admin or tech contact is the > spammer (if they used real name). If in doubt call and ask what site.name > is (marketing biz? ISP?) At any rate, if you hit the site's net feed too, > no big deal. An example of the whois maneuver: % whois cyberpromo.com Cyber Promotions Inc (CYBERPROMO-DOM) 8001 Castor Avenue, Suite 127 Philadelphia, PA 19152 USA Domain Name: CYBERPROMO.COM Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact, Billing Contact: Wallace, Sanford (SW430) cyberpr@ANSWERME.COM (215) 288-9230 Record last updated on 22-Sep-96. Record created on 26-Apr-96. Domain servers in listed order: NS3.CYBERPROMO.COM 208.9.65.10 NS4.CYBERPROMO.COM 208.9.65.11 The InterNIC Registration Services Host contains ONLY Internet Information (Networks, ASN's, Domains, and POC's). Please use the whois server at nic.ddn.mil for MILNET Information. This should give you a tidbit or two on which to make a judgment call. If the Admin or Tech Contacts for the domain are the spammer, bingo. If not, you can't really tell what this site is, so you might as well mail abuse@cyberpromo.com too. If they are the spammers, they'll just ignore you in most cases. If they aren't, and are the spammer's ISP, you might get some action. Disclaimer: This is just a personal message and does not represent official EFF statements or opinions. EFF has no official position on spamming. http://www.eff.org/~mech Stanton McCandlish mailto:mech@eff.org mech@eff.org http://www.eff.org Electronic Frontier Foundation http://www.eff.org/hot Program Director ---- another message of interest follows --- Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 22:13:14 -0400 (EDT) From: "George F. Nemeyer" To: antispam@shmooze.net Subject: antispam: Urgent call to action - Protect mailbox from junk mail Cyber Promomotions, notorious for sending millions of unsolicited commercial advertising e-mail (UCE) messages, has filed suit against AOL which has been trying to respond to massive complaints from their own members to end the floods of junk they receive. The outcome of this court case is likely to be a landmark in the unsolicited junk e-mail issue. If unsolicited junk e-mail is given any legal legitimacy, the floods will be impossible to stem and your e-mailbox will be forever clogged. Regardless of your attitude about AOL, they deserve your support in this fight. Hearings are coming up. The first as soon as 8 October. Send AOL a polite message voicing your opposition to UCE and ask that they provide it to the judge. Provide an explaination as to why you resent having to pay for getting junk ads you didn't ask for, don't want, and have to pay to receive. Ask the judge to rule that unsolicited e-mail advertising is a violation of your desire for privacy and that it threatens to make an otherwise valuable personal communications tool worthless if such practices continue. YOUR VOICE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE! If you have any evidence to show you've requested to be removed from Cyber Promotions mailing lists, but have continued to receive from them, be *SURE* to include that information. Write to: America Online Legal Department Cyber Promo lawsuit 2200 AOL Way Dulles, VA 20166 Email: aollegal@aol.com Help spread this word. Time is short to prevent bad law from being made which gives junk e-mail ad spammers a legal foothold. Pass this message to your friends. Please *DO NOT* mass spam it to newsgroups, but do help it propagate. ========================================================================= The message above is the *IMPORTANT PART*, but there's lots more info and useful places you can lodge a complaint. Act on these as well, of course, but remember, the AOL lawsuit will be the first real legal test of whether you have a right to an uncluttered, useful e-mail system on the Internet. Put your main energy there for now. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Other Cyber Promo Info <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Informative and complaint locations for Cyber Promotions and UCE ---------------------------------------------------------------- The following sections contain websites where articles describing Cyber Promotions' operations, practices, and attitudes may be found. In addition, a section is provided that lists places you can contact where your voice can be heard directly by people who can make a difference. If you are sick of junk e-mail and want to end it, don't just ignore it, FIGHT BACK! This list will be revised as new information and locations are found. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Background Information <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< New York Times - A series of articles dealing with Cyber Promo and the AOL lawsuit. MUST READING! You have to fill out a form for a password, but it's free. There are buttons on the form to let them know if you will accept mail from them and/or their advertisers. CAUTION: These buttons default to 'on', so if you *DON'T* want to get on mailing lists, be sure to un-press them. http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/0926aol.html http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/0921junkmail.html http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/0907aol.html http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/0905aol.html http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/0704promote.html ----------------------------------------------------------- Garbage In Garbage Out - deals with many aspects of the spam situation. Including an *entire section* devoted to Cyber Promo. This section includes quite a bit of past history, Wallace quotes, and horror stories about just the sort of tactics Cyber/Wallace employ. Good background material. (main page) http://www.mindspring.com/~mdpas/gigo.html ('Your Pals at Promo Enterprises' section ) http://www.mindspring.com/~mdpas/promo/pe_count.html >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Places to Complain <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Better Business Bureau - Cyber Promotions touts their BBB membership. The BBB's mission is to promote accurate and responsible advertising, and can be a valuable asset in the war against junk e-mail. You can even file a complaint on-line. Be sure to urge them to come out strongly against the invasive, cost-shifting, practice of *unsolicited* bulk e-mailing as an advertising technique. http://www.bbb.org/easternpa Some actual names to write to: Ms Stacy Scholl Mr Aron Greberman Better Business Bureau Serving Eastern Pennsylvania 1930 Chestnut Street Philadelphia PA 19103 Phone: (900) 225-5222 24 hours / 8:30-6:00 $.95/minute Fax: (215) 561-5216 The address below if for the national council of BBBs. The issue to address when writing here is that the BBB should set national policy which opposes unsolicited bulk e-mail as advertising practice. No truly responsible business should advertise in this manner. Mr Allen Beatty Sr Vice President Council of Better Business Bureaus 4200 Wilson Blvd Suite 800 Arlington, VA 22207 ----------------------------------------------------------- SPRINT - Sprintlink is the latest in a series of network access providers which have been infested by Cyber Promo. They've been booted from at least one area provider, and are now getting their connectivity to the net through this major national backbone provider. Unlike MCI, which will not tolerate the kind of abuses that Cyber Promo engages in, Sprint's current policies are more 'we don't care'. This can change. It *must* change. It's not the kind of behavior a respected, national company should allow on its facilities. UCE is net abuse. Period. Generic complaint address: abuse@sprintlink.net InterNIC listed Administrative Contact: Kurt, Gastrock (GK368) gastrock@SPRINT.NET 1-800-230-5108 Network Info & Support Center - (800) 669-8303 noc@sprintlink.net Executive Offices - (800) 347-8988 ----------------------------------------------------------- An article in InfoWorld and a gripeline 800 number http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayArchives.pl?dt_iwe37-96_23.htm ----------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Other anti-junk e-mail sites <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Outlaw Junk E-mail Now - generic site with lots of info and links to yet more sites and articles on the overall subject. http://www.public.asu.edu/~dtopping/ojen.html >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> End <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Help fight the scourge of unsolicited commmercial ads before it's too late! ----- End of forwarded message from George F. Nemeyer ----- ------------------------------ From: Dave Keeny Subject: Re: Spam With PO Box Only! Date: Fri, 04 Oct 1996 09:47:42 +0500 Organization: Telecommunications Techniques Corporation Reply-To: keenyd@ttc.com Rishab Aiyer Ghosh wrote: > FYI here's a bit from a copy that landed in my mailbox. I don't know > how it got there -- it's addressed to dummy@dxm.org, an id on my > virtual domain that I don't remember using, certainly not recently. You may have been BCC'd, which won't be displayed in any of the mail clients I've used. Since you don't see the BCC line, you can't tell that the message has been sent to many others, which maintains the illusion of a misdirected message. > Received: from Work_Station_1 (Cust65.Max22.Los-Angeles.CA.MS.UU.NET [153.34.81. > 65]) by emerald.oz.net (8.7.6/8.7.3) with SMTP id FAA28869; Fri, 27 Sep 1996 05: > 22:23 -0700 (PDT) > Message-Id: <199609271222.FAA28869@emerald.oz.net> > From: Frank65@aol.com > Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 05:27:53 PDT > Subject: Here it is... > Apparently-To: [snip] The ---.UU.NET originating IP address looks like a dynamic IP address (starts at Cust1 and goes beyond Cust100). The web address for this provider is http://www.uu.net. They are a business-oriented provider with dialups nationwide including Huntington Beach, CA where the PO box is located. It looks like the individual also has an account with oz.net, which is where he actually connected to send the message. I'm not a header guru, so don't take this as gospel. You might try sending a copy with *all* headers to uu.net and oz.net letting them know you suspect a scam. The local USPS postmaster at zip 92648 may also be interested. Dave (posted & mailed) ------------------------------ From: prvtctzn@aol.com (Prvt Ctzn) Subject: Re: Spam With PO Box Only! Date: 3 Oct 1996 05:14:13 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) In article , rishab@dxm.org (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) writes: > I wonder what we can do about spams like this latest one (for free Net > access worldwide for $24.95) which have no phone number to call. You > are simply asked to fill out an order form and send with a cheque to a > PO box number in California. Will the postal service accept > complaints? Perhaps someone should send a legal notice instead of a > cheque -- because you can't really reply to the post. The From line on > different copies of the spam differs, and they're all fake (or false) > addresses), as the top From line (from oz.net) shows. As you indicated, the following is the mailing address of the spam outfit. To wit: LSAT Productions PO Box 2747-453A Huntington Beach, CA 92648 The United Stated Postal Service requires that, when an application is made for a post office box, the applicant must indicate whether the PO Box is to be used primarily for business or personal mail. If the application is for business usage, the postmaster at that zip code must release, to any inquirant, the Name - Street address - City, State Zip - and Phone number of the applicant. Since any mail sent to LSAT Productions at PO BOX `2747-453A' would, on the face of it, be business mail, it would indicate that: 1) - the applicantion is for a business purpose and you can get the applicants info from the post office by calling information (or USPS headquarters in Washington) and asking for the applicant's data. or 2) - The applicant is using a personal post office box for an improper purpose, and thus you can ask the post office to return all mail addressed to LSAT Productions at that PO Box, back to the senders of such mail Note that the actual PO Box address is likely `PO Box 2747' . The following digits (-453A) are likely just a code to help determine which advertisement generated the mail. Go Get'em. Bob Bulmash Private Citizen, Inc. http://webmill.com/pci/home http://webmill.com/prvtctzn/home ------------------------------ From: kd1nr@anomaly.ideamation.com (Anthony S. Pelliccio) Subject: Re: More on Pager Scam Date: 3 Oct 1996 16:23:08 -0400 Organization: Ideamation, Inc. In article , Tad Cook wrote: > Fake Pages Plague Beeper Owners with Urgent Requests for Payment > By Robin Fields, Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. > Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News > FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.--Oct. 1--Your beeper goes off and you call the > flashing number, starting with the 809 area code. You know after reading all this I have but one question. Since the telephone companies in the 809 area have seen fit to use questionable if not illegal business practices perhaps we should drop 809 from the NANP and make them a true 011+ call from the U.S. Anything north of the U.S. border can stay 1+ as our neighbors in Canada haven't really done anything to annoy us yet but from our southern borders on we should revoke NANP status and enforce 011+ rules. Tony ------------------------------ From: Chris Mauritz Subject: Re: More on Pager Scam Organization: IBS Interactive, Inc. Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 15:44:45 GMT Since this is obviously fraud, and the LD carriers are taking the initial hit (they're forgiving the charges), why don't the LD companies prosecute the criminals in their home country? One would assume that the foreign telco has contact information for the criminals since they wouldn't initiate the scam if there was no way to receive their payment. *shrug* Christopher Mauritz | For info on internet access: ritz@interactive.net | finger/mail info@interactive.net OR IBS Interactive, Inc. | http://www.interactive.net/ ------------------------------ Organization: Penn State University Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 16:01:28 EDT From: Peter M. Weiss Subject: Re: New 809 Fraud via Email In article , jhines@enteract.com (John B. Hines) says: > I just got a email message from a company I've never heard of, "Global > Communications" @demon.net giving me 24 hours to settle my > "outstanding account" before legal procedings will commence. If I want > to avoid "court action" I'm to call 1-809-496-2700 and talk to Mike > Murrary. I wonder if any one has tried calling collect (and not from one of those 1-800- collect service, but the full price ones ;-)) Pete Weiss [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Listen, there used to be a collection agency here in the Chicago area which called (genuine) debtors collect. The company is still around; Van Ru Collections is now located in Skokie, Illinois. Literally, they would try to keep their pwn phone expense low by calling collect to the people who owed money. After a number of complaints, the Federal Trade Commission made them quit doing it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hillary@netaxs.com (hillary gorman) Subject: Re: New 809 Fraud via Email Date: 3 Oct 1996 21:50:09 GMT Organization: Philadelphia's Complete Internet Provider John B. Hines (jhines@enteract.com) wrote: > I just got a email message from a company I've never heard of, "Global > Communications" @demon.net giving me 24 hours to settle my > "outstanding account" before legal procedings will commence. If I want > to avoid "court action" I'm to call 1-809-496-2700 and talk to Mike > Murrary. > And I bet some people will fall for it. One of the users at Net Access has already reported that he fell for it. Apparently, he dialed the number, and a woman sounding very harried instructed him to "hold please," which he did for about a minute and a half. During that time he heard voices mumbling and paper being shuffled. We've posted a fraud warning about this in our local announcement newsgroup. If anyone has any suggestions or references for our duped user, I would appreciate his/her passing them on, as we'd like to help him avoid paying for his folly. hillary gorman......................................hillary@netaxs.com For Net Access questions, write to: ------------------------------ From: venkatesh raju Subject: Re: New 809 Fraud via Email Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 16:32:20 -0500 Organization: ATM Applications, NORTEL John B. Hines wrote: > I just got a email message from a company I've never heard of, "Global > Communications" @demon.net giving me 24 hours to settle my > "outstanding account" before legal procedings will commence. If I want > to avoid "court action" I'm to call 1-809-496-2700 and talk to Mike > Murrary. > Fortunately, being an avid reader of the TELECOM Digest, I'm aware > that 809 is an expensive international call, and laughed at it, rather > than calling the number to ask what's going on. > What do you want to bet that, I'd be put on hold for a while, before > someone finds the correct file, and tells me there has been a mixup, > and I really don't owe them any money. And then next month, there is > a whopper of an LD bill, which I can not dispute, since I did call. > And I bet some people will fall for it. I'm unable to understand this scam. Your long distance company is the only one profiting from this. How does Global Communications get anything ? Are they in cahoots with your LD provider ? Call them collect :-) Venkatesh Raju, ATM Application Development NORTEL, Richardson, TX (who may not agree with my opinions) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Please review back issues of this Digest. That is exactly the case. The telco in the foreign country has a kickback scheme with the people working this scam. PAT] ------------------------------ From: alex@abdigital.com (Alex Tomlinson) Subject: Re: New 809 Fraud via Email Date: Thu, 03 Oct 1996 15:42:03 -0500 Organization: Absolute Digital In article , jhines@enteract.com (John B. Hines) wrote: > I just got a email message from a company I've never heard of, "Global > Communications" @demon.net giving me 24 hours to settle my > "outstanding account" before legal procedings will commence. If I want > to avoid "court action" I'm to call 1-809-496-2700 and talk to Mike > Murrary. > Fortunately, being an avid reader of the TELECOM Digest, I'm aware > that 809 is an expensive international call, and laughed at it, rather > than calling the number to ask what's going on. > What do you want to bet that, I'd be put on hold for a while, before > someone finds the correct file, and tells me there has been a mixup, > and I really don't owe them any money. And then next month, there is > a whopper of an LD bill, which I can not dispute, since I did call. Like me. I already called Bell Atlantic and MCI and raised unholy hell about it ... Bell Atlantic said MCI would be billing me, and if they don't knock it off my bill they can kiss me goodbye as a customer, today and forever. Wonder how much good THAT threat will do. Prolly not much. Alex Tomlinson Interface Designer, Company Evangelist, & Leashed Monkey ABSOLUTE DIGITAL Internet Site Architecture, Design & Hosting http://www.abdigital.com - info@abdigital.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 13:44:10 -0400 From: stbrown@nacs.net (Stan Brown) Subject: Re: New 809 Fraud via Email Reply-To: stbrown@nacs.net In article dated Tue, 01 Oct 1996 19:37:12 GMT, jhines@enteract.com (John B. Hines) wrote: > I just got a email message from a company I've never heard of, "Global > Communications" @demon.net giving me 24 hours to settle my > "outstanding account" before legal procedings will commence. If I want > to avoid "court action" I'm to call 1-809-496-2700 and talk to Mike > Murrary. > And I bet some people will fall for it. If I received one of those messages, I would call the Federal Trade Commission's nearest office at once. There is a Federal law, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, that prohibits all sorts of formerly common practices. Among them are - demanding money when no money is due - threatening legal action when none is actually planned Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cleveland, Ohio USA email: stbrown@nacs.net Web: http://www.nacs.net/~stbrown/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The FTC can do nothing about someone outside the USA, and the FDCPA does not apply outside the USA. PAT] ------------------------------ From: john@a3bgate.nai.net (john) Subject: Re: Warning: Scam Alert About Calling a 1-809 Number Date: 3 Oct 1996 03:44:48 GMT Organization: North American Internet john (john@a3bgate.nai.net) wrote: > I got something in the mail that I didn't know about. I dialed the > number and got people arguing(?) Seems like a recording to me. I asked > AT&T about the number and they told me it's from the British Virgin > Islands. I should have called AT&T first. AT&T cancelled my call. AT&T > also tried the number and somebody picked up (after two rings). When I > called, there was five rings then I got a recording. Seems like those > people have caller-id or something. The postmaster at demon.net emailed it and told me the errant user has been taken care of. (maybe got shot? :) john ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 06:45:32 -0700 From: Mike Pollock Subject: Re: Subject: New Scam to Watch For Here's a quick, if somewhat sneaky, method to see if your 809 area call is genuine: call collect. I just called the number listed in the Digest via 1-800-COLLECT and heard about a minute of the bogus message. I suspect 1 800 CALL ATT will also work, as will 0+. Mike ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 03 Oct 1996 09:58:04 -0400 From: Charles McGuinness Subject: Re: Cyber Promotions Apparently Off the Air Just a word to all those eager to cut off interramp and PSI as a means of revenge: PSI has dumped interramp and sold off its customer base to mindspring. Charles McGuinness | +1 212.267.7722 x3068 | Prolifics Director, Technical Marketing | charles@prolifics.com | (A JYACC Company) +-------------------------------+-----------------------+ 116 John Street | For a good time, call http://www.prolifics.com | NY, NY 10038 ------------------------------ From: jsn@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Jeremy S. Nichols) Subject: Re: Today's Wacky Spam Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 23:06:02 GMT Organization: University of Minnesota I wonder what happens if you try to place a collect call to the number. Jeremy S. Nichols, P.E. jsn1@rsvl.unisys.com Minneapolis, MN jsn@maroon.tc.umn.edu ------------------------------ From: psyber@mindspring.com (John Cropper) Subject: Re: Unpaid Bill Scam Date: Wed, 02 Oct 1996 21:01:07 GMT Organization: MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. Reply-To: psyber@mindspring.com > I am writing to give you a final 24hrs to settle your outstanding > account. If I have not received the settlement in full, I will > commence legal proceedings without further delay. If you would like > to discuss this matter to avoid court action, call Mike Murray > at Global Communications on +1 809 496 2700. I have been monitoring the progress of this message, and it has mushroomed through five services addressed to nobody in particular. I forwarded copies to various services' abuse mailboxes and/or postmasters with a warning. Hopefully, someone will track the true source and cut it! Please note NEW e-mail address! * John Cropper, NiS / NexComm Effective October 1, 1996, I can be * PO Box 277 reached at: psyber@mindspring.com * Pennington, NJ USA 08534-0277 ************************************** Inside NJ: 609.637.9434 Check out Telecom Digest Online! * Toll Free: 888.NPA.NFO2 (672.6362) http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/ * Fax : 609.637.9430 telecom-archives/ * email: psyber@mindspring.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Is Undesirable Internet Advertising Increasing? From: Rob Carlson Reply-To: rob@cola.castle.net Date: Fri, 04 Oct 96 00:04:12 GMT Organization: The Cola Mail System South Plainfield, NJ USA Rob Carlson writes: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Saying that 'all Mr. Green has to do is > dispose of the catalogs' is like saying in the case of junk email all > you have to do is hit the delete key to get rid of it. His 'mail pro- > vider' (in this case the Postal Service) delivered a piece of mail at > some ridiculously low rate for 'bulk mail' which cluttered up his mail > box. Not only that, but I will maintain that the text appearing within > this Digest and its style of organization and presentation -- including > the display and method or style in which I present the email/other > mail addresses of the correspondents is compilation-copyrighted by myself. It's interesting to see you so avidly supporting a government communications monopoly. The only reason that bulk rate is so low is because in order to get the cheaper rate the packages have to take a lower delivery status. I'm not a postal worker, nor am I familiar with any, so I don't know exactly how different the "classes" are, but I assume it's significant given relative delivery times. This is unlike Internet mail delivery, where you will hardly see a bulk e-mail spammer given the option (or one who would take it), to reduce the status of their mail for a lower price. Everything is relatively equal in terms of price with e-mail-- my mail to you and a spammer's bulk mail from AOL or CompuServe may pass each other at identical speeds, on the same bandwidth, and hasn't cost the sender much at all. Are you saying you hold a copyright to my sig? Then whatever happened to /my/ rights to it? > A lot of good it does to talk about it I guess; commercial interests have > by and large ripped off most of the internet for their own use by now > anyway, making it nearly impossible for the rest of us to conduct our > exchanges of correspondence in any way resembling the style we used to > have here in the past. PAT] I have to say I don't feel that I've personally changed my style of sending and receiving mail, or posting to Usenet-- I simply find myself pressing the delete key and mailing to site postmasters with greater frequency. What else can we do? Rob Carlson .. Mail rob@cola.castle.net Pager 908-937-0452 .. Mail over 16kb to rob@cola.westmark.com ------------------------------ From: Noah VanLoen Date: Thu, 3 Oct 96 13:33:08 -0700 Subject: Another Spammer Revealed Reply-To: noah.vanloen@axysdev.nwest.attws.com FYI ... Noah -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Path: nwestnews.nwest.mccaw.com!news.accessone.com!news1.slip.net!newsfeed.slip.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!enews.sgi.com!decwrl!pagesat.net!news.america.com!usenet From: OEH Newsgroups: alt.2600.hope.tech Subject: Flame-Proof Bulk Emaling Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 17:02:58 Organization: PSS InterNet Services, Interneting Florida and beyond 904 253 7100 Lines: 59 Message-ID: <52uopf$ovu@defiant.america.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: mco1-13.america.com ******************BULK EMAIL WITH NO FLAMES******************** Do you want to do a Bulk Emailing? Are you afraid of the hassles that go along with it? Well, let us help! OEH, a company based in Orlando, offers the most comprehensive Bulk Email service on the net. As everyone knows, Bulk Email is the only way to get fast results on the Internet. Sure, you can place classified ads and register with search engines - but they are more like bombs - you have to wait for them to go off. 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Also, we offer a mailing list of addresses starting at only $99.00 for 1 million. If you order before 10/15/96, we will give you another million for FREE! We guarantee our addresses 85% deliverable or we will double the number of addresses that aren't. These addresses have been gathered directly from the newsgroups - which means they are fresh! We will ship the addresses to you on disk. They will be in a single line txt format. We will can send the disks COD for an additional $5.00 or overnight for $10.00. To receive an order form, please email us at emailot@america.com and put "order form" in the subject or call 407-438-7083 M-F 9-5 EST. Thank you for your time! If you have any questions, please email us. Tim Luedtke Owner, OEH P.O. Box 770441 Orlando, FL 32877 407-438-7083 Phone 407-438-8892 Fax emailot@america.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #528 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Oct 7 13:33:12 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id NAA08453; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 13:33:12 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 13:33:12 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610071733.NAA08453@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #529 TELECOM Digest Mon, 7 Oct 96 13:33:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 529 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Communications Unleashed - Program (Monty Solomon) Telecom's Worst Free Promotions (Greg Monti) Call for Participation: MOBICOM'96 (Pradeep Sudame) Cellular Phones Workshop Starting in Pakistan (Javed Afzal) Sorry, Wrong Number: Patchogue [NY] Banning Outdoor Pay Phones (M Pollock) Scam Apparently From demon.net (Clive D.W. Feather) Don't Go Giving Anyone Bright Ideas (was Re: Just Say Yes) (Bill Levant) Hyperterm and CID Blocker - How? (Dave Rasmussen) I'm Stuck - Optimal Packet Size (Diane Kresovich) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 6 Oct 1996 02:02:59 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Communications Unleashed - Program Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Begin forwarded message: Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 23:41:11 -0700 From: Susan Evoy Subject: Communications Unleashed - Program COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY presents a conference on COMMUNICATIONS UNLEASHED What's At Stake? Who Benefits? How To Get Involved! OCTOBER 19-20, 1996 Georgetown University - Washington, DC Co-sponsored by the Communication, Culture, and Technology program of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Georgetown University Members of the Annual Meeting Planning Committee David Banisar, Don Blumenthal, Lyndell Core, William Drake, Sarah Elkins, Paul Hyland, Craig Johnson, Kathryn Kleiman, Willie Schatz, Chuck Stern, Eva Waskell SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19 Events take place in the Bunn InterCultural Center (ICC building) on the Georgetown University campus. 8:00 - 9:00 Registration and Continental Breakfast 9:00 - 9:15 Welcome Aki Namioka, President, CPSR Martin Irvine, Director, CCT Program, Georgetown University 9:15 - 10:30 THE COMMUNICATIONS TSUNAMI In today's world of corporate mergers and the mega-packaging of services, what's at stake for consumers and who will represent their views? What is the meaning of "public interest" in the new digital environment? Panelists will examine the ramifications and effects of the Telecommunications Act in such critical areas as universal service, the opening of local exchanges to competition, the provision of fair pricing rules, and the stewardship of the dazzling array of emerging broadband services. Moderator - Craig Johnson, Research Director, Washington Correspondent Transnational Data Reporting Service, Inc. John Curran - Chief Technical Officer, BBN Planet Jamie Love - Director, The Consumer Project on Technology and The Taxpayer Assets Project, Center for the Study of Responsive Law Brian Moir - General Counsel, International Communications Association Federal Communications Commission Official 10:30 - 10:45 Break 10:45 - 12:00 TOOLKITS FOR ACTIVISTS Media giants and merger-mania dominate the public dialogue on communications issues. How can activists at the local, state and national levels develop an effective voice in the currently one-sided debate over changes in the marketplace and the regulatory environment? How can community-based organizations use the Internet as a tool for online organizing, enhancing public interest campaigns and increasing the efficiency of their internal communications? Moderator - Kathryn Kleiman, Attorney, Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth and Counsel to Domain Name Rights Coalition. Jean Ann Fox - President, The Virginia Citizens Consumer Council Audrie Krause - Founder of NetAction Andrew Jay Schwartzman - Executive Director, Media Access Project Coralee Whitcomb - President, Virtually Wired Educational Foundation 12:00 - 1:30 Lunch (on your own) 1:30 - 2:45 THE INTERNET: COMMERCIALIZATION, GLOBALIZATION AND GOVERNANCE The accelerating commercialization and globalization of the Internet raises new and divisive problems of governance and control that will profoundly affect the future of the net and all of its users. What is the outlook in key areas like pricing schemes, access to information and services, and Internet telephony? Moderator - William Drake, Associate Director, CCT Program, Georgetown University Jamie Love - Director, The Consumer Project on Technology The Taxpayer Assets Project, Center for the Study of Responsive Law Elliot E. Maxwell - Deputy Chief, Office of Plans and Policy, Federal Communications Commission Anthony M. Rutkowski - Vice President of Internet Business Development, General Magic, Inc. 2:45 - 3:00 Break 3:00- 4:15 INFORMATION RIGHTS New information technologies and the policy responses to them raise many critical issues related to information rights on the Internet. Panelists will discuss these topics in detail, including the Communications Decency Act and freedom of speech online, copyright protection, and threats to privacy from the collection of personal information online. Moderator - David Banisar, Policy Analyst, Electronic Privacy Information Center Ann Beeson - Attorney, National Office of the American Civil Liberties Union James Boyle - American University and Digital Futures Coalition Christine Mailloux - Attorney, Blumenfeld & Cohen 4:15 - 4:30 Break 4:30 - 5:45 COMPUTERS AND ELECTIONS: RISKS, RELIABILITY AND REFORM There are widespread, legitimate concerns about the accuracy, integrity and security of computer-generated vote totals. Panelists will explore the technical, social and political origins of these concerns within the context of today's little-scrutinized election system. They will also make recommendations for changes in the areas of technology, election law, accountability and oversight. Moderator - David Burnham, author and former New York Times reporter Douglas A. Kellner - Commissioner, New York City Board of Elections Rebecca Mercuri - Owner of Notable Software Peter G. Neumann - Principal Scientist, SRI International Eva Waskell - Director, Elections Project, CPSR/DC 6:30 - 8:00 Dinner and presentation of the Norbert Wiener Award to Phil Zimmermann, inventor of PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), a "public-key encryption software," which has become the de facto worldwide standard for allowing the average person to encode his or her email so only the receiver can read and understand it, and brings critical privacy issues to public attention. Tickets may be purchased in advance, at the door, and/or separately from the Conference. SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20 Events take place in the Reiss Science Building located next door to the ICC on the Georgetown University campus. 8:30 - 9:00 Continental Breakfast 9:00 - 9:15 Introductory Remarks 9:15 - 10:30 Concurrent workshops A. Using the Internet for progressive political action B. Internet legal issues C. Broadcasting and mass media 10:30 - 10:45 Break 10:45 - 12:00 Concurrent workshops A. Communications access and the consumer B. Media tactics and outreach C. Civic networking 12:00 - 1:30 Lunch (on your own) CPSR ANNUAL MEETING (Attendance is free and open to the public) The afternoon is devoted to the CPSR Annual Meeting. The Annual Meeting will build on the information presented in the plenaries and workshops, and discuss directions for CPSR over the coming year. 1:30 - 1:45 Reports from the CPSR National Office Participatory Design Conference Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing Update on the Independent Project Fund Introduction of new board members 1:45 - 2:00 Orientation and purpose of afternoon sessions 2:00 - 3:00 Concurrent discussion groups A. Computers in education B. Community computing C. CPSR vision 3:00 - 3:30 Break 3:30 - 4:30 Concurrent discussion groups A. Universal access B. Civil liberties and privacy; cyber rights C. Working groups; update; meetings; birds of a feather discussions. 4:30 - 5:00 Break 5:00 - 5:30 Plenary session Closing discussion and remarks Looking ahead to the next steps MONDAY, OCTOBER 21 The CPSR Board will meet in the Copley Lounge located on the ground floor of Copley on the Georgetown University campus. ****************************************************************** REGISTRATION Name ______________________________________________________________ Address ___________________________________________________________ City_________________________________State________Zip______________ Telephone____________________________E-mail________________________ Payment method: Check___Visa___MC___ Card #______________________________ Exp. Date_____ Early registration: through 10/9 Late registration: postmarked after 10/9 Early registration Late registration CPSR $60______ $70______ Non member $85______ $95______ New CPSR membership ($50 value) & registration $105______ $115______ Low income/student $25______ $35______ Saturday night buffet $25______ $30______ Additional donation to further CPSR's work ________ Total enclosed: ________ Scholarships are available. For more information contact the CPSR national office at 415-322-3778 or cpsrannmtg@cpsr.org. Make check payable to CPSR. Send the completed registration form with payment to: CPSR, PO Box 717, Palo Alto, CA 94302-0717. FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE CONFERENCE, CONTACT CPSR at 415-322-3778, 703-739-9320 or cpsrannmtg@cpsr.org or http://www.cpsr.org/home.html **** http://www.georgetown.edu/grad/CCT ***************************************************************** HOTEL AND TRAVEL INFORMATION The GU Conference Center has reserved a block of guest rooms operated by the Marriott and located in the Leavey Center on campus. For reservations call the GU Conference Center at 202-687-3200. The closest off-campus hotel is the Holiday Inn (202-338-4600) located at 2101 Wisconsin Avenue NW. United Airlines is the official airline of the conference and is offering a discount to attendees. For reservations call the United Meetings Desk at 800-521-4041. The Meeting ID Code is 503ZV. There are many restaurants and shops located in the historic neighborhood adjoining the Georgetown campus. The events on Saturday will take place in the Bunn InterCultural Center (marked on the map as ICC). This building is not accessible by car. Participants have several choices: 1- Take the blue or orange line Metro to Rosslyn and walk over the Key Bridge to campus (probably about a 15-20 minute walk). There is also a Georgetown blue and gray shuttle bus that runs from the Rosslyn (and Dupont Circle) metro station to the campus. 2- Take a taxi to the main campus entrance at the corner of 37th Street and O Streets, NW. 3- Take one of the many city buses that stops at the main campus entrance to Georgetown, 37th and O Streets, NW. 4- Drive and park in the Campus Parking Lot #3 (accessible either off M Street, just west of the Key Bridge, or at the end of Prospect Street) which is free on the weekends. This is the lot with the large P in the lower left-hand corner of the map. Participants can then walk up the driveway and around to the ICC building. Signs will be posted for your convenience. Susan Evoy * Deputy Director http://www.cpsr.org/home.html Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility P.O. Box 717 * Palo Alto * CA * 94302 Phone: (415) 322-3778 * Fax: (415) 322-4748 * Email: evoy@cpsr.org ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 06 Oct 1996 20:43:24 -0400 From: cc004056@interramp.com (Greg Monti) Subject: Telecom's Worst Free Promotions The September issue of the trade magazine _tele.com_ ran an article about free promotions that telecom companies have run. The article notes that some free promotions, like giving away free safety razors in the 1920s to generate recurring demand for razor blades, were a big success. But some free promotions have a way of backfiring. The writer helpfully picked out the four biggest disasters among telecom company free promotions: 1. In the UK in 1994, the Mercury One-2-One personal communications service gave away free calls after 7 PM to Londoners. The wireless network had been designed for heavy channel use in the central area, with expected call density falling off in the suburbs. The free plan heavily loaded suburban cell sites after business hours, forcing a network redesign. When Mercury extended the promotion to all day Christmas day, people called and left the links up all day to chat with family and friends. This busied out most circuits, causing customers to complain to the media. The interconnection charges to BT's landline network hemmhoraged red ink. 2. In Norway in 1995, Netcom GSM A/S (no relation to the US internet provider Netcom) gave away GSM pocket phones for 1 krone (15 US cents) each. The phones cost the company $450 each. People bought them by the half dozen and handed them out to family. They "sold" 70,000 phones in 10 days, costing more than $30 million. 3. Sprint's Free Fridays small business promotion in the US: Sprint didn't like the calling patterns it was seeing. There were 800-percent increases in calling on Fridays to some countries. Calls to Bolivia, China, Ecuador, India, Iran, Israel, Myanmar, Pakistan and Thailand were switched back to Sprint's regular rates, changing the rules in the middle of the promotion, which is still going on. Says anti-Sprint activist Imran Anwar: "It would be like McDonald's offering free Big Macs but then stopping the offer to people who weigh more than 200 pounds." The result: See you in court. 4. AT&T's cheap internet access offer this past Spring overwhelmed them. They signed up 185,000 customers in the March through May period, but turned away an even larger number. Software shipments were spread out to reduce the peak load on AT&T's customer service. At the nadir of the crisis, software was shipping six weeks after order. It's gotten better since then, notes the writer. Greg Monti Jersey City, New Jersey, USA gmonti@interramp.com ------------------------------ From: sudame@paul.rutgers.edu (Pradeep Sudame) Subject: Call for Participation: MOBICOM'96 Date: 6 Oct 1996 00:26:58 -0400 Organization: Rutgers University LCSR ACM/IEEE PRESENT M O B I C O M ' 96 RYE, NEW YORK, November 10-12, 1996 CALL FOR PARTICIPATION MOBICOM is the annual international conference, established to serve as the premier forum for addressing research issues on all aspects of the multi-disciplinary field of mobile wireless computing. TECHNICAL TRACKS: NOVEMBER 11-12 Two days of single track sessions, including Mobile and Wireless TCP Issues in Mobile Computing Mobility Management Mobile Applications Resource Allocation and Sharing LAN, MAC and ATM SPECIAL HIGHLIGHTS Tutorials (November 10): Mobile networking within IETF, WWW and Mobile Computing, Air interface standards, and Secure mobile communications Keynote Talk by Dr. Victor Lawrence, Bell Labs of Lucent Technologies Panels on Software architecture for mobile networks and multimedia mobile networks Luncheon Talk by Prof. M. Satyanarayanan, Carnegie Mellon Univ. Exhibits: Opportunity to showcase your prototypes, demos Contact Exhibit chair: Peter Honeyman (honey@citi.umich.edu) FOR MORE INFORMATION Complete program and registration information can be obtained from WEB page: http://www.acm.org/sigmobile/conf/mobicom96 ADVANCE REGISTRATION DEADLINE: OCTOBER 18, 1996 if you need more information on mobicom96 contact B. R. Badrinath (badri@cs.rutgers.edu, +1 908-445-2082, Fax +1 908-445-0537) ------------------------------ Reply-To: jam@infolink.net.pk (JAVED AFZAL) Date: Sun, 06 Oct 1996 23:53:18 Subject: Cellular Phones Workshop Starting in Pakistan From: jam@infolink.net.pk (JAVED AFZAL) Hi, I am about to install a cellular phone workshop in Lahore, Pakistan. Presently there is none in this country. In this respect can somebody please advise me about all the required instruments that I may have to install. We use AMPS and GSM systems in Pakistan. Information that I require is for the following: 1. GSM TESTER 2. SPECTRUM ANALYSER (Suitable for GSM & upto 2 giga Hz, if not a part of the GSM tester). 3. OSCILLOSCOPE, "upto 200 MHz"(if not part of the GSM tester). 4. SOLDERING IRON (Adjustable, sharp tip i.e., ESD protected. WELLER with soldering pencil & Micro point tips. 5. HOT AIR BLOWER i.e., Liester-labor 'S' plus blower & 5mm Nozzle, 220 volts/ 800 watts Can someone help me on the following information: a. What else besides the above is required (and for the AMPS repairing)? b. Which are the recommended brands for the above. There are many like Hewlett Packard, Marconi, wavetek (Schlumberger) and others. It should be cheap and operation worthy. c. From where could I purchase, good used or reconditioned instruments mentioned above? It is requested that I may be contacted directly on my email as it would be more convenient for me otherwise I will be looking up for replies in the TELECOM Digest. If anyone wishes to forward a quotation on the same, it would be highly appreciated. I was just wondering how many people besides me have subscribed for the Telecom Digest from Pakistan (thats for Mr. Editor). Thank you & Have a nice day!! JAVED A MOHAMMAD email: jam@infolink.net.pk Tel Off:+92-42-6368164 TelRes: +92-42-7593493 Fax: +92-42-6368875 Mobile: +92-342-200050 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is exactly one '.pk' on the mailing list, and that is you. There is another '.pk' user who accesses TELECOM_Digest_Online (the web version of this Digest as it appears in the Telecom Archives). I get this information in a daily statistical report about archives users, but MIT has a policy of absolute privacy where web participants is concerned (with which I agree completely) so I cannot say more than that. You being here has effectively doubled the participation from Pakistan. :) PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 08:31:54 -0700 From: Mike Pollock Organization: SJS Entertainment Subject: Sorry, Wrong Number: Patchogue [NY] Banning Outdoor Pay Phones From Newsday 10/4/96.... Sorry, Wrong Number / Patchogue banning outdoor pay phones By Lauren Terrazzano. STAFF WRITER On the streets of Patchogue, the pay phone will soon become a relic of the past. In the first law of its kind on Long Island and possibly the state, the village has banned all outdoor public phones, calling them "attractive nuisances" that encourage drug transactions and loitering, said Mayor Stephen Keegan. He said his administration has received numerous complaints about the village's 17 outdoor phones. In a letter that they planned to send out late yesterday, village officials informed merchants they will have 30 days to get rid of the phones, or relocate them inside their businesses, Keegan said. In certain areas, such as the Patchogue railroad station and Watch Hill ferry terminal, exceptions may be made, he said. Property owners who want to keep the phones will have to make a special application in writing to do so. But while business owners agree that the outdoor phones have attracted trouble, some residents and advocates for the poor say the ban will affect those who have a daily, legitimate need for them. "It's going to hurt the people who can't afford their own," said Betty Sexton, 60, who until recently had no home phone and would walk ten minutes to use a NYNEX pay phone behind the local library. The law is the first of its kind on Long Island, said NYNEX spokesman Steve Marcus. He said that while the company has received requests from communities to block incoming calls on the phones to discourage drug transactions, he has never heard of an outright ban. "There appears to be no law that even comes close in New York State," Marcus said. A spokesman for the state's Public Service Commission said no law exists to regulate how many pay phones a community must have. Last month, New York City began requiring owners of all outdoor pay phones on city sidewalks to register with the city and pay a $75 registration fee. In New Jersey, the Asbury Park City Council has been considering a measure to reduce the number of pay phones on city streets. Marcus said NYNEX is concerned about the Patchogue law. NYNEX places public pay phones on private and municipal property in exchange for paying the property owners a commission on the phone profits, he said. Business owners who face losing the phones are also concerned. "This is ridiculous. The pay phones provide a service," said Marie Giuri, owner of the Madame Giuri dress shop on East Main Street, who collects about $200 a year from NYNEX for two pay phones. Other merchants say good riddance to the phones. "A lot of people are afraid to come into the store because of the loitering around the telephones outside," said Dennis Casey, manager of Brookhaven Opticians. Helen Martin, director of the non-profit Bellport Hagerman East Patchogue Alliance, expressed concern that poor residents will now have to hunt for a phone. "Suppose a mother has to call her child's school, or a hospital or a doctor?" Keegan said residents will still have access to phones. "In vast majority of places, we're moving the phone from an outdoor parking lot to an interior of a business, where owners can monitor phone use," he said. "My basic feeling here is that business owners are making money on these phones. Let them be responsible for who uses them." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As usual, instead of punishing or restricting people who abuse and misuse phones, let's punish the entire community. How typical of the small minds who make up municipal government in so many places. Well, maybe it will take a major tragedy of some kind with someone not able to get to a phone in the middle of the night to force the issue. And note how they self-righteously add 'they might make an exception for the railroad station ... ' when the fact is they have no choice in the matter. They have no control over the railroad's property and actions which are governed by a myriad of other state laws and federal regulations, etc. It sounds to me like the city government in Patchogue is not real friendly toward minorities and poor people in their community who would be the people most likely to use such facilities. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 07:26:34 +0100 From: Clive D.W. Feather Reply-To: clive@demon.net Subject: Scam Apparently From demon.net In TELECOM Digest recently there were five separate items about the same scam email. Here's a typical example of the message. > Received: from a3bgate.nai.net (wlfd-sh.nai.net [205.139.0.5]) by usa.nai.net >(8.6.12/8.6.5) with ESMTP id NAA18789 for ; Tue, 1 Oct 1996 >13:12:13 -0400 > Received: from office.demon.net (office.demon.net [193.195.224.1]) by >a3bgate.nai.net (8.6.5/8.6.6) with SMTP id NAA22713 for ; >Tue, 1 Oct 1996 13:33:03 -0400 > Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 13:33:03 -0400 > Received: from [194.222.75.163] ([194.222.75.163]) by office.demon.net > id dj19166; 1 Oct 96 16:17 BST > X-UIDL: 844197511.031 > From: "Global Communications"@demon.net > Subject: Unpaid account > Message-ID: <844183038.19166.89@[194.222.75.163]> > Apparently-To: > Status: U > X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 > I am writing to give you a final 24hrs to settle your outstanding > account. If I have not received the settlement in full, I will > commence legal proceedings without further delay. If you would like to > discuss this matter to avoid court action, call Mike Murray at Global > Communications on +1 809 496 2700. [The telephone number is in the British Virgin Islands.] At first glance, this appears to have been sent by Demon Internet. *It was not*. An examination of the headers shows that it was actually sent from 194.222.75.163, which is imme.demon.co.uk. This is a Demon Internet dialup service customer. The message was sent by direct telnet to the SMTP port (port 25) of an internal machine (office.demon.net) at Demon Internet; this port should normally only be used for mail to Demon Internet staff. This customer's account was terminated as soon as we became aware of the scam on Wednesday morning. We are also actively taking further action, and I will let the Digest know what happened. If you have received a copy of this scam, please email the complete message to , stating that you do not need an acknowledgement. All hosts of the form "xxxx.demon.co.uk" (apart from a few special cases like news.demon.co.uk) are dialup customers, and are not part of Demon Internet. They also have static IP addresses (that is, the same address will always map to the same customer host name). Spam and net abuse from such customers should be reported to . Thanks, Clive D.W. Feather | Associate Director | Director Tel: +44 181 371 1138 | Demon Internet Ltd. | CityScape Internet Services Ltd. Fax: +44 181 371 1150 | | Written on my laptop - please reply to the Reply-To address [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You guys certainly need thick skin over there. What was it, a month ago with that nasty smear by the newspaper (have they yet offered to settle in any way or make it right or are they going to stall until the Court forces them to do so?) ... and now this latest creature crawling up out of the muck and getting in everyone's face. The year of the Internet, as one publication remarked. Indeed. Now that I think about it, that's a pretty hot idea: telnet to the mail port at *someone else's site*; hand them off some bogusness, and let them handle the worldwide distribution for you. Their postmaster will be glad to function as your personal secretary when all the hate mail starts coming back as well. Stay in touch. PAT] ------------------------------ From: grendel6@ix.netcom.com (Bill Levant) Subject: Don't Go Giving Anyone Bright Ideas (was Re: Just Say Yes) Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 02:17:02 GMT Organization: Netcom In Issue 527, Jack [jack@novagate.com] said: > It seems to me that there's a golden opportunity here for someone to > start a business offering "filtered" directory assistance. Basically, > it would require companies to program their PBX's to intercept calls > to 411 (or 1-555-1212 or whatever) and send those calls to another > company, perhaps over a dedicated circuit. At this company, operators > would take the calls and look up numbers using a commercial database > (or even the Internet, using one of the directory services provided > via the World Wide Web). In the case of a new listing, the "private" > DA operator would extend the call to a telephone company operator and > repeat the request, but would monitor the connection and disconnect as > soon as the number had been read. ... but Comcast Metrophone (Philadelphia's A-side cellular carrier) beat you to the punch. Metrophone intercepts **all** calls to 411, *411, 555-1212 and 1-555-1212 and reroutes to "Comcast Connect". In a word, they're TERRIBLE. Generally, getting the number of any phone connected within the last year from them is a real iffy proposition. They also specialize in giving you the FIRST listing for a multiple-location company, and not necessarily the one you asked for. Recently, I asked for a number that had been connected within the past week. They didn't have it, and the operator told me to hold on while he checked the phonebook. I was so frosted that I called back to bitch about it (and not for the first time) and got them to take the charge off my bill. Does anyone know what number 555-1212 "points to", either in 215 or 610; I'll bet Comcast hasn't intercepted *that* number (and I hope they don't read this newsgroup .... ; - ) ) I'd rather pay an LD charge if necessary to get Bell Atlantic's DA operators than to pay Comcast 75 cents plus airtime to *not* find me numbers ... On a related topic, I know that 611 used to (and may still) point to NXX-0028 in these parts, but even when that worked, not every NXX had an 'active' -0028 number (generally, only one per CO worked, and it was unpredictable which one would be the active one). Back in the old days, I once wanted to call repair service to check on a trouble at my home phone from my office. When I dialled 611 from the office phone (downtown) the operator said she couldn't see the ticket, and that I should call 424-0028. Sure enough, they had the info (424 was not my NXX, but it did work out of the same CO as mine). A little experimenting produced numerous other NXX-0028 combinations that got me to 611. Now, though, I think that all 611 calls in the Bell Atlantic portion of this LATA go to just one or two locations, particularly after hours and on the weekends. ------------------------------ From: dave@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Dave Rasmussen) Subject: Hyperterm and CID Blocker - How? Date: 6 Oct 1996 22:41:07 GMT Organization: UW-Milwaukee Information and Media Technologies I have a student client here at the University in the health care field who wants to block his calls for patient confidentiality reasons. He is using Windows 95 on a Gateway2000 with Telepath modem. I have the same setup at my office. He brought over his Radio Shack caller id blocker box and I have this connected between the wall jack and modem. When I try to dial with hyperterm, using both pulse and tone, using delays, etc, the dialing fails. You can hear it dial part of the number and then it seems to give up. If I use Kermit, it dials and still sounds like it's giving up, but then it dials the whole number and connects as it should. Does anyone else have any experience with what I need to set to lick this problem in hyperterm, or is this just another reason to bash Microsoft? ------------------------------ From: Diane Kresovich <75310.3665@CompuServe.COM> Subject: I'm Stuck - Optimal Packet Size Date: 7 Oct 1996 03:24:57 GMT Organization: CompuServe, Inc. (1-800-689-0736) I am taking an overview of telecommunications and I'm stuck on a problem. The problem is this: assume a 1500-character message long is to be divided into packets and transmitted over a 4-hop path, with a bit rate of 4800 bps on each hop. Each packet contains 8 characters of overhead, with eight bits per character. Compute and plot the total time (T) for transmitting the message across the network for the maximum packet sizes, including overhead ranging from 10 - 1508 characters. Is the optimal packet size equal to the number of bits of overhead plus the square root of (the total number of bits in the message times the number of bits of overhead divided by the number of links minus 1)? The only other formula I learned relating to this gives the time of transmission given the optimal packet size. I am not a mathematical whiz. If I was, I would take the formula, and solve for the optimal packet size. The other formula I mention, is based on something I see in my book, but don't quite understand. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Diane Kresovich ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #529 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Oct 7 17:25:06 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id RAA01860; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 17:25:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 17:25:06 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610072125.RAA01860@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #530 TELECOM Digest Mon, 7 Oct 96 17:25:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 530 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T PCS Service Questions (ctuttle@ionet.net) Seeking Directory of LD Resellers (Douglas Rockwell) PCS and GSM Questions (Bela Sandor) SpeechTEK '96 Conference (Amy Perkins) Information Wanted on Stay of FCC Interconnect Ruling (johnw@planet.net) Long Distance Carrier Sizes (John R. Levine) Automatic Call Completion (Babu Mengelepouti) Re: "Just Say Yes" (Robert Bulmash) Re: Second Line Installation Problems (Rich Greenberg) Books/Articles Wanted on TL-1 ("Transaction Language One") (Henry Baker) Re: Voice Response System Advice Needed - Please Help (Bruce Pennypacker) Employment Opportunity: Telecommunications Network Specialist (S. Woods) pbx_Manager for Nortel (Dave Long) Re: Caller ID From Europe (Christian Lange) Information Wanted on Cellular Band Plan (Steve Schear) Cyber Promotions Says Call us For Information (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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: ctuttle@ionet.net (ctuttle) Subject: AT&T PCS Service Questions Date: 7 Oct 1996 02:34:36 GMT I just saw information on AT&T's new PCS service but have some questions that I get differing answers depending upon who I talk to at AT&T. My first question is if the paging option is nationwide. One rep said it worked anywere there was PCS service; another said it only worked in my home area. Also is there a common roaming rate? One rep said it was 60 cents a minute; another said it "varies by location." I have looked at the AT&T web page and found it informative. However when I called the 800 number listed on their web page, I was told by operator who answered the call that the number was a special number only to be used by customers who received a special mailing. Unless I had some sort of "authorization number" they couldn't answer any questions. When I told them I got the number off their web site on the internet, he again repeated his request for the authorization number on the letter I received. He gave me another number to call which was a voice mail system which told me to hold for a person, and after a couple of minutes hung up on me. Anyone have a "authorization number" or a phone number of a person I can call to find out more about AT&T's new PCS system? I'm looking for a phone to replace my nationwide pager and to cut down on the roaming fees of standard cellular phones. The phone will be used almost exclusively when I travel, so I am looking for a plan with a limited number of local area free minutes. Is AT&T's PCS the way to go? Or is there a better solution? Email would be appreciated! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Isn't that something, when you have to beg them to tell you about their products and services? And they don't even have your money yet. What kind of satisfaction do you think you will receive when they *do* have your money? At AT&T I sometimes think the customer is an interupption to their work rather than the purpose of it. I wonder how they respond in the inevitable situation where someone did get a letter with an 'authorization number' but accidentally misplaced the letter and now cannot find it, or a higher up in the company told his employee to call AT&T to get the full story but failed to pass along the all-important letter with the 'authoriza- tion number' on it? AT&T probably just refuses to talk to him, the same as they did with you. > Is AT&T's PCS the way to go or is there a better solution? I think you answered your own question by passing along your experience with them. Don't do business if you can help it with companies which refuse to describe their products and services unles you have special authorization and who, when they do deign to respond to countless messages left on their voicemail give you four or five different answers to the same question. Remember, they don't have your money yet or your signature on a dotted line and they are supposed to be sucking up to you until they get at least that much. If your experience is how they go about doing that much, just think about later on. Did anyone see that big *two full pages* ad they were running in the papers a couple weeks ago? One page has a big giant globe, being a visual representation of the world. It has a bunch of telephones sticking out in various places and friendly smiling people all chatting. The page across from it has a big selection of credit cards with just the name of each card and its logo shown, i.e. 'Visa', 'MC' , 'American Express', 'Telephone Company'. We are told that any card, from any telephone to anywhere in the world ... we can use AT&T. Then at the very bottom (I mean the bottom!) of the page in print which was about 1/32nd of an inch in size (maybe half the size of a regular line in a newspaper) and in very light, faded out ink which could barely be read if you saw it at all and took the time to study it closely was this cute disclaimer: 'cards and telephones allowed and countries to which calls can be placed subject to change at any time with no notice given.' That apparently is how some lawyer probably told them they could work around any false advertising claims or accusations of redlining entire inner-city neighborhoods full of minority residents, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tgrock@tiger.towson.edu (Douglas Rockwell) Subject: Seeking Directory of LD Resellers Date: 4 Oct 1996 06:48:50 GMT Organization: Towson State University Is there any directory to resellers of LD services? A quick Webcrawler check only yielded an ad page for the company I am researching (American Communications Network). Doug ------------------------------ From: bsandor@aol.com (Bela Sandor) Subject: PCS and GSM Questions Date: 7 Oct 1996 10:10:28 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: bsandor@aol.com (Bela Sandor) We know that CDMA and TDMA are not compatible with GSM. I had heard, though, that DCS 1800 is compatible with one of the North American PCS standards. Is this true? If so: 1. Which standard? 2. Are any of the PCS frequency winners using this standard? 3. If so, are there any planned interconnects or "roaming" planned with non-US DCS operators? Thanks, Bela [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you have your authorization code handy, call up AT&T and ask them to answer these questions. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Amy Perkins <73112.1552@CompuServe.COM> Subject: SpeechTEK '96 Conference Date: 7 Oct 1996 16:20:12 GMT Organization: On-the-Net LATEST IN ADVANCED SPEECH TECHNOLOGIES, APPLICATIONS FEATURED AT SPEECHTEK '96 IN NEW YORK The following is an excerpt from a recent press release. Full details on the show, including complete press releases, can be found at the web site http://www.speechtek.com/ "The Dream of managing computers via spoken commands is becoming a reality in the workplace and the home. SpeechTEK '96, a three-day conference and exhibition at the New York Hilton & Towers, October 21-23, 1996, will focus on these real-life applications of emerging speech recognition and text-to-speech technologies. SpeechTEK '96 is the only East Coast conference and exhibition dedicated to advanced speech technologies and applications, offering attendees -- vertical market corporate end-users in strategic planning, R&D specialists and engineers, application developers, systems integrators, VARS, product managers from voice processing and telephone and computer companies -- an opportunity to evaluate, test and compare the latest products and services and a chance to network with like users and industry leaders in speech processing." ------------------------------ From: John W Subject: Information Wanted on Stay of FCC Interconnection Ruling? Date: Sun, 06 Oct 1996 23:56:21 -0400 Organization: Williams Associates Reply-To: johnw@planet.net Does anyone have any infomation regarding the St. Louis Federal Appeals Court ruling on a motion for a temporary stay of the FCC's interconnection ruling? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No news on it here at my office. Can any reader comment on this? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 13:09:46 EDT From: John R Levine Subject: Long Distance Carrier Sizes I pulled the most recent 10-Qs for some LD companies. Visit http://www.sec.gov/ for these numbers and many more. 3 month LD revenue (in millions) 2Q96 AT&T 11,200 MCI 4,158 Sprint 3,500 Worldcom 1,061 Frontier 498 Excel 272 LCI 269 I've heard some claims that Excel is number 4, but in reality they're roughly tied with LCI at number six. That still makes them by far the largest non-facilities-based carrier. For AT&T, MCI, and Sprint, all of whom have significant non-LD business, I dug out the LD revenues separate from the other business. The next three were pure LD, so that's their total revenue. Worldcom has since bought MFS/Alternet, so the next time I do this I'll have to split them out as well. 10-Qs take about 60 days to file, so the 3rd quarter numbers should be available in November some time. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Trumansburg NY Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies" and Information Superhighwayman wanna-be ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 13:54:39 PDT From: Babu Mengelepouti Subject: Automatic Call Completion >> A prominent and quite large Chicago company dealt with this problem >> about three months ago by firing *twenty-seven* employees on the same >> day for 'abuse of company telephones'. Everyone had been warned prior > Does anyone else think that *firing* people for this is sort of thing > is over the top? > If this organisation has the details of the calls then maybe they > could have just billed the offending employees for the extra call > costs, perhaps with an additional amount to cover the costs of > gathering this information. Would not this have provided the example > this company so obviously desired?, perhaps not so drastic, but with > less trauma to the people dismissed. I agree that it is unwise for a company to fire individuals because of this. But perhaps it was done because the company was looking for an excuse to get rid of them, and this just happened along? In any case, most employees are employed on an "at-will" employment contract. This means that the employee can leave at will and the employer can fire employees at will. On the other hand, most employees *cannot* be made to pay for expenses incurred by the company, and this includes telephone charges. If the calls made with call-completion were of an obvious personal nature, perhaps then the company could justify billing for them, but then again if there were *that many* personal calls made with call completion for it to draw attention, the employee's on thin ice anyway ... If a bill were sent, pay docked, etc. for calls of a *business* nature, the company would be out of line, and there would be grounds for a complaint to be filed with the Bureau of Labour and Industries. Turnabout is fair play!! dialtone@vcn.bc.ca ------------------------------ From: prvtctzn@aol.com (Prvt Ctzn) Subject: Re: "Just Say Yes" Date: 7 Oct 1996 03:20:22 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) In article , PAT (editor) responded to a post from prvtctzn@aol.com (Robert Bulmash). PAT writes: > Actually there is a limit to how much of this should be considered > Ameritech's problem and how much should be considered the companies' > problem. Let me first point out that I am not a fan of Ameritech, and that my opinion of the RBOC is based on their consistent abuse of their customers whenever possible. Pat is right that, for the most part, the `Just Say Yes' problem is basically that of the employer in controlling employees. HOWEVER, the sociopathic nature of the Ameritech in this regard comes to the fore when you listen to Ameritiech's publically stated reason for offering the service. They say the service is there as a convienience for their customers. Note that, if you call Ameritech's `411' service, and ask for, say, Commonwealth Edison (a Chicago area utility), Ameritech will give you the `800' number. Yet Ameritech does not offer its `Just Say Yes' to complete such 800 number calls. Why! It's just as inconvenient to dial 800-XXX-XXXX as it is to dial 773-XXX-XXX. My point is, if they can block 800 numbers from their `Just Say Yes' program, they can also block specific numbers from using the service. BUT THEY WON'T; so long as burdening their customers with making an unwanted service available makes them money. Remember, when it comes to Ameritech, it's not the money, it's the Money. Robert Bulmash Private Citizen, Inc. http://webmill.com/prvtctzn/home ------------------------------ From: richgr@netcom.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: Second Line Installation Problems Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 08:20:46 GMT In article , Nate Smith wrote: > I'm in the process of installing a second line at my home. The > existing wiring for the first line is very old and it is a bit > difficult to determine how it fits into my "two-pair" "Green-Red, > Black-Yellow" understanding of phones and wiring. Wiring at the > demarcation point is as follows (3 bolts/screws on a plate): [snip] And our Esteemed Moderator said in part: > point. Once telco gets a second line there, you will want lots of four > conductor wire of the red/green/yellow/black variety. If you are happy I would recommend against the four conductor red/green/yellow/black quad wire. Too much crosstalk between pairs. Your best bet would be to rip out (logically, not necessarily physically) all of the old wiring, and have telco install a new multi-line NIJ (Network Interface Jack). Then run two (or more) pair twisted pair wires (often called cat-3 wiring) from the new NIJ/demark to whereever in the house that you have/want jacks. If you don't mind using a bit more wire, run a separate multi-pair cable from each jack back to the NIJ. You'll have easier maintenance. Depending on how many jacks are involved, if there are too many cables to easily wire to the screw terminals on the NIJ, you may want to install a junction box near the NIJ (such as a "66 block") and wire the jacks to it, and from there one pair per line to the NIJ. If you don't want to do the wiring yourself, telco or an independant (see the yello pages under telephone installers) can do it for you. Make sure they do it "Right" as I have described, not do it "Cheap". One technique to specifically avoid is to wire from the NIJ to one jack, from that jack to the next, etc etc. More junctions to fail, harder to isolate when it fails, and a failure knocks out all jacks further down the line. AKA "Daisy-Chaining". Rich Greenberg N6LRT TinselTown, USA Play: richgr@netcom.com 310-649-0238 Pacific time. I speak for myself & my dogs only. VM'er since CP-67 Canines: Val(Chinook,CGC), Red(Husky,(RIP)), Shasta(Husky) Owner:Chinook-L ------------------------------ From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker) Subject: Books/Articles Wanted on TL-1 ("Transaction Language One") Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 17:26:26 GMT Could anyone point me to a good reference for "transaction language one' which is used to remotely set up digital cross-connect switches in telecom applications? I spent several hours in a university library yesterday with zero success. I'm looking for an overview of this language, with a list of its capabilities, examples of its use, etc. I was hoping for something relatively self-contained, rather than something full of references to some obscure and unobtainable standards document. Thanks in advance. ------------------------------ From: Bruce Pennypacker Subject: Re: Voice Response System Advice Needed - Please Help Date: 7 Oct 1996 17:27:10 GMT Organization: Stylus Products Group, Artisoft Inc. In article telecom16.516.3@massis.lcs.mit.edu, mgreen@world.std.com (Meir I Green) said: > - text to speech, but light duty initially. > - We will want FAX capability soon as well. > - The system must be scalable and expandable to handle more lines and > throughput, but only a couple of lines initially. > - We prefer a PC based application, which runs under Win95 and NT. > - We are looking for a high level application generator, to allow > speedy development and modification of the product, preferably > without coding. > e.g. something with functional object modules that can be tied > together and perhaps an outline/flow editing of the prompt logic, etc. > - Access to the code should be possible in order to add new > functionality to the system and integrate with our products, e.g. > Visual Basic or equivalent. > - The product should be able to access a database using a standard > interface e.g. ODBC or equivalent. > - Should interface to standard telephony device, e.g. TAPI, > Dialogic, etc. > I would greatly appreciate your comments and recommendations as well > as any experiences with VBVoice Win32, ShowNTel, VoiceKonnects, or > any suitable product. Meir, I'll admit right up front that I'm more than a little biased. I'll tell you why in a litle bit. Before I get into any details I'd be interested in knowing why you list TAPI as a possible requirement. I've worked with TAPI for about two years, and the only major advantage it offers is hardware independance. If you pick a platform like Dialogic then TAPI really doesn't help at all. The big disadvantage of TAPI is that it adds a good amount of overhead, especially when you're doing any playing and/or recording of audio files. With hardware like Dialogic, Rhetorex, etc. 90% of the voice processing is done through processors on the telephony hardware. However with TAPI it forces most of this processing to be performed in the PC's CPU rather than the telephony hardware that is specifically designed for this sort of thing. So unless you plan to have your app work with a wide range of hardware I would recommend that you use a native API rather than TAPI. And if you want to run a large number of phone lines (anything above aroundfour to eight) then I'd really avoid TAPI. All that aside, the Windows telephony toolkits you mentioned are all very similar. They provide some high level GUIs to create a flowchart of how your calls will proceed (so-called "lines & boxes") but to do anything beyond basic picking up calls and recording messages you'll need to write some code in an environment like Visual Basic. This is especially true if you want to do any serious database access. So be prepared to write at least a little code. When you evaluate all these products be very careful to see that you can do everything you need. Since you mention Win95 and NT I assume you are going to be looking for a 32-bit development tool. Make sure that the products you look at provide 32-bit fax and text-to-speech support. Some of these products don't support fax and/or text-to-speech at all, or else only support them in their 16-bit versions. Another thing to watch for is the level of fax support. Some products only support class 1 or 2 faxmodems, which doesn't provide very good quality. Faxmodems rely very heavily on your PC's CPU, so if you need to do a lot of faxing over multiple phone lines then class 1 and 2 modems will put a pretty high load on your PC very quickly. Look for fax support via hardware like Dialogic, Gammalink, Brooktrout, etc. These boards are designed for high volume faxing on multiple lines. One product you didn't mention (and here's where my bias comes in) is Visual Voice from Artisoft, Inc. (formerly from Stylus Innovation, which was bought by Artisoft). Visual Voice was the first Windows based telephony toolkit on the market and has won more awards and industry recognition than all the other products you listed. Visual Voice Pro 3.0 works with Dialogic hardware and we also have fax support (and shortly text-to-speech) and it can all run under Windows 95 or NT. Stop by the Visual Voice web site at http://www.stylus.com to find out more about it. There's plenty of information available there including a demo you can download. In case you haven't figured it out, the reason I'm a little biased is because I'm a software developer at Stylus/Artisoft. I implemented our original T1 support, designed Visual Fax and Visual Voice for TAPI, and also worked on our 32-bit text-to-speech control. Bruce Pennypacker | Stylus Products Group | Phone: +1 617 621 9545 Software Engineer | Artisoft, Inc. | Fax: +1 617 621 7862 Resident TAPI guru | 201 Broadway | http://www.stylus.com brucep@stylus.com | Cambridge, MA 02139 | sales: sales@stylus.com ------------------------------ From: Steven Woods Subject: Employment Opportunity: Telecommunications Network Specialist Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 12:05:18 -0400 Organization: Technology Control Systems Telecommunications Network Management Specialist (Based in Miami, USA) TCS is a rapidly expanding US and UK facilities based international carrier specialising in bespoke carrier solutions, card services and call re-origination. Due to the expansion in its international network both in terms of size and geographic location it now has need of an additional network management specialist to complement the existing team. Extensive telecommunications software and hardware skills are essential. Preferably this should include exposure to programmable switching technology (Excel, Harris) and an in-depth knowledge of circuit installation, testing and fault resolution. Experience in a fast moving network management environment is also preferable encompassing hands-on network monitoring and trouble-shooting knowledge. The chosen candidate must demonstrate the ability to work in an already established team, work to short deadlines and, at times, irregular hours. Renumeration negotiable based on experience. Supply CV to : Stephen Woods, Operations Director TCS Inc. Miami E-mail : swoods@techcontrol.com Phone : + 305 377 8607 Fax : + 305 377 2228 ------------------------------ From: davelong Subject: pbx_Manager For Nortel Date: Sun, 06 Oct 1996 22:32:43 -0700 Organization: Concentric Internet Services If your business has a Nortel Meridian PBX, then the pbx_Manager Program would be most helpful to you. Just capture the DNBs from your switch, and bring them into the pbx_Manager. It will delimit a 1,500 DNB switch in less than a minute. Once you have a delimited text file of your DNBs, then you may elect to import it into MS Excel or MS Access, do sorts, queries and prints. Or you can continue with the pbx_Manager, and let it automatically create an MS Access database for you. Then you can build a query in the pbx_Finder module, based on the IS administrator's input. Perhaps you just want DID numbers listed, and only those not named "modem" or "CDP." Once the pbx_Finder query is finished, it will create an .INI file, for front-end access. Imagine having an on-line database of your company's phone numbers, accessible through a small front-end database program. Imagine having an accurate and timely accounting of all your phone numbers. Check out the pbx_Manager at: www.concentric.net/~davelong It will be available by October 9th. David Long ------------------------------ From: Christian Lange Subject: Re: Caller ID From Europe Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 17:45:17 +0200 Organization: Unlimited Surprise Systems, Berlin Reply-To: clan@berlin.snafu.de > I too have numbers from Germany showing up on my normal caller ID. No > name, but the full number data is accurate. I first noticed this in > mid-August. Probably because THEIR system has been upgraded. In Germany caller ID is transmitted for customers on digital switches if they have enabled transmission. Caller ID transmission is not possible for subscribers at analog switches. Deutsche Telekom plans to finish digitizing their network by the end of 1997. Christian Lange ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 12:51:18 -0700 From: azur@netcom.com (Steve Schear) Subject: Information Wanted on Cellular Band Plan Could anyone point me to a Web or ftp site housing the various base-mobile specs for AMPS cellular, especially a band plan showing the channel assignments? PGP Fingerprint: FE 90 1A 95 9D EA 8D 61 81 2E CC A9 A4 4A FB A9 Steve Schear | Internet: azur@netcom.com Lamarr Labs | Voice: 1-702-658-2654 7075 West Gowan Road | Fax: 1-702-658-2673 Suite 2148 | Las Vegas, NV 89129 ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Cyber Promotions Wants to Hear From You Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 17:00:00 GMT In a recent emailing sent out by the fine netizens at Cyber Promotions, they discussed their great software for collecting names at random from all over the net and how to do profitable bulk-emails. Night after night, while you are asleep, their scripts can be working for you, to help you 'Make Money Fast'. They can help provide you with an address so that no one who recieves your mail really knows for sure where it came from. They say they can help you 'flame-proof' your emails so the money comes to you while the complaints and aggravations go to /dev/null or some obscure socket on some far away computer where the sysadmin doesn't give an iota. Now if all you like to do is call up people like Cyber Promotions to harass them or phreak and hack on their voicemail while they are asleep at night (to show to show them naturally how *your* scripts work busily night and day) then do not bother to read any more of this message. On the other hand, if you have a serious interest in the fine work being done by the company to help improve the Internet and because you like the idea of not only receiving tons of junk mail every day but would like to send out some of your own, they've kindly provided a couple of toll free numbers for your use to reach them. On 800-650-9110 and 888-BULK-EMAIL a nice Young Man answers the phone during business hours who can discuss their service. During off-hours you'll get an answering machine or voice mail of some sort. Don't worry if you missed those numbers the first time I gave them; I will repeat them at the end of this message. As usual, many of you may find calling from a pay station or behind a PBX is the most convenient way to reach them. In addition to their name cyberpromo.com they are also using emaster.com and reedrules.com in case you want to adjust your mail filters to make sure their mail receives the priority handling and respect it deserves. If you decide to call and discuss their service you may want to talk directly with Sanford Wallace. He is the big man there after all, and a decision-maker with the company. You know how important it is to make sure you are speaking with the decision-maker at any firm you are doing business with. Now here are those numbers again: 800 - 650 - 9110 (try this one first) and 888 - BULK - EMAIL (or 888-285-5362) I won't repeat my usual spiel. You know what needs to be done. PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #530 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Oct 7 20:13:10 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id UAA17432; Mon, 7 Oct 1996 20:13:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 20:13:10 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610080013.UAA17432@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #531 TELECOM Digest Mon, 7 Oct 96 20:13:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 531 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was Re: New 809 Fraud via Email (Mike Fox) New Escort 900Mhz Cordless (Frank M. Koerber) Portable Electronics in Flights (Aninda Dasgupta) Fraud Listserver (Tad Cook) Re: Today's Wacky Spam (Ralph Doncaster) Re: "Just Say Yes" (Hank Karl) Re: I'm Stuck - Optimal Packet Size (William J. Halverson) Cellular Caller Pays Arrangements (Chris N. Acuma) Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street (David Clayton) Re: Looking For Info on a "Unified" European Toll-Free Service (M. Cuccia) Re: PCS and Cellular Tariffs in the USA (David Clayton) Re: Northwest Territories to Split Into Nunavut ... and Bob? (Linc Madison) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Fox Date: 7 Oct 96 13:59:37 Subject: NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was: Re: New 809 Fraud via Email > I just got a email message from a company I've never heard of, "Global > Communications" @demon.net giving me 24 hours to settle my > "outstanding account" before legal procedings will commence. If I want > to avoid "court action" I'm to call 1-809-496-2700 and talk to Mike > Murrary. > Fortunately, being an avid reader of the TELECOM Digest, I'm aware > that 809 is an expensive international call, and laughed at it, rather > than calling the number to ask what's going on. I came back from vacation and found I had received this e-mail at my workplace. I immediately called my telecom support group and warned them to block this number. I sure hope they listened. Once again, I really think that this shows how unwise it is to allow foreign countries in the NANP. These Carribean countries should either agree to the same rules used in the US and Canada, or they should be kicked out of the NANP. People in the US/Canada should be able to dial telephone calls in their own country code without fear of being ripped off by people outside the jurisdiction of a reasonable government. I know, I know, there's plenty of ways to get ripped off dialing 1 besides this, but at least the ripoff artists should be under US and/or Canadian jurisdiction. This will only get worse as more Carribean area codes are phased in and there's not a single, recognizeable area code (809) that at least some people know is a ripoff. Quick, how many people can tell which of the following calls will be to a foreign country without having to look it up? 1-248-555-1212 1-264-555-1212 AND, how will the average person even be able to look this up? My local phone book is about a year behind in its area code map; it still shows all Carribean islands as being in 809. Later, Mike [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What are you saying, that you don't think the Americans can pull a few good phone scams also? You think we mostly need to be concerned wit foreign 'area codes'? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 11:19:56 -0700 From: frank.m.koerber Subject: New Escort 900Mhz Cordless A new phone from Cincinnati Microwave: (I have no connection with Cincinnati Microwave Inc) Wednesday September 18 10:36 AM EDT Escort Announces Newest Cordless Telephone Tiny Unit Reaches Up To One-Mile With Total Clarity And Complete Security CINCINNATI, Sept. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Cincinnati Microwave Inc today announced that its Escort Retail Sales Division has begun shipping the Escort 9701, the first cordless telephone to provide consumers with up to one mile of high quality, fully secure range. "The Escort 9701 digital spread spectrum cordless telephone for the home or home office, outperforms all other cordless telephones on the market today," said Erika Williams, chief executive officer. "Cincinnati Microwave continues to offer cordless telephones that lead the industry in meeting customer needs. "Consumers want convenient cordless telephones that go further, are eavesdrop-proof and last longer," Williams stated. "The Escort 9701 fills those needs. In a handset the size of a small television remote control, we are offering a cordless telephone that sounds like a 'corded' telephone up to one mile from the base. The digital spread spectrum technology ensures complete call privacy and advanced power management provides longer battery life." Dan Murphy, vice president/sales and marketing, said, "In addition to industry leading performance, we paid special attention to the ergonomics and usability of the Escort 9701. The handset, which measures 6.25" x 2.25" x 1.25" and weighs just 8.7 ounces, can be easily held in your hand or cradled on your shoulder. The elegant dark gray color is consistent with other consumer electronics found in the home. "On the technical front, the Escort 9701 moves between two, automatically selected power levels. Moving between two power levels ensures that there is exceptional voice quality at any range, while conserving battery power and extending 'talk time' during normal, 'close-to-home' use," said Murphy. All of the Escort cordless telephones available through Escort utilize Cincinnati Microwave's patented, second-generation SureLink(TM) technology that provides significantly longer range and higher security than other cordless telephones while maintaining superior sound quality and privacy. SureLink is advanced direct sequence digital spread spectrum technology adapted from ultrasecure U.S. military communication systems for use in cordless telephones. Compared with ordinary cordless telephones, high performance telephones with SureLink inside go farther, receive and transmit more clearly, and provide real security against intentional or inadvertent eavesdropping. The high performance characteristics result from the use of digital wide-band spread voice signals at a 900 megahertz carrier frequency. In addition to the new range and power features, this model also offers 100 channels, 100,000 security codes, 10-number memory, last number redial, up to 4.5-hour talk time, up to 4-day standby time, mute, flash, low battery indicator, out-of-range audible and visual alerts, page/find capabilities, autotalk, easy load drop-in battery pack, spare battery charger, auxiliary power back-up. Auxiliary power back-up keeps the Escort 9701 operational during brief power outages (most cordless telephones go dead). It also helps prevent having to reprogram all memory telephone numbers each time the power goes out. The user can also keep a spare battery charged in the base, so there is always a charged battery ready when needed. Escort cordless telephones are engineered and manufactured in the United States and sold directly to consumers and through fine retailers in the United States and Canada. The Escort 9701 retails for $249.95. The optional spare battery (required for the auxiliary power backup and spare battery charger features) retails for $19.95. ESCORT is shipping the new Escort 9701 now. Frank Koerber ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 17:27:22 EDT From: Aninda Dasgupta Subject: Portable Electronics in Flights Patrick, I don't know if anyone else mentioned this in the recent thread on the use of portable electronics on commercial flights, but the Sept 1996 issue of IEEE Spectrum has a cover story discussing that issue. Aninda DasGupta Philips Research add@philabs.research.philips.com 345 Scarborough Rd Ph: (914)945-6071 Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 Fax: (914)945-6552 ISDN Video: +1 (914)242-3590 ------------------------------ Subject: Fraud Listserver Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 13:47:33 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) With all of the discussion about fraud lately on TELECOM Digest, I thought the following New List annoucement was interesting. Also, by the end of they year I hope to have a new listserver started that will be devoted specifically to news items about and discussion of Ponzi schemes and pyramid scams, on the net or off. Tad Cook tad@ssc.com ------------------- FraudNews on newscaster@silverquick.com Online Fraud Newsletter Fraudnews is the e-mail distribution for the Online Fraud Newsletter. Published 9 times a year, with additional special alerts. The newsletter seeks to keep people informed as to fraud schemes on the internet as well as provide consumer information and tips. The newsletter provides help and assistance to those who have been victims of fraud schemes. The Online Fraud also sponsors two e-mail discussion lists on fraud: fraud-discuss and fraudMLM-discuss. You can subscribe on the www page or by email. To subscribe on the www page at: http://www.silverquick.com To subscribe by email send a message to : newscaster@silverquick.com The body of the message to read : join fraudnews No archives are available at this time but will be shortly. Owner: Mark Taylor themet@mindspring.com Technical support: support@silverquick.com ------------------------------ From: Ralph Doncaster Subject: Re: Today's Wacky Spam Organization: Doncaster Consulting Inc Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 20:47:28 GMT Jeremy S. Nichols wrote: > I wonder what happens if you try to place a collect call to the > number. I did. The operator called it back a couple times with me on the line so we could verify that it is in fact a recording. A British-sounding voice answers "Yes, hello", there is a pause, and then "Just hold on a sec..", and then in the background you can hear the voice talking on what is supposed to be another phone, over what is supposedly a debt collection. The Operator never let it run the full length, but we listened for close to a minute. According to the operator, the direct-dialed rate from Ottawa, Canada to the 809-496 exchange in the BVI is $2.27 for the first minute, $1.51 each additional minute. I'd say there's probably room in that for a kickback from the telco in the BVI to the company that is running the scam. Ralph Doncaster == Doncaster Consulting Inc == http://doncaster.on.ca ------------------------------ From: hankkarl@ix.netcom.com (Hank Karl) Subject: Re: "Just Say Yes" Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 18:03:18 GMT Organization: Telenetworks Reply-To: hankkarl@ix.netcom.com On 3 Oct 1996 17:18:28 GMT, in comp.dcom.telecom arobson@nv2.uswnvg. com (Andrew Robson) wrote: > In most cases that would be a bad business decision as well as offensively > harsh treatment of the employees. It is bad business to fire a > valuable employee (and incur hundreds of dollars in recruiting cost at > best) over a few dollars a month excess cost. We need to balance this argument. After all, having the employee dial costs the company also. Depending on the employee's salary, it may be cheaper to use the JSY feature. If the JSY feature saves about five seconds per call, that's about $252/hour, or about $524,000/year. Many employees are worth that much to their companies. Most salesperson's goals are above a half-million a year. Plus, there is no time wasted in mis-dialing. An engineer's fully burdened cost is usually over $100/hour ($208/year); depending on how fast they dial :-) they may save their company money with JSY. On the other hand, there's no justification for the $0.30/min vs. $0.10/min. Hank Karl ------------------------------ From: William J. Halverson Subject: Re: I'm Stuck - Optimal Packet Size Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 11:09:58 -0700 Organization: Pacific Bell's Industry Market Group Diane Kresovich wrote: > I am taking an overview of telecommunications and I'm stuck on a > problem. The problem is this: assume a 1500-character message long is > to be divided into packets and transmitted over a 4-hop path, with a > bit rate of 4800 bps on each hop. Each packet contains 8 characters > of overhead, with eight bits per character. Compute and plot the > total time (T) for transmitting the message across the network for the > maximum packet sizes, including overhead ranging from 10 - 1508 > characters. Do they want you to ignore packet-processing time inside the switches? How big is the window? Various packet schemes have different window-sizes. > Is the optimal packet size equal to the number of bits of overhead > plus the square root of (the total number of bits in the message times > the number of bits of overhead divided by the number of links minus 1)? You mean Opt = Bo + SQRT[( Btm x Bo)/(Nl - 1)] -or- Opt = Bo + SQRT[( Btm x (Bo/(Nl - 1))] Where Opt = optinal packet size Bo = Bits in the Overhead Btm = Bits in the message Nl = Number of links > The only other formula I learned relating to this gives the time of > transmission given the optimal packet size. I am not a mathematical > whiz. If I was, I would take the formula, and solve for the optimal What's importnat to understand is the relationship between the various factors involved. If the packet network does end-to-end ACKs, like TCP, it's important to understand that a high speed network does not guarentee you will get high 'throughput' values. One machine with small buffers or a small window setting can hang you up. Or the protocol itself may not be designed for high speed use. My suggestion to you is this: Go to a butcher shop, get an 3' by 10' roll of butcher paper. Draw five vertical lines down the length of the 10' dimension. Each line represents one of the five packet source/sinks (4 hops imply 5 locations). Draw out a timing diagram -- don't leave anything out -- include packet processing times, the backward ACKs of course -- and since 4800b/s is really slow, you may want to assume line delay is not insignificant, so that means an additional variable -- the distance between the nodes -- shows up. I think the formula will 'become self-evident' [I always hated that term especially in my EM classes ...]. Hope this helps more than it hurts ... the general problem is complex, but allows you to build a good understanding of the relationships of WAN networking. Bill Halverson Pacific Bell PH 415 542 6564 wjhalv1@pacbell.com FAX 415 542 4744 PGP Key at http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~bal/pks-toplev.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 09:10:53 MST From: acuma@aztec.asu.edu (CHRIS N ACUMA) Subject: Cellular Caller Pays Arrangements Here in Arizona (602) Phoenix and (520) rest of Arizona we have a caller pays option for the cell phones. If you dial one of these caller pays cell phones it is always a long distance call (you have to dial 1-602-xxx-xxxx or 1-520-xxx-xxxx). Whoever calls the cell phone pays for the air time. The only execption when the owner of the cell phone pays for the air time on one of these "caller pays cell phones" is when you get a call from a number outsize of arizona or an 800 number. For example if a Los Angeles number 213 area code dials my 602 callers pays cell phone I will pay for the air time. ------------------------------ From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: Re: Illegal Phone Access Sold on the Street Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 07:46:22 GMT Organization: Customer of Access One Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia greivangel@aol.com (GreivAngel) wrote: > Gee ... the phone company has about fifty thousand splicing points > that anyone can hook into. Handsets are dirt cheap to make, and are > the staple of every 12 year old phone phreak that ever there > was. "Security" on most of the very large trunk boxes are a 7/16th hex > screw (7/16 hex wrenches aren't sold in stores. High security!) > Bell should LOCK all cabinets, and put a dial alarm to the CO on the door. Even though is fairly easy to access to the physical connections on POTS lines, (to a limited extent), at the moment, consider the possibilities when phone services via broad band cable become common. In Australia, Optus are introducing an alternative phone network using a new hybrid Fibre/Co-ax Cable TV network. This system will rely on channels allocated on demand on physical coax nodes that can service up to 2000 subscribers. I don't know exactly how this will work, but to me it looks like you can have a direct connection to up to 1999 other users!, and how long before someone gets around the security measures to make unauthorised calls? I also hope that the system has sufficient encryption demands to discourage eavesdropping. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. ------------------------------ From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Re: Looking For Info on a "Unified" European Toll-Free Service Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 12:14:06 -0700 Organization: Tulane University Robert Nowak wrote: > Does anyone know if any of the Western European telco's have gotten > together and are offering a unified toll-free number service - > i.e. callers can call one common toll free number from any of the > major Western European countries (Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy, > UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Austria, Switzerland) and be > connected to one call centre? > I am aware that, at least in the past, this type of service was not > possible because the European telco's did not put much priority in > unified, pan-European service offerings. However, the telco situation > is changing here in Europe almost as rapidly as in North America and > other areas, so perhaps there are some new services/alliances on the > horizon that might make this type of service (or a subset of this > service) a possibility. According to the UK's Office of Telecommunications (Oftel) "Numbering Bulletin #17 (Oct.1995)" about a year ago, one of the European telecom standards organizations has requested that the ITU reserve or assign Country Code +388 for "Pan-European" services. (Europe-wide services, as some don't like the term 'Pan-European') "The Plenary session of ECTRA met in October and accepted the recommendations of the ECTRA Numbering Project Team that ETNS (European Telephony Numbering Space) should be implemented." If adopted by the ITU, country code +388 'could' be used for such services on a Europe-wide basis: Toll-Free (Freefone), premium services (PAY-per-call), portable/personal numbering, cellular/mobile/paging/wireless, etc. For Oftel Numbering Bulletins, see http://www.open.gov.uk/oftel/number.htm Also, see Dave Leibold's "World Telephony Numbering Guide" for further links to sources about numbering resources in Europe and worldwide: http://www.io.org/~djcl/telnum.html The most recent list of telephone country codes from the ITU indicates that Country Code +388 is "temporarily unassignable". Maybe it is reserved for such Europe-wide services, but not yet "officially assigned". Also, +888 is also "temporarily unassignable" (note this is 888, not 886 which is "reserved" and has been used by most of the world to call Taiwan). 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: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: Re: PCS and Cellular Tariffs in the USA Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 22:27:33 GMT Organization: Customer of Access One Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia Glenn Shirley wrote: > Australia definitely only has calling party billing ie. the person > called is not charged at all. This is possible because mobiles have > distinct "area" codes so that anyone dialling an 018 xxx xxx or 0411 xxx > xxx number know they are dialling a mobile. The situation is blurring > as these ranges are used up though. The Australian mobile codes will be very clear by 1 Jan 2000, when the AMPS network is switched off and only the 041 GSM network remains. But, I believe that the PCS trial currently under way in Australia will totally confuse consumers. My understanding is that the caller, even though they are dialling a single number, will be charged a variable rate depending on where the answering phone is! If this is correct, then you may dial the number and get charged a local call fee, the next day you may dial the same number and get charged an expensive long distance fee -- and you will only know when your bill arrives! If this is the case, (and please, if anyone knows any different, let us know), then this little bleck duck will not be dialling a PCS number if he can help it. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: Northwest Territories to Split Into Nunavut ... and Bob? Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 22:24:46 GMT Organization: Best Internet Communications In article , David Leibold wrote: > The Northwest Territories government held a recent contest regarding the > name to be given to the western area. ... > This leaves a rather notable second-place finisher at 81 votes - Bob. > That's right, the new territory name of Bob had its campaigners, and the > vote-Bob website is at http://www.ssmicro.com/votebob/ - that website > leads to official info on the NWT naming. Minor typo: that should be http://www.ssimicro.com/votebob/ ^^^^^^^^ Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #531 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Oct 8 13:50:58 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id NAA02765; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 13:50:58 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 13:50:58 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610081750.NAA02765@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #532 TELECOM Digest Tue, 8 Oct 96 13:50:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 532 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "Internet for Kids" by Frazier/Kurshan/Armstrong (Rob Slade) GTE Pricing/Service Woes ... (Long Story) (Curtis Bohl) Original Called Number Delivery in the US (Bill McMullin) Permissive Anonymous Intercept (John W. Shaver) Information Request For Net Connection Article (Brian Pomeroy) D1D Framing Question (Andrew Morley) Re: PCS and GSM Questions (Mike Fox) Re: AT&T PCS Service Questions (Michael Silano) Re: AT&T PCS Service Questions (Brian Starlin) Re: I'm Stuck - Optimal Packet Size (kristof@iu.net) Re: NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was Re: New 809 Fraud via Email (Mike Fox) Re: Long Distance Carrier Sizes (Charles Holcomb) TAPI Development Hardware Wanted (Chris Sells) Last Laugh! AT&T Acronym (David Baird) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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, 08 Oct 1996 10:47:43 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: "Internet for Kids" by Frazier/Kurshan/Armstrong BKINTKDS.RVW 960615 "Internet for Kids", Deneen Frazier/Barbara Kurshan/Sara Armstrong, 1995, 0-7821-1741-4, U$22.99 %A Deneen Frazier defrazie@rvgs.vak12ed.edu dfrazier@pen.k12.va.us %A Barbara Kurshan %A Sara Armstrong saarmst@telis.org saarmst@cello.gina.calstate.edu %C 2021 Challenger Drive, Alameda, CA 94501 %D 1995 %G 0-7821-1741-4 %I Sybex Computer Books %O U$22.99 510-523-8233 800-227-2346 Fax: 510-523-2373 info@sybex.com %P 314 %T "Internet for Kids" This is a collection of projects suitable for kids. Internet applications may be used to pursue the projects. The intent appears to be to set up a "learn by doing" experience to familiarize children with the applications and resources of the Internet. (It is sometimes difficult to determine to whom the book is really addressed: kids or parents/teachers.) There are, however, a few problems. The interest level of most of the projects is at an elementary level, but the instructions or skills needed to accomplish the project are at a high school level at least. Parents or teachers will have to assist, and this removes a lot of the "discovery learning" quality of the experience. The directions for access to resources needed to realize the assignments are very specific. This makes it easy to finish the tasks, but it means that kids are not learning to use the search tools of the net. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKINTKDS.RVW 960615. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca | "A modern US Navy cruiser now requires Institute for (This space for rent) | 26 tons of manuals. This is enough Research into rslade@vcn.bc.ca | to affect the vessel's performance." User rslade@vanisl.decus.ca| "New Scientist" article Security Canada V7K 2G6 | on the "paperless office" ------------------------------ From: Curtis Bohl Subject: GTE Pricing/Service Woes ... (Long Story) Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 02:30:59 -0700 Organization: First National Bank Has anyone had problems with conflicts in service pricing between local GTE business reps and their Ft. Wayne, IN office? Here's one of my current GTE horror stories for the archives. During planning for next year's budget, last week I wanted to get pricing for local T1 loops to replace our DDS 56kb lines. Of course I called our local GTE rep, who was conveniently out of the office; called another person there, who was also out for the week. So, I called the 800 number given to me by some secretarial type at GTE (who I finally got after calling several numbers). I talk to some droid that says, go ahead, send the points and we'll get it out to you. I said fine, but time is money (and is important to my continued employment) and I need it ASAP (this being a Wednesday). I fax off the list of circuits I need (four from a common point, within the same city), listing the addresses and giving a phone number that exists at that site. Now, I have by now figured out that GTE must use a different dictionary than I do, since on my fax to them I used the term "ASAP," which I believe is an acronym for "As Soon As Possible." Thursday comes, no reply. Friday morning, I'm getting desperate, since I'm leaving the office at noon. I call the droid in Ft. Wayne, who says "hey, its not in the box, so they must be pricing it." I tell him that I need it by 10 am today. At 11 am I finally get a call saying its in the computer and they will fax it out once its out. I leave town, and come back Sunday morning hoping for a fax so that I can work on the answers for the boss. No luck, and about at wit's end, I leave a voice mail for the local GTE rep, telling him I've got to have it first thing Monday morning. He calls me about 8:30 Monday morning, giving me the costs (which are tariffed) off the top of his head (and I can hear the other rep agreeing with him in the backgroud). Lo and behold, around 4 pm, I finally get the pricing from Ft. Wayne (that was promised Friday morning, and should have been here long before). I find that some circuits are priced more that $200 / month more that quoted locally! Now, I'm really upset, and call droid #2 in Ft. Wayne, who leaves a terse "It's in the tariffs I am faxing to you. Take it or leave it." Now what is a person to do? This (and other) local GTE reps have screwed up pricing before (one priced a DACS service, but conveniently forgot several charges that Ft. Wayne argued with him about, which moved it way out of range.) I'm in a business where I don't really want to possibly lose GTE's future business, but on the other hand, they turn around and have treated us lousy. Its interesting how a monopoly can thumb their noses at the customers that depend on them, yet, how public apathy can allow this to continue. I know of people that make two calls any time they need new service: one to GTE, and the second to the State Public Service Commission. Last week, the PSC held a hearing to discuss a proposed fine of GTE for month-long delays in establishing service. One person showed up -- myself. Unfortunately, I came mostly to listen, since I had not discussed testifying with superiors, although in talking afterwards, this probably wouldn't have been a big deal. Any similar stories, or how to deal with GTE, would be appreciated. Curtis Bohl Network Administrator cbohl@fnb-columbia.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 10:15:14 +0000 From: Bill McMullin Reply-To: bill@interactive.ca Organization: Info-InterActive Inc. Subject: Original Called Number Delivery in the US We are trying to determine which RBOCs are currently delivering the Original Called Number across their SS7 networks. In case you are not clear the Original Called Number is the number first dialed in a call which subsequently gets forwarded through Call Forwarding. Example: In the case where Caller A on Switch A makes a call to Called Party B on Switch B who's phone is forwarded to Party C on Switch C, the terminating switch (which is Switch C at another CO) would know that Caller A originally called Party B. For those of you who have Centrex P-Phone service (AKA Meridian Digital Centrex) you can tell if Original Called Number is delivered if you have ever forwarded your home number to your office. Assuming your home and work are off two different COs, if your display on your phone shows that the call was forwarded from home, then Original Called Number is delivered across the network. Original Called Number is a critical piece of information for network voice mail systems. However, there are numerous ways of delivering the OCN to the voice mail system. The most popular and ancient way of doing it is through an SMDI link from EVERY switch back to the voice mail system. With OCN being delivered over SS7, a voice mail vendor could link to one CO in a local area with a PRI link and eliminate the need for SMDI links off every switch. It is my understanding that additional (expensive) software is necessary (at least in DMS) to dump the OCN onto the SS7 network. Bill McMullin Info InterActive Inc. ------------------------------ From: Shaver, John W. Subject: Permissive Anonymous Intercept Date: Tue, 08 Oct 96 07:53:00 PDT I received a card from US West announcing that I had the ability to not receive calls which did not transmit caller ID. It seemed to work for both local and long distance, although a LD call with *82 no longer gave "anonymous" but "not available". [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does this feature have to be turned on or off permanently via a service order in the business office or can you turn it on and off with some code on your phone? If so, what codes turn it on and off? PAT] ------------------------------ From: lunar@voicenet.com (Brian Pomeroy) Subject: Information Request For Net Connection Article Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 15:53:43 -0400 Organization: Voicenet - Internet Access - (215) 674-9290 I am writing an article for "High Tech Careers" magazine on future trends in Internet connections (wireless, cable or other methods), and am seeking input from experts and professionals on this topic. Primarily, I am interested in learning about what you think will be the dominant trend in Internet connection. What is the future of wireless Internet connections? Is Internet connectivity via cable a better option than ISDN and other methods, both from technical and economic perspectives? This is your chance to plug yourself and your business, as you will be cited as a source in the article. However, requests for anonyminity will be honored. Please respond via e-mail to lunar@voicenet.com before November 20. Thanks in advance ... Brian Pomeroy lunar@voicenet.com http://www.ison.com/pomeroy/ Author, "BeginnerNet: A Beginner's Guide to the Internet and WWW" http://www.slackinc.com/books/33225hom.htm ------------------------------ From: Andrew Morley Subject: D1D Framing Question Date: Tue, 08 Oct 96 10:06:47 GMT Organization: Trend Communications Ltd. Reply-To: andym@trendcomms.com We all know about the various framing systems used in T1: D4-SF D4-ESF, SLC-96 (tm!), but recently I read about something called D1D. That's D - one - D, not DID, which we all know the meaning of. Does anyone know what D1D means? I assume it is some sort of T1 framing or channel assignment system. Thanks -- feel free to reply direct or via this group. Andrew Morley, Design & Development, Trend Communications Ltd, High Wycombe. email: andrew.morley@trendcomms.com Phone +44 1628-524977 Bucks, UK. ------------------------------ From: Mike Fox Date: 8 Oct 96 9:52:55 Subject: Re: PCS and GSM Questions > We know that CDMA and TDMA are not compatible with GSM. I had heard, > though, that DCS 1800 is compatible with one of the North American PCS > standards. Is this true? If so: > 1. Which standard? I don't know if this answers your question, but the BellSouth DCS 1900 system being put into NC, SC, and TN, is a GSM system. I don't know if it operates on the same frequency as non-US GSM systems, but all the standard GSM command strings for call forwarding, etc. work on it, and when I was signing up I looked over the BellSouth Rep's shoulder at the computer screen and one field on the rep's screen was System Type: GSM > 2. Are any of the PCS frequency winners using this standard? > 3. If so, are there any planned interconnects or "roaming" planned with > non-US DCS operators? My understanding of DCS is that it is another marketing name for PCS, coined to stay ahead of Cellular One, who has been running ads for months trying to confuse consumers by calling their standard cellular offerings "Personal Communications Solutions (PCS)" Later, Mike ------------------------------ From: msilano@access.digex.net (Michael Silano) Subject: Re: AT&T PCS Service Questions Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 17:28:20 GMT Organization: DIGEX On 7 Oct 1996 02:34:36 GMT, ctuttle@ionet.net (ctuttle) wrote: > I just saw information on AT&T's new PCS service but have some questions > that I get differing answers depending upon who I talk to at AT&T. My > first question is if the paging option is nationwide. One rep said it > worked anywere there was PCS service; another said it only worked in my > home area. Also is there a common roaming rate? One rep said it was 60 > cents a minute; another said it "varies by location." I spoke to a rep at Nationwide Cellular, a local reseller of both AT&T Wireless (McCaw/Cellone) and Nynex. The service is NOT a true PCS in the sense of bandwidth used and technology. It is simply digital (TDMA, I believe) cellular service on the usual 800MHZ bandwidth with some additions: Paging and Text Messaging. The service is only available in 40 cities now and more to come. If you are out of your area, you roam analog -- on the 'A' channel, I think. AT&T is calling the service 'PCS' to try and beat the true PCS licensees to market. Most of the PCS companies are still building their wireless networks and systems; AT&T can call their system PCS by simply moving towards digital cellular. The Nokia 2160 phone is the phone of choice for the service and will support all messaging and paging. ------------------------------ From: Brian Starlin Subject: Re: AT&T PCS Service Questions Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 08:57:38 -0700 Organization: North American Cellular Network Reply-To: brian.starlin@attws.com ctuttle wrote: > I just saw information on AT&T's new PCS service but have some questions > that I get differing answers depending upon who I talk to at AT&T. My > first question is if the paging option is nationwide. The paging service works wherever there is an AT&T PCS system. Right now, that is in about 40 cities. The paging function will not work on any systems other than AT&T Digital PCS systems at this time. Some other carriers are upgrading their networks to this same type of system and AT&T will probably have some agreement to get the same functions when you roam on those other systems. So, it depends on how much you travel and where you travel. > I have looked at the AT&T web page and found it informative. However > when I called the 800 number listed on their web page, I was told by > operator who answered the call that the number was a special number only > to be used by customers who received a special mailing. Unless I had > some sort of "authorization number" they couldn't answer any questions. I saw an 888 number on the web page. When I called she didn't ask for an authorization number. The web page also has a FAQ that has better answers than the person I spoke to on the phone. The phone number was 1-888-290-4613. > I'm looking for a > phone to replace my nationwide pager and to cut down on the roaming fees > of standard cellular phones. The phone will be used almost exclusively > when I travel, so I am looking for a plan with a limited number of local > area free minutes. Is AT&T's PCS the way to go? Or is there a better > solution? Email would be appreciated! This phone won't replace a nationwide pager ... yet. But it will cut down on the roaming rates, particularly when you are roaming in one of AT&T's 40 cellular areas. They will only charge the 60 cents per minute on those systems. But, when you roam onto other people's systems, the roaming rates are controlled by those carriers. The normal rate for systems on the NACN is 99 cents per minute. You will be able to take the AT&T Digital PCS phone into other cellular systems and roam just fine. The phones are dual-mode digital/analog. We have more information on roaming available from http://www.nacn.com. AT&T Wireless coverage maps are available at http://www.attws.com/nohost/cellular/coverage/ce_ncvmp.html. Look at the areas where you travel the most. I don't know what AT&T plans for increasing the paging coverage. You see, the cellular side of AT&T Wireless is competing with the messaging side of AT&T Wireless. Phone: Fax: 206-580-5123 Brian Starlin 206-580-5110 Email: brian.starlin@nacn.com ------------------------------ From: kristof@iu.net Subject: Re: I'm Stuck - Optimal Packet Size Date: 8 Oct 1996 06:09:26 GMT Organization: InternetU, Inc. Diane Kresovich <75310.3665@CompuServe.COM> writes: > I am taking an overview of telecommunications and I'm stuck on a > problem. The problem is this: assume a 1500-character message long is > to be divided into packets and transmitted over a 4-hop path, with a > bit rate of 4800 bps on each hop. Each packet contains 8 characters > of overhead, with eight bits per character. Compute and plot the > total time (T) for transmitting the message across the network for the > maximum packet sizes, including overhead ranging from 10 - 1508 > characters. > Is the optimal packet size equal to the number of bits of overhead > plus the square root of (the total number of bits in the message times > the number of bits of overhead divided by the number of links minus > 1)? > The only other formula I learned relating to this gives the time of > transmission given the optimal packet size. I am not a mathematical > whiz. If I was, I would take the formula, and solve for the optimal > packet size. The other formula I mention, is based on something I see > in my book, but don't quite understand. I am not sure what formulas you're referring to because my college years were a while back, but logically speaking, the 4800 bps speed or any other has no influence on the optimum packet size (not time!). The main issue is the probability of retransmission. If it is zero then the optimum is the maximum message size because the overhead would be the least. The number of hops may have something to do with a different error rate for each link. Also, I remember some of the "telecommunications" textbooks from my college years. They are nothing more than simple exercises on elementary algebra and have nothing to do with presentations of telecommunications problems. Chris ------------------------------ From: Mike Fox Date: 8 Oct 1996 09:44:44 GMT Subject: Re: NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was Re: New 809 Fraud via Email) In response to my call to kick Carribean countries that originate phone scams out of the NANP, Pat wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What are you saying, that you don't > think the Americans can pull a few good phone scams also? You think > we mostly need to be concerned with foreign 'area codes'? PAT] Of course I know Americans can and do pull off phone scams. But at least when Americans do it, I can complain to the FCC or the FTC or some other authority that has jurisdiction over the scammers. Who can you complain to in these Carribean phone scams, especially if the government-owned phone company in the country in question is a direct beneficiary of the scam? By having these people in the NANP we are providing a direct and easy pipeline for them to rip off Americans who are less phone-savvy then the average TELECOM Digest reader (that would probably be about 99% of them). Later, Mike ------------------------------ From: Charles Holcomb Subject: Re: Long Distance Carrier Sizes Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 09:43:09 -0500 Organization: DSC Communications Corporation John, The quote about the 4th largest carrier is based on the number of residental subscribers, NOT THE EARNINGS. Whoever gave you that info needs to get their facts striaght. Charles Holcomb ------------------------------ From: Chris Sells Subject: TAPI Development Hardware Wanted Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 21:35:44 -0700 I'm finishing up my book for AW and I need some hardware to do advanced call processing, i.e. hold, conference, transfer. Is there a TSP that works w/ Centrex? Is there a small PBX that I could install in my home that would work w/ TAPI? Wave, hold, transfer, conference and a downline phone are a must. Caller-ID, DNIS and ANI would be cool. NT4 drivers would be awesome. Any suggestions? Thanks, Chris Sells http://www.teleport.com/~csells ------------------------------ From: xdab@midway.uchicago.edu (David Baird) Subject: Last Laugh! AT&T acronym Organization: The University of Chicago Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 13:53:10 GMT The recent posting from the gentleman having trouble receiving information from AT&T concerning its PCS announcement, reminded me of an AT&T "insider" joke told me a couple of weeks ago by one of their recently downsized employees: What does AT&T stand for?: A: Allen and two temps! David Baird xdab@midway.uchicago.edu University of Chicago d-baird@uchicago.edu Networking Services (312) 702-7161 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Other than the ampersand getting misplaced as a result (reading A&TT) that's pretty clever. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #532 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Oct 8 17:42:29 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id RAA25121; Tue, 8 Oct 1996 17:42:29 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 17:42:29 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610082142.RAA25121@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #533 TELECOM Digest Tue, 8 Oct 96 17:41:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 533 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Known 700-NXX Codes of Some Known Carriers (Mark J. Cuccia) Nynex Billing Clock Questions (jimtoro@hoflink.com) Mitnick Sentencing Delayed (Tad Cook) Another Annoyance With AT&T "Your Party is Not Answering..." (Roger Wells) 800/888 Toll-Free Prefix Assignments (Mark J. Cuccia) Costly Calls (was Re: Just Say Yes) (Bob Schwartz) Net Controls (A. Padgett Peterson) Re: Cellular and PCS Tariffs in USA (Mariana Sanchez) Re: Cyber Promotions Wants to Hear From You (Donald E. Eastlake 3rd) Re: NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was Re: New 809 Fraud via Email (D Forman) Re: NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was Re: New 809 Fraud via Email (Harrell) ASN.1 Floats (Steve Liu) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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, 08 Oct 1996 12:58:49 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Known 700-NXX Codes of Some Known Carriers Here are some 'known' 700-NXX assignments used (presently or at one time or another) by particular long distance carriers. Any additional info or corrections would be appreciated. THANX. 700 Special Area Code (for Carrier Services) ============================================ Each Carrier has special NPA 700 available for its own uses, although 700-555-4141 is to be used for "primary carrier verification" (many carriers use the ENTIRE range of -XXXX line numbers in 700-555 for reaching their primary carrier verification recording.) A "CIC" (10-XXX/101-XXXX+) code is required to reach the 700 services of a carrier which is not the primary chosen carrier. (10-288/101-0288) AT&T's 700-NXX Codes 700-456 ALLIANCE TELECONFERENCING -100X (voice) -200X (data/graphics) -300X (video) X= 0 (conference bridge closest to caller) 1 (Los Angeles bridge) 2 (Chicago bridge) 3 (New York bridge) 4 (Dallas bridge) 700-45X for "Meet-Me" Alliance Teleconferenceing Services 700-460 (-1000) had been used (pre-IDDD) for reaching an AT&T operator in Miami for connecting calls to Cuba. 700-555 (-4141) AT&T's carrier verification recording 700-56X for "Accunet" Switched 56 Kbps Data 700-73X for "Accunet" Switched 64 Kbps Data 700-33X 331,4,5 for "Comsat" 700-90X,910 700-95X 950 956 for "switched 56" Kbps Data 959 (plant testing) 700-976 The above codes are NOT used for "Easy-Reach"/"True-Connections" 700. It is not yet known if they are "not assignable" or if they are used for some other function. Most/all of the remainder of AT&T's 700-NXX are for AT&T's "Easy-Reach-700" (now known as "True-Connections-700" Personal Numbers). (10-222/101-0222) MCI's 700-NXX Codes 700-200 for recording a network delivered message 700-555 (-4141) for MCI's carrier verification recording 700-NXX can be used for "InTRA-LATA" MCI service (actually it is only the "Home" NPA i.e. InTRA-NPA) (10-220/101-0220, now defunct) Western Union's 700-NXX Codes 700-422 (-4224) for WU's Customer Service or Sales 700-555 (-4141) for WU's carrier verification recording 700-611 (-6116) for WU's Repair Service 700-700 (-7007) for WU's Customer Service of Sales (10-444/101-0444) Allnet (now Frontier) 700-NXX Codes 700-555 (-4141) for Allnet's carrier verification recording Many other of Allnet's 700-NXX codes (I know of 700-777 in particular) were for PAY-per-call (900-like) services via Allnet- ALASCOM (now part of AT&T), within Alaska LATA/network 700-889 (-6737) = 700-TTY-OPER used to reach the TDD/TTY text operator Alaska (unlike Canada & the US including HI, PR/USVI) didn't use the 800-855-1155 number for TDD/TTY but rather this 700 number. 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: jimtoro@hoflink.com Subject: NYNEX Billing Clock Questions Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 14:13:13 -0400 Organization: LI Net (Long Island Network) Can someone tell me what the rates are for billing per minute (not exact rates but the way its calculated) for a business if the caller starts a call at 8am on a business day and stays online for 24 hours?. Does the rate charged for the 24 hours get billed at the rate the call started at or does the rate flucuate depdending on what discount period the minutes of the call fell in? Would a 24 hour, local call get billed 1440 minutes of no discount time if a call started at 8am?. I need REAL info, no guesses, so please respond only if you have copy of tariff or know for a fact. Thanks. ------------------------------ Subject: Mitnick Sentencing Delayed Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 09:51:51 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Sentencing of Mitnick delayed LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Sentencing was postponed for electronic outlaw Kevin Mitnick, who faces dozens of new fraud charges for allegedly hacking computer systems and causing millions of dollars in damage. U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer announced Monday that she will set a new sentencing date on Nov. 4 and also will schedule a trial date for Mitnick and a co-defendant on the new charges. Mitnick was arrested in February 1995 in Raleigh, N.C., following an investigation and cross-country manhunt, with a trap sprung by Tsutomo Shimomura, an expert in computer security. Mitnick was supposed to be sentenced on a single fraud count. He pleaded guilty in April to using 15 stolen cellular phone numbers to dial into computer databases in a 1995 North Carolina case. Mitnick also faced sentencing for breaking probation on a 1988 hacking conviction. But the new charges complicated things, especially since his previous lawyer was removed over a conflict of interest. Attorney Richard Sherman will represent co-defendant Lewis DePayne instead. Mitnick's new lawyer is Donald C. Randolph. Mitnick pleaded innocent on Oct. 1 to charges he damaged computers and stole millions of dollars in software from high-tech companies, damaging University of Southern California computers and using stolen computer passwords. The 25 counts include computer and wire fraud, possessing unlawful access devices, damaging computers and intercepting electronic messages. The indictment follows an investigation by a national task force of FBI, NASA and federal prosecutor high-tech experts. The affected companies are Novell, Motorola, Nokia, Fujitsu and NEC. ------------------------------ From: rwells@usin.com (Roger Wells) Subject: Another Annoyance With AT&T's "Your party is not answering..." Date: 8 Oct 1996 16:46:16 GMT Organization: U.S. Intelco Networks, Inc. I belive people have already commented here on the way AT&T handles calls which are not answered in approximatly six rings or so. An announcement comes on; it used to say, "Your party is not answering..." Apparently they decided to change it to "AT&T is still trying to complete your call. Would you like to leave a message..." Actually, I've complained to AT&T several times and it appears they've done something so this no longer happens on my line. However, last weekend I was at my father's and tried to call a friend who was living in El Paso. This friend apparently had moved back to Oregon so I got the standard forwarding message, "The number xxx-xxxx is no longer in use. The new number is..." Well, I *started* to get the forwarding message but, guess what, to the AT&T lines this intercept appears to be a phone ringing without being answered. Just as it was starting to read out the new telephone number, AT&T interrupts with their "AT&T is still trying to complete your call. Would you like to leave a message?" (To what? A disconnected phone?) Good one, AT&T. Roger Wells ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 11:56:55 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: 800/888 Toll-Free Prefix Assignments As has been reported in the TELECOM Digest in the past, in the NANP, our 800 (and new 888) Toll-Free area codes now have "numbering portability", both geographically and among carriers. When 800 began in the mid 1960's and through the early 1980's, the Bell System (AT&T Long Lines and the local Bell Operating Companies) as well as the independent operating companies and the Canadian telephone companies had the 800-NNX assigned on a regional/geographic basis. That began to be abandoned in the early 1980's when AT&T's database-lookup using CCIS signalling technology and geographic portability came about. In the mid-1980's, after divestiture, the original 800-NNX codes which had been geographically assigned in the US (including Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands) were thus assigned to AT&T. The 800-NNX codes which had been originally geographically assigned to Canadian NPA terminations continued to be assigned to those Canadian NPA's (as they hadn't yet fully gone to database/CCS technology), although they were also used by AT&T, for both AT&T handled 800 numbers in the US, and AT&T handled 800 calls from the US to Canada. *NEW* 800-NXX assignments were assigned to the new competitive carriers which desired to offer inward toll-free service to customers. There are some outdated lists of such 800-NXX assignments to *carriers* (and services) in the TELECOM Digest Archives. In Spring 1993, 800 service in the US became more *fully* portable. Portable numbering between *carriers* became available. In early 1994, Canada joined in with this carrier portability pool. For the most part, 800-NXX codes had no 'specific' assignments, neither to carriers nor geographically. However, there are a handful of 800-NXX codes which have continued to be assigned to *Caribbean* carriers or entities for either inward 800 service to those points, or for intra-island/intra-Caribbean toll-free 800 service. Since then, there have been some slight modifications, such as 800-555 being included into the 'general' portability pool (occurred in late 1994), and then the introduction of the second NANP toll-free special NPA, 888. The following is a list of 800-NXX and 888-NXX codes and any 'special' assignment or reservations about them: TOLL-FREE NPA 800: 800-0XX, 800-1XX (not assignable at this time) 800-N02, 800-N12 (sixteen codes still 'reserved' for wireless functions) 800-271 Textel (Trinidad & Tobago) 800-389 Batelco (Bahamas) 800-415 AACR (All-America Cables & Radio, Dominican Republic) 800-534 Bartelco (Barbados) 800-623 Bartelco (Barbados) 800-703 *reserved for future assignment* (most likely for the Caribbean) 800-740 STSJ (US Virgin Islands) 800-744 Cable & Wireless ('catch-all' code for most of the Caribbean) 800-751 GTE Codetel (Dominican Republic) 800-855 hearing impaired (TDD/TTY) modem relay service 800-904 *reserved for future assignment* (most likely for the Caribbean) 800-907 Tricom Telepuerto San Isidro (Dominican Republic) 800-911 NOT ASSIGNABLE (possible confusion with 911 local emergency code) TOLL-FREE NPA 888: 888-250 (still being used for testing purposes) 888-555 not assignable at this time (although 888-555-1212 from Canada reaches "Toll-Free Directory" just like 800-555-1212 does, although 888-555-1212 doesn't work from the US to reach "Toll-Free Directory") 888-911 NOT ASSIGNABLE (possible confuston with 911 local emergency code) *ALL OTHER* 800-NXX and 888-NXX codes *are available* for general toll-free numbers in the portability database, including: 800-555 (original -xxxx assignments when this NXX code was 'special' have been 'grandfathered' in, such as -1212 for Directory, -8111 for AT&T/Lucent customer service for equipment lease, etc.; 888-555, however is not assignable for general/portable numbers only in 888-) 800-N11, 888-N11 (except 800-911 and 888-911, as mentioned above); a set of seven NXX codes, each are available in *both* 800- and 888- 800-250 (250 is not presently available only in 888-) 888-N02, 888-N12 (the eight N02's and eight N12's are used for wireless functions only in 800-) And the eleven 800-NXX codes reserved/assigned to the Caribbean (listed above) are only reserved as such in 800-. They *are* available for 'general/portable' assignment in 888-. 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: Bob@BCI.NBN.com (Bob Schwartz) Subject: Costly Calls (was Re: Just Say Yes) Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 10:37:52 +1200 Organization: BCI Bob Bulmash commented on JSY and call completion with Ameritech ... While all or most of your opinion of Ameritech may be right-on, I think you may have missed something with your assumption about blocking "just say yes" calls to 800 numbers. Ameritech is still prohibited from completing inter-LATA calls. It seems to me that having to screen for inter and intra LATA calls on this level would be onerous, even though they do keep the definative database. In article , prvtctzn@aol.com (Prvt Ctzn) wrote: > Note that, if you call Ameritech's `411' service, and ask for, say, > Commonwealth Edison (a Chicago area utility), Ameritech will give you > the `800' number. Yet Ameritech does not offer its `Just Say Yes' to > complete such 800 number calls. Why! It's just as inconvenient to > dial 800-XXX-XXXX as it is to dial 773-XXX-XXX. > My point is, if they can block 800 numbers from their `Just Say Yes' > program, they can also block specific numbers from using the service. > BUT THEY WON'T; so long as burdening their customers with making an > unwanted service available makes them money. Remember, when it comes > to Ameritech, it's not the money, it's the Money. What I don't like about this whole business of employees making inordinately costly calls is the "fact" that in the past there were only several types of calls that could trigger a bill larger than that of a domestic or international call. Now a days you can call 800, 900, 976, and get a "big" bill. Not incidentally, you can block calls to these types of numbers , AT NO COST, (in many states). You can also block international calls, through your long distance carrier, AT NO COST. ( A discussion of wether this was implemented for to benefit the subsriber or the long distance company may be appropriate.) Now there are services like *69, and a myriad of others, that trigger charges not commensurate with domestic call rates generating bills and YOU CAN NOT HAVE THEM BLOCKED AT ALL, with or without cost! In the past you could trigger a larger than domestic rate charge on your phone bill by sending a telegram with a call to Western Union. I suspect this was enabled through a perfectly romantic deal years ago when WU caved into competition from AT&T. (Historians please elucidate.) Telegrams always carried the name of the sender, which I suppose could be fake, but it also carried the name of the recipient. In other words you could usually determine who in your organization was sending them by making inquiry to Western Union. Likewise collect person and station and operator assisted calls triggered greater costs. (What others am I missing?) The point is that there seems to have been protection afforded, perhaps by the regulators, preventing use of the network for costly calling. When technology enabled more costly calls then blocking was also available. Now there are costly services and no blocking available. The point was raised here that this is the customer's responsibilty. I thihk it is an example of the regulators letting the fox have free reign. They took care of us for so long and now ... Bob Schwartz Consulting, Auditing, Optimization Bill Correctors, Inc. Contract Negotiations, Research, & More. P.O. Box 316 Since 1983. Woodacre, CA 94973-0316 Bottom line results from your phone gas & electric line$. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 16:18:11 EDT From: A. Padgett Peterson Subject: Net Controls Critics Clamor for More Controls in Cyberspace Via AP By ALBERT R. KARR The Wall Street Journal ... > So far, few regulatory restrictions are actually in force. But > businesses do complain about an existing government policy that limits > the extent to which messages sent over the Internet can be encoded, Excuse me but what government are we talking about? Not the US which has no regulation (other than on HAMs) over "encoded" messages, even those sent or received from overseas. What is restricted *from export only* is the software or devices which does the encryption/decryption (and there are a lot of loopholes there). For example if you want to use PGP with friends in the UK, on this side of the pond you need PGP 2.6x (I use Viacrypt 4.0 ) while those in the UK need only to download PGP 2.62i which is available there and to the best of my knowlege you can communicate securely with them without breaking any US law (IANAL so please correct with citations if wrong) so long as you did not send them the PGP programs. Now I do not deny for a moment that ITAR has stifled US firms efforts to break into overseas markets, but please get the facts right. Warmly, Padgett ------------------------------ From: sancmari@telefonica.com.ar Subject: Re: Cellular and PCS Tariffs in USA Date: Tue, 08 Oct 96 10:51:00 PDT Dear Pat and all of you reading this, First of all, I want to say "thanks" to all that answer my questions about cellular and PCS tariffs in USA. Some of them like Michael Sullivan (nice your note about ignorance), Linc Madison and Mario Castano did it through the Digest, and others like Glenn Shirley and Carl Wright did it to my e-mail address. Dear Glenn, you asked me to re-send the answers I could get about this subject, well I have sent three mails to you, and all of them have been rejected for "unknown address", so Pat (thanks again!) will publish the contents of those mails for you to get in touch with the information and for all the others that could be curious. Carl Wright wrote that the term connection charge probably refers to the payment for "airtime" which is traditionally charged to a cellular subscriber on both calls received and sent. The PCS companies are fielding dramatically different charging methods, but they are still concerned about recovering the cost of radio link time. He also said that many companies have limited deployment of calling party pays. It is not widely deployed. The problem is that they have many different telephone companies. There are about 1400 in the U.S. Each telephone company must have a relationship with a cellular carrier to make it work. The telephone company must charge the caller and then pay the cellular company. The administrative complications make this difficult to deply. Related with what you said about CTI (Argentina) in both mails (the one you sent me and the one Pat published) I wanted to set some additional points. For the moment (and not for too long), when you make a call, you pay a fee that is related to the time it lasted and the distance between the place you called and where you are, no mind if the destiny is a fixed or a cellular suscriber. But, the cellular suscriber pays a fee for the call and another fee for "airtime"; this last is charged when he calls or when he receives a call and this charge is the one that our cellular companies are asking to charge always to the calling party. CTI has a dedicated area code (as Mario Castano explained that happens in Colombia), so there is no problem at all. But CTI covers all the country through two companies (CTI Norte and CTI Sur) with exception of Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires is attended by two cellular operators, one of them providing service since 1988 with a regulation created in 1984. Nobody thought in that moment that this service could ever grow the way that it finally did, so they are providing the service using the same numbering plan that fixed service. You have no easy way to distinguish the destiny. In less than two years, we are changing our numbering plan, with eight digits for all the country (very, VERY similar to the change that France is implementing). There is no meaning in making a change now for these cellular suscribers that in a couple of years will suffer another one. To be able to charge our clients, we will have to change all the tables of our exchanges, in order to identify if the number belongs to one of the cellular companies or not. Besides, do anyone of you think that our clients will understand that basic service companies ar far away of doing the big money with this change? Do you think that any of our clients will blame on the cellular operators or the Regulatory Office who said "do it"? Thank you all, once again, Mariana Sanchez PS (for Glenn): There are a great number of beautiful places within Telefonica's coverage areas that you can visit next time you visit Argentina, you just have to ask. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 15:55:23 EDT From: Donald E. Eastlake 3rd Subject: Re: Cyber Promotions You should note that the following domain names and IP addresses belong to cyberpromo in addition to the emaster.com and reedrules.com you mention. The relevant domains and IP addresses are: noblock.com: 208.9.65.104 answerme.com: 208.9.65.100 savetrees.com: 208.9.65.20 cyberpromo.com: 208.9.65.20 Donald E. Eastlake 3rd +1 508-287-4877(tel) dee@cybercash.com 318 Acton Street +1 508-371-7148(fax) dee@world.std.com Carlisle, MA 01741 USA +1 703-620-4200(main office, Reston, VA) http://www.cybercash.com http://www.eff.org/blueribbon.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for sending along this additional information. I am sure postmasters at many sites also thank you for passing this along because they are concerned that their user's mail receive proper handling, especially when of a priorty naure like the above. Do you think we might assume 208.9.65.* anything belongs to them? We need to make sure the mail is properly sorted and filtered. Let me know if other names are found. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dbf@sdc.cs.boeing.com (Dave Forman) Subject: Re: NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was Re: New 809 Fraud via Email) Reply-To: dbf@sdc.cs.boeing.com Organization: Boeing Information & Support Services Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 17:11:12 GMT I think that Mike is correct in his comments and Pat is a bit off base. It is not a question of whether U.S. companies/individuals can pull off scams. It is a question of jurisdiction. If there is a fraud locally, at least it can be handled by our own (rather ponderous) justice system. If it is offshore, there's not much we can do. David Forman ------------------------------ From: Jay@krusty.gtri.gatech.edu (Jay Harrell) Subject: Re: NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was Re: New 809 Fraud via Email) Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 14:23:16 -0500 Organization: Georgia Tech Research Institute In article , Mike Fox wrote: > should be kicked out of the NANP. People in the US/Canada should be > able to dial telephone calls in their own country code without fear of > being ripped off ... To take this one step further, I really wish that my calls to Canada were not as easy as just dialing "1". A few months ago I made a call to a vendor BBS to download a new driver -- it wasn't until I got my phone bill that I realized the number was in Canada and it had cost me three times as much as a US call would have. But at least Canada rates are reasonable. We really do need to get the expensive calls out of the NANP. IMHO, Jay Harrell Georgia Tech Research Institute Atlanta Georgia ------------------------------ From: Steve Liu Subject: ASN.1 Floats Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 14:34:24 -0400 Hello, I am currently trying to understand ASN.1 's BER for floating point numbers (for use in TCAP messages). I tried working through the spec and has understood the Base (B) and Exponent (E). What stumps me is the encoding N portion of the mantissa (M = N * 2^F). I had thought that it would be encoded in the same way an integer would be, however, the spec mentioned something about hardware encoding and zeroing bits which thoroughly confused me. So, I have tried to look up BER in the web but no tutorial seem to have info on encoding reals. If anyone knows or seen how BER encoding of reals is done, please send me some examples and/or explanation. I may be able to work it out even if I just had a couple of examples, but the specs were very vague and didn't give any examples. TIA, Steve Liu liu@amarex.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #533 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Oct 9 02:39:14 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id CAA08881; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 02:39:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 02:39:14 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610090639.CAA08881@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #534 TELECOM Digest Wed, 9 Oct 96 02:39:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 534 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson UCLA Short Courses on Communications (William R. Goodin) NPA Split for 510, 408 (Tad Cook) Re: PCS and GSM Questions (John Scourias) Internet vs Interstate (Tad Cook) Excel Slamming Charged (Wes Leatherock) Telephone Directory Online Wanted (bellanton002@wcsub.ctstateu.edu) Re: Cyber Promotions Wants to Hear From You (James E. Bellaire) Re: I'm Stuck - Optimal Packet Size (Andrew Robson) Telecom Disaster Recovery in 1871 (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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: BGOODIN@UNEX.UCLA.EDU (William R. Goodin) Subject: UCLA Short Courses on Communications Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 15:28:05 Organization: UCLA Extension Three short courses on communications with Bernard Sklar and frederick harris at UCLA. On November 18-22, 1996, UCLA Extension will present the short course, "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. UCLA Extension has presented this highly successful short course since 1990. The course fee is $1495, which includes the text and extensive course notes. These course materials are for participants only, and are not for sale. __________ On December 2-3, 1996, UCLA Extension will present the short course, "Advanced Digital Communications: The Search for Efficient Signaling Methods", on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. The instructor is Bernard Sklar, PhD, Communications Engineering Services. The approach taken in this course is quite different than in a basic course. Here, we begin with some system requirements and understand how to make reasonable design choices. The requirements then drive us toward the selection of some candidate systems. The course reviews system subtleties in transforming from data-bits to channel-bits to symbols to chips; it also reviews the Viterbi decoding algorithm. Other important topics include trellis-coded modulation, power- and bandwidth-efficient signaling, and spread spectrum signaling. The course emphasizes fading channels and how to mitigate the effects of fading, with specific examples of how various mobile systems have been designed to withstand fading. These systems include the Viterbi equalizer in the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) and the Rake receiver in CDMA (IS-95). The course also examines the recently discovered Turbo codes, whose error-correcting performance is close to the Shannon limit. The course fee is $895, which includes the text and extensive course notes. These materials are for participants only, and are not for sale. _________ On December 4-6, 1996, UCLA Extension will present the short course, "Multirate Digital Filters and Applications", on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. The instructor is Professor frederick harris, Electrical and Computer Engineering, San Diego State University. This course is an introduction to multirate digital filters, which are variants of non-recursive filters, and incorporate one or more resamplers in the signal path. These embedded resamplers affect changes in sample rate for upsampling, downsampling, or combinations of both. Changes in sampling rate as part of the signal processing is a feature unique to sampled data systems. and has no counterpart in continuous signal processing. Benefits include reduced cost for a given signal processing task and improved levels of performance for a given computational burden. This economy of computation has become an essential requirement of modern communication systems, particularly battery-operated equipment. Specific course topics include: Introduction to sample rate conversion, Non-recursive (finite impulse response) filters, Prototype FIR filter design methods, Decimation and interpolation, Multirate filters, Two-channel filter banks, M-channel filter banks, Proportional bandwidth filter banks and wavelet analysis, Polyphase recursive all-pass filter banks, Multirate filter applications. The course fee is $1195, which includes extensive course materials. These materials are for participants only, and are not for sale. __________ For additional information and complete course descriptions, please contact Marcus Hennessy at: (310) 825-1047 (310) 206-2815 fax mhenness@unex.ucla.edu http://www.unex.ucla.edu/shortcourses/ These courses may also be presented on-site at company locations. ------------------------------ Subject: NPA Split for 510, 408 Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 17:46:23 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) First New Area Code in 408 Area Since 1959 and in 510 Since 1991; Public Hearings Announced For Review of New Area Code Options in 510 and 408 Areas SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 8, 1996--Residents of the 510 and 408 area codes are being invited to attend one of several public participation meetings on area code relief just announced for their respective areas. The meetings, to be moderated by representatives of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), will serve as a public forum for assessing local opinion on various area code options. Three public meetings have been scheduled to review alternatives for a new area code in the 510 area, one each in Walnut Creek (Oct. 16), Oakland (Oct. 17) and Pleasanton (Oct. 17). For the 408 area code, new area code alternatives will be reviewed in Salinas (Oct. 21), Sunnyvale (Oct. 22), San Jose (Oct. 22) and Santa Cruz (Oct. 24). The California Code Administrator first announced the need for new area codes in both the 510 and 408 areas in late April of this year. At that time, 10 areas of California were identified as needing new area codes by the end of 1998, including the 510 and 408 areas. While the 408 area has not had to undergo an area code change in 37 years, residents of the 510 area were split off from the 415 area in 1991. `The meetings will explain each of the relief options and all pertinent regulatory issues, while allowing local residents to express their opinions of proposed area code boundaries,` according to Bruce Bennett, California Code Administrator. Bennett said the rapid exhaustion of existing codes is being fueled by tremendous demand for pagers, cellular phones, faxes, and Internet connections, as well as requests from new local phone service providers. The 408 area meetings will look at two relief options for a geographic split. One proposes keeping the 408 area only for Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Milpitas and parts of San Jose (mostly downtown, the airport area, and other business areas), while the other would follow county lines with all of Santa Clara county now served by 408 keeping it. In both proposed splits, the counties of Monterey and San Benito, and the part of Santa Cruz county now served by the 408 area code, would be placed in a new area code. `What's really in question here is whether or not the cities of Campbell, Cupertino, Saratoga, Morgan Hill, San Martin, and Gilroy, and most of the residents of San Jose, will get a new area code,` Bennett said. In the 510 area, two options are under consideration. A north/south geographic split would assign a new area code to Contra Costa county as well as the city of Dublin, with the 510 area code retained for the rest of Alameda county. An east/west split would give a new area code to that portion of the East Bay to the east of the ridge line above Berkeley, Oakland and Hayward all the way to the 408 border. The 510 code, in this case, would be retained for the area from Albany and Berkeley on the north to Fremont and Newark on the south. Another alternative -- to overlay a new area code on top of the 408 or 510 area code -- will also be discussed at each hearing, but only for educational purposes since newly adopted rules of the CPUC prevent its use at this time for these areas. The 510 area code is projected to run out of phone numbers by the third quarter of 1998, while the 408 area code is expected to run out by the first quarter of 1999. The new area codes could go into effect as early as April 1998 in both areas. Times and locations for the meetings are: Wed., Oct. 16 Walnut Creek 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Las Lomas High School 1460 South Main Street Thurs., Oct. 17 Oakland 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce Main Conference Room 475 14th Street (cross Street: Broadway) Across from City Hall near 12th Street Bart Station Thurs., Oct. 17 Pleasanton 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Pleasanton Library the large meeting room (to right of entrance) 400 Old Bernal Avenue Mon., Oct. 21 Salinas 7 p.m.to 9 p.m. Monterey County Board of Supervisors' Chambers County Administration Office 240 Church Street East Wing, Room 225 Tues., Oct. 22 Sunnyvale 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunnyvale Senior Center 820 West McKinley Avenue Tues., Oct. 22 San Jose 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. City Council Chambers City Hall building - 2nd Floor 801 North First Street Thurs., Oct. 24 Santa Cruz 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Santa Cruz City/County Library 224 Church Street (across from City Hall) CONTACT: Pacific Bell John E. Lucas, 415/394-3892 Dick Fitzmaurice, 415/394-3764 ------------------------------ From: scourias@voicenet.com (John Scourias) Subject: Re: PCS and GSM Questions Date: 8 Oct 1996 22:58:05 GMT Organization: Voicenet - Internet Access - (215)674-9290 Mike Fox (mjfox@raleigh.ibm.com) wrote: >> We know that CDMA and TDMA are not compatible with GSM. I had heard, >> though, that DCS 1800 is compatible with one of the North American PCS >> standards. Is this true? If so: >> 1. Which standard? > I don't know if this answers your question, but the BellSouth DCS 1900 > system being put into NC, SC, and TN, is a GSM system. I don't know > if it operates on the same frequency as non-US GSM systems, but all > the standard GSM command strings for call forwarding, etc. work on it, > and when I was signing up I looked over the BellSouth Rep's shoulder > at the computer screen and one field on the rep's screen was System > Type: GSM DCS-1900 (or PCS-1900) is basically a slight modification of DCS-1800, which is a variant of GSM. The basic difference between the three is carrier frequency (GSM is at 900 MHz, DCS-1800 at 1.8 GHz, and PCS-1900 at 1.9 GHz. There are other small differences as well, including things like voice coders. The systems at 1.8 and 1.9 GHz have different propagation characteristics, meaning smaller cells, lower power, greater reuse and hence greater capacity. >> 2. Are any of the PCS frequency winners using this standard? >> 3. If so, are there any planned interconnects or "roaming" planned with >> non-US DCS operators? > My understanding of DCS is that it is another marketing name for PCS, > coined to stay ahead of Cellular One, who has been running ads for > months trying to confuse consumers by calling their standard cellular > offerings "Personal Communications Solutions (PCS)" The PCS acronym (Personal Communication Systems) is grossly overhyped. It is a generic term, meaning (basically) cheaper, higher capacity digital cellular, with improved services. I have not followed the U.S. market very closely, but there are several carriers (both in the U.S. and Canada) which intend to use PCS-1900. Dual-mode phones would be needed for 'hardware' roaming (and they might even exist already...), but it should be possible to do SIM-roaming. The SIM is a smart card in GSM phones, which provides personal mobility (i.e., you stick it in another phone, and it's like using your own phone). Regards, John Scourias http://ccnga.uwaterloo.ca/~jscouria/ University of Waterloo jscouria@neumann.uwaterloo.ca Waterloo, ON, Canada ------------------------------ Subject: Internet vs Interstate Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 18:21:50 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) I don't know who wrote this, but its being passed around. Tad Cook tad@ssc.com There it is again. Some clueless FOOL talking about the "Information Superhighway." They don't know JACK about the net. It's NOTHING like a Superhighway. That's a BAD metaphor. Yeah, but suppose the metaphor ran in the OTHER direction. Suppose the HIGHWAYS were like the NET. All right! Severe craziness. A highway HUNDREDS of lanes wide. Most with potholes. Privately operated bridges and overpasses. No highway patrol. A couple of rent-a-cops on bicycles with broken whistles. 500 member VIGILANTE POSSES with nuclear weapons. 237 ON RAMPS at every intersection. NO SIGNS. Wanna get to Ensenada? Holler out the window at a passing truck to ask directions. AD HOC traffic laws. Some lanes would VOTE to make use by a single-occupant-vehicle a CAPITAL OFFENSE on Monday through Friday between 7:00 and 9:00. Other lanes would just SHOOT you without a trial for talking on a car phone. AOL would be a giant diesel-smoking BUS with hundreds of EBOLA victims and a TOILET spewing out on the road behind it. Throwing DEAD WOMBATS and rotten cabbage at the other cars most of which have been ASSEMBLED AT HOME from kits. Some are 2.5 horsepower LAWNMOWER ENGINES with a top speed of nine miles an hour. Others burn NITROGLYCERINE and IDLE at 120. No license tags. World War II BOMBER NOSE ART instead. Terrifying paintings of huge teeth or VAMPIRE EAGLES. Bumper mounted MACHINE GUNS. Flip somebody the finger on this highway and get a WHITE PHOSPHORUS GRENADE up your tailpipe. Flatbed trucks with ANTI-AIRCRAFT MISSILE BATTERIES to shoot down the KRUD Traffic Watch helicopter. A little kid on a tricycle with a squirtgun filled with HYDROCHLORIC ACID. NO OFFRAMPS. Now THAT'S the way to run an Interstate Highway system. ------------------------------ From: wes.leatherock@hotelcal.com (Wes Leatherock) Subject: Excel Slamming Charged Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 00:04:10 GMT From The Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) for October 8, 1996 Customers of Medicine Park Telephone Co. have had their long- distance service provide "illegally switched by Excel Communications, a Dallas-based reseller of long-distance service," the state Corporation Commission said Monday. Commission official Bill Hollins said that customers who have contacted the commission's consumer service division said that they did not grant permission for the switch. Affected customers should contact the Medicine Park Telephone Co. immediately to have their long-distance service restored to the carrier of their choice, Hollins said. Excel is not certified to provide long-distance service in Oklahoma, he said. The practice of unauthorized switching, called "slamming," occurs when a long-distance company takes over a customer's long distance service without getting written permission from the customer. The procedure is prohibited by Federal Communications Commission rules. ------------------------------ From: bellanton002@wcsub.CTSTATEU.EDU Subject: Telephone Directory Online Wanted Date: 8 Oct 96 14:06:35 EST Organization: Connecticut State University System Where on the net can I find an American telephone directory? Thanks, bellanton002@wcsub.ctstateu.edu PS: Please respond ONLY by email. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 18:04:53 -0500 From: James E. Bellaire Organization: Twin Kings Subject: Re: Cyber Promotions Wants to Hear From You About blocking domains ... Blocking their domains is another way of putting organized spammers out of business, make them *pay* *pay* *pay* for new domain names. (At $100 per name, InterNIC net won't mind the extra business, :) ) Pat wrote: > Do you think we might assume 208.9.65.* anything belongs to them? Yep 208.9.64.* and 208.9.65.* --- see below ... > Let me know if other names are found. PAT] Anytime! The full list: > whois 'Cyber Promotions' Cyber Promotions, Inc (NETBLK-SPRINT-D00940) SPRINT-D00940 208.9.64.0 - 208.9.64.255 Cyber Promotions, Inc (NETBLK-SPRINT-D00941) SPRINT-D00941 208.9.65.0 - 208.9.65.255 Cyber Promotions (CYBER-PROMO-DOM) CYBER-PROMO.COM Cyber Promotions (CYBERPROMOTIONS-DOM) CYBERPROMOTIONS.COM Cyber Promotions Inc (PROMOCYBER-DOM) PROMOCYBER.COM Cyber Promotions Inc (CYBERPROMO-DOM) CYBERPROMO.COM Cyber Promotions, Inc. (NOBLOCK-DOM) NOBLOCK.COM Cyber Promotions, Inc. (NOCENSORSHIP-DOM) NOCENSORSHIP.COM Cyber Promotions, Inc. (PLEASEREAD-DOM) PLEASEREAD.COM Cyber Promotions, Inc. (REEDRULES-DOM) REEDRULES.COM Cyber Promotions, Inc. (SANFORDW-DOM) SANFORDW.COM Cyber Promotions, Inc. (SAVEPAPER-DOM) SAVEPAPER.COM Cyber Promotions, Inc. (SAVETREES-DOM) SAVETREES.COM Cyber Promotions, Inc. (SWALLACE-DOM) SWALLACE.COM Cyber Promotions, Inc. (YOUGOTMAIL-DOM) YOUGOTMAIL.COM Cyber Promotions, Inc. (CYBEREMAG-DOM) CYBEREMAG.COM Cyber Promotions, Inc. (1STAMEND-DOM) 1STAMEND.COM Cyber Promotions, Inc. (FIGHT4RIGHTS-DOM) FIGHT4RIGHTS.COM Cyber Promotions, Inc. (MAILREPORT-DOM) MAILREPORT.COM Cyber Promotions, Inc. (ANSWERME-DOM) ANSWERME.COM [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Don't you just love that one called 'fight4rights.com' and the other one called '1stamend.com' ... someone should remind Mr. Wallace that the courts have time and again ruled that there are substantial differences between so-called 'political speech' and 'commercial speech'. Certainly commercial speech-makers have rights also, but somehow I can't work up a lot of sympathy for him. I've added all the above to my Elm mail 'filter-rules' file indicating how I want to deal with mail from those locations. You might want to make the same adjustments in your filters. PAT] ------------------------------ From: arobson@nv2.uswnvg.com (Andrew Robson) Subject: Re: I'm Stuck - Optimal Packet Size Date: 8 Oct 1996 21:17:18 GMT Organization: U S WEST NewVector Group, Inc. Diane Kresovich (75310.3665@CompuServe.COM) wrote: > I am taking an overview of telecommunications and I'm stuck on a > problem. The problem is this: assume a 1500-character message long is ... > total time (T) for transmitting the message across the network for the > maximum packet sizes, including overhead ranging from 10 - 1508 > characters. What I expect your instructor wants you to do is to calculate the transmission time as a function of packet size. If you send the whole message as a single packet, it will take a little over 10 seconds because the message has to be sent 4 times (once for each hop) at about 2.5 seconds each. If you break it up into 750 two byte packets you will be sending 750 X 8 extra bytes of overhead but all four hops will be sending at the same time except for the first and last 3 packets while the pipeline fills and empties. The result in that case is about 12.6 seconds, only a little worse even though you are sending 80% overhead. The optimum size, for these assumptions, would be 50 bytes of data and 8 of overhead in each packet. This is not far from the rule of thumb that you were given. The total time would be about 3.5 seconds. When you do the calculation for a bunch of different sizes you will see the tradeoff between more overlap and more overhead at work. The real world is often more complicated, however, as your instructor has implicitly made several assumptions that don't always prove true. Between the hops is a router of some sort which adds some time. Moreover, if you are not the only user of the network, there will be a statistical delay when one of the circuits is busy. On a busy network or with slow routers you might well get better results with fewer, larger, packets. The protocol isn't mentioned, and most protocols call for an acknoledgment to get back to the source before it sends another packet. The "window" of packets that can be sent out, where they come from (the first router or end-to-end), and how quickly they are generated, also affect the best packet size. Those acknowledgemts are vital for error correction, and real world circuits do have errors. For any given error rate the probability of an error rises with the packet size and the cost in time of detecting and resending the packet also increases. When the error rate is high, this issue can dominate the choice of packet size. Also notice that "optimum" is not well defined in general. At the 1508 packet size the source is done sending the data in the least time. If there are more messages waiting to be sent out, this may be more of an issue than how soon the destination gets the complete message. When resources of memory and the transmission network are shared, optimum for one part may not be best for the whole system. Enjoy your overview class, but realize that it is only giving you a taste of the considerations required for a good design. Andy ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Telecom Disaster Recovery in 1871 Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 21:00:00 EDT It was 125 years ago on October 8-9, 1871 that the Great Fire in Chicago completely burned out a large portion of the city as it existed at that time. The entire month of September had been very dry and with no rain. In those times everything here was built out of wood with the exception of 'modern fire-proof buildings' which were made out of bricks. The exact reason for the fire was never detirmined. There is the one theory of the Cow, and although the cow's owner Mrs. O'Leary at first alluded to the possibility that her lantern may have been kicked over by the cow during its milking, she later testified under oath in special hearings before the Chicago Board of Aldermen (what is now the Chicago City Council) that no such thing had occurred. Other witnesses who lived nearby Mrs. Oleary's home claimed they had seen teenagers 'sneaking into the O'Leary barn to smoke cigarettes ...' Oddly enough, Mrs. O'Leary's house did *not* catch fire and burn down although her barn and some 17,000 other buildings in the city were destroyed by the time the fire was extingquished due to a heavy rainfall early on Tuesday morning, October 10. About 90,000 persons were left homeless, and about 300 persons died in the fire. The fire burned from about 9:00 pm that Sunday night, throughout the day on Monday and until shortly after midnight at the start of Tuesday. A combination of factors made the fire as bad as it was. Not the least were the nearly exhausted firemen who had battled a rather large fire on the west side of the city less than 24 hours earlier. Winds of 30 miles per hour spread the blaze rapidly. The 'sidewalks' were made of wooden planks elevated slightly off the ground and these had lots of trash under them. The citizens also were caught off guard or perhaps simply ignored the urgency of the matter until it was too late. The steeple of City Hall contained a large bell which was used by the Fire Alarm office to warn of such emergencies. It was operated by a mechanical device which was spring-wound, much like the clock which was also in the tower of the steeple. This device had a 'clutch' or similar on it and could be set to ring the bell with various cadences to mean various things. One ring and a pause meant a fire in the north part of the city; two rings and a pause meant a fire in the south part of the city; three rings and a pause meant a fire on the west side of the city; four rings and a pause was a general alarm to which all citizens were urged to heed. But as the {Chicago Tribune} reported two days after the fire, for nearly a week prior the bell had been ringing almost constantly due a large number of small fires all over the city created by the very dry weather and tinderbox conditions. The Tribune noted that 'our citizens cannot be blamed for giving the bell little attention that night; for over a week it seems everywhere we walk about town there is scarcely more than a few minutes passing before we see a team of horses racing down the street pulling their water-wagon with the firemen astride it making loud noises with their gongs to warn us to step aside quickly and let them past ...' So that warm and very pleasant Sunday evening as the good citizens of Chicago returned to their homes from church services they heard the bell in City Hall and most just said, 'oh, it is another fire somewhere ...' and let it go at that. At the telegraph office on LaSalle Street, the fellow who was the combination clerk/telegrapher on duty that Sunday night sat 'on the wire' talking about it with other telegraphers in cities far and wide. Even to him, it was 'just another fire' -- although a bigger one than usual -- as he looked out the window and saw the orange glow a mile or so to his southwest. Everyone assumed the fire would end when it burned its way to the south branch of the Chicago River near Roosevelt Road. It was common for the telegraphers to 'chat' among themselves when none of them had any traffic. They'd sit at the 'key' and just idly 'converse' with their counterparts around the nation. If any of them had something to send over the wire, he'd just tap the key a couple times in a sort of heavy-handed way and the others who had been chatting among themselves would become silent. Then the one who had interuppted would key "I have traffic", and the other operators would remain silent while he passed his traffic to wherever it was going. When he had finished, there would be a few seconds to a minute of silence as the others waited to see if more traffic was to follow, and if none was there, the chit-chat among them would begin again. The Chicago guy even mentioned it was quite a fire that seemed to be going on the west side of town that night. Then what no one expected would happen did happen. Strong winds carried burning chunks of wood, etc across the river, and the first few landed on the roof of the People's Gas Works Building. Employees at the gas works had the presence of mind to cut the gas supply immediatly, but sufficient gas under extreme pressure in a holding tank nearby was all that was needed to cause an explosion that, as the Tribune later reported 'must have been seen and heard by God Almighty himself, wherever he is, considering the huge ball of fire which rose into the air and the noise of the explosion as the gas works went up in flames. That was about midnight Sunday night, and from that point on, the fire just simply spread from one building to the next throughout the downtown area. In an interview in the {Chicago Tribune} in 1911 on the fortieth anniversary of the fire and the fiftieth anniversary of the employment of the man who had been on duty in the telegraph office that night, the man told his memories of the occassion. By 1911, the Chicago telegraph agency was operated by Western Union (it had not been in 1871). WUTCO, as readers here know, was itself a consolidation of several small telegraph companies and their agencies which took place over a half century or so. The old gentleman was retiring from employment with WUTCO that year in 1911, and people at the Chicago Historical Society, the Tribune and others felt his story needed to be recorded, because as the {Chicago Daily News} noted about the same time, 'soon all the people who were around at the time of the fire will be dead, and no one will be left to tell the real story.' In his interview in the Tribune in 1911, the man mentioned a few things he remembered from that night forty years earlier. He remem- bered that: 1) Mayor Roswell Mason had come to the telegraph office with some of the aldermen about 1:00 am when it was apparent the fire was going to destroy most of the city. Mayor Mason had told him to send out several telegrams immediatly; one to the president of the United States informing him of the disaster; one to General Sheridan of the United States Army asking for a declaration of martial law and to send troops; 'and a few others were sent calling for assistance to be given.' 2) By the time he had those messages as ordered by Mayor Mason, the wires were abuzz all over the country as other operators heard the messages being transmitted and began talking among themselves. By then it seemed every telegraph operator in the United States on duty at that time of night was talking about the great fire going on in Chicago. There was also traffic on the wire about a fire of similar fury and destructiveness going on at about the same time in the smaller town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, where some 2000 people lost their lives over a 24 hour period. 3) He recalled watching the fire as it was burning in several buildings across the street from the telegraph office and then it became obvious his own office was going to go up in flames also. He said that he gathered up what he could of the company's books and records, as well as the cash box at the front desk, and stored it all in the fireproof safe there. He sat down at the telegraph key one last time and 'broke' the chatters who immediatly went silent expecting that traffic was to be passed. When he had their atten- tion he said, "the roof of our building here has caught fire and I am getting out now. Goodbye, we will be in touch when we can ..." He said he recalls grabbing a few more things to toss in the safe before locking the door on it while the 'key' was chattering and other operators were sending words of encouragement. He said he remembers 'God bless' coming on the wire as he was going out the door. It was fortunate he left when he did, because within about a minute the roof collapsed in flames and the entire building began to burn, just as every other building around him was already doing. -------------------------------- [A quick side note: I am reminded of the great flood a few years ago when the old underground tunnel system here sprang a leak and the Chicago River began pouring into the tunnels and the sub-basments of buildings all over the downtown area. Although City Hall was one building which had to be totally evacuated, there were ten or so women who stayed behind -- the centrex phone operators -- who took call after call from the media all over the world as well as countless frightened citizens asking for information about the disaster. One of the ladies was asked, 'how long are you going to remain there?' and she replied 'until the phones go out of service or the water has risen to this level or the police come and carry us out. :) ' For about two hours employees of Ameritech frantically worked to re-route the City Hall centrex lines away from the rising flood waters in the basement to a location directly across the street in the Chicago Temple Building. They lost to the flood; the water rose faster than they could get the Fire Department lines and the centrex lines relocated, so the ladies were 'off line' about 45 minutes along with the people who answer fire calls routed to them through 911. For about 45 minutes, calls to 312-744-4000 just went off to nowhere; no ring no answer but then suddenly it started ringing again and the cheery ladies who had taken several thousand extra calls that day responded once again. They had all gotten up and walked across the street to the Temple Building where banks of phones had been set up for the operators and the Fire Alarm office personnel. Other City Hall workers would be without phone service for a few more days. ------------------------ 4) He said he remembered walking around downtown the rest of the night, going no where in particular but just watching the fire everywhere. The streets were almost entirely deserted. He said perhaps the most grotesque thing of all was the bell in the steeple at the City Hall. His words were, "the bell was on a wind up spring attached to gears which allowed it ring without human intervention. What was so strange was that long after the people in the Fire Alarm office itself had fled in terror seeking to save their own lives and what they could of their possessions in their homes, that bell continued to ring. Totally deserted streets downtown and that bell with its hideous sound as it would ring four times and pause, then four more times and pause ... a fire everyone! a fire! ... but no one there to listen to it. And then he watched as the cupola of City Hall caught fire and 'the flames swept wildly up the steeple itself and into the tower. The ropes which held the bell in place began to burn and presently the bell itself fell to the ground with an awful noise and the mechanicals kept moving up and down as the remains of the rope to the bell got tangled up in it.' And then soon the clock itself got dislodged from above and fell to the ground next to the bell. 5) He recalled that about about 3:00 am that Monday morning the fire further jumped the main part of the river and spread into the north part of the city. The water works caught on fire and the hydraulics which caused air pressure to go into the mains went out of order. That was the end of any possible fire fighting efforts. None the less people did what they could on the north side all day Monday to save their homes but with little or no success. 6) He went back to the place where the telegraph office had been located shortly after daybreak to find only smoldering ashes with the building completely down, but the company safe still standing there. One of his supervisors asked him to go along with him to the telegraph office in the village of Austin to the west of the city (now a neighborhood in the city known as Austin) where they could obtain tools and spare equipment to get themselves up and going as soon as possible. He said they rode their horses out that way and he recalls passing two young ladies on their way to work downtown carrying their lunch sacks; they were totally oblivious to everything and apparently unware of the fire. He said to his supervisor they would certainly be surprised when they got downtown ... :) 7) With tools in hand, a lot of wire, spare telegraph keys and the help of everyone employed there, he said they managed to relocate the telegraph office by the middle of the day Tuesday. He said they relocated in an area in the 'Customs Building' on South Clark Street near 18th Street and after working the entire day Monday and all that night they had a crude facility set up and operational Tuesday afternoon. 8) He recalled that when they first began attaching the keys to the newly installed wire, the keys of course came to life immediatly with traffic and at the first available free space in the traffic he keyed in to the other operators 'this is Chicago, I told you we would be back as soon as possible.' The other operators started chattering about it immediatly of course, wanting to know the extent of the damage, etc. 9) There were 'floods of traffic for several days afterward' as people anxiously inquired about relatives and friends. He said that at every minute there were three or four telegraphers on duty; none of them stopping for more than a few minutes at a time with people lined up in the street waiting to get out messages and a lot of messages coming in almost constantly around the clock. 10) The first messages sent out were by Mayor Mason to government officials telling them of actions he had taken. He recalled Mayor Mason's message to the president of the United States in which he stated, "In emergency session of the Board of Aldermen on Monday I instructed the aldermen to get on their horses and ride to Lincoln Park (where over a hundred thousand people camped out homeless on Monday night) to assure the citizens that everything possible is being done for their welfare, and to advise them that the government has been restablished and is in control." He noted the message to the president continued by saying that martial law had been declared and that the First Congregational Church had been seized by the government to serve as the temporary location of City Hall ... and that furthermore, several railroad trains which had entered the city on Monday and Tuesday had been comandeered by the police with the food and other supplies therein seized to be given to the citizens 'most of whom went without their supper on Monday night as they stood in the park, grateful that the only real things of value -- their loved ones -- were there safe with them ...' He remembered the day afterward, the Tuesday when the telegraph office re-opened for business and his visit to the downtown area that afternoon: 'Never did I see so many people downtown on one day. Thousands of people came downtown to wander the streets and look in amazement and awe. Just rubble everywhere. The safe remained too hot to open on Monday but after the rain Monday night it cooled off and on Tuesday morning executives of the telegraph agency went to the now burned out premises to open the safe and retrieve the contents. Quite a few of the documents were singed and crumbled into ashes when picked up, but there was quite a bit they saved.' Looters and trouble-makers used the circumstances of Monday to their advantage that night, and groups of citizens formed vigilante parties to protect what remained from the disaster. He noted in the Tribune interview that 'General Sheridan and his troops rode into town late Tuesday evening and never were the citizens so glad to see anyone in their lives. Order was restored almost immediatly and orderly distribution of relief supplies began the next morning (Wednesday) with the troops at nearly every street corner assisting the police. The first business to re-open downtown was that same Wednesday, two days after the fire. A man built a small wooden stand and had vegtables and fruits for sale. The Tribune Building had also burned down despite its supposedly fire-proof status, and the Tribune missed publication that Monday, but was back in business with a Tuesday edition from their new headquarters a few blocks away, and their headline that first day back after the fire was 'Chicago Will Rise Again'. The telegraph office stayed at its new location for several years until Western Union bought it, and it then moved into the new building WUTCO constructed at 427 South LaSalle Street where it remained until the 1980's. Telephones were yet to come; they would not be available for another seven or eight years in the city. PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #534 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Oct 9 16:03:40 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id QAA06620; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 16:03:40 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 16:03:40 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610092003.QAA06620@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #535 TELECOM Digest Wed, 9 Oct 96 16:03:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 535 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson The Truth About 809 Area Code Scams (Van Hefner) New York PSC Press Release re: Local Telco Competition (Danny Burstein) Excel Slamming Denied (Wes Leatherock) New Jersey Delays Area Code Decision (Tad Cook) Abandoned Submarine Cable Communications System - Need Help (Andrew Maffei) Breakthrough/PCMCIA Modem Adapter (Brian Judah) JavaTel Wins Support of Several Major Vendors (oldbear@arctos.com) Unneeded Bellcore Specs For Sale (dapet@aol.com) For Sale: Two Gandalf 5240i ISDN Bridges (Cheap!) (Chris Mitchell) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. 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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, 9 Oct 1996 03:08:39 -0700 From: vantek@northcoast.com (Van Hefner) Subject: The Truth About 809 Area Code Scams For those of you who are not that familiar with the pay-per-call industry, I'll let you in on exactly how these operations work, and who the REAL operators of these scams are. First, many people seem to be under the mistaken impression that the telcos of several Caribbean countries have conspired to rip-off unsuspecting American consumers. Though they do play a role in the scam, they are hardly the main culprits. As with the 900 pay-per-call industry, the people who stand the most to gain from these scams are SERVICE BUREAUS and pay-per-call operators. Caribbean telcos did NOT dream-up this scam. It was the brainchild of several AMERICAN service bureaus who needed a way to boost their revenues, after the bottom started falling out of the 900 industry. These companies approached the PTT's of Caribbean countries with "an offer they could not refuse". To be fair, service bureaus have been fleeced of millions of dollars by consumers who call up their 900/976 numbers, then refuse to pay their bills. Local telco's typically write-off these charges, and leave the service bureaus and 900 number operators stuck with the long distance bill, as well as associated overhead. Can you think of any other industry where you could use someone's product/service, then refuse to pay for it without consequence? Chargebacks (those refusing to pay their bills) on these services can approach 50%, or more, for some pay-per-call operations. Although there are MANY "sleazeball" service bureaus in operation, 900/976 pay-per-call services can be of legitimate use to consumers, if they are marketed legitimately. Many service bureaus and pay-per-call operators have been desperately looking for a way to charge consumers for these calls legitimately, while still being able to collect what they are owed. This has led to some bizarre arrangements, such as "splashing" calls to the Caribbean. The real problem here is really not so much the fact that calls are being routed through the Caribbean (and that kickbacks are being made), but that many of these pay-per-call operators are not providing any legitimate service for the callers, or adequately disclosing what rate the caller will be charged. Also, they are using deception and fraud to generate the calls in the first place (pager scams). If a company were offering lottery results, horoscopes, news, weather, sports, etc. and disclosing the fact that this is an international call, I don't see how it would be any more/less legitmate a way to collect pay-per-call revenues than using a 900/976 number for the same service. For whatever reason, there are many people who legitimately use 900/976 numbers for this type of information, and who do not mind paying for it. The real problem here is the fact that these numbers are being used for fraudelent purposes. The real culprits here are not only sleazeball service bureaus, but scam artists who dream-up "services" such as the "impotency hotline", and bombard pager users with their numbers. In some cases the service bureau simply acts as a conduit for the scam. I doubt that anyone at a service bureau actually thought-up the "impotency hotline". It was most likely set up by a con artist who used the service bureau's facilities to perpetrate the scam. Still, any legitimate service bureau should have shut the number down immediately, when they discovered that the scam artists were using illegal tactics to "spam" pager owners. Finally, one fact that seems to be overlooked in the press is that companies such as AT&T are setting ridiculously high rates for calls to these countries, NOT the foreign PTT's! I can make a call to any of the 809 area code countries for $.69 a minute on the reseller I use for international calls. Carriers such as AT&T are fleecing the public for as much as several dollars a minute for the same call. I would have to conclude that AT&T is actually making MORE of a markup on these calls than the Caribbean PTTs are, and they aren't giving ANYONE a kickback out of their share! To be fair, let's lay the blame for these scams where it is due (in proper order). 1.) The sleazeball pay-per-call operators who think-up and perpetrate the scams by offering no legitimate service, and leading people to call by deception and fraud. They are thieves, pure and simple. 2.) The pay-per-call service bureaus, who make the billing arrangements, collect the kickbacks for distribution of revenues to the above mentioned scam artists, and provide the facilities to known cons. Though there are some legitmate uses for these Caribbean calls (with full disclosure), many are aiding con artists by providing them with the tools necessary to carry on their scams. 3.) The local telcos (LEC's). By so freely granting ANYONE a chargeback on 900/976 calls, they have driven service bureaus and pay-per-call operators to dreaming-up these "imaginative" ways of collecting revenues. If the telco's didn't write-off so many of these calls (that were made legitimately by customers who intended to defraud the service bureau from the beginning), none of this would be happening. 4.) The F.C.C. For doing NOTHING about the problem. 5.) The foreign PTT's. For paying the kickbacks. 6.) Overpriced U.S. long distance carriers such as AT&T. For trying to con the public into believing that they have no control over the fact that their rates for calls to the Caribbean are so high. They are making a killing on these calls. 7.) Consumers who knowingly make calls to 900/976 numbers, without ever intending to pay their bills. Were it not for these people, pay-per-call services would only cost a few cents per minute, NOT a few dollars per minute. Some other interesting facts ... * Magazines such as InfoText carry numerous advertisements from service bureaus who will set you up with your own phone number in one of several Caribbean countries for FREE. They will provide "turn-key" services (mostly chat, phone sex, gay-related stuff, etc.) to anyone who will produce TRAFFIC for them. * Operators of these numbers are typically paid a per-minute "kickback" on each call going to "their" number. The going payout rate seems to be between $.25 and $.35 per minute to the pay-per-call operator (U.S. origination). The rest is split between the service bureau, foreign PTT and the originating long distance carrier (they probably make the most of all). Remittance rates to operators who get "customers" to call-in from other countries can make as much as $.50 per minute in kickbacks. The scam can be spread worldwide easily, and cheaply. * Pay-per-call operators are beginning to shift their attention increasingly to the internet. Many of them are now offering interactive video "phone sex" via graphical Web interfaces. Charges are made on the customer's credit card. Expect this trend to expand rapidly. * Though the "impotency hotline" has made a lot of headlines, gay chat lines seem to produce the most traffic to these numbers. * You can NOT call these 809 numbers from within the Caribbean. That wouldn't make the operators any money. * All calls are actually terminated within the Caribbean, and the hardware is actually located in the Caribbean. Service bureaus are not allowed by law to "splash" the calls back to the U.S., though there are several "chat" lines and conference bridges that allow you to converse with people in the U.S. In conclusion, the pay-per-call industry is chalk-full of sleazeball service bureaus and con artists who operate the numbers. There are certainly many reputable service bureaus out there, but they seem to be the exception, rather than the rule. Using the Caribbean as a termination point could be done legitimately, but there seem to be more con artists using these numbers now than legitimate service providers at the moment. I am not involved in the pay-per-call business in any way, other than having followed the technology and industry through research for several years, and doing news coverage on them. Van Hefner Editor - Discount Long Distance Digest The Internet Journal of the Long Distance Industry http://www.webcom.com/longdist/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for a great report on the industry. You are right of course that there is a lot more to it than just some telco on an island somewhere looking to make extra money. Amazing isn't it, that fifty years ago our society considered 'obscene phone calls' to be a shameful, disgraceful thing, and now they are considered to be a highly profitable business venture. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 11:49:58 EDT From: danny burstein Subject: New York PSC Press Release re: Local Telco Competition (from their website: http://www.dps.state.ny.us/PRESS/96067.WPD-2.t where dps= dep't of public service) STATE OF NEW YORK Public Service Commission John F. OMara, Chairman Three Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12223 Further Details: (518) 474-7080 http://www.dps.state.ny.us PSC FURTHERS LOCAL TELEPHONE COMPETITION: APPROVES TEMPORARY NEW YORK TEL RESALE RATES AND INTERCONNECTION AGREEMENTS Albany, October 2 -- The New York State Public Service Commission today took another step toward a more competitive local telephone market by approving temporary discount resale rates that New York Telephone must offer to competitors seeking to purchase local telecommunications services on a wholesale basis and resell them to the public. Further, the Commission approved agreements between New York Telephone and three competitors. The Commission's actions today will foster new economic development opportunities for the state by encouraging more telecommunications companies to initiate or expand operations here. Under the temporary discount rate decision, which takes effect October 8, NYNEX -- with approximately 91% of the state's total access lines -- must allow state-certified competitors to purchase at a discount, rename, reprice and market the company's local service to customers. Competitors will now be able to purchase New York Telephone's business and residential lines at 11% and 17%, respectively, below the retail rate and resell them along with other services they offer to customers. The Commission is expected to make a decision on permanent discount rates later this fall. The interconnection agreements called for in the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 and approved today are between New York Telephone and three of its competitors: MFS Communications (MFS); United Telemanagement Services (UTS); and, Frontier Communications International (FCI). MFS offers residential and business services in New York City (specifically lower Manhattan), Westchester County and Rochester. UTS currently provides local and long distance service to small and mid-sized companies in New York City. FCI is the fifth largest long distance company in the country headquartered in Rochester and is a subsidiary of Frontier Corporation which also owns local telephone companies serving Rochester, NY, as well as in other states. FCI will initially be offering business service in Manhattan. Because of these agreements, callers will not notice any difference in how their calls are completed, regardless of which of the four local telephone service c ompanies involved in the agreements provides their service. Competitors Must Meet Service Quality, Other Consumer Protection Standards The services offered on a resale basis by new entrants into the local telecommunications market will be subject to the Commission's service quality and complaint handling rules and other consumer protections currently governing service offered by the local exchange companies. NYNEX's resale rate is expected to be complemented this year by other related filings that will provide competitors the ability to offer "customized" local service packages. As a result, a competitor will eventually be able either to offer customers a local service package on a resale basis from NYNEX, or to break apart the package and offer individual elements of it in combination with its own services. The Commission earlier determined that the only services an existing local telephone company, such as NYNEX, can exclude from its resale rate plan are public payphone service, which is already competitive, and any special promotions that it is offering at any given time. Also, a competitor will not be allowed to resell one classification of services to a classification of customers for which the services are not intended (e.g., reselling residential services to business customers). --------------------------- dannyb@panix.com ------------------------------ From: wes.leatherock@hotelcal.com (Wes Leatherock) Subject: Excel Slamming Denied Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 13:18:44 GMT From The Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) for October 9, 1996 Excel Communications Inc. reported Tuesday that it does not condone the alleged illegal switching to its long-distance service of telephone customers in Medicine Park, a community near Lawton. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission reported Monday that the long-distance service of some customers of Medicine Park Telephone Co. had been "illegally switched by Excel," a Dallas-based reseller of long-distance services. . . . In a statement Tuesday, Excel said it "strictly prohibits any illegal activity, including switching." "With respect to the alleged switching in the Medicine Park area, Excel Communications Inc. has received no complaints of switching," the company said in a prepared statements. Excel said it was investigating the allegations, but claimed they might be related to the new equal access balloting process in Oklahoma. That process requires each resident to select a long-distance provider. "If they do not, they are assigned to a long-distance provider, which might include Excel, the company said. . . . In a letter to the commission, Medicine Park Telephone Vice President Edward Hilliary said that his company was not aware of Excel's letter until customers started to complain. "This letter was sent to our customers without permission from us or notification to us. We are having considerable complaints from our clients," Hilliary said. [Commission official Bill] Hollins said that Excel is currently authorized to handle long-distance service in Oklahoma but is awaiting corporation commission action to be certified to provide it in the future. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: From comments reaching me sent by other readers, it would appear that indeed this **is NOT** the fault of Excel. I can tell you that when Ameritech (it was then called Illinois Bell) sent around equal-access ballots back in the middle 1980's the same kind of situation prevailed. Customers were sent a ballot with the choices available at that time including AT&T, Sprint and MCI. (There may have been others, I do not recall.) Customers who did not return the completed ballot were then sent a second ballot a month later. People who did not complete those ballots were then called on the phone and asked to make a selection. Finally the customers who still had made no selection were distributed among the carriers according to some formula approved by the commission. I think they pro-rated them among the carriers based on the results of the ones who did vote, with some percentage at random going to MCI, others going to Sprint, and the remainder staying with AT&T, etc. Guess what? Within a couple months all the non-responders were checking out their phone bills and complaining about the charges on the bill 'from some company I never heard of or authorized'. Even some of the people who did authorize a change later seemed unable to understand why they received a 'welcome to MCI' new subscriber letter. The word I got from a couple of Oklahoma people familiar with this is that the Medicine Park telco distributed their left over, unresponsive customers among the various carriers and let it go at that; people who never read the bill inserts or pay any attention to anything anyone ever tells them. Now whether or not Excel is authorized to do business in Oklahoma I do not know. I do not know why/how they came to be listed on the ballot as a choice. But it would appear there was no active effort by Excel to hijack any customers, and if anything the blame should be given to the method in which the Medicine Park telco went about doing equal access. That's how the story is getting back to me today. If this is true, Excel should demand a retraction and apology from the Oklahoma regulators. It would be interesting to see if anyone can produce *written* requests from Excel to the local telco identifying customers to be switched or if the only documents which exist are those of the telco relating to the process. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: New Jersey Delays Area Code Decision Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 23:46:12 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) New Jersey Board Delays Decision on Area Codes By Raymond Fazzi, Asbury Park Press, N.J. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Oct. 9--Will millions of New Jersey telephone customers be forced to dial three extra digits on all their calls? Or will they have to cope with having their numbers changed? For the answers to these and other questions, the state is going to have to wait. The state Board of Public Utilities, which had been planning on making a decision Wednesday on proposals to add to the state's area codes, has decided to put the issue on hold again. "It's just that there are some final discussions under way regarding ways to conserve numbers and strategies for minimizing the negative impacts" of the proposals, BPU spokeswoman Wendy Kaczerski said. The BPU is confident it will make a decision at its Oct. 23 meeting, she said. The area code issue has been a source of controversy all year. Bell Atlantic-New Jersey, the state's local telephone monopoly, maintains there is a telephone number shortage in the state of crisis proportions. The company wants to overlay new area codes in the 201 and 908 area codes, which would force people to dial 10 digits on all their calls. Emerging competitors of Bell Atlantic, and the state Ratepayer Advocate Division, endorse a continuation of the way area codes have always been expanded in New Jersey, splitting the areas geographically. The BPU also has raised the possibility of putting off any changes at all by revising the way telephone numbers are distributed to telephone companies. A Bell Atlantic spokesman said the company wants a decision as soon as possible because the supply of numbers in the 201 and 908 area codes could run out by the middle of next year. "The urgency is real," Bell Atlantic spokesman Tim Ireland said. ------------------------------ From: Andrew R. Maffei Subject: Abandoned Submarine Cable Communications System - Need Help Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 12:45:57 +0000 Organization: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Reply-To: amaffei@whoi.edu Hello, A group here at WHOI is converting an abandoned undersea coaxial cable for scientific purposes. They will be cutting the cable in the deep ocean and attaching a communications system in a 9 inch diameter titanium housing. Instruments will be attached to the comm system via undersea conectors providing both power and serial comnections. We plan to draw approx 100 Watts off the cable to power the communications system itself. I have had little luck looking for information about L-carrier based FDMs and wideband modems capable of running at the 100kbit-1Mbit data rate over our 2 bands (100-500Khz and 650-1050 khz). I know I'm looking in the wrong places. We're hoping that the telecom industry *might* offer standard-based off-the-shelf components that we could use in our system - or perhaps designs we could use as guidelines to build our own. Much of this technology seems to have been abandoned since fiber arrived on the scene. We are also wondering if satellite or microwave equipment might help out. I'd appreciate pointers to any vendors, products, or consultants with proven experience in these technologies. Thanks! Andrew Maffei Network Manager Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ------------------------------ From: Brian Judah Subject: Breakthrough/PCMCIA Modem Adapter Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 09:18:44 -0700 Organization: PowerTek Reply-To: pwrtek@power-tek.com Point of reference for PCMCIA modem users: Create an instant internal modem for your desktop PC by using your existing or new PCMCIA cellular/modem. Please visit http://www.power-tek.com for more info on these unique adapters. Brian Judah pwrtek@power-tek.com http://www.power-tek.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 08:43:44 -0300 From: The Old Bear Subject: JavaTel Wins Support of Several Major Vendors VENDORS LINE UP BEHIND JAVATEL Six hardware and software companies have signaled their support for Sun Microsystems' Java Technology Toolkit, or JavaTel, a cross-platform product designed to link any telephone, appliance or networked computer to any Java-based application. IBM, Intel, Lucent Technologies, Nortel and Novell have said they'll support the standard, and more companies are reportedly ready to join the pack, according to Sun's director of market strategies and technologies. JavaTel will offer software developers and device manufacturers a uniform interface for driving basic telephony functions, such as call setup, disconnect, hold and call transfer. A series of JavaTel Extension Packages will deliver interfaces such as advanced call control, media services, terminal management, call center management and mobile services. source: Interactive Age Digital October 4, 1996 as summarized by edupage ------------------------------ From: dapet@aol.com Subject: Unneeded Bellcore Specs For Sale Date: 8 Oct 1996 23:26:24 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: dapet@aol.com (Dapet) The following BellCore Specifications cost me a total of $1945.30 last May. These are all the latest releases, never used and can be purchased for $1200. E-mail me if you want this deal. dapet@aol.com ADSI Specifications SR-3462 Two Way FSK Communications for the ADSI SR-TSU-002476 CPE Compatibility Considerations for the Voiceband Data SR-INS-002461 CPE Compatibility Considerations for ADSI SR-INS-002726 Classes of CPE SR-2495 Guidelines for Writing ADSI Applications Caller ID Specifications GR-30-CORE LSSGR: Voiceband Data Transmission Interface Section 6.6 TR-NWT-001188 CLASS Feature: Calling Name Delivery Generic Requirements TR-NWT-000031 LSSGR CLASS Feature: Calling Number Delivery TR-NWT-000575 CLASS Feature: Caller ID on Call Waiting TR-NWT-000391 CLASS Feature: Caller ID Blocking and Related Features TR-NWT-000567 CLASS Feature: Anonymous Call Rejection Various CLASS Features TR-TSY-000571 Call Waiting GR-416 Call Waiting Deluxe Feature FSD TR-TSY-000572 Cancel Call Waiting TR-TSY-000219 CLASS Feature: Distinctive Ring/Call Waiting TR-NWT-000215 CLASS Feature: Automatic Call Back TR-NWT-000227 CLASS Feature: Automatic Recall TA-TSY-001034 CLASS Feature: Selective Call Acceptance TR-TSY-000217 CLASS Feature: Selective Call Forwarding TR-TSY-000586 Call Forwarding Subfeatures TR-TSY-000580 Call Forwarding Variable TR-TSY-000218 CLASS Feature: Selective Call Rejection TR-TSY-000577 Three Way Calling Testing Guidelines SR-3004 Testing Guidelines for Analog Type I, II & III ------------------------------ From: Chris Mitchell Subject: For Sale: Two Gandalf 5240i ISDN Bridges (Cheap!) Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 11:42:41 -0400 Organization: Scamahama Studios I have two Gandalf 5240i ISDN Bridges that I need to sell soon, cheap. They retail for around $2400 each, we paid close to $1650 each, I will sell both for $1500 and pay shipping. Thanks, Chris Mitchell Scamahama Studios, Boone, NC 704-262-3939 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #535 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Oct 9 17:43:33 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id RAA18407; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 17:43:33 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 17:43:33 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610092143.RAA18407@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #536 TELECOM Digest Wed, 9 Oct 96 17:42:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 536 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Inter@ctive Magazine Article: FCC Contemplates ISP Access Fees (John Stahl) Help! Formulae For Erlang-B Different Than Usual Perspective (S. Townley) Phone Jack Wiring in Britain (M. Arifi Koseoglu) Re: TAPI Development Hardware Wanted (Richard Shockey) Paging Using Hylafax (Boris Epstein) Re: GTE Pricing/Service Woes ... (Long Story) (Derek Balling) Re: D1D Framing Question (Cliff Liles) Re: D1D Framing Question (Neil Harris) Re: I'm Stuck - Optimal Packet Size (Neil Harris) Re: Hyperterm and CID Blocker - How? (Bill) Help Wanted With zmodem Testing (Doug Medema) Re: Telecom's Worst Free Promotions (Jonathan Cohen) Last Laugh! MCI Certificate of Savings (Phillip Remaker) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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: John Stahl Subject: Inter@ctive Magazine Article: FCC Contemplates ISP Access Fees Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 18:10:44 +0000 In the October 7, 1996 (Vol 3, No. 20) issue of "Inter@ctive" magazine (page 46) there appears the following headline: "FCC May Sock ISPs With Access Fees". The article, written by Will Rodger, indicates that "...The free ride may be over." He relates that while the FCC has long dismissed the idea of an access fee for ISP's, they are now seriously weighing the idea to allow the LEC's to levy a fee for every customer an ISP serves. This of course means that what ever the fee, it will be passed on to the individual user. Will further writes that while approval is far from certain, the FCC officials say, is gaining "steam at 1919 M Street" (the address of the FCC!). This fee could add as much as $20.00 per month to the ISP's bill to the user. The reasoning seems to be that the FCC has allowed access charges by the LEC to long-distance carriers since the breakup of the 'Bell System', and these charges will soon drop off due to FCC changes planned for 1997. The LEC's are pointing fingers at the ISP's for increasing the inherit time of a typical call to completion from a factored three minutes to a much longer time -- up to many hours for some circuits. Mr. Rodger references that some LEC's have had to put out additional dollars to 'spread the load out among several CO's' to solve load problems caused by the lengthening of the average phone call due to Internet access. In Maryland, Bell Atlantic had to re-route traffic from one CO to another at a cost of $300,000. According to Bell Atlantic it will take about 20 months this cost to be recovered. Supposedly, computer-industry lobbyists are now actively responding to the Bell companies efforts at the FCC, which Mr. Rodger indicates, is a "... sure sign that the threat is real." No matter what the regulators do to try to clean-up the monopolistic attitudes of the Bell companies, the 'Baby' Bells seem to prevail in their attempts to have their cake and eat it too. First it was a proposed charge by the LEC's for 'number portability', now it's a purported additional charge for gaining Internet access. When they are forced to open their systems through legislation for competition they make it un-competitive with what they charge for this 'open-ness' that the consumer doesn't gain a thing. Wonder what they have planned next for the consumer? Perhaps all the consumers should petition the FCC to hold the line on what the 'Baby' Bells can charge -- isn't enough, enough? Heck, back in 1984 I used to pay about $12.00 per month for the same service I pay over $23.00 per month for today. Where is the savings that the break-up of the "Bell System" was supposed to generate? John Stahl Aljon Enterprises Telecom/Data Consultants - Telecommunications/data systems design email: aljon@worldnet.att.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think most people have heard stories so often by now about the 'modem tax' or variations thereon that no one pays much attention any longer. I guess when we live under the sword of Damocoles long enough, we eventually just begin ignoring it. So when a story like this comes along in the print media, it may be true or it may be false or the truth may lay somewhere in between. I know in the past Fred Goldstein has written in this Digest a few times completely debunking all those stories, so perhaps I can call on him to respond once again. Regarding divestiture and how it would be so great for the average person, I can tell you in the 1970's my monthly phone bill was eight dollars per month on occassion, and rarely over ten or eleven dollars. Now you do expect the cost of things to go up with inflation, but my latest 'go to the nearest online agency and pay $200 by tomorrow or we will cut you' threat came just last week and I have a hard time myself seeing exactly where Judge Greene and the Justice Department were acting in my best interests in the early eighties. A lot of the demands for divestiture back then were based more on anti-Bell sentiment than anything else. Anyway, perhaps some one or more readers can evaluate this latest 'modem tax' scare. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nx7u@primenet.com (Scott Townley) Subject: Help! Formulae For Erlang-B But Different Than Usual Perspective Date: 8 Oct 1996 20:32:02 -0700 Organization: TRAC Engineering, Gilbert, AZ I've been very happy to help many netizens out with my Erlang-B Excel spreadsheet. I hope all who have utilized it have found it useful. Now I ask a little return favor: I need to calculate a related, but different, quantity based on Erlang-B: Q: Given a trunk group size N, offered traffic A (in Er or CCS, whatever) and GOS, how can I find the probability that any given circuit is in use at any random time? If you don't know the technique but can steer me towards a reference, that's great, too. Thanks in advance for your help, Scott Townley "When the Going gets Weird, nx7u@primenet.com the Weird turn Pro" -Dr. Gonzo, Sports Editor ------------------------------ From: arifi@war.dmi.stevens-tech.edu (M. Arifi Koseoglu) Subject: Phone Jack Wiring in Britain Date: 09 Oct 1996 19:10:28 GMT Organization: Stevens Institute of Technology Reply-To: arifi@dmi.stevens-tech.edu Hello! I am trying to find out how the modular phone jacks in Great Britain are wired. In a single-line case in US, the two inner pins of the RJ11/RJ14 jacks are used to make the connection. How is the situation in Great Britain? I remember someone mentioned the two outer pins as active is this the case? Is that true? I need this information to hook-up a US-Made laptop computer to the phone network in Britain - during a travel. Also - is there anything to watch out regarding the dial tone for the modem etc? I will appreciate any help very very much. Thanks in advance, Arifi Koseoglu arifi@dmi.stevens-tech.edu ------------------------------ From: rshockey@ix.netcom.com (Richard Shockey) Subject: Re: TAPI Development Hardware Wanted Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 14:51:01 GMT Organization: Netcom Chris Sells wrote: > I'm finishing up my book for AW and I need some hardware to do > advanced call processing, i.e. hold, conference, transfer. Is there a > TSP that works w/ Centrex? Is there a small PBX that I could install > in my home that would work w/ TAPI? Wave, hold, transfer, conference > and a downline phone are a must. Caller-ID, DNIS and ANI would be > cool. NT4 drivers would be awesome. Any suggestions? Iif you are looking to develop applications for TAPI and need some multichannel hardware you basically have two choices. Rhetorex and Dialogic. http://www.dialogic.com http://www.rhetorex.com The current state of SP-DD for these boards is that Rhetorex is somewhat ahead in getting Win 95 drivers done. You can also get development kits for Dialogic as well. Neither Rhetorex or Dialogic will issue TAPI 2.0 DD for NT 4.0 until later in the 4th quarter its just too soon Device Drivers are the toughest application to write and none of us were sure what Microsoft was going to do until the actual shrink wrap was completed. Dialogic is quoting Nov 28 for their end user installation package. These boards will work with most centrex systems. Richard Shockey Developers of Fax on Demand Solutions President For Business, Media, Industry and Nuntius Corporation Government. 8045 Big Bend Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63119 For a Demonstration Call our Voice 314.968.1009 CommandFax Demonstration Line FAX 314.968.3163 at 314.968.3461 Internet: rshockey@ix.netcom.com ------------------------------ From: Boris Epstein Subject: Paging Using Hylafax Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 10:55:50 -0400 Organization: WorldCare, Inc. Hi all! I am having some problems getting my faxes to go through and was wondering if anyone knows a way to resolve the issues I am having. We have Hylafax 4.0 beta018 installed on a SUN SPARCStation10 running Solaris 2.5.1. For a modem we have a Practical Peripherals MC144MT II 14,400 Baud data/FAX modem. The problems we are experiencing are as follows. When we are dialing into either an individual pager line (which gives you a series of short beeps), or a modem line for a peger service provider (which gives you a modem-type signal and expects a PIN to point to the page recipient) we can't get the software to recognize the connection. Any insight into this would be greatly appreciated. Best regards, Boris Epstein Systems Manager WorldCare, Inc. One Cambridge Center Fifth Floor Cambridge, MA 02142 Phone: (617) 374-9001x140 FAX: (617) 374-9991 E-Mail: epschan@pop.channel1.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 08:11:40 -0500 From: Derek Balling Subject: Re: GTE Pricing/Service Woes ... (Long Story) Curtis Bohl wrote: > Has anyone had problems with conflicts in service pricing between local > GTE business reps and their Ft. Wayne, IN office? Here's one of my > current GTE horror stories for the archives. I used to work in the Ft. Wayne office so I know first-hand about some of the horror stories ... (both real and imagined, so to speak, although yours definitely seems to fall in the category of the former) > During planning for next year's budget, last week I wanted to get pricing > for local T1 loops to replace our DDS 56kb lines. Of course I called our > local GTE rep, who was conveniently out of the office; called another > person there, who was also out for the week. So, I called the 800 number > given to me by some secretarial type at GTE (who I finally got after > calling several numbers). I'm going to assume that since you have an account rep, you were dealing with the Branch Contact Center (for larger accounts) and not the standard Business Sales Center (for small/medium accounts). > Lo and behold, around 4 pm, I finally get the pricing from Ft. Wayne > (that was promised Friday morning, and should have been here long > before). I find that some circuits are priced more that $200 / month > more that quoted locally! Now, I'm really upset, and call droid #2 in > Ft. Wayne, who leaves a terse "It's in the tariffs I am faxing to you. > Take it or leave it." On THIS issue, the problem is that frequently the sales centers aren't given updated tariff information (something I complained about a great deal when I worked there). There are whole state tariffs that haven't been updated at the center since like 1993 and stuff. (And we all KNOW there have been tariff updates since then!) ... They then came out with "OLTS" [On Line Tariff System], which would be great ... rapid answers to tariff/rate questions ... but in their design, they didn't allow for usage and each center is allowed like five ports to the system, which means only administrative types are allowed to use it, not the people who really need access to it quickly. So its entirely possible the only information the sales-droid had access to was at a higher rate, and she wouldn't know any different, if she was the typical mindless sales-drone. (GTE stresses sales quotas to its employees MUCH more than they stress doing what's right for the customer, but that's a whole `nother story) > Now what is a person to do? This (and other) local GTE reps have screwed > up pricing before (one priced a DACS service, but conveniently forgot > several charges that Ft. Wayne argued with him about, which moved it > way out of range.) I'm in a business where I don't really want to > possibly lose GTE's future business, but on the other hand, they turn > around and have treated us lousy. The only way to be 100% sure from what I know of the way GTE works is to get a copy of the tariff at the library and look it up yourself. I know that sounds cold-hearted and vicious, but on rate information, GTE rarely has itself wired together properly. My current employer has about a dozen ISDN lines strung throughout town, and there isn't a single person yet who has been able to tell me EXACTLY what we should be paying each month for them ... It's always "Oh, I think you need this code ... and this code ... and this code. I dunno what THIS code is but I always see it on ISDN lines ..." ... its ridiculous. > Its interesting how a monopoly can thumb their noses at the customers > that depend on them, yet, how public apathy can allow this to continue. > I know of people that make two calls any time they need new service: one > to GTE, and the second to the State Public Service Commission. As a former employee I have one advantage over many people: A copy of the "GTE Worldwide Management Directory"... It looks like one of those little 5"x7" telephone directories (actually printed by GTE Directories Corp. I believe), but it has a listing of every management level person within the company. Its always nice to have that handy when talking to a salesdrone and say, "OK, never mind, can you please transfer me to Sally Jones, ... she IS your department manager right? ... her extension is 3024 ... no offense, but I'm just tired of dealing with people who aren't informed...". Generally speaking, either the salesdrone gets a clue real fast or you get transferred to someone who does ... and if Sally doesn't give you answers, its just "Isn't Rob McCoy in Dallas the one you answer to ... is this his number here ... 214-xxx.xxxx? Nevermind, I'll just call him, thanks ..." If you email me specifics on your location, etc. etc., I'll see what I can do to look up some local management style people for you. Best bet for how to deal with them is to get it in writing before you agree to ANYTHING. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My only question would be can you actually get those people on the phone to take your calls without them or their secretary bumping you back down the line to 'where you ought to be' in their version of how the pecking order goes with customers? In the case of Sprint for example, getting *anyone at all* in any position of author- ity in the company to accept a phone call regarding the Friday Free promotion is impossible. In the few instances in which someone has come up with an internal phone number to a higher-up if that person's secretary or administrative assistant or whatever gets the slightest hint that it is a disgruntled customer (or even just an inquiring customer but one with difficult inquiries) on the phone they slap the transfer key on their phone so hard you would think the phone would fall of the desk and on the floor in the process of them moving you over to the customer service holding queue. Seriously, do you think they would graciously accept such a phone call and deal with it? A lot of management people in telcos are not what you would term 'telphone people'. They have no understanding whatsoever of any of the technical stuff. They are there only to manage people, approve what the lower echelon people have told them to approve, and things like that. They have no real day-to-day working familiarity with tariffs and technical details. That's what their flunkies are there for. I remember once calling AT&T about something and getting switched to some woman who absolutely freaked out when she found out I was a customer on the line. "Who gave you my name and number," she demanded. What a way to greet a customer, eh? She was almost panic- stricken, and within a couple seconds I heard music on hold and the recording about 'a representative will be right with you.' PAT] ------------------------------ From: Cliff Liles Subject: Re: D1D Framing Question Reply-To: cliff_liles@eng.adc.com Organization: kentrox.com Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 06:07:28 GMT Andrew Morley wrote: > We all know about the various framing systems used in T1: D4-SF > D4-ESF, SLC-96 (tm!), but recently I read about something called D1D. > That's D - one - D, not DID, which we all know the meaning of. Does > anyone know what D1D means? I assume it is some sort of T1 framing or > channel assignment system. D1D, D3, and D4 are all variations of the SF or Super Frame format. The differences are primarily in the channel ordering within the framing. CL ------------------------------ From: Neil Harris Subject: Re: D1D Framing Question Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 08:37:21 +0100 In article , andym@trendcomms.com wrote: > We all know about the various framing systems used in T1: D4-SF > D4-ESF, SLC-96 (tm!), but recently I read about something called D1D. > That's D - one - D, not DID, which we all know the meaning of. Does > anyone know what D1D means? I assume it is some sort of T1 framing or > channel assignment system. As far as I can tell, a D1D is an ancient type of channel bank, with different channel number/time slot allocations from either the D2 or the D3/D4/D5 channel banks. Source: Integrating Digital Systems, Robert L. Dayton McGraw Hill, 1989 Table 6-4. However, I can't be sure, as I have no direct experience or knowledge of D1D, I just remember seeing a cite in a book. Neil Harris ------------------------------ From: Neil Harris Subject: Re: I'm Stuck - Optimal Packet Size Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 08:13:36 +0100 Diane Kresovich <75310.3665@CompuServe.COM> writes: > I am taking an overview of telecommunications and I'm stuck on a > problem. The problem is this: assume a 1500-character message long is > to be divided into packets and transmitted over a 4-hop path, with a > bit rate of 4800 bps on each hop. Each packet contains 8 characters > of overhead, with eight bits per character. Compute and plot the > total time (T) for transmitting the message across the network for the > maximum packet sizes, including overhead ranging from 10 - 1508 > characters. > Is the optimal packet size equal to the number of bits of overhead > plus the square root of (the total number of bits in the message times > the number of bits of overhead divided by the number of links minus > 1)? > The only other formula I learned relating to this gives the time of > transmission given the optimal packet size. I am not a mathematical > whiz. If I was, I would take the formula, and solve for the optimal > packet size. The other formula I mention, is based on something I see > in my book, but don't quite understand. You'll find a similar situation analysed in Chapter 24 of TCP/IP Illustrated Volume 1, The Protocols W. Richard Stevens Addison Wesley, 1994 ISBN 0-201-63346-9 together with lots more analyses of real-life situations, and references to research. Neil Harris Sohonet Limited http://www.sohonet.co.uk/ ATM Networking for the Media industries ------------------------------ From: phonebill@bellsouth.net (Bill) Subject: Re: Hyperterm and CID Blocker - How? Date: Tue, 08 Oct 96 04:46:32 GMT Organization: BellSouth.Net Reply-To: dave@csd4.csd.uwm.edu The polarity may be reversed, - or - Have you tried adding *67 before dialing the number, to block the caller ID, instead of the RS box? For Windows 95, you can do this from the control panel. Open up "Modems", and click on "Dialing Properties". You can check the box to disable call waiting, and put in the caller ID block code instead. However, if you use that, use the "To access an outside line, first dial __" - where you'd enter the code, which again is usually *67. Bill Boga phonebill@bellsouth.net ------------------------------ From: dougm@nmo.gtegsc.com (Doug Medema) Subject: Help Needed With zmodem Testing Date: 9 Oct 1996 16:23:21 GMT Organization: Physio-Control I'm looking for some software routines that will test out our implementation of zmodem as a communications protocol for one of our medical devices. Does anyone have any leads on some software that would allow me to do a fairly rigorous and thorough testing? Thanks, Doug Medema Physio-Control Corp. dougm@physio-control.com ------------------------------ From: jcohen@POBOX.CO.UK (Jonathan Cohen) Subject: Re: Telecom's Worst Free Promotions Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 16:59:05 +0100 Organization: UUNet PIPEX Server cc004056@interramp.com (Greg Monti) wrote: > cell sites after business hours, forcing a network redesign. When Mercury > extended the promotion to all day Christmas day, people called and left the > links up all day to chat with family and friends. This busied out most > circuits, causing customers to complain to the media. The interconnection > charges to BT's landline network hemmhoraged red ink. Actually that's not quite the full picture. The free local calls are still available (not just in London now) and have been since 1993 (though only at weekends for new customers). However it was one2one's offer of free calls anywhere in the world for Christmas Day '94 to customers connecting in December '94 that caused the real problems. I guess this was predictable, but it does raise a few questions. For the record i'm a one2one customer and would recommend them to others. > 3. Sprint's Free Fridays small business promotion in the US: Sprint didn't > like the calling patterns it was seeing. There were 800-percent increases > in calling on Fridays to some countries. Calls to Bolivia, China, Ecuador, The Sprint and one2one promotions seem to have a few things in common ... Jonathan Cohen, +44 956-843029, jcohen@enjoy.uk.eu.org ------------------------------ From: remaker@remaker-sun.cisco.com (Phillip Remaker) Subject: Last Laugh! MCI Certificate of Savings Date: 9 Oct 96 02:31:36 GMT Organization: cisco Systems, Incorporated I just got a $100 check in the mail from AT&T asking me to switch to AT&T. Since I am happy with MCI, I called them and asked what I should do. They said send the check to: MCI Certificate of Savings PO Box 4603 Iowa City, IA 52244 And they would issue a credit to my account for that amount. Ain't the free market great? Phillip A. Remaker Customer Engineering Analyst E-mail:remaker@cisco.com Cisco Systems, Inc. 170 West Tasman Drive San Jose, CA 95134-1706 +1 408 526 7209 (TAC) +1 408 526 8614 (Direct) +1 408 232 2314 (FAX) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Someone wrote to me recently saying they have two lines in their home-based business with one defaulted to AT&T and the other defaulted to MCI. Both lines do about $150 per month in long distance calling. He said that over a period of six months AT&T sent him two checks for a $100 each trying to get him to give them the other line as well, and he would forard these to MCI with the same results you mentioned, i.e. the equivilent amount in credit. Trouble is, another department at MCI was sending him similar checks to give them the line he had defaulted to AT&T and he would send those off to AT&T each time they arrived for credit on his AT&T line. End result was for about three months the checks from each company he forwarded to the other company were sufficient to pay his long distance bills entirely. He wound up owing both AT&T and MCI zero for a couple months. Somehow I don't think that's quite what the carriers had in mind. But you're right ... all hail the American free market system, even if the LD carriers do turn out looking like stooges and playing the role of the straight man in the slapstick comedy. :) PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #536 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Oct 9 21:30:05 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id VAA11137; Wed, 9 Oct 1996 21:30:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 21:30:05 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610100130.VAA11137@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #537 TELECOM Digest Wed, 9 Oct 96 21:30:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 537 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson RFD: comp.dcom.xdsl (Will Kim) Equal Access Pre-Divestiture (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: Gangstas Move From the Hood to the Net? (Brett Webb) Re: The Truth About 809 Area Code Scams (Tak To) Re: "Just Say Yes" (Jean-Francois Mezei) Re: Invention & Technology; The Birth of Cable TV (Andrew Emmerson) Ericsson 318 Digital Phones (Lindy Williams) Re: Next Area Code Not LD: Dialing Patterns? (Bill Hofmann) Re: Next Area Code Not LD: Dialing Patterns? (Michael Stanford) Re: Cellular Phones In Aircraft (Fabian Kiendl) Help Wanted Using Ham Radio as a Telephone (Bill Mcgaughy) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. 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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: wkim@medialight.com (Will Kim) Subject: RFD: comp.dcom.xdsl Followup-To: news.groups Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 20:00:00 GMT REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD) unmoderated group comp.dcom.xdsl This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a world-wide unmoderated Usenet newsgroup comp.dcom.xdsl. This is not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time. Procedural details are below. Newsgroups line: comp.dcom.xdsl xDSL technology and related topics. RATIONALE: comp.dcom.xdsl This newsgroup is to accommodate the growing interest and discussions regarding various ((adsl, hdsl, sdsl (hence the 'x')) Digital Subscriber Loop (xDSL) technology. comp.dcom.xdsl will provide a centralized location where thoughts and ideas may be shared amongst those interested. xDSL enables a normal copper twisted pair (which is being used to carry voice-grade telephone calls) to carry digital information at much higher rates compared to normal analog modems or ISDN. Though some DSL services are currently available, most are still in testing and development stages. Providing a discussion area will help bridge the gap between xDSL developers world-wide. In the last two to three months, there has been increasing evidence, of discussions regarding DSL (ADSL in particular), across various newsgroups and web sites. CHARTER: comp.dcom.xdsl comp.dcom.xdsl is intended as a group for DSL discussion. This newsgroup is designed to allow discussion of all facts, features, and capabilities concerning DSL technology, from physical layers to applications. Topics that may be addressed are: * General questions about xDSL. * Functionality of xDSL. * Platform support for xDSL. * xDSL network architecture Any other topics of interest which are not listed above but deserve to be may be added during the discussion period. This group will be unmoderated, so anyone can post in this area. Binary files, in any form, are discouraged. However a posting may include a reference to an URL or FTP pointing to such binary files. END CHARTER. PROCEDURE: This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes. In this phase of the process, any potential problems with the proposed newsgroups should be raised and resolved. The discussion period will continue for a minimum of 21 days (starting from when the first RFD for this proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a Call For Votes (CFV) may be posted by a neutral vote taker if the discussion warrants it. Please do not attempt to vote until this happens. All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups. This RFD attempts to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal". Please refer to these documents (available in news.announce.newgroups) if you have any questions about the process. DISTRIBUTION: This RFD will be posted in the following newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, comp.dcom.isdn, comp.dcom.telecom, comp.dcom.telecom.tech, comp.modems, comp.dsp, can.infohighway and the following mailing list: dsl-tech@internoc.net (mailing list on DSL technologies) subscribe via: majordomo@internoc.net ('subscribe dsl-tech' in body) Will Kim MediaLight Inc. wkim@medialight.com 20 Queen St W, Suite 208 416.598.3200 / 1.888.999.ADSL x222 Toronto, ON M5H 3R3 Canada ADSL Research and Development http://www.medialight.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The above announcement is being run primarily for our readers using Usenet and comp.dcom.telecom but of course list readers who desire to see the group created are also free to participate in the discussion. Please note that all follow-ups and discussion should be directed to Usenet: news.groups and *not* to this Digest. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 18:29:04 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Equal Access Pre-Divestiture I don't know if this had been reported in the Digest years ago, but prior to divestiture becoming effective 1984 along with the beginnings of "Feature Group D" Equal Access being 'phased in', there were a few examples of Equal Access for the OCC's (Other Common Carriers, carriers other than AT&T -- the Bell System), from *independent* telco regions. In the late 1970's, AT&T/Bell and the larger independents had ENFIA (Exchange Network Facilities for Interstate Access) authorized by tariff, where one could dial a seven-digit local telephone number, hear a second dialtone from the OCC's switch, and then touchtone in (via the locally switched/dialup voicepath) the ten-digit called telephone number along with a card number or "authorization code". If a 'standard' seven-digit local number was dialed (the type which would take your dime at a payphone, run up local message units, or even incur nearby local Bell tolls), it was called "ENFIA-A", and was a standard dialed-up "line-side" connection. However, "ENFIA-B" was also available, at a higher cost to the OCC for interconnection, whereby a special prefix (950) followed by four-digits was dialed. ENFIA-B used "trunk-side" connections between the local telco and the LEC, had the availability to provide ANI and even allow rotary dialpulse retransmission (although I do not know if any ENFIA-B situations ever did use these two availabilities), and the 950-xxxx numbers were 'universal and uniform' to each OCC wherever they provided ENFIA-B access. Also, 950-xxxx numbers are similar to 800 numbers in that they are (supposed to be) coin-free from payphones as well as 'free' if there are local message units in that community, and also toll-free if the calling party is outside of the local calling area of the city where the OCC's switch is located. ENFIA-A and B has more or less become known as "Feature Group" (fg) A and B during the 1980's. Also, many computer dialup bulletin board systems and networks (Telenet, etc) used 950-xxxx numbers. ENFIA-D (Fg.D) is the Equal Access that most people are aware of, where you are supposed to choose a primary inTER-LATA carrier, which allows your out-of-LATA 1/0+ and international (out-of-NANP) 011/01+ calls to be routed via that carrier, all pre-translated in the originating switch. And the 10-xxx/101-xxxx+ codes are used to route via a carrier *other* than the chosen primary carrier. This was phased in beginning in late 1984. However, as early as 1981, MCI had entered into agreements with a few rural independent telcos to provide an early version of Equal Access: In 1981, MCI and the independent Northwest Iowa Telephone Company near the Sioux City area began providing certain subscribers access to MCI's Execunet by dialing a single digit followed by the desired ten-digit number, without having to 'dialup' a local access number and having to touchtone in any authorization codes. In January 1982, MCI and the Sugar Land Telephone Company near the Houston area began a similar type of early Equal Access. I don't know if the independent LEC's mentioned here billed the calling party for MCI, or if MCI had ANI delivered and did the billing themselves. Also, I don't know if the calling party dialed 1+ if they had MCI, or if it were a different single digit dialed, with 1+ toll calls still routing via the independent and Bell/AT&T. If the calling party chose for 1+ to route via MCI, then what special codes would have been used to route certain toll calls via the independent LEC in association with Bell/AT&T? Does anyone remember these pre-divestiture equal access arrangements and details on the dialing procedures? Regardless of what was dialed, or who actually mailed the billings to the customer, these pre-1984 'experiments' did seem to lay the groundwork for the later introduction of Feature Group D type of Equal Access as stipulated in the 1984 divestiure agreement between Bell/AT&T and DOJ/Greene. 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: Brett Webb Subject: Re: Gangstas Move From the Hood to the Net? Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 13:12:08 -0700 Organization: Art Crimes tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) wrote in article quoting a newspaper report: > Gangs are going high tech with web sites > BY TESSIE BORDEN > Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel > Sinister, a gang member from Detroit, is scrawling his graffiti on a > new wall that stretches across the nation -- the Cyber 'Hood. [...] > Glock3's is part of a crop of "gangsta sites" cropping up on the > Internet, with names like Gangsta Net Crew and Hustlerz Crib. [...] > On web sites like Art Crimes, taggers trade ideas and pictures of > graffiti art from all around the world. That's how Opalka, a former > tagger, hooked up with the phenomenon. Tessie Borden's article infuriates me. The purpose of Art Crimes (http://www.graffiti.org) is to document an art form and encourage writers to pursue legal avenues of expression. I thought the press was supposed to be the friend of groups trying to give kids alternatives to the streets and jail time, apparently I was wrong. It saddens me that Ms. Borden didn't take the time to read our statement of purpose (http://www.graffiti.org/index/story.html). Here are excerpts: "In many places, painting graffiti is illegal. We do not advocate breaking the law, but we think art belongs in public spaces and that more legal walls should be made available for this fascinating art form ... We also want to spread the word that this graffiti is being done by ARTISTS, not by gangs." It makes me wonder if Ms. Borden has even seen any of the web pages that she refers to, or if she just guessed that they were about gangs. I understand that reporters are constantly fighting deadlines, but to insinuate that a web site condones or conspires to promote violent criminal activity may be a libelous charge, especially when no gangs are involved. Perhaps even more frightening is when a police officer from Arizona (Capt. David Gonzales, an anti-gang officer for Arizona's Department of Public Safety) is quoted as saying that he doesn't read what information that is posted to a web page, but instead tries to decide on his own what information that is: > "They know they're being monitored. It's not what they say on there. > You kind of try to read between the lines." If rules of evidence turn away from facts and statements and move into the realm of what one police officer decided you might have meant to say but didn't, then the era of thought police is finally upon us, and anyone they suspect must be guilty. This method of operation was the basis of all witchhunts, the Crusades, etc. I would also like to challenge the idea that every person associated with a gang must be evil and undesirable. In many neighborhoods, gang alignment is the only intelligent survival tactic. Gangs have been part of our poor and immigrant neighborhoods for many generations (remember those dangerous Irish gangs?). Historically, these groups assimilate and new groups take their place in the halls of villany. It may be smarter to encourage bootstrap educational activities, such as a movement into new media technologies, rather than condemn those who would try to change their station in life. You seem to be saying that whatever gangs do must be bad. Blanket condemnation of whole groups of people isn't constructive. The problem is not that gangs exist, it's that inequities and ethnic scapegoating cause defense groups of various kinds to form and fight tooth and nail for survival and a place at the table. The Internet could be a tool of bringing people together and finding some sort of common ground among diverse groups. Instead it is being treated as some sort of wild west environment where no one is safe. It is not to say there aren't dangers associated with technology and putting certain types of personal information on a world wide network, but people publishing their own ideas and making them available to the world to scrutinize should be condoned and not regulated, as the Supreme Court recently ruled. It is also outrageous and ignorant that a member of the press would imply that the First Amendment is a bad thing. That notion is self-defeating. Free speech is not the right to express only ideas that agree with one's own, and we can't give free speech to some groups (like reporters) and deny it to others (like gangs), no matter how strongly we may disagree with someone's views. The freedom to debate and rebut is also free speech, and that's what keeps the balance in discourse on the net. Anyone may toss out any dumb idea or Big Secret Conspiracy, and anyone else can shoot it down. Through the process of argument, intelligent people can divine the truth, even through a storm of extremist and ignorant views. Brett Webb Asst. Curator of Art Crimes http://www.graffiti.org/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: First of all, I think you are being unrealistic to expect much more out of a newspaper reporter than the kind of report you read. They write what will sell the newspaper, and if 'gangs taking over the internet' won't sell the paper that day, I don't know what would unless possibly it was a story about a gang pf pedophiles on the net who swapped pictures in newsgroups and raised money for the gang by running Make Money Fast chain letters on the net under the name of their leader Dave Rhodes. Furthermore, police officer David Gonzales quoted in the story is not atypical at all; rather his mentality is quite typical in law enforcement these days where police 'read between the lines' and decide for themselves who is a criminal and who is not. In Chicago for example, police have lobbied for many years to get an ordinance passed in the City Council allowing them -- any individual police officer -- in their sole discretion to go up to any group of two or more persons in public and order the group to disburse or face arrest as 'members of a gang'. Now this really scared any number of church, educational and civic groups, etc who said 'you mean if we are having a picnic and meeting in the park any police officer with a chip on his shoulder can come along and break up our meeting, etc ... just his word is all it takes? Where are our rights to peaceably assemble and speak, etc.?' The police insisted they only intended to use the proposed law as a 'tool against gang members who loiter in large groups on the sidewalk making it difficult for others to walk past them safely ...' They of course would be the ones to decide if you were in a gang or not. You are also right in saying that the only *realistic* way many young black and Latino guys can expect to survive to adulthood in a country like the United States where violence in the large cities has become the norm is by belonging to a gang; and that is no absolute assurance. Thanks for writing. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tak To Subject: Re: The Truth About 809 Area Code Scams Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 17:02:33 -0400 Organization: Aspen Technology Inc Reply-To: tak.to@aspentech.com Van Hefner wrote: > To be fair, let's lay the blame for these scams where it is due (in > proper order). > 1.) The sleazeball pay-per-call operators [...] > 2.) The pay-per-call service bureaus [...] So far so good. > 3.) The local telcos (LEC's). By so freely granting ANYONE a > chargeback on 900/976 calls [...] I am not sure if I agree. LEC's are under political pressure, if not direct PUC edict, to grant chargebacks. It is not clear that if the LEC's were to step up the collecting effort, the extra income that it generated could offset the additional collection cost. And if the LEC could not make enough money on the 900/976 services, it would charge the service bureau more; and the net effect could be the same. > 4.) The F.C.C. For doing NOTHING about the problem. What should the FCC do? > 5.) The foreign PTT's. For paying the kickbacks. On them I would place the third (or second) largest share of the blame. They should not provide a forwarding service that tags additional cost to the _caller_. A forwarding service should not charge the caller extra, period. The caller _cannot_ know where the call is routed to. He has no information whatsoever except the number that he dials. He should be protected. I would place equal blame on the foreign equivalent of FCC or PUCs in allowing the foreign PTT's to provide such a service in the first place. > 6.) Overpriced U.S. long distance carriers such as AT&T. For trying to > con the public into believing that they have no control over the fact > that their rates for calls to the Caribbean are so high. They are > making a killing on these calls. They may be an unwitting conspirator, and could very well be chief benefiary of the whole scam; but I would hestitate to put any blame on them. > 7.) Consumers who knowingly make calls to 900/976 numbers, without > ever intending to pay their bills. Were it not for these people, > pay-per-call services would only cost a few cents per minute, NOT a > few dollars per minute. Agree; but I doubt if pay-per-call service would cost only a few cents per minute in general. I also think most consumers are not aware of the fact that area code 809 does not service the U.S. or Canada; and this leads to problems in general. Tak To (617) 577-0100 x377 Aspen Technology, Inc Fax: (617) 577-0303 10 Canal Park, Cambridge, Ma 02141. tak.to@aspentech.com ------------------------------ From: Jean-Francois Mezei Subject: Re: "Just Say Yes" Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 00:53:42 +0000 Organization: Vaxination Informatique Reply-To: jfmezei@videotron.ca bashley@ktb.net wrote: > Isn't it cute how the 35-cent charge for this wonderful service was > cleverly hidden in the middle of that posting? This service was also recently introduced in the 4-1-1 system by Bell Canada in the Montr=E9al region. They also charge $0.35 (albeit in CAD) this is on top of $0.75 charge for the 4-1-1 service itself. I am trying to figure out why the telcos felt it so important to charge so much money on top of the already expensive 4-1-1 charges for such a function. Is it because when one does use this feature, his original connection to a 4-1-1 line continues to be tied up, or are the switches smart enough to *really* transfer the call to the desired number? On my cellular phone (Cantel), there is a $0.95 charge for 4-1-1 service (plus airtime) but the transfer to the desired number is free. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Ameritech only charges seventeen cents for call completion via 411 on landline phones. On the other hand, for cellular customers they charge one dollar for 411 but toss in call completion and the first minute or two of the call at no extra charge. PAT] ------------------------------ From: midshires@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andrew Emmerson) Subject: Re: Invention & Technology; The Birth of Cable TV Organization: Midshires Mediatech Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 17:04:12 GMT This sounds good but as is so often the case, it is wrong. There were commercial community antenna (cable) television installations in London as early as 1936 [K.J. Easton: THIRTY YEARS IN CABLE TV. 1980: Pioneer Publications, Mississauga, Ontario] and also during the second world war in Berlin and Hamburg. According to Easton's book, the first cable TV system in the USA was established by John Walson in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania in 1948, although he did not start charging for service until the following year. All credit to the good folk of Astoria for celebrating their pioneering work but it's certainly not the first, even in the USA. Andy Emmerson ------------------------------ From: willi087@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Lindy Williams) Subject: Ericsson 318 Digital Phones Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 07:08:18 +0100 Organization: University of Minnesota I went to the AT&T Store to purchase the new Ericsson. I already have an Ericsson 338 and need a second phone. The people at AT&T said that the 318 is on hold for some kind of problem and is not available and they don't know when it will be. The only phone that is available is the Nokia. Anyone have a clue as to what is going on? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 11:11:48 -0700 From: Bill Hofmann Subject: Re: Next Area Code Not LD: Dialing Patterns? > I am currently supporting a proprietary software package that is used > by literally thousands nationwide, and about to get whole bunches > bigger. At the moment, the package assumes that: > I called area code <> local area code, then dial=3D 1+ xxx-xxx-xxxx > With the AC splits (ex; 404/770/706) that's not the case all the time. > Clearly, we need to allow for such dialing ... but what IS the standard > pattern for such dialing? Well, according to Bellcore's dial planning document (alas, I've forgotten the name, someone else like Mark Cuccia will know), it tends to track on a per-state basis (just like in-area code toll dialing). Here are the three variants: 1. 1-FNPA-number (California and other enlightened states) 2. FNPA-number (10 digits, examples: Toronto, Dallas, Houston) 3. number (7 digits, examples: West Virginia (I think)) Obviously case 3 is rather dumb, but hey, so's 2. There are a couple of exceptions to the per-state rule, in Cincinnatti and in Hartford, and we've discovered that Bellcore's data isn't 100% correct, so there seem to be other exceptions. Bill Hofmann wdh@cypressres.com Cypress Research Corporation voice: +1 408 486 7902 2901 Tasman Drive, Santa Clara, CA 95054 fax: +1 408 486 7952 ------------------------------ From: Michael Stanford Subject: Re: Next Area Code Not LD: Dialing Patterns? Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 19:59:17 -0400 Eric Florack writes: > At the moment, the package assumes that: > I called area code <> local area code, then dial= 1+ xxx-xxx-xxxx > With the AC splits (ex; 404/770/706) that's not the case all the time. > Clearly, we need to allow for such dialing ... but what IS the standard > pattern for such dialing? Does it depend on what telco is doing the > job? Ex; SWBT serves the above mentioned area, if I recall. Will the > same thing happen in, say Chicago? This is a major problem. Toby Nixon at Microsoft maintains that no matter what dialing plan is adopted, all LEC's should also implement permissive 11 digit dialing, so if I dial 1 (NPA) NXX XXXX even on local calls I will get through. Experimentation here in 202 shows that this is being done here. This would not prevent or contradict any of the other dialing plans discussed below. It is clearly an excellent idea, and presumably only laziness on the part of the LEC's will stop it happening. Another dialing plan that makes sense is the one you suggest, namely all foreign NPA calls dialed with 1+NPA, and all home NPA calls dialed as seven digits. This would mean that with overlays you may have to dial eleven digits to talk to the other phone on your desk. The argument offered against this by the Texas PUC among others is that people think that dialing eleven digits means that you are paying long distance charges, and dialing seven digits means that you are not paying long distance charges. Actually many home NPA calls trigger a toll. In Texas this used to be dealt with by dialing 1+ seven digits, but now eleven digits. So if you were to dial all home NPA calls with seven digits, people would sometimes incur long distance charges on what they thought were local calls. On the other hand, with overlays, and sometimes in other cases (metro 817 numbers from 214 for example) foreign NPA calls are non-toll. In Texas and many other places this used to be dealt with by dropping the leading 1, and dialing only 10 digits. This is consistent with the notion that the "1" always means a toll call, and its absence always means no toll. The infuriating thing about this plan is that when you are in 214 and dial an 817 number, you always have to guess whether or not to dial the 1, and as often as not you get a recording saying "It is not necessary to dial a 1 when calling this number." Toby's suggestion would fix this problem. If you wanted to be certain you were not paying a toll you could dial ten digits, and if you just wanted to get through without any hassle you could dial eleven digits. So. Every time there is a split or overlay, Bellcore sends out a bulletin (often discussed here) with a list of conditions and how they are dialed, for example: All home NPA local calls: seven digits All HNPA direct dialed toll calls: 1+ ten digits All Foreign NPA toll calls: 1+ ten digits All operator assisted calls: 0+ ten digits. The plan adopted varies in each situation, depending on the taste of the LEC and the whim of the local PUC. This is an example of a situation where a central agency like the FCC laying out a consistent policy and preempting the local authorities would help Eric Florack and others in our industry. Michael Stanford ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 14:25:49 -0400 From: Fabian Kiendl <100772.1610@compuserve.com> Subject: Re: Cellular Phones In Aircraft If cellular phones may interfere with navigation electronics of aircraft, shouldn't it be made mandatory for those electronics to be shielded against electromagnetic interference from inside the plane? First, malfunctions of electronics due to EMI might not be detected by the pilot in time. If the autopilot is switched off due to EMI, which has already happened, the pilot will assume that there is some sort of EMI from inside the plane. But will the pilot notice if a malfunction in the navigation system changes the course of the plane by one degree of arc, which may have disastrous consequences if the island where the plane is to land simply isn't where it should be? Second, suppose you have EMI coming from inside the plane, and you are on a packed jumbo jet with more than 300 passengers on board. One of those has left his cellular phone or some other device on inadvertently. How do you identify the exact location of the transmitting unit that causes the interference to tell the owner to shut it off? And how long is this going to take? Third, the device causing EMI could be in the owner's checked baggage. What if the room where the baggage goes is inaccessible during the flight, e.g. not pressurized? And even if that room is accessible, how long does it take to identify the piece of baggage that contains the phone? 20 cellular phone users on a plane equal 20 chances of someone forgetting to turn his phone off. Some cellphone users do not even know that the phone *does* transmit constantly even if there is no incoming or outgoing call. Others might mistake the keypad lock with switching the phone off. Simply placing a crossed-out phone on the safety card is no guarantee that all transmitting devices are switched off. Fabian ------------------------------ From: bill.mcgaughy@disneysoft.com (Bill Mcgaughy) Subject: Help Wanted Using Ham Radio as a Telephone Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 02:17:00 GMT Organization: Disney Interactive - 1-800-228-0988 Does anyone out there know anything about using a mobile ham radio as a telephone? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #537 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Oct 10 16:20:04 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id QAA04622; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 16:20:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 16:20:04 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610102020.QAA04622@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #538 TELECOM Digest Thu, 10 Oct 96 16:19:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 538 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "Practical UNIX and Internet Security" (Rob Slade) Review: "Client/Server Toolkit for C and C++ Programmers" (David Burns) Another Court Injunction Against Cyber Promotions (Robert A. Virzi) Why Are Incoming Calls Allowed at US Payphones? (Tony Toews) InternetMCI Troubles (David Powis) Rolm Redwood Information Needed (Mark Parker) Re: Inter@ctive Magazine Article: FCC Contemplates ISP Access (F Goldstein) Re: Inter@ctive Magazine Article: FCC Contemplates ISP Access (R Ghosh) Re: Help Wanted Using Ham Radio as a Telephone (Carl Mims) Re: Help Wanted Using Ham Radio as a Telephone (phoneguy@corenet.net) Re: Help Wanted Using Ham Radio as a Telephone (Rich Mulvey) Re: Help Wanted Using Ham Radio as a Telephone (Jack Hamilton) Re: Help Wanted Using Ham Radio as a Telephone (Ken Jones) Re: Help Wanted Using Ham Radio as a Telephone (David Getchell) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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, 10 Oct 1996 10:56:23 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Practical UNIX and Internet Security" BKPRUISC.RVW 960619 "Practical UNIX and Internet Security", Simson Garfinkel/Gene Spafford, 1996, 1-56592-148-8, U$39.95/C$56.95 %A Simson Garfinkel simsong@next.cambridge.ma.us simsong@gnu.ai.mit.edu %A Gene Spafford spaf@cs.purdue.edu %C 103 Morris Street, Suite A, Sebastopol, CA 95472 %D 1996 %G 1-56592-148-8 %I O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. %O U$39.95/C$56.95 800-998-9938 707-829-0515 fax: 707-829-0104 nuts@ora.com %P 1004 %T "Practical UNIX and Internet Security" The title is certainly apt. This book is definitely practical, and if your job involves system security, at whatever level, this book belongs on your desk. The expansion of the title is no mere attempt to gain market share: this edition is twice the size of the old one. The book is well planned and comprehensive. While the emphasis and examples are from the UNIX operating system and Internet protocols, background information is given on related (and important) topics such as modems and physical security. The writing and examples are clear and understandable, and should present no problems to the intelligent novice, but the additional material ensures that there is value here even for the UNIX guru. The six "parts" of the work (plus a set of appendices) present logical divisions of the topic. "Computer Security Basics" begins with an introductory chapter defining computer security, an operating system and UNIX. It continues with a discussion of policy and guideline considerations. Part two deals with the responsibility of the user. The chapters deal with the defence of accounts and the protection of data through users and passwords; user accounts, "groups" and the "superuser"; and details of the UNIX file system. Part three looks at the system side of security, with attention to backups, integrity, auditing, malicious software, and physical and personnel security. Part four covers communications aspects. This is highly important considering the strengths of UNIX in communications, the use of UNIX machines as bridges between other proprietary systems, and the participation of UNIX systems in the Internet. Chapters are devoted to modems, UUCP, TCP/IP, and Kerberos. Part five could be seen as an extension, dealing with advanced network security topics such as firewalls. The sixth section begins to move away from strictly technical aspects, and starts to deal with your response to "security incidents". This may seem, to some, either irrelevant or defeatist. However, it points out an important attitude to have with respect to security: assume that, at some point, you are going to fail -- and be prepared. The chapters here are no less practical than the foregoing, detailing the discovery of break-ins, denial of service attacks, and the (U.S.) legal aspects of security. (I appreciate the authors' forthrightness at this point: the chapter is entitled "Computer Security and U.S. Law", and doesn't assume one legal system fits all.) A updating and expansion of a comprehensive and dependable classic in the security field. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1993, 1996 BKPRUISC.RVW 960619 Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca | "Do you get guns with your Institute for rslade@vanisl.decus.ca | gun magazines? No. Research into rslade@vcn.bc.ca | Do you get viruses with your User Rob_Slade@mindlink.bc.ca| virus magazines? Yes." Security Canada V7K 2G6 | - Kevin Marcus ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 03:06:59 -0400 From: noblenet@world.std.com (NobleNet Inc.) Subject: Review: "The Client/Server Toolkit for C and C++ Programmers" For Further Information, Please Contact: David Burns Vice President of Marketing NobleNet, Inc. Voice: (508) 460-8222 FAX: (508) 460-3456 e-mail: david.burns@noblenet.com "The Client/Server Toolkit for C and C++ Programmers" New Book From NobleNet Turns Programmers Into Client/Server Experts New York, October 8, 1996 -- NobleNet, Inc. today announced the availability of its newly published book that turns C and C++ programmers into client/server experts. Co-authored by middleware experts Steven Lemmo and Rich Grehan, The Client/Server Toolkit for C and C++ Programmers is a self- contained instructional tool that teaches programmers how to distribute any application or Application Programming Interface (API) across a network. The CD-ROM software included with The Client/Server Toolkit features a unique Windows-based client/server simulator that lets programmers gain hands-on experience in client/server partitioning. Programmers are guided through four "real-world" client/server projects: distributed ODBC database, scanner device, image engine, and datafeed. The authors expertise combined with a Rapid Application Development (RAD) environment, demystifies the art of distributing complex applications. "I learned more about client/server development in the last three days of reading your book than I learned in the past few years of doing C and C++ programming," said Pascal Specht, Technical Sales Engineer at Precision Software in Paris, France. "Our new book will help any C or C++ programmer that wants to learn about state-of-the-art client/server computing," said Steve Lemmo, co-author and Chief Technology Officer of NobleNet. "The techniques taught in the book will help programmers learn to use the powerful Interface Definition Languages (IDLs) found in today's most popular distributed computing middleware." Beginning with a monolithic application, readers learn how to separate programs into independent parts that communicate with each other. While other books on client/server computing include sample code, The Client/Server Toolkit goes further and delivers a true client/server Software Development Toolkit (SDK) designed for application partitioning. Unlike other approaches, programmers learn to build client/server applications using industry-standard RPC technology that requires no source code changes. "The Client/Server Toolkit is ideal for programmers that want to get a quick immersion into client/server computing with tools that require very little effort to learn," said Vincent Russo, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University. "I like the fact that the book is totally self-contained. It has a wealth of real-world examples that provide the reader with a thorough understanding of client/server development. And the simulator gives programmers hands-on experience with building and running real client/server applications." Although The Client/Server Toolkit is written for C and C++ programmers, examples are given that show "drag and drop" programmers how to create client/server applications utilizing popular GUI front-ends such as Visual Basic, PowerBuilder, Delphi, and Developer 2000. Distributed with the book is a free version of NobleNet's powerful standards-based RPC product used by client/server developers world-wide. Programmers are presented with client and server Windows connected by a simulated network. Using NobleNet RPC, applications developed on the simulator are easily deployed to over 40 platforms including 26 UNIXes, Windows 3.1, 95, and NT, NetWare, Macintosh, OS/2, and VMS. More than 20 Windows-based TCP/IP stacks are supported to ensure operation in existing multi-vendor environments. Co-author Steven Lemmo founded NobleNet, engineered NobleNet's first software product, EZ-RPC(R), and led the team that developed the company's NetWare and Windows-based middleware tools. With an in-depth understanding of both communication and application software, he is a sought after consultant on RPC programming. Steve has over fifteen years of experience in software engineering and tools development in companies such as Computervision Corp., Sun Microsystems, Inc., and Xerox Imaging Systems, Inc. He is widely recognized as an expert on distributed computing and is frequently called upon to appear at industry forums. Co-author Rick Grehan has been on the editorial staff of BYTE Magazine for over 11 years. He is currently the Technical Director of BYTE Labs and the author of BYTE's monthly CodeTalk column. His articles have appeared in BYTE, Embedded Systems Programming, and Forth Dimensions. In addition, he was a contributor to the 1993 edition of The Encyclopedia of Microcomputers, published by Marcel Dekker, Inc. Rick is also the designer of BYTE Magazine's BYTEmark benchmark suite. The Client/Server Toolkit for C and C++ Programmers is published by NobleNet. The 350 page book with CD-ROM can be ordered for $49.95 by calling (800)-250- 6427 or (508)-893-0398. NobleNet offers tools for distributed client/server development for procedural and object paradigms. Incorporated in 1991, NobleNet is a world leader in Remote Procedure Call (RPC) technology and has won numerous awards for its RPC product family. NobleNet also distributes IONA Technologies' industry- leading "Orbix" CORBA-compliant Object Request Broker. The company is headquartered in Southboro, MA, and can be reached at (508) 460-8222 or at . ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 08:23:49 +0100 From: rvirzi@gte.com (Robert A. Virzi) Subject: Another Court Injuction Against Cyber Promotions This comes from NEWSpot Morning Edition @ 10/10/96 *** Concentric Network obtains judicial relief against spammer Concentric Network Corporation Wednesday announced that Cyber Promotions, Inc. and its president have been ordered by a federal judge to swear that they will cease engaging in conduct which causes the overload of Concentric's mail system. In a lawsuit filed against Cyber Promotions and its president, Concentric alleges that Cyber Promotions sent unsolicited electronic advertisements, or "spam," to hundreds of thousands of Internet users on a daily basis. The spamming also caused denial of mail service to Concentric Networks' subscribers. For the full text story, see: http://www.merc.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=272348-668 rvirzi@gte.com Think Globally. === +1(617)466-2881 === Act Locally! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Readers may wish to express their con- dolences to Sanford Wallace on this latest setback in his plans to send out his First Amendement protected messages of importance each day on the net. His phone numbers are 800-650-9110 and 888-BULK-EMAIL. Let him know, as a concerned netizen how you feel about it. Remember, if you place your call at night when the voicemail is turned on, you won't be disturbing his busy employees at work. They can screen and sort through your messages the next morning, the same as you do with their mail each day. By the way, has anyone heard from Jeff Slaton recently? Is he still sending stuff out and/or selling his software? He promised he was going to have one more big mailing for us. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ttoews@agt.net (Tony Toews) Subject: Why are Incoming Calls Allowed at US Payphones? Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 02:24:50 GMT Organization: AGT Ltd. Folks, Here in Canada, or at least in Alberta and all the payphones I can recall noticing on my travels throughout Canada, have never allowed incoming phone calls. Why is this allowed in the States? Historical purposes? Surely this would help cut down a lot of the convenience of drug trafficing? As I understand it you a customer go to a payphone, not near your residence or place of business, dial the beeper of your drug dealer of choice with your pay phone number and said pusher calls you back. This just can't happen up here. I could be quite wrong on a lot of the details here, that is, some provinces may allow incoming calls or that here in Alberta it was changed a decade or five years or whatever ago. Tony Toews, Independent Computer Consultant Jack of a few computer related trades and master (or certified) of none. Microsoft Access Hints & Tips: Accounting Systems, Winfax Pro, Reports and Books at http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm ------------------------------ From: davidpowis@aol.com (David Powis) Subject: InternetMCI Troubles Date: 10 Oct 1996 03:09:57 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) I just wanted to see if anyone else is having the same amount of grief with NetworkMCI as me. I have been using the service for about 4 months now. First month was great then things started going down hill. Newsgroup access is really slow or non-working. My email has worked twice in the last six weeks, (They have tried all sorts of tests. Using Netscape 2.0, will tell me I have "x" number of messages, informs me it is receiving first message, and then just sits there until it times out. I have tried all times of the day and night.) Lucky I got this 'free' AOL disk in the mail. I plan on calling MCI one more time before I dump them and just wonder if they are doing anyone else's brain in? For a company that likes to sell it's customer service they are really useless in this area. Thanks in advance, David ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 13:32:42 -0500 From: ctis@ix.netcom.com (Mark Parker) Subject: Rolm Redwood Information Needed I have been searching for information reguarding analog ports on the Rolm Redwood PBX and have not been successfull. Trying to get information from Siemens Rolm has been next to impossible. I need to know the following information: 1) How Many analog ports can the Rolm Redwood MAX at? 2) What is the minimum amount of anaolog ports per card install? 3) Any known issues with dialogic voice processing cards and Rolm Redwood PBX Any help or direction would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Mark Parker ctis@ix.netcom.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 00:48:00 -0400 From: Fred R. Goldstein Subject: Re: Inter@ctive Magazine Article: FCC Contemplates ISP Access At 05:43 PM 10/9/96 -0400, TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think most people have heard stories > so often by now about the 'modem tax' or variations thereon that no > one pays much attention any longer. I guess when we live under the > sword of Damocoles long enough, we eventually just begin ignoring it. > So when a story like this comes along in the print media, it may be > true or it may be false or the truth may lay somewhere in between. I > know in the past Fred Goldstein has written in this Digest a few times > completely debunking all those stories, so perhaps I can call on him > to respond once again. While the sky is not falling, I think it's safe to say that there are major efforts underway to topple its pillars. The "modem tax" chain letter was based on a 1987-era proposal by the then-chairman of the FCC to reclassify a broad range of services as "interstate carriers" rather than as "local subscribers". This met with strong opposition, from both the public and Congress, and the FCC backed off with tail between legs, promising, essentially, never to raise the subject again. But it's back. I've read the actual "white papers" submitted to the FCC by both Pacific Bell and Bell Atlantic on this subject. Under FCC rules, anyone can "petition" and the petition is then assigned an RM number, and anyone can comment on it. A "white paper" has no legal standing, so in effect it is a way to petition the FCC without invoking the open-government rules around RMs. You and I can't do this (well, we'd be ignored), but well-heeled RBOCs can and do try stunts like this. The thrust of both white papers is that Internet service providers and similar on-line services are no longer in need of "exemption" from IXC treatment, and they cause the local networks to incur extra costs which aren't being recovered adequately via current tariffs. If implemented, IXCs would be charged cents per minute for INCOMING calls, so when you call them up, they pay, and you pay too if it's not a free call. This is how the US handles the local-long distance interface. It's not a "peer" relationship; the local carriers call the shots and charge the IXCs at both ends. (Contrast this with the UK where a carrier's a carrier, and each side pays the other to carry their fraction of the calls they hand off.) The RBOCs justification for this is based on any number of falsehoods and twists of pretzel logic. Yes, data calls are longer, but so what? Any multi-line hunt group that generates incoming traffic has similar impacts on the network, except long data calls use fewer switch CPU resources. The tradition in America is that the CALLER is responsible for the WHOLE cost of the call, unless it's collect (including 800). So when you make a local call to your ISP, YOU are paying for the usage-sensitive portion of the cost of the entire call. Receive a call or not, you should pay the same. Flat rate local service does NOT necessarily change this; the monthly charge for flat rate lines is higher than for measured lines, and the delta is the averaged cost of outgoing local usage. (Incoming is always free.) So even where there are no per-call charges, the caller IS PAYING! Where the Bells have gotten into trouble is in poor planning. They simply didn't predict the growth in network demand, Internet or voice or anything else! They work on multi-year (5-10) planning cycles. In the early 1990s, many of them chose to request "alternative" regulation, in which they freeze their politically-sensitive analog local residential line rates in exchange for the right to keep additional profits brought about by "efficiency". So they've laid off thousands of crafts people, cut back growth, and gotten blindsided by increasing demand! Naturally, with residential flat rates frozen as their part of the deal, they can't go back and ask for rate hikes to cover the *slight* increase in the average usage per line! So instead, they're trying to get the money via the back door, by imposing new, rather massive (around 2c/minute is typical) charges on the INCOMING side of those subscribers who are deemed to be generating this new demand. That's the ISPs. "Uncle Charlie" hasn't come out with any rulemaking proceedings (NPRMs) on this. They're being pushed one way by the RBOCs and another way by the rest of us. Whichever one pushes harder probably wins. It might get wrapped up in a generalized revisitation of their "access charge" structures. Certainly FCC chair Reed Hundt's speech of a few weeks ago, which somebody else delivered for him, was not reassuring. He squarely took both sides of the issue! So yes, there IS a real threat. It's NOT the old "modem tax" but it's very, very similar, and it's driven by greedy Bells who use deceit and mendacity to pursue their claims. Users should pay attention whenever real info gets out, but shoudn't lower their credibility by spreading chain letters, etc., that have only fifth-hand summaries, etc. The BA paper might be on the web somewhere. Fred R. Goldstein k1io fgoldstein@bbn.com +1 617 873 3850 Opinions are mine alone. Sharing requires permission. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Perhaps you will be so kind to put this on your calendar for a couple months from now -- say about the end of the year -- and give us an update if there is anything new. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rishab@nntp1.best.com (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Subject: Re: Inter@ctive Magazine Article: FCC Contemplates ISP Access Fees Date: 10 Oct 1996 12:18:15 GMT Organization: Best Internet Communications John Stahl (aljon@worldnet.att.net) wrote: > The article, written by Will Rodger, indicates that "...The free ride > may be over." He relates that while the FCC has long dismissed the > idea of an access fee for ISP's, they are now seriously weighing the > idea to allow the LEC's to levy a fee for every customer an ISP > serves. This of course means that what ever the fee, it will be passed Interesting. Just yesterday I met Diane Cornell, chief of the Telecom Division in the FCC's International Bureau. She was in India along with a US trade delegation to prepare for the WTO talks on telecom services. Somehow the conversation was quite heavy on datacom -- perhaps because the issues are easier to sort out there than with telecom -- and she repeatedly said that the FCC can't regulate the Internet, and doesn't want to. She also emphasised the importance of low barriers to entry and competition between all operators big and small. I gave her my proposal (http://dxm.org/techonomist/news/ndp1.html) for datacom liberalisation in India, which argues that telecom providers should not discriminate against small ISPs. LECs can't charge a fee per ISP subscriber if the FCC merely 'lets' them do it -- how do they get hold of the subscriber database? They will have to depend on the FCC making rules forcing ISPs to disclose -- or at least enumerate -- their subscriber base to LECs. Incidentally, India's monopoly govt-owned commercial ISP (which also happens to have a monopoly on international call traffic) charges about US 85 cents per hour for 28.8kbps dial-up PPP access (27 cents for shell login only). I believe they're making a reasonable margin within their first year of service; funnily enough they also have occasional fights with the local telecom operator and the govt's Dept. of Telecom. (see http://www.netizen.com/netizen/96/36/global4a.html) Rishab ------------------------------ From: Carl Mims Subject: Re: Help Wanted Using Ham Radio as a Telephone Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 08:21:52 -0400 Organization: Netcom Reply-To: carl@calvaryftl.org Bill Mcgaughy wrote: > Does anyone out there know anything about using a mobile ham radio as > a telephone? What you are asking for is called a phone patch. There are two major forms. In the VHF/UHF bands (short range (30-90 miles) where local repeaters are used, a phone line is provided at the repeater. The user then access using access codes from the DTMF pad on their portable or mobile radio. In the HF band (world wide range) the operator will place a call at one end manually and use a patch which allows the distant operator to talk on the local lines. In all cases the nature of the call must NOT BE FOR BUSINESS USE. The primary use for this system is for emergencies and persoanl NON-BUSINESS calls. Carl Mims carl@calvaryftl.org ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 07:48:40 -0700 From: Jim Reply-To: phoneguy@corenet.net Subject: Re: Help Wanted Using Ham Radio as a Telephone A common use of ham radio and telephone is while using a local 2 meter repeater for normal VHF communications. Instead of talking with another ham on the repeater, a ham could access the phone line through the repeater, if it's so equipped. After accessing the line a speed dial call could be placed if it's programmed into the repeater ( like an emergency call), or a normal telphone call could be placed. You must have access codes, etc. to be able to use this feature of a repeater. These codes are usually available to members of the local club that sponsors the repeater. Ham regulations do not allow any business to be transacted over the ham/phone connection. A cell phone or business band type radio should be used in these cases. It's important to know that ham radio requires licensing from the FCC. Licensing involves testing, but any ham or local club should be able to put you in touch with someone to get you started. Jim AA0JG ------------------------------ From: rkm@scanproj.raster.Kodak.COM (Rich Mulvey) Subject: Re: Help Wanted Using Ham Radio as a Telephone Date: 10 Oct 1996 13:59:25 GMT Organization: Eastman Kodak Company - DPSC Reply-To: mulvey@kisbss.kodak.com On Wed, 9 Oct 1996 02:17:00 GMT, Bill Mcgaughy wrote: > Does anyone out there know anything about using a mobile ham radio as > a telephone? There are a large number of amateur radio repeaters that include what is known as an "autopatch." The autopatch allows you to make telephone calls by using the DTMF pad on your radio. Generally, however, autopatch access is limited to people who have contributed to the cost of upkeep for the repeater. In addition, there are numerous FCC restrictions on the content of the conversations that you can use. And finally, since you don't have a licence, you couldn't use one anyway. :-) Rich ------------------------------ From: jfh@acm.org (Jack Hamilton) Subject: Re: Help Wanted Using Ham Radio as a Telephone Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 15:11:48 GMT Reply-To: jfh@acm.org - Mobile amateur radio equipment is not cheap. A pair of new HT's would set you back around $500, and that would be bare-bones. A top-of-the- line HT might cost $1,000. "HT" stands for handi-talkie, the term that's used instead of walkie-talkie. - There's no guarantee that you will be able to reach whoever you want to reach. Low-power radio will not always get through. High-power equipment tends to not be portable. Depends on what you mean by mobile, I guess. - You can't use amateur radio for profit. You can't call the office and ask them to send you a new set of frazzilators. - You need a license, for which you have to take several tests. Using an amateur frequency without a license may result in heavy fines. - Most equipment is single-duplex; only one person can talk at a time. Telephones are full-duplex; both parties can talk at the same time. - All amateur radio conversations go over the open air. Anyone can listen, and it's illegal to encrypt amateur transmissions. - Amateur radio is essentially a party line. Any number of people can participate. It's not unusual to have 3 or 4 people in a conversation. This is usually regarded as a Good Thing. Amateur radio is very good at what it's intended for (casual and emergency communications), but it's not a replacement for commercial telephone services. Jack Hamilton jfh@acm.org Sacramento, California USA kd6ttl@n0ary 1992 K75RT ------------------------------ From: kjones@netrax.net (Ken Jones) Subject: Re: Help Wanted Using Ham Radio as a Telephone Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 17:55:57 GMT > Does anyone out there know anything about using a mobile ham radio as > a telephone? Sure. Dig up your local radio club and join! Radio-wireline interconnection is called Autopatch in ham radio jargon. We use DTMF encoders attached (often built in) to our mobile or hand-held portable radio sets to send appropriate access codes to a fixed radio relay station which is connected to a telephone line. Pretty simple once you get the hang of it. We try as a group to avoid long distance call charges regularly, yet there is a strong tradition of phone patching calls home by overseas military members' locations. 73, Ken Jones, KB3JA mailto:kjones@netrax.net -- Maidenhead Grid: FM19mu PGP Fingerprint 0xFE99B25D; key avail on public servers ------------------------------ From: getch@paonline.com (David Getchell) Subject: Re: Help Wanted Using Ham Radio as a Telephone Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 13:44:41 GMT Organization: INTERNET AMERICA It is common practice to do this on VHF/UHF through a repeater. Propogation is line of sight plus a little, expect 50 miles max. You can also do this on HF with worldwide propogation, but I do not believe it can legally be done automatically. http://www.epix.net/~getch ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #538 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Oct 10 19:25:13 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id TAA23176; Thu, 10 Oct 1996 19:25:13 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 19:25:13 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610102325.TAA23176@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #539 TELECOM Digest Thu, 10 Oct 96 19:25:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 539 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Spammer Ordered to Stop (Tom Watson) Re: The Truth About 809 Area Code Scams (Mike Fox) Re: The Truth About 809 Area Code Scams (Bob Goudreau) Re: NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was Re: New 809 Fraud) (Iain Bennett) Re: NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was Re: New 809 Fraud) (Fred Goldstein) Re: NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was Re: New 809 Fraud) (Steven Kleinedler) Re: NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was Re: New 809 Fraud) (Peter M. Weiss) Re: Hyperterm and CID Blocker - How? (Richard Ondrovic) Re: Hyperterm and CID Blocker - How? (John R. Levine) Trouble Ordering BIX Blocks (Tom Tengdin) Help Needed With Picking an ISDN Router With CallerID, etc (av@macsolution) Re: D1D Framing Question (Bud Couch) Re: Last Laugh! MCI Certificate of Savings (oldbear@arctos.com) Re: 800/888 Toll-Free Prefix Assignments (David Leibold) Re: Help Wanted Using Ham Radio as a Telephone (Bill Garfield) Re: Excel Slamming Denied (Nevin Liber) Phony Phloating Payphone (David 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: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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: tsw@3do.com (Tom Watson) Subject: Spammer ordered to stop Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 13:38:53 -0700 Organization: The 3DO Corporation Article from today's San Jose Mercury News (front page): Firm ordered to stop sending mass e-mail ads By Howard Bryant Mercury News Staff Writer Spam is now officially in trouble on the Internet. A U.S. District Court judge in San Jose this week ordered an on-line marketing firm to stop ``spamming'' -- sending unsolicited e-mail advertisements to Internet users. It's thought to be the first time a court has forced a halt to the practice, which has long been considered a legal but otherwise despised violation of cyberspace etiquette. ``This is another indication that junk e-mailers don't have the right to flood the Internet or people's e-mail accounts,'' said Andrew Graziani of America Online, which has been fighting a yearlong battle against spam. ``This is an absolute groundbreaker.'' Monday's ruling stems from a suit filed last week by Concentric Network Corp., a Cupertino-based Internet service provider, against Cyber Promotions Inc., a Philadelphia on-line marketing firm. The suit alleges Cyber Promotions gained access to Concentric's e-mail accounts, flooding them and other corporate networks that Concentric runs with unwanted advertisements. Concentric argued it was hurt because the spamming falsely identified it as the sender of the messages, since the advertisements appear to have been sent from another Concentric account. ``The average user doesn't know they are being spammed,'' said Concentric CEO Hank Nothhaft. ``All they know is they think we're the ones sending it. We lose our credibility.'' Slowdown alleged Concentric also says the flood of undesired e-mail, which began last March to potentially thousands of subscribers, caused a severe slowdown in Concentric's network. The company said that over Labor Day weekend, for example, the problem was so bad that a typical e-mail message, which normally would take about five seconds to transmit, instead took more than 10 hours. All told, the spamming cost Concentric an unspecified loss of subscribers, profits and prestige, Nothhaft said. Monday, Judge Ronald White ruled that Cyber Promotions must agree under the penalty of perjury to cease spamming Concentric's network. Cyber Promotions President Sanford Wallace did not return phone calls, but said in a written statement that he and his company would comply with the judge's order. ``This is a groundbreaking ruling, but the case is far from over,'' said David Kramer, attorney for Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, the Palo Alto law firm that represented Concentric. ``No litigation has ever taken on spamming head-on. This is definitely a step in the right direction.'' More court action The case will continue on an as-yet-unscheduled date in San Jose, when Kramer said Concentric will seek a preliminary injunction against Cyber Promotions, in addition to Monday's order. While there have been previous cases seeking to end spamming, no court is yet believed to have done so. For most of this year, America Online has been embroiled in a spamming spat with Cyber Promotions. Last month, a U.S. District Court in Philadelphia ruled that AOL could not prohibit Cyber Promotions from sending advertisements to its 5 million subscribers, but that AOL could take steps to block them. Two cases, two rulings It wasn't immediately clear what the difference between the AOL and Concentric cases is. But it may lie in the fact that with AOL, Cyber Promotions was sending messages only to other AOL users, while with Concentric, it was sending ads beyond Concentric's e-mail subscribers. Concentric is now trying to determine how much damage Cyber Promotions has caused it by spamming its subscribers, Nothhaft said. ``It is very difficult, but we are certain we've had a loss of customers, either directly from the spamming or from the resulting poor service,'' he said. ``Customer satisfaction and a loss of credibility are hard to measure, but we're sure we've had a loss of both because of this.'' --------------- Tom Watson tsw@3do.com (Home: tsw@johana.com) ------------------------------ From: Mike Fox Date: 10 Oct 96 8:29:08 Subject: Re: The Truth About 809 Area Code Scams Van wrote an extremely interesting and informative essay on 809 scams. Thank you Van! One of the parties he lays blame on is: > 3.) The local telcos (LEC's). By so freely granting ANYONE a > chargeback on 900/976 calls, they have driven service bureaus and > pay-per-call operators to dreaming-up these "imaginative" ways of > collecting revenues. If the telco's didn't write-off so many of these > calls (that were made legitimately by customers who intended to > defraud the service bureau from the beginning), none of this would be > happening. I don't think it was quite that simple. I don't think the LEC's had much choice on giving chargebacks. On my phone bill, those types of charges always show up on a seperate page labelled "UNREGULATED CHARGES" then words to the effect that "failure to pay these charges cannot result in your phone service being disconnected, but the service provider can still come after you for collection after we write it off if you refuse to pay." Not only 900/scam800 charges, but also charges for the inside wiring maintenance plan (I know, go ahead and call me a sucker) and equipment rental also appear on this page. So from that I conclude two things: 1. Just because the phone company writes off the charge does NOT mean that you are out of paying it, as the disclaimer states. If you're going to blame the LEC for giving a chargeback, also blame the service bureaus for failing to pursue collection after the charge has been written off by the LEC. The fact that they never do seem to pursue collection has to make you wonder how sure they feel that their charges are fair/proper/legal. 2. The facts that these are unregulated charges and you can get a charge-back seem related to me. That may have been the price they had to pay to keep these charges unregulated, i.e., if the LECs were going to be hardass about these charges it would get regulators interested and that would hurt the revenue from these charges more than granting the chargebacks. Also I should point out that the LECs seem to be getting more hardass about this today. I was unfortunate enough to have an Integretel charge on my bill because in dialing a free 800 number, I misdialed, and got an an Integretel-billed scam800 number (tip: if you play the Virginia Lottery, be VERY careful when dialing their player information line). Despite the above notice on my bill, BellSouth absolutely refused to give a chargeback and it was carried as a past due charge (with interest accruing) until Integretel finally issued a credit after four months of busy signals, holds, and hassles. Later, Mike ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 11:27:29 -0400 From: goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) Subject: Re: The Truth About 809 Area Code Scams Tak To wrote: > I also think most consumers are not aware of the fact that area code > 809 does not service the U.S. or Canada; and this leads to problems in > general. But area code 809 does indeed serve parts of the United States (though not Canada), and will for several more years. The Puerto Rico split from NPA 809 into NPA 787 is still in the permissive dialing phase until the end of next January, and the departure of the US Virgin Islands into NPA 340 hasn't even been announced by Bellcore yet, much less scheduled. It looks like NPA 809 won't become a pure international NPA for at least two or three more years, when the entire 809 breakup is complete and residual 809 belongs solely to the Dominican Republic. Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 12:54:00 +0000 From: iain bennett Subject: Re: NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was Re: New 809 Fraud via Email) Organization: Nortel - GSP&P - Multimedia Networks > To take this one step further, I really wish that my calls to Canada > were not as easy as just dialing "1". A few months ago I made a call > to a vendor BBS to download a new driver -- it wasn't until I got my > phone bill that I realized the number was in Canada and it had cost me > three times as much as a US call would have. Calls to the States are pretty cheap for myself - $0.10 to $0.15 per minute depending on where I'm calling. Something that I think should be done is maybe have an intercept message when dialing 809 saying that it is an expensive long distance call. If you do not wish the call to go through, please hang up now. Theoretically, you could do the same with Canada as well. Iain Bennett | Global Support Processes | Voice +1 613 237 9980 coopd590@nortel.ca| Magellan Networks | Fax +1 613 723 4508 | Northern Telecom | ESN 364 7078 http://omega.scs.carleton.ca/~ug940014/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 00:11:46 -0400 From: Fred R. Goldstein Subject: Re: NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was Re: New 809 Fraud via Email) Dave Forman notes, > It is a question of jurisdiction. If there is a > fraud locally, at least it can be handled by our own (rather ponderous) > justice system. If it is offshore, there's not much we can do. I'm not a lawyer though I sometimes play an engineer on TV. But are we US citizens/victims powerless to fight scams like the ones from BVI and Dominican Republic? Maybe we aren't totally powerless. In both cases, the scam involves a kickback paid by the telco to the scam artist. Telco is therefore a willing participant. The Guyana sex line pattern probably applies: Offshore telco has (using Guyana's numbers) an 85 cent/minute accounting rate for traffic exchanged with the USA. They kick back 50 cents to their customer, the "information provider" (or scam artist). US telco charges caller more than 85 cents/minute to cover their costs. There's no "900" surcharge, just a high international rate, kept high by foreign telco who demands high accounting rates. I can understand how Guyana T&T can claim that at least they are providing entertainment which people choose to call. But the BVI and DR scams are just scams, designed to defraud people. Done domestically they'd be clearly illegal. But the US has a "long arm" doctrine of law, wherein a criminal outside the US can sometimes be held liable for acts contrary to US law. In this case, e-mail was sent to a US "mark", or a US pager was phoned (almost certainly from within the USA, clearly establishing jurisdiction). We may not know who the scammers are, but we do know who their accomplices are -- whoever the telco is that is making the kickbacks. So who is the telco who owns 809-496 in BVI? If it were, say, Cable & Wireless (and I don't know if that's still the case), then they have extensive US holdings which a court could certainly, uh, take into account in a fraud suit, no? Likewise if the DR scam were Codetel, that's GTE. (But it might be a different DR carrier. Still, most have some assets in the US.) Also, the FCC might be able to "clamp down" on overly high accounting rates. Sure it's a bilateral agreement, but the US might have some clout. The ITU is, alas, dominated by microstates, so the FCC might have some problems, but I'm not sure they're powerless. I don't think booting the microstates out of the NANP is the best answer, but if say the telco co-conspirator in BVI were suddenly cut off from their payments and had their assets seized, then the kickbacks might suddenly no longer be available to fraud artists. Just legitimate information providers like, say, the ones in Guyana who spam the "alt.sex" newsgroups. :-) Again, consult a real attorney, but don't assume that it's always fair to be fleeced. Fred R. Goldstein k1io fgoldstein@bbn.com +1 617 873 3850 Opinions are mine alone. Sharing requires permission. ------------------------------ From: srkleine@midway.uchicago.edu (steven r kleinedler) Subject: Re: NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was Re: New 809 Fraud via Email) Organization: The University of Chicago Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 01:04:26 GMT In article , Jay Harrell wrote: > But at least Canada rates are reasonable. We really do need to get the > expensive calls out of the NANP. Or we could educate people about what area codes aren't US codes. Or is that assuming that people take too much personal responsibility to determine where an area code's at before the call? ------------------------------ Organization: Penn State University Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 13:22:06 EDT From: Peter M. Weiss Subject: Re: NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was Re: New 809 Fraud via Email) Maybe what we need is are Internet FTP/NANP +1 gateways based up in the Great White North in each of the provinces? Pete Weiss at Penn State ------------------------------ From: Richard.Ondrovic@worldnet.att.net (Richard Ondrovic) Subject: Re: Hyperterm and CID Blocker - How? Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1996 20:30:31 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services dave@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Dave Rasmussen) wrote: > I have a student client here at the University in the health care > field who wants to block his calls for patient confidentiality > reasons. He is using Windows 95 on a Gateway2000 with Telepath > modem. I have the same setup at my office. He brought over his > Radio Shack caller id blocker box and I have this connected between the > wall jack and modem. Get rid of the caller-id blocking box and prepend *67,, to the number being dialed. All the box does is dial *67 as soon as it sees dialtone. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 96 17:05 EDT From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Hyperterm and CID Blocker - How? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > I have a student client here at the University in the health care > field who wants to block his calls for patient confidentiality > reasons. He is using Windows 95 on a Gateway2000 with Telepath > modem. I have the same setup at my office. He brought over his > Radio Shack caller id blocker box and I have this connected between the > wall jack and modem. Forget the blocker box -- all it does is to dial *67 when you pick up the phone. It should be pretty easy to go into the modem program setup and tell it to dial *67 itself. (Put it in the same field where you'd put the 9 for an outside line.) John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - MIT econ prof ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 13:53:25 -0700 From: Tom Tengdin Subject: Trouble Ordering BIX Blocks I just tried to buy some BIX cross-connection blocks from my favorite vendor and all the part numbers came back bad. I am being told the Northern Telecom sold off this part of the company and now Siecor is producing the stuff? Does anyone have any better information or advice on continuing to use BIX vs 110 vs ?? I am at a point in the this project where I could change horses if that is wise. Thanks, Tom Tengdin Observatory Support Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute Moss Landing, CA ------------------------------ From: av@macsolution.com Subject: Help With Picking Out ISDN Router With CallerID, etc ... Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 01:12:29 -0700 Organization: macsolutions technology group I am looking for feedback of netfolks who are familiar with ISDN router/bridges/"modems" that already support CallerID and other phone company features. The Ascend Pipeline 25 series (or ANY of their series) does not support and say they have no plans to support these features. Don't know about most of you, but I sure consider that an important feature. Likewise they have no intention of supporting and FSK-data features -- ie: used for visual voicemail message waiting indication (many phonesets have this feature built-in). I could go on. I have the 25 PX but am so discouraged with Ascend that I'm looking for other options ... email direct if you can ... and thanks ahead of time for the input. Anthony ------------------------------ From: bud@kentrox.com (Bud Couch) Subject: Re: D1D Framing Question Organization: ADC Kentrox Industries, Inc. Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 01:09:53 GMT In article andym@trendcomms.com writes: > We all know about the various framing systems used in T1: D4-SF > D4-ESF, SLC-96 (tm!), but recently I read about something called D1D. > That's D - one - D, not DID, which we all know the meaning of. Does > anyone know what D1D means? I assume it is some sort of T1 framing or > channel assignment system. Ahh, you young whippersnappers. You left out the grandaddy of them all: the D1 framing system. A model of simplicity and elegance. Take the 192 bits of data, add 1 bit. Alternate that one bit: 1,0,1,0,1,0...; you now have a signal which has an 4kHz component. Since you have filtered all of your voice circuits to below 4kHz, there are no bits in the rest of the data stream that follow ths pattern, and framing recovery is practically bulletproof. This built-in protection was to be forgotten, by both Bell Labs, and all the other D-Bank manufacturers, in the design of the first generation of D2 banks. The D2 format (what you call "D4") submultiplexed the framing bit to allow multiple signaling states and more bits for voice, but in the process wound up with a framing pattern with a *2* kHz component: something not conveniently filtered out of the remainder of the bit stream. I worked in the channel bank group at Lenkurt when we discovered (the hard way) that certain fsk data modems in wide use in the railroad industry used 2 Khz as their "mark" frequency. We were not alone in rushing out a mod to the framing circuit which cross-checked the state of the signaling sub-mux before locking into "sync". Getting back to your original question, D1D was simply a retrofit of the old D1A and D1B banks to equip them with "D2" framing and u=255 codecs (as opposed to their original u=100 codecs). This was done to extend the life of huge numbers of D1 banks in place in NYC. Bud Couch - ADC Kentrox bud@kentrox.com (192.228.59.2) ------------------------------ From: oldbear@arctos.com (The Old Bear) Subject: Re: Last Laugh! MCI Certificate of Savings Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 18:07:14 -0400 Pat Townson wrote in a Editor's Note saying: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Someone wrote to me recently saying > they have two lines in their home-based business with one defaulted > to AT&T and the other defaulted to MCI. Both lines do about $150 > per month in long distance calling. He said that over a period of > six months AT&T sent him two checks for a $100 each trying to get > him to give them the other line as well, and he would forard these > to MCI with the same results you mentioned, i.e. the equivilent > amount in credit. Trouble is, another department at MCI was sending > him similar checks to give them the line he had defaulted to AT&T > and he would send those off to AT&T each time they arrived for > credit on his AT&T line. End result was for about three months the > checks from each company he forwarded to the other company were > sufficient to pay his long distance bills entirely. He wound up > owing both AT&T and MCI zero for a couple months. > Somehow I don't think that's quite what the carriers had in mind. > But you're right ... all hail the American free market system, even > if the LD carriers do turn out looking like stooges and playing the > role of the straight man in the slapstick comedy. :) PAT] This is less amusing when one considers that deregulated competition is intended to bring down costs for consumers in general. Instead, costs are maintained at a higher level so that the marketing departments can beat each other up playing market share games like this. While a few people may get their services "for free" by exploiting the system, the majority of customers end up paying for those free rides by paying artificially inflated rates. This is no different than the old cross-subsidization. It's just that instead of the LD callers subsidizing local POTS, now it's the folks who don't switch carriers regularly (or get 'freebies' by threatening to switch) are subsidizing those that do. Regards, Will The Old Bear ------------------------------ From: djcl@io.org (David Leibold) Subject: Re: 800/888 Toll-Free Prefix Assignments Date: 9 Oct 1996 21:55:11 -0400 Organization: Internex Online (shell.io.org), Toronto, Ontario, Canada In article , Mark J. Cuccia wrote: > The following is a list of 800-NXX and 888-NXX codes and any 'special' > assignment or reservations about them: > [. . .] > *ALL OTHER* 800-NXX and 888-NXX codes *are available* for general toll-free > numbers in the portability database, including: > [. . .] > 800-N11, 888-N11 (except 800-911 and 888-911, as mentioned above); > a set of seven NXX codes, each are available in *both* 800- and 888- Indeed, a drug store chain in Canada uses an 800-511-xxxx number for its information service. BC Tel, from checking the new Vancouver phone books, has apparently abandoned its 811-xxxx numbers to reach the business offices in favour of having callers dial 1 888 811-xxxx numbers. I don't think this relates to the 604/250 NPA split (officially starting in mere days), since there would have been no problem to operate seven-digit 811 numbers in both 604 and 250. djcl@io.org ---> http://www.io.org/~djcl/ ------------------------------ From: bubba@insync.net (Bill Garfield) Subject: Re: Help Wanted Using Ham Radio as a Telephone Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 03:17:01 GMT Organization: Associated Technical Consultants Reply-To: bubba@insync.net On Wed, 9 Oct 1996 02:17:00 GMT, bill.mcgaughy@disneysoft.com (Bill Mcgaughy) wrote: > Does anyone out there know anything about using a mobile ham radio as > a telephone? If you plan to use it on "HAM" frequencies you'll first need a ham radio license (test required). Unlike CB, your fellow ham radio operators police themselves extremely well in most areas and will see to it that any attempts at unlicensed "bootlegging" do not go undetected or unpunished. Next, and perhaps more importantly, ham radio is not for commercial use, meaning that it is expressly forbidden under FCC regulations for you to use any ham radio frequency for any business purpose, period. Please note the period. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is quite emphatic in the point that "ham" or Amateur Radio, as it is more correctly called, is strictly for hobby use. IE, acceptable use would be to phone your wife to let her know you're on your way home and ask if she wants you to pick something up for dinner. Unacceptable use would be to phone your wife and ask her to advise you of where your next business appointment (or service call) is. The telephone interconnect to the ham radio, called a repeater AUTOPATCH, is operated usually by an area radio club whose membership defrays the cost of operating the system. Doing your part by joining the local "club" is expected of you if you plan to use the repeater and the autopatch. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ |---- "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously| |considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently| |of no value to us." - - Western Union internal memo, 1876 | +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ From: nevin@cs.arizona.edu (Nevin Liber) Subject: Re: Excel Slamming Denied Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 13:09:15 -0700 Organization: University of Arizona CS Department, Tucson Arizona TELECOM Digest Editor writes: > Illinois Bell) sent around equal-access ballots back in the middle > 1980's the same kind of situation prevailed. Customers were sent a > ballot with the choices available at that time including AT&T, Sprint > and MCI. (There may have been others, I do not recall.) Customers > who did not return the completed ballot were then sent a second > ballot a month later. People who did not complete those ballots were > then called on the phone and asked to make a selection. Finally the > customers who still had made no selection were distributed among > the carriers according to some formula approved by the commission. I was working at the AT&T Bell Labs Indian Hill facility in Naperville, IL at the time of this. Someone didn't fill out the paperwork and, lo and behold, we ended up with a Sprint payphone on the premises. Someone finally pointed this out to everyone via internal netnews, and the very next day there was an out of order sign on the payphone. I ended up correcting the sign, as when I tried using the phone it was having absolutely no problem connecting my long distance calls via Sprint, just like it said. Needless to say, the long distance carrier was changed to AT&T a short time later. Nevin ":-)" Liber nevin@CS.Arizona.EDU (520) 293-2799 http://www.cs.arizona.edu/people/nevin/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 18:45:53 EDT From: David Leibold Subject: Phony Phloating Payphone An interesting Associated Press photo ran in {The Toronto Star} on 8 October 1996 ... it showed a payphone floating in an unnamed river in northern Germany. Someone was shown making a futile attempt to enter the booth, but it turned out to be an artistic creation rather than a functional public phone. Too bad there wasn't a real advance in maritime telephony here ... :-& David Leibold aa070@freenet.toronto.on.ca ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #539 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Oct 11 02:09:03 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id CAA26146; Fri, 11 Oct 1996 02:09:03 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 02:09:03 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610110609.CAA26146@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #540 TELECOM Digest Fri, 11 Oct 96 02:08:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 540 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson BellSouth.net Internet Service Introduces ISDN Connectivity (Mike King) BellSouth ISDN Network Connects Tennessee Students to Internet (Mike King) Beware of Sprint and Inter LATA Calls (Jim Lawson) 56Kb/s Modem Technology (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: Abandoned Submarine Cable Communications System (Jock Mackirdy) Re: Phone Jack Wiring in Britain (Jock Mackirdy) Re: Original Called Number Delivery in the US (Andy Spitzer) Re: PCS and GSM Questions (Tony Smith) Re: PCS and GSM Questions (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Costly Calls (was Re: Just Say Yes) (Lisa Hancock) Employment Opportunity: VP High Speed Data Service (Judy Bouer) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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: Mike King Subject: BellSouth.net Internet Service Introduces ISDN Connectivity Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 16:55:20 PDT Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 10:16:06 -0400 (EDT) From: BellSouth Subject: BellSouth.net Internet Service Introduces ISDN Connectivity For More Information Contact: Ted Creech (404) 330-0550 BellSouth.net Internet Service Introduces ISDN Connectivity BellSouth Offers New Higher Speed to Already Popular Internet Access Service ATLANTA, Oct. 9, 1996 -- BellSouth now provides ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) connection to its Internet service, BellSouth.net, in the ten Southeast markets now served by BellSouth.net service. The company is offering the Internet service accessible by ISDN at an introductory price that is the same as the price for BellSouth.net service accessible by basic phone service. Charges for ISDN service and equipment are separate. ISDN provides a connection that is more than twice as fast as a regular phone line, allowing users to access Web sites rich with graphics, download software and send and receive e-mail at high speed. BellSouth.net service provides Internet access to residential and small business customers with two competitively priced plans: 1) $19.95 per month for unlimited use, or 2) $9.95 for ten hours of access per month, plus $1 for each additional hour. BellSouth will offer customers who sign up for the service in 1996 one free month of service, and the one-time service set-up charge of $10.00 will be waived. "ISDN connection is an example of how we will quickly add enhancements to BellSouth.net service and continually make it better for our customers," says John Robinson, president of BellSouth.net Inc. "Over time, people will demand more reliability and capabilities from their Internet provider. BellSouth will be there for the long term, growing our service to meet customers' growing needs." BellSouth.net service offers the same features with ISDN connection as it does with basic phone connection, including a customized version of Netscape Navigator, electronic mail, an optional site-blocking feature, and an easy-to-use Web site that points to local information on Internet sites of businesses and institutions in their community. BellSouth.net service is available in Atlanta, New Orleans, South Florida (including Miami, West Palm Beach and Ft. Lauderdale), Raleigh, Charlotte, Orlando, Jacksonville, Louisville, Nashville and Memphis. Additional markets will be added in coming months. BellSouth also offers Internet and Intranet services for larger businesses, called CommerceLink services, in all ten markets. Customers can order the software to sign up for BellSouth.net service by calling 1-800-4DOTNET (368638), or they can download the software by visiting the Web site, http://www.bellsouth.net. Residence customers wanting BellSouth ISDN telephone service and information on related equipment can call 1-888-724-ISDN toll free. Small business customers should call 1-888-726-ISDN toll free. BellSouth is a $17.9 billion communications services company providing telecommunications, wireless communications, directory advertising and publishing, and information services to more than 25 million customers in 17 countries worldwide. BellSouth's telecommunications operations provide service over one of the most advanced networks in the world for nearly 22 million access lines in its nine-state Southeast region. ----------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: BellSouth ISDN Network Connects Tennessee Students to Internet Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 16:56:11 PDT Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 12:49:36 -0400 (EDT) From: BellSouth Subject: BellSouth ISDN NetworkConnects Tennessee Students to Internet For more information contact: Karen Williams 615-214-5874 BellSouth ISDN Network Connects Tennessee Students to Internet (NASHVILLE, October 9, 1996) -- When Tennessee celebrates the Tennessee Bicentennial Internet Day tomorrow, the schools connecting to the Internet in most of the state will be using high-speed ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) telephone lines from BellSouth, and receiving the benefit of $1.7 million in annual educational discounts from the standard commercial rate. BellSouth is one of the key partners involved in providing every one of the 1560 public schools in Tennessee with fast and easy connection to the Internet. BellSouth serves approximately 80 percent of the telephones in Tennessee. "We appreciate the leadership that BellSouth has provided in pulling this huge project together," said Governor Don Sundquist. "The ISDN technology provided by BellSouth and the other local telephone companies is the best solution for Tennessee schools to connect to the Internet. In addition, BellSouth performed outstanding service in developing project management and tracking systems that provided us with the critical information we needed to coordinate among all the partners and to manage the project." "We are extremely proud to have been selected as one of the solutions partners to work with the Tennessee Department of Education in providing new opportunities for Tennessee students," said DeWitt Ezell, BellSouth's Tennessee president. "BellSouth has a strong commitment to improving education through technology that, in essence, expands the walls of Tennessee classrooms out to the corners of the world. "BellSouth designed the best solution for the schools using ISDN technology to provide high-speed connections to the Internet," Ezell added. "ISDN is available in every community we serve, and our special pricing structure for ISDN lines used in classrooms also makes this technology affordable for every Tennessee school." ISDN allows students and teachers to easily view and download pictures and text information found on the World Wide Web at speeds from four to twenty five times faster than ordinary telephone lines. During the past several months BellSouth has connected almost 1900 ISDN lines to more than 1000 elementary, middle and high schools throughout its territory. This involved coordinating the ordering, engineering, construction and installation schedules in every community to meet tight deadlines prescribed by the Department of Education for the Connect Tennessee Students (ConnecTEN) project. The BellSouth team included sales, servicing, technical support, project managers, engineers, construction and installation personnel. In addition to engineering the network, they provided a simplified system for the schools to initiate orders for service via the Internet, devised an improved process for assigning and connecting the electronic equipment and circuits for each order issued, and designed a database project tracking system that was used by every project partner to track status and detect potential problems that could have placed the overall project in jeopardy. To meet the needs of the ConnecTEN project BellSouth expedited projects to add equipment in 121 of the company's electronic switching centers, and more than 300 outside construction jobs to provide the necessary lines into the schools. "We counted on BellSouth to complete their jobs on time, and they did," said Jane Walters, Commissioner for the Tennessee Department of Education. "We appreciate BellSouth's overall quality -- their network and their people. We came to depend on their expertise to help us track the project for all the partners involved to bring the benefits to Tennessee students now rather than waiting until later. This is so important to our children that we just couldn't wait another year to begin improving the learning field for each student in Tennessee." BellSouth Involvement in ConnectTEN FACT SHEET Total number of public schools in Tennesse 1560 Number of public schools served by BellSouth Approximately 1000 Number of Service Orders Issued 1990 Number of ISDN Lines Installed 1861 Total number of BellSouth Switching Offices in Tennessee 202 Number of Switching Offices where equipment added for ConnectTEN 121 Number of outside construction jobs completed to add lines to schools 300+ T-1 circuits for school central offices added 55 New lines to educational router locations 36 Number of BellSouth team members involved Sales, service, technical support, project management, engineers, construction and installation crews -- hundreds. Annual value of educational discount from commercial rate for ISDN lines (1861 ISDN lines @ $900 per line) $1.675 million ------------ Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: Jim Lawson Subject: Beware of Sprint and Inter LATA Calls Date: 10 Oct 1996 23:57:47 GMT Prior to this past September California residents who wanted to use a alternate inter-lata carrier had to dial a five digit access code. There was a chance that dialing that access code when dialing a local number would result in a long distance charge for a local number. When we were able to I called and asked for Sprint to become my preferred inter-lata carrier to eliminate this change of error and to remove the requirement that I dial the five digit access code. However, I just recieved my first billing and noted that a local number is according to Sprint a long distance number and I have been and will be billed for calls to that number! I called Sprint and the was told that GTE might have changed my local calling area and that they just bill me for what GTE tells them to bill me for. I was told to call GTE. I called GTE and they stated that the number in question is indeed a local number but they couldn't correct the bill due to thier contract with Sprint. So I called Sprint back and they said thier computer defines that number as a long distance number, they are now referring the matter to another department and I should have my answer in a week. I am now concerned that Sprint's database of local numbers is not in synch with GTE's definition of local numbers and I will have to look at every entry and dispute any more toll calls which show up in error. This defeats the whole idea of alternate carriers and I wonder how many others have been billed for numbers which are local. Jim Lawson lawson@crl.com http://www.crl.com/~lawson/ mst3k#3801 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think you will find that as 'competition' in local calling becomes widely available, your experience will become quite common. The competitors will just bill you for whatever the local established telco 'tells them to bill you for'. You will be dealing mostly with a different billing agency than with any true competition. The deal with AT&T here in Chicago offering 'local long distance' competition over the past year has been the same way: one billing mess after another with AT&T taking full page ads in the paper to blame Ameritech, etc. I think you will find that as local competition -- and I use that word quite loosely -- begins to kick in, the new competitors will be constantly referring their customers back to the local telco for adjudication on things which are in dispute with the competitors claiming they are just doing whatever it is telco tells them, and the other way around with telco claiming they can do nothing about it because it is in their contract with the competitor. No one will listen to you; no one will want to correct or change anything. You'll be stuck paying the bills or fighting with them on an almost monthly basis. Telco will sit back and laugh about it all because they are still getting most the money they used to get and they no longer have to listen to the customers complaining and harassing them month after month; now the 'competition' gets that privilege. What would you like to bet that over the next decade or so as things become even more tangled up and the subscribers become more and more saavy there is a call -- and a very popular one at that when it begins in earnest -- to consolidate it all under government control? Someone will point out that the public will be better served by a single entity handling it all, and few people will remember that AT&T did exactly that and did it rather well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: 56Kb/s Modem Technology Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 10:56:37 -0500 Here's a thumbnail sketch of the 56K technology. Readers may find it of value. The propsed 56 kb/s techology is designed for ISPs or anyone who can warrant a digital connection to the central office. The proposed scheme calls for a standard V.34 modem connection upstream from the user to the C.O., but the path to the ISP (or as Rockwell calls it,"central site") must be a digital connection, typically a T1 line. The path from the "central site" through the C.O. and right up to the line card must stay completely digital. The digital signal is then sent out through the line card's codec, effectively modulating its output a a rate equivalent to the codec's signalling rate which is 56 kb/s here in North America. It would be 64 kb/s, except for the use of "robbed bit signalling" in the T1 connections that allows the telco to indicate the status of the call (dialing, answered, ringing, etc.). The key to the technology is that only one hop is analog. If only one codec is involved in the connection, the imperfections created by the codec can be predicted and avoided. It is for this reason that the link must be digital from the central site to the C.O. In fact, Rockwell's white paper states: "(The) 56 Kbps technology looks at the PSTN as a digital network which just happens to have an impaired section in the communications path. That impaired section is, of course, the copper wire connection between the telephone central office and the user's home, usually referred to as the analog local loop. My assumption is that this new technology will negotiate down to a standard V.34 link if the connection can't support 56Kb/s. You might wish to read Rockwell's complete report online at: http://www.nb.rockwell.com/mcd/56kmodem/QA_56kbps_external.html This paper describes the basics of the 56 Kbps modem technology recently announced by Rockwell. http://www.nb.rockwell.com PAT ------------------------------ From: Jock Mackirdy Subject: Re: Abandoned Submarine Cable Communications System - Need Help Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 00:10:28 +0000 Reply-To: jockm@basluton.demon.co.uk In article on Wed, 09 Oct 1996 12:45:57 +0000, Andrew R. Maffei wrote: > A group here at WHOI is converting an abandoned undersea coaxial > cable for scientific purposes. > We plan to draw approx 100 Watts off the cable to power the > communications system itself. > I have had little luck looking for information about > We're hoping that the telecom industry *might* offer standard-based > off-the-shelf components that we could use in our system. Your big problem / challenge is that almost all undersea repeater equipment was built as one-offs in high-tech telecomms labs using specially-aged components. (e.g. the BPO/BT labs at Dollis Hill and Martlesham, presumably Bell Labs. also). Off the shelf it isn't. > or perhaps designs we could use as guidelines to build our own. Much > of this technology seems to have been abandoned since fiber arrived on > the scene. Highly unlikely to be in the public domain -- it cost the telcos a fortune to build equipment to the enormously high reliability required (MTBF of 1000 years or more for each component perhaps). Fibre certainly knocked conventional co-ax technology into a cocked hat very quickly -- but even that was ten years or more ago. > We are also wondering if satellite or microwave equipment might > help out. Highly unlikely - it's design objectives are totally different. > I'd appreciate pointers to any vendors, products, or consultants > with proven experience in these technologies. BT Labs, Martlesham Heath, Ipswich, Suffolk, England. But BT is very finance-driven these days and I don't suppose their advice will come cheap. Jock Mackirdy Business Advisory Services Independent Telecomms and Business Advice Luton UK (ex-BT) ------------------------------ From: Jock Mackirdy Subject: Re: Phone Jack Wiring in Britain Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 00:10:30 +0000 Reply-To: jockm@basluton.demon.co.uk In article on 09 Oct 1996 19:10:28 GMT, arifi@war.dmi.stevens-tech.edu (M. Arifi Koseoglu) wrote: > I am trying to find out how the modular phone jacks in Great Britain > are wired. In a single-line case in US, the two inner pins of the > RJ11/RJ14 jacks are used to make the connection. How is the situation > in Great Britain? I remember someone mentioned the two outer pins as > active is this the case? Is that true? I need this information to > hook-up a US-Made laptop computer to the phone network in Britain - > during a travel. Suggest you locate a firm called TeleAdapt, who have branches in the US and specialise in connectivity of international phone equipment. You may find a supplier of UK phone plugs difficult to locate (it is unique to the UK AFAIK). If you do find one, the line is connected to the outermost equipped pins, 2 and 5 (1 and 6 are not equipped on a normal phone plug). > Also - is there anything to watch out regarding the > dial tone for the modem etc? If your modem uses Hayes commands, you can use ATB0 (zero) to select CCITT instead of Bell mode. If this doesn't work you can program the modem to pause after seizing the line and then blind dial. The entire UK network is digital or reed-switch electronic exchanges now, so the pause to receive dial tone is a fraction of a second. Ensure your power supply is auto-voltage sensing (UK is 240V 50Hz). Adaptor plugs to our square 3-pin mains sockets are *not* readily available in the UK - they are sold as shaver adaptors and have only a 1 amp fuse. If you cross-post in uk.telecom you may get a more technical reply. Jock Mackirdy Business Advisory Services Independent Telecomms and Business Advice Luton UK ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 96 13:56:54 EDT From: woof@telecnnct.com (Andy Spitzer) Subject: Re: Original Called Number Delivery in the US Bill McMullin wrote: > Original Called Number is a critical piece of information for network > voice mail systems. However, there are numerous ways of delivering the > OCN to the voice mail system. [...] > With OCN being delivered over SS7, a voice mail vendor could > link to one CO in a local area with a PRI link and eliminate the need > for SMDI links off every switch. I've found that the more standard information is Redirecting Number and Redirecting Reason, which are delivered as part of the Calling Number Identification Services for PRI under National ISDN 2. The Redirecting Number (RND) and reason are identical to what an SMDI link would provide. According to the Bellcore, it is desirable that the switch provide BOTH the first and last redirecting number (in the case of multiple forwards) but it is acceptable to deliver on the first redirecting number. DMS-100's will deliver the Original Called Number (which includes redirection reason) over their 'custom' PRI links today, but of course it's a proprietary IE. That's why National ISDN was introduced, yet Nortel seems to have little interest in supporting it. Thus, the hard part is finding switches that support RND and/or NI-2. I'm told by Bell Atlantic that Lucent 5ESS's support it in the currently available generic, yet Nortel DMS-100's won't support it until the end of '97. (Anyone at Lucent or Nortel care to confirm this?) Of course, if the data isn't sent across SS7 then even if you have an NI-2 link, those fields will be unavailable, so your original question still stands, but I'd bet it is switch specific, not RBOC specific. Andy Spitzer woof@telecnnct.com The Telephone Connection 301-417-0700 ------------------------------ From: Tony Smith Subject: Re: PCS and GSM Questions Date: 9 Oct 1996 15:35:38 GMT Organization: Centre for Telecommunications Information Networking bsandor@aol.com (Bela Sandor) wrote: > We know that CDMA and TDMA are not compatible with GSM. I had heard, > though, that DCS 1800 is compatible with one of the North American PCS > standards. Is this true? If so: > 1. Which standard? PCS1900 is GSM shifted up from 900Mhz to 1900 Mhz. It is one of 7 standards that can be used in the US. GSM originally was developed at 900 Mhz (25 Mhz of spectrum), it was also shifted to 1800 Mhz for use in the UK but with 75 Mhz of spectrum. The US in opening competition allocated the 1900 Mhz spectrum (900 and 1800 are used for other purposes). This is not going to be a problem as the only difference is the frequency of operation and dual band handsets will allow roaming using the one handset. Until then if a roaming agreement is in place then remove the SIM and rent a handset when roaming. > 2. Are any of the PCS frequency winners using this standard? Most of the new entrants are using GSM as they are keen to get first entrant advantage and capture new customers. The existing cellular operators are able to wait to see the outcome of the other air interface standards. e.g .CDMA. The major issue for new entrants to the industry is not which technology is best, but which is system available right now, which is more mature and therefore network equipment costs are lower. > 3. If so, are there any planned interconnects or "roaming" planned with > non-US DCS operators? Yes some already exist. Tony Smith Centre for Telecomunications University of Adelaide South Australia ------------------------------ From: Michael D. Sullivan Subject: Re: PCS and GSM Questions Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1996 00:48:29 GMT Organization: Wilkinson, Barker, Knauer & Quinn Reply-To: mds@access.digex.net Bela Sandor wrote: > We know that CDMA and TDMA are not compatible with GSM. I had heard, > though, that DCS 1800 is compatible with one of the North American PCS > standards. Is this true? If so: > 1. Which standard? > 2. Are any of the PCS frequency winners using this standard? > 3. If so, are there any planned interconnects or "roaming" planned with > non-US DCS operators? Some of the US PCS licensees are using, or planning to use, the DCS-1800 standard. In fact, all of the operating PCS licensees are using that standard. There is no government-mandated standard, though, and many licensees plan to use CDMA. It is my (possibly incorrect) understanding that some of the PCS licensees will use a "smart card" that will permit the user to use a foreign GSM or DCS-1800 phone compatibly (via the smart card), even if the user's home phone isn't GSM or DCS-1800. Michael D. Sullivan, Bethesda, Maryland, USA mds@access.digex.net / avogadro@well.com / 74160.1134@compuserve.com ------------------------------ From: hancock4@cpcn.com (Lisa) Subject: Re: Costly Calls (was Re: Just Say Yes) Date: 11 Oct 1996 01:09:10 GMT Organization: Philadelphia City Paper's City Net Per Bob Schwartz' post, Basically, the company's PBX operator kept tabs on toll calls. In the "old days", about 20 years ago, companies did not make long distance calls as freely as is done today. Many companies had restrictions on outside calls -- a lot of business phones could be used only internally with no "dial-9" privilege at all. Other phones could get an outside line, but was restricted to local calls (every place I worked years ago with a dial PBX/Centrex had these restrictions.) To make a long distance call, you had to either use an authorized phone (typically in the manager's office), or go through the company PBX operator. She would record who made the call and request "Time and Charges" back from the phone company. Note: about 25 years ago, the base period for a long distance call was three minutes, and therefore all station calls -- operator handled or not -- paid the same price (person-to-person calls were more.) About 20 years ago the phone company started to give discounts to dial direct, and reduced the minimum time to one minute. The cost dropped considerably. Eventually it became cheaper for companies to let people make long distance calls than bother with operator supervision and tight controls. More sophisticated PBX systems tracked what extensions made calls. As to telegrams, many years ago AT&T and Western Union had common ownership. Placing telegrams and getting them billed to your phone is a service that goes back as far as I can remember. In the days before mass use of VISA/Mastercard, how else could someone pay for a telegram? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not believe there was any common ownership between WUTCO and AT&T except that perhaps some of the stockholders in each were also stockholders in the other. There was an extremely friendly and close relationship which went back over a sixty or seventy year period. WUTCO offered billing accounts to its customers much like telephone calling cards. You could also walk into any public telegraph office and pay for your message with cash, or in the event the message was delivered to your home by messenger then you were expected to pay the messenger at the time of delivery, including a tip for the delivery person, much in the way pizza is delivered today. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 23:37:37 -0400 From: Judy Bouer Reply-To: bkrscott@planet.net Organization: Baker Scott & Co. Subject: Employment Opportunity: VP High Speed Data Service Our client is presently seeking a VP of High Speed Data Services for a west coast Major telecommunications company. Six figure salary. If you know of any one who is qualified and is interested please contact me for further details. Thanks, I enjoy reading the articles and keeping up with telecom. Judy Bouer Baker Scott & Co. bkrscott@planet.net ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #540 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Oct 11 05:08:18 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id FAA06504; Fri, 11 Oct 1996 05:08:18 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 05:08:18 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610110908.FAA06504@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #541 TELECOM Digest Fri, 11 Oct 96 05:08:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 541 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Phone Jack Wiring in Britain (Jean-Francois Mezei) Re: Phone Jack Wiring in Britain (Steve Hayes) Re: Why are Incoming Calls Allowed at US Payphones? (David Clayton) Re: Why are Incoming Calls Allowed at US Payphones? (Lisa Hancock) Re: Inter@ctive Magazine Article: FCC Contemplates ISP Access Fee (T Toews) Divestiture Not Good For Consumer? (was Re: ISP Access Fee) (Stan Brown) Re: Equal Access Pre-Divestiture (Ronald D. Haven) Re: 800/888 Toll-Free Prefix Assignments (Rich Greenberg) Re: Cellular Phones In Aircraft (David Clayton) Re: Cellular Phones In Aircraft (Bob Keller) Re: Cellular Phones In Aircraft (John A. Limpert) Re: Cellular Phones in Aircraft (Greg Eaton) Re: Cellular Phones In Aircraft (John Rice) Re: AT&T PCS Service Questions (David Ripton) Re: The Truth About 809 Area Code Scams (Michael Ellis) Re: Last Laugh! AT&T Acronym (Dave J. Stott) Re: Last Laugh! AT&T Acronym (Brian Roy) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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: Jean-Francois Mezei Subject: Re: Phone Jack Wiring in Britain Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 01:08:35 +0000 Organization: Vaxination Informatique Reply-To: jfmezei@videotron.ca M. Arifi Koseoglu wrote: > I am trying to find out how the modular phone jacks in Great Britain > are wired. Look at the two outer pins. Last time I was there, I ended up opening the telephone set in my hotel room and testing all possible combinations until I found one that worked. (Hotel room did not have RJ11 plug on wall, but the hotel did have a ~single~ cable they could lend to have RJ11/Modem connectivity (North American style). However, when you dial an overseas call with the telephone set disconnected, your only option is to dial direct and pay a hefty hotel-overseas- telephone rate. In a small bed-and-breakfast in southern england, they allowed me to hookup to their fax machine (which was made in japan) but that also failed, so even fax machines are wired british style. I used to carry an cable with me to allow such connections (along with Swiss Army knife). But now, this is all old stuff to me as I carry an accoustic coupler that has a working RJ11 jack in it. Works at pay phones and hotel room phones anywhere in the world. Ironic that such old technology is helping mobile users in the 90s overcome silly little differences in telephone standards. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Oct 96 12:38:56 EDT From: Steve Hayes <100112.606@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: Phone Jack Wiring in Britain Arifi Koseoglu (arifi@dmi.stevens-tech.edu) recently asked about wiring of British phone plugs so that he can wire a cord to connect his US laptop for use here. First, to answer the question asked: The standard UK phone plug has six contact positions, though often only the middle four are fitted. If the contacts are numbered from 1 to 6 (in either direction), the contacts needed are 2 and 5 (the outer ones when only 4 contacts are present). These should be connected to the two centre contacts on the US phone plug. Polarity shouldn't matter. One of the centre contacts on the UK plug is used for ringing. There is no corresponding connection on the US plug. US equipment will usually still work OK and detect ringing without this connection but there can be some minor problems (such as bell tap on other phones on the same line). You won't find it that easy to make up the cord though because the wire sizes expected by the UK plug are different (bigger) than for the US plug and it isn't easy to make a reliable connection. If you can relax about it, the easy answer is to wait until you get here and then pick up a ready made cord or an adapter that will work with your US cord. They are readily available. Maplin Electronics (shops all over) have a cord (order number RZ75S, about $5) or adapter (AR34M about $6). Tandy (Radio Shack) or most other electronics shops should have similar adapters. Technically, it is illegal to connect US equipment to UK phone lines but no-one worries too much about that. Note that many UK phones use an FCC (US) type connector where the cord plugs into the phone. These cords (and replacement extension cords sold in shops) don't have the cross-over wiring you need, so they won't work. If your modem won't detect dial tone or if it mistakes ringback for busy, use X1 in the initialization. Hope you enjoy your visit. Steve Hayes, Swansea, UK, 100112.606@compuserve.com ------------------------------ From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: Re: Why are Incoming Calls Allowed at US Payphones? Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 23:18:35 GMT Organization: Customer of Access One Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia ttoews@agt.net (Tony Toews) wrote: > Here in Canada, or at least in Alberta and all the payphones I can > recall noticing on my travels throughout Canada, have never allowed > incoming phone calls. Just out of interest, incoming calls are not allowed in Australia either, (we don't even know the number of the Telco pay phone in most cases, only a "Cabinet I.D.") Operators used to be able to call the phones, but now I believe that they all have modems which auto answer to allow downloads of software updates etc. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here in the USA it is the COCOT or privately owned payphones which usually have the modem in them to allow for software upgrades, price changes and such. Also it is rare to see the number of the COCOT on the phone for inward call purposes. As for the 'Genuine Bell' payphones, they may or may not be able to be called, but it is based on how they are wired in the central office rather than the phone itself, which has no intelligence built in to it. The number is usually given on the phone regardless of whether you can actually dial in to the phone or not. The two types of telco coin service are called 'public' and 'semi-public'. The former are installed at no charge by telco in a place where either they beleive there is a demand for the service and a profit to be made (in which case they pay a commission to the owner of the place where the phone is located) or they install the phone as a public service where it is needed but with no commission. Whether or not the phone receives incoming calls is a decision made by someone at some point. In the case of the latter or 'semi-public' phones, there is an actual subscriber who pays to have the phone there *and* pays to use the phone with coins for each call. No commission is paid on these, however they almost invariably do receive incoming calls. Even on those payphones (or any type of phone) where no incoming calls are allowed, the operator is able to ring the phone *provided the connection to the operator was already established*. That is, the operator can ring the phone back to demand extra money for calls which lasted beyond the amount of time which was prepaid, etc, but that has to be done by not releasing the connection and then ringing manually. Likewise, although 911 cannot call back to a phone with outgoing only service and no incoming calls allowed, they can 'keep the connection up' and reconnect to the calling party provided the connection was never dropped in the first place. I think the ability to call into payphones is a courtesy which goes back a number of years to when pay phones were used much more often than at present. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@cpcn.com (Lisa) Subject: Re: Why are Incoming Calls Allowed at US Payphones? Date: 11 Oct 1996 01:42:21 GMT Organization: Philadelphia City Paper's City Net Per Tony's post: Why SHOULDN'T pay phones be allowed to received incoming calls? Sure, a few pay phones are used for drug trafficing. But the vast majority or not. They're used by people in hospitals reporting back to their families. Kids at the mall calling their parents for a ride home. And people broken down on the road who need to call for road service. Many people have legitimate needs to get a call back at a pay phone. For instance, a friend of mine broke down. She had trouble reaching AAA, so called me and I called them. She couldn't get incoming calls at the pay phone she was at, which caused a great inconvenience. I strongly believe all pay phones should receive incoming calls. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I believe all payphones should accept incoming calls and that they should all be fully operational at all hours of the day and night. Another gimmick in the 'war on drugs' is to program payphones for 'no coins after dark' meaning between the hours of about 4:00 pm to 8:00 am next morning (because they invariably use winter time hours of darkness as their guideline) the only way the phone can be used is with a calling card or via collect/third-party billing. Drug dealers are not usually very smart people and some of them are quite dumb, but I have to wonder if they go to a payphone with these restrictions on it and wonder if it just happened to get that way by accident. Perhaps people's anger at finding so many pay- phones virtually useless for their needs is why the rest of us find so many payphones vandalized and defaced. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ttoews@agt.net (Tony Toews) Subject: Re: Inter@ctive Magazine Article: FCC Contemplates ISP Access Fees Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 01:55:45 GMT Organization: AGT Ltd. John Stahl wrote: > He relates that while the FCC has long dismissed the > idea of an access fee for ISP's, they are now seriously weighing the > idea to allow the LEC's to levy a fee for every customer an ISP > serves. This of course means that what ever the fee, it will be passed > on to the individual user. Buqt with full time access via cable modem around the corner, at least for the hard core surfer, won't this become a moot point in six months, a year or so? Now whether the Internet will have the band width available is a totally different discussion. Tony Toews, Independent Computer Consultant Jack of a few computer related trades and master (or certified) of none. Microsoft Access Hints & Tips: Accounting Systems, Winfax Pro, Reports and Books at http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 17:58:38 -0400 From: stbrown@nacs.net (Stan Brown) Subject: Divestiture Not Good For Consumer? (was Re: ISP Access Fees) Reply-To: stbrown@nacs.net In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > Regarding divestiture and how it would be so great for the average > person, I can tell you in the 1970's my monthly phone bill was eight > dollars per month on occassion, and rarely over ten or eleven dollars. Well, in 1974 my bills were areound USD 20 a month including long distance, and today my bills are around USD 20 a month, including long distance. Accounting for inflation, my bill has gone _down_ by a factor of what? 3? 4? Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cleveland, Ohio USA email: stbrown@nacs.net Web: http://www.nacs.net/~stbrown/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: All I can say is if you are getting by for twenty dollars per month, what do you have there attached to your two tin cans and a string? Any features or calling plans at all? Were you including your long distance calls in that total? Now granted in the 1970's -- well, alright, really the 1960's -- I was a lot of things different than I am now, and I do use more phone service now, but still ... my *basic* bill before any long distance charges last month was $81.15 and looked like this: Line 1: Call Plan 100 $10.00 allows 100 calls any length of time throughout northern Illinois. Additional calls ten cents each. Call waiting $ 2.50 Caller ID $ 6.50 I own the box so no charge for that. Call Screening $ 2.50 Three-way calls $ 2.50 Caller ID discount .50 (cr) if other custom calling features on lioe. Custom Call disc. 1.00 (cr) for three or more features this line. Non-pub service $ 1.40 covers all lines Line charge $ 5.61 more about this later. Line 2: Caller-ID $ 6.50 Call Screening $ 2.50 Three-way calls $ 2.50 Custom call disc .50 (cr) for two features on this line. Caller-ID discount .50 (cr) if other custom calling features on line. Line charge $ 5.61 more about this later. Line 3: Line charge $ 5.61 Line 3 only has a fax machine on it and gets incoming faxes. FCC Charges $10.50 3 @ 3.50 each 'equal access charges' So there we have $16.83 (3 @ 5.61) and $10.50 merely for network access. This is $27.33 before we begin making any calls at all or adding features. Now my worthless brother and his wife who live here elected to use the repeat dialing and automatic callback features three times last month at 75 cents each for an additional $2.25. I'll wait until about the middle of December and give them an eviction notice. :) Actual usage of the phone last month went like this: Line 1 has a 'call-pak' plan as noted above. Call anywhere in the LATA, talk as long as desired, ten cents per call. There were 133 such calls, with 100 allowed, and 33 billed at 10 cents each for $3.30. Line 2 and 3 have 'measured service' which means all calls within an eight mile radius of here are considered local. Talk as long as desired at rates of 3.5 cents to 5.0 cents per call. There were 63 such calls totalling fifteen thousand minutes .... total charge $2.65 (!!) Yes! $2.65. Line 2 is the modem which remains connected for hours at a time. Not infrequently, connections last six to ten hours. Because 95 percent of these calls are to a single 'local' number in the Chicago-Newcastle (312-693) phone office, that's all I pay. Factoring in the discounts given at various times of day and days of the week, which range from nothing to as as much as 40 percent off, these 63 calls cost me $0.042 cents each. Most of that $2.65 then came from me waking up in the morning and dialing into the local dialup. There were no calls last month in the 8-15 mile or over 15 mile range. Had there been, these are timed calls at rates of 3.5 to 5.0 cents *per minute* with discounts at various times of day and day of week. Total calls were therefore $3.30 plus $2.65 or $8.20 total. My worthless relatives needed to call Directory Assistance ten times last month at 30 cents each for $3.00. Twice they were too lazy to dial the call themselves so there were two calls completed at 17 cents each for 34 cents total. I've already given them hell about it. Two calls were place to 'Name Finder Plus' (the reverse directory lookup service) at 30 cents each for 60 cents in total. Information Charges were therefore $3.94 for the month. Taxes took another $7.34. We have been promised the federal phone tax will be eliminated once the Second World War ends. Its being used to finance the war against Germany. The Village of Skokie gets $1.31 of the taxes. So one might make the claim that if I got rid of 'all' the features (and believe me, I have very few of what they offer) I might cut the bill in half. There would still be those FCC equal access charges and lines charges however for $27.33 plus the actual cost off the calls, and I have to admit the actual calls around here are pretty cheap. But still, that's $35 - $40 per month before including long distance. How does anyone get by for $20 a month from those pirates? I guess if you only have one line you could just about make it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: RONALD.D.HAVENS@sprint.sprint.com Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 12:52:58 -0400 Subject: Re: Equal Access Pre-Divestiture Actually there never was an ENFIA D. There was ENFIA B, which was a trunk-side end office connection that could provide both ANI and rotary dial access, and there was ENFIA C, which was a tandem level trunk connection. ENFIA C provided some of the traffic efficiencies smaller competitors needed, also better transmission and true answer supervision, but *did not* provide either ANI or rotary dial access. ENFIA B was not used by anyone that I'm aware of, because it was just too inefficient from a traffic carrying perspective to make economic sense. ENFIA A became FG A, ENFIA B became FG B (though there are direct and tandem versions of FG B), and the interconnection available only to AT&T became FG C. When an end office was converted to equal access then the availability of FG C was supposed to be discontinued, and only FG D (the so called "equal access" feature group) would be available. Ron Havens ------------------------------ From: richgr@netcom.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: 800/888 Toll-Free Prefix Assignments Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 01:29:36 GMT In article , David Leibold wrote: > BC Tel, from checking the new Vancouver phone books, has apparently > abandoned its 811-xxxx numbers to reach the business offices in favour > of having callers dial 1 888 811-xxxx numbers. I don't think this > relates to the 604/250 NPA split (officially starting in mere days), > since there would have been no problem to operate seven-digit 811 numbers > in both 604 and 250. Pa Bell used the 811-xxxx numbers for a while but phased them out in favor of 800 numbers (several NXX's, not including 811) several years ago. The reason they gave was that the out of state telecom departments of companies with branches inside CA were not able to call the 811-xxxx numbers. Probably the same reason in BC. At one point the 811-xxxx numbers even worked from GTE and other non-PB phones within Callifunny. Rich Greenberg N6LRT TinselTown, USA Play: richgr@netcom.com 310-649-0238 Pacific time. I speak for myself & my dogs only. VM'er since CP-67 Canines: Val(Chinook,CGC), Red(Husky,(RIP)), Shasta(Husky) Owner:Chinook-L ------------------------------ From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: Re: Cellular Phones In Aircraft Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 23:18:32 GMT Organization: Customer of Access One Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia Fabian Kiendl <100772.1610@compuserve.com> wrote: > If cellular phones may interfere with navigation electronics of > aircraft, shouldn't it be made mandatory for those electronics to be > shielded against electromagnetic interference from inside the plane? > One of those has left his cellular phone or some other device on > inadvertently. How do you identify the exact location of the > transmitting unit that causes the interference to tell the owner to > shut it off? And how long is this going to take? Last year during a flight I accidently left my GSM phone turned on when it was in my briefcase, (which was stored in the overhead locker). The flight made it through ok, there were no intercom calls asking people to check for switched on phones etc. I can only assume that the "idle" transmissions from my phone were small enough not to cause any problems during take off and landing, (when there was sufficient signal strength from a base station). During the flight, when there may not have been a sufficient base station signal getting through the big metal tube that I was travelling in, the phone would not have transmitted anyway. I don't exactly know what the relative power output is for idle phones w.r.t. active ones, but I would imagine it would take a hell of a lot of idle phones to cause the same problem as an active one. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 21:22:35 -0400 From: Bob Keller Subject: Re: Cellular Phones In Aircraft As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, the FCC does have regulations prohibiting the use of cell phones in any aircraft that is off the ground. Interestingly, the FCC regulation has nothing to do with interference to aircraft navigation equipment. Rather, the concern was that a cellphone used at even a modest altitude might create havoc by accessing more than one cellular system at a time. Also, as far as the FCC policy is concerned, there is no prohibition against using the phone while the plane is on the ground ... but as we all know, the airlines have their own ideas about this. I have not looked into this in a few years, but there was a regulation (FAA, I think) that allows the airline to go further than the FCC regulation, but I seem to recall that it gave the airline some discretion in this regard. I believe different airlines have different policies, and some airlines do leave the call (pun intended) up to the captain. Also, unless my memory is failing me (and it often does these days), I think the FAA regulation was broader in scope than just cellphones, and included any sort of electronic device -- computers, electronic games, tape recorders, etc. I've always been skeptical of the cited concern for navigation interference. If the aircraft navigational equipment is so vulnerable that we have to be concerned about a cellphone being "on", much less actually being "used," (yes, I know it can and often does transmit even in stanby mode, but obviously not to the same degree as if I'm yakking away), then should I not also feel unsafe on a flight with 28 businessmen tip tapping and mouse (or alternative travel pointing device) clicking away at notebooks (some of them with internal CD-ROM drives also whirring) and maybe half a dozen or more kids playing their portable Nintendo's or Sega's or whatever? Also, if there is any legitimacy to the concern for cellular interfering with navigation, is this unique to the precise cellular bands? The frequencies used in those SkyPhone's on some airlines are not all that distant from the cellular band? I suppose the answer might be that for some strange reason they are only concerned about interference while the aircraft is sitting on the tarmac. That could explain why I can't use *anything* on the ground, but once airborne I can use my computer, but not my cellphone -- because the *FCC* prohibits the use of the cellphone once in the air. But why is the interference potential greater sitting at the airport? Are we talking about interference to the air traffic controller station itself rather than to the aircraft? If that's the problem, why should I not also be prohibited from using my cellphone in the terminal or the airport parking lot? Something just does not make sense to me. Bob Keller (KY3R) Law Office of Robert J. Keller, P.C. 2000 L St NW, Ste 200, Wash DC 20036 http://www.his.com/~rjk Tel: 202-416-1670 Fax: 301-229-6875 ------------------------------ From: johnl@Radix.Net (John A. Limpert) Subject: Re: Cellular Phones In Aircraft Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 04:01:15 GMT Organization: RadixNet Internet Services On Wed, 9 Oct 1996 14:25:49 -0400, Fabian Kiendl <100772.1610@compuserve. com> wrote: > If cellular phones may interfere with navigation electronics of > aircraft, shouldn't it be made mandatory for those electronics to be > shielded against electromagnetic interference from inside the plane? You would have to remove the windows from the plane or replace them with special windows that have an electrically conductive coating. Some electronic devices, such as FM broadcast band radios, have local oscillators that radiate at the same frequencies used for aircraft navigation services. Any device with digital logic (microprocessors etc.) can jam a wide range of frequencies if it is not properly designed or is modified by the user or is used with unshielded cables. John A. Limpert johnl@Radix.Net ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 18:18:54 +0100 From: Greg Eaton Subject: Re: Cellular Phones in Aircraft > If cellular phones may interfere with navigation electronics of > aircraft, shouldn't it be made mandatory for those electronics to be > shielded against electromagnetic interference from inside the plane? > 20 cellular phone users on a plane equal 20 chances of someone > forgetting to turn his phone off. Some cellphone users do not even > know that the phone *does* transmit constantly even if there is no > incoming or outgoing call. Others might mistake the keypad lock with > switching the phone off. Simply placing a crossed-out phone on the > safety card is no guarantee that all transmitting devices are switched > off. I've read something a little while ago, to the effect that one of the Scandinavian Airlines are beta testing a 'Phone Alerter' product. The aim is to alert airline crew to the fact that there is a cellphone switched on, and to give its approximate position in the cabin. The fact that some people donot know the difference between a switched on phone and a key locked phone, or that when switched on it is still communicating with the network, seems quite scary but is totally understandable given the ability of the average sales droid at the phone shop, or indeed the 'customer lack of care' person at the airtime company. As to how it works -- absolutely no idea -- and sorry I cannot be more specific with regards to details. Anyone care to fill in the gaps? Greg Eaton ------------------------------ From: rice@ttd.teradyne.com (John Rice) Subject: Re: Cellular Phones In Aircraft Date: 10 Oct 96 22:52:21 CDT Organization: Teradyne Inc., Telecommunications Division In article , Fabian Kiendl <100772. 1610@compuserve.com> writes: > If cellular phones may interfere with navigation electronics of > aircraft, shouldn't it be made mandatory for those electronics to be > shielded against electromagnetic interference from inside the plane? The prohibition against use of Cellular Phones in aircraft in flight has nothing at all to do with EMI. It has everything to do with the design of the Cellular Phone System and the ability of a cell phone in the air to cause disruption to multiple cell systems on the ground. EMI from within the aircraft is an issue, yes, but not the primary issue with Cell phones. John Rice __|__ K9IJ | rice@ttd.teradyne.com ________(*)________ | o/ \o | Private Pilot : ASEL, AMEL, IA | "I speak for myself, not my employer". ------------------------------ From: dripton@netcom.com (David Ripton) Subject: Re: AT&T PCS Service Questions Organization: Another forgotten Netcom shell user Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 22:02:14 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: ... > Did anyone see that big *two full pages* ad they were running in the > papers a couple weeks ago? One page has a big giant globe, being a > visual representation of the world. It has a bunch of telephones sticking > out in various places and friendly smiling people all chatting. The > page across from it has a big selection of credit cards with just the > name of each card and its logo shown, i.e. 'Visa', 'MC' , 'American > Express', 'Telephone Company'. We are told that any card, from any > telephone to anywhere in the world ... we can use AT&T. Then at the > very bottom (I mean the bottom!) of the page in print which was about > 1/32nd of an inch in size (maybe half the size of a regular line in a > newspaper) and in very light, faded out ink which could barely be read > if you saw it at all and took the time to study it closely was this > cute disclaimer: 'cards and telephones allowed and countries to which > calls can be placed subject to change at any time with no notice given.' > That apparently is how some lawyer probably told them they could work > around any false advertising claims or accusations of redlining entire > inner-city neighborhoods full of minority residents, etc. PAT] Speaking of AT&T marketeers: AT&T is currently running an ad on www.instantsports.com for their WorldNet service: "Click here for a 28.8 connection _every time_. (Emphasis theirs.) No fine print evading the promise, even when you "click here." So are they limiting WorldNet service to people who live very close to a POP, or are they just lying? What's the compensation if a customer sees a mere 26.4 kbps once? David Ripton dripton@netcom.com Speak softly and carry a big killfile. ------------------------------ From: s9607948@westgate.vut.edu.au (Michael Ellis) Subject: Re: The Truth About 809 Area Code Scams Organization: Victoria University of Technology Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 23:53:17 GMT Van Hefner wrote: > To be fair, let's lay the blame for these scams where it is due (in > proper order). You know what I think is stupid? The fact that you can just dial 809 like any other area code. If you want to dial ANYWHERE in another country in Australia you need to use 0011. I think that a similar code should be needed to dial 809 in the US (I think your equivalent is 011?) Just not well planned in the first place. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Last Laugh! AT&T Acronym From: dstott@juno.com (Dave J Stott) Date: Wed, 09 Oct 1996 17:03:22 EDT David Baird wrote: > What does AT&T stand for?: > A: Allen and two temps! I always thought AT&T were the first three letters of attrition (or was that attorney?). .stott ------------------------------ From: briroy@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Brian Roy) Subject: Re: Last Laugh! AT&T Acronym Date: 9 Oct 1996 21:29:33 -0400 Organization: The Greater Columbus FreeNet Along the same lines, I heard this one over the summer from soon-to-be-downsized Lucent Technologies employees. This was actually hanging over someone's desk in shipping. When I asked what the bosses thought of it, they told me that the bosses never came out there. L onely U nwanted C ompany E mployees N earing T ermination Brian Roy briroy@freenet.columbus.oh.us [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You think they are going to have a lot of staff reductions at Lucent? Probably so, but I expect within the next couple of years AT&T is going to dump it entirely; spinning it off to some other company or just selling off the stock, etc. AT&T is going to have to start hunkering down for a long cold winter pretty soon, and I think they know it. Basically what happened is that back in 1983 Judge Greene started the ball rolling toward putting them out of business. Yeah, they have a few years left; but it will be a very tight ship indeed they are running by the time the next century starts. Very tight, very slim. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #541 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Oct 11 12:01:03 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA01890; Fri, 11 Oct 1996 12:01:03 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 12:01:03 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610111601.MAA01890@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #542 TELECOM Digest Fri, 11 Oct 96 12:01:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 542 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Incoming Calls at Payphones (Mark J. Cuccia) The Real Cause of NPA Shortage: NXXs (Tad Cook) Re: NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was Re: New 809 Fraud) (Thor L. Simon) Re: Hyperterm and CID Blocker - How? (Bill Ranck) France is Having New Phone Numbers (W. Klinger) Wanted to Buy: Bell Labs Book (Craig A. Fringer) Re: Cellular Phones In Aircraft (Derek Andrew) Re: Cellular Phones In Aircraft (Kevin C. Almeroth) AT&T and WUTCO Ownership (John R. Levine) Re: Last Laugh! AT&T Acronym (Steve Michelson) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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, 11 Oct 1996 09:30:23 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Incoming Calls at Payphones Pat, I *STRONGLY* agree with you that *ALL* forms of public telephones (coin and the "coinless" charge-a-call-only) *SHOULD ALLOW* incoming calls. IMO, any 'tampering' of 'traditional full-service' at payphones, due to the 'war on drugs' is prior restraint. And I also feel that the public phones should be provided by regulated telephone companies *ONLY*. As you know, I *HATE* the COCOT's. Another reason that incoming calls have been restricted at payphones is also due to collect/3rd-pty fraud where the call's charges could have been billed to the payphone's number. However, with the LIDB database system now mostly in place in the NANP, this is just a red-herring, although with the 'zillions' of carriers and A-O-Slime out there, collect/3rd-pty fraud could happen since many of these other resellers and private operator (A-O-Slime) might not be participating in the LIDB's. As for modems in COCOT's which answer the line on an incoming call for coinbox tracking and software updates, many telco payphones are doing this now as well: About three years ago, BellSouth (South Central Bell and Southern Bell) began to retrofit their payphones with COCOT-like internal chips! Yes, the telco's central office switch still checks for the coin-deposit dual-frequency tones, checks 'ground' for a coin on the escrow-plate on local calls, controls coin-collect or coin return based on the status of answer supervision or the charge/free status of the dialed number, etc. But these internal chips control the switch-hook (you can't really 'flash dial' a call ... there is a longer on-hook period put *on the loop* even if you flash quickly), control the touchtone keypad (it can 'cut off' the DTMF pad if it doesn't like what you dialed), and even cut off the transmitter or mouthpiece (i.e. no sidetone) at certain intervals. When you go offhook at one of these retrofitted BellSouth payphones, you do get central office dialtone. You also get full sidetone (and voicepath to the loop) after about two seconds. But when you DTMF your digits on the keypad, they are 'stored' in chips, and *NOT* transmitted over the loop. You also 'go on hold', although you can faintly hear what is happening. The internal chips will internally go 'onhook' to the loop briefly after you have finished DTMF-keying (dialing) if you took too long while dialing and then internally go 'offhook' again for 'fresh' central office dialtone. The chips will then DTMF spill out the entire string you had earlier entered. AND, similar to COCOT's, the internal chips now in BellSouth's retrofitted payphones will internally answer the line after about five or six rings. I don't remember if a modem tone is returned, but it is obviously for coinbox tracking and software updates. Many other LEC's are doing the same with their public coin phones. Some LEC's in North America are even using Northern Telecom's "Millenium" series of payphone, which allows coins as well as has a slot for card inserting or swiping, and sometimes even 'touch-a-carrier' buttons. Obviously, there are 'smart chips' in the Nortel "Millenium" phones, and similar phones from other manufacturers. Most BellSouth payphones in Louisiana do accept incoming calls. The Bell 'charge-a-call' coinless public phones don't, however. The only times I've run across a Bell *coin* phone which doesn't accept incoming calls here in Louisiana are those in the Greyhound Bus station in Baton Rouge, and some at some public high schools here in New Orleans ('war' on drugs?). Incoming calls to the phones are routed from the called payphone's serving central office to the centralized intercept system: "The number you have reached, 504-NXX-XXXX, is not in service for incoming calls". I remember that a few yars back, calling the Bell (and AT&T) operators from the Bell coin phones at the Greyhound Bus station in Baton Rouge and asking them to call me back. When they *DIALED* me back, they would go to intercept. *BUT* if they held the line when I hung up (as Pat mentions), the phone will ring. 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 ------------------------------ Subject: The Real Cause of NPA Shortage: NXXs Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 23:51:56 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Bell Atlantic Switches Its Story on Number Shortage By Steve Creedy and Mark Belko, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Oct. 4--This is how Bell Atlantic introduced its proposal for an "overlay" system last May: "Like grains of sand or stars in the sky, most people feel there's no end to the supply of telephone numbers. Not so." The company quoted Bell Atlantic-Pennsylvania President Bill Harral predicting that the 412 area code would run out of available phone numbers in June 1997. Now Bell admits that it may have oversimplified its argument. In fact, it says that only 2.3 million of about 8 million 412 numbers are currently in use. That appears to contrast with Bell's May statement that the reserve of telephone numbers was diminishing "at an astonishing rate." This was triggered, it said, by the explosive popularity of cellular phones, multiple residential phone lines, pagers, fax machines and modems. Harral had noted that prior to 1995 Bell Atlantic assigned about 140,000 new phone numbers a year in the 412 area code. In 1995, that number climbed to 820,000. But with opposition to the overlay coming from competitors and Allegheny County commissioners who are complaining about the inconvenience of the overlay, Bell is now stating that there is no shortage of numbers and that the overlay will have little practical effect on consumers. It says it's unlikely that people with two phones in their home will have separate area codes or that people switching to a new telephone company in the near future will have to take a 724 area code. What is actually running out, it says, is not telephone numbers but the three-digit -- or NXX -- prefixes associated with switches at local exchanges. To the uninitiated, that's the 263 in a number such as (412) 263-1565. There are about 800 of these NXX codes available in the 412 area code, according to William Mitchell, Bell's vice president for external affairs. Each code has a block of 10,000 numbers attached to it. As of June, Bell controlled 365 of the 10,000-number codes; some were assigned to competing telephone companies; and 118 were unassigned. But with 15 companies trying to enter the Pittsburgh market, Mitchell says, requests for codes are already greater than the number available. "We have requests to use up all the rest of the codes and, in fact, we're into something called a jeopardy situation where codes are being allocated out at so many per month," he says. Mitchell now estimates that fewer than 100 NXX codes are available. But he says there are plenty of 412 numbers being held in reserve. He points to two competing carriers that have each requested 31 codes. "They have either no customers or very few customers, so these two alone have the capability for 600,000 customers they could serve in 412," he says. As with many situations involving deregulation, however, it's not quite that simple. Some numbers are not only unused but also unavailable. An NXX switch in a rural area, for example, may have only 100 customers but it still soaks up 10,000 numbers. Current technology doesn't allow the 9,800 unused numbers to be moved to another switch. It's not clear just how many of the unused 412 numbers are available under the current system, but Mitchell believes the stockpile means that it's "going to take some time" before a move into 724 is necessary. "I don't know whether we can use six million of them, or four million of them," Mitchell says. "But it's really a heck of a lot more than we're using today." One reason that overlay has sparked opposition is that people in the new area code will have to dial 11 digits to reach someone in the 412 area code. Mitchell says interim local number portability -- which allows people to keep their existing phone numbers when they move to a new carrier -- will mean that people can avoid using 724 numbers. Even though the person moving to a new carrier might be assigned a 724 address, anyone calling that customer would still dial the old 412 number. Bell would then route that call to the new address using call-forwarding technology. Mitchell says the Public Utility Commission has set a monthly fee of $1.50 for the service and that this will likely be absorbed by the telephone company. Still, not everybody is convinced. In a letter asking the PUC to reconsider, the Allegheny County commissioners said they preferred a plan that would split the region into two geographic area codes. County Solicitor Kerry Fraas says one reason the commissioners are asking the PUC to reconsider its decision is to further explore the overlay. "They felt that this was done without (the county) having any input in it." Bell's statements, Fraas says, are "things we need to assess for ourselves rather than taking the phone company's word for it." Fraas says that if the PUC refuses to reconsider or delay the implementation of the overlay, the county will go to Commonwealth Court to block it. The PUC yesterday rejected petitions from two other groups -- the state consumer advocate's office and MFS Communications -- asking it to reconsider aspects of the plan. ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: NANP Needs to be Cleaned Up (was Re: New 809 Fraud via Email) Date: 11 Oct 1996 02:51:51 -0400 Organization: Panix Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , iain bennett wrote: >> To take this one step further, I really wish that my calls to Canada >> were not as easy as just dialing "1". A few months ago I made a call >> to a vendor BBS to download a new driver -- it wasn't until I got my >> phone bill that I realized the number was in Canada and it had cost me >> three times as much as a US call would have. > Calls to the States are pretty cheap for myself - $0.10 to $0.15 per minute > depending on where I'm calling. > Something that I think should be done is maybe have an intercept message > when dialing 809 saying that it is an expensive long distance call. If > you do not wish the call to go through, please hang up now. Having just participated in the design of a moderately similar call treatment, I think I can say that that's pretty hard to do; I *think* that your network has to at least be at AIN 0.2, and many U.S. networks aren't. (I think this because I think that to get the call off the box that plays the intercept message and back to a "normal" call routing, you need the "Release To Pivot" feature, which isn't in AIN 0.1. I'd actually appreciate input on this issue as I'm still working on something that is rather closely related.) Getting the call _to_ the intercept message isn't hard. Getting the call to complete afterwards -- that's hard. In article , steven r kleinedler wrote: > In article , Jay Harrell > wrote: >> But at least Canada rates are reasonable. We really do need to get the >> expensive calls out of the NANP. > Or we could educate people about what area codes aren't US codes. That's ridiculous. Ordinary people ought _not_ have to remember all kinds of silly exceptions to the general dialing and billing rules in order to not accidentally make expensive international telephone calls. There is already a perfectly good dialing syntax which clearly distinguishes international calls as "different" -- the 011 prefix. If the Carribean telcos want to take advantage of the historical oddity in international calling rules that allows them to appear to U.S. customers to be "domestic", they have no business running scams that deliberately exploit the fact that they actually aren't; assisting through billing kickbacks in the running of such scams is equivalent to actually running them, of course. If the Carribean telcos won't play ball, the nations they're in should be unceremoniously -- and suddenly -- kicked out of the NANP. Perhaps the FTC will force Bellcore and the U.S. telcos to do so; it's about time. > Or is that assuming that people take too much personal responsibility > to determine where an area code's at before the call? That's ridiculous. The 809 area code violates a simple rule -- that 1+ calls are either in the continental U.S. and Canada or at least in U.S. posessions elsewhere in the world, and are far cheaper than 011-prefixed international calls. The exception should not exist, represents a significant inconsistency in the dialing rules as most telephone users understand them, and when used to deliberately mislead U.S. customers into dialing international calls, is used in a deliberately fraudulent manner. Allowing oneself to be defrauded may not be wise, but it is certainly not irresponsible. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@panix.COM ------------------------------ From: ranck@joesbar.cc.vt.edu Subject: Re: Hyperterm and CID Blocker - How? Date: 11 Oct 1996 13:35:21 GMT Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia John R Levine (johnl@iecc.com) wrote: >> I have a student client here at the University in the health care >> field who wants to block his calls for patient confidentiality >> reasons. He is using Windows 95 on a Gateway2000 with Telepath >> modem. I have the same setup at my office. He brought over his >> Radio Shack caller id blocker box and I have this connected between the >> wall jack and modem. > Forget the blocker box -- all it does is to dial *67 when you pick up > the phone. It should be pretty easy to go into the modem program I think folks are missing the point here. The fellow wants the blocker box on his line for *voice* calls because his local telco probably doesn't allow per-line blocking. The modem has a problem with the blocker box, but that's not the primary use. At least that is how I interpret the situation. For obvious reasons he doesn't want to get in the habit of connecting and disconnecting the box. I think what he may need to do is change the setup string sent to the modem to blind dial without dial-tone. This way the modem will ignore the "extraneous" tones from the blocker box. Bill Ranck +1-540-231-3951 ranck@vt.edu Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Computing Center ------------------------------ From: klwe0011@fh-karlsruhe.de (W. Klinger) Subject: France is Having New Phone Numbers Date: 11 Oct 1996 06:54:44 GMT Organization: U.J.F. Reply-To: klwe0011@fh-karlsruhe.de All French phone numbers having eight digits are changing. More info under: http://www.fh-karlsruhe.de/~klwe0011/fphone.htm Links to official sources are available. ------------------------------ From: fringer@midget.towson.edu (Craig A. Fringer) Subject: Wanted to Buy: Bell Labs Book Date: 11 Oct 1996 13:39:44 GMT Organization: Towson State University, Towson, MD I am looking for Volume One of the 'A History of Science and Engineering in the Bell System' This book was published by Bell Labs and first printed around 1975. I have been able to locate it in the local library, but the last time I checked with AT&T's CIC it had gone out of print. Rsponses can be in this forum or via direct e-mail. I appreciate any assistance in locating this volume. Craig ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 09:18:29 GMT From: derek.andrew@usask.ca (Derek Andrew) Subject: Re: Cellular Phones In Aircraft Organization: University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon Saskatchewan, Canada Can you quote the regulation? I have searched the FAA regs and there is no mention of cellular telephones, only electronic devices. Bob Keller (rjk@telcomlaw.com) wrote: > As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, the FCC does have > regulations prohibiting the use of cell phones in any aircraft that is > off the ground. Interestingly, the FCC regulation has nothing to do > with interference to aircraft navigation equipment. Rather, the > concern was that a cellphone used at even a modest altitude might > create havoc by accessing more than one cellular system at a time. > Also, as far as the FCC policy is concerned, there is no prohibition > against using the phone while the plane is on the ground ... but as we > all know, the airlines have their own ideas about this. I have not > looked into this in a few years, but there was a regulation (FAA, I > think) that allows the airline to go further than the FCC regulation, > but I seem to recall that it gave the airline some discretion in this > regard. I believe different airlines have different policies, and some > airlines do leave the call (pun intended) up to the captain. Also, > unless my memory is failing me (and it often does these days), I think > the FAA regulation was broader in scope than just cellphones, and > included any sort of electronic device -- computers, electronic games, > tape recorders, etc. ------------------------------ From: kevin@cc.gatech.edu (Kevin C. Almeroth) Subject: Re: Cellular Phones In Aircraft Date: 11 Oct 1996 09:41:30 -0400 Organization: College of Computing, Georgia Tech John Rice wrote: > EMI from within the aircraft is an issue, yes, but not the primary > issue with Cell phones. I didn't see how this thread was started, but there is a pretty reasonable (though I'm not sure how technically sound because I'm not an expert) cover article in the September 1996 issue of IEEE Spectrum. Kevin Almeroth ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Oct 96 10:56 EDT From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: AT&T and WUTCO Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not believe there was any common > ownership between WUTCO and AT&T ... Actually, AT&T did gain control of Western Union around 1910. One of the terms of the 1913 Kingsbury commitment from AT&T which put AT&T on the road to being the national regulated telephone monopoly was that they'd divest their WUTCO stock. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - MIT econ prof ------------------------------ From: Steve Michelson Subject: Re: Last Laugh! AT&T Acronym Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 08:55:49 -0400 Organization: AT&T > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You think they are going to have a lot > of staff reductions at Lucent? Probably so, but I expect within the > next couple of years AT&T is going to dump it entirely; spinning it > off to some other company or just selling off the stock, etc. AT&T did spin it off entirely on September 30, 1996 to be exact. AT&T no longer owns Lucent Technologies. They are two separate companies, with separate boards of directors, different CEOs, etc. Steve Michelson [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well excuse me then, I guess I was asleep last week or at the least not reading the Digest as well as I should each day. ... PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #542 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Oct 14 11:16:15 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id LAA15533; Mon, 14 Oct 1996 11:16:15 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 11:16:15 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610141516.LAA15533@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #543 TELECOM Digest Mon, 14 Oct 96 11:16:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 543 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telephone Miracles of 1937 (Andrew C. Green) Wiretap In the Night (Monty Solomon) Erlang B Traffic Calculator on the Web (James Kenny) Cable Modems (Tad Cook) ADSL to the Home (Tad 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: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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, 14 Oct 1996 08:25:51 -0500 From: Andrew C. Green Subject: Telephone Miracles of 1937 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Happy new week to you all; and Happy Columbus Day in the USA. The articles in this issue have been selected and placed here with a curious juxtaposition in mind. From a start with everything they knew about it in 1937 through demands for wiretapping by the FBI in the 1990's and the internet via your cable television. It would have blow them away back in 1937 wouldn't it? Have some good reading! PAT] ------------------------- No garage sale would be complete without a pile of {National Geographic} magazines, and I had found a stack of really old ones. I noticed that those of the '20's tended toward articles of geography and nature, whereas those of the '30's started to show a greater emphasis on trials, triumphs and technologies of man. With the October, 1937 issue I hit paydirt: "The Miracle of Talking by Telephone." This was not the first article the magazine had published on the topic (a footnote refers us to "Prehistoric Telephone Days" by a Mr. Alexander Graham Bell in their March, 1922 issue), but, clearly knowing a good thing when it saw one, the magazine raves on for a full thirty-eight pages and forty-one illustrations on the merits of owning a telephone, and the result is a fascinating article on the state of the art, circa 1937. Here are some late developments for those of you who may not have been keeping up to date: PUTTING THROUGH A CALL "You can think of the telephone operator ordinarily as a girl who ties together the ends of your telephone line and someone else's line so that the two are connected and you can talk. "If you live in a small community and wish to call a neighbor, the operator in the central office plugs one end of a cord in a hole that is the terminus of your line on her switchboard, and puts the other end of the cord in another hole that is the terminus of the line you are calling. "In a large city two or more switchboards and operators may be needed to complete your call. The first operator ties your line to the end of a trunk line that leads to the second switchboard, and another operator there ties the other end of the trunk to the line you are calling. Having covered the intricacies of everyday calls with the operator, we then get a detailed preview of how some folk, a little over 40% nationwide, are already making calls without any operator assistance whatsoever using a "mechanical operator": HOW THE DIAL PHONE WORKS "As the telephone system grew, it became evident that eventually it would be impossible to obtain enough girls qualified to act as operators. [...] "So Bell System engineers developed a mechanical operator, the dial system, which is as fast and as accurate as the best human operators, with less variation in the speed of making connections. [...] "When using a dial telephone you do not hear the operator say 'Number, please?' when you pick up the receiver. Instead, you hear the mechanical operator making a humming noise, which means the same thing -- that the apparatus is ready to take your call. "Instead of telling what number you want, you give it to the mechanical operator by signals. On the base of the phone is a round movable dial with holes in it, and letters and figures under each hole. You put your finger in the hole labeled with the letters and figures of the number you want, and turn the dial once for each letter and figure. Then you wait for your friend to answer. "If you hear a prolonged 'buzz-buzz' in your ear, it's the mechanical operator's way of saying, 'The line is busy.'" We are cautioned not to get _too_ excited over this: "Probably many places in the United States never will have the dial system. It is most needed in large cities where many calls are crowded into small areas." To its credit, the magazine covers the subject exhaustively, and it's surprising what was already well into development if not actual use by 1937: radio-telephone connections for international calls, "Wirephoto" pictures-by-wire transmission, special amplifier telephones for the deaf, echo cancellation technology on long-distance calls, transmission of multiple conversations over the same wire, and speech scramblers for secure radio-telephone communication. The closing paragraphs are especially prophetic: TALKING AND SEEING OVER ONE WIRE "Even television, still an experimental baby, is being fitted into the picture of the telephone's tomorrow that is taking shape in the Bell Laboratories. "Already, before television itself is ready, the engineers have devised a channel by which its pictures may flow to waiting audiences. This is the new coaxial cable, already being tested under service conditions between New York and Philadelphia. "It will still carry 250 conversations at once, but, what is more amazing, it will carry the complex and intricate television currents as well. So, sometime, you may be able to talk to a man and see him, all over the same wire!" I can't wait for the future to arrive. Andrew C. Green (312) 266-4431 Datalogics, Inc. 441 W. Huron Internet: acg@dlogics.com Chicago, IL 60610-3498 FAX: (312) 266-4473 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Okay Andy, the future is here. Let's fast forward sixty years .... PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Oct 1996 22:45:43 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Wiretap In the Night Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM FYI. Excerpt from Cu Digest, #8.72, Wed 9 Oct 96. Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 16:32:01 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh Subject: File 5--Wiretap In the Night (CyberWire Dispatch) CyberWire Dispatch // September // Copyright (c) 1996 // Jacking in from the "Smoked Filled Room" Port: Washington, DC -- Federal provisions funding the digital telephony bill and roving wiretaps, surgically removed earlier this year from an anti-terrorism bill, have quietly been wedged into a $600 billion omnibus spending bill. The bill creates a Justice Department "telecommunications carrier compliance fund" to pay for the provisions called for in the digital telephony bill, formally known as the Communications Assistance in Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). In reality, this is a slush fund. Congress originally budgeted $500 million for CALEA, far short of the billions actually needed to build in instant wiretap capabilities into America's telephone, cable, cellular and PCS networks. This bill now approves a slush fund of pooled dollars from the budgets of "any agency" with "law enforcement, national security or intelligence responsibilities." That means the FBI, CIA, NSA and DEA, among others, will now have a vested interest in how the majority of your communications are tapped. The spending bill also provides for "multipoint wiretaps." This is the tricked up code phase for what amounts to roving wiretaps. Where the FBI can only tap one phone at a time in conjunction with an investigation, it now wants the ability to "follow" a conversation from phone to phone; meaning that if your neighbor is under investigation and happens to use your phone for some reason, your phone gets tapped. It also means that the FBI can tap public pay phones... think about that next time you call 1-800-COLLECT. In addition, all the public and congressional accountability provisions for how CALEA money was spent, which were in the original House version (H.R. 3814), got torpedoed in the Senate Appropriations Committee. Provisions stripped out by the Senate: -- GONE: Money isn't to be spent unless an implementation plan is sent to each member of the Judiciary Committee and Appropriations committees. -- GONE: Requirement that the FBI provide public details of how its new wiretap plan exceeds or differs from current capabilities. -- GONE: Report on the "actual and maximum number of simultaneous surveillance/intercepts" the FBI expects. The FBI ran into a fire storm earlier this year when it botched its long overdue report that said it wanted the capability to tap one out of every 100 phones *simultaneously*. Now, thanks to this funding bill, rather than having to defend that request, it doesn't have to say shit. -- GONE: Complete estimate of the full costs of deploying and developing the digital wiretapping plan. -- GONE: An annual report to Congress "specifically detailing" how all taxpayer money -- YOUR money -- is spent to carry out these new wiretap provisions. "No matter what side you come down on this (digital wiretapping) issue, the stakes for democracy are that we need to have public accountability," said Jerry Berman, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. Although it appeared that no one in congress had the balls to take on the issue, one stalwart has stepped forward, Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.). He has succeeded in getting some of the accountability provisions back into the bill, according to a Barr staffer. But the fight couldn't have been an easy one. The FBI has worked congress relentlessly in an effort to skirt the original reporting and implementation requirements as outlined in CALEA. Further, Barr isn't exactly on the FBI's Christmas card list. Last year it was primarily Barr who scotched the funding for CALEA during the 104th Congress' first session. But Barr has won again. He has, with backing from the Senate, succeeded in *putting back* the requirement that the FBI must justify all CALEA expenditures to the Judiciary Committee. Further, the implementation plan, "though somewhat modified" will "still have some punch," Barr's staffer assured me. That includes making the FBI report on its expected capacities and capabilities for digital wiretapping. In other words, the FBI won't be able to "cook the books" on the wiretap figures in secret. Barr also was successful in making the Justice Department submit an annual report detailing its CALEA spending to Congress. However, the funding for digital wiretaps remains. Stuffing the funding measures into a huge omnibus spending bill almost certainly assures its passage. Congress is twitchy now, anxious to leave. They are chomping at the bit, sensing the end of the 104th Congress' tortured run as the legislative calender is due to run out sometime early next week. Then they will all literally race from Capitol Hill at the final gavel, heading for the parking lot, jumping in their cars like stock car drivers as they make a made dash for National Airport to return to their home districts in an effort to campaign for another term in the loopy world of national politics. Congress is "going to try to sneak this (spending bill) through the back door in the middle of the night," says Leslie Hagan, legislative director for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. She calls this a "worst case scenario" that is "particularly dangerous" because the "deliberative legislative process is short-circuited." Such matters as wiretapping deserve to be aired in the full sunlight of congressional hearings, not stuffed into an 11th hour spending bill. This is legislative cowardice. Sadly, it will most likely succeed. And through this all, the Net sits mute. Unlike a few months ago, on the shameful day the Net cried "wolf" over these same provisions, mindlessly flooding congressional switchboards and any Email box within keyboard reach, despite the fact that the funding provisions had been already been stripped from the anti-terrorism bill, there has been no hue-and-cry about these most recent moves. Yes, some groups, such as the ACLU, EPIC and the Center for Democracy and Technology have been working the congressional back channels, buzzing around the frenzied legislators like crazed gnats. But why haven't we heard about all this before now? Why has this bill come down to the wire without the now expected flurry of "alerts" "bulletins" and other assorted red-flag waving by our esteemed Net guardians? Barr's had his ass hanging in the wind, fighting FBI Director Louis "Teflon" Freeh; he could have used some political cover from the cyberspace community. Yet, if he'd gone to that digital well, he'd have found only the echo of his own voice. And while the efforts of Rep. Barr are encouraging, it's anything from a done deal. "As long as the door is cracked... there is room for mischief," said Barr's staffer. Meaning, until the bill is reported and voted on, some snapperhead congressman could fuck up the process yet again. We all caught a bit of a reprieve here, but I wouldn't sleep well. This community still has a lot to learn about the Washington boneyard. Personally, I'm a little tired of getting beat up at every turn. Muscle up, folks, the fight doesn't get any easier. Meeks out ... ------------ Declan McCullagh contributed to this report. ------------------------------ From: James Kenny Subject: Erlang B Traffic Calculator on the Web Date: 14 Oct 1996 00:27:53 GMT Organization: Westbay Engineers Ltd. Readers of this newsgroup may be interested in a recent enhancement to our web site. We have provided an online Erlang B traffic calculator which can be used for dimensioning trunk groups on telecommunications equipment. The calculator, which requires a JavaScript enabled browser such as Navigator 2 or IE 3 can be found at: http://www.pncl.co.uk/westbay/calculator/ The calculator has a comprehensive help system associated with it and a feedback page for users' comments. This service coincides with the launch of our new promotion offering customers a 40% discount if they have been introduced to our voice network design software through the Internet. Westbay Engineers Ltd. - creators of WESTPLAN, voice network design software for Windows - Free demo available at http://www.pncl.co.uk/westbay/ email: westbay@ukonline.co.uk ------------------------------ Subject: Cable Modems Date: Sun, 13 Oct 1996 15:23:48 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville, Technology Talk Column By Ed Stansel Jr., The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Oct. 13--I've been watching a lot of Channel 56 lately. It's the Internet channel. But you can't get it on your TV. Channel 56 is the channel Continental Cablevision uses to pipe the Internet into the PCs of Jacksonville computer users who subscribe to its high-speed access service. Just think -- the same cable that carries the Cartoon Network to your TV on Channel 46 carries the entire contents of the Internet to your computer only 10 channels higher. Of course, there are times I'd prefer to watch Cartoon Network. Especially when those classic Looney Tunes shorts are showing But after several weeks of test-driving Continental's high-speed access, I've been finding myself spending more and more time online. You'd think with high-speed access, you could get things done more quickly and more efficiently, reducing your time online. Not true. The faster your connection, the more time you'll spend surfing. Why? For one, you have to try out all those graphics-intensive sites you never had the patience to see with your dial-up connection. So what if a Web page has 52 photos and animated dancing bears. With General Instrument's SURFboard cable modem, you only have to wait a few seconds. Second, high-speed access opens up a new world of activities that just don't work well using a phone modem, including videoconferencing and 3-D chat environments. And Continental is putting up more high-speed content. The most recent addition is With Health in Mind. This site, also accessible from the Continental page, mirrors the Continental television production of the same name, focusing in this episode on breast cancer. The Web site, at www.ccse.net/ccse/whim-main.htm, includes streaming audio of testimonials from breast cancer survivors. Continental also offers 10 channels of no-commercial digital music from Music Choice (follow the link from www.ccse.net) -- a feature that requires high-speed access -- and sponsors the Jacksonville Jaguars home page (www.jaguars.com), which is being upgraded to include more high-speed content such as streaming video. The Jaguars site, by the way, is named in the upcoming PC Magazine as one of the top 100 Web sites in the world. "The team may not be great yet, but the Web site is," the magazine said. The site was designed by Jacksonville-based RAMworks. Here's another observation about high-speed access. The longer you use high-speed access, the shorter your patience becomes. I find myself drumming my fingers and muttering when a Web site takes more than five or six seconds to load. And if I try to download a file and don't get an immediate connection, forget it. I'm off to the next link. My experience with the SURFboard service has been positive. You still run into roadblocks at some sites, and there have been occasional glitches in connecting. But no more than you'd expect from any Internet service provider. The SURFboard modem -- which pulls in data from the Internet over a coaxial TV cable and transmits back to the Net over a telephone line -- has worked without a serious hitch. Continental promises access speeds up to 1.5 million bits per second, with minimum speeds of 256,000 bits per second. So far, the company has delivered on its promise. But with an increasingly crowded Internet, can Continental keep it up? Karl Renaut, who runs Southeast Network Services, doesn't think so. "Because of the enormous amount of growth over the year, the superhighway is super congested," said Renaut, whose company operates Internet service provider JaxNet. "You can raise the speed limit on I-295 to 500 mph, but you still can't get across the Buckman CBridge4 at 5 o'clock," he said The Internet depends on a "backbone" telecommunications network, and that's where the overcrowding is happening, Renaut said. No matter how fast your connection, you'll still run into bottlenecks when you try to access some sites that run into Doug Perkins, head of Internet operations for Continental's Southeast region, agrees that the Internet is limited by the size of its pipeline. But he says Continental is taking steps to reduce the number of bottlenecks its customers may hit. For example, the company "caches" popular Web sites on its computers -- basically copying the sites and storing them on computers in Jacksonville. Customers who call up cached Web sites will get fast responses. Until Continental began its high-speed service last month, the only other high-bandwidth alternative for home computer users was ISDN, or integrated services digital network. ISDN provides connections up to 128,000 bits per second using standard copper phone lines. Some local Internet service providers have been supporting ISDN connections -- mainly for businesses -- for some time. Now BellSouth is offering ISDN connections to its new Internet service, BellSouth.net. The service is available in Jacksonville and nine other cities. BellSouth.net will charge ISDN users the same rates it charges dial-up customers -- $19.95 a month for unlimited usage, or $9.95 for 10 hours. However, you still have to pay a separate fee for the ISDN line. Currently, the residential rate in Jacksonville is $57 a month, with an installation fee of $190. And computer users will have to purchase an ISDN modem, which can cost several hundred dollars. By comparison, Continental is charging $35 a month for unlimited access, with a $100 installation fee. The cable modem comes with the service. Tech Talk editor Ed Stansel Jr. can be reached via e-mail at estansel(at)tu.infi.net -------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Speaking of the Cartoon Network, there is one channel here in the Chicago area which tends to run a lot of of the real old 'Three Stooges' comedies. Those guys made several *hundred* slapstick comedies back in the 1930-40's, and they are just as funny and popular today as they were a half-century ago. Like Laurel and Hardy, they remain as great as ever. Four years ago when the presidential debates between Bush and Clinton were scheduled, every station in Chicago that night planned to air the debate. All except one that is. I think it was Channel 60 ... they put a full page ad in the paper the day of the first debate. One picture was of the presidential candidates along with a smaller picture of Ross Perot looking over at the other two ... then elsewhere on the page a picture of the Three Stooges in some antics with one twisting the other one's nose and hitting the third one on the head with a club. The caption says, "Which stooges would you rather watch tonight? The original ones were always the best ... " and it announced that for the two hours of the debate that night which all the other stations were covering, they would show old Three Stooges movies instead. According to the published ratings the next day, they got a large share of the audience siphoned away from the debates which otherwise monopolized the airwaves that night. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: ADSL to the Home Date: Sun, 13 Oct 1996 18:18:03 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Tapping Internet Potential: Technology Company Banks on Faster Connection By Jon Van, Chicago Tribune Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Oct. 14--The mind-numbing amount of time it takes to download photos or graphics from the Internet onto a home computer is a continuing irritant to millions of users and an irksome obstacle to the development of cyberspace as a commercial marketplace. But this electronic bottleneck stirs excitement, even joy, in Gary Seamans, who sees it as a huge opportunity to market technology that raises the speed limits on the information superhighway. Seamans, chief executive of Oswego-based Westell Technologies Inc., is selling a new technology that can boost Internet access speed on regular phone lines by a factor of 50. Nearly all major phone companies are testing the technology, known by the arcane engineering term ADSL -- asymmetrical digital subscriber line -- and most plan to offer it to customers next year. Westell is a high-profile player among several companies that aspire to provide the same high-speed Internet access to homes as users might have at the office. Experts agree that ADSL -- and a competing technology using cable TV systems -- will work, but both face serious obstacles: high cost and a lack of standardization of equipment. In fact, price was a major reason Westell lost out last week when four Baby Bell companies -- Ameritech Corp., BellSouth Corp., Pacific Telesis Group and SBC Communications Inc. -- placed a commercial order for ADSL equipment with Alcatel Network Systems Inc. of France. That stumble sent Westell stock plunging 27 percent last Monday, illustrating the uncertainties of any high-tech venture. Westell stock hit a high of $56 a share in June. Since then, it has plunged by over half, closing Friday at $26.62 in trading on the Nasdaq market. Last week alone, the shares lost nearly 43 percent. Still, there is much enthusiasm for Westell and ADSL, fueled by the growing frustration of Internet users who find their connections through home modems to be agonizingly slow. "Today, when someone sees that a graphic is coming in over the Internet, they'll probably decide it's time to go get a cup of coffee," said Lorene Steffes, vice president of technology development at Chicago-based Ameritech. "If you have ADSL, it paints a graphic as quickly as pulling down a window shade. This will make the Internet's usefulness much higher than it is today." Ameritech and International Business Machines Corp. plan to launch a previously announced test of ADSL Internet access in Wheaton soon, using equipment supplied by Westell, and Ameritech expects to roll out the service commercially sometime next summer. "This is a concept trial more than a technology trial," Steffes said. "We want to test what kind of services people use, what is most popular." Ameritech won't be the first to offer ADSL to Chicago-area customers. InterAccess, a large Chicago-based Internet provider, already offers limited ADSL connections at a premium price. People within three miles of the InterAccess office at Clinton and Lake streets in Chicago can receive ADSL Internet connections for $1,500 for the equipment and $200 a month for the service. Although that may not appeal to the average residential Net surfer -- who probably bought a modem for a couple hundred dollars and pays no more than $25 a month in fees -- some dedicated Webheads jump at it, said InterAccess President Tom Simonds. The company also plans to expand to suburban locations. "We have customers who are on-line 16 hours a day," Simonds said. "We have people already paying $400 to $1,000 a month for high-speed lines." Simonds' firm uses Westell's equipment, and he said it is the most aggressive marketer among some 30 firms in the ADSL field. "We haven't made a significant investment in this," he said. "Our philosophy is to be pulled by demand rather than be supply-pushed. We make a service available at the price we need, and if people want it, they buy it." Ameritech is seeking a wider audience and would prefer to offer ADSL service with a lower price tag, perhaps $500 for the equipment and less than $50 a month for the service. Richard Notebaert, Ameritech's chief executive, said price was a major reason Westell lost last week's phone contract. But, he added, "We think they're a good company, and they still have a chance to be a supplier." Westell, with annual sales of $83 million, provides a line of traditional telecommunications network transmission products, but it has devoted most of its resources lately to developing ADSL technology. The price of ADSL equipment has been a problem from the start. When Westell became interested in the technology five years ago, the goal was to enable phone companies to deliver video-on-demand service to customers over phone lines for no more than a few hundred dollars per home to compete with cable television. Video-on-demand faded from view without catching on -- beset by high cost and performance problems -- and has been replaced by high-speed Internet access as the application ADSL backers hope to ride into the nation's living rooms. "When telephone companies see their Internet business threatened by cable TV systems," Seamans said, "they have no way to defend their market share except ADSL." The technology was developed several years ago by Bell Communications Research, known as Bellcore, the software and consulting firm owned by the seven regional Bell operating companies. It relies on heavy use of signal processing chips to send data through the part of a copper phone line that isn't used for voice communications. ADSL is essentially an advanced version -- five times faster -- of an earlier technology that Bell engineers called ISDN, for integrated services digital network. With both technologies, the copper telephone line that carries conversations also can be used for high-speed data transmission. The inventors of ADSL never envisioned it being limited to any single use, such as video-on-demand or Internet access, said David Waring, a Bellcore engineering executive. "We see it as a powerful data-transport platform that may have many different uses," he said, such as transmitting "CD-ROM services from a central library to homes. It's just a good way to send bits of data through a pipe at very high speeds." ADSL's major advantage is that it uses the phone network already in place and doesn't rely on expensive upgrades, such as connecting optical fiber or coaxial cable to houses. But price is a vexing problem. It requires placing very sophisticated, expensive signal processing equipment in homes, and equipment from various manufacturers may not be compatible. These problems plagued ISDN service for a decade and haunt ADSL now. The big difference is that in the new, deregulated world of telecommunications, phone companies have much more incentive to market the new technology. "ISDN was created by the old monopoly Bell System," said Robert Rosenberg, president of Insight Research, a consultancy based in Livingston, N.J. "After the breakup of that system, it was never marketed properly. Only in the last 18 months or so, with the takeoff of the Internet, has there been a market for ISDN. "ADSL was developed in the new era of competition. So maybe they'll get the marketing right this time." Rosenberg said that times are ripe for phone companies to exploit this technology because cable TV operators are facing their own problems rolling out Internet service and are dealing with competition from the growing popularity of direct broadcast satellite TV services. "There are plenty of advertisers who desperately want to use the Internet to reach customers in new ways," Rosenberg said. "They need a high-speed pipe into the home. ADSL offers that pipe. The problem is how to pay for it. The customer certainly doesn't want to pay." The answer, he said, may be found in the same model phone companies have used to make cellular phones a mass-market hit. "You could sign someone up for a 24-month Internet service contract and then bury the equipment costs in the monthly fees," he said. "The market is demanding a high-speed pipe into the home, and some clever soul is going to figure out a way to provide that pipe in return for a half-cent or a quarter-cent on every electronic transaction that takes place because of it." ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #543 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Oct 14 12:09:19 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA21620; Mon, 14 Oct 1996 12:09:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 12:09:19 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610141609.MAA21620@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #544 TELECOM Digest Mon, 14 Oct 96 12:09:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 544 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "Java Programming Explorer" by Bartlett/Leslie (Rob Slade) Prison Telephone Revenues (Bill Newkirk) Excel Did Not Slam in Oklahoma (Wes Leatherock) How to Find Out if Link is Satellite or Fiber + Bandwidth? (Ramon Herrera) Mailgrams Available Through Post Office (Van Hefner) Re: TAPI Development Hardware Wanted (Mike Sandman) Cellular Advice Sought (Darrell D. Mobley) Typos in Lucent Television Commercials (John R. Ruckstuhl) Re: Divestiture Not Good For Consumer? (Tom Billone) Digital/Analog Adapters (Mike O'Dorney) Last Laugh: MCI Acronym (Lionel Ancelet) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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, 14 Oct 1996 12:26:35 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Java Programming Explorer" by Bartlett/Leslie/Simkin BKJVPREX.RVW 960621 "Java Programming Explorer", Neil Bartlett/Alex Leslie/Steve Simkin, 1996, 1-883577-87-0, U$39.99/C$55.99 %A Neil Bartlett neilb@the-wire.com %A Alex Leslie %A Steve Simkin %C 7339 East Acoma Drive, #7, Scottsdale, AZ 85260 %D 1996 %G 1-883577-87-0 %I Coriolis %O U$39.99/C$55.99 800-410-0192 +1-602-483-0192 fax: +1-602-483-0193 %O sbounds@coriolis.com anne_tull@coriolis.com %P 848 %T "Java Programming Explorer" The first entry into Java programming seems to rely on code that isn't there. It isn't really clear when they want you to use sample code from the CD-ROM, and how to get at it. They don't include the JDK (Java Development Kit), and you will surely need it to work along with the book. In spite of which, this is a really great introduction to the Java programming language. *Do* get the JDK, or some other Java programming environment, because this is a hands-on publication. With that proviso, though, the authors have crafted their explanations of Java programming very well. Some of the initial explanations threw me, but I quickly found that the book supplies a variety of tries at a given topic: if you don't understand one go at it, probably one of the others will turn the light on. (This may be why the volume runs to 848 pages.) Interestingly, the authors are individually identified with specific chapters. In many cases, this means that style and quality may vary. In the present work, care has been taken to ensure that the text is clear, readable, and consistent throughout. "Core Java" (cf. BKCORJAV.RVW) still holds an edge, but only slightly. The "Java Programming Explorer" should be quite acceptable as a tutorial for anyone wanting to get into Java. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKJVPREX.RVW 960621. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. roberts@decus.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca slade@freenet.victoria.bc.ca "Kill all: God will know his own." - originally spoken by Papal Legate Bishop Arnald-Amalric of Citeaux, at the siege of Beziers, 1209 AD Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER) ------------------------------ From: Bill Newkirk Subject: Prison Telephone Revenues Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 09:02:50 -0400 Organization: Rockwell Avionics/Collins Reply-To: wenewkirk@rodes.cca.rockwell.com Once in a while we get to discussing some of the local news in the evenings when several of us are on the radio, and one day we were talking about prisons and access to telephones and we had something along the lines of this ... (starting comments by tim_ki4tg@msn.com) You may want to post regarding Orange County FL's problem with prison phone revenues. The news reports run something like, million dollars in a fund from prison phone calls could be spent on prisoner's programs. Victim's rights people think the money should be spent on crime victims. In my opinion, the local government (prison) charged for phone calls resulting in profits. Is the local government entitled to these revenues? Does it function as an FCC regulated common carrier? Should the relatives of prisoners be charged excessive rates for collect calls originating at the prison in order to fund prison programs or restitution to victims? These are million dollar questions for one Florida county. How does this add up nationwide? (end of comments by tim_ki4tg@msn.com) Off hand, it would seem like there's a problem with sticking it to the unconvicted when calls are made by those in the pokey. Amazing how all those little dimes add up. and of course, the Orange County, FL folks now realize what a gold mine they've unwittingly made ... Opinions? bill newkirk wnewkirk@iu.net wenewkirk@rodes.cca.rockwell.com ------------------------------ From: wes.leatherock@hotelcal.com (Wes Leatherock) Subject: Excel Did Not Slam in Oklahoma Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 00:38:29 GMT From The Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) for October 12, 1996 The Oklahoma Corporation Commission has determined that no customers of Medicine Park Telephone Co. had their long-distance service switched to Excel Communications, Inc., officials said. Dallas-based Excel said in a statement that it had "inadvertently sent welcome letters to all residents" of Medicine Park, a community near Lawton. "However, Excel did not authorize any Medicine Park residents to be switched without their written consent," the company said in the statement issued late Thursday. Excel, a long-distance service reseller, said it "strictly prohibits any illegal activity, including unauthorized switching of long-distance customers." The corporation commission reported Monday that some customers of Medicine Park Telephone, a local exchange company serving the Medicine Park area, had had their long-distance service "illegally switched by Excel." The practice of unauthorized switching, called "slamming," occurs when a long-distance company takes over a customer's long distance service without getting written permission from the customer. The procedure is prohibited by Federal Communications Commission rules. Some Medicine Park Telephone customers had complained that their long-distance service had been switched from their carrier of choice to Excel without their permission, commission officials said. But Bill Burnett, director of the commission's consumer services division, said although Excel's letter may have caused some Medicine Park customers to believe their long-distance service had been switched, an investigation showed that no switching actually occurred. Burnett also confirmed that Excel has met requirements for the company to provide long-distance service in Oklahoma. However, the company is waiting for the corporation commission to approve its application for certification. The commission has not held its hearing on Excel's application. If certification is denied, Excel would no longer be able to provide long-distance service in the state; if the application is approved, the company would be able to continue providing service to Oklahomans, officials said. ------------------------------ From: herrera@athena.mit.edu (Ramon F Herrera) Subject: How to Find Out if Link is Satellite or Fiber + Bandwidth? Date: 14 Oct 1996 09:20:55 GMT Organization: Massachvsetts Institvte of Technology I am very concerned about all the exaggerations and plain false claims being spread by a bunch of Internet Providers in underdeveloped countries, and more specifically in my native country in South America. They are just taking unfair advantage of the generalized lack of knowledge by the media, lawmakers and consumers. Some of the salient and typically untrue statements are: "we have ordered a T1/E1 line which will be installed shortly." Or "we are the only ones that have 256K access to the Internet backbone." Some of them are a little bit more honest and they just don't reveal anything about this most critical and expensive item which is the available bandwidth in the international segment. Clearly, competition is not taking place at all, because all the misinformation being disseminated (or real data being kept from the public) and consumer prices -about an order of magnitude higher than the US (in dollars), in countries whose population has a fraction of the US's purchasing power- are not moving down but upwards. I am planing to write one or more articles on the subject in order to help users to be more alert, demanding and better informed, and was wondering if there is a way I can find out the actual bandwidth and medium utilized by an international link. I have been collecting ICMP ECHO data (i.e., pings) for several months now, for comparison purposes. By just using pings there must be some precise way to find out if the link in question goes through undersea fiberoptic cable or via satellite. I was very surprised when I saw the short responses from a site in Australia; the only possible explanation being that there is already a fiber link with the land down under. Now, given that we know the great circle distance from a city in the USA to the country in question, and we of course know the altitude of geostationary satellites, we should be able to know the media used, but I will need some empirical formulae which takes into account the router delays, which are probably the main factor. It would also help if I knew the precise path taken by the fiber in question (the Americas II). A related question: can I assume that the U.S. Internet "main" segments travel exclusively by fiber or at least, by land (no satellites here)? The question of finding out the bandwidth is harder. What happens if I just call Sprint, MCI or AT&T and ask them for the bandwidth of a given international link? Is that information proprietary or does it have to be filed in some office somewhere? In an extreme case: should I be able to use the FOIA (hmm, probably not) to get the official information on those bandwidths? Are there any physical maps of the routes taken by Internet links? Should I call the carrier's P.R. offices and ask for the needed info, telling them that it will be used in a research article? Thank you very much for any comments, suggestions or insight. Ramon F. Herrera ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 06:42:01 -0700 From: vantek@northcoast.com (Van Hefner) Subject: Mailgrams Available Through Post Office FYI, Ran across the following "ad" on the U.S. Postal Service's Website (www.usps.gov). Seems that they are still working with Western Union to deliver Mailgrams. No pricing info was available at the Website, unfortunately. OTHER SERVICES... MailgramTM Mailgram, an electronic message service offered by Western Union, provides next day Postal Service delivery for messages sent to any address in the United States. The messages are transmitted for delivery with the next business day's mail. Mailgram service is also available for Canadian addresses. You can send Mailgram messages by calling Western Union and dictating your message to the operator; or you can use your office Telex or TWX. For more information, call Western Union Telegraph Company. In Hawaii, call your local post office for information on how to send a message. In Alaska, call Alascom, Inc., for Mailgram service. Van Hefner - Editor Discount Long Distance Digest The Internet Journal of the Long Distance Industry http://www.webcom.com/longdist/ ------------------------------ From: mike@sandman.com (Mike Sandman) Subject: Re: TAPI Development Hardware Wanted Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 04:01:49 GMT Organization: Mike Sandman Enterprises Reply-To: mike@sandman.com A very cheap and simple TAPI interface, that can be used with any single line (Centrex or POTS) is called the PATI by Comdial. It is a piece of hardware that connects to a PARALLEL port, to which you can connect a single line phone. You can also just use a headset -- with no real phone. Just click those calls away! It comes with a nice piece of Windows software called "PC Phone" from which you can dial, flash, speed dial and what not. It actually gives you a nice bitmap of a phone - handset, dial button, LCD and all. It also gives you a construction kit so you can modify the looks of your phone. The software is TAPI compliant, which means it will work with other TAPI compliant software like ACT!. It keeps logs of inbound and outbound calls. I was even able to get it to work, Caller ID and all, from the single line port of a Motorola Bitsurfer Pro ISDN modem. A number of Key System and PBX manufacturers use this same software with their own bitmap, so if you buy this inexpensive gizmo you can actually see what it's like to use your computer as a telephone. In one word ... HORRIBLE! When I'm using my computer, the last thing I want is to take focus away from the program I'm using, and have it pop up that I have a call -- even if it does give me the Caller ID info and pop up any other information I have on the caller from a couple of databases. At least with a real phone, I can ignore it for a while until I'm done typing my sentence. If you really want to find out what TAPI ia all about, this is a cheap and easy way to do it. You can order PATI from Hello Direct at 800-HI-HELLO, or your local Comdial distributor. Mike Sandman 630-980-7710 E-mail: mike@sandman.com WWW: http://www.sandman.com Our 72 page catalog of Unique Telecom Products & Tools is on the World Wide Web. We have a fantastic assortment of Cable Installation Tools and Training Videos to help you use them. NEW "Basic ISDN", "Intro to T1" and Fiber Optic/CAT 5 Training Videos are now available. Also check out our Telephony History Page, which contains ads and articles from telephony related magazines from the first part of the century. ------------------------------ From: Darrell D. Mobley Subject: Cellular Advice Sought Date: Sun, 13 Oct 1996 14:37:06 -0700 Organization: Concentric Internet Services I am seeking advice on how to handle AT&T Wireless in Dallas, TX. Earlier this year, I was relocated to Atlanta, GA. When I contacted AT&T Wireless, who took over MetroCel Cellular in Dallas, I was given a reference to Airtouch Cellular in Atlanta under their "Customer on the Move" program. After transferring my account to Airtouch, the saleperson said something shocking to me, that a cellular company can not enforce an agreement if you are transferred out of the service area, under federal regulations. He told me I didn't even need to transfer the service, but of course, only after we can completed the transfer. Here's the problem: AT&T Wireless has continued to bill me for my two accounts even after the transfer to Airtouch. Repeated calls to AT&T proved fruitless. I eventually wrote them a demanding letter in August, to which their response was to turn my account over to a collection agency. Still, no written response to this day from AT&T Wireless. Does anyone know of any regulation, either federal or state of Texas, which negates contractual agreements beyond a service area, and how should I handle AT&T on this continual billing scenario? Since I don't monitor the news groups often (I came here on a lark after exhausting my search of FCC code), a response to both the newsgroup and email would be appreciated. ------------------------------ From: ruck@netcom.com (John R. Ruckstuhl) Subject: Typos in Lucent Television Commercials Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 08:20:14 GMT In recent months, Lucent (or is it AT&T?) has been running a series of television commercials in which we have a narrow view of a computer monitor, and we watch while the advertisement message is typed ... the message goes by quickly, but I could swear I've seen punctuation errors on more than one. Today I saw one with "lets" instead of "let's", and during the Olympics, I saw one with "your" instead of "you're". Maybe "lets" is acceptable for meaning "let us" (I don't know), but I'm sure "your" is not acceptable for "you are", which is how these words were used. Anyone else notice this? Assuming I'm right, I wonder if this would be a deliberate error to catch attention in some subliminal way, or, could this be someone's goofup on a major ad campaign? John R. Ruckstuhl ruck@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: BMFD78A@prodigy.com (Tom Billone) Subject: Re: Divestiture Not Good For Consumer? (was Re: ISP Access Fees) Date: 13 Oct 1996 20:52:37 GMT Organization: Prodigy Services Company 1-800-PRODIGY stbrown@nacs.net (Stan Brown) wrote: > In article , TELECOM Digest > Editor noted: >> Regarding divestiture and how it would be so great for the average >> person, I can tell you in the 1970's my monthly phone bill was eight >> dollars per month on occassion, and rarely over ten or eleven dollars. > Well, in 1974 my bills were areound USD 20 a month including long > distance, and today my bills are around USD 20 a month, including long > distance. Accounting for inflation, my bill has gone _down_ by a > factor of what? 3? 4? Lets see, my phone bill in 1974 was a base rate of about $6.00. If I made LD calls it would be about $15. Average LD charge in the 70's was about $.35 per minute. Long Distance and business service subsidized local service. Now, in 1996, 12 years after divestiture, my basic rate is $20 per month and while my LD rates have gone down my overall bill is around $50 per month. Divestiture did exactly what we in the Bell System said it was going to do, INCREASE YOUR LOCAL SERVICE RATES. No one believed that local rates were subsidized; well now they know. Tom Billone Global Communications Fairfax, Virginia ------------------------------ From: modorney@aol.com (MODorney) Subject: Digital/Analog Adapters Date: 13 Oct 1996 16:02:47 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: modorney@aol.com (MODorney) I have an AT&T 8403 telephone on my desk. It is a digital phone. This means that I have to do something to connect a modem, etc. to the line since it is not an analog phone. I have noticed devices like Konnex Office Connector and others for about $100 to $150 each. What are these devices? Will they work with any digital phone as they claim? Can one easily build one of these? (A few connectors, a transformer, op-amp, etc?). Also, I notice devices that plug directly into the wall (as opposed to connecting to the handset cable) for Northern Telecom phones. Are there "Digital Wall Interfaces" for AT&T 8403's? Lots of questions here and I may have missed some> Much thanks for the info. Mike O'Dorney -- Mikeod@scscom.com ------------------------------ From: la@well.com (Lionel Ancelet) Subject: Last Laugh! MCI Acronym Reply-To: la@well.com Organization: The WeLL Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 15:20:13 GMT According to some MCI insiders, MCI means "Money Comes In" ... Lionel URL:http://www.well.com/~la/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not think anyone realizes how much money there is to be made in telecom until they actually get into it. Certainly in the beginning days of MCI during the 1968-75 period they did not. Their former chairman Bill McGowan told of times they literally had to write bad checks to AT&T to keep their circuits connected in those days. Once they got on firm footing and started developing a large customer base, the money just started rolling in and now they have it coming out their ears and other orifices. Telecom: a great way to become a millionaire fast if you find just the right niche; certainly long distance calls are one of those niches. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #544 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Oct 16 12:43:31 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA28449; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 12:43:31 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 12:43:31 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610161643.MAA28449@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #545 TELECOM Digest Wed, 16 Oct 96 12:43:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 545 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Court Stays FCC Local Phone Expansion (Chuck Tyrrell) Next Generation PCS/PCD Survey (Quinn Chow) PacBell Stalling on Providing Caller ID For ISDN? (J. DeBert) Reinventing ISDN for Internet (Chuck Forsberg) Upcoming ERT 97 (Phyllis Chiu) Q&A on Upcoming GSM/PCS-1900 Workshop (kcsigo@csigo.com) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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: ctyrre01@purch.eds.com (Chuck Tyrrell) Date: Wed, 16 Oct 96 5:25:24 EDT Subject: Court Stays FCC Local Phone Expansion Pat, Recently there had been a post asking for an update on this legal action. Here is a report from Reuter. Chuck Tyrrell Court Puts FCC Local Phone Expansion on Hold ST. LOUIS (Reuter) - A U.S. court has put on hold key provisions of a landmark federal rule designed to break open the nation's local phone monopolies to competition while it considers a court challenge to the measure. Attorneys and analysts said the action Tuesday by the appeals court here could delay the introduction of widespread competition in the $100 billion local phone market now controlled by the regional Baby Bell phone companies. It also represented a major setback to the Federal Communications Commission and long-distance companies such as AT&T Corp. and others wanting to break into the local phone business. FCC Chairman Reed Hundt said it "throws a monkey wrench into the carefully designed congressional machinery for introducing competition" into the local market. His agency will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to lift the "partial stay" imposed by the three-judge appeals court panel. The Baby Bells, GTE Corp. and other local carriers and state regulators challenging the FCC rule welcomed the order. The three-judge panel suspended the all-important pricing components of the agency's "interconnection" rule, aimed at opening the local phone market to long-distance carriers, cable-television operators and others. The judges said they had "serious doubts" over the FCC's authority to impose its pricing policies. The FCC rule, among other things, would require the Baby Bells and other local carriers to lease their phone lines to new competitors at steep discounts of up to 25 percent. The stay -- which also covers the so-called "pick and choose" elements of the rule -- will remain in effect until the appeals court rules some time in 1997 on the challenge. Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for January. The court had issued a temporary stay of the interconnection order last month while it considered granting a longer stay. "Congress' vision of a level playing field is being restored, while the FCC's effort to stack the deck against the local phone companies has been rebuffed," said GTE General Counsel William Barr. The three-judge panel said the parties challenging the rule would be "irreparably harmed" if a stay was not granted. The court suggested the FCC overstepped its authority and usurped the power of state regulators to make pricing policy. It said it had "serious doubts" over the FCC's interpretation of the recently enacted telecommunications law, from which the sweeping interconnection rule stems. Barr said the court's action "validates our view of a key point: in the Telecommunications Act itself, Congress explicitly gave the states -- not the FCC -- responsibility for these pricing matters." The FCC rule would require local carriers to lease their local lines in bulk to competitors at discounts of 17 percent to 25 percent from retail prices. The new entrants to the local market could then resell the service to residential and business customers. The agency also ordered local carriers to "unbundle" their local networks into seven pieces that new rivals can lease to complete their own phone networks. The pieces include call-switching devices and operator and directory assistance. These "unbundled elements" were to be priced at competitive levels based on the cost of new and more-efficient facilities. "This is a significant setback for the FCC for two reasons," said attorney Alfred Mamlet of Steptoe & Johnson. He said the appeals court "concluded there is potential significant merit to the challenge to the pricing portions of the order. And second, this is going to slow down the implementation of local competition." Barr argued that the granting of the stay "facilitates the introduction of competition in local phone markets." He said it will permit state regulators to "go ahead and work out these issues without the dictates of the FCC." ------------------------------ From: qchow@eciad.bc.ca (Quinn Chow) Subject: Next Generation PCS/PCD Survey Date: 16 Oct 1996 06:27:52 GMT Organization: Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design, Vancouver, B.C. Canada I'm an Industrial Design student at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. As a thesis project I am designing the next generation Personal Communications Device - basically what will replace the cellular phone. I'v done some technical research and have realized that I've gotten myself into an extremely vast area of technology and what that technology is able to do (telecommunications, VR, cyberspace, entertainment, information transfer, etc.). What I need to do now is to narrow the field and actually figure out what I am designing. The following is a survey on your feelings and opinions on present and future personal communication devices. This really isn't a forum on the technical aspects of telecommunications, but rather the "softer" human side, such as the image portrayed by PCD's, the safety of their use, the quality of communication offered, the ease and benefits of use and the economic aspects. The objective is to have input into these areas so as to design a personal communications device that will meet every need and want of people trying to communicate with each other in the future. A good place to start is to look at what existing PCD's are out there: -cellular phones -fax machines -personal organizers with fax capabilities -two coffee cans and a string -laptop computers (with e-mail, internet, WWW capabilities) -pagers -smoke signals -videophones (videoconferencing) -walkie talkies -flags -regular telephones (with answering machines) One of the concerns of PCD's is image. Not just the image of the product itself, but also the image of the person using the device. -What do the PCD's you use "say" about you? (For example, do you see at as a status symbol, or perhaps a sign that you're a business person) What to other people's PCD's "say" about them? What do you think a PCD SHOULD "say" about the user? -Do you expose your PCD as much as possible? Or do you take it out only when it is in use? Why? Another major factor in the design of PCD's is SAFETY. -What benefits in safety does owning/using a PCD bring? (For example, a cellular phone in the case of emergencies, or a doctor wearing a beeper so he can be reached at any time.) -What threats to your safety do you think owning/using a PCD brings? (for example, the threat of having a cellular phone stolen.) Do you feel threatened having your voice and thoughts transmitted through the air (and basically be accessible to anyone)? Do you feel threatend by having a transmittor so close to your body? -What about the safety of the PCD itself? What effect on your life would a broken or lost PCD have? In an increasingly "global" world, most people are finding it more and more beneficial to use faster, more accurate and higher capacity PCD's. They are discovering the BENEFITS of being able to communicate to more and more people around the world. -What do you see as being the greatest benefits of using PCD's? What other benefits would you LIKE to see in a PCD? -Do you think these benefits should be held by everyone? Why? Of course these benefits come at an ECONOMIC COST. -How much economic value do you put on your PCD? (For example the cost of a cellular phone, pager or laptop versus the increase of productivity at work?) Many technological advances made today are supposed to make our lives easier - lessen our STRESS. However, many people will say that isn't true. -Do you think the use of your PCD's increases or decreases stress in your life? Do you see it as making work quicker, therefore creating more time for leisure, or therefore creating more opportunity for work? -When feel that you do not want to be disturbed, are you willing to turn your PCD off or not take it with you? Another concern with PCD's is how EASY they are to USE. Remember, how you use the device ultimately affects how you communicate with the eprson at the other end of the line/transmission wave. -How convenient and easy do you currently find using your PCD's? In private? In public? -Do you think you should be able to perform other tasks while using a PCD? If you do now, how easy is it? (For example, driving with cellular phones.) The most important factor of PCD design is, of course, COMMUNICATION. -How do you feel about the quality of the communication offered by your current PCD's? How close is the transmitted information to your original/intended meaning? -Are current methods of communication fast enough for you? -What do you think is the best way to communicate to another person? -What do you think is the best way to communicate with a machine? The last aspect of PCD design is its ENVIRONMENTAL impact. -How do you feel about the materials and manufacturing processes being used in today's PCD's? -How do feel about the fact that the air is being filled with more and more transmissions? How do feel about digging up earth to lay down more infrastructure to transmit data? ONE LAST THING. What is your "vision" of the next generation of personal communications devices? In a future where anything is possible, what do you think people will be using to communicate with each other? Have fun. Describe your "vision". Better yet, draw a picture and send it to me as a .gif or .tif file! So anyway, that's the type of input I need to make this project a success. Again, I greatly appreciate any and all input, or help in obtaining more information. Thank you, QUINN CHOW qchow@eciad.bc.ca Industrial Design, 4th year Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design ------------------------------ From: J. DeBert Subject: PacBell Stalling on Providing Caller ID for ISDN? Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 08:59:12 -0700 Organization: Hooked Online Services I got ISDN installed at home, and expected to be able to use all it's features, including caller id. At first, I was told that it was available. The sales rep told me it was available when I ordered the service. I found that it was not available. I would get messages such as, "unknown number", "service unavailable", etc. I called PacBell to see what was going on and was told that "it should be already set up for ISDN customers". I called again a month later, in May and was told that it would be available in June. I checked and it was still unavailable. I called PacBell again and was told that it is not available until October 15th. I checked and it has been totally disabled. Absolutely no caller id data is being sent with incoming calls. I called back and now they say it is "probably available in 1Q97". I already called to make a complaint about this. It will go nowhere. I think their way of handling complaints is to round file them -- if they make any record at all. What's the big deal about turning on caller id for ISDN? Why can't I get a straight answer from PacBell? Are they scamming customers who want ISDN? Yes. I am frustrated. I depended on caller id being available as they claimed and I would never have got ISDN if I knew it was unavailable. Because of PacBell and their problem with caller id, I've had to scrap projects and I've lost money and business over this. I'm beginning to wonder PacBell wants to emulate NYNEX ... I think it's time to write the PUC; maybe they can get me a straight answer. Is this happening to anyone else? ------------------------------ From: caf@omen.com (Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX) Subject: Reinventing ISDN for Internet Organization: Omen Technology INC, Oregon Rain Forest Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 21:00:14 GMT One of the most popular and controversial uses of ISDN is for providing Internet access. The controversy arises from the load the 64k data channels place on the switched network even when no data is being sent. I propose an alternate configuration. Use the 16k signaling channel for signaling between the Internet Point of Presence and the customer's machine. This signaling would include low bandwidth IP packets (ping, finger, etc.) and requests to bring up one or both data channels. The data channel(s) would only be brought up when needed, and taken down after a few seconds of inactivity. The key to this scheme is some sort of network connectivity on the 16k signaling channel. In effect the telco would provide a metropolitan WAN between users and their IP providers. The functionality to use this form of signaling and channel usage would be incorportated into smart ISDN modems, which would be transparent to the user. This scheme could be useful for telcos who wish to compete with cable modems using their present (more or less) equipment. Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX caf@omen.COM http://www.omen.com Omen Technology Inc "The High Reliability Software" Author of YMODEM & ZMODEM ZMODEM Consulting: 1-900-555-7836 TeleGodzilla BBS: 503-617-1698 FTP: ftp.cs.pdx.edu pub/zmodem POB 4681 Portland OR 97208 503-614-0430 FAX:503-629-0665 ------------------------------ From: Phyllis Chiu Subject: Upcoming ERT 97 Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 10:22:31 -0700 Organization: Center for Telecommunications Management Reply-To: ptchiu@mizar.usc.edu Executive Round Tables provide a unique opportunity for the highest level executives to discuss significant industry issues, such as the 1995 Round Table, The New Competitive Communications Industry: Who Will Compete with Whom and Why, or the 1996 Round Table, Interactive Multimedia: Creating Demand for Advanced Applications & Services. Corporate executives, public policy makers, and other high level industry decision makers are invited to contribute their views to candid, off-the-record discussions of issues shaping the future of the new industry. CTM Round Tables provide an unusually valuable exchange of ideas and insights across traditional industry boundaries. More info: http://www.usc.edu/dept/CTM/ctm_ert.html Email: ctm@bcf.usc.edu Center for Telecommunications Management, USC 213-740-0980 Upcoming Round Table: Topic: The New Telecommunications Era: Bench Marking the Effects of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Date: February 27 - March 1, 1997 Location: The Rancho Bernardo Inn 17550 Bernardo Oaks Drive San Diego, CA 92128 Historical Round Tables: April 1987 Information Technologies as a Strategic Resource November 1987 Deregulation: The Second Stage May 1988 Global Competition in the Telecommunications Industry February 1989 Shaping the Information Age: The Influence of Public Policy on Industry Performance February 1990 Investing for the Future: Allocation of Capital Resources to Maximize Shareholder Value March 1991 International Telecommunications: Marketing Challenges and Global Competition February 1992 Growth Strategies for the Nineties: Stimulating Growth in Regulated and Unregulated Telecom Services February 1993 Building Tomorrow's Infrastructure: Vision, Leadership & Enterprise February 1994 Convergence and Alliances: How Business Alliances and Technological Convergence are Likely to Impact the Evolving Information Infrastructure February 1995 The New Competitive Communications Industry: Who Will Compete With Whom and Why? February 1996 Interactive Multimedia: Creating Demand for Advanced Applications and Services ------------------------------ From: konny Subject: Q&A on Upcoming GSM/PCS-1900 Workshop Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 12:00:19 -0400 Organization: Zsigo Wireless Data Consultants These are questions we've received regarding our upcoming workshop in Dallas: Q. Will the instructor give details on GSM SMS? A. Yes, there is a section on SMS. Q. We're deploying CDMA, would this class help us? A. Yes, there is competitive information on GSM vs. CDMA in the class. Also, an understanding of GSM/PCS-1900 should be valuable if your competitors will be deploying & marketing it against you. Q. Can we get a quantity discount? A. Yes, we have a quantity discount for five or more registrations. Q. Will we get lunch? A. Of course you will, and breakfast too! If you have further questions about the curriculum, you can go right to http://www.zsigo.com/wrkshps/gsm.htm The outline found there is below. You can also register on-line. GSM/PCS-1900 System Design Workshop November 5-6, 1996 Harvey Hotel, Dallas TX For more information, or to register on-line: http://www.zsigo.com. Questions to staff@zsigo.com Taught by: Richard C. Levine, ScD., P.E. Dr. Richard C. Levine, founder of Beta Scientific Laboratory, is well known as an expert in both radio and switching aspects of cellular and PCS, as well as other areas of telecommunications. His teaching is notable for clarity and completeness. Since 1990 he has been a consultant to numerous cellular and PCS operating companies and manufacturers, providing design evaluation, and training. He is also known for his efforts in the 1980s for development of the Nortel (Northern Telecom) D-MTX digital cellular system, and his work on the TIA TR-45 standards committee in the development of the IS-54 North American TDMA standard and the related authentication standard. He has worked on the design, implementation and staff training for GSM systems in Germany and France, and on various PCS systems in the US, Canada, Israel, Mexico and other Latin American countries. He is an Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering at Southern Methodist University, were he teaches in the graduate telecommunications program of SMU and the National Technical University satellite distant learning program. He also holds numerous telecommunications patents, and is a licensed professional engineer. Hosted by: Zsigo Wireless Data Consultants Zsigo Wireless is considered a leader in providing sales training, technical consulting, and related services to wireless service providers and manufacturers throughout the United States and Canada. The company is committed to providing top notch educational seminars that provide professionals a broad technical understanding of wireless fundamentals. This education is invaluable to any organization seeking to capitalize on the wireless opportunity within cellular or PCS. Who Should Attend This Workshop? This two day seminar is designed for network engineers, RF planners, technicians and others wishing to learn how GSM works and how best to implement the technology. By attending this seminar, you can better plan your deployment of GSM systems either in the 850 or 1900MHz band. This is the place to get all of your questions answered on the latest advancements in GSM so you can shorten your learning curve and build a better system. Continuing Education Unit (CEU) certificates are available upon request. Times and Location The seminar will be held at the Harvey Hotel - DFW Airport located at 4545 W. John Carpenter Freeway, Irving, Texas 75063. Group room rate is $119 (single/double). We would be happy to make your reservations for you to ensure your receiving our discounted rate. You can call us at 800-594-5102 US or 517-337-3995 or fill in the hotel section on the registration form. If you prefer to call the hotel direct. just mention Zsigo Wireless to receive this discounted rate, phone 214-929-4500. Workshop hours will be 8:30 am - 5:00 pm. Breakfast and lunch will be provided. Registration and Payment Policy Course Fees: Early Registration price is $695 per person (by Oct 15). Regular Registration is $895 per person. Payment Policy: Early Bird Registration payments must be received by October 15. Regular Registration payments must be received by October 31, 1996. All invoices must be secured by a credit card. Outstanding balances of more than 30 days will automatically be charged to your credit card. Late Registrations must be accompanied by either your company check or charged directly to your credit card. Cancellation Policy: All cancellations must be in writing. Full refunds (less credit card service charge) will be given if request is received on or before October 15, 1996. A 50% refund will be issued to those canceling prior to October 31, 1996. ABSOLUTELY NO REFUNDS AFTER October 31, 1996. No refunds or credits will be issued to no-show registrants. This cancellation policy is strictly enforced. Substitutions are accepted until first day of the seminar. There will be no on-site registration. Schedule of Topics Brief History of Cellular/PCS Systems, describing history of GSM and related PCS systems (DCS-1800 and PCS-1900) General Features of TDMA systems: Economy of TDMA Base Station Transceiver Mobile Assisted Handoff Bulk, Cost, Power Savings of RF antenna switching in mobile set Particular Features of GSM System Design: Fully Documented Standards Current Multi-Vendor Availability with standard interfaces such as A, Abis, etc. Robust Authentication, Privacy and Encryption Fully Designed/Documented MAP PSTN Network Interworking (not fully implemented in North America) Multi-media data, FAX, Short Message Capabilities in Near Future Optional Frequency-Hopping Improves Performance in Severe Multipath Environments Capacity and Quality Estimates with Full-rate and Half-rate Speech Coders General Structure of GSM System (High Level Block Diagrams) Radio (Um interface) Signals Why UHF? (vis-a-vis VHF, HF, SHF) Frequencies, Carriers, Channels Multipath Propagation GSM Time Division Multiple Access Waveforms Different Burst Formats Used in GSM and where they are used System Clocks and Counters and Their Uses Scheduled and Un-scheduled Named Channels in GSM, and their use Mobile Station Structure Use of Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK) Modulation to Optimize Spectrum Efficiency Significance of Constant Envelope Signal and Class-C RF Power Amplifier (Power Efficiency) Power Control in Class-C RF Power Amplifier Adaptive Equalizer Operation Detector and Demodulation Digital Speech Coding Base Station Assembly Antennas&Base Transceiver Base Station Controller Mobile Service Switching Center (MSC) and Associated Equipment Visited Location Register (VLR) Data Base Home Location Register (HLR) Data Base Authentication Center (AuC) and Equipment Identity Register (EIR) Examples of Call Processing Operations MS Initialization Signals on the Broadcast Channel and Their Effects Random Access Channel Actions Registration Authentication Assignment of Temporary Mobile Service Identity (TMSI) Mobile Originated Call Setup Mobile Destination Call Setup Power Control on the Traffic Channel Voice Transmission Handoff/Handover Intentional Release Unintentional Disconnection and Automatic Re-connection Network Interactions with Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) Brief Review of PSTN Signaling Systems Mobile Access Part (MAP) of SS7 Signaling and Features (European Implementation) SS7 Signaling Roamer Services Call Delivery Via Most Effective Route North American Implementations and Relation to IS-41 PSTN Signaling Based on PBX Signals or PRI Roamer Services Call Delivery Via Home MSC GSM/PCS System Planning Radio Coverage Empirical and Theoretical Radio Coverage Models Radio Coverage Prediction Tools N=7 and N=4, 3 Frequency Plans, Omnidirectional and Sectored Trunking Efficiency Issues System Cost Minimization Special Radio Coverage Problems Use of Radio Repeaters and Frequency Shifting Repeaters Inter-Modulation (IM) and Other Special Problems Comparisons of GSM/PCS-1900 to Other Cellular/PCS Technologies A Brief Survey CDMA: Qualcomm/IS-95 How CDMA works Major advantages of CDMA Major problems and risks with CDMA Note on InterDigital Wideband CDMA Up-Band TDMA: IS-136 Point-by-point comparisons between GSM and IS-136 Business strategies for 800 MHz Cellular and 1.9 GHz licensees Major advantages of TDMA Major problems and risks with TDMA Low-tier Systems: DECT/DCT, WACS/PACS, CT2+ Brief history of low-tier systems Technology survey Application to in-building or shopping center, wireless PBX Fixed wireless systems and related technologies: Too costly via most existing high-tier technologies, except for special short-term or interim uses BETRS and other rural-radio-telephone systems (Ultraphone, etc.) Possible use of low-tier systems Specially designed fixed wireless systems (Ionica, DSC, etc.) Telephone service via cable TV facilities Review of technical and economic points of comparison: Misuse of the term: Spectral Efficiency Geographic Spectral Efficiency: conversations/kHz/sq.km Economic geographic efficiency: conversations/kHz/sq.km/$ Significance of delivery calendar and product roll-out General technology predictions for the cellular/PCS industry ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #545 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Oct 16 17:32:40 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id RAA01104; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 17:32:40 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 17:32:40 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610162132.RAA01104@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #546 TELECOM Digest Wed, 16 Oct 96 17:32:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 546 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Beaver's Long Distance Phone Call (Mark J. Cuccia) NPA 510 Near Jeopardy (Tad Cook) Erlang B Traffic Calculator on the Web (Westbay Engineers Ltd.) Phone Sex: New Caribbean Entrants to the Market (Linc Madison) AT&T Lawsuit vs. MCI Over Use of "True" Trademark (Danny Burstein) Cost Effective Digital Circuit Multiplication Equipment (avepl@singnet.com) Palm Island, Mustique Exchanges (Antilles Engineering) AOL, Microsoft Network Mull Flat Rates (Tad Cook) Maximum Theoretical Bandwidth of Voice Line? (Paul Fischer) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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, 14 Oct 1996 17:21:46 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Beaver's Long Distance Phone Call Back in late July, there was a thread about "Touchtones in Movies" which appeared in TELECOM Digest. I mentioned that MFKP (toll switching Multifrequency Keypulsing), and possibly also DTMF (touchtones) could be frequently heard many years ago when transmission facilities of The Bell System were used to distribute programming of the nationwide coast-to-coast radio and television networks. This was 'signal leaking' or 'crosstalk' from switching equipment for the telephone network over into the leased audio channels of the radio and television networks. I also mentioned that MFKP (as well as DTMF) had been heard or 'referred to' in the dialogue of certain TV and radio programs when a telephone call or particularly a long distance call was being placed in the story. I mentioned in particular: > There is an episode of "Bewitched", where Endora picks up a telephone, > waves her hand (instead of dialing or tapping out a number), and you > then hear a string of MFKP (not DTMF) and then the called party's > phone starts ringing! I received email from Ed Ellers, who wrote: > MFKP was also mentioned in an episode of "Leave It To Beaver" where our > hero, and his best friend Gilbert Bates (who disappeared into a black > hole some time between 1963 and 1983 :-), decided to call Don Drysdale > at Dodger Stadium...long distance, with operator assistance. As Beaver > told the operator where he wanted to call, Gilbert said something about > wanting to hear "the beeps and boops." I have all 234 episodes of "Leave it to Beaver" on videotape, in addition to all/most/many episodes of a NUMBER of TV series from the 1950's and 60's (and a lot of old movies from the 1930's through 60's on videotape). I also collect a lot of "old-tyme-radio" on audio tape, as well. I finally got around to digging up the tape of the "Beaver" episode in question, and viewing it: 'Long Distance Phone Call' on "Beaver", was originally telecast on Saturday 16 June 1962, over the ABC Television Network, 8:30-9:00 pm (7:30-8:00 pm Central Time). This episode was from the 5th (1961/62) season, near the end of the season. It is a Saturday afternoon, and Ward & June Cleaver are going somewhere. Beaver's brother Wally also has somewhere to go, so Beaver, Gilbert Bates, and a third boy, Allen are "home alone" at the Cleaver's. Gilbert gets the 'bright' idea to make 'funny fone calls'. He calls up the Butcher Shop (he spins out *four* pulls of the dial on the WECO 500 desk telephone (which is *NOT* black, but either white, ivory, beige, or light gray. The program is in B&W, so it is a bit difficult to determine). He asks the Butcher Shop if they have 'pig's feet'. "Put on some shoes and no one will notice!" He then hangs-up, laughing hysterically ... Then Gilbert calls up the Super Market by spinning out *SEVEN* pulls of the dial. (I don't remember offhand what stupid thing he asked them). THEN ... Gilbert gets the bright idea to call up Don Drysdale, whose picture is on the front page of the sports section of Mayfield's newspaper. Don Drysdale is in Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium. But Beaver says that it is Long Distance and will cost his Dad money. So, Beaver, Gilbert and Allen decide to pool togather their pocket change to pay back Ward for the toll charges. They pool together about $1.35. Then, Gilbert dials '110' for the Long Distance Operator. He asks to place a call to Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. It seems to be Station-to-Station, as he didn't tell the telco operator that he wanted Don Drysdale, nor that it was Person-to-Person. Throughout this scene, only one side of the conversation is actually heard. Gilbert then says to the Operator: "Oh, KL5-4763.", while looking down at the telephone. I assume this is the telephone number of Ward Cleaver. Only the letters 'KL' are mentioned, and not the exchange name "KLondike". Then Gilbert hollers: "HEY, its makin' a soundlike 'Diddle-diddle-dumplin'! ... Wanna listen?" We don't really *hear* the multifrequency keypulse string, however. There is no mention of a call to Los Angeles Information (which the Mayfield toll operator would have reached Kp+213+131+St), so either the Mayfield toll operator made a quick call to L.A. Information to get the number, or she had the number of Dodger Stadium on her multileaf bulletin of popular and important places. Next we hear Gilbert say "Hello, Dodger Stadium? I want to talk to Mr. Don Drysdale. Who's calling? Gilbert, Beaver and Allen. No, we're not a law firm." Gilbert then mentions that he's being connected to the locker room. It turns out that Don Drysdale is in the showers, and they have to hold on. The scene fades in a 'time lapse', which I would guess was about ten to twenty minutes. All this time, the toll charges are counting. Maybe it would have been better to place the call Person-to-Person, such that while there would have been a higher surcharge, the toll charges wouldn't have started until Don Drysdale actually came to the telephone. Eventually, Don Drysdale comes to the telephone, and the trio speak with him for about three minutes. The scene cuts back and forth (not split-screen) with Don Drydale, himself, doing this cameo appearance. Shortly after hanging up, Beaver tells his two companions to 'fork over the quarters to pay for the call'. They both tell him to call the operator for the actual cost of the call, just in case it is going to cost less than the buck-thirty-five they had planned to pool togather. Beaver then dials 'OPERATOR' (a single zero) to inquire about the charges. There is no mention of connection time nor conversation time, however. Beaver tells the operator that he had just made a long distance call to Los Angeles and wants to know how much it costs. I would assume that the toll operator still had the hand written/punched toll ticket at her position, and was able to find the charges right away. Beaver then says: "Oh, KL5-4763", while looking down at his own telephone, so this must be their own number. Beaver's face turns 'real goofy', as it always does when he knows he is in BIG TROUBLE. He shouts "WHAT! Okay, thank you, goodbye", and hangs up. He then tells the other boys "It's going to cost NINE DOLLARS AND THRITY FIVE CENTS ... PLUS TAX!!!" As I mentioned earlier, it was a Saturday afternoon, but I don't know what Bell/AT&T's rate structure was in 1962. And maybe they should have placed the call 'person'. Better yet, maybe they just shouldn't have been playing around on his dad's phone. Kinda reminds me of 'the kids' dialing 900 and 976 'storyline' and 'Santa' numbers just a few years ago. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ Subject: NPA 510 Near Jeopardy Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 00:49:32 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) California Considers New Area Code Options for East Bay By George Avalos, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Oct. 15--California's sizzling telephone boom means Contra Costa County is likely to wind up with another new area code in less than two years, according to a pair of plans disclosed Monday. The California Code Administrator and Pacific Bell circulated proposals for a geographic split of the East Bay as officials with the Public Utilities Commission prepared for a series of public hearings about how to create two new area codes -- one to serve the East Bay and one for the South Bay and Monterey Bay regions. The Alameda-Contra Costa region currently is served by the 510 area code. Santa Clara and Santz Cruz counties are served by 408. For the East Bay, one plan that roughly splits the region along north-south lines calls for all of Contra Costa County and the city of Dublin to be served by the new area code. The new number hasn't been announced yet, but is expected to go into effect in two years. The other plan, which uses a north-south split, would bring a new area code to Contra Costa and the Alameda County suburbs of Pleasanton, Livermore and Dublin. The more established cities of Albany, Oakland, Berkeley, Hayward and Fremont would retain the current 510 number designation, according to the plans released by the California Code Administrator. "The demand for telephone numbers is exploding," said Dick Fitzmaurice, a Pacific Bell spokesman, adding that "the 510 area code is in jeopardy" of running out of prefixes. The shortage of prefixes has forced officials to initiate a process to create new area codes throughout the state, expanding the phone system's capacity to accommodate new phone numbers. Numbers have become so scarce that California regulators have approved a program whereby telephone officials can ration prefixes and employ a lottery to assign those three-digit numbers. The East Bay has become one of California's most incandescent centers for new phone numbers. Through the end of July, residents and businesses in Alameda and Contra Costa counties gobbled up 102 new prefixes. In 1995, 78 prefixes were added in the East Bay. People want second and third lines in their homes for personal and business use, Fitzmaurice said. There is a demand for lines associated with fax machines, every pager, every cellular phone, has a telephone number assigned to it. More people are using the Internet. In mid-August, officials announced plans to create two new area codes in Northern California, including one serving the Bay Area. Most of the Peninsula south of San Francisco will add the 650 area code starting in August 1997. Pac Bell also announced that the area now served by the 916 area code will split to add a 530 area code. The public hearings are set to begin Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Las Lomas High School in Walnut Creek. Another hearing is planned for Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Pleasanton Library in Pleasanton. Hearings are also scheduled during the next two weeks for sites in Oakland, Salinas, Sunnyvale, San Jose and Santa Cruz. The new area code for the East Bay, and the areas it will serve, is expected to be announced sometime in 1997. ------------------------------ From: Westbay Engineers Ltd. Subject: Erlang B Traffic Calculator on the Web Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 15:30:54 +-100 Crawley, UK - Westbay Engineers Limited, creators and distributors of Westplan, voice network design software for Windows, announce the enhancement of their World Wide Web site on the internet with the addition of an on-line Erlang B Traffic Calculator. The calculator can be used by telecommunications system and network designers to estimate the number of lines required for connected trunk groups. The calculator, which must be viewed using a JavaScipt enabled browser such as Navigator 2 or Internet Explorer 3, can be found at: http://www.pncl.co.uk/westbay/calculator/ The provision of this service coincides with the launch of a new promotion offering a 40% discount on Westplan, our voice network design package, for customers who are introduced to the product through the Internet. "The primary reason for our company's presence on the internet is obviously for commercial gain. However, this tool has been provided in a genuine desire to add value to the internet rather than just provide a site with links to other sites. We hope visitors find the calculator useful." - James Kenny, Westplan Product Manager. Westbay Engineers Ltd. has been providing telecommunications project management and network design services since 1989 for companies in many diverse business sectors including Finance, Energy, Local Government an Manufacturing. Westbay Engineers can be contacted at 11 Langstone Closed, Crawley, West Sussex, RH10 7JR. Telephone 01293 888500. FAX 01293 888445. E-mail westbay@ukonline.co.uk. ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Phone Sex: New Caribbean Entrants to the Market Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 23:58:19 -0700 Organization: Best Internet Communications Some of the comments I have seen over the last year or two about the shattering of the 809 area code into separate area codes for each island country or territory, seemed to indicate that one of the factors driving the splits was the desire of the other jurisdictions to distance themselves from the outright fraud and other shady dealings associated with the Dominican Republic, which is well known for everything from phone sex to massive cellphone fraud. This gave me hope that it would become easier to pinpoint and isolate the shady dealings. However, it seems that the lure of easy money is too much for the other countries to resist. I have recently seen a spate of ads for phone sex services in the 268-404 and 664-410 prefixes, which are in the new area codes for Antigua & Barbuda and Montserrat, respectively. (Side note: "Antigua" is pronounced "ahn-TEE-guh", not "ann-TEEG-gwuh") Antigua has only about six prefixes in use, and Montserrat I think has only one, so they certainly have numbering space to burn now, but I am disappointed to see them use it in this way. This issue first came to my attention because of an Internet spam for a phonesex line in 664, which carried the disclaimer, "toll charges apply if you live outside the 664 area code," which I consider intentionally deceptive, deliberately making it sound domestic. However, I checked the back pages of some of the local weekly papers, and sure enough, there are several 268 phonesex lines and a few other 664 lines. I haven't (yet) spotted any for any other new area codes split out of 809, and most of them are still in the D.R., but the recent scam based in the B.V.I. is probably a bad omen. Another side note: as of Wednesday, 10/9, Pacific Bell still hadn't activated the new 242 area code for the Bahamas, although they *did* turn on 869 for St. Kitts & Nevis, a far smaller Caribbean area code. I filed a trouble ticket with repair, and was very pleasantly surprised that the person I talked with understood what I was talking about and referred the matter to the correct people. The ticket bounced against a couple of people who said, "242? Where's that??" (no one seemed to write that down; I had to answer the question four times), but they got it working within about 40 hours. Area code 773, which went into effect a little under two hours ago in the obscure Caribbean territory known as Chicago ;-> is still blocked at the local switch. I commented to one of the people I spoke with that they really need to iron out the kinks in their process, because this isn't the first time this year I've had to call them about unprogrammed area codes, and the lists prepared by John Cropper, Steve Grandi, and others, indicate that we will see approximately FORTY new area codes during 1997 alone! (Not bad, considering that we added only TWO in the first 19 years of my life. For trivia buffs, that tells you exactly how old I am.) Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 14:46:23 EDT From: danny burstein Subject: AT&T Lawsuit vs. MCI Over Use of "True" Trademark Per an Associated Press report on Monday 14-Oct-1996, AT&T has brought suit in Federal District Court (Newark, NJ) against claiming that AT&T owns the use of the phrase "true" in telcommunications matters, and that MCI's new offering, "True Rate", is an infringement of that trademark. The story starts off: AT&T Sues MCI Over Name Use NEW YORK (AP) -- AT&T has sued MCI in the latest round of the phone wars, accusing the long-distance rival of stealing the AT&T "True" brand for its own marketing campaign. MCI Communications Corp. filed late last month with the FCC for a new one-rate plan called "True Rate." The flat rate was in response to a similar offering one day earlier by AT&T Corp. It's getting ugly out there ... ------------------------------ From: avepl@singnet.com.sg Subject: Cost Effective Digital Circuit Multiplication Equipment Date: 15 Oct 1996 05:55:02 GMT Organization: Add Value Enterprise Pte Ltd Attention to all telecommunications establishments: If you are looking for a cost effective DCME system to expand your long distance telecommunication capacity and to better utilize the expensive bandwidth resource, you may not have to look any further. The product is engineered by a team of highly qualified telecommnication professionals using the most advanced integrated circuit devices and proprietory software. The product ONE-240A , is compact in design, versertile in applications, and excellent in performance. Here are the main features that ONE-240A has to offer: * A 5:1 compression ratio achieved by means of Digital Speech Interpolation (DSI) or other dynamic process. * Supporting up to five populated incoming trunks with up to 150 simultaneous calls. * Customizable bearer configuration. * Toll quality speech calls (ADPCM ITU-T G726 ). * High quality voice band data and facsimile calls. * Constant quality performance regardless of traffic profile and/or load. * Compatibility with both E1 (2.048Mbit/s) and T1 (1.544Mbit/s) digital network link interfaces in compliance with ITU G703/G704. * Maximum end-to-end system delay of 35ms for voice and voice band data calls (up to 4.8Kbit/s) * Supports Common Channel Signaling and Channel Associated Signaling. * Supports the following signaling systems: - ITU Signaling System R1 and R2D (out of band) - ITU Signaling System No.5 (In Band) - ITU Signaling Systems No.6 and No.7 (via 64Kbit/s Transparent Channel). * Supports all test and signaling tones * Transmission of VBD calls above 4.8Kbit/s * User- friendly graphic interface-based Operator Terminal for system configuration, monitoring, controlling , and maintenance. The product shall be available in production from Jan 97. For further enquiry please contact the undersigned: George Tan , Sr Manager. Add Value Enterprises Pte. Ltd. Fax: 65 227 5030 avepl@singnet.com.sg ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 14:58:02 -0400 From: Antilles Engineering Subject: Palm Island, Mustique Exchanges Dear O-knowledgable Ones! Calling into the 809 area code, in the State of St. Vincent, there are two islands which are territorial divisions of St. Vincent which are "rated" differently than "mainland St. Vincent." These separate islands are Palm Island and Mustique Island and they both have exchanges which are also found on the mainland; namely 809-456-XXXX , 809-457-XXXX and 809-458-XXXX. How would my carrier be able to identify and rate these correctly -- surely not by the last four digits (subscriber's number)? Can anyone shed some light on this? Later, Doug Terman, Telecom Ops Mgr. Antilles Engineering, Ltd. snail: PO Box 318, VT 05674, USA voice: (802) 496 3812 fax: (802) 496 3814 ------------------------------ Subject: AOL, Microsoft Network Mull Flat Rates Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1996 18:24:32 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) AOL, Microsoft Mull Flat Rates for Internet Access Via AP Dow Jones News Service VIENNA, Va. (Dow Jones News) -- America Online Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are considering charging their users flat rates for unlimited Internet access, a move that could spark a new round of price competition in the on-line industry. AOL, the nation's largest on-line service, is testing an offer to its more than six million customers of one flat monthly fee, the company said Monday. AOL, of Vienna, Va., also is looking to sell just its on-line fare to users of rival connection services. Currently, AOL charges users either $9.95 each month for five hours, or $19.95 a month for 20 hours, to use the service. Unlike rival services such as AT&T Corp., Sprint Corp. and others that offer unlimited hours, AOL charges $2.95 for each hour a user spends on-line beyond the basic time. The new pricing plan being considered was reported several days ago in the {Wall Street Journal}. Citing a person familiar with the plans, the Journal reported that the Microsoft Network, or MSN, plans to charge $19.95 a month for a package that includes unlimited Internet use and access to exclusive Web content that the company is assembling. It will charge $6.95 a month for unlimited access to the content alone. The moves to flat-fee pricing could make AOL and MSN more directly competitive with flat-fee Internet services. Last week, AOL acknowledged in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it was having a hard time retaining subscribers in the face of price competition from rival Internet services. Though the company has warned investors of such competitive pressures before, the disclosure sent AOL's share price down 10 percent last week. In midday trading Tuesday, shares of AOL were down 62 1/2 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $26.62 1/2 on the New York Stock Exchange. Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., wouldn't comment on the article. ------------------------------ From: paul@shire.btg.com (Paul Fischer) Subject: Maximum Theoretical Bandwidth of Voice Line? Date: 14 Oct 1996 17:27:44 GMT Organization: BTG, Inc. Hello All, I am writing an article for SCO World Magazine. I remember learning how to caluculate the theorretical maximum throughput (in bits per second) of a phone line. As will all things I don't use regularly, I have forgotten. Does anyone know what the number is, and what the average freq. range on a voice phone is. 300-3000 Hz is what I learned, but I have heard it was raised to 3400 or 4000 on the high end in the last ten years or so. Any help would be appreciated. Please send e-mail if you can, as that would be easier. Paul Fischer Internet Administrator BTG, Inc. (703) 761-6644 (703) 556-9290 (fax) 1945 Old Gallows Rd "I have a notebook, therefore I will succeed!" Vienna, VA 22182 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #546 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Oct 16 19:23:38 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id TAA12928; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 19:23:38 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 19:23:38 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610162323.TAA12928@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #547 TELECOM Digest Wed, 16 Oct 96 20:23:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 547 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson US West Territory Consumer Watch (John Wyble) Cellphone Theft Escalates (Tad Cook) Re: "Just Say Yes" (Lars Poulsen) Re: Divestiture Not Good For Consumer? (Lisa Hancock) PacBell CID Waiver (Stan Schwartz) USA Phone Company Deals (David Clayton) Finland - Area Code Change 12th October (Juha Veijalainen) Overlay Hits Phone Book Where I Am (Carl Moore) Re: Reinventing ISDN for Internet (David Richards) Re: Reinventing ISDN for Internet (Eric Smith) Re: Reinventing ISDN for Internet (Heflin Hogan) Re: Reinventing ISDN for Internet (Steeve Juneau) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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: John Wyble Subject: US West Terriotry Consumer Watch Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 14:36:06 -0700 WASHINGTON CITIZEN ACTION 100 South King St. Suite 240 Seattle, WA 98104 206/389-0050 ( fax 206/389-0049) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: David West October 16, 1996 206-389-0050 Consumer Groups Watch Out for US West Territory Customers Court Decision Delays Competition -- Consumers Miss Out on Benefits Featuring an Internet web site and a pledge committing phone companies to consumer protection, Washington Citizen Action and consumers groups in states throughout the region announced today the formation of US West Territory Consumer Watch. The consumer groups are combining their resources to ensure that customers in US West's service area benefit from the introduction of competition to local phone markets. US West has undertaken an intense lobbying campaign to convince state regulators, lawmakers and the media that competition will be detrimental for its 14-state territory. This campaign and other anti-competitive moves threaten to deny consumers the choices, better service and lower prices envisioned in the Telecommunication Act of 1996. The federal law calls on state regulators to open local phone markets and allow new companies to join US West in offering services to consumers. "The 1996 Telecom Act was designed to bring consumers choices and lower prices, and US West's methodical efforts to keep consumers from seeing these benefits is a real concern to us," said David West, Executive Director of Washington Citizen Action. "US West Watch will educate consumers and give them a voice to ensure that state officials make the decisions that deliver benefits to consumers." With a U.S. Court of Appeals decision delaying the implementation of the Federal Communications Commission's rules on local phone competition, US West Watch plays an even more important role in making sure that consumers are protected. US West Watch partners will track regulatory and legislative actions in their home states to make sure that state regulators are making the right pro-consumer decisions. Partners will also alert each other and the public to anti-consumer tactics by US West or any other telephone company. "We need consumer advocacy on telephone service more than ever," West explained. "US West, in supporting the Court of Appeals decision, is trying to put consumers "on hold" and keep lower prices and service improvements out of their hands." The Consumer Watch program includes: Consumer Information & Action Website Point your browser towards http://www.eskimo.com/~wca to view the US West Territory Consumer Watch consumer information and action page. The web site allows consumers to report problems with their phone service and rates, which the group will compile -- and includes links to state offices where official complaints can be lodged. The page also reports on the activities of US West Territory Consumer Watch and its members. Telephone Company Pledge US West and all competitors are being asked to sign a pledge committing each company to five important consumer protection principles: * Assure fair prices and lower rates for all consumers; * Allow for a competitive market; * Provide high-quality and reliable service; * Assure universal service; and * Practice fair marketing. Whether large or small, all companies are being encouraged by US West Watch to sign the pledge and uphold its pro-consumer standards. "On our own, we lack the resources to protect consumers in a changing market. But together with our allies here and in other states, we can encourage positive regulatory action and put pressure on all phone companies to treat consumers fairly," said West. US West Territory Consumer Watch will continue until meaningful progress toward a pro-consumer local phone market is made by state officials, US West and its potential competitors. AARP's Washington chapter, the Washington State Grange and the Independent Business Association endorsed the US West Watch project and pledged their support of its goals. The initial partners in US West Watch include: Arizona Citizen Action; Colorado Public Interest Research Group; Minnesota COACT; Oregon Citizens' Utility Board; and Washington Citizen Action. The partners are reaching out to other consumer groups in US West territory and are urging consumers throughout the region to participate. For more information about US West Territory Consumer Watch, the website or the telephone company pledge, call David West at (206)389-0050. US West Territory Consumer Watch Company Pledge As part of its effort to protect consumers in areas served by US West as local telephone service competition develops, US West Territory Consumer Watch asks each company entering the market to sign this pledge: In recognition of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which calls for free and fair competition in local telephone service, our company pledges to adhere to the following principles which will ensure that consumers benefit from the changes taking place in the market: (1) Assure fair prices and lowers rates for all consumers. We pledge to provide fair prices that reflect the true costs of services, not to provide discounts to some users while shifting costs to others, and not to use revenues from regulated services to fund unregulated operations. (2) Allow for a competitive market. We pledge that we will not seek to erect barriers to competition, attempt to influence the legislative or regulatory process to circumvent the goal of fair competition, or support limits on freedom of choice that "locks in" customers to one company. (3) Provide high-quality and reliable service. We pledge to use revenues collected from ratepayers for local telephone service to maintain and enhance that service, and to use savings from technology improvements to reduce rates or reinvest in service improvements. We further pledge to maintain an adequate number of trained staff and not to eliminate jobs in the name of competition or to the detriment of customer service. (4) Assure universal service. We pledge to provide a basic package of affordable local phone services offered to all consumers, including customers in rural and low-income areas. We pledge that any universal fund subsidies will reflect the true cost of service and be fairly shared by companies. (5) Practice fair marketing. We pledge to advertise in a manner that is not deceptive or misleading and which provides the actual costs of services. We further pledge to provide consumers with easy access to data so they can accurately compare rates and services in order to make a sound decision about their phone service. ______________________________________________________ (Signed) _______________________________________________________ (Company) _______________________________________________________ (Date) ------------------------------ Subject: Cellphone Theft Escalates Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 12:28:04 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Cellular phone theft escalates BY MARY BOYLE Associated Press BALTIMORE -- Brigid Fahmy's car was parked on a busy street for less than an hour when someone smashed a window and stole her cellular phone. "It was still light out, there were people streaming out of work. I couldn't believe it," Ms. Fahmy said. Authorities weren't surprised. Cellular phones are being stolen at an unprecedented rate in Baltimore and in high numbers in most major cities, often by drug dealers and other criminals who want phones that can't be traced. The cellular telephone industry, which last year lost a record $650 million through theft and fraud, is fighting back with new technology to make using a stolen phone more difficult. "Last year was probably the worst year for us," said Tim Ayers, spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. "But we think we may be rounding a corner." Generally, thieves steal a cellular phone and then reprogram it with a stolen phone number, a practice known as "cloning." Most of the time, the person whose phone number has been stolen doesn't realize it until the bill arrives. That means the criminal can get away with maybe a month of free calling before the phone company disconnects the number. The greatest hope in the industry's high-tech arsenal against fraud is now "authentication" technology, which is being introduced in some markets around the country. The industry expects it be in place nationwide within a year. "Cloning as we know it today will become extinct with authentication," said Roseanna DeMaria, vice president of security for AT&T Wireless. Authentication requires the phone to verify its identity to a receiving station; its electronic serial number must correspond to the phone number issued to that phone. Currently, a phone need only give a valid electronic serial number. This new feature allows the phone company to more promptly recognize that a number is being used fraudulently. "The criminal's phone doesn't stay activated as long, maybe two or three days. Then they get discouraged," said DeMaria, who used to prosecute cellular phone fraud in the district attorney's office in New York City. The industry has also developed new devices that prevent thieves from reprogramming cellular phones with stolen numbers and is training police and prosecutors to better fight the criminals. In Baltimore, as many as 22 cellular phones are stolen a day, according to police. The thefts are typically committed by drug addicts in search of quick money. But the overall operation, which includes reprogramming the stolen phones with pilfered numbers, involves several layers of criminals. Because the phones are licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, federal agents are involved. The Secret Service is working closely with the industry to break up wire fraud operations in most major cities. Black market cellular phone hot spots include New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Charlotte, N.C., said Arnette Heintze, a Secret Service spokesman. But there is evidence the problem is reaching into smaller areas. Police in Lakewood, Colo., a Denver suburb, report an outbreak of cellular phone theft. Sal Cinquegrani, a spokesman for 360 Degree Communications Comp., a Chicago firm that provides service to 100 smaller markets, said that as the big-city carriers develop new anti-theft technology, "the cellular fraudsters are being driven into new markets." Police don't have much trouble arresting the smash-and-grabbers and middlemen who resell the phones. But finding the lawbreakers who "harvest" stolen phone numbers -- using radio scanning devices at places like airports -- and the computer hackers who program those numbers into black market phones, is more difficult. In the first half of this year, the Secret Service arrested 259 people responsible for $7 million in phone fraud, Heintze said. "We are making progress and having an impact on this crime," he said. ------------------------------ From: lars@anchor.RNS.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: "Just Say Yes" Date: 16 Oct 1996 13:39:58 -0700 Organization: RNS / Meret Communications In article dcstar@acslink.aone.net. au (David Clayton) writes: > Does anyone else think that *firing* people for this is sort of thing > is over the top? Well, yes and no. As the manager of a small group of engineers in a company undergoing severe organizational change (acquisitions, downsizing, re-organization, you name it) I have had occasion to look around me and ponder employee motivation, and sources of authority. My boss'es boss gave a speech the other day in which he mentioned that the railroad service in Italy has NEVER operated on schedule; not even (although it widely claimed) during the Mussolini years in the late thirties. The only exception was during the three years from 1942-44 when Italy was in practice a German occupied territory. Hitler gave an order that the driver of any train arriving late was to be shot. After this had actually been done three or four times, the performance of the system improved drastically: Drivers attended to schedule as if their life depended on it, and worked feverishly to make up any delays that crept in due to lack of performance by others. [Whether this story is historically true or not is really irrelevant.] In a healthy organization, draconian punishment should really be unneccessary, just like it should be unneccesary to spank your kids. In a healthy organization, the people in authority are competent and perform their job in such a manner to earn the respect of their subordinates, and the lower ranking jobs are staffed with intelligent, well-educated people who recognize and respect competence, and who understand the goals of the organization and want to see it succeed, knowing that when the organization is successful, they share in the rewards. In an unhealthy organization, none of these pre-requisites exist, and it may well be the case that the only authority is based on the fear of losing your job for any small offense, real or imagined by the manager. You or I would probably never chose to work for such an organization, and lets be thankful that we probably won't have to. The worst of all, is an organization with incompetent management, disloyal staff stealing from the organization and no authority. In the business world, this condition is self-correcting: The company soon goes out of business. In government, a sick organization may survive for a long time. (I remember some of Pat's tales about large post offices.) Sometimes brave management goes into one of these hell-holes and attempts to clean it up and fix it. In such a case, it may be necessary to make people pay attention by announcing a rule, then strictly enforcing it; not for the sake of the rule, but for the purpose of serving notice that change is coming; that those who are aware of the need for change should take heart and stick it out a little longer; and that defiance of orders from the management is no longer acceptable. As the story was told, it was not quite clear what the context was; certainly, it seems disproportionate to fire people for having incurred a 35 cent charge on the telephone bill. The people who work in my group earn $20-$30/hour. If this saves them a minute, we are actually ahead. I know that I have a 25% chance of copying the number down wrong, and having to call DA *again* after getting the number, so since "just say yes" presumably is guaranteed to dial the same number that was read out, it would certainly be a winner for me. But I agree that if the DA system is already capable of disabling this feature for certain classes of service (such as coin, or hotel), blocking should be made available to anyone who requests it. Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@RNS.COM RNS / Meret Communications Phone: +1-805-562-3158 7402 Hollister Avenue Telefax: +1-805-968-8256 Santa Barbara, CA 93117 Internets: designed and built while you wait ------------------------------ From: hancock4@cpcn.com (Lisa) Subject: Re: Divestiture Not Good For Consumer? (was Re: ISP Access Fees) Date: 15 Oct 1996 03:09:24 GMT Organization: Philadelphia City Paper's City Net In comparing telephone rates and charges "then and now", we must remember some demographic changes that occured in the last 15 years. In most metropolitan areas, there's been an exodus of people from the city and near suburbs to new developments in outlying areas. In the 1980s, there was a building boom and this trend was greatly accelerated. As a result, homes and workplaces are dispersed much more than before. In Philadelphia, the phone company always had a "Philadelphia Metropolitan Calling Area". Calls within that region (Philadelphia city and nearby suburbs) were either free or message unit charged. Calls beyond that area were toll. Years ago, the area beyond was rural and pretty much outside Phila commuting and most business influence (not totally of course, but most commerce was closer in.) This isn't true anymore -- the city itself has lost considerable population and business to the suburbs and far places. Many city residents now commute to jobs outside the city. Suburbanites drive all over the place -- Phila area "beltways" (ie the Pa Turnpike and I-476) are jammed at rush hour. Going northward from Phila, the Phila metro area blends into the New York metro area around Trenton without any gap. The result of all this is a much more far flung "local" business community. Customers can live considerably further away. So can workers. The result is more long distance calls to conduct business. Another issue today is two parent families. When a mother works, she'll often have to call to check on her kids at daycare or school, or conduct home business (getting the car fixed, home contractors, etc.) When I was a child, my mother did that from home. I know for myself I have to regularly make "long distance" calls from work to deal with personal business -- my bank, car repair, etc., as a result of this geographic dispersion. Years ago such long distance calls were generally unheard of, except for brave souls who in lived in rural areas. ------------------------------ From: Stan Schwartz Subject: PacBell CID Waiver Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 02:45:24 -0400 This is from the FCC Daily Digest, 10/7/96: RULES AND POLICIES REGARDING CALLING NUMBER IDENTIFICATION SERVICE - CALLER ID. Granted Pacific Bell's petition for a limited waiver of the Commission's Caller Identification privacy rules, specifically, the *82 unblocking requirement, for calls that originate on its Siemens Stromberg Carlson Digital Community Office Switches, until June 1, 1997. Dkt No.: CC- 91-281. Action by Chief, Common Carrier Bureau. Adopted: October 4, 1996. by MO&O. DA No. 96-1663. CCB Internet URL: /Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Orders/index.html ------------------------------ From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: USA Phone Company Deals Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 06:25:02 GMT Organization: Customer of Access One Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia Hello Pat and everyone else, I wonder if I can impose on the readers for some information and opinions on the "deals" that telcos offer in the U.S.A. In Australia, at the moment, we have basically two choices for long distance calls and really only one choice for local calls, (this is changing, but a widely available alternative will not be accessible for a while yet). One carrier, (Optus), offers quantity use discounts to their customers and these are applied automatically. The other carrier, (Telstra), also offers discounts, but these are far more complicated (IMHO) "Flexiplans", where some plans are free and some plans have a fixed monthly charge. I would like to know, (without too much detail if possible), what is available in the U.S.A. and what do the readers think about them with regard to complexity, availability, value for money, etc. I personally think that the "Flexiplan" way is a lot more complicated than a flat discount, as well, the way it is implemented in Australia is that you have to specifically request to go on these plans even if they are free!, (this has been the subject of a thread in aus.comms regarding my opinions wrt this). Anyway, if anyone would like to contribute I would appreciate it. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. ------------------------------ From: Juha Veijalainen Subject: Finland - Area Code Change 12th October Date: 15 Oct 1996 16:10:16 GMT Organization: Jkarhuritarit All area codes in Finland changed on 12th October 1996. Previously 74 area codes were used, currently there are only 13. Also the "non standard" area code prefix 9 was changed to 0. At least technically the change went reasonably well. A number of businesses had not removed their 0-prefix blocks as of 14th Oct and could not make long distance or mobile phone calls. Callers using old prefixes are directed to an intercept message, but IMHO some international calls to Finland using old area codes might not be intercepted. More information from Telecommunications Administration Centre: http://www.thk.fi/yleista/englanti/numero.htm Juha Veijalainen, Helsinki, Finland http://www.sci.fi/~juhave/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Oct 96 17:12:18 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Overlay Hits Phone Book Where I Am I peeked at a neighbor's directory (mine has not yet arrived here in northeastern Maryland), and it now has notes about the overlays in the call guide. There is a map showing the two geographic area codes (301,410) now with the overlay codes (240 and 443 respectively) printed, and there is an announcement on the cover formatted like the 301/410 split announcement just a few years ago. All of the white page listings now have the area code, because when the overlay actually starts being used, you will no longer be able to say "area code ___ unless otherwise noted". The northeastern Maryland white pages has two 378 prefixes in it: 410-378 at Port Deposit, and 302-378 at Middletown (Delaware), the latter showing up in a calling area. 302-378 is supposed to already show the area code when it appears in these white pages, but a few slipped through the cracks. Local calls from 410-755 (Warwick) to 302-378 have been seven digits, as have been all local calls within a Maryland area code. The public should NOT see any overlay prefixes until after full cutover of 10-digits-on-all-local-calls, since 240 and 443 are used as prefixes in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. The phones in my own office are not yet accepting 9 + area code + seven digits on local calls (no 2nd dial tone is heard; currently it's 9 + seven digits). ------------------------------ From: dr@ripco.com (David Richards) Subject: Re: Reinventing ISDN for Internet Date: 16 Oct 1996 21:56:18 GMT Organization: Ripco Communications Inc. In article , Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX wrote: > One of the most popular and controversial uses of ISDN is for > providing Internet access. The controversy arises from the load the > 64k data channels place on the switched network even when no data is > being sent. > I propose an alternate configuration. Use the 16k signaling channel > for signaling between the Internet Point of Presence and the > customer's machine. This signaling would include low bandwidth IP > packets (ping, finger, etc.) and requests to bring up one or both > data channels. The data channel(s) would only be brought up when > needed, and taken down after a few seconds of inactivity. > The key to this scheme is some sort of network connectivity on the 16k > signaling channel. In effect the telco would provide a metropolitan > WAN between users and their IP providers. Actually, this has been developed. It's not uncommon in Europe, where D-channel data access doesn't cost the arm and leg that it does in most US tariffs. Unfortunately, for the time being the phone companies seem more interested in getting their investment back through high fees than customer loyalty. > The functionality to use this form of signaling and channel usage > would be incorportated into smart ISDN modems, which would be > transparent to the user. Actually, it would/is more likely done in ISDN bridge-routers, where all the PPP smarts are built into the box. ISDN "modems" (Terminal Adapters) generally have very small 'brains'. For example, right now most ISDN routers (Gandalf, Adtran, Livingston, Ascend, Cisco) will support both IP and IPX. They generally have a 'spoofing' mode for IPX, where the 'keepalive' messages are sent on the LAN on each side as if a link was up even when the B channels are down. For IP networks some hardware will spoof the routing updates for the same reason. > This scheme could be useful for telcos who wish to compete > with cable modems using their present (more or less) equipment. In Europe, D-channel X.25 'packet switched' data is relatively inexpensive and is much more widely used. In the USA, the rates are much higher, and the only practical uses I've heard of are in credit card validation, where a single request is sent out, and either ACK, NAK, or "STOLEN" comes back. David Richards Ripco, since Nineteen-Eighty-Three My opinions are my own, Public Access in Chicago But they are available for rental Shell/SLIP/PPP/UUCP/ISDN/Leased dr@ripco.com (312) 665-0065 !Free Usenet/E-Mail! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 11:40:01 PDT From: Eric Smith Subject: Re: Reinventing ISDN for Internet In article caf@omen.com (Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX) writes: > I propose an alternate configuration. Use the 16k signaling channel > for signaling between the Internet Point of Presence and the > customer's machine. This signaling would include low bandwidth IP > packets (ping, finger, etc.) and requests to bring up one or both > data channels. The data channel(s) would only be brought up when > needed, and taken down after a few seconds of inactivity. The low-level transport standard and infrastructure for this already exists. It's called X.25 packet switching over the D channel. And there's already a standard for running IP over X.25 over ISDN (RFC 1356, which obsoleted RFC 877). Of course, the phone company doesn't just give this service away free. They charge by the packet. Unfortunately you have to supply a separate X.25 address for this; it doesn't use the telephone number. However, we'll probably just have to live with it, because establishing a new D-channel signalling standard and getting switch and terminal equipment vendors to support it would probably take a decade or more. Some ISDN terminal adapters support X.25. However, to my knowledge none of the fancy ones that support multilink PPP also support X.25. Cheers, Eric ------------------------------ From: hh@pc012004.is.paradyne.com (Heflin Hogan) Subject: Re: Reinventing ISDN for Internet Date: 16 Oct 1996 18:42:05 GMT Organization: Paradyne Corporation Interesting idea. Ascend and several other suppliers of ISDN equipment already implement something similar in their small and home office equipment. The devices have timeout parameters, and drop the connection when no traffic is passed for the specified length of time. ISDN connects so fast that there is no noticable delay when the connection is reestablihed by the user. The "D" channel is used in its normal fashion, with no special handling by the telco. It would be trival for USR, Moto, or any of the other ISDN "modem" manufacturers to implement this feature in their consumer products. I'm not really sure how you're proposal differs from this, or how ISDN connections are supposed to compete with cable "fat pipe" connections (disregarding the basic incompetence of cable companies). Heflin ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 17:19:19 +0000 From: sjuneau@nortel.ca Subject: Re: Reinventing ISDN for Internet Organization: Bell Northern Research We already do that with Ascend Pipeline equipments and I am sure that other manufacturer have that. I have a timeout of 15 seconds and when there is no trafic the line is brought down. When there is a packet the bridge/router dials and the connection is up and it works. Steeve Juneau steevej@rvo.qc.ca http://www.rvo.qc.ca/~steevej ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #547 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Oct 16 20:50:08 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id UAA22832; Wed, 16 Oct 1996 20:50:08 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 20:50:08 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610170050.UAA22832@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #548 TELECOM Digest Wed, 16 Oct 96 20:49:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 548 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson BellSouth Statement on Interconnection Order (Mike King) Cellphone Annoyances in Wilderness (Tad Cook) Help Needed Writing Modem Program (Tony Lehrman) Re: PacBell Stalling on Providing Caller ID for ISDN? (John C. Musselman) Sprint Can't Handle Area Code 773 (Linc Madison) Re: Sorry, Wrong Number: Patchogue Banning Outdoor Pay Phones (Jeff Jonas) Re: Typos in Lucent Television Commercials (Bill Paul) Re: Typos in Lucent Television Commercials (Robert McMillin) AT&T Card Switched to a Different Number (Carl Moore) DialWeb Beta Testers Wanted (Gregg Freishtat) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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: Mike King Subject: BellSouth Statement on Interconnection Order Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 15:11:25 PDT Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 15:52:59 -0400 (EDT) From: BellSouth Subject: BellSouth Statement on Interconnection Order FOR INFORMATION: John Schneidawind (202)463-4183 BACKGROUND: The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis today stayed the pricing provisions and the 'pick and choose' rule of the Federal Communications Commission's August 8 interconnection order. The following statement may be attributed to a BellSouth spokesman: "We embrace the implication of the Court's stay of the FCC interconnection order. It fully matches our goal of bringing competition to the long distance and local markets quickly and at the same time. The court has found that the appeal of the interconnection order by BellSouth and others 'will likely succeed on the merits.' In the meantime, the pricing provisions and the 'pick and choose' rule of the order are invalid. "State commissions in BellSouth's region now have the responsibility intended by Congress -- to fully implement the telecom act so that competition may begin. With this comes the full latitude and responsibility to make public interest based decisions on the critical issues such as the calculation of the costs of unbundled network elements." "As a result of the stay, BellSouth believes the cloud of uncertainty that had been hanging over the negotiation process and state arbitrations has been removed. We agree with the Court that Congress's intent would be lost without a stay and, as the Court found, 'the opportunity for effective private negotiations would be irretrievably lost.' BellSouth believes the court was right in its finding that 'without a stay, that result would be contrary to Congress's intent that these matters be resolved through negotiation and/or arbitration." "Nothing in today's stay should delay the interconnection negotiations under way between BellSouth and its potential competitors. BellSouth already has signed more than 20 interconnection agreements with competitors, most of them prior to the FCC's August 8 order. BellSouth wants to get fair agreements signed and will continue to negotiate with our competitors so that consumers can benefit from full competition and customer choice in local and long-distance service. While BellSouth agrees with the direction of the Court's decision, we want to continue to work with the FCC to open all markets to competition as quickly as possible." ------------------ Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ Subject: Cellphone Annoyances in Wilderness Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 14:04:30 PDT From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Annoying in the City, Cell Phones Are Hell In the Wilderness Via AP By ROSS KERBER The Wall Street Journal For a hiking trip in New Hampshire's White Mountains, Ari Pinski brought along the hottest gear in trekking: a cellular phone and a space-age navigation aid that takes its bearings by satellite. Forest rangers wish he had brought a map instead. Mr. Pinski repeatedly checked in with rangers on the cell phone to ask directions as he and a friend climbed Mount Tripyramid. The satellite global-positioning system, or GPS, worked just fine, telling Mr. Pinski his latitude and longitude. But that didn't stop the pair from missing a turn in the woods. A satellite can't tell you which path to take. LOST DESPITE EVERYTHING Although there was no emergency, "we finally sent a crew because of frustration," says Lt. David Hewitt of the state's Fish and Game Department; he dispatched two volunteers to guide the hikers down the mountain in a pouring rain. Armed with the sophisticated reckoning system, "I guess I didn't want to admit that we were lost," says Mr. Pinski, a 26-year-old electrical technician and self-styled "gadget person" from Wynnewood, Pa. Use of portable communications equipment is booming on mountainsides and back-country trails, as the gear gets lighter and cheaper. Rangers say they started seeing a significant number of GPS devices for the first time this year, as the price of basic versions weighing about 10 ounces dropped to around $200. But as the wild fills up with wavelengths, rescuers complain of unexpected side effects: more nuisance calls and false alarms from tenderfoots toting the new devices. The problem is especially bad in New Hampshire's White Mountains, where cell-phone service is better -- and the peaks less fearsome -- than in more-remote places out West. "People take these jobbies up, but they have no idea where they are," says Lt. Eric Stohl, a New Hampshire Fish and Game officer who patrols 6,288-foot Mount Washington, the highest peak in the Northeast. In one case last spring, says Lt. Stohl, a pair of "very demanding" women in their 50s fretted by cell phone that they couldn't make it a mile-and-a-half to the end of a trail before darkness was due to fall in four hours. They asked to be carried down or have flashlights brought to them. Lt. Stohl declined. Two hours later, they were showering at the main lodge. In response to annoyance calls, a form of Yankee call-blocking is catching on: the Randolph (N.H.) Mountain Club now prohibits cell phones at its cabins on nearby Mount Adams. Over the state line in Maine, Baxter State Park also banned them after an incident in which tired hikers tried to muster an Army National Guard helicopter to fetch them from the summit of Mount Katahdin. Some nature lovers say cell-heads spoil the wilderness experience. "You hear them say things like, `Honey, you wouldn't believe how silent it is up here!"' says Jed Williamson, an outdoors guide and past president of the American Alpine Club. "It's as bad as if they were standing there taking a leak in front of everybody. They should just go behind a rock." More worrisome, rescuers say, are techie trekkers who take on too much trail. Last January, Rick Mandia, of Cambridge, Mass., got a case of the shivers while camping overnight near the summit of Mount Flume. He and a companion couldn't light their portable stove, and she was unable to warm him. At 5:36 AM, she phoned to ask emergency dispatchers for advice. They passed her number to Lt. Stohl, who after 30 minutes of trying to get through, finally reached the woman. He agreed to send a rescue party and says he suggested swaddling Mr. Mandia in a space blanket, one of those silver-foil wraps often seen on runners after marathons. She did, and it worked. ELECTRONIC CRUTCH Maj. Ron Alie, the department's chief of law enforcement, says the campers weren't familiar enough with their own gear and counted too much on the phone to see them through. "They crossed the line as to what they could handle," he said. Mr. Mandia, 28, disputes that and says he and his friend brought the phone as an afterthought. Hearing that help was on the way "helped my morale a lot," he says. "You get to the point where you're shivering uncontrollably and you start to feel you might not get back." Bitten by criticism, he says, he didn't pursue a proffered call-phone endorsement deal. Other distress calls from hikers are more trivial. Larry Nickey, the head of emergency services in Olympic National Park in Washington state, says he was floored by the request for a helicopter rescue he got from a hiker in July. The man was a day behind schedule and worried about missing a business meeting. "I explained that helicopters aren't allowed unless it's a real emergency," says Mr. Nickey, who didn't get the man's name. The caller offered to pay. When Mr. Nickey told him it might cost him $1,500, the helicopter talk stopped. EXPECTING QUICK SERVICE "People are just too programmed, with all the cop shows on TV" and expect an immediate response, says Holly Weber, an instructor at a wilderness medical school in Conway, NH. Ms. Weber says that several times this past summer, volunteers from the school hiked hours to reach sprain victims cell-phoning for help. "The attitude when we got to them" she was, "was, `What took you so long? I want a helicopter here now.' " For those who neglect to carry a compass and a map, cell phones aren't of much use when batteries fail. In August, hiker Michael Rego of Hookset, NH, spent a night on Mount Cushman after he lost power to his GPS unit AND his cell phone. The mapless Mr. Rego walked out unharmed the next day after his cell phone revived just long enough for him to reach authorities for guidance. Mr. Rego declined to comment, citing local newspaper accounts that poked fun at him. Even hikers whose motto is "Be Prepared" sometimes dial for deliverance. Lt. Rick Estes of the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department says that in June, he got a call from a Boy Scout troop seeking a rescue party. The scoutmaster had hurt his wrist. After making sure the scouts had a first-aid kit, Lt. Estes says, he declined to send help: "When they said he could walk, I suggested that unless he was planning to walk out on his hands, we wouldn't come for them." Tad Cook tad@ssc.com ------------------------------ From: Tony Lehrman Subject: Help Needed Writing Modem Program Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 13:56:05 +0000 Organization: RTD Systems & Networking, Inc. Reply-To: tlehrman@rtd.com PLEASE HELP! I am writing a CREDIT CARD verification software using CLIPPER 5.1. I am using the SERIAL port to talk to my US ROBOTICS SPORTSTER 14.4 modem. Initialization is as follows: ATZ AT&F ATX4V1&A0&B1&K0&M0 Serial port is initialized as 7 data bits, 1 stop bit, and EVEN parity @ 2400 bps. This initialization is exactly as the bank has requested. The record layout that I have to use says that the very last byte should be as follows: Field Desc: LRC Format: Pic X(1) Comments: Calculated XOR "00-FF" The above is a mystery for me. I cannot get any help as to how to calculate this byte. Any help on this will be REALLY appreciated! One other thing is that when, after the connection is established and I send the data stream to the bank, they receive it OK except the last byte but when they send me the message I get it half OK and half as GRAPHICAL symbols. Any clue for this one will be a real help to me! Again, thanks ANYONE in advance for helping me get through this project. Abdulmaajid Abulkamal (Kamahl) (520) 741-7099 Voice (520) 295-0265 Fax E-mail: tlehrman@rtd.com ------------------------------ From: John C. Musselman Subject: Re: PacBell Stalling on Providing Caller ID for ISDN? Date: 16 Oct 1996 10:23:01 -0700 Organization: Primenet (602)416-7000 They are probably waiting on a switch upgrade. I was told the same thing in Tempe, AZ. (DMS100). ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Sprint Can't Handle Area Code 773 Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 09:54:57 -0700 Organization: Best Internet Communications Pacific Bell activated area code 773 in its switches, only a couple of days late. I have also confirmed that AT&T and MCI are completing calls to 773. However, Sprint is returning fast busy on all numbers dialed with 773, including the test number 1-773-838-1204. (I have also seen references to a test number 1-773-914-1204, but I believe the other is correct.) I put in a trouble ticket this morning. Come on, Sprint, we're not talking about some Caribbean island with a population of six, we're talking about CHICAGO here. Get with the program. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: jeffj@panix.com (Jeff Jonas) Subject: Re: Sorry, Wrong Number: Patchogue Banning Outdoor Pay Phones Date: 16 Oct 1996 12:59:07 -0400 Organization: Jeff's House of Electronic Parts In article Mike Pollock writes: > From Newsday 10/4/96 ... > Sorry, Wrong Number / Patchogue banning outdoor pay phones > By Lauren Terrazzano. STAFF WRITER > On the streets of Patchogue, the pay phone will soon become a relic of > the past. > In the first law of its kind on Long Island and possibly the state, > the village has banned all outdoor public phones, calling them > "attractive nuisances" that encourage drug transactions and loitering, I have friends in Patchogue and e-mailed them this letter: I read this article and I'm motivated to protest the stupidity of removing all outdoor pay phones. What am I as a visitor to do if I need to: - call the police or fire department? (or can I borrow a cellular phone upon entry to the Patchogue area?) Many places have reduced or eliminated fire alarms and police call boxes saying to use pay phones for 911. Remove the pay phones and then what? - call for car repairs or assistance? - call my resident friends that I'm in town, or delayed? Your kids are clever, now they have more excuses not to call. Electronically yours, Jeffrey Jonas jeffj@panix.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well the kids could always go over to the train station and call from there. Remember, Patchogue said they were 'going to make an exception in the case of the train station', which was their face-saving way of saying they had no control over the railroad's property. As for you driving into town, I am sure some gasoline service station or convenience store like 7/Eleven is on the outskirts of town and technically outside the town boundary. They'll still have a phone or two in the parking lot. PAT] ------------------------------ From: bpaul@qualcomm.com (Bill Paul) Subject: Re: Typos in Lucent Television Commercials Date: Tue, 15 Oct 96 17:48:42 GMT Organization: Qualcomm Inc. In article , ruck@netcom.com (John R. Ruckstuhl) wrote: > In recent months, Lucent (or is it AT&T?) has been running a series of > television commercials in which we have a narrow view of a computer > monitor, and we watch while the advertisement message is typed ... the > message goes by quickly, but I could swear I've seen punctuation > errors on more than one. > Today I saw one with "lets" instead of "let's", and during the Olympics, > I saw one with "your" instead of "you're". Maybe "lets" is acceptable > for meaning "let us" (I don't know), but I'm sure "your" is not > acceptable for "you are", which is how these words were used. > Anyone else notice this? Assuming I'm right, I wonder if this would be > a deliberate error to catch attention in some subliminal way, or, > could this be someone's goofup on a major ad campaign? I don't exactly recall the commercial to say what context the words were used in, but here's what I know: 1) let's = contraction for 'let us' - (i.e. "Let's go to the park.") This would be the only acceptable form. 2)your = possessive (i.e. "Your car is ready.") you're = contraction for 'you are' (i.e. "You're a smart person.") From what I remember from one of those types of commercials, a person was typing to the screen while talking. I think they were trying to portray a marketing person throwing around some ideas, which may have been half baked, like the grammer. This would be like a character using slang or bad grammer during conversation. However, being that the character is supposed to be a marketing person for a major telecom company, you would hope that they knew their grammer. If I wrote that commercial, I probably would have written it different. Bill Paul KF6BBL San Diego, CA bpaul@qualcomm.com ------------------------------ From: rlm@netcom.com (Robert McMillin) Subject: Re: Typos in Lucent Television Commercials Reply-To: rlm@helen.surfcty.com Organization: Charlie Don't CERF Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 08:14:36 GMT On 14 Oct 1996 01:20:14 PDT, ruck@netcom.com (John R. Ruckstuhl) wrote about some pretty big punctuation gaffes in an ad series run by Lucent: > Today I saw one with "lets" instead of "let's", and during the Olympics, > I saw one with "your" instead of "you're". Maybe "lets" is acceptable > for meaning "let us" (I don't know), but I'm sure "your" is not > acceptable for "you are", which is how these words were used. > Anyone else notice this? Assuming I'm right, I wonder if this would be > a deliberate error to catch attention in some subliminal way, or, > could this be someone's goofup on a major ad campaign? One could yammer on all day about the declining quality of education and the schools, but the more I look around, the more I realize that it's parents who don't read to their kids causing these sorts of egregious errors. People don't grow up with a sense of written English, so now we're going through a period of great change; what was hopelessly unacceptable even twenty years ago will become commonplace. I'm of two minds about this, of course: on the one hand, correct usage is a hallmark of education and civilization. On the other, language is a democracy, and Acadamie Francais-like efforts to leash English are bound to fail. If done systematically (unlikely, given the Mad Ave. barbarians doing the defacing), this may be the start of yet another great wave of literary simplification. We'll know who's winning if we start seeing this "your" for "you're" substitution in the NY Times. Robert L. McMillin | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, I try to keep this Digest pretty much on the up-and-up where grammar, spelling and sentence construction is concerned, although I know errors slip by; far more than I would like. I get some messages which -- to be frank about it -- are just perfectly awful with sentences missing subjects and verbs, several sentences in a row which lack any punctuation at all, no attempt to spell-check anything, etc. You'd generally never know it, because I do use many of those messages if I think the article is of interest, but in many cases I just re-write the message from scratch, saying whatever it was the guy was trying to say. The tradeoff comes in deciding whether to put out one issue every day or two which has been edited, spell-checked and otherwise proofread completely or trying to put out anywhere from two to five issues per day and letting them skim past me quickly. I come down somewhere in the middle of that, correcting quite obvious (to me) words which are incorrectly spelled and sentences which make no sense at all as written. Even so, some really awful mistakes get past me which naturally I do not catch before the issue has gone into distribution. Perhaps you read in the newspapers recently the news about the Chicago Public Schools. I'm being quite serious ... any school in which at least *fifteen percent* of the students are cannot read and write simple English words and phrases by the time they graduate will be placed on 'academic probation'. In other words, eighty-five percent of the students can be illiterate when they graduate, and the school will be considered a success, by Chicago Public School standards. With the above requirements in mind, last month over one hundred of the public schools in Chicago were placed on academic probation ... essentially a type of receivership in which the day to day operations of the schools involved were taken out of the hands of the principals and are being overseen directly by the Board of Education. The Board had said they considered setting the cutoff (of literate, able to read/write students versus the others) at twenty- five percent, but then all but a small number of schools would have been out of compliance. They decided fifteen percent was 'more realistic'. I want to hang my head in shame. Who are going to be the leaders in this city twenty years from now? Maybe no one. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Oct 96 13:37:16 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: AT&T Card Switched to a Different Number Last August, I was on an airplane and found (also later on the ground) that my AT&T card was not working. I may have written to the Digest some time ago that although I moved to Maryland, I changed my old Delaware number to a remote forward, and was continuing to receive bills for AT&T calls through Delaware. Notice the apparently-unusual circumstance: I still had the old number, but no longer for outgoing calls. Apparently, in May I was sent a notice warning me that my AT&T card would be inactivated if I did not make other arrangements, and (although the phone co. in Delaware sent bills just fine to my PO box in Maryland) AT&T only had my old street address in Delaware! The notice was sent there and I never received it (U.S. mail forwarding order already expired). I called an AT&T operator and was connected to someone else to discuss the problem with my card. It was turned back on within 24 hours, with billing to be sent from Maryland, not Delaware. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 10:34:50 -0400 From: Gregg Freishtat Subject: DialWeb Beta Testers Wanted Telet Communications (recently acquired by Premiere Communication) is looking for beta testers for our new DialWeb Software Application (http://www.dialweb.com). DialWeb is a fully automated application that allows you to create, modify, and publish, audio (RealAudio) content directly to a Web Site using only a touch tone telephone. Our engine combines text to speech menu's with remote RealAudio streaming making audio publishing available to anyone, anytime, with only a telephone regardless of technical abilities. If interested, please drop an email to cat@tc.net for instructions on how to get a full 30 day trial period. To be considered, please include your name, company name, and phone number in the email. (We have limited 30 day program for those interested in DialWeb, but not willing to give feedback on the GUI, ease of use and functionality required for full use as a full beta tester -- free trials at http://www.dialweb.com). We will be accepting the first 100 qualified respondents only. Thanks in advance, Gregg Freishtat http://www.premierecomm.com Sr. Vice President http://www.telet.net Premiere Technologies, Inc. http://dialweb.com (404) 262 8419 gsf@tc.net (888) TELET 66 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #548 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Oct 17 00:23:06 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id AAA15448; Thu, 17 Oct 1996 00:23:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 00:23:06 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610170423.AAA15448@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #549 TELECOM Digest Thu, 17 Oct 96 00:23:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 549 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Equal Access Pre-Divestiture (Dave Stott) Re: Reinventing ISDN for Internet (Bill Sohl) Re: Reinventing ISDN for Internet (Peter Vinsel) Re: PacBell Stalling on Providing Caller ID for ISDN? (Mike Heil) Re: Second Line Installation Problems (Jeff Jonas) Re: Divestiture Was Great For Consumers! (Craig Richey) Re: Divestiture Not Good For Consumer? (Ken Jongsma) Re: Divestiture Not Good For Consumer? (Chris Mauritz) Re: Typos in Lucent Television Commercials (Bill Newkirk) Re: Typos in Lucent Television Commercials (Andrew C. Green) Satellite Internet Issues Response (Niall Rudd) Re: Last Laugh! MCI Acronym (John Agosta) Re: Last Laugh! MCI Acronym (oldbear@arctos.com) Truth-in-Silliness (arctos@arctos.com) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* --- additionally --- ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from ** NTR ** * * Nationwide Telecommunications Resources, a nationwide resource for * * contract services, job placement and executive recruitment. If you * * are looking for a job or to fill a position: Fax resumes/requests to * * 510-673-0953; email resumes/requests to tech@ntr-usa.com; or call us * * at 510-673-9066. Watch this space for our website URL. * * NTR specializes in providing the highest quality engineers and * * IT professionals to the Telecom Industry * ************************************************************************* 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, 16 Oct 1996 18:41:53 -0500 From: Dave Stott Subject: Equal Access Pre-Divestiture Mark J. Cuccia wrote: > I don't know if this had been reported in the Digest years ago, but > prior to divestiture becoming effective 1984 along with the beginnings > of "Feature Group D" Equal Access being 'phased in', there were a few > examples of Equal Access for the OCC's (Other Common Carriers, carriers > other than AT&T -- the Bell System), from *independent* telco regions. > In the late 1970's, AT&T/Bell and the larger independents had ENFIA > (Exchange Network Facilities for Interstate Access) authorized by tariff, > where one could dial a seven-digit local telephone number, hear a second > dialtone from the OCC's switch, and then touchtone in (via the locally > switched/dialup voicepath) the ten-digit called telephone number along with > a card number or "authorization code". At the Internet Telephony Conference in New York earlier this fall, the gentleman from 3 Delta corp. was discussing his company's product -- a cheap way to call from Jerusalem, Isreal to St. Petersburg, Russia. Basically you dial the number of the Jerusalem POP, wait for the tone, then dial the St. Petersburg number followed by the caller's authorization number. 3 Delta intends on adding POPs in New York, Kiev, Los Angeles, and other major cities in 1996 and 97. This sounds a lot like Feature Group A access (described above) except 3 Delta is using the internet as the underlying carrier. Also, there are no access charges involved. This, I think, is what ACTA is complaining about as unfair treatment -- there is no PC involved at either end, and 3 Delta's POPs are **performing** like tandem switches (in the broadest terms). VON seems to see it differently. Anybody else have thoughts? stott ------------------------------ From: billsohl@planet.net (Bill Sohl) Subject: Re: Reinventing ISDN for Internet Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 00:03:10 GMT Organization: BL Enterprises hh@pc012004.is.paradyne.com (Heflin Hogan) wrote: > Interesting idea. Ascend and several other suppliers of ISDN equipment > already implement something similar in their small and home office > equipment. The devices have timeout parameters, and drop the > connection when no traffic is passed for the specified length of > time. ISDN connects so fast that there is no noticable delay when the > connection is reestablihed by the user. The "D" channel is used in its > normal fashion, with no special handling by the telco. It would be > trival for USR, Moto, or any of the other ISDN "modem" manufacturers > to implement this feature in their consumer products. Remember, however, that upon reestablishing a B channel connection to the ISP involves a new switched connection and a new login to the ISP for that connection since there's no way the ISP can be sure that any new switched connection being established is associated with the X25 dialog being maintained from your ISDN station. Bill Sohl (K2UNK) billsohl@planet.net Internet & Telecommunications Consultant/Instructor Budd Lake, New Jersey ------------------------------ From: Peter Vinsel Subject: Re: Reinventing ISDN for Internet Date: 17 Oct 1996 03:09:50 GMT Organization: VinTel I also think that Internet access using ISDN places undo burden on the switched network. I'd like to see the carriers offer a non-switched 128K frame relay service using the ISDN BRI U interface. The equipment at the user site could be cheaper since we wouldn't need that nasty ISDN call control. The carriers could put the data onto a data network instead of wasting switch circuit bandwidth. pcv ------------------------------ From: maheil@pb1.PacBell.COM (Mike Heil) Subject: Re: PacBell Stalling on Providing Caller ID for ISDN? Date: 16 Oct 1996 19:28:02 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell - Switching Engineering In article , onymouse@hooked. net says: > I got ISDN installed at home, and expected to be able to use > all it's features, including caller id. > At first, I was told that it was available. The sales rep told me > it was available when I ordered the service. > I found that it was not available. I would get messages such as, > "unknown number", "service unavailable", etc. > I called PacBell to see what was going on and was told that "it should > be already set up for ISDN customers". > I called again a month later, in May and was told that it would be > available in June. > I checked and it was still unavailable. SNIP Not sure why you were told it would be available in June, other than whoever you spoke with must have assumed it would come with Caller I.D. for POTS. Caller I.D. for ISDN BRI, Centrex etc. ("complex" services) is currently working its way through the tariff and regulatory process. The latest I saw on the tariff filing for Caller I.D. on "complex" services (Centrex, ISDN etc.) suggests a January 1997 availability, assuming the tariff goes through as filed (I believe it is up for review in late October). I hope this helps. Mike Heil Switching Engineering North Pacific Bell maheil@pacbell.com maheil@pacbell.net ------------------------------ From: jeffj@panix.com (Jeff Jonas) Subject: Re: Second Line Installation Problems Date: 16 Oct 1996 12:24:30 -0400 Organization: Jeff's House of Electronic Parts > In article , Nate Smith > wrote: >> I'm in the process of installing a second line at my home. The >> existing wiring for the first line is very old and it is a bit >> difficult to determine how it fits into my "two-pair" "Green-Red, >> Black-Yellow" understanding of phones and wiring. Wiring at the >> demarcation point is as follows (3 bolts/screws on a plate): In article richgr@netcom.com (Rich Greenberg) writes: > I would recommend against the four conductor red/green/yellow/black > quad wire. Too much crosstalk between pairs. Agreed! I installed about 100 feet of flat untwisted wires for two lines. The voice line can 'hear' the modem, particularly the pinging of the Trailblazer in PEP mode. It is somewhat amusing to hear the modem idle sounds and know without looking when I start receiving data without looking at the screen! > Your best bet would be to rip out (logically, not necessarily > physically) all of the old wiring, and have telco install a new > multi-line NIJ (Network Interface Jack). Then run two (or more) pair > twisted pair wires (often called cat-3 wiring) *NOW* I'm told! Silly me, I bought the simple phone wire at Home Depot. Do they sell the CAT-3? > One technique to specifically avoid is to wire from the NIJ to one jack, > from that jack to the next, etc etc. More junctions to fail, harder to > isolate when it fails, and a failure knocks out all jacks further down > the line. AKA "Daisy-Chaining". Guilty as charged, but no failures yet. If I had a failure, I'd use a binary serach (try middlemost jack and go right or left until fault is pinpointed). Perhaps that is what I had in mind when I did my best to not cut the wires but to slit them open and wind once around the screws. That way screws coming loose or corroding won't damage the 'downstream' jacks. Jeffrey Jonas jeffj@panix.com ------------------------------ From: Craig.Richey@cwi.cablew.com (Craig Richey) Subject: Re: Divestiture Was Great For Consumers! Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 10:09:03 -0400 Tom Billone wrote: > Let's see, my phone bill in 1974 was a base rate of about $6.00. If I > made LD calls it would be about $15. Average LD charge in the 70's > was about $.35 per minute. Long Distance and business service > subsidized local service. > Now, in 1996, 12 years after divestiture, my basic rate is $20 per > month and while my LD rates have gone down my overall bill is around > $50 per month. > Divestiture did exactly what we in the Bell System said it was going > to do, INCREASE YOUR LOCAL SERVICE RATES. No one believed that local > rates were subsidized; well now they know. If your local bill was $6 in 1974 an equivalent bill would be about $20 - $25 when you consider the inflation of the last 20+ years (especially the late 70's). Today I pay $25 a month for local service that includes Call Waiting and many more taxes than your old bill. I call that a decrease in price. On the LD side you were paying rates of about $.35 20+ years ago and you're paying $.15 - $.30 today. Even without inflation that is a savings, with inflation factored in you're doing incredibly well. I am looking forward to real competition in the local market. As much as the RBOC's have improved in the last few years I am sure they will be no competition for the new entrants. CR ------------------------------ From: kjongsma@p06.dasd.honeywell.com (Ken Jongsma) Subject: Re: Divestiture Not Good For Consumer? (was Re: ISP Access Fees) Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 14:51:26 GMT Organization: Honeywell, Inc. - DAS BMFD78A@prodigy.com (Tom Billone) wrote: > Lets see, my phone bill in 1974 was a base rate of about $6.00. If I > made LD calls it would be about $15. Average LD charge in the 70's > was about $.35 per minute. Long Distance and business service > subsidized local service. > Now, in 1996, 12 years after divestiture, my basic rate is $20 per > month and while my LD rates have gone down my overall bill is around > $50 per month. > Divestiture did exactly what we in the Bell System said it was going > to do, INCREASE YOUR LOCAL SERVICE RATES. No one believed that local > rates were subsidized; well now they know. Just a few comments: 1. Why are cross subsidies a good thing? Historically, the subsidy was used to develop a near universal penetration rate. Since businesses made the majority of long distance calls at the time, that was seen as a hidden way to keep consumers from paying the full cost of their access. Now that the US has reached near 100% penetration, doesn't it seem unwise to allow the market distortions that subsidies bring? 2. Comparing base rates in to total bills in 1996 is unfair, as is comparing your long distance bill from then. First, I'd be willing to bet that your long distance minutes were dramatically less in 1975 than they are today. Secondly, governments have recently seen utility bills as an easy way to raise taxes. Your $50 bill today probably has 10% or more in taxes and mandated charges included. 3. Finally, you need to factor inflation. Assuming an average of 5% since 1975, that $15 a month you were paying would be close to $30 today. Considering the reduction in long distance rates, pending competition in the local market from cable, PCS, Cellular and other technology, etc., I'd argue that the plusses outweigh the minuses of divestiture. Ken Jongsma kjongsma@p06.dasd.honeywell.com Honeywell Defense Avionics Systems, Albuquerque, NM ------------------------------ From: Chris Mauritz Subject: Re: Divestiture Not Good For Consumer? (was Re: ISP Access Fees) Organization: IBS Interactive, Inc. Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 11:31:49 GMT > Divestiture did exactly what we in the Bell System said it was going > to do, INCREASE YOUR LOCAL SERVICE RATES. No one believed that local > rates were subsidized; well now they know. I don't think anyone disputes this. However, folks like Bill McGowan were more interested in skimming the vast profits to be made in the LD market than in benefitting the average consumer in any way. Unfortunately, McGowan's strongarm tactics in the courts won the day. *sigh* For an exhaustive description of the Ma Bell breakup, you might want to check out "The Deal of the Century" by Steve Coll. Regards, Christopher Mauritz | For info on internet access: ritz@interactive.net | finger/mail info@interactive.net OR IBS Interactive, Inc. | http://www.interactive.net/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Some have claimed Coll's book is (as one correspondent here once told me) 'full of nothing but a bunch of lies and half-truths', but I think it has a lot more truth than fiction in it. Would anyone who has read it care to give a review here? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bill Newkirk Subject: Re: Typos in Lucent Television Commercials Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 09:19:43 -0400 Organization: Rockwell Avionics/Collins Reply-To: wenewkirk@rodes.cca.rockwell.com John R. Ruckstuhl wrote: > Anyone else notice this? Assuming I'm right, I wonder if this would be > a deliberate error to catch attention in some subliminal way, or, > could this be someone's goofup on a major ad campaign? I'll have to watch. They don't show the whole screen on the one I've seen and I wasn't paying attention. Then again the "Brown Ring of Quality" folks may just be making more Dilbert fodder. These days I would suspect it's a goofup and it's even more sad that people aren't literate enough to catch it. The powers that be here had some "Team Melbourne" T-shirts made up and although the official line is that the shirt printer made an error, I would easily bet the copy sent to the printer was not critically proofread (misspelled avionics as "avioniics".) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 14:27:43 -0500 From: Andrew C. Green Subject: Re: Typos in Lucent Television Commercials ruck@netcom.com (John R. Ruckstuhl) writes: > In recent months, Lucent (or is it AT&T?) has been running a series of > television commercials in which we have a narrow view of a computer > monitor, and we watch while the advertisement message is typed ... the > message goes by quickly, but I could swear I've seen punctuation > errors on more than one. [...] > Assuming I'm right, I wonder if this would be > a deliberate error to catch attention in some subliminal way, or, > could this be someone's goofup on a major ad campaign? This is one of the more annoying TV ads running at the moment, IMHO, so first of all you have my congratulations for even bothering to pay attention to it. No doubt Lucent is pleased as well. But having recently watched a rather expensive Ford Contour commercial in prime time which urged us to "Always Wear Saftey [sic] Belts", I'd say this is just another example of a rather expensive goofup. If I'm not mistaken, Lucent is also the company which uses a coffee ring as a corporate logo, so perhaps this is all a subconscious admission that their quality control isn't what it should be yet! Andrew C. Green (312) 266-4431 Datalogics, Inc. 441 W. Huron Internet: acg@dlogics.com Chicago, IL 60610-3498 FAX: (312) 266-4473 ------------------------------ From: Niall Rudd Subject: Satellite Internet Issues Response Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 07:43:19 GMT herrera@athena.mit.edu (Ramon F Herrera) wrote: > I have been collecting ICMP ECHO data (i.e., pings) for several months > now, for comparison purposes. By just using pings there must be some > precise way to find out if the link in question goes through undersea > fiberoptic cable or via satellite. I was very surprised when I saw > the short responses from a site in Australia; the only possible > explanation being that there is already a fiber link with the land > down under. Now, given that we know the great circle distance from a > city in the USA to the country in question, and we of course know the > altitude of geostationary satellites, we should be able to know the > media used, but I will need some empirical formulae which takes into > account the router delays, which are probably the main factor. It > would also help if I knew the precise path taken by the fiber in > question (the Americas II). I also did some experiments on this: from London to Antartica. The results were interesting as the delay was always over 900ms. I am not sure if you have done this calculation, but the delay incurred by a signal making the 72,000km round trip to and from a Geostationary satellite is around 500ms (twice the one way delay). What realy interests me is the reason why my delay was loads longer than just 500ms. Any ideas? I could not tell either if you knew this, but it reflects on the second aspect of your inquiry. The implications of a delay over satellite are being argued about right now. Any TCP/IP signal crossing a GEO satellite is likley to be bandwidth restricted as a result. But, for a LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellite, (of which there are none in the business right now!) at perhaps an altitude of less than 1,000km, the distance delay is negligable and hence the bandwidth is unaffected (seamless with fibre). This is one of the major issues that the proposed multi-media satellite systems (Gates/McCaw Teledesic - LEO and Hughes Spaceway - GEO et al.) are mulling over. The LEO guy's claim the impact of this delay on standard protocols: TCP/IP, is to reduce bandwidth -- the bits per second. To quote a Teledesic paper, (as I would mess up the theory) ... "Since the packet may be lost in transmission, a copy of it must be kept in a buffer on the 'home' computer until an acknowledgement that the packet arrived succesfully is received from the 'destination' computer." (My quotes.) Thus they argue that a GEO slows things down -- effectively restricting bandwidth, although it only realy kicks in at data rates above 1.5Mbps. Niall Rudd niall@zebrawud.demon.co.uk Satellite Telecoms Consultant ------------------------------ From: jagosta@interaccess.com (John Agosta) Subject: Re: Last Laugh! MCI Acronym Date: 14 Oct 1996 23:12:43 GMT Organization: Agosta and Associates In article , la@well.com (Lionel Ancelet) says: > According to some MCI insiders, MCI means "Money Comes In" ... That reminds me of my time as a young Ops Tech at ITT World Communications. We jokingly called our employer: "Intermittent Telephone and Telegraph" :-) ------------------------------ From: oldbear@arctos.com (The Old Bear) Subject: Re: Last Laugh! MCI Acronym Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 19:56:26 -0400 In article la@well.com (Lionel Ancelet) writes: > According to some MCI insiders, MCI means "Money Comes In" ... Actually, here in New England, MCI means "Massachusetts Correctional Institution" -- i.e., the state prison system. Newspapers commonly refer to MCI/Concord or MCI/Norfolk etc. for the various 'campuses'. Cheers, The Old Bear [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And a totally different MCI is the company which builds busses for Greyhound and other large interstate bus lines such as Trailways. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 23:10:14 -0300 From: The Arctos Group Subject: Truth-in-Silliness Yes, silly season is once again upon us ... TRUTH-IN-SILLINESS AT&T has been offering "True USA Savings" and "True Rewards" long-distance phone service plans ... but now rival MCI has introduced a competitive offering called "True Rate." AT&T considers MCI's use of the phrase "True Rate" to amount to a truly false marketing ploy, and is suing to stop MCI from using the word "True". MCI regards the AT&T lawsuit as truly "silly." source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution October 15, 1996 page B3 via edupage Ed ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #549 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Oct 18 11:36:24 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id LAA18494; Fri, 18 Oct 1996 11:36:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 11:36:24 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199610181536.LAA18494@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #550 TELECOM Digest Fri, 18 Oct 96 11:36:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 550 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson CFP: Workshop on Parallel Processing and Multimedia (Rosh John Joseph) Plan Filed to Adjust New 530 Area Code Boundary (Mike King) Re: NPA 510 Near Jeopardy (Mike Maxfield) Is This a First in Local Competition? (Jack Decker) Maximum Theoretical Bandwidth of Voice Line? (Eric Kammerer) VON (was Re: Equal Access Pre-Divestiture) (Fred R. Goldstein) US West Heading West? (Tim Dillman) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. 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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: Rosh John Joseph Subject: CFP: Workshop on Parallel Processing and Multimedia Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 09:56:29 +0100 Organization: Aspex Microsystem Ltd. Workshop on Parallel Processing and Multimedia Geneva, Switzerland - Tuesday, April 1, 1997 Call for Participation The Workshop on Parallel Processing and Multimedia will be held in Geneva, Switzerland on April 1, 1997. The workshop is part of the 11th International Parallel Processing Symposium (IPPS '97) which is sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Parallel Processing and is held in cooperation with ACM SIGARCH. In the recent years multimedia technology has emerged as a key technology, mainly, because of its ability to represent information in disparate forms as a bit-stream. This enables, everything from text to video and sound to be stored, processed and delivered in digital form. A great part of the current research community effort has emphasized the delivery of the data as an important issue of multimedia technology. However, the creation, processing and management of multimedia forms are the issues most likely to dominate the scientific interest in the long run. The focus of the activity will be how multimedia technology deals with information, which is in general task-dependent and is extracted from data in a particular context by exercising knowledge. The desire to deal with information from forms such as video, text and sound will result in a data explosion. This [requirement to store, process and manage large data sets] naturally leads to the consideration of programmable parallel processing systems as strong candidates in supporting and enabling multimedia technology. The workshop aims to act as a platform where topics related, but not limited, to * parallel architectures for multimedia * mapping multimedia applications to parallel architectures * system interfaces and programming tools to support multimedia applications on parallel processing systems * multimedia content creation, processing and management using parallel architectures * parallel processing architectures of multimedia set-top boxes * multimedia agent technology and parallel processing * `proof of concept' implementations and case studies. Workshop plans include a keynote address, submitted papers, and a panel discussion. Submitting Papers & Publication Details Authors are invited to submit manuscripts reporting original unpublished research and recent developments in the topics related to the workshop. The language of the workshop is English. All manuscripts will be peer-reviewed. Submissions should be in uuencoded, gzipped, postscript form and e-mailed to Argy.Krikelis@aspex.co.uk. In cases where electronic submission is not possible, send 4 copies to the Workshop Organiser. Manuscripts must be received by October 30, 1996. The manuscript should not exceed 15 double-spaced (i.e. point size 12), single-sided A4 size page, with a 250-word abstract. The corresponding author is requested to include in the cover letter: 1. complete postal address 2. e-mail address 3. phone number 4. fax number 5. key phrases that characterize the paper's topic. Receipt of submissions will be promptly acknowledged by e-mail. Notification of review decisions will be e-mailed by January 10, 1996. Camera-ready papers will be due by February 20, 1997. A book of the accepted papers will be available at the Workshop. In addition, the accepted papers will be appearing in a planned special issue of the Journal of Parallel Computing. Workshop Organiser Argy Krikelis Aspex Microsystems Ltd. Brunel University Uxbridge, UB8 3PH United Kingdom Tel: + 44 1895 274000, ext: 2763 Fax: + 44 1895 258728 E-mail: Argy.Krikelis@aspex.co.uk Programme Committee V. Michael Bove Jr. MIT Media Lab. Shih-Fu Chang, Columbia University Edward J. Delp, Purdue University Ophir Frieder, George Mason University Martin Goebel, GMD, Germany Argy Krikelis, Aspex Microsystems Ltd., UK Tosiyasu L. Kunii, The University of Aizu, Japan Yoshiyasu Takefuji, Keio University, Japan & Case Western Reserve University Registration: This workshop is being held as part of IPPS. The usual IEEE Computer Society guidelines apply wrt registration; the workshop is open to IPPS registrants and separate registration for the workshop is not needed. Information about IPPS can be obtained over the Web at the following URL: http://cuiwww.unige.ch/~ipps97 ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: Plan Filed to Adjust New 530 Area Code Boundary Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 21:03:31 PDT Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 14:31:13 -0700 From: sqlgate@sf-ptg-fw.pactel.com Subject: Plan Filed to Adjust New 530 Area Code Boundary; Dixon, El Dorado Hills, Newcastle, Lincoln and Pleasant Grove Impacted FOR MORE INFORMATION: Dave Miller (916) 972-2811 dnmille@legal.pactel.com San Francisco - Four communities in Northern California, previously scheduled to move into the new 530 area code next year, would remain in the 916 area code under a proposed modification plan filed with the California Public Utilities Commission. The plan, filed earlier this month by California Code Administrator Bruce Bennett on behalf of the telecommunications industry, also calls for moving the city of Dixon into the 707 area code, instead of the 530 area code as originally planned. The final decision on the proposal rests with the CPUC. Bennett said the modification plan was filed in response to concerns from residents and elected officials on the new 530 area code, which is being split off from the 916 area code on Nov. 1, 1997. None of the proposed changes would impact the price of calls, Bennett said. "Call prices are not affected by an area code change," he said. "What is a local call now would still be a local call with an area code change." Under the proposal, the following changes are requested: Dixon area residents and businesses served by prefixes 678 and 693 would move into the neighboring 707 area code on October 4, 1997. Newcastle, Lincoln and Pleasant Grove in Placer County and El Dorado Hills in El Dorado County would stay in the 916 area code, rather than move into the 530 area code. This modification would affect six prefixes which serve these areas: 434 and 645 (Lincoln), 663 (Newcastle), 655 (Pleasant Grove), and 933 and 939 (El Dorado Hills). Bennett, who coordinates area code relief for the California telecommunications industry, said letters requesting the Dixon move into 707 were received in August and September from Dixon Mayor Don Erickson and Skip Thompson, chairman of the Solano County Board of Supervisors. The proposal to keep Newcastle, Lincoln and Pleasant Grove in the 916 area code was supported by Lincoln Mayor Willie Preston, Lincoln City Manager Bill Malinen and Roseville Telephone Company, which serves several nearby communities. Bennett said these requests can be implemented without cutting short the life of the new 530 or 916 area codes. However, he added, not every request could be accommodated in the modification proposal. "The industry tried to balance all of the requested changes with the need to provide meaningful area code relief. Because of this, there were some areas that wanted to stay in 916, but which couldn't be moved back in without diminishing the life of the 916 area code. As it is, the new 916 area code will only last about five years." Persons who wish to comment on the proposed changes can write to the: California Public Utilities Commission President P. Gregory Conlin 505 Van Ness Avenue San Francisco, CA 94102 In his letter supporting the Dixon change, Mayor Don Erickson wrote: "It would be to the city of Dixon's advantage to be excluded from the new 530 area code and included into the existing 707 area code. We are currently the only city in Solano County that is not in area code 707. I feel this would be ideal timing for us to go to 707 since a change is imminent anyway." Bennett said the change can be made with no adverse impact to the 707 area code since Dixon has only two prefixes, 707 is not a crowded area code and the two Dixon prefixes are not currently being used in the 707 area code. On retaining Lincoln, Newcastle and Pleasant Grove in 916, Ron Miller, manager of rates and tariffs for Roseville Telephone Company, said the company filed a petition of support on Oct. 4 with the Public Utilities Commission. The three communities are a local call for much of the area served by Roseville Telephone. "The feedback we've received indicates a strong community of interest between these areas and Roseville as well as the other south Placer County communities that will remain in the 916 area code," he said. Similar reasons were cited regarding El Dorado Hills. Although physically located in El Dorado County, El Dorado Hills has a strong community of interest with Sacramento County, Bennett said. The proposed modifications follow CPUC approval of the new 530 area code boundary in August. The new 530 area code will be created through a geographic split of the existing 916 area code and is needed to avoid running out of the phone numbers in the Northern California region currently served by the 916 area code. As planned, the new 530 area code will go into effect Nov. 1, 1997 and serve all or portions of 22 Northern California counties with more than 1 million residents and businesses. Meanwhile, 916 would be reconfigured to cover most of Sacramento County, south Placer County including the cities of Roseville, Loomis and Rocklin, and the city of West Sacramento in Yolo County. A telecommunications industry group representing more than 30 companies proposed the 916 geographic split. Residents were invited to comment at a series of public meetings in June before final CPUC approval of the new 530 area code boundary. ------------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: tweek@netcom.com (Mike Maxfield) Subject: Re: NPA 510 Near Jeopardy Organization: Our Lady of Perpetual Freedom Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 20:13:32 GMT In article , Tad Cook wrote: > California Considers New Area Code Options for East Bay > By George Avalos, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif. > Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News > The other plan, which uses a north-south split, would bring a new area > code to Contra Costa and the Alameda County suburbs of Pleasanton, > Livermore and Dublin. The more established cities of Albany, Oakland, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > Berkeley, Hayward and Fremont would retain the current 510 number > designation, according to the plans released by the California Code > Administrator. Huh? "The more established cities..."? Far as I know, "The more established cities" on the West side of the North/South line were established into the 510 area code at the same time as the less established communities to the East of the Oakland Hills, back around the same time as the '89 Quake. FWIW, At the time of the '89 Quake, the 510 AC was laying on top of the 415 AC, and reportedly, one way for someone to dial into the area in the early hours after the quake (including into the current 415 AC as well, if I recall) was to use the 510 AC which had not had the indial limits placed on it as the 415 system did. Mike Maxfield, Resident of a less established community. ------------------------------ From: jack@novagate.com (Jack Decker) Subject: Is This a First in Local Competition? Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 05:19:18 GMT Organization: GTE Intelligent Network Services, GTE INS Here is the partial text of a recent Michigan Public Service Commission press release. You can find the full text of the release at: http://ermis.commerce.state.mi.us/orders/pres/U11143.TXT.html My rather extensive comments follow: :-) LANSING, October 7. Climax Telephone Company today became the first imcumbent licensed basic local telephone service provider to expand its service territory into another incumbent licensed basic local telephone service provider's territory. The Commission granted Climax's July 30, 1996 application to expand its service area to include Ameritech Michigan's Kalamazoo, Galesburg, Scotts, and Battle Creek exchanges. The Commission reiterated its view that competition for local telephone service is advantageous to the citizens of Michigan. The Commission has previously granted competing licenses to provide basic local exchange service in southeastern and central Michigan. The Commission concluded that Climax had all the necessary resources to provide local telephone service to all customers within the expanded territory. The Commission further concluded that expanding Climax's license to include the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek area benefits southwestern Michigan customers by increasing customer choice for local telephone service. Climax, headquartered in Climax, currently provides telephone service to about 1,200 telephone customers in the Climax exchange in Calhoun and Kalamazoo counties. [end of quote from MPSC press release] The actual order in this case can be found at the following two links (the first is WordPerfect 5.1 format, while the second is plain text): http://ermisweb.state.mi.us/orders/comm/U-11143.WP http://ermisweb.state.mi.us/orders/comm/U-11143.TXT This is the first time I've actually heard of an existing local telephone company reaching out to serve customers in adjacent exchanges. I guess what particularly impressed me in this case was this paragraph from the order: "The Staff's comments identify this case as the first case in which a licensed incumbent provider of basic local exchange service has filed an application to provide service in another licensed incumbent provider's territory. The Staff's comments also note the unique, noncontigious configuration of the proposed Metro Exchange and the proposed innovative rate structures." As I have commented before, Michigan has some of the smallest local telephone calling areas in the country. If you compare the calling areas surrounding Detroit with the calling areas surrounding, say, Minneapolis or Atlanta, you begin to realize that Michigan phone customers are getting the short end of the stick (actually, I think that is probably the case in all of the Ameritech states, to one degree or another). Although the quoted paragraph above doesn't specify exactly what Climax plans to do, I'm just wondering if perhaps they plan to give their customers a wider local calling area than what Ameritech currently offers. If so, they should have no difficulty gaining customers, assuming that their rates are reasonable. Does anyone know exactly what Climax plans to do that so impressed the MPSC staff? And, is this really a first, perhaps in the nation? I should add that the next paragraph following the one I quoted above states that "Ameritech Michigan supports the application." Well, my only question is why Ameritech isn't giving Michigan customers wider local calling areas. C'mon, Ameritech, you've been gouging your customers on short-distance toll for all these years (in my opinion!) -- isn't it about time you started giving your customers some decent sized calling areas comparable to what folks in other parts of the country have? Just so they don't feel slighted, the same question goes out to GTE North -- it seems ridiculous to me that it is a toll call to my local post office, which is only about four or five miles from here. And to be completely fair, there are a number of independents in Michigan that also offer pretty small local calling areas (in some cases, you get your home exchange and that's it!). If the incumbent local phone companies don't want to offer decent local calling areas, the first competitors that come in and offer wide area local calling are going to have all the business they can handle, and more! What would be REAL interesting to me is if the Allendale Telephone Company ever decides to expand their boundaries. I've mentioned them before as having some of the lowest local phone rates in the country (even pay phone calls there are still a dime!), and they sit right in the middle of a triangle formed by Grand Rapids, Muskegon, and Holland -- the largest city on the west side of the state and the "gold coast" along Lake Michigan. If anyone ever comes along and makes all of Kent, Ottawa, and Muskegon counties (and maybe a bit more) all part of one big local calling area (and personally, I'd love to see the Allendale Telephone Company be the one to do it), I'll bet that there will be some mass defections of customers from Ameritech and GTE! Jack ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Oct 96 16:47:21 PDT From: erick@sac.AirTouch.COM (Eric Kammerer) Subject: Maximum Theoretical Bandwidth of Voice Line? > I am writing an article for SCO World Magazine. I remember learning > how to caluculate the theorretical maximum throughput (in bits per > second) of a phone line. As will all things I don't use regularly, I > have forgotten. Does anyone know what the number is, and what the > average freq. range on a voice phone is. 300-3000 Hz is what I > learned, but I have heard it was raised to 3400 or 4000 on the high > end in the last ten years or so. The last time I measured it, I got about 200 - 3700 Hz on a PacBell 1MB. The actual range may have gone lower, but my test set only measures that low. The upper limit actually exceeded 3700, but I didn't record the actual number. In theory, you could go from 0 - 4000 Hz (the defined range for PCM), but it would require some pretty expensive filtering. A 3600 Hz range is probably the practical limit. Using that 3600 Hz bandwidth, the maximum number of signalling events would also be 3600 (i.e. 3600 baud). The actual bit rate limitation would depend on how good an encoder you can make (V.34 goes up to around 9 bits per baud). V.34 also uses up 3430 Hz, so it's pretty close to using the full capacity of a voice line. Eric Kammerer erick@sac.AirTouch.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 10:43:00 -0400 From: Fred R. Goldstein Subject: VON (was Re: Equal Access Pre-Divestiture) Dave Stott writes: > At the Internet Telephony Conference in New York earlier this fall, > the gentleman from 3 Delta corp. was discussing his company's product > -- a cheap way to call from Jerusalem, Isreal to St. Petersburg, > Russia. Basically you dial the number of the Jerusalem POP, wait for > the tone, then dial the St. Petersburg number followed by the caller's > authorization number. 3 Delta intends on adding POPs in New York, > Kiev, Los Angeles, and other major cities in 1996 and 97. This may or may not be legal in Russia or Israel. Each country has its own rules. Now how much Internet bandwidth exists between those two countries is, of course, a different question. New York though? > This sounds a lot like Feature Group A access (described above) except > 3 Delta is using the internet as the underlying carrier. Also, there > are no access charges involved. This, I think, is what ACTA is > complaining about as unfair treatment -- there is no PC involved at > either end, and 3 Delta's POPs are **performing** like tandem switches > (in the broadest terms). VON seems to see it differently. Yes, it IS Feature Group A. If 3 Delta wants to hook up to the public switched telephone network in NY, they are acting as an Interexchange Carrier and are subject to IXC connection tariffs. Whether they are using the Internet, submarine cables, or bouncing radio waves off of Santa's sleigh makes no difference. ACTA's position is unrelated to this. ACTA would have covered PC-to-PC communications, even without any telco involvement. The existing rules permit (require) NYNEX or other domestic telcos to charge Feature Group tariffs to 3 Delta, Free World Dialup or anybody else providing an interstate or international telephone service. No matter how lousy the transmission. Internet service providers are not the same thing; ISPs are not providing a direct voice path, but a store-and-forward processing serivce that adds considerable value to the basic phone call. Different beast entirely, recent telco blather to the contrary notwithstanding. Fred R. Goldstein fgoldstein@bbn.com BBN Corp. Cambridge MA USA +1 617 873 3850 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Oct 96 13:30 EST From: Tim Dillman <0006540276@mcimail.com> Subject: US West Heading West? I heard a rumor that an item on the agenda at a recent US West union meeting in Minnesota was the negotiation of an agreement with Ameritech that would give them the local service market in Minnesota. As part of the deal Ameritech would have to take Iowa as well. We here in the state of Iowa are very interested in confirming or dispelling this RUMOR. Also, I want to emphasize that at this time this is nothing more than a rumor and is to be treated as such. Regards, Tim Dillman Technical Consultant MCI Communications ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #550 ******************************