From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Sep 25 16:19:20 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i8PKJJG01352; Sat, 25 Sep 2004 16:19:20 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 16:19:20 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200409252019.i8PKJJG01352@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V23 #446 TELECOM Digest Sat, 25 Sep 2004 16:19:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 446 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson The March of New Technology (was Re: Wal-Mart Supremacy) (Jack Decker) Movies/Documentaries That Feature Crossbar, Panel, or SxS? (Vu Huong) How to Identify/Replace/Recondition/Clean Old Uniselector? (Mike Deblis) Re: Out of Area Calls (AES/newspost) Re: Out of Area Calls (Stanley Cline) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (W. Rupprecht) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (Stanley Cline) Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains (DevilsPGD) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 14:02:37 -0400 From: Jack Decker Subject: The March of New Technology (was Re: The Wal-Mart Supremacy) Pat, please conceal my e-mail address as usual. On 24 Sep 2004 08:37:50 -0700, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) wrote: > While some people feel what happened in the past is not relevent to > today, it really is. Many times new technologies (whatever they may > be) bring bad things as well as good. Lisa, you may be under the impression that you are one of only a handful of people to have figured this out, but that's not the case ... I think we all realize that technology brings bad things as well as good. And sometimes it's hard to figure out what's good and what's bad. For example, medical technology can prolong lives, but at what cost to the patient and his/her family? I don't think anyone would argue that it's a bad thing that some diseases have been almost eradicated, but when we look at the greedy pharmaceutical industry and how they particularly attempt to rip off the people of the United States, I have to say that sometimes I wonder if I would really want my life to be prolonged. [.....snip.....] >> I used to be a great Bell System fan, and more than once I damned >> Judge Greene for facilitating the breakup; just ask any pre-1985 >> reader here in the Digest about my earlier attitudes on Bell System >> divestiture (and there are a few of them still around.) > Because -- at the time -- the level of technology was such that it was > not a good idea and many telephone subscribers (not to mention Bell > System employees and suppliers) ended up paying more for less. I also > remember what people had to say, and the loudest cheers for the > breakup were from people who gonna personally make money off of it. > That's fine for them, but ignores the rest of us. Well, actually, I was one of the people cheering the loudest, but maybe that's because I lived in Michigan and Michigan Bell had raped the people of Michigan with high toll charges and minuscule local calling areas (compared to much of the rest of the country) for years. I think that Pat could confirm that the Ameritech region was for some reason a part of the country that really got screwed by Bell System, since he lived in Chicago and Chicago was one of the few major cities where you could incur toll charges (Ma Bell called them "zone" charges) for making a call within the city itself! I think I realized what a lot of other people refused to admit - that toll charges were going to go WAY down as a result of the breakup. I did not envision that local charges would rise as much as they did, but you have to remember that this happened only because there was still no competition at the local service level, and because government regulation policies in the United States were nuts. All these additional taxes and fees and such should never have been added to wireline service, it's a big ripoff of the telephone customer and creates an "unholy alliance" between government and phone company, where both participate in picking the customer's pocket. Had the government not decided to throw in their lot with the thieves, and allow all sorts of mischief as a long as they got a cut of the action, I don't think any of us would have much nostalgia for the old Bell System. Canada took a much different path and while I don't agree with everything they do up here, I suspect that people overall are getting a much fairer shake from their local phone companies (which is probably one reason SBC/Ameritech dumped their interest in Bell Canada). > I had interviewed the former telephone operator of my town. In her > day, the exchange was in the house and she was a teenager. Later on > (mid 1950s) they built a new building and put in dial and she, as an > adult, was transferred to a nearby city to continue working as an > operator. It was a vast change for her. We've all read about the > informality of the small town exchanges and ours was no different. > Lesser known is city exchanges where operators were under > quasi-military discipline under strict supervision. She said every > response to a caller was structured; it was a totally different world > and a big change for her. This was back in the 1950s, and small towns > all over the country were changing as well. So you admit that there were some negatives about the old Bell System. Certainly, many of the things being said today about Wal-Mart and how they treat their employees (in some parts of the country) could have been said about the Bell System in the post-WW II era. > I often point out the problems of new technology (see my posts on > VOIP, for example). Advocates of new technology get upset (see the > responses). I have no objections to new technology in itself, what I > want is it to be a true benefit to me, not just something that ends up > costing me more and giving me less. Has it ever occurred to you that many of the people who think that VoIP is a good thing think that it is a true benefit to THEM, and not because they are making any money from the company, but because as customers they are saving a pile of money? > I like the convenience of my car, > but I don't like traffic jams or crazy drivers. I also find using > _good_ mass transit systems easier than drivers and that they take up > far less land than highways do. But you see, there is a difference between making that choice for yourself and trying to make it for everyone else. It's the old mental fallacy: "Right-thinking people believe as I do; everyone else is either crazy, or not as informed on the issue as I am." Nobody consciously puts it quite that way, but I think that from time to time we all lapse into believing essentially that way, if only for a few moments now and then. Much of what we believe is based on our own experiences. For example, I might argue that I've never seen a _good_ mass transit system. But I would doubtless be using different personal criteria than you are. It might be something as simple as not wanting to be among crowds of people vs. enjoying being among the throngs of strangers (in the same way that one person might enjoy being in Times Square on New Years' Eve, while another person might want to be almost anywhere else). I can empathize with your comments about traffic -- I hate traffic jams and I hate waiting at red lights, and if I had to live in a large city there's a good chance I'd "go postal" within a short time. But I love the country and the wide open spaces, and it probably wouldn't bother me to take a walk in the woods on a moonlit night. Other people are just the opposite, they'd be scared to death to be in the woods, but would thrive in a large city. My point, in case it's not obvious, is that you can't define what's "good" or "bad" for everyone based only on your own values. Others may have their reasons for reaching a totally different conclusion than you do. > We don't need a telephone operator to connect each and every call, > not even to places overseas. But we always should have a > well-trained operator promptly available to us in case we have > questions on rates or technical difficulties. I don't mind using > automated systems IF they do the job, but far too many do not. (See > my post on NJT and MNRR information centers). Now, this is a good example of different values -- I haven't had occasion to use an operator in years, and further, I have discovered that operators don't always give out accurate information with regard to rates or local calling areas. You did qualify your comment by saying a "well trained" operator, but do such even exist anymore? > Unfortunately, too many technology advocates -- both the engineers > and marketers -- see things from only their perspective and not > enough from the customers. That's an assumption on your part that can't be proven. I'm sure it's true in some cases; I'm equally sure that some really do consider the perspective of the customer when designing a product or service. The latter are usually more successful than the former, all else being equal (that is, as long as the former doesn't have some sort of defacto monopoly, or some other unfair way to twist the arm of customers to buy their service). > For example, I've tried out VIOP several > times and the quality stinks. Maybe down the road they'll get it > better, but TODAY it's not there, but they refuse to accept it. Again, you're projecting your experience as universal. I know people who have VoIP service and have had the opportunity to try various services, and in my opinion VoIP quality is at the very least FAR better than cell phone quality. In one case, using the service of a company called VoicePulse, I thought the quality exceeded that of any wireline connection I've ever had (the frequency range seemed much greater, although that could partially have been the phone itself). But I have not tried every VoIP service out there, so it doesn't surprise me that some offer a poorer quality service. In fact, if you read the BroadbandReports.com VoIP forum for a while, you begin to notice certain patterns, where some companies get consistently low marks on customer service, while a couple are very bad with regard to quality (even then it's often not voice quality so much as dropped calls, or calls that don't go through, etc.). The companies that are having problems and can't clean up their act will probably not be around after a while. There was an East German company that made cars using glorified lawn mower engines. They were so bad that when the Berlin Wall fell, East Germans drove them across the border and into the nearest river. Do you think those people swore off automobiles, choosing to only take the bus from then on? Some may have, but I'll bet a lot more decided to try to obtain a better car. There are good and bad products and services in any industry, and in a competitive marketplace the bad ones don't survive, but that doesn't mean they are all bad. > Maybe some of the business people know it but still want to sell > the product anyway. > There are advantages of chain stores, as mentioned, the CVS gives > me greater selection and is open much longer hours than the pvt > drugstore. But on the other hand there are disadvantages, too. > CVS runs lots of TV ads proclaiming their personal customer service > and pharmacist-patient support and in reality they don't come anywhere > close to what I had before. (Maybe if they kept the same pharmacists > working in one store instead of constantly rotating them and if they > had more pharmacists instead of high school airheads things would > be better.) I have to mention my experience with a local drugstore here. One time, when I lived in a fairly small town, I went to a particular pharmacy to get a prescription filled because it was near my doctor's office and I didn't really want to drive out to the Revco I usually went to. The owner of the pharmacy felt it was perfectly acceptable to count out pills on a piece of dirty cardboard (actually the back of a pad of forms where there had been carbon paper pressed against the cardboard). The minute I saw that, I demanded my prescription back and wasted no time going to the Revco, where they at least used a plastic pill counter that they assured me was washed periodically. Now, that may not have bothered some other people at all, but it bothered me, and left me with about the same feeling toward local pharmacies that you seem to feel about VoIP. > I just wish we didn't have to give up so much for new technology > and I wish technology advocates were more honest about it. I think that many technology advocates ARE being honest about it. Just because they don't see things the same way you do, or reach the same conclusions you do, does not necessarily mean that they are being dishonest. Nor should you just assume that their comments are motivated by some kind of personal profit motive. They have probably simply had different experiences than you have, which has caused them to reach what in their minds are conclusions equally valid to yours, though they may differ significantly from yours. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: To respond to Jack about Ameritech and zone charging on calls, Illinois Bell had gone for years with a 'local area calls for free' system across northern Illinois. 'Local' was de- fined as your geographic/political town. That meant people who lived in Chicago could call for literally miles in any direction as a local toll-free call; as an extreme, all the way from Howard and Western, at the northern edge to as far south as 145th Street and Avenue 'O' in the other direction, about thirty miles away. The fact that there were a dozen central office buildings along the way, and that (from a 'community of interest' perspective, almost no one that far south (or north) had any real areas of common interest. But they could call each other for 'free' as part of the 'Chicago Exchange', did not matter. Now if you were to go out to some of the suburbs, each with their own telephone exchange, you could easily cross a street and be in a different town, but doing things the same way, a subscriber had to pay 'units' or toll, to call someone a very short distance away who very likely was a friend they chatted with on the phone each day. For example, when I worked in an office at Howard Street and Artesian Avenue (Chicago), I would go across the street to eat at the McDonald's Restaurant, which was in Evanston. I could make those proverbial phone calls thirty miles *south of me* for 'free; and talk as long as desired, but to call across the street to Evanston was a timed, toll-charged call, under the old system. So when Ameritech took over from Illinois Bell, they established an eight mile 'zone' system. Eight miles around you was your local (or free) calling area, but outside that area, the tolls started kicking in. And it was not just Chicago, but the suburbs as well, meaning usually that most suburbs wound up getting clustered with two or three other nearby towns as local free-area calls (good for them) and Chicago by virtue of its size had a bunch of eight mile areas (generally okay for most people.) I no longer had to pay 'units' or toll charges to call across the street (where I was more likely to know people in my 'community' but I did have to pay toll for that thirty mile call to the other side of town. They further amended the system so that every call you made, local or not, you paid a couple cents per minute, except that in your newly defined 'local area' (eight miles) the calls were untimed, so you paid only a flat rate of one or two cents for each of those calls. It was not a bad deal, and certainly more fair to everyone, except perhaps those folks who lived on the east side of town (on the lake- front) whose 'eight mile local call area' went partially out into the lake! But no system will ever work perfectly. PAT] ------------------------------ From: psychoshredder@yahoo.com (vu huong) Subject: Movies/Documentaries That Feature Crossbar, Panel, or SxS? Date: 24 Sep 2004 23:14:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Hello, Does anyone know of any movies or documentaries that show footage of old telco technology? I remember a horror movie that came out in 1974 called "Black Christmas". It featured a couple of cool -but short- scenes of SxS in action. In the movie a faceless psychopathic killer hides out in the attic of a sorority house and makes obscene and threatening phone calls to another line in the house...all on beautiful rotary sets, of course. :) IIRC, the movie was shot on location in Bedford, Pennsylvania and also in the vicinity of the University of Toronto, Canada. The police and local CO attempt to trace the calls. The telco guy explains how the girls need to keep the harasser on the line as long as possible because "our phone system is mechanical and it takes a long time for us to complete a trace." In the movie, the telco dude is seen working on the phones at the sorority house for a "trace setup". I also remember that a line at the police dept was setup to ring whenever the line at the sorority house rang. The police officer could then pick up his handset and listen-and-talk to whomever was on the sorority's line. There's some neat scenes of the telco man running back and forth among different racks of SxS with a lineman's phone, attempting the trace before the connection is broken. I have no idea how accurate all this was; might of been just bs for the movie. Also, I don't remember any particular telco or identifying logos shot in this movie. But this brings up another newbie question. When did the capability to trace calls come into existence? Was this a nightmare job to attempt on SxS or other older systems? Thanks! Vu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One movie that come to mind (of several) was 'Tandem Rush'. And yes, tracing phone calls was a very difficult job, usually. One or two people had to walk in the frames, go to the telephone line on which a trace was to be done, then follow the switch train backward to its starting point. Maybe they discovered that the trace back led to another central office on the other side of town. So then they had to call the distant office, get someone interested in their problem, and get that person (in the distant office) to walk into the frames, pick up their connection and in essence start all over from that point. A very well-coordinated, executed, planned ahead of time trace could be done in maybe 20 minutes, or one that was an 'emergency'. More routine, less coordinated traces could easily take 30-45 minutes depending on the number of offices involved. As often as not, the person being traced knew enough to hang up the phone before that much time had passed. The most sickening sound in the world, to a telephone technician in those days assigned to 'trace that call' was the crashing sound (and yes, they were noisy) of the tandems collapsing or coming down on being released. An ancient movie I saw once (of police and the unknown person they were chasing) had the villian calling police to taunt them every day. Police told the guy "we are tracing your call". The bad guy says, "You go ahead and do just that. I know (all the steps involved) so I figure I will sit here and talk to you for another ten or fifteen minutes if I want to." Police look at each other and one comments "Well, it appears the guy knows how the system works." When ESS was installed, all that went away. Now the technician just sits at a terminal and types a few things on the keyboard to get all the data needed. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Mike Deblis Subject: How to Identify/Replace/Recondition/Clean Old Uniselector? Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 07:14:08 UTC Organization: Somewhere Hi, I have an old set of uniselectors that are part of a clock I'm restoring. I would like to know more about the uniselectors and where I might get spare ones of this type. Indeed, how to restore/clean them would be a help too (they're rather grotty)! The markings on them are as follows: on the coil: "1/DCO/240 T30338A 250ohm" on the rotor: "1/DW1/14" on the back: "2203A 4/30A S61/1" There are 3 sets of contacts, each with 12 different contacts. They are stiff and dirty, but will click round with a bit of help... Thanks for any help you can provide. Mike ------------------------------ From: AES/newspost Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 11:44:52 -0700 In article , jmayson@nyx.net wrote: >> "There are some exemptions, for example, as you might expect, >> telephone companies can still call you to solicit you and so can banks >> and credit card companies," Cohen said. Also still allowed to call >> are: charities, insurance companies and politicians." > What does the law say about when you ask a charity to stop calling and > they refuse? The Texas Paralyzed Veterans keeps calling asking for > donations. I have called their office, spoken to a supervisor, and > explcitly asked that my number be removed from their call list. They > always promise, but three or four times a week I continue to receive > calls from them. Said it early on, will say it again: The intelligent and effective way to handle telemarketing would have been legislation requiring that any and all telemarketing calls be made using Caller ID with a distinctive and national standardized Area Code, e.g. 311 or something similar, so that recipients who didn't want to receive such calls could easily filter and reject them. Would have been cheap and easy to implement (for callers and recipients); no DNC lists to be endlessly maintained and updated, more or less self-enforcing (at least as easily as DNC lists); and no First Amendment concerns (callers are free to call anyone; you're free not to answer). Only one insoluble difficulty -- it would have been effective, and was therefore unacceptable. ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: Out of Area Calls Organization: Roamer1 Communications Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 07:35:47 GMT On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 07:59:52 +0000, bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote: > Or people in _very_ rural areas, serviced by _old_ switching gear that > doesn't understand SS7, and *doesn't* pass caller information out to > the outside world. There _is_ a fair amount of such gear still in > service, even in the U.S. Non-SS7-capable gear is getting less and less common in rural areas, largely because number pooling, wireless LNP, and CALEA compliance issues are leading to a lot of older and often EOL'd switch gear (older DMS-10s and DCOs, Harris 20/20s, Mitel GX-5000s, etc.) being thrown out and replaced with more modern equipment, in some cases equipment that's even more modern than the typical Baby Bell gear. In many cases the problem isn't so much that a rural ILEC's *switch* can't do SS7, but more often that the rural ILEC's *trunking* to at least some of the rest of the world isn't SS7-capable for whatever reason. (For instance, I know of one case with an ILEC in northwest Georgia where caller ID went out on local calls both within the ILEC's tiny service area and to adjacent BellSouth service areas but not on LD calls; that was because the ILEC in question hadn't gone equal access[!!!] and was still using Fg.C trunks to AT&T. This particular ILEC went EA in 2001 or so and so switched to Fg.D trunks for LD, and caller ID started going out on LD calls at that time.) On 22 Sep 2004 21:31:10 -0000, John Levine wrote: > I guess you don't get many calls from COCOTs or outside the country. What does a phone being a COCOT (privately owned payphone) have to do with caller ID or lack thereof? There's no difference in caller ID between a payphone line and any other POTS line as far as caller ID go; there *are* differences in ANI II, but ANI II has nothing to do with caller ID. You're as likely to run into issues with caller ID getting dropped on 0+/0- calls from dumb (CO-controlled) payphones, especially if the LEC or IXC the phone is presubscribed to uses Nortel's TOPS platform, than from smart (instrument-controlled) payphones, which could be local-LEC-owned phones -- especially now that AT&T no longer offers sent-paid coin LD to dumb phones -- as well as independently-owned phones. (Independently-owned dumb phones do exist, but they are extremely rare.) Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune ------------------------------ Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains From: wolfgang+gnus20040924T232812@dailyplanet.dontspam.wsrcc.com Organization: W S Rupprecht Computer Consulting, Fremont CA Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 06:44:23 GMT Mark Atwood writes: > I noticed in Alaska Air's safety brochure that, along with AM/FM > radios and cellphones, they ban in inflight operation of GPS > receivers. There was much discussion of this in sci.geo.satellite-nav a few years back. The two most memorable suggestions were: 1) The pilots didn't want the passengers to have better navigation equipment in the cabin than they had in the cockpit. Planes back then were 100% INS (inertial navigation system) which is basically an integrating accelerometer. Errors build up as a function of time and 3 miles of error at the end of a transatlantic flight was not unheard of. 2) The pilots didn't want the passengers to have a tracklog with velocity records if they came in hot and/or high and blew a landing. As for real technical reasons, it doesn't make much sense. The GPS's are lower power and cleaner than just about all the other electronics folks are allowed to use on board. Heck, the GPS satellites are 12,000 - 18,000 miles from the receiver and only have a 20 watt transmitter and a footprint that covers half the globe. If the GPS receivers weren't ultra-clean they'd never be able to hear anything. Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/ ------------------------------ From: Stanley Cline Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Organization: Roamer1 Communications Reply-To: sc1-news@roamer1.org Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 07:53:22 GMT On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 02:08:31 GMT, Mark Atwood wrote: > I noticed in Alaska Air's safety brochure that, along with AM/FM > radios and cellphones, they ban in inflight operation of GPS > receivers. > Does anyone have any idea why? It certainly doesnt radiate any > more than a PDA or laptop does. I'm not familiar with the design of GPS receivers, but most radio receivers (particularly AM/FM, shortwave, and TV-band receivers) can cause problems with airnav because of harmonics, etc. from heterodyne circuits. That said, Alaska's policy seems a bit out of line since other airlines -- namely Delta -- *allow* use of GPS receivers whenever laptops and the like are allowed. http://www.delta.com/travel/plan/baggage_info/allowances_onflight/electronic_devices/index.jsp Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/ "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune ------------------------------ From: DevilsPGD Subject: Re: BART Cop Orders Radio Turned Off to Protect Trains Organization: EasyNews, UseNet made Easy! Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 11:02:33 GMT In message Mark Atwood wrote: >>> Are there any hams who have boarded planes with radios? >> I've never had any problem boarding planes with my handheld amateur >> radios. I've done it many times. > I noticed in Alaska Air's safety brochure that, along with AM/FM > radios and cellphones, they ban in inflight operation of GPS > receivers. > Does anyone have any idea why? It certainly doesnt radiate any > more than a PDA or laptop does. I inquired, but was informed that the reason was because it would be easy for a terrorist to use a GPS as a trigger for a bomb. Then I asked why said terrorist wouldn't just trigger the bomb themselves. They said maybe the terrorist would drop the GPS into somebody's bag. Then I asked what good a rule to turn off GPSes would do if the individual carrying it doesn't know they have a GPS in their bag. I was met with a mostly blank stare. And no, I wasn't flying that day :D 1989 - The movie "Batman," notches $100 million in 10 days, proving once and for all that the public can't get enough of men in tights. ------------------------------ 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 networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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