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The Telecom Digest for December 5, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 310 : "text" Format
====== 30 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2011 03:25:09 +0000 (UTC)
From: danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: long distance tariffs, was: Update on at&t/T-mobile merger
Message-ID: <jbep6k$iq0$1@reader1.panix.com>
[snippeth]
>>$3/minute for an instate call?
>Demonstrating merely that you don't know what you don't know.
>Illinois had in-state rates that approached that in some cases.
>And the cost for an instate one-minute long-distance 'station-to-station'
>could easily exceed that figure.
...
>It was cheaper to call Los Angeles from Chicago, than it was to call
>Springfield. Or even Urbana. MUCH cheaper. (Latter part of the 1970s,
>Chicago to L.A. was 10c/minute after the first 3 minutes; Calling from
>one edge of the Chicago LATA to the far edge could be over 30c/min. I
>don't have figures handy for any INTER-lata/IN-state calls.)
Back in 1976 or so, I was living in a student frat-type building
in NYC. I had a girlfriend in Newark, NJ. A friend had one
up in Buffalo.
We checked out the various costs. It turned out that getting
a Foreign Exchange line from our building to Newark, NJ, would
have let my GF and I talk using an untimed local call, and
let him and his... make a long distance interstate call.
The call pricing was so much better that we were seriously
considering getting that FX circuit.
Afraid I no longer remember the cost structure, but if we'd
have stayed there longer, and if our relationships had continued,
we might have gone for it. Well, at least until Execunet
came out...
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2011 08:42:59 -0500
From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Update on at&t/T-mobile merger
Message-ID: <akcihk33qjui$.scvyi88ch1bn$.dlg@40tude.net>
On Sat, 03 Dec 2011 18:55:08 -0600, Robert Bonomi, et al., wrote:
>> ... $3/minute for an instate call?
> ...
> Illinois had in-state rates that approached that in some cases.
> ...
> It was something like FIVE times as expensive to place a call from Chicago
> to Rock Island, Illinois as it was to call Davenport, Iowa, across the
> river from Rock Island.
>
> It was cheaper to call Los Angeles from Chicago, than it was to call
> Springfield. Or even Urbana. MUCH cheaper. ...
I remember the year I spent in Chicago, academic year 1964-5, seeing
adverts for reduced-price calls within Illinois: services would route
calls through switches they controlled in CA or GA or NY, charge the r/t
tariff plus a service fee, and come in well under the in-state tariff for
such in-state calls.
Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2011 19:23:34 -0800 (PST)
From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Update on at&t/T-mobile merger
Message-ID: <d59887f8-b56e-4630-8f70-e25a23444e8a@y6g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>
On Dec 3, 7:55 pm, bon...@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote:
> >$3/minute for an instate call?
>
> Demonstrating merely that you don't know what you don't know.
That's why I put a question mark at the end of the statement.
> Illinois had in-state rates that approached that in some cases.
>
> And the cost for an instate one-minute long-distance 'station-to-station'
> could easily exceed that figure.
I presume you are talking about dialed direct station-to-station
rates.
In those days rates were usually in steps broken down by mileage.
Could you provide a rate step schedule for a year that reflects those
high figures for California and Illinois? At $3/minute, a three
minute call would cost $9.00.
FWIW, Pennsylvania's rates mirroed AT&T rates. New Jersey was less.
> It was cheaper to call Los Angeles from Chicago, than it was to call
> Springfield. Or even Urbana. MUCH cheaper. (Latter part of the 1970s,
> Chicago to L.A. was 10c/minute after the first 3 minutes; Calling from
> one edge of the Chicago LATA to the far edge could be over 30c/min. I
> don't have figures handy for any INTER-lata/IN-state calls.)
30c/ minute isn't $3.00 a minute.
Date: Sun, 04 Dec 2011 13:17:57 -0600
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Update on at&t/T-mobile merger
Message-ID: <BYadnQP2Ief4WkbTnZ2dnUVZ_j2dnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications>
In article <d59887f8-b56e-4630-8f70-e25a23444e8a@y6g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>,
HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> wrote:
>On Dec 3, 7:55 pm, bon...@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote:
>
>> >$3/minute for an instate call?
>>
>> Demonstrating merely that you don't know what you don't know.
>
>That's why I put a question mark at the end of the statement.
Your 'disbelief' was obvious in your next words "Sounds awfully high."
>> Illinois had in-state rates that approached that in some cases.
>>
>> And the cost for an instate one-minute long-distance 'station-to-station'
>> could easily exceed that figure.
>
>I presume you are talking about dialed direct station-to-station
>rates.
For once, you presume correctly. The bleep-bleep '3 minute initial
rate' that was charged the instant somebody answered the call, could
make a one-minute duration call -very- expensive.
>> It was cheaper to call Los Angeles from Chicago, than it was to call
>> Springfield. Or even Urbana. MUCH cheaper. (Latter part of the 1970s,
>> Chicago to L.A. was 10c/minute after the first 3 minutes; Calling from
>> one edge of the Chicago LATA to the far edge could be over 30c/min. I
>> don't have figures handy for any INTER-lata/IN-state calls.)
>
>30c/ minute isn't $3.00 a minute.
'No #$*&, Sherlock" applies.
FIRST, It was a call 'across the county', not to the far end of the state
(which, being more than 10 times the distance 'as the crow flies', was
much more expensive). The numbers I cited were for two calls I made with
some regularity, "back when", and for which I remember the costs.
SECOND, those rates I quoted were after AT&T LD rates had plummeted, and
were strictly for showing that in-state rates were rapaciously higher than
inter-state ones.
What you think you know about INTER-state rates is irrelevant to INTRA-state
rates, as demonstrated by an intra-state, intra-LATA rate more than 3x higher
than an inter-state rate, for roughly 0.2% of the distance. Call it FIVE
HUNDRED times higher 'per mile'.
***** Moderator's Note *****
Gentlemen,
That's enough.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:41:25 -0800
From: John David Galt <jdg@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: MSNBC/NYT: Caller ID Forging
Message-ID: <jbetlo$gqr$1@blue-new.rahul.net>
Robert Bonomi wrote:
> As long as any telephone company offers service that does NOT include
> filtering of customer-supplied CallerID data
>
> A) -recipients- of phone calls will be 'unhappy' because they are receiving
> 'mislabeled' calls. And, in actual fact, the rarer
> the mislabeled call, the -ANGRIER- customers will be about those
> 'errors'.
>
> B) It is against the financial self-interest of every_other telephone
> company to do such filtering. Customers receiving such calls have
> no way of knowing 'who' the caller's phone company is, so they have
> no way to 'assign blame' where it belongs.
>
> Thus, the 'quality' of CallerID information is only as good as what the -worst-
> originating telephone company enforces.
>
> For ALL these reasons, the -only- way that the public will get 'reliable'
> Caller-ID info is via government regulation that requires originating
> telco enforcement.
This is correct only as long as the feds require any carrier that receives
Caller-ID via SS7 from an earlier carrier to pass it along unchanged.
But what I would like to see is an agreement among phone companies to be
ethical, defined as follows.
1) An ethical telco does not pass along any Caller-ID from a call originating
on its network (at least not without flagging it as "unreliable" in some
machine readable way) unless it can authenticate that the number belongs to
the originating subscriber.
2) Similarly, an ethical telco does not (uncritically) pass along Caller-ID
it receives from another carrier unless that carrier is known to be ethical
also.
3) If an ethical telco receives a large number of complaints that one of its
subscribers placed unwanted calls, and technical records show that the calls
did take place, the telco will disconnect the subscriber and share his
identity with the other ethical telcos and the public in a blacklist.
Allow this type of cooperation to take place (and let telcos write contracts
giving subscribers the right to demand it) and regulation on the subject
would no longer be necessary.
Best of all, the marketers would still be allowed to have phone service, but
the majority who don't want their calls would be effectively protected. Let
the law ban any circumvention of the filters as it now (too broadly) bans
the circumvention of "DRM" technology.
Date: Sun, 04 Dec 2011 16:20:27 -0600
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: MSNBC/NYT: Caller ID Forging
Message-ID: <B76dnTMPCrW2b0bTnZ2dnUVZ_gWdnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications>
In article <jbetlo$gqr$1@blue-new.rahul.net>,
John David Galt <jdg@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us> wrote:
>Robert Bonomi wrote:
>> As long as any telephone company offers service that does NOT include
>> filtering of customer-supplied CallerID data
>>
>> A) -recipients- of phone calls will be 'unhappy' because they are receiving
>> 'mislabeled' calls. And, in actual fact, the rarer the mislabeled
>> call, the -ANGRIER- customers will be about those 'errors'.
>>
>> B) It is against the financial self-interest of every_other telephone
>> company to do such filtering. Customers receiving such calls have
>> no way of knowing 'who' the caller's phone company is, so they have
>> no way to 'assign blame' where it belongs.
>>
>> Thus, the 'quality' of CallerID information is only as good as what
>> the -worst- originating telephone company enforces.
>>
>> For ALL these reasons, the -only- way that the public will get 'reliable'
>> Caller-ID info is via government regulation that requires originating
>> telco enforcement.
>
>This is correct only as long as the feds require any carrier that receives
>Caller-ID via SS7 from an earlier carrier to pass it along unchanged.
False to fact. Unfortunately.
>But what I would like to see is an agreement among phone companies to be
>ethical, defined as follows.
You ... overlook several critical facts:
- There is no financial incentive for any telco to enter into any
such agreement.
- Spending the money to do the authentication, does not bring in any
additional revenues. Unless it is a required function, this is against
the best interests of the stockholders.
- There can be no significant penalty if telco signs your 'ethical'
contract, and reneges on the terms.
> 1) An ethical telco does not pass along any Caller-ID from a call
> originating on its network (at least not without flagging it as
> "unreliable" in some machine readable way) unless it can
> authenticate that the number belongs to the originating
> subscriber.
There is no provision in SS7 for such a flag.
> 2) Similarly, an ethical telco does not (uncritically) pass along
> Caller-ID it receives from another carrier unless that carrier is
> known to be ethical also.
This is 'theoretically' possible. But the cost is very definitely non-trivial
It involves adding a database dip to the processing of every incoming call,
(where there currently aren't _any_) and creating/maintaining the database
itself.
> 3) If an ethical telco receives a large number of complaints that
> one of its subscribers placed unwanted calls, and technical
> records show that the calls did take place, the telco will
> disconnect the subscriber and share his identity with the other
> ethical telcos and the public in a blacklist.
Unfortunately, with the current state of the law. This is simply NOT
LEGALLY POSSIBLE.
To -make- it possible, one would, FIRST, have to have a law that makes
providing 'false' CID info a criminal action, and SECOND, have a criminal
conviction for that violation before the common carrier can terminate
service to that party.
One of the -fundamental- aspects of 'common carrier' law is that a common
carrier is required to provide service to ANYONE who can pay for it,
unless they are using it for criminal activities.
This is something that requires government regulation -- along the lines
I described -- to accomplish. There are no viable alternatives.
Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2011 21:19:05 -0000
From: "Stephen Hope" <stephen_hope@xyzworld.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: MSNBC/NYT: Caller ID Forging
Message-ID: <001c01ccb2ca$5bf71880$5000a8c0@dad>
On Nov 30, 12:27 am, bon...@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
wrote:
> Which leaves the question hanging: "WHY -should- the phone company
> spend all that money for 'no return'?"
snip
> Good customer relations is an essential part of running a business. A
> company that angers its customers will eventually lose them.
snip
I think the point is that a business oriented phone company may not
have as customers all those upset people - so they do not have to
care.
snip
Regards
stephen_hope@xyzworld.com - replace xyz with ntl
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2011 03:15:39 -0500
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: I'm looking for #5XB training manuals
Message-ID: <20111205081539.GA24898@telecom.csail.mit.edu>
Thanks for reading this. I'm writing a brief talk about #5XB, and would appreciate
pointers to traning materials. An overview document would be ideal, but I'll take
anything. TIA.
Bill
--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
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