Infozech -- Software for Telecom Service Providers Fax: 91-11- 6411455, Tel: 91-11-6414784; 91-11-6414785 in US Contact: 408-490-2840, 2090 Hillsdale Circle, Boulder, CO-80303 Microsoft Certified Solution Provider Visit us at http://www.infozech.com **************************** Telcomine: A Telecom & Technology Newsletter http://www.infozech.com/telcomine.html ......................................................... Telcomine ( http://www.infozech.com/telcomine.html), a monthly newsletter from Infozech. Telcomine brings you the latest trends and developments in frontline IT Technologies. To subscribe send a mail to nl@infozech.com ..................................................... *****TELCOMINE************ Wealth of Information about Telecommunications Volume 11, November / December 1998 IN THIS ISSUE 1. Car and Chip Makers Join To Make 21st Century Driverless Car Computer industry bigwigs Netscape, Sun, IBM along with software giant Microsoft are to cooperate to develop the driverless car of the 21st century. 2. 'WebPad' - A New 500 Feet Remote Web Access Gadget Webpad, a new machine allows users to access the Internet by radio waves from anywhere within a 500-foot-wide circle. 3. Faster Web Sorting, Same Lines, Less Junk NetCognition, a small Israeli Company, has come up with a Java-based product that promises speedy Web surfing and access to the most useful pages without a faster connection. 4. Cisco, Lucent, Nortel Compete In $650B Data Network Race Everything, be it voice or video, is fast becoming data. Whoever can put all these three in a most flexible & pliable multi-optional data network wins the race. In the running are Telecom giants like Lucent, Nortel, Alactel and a data networking major like Cisco. 5. Data Speed Adjusting In Multimedia Phone Lines A small telecom group is developing a technique to load a variable mix of voice, image and documents on a 6 mega-bit per second track running over a single twisted copper line. 6. Email Alert Without A Modem MailPush, a company from Israel, introduces MailPush Express, a service that can tell your home computer when a new mail arrives at your ISP by alerting an icon on your desktop even when your modem is not connected. 7. Big-Time Hackers Face World's Tiniest Lock In an attempt to thwart computer hackers and spies from stealing secrets, scientists from the Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico, have built the world's smallest 'PHYSICAL' lock. 8. E2 - Promise Of Faster And Secure Encryption Nippon Telegraph and Telephone has come out with E2, a faster and more secure encryption algorithm to program code from spies and hackers. 9. Microsoft Turns the Heat On Software Pirates Microsoft has sued a Computer Renaissance franchise and three other resellers in Charollete, N.C. for allegedly selling unlicensed copies of its Office 95/97 and Windows 95 software. 10. Toll-Free Phone Scheme Cheated of $9 Million A California man has pleaded guilty of using a toll-free number scheme to cheat Net access providers and long distance = heavyweights out of nearly $9 million. 11. $1.1M Slapped On Texas Company For Slamming A small Texas company was fined $1.1 million by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for slamming. ( changing a consumer's long distance provider without authorization) 12. Service Providers to Save $180M From Electronic Billing A study by the Killen and Associates forecasts that US telecommunications service providers, including AT&T, Ameritech, BellSouth, GTE, Sprint and Worldcom will save $180 million by switching to Electronic Bill Payment and Presentment(EBPP)in the year 2000. 13. Euro Conversion Option To Lead to Billing Chaos The three year transition period for optional conversion to Euro from January 1999 through 2002 threatens to lead to chaos in billing. 14. Detailed Rules For Truth-in-Billing "Too Costly" - Industry The FCC has been told by various telecom industry players that detailed rules to reform billing practices would be costly and unnecessary. 15. Action sought on peak rate phone bills Federal regulators urged to crackdown on long distance companies charging highest rate for direct dial calls. 16. Mailbox Are advertisements accepted in Telcomine? 17.Thank you Readers on Telcomine completing one year. 18. Ebill: Telecom billing solution from Infozech. ********************************************** Car and Chip Makers Join To Make 21st Century Driverless Car ********************************************** Computer industry bigwigs Netscape, Sun and IBM are to cooperate to develop the driverless car of the 21st century. Microsoft is moving in as well, with an automotive adaptation of its light weight Windows CE operating system. Futurists have long predicted the day when the blending of car and computer technologies would enable cars to drive themselves. The Silicon Valley and Car makers have taken up the challenge in a big way. Car manufacturers are stopping at nothing to build computer technologies into their products. Gadgets are rolling off assembly lines, promising to help drivers find their way in unfamiliar territory, pay road tolls without stopping, avoid traffic jams, and access the kind of information and entertainment features currently available only at home or in office. A rush is on to embrace new add-ons, as car makers struggle to differentiate their products from their rivals. The newly redesigned, Mercedes Benz s-Class car boasts of a radar-assisted cruise control system that helps with planning routes, avoiding traffic jams, and parking in tight spaces -- moving it a giant step closer to the era of the self-running automobile. General Motors is one step ahead with its NightVision system for its Cadillac line to be out next year. NightVision has been developed to facilitate night drivers to see far ahead in the night. It has been developed on the observation that during night time, drivers cannot see things that are in their way. Jaguar, not to be left behind is using yet another layer of technology that would allow the driver to control on-board systems using spoken commands. Jaguar's new s-Type saloon, which should hit the market next year, will allow a motorist to operate everything -- from the sound system to the air-conditioning to the navigation computer-by voice. Meanwhile, on the luxury front, Intel and Peugeot Citroen Group of France have test-produced an automobile with on-board multi-functional computer. The new Peugeot car uses the Connected Car PC specification promoted by Intel. Back-seat passengers can watch movies or play games, email and access various types of information services through an on-board cellular telephone. Ron Smith, Vice President of Intel's Computing Enhancement Group, said the computer would add $2,000 to the price of the vehicle. He estimated there would be a market for 5 million of the devices in the coming three years. "This is not a futuristic concept,' Mr Smith said. 'This is the same that entertains us at home, makes our business competitive at the office, and allows us to stay 'connected' while we travel. The automobile is the next logical venue to adopt this technology. ************************************* 'WebPad' -- A New 500 Feet Remote Web Access Gadget ************************************* A new machine, dubbed WebPad, allows users to grab Web pages and electronic mail from any chair in a home, patio, deck or office - even a poolside setting from a computer 500 feet away. The next, WebPad fitted set-top box for the Web may be a laptop. Chip maker Cyrix Corp. is working on a prototype of a 3-pound, thin computing device that allows individuals to access the Internet by radio waves from anywhere within a 500-foot-wide circle. While its on-screen navigation is based on a version of the Spyglass Inc. Mosaic browser, the prototype includes a video game-like command button on the side for scrolling in four directions to make surfing simple. To make the WebPad work, users attach a radio transmitter and receiver to a phone line. The device will work with low-speed conventional phone lines, but Cyrix is betting mainly on the next wave of Web usage, when high-speed cable and digital phone connections come into vogue. However, no testing has been done as yet, to see whether consumers actually want a $500 device for wirelessly communicating with the Web. "We took a chance," said Todd Beetcher, manager of strategic marketing for Cyrix' Conceptual Products division in Longmont, Colo. ******************************************************* Faster Web Sorting, Same Lines, Less Junk ******************************************************* NetCognition, a small Israeli Company, has come up with a Java-based product that speeds Web surfing - without a faster connection. The product, SiteAccelerator, combines a prediction engine with server-side caching technology to fetch Web pages in the idle time between clicks. NetCognition, thus follows closely on the heels of Mirabilis Corporation another small Israeli Company which recently made a mark with its widely popular ICQ program. SiteAccelerator is designed to appeal to says Eitan Ron, CEO of NetCognition. "The concept is similar to what others are doing on the client side, but we are the only ones doing it on the server side," he said. "We are optimizing bandwidth." On the client side, a Java applet on the page makes the connection to the server, which then prepares the next page for viewing. On the server side, webmasters can run software that analyzes a site's log files and structure to build a statistical inference of users' navigation preferences. That information helps the application make a good guess at what pages to preload, speeding the browsing experience. ************************************************** Cisco, Lucent, Nortel Compete In $650B Data Network Race ************************************************** Everything, be it voice or video, is fast becoming data. Whoever can put all these three in a most flexible & pliable multi-optional data network wins the race. Telecom giants like Lucent, Nortel, Alactel and data networking major like Cisco are all in the running. The convergence of voice, data and video into one vast multi-media network are turning a rapidly evolving $650 billion telecom market on its head. The competition is stiff. Traditional firms are having to learn entirely new data networking technologies. According to Don Listwin, from Cisco, " The game is moving towards data structure, where Lucent has no core competencies". However, Lucent has put this right . It has introduced more than 30 new data-networking products including "PacketStar", an IP switch that competes directly against Cisco's latest hi-tech "1200" router. The firm is into acquisitions and will probably buy a big data-networking company soon. Amongst the most likely candidates are Ascend, Newbridge and 3Com. Nortel has also made a $7 billion bid for Bay Networks. The acquisition would give the Canadian firm the unique ability to supply a gamut of communications technologies. But the question remains. Who will be the winner? Customers will spread orders around so as to prevent the domination of any one company. The real struggle, though, will be between Lucent and Cisco. Fearsome it may be, but Cisco is up against a firm with technical resources as great as its own. *********************************************************** Data Speed Adjusting In Multimedia Phone Lines ************************************************************ A small telecom group is developing a technique to load a variable mix of voice, image and documents on a 6 mega-bit per second track running over a single twisted copper line. The Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT), mPhase technologies and a small telephone company are testing a technique, that if developed into commercial products, may change drastically the equation between telephone companies and competing local exchange carriers to add video and data to their voice services. This system, called the Traverser, is so programmable that customers can designate the amount of the 6 megabit-per second pool dedicated to each of the three applications. For instance, it can be instructed to use most of the 6 megabits for a video conference, and later reset the system for data and regular video delivery. The Traverser intelligently adjusts data rates according to line conditions. Backers say the technology has the potential to offer 80 or even 256 video channels, and eventually high definition television. "What we did is deliver a solution that could utilize the installed twisted-pair infrastructure to deliver the equivalent of [Cable TV] programming in the presence of data and voice" says Ron Dorando , president, mPhase technologies. There are two patent pending on Traverser. The patent applications involve the "end-to-end" system design and the "framer", which is the technology that separates the video, data and telephone services. ************************************* Email Alert Without A Modem ************************************* MailPush, a company from Israel, has come up with a new service, MailPush Express, that can tell your home computer when a new mail arrives at your ISP -- even when your modem is not connected. What MailPush does is, it checks your ISP for mail every 10 minutes. When new mail is found, it dials your modem and sends a very brief signal that triggers an alert icon on your desktop. The service works with any ISP offering POP3 protocol email ( the most common type of email systems). ************************************* Big -Time Hackers Face World's Tiniest Lock ************************************ In an attempt to thwart hackers, scientists from the Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico, have built the world's smallest lock. The lock goes inside a computer network and allows access to files only if the correct combination is typed in. It flicks a switch to allow a connection to be made to the computer files. The lock is made up of six wheels each only as wide as four human hairs. Each wheel has 10 notches, allowing it to be placed in 10 different positions. With all six wheels lined up, a hacker has only one in a million chance of guessing the correct position that each has to be moved to for the lock to open. Says Larry Dalton, who invented the lock, "Computer Security is such a huge issue now that something new had to be done. The problem with existing measures is the firewalls that are built to keep people out of a network aren't physical; they're software. That means they will always be open to somebody getting around them." With a physical device no clever computer knowledge will get you through. The micro lock has been given six wheels to give odds of one in a million, but for those wanting to make the odds in their favour even greater, two can be linked together to give a one in a million million chance. This is likely to be the case if the devices are used to protect nuclear weapons from being detonated by anyone without the top-secret codes. The device has recently been shown to the American department of Defense for evaluation. ********************************* E2 -- Promise Of Faster And Secure Encryption ********************************* Nippon Telegraph and Telephone has come out with E2, a faster and more secure encryption algorithm to protect top secret codes from spies. E2 is Japan's first 128-bit block cipher for commercial use with keylenghts of 128, 192 or 256 bits. The security of a block cipher is dependent upon key length and block length, the longer the key and the block, the more possibilities need to be searched and the more secure the cipher becomes. Data encryption standard, the current de facto standard, has a block length of 64 bits and a key length of 56 bits. But to ensure reasonable security, block ciphers need to have both longer key-lengths and longer block length. Great strides in cryptanalysis and improvements in computing power encouraged NTT to develop this encryption algorithm. ************************************* Microsoft Turns the Heat On Software Pirates ************************************ Microsoft has sued a Computer Renaissance franchise and three other resellers in Charollete, N.C. for allegedly selling unlicensed copies of its Office 95/97 and Windows 95 software. Retailers, and especially those that offer refurbished systems, are under intense scrutiny from publishers for selling unlicensed and counterfeit copies of software. We don't consider this a small problem", says Nancy Anderson, a senior corporate attorney for Microsoft. The Redmond, Wash, software giant has doubled the number of civil lawsuits and its involvement in criminal prosecutions for piracy as compared with 1997, and is making no exceptions for small companies pleading ignorance. In a prepared statement, Microsoft said it obtained the information about the four resellers from the Microsoft anti-piracy hotline and subsequent purchases by undercover Microsoft investigators. Piracy has cost software publishers $11 billion worldwide in 1997 Sales and $2 billion in the United States alone, according to Business Software Alliance(BSA). The threat is not from these resellers and those that sell refurbished systems alone. As Telcomine pointed out in one of its previous issues, software pirates come in surprising packages - including many US software companies that steal from each other. ************************************ Toll-Free Phone Scheme Cheated of $9 Million ************************************ In the latest fraud involving long distance phone companies and their customers, a California man has pleaded guilty of using a toll-free number scheme to cheat Net access providers and long distance heavyweights out of about $9 million. While operating ICB Telecommunications, also known as Connect America, Gregory Evans signed up for 125 toll-free "800" numbers and then resold them to Net service providers at a few thousand dollars for a number. He, however did not pay the long distance companies, AT&T or MCI for the lines. These were eventually cut off--leaving the ISPs to face angry customers the major phone carriers to foot most of the bill. Evans, who was portraying himself as a toll-free number broker, used false names and billing addresses to run this operation. He now faces a maximum of 30 years in prison and up to $1.5 million in fines. The redress would be used to repay the victims. The bulk of the redress, though, would go to AT&T, which was stuck with most of the unpaid bills for Connect America's "800 numbers". ************************************************** $1.1M Slapped On Texas Company For Slamming ************************************************** A small Texas company was fined $1.1 million by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for changing consumer's long distance provider without authorization (slamming). The Federal Communications Commission said the privately held Houston-based company, Brittan Communications International, had apparently slammed at least 16 people. In 12 of the cases, the FCC issued fines of $80,000 after Brittan had apparently forged authorization forms for the switches. The other four cases carried fines of $40,000. Slamming is the No. 1 consumer complaint about telephone service. The FCC received 20,000 slamming complaints in 1997 itself and more than 16,500 in 1998. In another incident, US West filed a suit against two companies based in Georgia and Florida for tricking customers into changing long distance companies. The lawsuit accuses the Grace Trust and One Step Billing -- acting independently of one another -- of falsely telling customers that they're affiliated with US WEST or working on US WEST's behalf. Such misrepresentations are common tactics used by companies that try to intentionally mislead consumers and businesses. ************************************** Service Providers to Save $180M From Electronic Billing ************************************** More and more service providers are looking to online billing as the best way to bill their subscribers in an increasingly cyber-savvy world. A study by the Killen and Associates forecasts that US telecommunications service providers, including AT&T, Ameritech, BellSouth, GTE, Sprint and Worldcom will save $180 million from Electronic Bill Payment and Presentment (EBPP) in the year 2000. For BellSouth, the efficiencies of online billing are clear. BellSouth spends $3.05 per customer on postage and printing. If 10 percent of its 22 million customers paid online, almost $7 million would be saved, minus money spent on converting data streams, formatting data into hypertext markup language (HTML), designing a template, and maintaining the service. AT&T and Internet service provider Netcom On-Line Communication Services Inc(San Jose, Calif.), now owned by ICG Communications Inc. (Englewood, Colo.), have already inched into online billing and MCI also plans to take the plunge. *********************************** Euro Conversion Option To Lead to Billing Chaos *********************************** Euro, the single European currency is threatening to usher in a period of billing chaos. The three year transition period for conversion to Euro from January 1999 through 2002 is bringing with it a "no prohibition, no compulsion" rule which means that companies cannot be compelled to use the Euro exclusively, nor can they prevent any of their customers or suppliers from dealing in Euro. >From a Telco's viewpoint this would mean two sets of customers, those that would request all bills, statements etc in the Euro and others who would still deal in the local currency. During the grace period, all currency conversions will go through the Euro - making conversion mechanisms essential elements of any billing system. Catering for these currency conversions will incur considerable costs for Telcos or any other organization significantly bringing down profits. The German major Siemens expects conversions to have a major impact on its data processing costs and has estimated these to exceed DM100m, or roughly 3 to 3.5% of its total processing costs. ************************************** Detailed Rules For Truth-in-Billing "Too Costly"- Industry ************************************** The FCC has been told by various telecom industry players that it would be costly and unnecessary for the Commission to implement detailed rules to reform billing practices. The US Telephone Association (USTA) said that the Commission ought to adopt "general principles" that encourage clear, accurate bills with enough information for customers to correct unauthorized charges -- but it should "resist the temptation to micromanage the carrier-customer billing relationship." It would be very costly for Telcos to change their billing procedures if the FCC adopted a standard billing format and would inhibit telco flexibility to meet customer needs, USTA said. ************************************************ Action Sought on Peak Rate Phone Bills ************************************************ Federal regulators have been urged to tell long distance phone companies, it is illegal to charge their highest rates for direct-dialed calls to certain customers who have been dropped from their billing systems. Sometimes customers who have selected a long distance provider are dropped from the 'billing system' after moving or after accruing several unpaid bills. They continue to be billed, but at the industry highest rate instead of the one they subscribed to. The request follows an FCC order concluding that such a practice by MCI Worldcom was illegal and directing the company to cease charging those customers so-called "non-subscriber" or casual calling rates. The FCC's action applies only to customers who had selected MCI as their primary long-distance carrier and then were billed at the highest rate. IT does not apply to people who have not chosen MCI as their primary long-distance carrier but use it occasionally by dialing an access code. MCI has one set of rates for subscriber dialing. It has another, much higher set of rates for non-subscriber or casual calling. Industry wide, casual customers account for an estimated three to four percent of all long distance customers. According to Albert Halprin, a former regulator with the FCC, consumers are being overcharged billions of dollars through these casual calling or non-subscriber rates. ************* Mailbox ************* 1. Accept Advertisements I find your newsletter, Telcomine to be very informative and interesting. But in the more recent editions, it seems to be getting more and more focussed on Billing aspects, which might not be interesting to non-billing folks. Do you accept advertisements? If so, please let me know. Keep up the good work and my copy coming - T.Allen We have attempted to cover areas which might be of interest to non-billing folks as well. At this point of time, we are not accepting advertisements, but propose to do so soon. Thank you for your query. - Editor 2. The article "Harassed European Phone Users to Start Billing Service" was interesting. It is high time the telecom industry sat up and took note of the very appropriate questions asked by the users. On the same note one cannot ignore the relevance it has for India and other similar places. - J. Krishnan 3. I found the newsletter "Telcomine" interesting and informative. I would appreciate to stay posted on this newsletter - Candan Sertceoglu 4. I do find your newsletter useful - David Slater *********************************** Thank You Readers on Telcomine completing one year *********************************** We are heartened by your response. This November/December issue of Telcomine marks the successful completion of one year by this fledgling newsletter. We aim to continue serving our readers so long as we enjoy their confidence. Please write to us at Telcomine@infozech.com as often you can with your comments and suggestions. Short items on the latest developments in the IT sector are welcome -- Editor ********************************* Ebill: Telecom billing solution from Infozech ********************************** Ebill is a modular billing and customer care solution for telecom services. For details on eBill, please follow the URL: http://www.infozech.com/solution.html ************************************ Information supplied on as is basis. If you have found Telcomine useful, please consider telling somebody else about it . E-mail: Telcomine@infozech.com Fax: 408-490-2840; Voice Mail: 408-490-2842 Please visit us at http://www.infozech.com