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From the 26 Aug 81 issue of MIS Week newspaper: Status: O W.U. TO ACQUIRE 50% OF AIRFONE Upper Saddle River, N.J. - Western Union Corp. said last week it has agreed to acquire a 50 percent interest in a new communications system, owned by Airfone Inc., that will allow passengers on commercial airlines to place a telephone call while in flight. According to Western Union, Airfone has received a developmental license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to provide a nationwide, fully automatic air-to-ground radio telephone communications service. Initially, Western Union said, service will be provided through air- to-ground telephones installed in wide-bodied aircraft, which in turn will be linked with multiple ground stations providing coast-to-coast coverage. It said a passenger would be able to place a call by using portable telephones located in various sections of the aircraft. The system, it said, is expected to be operational during the second half of next year. --- Wonder if I'll be able to use my TI745 with this service...or better yet, the still-to-come portable CRT connected to my still-to-come stand-alone home workstation? -Rich Zellich ------------------------------ Mail-from: MIT-AI rcvd at 27-Aug-81 2111-EDT Date: 27 Aug 1981 17:47:36-PDT From: telecom-link at Berkeley In real life: Steven M. Bellovin, U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Subject: direct-dial credit card calls There certainly are plans for it; about two years ago, the phone company changed the format of their credit card numbers to 14 digits (from a shorter string containing alphanumerics) specifically to pave the way for direct dialing. I don't know that service will be available from ordinary phones, or only the special "Charge-a-Call" phones in the airports, etc. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Aug 1981 15:57:10-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley Reply-to: "decvax!duke!unc!smb in care of" <CSVAX.Telecom-Link at Berkeley> In real life: Steven M. Bellovin, U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Subject: Dimension PBXen Any reason why they couldn't (can't) hang a simple speech synthesizer on the lines rather than noisemakers? If nothing else, I'm SURE that TI would sell them a few "Speak 'n' Spells". ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ======== 29-Aug-81 00:52:59-EDT,000004640;000000000001 Date: 29 Aug 1981 0052-EDT From: JSOL Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #5 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Saturday, 29 Aug 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 5 Today's Topics: Credit Card Calls IDDD - TSPS - TOPS - Terminology Query Switchook Vs. Touch Tones Speech Synthesizers vs. Noisemakers (Almost) Direct Dialing Of Toll Stations? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Aug 1981 1:39:47 EDT (Friday) From: Edward D. Hunter <edh at BBN-RSM> Subject: IDDD Cc: edh at BBN-RSM Out of curiosity what does TSPS stand for? Also what is TOPS? -edh ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 1981 0225-EDT From: Hobbit <AWalker at RUTGERS> Subject: Credit calls, etc. To throw some more ideas into that bucket: I heard someplace that they are going to implement a central-database system wherein the user will enter his credit code from the phone and then make his call. This would supposedly eliminate the use of 'synthesized' credit codes or out-of-date ones, or codes that the sys people can tell the machine to ignore because of problems. What it will introduce of course is being able to beat on codes without human intervention [operators] and I have a feeling that it would lead to about the same crime rate as before! I used to be a TSPS type, so I know basically how it goes from the 'other end'. I also tried to start the first list of this type but it was unmoderated and based at MC and got out of hand. Anyhow: If it's TSPS, from about a year ago, just ask. It's one of my favorite flamage topics. _H* ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 1981 01:36:08-PDT From: telecom-link at Berkeley Subject: direct credit card dialing I know that there are plans for this in New England. There may even be systems in operation. Sorry to be so vague, but I don't remember the details. Just thought you'ld like, to know that that it's coming (soon). brian [Berkeley users: Please sign your complete name on messages to TELECOM so the Telecom-Link people can forward replies to you -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 1981 0902-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: The reason a switchook flash is used rather than a TT sequence The piece of hardware which listens for and decodes Touch-Tone input from the phone is fairly expensive. Modern central offices and PBXs have many less of these than there are telephones, and they are only connected to the line when needed. The only thing on the line when you have established a call is the piece of hardware that looks to see if you have hung up the phone (permanently or momentarily). You have to flash the switchhook in order to get the switching machine's attention so that it can connect a Touch-Tone register across the line. Even if the registers were cheap -- you wouldn't want telephone features to be activated by a TT sequence. That would interfere with your ability to transmit data using the Touch-Tone pad. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 1981 0940-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Speech Synthesizers vs. noisemakers That would be nice. Of course, it would have to handle a large number of languages. There would have to be a language attribute associated with each line, and a command to temporarily set the attribute to some- thing different when a guest from another country wants to use your phone. What would the error message, "Unsupported language selected" be presented as? ------------------------------ Date: 28-Aug-81 11:50:02 PDT (Friday) From: Hamilton.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: (Almost) direct dialing of toll stations? cc: Hamilton.ES Does anyone know if Telco has any plans for automating calls to toll stations? Right now, if I want to call Deep Springs College, California, I have to call my local operator and say "calling Deep Springs #2 toll station, operator's routing 714+ 054+ 181". In many parts of the country, you have to spend ten minutes talking to three levels of supervisors to convince the local operator that such a place even exists. It seems like I ought to be able to dial the routing codes myself to get me to the Bishop, California operator, who would then ring the toll station and use some sort of out-of-band signalling to tell my local exchange whether and when to start and stop billing. --Bruce ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ======== 1-Sep-81 02:43:05-EDT,0000004122;000000000000 Date: 1 Sep 1981 0243-EDT From: JSOL Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #6 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Tuesday, 1 Sept 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 6 Today's Topics: Operator Routings - Calling Really Remote Locations Paying Your Bills By Phone - A Demo Speech Synthesizers Vs. Noisemakers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 Sep 1981 0147-EDT From: The Moderator <JSol at Rutgers> Subject: Administrivia Due to some hardware problems at Rutgers, there was no digest yesterday or Sunday. This is issue #6, following Saturday's digest. Enjoy, JSol ------------------------------ Date: 29 Aug 1981 0221-EDT From: Hobbit <AWalker at RUTGERS> Subject: Operator routings In answer to Hamilton.ES : When I was in that racket, when somebody had the oprs routing for a place, you would give em a *big* Thank You! and proceed to dial that up. It was when they *didn't* have the right routing that you had to go through the Rate&Route people [which could be ultimately wedged at times] and *then* sift through levels of this and that. Sometimes it was best just to call the general inward operator there, since they knew their own state [or country] and had probably dealt with little diddlysquat towns before. A real blast..... Anybody want a job? _H* ------------------------------ Date: 29 Aug 1981 0933-PDT From: Bob Knight <ADMIN.KNIGHT at SU-SCORE> Subject: Bill paying by telephone - a demo. First Interstate Bank out here has introduced a service of bill paying by telephone. A demo is available, to wit (gotta have a touch-tone): 1) Dial (800) 252-2100 2) CUSTOMER NUMBER: push 123456789#. 3) SECURITY CODE: push 1234#. 4) PAYEE NUMBER: push 12#. 5) AMOUNT: Anything followed by # (3250#==$32.50, of course). 6) You'll be asked for # or month and day. Terminate month/day with # (form mmdd#). Default if no month/day entered is day you're making transaction. 7) You can go back to 4 or stop by pushing *2#. The capitalized stuff above is what the computer will be asking you. They have a voice synthesizer of some kind handling the questions. The charge for this service is $1.00 per month, plus $.10 per transaction. In addition to paying your bills, you can transfer money between accounts. I'm tempted to transfer my account to these guys, but have some reservations about the system. Anyone have more information on it? Bob ------------------------------ Date: 29 Aug 1981 11:05:20-PDT From: telecom-link at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin, U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Subject: speech synthesizers vs. noisemakers I don't think the language issue is really a problem. First of all, the phone company has never shown any particular interest in anyone who doesn't speak English. Except in a few large cities, there are never any dialing instructions in other languages. And I doubt that one could easily connect to an operator who knew any other language in most areas of this country. Besides, it's probably against phone company policy for operators to do something as helpful that. I had a friend who worked as an overseas operator for AT&T Long Lines one summer, and she was reprimanded for speaking French once to help complete a connection. Seems that the supervisor -- who would regularly listen in on calls -- couldn't tell whether she was working or goofing off.... But I digress. I doubt that foreign visitors would understand the different tone sequences; as has been noted, many Americans don't, and we're (a) used to our phone system; and (b) able to read the English-language instructions. When I was in London a few years ago, the phones at Heathrow Airport said to call the operator and ask her to demonstrate the different tones used. I tried several times, and never found an operator who even knew what I was talking about. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ======== 2-Sep-81 00:06:55-EDT,000006038;000000000000 Date: 2 Sep 1981 0006-EDT From: JSOL Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #7 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Wednesday, 2 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 7 Today's Topics: Novice Reference Manual for Phones Does Anyone Know The Time In Sydney? Calling In France - English Please... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 31 Aug 1981 08:28:36-PDT From: telecom-link at Berkeley Subject: Telecom for Beginners Is there a generally accepted reference on telephony that is up to date? I am (relatively) new to the detailed world of telephony; I certainly don't know the difference between the different ESS versions, but I know what one is; I know what a step-by-step system is, but not TSPS. I would very much like to get up to speed, as I find it very interesting and quite useful. Any suggestions? Chris Kent ------------------------------ Date: 31 Aug 1981 08:39:27-PDT From: telecom-link at Berkeley Cc: hobs@Berkeley, ucbvax!ucla-s!lauren@Berkeley Reply-to: "ihuxo!hobs in care of" <CSVAX.telecom-link@Berkeley> Subject: TSPS and the time in Sydney TSPS is short for Traffic Service Position System and is a way of semi-automating the telephone operator's job, I don't know what TOPS is. Lauren, I tried calling the IDDD number that you gave for the time in Sydney, Australia, and all I got was an announcement telling me that "My call could not be completed as dialed." Pray, tell me what is the correct number. John Hobson Bell Labs-Indian Hill ------------------------------ Date: 31 August 1981 09:34-EDT From: Andrew Tannenbaum <TRB at MIT-MC> To: edh at BBN-RSM cc: telecom at MIT-AI TSPS - Traffic Service Postion System It's a system that Telco operators hack. Andy Tannenbaum Bell Labs Whippany, NJ ------------------------------ FFM@MIT-MC 09/01/81 05:26:10 Re: EN ANGLAIS S'IL VOUS PLAIT(=ENGLISH PLEASE) I have had the necessity quite a few times in the past to have to get phone #s in Paris and other such places. In no case did the operator on this side ever speak french. In fact most of the time the operator asked me to speak to them. My ability to speak french is not as good as I'd like; tho I can do reasonably if I go quite slowly. Most operators in other countries have some command of english. However here I doubt if 1 out of 100 has command of any foreign language. I also have the sneaking suspicion that more than 1% of operator interactions with customers are monitored. The front of the local(Palo Alto) phone book states that 1% or less of operator-customer interactions are monitored for 'quality-control' purposes. I suspect it is much higher than that. What TELCO does internally I dunno, BUT legend has it that they are not the friendliest of employers and if they treat there employees like they treat thier customers most of the time I can really understand why "even the stockholders of the phone company...hate the phone company". Anyway have fun, Sends Steve ------------------------------ Date: 09/01/81 08:12:49 From: PCR@MIT-MC Subject: "Bell's Satellite Use Threatens to Slash Data Throughput" This is the title of an article in the latest issue of Information Systems News. It deals with the fact that AT&T is planning to freely intermix ground-link and satellite-link circuits, and the inherent delay in a satellite circuit will degrade data transmission that uses IBM's binary synchronous or other ARQ (automatic request repeat) protocols by as much as 85%. It seems that some remote-job-entry systems require acknowledgment of the previous data block before the next can be sent. If there is a satellite delay in the link, effective baud rates can drop from 4800 baud to almost 400. (I've seen this when I've called the west coast to access a bulletin board. There was almost a half-second delay between typing a character and getting the echo back.)w The solution is either to re-dial, or use some diffrent protocol (and pay through the nose to get the software upgraded). Anybody got any comments?? ...phil ------------------------------ Date: 1 Sep 1981 18:53:03-PDT From: CSVAX.geoff at Berkeley Subject: Bill-Paying by Phone First Interstate Bank, in its previous incarnation as United California Bank, has had the pay-your-bills-by-touch-tone-service mentioned in TELECOM V1 #6 for at least a year. I investigated the service, but found out that Allstate Savings (yes, "a member of the Sears family" is emblazoned on much of their literature), has an essentially equivalent service which may be MUCH cheaper. First Interstate charges $1/month plus $.10/transfer *in addition to* your checking account charges. Allstate savings has *no charge* if you keep your balance above $500 at all times, a flat $3/month otherwise. And they pay you 5-1/4% interest on your funds (a NOW account), don't charge for checks, travellers checks, and so on. They also will waive the service charges if you have $3000 in any other kind of account with them. I've been using Allstate for about a year now, with absolutely no complaints. As I recall, I started banking there after someone (Lauren?) mentioned it on Human-Nets, and they had been using it for several years with no complaints. UCB, now FIB (would you trust a bank with THAT for an acronym?), does have one feature on their telephone bill-payment system which Allstate lacks: you can specify a payment to be made on a specific future date. That could be convenient if you're going to be away for a month or two. (But you can always have a friend call the computer and pay your bills for you -- since the list of accounts which can be paid is fixed in advance by you, you still have a secure arrangement.) Geoff Peck ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ======== 3-Sep-81 00:47:00-EDT,00000007123;000000000000 Date: 3 Sep 1981 0047-EDT From: JSOL Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #8 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Wednesday, 2 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 8 Today's Topics: Cost of Service - Touch Tone vs. Dial Pulse Switching to Satellite - Protocol Conversion TSPS Monitoring - More Than 1% Bill Paying by Phone ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 Sep 1981 04:13:08-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Subject: touch-tone costs I'd like to repeat a query I sent in to human-nets but never saw appear, let alone be answered. What are the relative costs to the phone company for TouchTone vs. rotary dial phones? What about the sensing equipment? Are there any significant cost advantages to be gained by restricting some exchange/switching machine to TouchTone? The reason I'm curious is that within a month of the installation of an ESS here in Chapel Hill (June 28), every pay phone in sight had been switched to TouchTone. If TouchTone is more expensive, why go to the expense of converting existing phones? If it's cheaper, why are consumers charged more? Because it's viewed as a "frill" by the regulatory commissions, much as colored phones once were? Are maintenance considerations the answer? Pay phones obviously take much more abuse. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Sep 1981 0908-PDT From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: Re: TSPS monitoring... Yes folks... It's true. There is definitely more than 1% monitoring. <>IHM<> ------------------------------ Date: 2 September 1981 09:13-EDT From: "Marvin A. Sirbu, Jr." <SIRBU at MIT-MC> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #7 The problem of AT&T switching to the use of satellite circuits for long distance phone calls is an interesting one. On the one hand, satellite circuits are cheaper than terrestrial microwave, and it would be a shame to deprive the majority of callers who are only sending voice traffic from benefitting from the use of these lower cost circuits. On the other hand, it causes problems for data communications users who haven't upgraded from Bisynch to SDLC or HDLC. In some European countries, sending data over voice lines is illegal; this insures that the PTT can make whatever changes it wants to the voice lines without worrying about the impact on data users. Another alternative would be the creation of a circuit switched digital network such as in Germany; as a separate network like Telex, it could be restricted to terrestrial lines only. AT&T proposed such a service 4 years ago, but it has been held up before the FCC. Once the CCIS network is completely in place it might be possible to designate a certain line as one for which all outgoing long distance calls should be routed only over terrestrial circuits (for a premium charge of course); at present, however, there is no simple way to convey to the toll switch that kind of information about the originating line. None of these alternatives is particularly attractive, but the shift to newer protocols is likely the cheapest and best solution in the long run. Marvin Sirbu ------------------------------ Date: 2 Sep 1981 1158-PDT (Wednesday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: bill-paying I subscribed to the Allstate Savings version of electronic pay-by-phone bill paying about a year ago, but eventually dropped it. Sounds almost identical to the UCB (oops, excuse me, First Interstate Bank) version. Allstate originally was charging $.10/transaction, but when they added a monthly fee also, I dropped it. While you can usually pay your utilities and such through such a service, there are always enough places that will not accept bill-call checks that you STILL end up writing checks every month. I find it to be more of a pain to try reconcile TWO "checking" accounts than just one; it was just getting to be a hassle. Also, I felt a bit uncomfortable with the system, in that I had no way of KNOWING that those checks went out on time. If they hadn't I would have had little recourse other than TRY blame Allstate. It's a nice hack, but not really worthwhile yet, in my opinion. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 2 Sep 1981 1206-PDT (Wednesday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: TSPS, The Speaking Clock, Data Throughput To be a little more specific, TSPS provides a "higher-order" concentration point for local switching offices, enabling these offices to act as if they were more "advanced" than they really are! These days, most metro crossbar and step offices are routed through TSPS for all operator functions and most long distance (intertoll) calling. Operators at TSPS positions have "cordless" consoles. When you call such an operator, your number (and the number you are calling if you're making a 0+ Extended DDD call) appear on his/her console. That's the reason operators hardly ever ask you for your number anymore when you make collect or person to person calls and the like. All functions are controlled through pushbuttons -- trunk routing is automatic. If you "flash" for an operator during a call that was set up via a TSPS operator, you will NOT necessarily be returned to the same operator, but will get the first available position, the display of which will immediately show the complete status of your call. Infinite detail about TSPS may be found in back issues of the Bell System Technical Journal. I am sure there was at least one special issue on the subject. --- Gee, that number USED to be good for the Speaking Clock -- but I guess it was changed over the years. Oh well. The only other interesting number I can remember offhand from my travels is for Dial-A-Disc in Cardiff, South Wales (England): 011+44+222+06 Of course, that was a number of years ago as well... --- I have NO sympathy for the people screaming about data throughput on satellite circuits. I have been reading these articles in the various rags for months that have been complaining about this, and many of them are a joke. They suggest such solutions as getting private line service and demanding terrestrial links. Ha ha ha. I wonder how long (or even IF) you could get away with that. Telco can provide service via whatever routes it wants, as long as the fundamental service levels are met -- this does not include catering to every obsolete protocol. Bell gave the data world fair warning that the changes were coming up -- I think the best solution would be for people to get on the ball and upgrade now instead of clinging to the past. Satellites will be taking an increasing load of the communications load as the years go by, and the propagation delays involved are a fact of life. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ======== 4-Sep-81 01:56:20-EDT,00006403;000000000001 Date: 4 Sep 1981 0156-EDT From: JSOL Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #9 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Friday, 4 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 9 Today's Topics: TSPS & TOPS & the Speaking Clock Learning About Telephones Touch Tone Pay Phones Paying Bills by Phone & VOTRAX ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 Sep 1981 1416-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: TSPS and TOPS TSPS (the Bell system's advanced operator system, Traffic Services Position System) does handle most long-distance traffic for Step-by- Step Central Offices as well as most operator traffic for all types of Bell System (and often nearby independent) COs. However, it very rarely handles non-operator intertoll, except in the case of XBar international. Lauren, can you give me the NPA-NXX of any XBar in the US with IDDD via TSPS. I'd like to take a look at it. I'd also like to take a look at any XBar doing normal inter- toll via TSPS, if you can give me an NPA-NXX. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Sep 1981 1424-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Speaking Clock A good job is usually done of blocking things like the speaking clock or Dial-a-disc from incoming toll calls. It can be done in a number of ways. For example, the number Lauren gave for the dial-a-disc recording is too short to be dialed from the North American Network. Numbers in the UK must be at least 9 digits long (counting the country code). Thus 011-44-222-06 is two digits too short to be dialed. It is also possible to class mark certain things so they can't be dialed. In Step, you do this by not building out the switch-train. In more modern offices it is done with hardwired or software "attri- butes". Certainly we can find some numbers that do work. However, if they don't go off-hook, and don't charge, then the Federal Authorities may consider it Toll Fraud, especially if Bell Security tells them to. If they do go off-hook, it's an awfully expensive way to get the time. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Sep 1981 1435-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Learning about telephony I recommend doing what I did years ago. Go to a good tech library and read every copy of the Bell Labs Record you can get your hands on. Then go to the Bell Sys Tech Journal for more detail. I also subscribed to the Record for a few years. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Sep 1981 1803-EDT From: Gene Hastings <HASTINGS at CMU-20C> Subject: SMB's question in V1,#8(Wed. 2 Sept) It's always been my impression that pushbutton phones are preferred for pay stations because of their greater resistance to vandalism (such as no finger wheel to be pried off). I suspect that they may also be more reliable in general. Has anyone heard of any operating company installing ersatz PB phones (i.e. ones that have a pushbutton face but put out pulses) for whatever reason? For that matter, what do such dials do when you press "#" or "*" ? Gene ------------------------------ Date: 3 Sep 1981 1617-PDT Subject: TSPS From: GILLIGAN at USC-ISID Folks interested in learning about TSPS should have a look at the July-August 1979 issue of The Bell System Technical Journal (part 1). This is a special issue dedicated entirely to TSPS and includes photos and and diagrams of the operator's console in enough detail to make out the legends on the keys. Also in this issue are a few articles describing the Automated Coin Toll Service. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Sep 1981 1127-PDT From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: Re: [Bob Knight] Bill paying by telephone - a demo. I called that thing last night (I wonder if they are noticing a huge influx of users (from this list, little do they know...) suddenly calling that thing at all hours of the night) and found it interesting, however not unfamiliar. I have seen uses of votrax and other tape-patched speech systems (which I believe this is), used interactively with touch-tone input from users. How many readers of this list are familiar with the so-called 'District Data Processing System' in Michigan. This system was used by phone freaks for many years, since its access codes were almost anything 3 digits long. 123, 111, 222, 333, 321, etc were valid user idents. This system was done with tape-patching, and I think it still exists, however the old phone numbers (800-521-8530, Admin at 313-322-3405) have long been defunct. There is an order-entry system, using Votrax speech on 800-638-8927, which requires a *LONG* identification string, which provides for selection of one of several special services. At 800-631-1146, there is another Votrax system, however I have no idea what it is used for. A little over a year ago, someone showed me a system at Ralston Purina to which the numbers have been changed, using interactive speech or tones. If you talk to it, it talks back; if you tone to it, it signals you with tones. This system is the first commercial application I have seen of speech input in which there was a reasonable hit ratio. The dialog was something like the following: [User calls system] [Long pause, during which time, if a touch-tone is received, tone mode is then selected for the duration of the call] System: [In a sexy female sounding, but synthesized voice] Authorization number, please... User: [Speaks as clearly as possible, annunciating each syllable] Five System: Five User: Seven System: Seven User: Five System: Nine User: NO! System: Sorry. User: Five System: Five User: Three System: Three User: END! System: Thank you. Destination number, please... [Dialog continues until the numbers are all in, then the system when operating under normal conditions, will proceed to place the call the user entered with the 'Destination number'] If the system receives 3 errors, while trying to read the same digit, it responds with 'Sorry: Were having difficulties' and goes to reorder tone. Know of any others like this? <>IHM<> ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ======== 5-Sep-81 00:41:18-EDT,000006228;000000000000 Date: 5 Sep 1981 0041-EDT From: JSOL Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #10 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Saturday, 5 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 10 Today's Topics: The HART Line & Foreign Exchanges Interactive Speech Synthesis - Crossbar and TSPS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 31 Aug 1981 1222-PDT Subject: The Hart Line From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) This message appeared in Human Nets Vol 4, #37; it really belongs in TELECOM as it is phone-oriented: Date: 27 Aug 1981 2022-PDT From: Lynn Gold <G.FIGMO at SU-SCORE> Subject: Has anyone else heard anything about the Hart Line? It's a new phone service which has been out for a few weeks. How it works: 1) You call up toll-free (800) number (a list is given to all members; numbers vary from state to state). 2) After hearing a beep, you enter your 7-digit code 3) After hearing another beep, you then enter 1 + area code and number you want to dial My father got such a number, and after checking it out myself, I would like to share my findings: Advantages: 1) You pay a flat fee of $65. per month. There are no connect charges. 2) The service is new enough to not have hackers (yet). Even if someone DOES find out your number, you don't get billed for it. 3) You can use it anywhere in the continental United States. 4) You can use your Hart Line number 24 hours a day. 5) You can use your Hart Line number as frequently as you like. Disadvantages: 1) It is only supposed to be used by its owner and not family members of the owner, as is permitted by several other systems. [Note: I don't know if they actually can catch anyone who violates this without a great deal of difficulty, since it IS allowable for someone to use it from anywhere...] 2) Once phone hackers DO figure out how to crack this one, they probably will. 3) The quality of the connection provided is poor. Voices are sometimes barely audible. Data transmission would be impossible. 4) The connections only last 15 minutes, after which you and other party are suddenly disconnected with no warning. (Of course, as mentioned above, you CAN call again right away and resume your conversation...) 5) It is difficult to get onto the line. It seems to take anywhere from five to ten minutes just to get to the first tone, and sometimes there is a wait of over a minute after the second tone has been punched in. (Either they are inadequately set up or they are unusually popular.) The people I know who are using it are satisfied with it, since they tend to ring up huge long distance bills, rarely spend more than 15 minutes on the phone to anyone, and aren't interested in data trans- mission. --Lynn ------------------------------ Date: 3 Sep 1981 1039-PDT Subject: A bit more info on Hart Line From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) The following information was spotted in the August issue of AUDIOMART, a little leaflet devoted to ads for hi-fi equipment, most of the trading of which depends on phone calls. I reproduce it exactly as given, and this is all I know: "A tip that Hart Industries offers a computer-controlled pooled WATS line service w/unlimited calling continental US from any phone for $100 fee + $65/month. Call (305)561-3754, check it out to see." Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: 4 Sep 81 15:42:50-EDT (Fri) From: Jcp.bmd70 at BRL Subject: "Foreign exchanges" In my area (Maryland), the telco offers a service called "foreign exchange connection", whereby you can have a phone in one area act as a phone on a non-local exchange. (Very popular for people living between Baltimore and DC, and wanting to call locally in both cities, etc). This isn't available from all CO's, just the newer ones (ESS, I think). They charge a fee per mile of distance from the foreign exchange per month. Could anyone tell me how this is done, and is the cost to the telco related to the distance involved? Also, is there a better way to do this? -Joe Pistritto- jcp.bmd70@brl ------------------------------ Date: 4 Sep 1981 14:29:12-PDT From: vax135!hpk at Berkeley >From vax135!hpk, Howard Katseff at Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ. Another interactive speech system can be found at 800 225-6261, 800 392-6215 (Massachusetts). This is the Fidelity Information Phone, which gives the latest information on their investment funds. A good fund number to try is 55 (five-five). The biggest problem with this system is that it is often down. When this happens, you get a message asking you to wait for somebody to help you. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Sep 1981 1530-PDT (Friday) From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Crossbar and TSPS, voice response The examples of Xbar<->TSPS interaction I mentioned (which were local L.A.) are now probably defunct. My friend at telco cannot even remember the prefixes anymore, though he does verify that these hacked up prefixes DID exist for awhile. As was stated by someone else, however, ATT frowns on that sort of thing, and they were early conversions to ESS. Oh well, sorry about that. Most of the operational dialup speech input systems use an (expensive) system from Verbex Systems (an Exxon affiliate), which used to be called Dialog, Inc. or some such. It can handle the spoken digits, yes, and no, with fair accuracy on a speaker independent basis. When I was originally doing research on this a couple of years ago, the only working system I knew of was for the State of Illinois communications system to allow state workers to access WATS lines and such (one of the project heads gave me a demo -- pretty nice, though Touch-Tone is far faster!) Currently, there is at least one Money Market Fund type operation that allows users to interrogate the computer for various prices via the same sort of equipment. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ======== 6-Sep-81 01:58:58-EDT,0011303;000000000000 Date: 6 Sep 1981 0158-EDT From: JSOL Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #11 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Sunday, 6 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 11 Today's Topics: Foreign Exchange vs. Selective Calling Voice Input Systems by Phone Natural Disasters and Their Effects on Local Switching AT&T and Data Processing - Recent FCC Rulings ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 September 1981 01:42-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at Rutgers> Subject: Foreign Exchange Service, Vs. Selective Calling There seems to be a bit of confusion over terms here. Foreign Exchange service is specifically service which originates in the city or town you wish your local calling area to be. Usually these lines travel over reserved Toll lines (2 pair separated transmit and receive), and special arrangements are made to allow you to dial (if you use a dial phone) calls from here over that line. Selective calling, on the other hand, is the ability for a customer to select his local calling area range (given usually in "zones"), with the cheapest service having the smallest calling area. Normally this service is made available to suburban areas who desire access to their city on a local basis. The Boston area has this service (called "Metropolitan" service) which allows the surrounding areas to call Boston as a local call. With ESS this is a simple twiddling of bits in your "phone line status word" (similar to the priviledge word for an account on many computers), Crossbar and Step Switching usually requires some mechanical set of jumpers which permits you to dial these calls as a local call (i.e. without prefixing it with a "1"). Sometimes Phone Companies simply tell you to place the call as if it was a toll call, and then they will bill you at some smaller rate or at flat rate, in which case you only need to tell the local final billing computer not to include these calls on your bill. /Jsol ------------------------------ Date: 5 September 1981 02:34-EDT From: Eliot R. Moore <ELMO at MIT-MC> Foreign exchange service is a nice thing, and here in Los Angeles it is offered extensively - a customer in an outlying suburb can easily get L.A. Metro service. In the case of the Metro service, many exchanges have an entire prefix or prefixes reserved solely for foreign exchange service from one CO to Los Angeles. There is some form of mileage fee associated, but it is not the normal $1.60 per quarter mile. (A normal phone is $6.00/mo, LA service is $11.70) For other areas, I assume the rates differ slightly. There is also normal foreign exchange service, which I also have. A lot of people use it to hop across telephone companies. I live in Pacific (Bell), but I have a GTE phone...[yes, one does do that] Since your handset is still going through your local C.O., and mine is all crossbar, I would assume [cautiously] that the service will function on step equipment also. As for what good it will do you... A while back the CPUC (California Public Utilities Commission) came up with a wonderous toll system called ZUM (Zone Usage Measurement) in which all calls within an 8 mile radius of a specified point were designated Zone 1, 12 miles Zone 2, and 16 miles Zone 3. Beyond that is intra-city long distance. Zone one calls are "local", costing 3 cents for the first minute and 1 cent each minute thereafter, or nothing on unlimited service. Zone 2 and 3 are 5/3 and 7/4 respectively. A 35% discount applies 5PM-11PM and a 60% discount applies 11PM-8AM. This is all fine and dandy, however many of us are used to calling places 40 miles away for free... ZUM, however, has in mind to shrink our local calling areas drastically. For those of us who still need to make calls to far away areas frequently would opt for ORTS (flat-rate calling to a specified C.O. within 40 miles) but the CPUC changed that too... its now usage-sensitive. The last resort is paying mileage fees to faraway exchanges. This was also fine and dandy up until August 29, 1981; at that time, all flat rate foreign exchange service was frozen in Pacific Telephone. Now if one gets an FX phone, it is usage-sensitive... you pay per minute, which is the ultimate goal of our beloved Commission. [My last one was installed August 23rd] FX service is a good buy if it costs you less per month than the other available services. Most importantly, steer clear of usage sensitive pricing... Maybe Lauren or IHM can put it in better prospective... Eliot ------------------------------ Date: 4 Sep 1981 23:55:21-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Subject: voice-input computer systems The Fidelity group of mutual funds uses a voice-input system to give the current yields on their various funds. You dial their 800 number (allegedly up 24 hours a day; it's answered the phone exactly twice when I've tried it), and recite (one at a time) the two-digit code for the fund you're interested in. You can make up to three queries in one call. It's error detection isn't too good; it treated "gibble" as a digit, though I don't recall which one.... ------------------------------ Date: 5 Sep 1981 0824-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Foreign exchange service - the real way & the Maryland hack Foreign exchange service is available just about everywhere in the country -- where facilities permit (the standard proviso). The physical connection differs depending on how far away the exchange is from you. I have a foreign exchange line here which is provided from the next town; it is provided by using a real pair of wires in the interoffice cable, plus a two-wire repeater (the model E6 is a commonly used one). On a much longer distance FX the circuit will be converted to a four-wire circuit and will be put up through carrier (i.e. multiplexed along with all the other long distance traffic) then converted back to two wire (either in the CO or on the premises where the phone is located). Each of these circuits is individually "engineered," as the telephone company will explain when they are late installing one for you. HOWEVER, the service which is provided in the Maryland suburbs between Washington and Baltimore is drastically different. In this case, what you get is a plain, vanilla line from your local CO. But a special NXX is reserved for customers who have this service. For LOCAL area calling, this NXX is "declared to be in a different town" and you pay a special mileage charge from your town to that town. It is somewhat lower than the mileage charges which you would incur if they were providing real FX service. For interstate calls, the exchange is still declared to be where it really is. Since you have a special NXX, you can both make and receive calls as though you were located in the foreign exchange. So this is quite different than, for example, Metro service offered to Concord, Mass. customers which allows them to make calls to the whole Metro area, but doesn't give a break to any incoming calls. ------------------------------ Date: Saturday, 5 Sep 1981 10:03-PDT To: Telecom at MIT-AI Subject: Los-Angeles Earthquake & Telephones From: nomdenet at RAND-UNIX The Southern California earthquake, Friday (9/4) at 8:51 a.m., disrupted the telephone system somewhat. Home at the time and not worried because the quake seemed minor, 5-10 minutes later I picked up my telephone to make a data connection to work -- but no dial tone. Finally, after 5-10 seconds, I got a dial tone. Intrigued, I tried taking the receiver off hook a few times, and encountered delays in this same 5-10 second neighborhood. Once I got tone, my call went through with no further problems. The February, 1971, earthquake also affected the telephone system. (Lauren, didn't you write in Human-Nets that TPC had to "turn off" the 213 area to incoming calls?) From those who follow the various Bell publications, I would appreciate hearing about anything written concerning the earthquake's disruption. Reply to the mailing list if appropriate (OK, JSol?), otherwise to me. A. R. White Nomdenet @ Rand-UNIX [Sure - if there are too many of them I may send them out in a supplementary issue -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 5 Sep 1981 12:24:20-PDT From: ihuxl!jej at Berkeley Subject: Touch-Tone vs. Dial Pulse I doubt that this is a complete answer, but in the book *The Biggest Company on Earth*, it is mentioned that it is easier for subhumans to commit mayhem on dial coin phones by prying off the dial; hence some justification for a switch from dial to Touch-Tone pay phones. James Jones (ihuxl!jej) ------------------------------ Date: 5 Sep 1981 14:06:36-PDT From: IngVAX.geoff at Berkeley Subject: Judge Approves AT&T Expansion Copyright (C) 1981, Washington Post Company, Saturday, September 5, 1981 A federal judge yesterday gave American Telephone and Telegraph Co. permission to compete for the first time in the computer and data-processing business -- a ruling that could have an explosive impact on the future of the telecommunications industry. Handing the Communications giant a major victory in its bid to enter lucrative new business areas, Judge Vincent P. Biunno of the U.S. District Court in New Jersey ruled that AT&T could offer data-processing because it is a communications service. Under a consent decree AT&T signed with the government 25 years ago, the company has been barred from offering any noncommunications service. Until yesterday's ruling, that meant AT&T could not offer computer services. "It seems to the court beyond dispute that AT&T ... will be engaging in the business of furnishing communications services and facilities" by providing data-processing services, Biunno wrote. The ruling was handed down from the New Jersey court because that was here the original 1956 consent decree was filed. The decision means that beginning as early as March 1, AT&T will be able to become a direct competitor with International Business Machines Corp. and other major computer companies. What's more, the Bell System will be able to offer a wide variety of telephone equipment and services, ranging from the black rotary-dial phone to highly sophisticated computer services, without any of the government pricing restraints it now must follow. The judge's decision, however, by no means puts to rest the current congressional debate over AT&T's future structure and its role in the telecommunications industry. Congress is considering legislation to allow AT&T to offer data communications services, although it would bar the communications giant from offering electronic newspapers and up-to-the minute advertising. Debate on the issue is expected to continue shortly after Congress returns from its August recess. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ======== 9-Sep-81 03:27:27-EDT,0000002083;000000000000 Date: 9 Sep 1981 0327-EDT From: JSOL Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #12 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Wednesday, 9 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 12 Today's Topics: Touch-Tone Cost/Rates ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Sep 1981 1300-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Touch-Tone Cost/Rates I, too, would like to see figures on the cost of providing Touch- Tone service. The cost will be different for each type of central office. The equipment to handle Touch-Tone is likely to be much more expensive in each case -- however, in common control COs the cost is supposed to be offset by the savings from needing less ORs (Originating registers) in XBar and less CDPRs (Customer Dial Pulse Receivers -- yes, even with TT they're still called that) in ESS. In SxS offices there will not usually be a savings, unless it is one of the weird "senderized" SxS offices where what you dial is not necessarily directly related to what the switchtrain gets. So there will be two parts to the cost -- capital investment and operating expense. But rates don't have anything to do with cost. They are whatever the telco can talk the local regulatory authority into. Some example rates follow. Note that NH and Mass have the same oper- ating company. State per line per set Mass .60 .80 NH 1.00 .50 Ga 1.00 .60 DC .76 .76 Md .95 .75 Calif 1.20 .55 NY 2.17 1.06 When I first got TT service, in most places it was the same rate, $1.50 no matter how many phones you had. Now that service and equipment are unbundled, it is for TT, too. The per set charge is the difference in rental between a model 500 and 2500 set (the regular kind). We really shouldn't be renting telephones from the phone company any more. You can usually buy one and throw it away every three years (amortized at 12%) for less. They usually last longer than that, so it's a win. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ======== 10-Sep-81 00:43:19-EDT,1397;000000000000 Date: 10 Sep 1981 0043-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #13 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Thursday, 10 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 13 Today's Topics: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 Sep 1981 08:15:10-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Subject: Usage-sensitive pricing I don't like it much either, since I make a lot of data calls, but a very good case can be made that people who make short calls are subsidizing us. The utilities commission is just trying to follow the rule that you get what you pay for; the prevalence of flat-rate pricing is because with the older exchanges, accurately measuring usage would have cost more than providing the service. (It was only 6 years ago that Durham -- a city (?) of 70,000 -- got automatic number identification on outgoing long-distance calls. And Chapel Hill -- well, around here a "step exchange" meant that the elves working the plugboard had to run up and down stairs to complete your calls. They seemed to take their coffee (?) breaks at 11:00 pm, whenever it rained, and whenever it was inconvenient to have a call delayed.) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 11-Sep-81 03:39:22-EDT,7582;000000000000 Date: 11 Sep 1981 0339-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #14 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Friday, 11 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 14 Today's Topics: Administrivia Timed Local Calls - Accounting Costs Money FX / Quakes / ATT and DP Usage Sensitive Pricing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Sep 1981 0254-EDT From: The Moderator <JSol at Rutgers> Subject: Administrivia In case you hadn't noticed, I neglected to fill in the "Today's Topics" section of TELECOM Digest V1 #13. In addition, the Rutgers machine crashed while in the middle of a distribution run of TELECOM, so apparently several people got duplicate copies of the digest. My apologies for any inconvenience. Also - I am still getting reports that everybody is not getting the digest in its entirety. Please make sure your digest has the familiar "End of TELECOM Digest" underlined with stars (*) and send mail to TELECOM-REQUEST if your digest doesnt have this. Enjoy, JSol ------------------------------ Date: 9 Sep 1981 2246-PDT Subject: timed local calls From: WRS at OFFICE-2 (William R. Soley) My complaint about timed local service is this: glancing through my last bill, I notice that I made 3 pages of calls (42) adding up to $7.34. That is $0.17 per call, average. 42% of the calls were $0.05 or less. Worse than this, I have flat rate service to ZUM zone 1: these 42 calls were only my zone 2 and 3 usage. What really enflames me is the extra cost of all of this extra detailed accounting. Really now, what % of that $7.34 actually pays for the 42 calls, and what % pays for the 3 pages of billing data? -Bill Soley ------------------------------ Date: 10 September 1981 0129-PDT (Thursday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: FX / Quakes / ATT and DP CC: ELMO at MC, Nomdenet at Rand-Unix Over the years I have gotten all sorts of esoteric services from telco, including leased lines and FX service. Currently, I have two FX lines that reach out from my home in Pacific Telephone into General Telephone (yup, I do it too!) I have a PacTel line also, since it has a nice dialing area to the east and south of my location. Several comments. 1) Getting an FX line engineered is a PAIN. I moved from a General service area into Pacific, and I wanted to make my two original GTE lines extend into my new home. PacTel screamed "no facilities" for about two weeks, until I started hassling the "higher-ups". After they finally found some wire between the (nearby) CO's, it took them over a month to get one of the lines (the important one, of course) working. They spent this month blaming General Telephone for the problems, while GTE blamed Pacific. My verdict is that BOTH companies were screwing up. I had to make INNUMERABLE calls to people (including technicians) at BOTH companies to get the matter finally cleared up. I was particularly "amused" that almost nobody at PacTel understood that THEY (and not GTE) billed me for the service (GTE sends the tapes to Pacific for toll calls and they show up on my bill a couple of months later). Some of the managerial types in my local PacTel business office claimed I had to deal with GTE directly in case of problems and that GTE billed me -- nonsense of course. I could go on and on about this, but you get the basic idea. By the way, of my two FX lines, one works fine and one has some problems, but I have no intention of reporting it since the problem is minor and I KNOW they would break it completely if they touched it. Someday I'll tell the saga of the four-wire leased line I rented to a friend's house and the DAYS I spent on the phone and with telco techs trying to keep THAT working! 2) It is clearly possible to set up "virtual" FX circuits via ESS. The machines would be programmed to automatically call forward incoming calls, and the billing routines would adjust for outgoing calls to the designated locations. No doubt there would still be a substantial mileasge charge for this service, even though physical plant (wires and such) would not be dedicated full time to the service (as is the case in conventional FX service). 3) I had not heard that PacTel had frozen flat rate FX service. It doesn't surprise me, but it is rather depressing, since I'd be curious to know how long MY rates will stay flat. There are indeed fewer and fewer options for dealing with these problems, though there still are some (semi-expensive) alternatives in cases of serious need. At least for now. ----- The reason that the phone service in L.A. was disrupted after the recent quake (a nothing quake by the way, though the most fun since 1971), is that EVERYBODY PICKED UP THEIR PHONE AT THE SAME TIME!!!! Switching equipment can only handle a certain number of calls at one time, with Step equipment being the worst in this regard. After the '71 quake, I picked up my GTE Step line and was unable to draw dialtone... it was obvious that there were no linefinders to service my call. The 213 area code was turned off to avoid saturating incoming toll trunks with calls from anxious relatives trying to find out what was going on. There was very little physical damage to switching equipment even in '71, except for the old GTE Step office in Sylmar that was essentially at the epicenter. It was a mess (alot of racks fell over), and since it was so old they decided to trash it and put in EAX (GTE brand of ESS) equipment ahead of schedule. When I picked up my phones here at home after the recent quake (I'm a BIG help, aren't I?) I found that the GTE Step lines were once again clogged, but the PacTel Crossbar circuits were fine. There was apparently NO damage to any switching equipment (or anything else, except some broken bottles and concrete cracks on Catalina island (at the epicenter), from this quake. Oh yeah -- the only time I have found sluggish response on my PacTel lines was the morning after the FIRST Air Traffic Controllers strike was cancelled. I am handled by the same CO that supports LAX, and it was taking up to 15-30 seconds to get a marker to complete my calls for about an hour or so, at least occasionally. Guess there were alot of calls going on -- markers are usually pretty damn fast... KERCHUNK. ----- As for the judge's decision on ATT entry into data processing... I would expect that decision to be bouncing back and forth between higher courts for quite a while yet! --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 10 September 1981 0138-PDT (Thursday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: usage sensitive pricing To: ucbvax!decvax!duke!unc!smb This subject has been discussed extensively (by myself and others) on HUMAN-NETS -- including a network-wide poll I took on the subject. I suggest that the interested reader contact the HUMAN-NETS maintainers to locate the appropriate back issues from the archives. --Lauren-- [Interested readers should look at HUMAN-NETS Volume 4, Issues 12-16 for more information on Usage Sensitive Pricing, which you may obtain by sending mail to HUMAN-NETS-REQUEST if you don't have copies lying around -JSOL] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 12-Sep-81 00:53:32-EDT,7514;000000000000 Date: 12 Sep 1981 0053-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #15 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Saturday, 12 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 15 Today's Topics: Natural Disasters - Sylmar and LA Exchanges New Computer Company - Subsidiary of Bell Detailed Call Accounting Vs. Summary of Charges ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Sep 1981 1159-PDT From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: Re: Fake (virtual) FEX by ESS To: telecom at RUTGERS One example of virtual FEX is the 272 prefix in Beverly Hills. This is switched by the same machine which handles 275, 550, and 858. 272 has always been an LA area (I think LA area 4) exchange, although it was actually Step until recently. 272 was used to fill the big demand for LA area phone lines by residents of beverly hills without any actual equipment. In spite of the fact that the same ESS machine handles the switching, 272 responds slightly differently to the user than the other prefixes on that system. Most users would not notice the relatively minor differences, but a friend of mine who had lines from both 550 and 272 mentioned that they weren't the same and showed me some of the strange discrepancies. I think this was not billed as FEX, but as some other 'special service' for which the phone company was able to collect additional money. The prefix looked to the world as if it were actually located downtown, so for the purpose of bills, there was no special handling required. Calls made to or from a line were billed as if they originated in that LA area. PBXen on this ESS were among the first to have DID (Direct Inward Dialing) in the area. I think it was a test site or something. Anyway... Enough is enough. WE The Bell System In telephones and Data communications We make your life a bit more tiring. A day without a phone call might actually be relaxing. You do not want that. The Telephone company: working for us. We're the Telephone Company We don't have to care.. WE ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 11 Sep 1981 16:04-PDT To: unix-wizards at SRI-UNIX Cc: mike at RAND-UNIX Subject: New computer company? From: mike at RAND-UNIX The following rumor was news to me. I have no way of knowing if there is any truth to it but my source is well connected with the computer industry. He claims that the Bell System computer subsidiary, whatever it will be called, will announce a computer system within six months. The computer looks like "a cross between a vax and a MAC 32". (The MAC 32 was an array processor, I understand). Speed is said to be about 70% faster than a vax. It runs Unix. It has 512 32-bit registers. No information about what it will cost, when it will be announced, what sort of bus, etc. Supposedly it will be used in the ESS in place of the PDP 11. Does anyone care to refute or elaborate upon this rumor? Michael Wahrman ------------------------------ Date: 11 September 1981 1403-PDT (Friday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: detailed call accounting In most parts of the world outside of the U.S./Canada, detailed call accounting is the exception rather than the rule. Even "long-distance" (trunk) calls were/are usually listed in terms of a total number of minutes ONLY. Even telco didn't have any way to derive the details unless the call was placed through an operator. The reason for all this is that calls were/are charged by means of "pulse meters" attached to each subscriber line (at the CO). For different classes of calls, the meter would be incremented at different rates. So for a local call, you would get N pulses per minute, for distant calls you would get more, and so on. Charging would be based purely on total number of pulses with some bizarre time discounts in some cases (this required somewhat more elaborate meters that could keep track of such things.) This sort of situation is changing, but most telcos charge extra for any kind of detailed billng. There are of course similar situations in the U.S. Optional Residence Telephone Service (ORTS) bills simply present an accumulated total of minutes used within the ORTS coverage area. It is possible to get a detailed call accounting for ORTS for a given month, but you must specially request it, and it arrives separately from the bill. At least in California, for now, there is usually no charge for this accounting. I believe the same sort of situation will ensue when you all start paying per minute for ALL local calls. You will get a big listing of total number of minutes used, with discount rates (35%/60%) for after 5PM/11PM discounts. You will probably be able to demand a detailed accounting (when local equipment maintained that info), but I'll bet there is an extra charge for it this time. I find detailed accounting to be very important. I frequently find erroneous billing of various sorts -- wrong numbers, wrong timing, you name it. People who don't bother checking over their bills are just feeding more money into the coffer... consider it charity! Interestingly, virtually all errors I have ever seen on anyone's bills were overcharges (this may be misleading, it's harder to figure out "missing" calls than added ones.) An added note about usage sensitive pricing: there are apparently plans in the works for "local" WATS lines to allow businesses to pay for incoming LOCAL calls from customers. I can't wait to see the mess when people start making collect local calls. How about person-to-person local calls? How will you feel about sitting on hold at $.60/hour (for now!) We run faster and faster to stay in the same place. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 11 Sep 1981 19:15-PDT Subject: Sylmar exchange in 1971 From: greep at RAND-UNIX Lauren neglected to mention the reason why the the GTE Sylmar CO was out of commission for almost a month after the 1971 earthquake: nobody ever got around to bolting down the racks to the floor (standard practice), so they all fell over. ------------------------------ From: sdcsvax!sdcatta:wa143@NPRDC Subject: L.A. Earthquakes & dial tone... Cc: 'nomdenet@RAND-UNIX' The southern California earthquake as well as any other'natural disaster' even if minor, creates a good deal of concern if not panic in the citizens of the region affected. Delay in dial tone are not uncommon in any situation like that as thousands of people attempt to use their instruments at the same time. During the severe flooding here in San Diego last winter, citizens were told to leave work early and go home in anticipation of serious problems. Shortly after the announcement, the phone system was so deluged that it took up to 2 minutes in some cases to obtain dial tone. I would think in a major earthquake, you would probably lose your dial tone for days, not seconds... Bret Marquis ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdcatta!bam sdcsvax!sdcatta!bam@NPRDC ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 14-Sep-81 22:50:50-EDT,15002;000000000000 Date: 14 Sep 1981 2250-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #16 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Tuesday, 15 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 16 Today's Topics: Overhead Vs. Cost of Usage New Bell System Computer(?) Billing Errors - Pseudo-Automatic Toll Billing What Happens When EVERYBODY Picks Up The Phone At The Same Time ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Sep 1981 1428-PDT Subject: Phone company overhead vs cost of actuall use... From: BILLW at SRI-KL I don't understand why, but.... I have a phone bill from Bell of PA for $0.18 I dont think Ill pay it until they send me at least 3 or 4 "reminders"... Bill W ------------------------------ Date: 14 September 1981 09:22-EDT From: Andrew Tannenbaum <TRB at MIT-MC> Subject: New Bell System Computer cc: "mike@rand-unix, unix-wizards" at SRI-UNIX Dear, dear. The Bell System is very touchy about its employees divulging proprietary information about its products. You can't get fired from Bell Labs for being incompetent, just for screwing your secretary or smoking dope or drinking beer in your office, or divulging proprietary information. Sooner or later, the Bell System will be able to release its computers for sale. Sooner will be in more than six months though, you can rest assured. The wheels of justice turn S-L-O-W-L-Y. If some Bell System drone reports on proprietary products he does so at personal risk (possibly great). I can say that the MAC32 is NOT an array processor, and that Bell Labs is working on processors to use in their switching systems, even ones that run UNIX (our telecommunications support operating system). Have fun generating rumors, just don't attach your names to them. And do try to make them somewhat accurate. Should the Bell System just start offering its computers for sale (without clearing up small legal details), it would be sued several times. When the Bell System decides let you know about its computers (as soon as the government lets us sell them to you), we'll let you know. Andy Tannenbaum Bell Labs Whippany, NJ ------------------------------ Date: 14 Sep 1981 0734-PDT Subject: International Calling From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) I just received a little freebie phone number log and calling guide from my local Telco. On the page where it explains direct-dialling international calls, there's a table of country codes. By Korea (code 82) there is a footnote, to wit, "Military bases cannot be dialled directly." Can anyone explain the reason for this situation? I would assume that the majority of telco traffic between the US and Korea would be calls between those same military bases and the US, either personal calls between family members, or official business of some sort. (If not truly the majority, at least a large proportion.) One would think that anything which would make that large segment of the calls easier for the telcos would be installed, and they would have been among the FIRST Korean areas to get IDD access. I can only think of two possible reasons for this situation: 1) The US military bases are on a separate telephone system of some unique or old kind, and IDD cannot automatically connect to them -- it requires human operator intervention; or 2) Some security restrictions, either imposed by the ROK host government or self-imposed by the US military, require all overseas calls to and from the bases go through operators (and make monitoring easier). (Some sort of drug traffic problem would explain the latter approach, but I didn't think Korea was much of a drug smuggling center, as the Southeast Asian countries are.) Explanations would be welcomed. (Korea is the only country with that particular footnote, by the way.) Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: 12 Sep 1981 02:51:28-PDT From: purdue!cak at Berkeley Subject: the Bell Computer I suspect that the computer that Bell will announce as their first product is the 3B<simplex>. As far as I have heard, the 3B is a machine that was patterned somewhat after the VAX, but with high reliability for ESS applications in mind. It can run either in a simplex/single processor mode, which is probably what will be sold, or in a duplex/dual processor mode, each processor watching the other (like Tandem NONSTOP systems), for ESS applications. They hope for something like 1 day in 40 years downtime. It does run unix, I talk to people in the Labs who use it every day. Chris Kent (purdue!cak) ------------------------------ Date: 14 Sep 1981 13:36:46-PDT From: menlo70!hao!cires!harkins at Berkeley re: Mike Wahr's query about the "bell machine" I have not seen anything announced, BUT... about 3 months ago there was an ad in Computerworld I think that was asking for marketing types for a "new line of mini and micro computers" ergo, the rumor nearly has to be true ------------------------------ Date: 14 Sep 1981 13:36:14-PDT From: menlo70!hao!cires!harkins at Berkeley re: the other piece of mail I just sent re: the "bell machine"; that ad was a help wanted ad by Bell Labs ------------------------------ Date: 12 Sep 1981 03:18:43-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Subject: Telco billing errors Before GTE installed automatic number identification on their long distance circuits in Durham, you had to give the calling number any time you made a long-distance call. Rumors abounded that they had no way of checking what you said, which, if true, would have led to wide-spread fraud. Regardless of that, there were quite a few billing errors, and there were claims made that they would randomly assign unclaimed calls to subscribers' bills. No evidence was ever cited, of course, and I doubt that even the North Carolina State Utilities Commission would tolerate such a thing. But... there were some curious occurrences. For example, a call once showed up on our bill to "%FAYETTEVILLE". Now, I know that we had never called Fayetteville. When I complained to the service representative, she found a copy of the bill and told me that that call was one that previously appeared on our bill, had been investigated, and found to be correct. That, of course, was totally false -- we had all our bills for the last year or more, and there were no calls to Fayetteville on any of them. We told here that; she told us they'd check further, and nothing showed up again. I keep wondering what that "%" was about.... ------------------------------ Date: 12 Sep 1981 03:25:31-PDT From: ucbopt!quarles at Berkeley Subject: Strange telephone problem Here is an interesting problem for the telephone experts. I have been getting calls all day long recently that are driving me crazy, and Pacific Telephone can't seem to figure out what could be happening or how to stop it. My phone rings, I pick it up, and find that the person on the other end was in the middle of a conversation with someone else and suddenly, the other party was cut off and I was on the line. Some additional facts: The party I am speaking to was the recipient of the original call. The recipient (in the conversations that lasted long enough) has always said they don't know the identity of the original caller. The problem frequently occurs when the original caller puts the called party on hold. The conversation I can hold with the person I am connected to varies in length from about 10 seconds to ~3 minutes. (Then I get a dial tone.) The person I am talking to may be anywhere in the US (Many won't give me any information, but I have had several conversations with people in New Mexico, and at least one with someone in 'the southeast US'). The originator seems to be a business on the west coast since the calls start very shortly after 9 AM Calif. time and continue at varying intervals until I leave for the day. I can place and receive calls normally and my phone line checks out correctly by all of PT&T's tests. PT&T's only suggestion is to put a 24 hour a day trace on my phone (at MY expense of course) to try to find out where the calls are coming from, but it seems to me that that wouldn't help find the problem since that would find the other recipient of the call, not the originator and I suspect that problem must be with the originator since the problem started very suddenly and occurs with great regularity but always a different person on the other end of the line. Anybody got any ideas? Tom Quarles (ucbopt:quarles at berkeley) ------------------------------ Date: 14 Sept 1981 2206-edt From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSOL at RUTGERS> Subject: I can't resist Sorry - I just can't resist. I remember when I was about 12 years old and had ESS to play with (yes they *had* ESS in them days), and I used to use the 3-way calling feature to do just that. I used to call up some friend of mine and then call another one and let them talk "But you called me!" "no I didnt, you called me" and so forth, until I got tired of listening then I just hung up. I can just imagine some young prankster (who happens to be left alone at home from 9 to 5) calling some random place (and not paying for it of course) and then calling you and watching you and the other party call. The "putting on Hold" is what someone with 3-way calling does when he wants to call someone else. Of course I'm only speculating... ------------------------------ Date: 14 Sep 1981 07:38:53-PDT From: allegra!phr at Berkeley To: allegra!telecom@Berkeley Subject: When thousands all pick up their instruments at once... During the Las Vegas MGM Grand Hotel fire last year, it was impossible to get a telco line to Nevada for a while. SPC's Sprint service made it through just fine, however. This is not an editorial (after all, how many out in the real world know about Sprint?); just the facts, ma'am. Paul Rubin (allegra!phr) ------------------------------ Date: 12 Sep 1981 03:30:47-PDT From: CSVAX.dmr at Berkeley Subject: Bell Computer Company I can't confirm or deny the rumors reported by Mike@Rand-Unix relating to the purported Bell System computer company, but his informant doesn't have good gen on the potential hardware. There are two processors. One (currently called the 3B-20) comes in two forms: simplex and duplex. Both are built of commercial MSI. The simplex is a conventional midicomputer in packaging and the like. The duplex runs on 48 volts, looks like an ESS machine, and has two mutually-checking processors. It will be used as the processor for #5 ESS. It runs DMERT, a real-time kernel (successor to MERT, see the Unix BSTJ issue). A version of Unix is one of the supervisors that can run under DMERT. The simplex, on the other hand, is being pushed reasonably hard internally (inside BTL) as an alternative to the Vax both for conventional computing and especially for OSSs ("operational support systems", machines for trouble reporting, record-keeping, and the like). It runs a version of Unix that is a straightforward port of the internally supported system. Then, there is the 3B-5. This is based on an internally developed LSI processor chip lately called the BELLMAC(tm)-32, previously called the MAC-32. It does not exist as a "system" yet, but there are working chips. Although its existence has been announced, I suspect most of the details about design rules and the like are still proprietary-- fortunately I don't remember them. It is, however, quite large in area. It gave rise to the joke that whereas the early, non-working LSI chips from most projects are made into souvenir tie tacks, the MAC-32 was being turned into belt buckles. The two processors are "assembly-language compatible" in that there is an assembler for their common machine language, which is called IS-25. (IS- instruction set; 25- the old number of the organization that developed it. A year ago all organizations in BTL were renumbered.) The compatibility extends to the instructions and address modes, though there can be differences in bit encoding, and some of the odder instructions aren't in the MAC-32. IS-25 is very strongly influenced by the Vax. The instructions and address modes are, in fact, nearly identical, though some of the especially recondite Vaxisms were dropped. I don't know how many registers there are internally, but the programmer sees 16 (32 bits each). Neither machine has anything to do with array processing. Dennis Ritchie ------------------------------ Date: 14 Sep 1981 08:08:25-PDT From: allegra!jdd at Berkeley Subject: ESS Overload and Dial Tone Delays From: John DeTreville at Bell Labs, Murray Hill UUCP-Address: allegra!jdd A comment on dial tone delay during overload: During an emergency (and on Mother's Day, the busiest day of the year for the nationwide network), switching systems can get overloaded and cause dial tone delay. If the delay becomes too great, people give up and try again, which actually makes things worse (at least on #1 ESS), since the original request for dial tone is still queued up and has to be looked at when it comes up, or else they don't start dialing very rapidly after dial tone starts, in which case the tone circuit is tied up for longer that it woud be otherwise, or they do other things that produce unfortunate feedback into the service equations. The result is that, instead of the plot of "level of service" (whatever that is) as a function of system load looking like: + + + + + + + + it looks like + + + + + + + + which is unfortunate. An approach to improving this behavior is to better match the system behavior to human behavior so as to reduce the effect of this feedback. One scheme in use on #1 ESS is to change the FIFO processing of dial-tone requests to LIFO, processing the newest first, on the assumption that the newest calls are the ones that the customer is most likely to complete. Old calls, if they are not serviced within 20 or 30 seconds, get aged back to the head of the list, on the assumption that we have to give them service \eventually/, and they're bound to give up if we wait much longer. This scheme actually works pretty well. By the way, Mike@Rand-Unix, PDP-11's have never been used in switching systems; the Bell System has for some while designed its own processors for switching use. Cheers, John ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 16-Sep-81 01:11:34-EDT,4565;000000000000 Date: 16 Sep 1981 0111-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #17 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Wednesday, 16 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 17 Today's Topics: Calling Korea Bizarre Phone Behavior Telephone Seminars & Show at LA Convention Center Where Are The Lowest Phone Rates Bell 303 Modem Hackers Query ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Sep 1981 0:12:55 EDT (Tuesday) From: Edward D. Hunter <edh at BBN-RSM> Subject: Calling Korea Cc: edh at BBN-RSM There actually exists a seperate telephone system for calling military bases around the world which is maintained by the DoD. It is called Autovon (sp?). I assume that this is what is used to communicate with the military bases in Korea but this still does not explain why there are not any regular direct Koreanan telephone lines to the bases. Prehaps, it is a hold over from some earlier days when the bases were only connected to the military telephone network. For those who are interested getting on to the Autovon network is generally impossible unless you are one some type of DoD installation. Also the numbers for the various bases do not seem to be widely publicized. -edh ------------------------------ Date: 14 September 1981 2203-PDT (Monday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: bizarre phone behavior All sorts of nasties could cause the sort of problem reported in the last digest (having calls pop up that are already in progress), but it is hard to speculate without knowing lots of details. In any case, don't buy the "we can't find anything" story. After all, we are talking about Pacific Telephone, not Continental, right? The first thing to do is to talk to supervisors, NOT to the person manning the centralized repair desk or the test board. If you don't get any satisfaction, call your business office and speak to supervisors and managers there. If you don't get any satisfaction, call the PUC -- they really CAN be fairly helpful. The problems you are having are almost certainly the result of equipment failures within the network, somewhere, and should be fixed by the Company at no cost to you. But to repeat, the first rule is to talk to supervisors and managers as soon as you start getting the runaround from the line personnel. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 1981 1335-EDT From: Gene Hastings <HASTINGS at CMU-20C> Subject: Telephone seminars & show at LA Convention Center I just received a flyer on "Intelexpo '81", a seies of seminars and exhibitions at the Los Angeles Convention Center Sept. 14-17. It is sponsored by the United States Telecommunications Suppliers Association. The technical exhibits are open each day from 11:00 to 6:00. Further: "PTT's, telephone company representatives, representatives of foreign and domestic government agencies, USITA and USTSA members, exhibitors and special guests may attend the exhibits at no charge." From the wording of their flyer, "Educational Institutes" and broadcasters also qualify for free admission to the exhibits. About 150 manufacturers and distributors are listed as having displays. Gene ------------------------------ Date: 15-Sep-81 11:38:46 PDT (Tuesday) From: Hamilton.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Lowest phone rates cc: Hamilton.ES It strikes me that California has the lowest phone rates in the country. (It's no wonder that both Pacific Bell and General are infamous for their poor service). Pay phones are still a dime. My base phone rate is $2.50 (I own my instrument, have pulse dialing only, and no free calls). Can anybody beat that? Please reply to me (Hamilton.ES@PARC-MAXC). I'll summarize any replies and forward to the list. --Bruce ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 1981 1609-PDT From: Hon Wah Chin <HWC at SU-AI> Subject: Bell 303 modems CC: HWC at SU-AI Does anyone out there know how to change a Bell 303 wideband modem (the kind used to hook the ARPANET together) from option Z to option E so that it could take external sync for transmitted data? I want to connect a modem to the 303 interface instead of a DTE to run the data to a different point before TPC gets around to moving the line itself. They seem likely to take forever to do even this for us. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 19-Sep-81 04:43:23-EDT,4016;000000000000 Date: 19 Sep 1981 0443-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #18 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Saturday, 19 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 18 Today's Topics: Usage Sensitive Pricing ESS Call Forwarding Who Has The Best Local Calling Area? Autovon Query ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Sep 1981 1410-EDT From: SIRBU at MIT-DMS (Marvin A. Sirbu, Jr.) Subject: Measurement costs for USP Someone inquired a few issues back concerning the costs of measurement for usage sensitive pricing. This subject is covered in an article entitled "Optimal Pricing of Local Telephone Service," by Bridger M. Mitchell of the Rand corporation appearing in the American Economic Review, 9/78, pp 517-537. "The incrremental capital cost required to measure local calling can range from as little as $5 to more than $50 per line, depending on the size of the local exchange, the type of switching equipment, and the extent of record keeping required....One manufacturer of metering equipment reports that the annualized hardware cost per line, when all lines are metered, decreases from more than $30 in a 1,000 line central office to just over $10 in a 10,000-line office." In an electronic office, the capability is built in from the beginning. The costs of turning it on are merely the costs of software checkout. These costs (according to NY tel) range from $2 to $5 per line. "Estimates of these added operating costs vary widely, ranging between about $.001 and $.003 per call, or $.10 to $.40 per month for the average number of local calls." The article goes on to calculate under what circumstances total social welfare is increased by switching to USP. Basically, society is better off if local service is NOT measured if the cost of that measurement is high and the marginal costs for additional calls are low. If you work it out, it seems that flat rates are best where there are electromechanical exchanges, and USP is best where there are electronic exchanges. Marvin Sirbu. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Sep 1981 09:38:38-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Subject: call-forwarding Last night, I was expecting a call, so I used the call-forwarding feature to pass incoming calls on to a friend's number. One does this by dialing 72#newnumber; when the phone is answered, forwarding is established. (If there's no answer, or it's busy, repeat the process "immediately".) This person's phone also had call forwarding turned on, but when I made my call (actually, I used speed dialing, but I don't think that's relevant to what happened), his phone rang -- the setup call was not forwarded. Calls to my number were properly forwarded two levels, however. Is this a bug or a feature? Also, what does the system do about forwarding loops? When are they detected? ------------------------------ Date: 17 Sep 1981 1550-PDT From: ROODE at SRI-KL (David Roode) Subject: Autovon So how does one telephone U.S. military bases in Korea from the commercial phone network? ------------------------------ Date: 17 Sep 1981 15:43:50-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!wm at Berkeley In-real-life: Wm Leler Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Subject: reply to telecom digest re: lowest phone rates Depending on how you look at it, Houston has the lowest phone rates, since you can call more phones for free than anywhere else in the nation. From where I used to live you could call up to 60 miles away as a local call, and we paid around $11, which included an instrument and unlimited local calls. And I make a LOT of local calls. Of course Southwestern Bell is working to change all that. ------------------------------- End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 20-Sep-81 18:04:29-EDT,2863;000000000000 Date: 20 Sep 1981 1804-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #19 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Monday, 21 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 19 Today's Topics: Forwarding Loops Usage Sensitive Pricing - 'Social Welfare' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 September 1981 20:30 edt From: York.Multics at MIT-Multics (William M. York) Subject: forwarding loops Forwarding loops are automatically prevented by the fact that when the final stage of the loop is reached, the original line is still busy (since you are on it). Most of the weird cases seem to have been taken care of. For example, if your phone is forwarded to a line that is part of a hunt group, the forwarded calls will hunt correctly. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Sep 1981 18:10:36-PDT From: CSVAX.geoff at Berkeley Subject: USP and ``total social welfare'' (in reference to the Rand study mentioned in TELECOM V1 #18 by M. Sirbu) One must distinguish between ``total social welfare'' and minimizing the total cost of telephone service when trying to decide whether USP (usage sensitive pricing) is to be desired. I agree that USP will serve to minimize the cost of telephone service to all users under certain circumstances, probably those which exist where electronic exchanges have been installed. However, will the result be that people will tend to use the telephone less, and possibly to travel more? For example: o I frequently use a terminal at home to various computer systems which I would otherwise have to travel, probably by car, to use. Although the terminal runs more slowly (1200 vs. 9600 baud), I'm willing to put up with the inconvenience, because (a) I don't have to travel and (b) it's free. If it were not free, I might choose to travel more frequently. o Since local calls are free, many people I know think nothing of calling a store to determine whether or not the store has an item of interest, when they are open, etc. They are able to minimize travel time and cost as a result. If these people associated a direct cost with each telephone call, might they not think twice about making them? Are "average" consumers likely to be as sensitive to a switch to USP as the above examples suggest? Might the total social welfare not be bettered in these cases (and possibly others) by encouraging the use of the phone and thus (1) decreasing energy use and (2) using the consumer's time more efficiently? (Do PUC's care about arguments like these? Would free public transit have a significant impact on private auto usage?) Geoff Peck ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 21-Sep-81 23:54:40-EDT,9879;000000000000 Date: 21 Sep 1981 2354-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #20 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Tuesday, 22 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 20 Today's Topics: Usage Sensitive Pricing Stacked ESS Call Forwarding Who Are The 'Average' Phone Users? Calling Military Bases In Korea ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SIRBU@MIT-MC 09/20/81 21:23:12 Re: Social Welfare and USP The calculation of "social welfare" must indeed take into account the calls that are foregone as a result of USP. By the same token, when something is "free" like local calls, we may continue to consume it even when our call isn't worth (to us) the 3-5 cents/minute it costs to provide. Presumably it is those MARGINAL calls which we eliminate when there is a shift to USP. A consumer who will use up a dollar's worth of gas driving around to several stores to find something he could have located with a 3 cent phone call isn't economically "rational". On the other hand, if you spend a dollar to drive to your office to use a terminal for an hour, society is better off, for it's avoided the $1.80 - $3.00 it would have cost to provide you with phone service during that hour. Probably there will be some consumers who will be economically "irrational" and will waste 50 cents trying to save a nickel. If economics tells us anything, it is that, on average, people do not make those kind of choices. Actual experiments with USP do show a reduction in calling; but it is not so large as to conclude that people are foregoing calls worth much more to them than 3- 5 cents. ------------------------------ Date: 20 September 1981 22:38 edt From: York.Multics at MIT-Multics (William M. York) Subject: average phone users Does anyone have any statistics on the "average" phone customer mentioned by Geoff Peck? In areas where there is a choice between cheap monthly rate service with metered usage on all calls and more expensive service which includes free calls to certain areas, which do more customers choose? I realize that a general answer to this is hard for reasons such as local geography and prices, but any info might be interesting. This is the first step in determining the impact of a switch to metered billing for all phones. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Sep 1981 19:46:47-PDT From: ihnss!karn at Berkeley Subject: Forwarding loops in ESS When I had call forwarding on an ESS, I did some experimenting to see how they prevent forwarding loops. It is done by marking your number (if forwarding is in effect) busy for one minute. Since any loop you're likely to set up will take less than 1 minute to propagate, looping is prevented. This means that if somebody calls you when your phone is forwarded, and hangs up after a short time (e.g., 1 ring), anybody else trying to call (or re-call) within the next minute will get a busy signal even though the destination phone might be free. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 21 Sep 1981 0042-PDT From: Daul at OFFICE Subject: Phone Company's Powers Could someone repeat in detail what the phone company does in a disaster. What does it do to the in and out going calls? Does it turn off local offices or entire area codes? How do they decide when to turn things back on? How do they decide who has priority for phone use? How can they grant one user use of the system while denying use to everyone else? I suspect I will have more questions when I get more information. Thanks, --Bill [DAUL at OFFICE] ------------------------------ Date: 21 Sep 1981 08:32:30-PDT From: menlo70!hao!woods at Berkeley Subject: local calling areas Sometimes a local calling area has to be measured by more than just how many phones you can reach, but how many USEFUL phones you can reach. As an example, here in Boulder, Co., we are in the metro Denver local area (downtown Denver is about 40 miles away, a pretty long local call), which means we can call Castle Rock (a southern suburb of Denver), which is about 80 miles away, as a local call, but we can't call Longmont, which is in the same county and is only 10 miles away, without paying toll rates. Who sets up the "local" calling area anyway? ------------------------------ Date: 21 Sep 1981 0927-PDT From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: Re: ESS forwarding Setting up call forwarding to another user of the same switch on ESS goes through his forwarding. I believe this is a feature, and many times, I have used it to reach someone who had been forwarding. As for forwarding loops, there is no detection for this except for the same situation as above (i.e. users on same ESS) in which case if I forward to you and you forward to me the result is a custom calling feature called Call-trading. If, however, I forward to a user on another ESS, and he forwards to me, a call to me will be forwarded to him, then back to me, where it will return a busy signal. An interesting bug(?): Try forwarding to yourself sometime... Then try calling your phone from another line. [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] Another interesting bit of trivia: As of this past saturday, my ESS machine (and I suspect many others in the area) are acting differently. Up until then, I could use 11nn or *nn for my speed calling codes, in addition to the nn# form. Except for 113x, because 113 was ANI. Also, # as a first digit would cause the digit receiver to collect 6 more digits (as a normal 7 digit number) and then the system would realize that the call was bogus, and return an error message. Now, ANI is 600, and the 11nn/*nn and #nn all go to the custom calling error message ("We're sorry but your call using this custom calling feature cannot be completed. Please check your instruction manual...") I find this change particularly annoying since the portable phone I have sends those damn dial pulses, and 11nn was handy for that. Now, I have to type nn and wait 4 seconds, since the thing can't send a # sign (12 pulses) Anybody know what these new features are(will be)?? <>IHM<> ------------------------------ Date: 21 Sep 1981 0909-PDT From: Charles B. Weinstock <Weinstock at SRI-KL> Subject: Forwarding Loops The SRI International, Northern Telecom phone system does not prevent forwarding loops. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Sep 1981 1953-EDT Sender: CSANFORD at BBND Subject: tele-world net The Boston Phoenix (a 'ground-level' newspaper, as opposed to the underground press) has asked all of its readers who have three way calling to send in their phone numbers for 'the worlds largest conference call.' Boston folk can find the ad on the last page of this weeks Phoenix, under the puzzle. This is a unique opportunity to really play telephone! ------------------------------ Date: 21 Sep 1981 2336-EDT From: RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO Subject: Calling US Military Bases in Korea The way you call US Military Bases in Korea is to have the call put through by the IOTC (the international operator). Why you can't is something that will require some more research (I'm doing that now). What I know so far is: The codes are curious: City Civilian Numbers The Base Seoul 2 2 404 + extension Kunsan 654 2 404 82 + extension Osan 332 2 404 84 + extension The numbers I have shown for bases are screened at the overseas sender in Denver and cause you to get a recording which says: "Calls to Korea Military Bases can not be dialed directly. Please call your overseas operator. This is a recording. 303-1C." The IOTC has a trunk group to the IOC which is not screened, allowing them to call. To reach the base operator, just extension "0" is dialed. Other extensions are three or four digits long. The minimum length for calls to Korea is eight digits, so you would be able to dial any extension or the operator at Kunsan or Osan but not Seoul (if it weren't screened). Some questions need further research: 1. Is it political? I doubt it. The overseas operator will put the call right through for you. You can call military bases anywhere else (except where the numbers get too long, for example, Patch Barracks in Stuttgart - 49 711 7301 XXXX - one digit too long). You can even direct dial the Soviet Union. AT&T really wants to cut back on labor costs, so I think it is technical. 2. Could it be just because you can't reach the base operator at Seoul? It seems silly to restrict everything just because one number is too short to dial. But AT&T believes in consistency (or their perception of it, no matter how arcane). 3. Why do the numbers for Osan and Kunsan appear to be routed through the main entry at Seoul? Unless the system is a lot smarter than it should have to be, calls to the other bases are being routed through Seoul, then out on tie lines (82, 84). With an arrangement like this, AT&T may be reluctant to allow calls to go through, due to possible flaky maintenance of the tie lines -- they might not always properly return off-hook supervision. 4. Are there local numbers within Osan and Kunsan to reach the base? (It seems that there would have to be. A G.I. living on the econ- omy needs to be able to call into his office without calling through Seoul.) If one knew those numbers, could one dial in? Do those numbers allow DID, or do you have to get connected to an extension? Hope I can answer most of these questions soon. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 23-Sep-81 04:29:45-EDT,13296;000000000000 Date: 23 Sep 1981 0429-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #21 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Wednesday, 23 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 21 Today's Topics: Forwarding Loops in ESS Charging for Directory Assistance & Calling Patterns The Autovon - NOT Secret & Switching Bugs What TPC can do in an Emergency ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Sep 1981 0922-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Forwarding Loops in ESS We really need to be sure to make the distinction between No 1 ESS and No 2 ESS when we talk about software behaviour. No 2 ESS is the machine which marks your line busy for 1 minute after a call has been forwarded, regardless of whether it was within or outside the central office, and uses that to prevent forwarding loops. If enough of us with No 2 ESS forwarding in different offices were to all agree to set up call forwarding to each other in a pre-arranged sequence, so that the signalling time around the loop was more than a minute, then we could end up with an incredible loop which would gobble up all available trunks until the least-trunked office was soaked. No 1 ESS behaves differently. Years ago, when I first had ESS service, forwarding to someone in your own central office broke through the forwarding both when you set it up AND when a call came to your phone (i.e. no two-hop forwarding within a central office). When I complained about it, I found out that that was going to be fixed in "Generic 7" (their old numbering scheme for No 1 ESS software level -- I think Generic 8 became 1E5, but I'm not sure exactly where the switch occurred). And indeed it was; forwarding within your office started working properly, except when setting it up. On calls within the office, No 1 ESS will forward EACH new incom- ing call. That means that if you forward to a hunt group calls will keep coming through until the hunt group is full. Or if you forward to someone with Call Waiting, both your first and second calls will reach that line. Call-trading occurs when a loop of two people in the same office forward to each other. But I recall that experiments with more than two showed different results. It may be that No 1 ESS will forward N-hops, (15, maybe?) and then quit. 15 is a magic number, because 16 is the largest number of lines in a "series-completion" group; above that you need a "multi-line hunt group." On calls outside the office, your line is marked busy as long as the call is in progress. Even if you cancel call forwarding and set it up again, possibly to a different number, until that orig- inal call goes away, your line is busy. (Of course, if you leave it cancelled your line is not busy.) The software changes from time to time by the application of new generics or by the updating of translation (routing and digit interpretation) data bases. The ability to dial 11x instead of x# has been disappearing all over the country at varying rates for the past six years. The ability to forward to yourself has been disapearing for a while, too. It seems that one problem with that was that in areas with message rate service, you got billed a message unit for each call you received when you did that in No 1 ESS. So the capability was disabled. It was some- what useful while it existed, because your phone behaved com- pletely normally, EXCEPT operators could not break in on the verification trunks! ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 1981 0734-PDT Subject: Metered vs. flat rate calling From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) Couldn't the calling pattern change when an area goes from free to charged directory assistance calls be used to predict some of the effects of usage-sensitive pricing? Here (Southwestern Bell; Missouri) we went to charged directory assistance a few years back, and, though I never made many directory assistance calls before, I have avoided them all except if there was dire necessity ever since. Even though I am supposed to have 3 (or some such number) free directory assistance calls per month, I am not trusting enough to believe that I won't be charged for any and all, so I don't make any. In this instance, I see extreme effect from going from "free" to metered calling. It really did change my attitude and habits. (By the way, whilst I am discussing this area-- One of my peeves about this charging for directory assistance process, at least here, is that there is no distinction made between NECESSARY and FRIVOLOUS calls. There is a simple distiction; if the call is to inquire about a number NOT in the current printed directories, it is necessary. If the caller could have looked it up but didn't, it is frivolous. I believe that the former category should be allocated unlimited uncharged directory assistance, while all of the latter calls should be charged for. Does ANY telco implement this practice? Would it be physically possible for information operators to have a button on their consoles which they could push to indicate that this particular directory assistance call was to be charged or not, depending if their records of the looked-up number indicated that it was listed in the printed directory? [Does the information presented to information operators include this data, by the way?] That always seemed to me the only rational way to go to discourage those people who are too lazy to use the book first, but it wouldn't penalize anyone who first tried and then, through no fault of their own, couldn't find the number because it was too new to have been included in the printed book. Why should they pay in this case?) Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 1981 1032-PDT From: Jwagner at OFFICE Subject: Phone bug Sometime back I stumbled onto a funny bug in the local telephone service, and I'm hoping someone out there can offer an explanation. I was dialing the local number for Time [(408) 767-1111] from a Centrex telephone at work, but apparently I misdialed because the connection to the Time recording was never made -- instead, I heard maybe eight or nine kids trying to carry on a free-for-all conference call between rings. It sounded like a bunch of kids yelling from telephone limbo -- "What's your name? Where do you go to school? How old are you? What's your number?" Evidently these kids had discovered and made regular use of the number I had misdialed. But their conversations were very abbreviated because the ringing continued throughout the time I listened in, about five minutes. Even now when I dial Time I can here a group of yelling kids just before the connection to the recording is made, but I can't remember or recreate the number I misdialed. Can anyone explain? Jim Wagner/jwagner@office ------------------------------ Date: 22 Sep 1981 1111-PDT Subject: Autovon From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) Since the subject of Autovon came up a while back, I thought I'd contribute a brief description of it for those who aren't familiar with it. I'm a DoD employee and use Autovon constantly, but I am not in the area that runs/maintains it (Defense Telephone Service) so I only know user-level information. Nitty-gritty from those in the know on system-level details will be welcomed. Autovon is a telephone system which parallels the commercial system and links DoD activities together just the way many large corporations have internal networks linking their offices. Practically any installation phone which can be dialled via the commercial net can be dialled through an Autovon trunk. For example, my area has the commercial prefix "263"; to call the same phones via Autovon, the caller at some other DoD installation gets an Autovon trunk by dialling some code (usually 7) and then dialling "693" followed by the last four digits of my number. There's not much publicity for Autovon numbers, not because they are "secret" or restricted in any way, but because the only people who can get to the Autovon trunks are those in DoD installations, and they get phone directories which list all (or most) of the installations and their prefixes. (I'm not saying that some dedicated phone phreak couldn't get into Autovon, especially going through some of the Washington facilities, but it wouldn't really do much good for anyone who didn't want to call military installations.) It was much more common, before most installations got WATS, to use Autovon to get around long-distance calling. From your installation, you'd call some other military installation in the local calling area of the destination commercial number, and ask an assistance operator there to ring the commercial number and connect you. It's not done much now as WATS is much simpler, and you don't have to hunt for some obscure post somewhere near your destination. It was handy for calls to major metropolitan areas, though; I used to do it years ago. Haven't since I've worked here. If you are at a commercial phone, like at home, and need to call Autovon (we had to do this for a while to make data calls a few years back, before we got local dial-up data facilities), you have to go through an operator, at least in this area. Maybe there's some sort of automatic switch in Washington and similar high-usage areas. Here, you have to be on an authorization list pre-arranged through your agency with the DTS to get such access. I just checked with the local DTS, and, at least in this area, the only way to call overseas is to go through the operator. There aren't direct-dial Autovon numbers for the Korean (and other) bases. There might be such facilities available in Washington, though. The Autovon directory does list direct-dial numbers for places in Canada. Looking at the directory is a wonderful exercise in interpreting strange abbreviations, also: "Aegis Csed Site", "Afpro Chem Sys Div Det 19 Afcmd", "Air Natl Gd 128th Taswg Opr Asst", "Army Matlmech Rsch Ctr", and the Navy always has good ones: "Comnavsurfpac", "Comoceansyslant", "Compacmistestcen", "Comrespatwingpac", "Comreconatkwing", "Comsubtragru", and the like. How's "Jppso Sat Diradminqual Assur" or "Inuvik Cfs Swb"? By the way, looking through this I did find a couple numbers listed for places like the Azores and Woomera, Australia, with special "thru CONUS" notes ("CONUS" = "Continental US"). But they are the exceptions. Nominally, Autovon is for voice only, and data calls are not authorized. Though we do use AUTOVON for data at times, it is very flaky and unreliable. Also, your call can be bumped by anyone with higher authority or precedence (that's an operator-assisted feature). Priority levels go up from "Routine" through "Priority" ("administrative matters for which speed of handling is of paramount importance"), "Immediate" ("Safety or rescue operations", ""immediate operational effect on tactical operations", "affect the intelligence community operational role"), and finally "Flash" ("opening of hostilities", "catastrophes", "potential or actual nuclear accident or incident"). I have never made or even heard of any higher-precedence Autovon call. (If I wanted to report an attack, I don't think I'd try using Autovon... go commercial, it's quicker.) On the whole, I tend to equate my experience with Autovon with that with the Vietnamese phone service. Often, to get through the various levels of busy signals and just strange behavior, I'll have to repeatedly dial a number over and over. The user is often connected to totally unrelated numbers or just hangs in some extended wait state after completing dialling. Crosstalk is rampant; you can often clearly understand other conversations while waiting for rings or on hold. When we HAD to use Autovon for data calls, it was immensely frustrating! At times, every other character coming down the line would be interpreted as a DEL! You had to type in your login string as fast as possible so as to force it to get through between the noise and not abort! You may hear of "AUTODIN" and get it confused with "Autovon". They are separate systems; Autodin is an old digital net for data transmission only -- it is what is mainly used for transmitting logistics info (requisitions and related documents) between the field and depots and suchlike supply elements. "AUTODIN II" is a new system still under development which will supplant it and may replace many current uses of the ARPANET in addition. Hope that all this has been of interest and of some help. Will Martin USArmy DARCOM ALMSA (St. Louis) ------------------------------ Date: Tuesday, 22 Sep 1981 11:40-PDT Subject: Emergencies From: greep at RAND-UNIX Each CO has a big switch that can be thrown during emergencies that cuts off all phones except for lines which are exempt from it. These go to places like police stations, major radio stations, etc. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 23-Sep-81 22:16:50-EDT,10706;000000000000 Date: 23 Sep 1981 2216-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #22 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest , Thursday, 24 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 22 Today's Topics: Call Forwarding Loops in ESS Before Automatic Number Indentification Large Local Calling Areas Around the U. S. Some Reasonable Questions About The Rate Structure ITT's Version Of Dimension Where To Get AUTOVON Information ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Sep 1981 17:35:56-PDT From: ihnss!ihuxn!djmolny at Berkeley Subject: Call Forwarding Loops Bell's Dimension PBX systems prevent call forwarding loops by not allowing you to forward your phone to one that is in turn forwarded. Of course, PBX's have it a lot easier, since they only allow in-house forwarding. In the real world, forwarding loops may exist between ESS's, making them difficult to detect. A practical solution for ESS's might be to busy out a phone that is forwarding a call until the call is finished. That way, the forwarding phone will be busy as long as the call is in progress, so that if it is appears in a forwarding chain more than once, the caller will receive a busy signal. This scheme is no more work for an ESS than any other forwarding job, since the ESS must (must?) keep track of forwarded calls in progress and dedicate a virtual circuit to them. (There *are* no physical circuits in an ESS.) Busying out the phone for some short, fixed amount of time allows malicious users to construct very large forwarding loops. Not nice. -- DJ (ihuxn!djmolny) ------------------------------ Date: 23 Sep 1981 0032-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Operator Number Identification and Fraud Before Durham got Automatic Number Identification, there was probably widespread fraud. The rumor that they had no way of checking whether you gave the right number was true. The exchange could be checked by most ONI implementations, but the rest of the number was "honor system." And of course that "honor system" was backed up by a security organization second only to the Bell System's own -- and GTE security gets plenty of cooperation from Bell security when needed to track down fraud. But to avoid sending a customer's complaint that a call on his bill was not made by him, business office people commonly first try to insist that any call on your bill has to be paid. If it's just a little call, most people are afraid to argue with the giant. I once called to request that a local business office remove a third number call from my bill. After speaking to at least two different supervisors and continuing to be told that the call was my responsibility when it was on my bill, regardless of whether I paid it or not, I asked the supervisor to hold for a moment. When I returned to the line, I introduced the supervisor to the FCC representative I had just added on, and asked her to explain, again, what she had just said to me. The FCC representative was somewhat incredulous, "Just a minute, did I hear you say that he has to pay for this call even if he says he didn't make it?" The supervisor then excused herself from the line. Yet another supervisor came to the line and explained that they would be glad to remove the charge from my bill; what was my number please. (All of this had gone on without even LOOKING at the bill!) ------------------------------ Date: 23 Sep 1981 0042-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Large calling areas Two other huge calling areas: Washington, D. C. and its suburbs form a physically huge calling area which has a higher number of telephones (because of all the centrexes, maybe?) than any other calling area in the country. THERE ARE NO TIMED CALLS! From Silver Spring, Maryland, you've probably got the biggest area, Status: O since you get everything the District gets except Lorton, Virginia (some 25 miles south) but you pick up a large area to the north toward Baltimore. Atlanta, Georgia is also huge, spreading some 75 miles from north to south, with no message unit service at all until recently, and even now, only optional (even for businesses) and still untimed. But from Conyers, you get the whole metro area, plus Covington. ------------------------------ Date: 22 September 1981 1127-EDT (Tuesday) From: Seshashayee Murthy <Sesh.Murthy at CMU-10A> Subject: Questions about telephone service. Why does the phone company charge you for extensions even when the telephone belongs to you. Also can they detect that you have extra phones if you have disconnected the ringing circuit of your extensions.Also what is the rationale for preventing you from putting in your own extensions when modular jacks are not present. Where I was staying previously if I dialed my own number I got a busy signal. I shifted to a nearby locality but retained my telephone number. However, nowadays when I dial my own number (don't ask me why I do such things) I get a recorded message saying that my call could not go through. Can anyone explain this? Sesh ------------------------------ Date: 23 Sep 1981 00:02:57-PDT From: sdcsvax!sdcatta!wa143 at Berkeley Subject: ITT's version of Dimension. Does anyone have anything GOOD to say about the new ITT 3100 (or is it the 9100??) key system? Bret Marquis ------------------------------ Date: 23 Sep 1981 0921-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Autovon If you want to read more about Autovon, a good source is the April 1968 Bell Labs Record. At first glance, Autovon is just a CCSA (Common Controlled Switching Arrangement), which is a standard way that Bell connects the locations of large companies together. GE, Westinghouse, Digital, the State of Georgia, IBM, and lots of other companies have CCSAs or the new offer- ings, called ETN (Electronic Tandem Network) or EPSS (Electronic/Exten- ded Switching Service?). However, Autovon is somewhat different. It has special switching offices, usually No 1 ESS or No 5 XBAR, specially modified to do four-wire switching, so there are less four-wire to two-wire con- versions and thus less echo and loss. There are two major classes of connections to Autovon -- users and subscribers. Users are telephones on switchboards which have trunks into Autovon Switching Centers. These people dial an access code, often "8", but other codes may be used if the installation has a need to put something else on "8". Autovon subscribers, however, have direct telephones from the Autovon switching center. These telephones are often four-wire directly into the set and often have the extra four Touch-Tone buttons on the right which will be labelled P I F FO for the four levels of enhanced precedence above Routine, Priority, Immediate, Flash, and Flash Over- ride. FO is only authorized to be used by the Prez, SecDef, JCS, and commanders of "unified and specified" commands when declaring emer- gencies, and CINCNORAD when declaring an emergency, and "other national authorities as the President may authorize." Another difference between Users and Subscribers is that Subscribers have access to what is known as Global Autovon. The world has been divided into Areas, with Area Codes for each. A Subscriber can dial directly to bases in other areas, whereas a User must call his local operator, who will use a trunk which is class marked to permit Global access. The network was designed with special grading codes. To indicate that you want to place a special grade call, you dial 1, then the special grade code, then the Autovon number. The only assigned special grades which were dialable at the time my information was published were 0 for voice (I guess you use that if your default is data) and 1 for data. The Air Force has yet another system which parallels Autovon called SAGE Autovon. This is not supposed to be used for administrative traffic. One interesting difference is that on GP Autovon, to call an extension in "the mountain" you dial a seven digit number which gets you an operator who will connect. On SAGE, you dial a prefix and the extension. The front of most military installation telephone directories has an abbreviated list of Autovon numbers. The full directory is published by the SupDoc at the Government Printing Office (anyone can order it) and is called the Global Autovon Directory. The Bell security people are probably more concerned about people who figure out how to hack Autovon than just about anything else. ------------------------------ Date: 23 September 1981 07:01 edt From: JSLove at MIT-Multics (J. Spencer Love) Subject: Forwarding making your line busy On the ESSen in Cambridge, we have observed that the line is busy while a call is in the progress of being forwarded. That is, if call A is uncompleted, another call B will get a busy signal. However, once someone answers call A, it is no longer considered interesting by the ESS, and thereafter call B would be forwarded. This appears to work just fine on forwarding between different machines: most Cambridge numbers are served from a different machine than the one which serves MIT. As far as I know, both machines are #1 ESS types still. The location which has MIT's Centrex machine also has a #4 ESS which is part of the toll network; the other location may actually have two #1 ESSen in the same building. On reliability: the machine which serves the 864 exchange here crashes enough to forget where I have forwarded calls every couple of months. Only once has it crashed hard enough to forget all my speed calling numbers (one and two digit dialing). I would give a lot to have a code to read out the number being forwarded to and speed calling numbers ANI style. -- Spencer ------------------------------ Date: 23 Sep 1981 1133-PDT Subject: Call Forwarding From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) Who pays for toll charges on forwarded calls? If I have call forwarding, here in St. Louis, and set it so that calls are forwarded to a New York number, will I be billed for local calls forwarded to New York or will the callers? If someone from San Francisco calls me in this situation, will their long distance bill show a call to St. Louis at my number or one to New York at the destination number? Will Martin ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 24-Sep-81 21:55:57-EDT,3937;000000000000 Date: 24 Sep 1981 2155-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #23 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Friday, 25 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 23 Today's Topics: Directory Assistance - To Charge Or Not To Charge Why TPC Charges for Customer Provided Equipment Random Bugs In The Switching Usage Sensitive Pricing - Not Truly Effective ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SIRBU@MIT-MC 09/23/81 21:48:33 Re: USP and Directory Assistance Charging for Directory Assistance has resulted in reductions of as much as 80% in the number of inquiries. On the other hand, USP generally results in a reduction on the order of 7-15% in the number of local calls. GTE conducted some experiemnts in Illinois and Indiana with USP which were heavily documented. See for example, Telecommunications Policy Yearbook, 1981 (Praeger Press, forthcoming) These figures are consistant with the assertion that calling Directory Assistance rather than looking a number up has a value to most users of less than 3 cents per call, while most regular calls have a much greater value, and therefore are not discouraged by usage sensitive pricing. Marvin Sirbu ------------------------------ Date: 23 Sep 1981 2148-EDT From: Hobbit <AWalker at RUTGERS> Subject: DA calls There is a major problem with the concept of operator-decided charge-or- not for assistance calls. For one thing you may rely on human decision which is one of the most unreliable factors, but the main problem is that the DA office is not always local to the calling office. When I worked up in Morristown on TSPS, the DA department was right opposite the TSP office, and at night and weekends they *closed*, and all DA calls were routed somewhere else, probably Jersey City. [This I found out when I tried calling in to see if there was a strike on in Morristown, and the lady said she was in JC.] So to charge the proper account for the call, you'd have to have state-wide ANI going to DA offices [They don't even have *local* ANI right now!] and be able to charge the call to that number. A while ago I had an interesting problem: I could *not* dial Operator. This applied for *all* operator calls, 0, 0+number, *and* 911. What I got was the canonical timeout pause, and then a couple of clicks and then a dialtone. I complained at repair, I called some head software honcho in Morristown that said he'd call me back with an explanation of the problem and never did [They are *really* hush-hush about that kind of stuff!!]. Finally the problem vanished without a trace and I never heard anything about it from that day forward. This problem only occured at base-level usage, by this I mean that [I have 3way calling] if I called some number, and then went up on ''line 2'', *then* I could reach the operator with no trouble. Since the call was trying to drop back to idle state, but there was an existing call underneath it, it had nowhere to go but the correct place. This is a fork-oriented way to think about it I suppose, it looked like some problem with priorities to me. Any of you BTL types have an explanation for it? Keep Feeping, _H* ------------------------------ Date: 24 Sep 1981 09:08:44-PDT From: allegra!jdd at Berkeley Subject: Extension Charges My impression has always been that the extra charge for extensions, even if you own the phones yourself, is a primitive form of charging for usage. A home with four phones probably has more people than a home with one phone, and therefore probably places and receives more calls. One could expect this charge to disappear with the full advent of Usage-Sensitive Charging. Cheers, John John DeTreville at Bell Labs, Murray Hill ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 25-Sep-81 23:13:32-EDT,8419;000000000000 Date: 25 Sep 1981 2313-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #24 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Saturday, 26 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 24 Today's Topics: ESS Call Forwarding - What The "Experts" Say More Phone Queries & Charges for Extensions Usage Sensitive Pricing vs. Unlimited Local Calling ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Sep 1981 1:47:43 EDT (Friday) From: Edward D. Hunter <edh at BBN-RSM> Subject: Forwarding loops Cc: edh at BBN-RSM I remember hearing once that on ESS (I'm not sure which number) forwarding loops were detected by how often someone tried to call your number over a short time interval. For instance if A were to forward his phone to B and vice versa then the first time someone called A the ESS would notice that a new call for A came in every few millisecond (for numbers on the same ESS), determine that there was a forwarding loop and take appropiate action. What happened to long forwarding loops was not mentioned, although I assume that for all except very long loops (I.E. across the country) you could put some upper limit on the number of seconds between incoming calls and catch a loop that way. -edh ------------------------------ Date: 24 Sep 1981 23:11:30-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley Full-name: Steven M. Bellovin Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Phone: 919-966-3305 Subject: call-forwarding According to the instructions I received from Bell, if the number you wish to forward to is busy or does not answer, you should hang up and reissue the request "immediately". The second time will establish the forwarding regardless of whether or not someone answers; thus, having the line marked busy while establishing the forwarding does not prevent a loop. As far as charging -- anyone who calls me pays the charge (if any) to my number; I pay the charges from my location to wherever -- again, if any. I know of one case where someone in Kentucky called a Washington number which was forwarded to the same town in Kentucky -- an awfully expensive way to make a local call.... A result of this charging scheme is that I *don't* forward my calls when I go out of town; I get enough wrong numbers and random nuisance calls that I find annoying enough without having to pay for. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Sep 1981 11:42 PDT From: Kolling at PARC-MAXC Subject: what's going on when: cc: Kolling Fairly often when I call my mother long distance I don't hear a ring, assume the call has dropped into a bog, and so I redial. Last night we discovered that what's been happening is that her phone does ring, but since I give up in a relatively short interval (2 or 3 rings), she's never made it to the phone in time. Why don't I hear a ring? What would happen if she had answered the phone before I hung up, would we be able to hear each other? ------------------------------ Date: 25 Sep 1981 11:24:45-PDT From: ihuxp!steffen at Berkeley Subject: Call Forwarding Loops The General Telephone #2 EAX uses two methods to prevent call forwarding loops. A call from one line to another within the office is allowed to forward within the office three times, which allows some chaining but prevents loops. A call to a line that forwards outside the office sets a "forwarded call in progress" flag on the line with the forwarding feature, and subsequent calls to this line get a busy signal. The latter method prevented a forwarding loop between offices from using up all the interoffice trunks. The counter of the first method couldn't be used because each call that came into an office and forwarded out again looked like a separate call, and the counter was part of the per call dynamic storage. These two methods lead to the same complaint from many operating companies that several calls could be forwarded to a hunt group within the same office, but only one call could be forwarded to a hunt group in another office. The admittedly unsatisfactory anwser was that Custom Calling features were never developed with hunt groups in mind, and if they worked, fine, otherwise, it was just too bad. By the way, I know all this because I was responsible for fixing bugs in the Custom Calling software for this switch when I worked for GTE Automatic Electric Labs. It was a facinating job because the features did some strange things when invoked in combination with each other and with the existing POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) features like hunt groups. Joe Steffen Bell Labs, Indian Hill (312) 462-5381 UUCPnet: ucbvax!ihnss!ihuxp!steffen ------------------------------ Date: 25 Sep 1981 16:33:51-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley Full-name: Steven M. Bellovin Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Phone: (919) 966-3305 Subject: charges for extensions The charge is for the wire itself, which is owned and maintained by the phone company. It will be interesting to see if they drop it as telco ownership of premesis wiring is phased out. In N.Y., it is legal for customers to install their own extensions, as long as it is done to certain standards; in N.C., Southern Bell has such a proposal before the State Utilities Commission. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Sep 1981 1537-PDT From: ROODE at SRI-KL (David Roode) Subject: charging for extensions To: telecom at RUTGERS This reminds me of the way an internal surcharge is applied at Stanford University. It is in the range of 60-80% and it is added on to the Telco-defined charges for Centrex service to cover Foreign Exchange service (which is not billed back to the user on a per-all basis), the Centrex operators, and administrative overhead. The amount to be recovered is high, and you really appreciate this when you find out that they apply it not just to the basic line charges, but also to all the equipment charges. A department with a lot of instruments as opposed to lines, or a lot of multi-line telephones with line lights, speakerphones, etc. pays much more of the overhead. I really don't think the extra equipment is very indicative of extra usage. What is really annoying is that if you ordered a telephone company DAA back in the old days when you add to, the surcharge was applied to that service too! Very little of the overhead service covered by the surcharge was incurred in servicing lines which were computer dial-in lines. I think surcharges make much more sense when applied to basic service charges and possibly usage-based charges like local message units. I don't think charging for an extension makes any sense, except to cover rental of the telephone. ------------------------------ From: Ed Gardner Reply-to: "MARIAH::GARDNER in care of" <MITTON at MIT-AI> Date: 23-SEP-1981 12:35 Subj: Usage Sensitive Pricing vs. Flat Rates Here in Colorado Spring, TPC offers both measured (USP) and flat rate local service. However, they do not encourage measured service at all. When I moved here and ordered phone service, they didn't even mention measured service until I asked about it. If I remember correctly (its been a year and a half), the break even point between measured vs. flat rate was about 15 minutes usage per month. Would be worth it (for me) if datacalls didn't exist. But the overall impression I got was that the PUC required them to provide flat rate service, but they would rather not. For what its worth, I'm on an ESS and all of Colorado Springs seems to be on modern exchanges (either all ESS or some ESS and some Xbar), but I have friends living within 20 miles that sound like they're on SxS exchanges. As to how local calling areas are determined, such decisions are generally made by the PUC and VERY political. Often TPC makes a request/suggestion to the PUC, which evaluates it via very subjective/personal criteria, and then either accepts it, modifies it, or dictates something very different. Because of the inherent political nature of PUCs and this process, the criteria for setting local calling areas varies from state to state. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 27-Sep-81 00:46:55-EDT,3412;000000000000 Date: 27 Sep 1981 0046-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #25 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Sunday, 27 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 25 Today's Topics: AT&T X.25 Rumors Future Holds More People Owning Phones Usage Sensitive "Hold" Charges Real Live Call Forwarding Loop ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Sep 1981 1538-PDT From: ROODE at SRI-KL (David Roode) Subject: Bell getting out of instrument rental I just noticed a PT&T ad which mentioned a $60 refundable deposit to establish phone service. If you can avoid much of this by owning your own instrument, $19.95 to buy one looks darn attractive. Similarly, there was a recent front page feature in our local newspaper (the "Peninsula Times-Tribune") heralding the advent of the days when few if any people would be so foolish as to rent a phone instrument from Ma Bell. It also quoted PT&T employees as saying that they expected a whole new service network of private phone intallers to spring up. The implication was that Bell was going to price itself out of the phone rental market even more than currently. The example they came up with of someone who should not buy her own phone was a lady who was "a sweetheart, in her 80s" who bought a trendline phone for $70 and said "I don't know why I'm doing this. There's no way I'm going to live long enough to make it worth it." I say "what the heck"-- people have been inheriting Grandma's china set for time immemorial--why not now her trendline? ------------------------------ Date: 26 September 1981 0108-PDT (Saturday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Usage Sensitive Charging Yes, USC reduced the number of calls from 7-15%, but what of call HOLDING times when people are being charged a nickel for every 5 minutes or some such? --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 26 September 1981 0238-PDT (Saturday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: forwarding loops -- a real life sample Some years ago, I called a telephone number that clearly had become wedged into a forwarding loop, apparently through a malfunction of some sort in the early software. It was quite fascinating. The call "clicked" in the typical way when it hit the first ESS, then came a burst of MF tones as it setup the call to the next office (through a tandem). Then another couple of clicks, and an identical MF burst (but a little lower in volume as we made the first full circle). This continued on and on, with the call getting progressively noisier and the MF slowly disappearing into that noise. Finally, after around 16 loops or so (suspicious number) I could barely make out a fast busy (ATB)... which seemed to indicate that I had used up something! This bizarre behavior was in place for all calls to the number in question for at least two days... --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 23-Sep-1981 0000-EDT From: Paul Karger Reply-to: "PAUL KARGER AT RDVAX in care of" <Mitton at MIT-AI> Subject: AT&T X.25 rumors Can anyone comment on the recent rumors in Electronics News about AT&T offering X.25 service in addition to and/or instead of ACS? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 30-Sep-81 00:16:31-EDT,2883;000000000000 Date: 30 Sep 1981 0016-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #26 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Tuesday, 29 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 26 Today's Topics: Ma Bell and X.25? Dimension Switching & Long Distance ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 September 1981 04:05-EDT From: Ittai Hershman <ITTAI at MIT-MC> In reply to the ATT/X.25 query: " AT&T recently announced its in- tention to develop a regulated X.25 based packet-switching network to compete against offerings from Telenet and Tymnet. The network, which would not feature protocol conversion, will be operable by late 1982 or early 1983, pending "busi- ness decisions and regulatory ap- proval," according to Bell. Bell's announcement follows an IBM unveiling last month of an X.25 interface for its systems; the AT&T version is likely to be compatible with it annd other X.25 interfaces from such vendors as Control Data Corp., NCR Comten, DEC, DG, Honeywell, Raytheon and Prime." (abbr.s mine) -ComputerWorld, 21.9.81; page 2. I hope this excerpt was of help...for those interested the article also stated that "The impact...will be limited to 'a relatively small number of time-sharing companies, Fortune 500 industrial companies and some top commercial banks,' a management consultant predicted here last week." The whole article is ~15 paragraphs and worth reading for those interested. Enjoy, Ittai ------------------------------ Date: 27-Sep-81 16:34:53 PDT (Sunday) From: Hamilton.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: Delayed detection of on-hook; long-distance headaches Can anyone comment on why it takes about five seconds for a Dimension PBX to realize that I've hung up when I try to call somebody but get no answer? It's a constant source of annoyance to our secretaries -- I dial another extension, hang up after three rings, but it's already forward-no-answer'd and rings three times more at the extension it's forwarded to before it stops. There's no reason that the system should think I might be going to call-forward my end of the call while it's still ringing at the other end! I've also experienced the phenomenon Kolling mentions of not getting ring indication (or voice after the party answers). It seems to be fairly common on long-distance calls. And the billing computer (GTE) was even dumb enough to bill me for a one-minute call, followed by the real call to the same number one minute later. You'd think they could at least apply some simple algorithm to catch such obvious cases of redial-on-equipment-failure. --Bruce ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 1-Oct-81 00:24:20-EDT,9802;000000000000 Date: 1 Oct 1981 0024-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #27 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Wednesday, 30 Sep 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 27 Today's Topics: Administrivia Rumors And What Have You Silent Long Distance Calling Call "Supervision" and Coordination Amongst CO's ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Sep 1981 0011-EDT From: The Moderator <JSol at Rutgers> Subject: Administrivia We are trying an experiment in digest distribution which hopefully will eliminate any problems due to not receiving a complete digest. The problem seems to be a timing problem with the network software in general, we don't yet know what is going on, but this new method should keep recipients of this digest from being inconvenienced. Enjoy! /JSol ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 1981 0055-EDT From: Hobbit <AWalker at RUTGERS> Subject: Recent rumors I have heard a few things that some of us might be interested in.... For one thing, Bell is supposedly changing the credit card system from the the somewhat insecure key-digit check-digit system to a centralized database system with PIDs [Personal ID numbers, like bank cards] and a high-speed data network that will do on-the-spot verifications. This will be coupled with customer entry of the numbers. Another thing is that all competitive common carrier systems such as Sprint, MCI, ITT's network, etc. will have all their dialups on the 950 exchange. That exchange does not seem to be assigned in most area codes, so they will dedicate it to these services sort of like 976 for dial-a-foobar services. Of course these lines will have ANI and anything else to try and find out exactly where any given call is coming from. What is the latest on the ''all-digital'' network? I also heard one to the effect that all subscriber sets will house a bidirectional converter and send digital pulses to the office for dialing as *well* as voice! Any comments on this one? _H* ------------------------------ Date: 30 Sep 1981 0812-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Those nasty three extra rings The Dimension PBX stops applying ringing to the line as soon as you hang up. HOWEVER, I suspect that the place to which your calls are forwarded has some conventional (i.e. non-electronic) key equipment (multi-button phones). The way the controlling device for each line (the KTU) handles ringing the ONE bell on a multi-line set is by activating a feature called "common ring." ("Common" because it is wired in parallel for a group of lines.) Common ring starts up a cycle whenever the line associated with the KTU rings but doesn't stop its cycle for about three rings. So it has nothing to do with the Dimension; it's just the little card of relay logic which runs the hold circuit and lights on multi-button phones. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Sep 1981 0823-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Silence on long distance calls and double billing Unfortunately, unless you tell your phone company, they can't tell the difference between your placing two calls to the same number 15 seconds apart (in which case they are entitled to collect for both calls) and an initial call which has poor transmission followed by a legitimate call. If you try to explain to them that the connection was so poor that you didn't even think the call went through, they have to take the call off your bill. But they'll probably try to tell you that you should have called the operator. But if you call the operator, you'll probably get told that if there was no answer you didn't get charged. And of course if there were a problem that you could not tell whether there was an answer or not, we, the phone company, would already know about it. Round and round. The kind of circuit problem described here, where you don't hear anything at all, can sometimes remain totally silent after the connection, or can sometimes clear up as soon as someone answers. If it is the latter case, the phone company often can't find the problem, because they will send the report off to some testman without telling him that the poor transmission only occurs when the call is on-hook. So he calls up his milliwatt test number, which goes off-hook -- and then he reports "no trouble found." Occasionally you can also get a circuit on which you can hear while it is on-hook, but goes dead as soon as the person at the other end answers. This is much more rare (probably because it is less likely to fool the testman). Common Channel Interoffice Signalling (CCIS) is supposed to fix all that; during the setup phase of each call, a very brief transmission test can be done over the circuit. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Sep 1981 11:56:32 EDT (Wednesday) From: Edward D. Hunter <edh at BBN-RSM> Subject: Long distance ringing Cc: edh at BBN-RSM I have been told (prehaps one of the Bell labs people can confirm this) that the ringing you hear is not necessarily the ringing that the other person is getting. Essentially each exchange has its own ringing generator and hence its own idea of what ringing should be. When you dial a call which completes within the same exchange that you are dialing from both you and the party that you are calling hear the same ringing. If, however, you make a call outside of your exchange the local ESS will tell the foreign ESS what number it wishes to connect to and wait to see if the call completes. The foreign ESS will ring the number and inform the local ESS that it is doing so. The local ESS will send a ringing signal to let you know that the line is not busy. If the other party picks up his phone the two ESS's will assign a trunk and complete the connection. Because of this it is hard to call someone in say California from say Boston and tell them that you will let the phone ring three times and then hang up. You never know for sure how many times the phone has really rung on the other end. By doing things this way the phone company does not have to allocate trunks to calls which may not complete. The ESS's can talk to each other in what everway is simplist and only give trunks to people who need them. This also explains why in some short distance calls (I.E. in the same city) you sometimes here the phone ring once and then suddenly get a busy siganl. Some ESS's (crossbar?) try to be smart and connect you to ringing before they really know if the other number is busy. Suddenly it turns out that the other number is busy so they have to switch what you hear. -edh ------------------------------ Date: 30 Sep 1981 1508-EDT From: Hobbit <AWalker at RUTGERS> Subject: Silence on LD calls This was a common problem back on the TSPS board. There we had lights to indicate the state of connection at the far end. Often I would get a completely silent connection going forward, and then after a while the CLD [Called party] light would go out indicating that they had answered. Neither the customer of I heard a thing. Then the customer would start to sweat and wonder what was going on. In this case, about 90% of the time, a retry could *not* get it to go through properly, and I would have to turn the customer back with a 'problem' and tell him to call 0 again. Sometimes a retry would go through and it would turn out that yes, the called party did answer and hear nothing. After a while I got to recognize these calls before they got to the far end and would punt them before waking remote parties up for nothing. Of course if this kind of call goes through direct-dial, the originating end *is* charged for it. Pound them little gray buttons, _H* ------------------------------ Date: 30 September 1981 1905-PDT (Wednesday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Dimensions and call supervision The main reason that Dimensions cannot determine "reasonable" windows for special hookswitch activated features (in many cases) is that generally, they have no way to know whether an outgoing call (outside the Dimension) is ringing, or whether a conversation is in progress. Central Offices do NOT normally return answering "supervision" to subscribers... In the old days, many step by step offices DID return a polarity reversal on supervision, but even this has faded away. I have had several long conversations with telco officials regarding this issue -- I have even suggested that a tariff for a service providing supervision be established. No luck. There are many cases where supervision information can be very useful. Outside of its use in smart PBX's (the problem mentioned above), it would also be useful for voice-response systems that CALL people (I've worked on one of these) and for the "alternate" long-distance communications systems (Sprint, MCI, etc.) Regarding these latter services, it should be noted that as far as I know, they really have NO WAY to know when a call is really answered. They do not know if you are really having a conversation, talking to an intercept operator, or listening to a recording. They do NOT get answering supervision back from the CO. They apparently use an algorithm to try determine (from listening) when the ringing stops, and they probably drop very short calls from the billing just to be safe. However, if you check your bills carefully against a manual call log, you might get quite a surprise! --Lauren-- ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 2-Oct-81 00:41:56-EDT,11729;000000000000 Date: 2 Oct 1981 0041-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #28 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Thursday, 1 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 28 Today's Topics: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 September 1981 2201-PDT (Wednesday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: digital phones, 950, ESS and ringing First of all, on the subject of subscriber sets starting to become purely digital for voice and/or number addressing... I consider this to be largely blue sky EXCEPT in the area of controlled environments like smart PBX/CBX systems, where ANYTHING is possible. I would expect ordinary home telephones to stay functionally analog for a LONG time, probably until we got those nifty lightwave fibers running to every home -- and I ain't holding my breath on that one! --- Regarding usage of the "950" prefix for the "alternative" long-distance systems... The big problem with such a technique is that it would completely undermine any efforts to provide local access numbers to these services in different parts of a city! Here in L.A., for example, there are MCI access lines scattered in various parts of the metropolitan area so that subscribers aren't unnecessarily forced to make toll calls to the gateway. I suppose the services could set up local call forwarding lines to the central 950 numbers, but it all sounds pretty weak to me, at least as described. --- What you are actually hearing when you hear the "ringing" of a phone when you make a call (the proverbial "ringback" tone) varies widely. In old SXS and XBar offices, the ringback tone is/was frequently a more or less direct feed from the actual signal ringing the destination phone (~90 volts at [usually] ~20 Hz.) This same tone would be fed back to foreign offices as well as to local calls. This was by no means always true, however. In many GTE step offices, for example, the ringback tone is exactly 50% offset from the actual ringing signal, resulting in such effects as people seeming to answer the phone "before it rang". The situation is even more complex with harmonic ringing and the various other systems used to provide partyline services (yes, they still exist). In ESS offices, ringback tone is not directly related to the actual ringing signal, instead it is yet another member of the so-called "precise" tone set. Normally, the ringback tone is completely in step with the ringing signal. It is indeed true that the CCIS (Common Channel Interoffice Signalling) plans call for "local-ringing" (where the local ESS provides the ringback for an intertoll call, and the transmission path is only cut through when the destination phone is answered), but as far as I know this is not implemented yet, at least not at all widely. The CCIS network still has a pretty long way to go. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 1 Oct 1981 0750-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Local audible ring generation The person who told someone that the ringing you hear is not necessarily the one you are getting was right, but not for the reasons specified. CCIS (Common Channel Interoffice Signalling) will someday allow busy signals and recordings to be handled locally rather than at the distant end. In fact, today it already causes most recordings which come from 4A XBars and 4E ESSs to drop back to the machine nearest you. However, it is not until this year that CCIS is being extended from the toll network into local central offices, so until now it hasn't been possible to detect busy signals or other similar information at the final Class V (local) central office. All of this is done so that voice circuits don't have to be tied up with an uncompleted call. It would be possible to return info to allow ring to be gener- ated locally and only allocate the circuit when someone answers. But that really wouldn't be a very wise programming decision, because it would be really unkind to ring someone's phone and have a circuit blockage occur just as he answered his phone. "I'm sorry, but all circuits are busy now. Would you answer your phone again later, please?" However, the ringing you hear is not the ringing the other person hears. In step-by-step and X-Bar central offices, it almost always is. Much toll fraud has been committed by talking between the rings. So this was fixed in No. 1 ESS. The precise tone generator which generates the audible ring the caller hears is connected to the caller, and there is no connection to the actual line equipment of the called party (other than the ringing current generator). The two generators are usually in phase with each other, so the ringing you hear is not, but corresponds to the ringing the other person hears. And toll fraud is eliminated, because there is no connection to talk over. However, No. 2 ESS has almost the same arrangement. However, in a No. 2 ESS, there is no attempt made to keep audible ring in phase with the ringing current going out on the line. So the ringing you hear does come from the distant central office, but it isn't necessarily being applied to your ears at the same time it is being applied to the called line. Finally, if there is key equipment at the distant end, the bells in the key telephones may be connected to the locally generated ring in the key line equipment cards, which is tripped by the ringing current from the central office, but then runs on independently. This is a commonly misunderstood subject. I was once on a tour of a central office in which the ring and audible ring were definitely in phase. Someone in the group asked the question, and the foreman giving us the tour demonstrated that they weren't in phase by calling a key telephone in the switchroom. Don't expect the telephone company to know how to set up a valid experiment. After all, remember the Lily Tomlin "commercial", "We have all this modern, computerized equipment that even we don't understand." ------------------------------ Date: 1 Oct 1981 0758-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Sprint, MCI, and off-hook supervision The technology to audibly recognize ringing, busy, etc. and take appropriate action does not yet exist. The tariffs that Sprint and MCI have filed allow them to charge for all calls that last more than "n" seconds. This means that in some areas, you may be charged for a call which is busy if you listen to the busy signal for more than a few seconds. They start timing as soon as they have completed outpulsing the number you dialed. If your call goes through several tandems in the distant city, and especially if it, at some point, has to be signalled forward with dial pulses (tandeming into a step- by-step central office or into a PBX with dial pulse), you can use up a lot of your free time. Conversely, if you call someone who is near (in a switching sense) the access line in the distant city, and they answer immediately, and you carry on a very short call, you won't get billed. I have heard of varying results when you call up to complain about a call which didn't complete; for example, which went to Automatic Intercept. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Oct 1981 1036-PDT From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: Re: Simulated ringing singals To: edh at BBN-RSM The ring you hear is, on most crossbar and Step by Step systems, the same as the ringing phone. On Director step, ESS, EAX, and many other systems, the ring signal is in fact generated separately from the actual voltage to the telephone set. If, for example, I place a call to my other telephone line (on the same ESS), there is a chance that I might get a ringing signal which is not in phase with the one ringing the telephone. Some effort is made to ensure synchronization, but if the system cannot locate a pair of matched signals, the two will occur at different times. The protocol you describe of the ESS to other ESS call refers to the CCIS (Common Channel Interoffice Signalling) protocol which is in use only between long distance tandems at this time. I believe it may be running at some test cites, but as yet, local CCIS is not in wide use. CCIS, however, uses a separate network (i.e. not voice trunks) to communicate between hosts. There are several causes of the ring-busy signal: 1) A call is placed to an ESS payphone, which is offhook. This causes the line to be checked (no voltage on line, so it is assumed to be free. Ringing signal starts. Voltage is then applied to the line, the system notices it is offhook, and changes the ring to a busy, dropping the call. 2) A call is placed to an ESS number which happens to be lifting the switchhook at the same time. The line is checked, it is available, the ringing signal is started, the line is then picked up, and the ESS notices this, changing the ring to a busy, and dropping the call. The party picking up the phone at the destination will hear a nasty double click, followed by dial-tone. 3) Crossbar behaves similarly, but it goes ring-reorder, following any one of several situations. I won't go into the details, but the system drops a diagnostic 'Trouble card' indicating the problem. Sorry to disappoint you, but the fancy systems you describe aren't there just yet. <>IHM<> ------------------------------ Date: 1 October 1981 14:25 edt From: JSLove at MIT-Multics (J. Spencer Love) Subject: Ring, then Busy cc: JSLove.PDO at MIT-Multics I have notived that this behavior is fairly reliable, in Cambridge at least, for indicating that the destination phone is off-hook with no call int progress for too long. That is, if you knock the phone out of its cradle without noticing, you eventually get a mixture of obnoxious noises and prerecorded pleas to hang up. For much of the time (>90%), the line is just dead, with the ESS sampling it every 10 seconds or so to see if it has gone on-hook. Incoming calls during this dead interval seem to get one ring and then a busy signal. I think this is due to some timing screw within the ESS for this relatively unlikely line state rather than excessive cleverness in the outgoing exchange as Ed Hunter suggested (particularly since this happens to calls originating in the same exchange). I thought that excessive cleverness as described was planned for CCIS, not installed in many locations. -- Spencer ------------------------------ Date: 1 Oct 1981 1850-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Mark your calendars... The thirtieth birthday of DDD is coming up on 10 November. On that date in 1951, Mayor M. Leslie Denning of Englewood, N.J. picked up the tele- phone in his office and dialed a number that linked him with Mayor Frank P. Osborn in Alameda, Calif. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Oct 1981 16:44:36-PDT From: menlo70!hao!cires!harkins at Berkeley re: lauren's musings about MCI, SPRINT, etc. billing practices for "not quite completed calls; my understanding is that any call that goes past 15-20 seconds(i forget the exact number) IS billed to the caller; that's their quick and dirty solution since they have no supervisory capability; the implication is that you would do well to have yourself a manual log of calls made as lauren suggests ernie ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 3-Oct-81 23:59:35-EDT,8930;000000000001 Date: 3 Oct 1981 2359-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #29 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Thursday, 1 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 29 Today's Topics: Query - Dial Tone Frequency Install Your Own Phone Detecting When Ringing Stops Central Office "Trouble Cards" IBM Into Personal Computers - And Now Networking! Illegal Free Phone Users Indicted by Grand Jury ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DP@MIT-ML 10/02/81 10:28:39 Re: Query - Dial tone Does anyone know how universal is the dial tone frequency?. Around here (beltel) one of the tones is concert A (440hz), and is useful for tuning musical instruments. Jeff ------------------------------ DP@MIT-ML 10/02/81 13:09:11 Re: Do it yourself phone installing is here In the new Jensen Tools catalog, they are now listing telecom tools. (tone generators, butt sets, cable finders, etc) The prices are absurd, but the stuff is there. Jeff ------------------------------ Date: 3 October 1981 1433-PDT (Saturday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: MCI and Trouble Tickets On the subject of the alternative long-distance services charging systems ... somewhere I have an article written by some guy at either Southern Pacific or MCI where they claim they DO try to detect end of ringing. I might be able to dig it up, but it is probably buried. Oh well. He made no mention of time-related charging algorithms, though it was obvious that they had to exist. --- Trouble Tickets (trouble cards) are fascinating creatures. I have two points to make. The first is that, generally, trouble tickets are IGNORED unless something exceptional is going on. #5 Xbar offices generate so many of the damn things (even an off-spec telephone dial will often pop one) that there is frequently nothing you can do with them. I know of one central office that used to routinely put the hopper on a scale. If the mass of tickets was of "normal" weight, they tossed them out. If they were heavy, they got looked over. A rather nasty person I once knew told me how once, while touring a CO, he pulled a tube out of a rack while the guide wasn't looking. From a few feet away, the trouble ticketer begin spewing out cards like a machine gun. The tour guide went running over to see what the hell had happened, and as he got to the hopper, the culprit replaced the tube. Sputter, sputter... and the ticketer went back to one ticket every two or three seconds ("normal" for that office). This reminds me of yet another story (don't leave yet, this one is even better). Sometimes when I travel, I take a couple of hours and try to visit "interesting" CO's, usually acting as if I know NOTHING about telecommunications. On one such occasion, in a General Telephone office, the guide was attempting to demonstrate how the Strowger linefinders work. To prove his point, he stuck a pencil into the linefinder banks just as some poor subscriber picked up his/her phone. WHAM! The wiper jammed into the pencil and hung there. The poor coils were humming and buzzing like mad. The guide had considerable trouble getting his pencil out. I had considerable trouble restraining my laughter. I couldn't help but think of that poor person sitting there wondering why they hadn't gotten dialtone yet. On second thought, since it WAS General Telephone Step by Step, they probably didn't notice the difference. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 3 Oct 1981 1444-PDT Sender: GEOFF at SRI-CSL Subject: ADS From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow n556 0524 30 Sep 81 BC-IBM-09-30 By Ronald Rosenberg (c) 1981 Boston Globe (Field News Service) International Business Machines Corp., which entered the personal computer market this summer, is moving into AT&T territory with a computerized store-and-forward voice message system. Known as the Audio Distribution System (ADS), it is essentially a person-to-person audio mailbox for industry using the push-button telephone. The computer, an IBM Series1 model, functions as a post office that sorts, forwards and stores voice messages. The Yankee Group, a Boston marketing and consulting firm, estimates that while the digital voice mail market will barely reach the $5 million mark this year it will skyrocket to $500 million by 1985. ADS is similar to systems by Wang Laboratories Inc., Electronic Communications Systems (ECS) of Dallas, and several others. Basically, it cuts down on missed calls by allowing a company's executives, managers and other personnel to reach people by prerecording messages. These audio epistles can be sent at specific times to one person or a group in different cities or within a building. For example, to inform a West Coast sales force that monthly reports are due, a vice president at Eastern headquarters could record a message that each of the salespeople could hear by calling their local offices. In the IBM system introduced last week, each message can be up to 350 seconds (almost six minutes) long. Each telephone call is digitized and stored in the computer until the recipient calls the computer, which converts the electronic impulses back into voice tones. IBM officials contend the message retains the vocal identity and inflections of the user. The computer also stores the names of all users and requires no outside programming. IBM's entry into the telephone-based voice communication market is also expected to heat up competition with AT&T, which has a similar system for consumers. The Bell systems' Custom Calling II service, which was tested in Philadelphia, allowed consumers to record and forward messages. Next year, Western Electric, an AT&T subsidiary, will market a new digital private branch exchange (PBX) switchboard system that is expected to include a voice mail system similar to IBM's new product. ''IBM is getting into this new market quite early,'' said Kathleen Carr, a Yankee consultant. ''This is both a new business opportunity and a prelude to IBM's introduction of its first PBX system. IBM's entry also lends credibility to the marketplace.'' Most of this year's revenue, however, will come from ECS, whose audio mail system commands a $495,000 price tag, and Wang's smaller Digital Voice Exchange (DVX), which costs $125,000 and is aimed at the office automation marketplace. The ADS system will cost between $115,000 and $235,000. Here is how ADS works: To check for messages, a user calling from his home or from an outside phone dials a his system's phone number. In his office, with a Centrex telephone system, for example, he would use a four-digit extension. Then he taps in the letters of his last name until a computerized voice recognizes his name and tells him to stop. The user then taps in a private three- to eight-digit private password. The computer voice then lists the last names of the people who have left messages. To receive the first message, the user pushes the star button on the phone and the number 4 key with the letter G for ''get.'' Successive messages require repeated punchings of that combination. To record and transmit a message the user taps out the recipient's name, star key, 7 key (R, for ''record''), star, and 8 (T, for transmit). END nyt-09-30-81 0825edt *************** ------------------------------ Date: 03-OCT-81 23:02:18 From: COVERT AT CASTOR Reply-To: "COVERT at CASTOR in care of" <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Phone phreaks and computer bulletin boards From "Bell of Pennsylvania's Inside Line" 2 October 1981 Status: O (412 633-3333) In Harrisburg, a grand jury has indicted 5 persons, including 3 college students, who, for kicks, helped set up a nationwide telephone system, enabling thousands of people to make free long distance calls illegally. The scheme also included the theft of $110,000 in goods, mostly computer hardware, to perpetuate the system. The system cheated phone companies out of an estimated $212,000 in the Philadelphia area alone. The alleged phone bandits used secret 6-digit telephone codes to make the free calls and later sent stolen equipment to a com- puter system in Santa Clara, California that enabled others to use long distance with no charge. [The computer system in California was 8BBS, a home computer public access bulletin board system. Among other users, phone phreaks used the system, exchanging the 6-digit codes mentioned above. Maybe this is what is meant by "enabled others to use long distance with no charge."] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 6-Oct-81 00:30:51-EDT,9921;000000000000 Date: 6 Oct 1981 0030-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #30 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Monday, 5 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 30 Today's Topics: Cut Rate Phone Service - A Flop? Query - When Are Old Numbers Reused? When Is A Billed Call Not Billed? Phone Theft Article - Prejudice Dialtone Frequency Standard Signaling Condition Changes On TPC's Network Ring Then Busy - A Few Explanations ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 Oct 1981 08:53:28-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Phone: (919) 966-3305 Subject: Hart Industries phone service There was a long article in today's "Raleigh News and Observer" about Hart's cut-rate phone service. So far, they don't look too good. The company operates by buying WATS service from Bell and reselling it, in accordance with an FCC rule change last June. Apparently, they don't have enough lines. Over 350 complaints have been filed with the FCC about their poor service, plus at least 20 with the North Carolina Attorney General's office. The company claims they have plenty of satisfied customers, but declined to name any. "At the appropriate time, they will come forward in waves." Hart is adding more lines, and has changed its rate structure from "unlimited calls for $65/mo." to a 30% across-the-board discount on Bell's rates. But there's a minimum payment of $30/mo., plus a non-refundable "processing fee" based on your average monthly bill for the last 3 months. There are also potential legal problems. Hart is licensed by the FCC for interstate service, but not -- at least in North Carolina -- for intrastate service. How should a company that uses interstate lines to provide intrastate phone calls be classified? If the Utilities Commission rules against them, they could be subject to a $1000/day fine. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Oct 1981 04:02:57-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Subject: reusing old numbers How long does the phone company generally wait before reassigning an old number? ------------------------------ Date: 4 Oct 1981 08:31:06-PDT From: cbosgd!mark at Berkeley Subject: how long is a free call? I have seen calls where the caller hangs up very quickly after he hears the phone answered, and is not charged. (He got his dime back from the pay phone.) Yet, I recently made a long distance call to a modem to see if it was answering, and hung up the instant I heard it answer, and got billed. Can anyone tell me under what circumstances one isn't billed for a 1 second call? ------------------------------ Date: 4 Oct 1981 1435-PDT From: ROODE at SRI-KL (David Roode) Subject: computer prejudice In the message on the telephone "Inside Line" there appears quite a bit of prejudice. For one thing, a mention of the concept "alleged" is only made once, even though in most newspapers this would have been sprinkled throughout the description of the alleged crime. But there is a little of the element that because a computer is involved, the whole thing becomes extra sinister. Perhaps the grand jury wouldn't even have indicted them if they had merely told the secret codes by word of mouth to many people each, who passed it on. The bit about stolen computer equipment aiding in the "nationwide phone network" seems a bit preposterous to me. What $120,000 worth of peripherals could you hang off of a PDP-8, anyway? ------------------------------ Date: 4 October 1981 1622-PDT (Sunday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: dialtone Until fairly recently, dialtone frequency varied quite widely. Pure 440Hz was sometimes heard, while in some SXS offices a rather disgusting raspy buzzing tone (often centered around 440Hz) was (and often is) the norm. The most common dialtone is a 350/440 mix. The "precise tone plan", which specifies the frequencies for all informational tones on the network, and is rapidly being adopted nationwide (even in many old CO's) specifies: FUNCTION Freq1 Level(dBm) Freq2 Level(dBm) (+-1/2%) (+-1/2%) Dialtone 350 -13 440 -13 Camp-On 350 -13 440 -13 Distinctive Dial Tone 440 -16 480 -16 Busy 480 -24 620 -24 Reorder 480 -24 620 -24 Tick 480 -24 620 -24 Ringback 440 -16 480 -16 Some explanation: Some of the tones above, which appear identical, actually appear with varying durations. Camp-On is used within PBX systems when callers automatically "wait" for an engaged phone to clear. Distinctive Dial Tone is used in special applications where it is desired that the caller realize they are not connected to a "normal" outgoing circuit. Busy tone runs at 60 impulses/minute, Reorder at 120 (the so-called "fast-busy" or All Trunks Busy [ATB]). "Tick" is used for talking clocks and other functions, and is of very short duration. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 5 October 1981 08:38 edt From: Frankston.SoftArts at MIT-Multics Subject: Signalling Reply-To: Frankston at MIT-Multics (Bob Frankston) The basic problem is that services such as MIC, Sprint etc do not have access to the Telco signal which are restricted to the trunks between exchanges or within an exchange. This is wrong!!! It also means that I cannot make as smart telephone to interface to the network. My phone should be able to analyze recorded messages for me and take the appropriate action. I can't even have my telephone keep accurate local billing records. The problem becomes much worse if I try to have my personal computer use Telconet instead of a packet network such as Tymnet or Telenet. My dialout equipment cannot provide much useful information about what is really happening. As far as I know the world seems happy now that one is allowed to plug in a random phone into the network, but no one is trying to make the signalling available. On approach would be to have an option of requesting the status signals be reported inband with MF tones. This could be invoked by a prefix signal such as #099 or somesuch kludge. It could also alert the equipment to keep MF sensors on the line throughout the call (an extra charge option since equipment is being tied up) so that one can use the custom calling features through a network (the currently rely on a DC connection so are unavailable on an FX line)!! Oh well, that is a fantasy, afterall, what could the world want but the ability to get POTS equipment at Radio Shack (but that too was once a fantasy). The key is to convince telco that there is revenue in such services and then, within 40 years, the network can be converted... Translation MF - Multifrequency -- the dual tones used for signalling. DC - Direct current -- implies a wire connection with no intermediate equipment. Random -- arbitrary POTS -- Plain Old Telephone Service. FX - Foreign Exchange ------------------------------ Date: 4 Oct 1981 18:50:13-EDT From: dee at CCA-UNIX (Donald Eastlake) Subject: Ring then busy The usual reason to get a revertive ring and then a busy is that you are calling an office implemented with panel switches. A panel switch central office is a sort of kludge central control step by step office that uses things called panel switches instead of strowger switches. I understand that panel switches are larger and motor driven. Bell developed and used panel switches because they were waiting for the (Swedish?) patent on crossbars to expire. (They tend to plan in terms of decades or did.) Anyway, if you call a hunt group in a panel office it can easily start to give you revertive ring and ring for one or two times before it figures out that all the lines in the hunt group are busy are switches you to a busy tone. The only other thing I have heard about panel offices is that office hardware managers tend to like it because it rarely breaks totally and people can always get through by retrying but subscribers don't like it because the probability of success of any particular call is less than with other types of office. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Oct 1981 1959-EDT From: Hobbit <AWalker at RUTGERS> Subject: Ring -> busy Spencer described the condition you get when you leave an ESS phone off the hook for a while. You get the recording, then the loud off-hook signal, then the thing drops down to some half-voltage condition that will stay there as long as the phone is off-hook. This is the condition that often gives the ring-into-busy stuff. This can be seen if you have a light or something in series with your phone. The condition can also be simulated in some offices by fiddling with your hookswitch. If a dialtone is present on the line, and the switch sees sonething in between a dial pulse and a hang up, it drops to this half-voltage condition and then tries to reset. Then if you give it another break during that reset phase it finds some weird error condition and drops permanently to half voltage. This is the same condition that off-hook leads to. If you listen to the line carefully at that point you can hear the funny sounds the office makes.. sort of a random unevenly spaces clicking. Anyone know exactly what that is? Probably some kind of multiplexed scan of some sort. The interval at which the office checks the off-hook line varies too, sometimes you hang up for half a second and get dialtone back, some-times it takes as much as 8-10 seconds. _H* ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 7-Oct-81 01:14:14-EDT,6006;000000000000 Date: 7 Oct 1981 0114-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #31 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Wednesday, 7 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 31 Today's Topics: Ring/Busy replies Charge Grace Periods - Short Call Charging FX Lines and Custom Calling Features Dial Tone Frequencies More "Hart Line" Lossage ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Oct 1981 0730-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Panel Offices and ring-trip-to-busy It is true that panel office hunt groups exhibited the ring-trip-to busy (so do large hunt groups (more than ten lines) in Step offices). However, the last panel office in the country was retired about a year ago. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Oct 1981 0738-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Short call charging In No. 1 ESS, you have about two-three seconds of grace period during which you can hang up and not get charged. This has only been true for about five years (so some central offices may still have the old instant charging software). You are still charged for an added-on call which answers, no matter how fast you release it, and no matter whether you release it by flashing to drop the added-on call or hang up on the whole connection. In No. 2 ESS, you are charged instantly. In No. 5 XBar, you usually have two or three seconds. However, some of the newer billing arrangements which have replaced the old punched paper tape may have changed that. In Bell System Step, if your billing is done by a XBar tandem with the punched paper tape, you have the two to three seconds. However, most SXS now does its toll through TSPS, which allows no grace period. FCC regs Part 68 (the rules for designing direct connect equipment) require that devices designed for data transmission include "billing protection" which prevents any information from being transmitted during the first two seconds of the call (with an exception for tones used to set modes). This is why most direct connect modems will answer the phone and then wait two seconds before applying carrier to the line. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Oct 1981 0751-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: FX lines and custom calling services I've never had any trouble using the custom calling features on either of the two FXs I have right here, or the one I had when I lived in North Carolina. The DC signalling still has to be simulated over the FX, no matter what the transmission technique is, in order for the other end to recognize on-hook and/or dial pulses. FXs which terminate in a PBX are a different matter. Since you would have to have a way for the PBX or the FX to determine who would get the switchhook flash, which no Bell System PBXs could do, the tariffs for PBX trunks don't allow custom calling services to be provided. So no one has designed a way for a PBX to signal to a trunk to activate custom calling features (whether it be an FX or just a local trunk). So the tariffs probably won't change. So no one will change PBXs. The Bell System often programs its tariffs into its software, too. So if you class mark a trunk to be a PBX trunk, you probably can't set any of the bits which enable Custom Calling Features. This type of programming has been very annoying when setting up tie trunks between our Dimension PBXs and other machines. For example, in an ETN network, in order to get certain testing features enabled on a trunk group, you have to call it an ETN trunk. But if you call it an ETN trunk, you can't have certain kinds of on/off hook signalling. And they think that you only have four digit exten- sions at the other end. Even if they send five digits, they look at the "0" in the first digit after the internal exchange code, and, if that is a "0", send just a "0" instead of the whole number. This has caused us no end of problems with the numbers in the "0" thousands group of our five-digit CENTREX on incoming calls from Dimension PBXs. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Oct 1981 0944-PDT From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: One second 'free' calls On some #5 crossbar systems, pay-phone service will delay between the time of actual supervision, and the time it believes that the call really was answered. On ESS, this delay is present, but shorted. The reason for this... (Talk about human factors engineering) So that if the caller hangs up, the phone won't swallow his dime in the time it takes his hand to travel from his head to the telephone base, in case the party answers during that time. ------------------------------ Gumby@MIT-AI 10/06/81 15:59:26 Re: Telecom Digest To: JSol at RUTGERS well, as a matter of fact, the dial tone in Vienna, Austria is a perfect 440 because of the Vienna Philharonic.. --david ------------------------------ Date: 6 Oct 1981 1429-PDT From: Lynn Gold <G.FIGMO at SU-SCORE> Saying-of-the-day: Do it with class structures! Subject: Hart Industries Phone Service My parents are thinking about giving up the Hart Line. They complain that "you can never get through" and "the connections are lousy." From personal experience with the line, I agree with them. On the average, it takes ten to fifteen minutes to place a call on the Hart Line because there are so few lines and so many calls going through them. Even more recently, the 800 number out of California (and a number of other states) has been "temporarily disconnected." If they switch to itemizing phone call charges, they'll probably lose a LOT of business, since one of the few appealing things about them was their blanket-style fee of $65. a month. --Lynn ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 7-Oct-81 23:38:43-EDT,5415;000000000000 Date: 7 Oct 1981 2338-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #32 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Thursday, 8 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 32 Today's Topics: Using Old Phone Numbers Again Query - How To Tell One's Particular Flavor Of ESS Disconnected Lines Switching Ratios on Centrex Systems Foreign Exchange Service FX Lines and Custom Calling Services ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 October 1981 11:57 edt From: York.Multics at MIT-Multics (William M. York) Subject: re-using phone numbers I got my current home phone number from TPC over two years ago. It wasn't very long before I found out that the number had previously belonged to an organization called Intercept. I got many calls from people asking if I was Intercept, and I am still getting them. I checked the phone book, and Intercept was still listed as having my phone number. I have reported this to the phone book branch and to the information (411) people several times. Two years later, the listing is still in the phone book and information still gives out my number if someone asks for Intercept. (Odd but off-the-subject note: none of the people who call me looking for Intercept know what Intercept is or what it does/did...) ------------------------------ Date: 7 Oct 1981 1110-PDT From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) Subject: Discovering your own ESS Is there anything an ordinary user with a Plain Old Telephone (not even Touch-Tone) can do to discover what flavor of ESS (or non-ESS) his exchange is using? Is there some test number unique to each variety of ESS or other exchange equipment? Or can the user measure some electrical characteristic or timing of some function and deduce it from that? Will ------------------------------ Date: 7 Oct 1981 1119-PDT From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) Subject: Unattached lines I have two phone lines coming into my house, as the previous owner had a business and a personal line. When I attach a telephone instrument to the unused line, it does not seem totally electrically dead; there seems to be some sort of current and/or signal but very faint and not particularily describable. Are unused lines really terminated somewhere in some sort of device, or is what I hear merely the effects of induced current, crosstalk, and stray RF rectification caused by the wire acting as an antenna or being paralleled with all the other working lines? Will ------------------------------ Date: 7 Oct 1981 1428-CDT From: Clive Dawson <CC.Clive at UTEXAS-20> Subject: Switching ratios on Centrex systems The Intramural Athletics Dept. here at the U. of Texas recently installed a 5-line rotary to handle all the requests for tennis court & racquetball court reservations, etc. Normally there is quite a load on these lines every morning at 8AM when people are attempting to make reservations for the next day. On Fridays, however, the situation becomes intolerable because reservations are being taken for the entire weekend and the following Monday as well. Before switching to the rotary, they had two separate phone numbers handling reservations, and I could usually dial furiously and get through within 10 or 15 minutes. Now that they've gone to the single phone number, the situation is much worse. It usually takes almost an hour to get through, and I find that 80-90% of my calls are giving me a "circuits busy" signal before I even get into the University centrex system at all. I am preparing to do battle with these people and attempt to convince them that they should return to the old system, but need some technical info. Is there an absolute number of calls that can come into the Univ. Centrex system from the Austin central office before everybody starts getting a "circuits busy", or are the centrex numbers grouped such that each group can only handle n outside calls? Does anybody know typical group sizes and values of n? Are calls from within the Centrex system handled differently that outside calls, or must they compete for the same available slots? Assuming that they have at least two people answering the rotary, does anybody have any other explanation for why the (my!) throughput has degraded so much? Thanks, CLive ------------------------------ Date: 7 Oct 1981 1620-PDT From: ROODE at SRI-KL (David Roode) Subject: foreign exchange service in California I just inquired about such service and was told that the rate is based on the mileage from one central office "rate point" to the other. I had always heard that it was from one central office to the border of the service area of the other. Does anyone know if this changed recently? ------------------------------ Date: 7 October 1981 20:23 edt From: Frankston.SoftArts at MIT-Multics Subject: Re: FX lines and custom calling services Reply-To: Frankston at MIT-Multics (Bob Frankston) To: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO>, I tried to buy custom calling features from Telco in Cambridge while living in adjacent Somerville. Was told that there was no way to do this. Somerville was Xbar, Cambridge ESS. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 9-Oct-81 02:39:51-EDT,4879;000000000000 Date: 9 Oct 1981 0239-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #33 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Friday, 9 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 33 Today's Topics: Long Distance Routing - Interstate/Intrastate FX Service/Custom Calling/FCO Service ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 October 1981 05:07 edt From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Long distance routing I was told today that if a long distance call is made between two points within the same area code, that it will never be routed through a switch that is outside of that area code. Is this true? Paul ------------------------------ Date: 8 Oct 1981 0830-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> To: Frankston at MIT-MULTICS Subject: Re: Re: FX lines and custom calling services As usual, the TELCO is full of bull. I live in Acton and have a Maynard FX with custom calling features (in addition to my Acton phone with custom calling features). When I lived in Charlotte, NC, I had FCO service (the same as FX, but within the same "exchange area" -- actually further than from Maynard to Acton). Also in Columbia, SC. In Atlanta I was served by a SXS which was due for retirement. The ESS which was gradually replacing it was right across the street. Southern Bell gave me the BS that it wouldn't work. After pressing them, I eventually was told that "there were not enough facilities." Don't ever believe anything a telephone company tells you. FCO=Foreign Central Office. Differs from FX only in the tariffs. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Oct 1981 1254-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: FX rates Interstate FX rates are approved by the FCC and are based on the Vertical and Horizontal (V&H) coordinates of the exchange (not the serving central office). The mileage is calculated with the following formula: SQRT(((V1-V2)**2+(H1-H2)**2)/10). Then the rate is looked up in one of three tables, depending on whether the two cities are both "A", both "B" or one "A" and one "B". "A" cities are a specific list of cities which are primary cities in the network. By the way, the formula for calculating the mileage between two places for MTS (normal long distance) is quite different: Compute ((V1-V2)**2/3) + ((H1-H2)**2/3) If the sum is > 1777, divide the previous quotients by 3. Round to the next higher integer. Repeat the squares and sums until the result is LEQ 1777. The number of times you calculate is to be called N. Multiply the final sum by CASE N of 1:.9, 2:8.1, 3:72.9, 4:656.1, 5:5904.9, 6:53144.1. But back to FX. If the FX is within a state, the rates are set by each state's regulatory agencies, and are different in almost each case. And you also have to differentiate between FCO (Foreign Central Office) service, provided within the same exchange (rate exchange) and FX service. And we'll ignore simulated FX or Expanded Area Service. FCO service is usually charged based on the mileage from plant to plant. When I lived in Charlotte, I wanted ESS service, which was provided by a new machine located less than 1/2 mile from my house. I had to pay for five miles -- and the line actually was physically run to the building with the XBar, fed through an E6 repeater, and then out to my house. FX service is usually charged based on rate-center to rate-center. However, I have seen provisions in the NC tariff which say some- thing to the effect that if it is "more convenient" to the tele- phone company to extend the lines from the exchange boundary to the point of service, the mileage charged will be the distance from the boundary to the point of service. The tariffs are full of goodies which modify all of the above for specific cases. For example, in Greenville you can not order an FX to the nearest suburb of Spartanburg in order to get Spartan- burg service; you have to go all the way. The FCC tariff also has a bunch of special case stuff for the Washington metro area. For a long time, a friend of mine in Alexandria had a DC FX to get ESS service, which, due to the strange rate structure, was so inexpensive that his total phone bill was less, since he now no longer had to pay the 25% Alexandria city phone tax. The tariffs for almost all FX and FCO service now provide for an extremely expensive base charge ($18 to $55) to which the mile- age is added. THE BOTTOM LINE IS: DON'T TRUST THE PHONE COMPANY! GO READ THE TARIFFS YOURSELF. IF YOU THEN DON'T UNDERSTAND THE TELCO INTER- PRETATION OF WHAT YOU READ, CALL THE RESPONSIBLE REGULATORY AUTHORITY FOR HELP. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 10-Oct-81 01:19:35-EDT,3442;000000000000 Date: 10 Oct 1981 0119-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #34 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Saturday, 10 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 34 Today's Topics: Long Distance Routing - Area Code Boundries Background Noise (Crosstalk, Ringing) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 Oct 1981 0828-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> To: schauble.multics at MIT-MULTICS Subject: Long distance routing It is quite common for a long distance call between two points in the same area code to be routed outside that area code. For example, many of the exchanges in southeastern New Hampshire are homed on the Lawrence 4A toll machine and route ALL of their calls through Massachusetts. Similar situations exist in many border situations -- near Chattanooga, Tennessee, in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas, around Washington, D.C. and many more places. The structure of the network for handling blockage also will promote calls to higher ranking toll machines which may take you outside an area code and then back. Whoever told you that doesn't know much about the network. I wouldn't trust them in the future. [Another example of this phenomenon is Fisher's Island, N. Y. (area 516). All of it's toll calls routed through Connecticut (area 203), and even has it's directory listing in the New London, CT. Phone book *ONLY* -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 9 Oct 1981 0847-PDT From: Daul at OFFICE Subject: Background Ringing During Phone Calls I have experienced the following many times, can someone explain it? I have been talking with someone and "very" faintly in the background I can hear the sound of a phone ringing. It went on for the whole conversation, so I don't think it was someone else I was hearing. Any ideas? ------------------------------ Date: 9 Oct 1981 0917-PDT From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: Re: Long distance routing To: Schauble.Multics at MIT-MULTICS In general, it is true that calls within an area code will not be routed via equipment outside. In some areas, however, where the same telephone company provides service for all areas concerned, and the same regulatory agency handles both area codes (i.e. within the same state), calls may be sent through tandems in a nearby area, when there is either no more direct route, as is the case between parts of area 714, which often sends calls via the downtown Los Angeles 4E (213). Also, if there is a busy condition on some tandem, there might be facilities for rerouting the calls around the point of conflict, which could as well be in another area, under the above conditions. If, however, calls between say... San Diego and Bishop were routed via Phoenix (I know it's out of the way, but just for example), it would present a problem with the interstate commerce regulations, and have to be billed differently. A bit too complex for the TELCO to implement, let alone the public to understand... Not that there would be any logical reason to do it around here in the large states, but on the east coast, where they have states no bigger than LA county, this might be a useful thing... <Ramble...Ramble...> <>IHM<> ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 12-Oct-81 01:53:27-EDT,2102;000000000000 Date: 12 Oct 1981 0153-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #35 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Monday, 12 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 35 Today's Topics: Crosstalk Error Correction Codes In Phone Trunks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 October 1981 1331-PDT (Saturday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: crosstalk The tone generators that create the ringing, busy, and other tones have their output routed to various points around any given central office. You were probably getting crosstalk from one of those feeds, rather than from any specific call. The main phone number for the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica (in a VERY, VERY old General Telephone Step by Step office) is extremely close to the primary number for the General Telephone talking clock. On more than a few occasions I have heard the time announcements leaking through continuously during conversations with people at Rand. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 11 Oct 1981 2115-PDT Subject: Error correction codes in phone trunks. From: William "Chops" Westfield <BillW@SRI-KL> I am having an argument with my roomate on whether or not the phone company will add error correcting codes to transmitions as they convert to all digital voice transmission. My argument is that there is no reason to have such codes on digitized voice transmissions, and digital connections will use their own ECC if they want them, So there is no reason for TPC to read data going into the trunk and add ECC codes themselves (I Think this would also raise privacy of information issues). His argument is that a chip fast enough to do ECC on the fly at trunk type speeds will be cheap enough that tPC will have no reason not to do this, and in addition, it will give them a selling point. Any Comments or more informed opinions/facts ? Bill W ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 14-Oct-81 00:39:06-EDT,3024;000000000000 Date: 14 Oct 1981 0039-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #36 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Wednesday, 14 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 36 Today's Topics: Error Correction Codes Intercept Recordings - a Query Use Of 555 Exchange For Other Than Directory Assistance ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 October 1981 08:47-EDT From: Peter J. Castagna <PC at MIT-MC> Subject: Error correction codes in phone trunks. To: BillW at SRI-KL For every level of ecc added the bits/bandwidth decreases. Since this is costly (assuming a fixed transmission medium) I think ecc equipment would only be added to super-trunk transmission paths with high inherent noise (microwave radio links,whatever) susceptibility. Most users already have their own ecc equipment. Would you trust tpc? Also, since most of the really-high-speed trunks reach bit rates of up to 274 Megabits/sec (15,45 and 90 are commoner) any chip that does this at this rate won't go for peanuts. Also,tpc is getting into fiber optics. ------------------------------ KRAUSS@MIT-MC 10/12/81 09:02:23 Subject: Error Correcting Codes on Phone Trunks Apart from any relevant technical concerns, the most significant issue related to telco provision of error correction capability is whether this is an ENHANCEMENT of basic telecommunications service. Under the FCC's Computer II decision, AT&T must establish a separate subsidiary to offer enhanced services on an unregulated basis; basic services would continue to be offered by the regulated entity. Clearly, capabilities such as error correction and statistical multiplexing of packets go beyond the provision of a basic transmission pipe. Based on this argument, I don't think you'll find telco providing error correction as part of a voice telephone service. By the way, the FCC has an inquiry underway right now to try to determine where the dividing line is between basic and enhanced services. The inquiry focuses on features like protocol conversion, speed conversion, etc., as well as error correction. ---Jeff Krauss--- ------------------------------ Date: 13 October 1981 12:34 edt From: Sibert at MIT-Multics (W. Olin Sibert) Subject: intercept recordings Sender: Sibert.Multics at MIT-Multics I have noticed recently that some wrong number recordings, and "the-number-you-have-dialed-has-been-changed" recordings, seem to start with a sequence of three tones, about 1000, 1500, and 1800 hz. respectively. Can anyone tell me whether this is part of some secret plan to make intercept recordings machine recognizable? Also, how universal is the change to make 555 be things other than information, such as 555-1611 getting repair service (which appears to be run from a national response center these days)? -- Olin ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 15-Oct-81 01:59:51-EDT,2816;000000000000 Date: 15 Oct 1981 0159-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #37 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Thursday, 15 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 37 Today's Topics: Intercept Recordings BellMac-32 Computer ECC - Enhanced Services ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Oct 1981 0908-PDT From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: Re: intercept recordings To: sibert.multics at MIT-MULTICS This has long been the standard in other countries, notably Germany and the surrounding area. In Japan, the recordings answer with chimes, followed by a longish announcement, repeating. Call 011-81-6-556-8730# some day and you will hear what I am refering to. It doesn't supe, but if you are worried, call via an operator, collect or person to person. In the US, I think it may be consistant enough to be machine recognizable, but I believe that the real intention is to make it recognizable even over a poor connection, wherein the caller might not be able to hear the voice message. The tones, however, are louder and clearer, and should still be audible. Maybe someone else knows more of this. <>IHM<> ------------------------------ Date: 14 Oct 1981 1421-EDT From: Hobbit <AWalker at RUTGERS> Subject: Three-tone intercepts I too have noticed those feeps before the intercept recording. I think it's simply a scheme to become standardized with the international circuits, which have been doing the same thing for a long time. Most of the European circuits have been doing the same thing, while places like Japan have a similar thing only it sounds like chimes instead of constant- amplitude tones. _H* ------------------------------ Date: Wednesday, 14 Oct 1981 14:10-PDT From: mike at RAND-UNIX To: info-micro at MIT-AI Subject: BellMac-32 microprocessor The October 6 issue of Electronics has an article on the new 32 bit VLSI processor made by the Bell System. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Oct 1981 20:34:06-PDT From: alice!ark at Berkeley re: "ECC is an enhanced service" Are you telling me that unreliable transmission is "basic" but reliable transmission is "enhanced"? [The Phone Company considers normal (e.g. glitchy) phone service acceptable for voice communication, but that is usually not good enough for data transmission. They have tarriffs explicitely preventing you from complaining unless you pay through the nose for "data" service. Experience shows that problems seldom get solved satisfactorily even when you *do* purchase this extra service, but at least you can legally complain -JSOL] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 15-Oct-81 22:14:27-EDT,7727;000000000000 Date: 15 Oct 1981 2214-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #38 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Friday, 16 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 38 Today's Topics: Intercept Beep Tones TPC - We Don't Care, We Don't Have To Telephone Network For Digital Applications ECC - Extended Features Hunting Lines Tones Before Recordings ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Oct 1981 0605-PDT From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: Re: intercept beeps One point I neglected to mention in my last message on the subject is that the recordings can be understood as a disconnect by any caller, regardless of native tounge. This is, I believe, the most significant reasin that the tones have been around for so long in smaller countries, but not in the US; most of our traffic has, until recently, been intra-US. <>IHM<> ------------------------------ Date: 13-Oct-81 04:28 PM-EDT From: PHENIX::MINOW Reply-to: "PHENIX::MINOW c/o" <SCHRIESHEIM.MITTON at DEC-MARLBORO> Subj: We don't care, we don't have to. I just got a vadic 1200 baud direct connect and, when I called Ma Bell to register it, I was informed by the business office person that "you should increase your service because your message units will probably go crazy when you use a modem". "Even for local calls, where I have unlimited service?" I asked. "Yes, you see, you're using our network more." "Well", I said, "I suppose we'll have to make our network work like it says in what I'm paying for." "Don't get defensive." She says. Also, they don't accept grandfathered phones anymore, unless they have been in continuous use (and, I suppose, registered). They say its in the tariff. Take care. Martin Minow ------------------------ Posted-date: 06-Oct-1981 From: PAUL DICKSON AT ZIP Reply-to: "PAUL DICKSON AT ZIP c/o" <SCHRIESHEIM.MITTON at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Digital telephones The all-digital telephone is being seriously studied at the CCITT during the current study period (which started last fall and runs 4 years). Study Group XVIII handles ISDN. The new service is called the Integrated Service Digital Network (ISDN). The current working papers describe ISDN as follows. A digital subscriber loop consists of four separate channels, with the following names at the Ax interface (CCITT jargon): B - Digitized voice at 64kb, the standard data rate for digital telephone exchanges, and allowing for cheap coders. B' - Circuit-switched data at 8 to 64kb. It is hoped that a single bit-rate can be agreed on, with throughput limited by local conditions. Delta (or signalling ) - Control signals, dial commands, meter reading, packet-switched user data using X.25 protocols, at either 8kb or 16 kb. F - A timing channel used to demultiplex the other three channels. 8kb or 16kb. This totals 144 or 160 kilobits per second. As 64kb is not a standard data rate in North America (it is the standard high speed everywhere else in the world, 56kb being an aberration), there is some disagreement about how fast the B' channel will go. Most people view it as important that whatever speed it runs, it be the same speed everywhere. Similar comments apply to the delta channel. A computer would dial the B' channel by sending a command packet down the delta channel. In a fraction of a second, a circuit is established and you communicate at 64kb. For bulk data transfer applications like fax, this is better than packet-switching, and easier for the CO's to impliment. The Japanese telephone administration has done some research on whether ISDN could be delivered over existing loop circuits. In Japan, 99% of the subscribers will be within 7km of their central office, and it turns out that you can get away with it. You have to be careful that all circuits in a cable bundle are running on the same clock, etc. The limiting factor is far-end crosstalk. In "Computerworld" I saw that AT&T would like to have most of the US converted to ISDN by the early 1990's. The figures for average distance to the CO are different here, of course, so it as not as easy as in Japan. In both cases, if you leave out the B' channel, and just deliver those channels that replace existing services, it is much easier to send it all down the existing wires. I haven't seen it explained in detail how you get full duplex out of the B channel. It seems to me you need two such channels if you are not to get the gain-swapping effect that speakerphones use (very irritaing). Maybe the 64kb includes both directions. Due to the high costs of converting existing plant, I would expect the first complete ISDN implementations to be in PBX's. You are just starting to see this now. Once the ISDN standards are written, it should really take off, as then the manufacturers will know what to build so that the pieces will interwork properly. The PBX's can then be connected by high-speed trunks to the central offices as the CO's change over. Businesses will probably see ISDN long before it shows up in private homes. (There isn't the market pull for 160kb in the home just yet.) ------------------------------ Date: 15 Oct 1981 12:06:52-PDT From: decvax!aps at Berkeley Subject: ECC in Telephone Trunks. I take expception with Jeff Krauss' idea that ECC would be an enhancement to basic telecomm services. Agreed about the FCC II decision preventing "enhancements" being offered by a Telco. I would think however that a mechanism for providing quality communication channels would not necessarily be an "ENHANCEMENT" in the world of FCC II. I think that the FCC was more concerned with ENHANCEMENTS that were more like running UNIX on your push-button phone. Also, I believe that there has been an optical fiber installed in Chicago as a test for about three to four years! Armando Stettner (decvax!aps) ------------------------------ Date: 15 Oct 1981 1626-EDT From: RI at MIT-XX (Richard Ilson) Subject: Hunting Phone companies tend not to publicize ``hunting'' between lines, but they apparently will provide it for free if you just ask for it. They require the two phone lines to be billed to the same person. It's worth noting that two phones with hunting may be an attractive alternative to ``call waiting'' service. For example, in the Boston area call waiting costs $2.50 per month, while an additional phone line costs only $3.24 per month. Recently, when I tried to get hunting between my phone lines in Arlington, Massachusetts, I was told that I could not get hunting between MEASURED service (where they charge you for each message unit, with some minimum allotment given free) and any other kind of service (these include UNLIMITED LOCAL, SURBURBAN LOCAL, and METROPOLITAN). They would only give me hunting between two measured service phones, or two non-measured service phones. Does anybody know why this is the case? ------------------------------ Date: 15 Oct 1981 17:24:08-PDT From: ihnss!ihuxq!ihuxp!ljspot at Berkeley to: Sibert.Multics at MIT-Multics I suspect your tones at the beginning of a "number has been changed" message are intended to let automated calling equipment know that it has reached another machine (i.e. a recording) at the called number. I don't know the exact tones or specs, but I recall hearing of plans to implement this. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 17-Oct-81 01:33:10-EDT,4733;000000000000 Date: 17 Oct 1981 0133-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #39 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Saturday, 17 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 39 Today's Topics: Hunting Rotaries The Hart Line Data Phone Service ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 October 1981 2030-PDT (Thursday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: rotaries (hunting) There are two issues involved when it comes to providing rotary (hunting) services: 1) What sort of equipment is involved. 2) What the tariffs say. -- 1) In ESS/EAX offices, it should generally be POSSIBLE to provide rotary service between any numbers. Given call forwarding facilities now (and CCIS later), hunting can actually be done even between numbers in different CO's. In some parts of the country, this service seems to actually be tariffed. In Crossbar (#5) offices, rotaries can generally only be setup between numbers in the same 1000 group (that is, on the same number group frame.) I'm not sure, but there may be additional restrictions based on class-of-service (here's where the distinction between flat-rate and measured comes in) since different service classes will be physically in different locations on the frames. For example, all subscriber lines in the same vertical file of a bay (the corresponding verticals of each of the 10 crossbar switches of a bay) must be of the same class of service so that this class can be identified by the marker during calls. In SXS offices, rotaries must be CONSECUTIVE directory numbers, e.g. 1278, 1279, 1270, 1281 (70 comes after 79 since a "0" is really a "ten", not a "zero".) The wipers on the SXS connector must physically move (rotary) across the "in-use" contacts of the number sequence, in search of a vacant number for the connection. Since SXS offices usually provide different service classes (when these even exist!) by designating whole banks of numbers to particular classes, rotaries between service classes are usually not possible. -- 2) Regardless of what is technically possible, the tariffs tell the story. What may be perfectly acceptable in one part of the country may be taboo elsewhere. There are both technical issues and politics in most every aspect of the telecommunications business. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: Thursday, 15 October 1981 22:15-EDT From: Geoffrey C. Mulligan (AFDSC, The Pentagon) <GeoffM at RAND-AI> Re: Data? grade lines? I was told that TPC will guarantee one error in every 10^5 bits, even on a data grade line. geoff ------------------------------ Date: 16 Oct 1981 07:10:06-EDT From: dee at CCA-UNIX (Donald Eastlake) Subject: hunting between measured and non-measured In all of Massachusetts, the tarriffs prohibit having measured and non- measured service on the same premises. So of course they won't give you hunting between them. You are lucky they were lazy enough not to try to take away one of your lines or force you to upgrade the measured one. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Oct 1981 10:45 EDT From: BAKER.WBST at PARC-MAXC Re: optical fiber installed in Chicago In response to Armando Stettner's comment re the above, I remember hearing about Illinois Bell Telephone wiring a building 8 or 9 years ago. Clarke Baker ------------------------------ Date: 16 Oct 1981 0858-PDT From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: Hunting To: ri at MIT-XX I believe that the reason they won't assign hunting to measured service is that hunting is nothing more than CO programmable call-forwarding/busy. This means that the base number would be billed for a local call every time it busy-tripped to the other line, and was answered. Obviously this could be fixed in software, but... "We're the phone company..." <>IHM<> ------------------------------ Date: 16 Oct 1981 1927-PDT From: Lynn Gold <G.FIGMO at SU-SCORE> Saying-of-the-day: Do it with class structures! Subject: Hart Line Maybe the FCC has caught up with them...I don't know... I just know that all their 800 exchange numbers have been disconnected. Does anyone else know anything about this? My parents are paying $65. a month for service which doesn't exist right now. --Lynn ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 18-Oct-81 00:30:37-EDT,2242;000000000000 Date: 18 Oct 1981 0030-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #40 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Sunday, 18 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 40 Today's Topics: The Hart Line - A Loser Answering Machines - What To Get Restrictions On Classes Of Services ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 October 1981 0030-PDT (Saturday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Hart Line To: G.Figmo at score STOP PAYING THOSE CROOKS! My sources tell me that they are totally shut down and are either about to be indicted for fraud or already have been. There are loads of people screaming bloody murder and lining up for a piece of those people's hide. Tell your parents to join the crowd. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 17 October 1981 13:42-EDT From: Thomas L. Davenport <TLD at MIT-MC> Subject: Buying an answering machine. I must buy an answering machine for my office. As I generally dislike the things, I have paid little attention to what is offered on the market. I'd greatly appreciate any help that members of this mailing list can give me in making my selection. The ideal machine I have in mind is one that can be completely operated by remote control. Being able to replay messages one at a time, and to repeat messages if needed, would also be a feature of this machine. Is such a device available? Who, generally, makes good units? Which companies should I avoid? What is the accepted price range for these things? Does anybody have suggestions as to dealers to check out in the Eastern Mass. area? Thanks for any help! -Tom- ------------------------------ Date: 17 October 1981 18:20 edt From: Frankston.SoftArts at MIT-Multics Subject: Re: hunting between measured and non-measured Reply-To: Frankston at MIT-Multics (Bob Frankston) To: dee at CCA-UNIX I've never heard of any restrictions on type of service within a given premise. As a matter of fact, I once had residential, business and FX (to New York) simultaneously. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 19-Oct-81 00:30:02-EDT,7698;000000000000 Date: 19 Oct 1981 0030-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #41 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Monday, 18 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 41 Today's Topics: Answering Services Restrictions On Class Of Service Hotel/Motel Service Special Ring Signals Optical Fiber Installed In Chicago ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 October 1981 0143-PDT (Sunday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: answering machines and service classes I strongly recommend "Code-A-Phone" answering machines over all others. They have a very complete line, many units in which have total remote control. They are part of Ford Industries, and have for many years been the standard for telco usage (there must still be thousands of Code-A-Phone model 700's scattered around the Bell System -- what a workhorse!) They are somewhat more expensive than competing brands, but they are generally worth it. --- Restrictions on classes of service in a given residence are totally controlled by tariffs. In my old residence in GTE, there were only two classes of service: flat and lifeline measured. You could not get lifeline service in any residence where any other class of service was installed. In my current location, there are three classes: flat, lifeline measured, and "ordinary" measured. I have one flat rate and one "ordinary" measured line -- I still would not be allowed to get "lifeline" service along with the flat rate. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 18 October 1981 16:07 edt From: Sibert at MIT-Multics (W. Olin Sibert) Subject: segregation of service Even here in Massachusetts, it really depends on who takes the order and who is doing the installing, as to whether you can successfully get *incompatible* types of service in the same place. I recently had a business extension installed in my new home, and first was told (by the residential business office): "You can't have business and residential service in the same dwelling". I said I'd had it before, last place I'd lived, and got some guff about how that had been illegal. So, I called the business business office (we have completely separate hierarchies for residential and business in this state) and told them what I wanted, and they said sure, we can do that, no problem at all. An installer came out in the morning, and told me that well, I could have it in the same house, but not in the same room, and started running the wire outside the house. I tried to explain that I had had it that way before, but he wasn't interested. A different installer returned with him in the afternoon, and told me that "Well, the real truth is that you can't have residential and business service in the same room, unless we disable the residential phone for outgoing calls. So, we'll reverse polarity on the residential lines in that room, but you can fix it as soon as we leave". I've been told so many different things about this sort of issue that I've decided nobody actually KNOWS, and they all just make up the answer that seems best at the moment. -- Olin [It was actually intended to prevent abuses like having a "limited service" line for incoming calls only, and using an unlimited phone to place outside calls. Additionally having Residence Service in a business location is against the tarrifs, and when you want to have your business line in your house, TPC gets the feeling you are trying to cheat them out of service charges. I had to get my line driver installed by calling the specific business rep who was responsible for handling Rutgers University's entire account, nobody else would permit the installation! -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 18 October 1981 16:11 edt From: Sibert at MIT-Multics (W. Olin Sibert) Subject: special rings Can anyone tell me what is involved in getting special ring signals? I believe I have crossbar five here, but I've gotten enough different answers to that question that I'm not completely certain. What I want is to have one line ring normally (two seconds on, four seconds off) and have the other ring interrupted (900 ms. on, 200 ms. off, 900 ms. on, four seconds off). I know I've encountered this sort of service elsewhere, but nobody I've talked to at the business office seems able to comprehend my request, let alone know how to do it. Are there other "standard" non-standard rings as well as the single interrupted ring? -- Olin [I haven't seen that anywhere except on Step By Step Switching. We used to have all sorts of combinations of that in Connecticut (which was proud to be the first state to have completely gone Step in the '50s, but is suffering for it now) - JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 81 9:55:57-EDT (Sun) From: J C Pistritto <jcp.bmd70 at BRL> Re: TELECOM Digest V1 #39 On a recent visit to the Boston area, I had the oppurtunity to make a long distance call from my hotel, and discovered that even though I could direct-dial the number, the operator came on and asked me for my room number. Since I KNOW these people get the calling & called phone numbers displayed on the console, why do they ask this?? Or is it a case where they get the base number for the hotel only, and not the extension (room #)? -Joe Pistritto [I think that the phone company doesn't have any idea which room you are in, and has to assume you will be honest and tell them the right room. You should always check the phone calls applied to a phone bill, because you may just pay for someone elses call! -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 81 10:13:06-EDT (Sun) From: J C Pistritto <jcp.bmd70 at BRL> Re: Answering Machines Answering machines: I have recently had a BAD experience with a Phone-Mate model 950, (their top of the line, I think). I bought one of these at a Montgomery Wards store, installed it, verified it worked by remote control, etc. Unfortunately, the darned thing contains a microprocessor, and the power company in my area relishes dispensing 1/2 to 1 second power hits, (interruptions) about 1 to 2 times daily. Several times, the answering machine 'answered' an ON-HOOK line after a power hit, resulting in recording the recorded, "hang up and dial again" message for several hours, and giving a BUSY indication on the line, which of course was NOT resettable by remote control... I had to manually power down and up the unit to reset it. After this happened twice in a week, I returned the unit. If anyone knows of a unit with similar features with either a better power supply, or mechanical/servo type logic that won't be interfered with by power glitches, PLEASE let me know. -Joe Pistritto ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 1981 20:03:30-PDT From: network at Berkeley Subject: Optical Fiber installed in Chicago Clarke, I was referring to interoffice (intraoffice?) trunks/channels that were being converted to optical fiber. Not cable installed within a single building. Armando. [There is an optical fiber long distance circuit between New Brunswick, NJ and Newark NJ, which Rutgers University uses heavily between its two campuses (we have all sorts of circuits including two 56KB data lines with multiplexers for inter-computer networking). Anyone out there know of any others? -JSOL] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 20-Oct-81 01:45:40-EDT,5622;000000000000 Date: 20 Oct 1981 0145-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #42 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Tuesday, 20 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 42 Today's Topics: Lines Of Different A Different Class - An Abuse Of Service? Hotel/Motel Service Hunting Between Different Classes Of Service Remote Controlled Answering Machines ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 October 1981 0151-EDT (Monday) From: Michael.Fryd at CMU-10A (C621MF0E) Subject: Abuses of Services I don't understand how having two phones with different services is an abuse of the system. What's wrong with having a measured use phone for incoming calls and an unlimited use phone for outgoing calls? It seems to me that it is an abuse of power on the Phone Company's part if they want me to pay for TWO unlimited service lines when I only intend to be making calls on ONE of them. (Of course, you could argue that if I am the type of person who needs two phone lines then I am the type of person who uses the phone more then the average and should pay more. This implies that there is a limit on my unlimited service.) [Exactly -JSOL] Also to the person who wanted two separate rings for his different lines; why not get a chime put in instead of a ringer on one of them? My parents had this done in their house and it makes it quite easy to tell which line is ringing. -mike fryd [Alternatively put one of them in one room and the other one in the other room, or you could take one of the bells out of one and the other one out of the other (have different sounding chimes),but that only works if you have perfect pitch -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 19 Oct 1981 0221-EDT From: Hobbit <AWalker at RUTGERS> Subject: Hotels What jcp.bmd70 got was an *outside* operator sitting at a TSPS board. They have the main calling number from the hotel but that's *it*. What happens is that relying on customer honesty the operator keys in the room number into a special buffer in the TSPS machine. Then after the call is done the data is sent out to the hotel via teletype [Ug!]. Then the charge for the call is added on to the bill for the room. Of course the hotel has to have the TTY line installed as well as its fone lines. The *base* number of the hotel comes up in the ANI on the board. If there's any discrepancy they can usually work it out, but if somebody habitually gives a wrong room number then the hotel has to eat the calls. Give 'em hell, _H* ------------------------------ Date: 19 October 1981 0415-PDT (Monday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: hotel/motel phone services The older versions of hotel/motel direct-outward-dialing systems did not have the facilities to do an ANI (automatic number identification) on the calling hotel room. The telco operator would have to intercept and manually ask for the number, which he/she then punches into their console. This data is provided back to the hotel, usually on a tty (or in some cases, a direct feed into the hotel computer). Just as residence service with manual number identification has been fading into obscurity, the same is true for hotel services -- the newer services all have ANI -- and operator intervention will disappear. Of course, you should note that in most locales, hotel/motel service is TARIFFED as an operator assisted call ... even if there is no operator! --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 19 Oct 1981 10:07:04-EDT From: dee at CCA-UNIX (Donald Eastlake) To: Frankston at MIT-Multics Subject: Re: hunting between measured and non-measured In response to your message of Sun Oct 18 15:17:48 1981: There is no problem with business and residential on the same premises or FX lines, where you are paying an extra distance charge. The phone company just doesn't want plain local measured (which, you will note, has a cheaper rate for added extensions than all other classes of service) with anything else. As a matter of fact, I one lived with a group of people who rented a house which was on a corner and had two addresses and we ordered measured service with a bunch of extensions at one address and metropolitan service with one phone at the other but actually had jacks on both lines installed all over the house. I am not sure if all these rate conditions still apply, but they did some years ago. ------------------------------ Date: 19 October 1981 22:30 edt From: Frankston.SoftArts at MIT-Multics Subject: Re: hunting between measured and non-measured Reply-To: Frankston at MIT-Multics (Bob Frankston) To: dee at CCA-UNIX, Frankston at MIT-Multics I once did ask for split service within a hunt group and was told I could get it -- I just decided to stick with metropolitan so did not follow through. It is, however, the type of thing that appears to have an associated mythology within Telco such that it is likely that the first person you speak to will say no. ------------------------------ Date: 20 October 1981 00:11 edt From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Remote control answering machines. The only fully remote control machine I know of is the one that has just been introduced by (of all people) Radio Shack. It will be available in November. I intend to get one and will report on it when I do. Paul ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 21-Oct-81 04:41:53-EDT,5899;000000000000 Date: 21 Oct 1981 0441-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #43 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Wednesday, 21 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 43 Today's Topics: Hotel/Motel Service & Surcharges Phone Chimes vs. Bells Optic Fibers Tones Before Intercept Recordings ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 Oct 1981 0907-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Hotel/Motel service I haven't seen operator room identification fading into obscurity yet; in fact, I have yet to see a hotel or motel with AIOD (Automatic Iden- tified Outward Dialing). Lauren, where is one of these places? The FCC (nationwide for any call which crosses a state line) tariff for hotel/motel service is what makes calls from hotels cost the operator assisted rate; it doesn't really matter much what any local regulatory authorities might say, since they almost always go along with what the telcos are willing to provide. Up until a few months ago, the telcos paid a commission to the hotels for each completed long distance call; this covered their cost of providing the service. Thus, for interstate calls (and, by example, for most intrastate calls) hotels and motels were forbidden to add any surcharges to your bill for long distance service. This has all changed. FCC docket 80-54 permits hotels to add any surcharges they wish to cover costs -- as long as no profit is being made. The intent was to allow hotels to send the calls out over their own facilities (DDD, WATS, MCI, etc.), and, in fact, some hotels are doing this now that commissions have been eliminated. However, I stayed in a hotel in Seattle last week in which the calls were still routed via TSPS. However, this hotel surcharged each long distance call $1.00 and each local call $0.50. Since 800 service calls use the same lines as local calls, they got a $0.50 surcharge. When I called the FCC to complain that the hotel must be making a profit at this rate, they explained that the local PUC would now have to make that determination, since the FCC can only regulate the part of the service going into the "interstate rate base." When I pointed out to the Washington State Utilities Commission that I had been charged $3.65 for a one minute call to Denver (after 11 PM) and that the total charges for the three toll calls, three 800 service calls and one local call was $5.00 (which would work out to $100/month/room to provide phone service if the hotel has a 66% occupancy rate) they agreed that it was excessive and would look into it. I suspect that creative bookkeeping will show that it is not excessive. So now the U.S. has exorbitant telephone surcharges (something which AT&T, through a program called Teleplan, has been trying to eliminate in Europe). Hotels can now charge anything they wish as long as no one can prove that a profit was made. Even credit card calls are not exempt from surcharges -- each hotel will have its own policy. If you are going to be in a hotel for much more than one week and plan to make more than one or two long distance calls a day, it may pay to plan ahead and have a telephone of your own installed in your room. Although it has always been common for the press to do this, if everyone starts doing it, hotels may stop allowing it. (You do have to have their permission to have a phone installed in your room.) Then again, in hotels with sophisticated PBXs, I would be glad to pay a one dollar surcharge to get the DDD rate rather than the operator assisted rate. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 1981 1123-PDT From: ROODE at SRI-KL (David Roode) Subject: chimes An installer in California told me chimes are not longer available. To make a different tone, I like to stuff one of the phones' bells with a paper towel. Then it merely rattles. This is quite audible it turns out. [Chimes may not be available from Ma Bell anymore, but there are plenty of FCC approved ones available in stores -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 20 October 1981 21:18-EDT From: Peter J. Castagna <PC at MIT-MC> Subject: Optical Fiber installed in Chicago To: network at UCB-C70 The technology is there (weco, etc) for it. The optics do have a very high bandwidth. However, most optical links are short because of the cost of repeater stations and the lossiness of the cables. Amtrak is sticking out its collective neck and installing a Boston- Washington optic link with local drops... ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 1981 18:35:18-PDT From: decvax!yale-comix!ima!johnl at Berkeley In-real-life: John R. Levine, The INTERACTIVE Electric Calculator Co., Boston. Subject: Scanning the technical journals >From the Friday Boston Globe: ASK THE GLOBE Q. Solve a mystery for me, please. I dialed a number the other day on the telephone and got an intercept. Not unusual. But, this time before the voice gave me the information that "the number you have dialed, etc." began, I got a musical signal. I tried again and got the same musical signal before the voice. What is the reason for this? -- C.P., Acton A. New England Telephone calls those musical notes Special Information Tones. The three notes alert a computer that certain calls cannot be completed, and also tell the computer why they cannot be completed. The computer can classify, count and register the calls and the telephone company can keep track of call-completion performance automatically. Anybody know any more about this? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 22-Oct-81 01:02:16-EDT,4577;000000000000 Date: 22 Oct 1981 0102-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #44 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Thursday, 22 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 44 Today's Topics: Different Ringing Tones For Multiple Lines What Constitutes Abuse Hotel/Motel PBX Advancements Who is Putting In The Fiber link? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Oct 1981 07:06:47-PDT From: CSVAX.william at Berkeley re: changing ringing tones Another simple thing to do to make two phones ring distinctly is to switch the internal bells around. Your standard model 500 has two bells of slighlty different frequency. If you switch them so that one phone has both low, the other both hi, you can tell quite easily which is which. It takes a screwdriver and 5 minutes. Of course if you are tone deaf...... Bill. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 1981 1133-PDT Subject: Definition of "abuse" From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) I, too, firmly disagree with JSol's use of the term "abuse" herein! I wonder why he is taking the Telco traditional stand; if you are consciously being a devil's advocate, please so state, and the reactions will be less fevered. In any case, "abuse" is a lot more than getting what you pay for. "Unlimited" is just that. If someone is on their phone 99% of the time, they are entitled to do so. If the tariff states that the service is not limited, it is wrong and insulting to imply or state that there is some form of limit. No one has forced the telco to establish the traditional local unlimited service; it was up to them, they decided that it was the most cost-effective way to go, and they did it. It may have been uneconomic to provide measured service before the automation technology came around to make it worthwhile, but so what? The Telcos did what they wanted and are making money; do you expect some sort of sympathy that they are not making more? (I would like to add here that I do not have a home data connection of any kind, and I make very few calls -- my wife uses the phone much more than I do. Probably my present bill would be reduced with measured service; this does NOT mean that I want to be forced to HAVE to have measured service now or in the future, however. I MAY want to use my phone lines more in the future, and I don't like things limiting my options then. As I don't want MY options limited, I see no excuse for limiting anyone else's current options. This is actually the Golden Rule.) Let's reserve "abuse" to people using blue boxes and the like. Some sort of effort invested in creative service contracting (different types of lines and different services) which results in a lower overall phone bill for the same degree of received services is the reward of expended effort, not any form of "abuse". If someone has the energy and initiative to investigate the available options and chooses some which give him more return for dollars spent, what is wrong with that? That is commendable! If his service ends up being subsidized by those who just call the business office and say "Gimme a phone.", that's fine! You get rewarded for effort and penalized for laziness! (And I count myself among the lazy in this; I'm not benefitting in any way here.) Is this list supposed to be an information exchange or some sort of Telco propaganda outlet, anyway? Will Martin [Oops, I didn't mean to start a flame war, sorry. I was only saying what I thought was the reasoning behind the tarriff. Now if someone knows how to define "abuse" so that the courts agree, then we could even get the tariffs either changed or removed, and that is something I would like! -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 21 October 1981 1409-PDT (Wednesday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: ANI on hotel/motel calls I travel enough that I can't recall WHICH hotel/motel I was in where the PBX pushed my call through without an operator intercept. I can't even recall the city. However, it may have been in Palo Alto somewhere. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: Wednesday, 21 October 1981 21:18-EDT From: "Marvin A. Sirbu, Jr." <SIRBU at MIT-MC> To: JSol Re: TELECOM Digest V1 #43 It's not Amtrak but AT&T which is installing a Boston-Washington fiber link. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 23-Oct-81 00:34:58-EDT,3639;000000000000 Date: 23 Oct 1981 0034-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #45 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Friday, 23 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 45 Today's Topics: Abuse Of Unlimited Service More On Hotel Surcharges On Phone Calls Hotel Calls Without An Operator Amplified (Speakerphone) Telephones ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Oct 1981 0741-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: "Abuse" of unlimited service Don't worry too hard about what constitutes abuse of measured service; it won't be around much longer anyway. The TELCOs plan to completely eliminate it. They are already proposing Zoned and Timed service in the two biggest bastions of unlimited calling, Washington, D. C., and Atlanta, Georgia. In Atlanta, only a few years ago, measured service was not even available to residential customers. In neither city are calls timed (even measured service for business customers is one message unit to talk all day). What they don't tell the public when they file for ZUM is that they intend to make it the only option available. As you know, they have already done that with WATS. WATS is no longer bulk billing, it is a quantity discount. Each and every call increments the bill now. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 1981 0747-EDT From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: More on Hotel surcharges The Washington State Transportation and Utilities Commission called me back yesterday to tell me that they do not permit surcharges on long distance calls, and that they would in- vestigate what was going on at the hotel in Seattle which had charged me $1.00 each long distance call and $0.50 each 800 call. I was told that they had no control over the surcharges added to the interstate calls I had made, that belonged to the FCC. I told them that the FCC had told me that, since the surcharge was collected by a local company which was not providing inter- state service, but merely a connection to the network, that the FCC expected local authorities to determine whether a surcharge was excessive. I was then told that in that case, any surcharge would be considered excessive. I'm sure it will be a while before this gets settled. I may only get the $0.50 for the one intrastate 800 call back, or I may get the whole $4.50. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 1981 0902-PDT From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: Re: non-operator assisted hotel calls To: lauren at UCLA-SECURITY Perhaps it was a small centrex. Did you happen to notice? <>IHM<> ------------------------------ From: Richard H. Gumpertz <Rick.Gumpertz at CMU-10A> Re: Amplified telephones I am looking for an "amplified telephone" (SpeakerPhone is a TM) at reasonable cost for home use. If possible, it should NOT be half duplex; that is the two parties should be able to hear each other simultaneously. The instruments used in Mother Bell's ComKey system seems to accomplish this latter goal by reducing the volume of (but not eliminating completely) the other party's voice when the microphone detects speech. My local Phone Store claims, however, that device is not available for home use. Does anyone have any recommendations in this area? Are non-switching devices available at reasonable cost? Am I asking for too much? Rick Gumpertz ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 24-Oct-81 01:55:06-EDT,11281;000000000000 Date: 24 Oct 1981 0155-EDT From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #46 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Saturday, 24 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 46 Today's Topics: Fiber Optics Amplified Telephones Wiring Your Own Phone Nonstandard Ringing Signals Tones Before Recordings (SIT) FCC vs. PUC - Who Has Jurisdiction Hotel/Motel SurCharges For Phone Calls Computers To "Monitor" Incorrectly Dialed Numbers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Oct 1981 1618-PDT From: Daul at OFFICE Subject: Uncompleted Phone Call Monitoring By TPC I have heard rumor that it is possible to monitor a number for the number of calls that can't get thru due to the line being busy. I heard that TYMNET uses this service to find lines that are overloaded. How is this done and can they/ do they associate a time with the attempted calls? --Bill (DAUL@OFFICE) ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 1981 15:29:02-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Subject: fiber optics I sent in a fairly long summary of a "Science News" article on fiber optics several months back to human-nets. You may want to check their archives if you're interested; alternatively, I could try to find the issue I referenced. About that Amtrak connection: one of the points the article made was that fiber optics weren't susceptible to electromagnetic interference, and hence could be used in places where ordinary wires could not be. A particular example cited was using railroad tunnels and rights of way to run cables; there are a few such test sites in operation now. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 1981 15:29:25-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Subject: phone wiring Is there a publicly available document that discusses the wiring of things like telco 50-pin jacks for key phones, etc? Since there are FCC-registered gadgets that plug into such, I assume so, but I don't know where to start looking or what to ask for. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 1981 17:10:32-PDT From: decvax!yale-comix!ima!johnl at Berkeley In-real-life: John R. Levine, The INTERACTIVE Electric Calculator Co., Cambridge MA Subject: Non-standard rings In very olden days with very olden SXS exchanges, the last digit of your phone number determined your ring. The previous three digits actually determined the line to call, thus allowing ten party lines. Private line numbers all ended in 1 which was the regular ring, although in fact any last digit would do. That way, if your number was 555-1111, your friends could call 555-1113, say, and you'd get a different ring and be able to do something special, i.e. call 555-1112 if you're taking the 2:00 bus, call 555-1113 if you're taking the 3:00 bus, or call 555-1114 if you're not coming at all, etc. (This may not apply to Bell exchanges - I learned this while tagging around after my uncle who runs an independent telco in Vermont.) Unfortunately all of those exchanges seem to have been shipped to the Philippines and replaced. Modern exchanges that are equipped for party service can put any ring on any line and are programmed in various ways. The person who asked about nonstandard rings was in Cambridge MA, and I have heard that every Cambridge exchange is now ESS, presumably because anything older could be cracked by phone phreaks. The answer is probably that he's out of luck because I doubt that there are many party lines here. ------------------------------ Date: 22 October 1981 07:53 edt From: Frankston.SoftArts at MIT-Multics Subject: Bing bong Reply-To: Frankston at MIT-Multics (Bob Frankston) I like the idea of computer-interpretable tones associated with recorded messages. It makes Telconet more usable. The question is how does one get documentation since I assume they will have to be standardized and supported for the next 40 years if Telco's internal computers are to make use of it. ------------------------------ KRAUSS@MIT-MC 10/23/81 09:19:04 Re: Hotel/Motel charges & pbx's Let me add some of my understandings to the discussion of hotel/motel telephone chanrges and PBX capabilities. When the FCC permitted resale of MTS and WATS by resale common carriers, they specifically addressed the hotel/motel question and decided that hotel/motel ability to exploit this situation would be limited and isolated. See FCC Report & Order in Docket 80-54, released December 18, 1980. Paragrapgh 38 of the decision reads as follows: We conclude, based on the record before us, that the ability of hotels or other institutional resellers to significantly mark up MTS will be found only in relatively few isolated instances. We believe this would most likely occur where for some reason substitute services were not readilty available. Any success which resellers might have in exploiting such situations would in all likelihood be transitional as competitors enter the market and users adjust their behavior to avoid charges they perceive as excessive. This limited potential for exploitation does not in our jedgement warrant the imposition of regulatory measures of general applicability in this area. Of course, we will monitor progress in this new environment, and exercise our statutory authority to restrain unlawful conduct if necessary. (citations and footnotes omitted) Keep in mind that only resellers may resell service, and these reseller must be granted authority by the FCC under Section 214 of the Communications Act. I have seen a number of Section 214 Applications filed by hotel chains and individual hotels, and the Commission has already granted some of these. The reseller is an interstate common carrier and must file a tariff with the FCC (under the current rules--the FCC is moving in its Competitive Carrier proceeding to eliminate some of these requirements). A surcharge for interstate calls is prohibited. See Ambassador v. U.S., 325 US 371 (1945). On the other hand, local calls have always been subject to surcharges and service charges. On the equipment side, you will see a explosion in the development and marketing of "hotel/motel PBX appliques" that are extensions of microcomputer-driven message detail recorders. I know of at least one company offering equipment that automatically routes a guest's call over Execunet, Sprint or WATS in a manner that is transparent to the guest. What will happen, I think, is that nearly all hotels and motels will become resellers and charge guests the MTS rate while routing calls over WATS, Execunet, Sprint or FX lines. That's not the same as a surcharge, however. ---Jeff Krauss--- ------------------------------ Date: 23 Oct 1981 1900-PDT From: Lynn Gold <G.FIGMO at SU-SCORE> Saying-of-the-day: Do it with class structures! Subject: Hart Line I spoke with my father the other day. It seems that Hart Line is out of business; the FCC has caught up with them. Dad only regrets having paid for the second month's worth of service in advance (which he won't get refunded). Oh well...it was a nice idea while it lasted. --Lynn ------------------------------ Date: 23 Oct 1981 19:02:40-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Subject: Hart line Hart Industries is essentially out of business. They owe AT&T $4 million, and their phone lines have been disconnected. The N.C. Attorney General's office said that they claimed they would be back, but the office doubts it, and is filing suit to try to obtain refunds. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Oct 1981 19:13:38-PDT From: menlo70!hao!cires!harkins at Berkeley re: measured service, etc As implied in this digest, the FCC has jurisdiction over the interstate portion of toll calls; the state PUC has jurisdiction over the intrastate toll calls and all local calls; the new telecom bill (S.898) wuould transfer jurisdiction over ALL toll calls to the FCC, but of course, it remains to be seen how, or whether, that bill will be passed and signed into law; the message implicit in all this though is that if there is a beef re: the telco's present or future intended practices, the concerned parties have to make noise to the PUC and/or the FCC; i'd suggest that the latter is semi-fruitless unless you have a real good issue/case. The state PUC's though, being closer to home, and being explicitly political entities, tend to be responsive. Since PUC's are in some cases elected directly, and in some cases appointed by the reigning governor, there is an awful lot of variation in them, both in quality and concern evidenced. The former class tend to be the most sensitive naturally, and some of the latter tend to be "captive regulators" in the sense that they almost automatically grant whatever the telco wants. So, in some sense, the kind of PUC you have to deal with is just "luck of the draw", but statements like 'the phone co. is going to do such and such....' ought to be phrased 'would like to do such and such..', since they have to fight 51 battles, ie, 50 states + FCC, in 51 VERY political arenas. As usual, in politics, volume of complaints, etc. CAN very well sway the outcome, ie, speakup when the debate opens... ernie ------------------------------ Date: 23 Oct 1981 19:07:24-PDT From: decvax!duke!chico!harpo!cbosg!dale at Berkeley The "computer" referred to in TELCOM digest V1 #43 is the No. 2 Service Evaluation System which is an OSS (Operation Support System) produced here at BTL Columbus. This system is to be the successor to No. 1 SES, now installed in all the OTCs (Operating Telephone Companies) for service observing on Station to Stations calls. The #1SES is the system used to monitor service currently and, as the phone books say, about 1% of all operator calls are observed by human operators in this system. The #2SES is only replacing #1SES for station-to-station calls, not operator assisted calls, and for privacy reasons the "observed calls" (from dialtone until answer) are monitored not by a human, but by a microcomputer/minocomputer complex. The SIT (Special Informations Tones) permit the computer to classify calls which terminate at a recording. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Oct 1981 19:48:00-PDT From: vax135!hocsb!dcs at Berkeley FROM: d.c.smith DATE: 10/23/81, 10:43 AM SUBJECT: Amplified telephones In reply to Riclk Gumpertz's question about the availability of non- switching amplified telephones: Gain switching is required to eliminate the acoustic feedback between the speaker and microphone. Without gain switching the device could break out into oscillation at some audio frequency obliterating the conversation. Doug Smith Holmdel, N.J. phone 201-949-3569 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 26-Oct-81 02:33:42-EST,3864;000000000000 Date: 26 Oct 1981 0233-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #47 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Sunday, 26 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 47 Today's Topics: Speakerphone Technology Counting The Busies On A Hunt Group Delays When Callee Hangs Up And Caller Doesn't ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 October 1981 0138-PDT (Saturday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: speakerphones To date, all of the "recent" Western Electric Speakerphones (e.g. the older 3B and the newer 4A and 4B) use gain switching. Especially in the case of the 4A/B series, they really do a pretty nice job at a rather difficult task, especially when you consider the problems of handling attempts by one party to interrupt the other and the like. However, there is a way to build a full-duplex speakerphone-type unit without gain switching. No doubt a forthcoming WE product will include this technique or a variation... Feed one side of the conversation through a clocked "bucket brigade", but have the output running a wee bit slower than the input clock on the brigade. If you do this properly (and it only involves a few chips), you essentially vary the phase of the signal sufficiently to prevent microphonic howling (feedback). The same technique can be used for full-duplex repeaters without the complex (and expensive) balancing coil arrangements that conventional techniques require. By the way, there is a fair amount of work going on at BTL on the improvement of other aspects of speakerphone performance, including the "hollow sound" problems of room acoustics. It turns out that if you have the time to digitize and process the audio, you can make vast improvements. An issue of the Bell Labs Record, a few years ago, discussed this acoustic work in detail, and even included a SoundSheet demonstrating the effects of various digital processing on a voice signal. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 24 Oct 1981 20:14:37-PDT From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V1 #46 -- counting the busies I don't know how TYMNET does it, nor do I know if the telco has any special service that will permit them to do it for you (I would guess so, actually). However, there's a fairly simple mechanism that could work almost as well. If you have a rotary of phone numbers such that you *know* which is the last one that will be reached (not true on some ESS rotaries, incidentally, but those are the beasts most able to do the monitoring, I guess), have a separate program monitoring that last line. Any time you get a connect, drop the thing immediately and note the time. The only time you lose is if there's two simultaneous calls; unlikely given the small window. And if you're worried about that, just dedicate two lines to your monitor. ------------------------------ Date: 25 October 1981 17:47-EDT From: Edward Huang <EH at MIT-AI> I noticed that when someone calls me and he stays on the line but I hang up, my exchange (computerlized/ESS) doesnt disconnect me from the caller until after a minute. That means someone can call me and stay on my line for at least one minute before my exchange sees I've hung up and disconnects the caller. Because of that, I have to tell my computer to hang up for ONE MINUTE after each call. (I run a PCnet/PAN electronic mail answer-node where one can call my computer and send msgs...) Any reasons why the exchange has to do that instead of breaking connection immediatly when the phone is hung up ? Thanks, Edward ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 27-Oct-81 01:21:20-EST,7557;000000000000 Date: 27 Oct 1981 0121-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #48 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Tuesday, 27 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 48 Today's Topics: Counting Who Didn't Get Through Supervision Timeouts ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 October 1981 0431-PDT (Monday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: counting busies and call timeouts I believe that a service for "busy number activity reporting" (or something like that) is tariffed in many areas of the country. The service is trivial to provide in most ESS's, and can be provided through some temporary add-on equipment down at the CO for Crossbar. I'm not too sure what the story is with SXS offices. Even when the service isn't tariffed for the customer, Telco does this sort of thing all the time. Fairly recently, I was involved (as an expert witness for a friend) at a PUC hearing regarding the usage of a single Crossbar number that had been used as a "Dial-A-Joke" sort of service here in L.A. for over 10 years. (For the record, this was the last listing in the L.A. phonebook during that period, "ZZZZZZ"). After over a decade of continuous service (over which period the people who ran it never made a single dime) this relatively famous service was accused of saturating not only the local CO, but much of the DDD network as well. Pacific Telephone came in with reams and reams of computer printouts (in nice bindings) and sent about 5 people (one of whom was a technical type) to prove their contention that the number "had to go". Their printouts purported to show the number of calls (during certain test periods) from every AT&T owned company in the country -- calls through 4A's, through tandems, etc., etc. Lots of statistics. Apparently they came in thinking they'd be able to snow everyone with technical jargon... but that's why I was there, and we got into some bizarre arguments about regular vs. fast busy, toll network call completion recordings, and all sorts of other similar topics. It rapidly became clear that the PacTel people's stats, while possibly accurate (and very impressive) did NOT support the contentions they were making. In fact, it became obvious that while they claimed the problem was CO and network saturation, their REAL concern was that people reaching busy signals (at any point in the network) were not producing revenue for the company. If the people who ran the service had been willing (and able) to put in a 20 line rotary or something, THAT would have made PacTel happy. However, and GET THIS, PacTel tried to claim that they couldn't provide rotary service without changing the number (bull, it was a #5 Crossbar number, and they later admitted that they COULD do it -- when I pressed them on the point), and that they would be unwilling to provide referral on the number! So even if they got the rotary, nobody could get the new number. Did you know that there are tariffs that control how many incoming calls you can get? They are actually based on "interference with other customers", but it is clear that the real issue is "lost" revenue -- even with non-profit sorts of enterprises (though PacTel would never admit this -- they clinged to the argument that they couldn't care less about lost revenues!) Did you know that Telco can arbitrarily refuse to provide referral? "It's a service, we don't HAVE to do it." Anyway, the outcome of all this was that the PUC decided that PacTel had not proven their case, and that their termination of ZZZZZZ's service was not proper. As it turned out, ZZZZZZ died off from neglect later on anyway, but it was nice to have won a moral victory at least. And we still have the nice nationwide call analysis reports (which, except for local calls, were apparently derived from computer-correlated accounting records). I see that I've diverged a bit from the topic at hand, but I thought this was an interesting enough story to be worth taking some space. There are Bell Labs people out there reading this who no doubt could comment on the systems used for generating the sorts of reports PacTel brought to the PUC... maybe someone will take the time to explain them a bit, I know that I'd really appreciate it. --- Calling party disconnect timeouts are not immediate to avoid problems with connection glitches, people who accidently hangup the phone for a few seconds, and people who hang up the phone while moving to another phone in the house (there are people who actually do this!) Sixty seconds is a fairly long timeout. Depending on the office (Crossbar or ESS) timeouts can vary from about 15 seconds up to a maximum of a minute or so. Twenty or thirty seconds is pretty common. Most SXS offices do not have timeouts on local calls, but may on tandem and intertoll calls. Of course, this is not a problem unless BOTH sides of the call are SXS, since a Crossbar or ESS office has timeouts built in on both the incoming and outgoing sides of all calls. --Lauren-- [Actually, I know of many SXS systems in Connecticut which have call timeouts, but I imagine they had to do alot of hacking to make them work (see last msg) -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 26 October 1981 08:47-EST From: Andrew Tannenbaum <TRB at MIT-MC> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #47 Why not hang up after a minute I believe that the callee must hang up for a minute if the caller stays on hook so that the callee can hang up and pick up another receiver (on that line) if he so desires. This is usually not a problem during human-human communication, but it would be nice to turn this off if your phone terminal had set-up switches and was connected to a device. Andy Tannenbaum Bell Labs Whippany, NJ ------------------------------ Date: 26 Oct 1981 0913-PST From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: Re: Hang-up delays To: eh at MIT-AI On standard ESS exchanges, the delay is 11 seconds (12.5 with certain custom calling features). This is a standard delay, and may (for some unknown reason) not be what you are experiencing. On an outgoing call, there is no delay (1.5 seconds with certain custom calling features), so you should have only to delay for 2 seconds max to dump an outgoing call; 13 seconds for incoming. What is your area-code and prefix? <>IHM<> ------------------------------ Date: Monday, 26 October 1981 14:10-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSOL at RUTGERS> cc: JSol at RUTGERS, EH at MIT-AI Subject: Hang up delays The phenomenon you describe is known as "supervision hangup" and takes a minute because it happens at your end and may not be sure the originator has in fact hung up. Way back when I was a kid we lived in a town with step switching and no supervision hangup. What fun we used to have playing pranks on our enemies by going to a pay phone (wasting a dime), calling one of them and then leaving the phone off the hook. His phone was now useless (busy from the outside world, dead from his end) until some random hung up the fone. That area never got supervision hangup until ESS came around, but I heard that the feature was there to avoid exactly the problem I described! /Jsol ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 27-Oct-81 22:40:49-EST,3512;000000000000 Date: 27 Oct 1981 2240-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #49 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Wednesday, 28 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 49 Today's Topics: Supervision Reset Delays ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Oct 1981 0253-EST From: Hobbit <AWalker at RUTGERS> Subject: Supervision Reset delays EH was complaining that his exchange does not give a dialtone back on a call to him until a minute or so. That actually sounds like a *remote* office problem. On a standard ESS [and 5X I believe] when the calling end hangs up, the super signal goes through and clobbers the remote connection leaving you with <ife ESS, half-voltage><ife Xbar, funny humming> both of which return to dialtone after a while if you don't hang up. If the *called* end of a conversation hangs up, there is a supervision change returned to the originating office which then goes through [usually] a 12-second timeout and then resets the calling line. Therefore EH's problem could have been with the calling office. Has anyone noticed, on a receiving end of a call if you're on a #5X line, when they hang up and you get that funny humming, that the *shortest* pulse on the hookswitch will immediately return a dialtone? Interesting.... _H* ------------------------------ KRAUSS@MIT-MC 10/27/81 08:32:18 Re: hang-up delays This subject came up several years ago when the FCC investigated "junk calling". THe concern was whether these automatic dialing machines could tie up your line if you hung up in the middle of their message. The FCC decided that there wasn't much of a real problem there. I don't have the citation to the decision. ---Jeff Krauss--- ------------------------------ TRB@MIT-MC 10/27/81 11:39:45 To: HUMAN-NETS at MIT-MC I found this hanging in the hall here: To the Editor ... (The following was a letter-to-the-editor in a recent issue of the "National Observer.") "There are in the country two very large monopolies. The larger of the two has the following record: The Vietnam War, Watergate, double-digit inflation, fuel and energy shortages, bankrupt airlines and the 8-cent postcard. The second is responsible for such things as the transistor, the solar cell, lasers, synthetic crystals, high fidelity stereo recording, sound motion pictures, radio astronomy, negative feedback, magnetic tape, magnetic "bubbles," electronic switching systems, microwave radio and TV relay systems, information theory, the first electrical digital computer, and the first communications satellite. Guess which one is now going to tell the other how to run the telephone business? I can hardly wait for the results." Andy Tannenbaum Bell Labs Whippany, NJ ------------------------------ Date: 26 Oct 1981 17:10:47-PST From: ihnss!karn at Berkeley Subject: Disconnect delay after called party hangs up. This is a feature, not a bug, and is standard practice in all switching machines I know of. The delay allows a called party to hang up and run to another room to take a call on a different extension. If the calling party hangs up, however, the connection is broken "immediately"; the assumption is made that he was already on the extension he wanted to use before he placed the call. Phil ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 29-Oct-81 02:11:34-EST,2263;000000000000 Date: 29 Oct 1981 0211-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #50 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Thursday, 29 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 50 Today's Topics: Supervision Hangup "Zenith" numbers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Oct 1981 0643-EST From: Nessus at MIT-EECS at MIT-AI (Doug Alan) Subject: Supervision Hangup Here at MIT on the Dormline phone system, there is no supervision hangup, so if when you call someone, he cannot break the connection. This fact is used frequently when "pennying" (wedging a door by inserting pennies inbetween the door and the door frame rim) someone in his room. If you call him and don't hang up the phone he cannot call out for help. (Of course I do not approve of such pranks especially since I am too often the victim!) -Doug ------------------------------ Date: 28 October 1981 1527-EDT (Wednesday) From: David.Anderson at CMU-10A Subject: zenith numbers Can someone out there explain about "zenith" numbers? How are they implemented, how does the cost compare to 800 numbers, etc? (And why are they so rare? Is there a directory service?) ..dave.. [I am not familiar with the term "Zenith", but I suspect it is the same as "Enterprise" numbers we had in Connecticut. They were simply dialed as a collect call, and an implicit acceptance of charge was implied. I don't know what kind of service charge there is, but your call was billed at operator assistance long distance rates, and always collect! -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 28 Oct 1981 18:56:28-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Subject: hangup delays When they installed an ESS here about 4 months ago, one of the things they warned people about was that they would no longer be able to hang up an incoming call, and go pick it up elsewhere. I haven't checked on how long a delay you're allowed, though -- the old exchange would keep your phone connection forever, or until the caller hung up. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 30-Oct-81 00:42:25-EST,3037;000000000000 Date: 30 Oct 1981 0042-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #51 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Friday, 30 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 51 Today's Topics: Supervision Timeouts - MIT Dormphones Zenith/Enterprise Numbers How Accurate Are Those Time Of Day Numbers? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 Oct 1981 0531-EST From: Hobbit <AWalker at RUTGERS> Subject: MIT dormfones, and others Doug Alan described that the dormfone system had no supervision, and the called end could be wedged easily. Did anyone try placing a sufficient voltage on the wedged line to kick off the little protectors and reset it? If the line meets an error condition and it's within the same office, the calling line is likely to reset too. When you do this [it takes about 120 VDC or AC [Wall voltage thru a couple of resistors will do] the line will go *totally* dead for about 5 minutes and then reset. Re: Zenith/Enterprise numbers, here in Jersey they are known as WX numbers too. They translate out as actual phone numbers, and are billed as *collect* calls to the owner of the WX number. [Perhaps at a rate slightly below opr assist, although it is an opr-completed call [Anybody know the real tariffs on those?]] Sizzle it, _H* ------------------------------ Date: 29 Oct 1981 0850-PST From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V1 #50 cc: MERRITT at USC-ISIB In-Reply-To: Your message of 28-Oct-81 2311-PST JSOL's answer about enterprise numbers is correct. Each area refers to them by some other name. <>IHM<> ------------------------------ Date: 29 Oct 1981 1828-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Calling U.S. Military bases in Korea As promised, here is the answer -- obtained from the Manager of Overseas Operations for AT&T Long Lines (Guy D'Urso): The phone system used by the U.S. Forces in Korea is extremely overloaded and unreliable; as a result, the military does not want dialed calls coming into the system from the U.S. without an operator on the line to help relieve the workload of the machines and operators in Korea. ------------------------------ Date: 29 October 1981 18:45-EST From: Thomas L. Davenport <TLD at MIT-MC> Subject: Accuracy of Time Does anyone have any information on the absolute accuracy of the "talking clock" numbers, and their accuracy relative to Ma Bell's billing system? -Tom- [That depends on the area, I would guess, The NYC time number is VERY accurate (like a few seconds a year, using the atomic clock), while the New Haven, Connecticut one was known to be hours off at times. Your best bet would be to dial up the National Bureau of Standards. They play WWV over a phone line (I forget the number offhand). -JSOL] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 31-Oct-81 02:19:28-EST,9181;000000000000 Date: 31 Oct 1981 0219-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #52 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Saturday, 31 Oct 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 52 Today's Topics: How To Get Accurate Time Of Day Special Information Tones Panel Switching Offices Measured Vs. Flat Rate Service ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Oct 1981 0825-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Time Recordings The number for WWV's telephone announcement is 303 499-7111. Over the telephone the propagation delays will be different than by air, so it it slightly less accurate. Another extremely accurate time recording is the Naval Observatory Master clock, 202 254-4950. The telephone company time in Washington is supposed to be synched with this signal. The Naval Observatory will allow connections directly to its time service; you pay for the line. Several radio stations/networks in the DC area use the service. [Thanks also go to Chris C. Stacy <CStacy at MIT-AI> for also providing the number for the Naval Observatory Master clock -JSOL] I compared (using add-on) the NavObs time with the time in the fol- lowing cities: Washington 0.1 Boston 0.2 Philadelphia 2.5 New York 0.1 Oakland 2.0 Chicago 0.1 Atlanta announces the minute only Chapel Hill, NC doesn't have one Los Angeles 0.1 The time in Philly has always been notorious for being wrong; today it seemed to be fairly close. I have been told that radio stations used to keep two clocks... one that they synched up with the phone company and announced over the air (so that people wouldn't call them and complain) and another one so that they would be able to properly cue things coming in over network and news service feeds. The numbers above represent today's accuracy only; one would have to run the experiment several times to see if some of these drift. Nine years ago, when visiting a central office, I noticed that the Chicago time service number was prominently posted in the office. The craftsperson explained that they used that to set their billing time. I would hope that something better has appeared in the mean- time. The Bell System has a standard time-synch service which is used to keep all digital carrier in synch which is also supposed to be able to provide time of day service to central offices. How widely implemented that has become since the Bell Labs Record article many years ago, I don't know. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Oct 1981 0710-PST From: STERNLIGHT at USC-ECL Subject: WWV Phone number cc: tld at MIT-MC WWV phone number for accurate time and frequency (neglecting phase shift and delay in phone system) is 303-499-7111. NBS standard publication available describes all services. In addition to time announcements, seconds pulses, standard musical tone and alerts (geophysical and ocean weather) a low frequency binary time code is broadcast continuously (low audio, that is) so that missile tests and other events requiring precise time identification in telemetry may record WWV on one track of a multi-channel tape during such events. Best bet is to get it by radio (2.5, 5, 10 and 15 MHz) from WWVB (Boulder) or WWVH (Hawaii). There's also a VLF transmitter. Radio Shack sells excellent and cheap "Timecube" fixed frequency receivers with a push-button for each of the 3 main frequencies. That avoids phase shifts and other unpleasantness of phone lines if very preception is desired. There are also other phone numbers for WWV; one at Ft. Bliss and I am sure others. Perhaps someone else can contribute them. David ------------------------------ Date: 30 Oct 1981 09:44:41-PST From: cbosg!dale at Berkeley Subject: SIT Tones About two weeks ago I sent some information to this address (ucbvax!telecom) as a followup comment on SIT (Special Information Tones) expecting to see it posted in the fa.telecom digest, but never saw it "digested". Was it edited, or never received. Anyway, here is another try (from memory): [I didn't receive it, sorry. -JSOL] The Special Information Tones (SITs) being discussed here a few weeks ago are in fact for the benefit of a computer system known as #2SES (No. 2 Service Evaluation System) recently developed here at BTL Columbus. (For those of you who may not remember, these tones are the ones hear at the beginning of many recorded announcements.) The #2SES system is a fully automated system that bridges on the initial establishment of station-to-station calls and monitors completion statistics. A small percentage of calls are monitored (typically about 1%). Previously this was done by the #1SES using human operators. The #1SES system is being replaced for station-to-station calls for obvious privacy reasons. It will continue to be used for station-to-operator calls, however, for a computer cannot easily tell if the operator was polite or provided accurate information. ------------------------------ Date: 15-Oct-81 01:16 PM From: HYDRA::MCNAMARA Reply-to: "HYDRA::MCNAMARA c/o" <Schriesheim.Mitton at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Panel Lives! Contrary to reports of its demise (Telecom/Covert/6-Oct), my sources at BTL Columbus report that there are still two panel offices in service. On is in LA and is used only occasionally for special telethon-type stuff. The other is in Newark and serves about 4000 customers in a South Bronx type neighborhood that is 1/3 tenements, 1/3 burned out shells, and 1/3 vacant lots. It is also my belief that Newark had the FIRST panel office also. John E. McNamara ------------------------------ Date: 23-OCT-1981 11:18 From: TELC::GOLDSTEIN "Fred Goldstein" Reply-to: "TELC::GOLDSTEIN c/o" <Schriesheim.Mitton at DEC-MARLBORO> Subj: tariffs in houses Getting a measured and flat rate line in the same house is based on the local tariff, which is based on local political/economic conditions not always consistent. In Massachusetts, flat and measured can be in the same house because the measured is not viewed as a lifeline, but as a viable, normal option. It includes 30 message units, which at 9.3 cents each leaves the cost of the line ($3.25 minus MU) at under 50 cents net. So adding a measured line makes sense if your local flat rate area (continguous only) doesn't include other places you call within the (metropolitan zone) message rate area. The tariff prohibits hunting between classes because that would make it too easy to have one of each, with the pilot measured. In NJ, RI, and some other places, though, measured service is viewed as a lifeline and not available to multi-line customers. (Where but Boston are local calling areas different for measured and flat?) [Answer: Jersey City, New Jersey, and of course it's neighbor, Hoboken (obscure reasoning there) -JSOL] I used to work at a company whose programmers often had company-paid lines at home. Depending on who placed the order, some were billed as business and some as residence. All were billed to the company. As long as the line is at a house, and not used to receive busienss traffic, it qualifies for residential, at least in Mass. You can bill a residential line anywhere. They wasted lots of money paying business rates for lines in houses. (Calling the office is a legal residential function, computer or not.) Fred ------------------------------ JSOL@RUTGERS 10/31/81 02:10:27-EST Re: SPOILER WARNING (I'll bet you didn't expect to see one of *THOSE* here!) The following message is the last one in this digest. It discusses general mailing list recipient addresses, which has very little to do with Telecommunication. Readers are encouraged to send replies to the author, but not to the list, please. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Oct 1981 1358-PST From: Richard Furuta <FURUTA at WASHINGTON> Subject: Contest cc: furuta at WASHINGTON In light of all the recent messages flying around on various mailing lists (not this one, but the contest doesn't really have anything to do with the messages) discussing what's in the headers for mail and also the off comment some time back about no one on the arpa net complaining about the length of the post office's idea to extend the zip codes, I would like to propose a light diversion and contest: Determine the longest address (in actual use) for a person on the arpanet. I would like to nominate: decvax!duke!chico!harpo!mhtsa!eagle!mhuxa!rwhaas at Berkeley which is 60 characters long, if I counted correctly. I guess one additional rule should be made: the address should be the shortest path available (no fair shuttling a message back and forth in a loop). For extra credit, successfully send a message to the person who possesses the address. Anyone have suggestions for prizes? Rick ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 4-Nov-81 01:59:27-EST,2574;000000000000 Date: 4 Nov 1981 0159-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #53 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Wednesday, 4 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 53 Today's Topics: Accurate TELCO Time Of Day Numbers Special Information Tones 900 Numbers - Technology Thereof ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 31 Oct 1981 0024-PST From: Lynn Gold <G.FIGMO at SU-SCORE> Saying-of-the-day: Do it with class structures! Subject: Accurate TELCO "time" numbers Does anyone know the accuracy of the telco dialup number (one local bar around here with a sense of humor referred to the number as "POPCORN") for the time in the San Francisco Bay area? Thanks, Lynn [Please don't send replies to the whole list, thank you -JSOL] ------------------------------ From: krauss at DNGC Date: Fri, 30 Oct 81 16:02-EST Subject: special information tones The current (September 1981) issue of BSTJ has an article about special information tones used at the beginning of recorded announcements. They are needed as part the automated testing of end-to-end network performance, so that the testing equipment can distinguish between completed calls and recorded announcements. There are five frequencies (904.5, 985.4, 1356.8, 1440.2 and 1758.5 Hz), and a Special Information Tone (SIT) is defined as one frequency chosen from the first pair, followed by one frequency chosen from the second pair, followed by the fifth frequency. Thus there are four possible SITs, to represent four categories of recorded announcements. The article is about problems in detecting the freuqencies within an environment with noise and frequency shifts. ---Jeff Krauss--- ------------------------------ Date: 3 Nov 1981 18:44:54-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Subject: 900 numbers What sort of technology is being used for the 900 "Dial-it" services? I assume it's not a bank of tape recorders. Is it digitized and stored on computer-style disks? What are the special considerations for the large numbers of people who may dial in at once? I remember they used a 900 number for the Dial-a-President "press conference" that Carter held. What about the regulatory aspects? Will other companies have equal access to phone company billing services if they wish to provide the information? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 5-Nov-81 04:55:22-EST,1912;000000000000 Date: 5 Nov 1981 0455-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #54 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Thursday, 5 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 54 Today's Topics: TelCo Tone Selection TransAtlantic Fiber Optic Cable ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 Nov 1981 1337-PST Subject: Telco tone selections From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) Is there any real, scientific reason that telco uses tone frequencies like "904.5" and "1758.5" and "1356.8" Hz? Why not "905", "1760", and "1360" Hz? Are they derived from some master frequency by a divisive process, which creates the fractional versions? Or are they so specified to make it harder for phreaks to brew up devices to duplicate them? Or are the Bell people just doing it this way to be complicated and mysterious? I don't understand why it should be so necessary to recognize tones to such accuracy. Aren't there enough possible tones to use simply by dividing the audio bandwidth into 50 Hz segments, and using the center frequency of each segment? That would make recognition much easier, and let them use cheaper filtering techniques and the like. Or is the problem false recognition, and they want precise tones not likely to be "naturally" generated? What's the rationale behind all this? Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: 4 Nov 1981 16:41:05-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Subject: fiber optics AT&T Long Lines has announced that they will lay a fiber-optic transatlantic cable. It will handle 36,000 simultaneous calls, and is expected to be in service by 1988. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 6-Nov-81 06:31:30-EST,2294;000000000000 Date: 6 Nov 1981 0631-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #55 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Friday, 6 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 55 Today's Topics: Why The Touch Tones Were Chosen ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 November 1981 0251-PST (Thursday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: choice of tones The choice of tones is actually fairly critical, since in many cases you have to avoid tones that will relate harmonically and cause all sorts of beat notes and such. In the case of these "new" tones, I suspect they also wanted to be sure that they were not related to any of the other numerous tones which may appear on the network (including the SF control tone, the 6 MF tones, the 8 DTMF (touch-tone) tones, and the ESS path test tone.) I suppose there are lots of others as well. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: Thursday, 5 Nov 1981 11:55-PST Subject: Re: Telco tone selections From: greep at SU-DSN I believe the touch-tone frequencies were selected to minimize the chance of intermodulation (sum or difference) of any two of the tones being close to a third. Possibly the same with these. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Nov 1981 1219-PST From: Barry Megdal <BARRY at CIT-20> Subject: Telco tones cc: wmartin at OFFICE-3 I recall reading an old issue of Bell Labs Technical Journal describing their extensive research into selection of the frequencies for the TouchTone tones. They were selected to be non-harmonically related, as well as to minimize possible false recognition of other signals on the lines (human voices in particular). Barry ------------------------------ Date: 5 Nov 1981 1647-PST From: Richard Furuta <FURUTA at WASHINGTON> I believe that the reason given in the famous 1960? BSTJ article on dialing tones was that the funny frequencies were selected to prevent naturally occurring background noises from interfering. Contrast these to the tones they selected for operator signalling which were all 100Hz multiples. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 11-Nov-81 01:55:05-EST,12918;000000000000 Date: 11 Nov 1981 0155-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #56 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Wednesday, 11 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 56 Today's Topics: Phone Service For The Deaf Query - Bell System Technical Journals NASA Shuttle HotLine Registered Connecting Arrangements Selective Ringing On ESS Measured Vs. Flat Rate Service Don't Yank The Crank Fiber Optics SpeakerPhones Vs. Headsets ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Nov 1981 17:02:28-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!fjj at Berkeley In-real-life: Floyd J. James Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Subject: deaf users telephone service Cc: decvax!duke!unc!fjj@Berkeley How does the telephone company handle its service for deaf users? What coding do they use for the transmissions, and what kind of equipment does the deaf user have (modems, etc)? Are there any devices that allow a person with a regular terminal (of the variety used in communicating with computers) to connect into this system? ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 1981 11:21:18-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Subject: speakerphones Bell has a new speakerphone out that is intended for home use. Around here, it costs $30+$7/mo -- i.e., you win by going to Radio Shack *very* quickly. Dunno how it does on switching from talk to listen, though. ------------------------------ Date: 9 November 1981 19:58-EST From: Joseph D. Turner <CUTTER@MIT-AI> Sender: CUTTER at MIT-AI Subject: Journals and NASA hotline I was just wondering --- Where can you purchase Bell System Techinical Journals? I have heard a lot about them, and I was wondering if I could get a subsciption, or whatever. Also: If it hasn't been said already, the NASA/AT&T Space Shuttle II Hotline is (900)410-6272. This number provides up-to-the-minute info on the Space Scuttle, plus live ground-to-air communication. It will be operational during the entire mission, starting at 3:30 EST. As with all 900-dialed calls, it will cost 50 cents for the first minute, then 35 cents for each additional minute. Calls from Alaska and Hawaii are 50 cents each minute. You can call now, and listen to the funny announcement, and you will not be charged. Shade and Sweet Water, Phonewise ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 1981 2153-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: The dope on registered connecting arrangements The list of everything required to be available is located in the FCC Rules and Regulations, Volume X, Part 68, Section 502. You can locate this in most good technical libraries, or order it from the Government Printing Office. Telco's may offer additional connections by making sufficient public notice. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 1981 2207-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Selective ringing in No. 1 ESS I quote from the July 1979 Translation Guide (TG-1A) for No. 1 ESS: With issue 3 of CTX-6 and later Generic programs [almost all offices in the US are running these later versions], the capability of pro- viding Code 1 (two seconds of ringing followed by four seconds of silence) or Code 2 (one second ringing, one second silence, one second ringing, followed by three seconds of silence) type ringing to one-party and two-party lines has been added. [It is only abso- lutely necessary on four-party and rural service, since two-party uses tip-to-ground or ring-to-ground ringing, and one-party...] When Code 2 ringing is required on two-party lines, enter a "8" in KP Column 33 and the station number (one or two) in KP Column 34 of the station requiring Code 2 ringing. A line in a Call Pickup Group can not have Code 2 ringing. Now, just because the machine can do it doesn't mean that the people at the TELCO will do it for you. If it's not tariffed, they probably won't. Note that TG-1A doesn't explain what to do to get code 2 ringing for a one-party line. Note also that what TG-1A talks about is how to fill out the forms that get fed into the computer program which then generates the real language that you talk to a No. 1 ESS with. The message someone in the C.O. could type in to give you Code 2 Ringing is the subject of another document which I don't have. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 1981 10:19:33-PST From: Onyx.jmrubin at Berkeley Subject: Measured vs. Flat Rate Service The measured and flat rate local zones are also different in some New York Telephone exchanges, and, in many exchanges, the phone company is not offering new flat rate service. Those who have flat rate service get hit with more severe penalties than in Boston. If you have it in Queens, for example, you get a local zone with a smaller radius. In addition, your local zone does not include any part of Manhattan or the Bronx (and there is only one very tiny section of Brooklyn which it may contain) even if you live adjacent to those boroughs. Finally, if you make a call within the 1 message unit zone but outside the flat rate local zone from a flat rate telephone, you will be charged 2 message units. One message unit means one m.u. untimed, for most residential customers, or one m.u. for the first 5 minutes, for business customers and residential customers who choose to get $1 off their phone bill. Two message units, on the other hand, means 2 m.u. for the first 3 minutes. As you can guess, most people who have a flat rate phone also have a message unit phone. ( I should note that people in Queens who live near the city line and have flat rate phone service can call their neighbors across the city line for free.) Joel Rubin ------------------------------ Date: 09-Nov-81 10:09 AM From: HYDRA::MCNAMARA Reply-to: "HYDRA::MCNAMARA c/o" <Schriesheim.Mitton at DEC-Marlboro> Subject: Don't Yank the Crank From the November 1981 issue of Down East magazine: (copyright 1981) "Initially, when it appeared inevitable that the little village of Bryant Pond in the western part of the state would lose its hand-crank telephone system, there was barely a whimper of protest. After all, there was some honor in becoming a footnote to history as the last town in the nation to succumb to Ma Bell's conversion to the modern dial system. Now, as the moment of truth is approaching and the Oxford County Telephone and Telegraph Company, which purchased the Bryant Pond Telephone Company this past summer, has made its intent clear, the villagers are having somber second thoughts. "'It's not just because of my job,' says local operator Andrea Hoyt. 'The crank system is just so much more personal. When a mother has to go shopping, for instance, she can call us and ask us to ring her children when they get home from school.' "Other advantages of the hand-crank system cited by long-time residents include ease of summoning the ambulance or reporting a fire, and all kinds of personal services rendered by the operators, such as taking messages. 'Why you don't even have to remember phone numbers,' says a subscriber. 'For local calls, you just turn the crank and ask for your party by name.' "There's an economic aspect as well. The hand-crank system currently employs twelve people, including ten operators to man the phones around the clock in the living room of Elden Hathaway, the former owner. With automation, all but one or two of these jobs will vanish. And villagers have begun to wonder what will happen to their rates, which now run as low as $3.90 per month for a party line, once the new equipment is installed. "When all this began to sink in, the town dug in its heels. A public meeting was held and a committee elected to carry the fight to the enemy. Some $1,500 was raised through the sale of 'Don't Yank the Crank' T-shirts to cover attorney's fees; and a door-to-door canvas of the town showed that more than 70 percent of the system's 439 subscribers wanted to keep the crank. Mrs. Alice Johnson, a local resident and president of the Maine League of Women Voters, rushed off to Washington, D.C. to seek help from such quarters as the Smithsonian Institution and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. But Bryant Ponders have placed their hopes primarily in a petition delivered to the state Public Utilities Commission asking a halt to construction of the new switching facility and retention of the hand-crank magneto system. "Though properly sympathetic, David Sisson, a spokesman for Oxford Tel. & Tel., offers little hope that the new owners would agree to cooperate in running a museum. 'Those telephones certainly are nostalgic,' he says, 'and we hate to see them change, but America is becoming push-button operated, so we had to get into it, too.' "prehaps, but for the time being, Mrs. Johnson and her cohorts are having the last say. 'Let's face it,' says Mrs. Johnson, 'aside from our beautiful lake and lovely neighborhood, we don't have much else. The crank telephone is what puts this town on the map. Anything that can get tourists into central Maine, away from the lobster pots, is important.' "The fracas with the new telephone company seems already to have had somewhat of that effect. 'I've been getting calls of congratulations from all over the country,' reports Mrs. Johnson. 'And if they can't reach me because my line's busy, they leave messages of support with the operator. Where else do you get that kind of service nowadays?' Telecom readers should send in some $ for some T-shirts. Where else could we ever get a "Don't Yank the Crank" T-shirt? [I got John McNamara and John Covert to call and ask for the following info - Dave Mitton] The T-shirts depict a candlestick phone, with the words "Don't Yank the Crank, Bryant Pond, Me." spelled out with the cord. They cost $7 (any extra money would be appreciated to be used to pay lawyer's fees) and come in orange, red, brown, green, and 'maybe blue'. Please specify in order your preference of colors. Sizes availible are (adult); S, M, L, XL. Send to: Brad Hooper, PO Box 67, Bryant Pond, Maine, 04219 [Note: P L E A S E - Don't forget NOT to mention TELECOM or the ARPAnet as the source of information when you mail your requests in for T-shirts -JSOL] ------------------------------ Posted-date: 30-Oct-1981 From: PAUL DICKSON AT ZIP Reply-to: "PAUL DICKSON AT ZIP c/o" <Schriesheim.Mitton at DEC-Marlboro> Subject: Fiber optics and speakerphones If what you want the amplified phone for is just to leave your hands free, rather than to allow several people to participate in the call, a better deal is to get a headset attached to your phone. It has none of the gain-swapping or background noise problems of the speakerphone, and the coiled cord lets you move around the office. The one I have has the Star-set headpiece, which is comfortable and easy to get used to. On weak long-distance calls you have to go back to the regular handset, as it blocks out local room noise better. But you have to do the same thing with a speakerphone. An operator jack is installed at the right-rear of the phone. The jack goes where a bell is located, so you get a smaller ringer, with just one bell. A twist-key is positioned to the left of the "1" button to switch from handset to headset. I am not sure what this costs to the average customer. My bill says $2/month, which is pretty good, but the company may get a deal from Bell because of all the other stuff we buy from them. ---------- At the dinner/reception for a recent CCITT meeting I was sitting at a table with someone who works with fiber optics in Canada. He told me about a cable they installed in one of the plains provinces, that is 3200km long. (That's what he said - maybe he meant 320km - but things are far apart out there) That part of Canada used to be a sea bottom, so the soil is soft to a depth of 12 feet. They have a plow gadget that buries the fiber cable at a depth of 9 feet in a single pass. Repeaters are underground too - it sounded like ocean cable operations. The tap technology is quite good, he said. You twist two strands together, heat, and pull. The resulting joint has a loss of only 0.1dB. I don't know if you can do that in the field, however. This cable is used for delivering about 12 TV channels to the outlying areas. The costs are competitive with satellite technology. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 12-Nov-81 02:34:56-EST,12017;000000000000 Date: 12 Nov 1981 0234-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #57 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Thursday, 12 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 57 Today's Topics: Telephone Handsets Fiber Optics Deaf Phone Usage Touch Tone Phones Voltage on MIT-DormPhones Bell System Technical Journals Number Verification - Ringback Numbers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Nov 1981 0923-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Telephone Headsets By coincidence, someone else had asked me for this info a few weeks ago, so after Paul Dickson's message, I thought TELECOM readers might be interested. The rates given are Massachusetts rates; other New England Tel rates would probably be similar; rates in other areas could differ drastically. The $2.00 which Paul saw on his "bill" is simply what is in the Telecommunica- tions department's data base, bears little relation to what NE Tel charges, and most likely reflects the rate when the Merri- mack Telecom dept. opened four years ago. TELCO's are not allowed to give discounts to anyone, no matter how much business they do, except as provided in the tariffs (WATS is a "discount"). The following headset equipment (this may not be everything) is available from New England Telephone: Description Universal Service Install Per Month Order Code Headsets -------- Lightweight Headset 36A 16.25 6.25 Lightweight Headset 36S 27.00 8.75 (Quick Disconnect Version - has an extra Jack/Plug arrangement in the cord) Normal Headset 312 0.00 4.20 Telephones ---------- 6-Button Key Telset KG1xy 14.00 5.50 Rotary x=color, (E-Beige, B-Black, 6.25 Tone W-White, G-Green, R-Red) y=dial, (6-Tone, K-Rotary) Non-Button Telset CJJxy 0.00 2.50 Rotary x=color, (as above) 3.30 Tone y=dial, (T-Tone, C-Rotary) The telephone set looks essentially like the normal telephone set that it replaces, except that it has a jack for the headset in the back and a turn-button switch for answering on the faceplate. The lightweight headsets are as shown in Allied Electronics 1981 Catalogue on page 240. In fact, it is probably better to get the headsets from Allied rather than to pay the TELCO recurring charge. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Nov 1981 07:13:02-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin In-Reply-To: Your article of Wed Nov 11 01:16:25 1981 <ucbvax.5102> Subject: fiber optics One of the problems that has held up use of fiber optics is field splices -- what do you do when they install phone-line homing equipment on the neighborhood bulldozers? (Actually, around campus here, they're got better targets -- the cables going to all the terminals that the Computer Science department uses. But I digress.) It was the development of a technology that let someone make such repairs that permitted its use -- but I don't know what that technology is. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Nov 1981 14:36:55-PST From: decvax!pur-ee!purdue!cak at Berkeley Re: Deaf Phone Usage I consulted GTE Labs for a short while two summers ago following a fairly long involvement with computer networks for the deaf (this was with the WIZNET project within GTE, which was a driving force for the formation of the <now-defunct?> DEAFNET). Anyway, most deaf telephone users have equipment that is based on 5-level baudot codes. The FSK frequencies for modems are NOT Bell 103 (or anything else!) compatible. We undertook a project to take a 'Handi-Phone' (I think), which is a very small terminal with intergral coupler - 3 row keyboard and one line by 64 character plasma display, and put a black box out behind it that would convert to ASCII and Bell 103. I did the initial design, and a summer co-op student was supposed to implement it. He ran into many problems, mainly trying to get the signal out of the Handi-Phone. Ended up putting carbon mike/speaker units on the end, and doing all the amplification/mo-de-modulation in our unit (after the Handi-Phone had done it!) and trying to clean it up. The co-op had not finished by the time I left the project; I think it got shelved. It seems to me it should still be easy to do. At that time there were rumors that some firm had built such a box; but they were never substantiated. I don't have any of my notes from that time (they're locked up in GTE somewhere) so I can't give any more details. The old model 28 (and lower) Teletypes prevail. It's just too expensive to buy ascii terminals and 103 modems. chris ------------------------------ Date: 11 November 1981 18:24-EST From: Thomas L. Davenport <TLD at MIT-MC> Subject: Touch-Tone (tm!) on `other' lines. In the past, I have been able to use touch-tone phones on lines that were supposedly only enabled for dial pulses. I have no idea if this still works in some instances, but a friend is asking me about this. What light can you Telco-experts shed on this hypothetical question? Also, are touch-tone type telephones available from any aftermarket sources, or only from one's local Phone Store? -Tom- ------------------------------ Date: 12-Nov-81 0157-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at Rutgers> Subject: Touch Tones There are two factors in the above question which need to be addressed. The first is the phone itself, and the second is the type of phone service (i.e. phone line) you have. Let's do the phone first. If you have a phone that has push buttons, it does not necessarily generate Touch Tone (tm!!) signals. Indeed it could just translate the number into the amount of dial pulses you need and then let the dial switching do the rest. If your phone really generates touch tones then we have to look at the type of phone line you have. There are three types of phone switching equipment used widely in the US. They are (as most of us know) ESS, CrossBar, and Step By Step. Ess is the most modern and most flexible. Turning on and off the ability to recognise touch tones is as easy as turning off a bit in the programming that defines your phone number in the computer. Many times, the phone co. forgets to turn the bit off for a particular area (this is common for new service converted from CrossBar or Step By Step switching, as some customers on CrossBar may have touch tone service paid for). CrossBar switching is usually touch tone related. You have to put some equipment on the line (or on a group of numbers) to tell it to ignore touch tone signals. Therefore if you have a touch tone phone you may be able to get away with touch tone service even if you don't pay for it if you have CrossBar switching. It is harder for the phone company to turn your touch tone service off (especially if someone else in the same group of numbers *has* touch tone service). Step By Step switching (still in use in only very remote areas) is the oldest and least reliable of the switching systems. Since it was created in the 50s (before touch tone existed) there was no support built into the service to even handle touch tones. Dial Pulses were used to trip large stepper relays which completed your call. There are some types of equipment (very expensive) which can be added to a Step By Step switching central office to support touch tones, but all it does it convert it to dial pulses and feed it to the stepper relays. Also you can purchase some equipment from Bell (or outside vendors) which will convert the touch tones to dial pulses either inside or on the phone pole outside your home or office (Madison, Connecticut has the equipment installed on their very old Step By Step switching office which will convert touch tones to dial pulses). I hope that enlightens you to why your touch tone phone sometimes works even if you arent paying for the service. Watch it, if too many people start doing it Bell will be sure and spend the time turning it off for everyone not paying for it. -Jon- ------------------------------ Date: 10-NOV-1981 15:59 From: HYDRA::MCNAMARA Reply-to: "HYDRA::MCNAMARA c/o" <Schriesheim.Mitton at DEC-Marlboro> Subj: Hobbit's Suggestion re MIT Dormphones In Telecom #51, Hobbit suggested to Doug Alan that prehaps the application of 120 VDC or VAC would "reset" a line that was being held by a calling party in an unsupervised system such as the MIT Dormphone step-by-step. About fifteen years ago someone tried this, burning up a half dozen connector switches at several hundred dollars each. Having no aerial wiring and no shared-with-electric conduiting, MIT Dormphone does not have any protectors. PLEASE do not do it! (It probably doesn't work in a protector-equipped system either, as it would lift your line before it lefted the calling line and produce the same electrical results as your putting your phone on and off hook.) [Hobbit doesn't realize that the MIT Dormphones are Step By Step switching offices, and what he described works on ESS switching only! I remember doing that to the Step office in WoodBridge, Connecticut (still in operation!!) and we had our phone service turned off for several days while the phone co. picked up the peices!! -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 11 Nov 1981 17:11:12-PST From: alice!ark at Berkeley Subject: Bell System Technical Journal I believe that you can get information on BSTJ subscriptions or order single issues by writing to: Bell System Technical Journal Circulation Group Bell Laboratories Whippany, NJ 07980 ------------------------------ Date: 12 November 1981 00:25-EST From: Ittai Hershman <ITTAI at MIT-MC> Subject: Phone number query cc: ITTAI at MIT-MC Query: In New York one can, sometimes, get number verification (ie. of the phone you are calling from) by dialing 958. There is a nat'l number, which always works, 1-200-555-1212: my question is--is there such a number for a bell check (ie. calling, hanging up, and having your phone ring). I was once given 660 <wait for dial-tone> 112 <wait again> 8 <hang up when tone comes through>, this never seems to work--and its a real pain to hack phones by asking a friend to ring you. Any nat'l, always working, numbers known about? Thanx, Ittai [Neither 958 or 1-200-555-1212 work from New Jersey, therefore I would suspect that it is not nationally known. Usually if you ask the operator (tell them you just had your number changed or something), and they will give it to you. Ringback numbers are usually found by calling either the business office or telephone repair. The 661-112-8 kludge (dial phones) only works in New York City (touch tone: 661- *2, then hang up the receiver for 1 second). They are mostly for repair people to do bell checks. In most areas (Ess and CrossBar) it is usually some random unassigned prefix (chosen locally - NJ it is one of 550,551,552,553, or 554, in Connecticut it was 991,992,993, or 994), then the last 4 digits of your phone number (for security, to prevent some random from finding your phone line and setting up ringback), listen for your dial tone back (you can now type out (ess and crossbar) 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 *or* (ess only) 4,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,*,0,# on your touch tone and do a touch tone test), hang up the phone for one second (like using 3-way calling). The dial tone switches to some higher pitched tone and now you hang up and it rings. Complex, eh? -JSOL] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 13-Nov-81 02:12:38-EST,7466;000000000000 Date: 13 Nov 1981 0212-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #58 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Friday, 13 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 58 Today's Topics: Bryant Pond - Mayberry Step By Step Switching - Still Widely In Use Headsets Touch Tone Query Ringback Number Query The "*" and "#" Keys ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Nov 1981 0921-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Bryant Pond and Mayberry Does anyone remember the "Andy Griffith" episode in which the new, dial phone service was put in town over much objection? Right after Andy's phone was put in, he called directory assistance to get other people's phone numbers, and no one had a phone. In the real universe, that could have just been because the dir- ectory bureau didn't have the number yet, something which often takes a long time in modern, dial areas. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Nov 1981 0858-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Prevalence of Step Sorry to disagree with you people who have lived out your lives in Megalopolis (and probably consider anything outside of it to be "very remote areas"), but there really is still a lot of SXS around in areas that many people would not consider "remote." There is still a lot of Bell System Step in the Bay area; many of the General Tel areas around Los Angeles are Automatic Elec- tric Step; all of downtown Huntsville, Alabama is Bell System Step. The reason Megalopolis has so little SXS has to do with who held the patent on SXS for many years. Bell System customers, for a long time, remained with operator service, since Automatic Elec- tric had the SXS patent. Panel was developed by the Bell System in order to be able to put in dial service. Partly for this reason, and partly because of the density in Megalopolis making Panel and No. 1 XBar more attractive because of the numbering plan independence provided by register translation, there was very little Step installed. On another note, the exchange 802 537 in Benson, Vermont, a North Electric CX1000 operated by Shoreham Telephone Company, has code ringing based on the last digit of the number dialed. The audi- ble ring reflects this; you can hear the different combinations. I just had my Maynard number converted to Code 2 ringing (a favor from a friend in the CO). In No. 1 ESS, if you have Code 2 ring- ing, there is not a correspondence between the audible ring and the actual ring, although in the few times I have checked it in the ten minutes I have had it it seems that the software does try to start the rings together. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Nov 1981 1101-EST From: Gene Hastings <HASTINGS at CMU-20C> Subject: Headset telephones The manufacturer of the most ofen found lightweight headsets is Pacific Plantronics, who also makes an add-on box for almost any make of desk set to convert to headset operation-includes box and mounting bracket; (the box is about 1 1/2" square and 4-5" long) box has twin jacks, turnkey, and a color coded ribbon cable for connections. The connection instructions cover many models. Mine cost about $36 ca. 5 years ago. Other people make telephone compatable lightweight headsets (Unex (sp?), Telex, Shure Brothers come to mind) but if you can obtain just the little electronics module from Plantronics, you can convert any dynamic headset-for example for those who don't like little plugs stuck in their ears, the Beyer DT-108 is the MOST COMFORTABLE communications headset I have ever tried-it is single muff, with a pad that surrounds your ear instead of pushing on it, and so on , and so on. As for receive level, Bell does have headset receive amplifiers that plug in between the headset and station set, and are powered off the phone. A friend of mine at the Associated press had one, and I used one last May on a TV shoot in Biloxi. Gene ------------------------------ Date: 12 Nov 1981 0943-PST From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V1 #57 To: TELECOM at RUTGERS cc: MERRITT at USC-ISIB In-Reply-To: Your message of 11-Nov-81 2334-PST With regard to Jon's answer to the touch-tone query, I have a comment: First off, Step by Step switching dates back to the 1920s (a little before the '50s, and crossbar dates back to 1934 when the first #1 Xbar system was bit into use. The advent of the #5 Xbar is more recent, but touch-tones didn't enter the picture until the early to mid '60s. It seems, however, that the other comments about why various systems do and do not accept touch-tone signalling are correct. One further comment, however, is that there are several other systems than the 3 you mentioned in fairly wide use. Notably EAX, and several flavors of S x S such as director step (common control) which are somewhat different in their operation from standard step switching equipment. <>IHM<> [The point of the message was that SXS doesn't like touch tones goes for most flavors of SXS. Also, my dates were mixed up, I'm sure I would have realized that it was the 20s if I had thought about it hard enough (think, Jon: Your parents told you about getting it in when they were teenagers, *How* long ago was that???). Sorry -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: Thursday, 12 Nov 1981 11:43-PST Subject: Re: Phone number query From: greep at SU-DSN When I lived in Santa Barbara (a GTE step office) there was a ringback number which did not depend on your line, but the last two digits determined what frequency to ring at. If you picked one that wasn't within the response of the ringer on your phone, then you wouldn't realize it was ringing (because the hammer wouldn't strike the bells hard enough to make a noise) but it would still busy out the ringback circuit, of which there was only one per CO. So if you call something that you think is ringback, pick up the phone anyway even if you don't hear anything just to make sure. (I don't know if different frequency ringers are still used much.) [The SXS switchers in Connecticut chose unassigned 3-digit codes (New Haven: 907) and the last digit determined how your phone would ring (1 = continuous, 3= "code 1" and 7 = "code 2"). -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 12 November 1981 20:35-EST From: Joseph Weizenbaum From: <joseph d. turner <cutter at mit-ai>> at MIT-AI> Sender: CUTTER at MIT-AI Subject: touchtone(tm) key "*" To: telecom at RUTGERS When telco decided to implement touchtones, why did they bother to put the "*" (and for that matter the "#") key on the phone? Considering this was before they had IDDD, (please excuse mix of caps and lower case -- crummy Apple keyboard), and therefore would not need the "#" key to end and international call. Plus, I have yet to see a telco service or an extender that uses the "*" key. any comments? _phonewise [The * key was used widely in early ESS phone service to implement Speed Calling, Call Forwarding, and recalling the Operator on an Operator Assisted Call. I'm sure it gets used other places -JSOL] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 15-Nov-81 03:42:04-EST,12439;000000000000 Date: 15 Nov 1981 0342-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #59 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Sunday, 15 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 59 Today's Topics: Headset Telephones Touch Tone History - The "*" And "#" Key Dimension - Ringback On Busy Operator Flash In ESS Telecommunications For The Deaf Fiber Optics ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Nov 1981 0038-EST From: Gene Hastings <HASTINGS at CMU-20C> Subject: Headset telephones PS: Message of 12-Nov-81 1101-EST The Plantronics adapter box is the Jackset, mine is model JS-136. The receive amplifier for headsets came in two versions (that I've seen): mod. 153B (older, black) and mod. 292A (newer, slimmer, beige). Gene Hastings ------------------------------ Date: 13-Nov-81 0:20:37 PST (Friday) From: Newman.ES at PARC-MAXC Subject: touchtone key "*"; automatic callback on non-busy To: cutter at mit-ai cc: Newman.es at PARC-MAXC The "*" key is used extensively in Xerox-El Segundo's PBX (I think it's a Dimension). For instance, to activate call forwarding, you dial *2 followed by the extension you're forwarding to. Incidentally, the Dimension PBX has a neat feature called "automatic callback" that I wish they'd put in the regular phone network. Getting a busy signal? Just dial *5 followed by the busy extension. When it becomes free, your phone will ring three times. When you answer, it automatically starts ringing the extension you were trying to call. Nice, eh? /Ron ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 1981 0844-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Touch-Tone "*" and "#" keys When Touch-Tone was first being introduced in the mid sixties, the phones did not have those two extra keys. The use of the star was universal for the first several years of Custom Calling Features, *1 through *8 for single digit speed calling, *20 through *49 for two digit speed calling, *91 to set up call forwarding, and *93 to cancel. From Rotary tele- phones, "11" was equivalent to "*". This meant that the instructions for Rotary customers were different than for Touch-Tone customers, something the phone company doesn't like. They were also different for Touch-Tone customers with the old phones (yes, there are still a few of them around). The conversion to the xx# format was done gradually. For a while, many offices had both formats working at the same time. When you programmed speed calling, storage location "*1" was equivalent to location "9#". The "#" format made it more obvious that you could have both one-digit and two-digit speed calling on the same line (something which the business office will often claim is impossible, but which I have had in both No. 1 and No. 2 ESS). The feature for flashing an operator when you have Add-on, which I have only seen implemented in No. 1 ESS (can anyone out there demonstrate it in any other machines?) is still implemented by flashing and then dialing "*0" or "110". From No. 1 ESS CO-CENTREX, only "9-110" used to work, but today I just discovered that "9-*0" does work in Maynard. There are other reasons besides feature activation that caused the Bell System to be interested in the additional tones. Ma Bell always intended for Touch-Tone to be used, not just for network signalling, but also as a data entry device. The addi- tional keys are used as field separators and terminals when communicating with Touch-Tone-Data-Sets, which, of course, for a long time could only be provided by the telephone company. I remember the huge, expensive, 400 series datasets that used to be used for this purpose, which transmitted the ASCII code for carriage-return when you entered a "#". ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 1981 0846-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Operator Flash in No. 2 ESS I should have tried it before I typed the ^Z on that last mes- sage... My No. 2 ESS in Acton does not accept "*0" for operator flash, but does accept "110". ------------------------------ From: KRAUSS@MIT-MC Date: 11/13/81 09:03:01 Subject: Telecommunications for the Deaf The telephone company doesn't offer any service for deaf users, but does permit them to acoustically connect specially-modified teletypewriters and computer terminal-like equipment to the telephone network. Some of these newer units are Part 68-registered and can be directly connected to the network. They employ 5 level Baudot coding instead of ASCII and a modem with two tones (instead of the four tones to distinguish originate and receive in the Bell 103). There are two "networks" for the deaf now operating, both known as "deafnet". One is subsidized by GTE Telenet and operates on Telenet using Telenet electronic mail software. Access is limited to ASCII terminals and I think that users must be associated with the Deaf Community Center of Framingham, Mass. The other isa two-node network (Washington DC and San Francisco) and administered by Telecommunications for the Deaf, Inc. The technical design for this was done by SRI (send to KLH at DNSRI for more details). This network can handle accesses by both ASCII computer terminals and Baudot TTYs. It is an experiment that was funded by the government, and is temporarily connected into the ARPAnet. The government has also funded the development of software for personal computers to emulate TTYs and for personal computer-based CBBSs tohandle TTY access as well as ASCII access. (Send to ANDERECK at DNGC for more details). ---Jeff Krauss--- ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 1981 0824-PST From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V1 #58 cc: MERRITT at USC-ISIB Re: '*' key In my area, until the last software update (2 months ago or so), *nn was equivalent to typing nn#, for speed calling (11nn as well), and other such codes were reserved for special telco stuff. Now, #nn and *nn are reserved for the new custom calling II services which are not as yet tarriffed in this area. One other use of the star is to flash the operator as JSOL mentioned. If a user has 3-way calling, places an operator assisted call on his primary circuit, and wishes to flash back, it is necessary to flash (getting a 3-way dial-tone), and type *0, which immediately flashes back to the primary and signals TSPS of the request for an operator. Flashing for about 1.2 seconds will also accomplish this, bit they don't want customers having to time their flashes that accurately. <>IHM<> [I remember a long time ago, that the ring back number in New Haven, CT was 1191. They used it until ESS came out and needed it for call forwarding -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 1981 10:23:08-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Subject: * and # keys The early TouchTone phones did NOT include * or #; those came in later. My guess is that most of the equipment was in the pad already, so the incremental cost of the extra two keys was very low, and some bright person realized that it had potential. I've always assumed that the phone co. has been holding off on using * when combinations of # and code lengths would do; after all, it's their last unassigned key, and hence a very valuable resource that should be saved for something *really* important. [The touch tone matrix always had the codes in it for * and #, remember the old CB channel "22a" in 23 channel rigs? All you needed was a hacker type to enable the feature and you were all set! -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 13 November 1981 1733-PST (Friday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Touch-Tone, SXS, Ringback First of all, I am forced to contradict (sorta) what JSOL said about Touch-Tone service. In regards to Crossbar -- it is essentially unknown for Telco to specifically disable a number from Touch-Tone (these days) once it has been enabled. The trick, as JSOL implied, relates to the number of persons who have TT service today. The service is implemented (as I understand it) by enabling specific Crossbar vertical file groups so that the registers hooked to those lines have access to one of the shared banks of TT receivers. I believe that it is not possible to enable any single line of a vertical group w/o enabling all the rest (w/o alot of hassle, that is.) So, if ANYONE in your group has TT, you probably have it too. Given the large number of persons subscribing to TT, it is very likely that at least one line in the group will be TT enabled. In many offices where TT density is very high, the entire office is enabled, period. As for SXS ... saying that it is only used in "very remote areas" is not accurate. There are very old SXS exchanges still in use in very dense urban areas. Many of these are independent Telcos, but there are still lots of Bell SXS offices around. Here in L.A., GTE still has SXS offices in use throughout the Santa Monica area, West L.A., Bel Air, Long Beach, San Fernando, UCLA, etc., etc. Admittedly, they are rapidly tossing these offices in favor of EAX/ESS machines -- within about 5 years there will probably be VERY few Bell or GTE step offices still around... While there are some "standard" numbers for ringback, number ID, and related services tied to the type of switching equipment in use, there are also MANY, MANY local variations. Even the telco regional test number directories don't list these -- installers always obtain them locally. So be warned that any numbers you hear from other parts of the country MIGHT work ... but then again, they MIGHT not. There are no real standards except sometimes in format. My favorite ringback number is for the recent GTE EAX machines. You just dial your own number. Clever, eh? --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 13 November 1981 2225-PST (Friday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: more on Touch-Tone By the way, it *is* possible to retrofit touch-tone onto SXS systems in an intelligent manner. Many GTE offices have done this. For many years, most General Telephone SXS exchanges have used what is called the "director" system -- which adds some rudimentary common-control equipment to the basic SXS office. When the time came to add in Touch-Tone (around 1970), their first pass *was* a simple tone to pulse converter. But a few years later, they added translation equipment which fed the received touch-tone digits directly into the common-control equipment, so that interoffice calls to ESS or Crossbar offices (or into the intertoll net) could be made directly w/o pulse translation. So, for example, a local call to a Crossbar office from my GTE SXS line is never converted to pulses -- the digits are collected at full speed and the call is setup via MF signalling. As far as I can tell, the full process only takes about one second longer than a straight Crossbar-to-Crossbar interoffice call. I might add that ALL Bell SXS offices that I know of, which have converted to Touch-Tone, are still using simple pulse converters. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 14 November 1981 10:26-EST From: Peter J. Castagna <PC at MIT-MC> Subject: fiber optics To: decvax!duke!unc!smb at UCB-C70 From what I've seen fixing an optical cable is a matter of installing Status: O a connector and polishing (and cutting) the cable ends. This is not to say that it's any easier to localize a break. Amphenol (Bunker-Ramo connectors, D'n'bry Connecticut) makes reasonably-priced fiber-optic connectors with .5-2 db loss. The only problem is training technicians about the correct angle to cut the optical fiber, the proper polish, and how to align the cable for minimum loss. You also need some expensive equipment for best performance; a light-power meter, a source (laser? or led), but this is only really for long links or lossy ones. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 17-Nov-81 02:54:57-EST,4368;000000000000 Date: 17 Nov 1981 0254-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #60 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Monday, 16 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 60 Today's Topics: Operator "Flash" Codes Touch Tone "*" Key Some Very Remote Areas ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 November 1981 23:40 est From: Frankston.SoftArts at MIT-Multics Subject: Re: Operator Flash in No. 2 ESS Reply-To: Frankston at MIT-Multics (Bob Frankston) To: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> My Newton exchange (ancient - SxS?) accepts 0, 10, 110, 1110 etc to get the operator. Perhaps the acceptance of 110 in Acton is just an artifact of the kludgery associated with that silly 1- prefix. (I say silly because 1-617 does not work so that it is not a uniform access to NA addressing) ------------------------------ Date: 15 November 1981 23:39 est From: Frankston.SoftArts at MIT-Multics Subject: Re: touchtone(tm) key "*" Reply-To: Frankston at MIT-Multics (Bob Frankston) They did NOT bother to put * or # on the phone. One could special order a 12 button phone, but it was definitely not the standard. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Nov 1981 2046-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> To: Frankston at MIT-MULTICS Subject: Newton No. 1 XBar, 110 The 969 exchange in Newton is No. 1 XBar. There are no SXS exchanges in the Boston Metro dialing area. The acceptance of an infinite string of 1s is a typical No. 1 and No. 5 XBar feature and has to do with the early belief that an initial 1 pulse shouldn't do anything at all. From 1921 Telco documentation: The use of ... office codes starting with "1" is undesirable due to the liability of a subscriber causing a "preliminary pulse" when making a call. A preliminary pulse may be pro- duced by an unintentional momentary interruption of the subscriber's line at the switchhook springs after the re- ceiver is lifted and before dialing is started, as might be caused by accidentally striking the hook with the receiver. In No. 1 XBars in places where the "1" is not used (and those places are disappearing rapidly) an initial "1" does not even make the dial tone go away. "1" became used as an access code from SxS areas because it provided an inexpensive way to send all "1" level calls to the toll switcher. The SxS exchanges in the Bay Area which do not require "1" have a huge kludge attached to them to properly process calls. This kludge is quite unlike a director -- dialing "20" puts you right on a toll trunk which takes the rest of what you dial. Similar kludges exist for SxS in areas that have 1+ dialing and also 113 information codes: Dialing "1" puts you on the toll trunk; the second "1" tears down the connection to the toll trunk and puts you through to the selector level for the "11x" services. In No. 2 ESS, no similar kludges exist because the machine translates what you dial via one, three, and six digit translate tables. "110" does not get you the operator EXCEPT when you already have an operator trunk active, flash for add-on dial-tone, and dial "110". Under any other circumstance, "110" is an error. In No. 1 ESS, and probably in No. 2 as well, it is a useful test to see if a trunk is the type trunk which sends your number down the wire. Operator trunks, number read- back trunks, and, in some areas, "911" trunks have this property and all get flashed upon when you flash for add-on and dial "*0" or "110". ------------------------------ Date: 16 Nov 1981 19:18:07-PST Reply-To: decvax!yale-comix!ima!johnl at Berkeley From: John R. Levine, From: The INTERACTIVE Electric Calculator Co., Cambridge MA. Subject: Special rings - don't hold your breath Lest people get ready to move to Benson VT to get special rings, I think that Benson only has 100 lines and the facility for two simultaneous converations. In a few years it will probably be physically integrated with a more modern Xbar exchange in nearby Cornwall. (I think -- that phone company belongs to my uncle and I used to tag along when he was doing CO work.) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 17-Nov-81 23:41:09-EST,2428;000000000000 Date: 17 Nov 1981 2341-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #61 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Wednesday, 18 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 61 Today's Topics: Touch Tone Signalling All Digital Network ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Nov 1981 1005-PST From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: Touch-tone signalling Another column (1633 Hz) exists in all standard bell system touch-tone pads. This has been used for a few testing purposes within the network, however I have not seen much activity along the lines of implementing it as a customer feature (for whatever use (I'm sure they could think of something)). The coil within the pad has a tap for this frequency and it is easy to modify an existing 12-button pad to have a shift key of sorts, which converts one of the normal columns of the pad to this frequency. Adding a row of buttons to the pad in practice shouldn't be that difficult, so if they need more... The idea of adding these buttons for new features is not without its problems, however. First off, customers ordering these features would have to get special telephone sets in order to use them. It would be very difficult to put 16 buttons in a trimline format, so that is ruled out. And there are other problems. You get the idea... <>IHM<> ------------------------------ Date: 17 Nov 1981 11:59:27-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Subject: All-digital network AT&T will begin offering Switched Digital Capability (SDC) in 1984. SDC lines will support 56Kb/sec data transmission, and will also support analog voice conversations. A relatively small number of intercity digital trunks will be used. The system will use two-wire time-compression multiplexed loops (with special equipment at both the customer location and the central office) to connect local users to No. 1A ESS sites, which in turn will be connected via digital T-carrier coax cables to No. 4 ESS toll offices. A large number of the No. 4ESS offices are already connected via digital trunks. (From a story in the Nov. 16 Computerworld.) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 19-Nov-81 19:04:02-EST,4627;000000000000 Date: 19 Nov 1981 1904-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #62 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Friday, 20 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 62 Today's Topics: Update On Southwestern Bell's Rate Increase Request Query - T1 1.544 Mb Digital Receivers Ringback Numbers Digital Data Service ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Nov 1981 1917-EST From: ESTRIN at MIT-XX Subject: Cost of T1 1.544 Mb digital repeaters. What do they cost, and how does their reliability compare to standard passive amplifier components. Are any cost changes expected in the next few years, or is it a mature technology? ------------------------------ Date: 17 November 1981 19:19-EST From: Stephen C. Hill <STEVEH at MIT-MC> Subject: RINGBACK NUMBER cc: STEVEH at MIT-MC Can anyone suggest why TPC doesn't want the ringback number to get around? I asked an installer once, and I almost had to go through the third degree. ------------------------------ Date: 18 November 1981 11:30-EST From: "Richard L. Lawhorn, Jr." <RLL at MIT-MC> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #61 Does anyone know anything about Digital Data Service (DDS) from the phone company? How reliable is it? Will each end provide the clock signal needed for synchronous devices? -Rick ------------------------------ Date: 19 Nov 1981 0253-CST From: Clive Dawson <CC.Clive at UTEXAS-20> Subject: Update on Southwestern Bell's rate increase request Although the final decision will not be made by the Public Utilities Commission until Dec. 10, the hearing examiners for the PUC have recommended that a $243.7 million rate increase be granted, about half of the requested $469.8 million. In Austin, the previous monthly bill for basic residential service has been $6.70 (not including instrument rental). Bell wanted an increase to $12.15, but the recommended increase would set it at $8.90. A 10% increase in intrastate long-distance rates was also recommended, as well as an increase from $18.80 to $27.60 for a residential service connection charge. Bell has of course criticized this recommendation, saying it falls far short of the actual need, and that it will simply be forced to submit another increase request next year. One of their main arguments is the now-familiar "because of new competition in long-distance markets, profits from long-distance operations should no longer be expected to subsidize the cost of basic local telephone service for homes and businesses." The examiners, on the other hand, decided that "competition faced by the company is still insignificant", and that raises in in-state long distance charges "are a valuable tool to lessen the revenue that must be recovered from local service." All of the above was pretty predictable. Now for some more interesting stuff: LOCAL MEASURED SERVICE. Again, Bell used all of the standard pitches, e.g. those who use the service more should pay more, it is only an option, etc. Everybody from the governor on down has come out against this, also using the standard counter-pitches: it ain't gonna be an option for long if Bell gets its way! The examiners found that "it is not easy to demonstrate that those who consume [telephone service] cause much greater costs than those who conserve," and went on to cite some of the various problems with local measured service. NEVERTHELESS, it was recommended that Bell should be permitted "a very limited optional experiment" with "no artificial incentives for conversion" from flat-rate service. If it doesn't work, "the commission can abolish the experiment." Some of the incentives Bell had wanted included no charge for switching to measured service. The examiners pointed out that there ARE costs involved, and a charge should be levied. Also, Bell wanted to set an upper bound on local measured service charges, but the examiners said there should be none. About the only thing that remains to be said is that the PUC almost always follows the examiners' recommendations quite closely. So now we wait for the final ruling, and assuming that the experiment is allowed, for the long-term results. I'd be interested in hearing comments from any LMS-battle veterans in other parts of the country. How about it folks? Has the Battle of Texas been lost or won (for a while, anyway)? --Clive ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 21-Nov-81 04:48:58-EST,5452;000000000000 Date: 21 Nov 1981 0448-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #63 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Saturday, 21 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 63 Today's Topics: ENFIA-2 - "950" Exchange The History Of Step Switches RingBack Numbers - Why Keep Them Secret? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Nov 1981 2201-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: ENFIA-2 There seems to be a new arrangement for connecting to specialized common carriers (MCI, Sprint, etc.) which will use the prefix "950" which is currently unassigned in every area code. Exchange Network Facility for Interstate Access -2 will provide trunk appearances to the spec. comm. carrs rather than the line appearances they now have. It is effective 18 December nationwide. Does anyone know any more details? ------------------------------ Date: 19 Nov 1981 22:17:44-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Location: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill To: decvax!duke!unc!telecom@Berkeley When I was living in Brooklyn, the ringback number sometimes caused trouble -- like it wouldn't stop ringing. (The code was 660; pause; 6, on the 251 exchange, which is apparently Xbar.) I don't know whether or not this cost any message units. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Nov 1981 01:22:48-PST From: menlo70!hao!cires!harkins at Berkeley re: step-by-step switches the story is a funny little twist, but also clears up the date question: "In the late 1880's, a Kansas City businessman named Almon B. Strowger became irritated at what he considered discrimination against him by the local telephone company operator. The story going round says that Strowger was one of the town's undertakers. Coincidentally, so was a relative of the operator in question. It seems that whenever someone called in to report a death, and need for an undertaker, she (the operator) would direct the call to her relative. This practice understandably infuriated Strowger. Being something of an inventor, he decided that it would be best if the subscriber were able to make his own connection, and set out to "invent" a device to accomplish this. On March 10, 1891, the U.S. Patent Office issued a patent to Strowger on his "Automatic Telephone Exchange". His invention did not actually use a dial, but a series of push buttons. The subscriber had to pick, or push certain buttons, a certain number of times to make a connection. This didn't always work. Besides the high number of errors in the calling process (pushing too many, or too few times) the equipment and wiring required for this mechanism were very cumbersome. It was not until 1896 that the first true telephone dial was invented. It was first installed in Albion, New York, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. ... The step-by-step switch ... was first installed by Bell in 1919" from: "Getting Started in Telecommunications Management," by Larry Arredondo, The Telecom Library, New York, N.Y., 1980 ernie ------------------------------ Date: 20 Nov 1981 05:27:26-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!bch at Berkeley Subject: Re: TELECOM Digest V1 #62 The University of North Carolina Computation Center has had a 56Kb DDS line in service for about two weeks. It is used in tandem with an old 40.8Kb land line to transfer data between UNC (in Chapel Hill) and the Triangle Universities Computation Center (about midway between Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh.) The actual routine of the line (we believe) is from Chapel Hill through Greensboro through Raleigh to TUCC. Thus far I have been very impressed as it has given us no trouble, with error rates significantly less than the older land line. The clocking for devices can be provided with the DDS interface. ------------------------------ Date: Wednesday, 18 November 1981 14:42-EST From: Paul Martin <PMARTIN at SRI-AI> Re: All digital phone service I am intrigued that the 56kb all digital phone service could provide a better phone link for terminals and computers. Does anyone know of plans to make such a data-over-dialed-network service generally available? I sure get tired of 1200 baud, and the only faster dialed-line modem I know of is the hopelessly expense Gandalf 9600 baud duplex.... Paul Martin ------------------------------ Date: 20 Nov 1981 1727-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Why the phone company doesn't want you to know the ringback Subject: code There is a technical reason, but I'm sure the installer didn't know it: The ringback number is not simply a software implementation (even in ESS) but rather an actual trunk circuit of which there are only a few in each CO. However, the telephone company doesn't like to give out information that isn't absolutely necessary for you to have to generate revenue. I was once told that the tariffs were confidential. I regularly have trouble when I ask an operator to tell me a rate step, rather than a rate. "We don't normally give that out, sir. I'll have to check with my supervisor." Even though a table organized by rate step appeared in the telephone book. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 24-Nov-81 02:38:51-EST,1997;000000000000 Date: 24 Nov 1981 0238-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #64 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Tuesday, 24 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 64 Today's Topics: ENFIA Trunk Terminations Jargon Query ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: KRAUSS@MIT-MC Date: 11/23/81 09:21:17 Subject: ENFIA Trunk Terminations Bell System Operating Companies Tariff FCC No. 9, entitled Exchange Network Facilities for Interstate Access--Trunk Terminations, was filed with an effective date of December 17, 1981. (I don't know if that date has been postponed or not.) It offers trunk side terminations to OCCs who sell execunet/sprint-type telephone service. ENFIA B terminations are evidently for within an area served by a single telco end office, and ENFIA C termination include local tandem trunking. Incoming ENFIA B and C facilities can only be provided out of No.1 or No. 1A ESS switches or other appropriately equipped electronic central offices. Automatic Number Identification is provided to the OCC on incoming ENFIA B and C trunks. The uniform access code is 950-10xx, with one access code per OCC. Just like the original ENFIA, ENFIA B and C consists of three rate elements: (1)central office connecting facility (between telco and OCC);(2)local switching and trunking; and (3)jointly used subscriber plant (the subscriber's telephone and local loop). ---Jeff Krauss--- ------------------------------ Date: 24 November 1981 00:14-EST From: Daniel M. Russell <RUSSEL at MIT-AI> Is there an online glossary/encyclopedia to the TELECOM argot? I can understand most of the verbs, but have a tough time trying to expand the macros w/o help. Alternative: Any survey articles on paper (whats that?) that I could be pointed to? -- DMR ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 28-Nov-81 00:33:27-EST,6149;000000000000 Date: 28 Nov 1981 0033-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #65 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Saturday, 28 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 65 Today's Topics: ESS Class 5 - First Office Alternate Long Distance Services BellMac-32 Computer VADIC Modem Query ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Nov 1981 1828-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: The first No. 5 ESS in Seneca, Illinois The official cut-over date for this machine is 12 December. It will be 815-357. It is the Bell System's first fully digital Class 5 office made by Western Electric. ------------------------------ Date: 26 November 1981 00:20 est From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-Multics Subject: Alternative long distance services Shortly after the first of the year, I indent to survey the various companies offering alternative long-distance telephone service. This will include types of serivce, rates, and areas served. I expect that the results would be of interest and I intend to run them here. Anyone who has suggestions for companies that should be surveyed, besides Sprint and MCI, please let me know about them and how to contact them. Mail directly to me, not to the whole list. Thanks, Paul ------------------------------ Date: Thursday, 26 November 1981 14:08-EST From: Edward Huang <EH at MIT-AI> cc: EH at MIT-AI Re: a trick After a TELCO man installed the phone line for my computer, I noticed he dialed something like 760 and a voice came back telling the number of the phone being used. ie, my phone is 595-0541 and if I dialed 760 then a voice would come back saying 5 9 5 0 5 4 1 .... -Edward ps: I'm in the 415/408 area with ESS and served by Pacific Telco.. [Those are rather typical, and the phone companies tend to keep them under wraps... -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 17 Nov 1981 0944-PST From: The BBoard at SRI-AI <Telecom-Request at Rutgers> Subject: BELLMAC Seminar [This message was found on the SRI-AI BBoard as a seminar announcement. It has general interest to the TELECOM readership due to the recent discussion on the BELLMAC-32, so I thought it would be interesting to distribute in today's digest. Enjoy -JSOL] The BELLMAC-32 is a 32-bit CMOS microprocessor developed at Bell Laboratories. It was designed using a hierarchical control structure to provide high-performance, pipelined operations. Five separate controllers are used to control the various elements in the data path portion of the chip. There elements include a program queue, an address arithmetic unit, a barrel shifter, and an arithmetic and logic unit. The control structure will be described in detail, along with examples of how the processor operates. The BELLMAC-32 instruction set includes arithmetic and logical instructions in both dyadic and triadic forms. In addition, there are many instructions provided for the support of high-level languages and operation systems. ...... ------------------------------ JAC@MIT-MC 11/27/81 22:17:48 Re: VADIC modems Lauren, please take note to this problem -- you are likely to be able to answer this question ... I recently moved, and I found that when I tried to connect my computer equipment (a VT100, a VADIC VA3451 modem, and some other stuff), the phone line had a rather loud buzz that went away when I disconnected the modem from the line. After futzing for quite some time, I found the following: 1) The problem went away when I connected a very poor and very unprofessional ground (the wiring is old here -- only two prong plugs were available), and 2) The problem went away when I used the "old" style VADIC (with the external voice/data switch) rather then the "new" style with the built - in voice/data switch. I also found that the "new" style VADIC would work as long as the external voice/data switch was connected (not necessarily used -- just connected). What I would like to know is: Since the VADIC is FCC registered to not bother the phone network in any way, why did it? Also, why does the external voice/data switch work such wonders in terms of isolating the modem from the phone line? (I looked inside, and the switch is just a "switch" -- no electronics at all). Also, I found that the VADIC bothers my telephone answering machine (also FCC registered) *unless* the external voice/data switch was connected. (The VADIC would answer the phone when a call came in -- regardless of weather or not the VADIC was supposed to -- if the answering machine also answered the phone). Exactly what does that voice/data switch do? And why does FCC-registered equipment, which is supposed to be fully compatible with the phone network and other FCC-registered equipment, bother each other? If anyone knows any answers here, please help me out. I am truely perplexed. Thanks, -- Jeff [Hmm, sounds to me like you have a grounding problem. FCC Registration simply gives you permission to plug the thing into the phone line, it says very little (in practice) as to the quality of the mechanism, and does in no way guarantee that it will not harm the phone network (there are other parts of the FCC rules regarding customer provided equipment which deal with what happens if your equipment damages the phone network). I would suggest reversing the two-pronged power plug, and if that does not solve it, make yourself an adequate ground. Your second problem is that the VADIC 3451 modem has an "auto answer mode". The "data" switch is in fact a toggle between answer and originate mode. When the switch is off, answer mode is in effect, and if your modem is plugged in when the phone rings it will answer and send the answer tones to a (presumably) waiting modem in originate mode. To disable this you simply unplug the modem. -JSOL] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 29-Nov-81 02:48:24-EST,4162;000000000000 Date: 29 Nov 1981 0248-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #66 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Sunday, 29 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 66 Today's Topics: Alternative Long Distance Services The "*" And "#" Keys On Touch Tone (tm) Pads VADIC 3451 Modem Query Answered FCC Registration ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 November 1981 03:49-EST From: William E. Blue <BLUE at MIT-MC> Subject: Alternative long distance services To: Schauble.Multics at MIT-MULTICS Besides Sprint and MCI (the latter of which I cancelled a while back) there is also ITT and I beleive, also Western Union. ITT is far better price and coverage-wise after 11pm, but the overall quality if somewhat inconsistant. The only info number I have for ITT is 800-221 4064. No further info about WU. --Bill ------------------------------ Date: 28 November 1981 12:28-EST From: Joseph Weizenbaum <Joseph D. Turner <cutter at mit-ai> at MIT-AI> Sender: CUTTER at MIT-AI Subject: "*" and "#" Thank you all for the info, however I was more interested in why MaBell decided to put them on anyhow -- was it because they already had planned to implement custom calling? I got sort of confused by the responses... Have fun, Phonewise ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 1981 2043-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> cc: jac at MIT-MC Subject: Vadic Modems The Vadic 3451 has a modular plug which is expected to be connected to one of two things: an RJ11C jack which has NOTHING connected to the black and yellow leads or to the jack of a controlling unit (either a Vadicphone or a Vadicswitch). The black and yellow going into the Vadic modem is SHORTED by a switch in the controlling unit if one desires to originate with the Vadic. When shorted, the modem takes the line off-hook (using Red and Green (tip and ring)) and begins its originate sequence. The answer sequence of the Vadic does not involve these leads; the Vadic answers the line if DTR is asserted at the EIA interface when a ring-in occurs or it the momentary "FA" switch is thrown. If the Vadic is plugged into an RJ11C jack which has Black and Yellow leading off into the dilfistance, strange things can happen. For example, Yellow might be connected to one side of a bell somewhere, which couples into the phone line. The Vadic is putting a signal on the line at this point. Another typical use of Black and Yellow (and the required use if the jack is an RJ13C jack) is to control key telephone systems. You short the Bk&Y together to cause the KTU to light up the lights for the line you are on. A line goes on hold if Bk&Y are OPENED BEFORE TIP and RING are, hangs up if Bk&Y are opened after T&R. Answering machines often short Bk&Y in order to work properly in a key telephone system. If an anwering machine and a Vadic modem were on the same line and had there Bk & Y connected together the answering machine would put the Vadic into originate mode each time the answering machine seized the line. [Thanks also to Frankston at MIT-Multics (Bob Frankston), Geoff Peck (geoff@UCB-C70) and peter gross (menlo70!hao!pag@Berkeley) for providing information about VADIC 3451 modems] ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 1981 2049-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: FCC Registration FCC Registration is not granted until a device has been certified to have passed rather stringent tests to prove that it will not harm the telephone network IF CONNECTED AS INTENDED. The hazy definition of Black and Yellow on the RJ11C interface specifica- tion (reserved for company use) and the desire of manufacturers to build devices that work in RJ13C jacks in key systems makes it easy to connect a device improperly. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 29-Nov-81 22:24:14-EST,4646;000000000000 Date: 29 Nov 1981 2224-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #67 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Monday, 30 Nov 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 67 Today's Topics: Alternative Long Distance Services VADIC 3451 Modems Overseas Modem Usage ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 Nov 1981 0147-PST From: Richard Furuta <FURUTA at WASHINGTON> Subject: Alternative Long Distance Services To: schauble.multics at MIT-MULTICS Consumers Union discussed ITT, MCI, Sprint, Western Union, and AT&T in the March 1981 issue of Consumer Reports, pages 164-167 with a correction on page 365 of the June 1981 issue. I'd suggest this article as a good starting place for subsequent comparisons. --Rick ------------------------------ Date: 29 November 1981 0345-PST (Sunday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Vadic problems The problems stated sound suspiciously like classical conflict between the Vadic control leads on the modular plug and the telco wiring. OFFICIALLY, only two wires are significant for the Vadic in terms of the telco interface: tip and ring (that is, red and green) which are the actual "telephone line" itself. Now, Vadic, in their clever way, uses the OTHER TWO wires of the modular plug for control purposes when using an external voice data switch -- you short them to trigger originate mode in the modem. However, as far as telco is concerned those other two leads are REALLY for: 1) the "sleeve" portion of the telco circuit (or, actually, a separate lead that isolates the ringer from tip and ring) or... 2) the A and A1 leads in a telephone system (used to control the lights and hold features via the KTU linecards). I have seem numerous locations where (for historical reasons) one of those two leads in the telco modular connector are actually connected back to either tip or ring, or even connected as a pseudo-sleeve for special ringing combinations. This may all sound confusing, but what it amounts to is that if the modular plug has ANYTHING connected to other than tip and ring internally, all sorts of havoc (and ground loop buzzing is classic) will ensue. The cure? You can either pull the leads in the modular plug (if you think you know what you are doing) or isolate them inside the Vadic. In fact, I believe that some footnote or separate insert in the 3451 instructions mentions that the yellow and black leads must be isolated for proper use in some cases. This is the problem they are actually warning about. --Lauren-- P.S. The reason that the external voice/data switch helps is that it isolates the yellow/black leads internally, thusly avoiding the whole problem. By the way, the Vadic auto-answer is due to the same problem -- the hookup is confusing the Vadic as to what is really going on. Frankly, I think Vadic made a big mistake putting non-standard signals on a modular connector. --LW-- ------------------------------ Date: 29 Nov 1981 04:10:57-PST From: CSVAX.william at Berkeley Subject: Overseas Modem Usage I have two problems related to overseas modem access that have never been completely answered to my satisfaction: 1) Full duplex 103a connections don't work over satellite curcuits. Is this just due to mux/demux switching because the carrier is always present or what? Is there an easy way to internationally call computers. How about Australia to US? 2) What does one have to do to secure enough bandwidth for a 9600baud connection via satellite ? Does telco handle this kind of thing or must you go to COMSAT from the start? Perhaps some of you can illuminate me on these. Bill Jolitz. ------------------------------ Date: 29 November 1981 14:41 est From: Frankston.SoftArts at MIT-Multics Subject: Re: Vadic Modems Reply-To: Frankston at MIT-Multics (Bob Frankston) To: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO>, jac at MIT-MC There are actually two generations of the VA3451. The previous note discussed the OLD one with two switches (FA and HS). The new one has a DA/VO (Data/Voice) switch which can be used as an alternative to the yellow/black. As far as I can tell it is compatable with the older ones, but normally one keeps yellow/black open and just uses the DA/VO to control the connection. This eliminates the need for an external switch (typically via a telephone exclusion key). ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 1-Dec-81 02:57:01-EST,6225;000000000000 Date: 1 Dec 1981 0257-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #68 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Tuesday, 1 Dec 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 68 Today's Topics: CBBS Listings Long Haul Satellite Circuits International Connections - 103A? 9600 Baud? Yello/Black - What Are They Used For? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 November 1981 22:06-EST From: James M. Turner <JMTURN at MIT-AI> There is now a fairly complete listing of all the CBBS and other such numbers, stolen from a pms in CA. It can be found under "chess;number 4" on mit-ai (quotes not included). this can be snarfed using ftp, and no password (i think). have fun, James Turner [I believe there is some place where the CBBS numbers live, on MC:CPM; if I recall correctly, anyone out there remember? -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 30 November 1981 0004-PST (Monday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: satellite circuits The problem with long-haul satellite circuits is that, like any other long-haul circuit, they WANT to operate in a half-duplex mode. Part of the reason for this sort of operation results from the need for echo-suppression on long circuits. Another factor is that most satellite circuits use TASI (Time Amplitude Speech Interpolation) to make optimum use of the available bandwidth -- this means that everytime you stop talking, your circuit "slot" is taken away from you and used by someone else. When you start talking again, you get a new slot. The TASI and echo suppression circuits can generally be forced into a true full-duplex mode by the appropriate tone signal. In the U.S., this signal is in the basic range of 2025-2225Hz -- the standard 103 answer carrier frequency. Once this tone has been presented for a couple of seconds, ANY continuous energy in the main part of the voice band will keep the suppressors off and ensure a full-duplex connection. The problem with overseas circuits is that outside of the U.S., different standards ensue. Most of the rest of the world uses the CCITT standards, which do NOT correspond with U.S. frequencies. For example, the echo suppressor disable tone for Europe (I think) is something like a one second 2100 Hz tone burst. There are other incompatibilities as well that relate both to the data transmission standards AND the controlling of the circuits in the various national telephone networks. The usual way to get around these problems when they pop up is to use an existing all-digital network (e.g. TELENET) for international communications. --- It IS possible to buy goodies like 9600 baud direct data lines to Europe. Various common carriers who are associated with CCITT, COMSAT, etc. will provide such services -- providing you got lots of bucks. I believe that TELENET is big on this sort of thing... I know of one company in Northern California that has either a 4800 or 9600 baud line via Telenet to Italy. Note that it can take a LONG time to get such a circuit installed. In the case of the company just mentioned, the longest delay was in getting the LOCAL circuit from TELENET to the subscriber -- private lines are getting almost impossible to obtain in many areas, particularly California, due to high demand and poor plant planning by Telco. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 30 November 1981 08:33-EST From: "Marvin A. Sirbu, Jr." <SIRBU at MIT-MC> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #67 All satellite circuits overseas have to be acquired through either AT&T or one of the International Record Carriers (RCA Globecom, ITT, Western Union International (a Xerox subsidiary and no relation to domestic WU) or TRT communications). Comsat is a "carrier's carrier" and does not lease circuits to individuals. Conditioned voice grade circuits capable of carrying 9600 baud traffic are available from all the above sources, subject to restrictions by the PTT at the other end (i.e. they charge you a different rate for a voice circuit if you tell them you plan to send data over it-- and legally you must tell them.) As for why you can't use a Bell 103 over a satellite circuit, there should be no problem except perhaps that the circuit is lossy enough that you can't maintain carrier (especially with an accoustic coupler). Marvin Sirbu ------------------------------ Date: 30 Nov 1981 0833-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: International 103A connections Are you sure that the other modem is actually a 103? In Europe, V.21 modems are the usual case. These modems have a different set of frequencies to be more compatible with the European phone network. The standard only guarantees that they will work at up to 200 bps, but users regularly run them at 300 bps. I've used 103s over satellite links. We used to have a satellite link to one of our West Coast PBXs. As a hack, I would occasion- ally dial out to that PBX and BACK. Long delay from when I typed the character till it appeared on the screen. US Low-Speed Async Frequency assignments: Originate Modem Answer Modem Xmitter, Center 1170 Hz Receiver, Center Freq 1170 Hz Space = 1070, Mark = 1270 Receiver, Center 2125 Hz Xmitter, Center 2125 Hz Space = 2025, Mark = 2225 CCITT Low-Speed Async Frequency assignments: Originate Modem Answer Modem Xmitter, Center 1080 Hz Receiver, Center Freq 1080 Hz Space = 1180, Mark = 980 Receiver, Center 1750 Hz Xmitter, Center 1750 Hz Space = 1850, Mark = 1650 (From "Technical Aspects of Data Communication" by John E. McNamara) ------------------------------ Date: 30 November 1981 22:44 est From: Frankston.SoftArts at MIT-Multics Subject: Yellow/black Reply-To: Frankston at MIT-Multics (Bob Frankston) To: lauren at UCLA-Security The yellow/black leads are also used for power on things like the lights on a Trimline(tm) phone. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 1-Dec-81 21:11:09-EST,3137;000000000000 Date: 1 Dec 1981 2111-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #69 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Wednesday, 2 Dec 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 69 Today's Topics: Satellite Circuits - COMSAT CBBS Numbers International Modem Tones ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 Dec 1981 0828-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Satellite circuits Many companies have their own satellite circuits (i.e. not through TELENET) leased from AT&T (who subleases directly to COMSAT in the case of voice or via an international record carrier in the case of data). A voice circuit to the U.K. from the U.S. currently costs about $10,700 per month. This is split equally between AT&T and British Telecom. Each of them then pays COMSAT $1200. Thus AT&T gets $4150 per month for providing a circuit from your location to the earth station, BT gets $4150 for providing a circuit from the UK earth station to the UK location, and COMSAT gets $2400 per month for providing a circuit from earth station to earth station. This is part of the reason that AT&T is currently earning a 200% return on investment from international service. Although the FCC successfully ordered a 35% reduction in the price of inter- national MTS (telephone calls), the FCC has a more difficult time getting AT&T to reduce its prices for leased circuits due to the "international agreement" status of the split between telephone administrations. Leased circuits need to cost the same regardless of which side fo the border the order came from. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Dec 1981 0630-PST From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) Subject: CBBS numbers The files at MIT-MC of the CBBS numbers are in the CPM directory, as JSOL said. They are: CPM;BBSNOS BYAREA (Arranged in area code sequence -- the most useful) CPM;BBSNOS BYNAME (Arranged alphabetically by title) These can be FTP'd without any password, and are updated fairly frequently. The "DIR" listing through FTP shows a last update date of 11/23/81. Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: 1 December 1981 16:06-EST From: CUTTER@AI Subject: CBBS no's and International modem tones Yes, there is a listing of other CBBS' on AI -- they are in the files "AI:CPM;BBSNOS BYUM" and "AI:CPM;BBSNOS BYAREA". These can, as JMTURN said, be snarfed without a password from AI (Ah, such wonderful file security!). Talking about modems, there are two numbers on there that are BBS's in ENGLAND (HULL and LONDON, I think), and I tried them. They are normal, 300 baud, run-of-the-mill modem tones, not any strange ones, as the current discussion on this topic says. In addition, there was no echo, the tone was fine, and the rates were low. [PHONEWISE] [I don't think the current discussion leads us to believe that all overseas modems are non-Bell-103 -JSOL] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 4-Dec-81 03:14:55-EST,9281;000000000000 Date: 4 Dec 1981 0314-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #70 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Friday, 4 Dec 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 70 Today's Topics: Do It Yourself Maintainence How To Tell Where Your WATS Call Is Coming From Computer Bulletin Board Systems Touch Tone Data Entry Novation CAT II Modem "Newsline" Phone Numbers Query Area Code 818 Announced Yellow And Black Wires - What Are They Used For? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 Dec 1981 20:24:56-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Subject: do-it-yourself maintenance One of the advantages of the modular jack system is that customers can bring in their own phones if they need repair. My brother says he's heard ads (in N.Y.C.) that say if you don't have a modular phone, you should just cut the wires and bring in what you've got. But what happens then? Has anyone else heard these ads? [I'll bet they tell you that in order to have the phone reconnected, you have to pay the service charge to modularize your house -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 1 Dec 1981 20:47:31-PST From: ihnss!karn at Berkeley Subject: WATS areas Given an interstate inward WATS number (800-xxx-xxxx, where the third 'x' is not a 2), is there a way I can determine its geographic location? I'm curious to know if there is a numbering plan for WATS "exchange codes". Phil [Yes - call (800) xxx - 005y (y = any integer) -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 1 Dec 1981 22:17:38 EST (Tuesday) From: Edward D. Hunter <edh at BBN-RSM> Subject: CBBS Cc: edh at BBN-RSM All right, I give up. What does CBBS stand for? I must have been asleep when it was first mentioned. -edh [Computer Bulletin Board System, what else? -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 19-NOV-1981 16:19 From: PHENIX::MINOW Reply-to: "PHENIX::MINOW c/o" <Schreisheim.Mitton at DEC-Marlboro> Subj: Turning off Touch-Tone (TM) Recently I had a second line installed and removed Touch-Tone from my primary phone. At least in my case, it seems that the way the installer removed the service was by reversing the red and green wires (Tip and Ring). The transistorized keypad is sensitive to polarity, while the dial phone is not. I had used Touch-Tone a few years ago to contact a computer system (now dismantled) which had voice response and a Touch-Tone to Ascii decoder (Bell 407 modem + Votrax ML1 + software originally done by Lauren Weinstein). The Bell 407 had a few interesting features: the sequence "*#*" hung up the phone, for example (this feature could not be disabled). On the other hand, there was no way for the host computer to detect whether the phone was hung up, nor could it force the 407 to drop a connection (i.e., dropping DTR didn't hang up the 407) In order to force hangup, it was necessary to hard reset the 407, by pulling the wall plug. One other feature of this lash-up was that, if the conversation went on for a long enough time, my home phone's keypad would stop working -- I think the battery was reversed, but never checked. Hmm, I was paying for touch-tone service, and the 407 is tarriffed as a data entry device -- can they "turn off" my keypad in the middle of a conversation? Regards. ------------------------------ Date: 2 December 1981 18:19 est From: Frankston.SoftArts at MIT-Multics Subject: Novation Apple Cat II Reply-To: Frankston at MIT-Multics (Bob Frankston) I just got the "Advanced Programming Information" manual (800155). It appears to be quite flexible. One interesting feature with respect to the current modem discussion is that it has flexible control over the modem frequencies including 103A (2025/2225 1070,1270), CCITT (1850/1650 1180/980), "deaf" (1800/1400), 202 (2100/1300 450/390), 202 SOft/600 Bd CCITT (900/1700). ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 1981 2215-PST From: Richard Furuta <FURUTA at WASHINGTON> Subject: Request for Information (Phone Numbers) cc: furuta at WASHINGTON I'd like to obtain a list of the numbers for telephone news lines in various cities (those numbers, usually managed by the public relations department, which play a recorded message giving corporate news and other tidbits). If anyone has such a list, I'd like to hear about it. Otherwise, if those of you who know of such would send them to me, I'll collect them and send the set to the list at some future point. Rick ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 1981 2249-PST From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: Area code 818 -- Announced The 213 area code in the Los Angeles area has been filling up at an alarming rate for some time now. Pacific Telephone has finally made official the plans to split the area into two sections: 213, south of the Santa Monica mountains, and the new area, 818, in the San Fernando Valley, Pasadena, etc., north of that boarder. According to Pacific Telephone, the change is not scheduled to go into effect until sometime in 1984, but is being announced now to allow time for businesses to reprint stationary and handle related preparations. Pacific Telephone also indicated that with the currently projected growth, the 213 area code would reach saturation sometime in early 1986 if the change were not made. The 213 area is currently the only area in the Bell system network which has prefixes containing '0' and '1' as the second digit; a move which was implemented in 1978 as a temporary solution to the growth problem. "There are more telephone lines in this area code than in any other such area in the world, and it's growing fast." [212 (New York City) *J*U*S*T* started doing that - JSOL] Additionally, the San Diego area is scheduled to cut over to area code 619 in 1982. San Diego is currently part of area 714, the largest area in California. California currently has 8 area codes, the most of any state. 619 will be the 9th, and 818 the 10th. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 1981 17:17:12-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Subject: black and yellow wire peril The yellow and black wires have multiple uses. As several folks have mentioned, they can indicate off-hook for key systems. But "RTC" phones have other possibilities; in particular, these have exclusion keys that can (among other things) disconnect the phone set itself from the line and signal the modem to operate in "originate" mode. RTC phones can have many options, and must be properly configured by the phone company. (Aside: does anyone have a list of what the different possibilities are, and how they're wired?) Vadic modems are intended to be used with such phones, and are supposed to be hooked up via a RJ41S or RJ45S jack, rather than the standard RJ11 "modular" jack. Other folks do things a little bit smarter; Datec modems, for example, can be ordered with different cables depending on the phone hookup intended. For example, the RJ11-type cable uses the black and yellow wires as A/AI -- i.e., an on-hook/off-hook signal. Their RJ45 cable uses them as MI/MIC -- the "mode indicator" lines. (This cable also has a pair of wires for a programming resistor to set the -12dB loss to the CO.) A word of warning: when two different phone lines are being installed, some telco personnel will use all 4 wires in one cable to carry the two signals. But if there's a jack for one line, and both lines are to be installed in a second room, they will use the first jack as a junction box to join the wires for the second line. If they hook these to the modular jack as well, any modem or phone that uses them as A/AI will short out the second line. The following note was included with the manual for a new Vadic 3451 modem we just got: IMPORTANT NOTICE ---------------- for Modems with Integral Voice/Data Switch In the event you connect your modem to the telephone line and the DSR light comes on immediately, it may indicate an improper connection in the telephone jack itself. To determine if this is the problem, disconnect the modem from the telephone line, unplug the power supply from the wall receptacle, remove the top cover from the modem box and remove the to PC board assembly from the bottom board. Locate the yellow and black leads (switch hook) coming in from the telephone wall jack. Remove these two leads and cover with electrical tape to prevent their coming in contact with any other items in the modem. Replace the top PC board onto the modem, replace the top cover, insert the cable into the telephone jack, and plug the power supply to the wall receptacle. The modem should now operate in a normal fashion. In the even this does not correct the problem, contact your regional diagnostics center for assistance. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 5-Dec-81 23:40:03-EST,5364;000000000000 Date: 5 Dec 1981 2340-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #71 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Sunday, 6 Dec 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 71 Today's Topics: News Service Numbers Area Code Address Space Filling Up New Rate structure from AT&T Interfaces To Phone Lines Tarrif Query British Modems ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 Dec 1981 0247-PST From: Lynn Gold <G.FIGMO at SU-SCORE> Subject: News service numbers To: Furuta at WASHINGTON Saying-of-the-day: Do it with class structures! I can't help much (I used to have access to a bunch of free news lines, but they're all back east...), but I would suggest going to your local bookstore and picking up a copy of an 800 exchange directory (many bookstores have them). In any case, I'd be MORE than interested to see what you can come up with, since I am just recently getting myself back into doing broadcast news out here (albeit for a college station...). --Lynn [Note: Ma Bell tends to think the "Newsline" numbers are for official use only. The numbers (like most Telephone co. internal numbers) do not signal the billing computers that they have answered, thus no billing takes place. These type of numbers stick out like sore thumbs on your billing record, and calling the numbers repeatedly could be considered Toll Fraud. TELECOM will NOT publish any of the numbers, and I ask that you do NOT send them to me to distribute as I will have to refuse them. -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 1981 0449-PST From: ROODE at SRI-KL (David Roode) Subject: shared numbers in 415 and 408 area codes Full page newspaper ads now announce that calls between area codes will start requiring the dialing of the area code in all cases effective Jan 14 1982. Everybody's address space is filling. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 1981 1416-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: New Rate structure from AT&T AT&T has filed some new rate plans at the FCC; they are not yet approved; here is the info: To take effect in March: WATS up about 4.1 percent Private Line up about 1.6 percent MTS up about 4 percent, with some changes: Now only 11 rate steps; the highest two are now for OVER 3000 miles (previously the highest one was less than 3000 miles); this allows the integration of Puerto Rico. Alaska and Hawaii are still not integrated, but will be in a couple more years. The evening discount increases to 40%. You no longer get the rate at time of call initiation for an entire call. (Currently you can call at 7:59 and talk all day at the night rate.) Operator charges are now surcharges on the initial one-minute rate, rather than a special three minute rate. Person-to-person $3.00, distance independent. Other operator assist: <10mi:0.60, <22:1.00, <55:1.40, >55:1.85 Customer dialed Calling card: 0.50 The customer dialed calling card service is a new service, previously discussed in this digest. It applies to all Calling-card calls, even overseas. Nothing is said about what happens in areas where the service is not available. (As you know, people in Bryant Pond or people calling Bryant Pond still get direct dial rates. This is also true of overseas calls from places which do not have IDDD, but for IDDD the tariff used to contain a list of each NNX which had IDDD, and you only got the low rate from those NNXs.) Other information filed talked about "plans for the future:" Initial period may be reduced to less than a minute, say 15 or 30 seconds. There would be a call setup charge plus a time charge. You may be charged some small amount for each non-completed person-to-person call or each non-accepted collect call. (How would the latter work from pay phones?) The late night period may be delayed until midnite with the discount increased to 80% (currently 60%). ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 1981 1734-PST From: Barry Megdal <BARRY at CIT-20> Subject: request for information I am interested in building some devices to interface to telephone lines. What is the legality of connecting a device in series with the incoming phone line, rather than at an individual phone (i.e., between the incoming line and the point at which the line is split to multiple phones). In general where does one go to find out the technical intricacies of what is allowed to be connected to the phone lines, and what the properties of such connected devices should be. Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: 5 December 1981 22:56-EST From: Peter J. Castagna <PC at MIT-MC> Subject: CBBS no's and International modem tones To: CUTTER at MIT-AI I seem to remember something about British modems needing a pilot tone at 1800 hz to prevent the line from hanging up; it seems that (from what I remember) some exchanges have energy detectors that look at midband , that often the two frequency bands (2400,1200) have almost no energy around midband, and that these energy detectors cause the line to hang up in unmodified Bell 212A modems. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 9-Dec-81 01:04:59-EST,5929;000000000000 Date: 9 Dec 1981 0104-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #72 To: Telecom: ; Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers TELECOM AM Digest Wednesday, 9 Dec 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 72 Today's Topics: Administrivia - Mistyped Information Switched Digital Capabilities Connection To Telephone Network - Rules & Regs. Do It Yourself Maintainence Modular Hardware - Manufacturers / Sources - Query Pocket Pagers - Deregulation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Dec 1981 0026-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> I previously announced that the way to find out what city or state an 800 number was located in was to dial the NPA WATS test number, which is of the form 800-xxx-00y0. I mistyped the number, and what you originally saw (800-xxx-005y) is incorrect. Sorry for the slip of the fingers. -JSol ------------------------------ Date: 6 December 1981 11:47-EST From: "Marvin A. Sirbu, Jr." <SIRBU at MIT-MC> Subject: Switched Digital Capability Does anyone know any more that what was in the Nov 16th Computerworld article previously reported concerning Bell's Switched Digital Capability. Specifically, I am interested in knowing more about likely costs, what cities/time schedule it will be offered in, and any more details about the technology. Marvin Sirbu ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 1981 07:02:29-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Subject: direct connection Cc: BARRY@CIT-20 To be directly connected to a phone line, a device must be registered with the FCC. The exact FCC rule section was mentioned here some time back; I'm currently in the process of getting price data for it. [Thanks also to Jeff <Krauss at MIT-MC> and Marvin <Sirbu at MIT-MC> for pointing out Title 47, Part 68 of the Code of Federal Regulations -JSOL] As for what the phone gear should look like, I recently received a copy of the AT&T Technical References Catalog (write to Publisher's Data Center, Inc. P.O. Box C738 Pratt Street Station Brooklyn, NY 11205 and ask for PUB40000 -- it's free. I learned of this from John McNamara's excellent book, "Technical Aspects of Data Communications", which I highly recommend to readers of this list). It listed something called PUB47000 -- Complete Set of Technical References for Direct Electrical Connection of Voiceband Terminal Equipment It's really 3 separate publications, describing regular phones, PBX and key phones, and the standard plugs and jacks. The whole thing costs $22; you can order it from the same address. (NY and CA residents include sales tax.) My copy hasn't arrived yet, so I can't say how readable it is.... ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 1981 1647-EST From: Gene Hastings <HASTINGS at CMU-20C> Subject: Re: Do it yourself maintainance In reply to Steve Bellovin's question in V1 #70 (4 Dec.): Bell's normal modular jack (around here anyway) is the ubiquitous (and obnoxious) 625 jack which is basically an adapter cover for a 42-type terminal block. If you don't have a residence that has modular jacks, what they give you is something similar, but with snap-on terminals that snap over the terminal screws instead of the spade leads that go under them. It comes in a little plastic bag, with fairly extensive instructions as to what old wires it's ok to cut off. The one I saw calls itself a WE 725C Modular Jack Converter. Gene ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 1981 1655-EST From: Gene Hastings <HASTINGS at CMU-20C> Subject: Sources for Modular hardware? Can anyone give me any pointers to STOCKING distrbutors of modular connectors and cordsets (general lines). I know that Amphenol, TRW, and Berg MAKE them, but delivery is usually painful. I am (suplementally ?)interested in sources of 6 conductor modular station cords, and 4- or 6-conductor station cords that are much shorter than the standard 7 feet (say, 1 and/or 3 feet). Gene ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 1981 0119-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: Interfacing to Phone Lines FCC Regulations part 68 specifies the rules for connecting devices to phone lines. You can get Part 68 from any government bookstore; it is also available in any good library. You may not connect anything whatsoever to a phone line except through one of the connectors specified in Part 68. Anything to be connected must be certified. Some of the connectors (RJ41 for example) provide a series connection. When a plug is inserted into the jack, the tip and ring are routed through the plug (and thus, if the device is so designed, through the device). The rules for obtaining certification are included in Part 68, including circuits for the test equipment you have to build to test your device. (Yes, you have to build a simulated phone line to test your device, since you can't connect it to the phone network until it's certified.) ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 1981 17:06:47-PST From: ihnss!ihps3!pcl at Berkeley Subject: Beepers and Deregulation The Chicago Tribune is running a five part series on the telecommunications industry. Part 2 (yesterday) was accompanied by a photo, the caption on which read: "Hand-sized 'beepers' carried by many executives are among the communications devices at stake in a Congressional rewriting of the 1934 Communications Act regulating the industry." There is no other discussion of this point in the text. How are beepers involved in deregulation? Paul Lustgarten Bell Labs - Indian Hill ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 13-Dec-81 19:13:36-EST,689;000000000000 Date: 13 Dec 1981 1913-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #73 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Monday, 14 Dec 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 73 Today's Topics: InWATS Test Lines (Very short digest) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 Dec 1981 0858-PST From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Subject: Re: InWATS test lines The original answer was correct (800-ppq-005y where q is not '2'). For simplification, however, I tell people to call 800-ppq-0050. <>IHM<> ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 17-Dec-81 23:26:15-EST,5020;000000000000 Date: 17 Dec 1981 2326-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #74 To: Telecom: ; TELECOM AM Digest Friday, 18 Dec 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 74 Today's Topics: What Is A 500S Phone? InWATS test lines Surcharges By Hotels/Motels Allowed By FCC AT&T's Digital Service/Interface Spec. Telephone Recommendations ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Dec 1981 02:54:01-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Subject: WE 500S phone What is a 500S phone? What, if any, are the differences between a 500S and an ordinary 500 phone? ------------------------------ Date: 14 Dec 1981 16:55:44-PST From: decvax!genradbolton!rob at Berkeley (Rob Wood) Subject: InWATS test lines I have tried all suggested from area code 617. In all cases the trial of 800-258-005y works, but 800-451-005y does not. Both are legal from this area. [They are not guaranteed to work. Most of the time they work only on interstate WATS lines, sometimes they aren't installed. -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Dec 81 17:49-EST From: krauss at DNGC Subject: telephone surcharges by the lodging industry The FCC released the following Public Notice on December 11: COMMENTS ON IMPOSITION OF SURCHARGES ON INTRASTATE TELEPHONE SERVICES BY THE LODGING INDUSTRY The Commission has received a petition for declaratory ruling from American Motor Inns and Universal Communications Systems seeking a determination that hotels, motels ot their agents, whether operating as a resale carrier within the meaning of Section 214 of the Communications Act or otherwise, may collect a surcharge from their patrons on intrastate long distance telephone services without violating any resale restriction or other similar prohibition in the current intrastate tariffs of the Bell System Operatin Companies. Petitioners assert that such a determination is necessary in light of (1) the change in Commission policies outlawing the traditional resale prohibitions appearing in AT&T's interstate tariffs; (2) a Commission Public Notice, dated June 26, 1981, which purports to characterize the lodging industry practice of collectimg a surcharge on each guest long distance telephone call, in order to offset losses in guest telephone operations, as a permissible activity which falls short of invoking this Commission's resale carrier rules; and (3) AT&T's recently announced intent to discontinue as of January 1, 1982, its longstanding practice of refunding to lodgingg establishments up to 15 percent of the charges collected for both intrastate and interstate long distance telephone calls placed by guests. The Commission wishes to solicit public comment on this matter before acting on the petiion. Accordingly, interested parties will have until January 11, 1982 to submit comments and until January 26, 1982 to reply. For further information, contact Randall S. Coleman, (202)632-6917. -------------------- [sorry about the typos. comments submitted in response to this notice should create a good record on the existing practices re: surcharges--JK] ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 1981 09:31:05-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin Subject: AT&T's digital service Copies of AT&T's new digital interface specification (Publication 61310) will be available on or about January 1 from Publishers Data Center, Inc. P.O. Box C738 Pratt St. Station Brooklyn, N.Y. 11205 for $21. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Dec 1981 11:22:11-EST From: dee at CCA-UNIX (Donald Eastlake) Subject: telco news numbers I don't see why it should be thought a problem to publicize telco phone numbers that get you telephone internal news recordings. The phone company pays for all "official" calls. You can call any telco business office in the country collect and they will accept the charges. When I have called funny testboard numbers and the like which don't bill, I have gotten called by the phone company billing departments and I just tell them what I was doing and that the calls should be free. They always go away and stop bothering me. [Anyone interested in the reply I sent to this message, regarding why I don't wish to publish the Newsline numbers should send mail to TELECOM-REQUEST@Rutgers -JSol] ------------------------------ Date: 17 Dec 1981 1457-EST From: S. W. Galley <SWG at MIT-XX> Subject: recommended telephones I am shopping for a reasonably-priced "desk" telephone to replace one that I am renting from Ma Bell. Are there any brands or models that I should particularly seek out or avoid? Any comments on the Radio Shack one-piece push-button phone that is now on sale for about $40? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 20-Dec-81 17:56:46-EST,6075;000000000000 Date: 20 Dec 1981 1756-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #75 To: Telecom: ; Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers TELECOM AM Digest Monday, 21 Dec 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 75 Today's Topics: Self Service Credit Card Calling - On The Way! Underlying Packet Switched Network for ACS 800 Numbers And Where They Terminate Recommended Telephones And Different Kinds RS232 Specifications Availability Query WATS Routing - When Are Numbers Converted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1981 0052-EST From: adp at NRL-CSD "NEW" Service offered by telco (C&P of MD) for credit card users. C&P of Maryland has announced the availability of a new service to speed credit card calls for touch tone user in "early" 1982. The instructions are as follows: Station-to-station..Dial "0" + Area Code (as required) + phone number. Wait for "NEW" tone. Dial Calling Card (new name for credit card) number. To make more than one of these calls, don't hang up after the first one. Press the "#" button and dial the next number. All calls will be charged to your Calling Card number automatically. Person-to-person....Dial "0" + Area Code (as required) + phone number. Wait for "NEW" tone. Operator will come immediately on the line. Collect.............same as above. Billed to third #...same as above. To call the number to which your Calling Card is issued... Dial "0" + first 10 digits of Calling Card number. Wait for "NEW" tone. Dial last four digits of the Calling Card number. This is the first area code wide (at least ac 301) of the # button or automated billing services. It is unkown at this time if they have made provisions for ANI on all exchanges so that all calls can be made without operator assistance. It is unclear from the flyer announcing the service if the call will be at operator assisted rates or not. I find it hard to beleive that they could get the public to accept punching all those extra buttons without a rate break, but until I can check with the business office I'll assume the worst. -30- Allan (adp at NRL-CSS) ------------------------------ Date: 12/18/81 08:38:37 From: KRAUSS@MIT-MC Subject: Underlying Packet Switched Network for ACS As you may have read, AT&T on November 30 filed plans with the FCC to create a separate corporate subsidiary in order to offer Advanced Communications Service. Since ACS is an "enhanced" service within the Computer II dfinition, a separate subsidiary is required. Under Computer II, an AT&T separate sub that provides enhanced services may not own transmission facilities, but must acquire them under tariff from a regulated common carrier. The ACS Description that AT&T filed says: ...a change in overall system design philosophy was implemented to separate the enhanced service offering from the basic (packet switched) service to be obtained from common carriers. Packet switching service obtained under tariff will route traffic through the network. Now, AT&T does not offer a basic, tariffed packet switched service at this time. So, the obvious question is whether AT&T plans to create a basic packet switched service and offer it under tariff, or not. If not, does that mean that ACS will be carried on Telenet, Tymnet or Graphnet packet networks? Any information???? Jeff Krauss ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 18 December 1981 08:43-PST From: Ian H. Merritt <MERRITT at USC-ISIB> Calls from the 213 area to 800-451 are stopped by a local tandem. Are you sure it exists? ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 18 Dec 1981 22:04-PST From: lacasse at RAND-UNIX To: SWG at MIT-XX Re: recommended telephones I recommend avoiding the $40 phone you mention, and all Radio Shack phone equipment, because they do not use tones. All of the phone equipment I have looked at by Tandy put out pulses only. This is in the name of universal U.S. compatibility. This is 1) very slow, 2) dated, and 3) will not work with MCI, SPRINT, etc. Also, phones with no visible microphone (like condenser mike "flip-phones") tend to make the speaker sound distant, or as if in a cave. I recommend a real touch-tone phone, as made by ITT, etc. Related: I bought an auto-dialer from Dictograph of Canada for under $100 a while back. It puts out either tones, 10 pulses/sec or 20 pulses/sec, but it has a few "software bugs". Does anyone know of better, with tones and pulses within the same number, and a normal layout DTMF keypad? What's the state of the art in computer (RS232) dialers? Who makes the cheapest FCC approved DAA? Are you also hearing rumors of a Vadic modem at 2400 baud full duplex at a reasonable price soon? (If not, you heard one now.) Anyone have a VA3405 card cage to sell me? Mark LaCasse, Rand Corporation, 1700 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90406 213/393-0411 ------------------------------ Date: 19 December 1981 14:12-EST From: Peter J. Castagna <PC at MIT-MC> Subject: RS232 Where can I get the RS232C specifications, and where can I get the CCITT V. etc specifications for their digital interfaces? ------------------------------ From: sdcsvax!bob at NPRDC Subject: WATS routing Cc: sdcsvax!bob@berkeley Where in TPC are 800 numbers converted into "real" area codes? How do they restrict access to various numbers from different areas (it seems to be on a decade-by-decade basis, in some cases). Is there any simple way to tell by looking at the numbers? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 23-Dec-81 03:56:21-EST,3971;000000000001 Date: 23 Dec 1981 0356-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #76 To: Telecom: ; Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers TELECOM AM Digest Wednesday, 23 Dec 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 76 Today's Topics: AT&T To Offer Packet Switched Service 2400 And 4800 Baud Modems RS Phones - ToneFone Vs. Universal Push Button 800 WATS Test Numbers Explained RS232 Information - Query Answer - RFI ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 December 1981 19:31-EST From: "Marvin A. Sirbu, Jr." <SIRBU at MIT-MC> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #75 cc: KRAUSS at MIT-MC AT&T has already announced its plans to offer a packet switched service as a basic service offering. I believe the announcement said the service would provide an X.25 interface and accomodate 9600 baud and 56 kbps only. I believe it may have filed a 214 notice with the FCC when it made its announcement. ------------------------------ Date: 20 December 1981 2002-PST (Sunday) From: lauren at UCLA-Security (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: high-speed modems There is definitely work going on at Vadic for 2400-4800 baud full-duplex modems. However, current indications are that they will be marketed in the $3000-$4000 price range. I would hardly call this a "reasonably" priced modem for most typical dialup applications. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 21 Dec 1981 04:12:54-PST From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley In-real-life: Steven M. Bellovin To: SWG@XX Subject: phones The major thing to watch for is whether you're getting a *real* TouchTone (TM) phone. Most of the Radio Shack models (except those labelled "ToneFone") are really pulse dialers; they contain an on-board chip that converts the keypad buttons to the appropriate number of pulses. On the other hand, these phones generally have a "redial" button -- either * or # is used to redial the same number you last dialed. (P.S. I've been told that Stromberg-Carlson makes the Radio Shack phones.) [Thanks also to Per-Kristian Halvorsen <LFG.KRIS at MIT-SPEECH>, for furnishing similar information about Radio Shack phones -JSOL] ------------------------------ Date: 22 Dec 1981 0809-EST From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO> Subject: 800 Service 800-451 is located in Vermont. (3453 is a valid number for "Vermont Church Supply" or something like that.) There was a message which said "Calls are being stopped by a local tandem." This is a result of Common Channel Interoffice Signalling (CCIS) sending a Vacan-National-Number (VNN) Signal back to the local switching machine. One of the features of CCIS is that it makes the network harder to diagnose by ear. The 800-NXX-005y test number (which is usually active, but obviously not always (451)) is used to be sure that the correct band number is being sent. The "5" can be replaced with successively SMALLER numbers until it fails. The lowest one which works is the band which access lines located in the DISTANT state must have to be called from the originating state. How 800 calls are processed is described in great detail in Notes on Distance dialing (1975) and I would expect in Notes on the Network (the new edition, I don't have it yet). ------------------------------ Date: 22 December 1981 19:52-EST From: Joseph D. Turner <CUTTER at MIT-AI> Hello all. On the RS232 interface: First off, RS232c, or RS232b [I think] ? I know you can get the *plans* to an RS232C board from the TRS-80 spec sheet that comes with the board they sell you, and I also believe they give some other neat info there. It maybe what you want, but you were sort of vague in your request. Shade and Sweet Water, ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** ------- 24-Dec-81 03:03:31-EST,3113;000000000001 Date: 24 Dec 1981 0303-EST From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at RUTGERS> Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #77 To: Telecom: ; Reply-to: TELECOM at Rutgers TELECOM AM Digest Thursday, 24 Dec 1981 Volume 1 : Issue 77 Today's Topics: Administrivia RS232-C Interface Specification ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Dec 1981 03:02:22-EST From: The Moderator <JSol at Rutgers> Subject: Administrivia - Merry Christmas - Happy New Year This is the final digest of the year. I will be going on vacation for the Christmas Holiday at my parent's house and will not have a terminal available. The next digest is scheduled for the 4th of January, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. -JSol ------------------------------ Date: 23 Dec 1981 16:30:43-PST From: M. J. Urban <urban at ihps3, BTL> Sender: ihnss!ihps3!urban at Berkeley Subject: RS232 Interface specs The original source for the RS-232-C (and other) interface protocols is: Electronic Industries Association Engineering Department 2001 Eye Street, N. W. Washington, D. C. 20006 This address was valid as of 1978. Price is on the order of $10. Also of intrest: The EIA has published a new interface spec, RS-422, which is intended to eventually replace RS-232-C. It takes advantage of advances in technology since 1969, when RS-232-C came out. For instance, RS-422 allows transmission at 100 kb/s over 4000 ft., or up to 10 Mb/s for cables as short as 40 ft. It uses a 37 pin connector so nobody tries to missconnect the two protocols. To aid in an orderly transition there is a kludge spec, RS-423, which is capable of talking to either RS-422 or RS-232-C. Actually, RS-423 is an unbalnaced version of RS-422, and is not intended as a kludge. The kludge spec is really RS-449, also called RS-XYZ. Anyway, the point is that equipment can be manufactured to be compatible with both the old and the new, so all you have to do is obtain a cable with the proper connectors. The corresponding international specs are CCITT X.26 and X.27. All of this is explained in a more lucid fashion in an article in the June, 1977, issue of "Data Communications", titled "Interfaces: New Standards catch up with Technology", by H. C. Folts and I. W. Cotton. The RS-422, -423, and -449 specs are all available from the EIA at the above address, as is: Industrial Electronics Bulletin No. 12 Application Notes on Interconnection Between Interface Circuits Using RS-449 and RS-232-C These new specs have not seen to much action in the industry, which is unfortunate. The big advantage, of course, is increased transmission distances. For example, it is now possible to hook up a bunch of terminals to an in-house network without using modems at all, provided cable runs are less than 4000 ft. Also, the RS-422 protocol is a 5 volt only design. Mike Urban ihps3!urban, BTL ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest ********************** -------