Telecom/1996-04-telecom-walnutcreek.iso/back.issues/1989.volume.9/vol9.iss201-250

Text File | 1990-01-14 | 745KB | 17,007 lines

Date:     Sat, 17 Jun 89 0:01:34 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #201
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sat, 17 Jun 89 00:00:39 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 201

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    The History Behind NXX, N1X and N0X (Vernon C. Hoxie)
    What *is* "least cost" (Rich Zellich)
    132 Column Terminal Emulation for PC (Steven DeLaney)
    1+302 on calls from Pa. to Del. (Carl Moore)
    Re: Long Distance Connection Quality (Chip Rosenthal)
    Re: Canada - U.S. communications (Dave Levenson)
    Re: Canada - U.S. communications (Tom Hofmann)
    Re: Number of devices on 1 line? (Paul Breslin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 16 Jun 89 00:21:58 CDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: The History Behind NXX, N1X and N0X

In article <[e-mail]>, nvuxr!deej@bellcore.
bellcore.com (David Lewis) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]>, ficc![e-mail]
> writes:
> > I'm curious about this terminology. Why two symbols for unspecified
> > digits, here? Why N1X rather than N1N or X1X? And why NXX rather than
> > any other combination on Ns and Xes? Does this mean anything, or is it
> > just traditional?

> I don't know why 0/1 were chosen as the special numbers; it may have
> been tradition or it may have been some operations research whiz at Bell
> Labs doing some T&M studies...

When mechanical switching was introduced to replace operators, the
equipment was sensitive to contact bounce when phone sets went off hook.
This caused the step by step switches to advance one notch.  To
accommodate the contact bounce, the first '1' received was discarded.
This eliminated the use of the '1' in an exchange name.  The alpha
characters were then assigned to the numerals '2' through '9' and yes, the
early dials had a 'Z' on '0'.

Since this mechanical equipment was a replacement for the more
personable operator systems, many subscribers resented dealing with a
machine just as many today resent dealing with answering machines.  The
need for a quick access to a living person was recognized and so a
special code was given to 'Operator".

Even though '1' could not be used as an exchange mnuemonic, it was used
for special telephone company services such as information and repair
service.  ( At this time in history, the motto of Ma Bell was "Service
is our only product.", since then the MBA's and LLD's have replaced that
concept with "How can we get maximum profits." ).  This was accomplished
by doubling the '1' into '113' and '114'.  Other '11N' codes were used
for test purposes such as 'ring back', 'dial speed' and 'line quality'.

For some reason, these codes were reversed into the '611' etc. that are
used as a standard today.  I think that these were a feature of the
infamous 'frame' switch.  Since many of these switches were installed in
populace areas, the step by step's had to be modified when a national
standard became desirable.

When Direct Distance Dialing was conceived, this lack of the '1' and '0'
in local exchanges was noted.  Since they still had local importance as
first digits, they were placed in the second position.  This was used to
'flag' the equipment that the number being dialed was an area code and
that the call should be connected to the long lines equipment.

As a side note, the area codes easiest to dial on a rotary dial were
assigned according to the amount of incoming traffic at the time.
Thus '212' was given to New York City and '213' to Los Angeles etc.  It
was also at this same time that Ma Bell went from the named exchanges to
full numeric in order to use some combinations which were impossible
with mnuemonics.

I hope that this piece of historical trivia will enlighten some readers.

Vernon C. Hoxie               {ncar,nbires,boulder,isis}!scicom!zebra!vern
3975 W. 29th Ave.                    voice: 303-477-1780
Denver, Colo., 80212                ( TB+ )  uucp: 303-455-2670


[Moderator's Note: Thank you for an *excellent* presentation!   PT]

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 16 Jun 89 9:17:11 CDT
From:     Rich Zellich <[e-mail]>
Subject:  What *is* "least cost"

In the TELECOM Digest, Volume 9, Issue 200:

> (4) Least call call routing. If you do not specifically request a
>     specific long distance carrier, the local operating company should
>     route the call on the carrier with the lowest list price for the
>     given origin and destination. With stored program control exchanges,
>     this would be fairly simple to implement, and would spawn a new
>     level of competition between the long distance companies.

Simple?  Just what is the "lowest list price"?  Rates from different service
providers differ not only on first-minute or first-3-minute charges, but also
on subsequent-minute charges.  Which is cheaper often depends on how long you
talk...how is the computer supposed to know if you're making a 1- or 3-minute
call, or a 5-10 minute call?  Does the system have to keep a customer-history
log on you and use AI techniques to figure out how long you're *probably* going
to talk?  And how will it account for multiple subscribers using the same line?
Not to mention knowing if you prefer a certain provider for calls to particular
locations, due to line quality considerations...

All in all, I think we'll be using 10288, et al, manually-entered access codes
for a long time (those of us who aren't too lazy to not always use the
"default" LD carrier.

------------------------------

From: Steven DeLaney <[e-mail]>
Subject: 132 Column Terminal Emulation for PC
Date: 15 Jun 89 17:58:38 GMT
Reply-To: Steven DeLaney <[e-mail]>
Organization: Grass Valley Group, Grass Valley, CA

I've got an AT Clone with EGA, and a 1200/2400 baud Hayes compatible modem.
I'm running PROCOMM (Shareware) communications package.  This is a pretty
good package, but it can't do 132 column terminal emulation.  So, I'm
looking for a comm application that does your basic terminal emulation
(VT100, VT220), and supports 132 column mode.  Your comments on this would
be appreciated.

     Contact:  [e-mail]

               or if you prefer,

               Steve DeLaney
           Grass Valley Group
           P.O. Box 1114, MS N3-2D
           Grass Valley, CA  95945
           [phone]


------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 15 Jun 89 12:28:15 EDT
From:     Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject:  1+302 on calls from Pa. to Del.

I talked to my local business office today and hear that 1+302
is now required on local calls from Pennsylvania to Delaware
(apparently not the other way around, because my own local service
includes 2 Pa. prefixes and I have received no instruction changes).
What prompted this was my recent notice of prefixes 427 and 886
(both Wilmington, as I hear from business office) in recent ads,
and my observation that they duplicate prefixes in metro Phila.
(Phila. and Jenkintown respectively).  Previously, such local calls
were 7 digits, and when you were in Chester Heights exchange (358
and 459 in area 215), you had 7 digit calling to Phila. & suburbs,
plus West Chester and Wilmington.

------------------------------

From: Chip Rosenthal <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Long Distance Connection Quality
Date: 15 Jun 89 11:25:14 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: Dallas Semiconductor


chipcom.chipcom.com![e-mail] writes:
>X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 197, message 2 of 10
>A recent (Byte?) magazine article rated long distance carriers for modem
>connections.  ATT won, but Sprint ran a close second, with Sprint being
>given the highest marks for loudness.

I don't know if Byte did one, but the April 25th |Data Communications|
definately did have such a comparison for V.32 modems.  Please see TELECOM
issue 172 for a summary of this article.  Even if Byte did one, I'm not
sure it would be worth anything.  I bet most Byte editors think BERT is
a snazzy new pop-up utility...
--
Chip Rosenthal / [e-mail] / Dallas Semiconductor / 214-450-5337
"I wish you'd put that starvation box down and go to bed" - Albert Collins' Mom

------------------------------

From: Dave Levenson <westmark![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Canada - U.S. communications
Date: 16 Jun 89 03:37:27 GMT
Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Wolf Paul) writes:
 ...
> (a) from certain nationalistic perspectives it rankles that Canada
>     is the only major country which does not have its own country code
 ...


No, Canada is not the only major country which does not have its own
country code!  The USA does not have its own country-code, either,
as it must share with Canada!

But Paul's other point is well taken.  If two country codes were
used for these two telephone-intensive countries, it would provide
some near-term relief from the rapidly-approaching exhaustion of
available area codes.

--
Dave Levenson                Voice: [phone]
Westmark, Inc.               Internet: [e-mail]
Warren, NJ, USA              UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave
[The Man in the Mooney]      AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave


------------------------------

From: Tom Hofmann <mcvax!cgch![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Canada - U.S. communications
Date: 16 Jun 89 07:24:30 GMT
Organization: WRZ, CIBA-GEIGY Ltd, Basel, Switzerland


 From article <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail].
tx.us (Wolf Paul):
> (a) from certain nationalistic perspectives it rankles that Canada
>     is the only major country which does not have its own country code

neither do the U.S.A. have one. That depends on the point of view.

Tom Hofmann          [e-mail]

------------------------------

From: Paul Breslin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Number of devices on 1 line?
Date: 15 Jun 89 13:44:14 GMT
Reply-To: Paul Breslin <[e-mail]>
Organization: Alias Research Inc., Toronto, Canada


If one has several old rotary dial phones and an old hand-me-down answering
machine (all of untraceable origin) and an old 1200 baud modem (usually left
powered off), how does one determine the REN number? Can I measure each
device with an ohm meter or something? (I suspect many people have similar
collections of junk plugged into their phone jacks.)


[Moderator's Note: Without going to the trouble of measuring each one, I
think you are safe in assuming one old phone equals one REN. Years ago we
were told by telco don't put more than four extension phones on the line.
The answering machine probably counts for a about half a REN. Three or
four phones, an answering machine and a modem should get along okay. At
home I have three extensions and a modem on one line; three extensions and
and answering machine on the other line.  PT]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #201
*****************************










Date:     Sun, 18 Jun 89 0:02:19 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #202
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sun, 18 Jun 89 00:00:47 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 202

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public (Marvin Sirbu)
    Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public (Richard Sargent)
    Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public ([e-mail])
    Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public (Dr. T. Andrews)
    More on call forwarding (Ed Kern)
    AT&T Spirit (Ole J. Jacobsen)
    Country Codes, was US vs. Canada (David Lesher)
    Re: Long Distance Carrier Sound Comparisons (Jim Gottlieb)
    sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom (TELECOM Moderator)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 16 Jun 89 16:54:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: Marvin Sirbu <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public

Lars Pulson writes:

> (2) Elimination of the "federally mandated LD access charges". Since
>     this charge goes straight to the local service provider as part of
>     the general revenue stream, there is no need to list it separately,
>     nor to mandate a particular amount. This is sheer obfuscation.

Don't expect this to change unless we rewrite the Constitution to
eliminate States.  As long as we have a Federal system, interstate rates
will be under Federal control, and local rates under State control.  The
subscriber line charge (SLC) is an element of interstate phone rates.

> (3) Equitable charges for all customers. Includes elimination of CENTREX
>     service. If your subscription includes 20 instruments, each with its
>     own wire pair into a switch at CO premises, this is really 20 lines.
>     The pricing of Centrex service to pretend that this is a virtual PBX
>     is sheer obfuscation.
Equity requires that 20 ordinary phone lines should not cost simply 20
times the cost of one phone line, since there are economies of scale.
After all, I could use a digital loop carrier to run 20 lines to one
location.  I also only have to send one bill.  These savings should
translate into lower rates for 20 lines to one location--Centrex--than
20 individual lines to different locations.

> (4) Least call call routing. If you do not specifically request a
>     specific long distance carrier, the local operating company should
>     route the call on the carrier with the lowest list price for the
>     given origin and destination. With stored program control exchanges,
>     this would be fairly simple to implement, and would spawn a new
>     level of competition between the long distance companies.

Centrex users can in fact buy such a service from the local telephone
company, but it is costly.  The reasons it costs so much is an element
of the divestiture which could be changed without changing the
Constitution.  Bascially, the MFJ forbids a BOC from having anything to
do with "selecting" which long distance company carries your traffic.
This strict language was put in in reaction to the pre-divestiture
behavior of the BOCs which favored AT&T.  The way Centrex customers get
around the rule is that the BOC establishes a capability for routing
calls, but the Centrex customer is responsible for downloading to the CO
the routing tables to be used  (i.e. which area-code/exchange numbers
should be routed via which carrier).  Thus, it is argued, it is the
customer, not the BOC who is "selecting" the carrier.  Unless you can
afford to update and manage these routing tables, you can't afford the
least cost routing service, and the BOCs are currently prohibited from
doing it for you.




Marvin Sirbu
Carnegie Mellon University
internet:  [e-mail]
bitnet:    ms6b+%andrew@CMCCVB

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 16 Jun 89 09:08:06 est
From: Richard Sargent <pantor![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public

Hello,

After the invitation to submit subjective comments, I have a few personal
opinions for you.

In many respects, deragulation, as practiced in the United States, is a little
like throwing out the baby with the bath water. What do I mean? Well, by way
of example, I went to SIGGraph last year in Atlanta. This little ET sure had
a difficult time calling home! When I tried to dial the call myself, I could
not get through (I can no longer remember the exact problem :-( ). So, naively
I tried to ask the operator to place the call, after explaining the problem.

Seemingly, every time I dialed 0 I got an operator from a different system.
Certainly, the responses weren't consistent with a single training program.
So, I had to field questions of "what LD service do you want to use?". Dammit,
I just want to call home! I eventually succeeded, but I vowed to fight any
similar efforts to deregulate Canada's telecommunications industry.

Digression: airline deregulation is similarly bad. The benefits are lost in
the enormously higher risks as airlines ignore safety (take Eastern Airlines,
for example, (please?)).

If Canada goes for deregulation, I hope we can achieve a balance between the
important factors of usability, convenience, and safety versus the other
benefits of deregulation (increased competition, purportedly bring costs
to the consumer down).

Well, enough said. I hope this fuels the fires, without starting any flame
wars.

Richard Sargent                   Internet: [e-mail]
Systems Analyst                   UUCP:     uunet!pantor!richard


------------------------------

Date: 16 Jun 89 14:49 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public

Some form of major change was inevitable.  I remember that at the time that
AT&T decided to go with the flow there was a serious question about how much
long distance ratres would rise and to what extent universal service would
continue to exist since the major customers of LS serve were bypassing at
an alarming rate.

Thus either we had to move towards the current situation or towards the
European model of strinctly forbidding any transmission of information
which bypasses the official carrier.  In the US this would probably have ended
up as a Data Tax on communications capacity.

I agree that the local companies should have been treated more firmly and
required to improve the system working towards the best available technology.
As it is now local service at best prices normal business service to cover
costs, residential at the highest price politically permitted and lifeline
"subsidized services" at the marginal cost.


------------------------------

Subject: Re: Divestiture, Business, and the General Public
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 89 10:24:07 EDT
From: "Dr. T. Andrews" <[e-mail]>

In an earlier article, [e-mail] writes...
) (1) More readable phone bills. All mandatory charges, taxes etc
) included in the basic monthly price of service, and all optional
) components identified on separate line items.

Sorry, I can't go along with this at all.  It's a sore point around
here, because there are indeed many county taxes added to the phone
bill.  Besides the 10% inequity tax, there is a charge of so much a
month for "911" service, which charge is particularly galling for
the modem lines; these modems can't usefully dial 911, but my
employer is paying every month for their privilege to do so!

By hiding the taxes, you make it easier for them to be raised without
comment from the public.  No, I say, a thousand times no!  If they're
going to tax me, I at least want it broken out honestly so that I
know who gets the hate mail.


------------------------------

Reply-To: [e-mail]
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 89 14:29:55 EST
From: "R.A. Anonymous, Jr." <[e-mail]>
Subject: More on call forwarding

I will be moving in October to a new development about four miles away from my
current home..  Is having my data line calls forwarded for a month realistic?
What would such a service cost me?  I will be moving from 215/678-5741 to
215/37? or 215/77?.. Any suggestions/info will be appriciated (e-mail info,
please)


Ed Kern
2014 Redwood Avenue
Wyomissing, PA 19610-1420

[e-mail]
       --or--
   User #1 @TPD GBBS
     215/678-5741
     2400-300 baud

------------------------------

Date: Fri 16 Jun 89 19:15:00-PDT
From: "Ole J. Jacobsen" <[e-mail]>
Subject: AT&T Spirit


As far as I have been able to gather (asked in the AT&T store), Spirit
uses proprietary telephones for all extensions and does not support
normal dumb telephones. If this isn't the case then my argument is
moot. I can deal with buying *one* wizard's console for programming
and such, but see no reason to get 16 of them for home.

Ole

------------------------------

From: David Lesher <[e-mail]>
Subject: Country Codes, was US vs Canada...
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 89 10:10:55 EDT
Reply-To: David Lesher <[e-mail]>
Organization: NRK Clinic for habitual NetNews abusers

If we are going to fret about numo-jingoism, look at area code 809. Not only
does it cover part of the US and many other countries, but those in it have
several different tongues.

      Read my Lisp! No Gnu Faxes!
  {gatech!} [e-mail] (305) 255-RTFM

------------------------------

From: Jim Gottlieb <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Long Distance Carrier Sound Comparisons
Date: 17 Jun 89 16:58:16 GMT
Reply-To: Jim Gottlieb <[e-mail]>
Organization: Info Connections, West Los Angeles


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Ole J. Jacobsen) writes:

>Which LD carrier is the best?  I have found that calling the East Coast
>from the West Coast almost universially gives you a clear digital circuit
>when the call is placed via SPRINT, and almost universally gives you a
>cruddy circuit when placed via AT&T.

I agree.  I get tired of hearing all the AT&T employees on here who buy
the company line about their LD being best.  I must say that AT&T's
digital connections are superb, even surpassing Sprint's, but they are
still all too rare.

Recently, when I mentioned to an AT&T rep that I used Sprint, his
(obviously canned) response was, "Oh, you like fiber optics?  Well,
AT&T _invented_ fiber optics."  I explained to him that I didn't care
who invented it; I just want a clear, loud connection when making
calls.

Let me say that I appreciate the level of service offered by AT&T, and
this is especially obvious after having to deal with Sprint.  We also
use nothing but AT&T computers here (even though AT&T doesn't make
them) because of the great service we get from them.

And I would be willing to pay a little more for that service.  But AT&T
LD is not a little more, and they are decidedly inflexible.  I always
give them a chance when we are re-evaluating LD service, but because
they won't let us combine all our locations for a quantity discount
(unless we pay a $2500 monthly fee), they are just way too expensive.

Not to mention those analog connections...
--
                              Jim Gottlieb
  E-Mail: <[e-mail]> or <[e-mail]> or <attmail!denwa!jimmy>
         V-Mail: [phone]  Fax: [phone]  The-Real-Me: 824-5454

------------------------------

Date:     Sat, 17 Jun 89 23:08:12 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom

Bruce Klopfenstein has written me once again, in response to the negative
messages in recent days regarding the establishment of sci.commtech as a
Usenet group.

He castigates Mr. Martin for his negative appraisal of the proposal, and
again asks that TELECOM Digest readers vote yes for the establishment of
this new group.


Very well. I originally posted a message on this subject because the proposed
establishment of sci.commtech has at least a peripheral connection to telecom
and as a courtesy to the person attempting to start the group. I recommended
a vote of yes (for establishment) because I didn't think it would drain away
messages from here. I thought the difference would be negligible at best.

Not every one of you agreed, and since my first obligation here is to
post the views of TELECOM Digest participants, I printed a couple of rebuttal
messages saying 'no' to sci.commtech.

A counter rebuttal arrived, and since there was a possibility that the first
message had been mis-understood, I posted the counter-rebuttal, hoping that
would be the end of it. Then came the counter-counter rebuttals, etc.

This discussion really belongs in news.groups, *not* comp.dcom.telecom!!!!!

I am now holding in the queue another reply (as mentioned above) from
the founder of sci.commtech.

If anyone has anything further to say for or against sci.commtech,
send me your messages. In a day or two, or three, after some have arrived,
I will post them in a special, **one time only, unnumbered edition**
of the Digest as a public service. This will then be sent as a special
mailing to the list. Being without a number, you can toss it in the
bit bucket if you like without screwing up the Digest numbering in
your personal archives, etc. Or you can keep it, and, as they say,
take it with you to the polls when you go to vote.

Then let that be the end of the discussion, at least here.

So -- come one, come all! Air your grievances about sci.commtech, or state
your desire to see it. Included will be the letter I got today, plus
whatever else you send on the subject....but be quick about it! No more
will appear in the Digest once the special goes out around Tuesday or
Wednesday next.

Patrick Townson


------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #202
*****************************










Date:     Mon, 19 Jun 89 0:27:16 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #203
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Mon, 19 Jun 89 00:09:40 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 203

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Bypassing an AOS (Douglas Scott Reuben)
    Another Phreak/Harassment Case History (Mike Morris)
    Cell Phone Question (Douglas Scott Reuben)
    Re: Strange Phone Problem (Donn P. Elggren)
    Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public (Lars J. Poulsen)

[Moderator's Note: Remember, messages regarding the pros and cons of a
new group (sci.commtech) are being accepted for a special issue of the
Digest to go out Tuesday or Wednesday. A few have arrived already. If
you have something you  want to add, send it now. Then, no more.  PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 18-JUN-1989 21:56:32.15
From: "DOUGLAS SCOTT REUBEN)" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Bypassing an AOS

Hello!

If anyone out there ever has had to use NTS (National Telephone Sys.,
I think) from a COCOT or hotel or for whatever reason and not been
able to get a hold of an AT&T operator, there is a trick you can
use, although it may not get you a human AT&T operator.

 From what I understand, all the LD services (AT&T, MCI, Sprint, etc.)
and the AOS firms (ITI, NTS, etc.) are charged for accessing the
national calling card database (or whatever the system is called)
for verifying a calling card. AT&T is supposedly charged $.07 per
call, while the AOS firms are charged something like $.40. This is
one of the reasons they cite when they defend their higher rates.

In any event, many AOS firms don't really check. ITI (International
Telecharge) just checks to make sure the card "looks" valid, ie,
a real area code, a real exchange in that area code, and a somewhat
valid looking calling card PIN number. During busy hours, they are
less careful, as I've entered "wrong" PINs and totally wrong numbers
at times and it went through fine. Late at night they check more
often, and frequently a false PIN that was accepted at 5PM won't
work at 11PM the same evening.

NTS, on the other hand, seems to be doing something that I, as an
AT&T customer, find *very* disturbing. When I use an NTS payphone,
I get the NTS "boing" tone to enter my calling card number. After
that, NTS says "please wait for card verification". I hear lots of
clicks, and after a minute or so, the call goes through, and you
hear "Thank you for using NTS". Sounds normal, right?

Fine, but enter an INVALID card number, and see what happens then.
You go through the normal routine, ie, tone, then a long period of
clicks, but rather than say "Invalid number" or whatever, you hear
the *AT&T* system come on and say "Please dial your card number again
now, the card number you have dialed in not valid". THEN, if you
enter a VALID AT&T/Bell card number, you hear "Thank you for using
AT&T"!!!

It seems what NTS is doing is using AT&T's calling card system to verify
calls for them, and then place the call over NTS after they use AT&T
to check! Here's what I think happens:

1. Caller calls NTS with a 0+ call.
2. NTS gets the card number info, and then dials (via AT&T)
   0+ac-dest number, waits for the AT&T tone, and then dials
   your card number. If the NTS system hears "Thank you for using
   AT&T" (or knows that a valid AT&T card gets a response faster
   than an invalid one), it hangs up, and places the call over NTS
   lines, so you don't get billed via AT&T.
3. If the call is invalid, it frequently leaves the line open
   so you can hear the invalid message from AT&T. You can THEN
   enter your real number, and get billed via AT&T (but the location
   may be different from where the payphone is physically located,
   as the NTS center is probably not near the payphone, and the call
   is sent out from the NTS center, not the payphone.)

I've tried this a few times, and it always happens this way. I've also
entered an invalid number, and then gotten the AT&T "please re-enter"
recording, dialed in my AT&T card, and was later billed by AT&T
with no mention of NTS. The call also came from Maryland, if I recall
correctly, although I was in Springfield, Mass, calling to Boston.

Has anyone had similar experiences with NTS? Is my supposition correct?
Is NTS using AT&T to verify card calls, thus saving at least $.40 per
call and running up AT&T's bill instead? Is this legal? Does AT&T know
about this?

Well, thought I'd pass the results of my experiences with NTS along
and see what anyone can come up with...

-Doug

[e-mail]
[e-mail]
(and just plain old "dreuben" to the few locals left...! :-) )
(about 5 now, right?)

------------------------------

From: Mike Morris <[e-mail]>
Subject: Another Phreak/Harassment Case History
Date: 18 Jun 89 07:25:30 GMT
Reply-To: Mike Morris <[e-mail]>


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(TELECOM Moderator) writes:

>X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 198, message 1 of 6

>Persons attempting to call the Probation Office in Delray Beach, FL on Monday
>were connected to a phone sex hotline operated by a woman named 'Tina'
>instead.

>Southern Bell Telephone Company officials have acknowledged that a
>hackerphreak invaded a central office over the weekend, using a computer and
>modem, and reprogrammed their computer in such a way that calls intended for
>the Probation Office were instead routed to a New York-based phone sex line.
>
 ...edited to reduce bandwidth...

>"People are calling the Department of Corrections and getting some kind
>of sex palace," said Thomas Slingluff, a spokesman for the Palm Beach County
>Probation Department.

>Southern Bell officials said it was the first time their switching equipment
>had been maliciously reprogrammed by an outside computer intruder. Southern

Several years ago our amateur radio repeater group had a occurance of a
similar nature.  The radio system covers a very wide area, and has a
microprocessor based control system.  The system also has a telephone
interconnect.  A unlicensed person acquired a amateur handheld and
proceeded to harass us.  It took several weeks to identify the person
and get the local FCC office interested in prosecuting him (the local
PD wasn't interested), and during that time he made our life miserable.
The person knew the local phone system _very_ well, and pulled such
nasties as: disconnect the line, busy out the line, disconnect it for
outgoing calls, disconnect it for incoming calls, call forward incoming calls
to the local "dial a KKK recording" (this changed to the NAACP,
dirty-joke-of-the-day, bedtime story, etc recordings almost daily),
and other dirty tricks.  But the crowning glory, and the one that
people still talk about, was when he converted our autopatch line
to a pay phone line!  (Ever try to drop two dimes into your Motorola
walkie-talkie?)

Needless to say the local telco security people were interested in the
situation once we got their attention.
(BTW the person is in jail, and will be for several years.  Among other
things he did was to disconnect the phone of the judge that had fined
him for speeding.  Not very bright.)
 .

US Snail:  Mike Morris                    UUCP: [e-mail]
           P.O. Box 1130                  Also: WA6ILQ
           Arcadia, Ca. 91006-1130
#Include disclaimer.standard     | The opinions above probably do not even

------------------------------

Date: 18-JUN-1989 23:53:18.87
From: "DOUGLAS SCOTT REUBEN)" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Cell Phone Question

Hello again,

A short question about Cellular Phones:

Let's say I have a 666 channel cell phone, and am in a system that
uses all 832 channels.

I start a call in Cell Site "A", on channel 555. I then drive to
site "B", and am switched to a new channel.

My question is: How does the new site, "B", know that I only have
                a 666 channel phone? Or does it know? Will it
                know not to connect me to channel 821, or will
                it try to connect me to 821, see that I don't
                responsd, and then try a lower, below-666 channel?

                Also, do cell systems leave space in the below-666
                range for phones that don't have 832 channel
                capabilities? IE, if a most of the below-666 channels
                are used, will it reserve some for callers that can't
                go above 666 so that if they come into the area they
                won't be cut off?

Well, thanks in advance for any info,

-Doug


[e-mail]
[e-mail]

------------------------------

From: "Donn P. Elggren" <caeco!olyis![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Strange Phone Problem
Date: 16 Jun 89 20:06:42 GMT
Reply-To: "Donn P. Elggren" <olyis![e-mail]>
Organization: Olympus Software, Inc.   Sandy, UT

-> BACKGROUND: a single line house, in Newton, MA (617-244-XXXX),
->         with 4 phones: 2 AT&T desk pushbuttons,
->         1 IT&T desk pushbutton, 1 Radio Shack cordless.

-> PROBLEM: the 2 AT&T phones suddenly and simulatenously lost their
->         ability to dial. They work fine for incoming calls,
->         get dial tone, etc. Both other phones (and a spare
->         IT&T from the car) worked fine the whole time.
->         When you pushed a button, the dial tone went away
->         while the button was down.

The problem is this:  There is not enough juice on your phone line to power
the AT&T phones.  I had this same problem.  Thinking it was a problem with
my new AT&T phone, I took it back to the AT&T store I purchased it from.
I told the woman that I had installed the phone, it worked for a few days,
then it wouldn't dial out, but I could receive calls.  She gave me the
above explanation along with a refund.

Donn Elggren

------------------------------

From: Lars J Poulsen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public
Date: 19 Jun 89 05:05:18 GMT
Organization: Advanced Computer Communications, Santa Barbara, California


In article <[e-mail]>
   [e-mail] (Marvin Sirbu) writes:
> The subscriber line charge (SLC) is an element of interstate phone rates.

I consider that to be a fiction. It is something that *I* pay to my
local telephone company, and which cannot be waived, even if I disable
all toll calls from the line. The local telco does not have to
substiantiate the expense that is alledgedly covered by this charge, and
it is not tied to the actual access provided.

I wrote:
>> (3) Equitable charges for all customers. Includes elimination of CENTREX
>>     service. If your subscription includes 20 instruments, each with its
>>     own wire pair into a switch at CO premises, this is really 20 lines.
>>     The pricing of Centrex service to pretend that this is a virtual PBX
>>     is sheer obfuscation.
Marvin said:
> Equity requires that 20 ordinary phone lines should not cost simply 20
> times the cost of one phone line, since there are economies of scale.
I do not object to volume discounts. But Centrex is NOT a volume
discount. Centrex is a tariff that allows a subscriber with 400
instruments to describe this as a virtual PBX with 12 outside lines. You
then pay only for 12 lines plus rental on the non-existent PBX. I
maintain that this is sheer obfuscation.

>> (4) Least call call routing.

>Centrex users can in fact buy such a service from the local telephone
>company, but it is costly.  The reasons it costs so much is an element
>of the divestiture which could be changed without changing the
>Constitution.  Bascially, the MFJ forbids a BOC from having anything to
>do with "selecting" which long distance company carries your traffic.

This makes some sense. I still think it would be a great convenience.
And while it was true at the time of divestiture that the BOCs were in
bed with ATT, this has changed. I think a regulated choice could work
today. Somebody else said that the different carriers have such different
tariff structures that it would depend on the call length which was
cheapest (and thus could not be determined at call setup time).
Since this is wish list time, I'd propose that regulators stipulate the
structure of the tariff: Call setup charge + per minute charge, and that
the slection be based on the cost of a 3-minute call. (If your calls are
of a different pattern, or if you can negotiate a better discount, you can
still select your own carrier). I maintain that this would spark an
intense competition between carriers.

 Lars Poulsen <[e-mail]>     [phone]  or [phone] ext 358
 ACC Customer Service                Affiliation stated for identification only
                 My employer probably would not agree if he knew what I said !!

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #203
*****************************










Date:     Tue, 20 Jun 89 0:23:43 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #204
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 20 Jun 89 00:00:15 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 204

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

     Description of the German Cellular System (John R. Covert)

[Moderator's Note: Today I am turning the Digest over to John Covert, who
has graciously prepared a special article on the cellular phone system in
West Germany.  Also, I regret to announce that due to a hardware failure
on Sunday at our Bitnet relay site, *no mail* is going out to Bitnet at
this time. We hope the problems will be solved soon. Missing issues will
be re-transmitted to Bitnet when possible. Finally, if you intend to
comment on the proposed sci.commtech news group, the special issue of the
Digest will be published Wednesday. Please mail your comments to me now
if you want them to be included.   PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "John R. Covert" <[e-mail]>
Date: 19 Jun 89 10:38
Subject: Description of the German cellular system

Prospectus of the Radio Telephone Service of the German Bundespost (C-Netz)

[Translated by John Covert]

1 General

The German Bundespost is introducing a new generation of Radio Telephone
Service -- the Radio Telephone Network C.

Anyone can subscribe to this service for the transmission of information
(voice, data, documents, etc.)

Radio Telephones are, in accordance with the instructions of the Telecommunica-
tions Regulations, subscriber instruments of the public telephone network.
No right exists for the authorization or taking possession of a Radio
Telephone.

1.1 Radio Telephone Connection

A Radio Telephone Connection consists of a privately owned Radio Telephone,
which, as a vehicular telephone or, in the future, also as a portable radio
telephone, is connected without wires to the public telecommunications network.
A radio telephone can make direct dialled connections to stations of the public
domestic and international telephone network -- including other radio
telephones -- and can also be reached from these stations.

A Radio Telephone may only be installed in Land or Water vehicles (motor
vehicles, rail vehicles, domestic ships).  Thus usage in aircraft is excluded.
The usage authorization is valid only in the service area of the German Bundes-
post.

Call Connections from and to Radio Telephones are established via Fixed Radio
Stations of the German Bundespost.  Each Fixed Radio Station serves a specific
area, the Radio Cell.

The range of a Fixed Radio Station depends on the local geographic conditions.
In order to be able to conduct calls, the Radio Telephone must be located in
the service area of a Fixed Radio Station.  In valleys, behind tall buildings,
in underpasses, etc., "Radio Shadows" can exist, which may occasionally cause
interruption of calls.  Gaps in service are unavoidable because of radio
transmission technical reasons.

The usage of a future portable radio telephone inside buildings will be more
or less impaired depending on construction methods and location; this applies
especially in basements and underground garages.

1.2 Authorization Card

Each subscriber to the Radio Telephone Service receives an Authorization Card
issued in his name and equipped with his telephone number.  This Authorization
Card, the size of a check-cashing card [same size as a credit card], enables
the operation of the Radio Telephone.

The Radio Telephone Number is not bound to the Radio Telephone, but to the
Authorization Card.  The resulting call charges are accumulated and billed
based on this telephone number.  Thus the Authorization Card is a credit card
and is to be carefully preserved from loss.

One can use one's own Authorization Card to make calls from someone else's
Radio Telephone, charged to one's own account, for example, from a taxi.
[In actual practice, taxis and rental car companies (at least AVIS) forbid
the use of your own card, in order to collect triple the normal rates for
usage.]

One can become a subscriber even without owning a Radio Telephone.  Such
customers also receive an Authorization Card and can use this card to use
other authorized and technically accepted Radio Telephones.  The call charges,
in this case, will be charged to the person possessing such a card.

Shared use or exclusive use by others is permitted.  This will be interesting
for example for car rental agencies who can offer cars with radio telephones.
In this case the car rental agency must also be a subscriber.

The German Bundespost also issues Authorization Cards for measurement purposes
to Radio Telephone Dealers, if these dealers are C-Netz subscribers.  No calls
can be made with Authorization Cards for measurement purposes.

The service order form for your radio telephone is to be kept near your OWN
telephone and must be presented in the case of any investigation.

Should you lose your Authorization Card, please, in your own interests, report
this immediately to the Telecommunications Office in Mannheim, telephone number
(06 21) 10 51 00, giving your name, your address, the Authorization Card number
and the Radio Telephone number.  The Telecommunications Office in Mannheim will
arrange to block your radio telephone connection as fast as possible, if you so
request.  There is a charge for this request.  Then, please confirm your tele-
phonic loss report in writing.  The Telecommunications Office in Mannheim will
then immediately send you a new Authorization card.  Your radio telephone
number will not be changed by this process.  With the new card you can use your
radio telephone without further ado.  The use of your old card remains blocked.
This procedure offers a great level of protection against unauthorized placing
of telephone calls at your cost.

1.3 Nationwide Reachability

Every operational powered-up radio telephone in the service area of the German
Bundespost can be automatically reached by dialling the nationally uniform
access code (01 61) [+49 161] and the succeeding individual seven digit radio
telephone number without regard to the current location.

You can observe the operational status of the radio telephone by the illumina-
tion of a green light.  The radio telephone should always be turned on, so that
your are always reachable.

1.4 Protection against interception of calls

The radio telephone system prevents the allocation of radio channels which are
already occupied by other calls.  Listening to calls with your own radio tele-
phone is therefore not possible.  These measures, however, offer no technical
protection against the illegal interception of radio telephone traffic with
special radio receivers, which is, in accordance with section 15 of the law
concerning communications devices (even in the case of carelessness) and
section 201 of the StGB, subject to legal penalties.  As an additional security
measure, your radio telephone disguises [does not encrypt] the radio
transmissions.  This offers protection against undesired interception of the
calls.

1.5 Cell switching

In the C-Netz, telephone calls are automatically transferred to the next fixed
radio station when you leave the service area of the current fixed radio
station as long as this is permitted by radio coverage.  In general, a call can
be conducted over a long distance without interruption.

1.6 Conference calls

If the radio telephone is going to be used for a conference call, it is recom-
mended to stop driving and to make the call from the stationary vehicle in
order to avoid "Radio Shadows".  Conference calls are to be booked through the
telephone office, telephone number 010.

1.7 Flexible call length

In the case of a heavy increase of traffic in a radio cell, the traffic
capacity of the radio channels must be managed through a waiting queue
technology in order to allow as many subscribers as possible the opportunity to
at least make a short call.

The otherwise unlimited call length becomes flexible, i.e. limited dependent on
traffic conditions.  The speaking subscriber receives a short notification tone
and should then quickly terminate his call.

2 Overview Map and Service Gaps

The locations of the fixed radio stations currently in service are indicated
on the overview map.  The covered areas are indicated by shading.  Areas not
covered are white.

In the areas indicated as covered there will always exist, as a result of the
physical transmission requirements more or less large and numerous "Radio
Shadows" or Service Gaps (e.g. in valleys, behind free-standing buildings, in
underpasses), which can interfere with or completely prevent the establishment
or continuation of a call.  As a rule it is not technically nor economically
possible or reasonable to eliminate these service gaps.

3 How does one become a subscriber?

3.1 Purchase

If you want to become the possesor of a radio telephone connection, you can
purchase your radio telephone yourself.  You obtain information about purchase,
installation, use, and service of the apparatus from specialized dealers and
service providers.  You may only use radio telephones and accessories which
have been authorized by the Bundespost; these carry a DPB-authorization number.

3.2 Service Order

You request permission to operate a radio telephone or subscription to the
radio telephone service without a telephone at the service order location for
telecommunications apparatus responsible for your place of residence.  This
office issues your radio telephone number and arranges an entry in the
telephone book. You will be issued a telephone number even if you do not have a
radio telephone; this is necessary in order to produce your telephone bill.
Forms for the service order request can be obtained at the service order
location for telecommunications apparatus.  You may place your radio telephone
into service only AFTER the service order has been processed by the German
Bundespost.  The applicant must provide evidence of a place of residence or
work within the service area of the German Bundespost.

3.3 Acceptance

Prior to placing the radio telephone into service you must present it to a
service location of the Post Office established for the purpose of the
technical acceptance of radio telephones.  There is no guarantee for the
freedom from deficiencies of the device or its installation associated with
this acceptance. If there are no objections raised at this acceptance, an
authorization card for the use of the radio telephone will be issued.
With this authorization card it is also possible to operate every other radio
telephone -- as long as its owner permits it.  The resulting call charges will
accumulate on the telephone bill of the possessor of the authorization card.

3.4 Termination

When you terminate your radio telephone connection, the Post Office will notify
you how you are to take the radio telephone out of service.  Please return the
authorization card to the service order location for telephone apparatus
responsible for your place of residence.

3.5 Transfer

At the present time, transfer of a radio telephone is only possible via
termination of the previous authorization and reestablishment of service by a
request from the new customer.  A transfer regulation without termination and
reapplication is being prepared.

3.6 Telephone book

Subscribers with radio telephones are listed in the telephone book.  In the
main entry at most three successive print lines are without charge.  Only the
text necessary for looking up a subscriber will be entered.  Auxilliary
listings are possible.

Subscribers without radio telephones will not be listed in the telephone book.

4 Charges

The following charges for a radio telephone will be billed by the telecommuni-
cations billing center in Mannheim:

4.1 Acceptance (including repeated acceptance)...... 100,- DM
4.2 Monthly base charge............................. 120,- DM
4.3 Monthly base charge for an authorization card
    for measurement purposes....................  10,- DM
4.4 Blocking........................................  15,- DM

4.5 Call charges for directly dialled calls

4.5.1 Domestic calls

One message unit (0,23 DM) each................... 8 seconds
Off peak time as well as Saturdays, Sundays, and
nationwide holidays, one message unit each....... 20 seconds

These charges are valid for calls from radio telephones and from wire
telephones to radio telephones.  [The CALLER always pays the charge;
there is no charge to the radio telephone subscriber to receive a call.]

4.5.2 International calls

Depending on the country, calls originating from radio telephones will incur
the charges associated with one of the three international rate zones [for
normal telephones] (without reductions for zones near borders) and then a
surcharge of one message unit each 16 seconds (off-peak 40 seconds).

4.6 Call charges for operator assisted calls
4.6.1 Domestic calls
Rates provided by domestic information.
4.6.2 International calls
Rates provided by international information.

4.7 Unauthorized use

In the case of unauthorized use of the radio telephone (for example before
the acceptance test or after the termination of the subscriber relationship)
a charge of 1.5 times the normal base charge for the period of the unlawful
use (but at least the charge for two months) will be levied.

5 Instructions for use

5.1 Directly dialled calls from the radio telephone

You reach fixed telephone connections from the radio telephone in the usual
manner; you dial only the city code and telephone number of the telephone
connection you wish to reach.  Observe the operating instructions for your
radio telephone.  If a channel is free, the connection to the desired sub-
scriber will be established.  If there is no free channel at the moment, the
system will indicate to you either that no further calls can be processed at
this time or that your call has been placed into a wait queue.  As soon as
your call has neared the end of the queue, the call processing in the public
telephone network is begun.  If no channel is free after successful call
establishment, the subscriber you have called will receive the announcement
"Funkgespraech, bitte warten".  [Real great if you're calling someone who
doesn't understand German!  This recording can also occur on incoming calls.]
Immediately after a channel becomes free your connection will be established.

After a successful call, your radio telephone number, together with the accumu-
lated message units and necessary call data will be stored only for billing.

You can also conduct a call from one C Radio Telephone to another C Radio
Telephone by dialling 0161 and the radio telephone number.  To call B Radio
Telephones [older system] (B or B2 devices) you must dial the code for the
base station where the telephone is presumed to be located.  This means that
the approximate location must be known.  The codes for B base stations can be
obtained from the telephone information service.

5.1.1 Telegrams

You may send telegrams from your radio telephone by dialling the national
standard number 1131 and by giving your radio telephone number.

5.1.2 Emergency calls

If you want to report an emergency, please dial the national standard numbers
110 (police) or 112 (fire department).  Since the reporting centers are
responsible for a large area, it is absolutely essential that you provide an
exact location.

5.2 Operator assisted calls from the radio telephone

If the desired telephone connection cannot be established by direct dialled
service (e.g. connections to certain locations in the German Democratic
Republic or foreign countries), book the call with the telephone office.  Use
010 for domestic calls and 0010 for international calls.  As soon as the
telephone office answers, give your own radio telephone number.
(Example "HIER FUNKTELEFON C-Anschluss 2012345").

When booking the call, please give the name of the desired locality and the
telephone number of the desired telephone connection.  If the call cannot be
established immediately, the telephone office will call you back.  For each
manually established call you will receive a call charge form enclosed with
your telephone bill.

5.3 Directly dialled calls to radio telephones.

From within the service area of the German Bundespost, a radio telephone is
dialled by dialling the access code 0161 and the seven digit individual radio
telephone number.  (Example: "01 61 2012345").  If the desired radio telephone
connection is busy, this will be indicated by the normal busy tone.  If the
radio telephone is not turned on or is not within the service area of a fixed
radio station, the caller will receive the announcement "Dieser Anschluss ist
voruebergehend nicht erreichbar".

For calls from international locations special procedures apply; further
information can be obtained from the international information service.
[In fact, you just dial +49 161 and the number, as expected.]

6 Taking a radio telephone along when leaving the service area of the German
  Bundespost.

6.1 General

As a rule, the radio telephone may not be turned on outside the service area of
the German Bundespost (if it is permitted to remain in the vehicle upon
crossing the border).  Be absolutely sure to observe this, as you can otherwise
disturb foreign radio services.  If you fail to observe this you should expect
punishment.

Special agreements exist for the following countries:

6.2 Switzerland

During a temporary visit the radio telephone may remain in the car.  It may,
however, under no circumstances be turned on, even near the border.

6.3 France

When crossing the border into France, the radio telephone may remain in the
car if you prepare the following label and attach it to the telephone:
"L'usage de cet appareil est interdit sur le territoire francais sous peine
des penalites prevues par l'article L.39 du Code des Postes et
Telecommunications" (The use of this device on French territory is prohibited
under pain of penalties in accordance with article L.39 of the postal and
telecommunications law.)

6.4 Italy

The radio telephone can remain in the car, but must be made unusable by the
border authorities, who will seal it.

6.5 Rumania

When crossing the border the radio will be sealed and the traveller will be
notified that he cannot use the radio in Rumania and that the seal must be
undamaged upon exit from the country.

6.6 Sweden

The radio telephone, if it is permanently installed, may remain in the vehicle.
No special permission is required.

6.7 Yugoslavia

At least one month before travel an application for permission to import a
radio telephone must be submitted to the foreign representative for Yugoslavia.

6.8 Spain

When crossing the border, a time-limited import-authorization will be provided
by the customs authorities.

6.9 Denmark

When crossing the border into Denmark the radio telephone may remain installed
under the precondition that an authorization has been obtained from the Danish
telecommunications authorities and that the telephone will not be used while
in Denmark.

6.10  Transit through the German Democratic Republic

When travelling from the Federal Republic to West Berlin and vice versa it is
necessary to obtain an authorization from the border authorities of the German
Democratic Republic.  There is a charge for this authorization, which does not
authorize use of the telephone.

=============================================================================

[Moderator's Note: My very special thanks to John Covert for translating
this material and sending it along to the Digest.

In Wednesday's Digest: John Wheeler on Overseas Cellular Service;  James
Crook on Canada - US Communications; and Fred Goldstein, responding to
Lars Poulsen on 'the fiction' of SLC's as an element of interstate rates.
See you tomorrow morning!   PT]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #204
*****************************












Date:     Wed, 21 Jun 89 0:28:16 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #205
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Wed, 21 Jun 89 00:13:10 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 205

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Interstate Jurisdiction Isn't A Fiction (Fred R. Goldstein)
    Re: Re: Canada - U.S. communications (James Crooks)
    Re: More on Cellular Overseas (John Wheeler)
    Re: Bypassing an AOS (Paul Guthrie)
    Re: Consumer Opts For POTS (John Higdon)
    Re: Description of the German Cellular System (Marvin Sirbu)

[Moderator's Note: You will be receiving a special, unnumbered issue of
the Digest also today, with several commentaries on sci.commtech.  PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Fred R. Goldstein dtn226-7388" <[e-mail]>
Date: 19 Jun 89 09:51
Subject: Interstate Jurisdiction Isn't A Fiction

Lars Poulsen <[e-mail]> writes,
>In article <[e-mail]>
>   [e-mail] (Marvin Sirbu) writes:
>> The subscriber line charge (SLC) is an element of interstate phone rates.
>
>I consider that to be a fiction. It is something that *I* pay to my
>local telephone company, and which cannot be waived, even if I disable
>all toll calls from the line. The local telco does not have to
>substiantiate the expense that is alledgedly covered by this charge, and
>it is not tied to the actual access provided.

Perhaps Lars considers our system of mixed state-federal sovereignty to
be a fiction, but it is deeply enshrined in our Constitution and most
Americans wouldn't have it any other way.  The Supreme Court issued
a ruling which led to the interstate subscriber line charge.  I think it
was "Smith Vs. Illinois" (not the only case by that name) ca. 1930, and
it held that since local telephone lines were part of a network that
carried interstate calls, local phone lines are subject to federal
regulation under the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution.
Congress gave the FCC that authority.

Local phone line costs are proportionately divided between state
and interstate (FCC) jurisdiction, based on the overall ratio of
interstate usage (Subscriber Line Usage, SLU, is the formal term).
SLU is computed for a jurisdiction (state).  Now before the FCC
changed the rules at around the same time as divestiture (but in
a proceeding that predated divestiture -- this was coincidence),
SLU was multipled by a fudge factor called Subscriber Plant
Factor (SPF) and some more incantations were done to raise the
interstate share to some multiple of its true usage.  So in 1982,
about 30% of local loop cost was interstate, though only about
10% of calls were interstate.

Why do this?  Because inTRAstate costs were covered by monthly
bills, but inTER state costs were covered only by interstate
usage (LD calls).  Thus LD subsidized local, while the telcos
had "plausible deniability" behind the SPF numbers.  This whole
process was called "separations".

The FCC changed the rules and now has an increasing share of the
fixed costs ("non-traffic sensitive", NTS) of the interstate share
of local facilities (from SLU*SPF*total cost, still probably around 30%)
covered by non-traffic-senstive billing (fixed monthly "access"
charges).  This allows the traffic-sensitive billing (per-minute
charges) to be smaller and LD rates to be lower.

If, however, your line were ruled totally intrastate, then the local
bill would have to cover about 100% of the cost rather than 70%.  The
FCC has split the difference, but it's all entirely legal and basically
necessary under the federal system.

>I do not object to volume discounts. But Centrex is NOT a volume
>discount. Centrex is a tariff that allows a subscriber with 400
>instruments to describe this as a virtual PBX with 12 outside lines. You
>then pay only for 12 lines plus rental on the non-existent PBX. I
>maintain that this is sheer obfuscation.

Different states have different Centrex rates.  Few if any however lose
money for the telcos.  If they make a profit, then what's the beef?
Cost accounting for telcos is a black art, one which neither they nor
the regulators are very good at, but since regular line costs are
entirely fictional, Centrex is probably closer to true cost.
        fred

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 14 Jun 89 18:25:13 SST
From: "Mr. James Crooks" <[e-mail]>
Subject: re: Re: Canada - U.S. communications

in TELECOM DIGEST V9 #197 Wolf Paul <[e-mail]> writes

>I can see two reasons for separate country codes, one more valid than
>the other:
>(a) from certain nationalistic perspectives it rankles that Canada
>    is the only major country which does not have its own country code
>    and has to coordinate its internal telecommunications affairs with
>    entities in the U.S. (I don't hold that view, but then I am neither
>    Canadian nor very nationalistically inclined); and

Major, yes. But don't forget the Carribean where they also use plain-
jane area codes too.  Most of the transborder LD calling in Canada is to
the USA - and I'm sure that Canadian calls rank high in US billings too.
I personnaly hate calling with a country code - too many digits and a
greater chance of error.

>(b) Giving Canada a separate country code frees up a few area codes for
>    use in the U.S., and **lots of area codes** for use in Canada
>    (this one I consider the more valid reason).

You may get 10 or 12 area codes, but the bill to recode all the billing
and reporting software (network, billing and reporting) in the relevant
Canadian telcos would be in the 100's of millions of $$$ + all the risks
of a major network cutover.  Now if the US telco's would be willing to
fund the project (they would be gaining a few area codes), I'm sure it
could be done in 10 years or so. It would certainly help Canada's
balance of payments.

ISDN numbering is causing problems to and maybe the whole thing can be
resolved when a major portion of current users switch over to it (if and
when, I should add).

James W. Crooks
Member, Advanced Technology Application Staff
BITNET:           [e-mail]   BIX:              jw.crooks
DASnet:           cDW1JW|JCROOKS      Compuserve:       72611,162
Institute of Systems Science, National University of Singapore
Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Kent Ridge, Singapore 0511

------------------------------

From: John Wheeler <techwood![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: More on Cellular Overseas
Date: 18 Jun 89 16:15:18 GMT
Reply-To: John Wheeler <techwood![e-mail]>
Organization: Turner Entertainment Networks Library; Atlanta


In article <[e-mail]> wmartin@st-louis-emh2.
army.mil (Will Martin) writes:
>From: Torsten Dahlkvist <[e-mail]>
>Organization: Ellemtel Utvecklings AB, Stockholm, Sweden

>As a matter of fact, traffic outgrew the NMT-450 system years ago and the
>second generation, NMT-900 was introduced. This runs on 900 MHz as opposed to
>450 and thus covers less area per transmitter.

Curious as to how "cellular" can be operated at 450 MHz. At frequencies that
"low" the cells would spill all over the place. 400-500 MHz is in fact
"famous" for its abilities to get into nooks and crannies everywhere,
bouncing off every building and hill within sight.

--
          Turner                                       John Wheeler
     E N T E R T A I N M E N T     ...!gatech!nanovx!techwood!johnw
                Networks
     Techwood Library * home of Superstation TBS * TNT * TBS Sports


------------------------------

From: Paul Guthrie <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Bypassing an AOS
Date: 20 Jun 89 07:37:45 GMT
Reply-To: Paul Guthrie <[e-mail]>
Organization: The League of Crafty Hackers


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(DOUGLAS SCOTT REUBEN) writes:
> From what I understand, all the LD services (AT&T, MCI, Sprint, etc.)
>and the AOS firms (ITI, NTS, etc.) are charged for accessing the
>national calling card database (or whatever the system is called)
>for verifying a calling card. AT&T is supposedly charged $.07 per
>call, while the AOS firms are charged something like $.40. This is
>one of the reasons they cite when they defend their higher rates.

Not true.  AT&T has their own database.  The actual charges for AOSs and
other such companies is closer to 15c.  It may range as high as 30
depending upon the charges imposed by the BOC, LEC or independant.
The overhead charges imposed by the database providers (such as NDC)
are generally constant.  As I stated in an earlier message, some cards
(generally corporate cards) are not in any databases.  Also, the mechanisms
to get the data used by AOSs (most often dedicated slow-speed modem lines)
are slower than those used by AT&T.

>In any event, many AOS firms don't really check. ITI (International
>Telecharge) just checks to make sure the card "looks" valid, ie,
>a real area code, a real exchange in that area code, and a somewhat
>valid looking calling card PIN number. During busy hours, they are
>less careful, as I've entered "wrong" PINs and totally wrong numbers
>at times and it went through fine. Late at night they check more
>often, and frequently a false PIN that was accepted at 5PM won't
>work at 11PM the same evening.

Knowing their software, I don't think that this is true.  They simply do
a LERG checkup on the NPA+COC (actually another database similar to
the LERG that include pseudo NPAs for corporate cards), and run an algorithm
on certain numbers to check that the PIN is possible, but not necessarily
valid.  They may have added some sort of after the fact PIN verification
on often used numbers recently that could explain the above behaviour.
AOSs are not as concerned about fraud (so far) as they are about unbillable
billing numbers that may constitute as much as 20% of attempted calls,
depending on whether they have individual billing arangements, or through
a reseller such as OAN.

>NTS, on the other hand, seems to be doing something that I, as an
>AT&T customer, find *very* disturbing
[Description of method deleted].
>It seems what NTS is doing is using AT&T's calling card system to verify
>calls for them, and then place the call over NTS after they use AT&T
>to check!

You are quite observant.  I did explain this in an earlier TELECOM message,
but your description hits on the nose what they do.  Simply they use
voice detection, timing and AT&Ts network to verify calling cards for free.
My belief is that this is only done from payphones now, as they got into
trouble from doing this from their switches.... payphones are harder to detect.
Using this and a valid/invalid cache and they could get reasonable response
from repeat customers.  There is a device being sold that specifically
does this for COCOT type payphones.  It is line powered,stores up to
a hundred or so CC numbers, and then dials into a special station to
deliver call records via DTMF.  At less than $200 per payphone, it lets
COCOT owners bypass AOS rates and capture the best 80% of their traffic
themselves.  It also uses this slimy verification tecnique, all the while
providing ringback to pretend that the call is going through.  The receiver
station uses Dialogic boards (they are on the net somewhere) to handle
DTMF reception.

Anyway, this misuse of the network will most likely become more and more
prevelant until some leglislation is passed against it, but even then,
it would be hard to prove on a case as small as a payphone.

On another note, a discussion in sci.electronics has been going on about
payphone phreaking.  It might be worth looking at, as I imagine most
people on this list are interested.  It misses most of the anti-COCOT
techniques like chain dialing, and all of the sophisticated methods,
but does mention (but not explain - the author had no technical info)
a case where a NY airport phone was giving free international calls.
Here's how this one worked (and I do mean workED - otherwise I wouldn't
post).  One specific payphone type, when dialing in a 0, would put itself
into infinate time/no money mode (natural for operator calls), whereupon
it "cut through" to the switch.  The switch had slower timing, so if
you dialed in 11 immediately, followed by your international number,
you got a free call. It didn't take long for this to be found!

--
Paul Guthrie
chinet!nsacray!paul

------------------------------

From: John Higdon <decvax!decwrl!apple!zygot![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Consumer Opts For POTS
Date: 12 Jun 89 17:43:25 GMT
Organization: ATI Wares Team


In article <[e-mail]>, bet@bent (Bennett Todd)
writes:
> Our old electromechanical system worked vastly better.

Please, please, no yearning for the good old days of electo-mechanical!
Let's see...on SXS you would frequently get on a noisy stepper and hear
crackling noises all through your converstation, punctuated and
modulated by other subscribers dialing. Wonderful. The equivalent in
Xbar is a sproinging noise at random. Great.

Another joy of Xbar is what we call the "killer trunk". Occasionally,
someone would call, you would talk, then hang up. And your phone would
be stuck for hours. No dial tone, busy to incoming calls. Try to get
611 to fix that (it's intermittant). In fact, I have learned that most
COs now turn off the trouble recorder on Xbar; they haven't a clue as
to what to do when it drops a card anyway.

We nasty people who want features are actually *reducing* the cost to
the black rotary-dial customer. It costs the telco nothing to provide
call waiting or three way or forwarding, but they not only collect our
money for the service, they get more completed calls, timed calls on
hold, etc., etc. Over half of my recurring monthly charges is for
"advanced" features. Any CO upgrading costs are quickly recovered, not
only from these charges, but from the reduced maintenance and plant
staff required.

Now tell me who is paying for it!
--
        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
      [e-mail]       | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 20 Jun 89 09:26:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: Marvin Sirbu <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Description of the German Cellular System

Thanks again to John Covert for the interesting article on German Cellular
Telephones.

Note that, at the current exchange rate of approximately 2DM/$US, the monthly
base charge is about $60/month, and the usage charge is about
$0.92 per minute.  This is at least twice the comparable charges in the
U.S.

Marvin Sirbu
Carnegie Mellon University

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #205
*****************************










Date:     Wed, 21 Jun 89 1:20:38 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest Special: sci.commtech
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Wed, 21 Jun 89 01:00:09 CDT    Special: sci.commtech

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Please Stop Confusing Sci.commtech (Bruce Klopfenstein)
    Re: sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom (John Higdon)
    Re: sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom (Tony Scott)
    Re: sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom (Steve Cisler)
    Re: sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom (Will Martin)
    Re: sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom (TELECOM Moderator)

[Moderator's Note: This special issue of the Digest has been prepared to
distribute the various replies, pro and con, of the proposal to start a
new Usenet group 'sci.commtech'. Some readers of the Digest and comp.
dcom.telecom have insisted that a new group of this nature will cause
fewer messages of merit to appear in TELECOM Digest. Others, including
the founder of the new group, Bruce Klopfenstein, have insisted this
will not be the case. As you will see from the correspondence below,
there is still mixed opinion on the subject.

*NO REPLIES TO THIS DIGEST WILL BE PRINTED*. Further correspondence
should be only with Bruce Klopfenstein, or in 'news.groups'. It is only
appearing here as a courtesy, since if any existing group would be at
all likely to be affected, it would be telecom.    PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Bruce Klopfenstein <bgsuvax![e-mail]>
Subject: PLEASE STOP CONFUSING SCI.COMMTECH!
Date: 17 Jun 89 18:40:05 GMT
Organization: Bowling Green State University B.G., Oh.

{A message FAVORING sci.commtech}

Sci.commtech is *NOT* comp.dcom.telecom!  That was the subject of
a posting I placed here days ago in response to a misled posting
bashing sci.commtech as being just like comp.dcom.telecom and
waiting to gobble up useful comp.tcom.telecom postings and drag
them into a black hole, far away from comp.dcom.telecom readers!
GOOD GRIEF!

IT IS FAR BEYOND THE DISCUSSION STAGE FOR SCI.COMMTECH!  Unfortunately,
posters like this "clearly" did not follow this discussion.  As I
continue to scan the postings in comp.dcom.telecom, I continue to be
amazed at how anyone comes to Mr. Martin's conclusion!  I's like to
say sci.commtech will be complementary to comp.dcom.telecom, but as
it was discussed, I think sci.commtech will be so DIFFERENT from
comp.dcom.telecom (and the digest) that it will not be of much interest
to many who read and post here.

Fire engines are not green.  You cannot believe Chinese government
accounts about the party on Tiananmen Square, and SCI.COMMTECH IS
NOT COMP.DCOM.TELECOM!

One more try: go to your library an find 2 trade publications:
Telephony and Broadcasting.  Telephony will interest comp.dcom.telecom
readers, and Broadcasting will interest sci.commtech readers.  Take
the sci.commtech challenge.  Judge for yourself.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT SCI.COMMTECH...  E-MAIL ME AND I WILL
REPLY!  DO NOT BLINDLY FOLLOW MR. MARTIN'S CATTLE CALL!

Thanks.

Bruce Klopfenstein

P.S.  I will be delighted to disctribute sci.commtech to those who cannot
read it, but the majority of comp.dcom.telecom readers will not be
interested (unless they choose to pick up a new area of reading).

--
Dr. Bruce C. Klopfenstein      |  [e-mail]
Radio-TV-Film Department       |  [e-mail]
Bowling Green $tate University |  [e-mail]
Bowling Green, OH  43403       |  [phone]; 352-4818
                               |  fax [phone]

------------------------------

Subject: Re: sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom
Date: 18 Jun 89 11:37:50 PDT (Sun)
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>

{A message OPPOSING the new group}

> If anyone has anything further to say for or against sci.commtech,
> send me your messages.

Ok, here goes. If frankness earns points, this should get a high score.
When I first started reading comp.dcom.telecom about a year ago, I
couldn't believe that as many uninformed bozos could exist in one
place. Questions like "how do I use call waiting?" and "why can't I
seem to make my long distance company work from my Time Magazine promo
phone?" were all too typical.

A number of us in California even created our own limited issue
telephone group on USENET so that we could intelligently discuss SS#7,
effects of divestiture, generic programming of digital switches, etc.
The group is distributed statewide and is even carried within Pac*Bell.
Then an amazing thing began to happen. The DIGEST started to improve.
Interesting comments began to appear and intelligent replies became the
norm rather than the exception. I suspect that your influence has been
a factor, but in any event, this forum is now somewhat worthwhile.

This is to be contrasted with the drek on rec.* (read rec.audio
lately?) and on sci.*. Sci.electronics sometimes appears with fifty
posts talking about types of LEDs. Can you imagine the zoo resulting
from sci.commtech? One of the justifications is that it would be for
those less techincally minded. I was unaware that every article in the
DIGEST was technically oriented. Social and political issues are
frequently the order of the day, and the explanation of technical
issues are usually in terms any layman could understand.

If any matters of substance ever did show up on sci.commtech, wouldn't
we miss out on the discussion on the DIGEST? If there was frequent
cross-posting, wouldn't we be bombarded with the type of buffoonery
that permeates the sci groups in general?

No, sir. Having seen before and after pictures of the DIGEST, I'm not
much interested in purposely throwing a box of nails in the road.
Besides, at the risk of sounding elitist, the average person doesn't
know enough about the telecommunications industry to even ask
intelligent questions, let alone have a legitimate opinion. Nor do they
have, as I have found, much interest in the topic, either.

My resounding NO vote has already been sent.
---
        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
      [e-mail]       | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !


------------------------------

Date: Sun, 18 Jun 89 16:05:43 PDT
From: Tony Scott <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom
Reply-To: Tony Scott <[e-mail]>
Organization: Univ. of California, San Diego

{Another message FAVORING the new group}


I'm interested in computer-mediated communications, especially
how people use electronic mail. I've worked as a telecommunications
consultant for school districts, and I used to be an international
telephone operator. Point of all this background is that when I
started doing my research I used to subscribe to
comp.dcom.telecom. I gave up because the signal-to-noise ratio of
articles discussing rotary-vs-touchtone, or exchange or line
capacity, or other TECHNICAL aspects of the field was too high
(that's noise for me) compared to discussion about what people DO
with the stuff when they've got it. I just signed up to read the
comp.dcom.telecom vs sci.commtech discussion, and found the same
S-to-N ratio (in my terms) still persists. I did notice on the
way through the messages someone saying c-d-t was formed to take
the technical stuff out of human-nets...

I think there is room for both groups to exist side-by-side. If
people are conscientious about cross-posting and summarising to the
other group, those without USENET will not be too greatly
disadvantaged. After all, comp.dcom.telecom exists alongside several
other groups which might have conflicting interests - rtty in
ham-packet radio, for instance; and I've seen discussion of cellular
phones in rec.aviation..

basically, USENET is about connections, not boundaries.

Tony Scott, Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, UCSD
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 18 Jun 89 17:23:29 PDT
From: Steve Cisler <[e-mail]>
Subject: sci.commtech


{Still another message FAVORING the new group}


I urge a yes vote on sci.commtech. Mr. Martin and others with no
access to Usenet can go through public access systems such as Portal,
The WELL, or any of the 30+ public unix systems around the U.S.

I think there may be some overlap between this group and the proposed
one, but much of the more subjective matter or the discussions about
the social aspects of these new technologies may not be that welcome
by many of the comp.dcom.telecom readers.

Steve Cisler
Apple Library

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 19 Jun 89 10:15:07 CDT
From:     Will Martin <[e-mail]>
Subject:  sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom


{A message OPPOSING the new group}

I wasn't going to say any more about this, but since my name was mentioned in
the announcement for the special issue, I thought I'd drop in some last lines:

Re the suggestion that the new sci.commtech be set up with a gatewayed mailing
list of its own so as to not cut off the non-USENET participants from those
discussions -- this is NOT a trivial task. There is a working Internet mailing
list now -- the Telecom Digest. To set up another list requires a LOT of work,
and an agreement from a host to support the mailing workload and the disk
space for perpetual archive storage and anonymous FTP access, plus a personal
commitment from a moderator or mailing-list maintainer. It makes no sense
to attempt to duplicate all this that exists already for the Telecom Digest.
(Internet hosts have been becoming more and more reluctant to support mailing
lists over the past years -- it is now much harder to set up a new list.)

If sci.commtech is formed, I hope that the traffic in that group that is not
already cross-posted to comp.dcom.telecom be picked up and included in the
Telecom Digest. That would permit the Internet mailing-list community to
continue to see these discussions. Unfortunately, it will be difficult to
meaningfully participate in them, since responses sent to the Telecom Digest
would end up being posted to comp.dcom.telecom instead of sci.commtech.

Actually, the whole thing about setting up the new group seems to be a
case of trying to fix something that isn't broken. This is very common on
USENET; I saw it happening continuously over the past years. (I did have
access to USENET for some time, several years ago.) There is a constant
effort to splinter groups into more and more narrow topical divisions.
I myself can't really understand this motivation -- I usually want to
see as much as possible, and fewer wider-ranging groups serve that
desire better than many small individual special-purpose groups.

Anyway, to summarize, it still seems to me that it is in the best
interests of Internet mailing-list participants that the new group NOT
be formed, as it would inevitably, to some degree, impact adversely
on the existing Telecom Digest / comp.dcom.telecom situation.

(By the way, I get the impression that this is a raging and vitally
personal issue to some people out there. I do not have much emotional
investment in this myself, so I'm sorry if this is being viewed as me
"attacking" someone. It is just that it seems more sensible to me to
leave things alone since they are working OK now, so far as is apparent
to me. I can live with whatever the result is -- it would just be nicer
if it came out the way I think best... :-)

Regards, Will Martin

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (TELECOM Moderator)
Date: 21 June, 1989  00:05:00
Subject: sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom


{What I think about the matter}


When the first message was posted, announcing the plans for this new group,
I suggested that telecom readers follow Usenet tradition and cast their
vote. As you probably know, the establishment of any new group on Usenet
(other than alt.anything) requires 100 more 'yes' votes than 'no' votes
to be successful. I originally recommended a vote of yes, in an effort to
help the new group get started. I did not see any real problem with another
technical group -- even one dealing with communications -- on the net.

Now I have read the several objections presented by Digest subscribers,
and have had a chance to re-think my own position on the matter.  I have
to say honestly I still don't see any real problem with it. There are various
groups now which discuss telecommunications to some extent or another in
addition to the Digest. For example, sci.electronics occassionally touches
on telephone topics, such as the recent discussion on payphone phreaking.
'Comp.risks' sometimes prints things of interest to telecom people; and
in fact some items have appeared here first and been transported to Risks
by an interested reader of both journals. I've also published things here
with first were in Risks; likewise, sometimes an interesting article on
phones or phone service which has appeared in misc.consumers has been
forwarded to the Digest for use.

The people who want to read/contribute to TELECOM Digest will continue to
do so. I do not anticipate losing any readers or seeing any changes in the
basic stuff we talk about here. I could be wrong, of course,

I would ask that the proposed new group, if established, immediatly set
up an interchange policy with the Digest. Items specifically related to
telephones, voice communications and similar should be forwarded here by
the moderator, just as I would forward more broadcast oriented stuff to
him. It is that kind of a spirit of cooperation that describes what Usenet
is all about. I'd like his okay to automatically re-publish something which
catches my fancy and would appeal to Digest readers; just as he would have
my okay to do the same.

My last reading of the interim vote results showed about nine or ten 'no'
votes and about eighty 'yes' votes. There is still time to vote as you
see fit.

TO LEARN HOW TO VOTE: Send email to Bruce, at the address shown in his
message here (the first one). I suggest you not indicate *how* you
wish to vote, but simply ask him to advise you of the voting address and
specifications. Then go do it.

Frankly, I expect to see most of you hear after the vote, and for the
indefinite future.

*NO MESSAGES PERTAINING TO THIS SPECIAL ISSUE OF THE DIGEST WILL BE PUBLISHED
OR CONSIDERED AFTER THIS TIME* This special issue of the Digest was only
published as a courtesy because I published the original announcement
and a rebuttal -- then several more messages arrived. Ordinarily, all
discussion pertaining to new groups must be conducted in 'news.groups' and
'news.misc'. Since TELECOM Digest *could* conceivably be affected by the
establishment of sci.commtech, this discussion was presented.

It is up to you, the users at this point.


{Now, what do YOU think?}

Patrick Townson
TELECOM Digest Moderator

End of TELECOM Digest Special Edition: sci.commtech
******************************










Date:     Thu, 22 Jun 89 0:04:01 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #206
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Thu, 22 Jun 89 00:00:16 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 206

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Phemale Phreak Indicted In Chicago (TELECOM Moderator)
    North American Numbering Plan Update (Guy Tonti)
    AT&T Still Wins (John Higdon)
    ATT Repair Part (Michael Dorl)
    T3 services and products (Dave O'Leary)
    Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public (John Higdon)

[Moderator's Note: Heavy mail today. Two issues of Digest will arrive. PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 21 Jun 89 23:29:15 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Phemale Phreak Indicted In Chicago

A federal grand jury indicted a Chicago woman Tuesday for allegedly master-
minding a nationwide ring of hackerphreaks that stole about $1.6 million
in phone service from AT&T and Sprint.

The indictment charges that Ms. Leslie Lynne Doucette, 35, of 6748 North
Ashland Avenue, Chicago, and **152 associates** shared hundreds of stolen
phone credit card numbers by breaking into corporate voicemail systems and
using them as illicit computer bulletin boards to share information among
themselves.

TELECOM Digest readers, of course, do not need to be told what voicemail
is, or how it works. Ms. Doucette and her associates had managed to infiltrate
several voicemail systems, seizing unused mailboxes on each, through the
manipulation of master accounts located by Doucette.

The federal indictment further charges that the ring obtained more $9531.65
in merchandise and $1453 in Western Union money orders by charging
them to stolen bank credit card numbers shared among the group on the illicit
bulletin board.  The government alleges that the value of the stoen voicemail
service alone was $38,200. Stolen phone credit cards used at payphones
amounted to another $286,362 of telephone service.

But the biggest part of the theft, valued at $1,291,362.00 in the indictment,
represented telephone service obtained through the illegal use of WATS-
extenders installed on PBX lines of companies nationally. By looping through
several diverters and including connections established with the fraudulent
phone cards, the ring believed they would avoid detection by telephone
companies and by the owners of the WATS-extenders.

Corporate victims named in the alleged fraud are August Financial Corporation
of Long Beach, CA and A-1 Beeper Service of Mobile, AL.

Doucette has been held without bond, in the custody of the Attorney General
at the Chicago Metropolitan Correctional Center since May 24, when she was
arrested in a raid on her apartment in the Rogers Park neighborhood on
Chicago's far north side. At the time of the raid, which was attended by
agents of the FBI, along with representatives of Illinois Bell Telephone
Company, AT&T and Sprint and Chicago Police officers, authorities recovered
168 stolen telephone credit cards numbers, 271 bank credit card numbers,
and 39 WATS-extender dialup phone numbers, with a list of the passwords
needed to access each. The indictment does not name any other members of
the ring, but authorities said the investigation is continuing, and other
indictments are expected.

United States Attorney Anton R. Valukas (northern district of Illinois)
said the indictment is the nation's first involving abuse of voicemail.
He noted this is not the first known instance of abuse of voicemail, but
simply the first indictment for it.

At a press conference Tuesday in the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago
on Tuesday, Valukas noted, "The proliferation of computer-assisted
telecommunications and the increasing reliance on this equipment by
American and international business create a potential for serious harm."

He said that Ms. Doucette was 'first discovered' last December after a
real estate broker in Rolling Meadows, IL (suburb of Chicago) reported
that hackerphreaks had invaded and burglarized his company's voicemail
system, and changed several passwords.

Once detected, Illinois Bell set about tracing the calls in cooperation
with Sprint and AT&T. Calls into the voicemail system were traced to
private homes in Chicago, Columbus, OH, Detroit, Atlanta, and Boston. When
those phones had been identified by telco people in their respective
cities, audits were begun on the telephone records of the phones involved,
which in turn led to voicemail systems and WATS-extenders in companies
all over the United States.

Patrick Townson



------------------------------

From: pbhyg![e-mail]
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 89 18:39:45 -0700
Subject: North American Numbering Plan Update


Patrick,

As promised, here is some information I recently came across
concerning the North American Numbering Plan (NANP).
I received it via a presentation and subsequent discussion with
a Bell Communications Research (Bellcore) employee whose job is
supporting the NANP.


The NANP ensures sufficient numbering resources are available
for World Zone 1 (the United States, Canada, Bermuda, and many
Caribbean Basin Nations).

Current activities the NANP is working on involve:

    Numbering Plan Areas (NPAs),
    Carrier Identification Codes (CICs),
    800 Service,
    ISDN Numbering,
    900 NXX Code Assignments,
    Cellular Dialing Review,
    Numbering Resources for International Inbound Traffic,
    Numbering Strategic Planning,
    and a few other areas.


Involving NPAs, the following are major work areas:

 - Central Office Code Utilization Survey (COCUS)
 - NPA Code Exhaust Plans
    This is the "short-term" planning for NPA codes that are
    nearing exhaustion.  This includes utilizing previously
    unused Central Office Codes, 1+ dialing, etc.
 - NPA Overlay
    This is the planning for new NPA code assigning, of
    which only "5" still exist in the N 0/1 X format.
    These are expected to be completely exhausted by 1995.
 - Recovery of Mexico Codes
    Mexico never has been part of World Zone 1, so its use
    of NPAs has never been part of the NANP (as opposed to
    Canada, which has as much right to NPAs in WZ1 as the US).
    Thus, the NPAs assigned to Mexico are being recovered as
    part of the NPA Overlay.
 - 809 NPA Administration
    As the West Indies are very diverse, geographically and
    politically, the NANP serves as an impartial body in
    "governing" administration of this NPA.
 - Interchangn idiot, or just die on the problem. A
couple of years ago, I got a reorder every time I called a North
Carolina number. Repeated calls to Sprint repair proved worthless. At
one point I was told, "not many people call this area, so we don't know
when we can get it repaired. You might try dialing 10288 before the
number if you really want to get through." I saved myself the trouble.
I went with AT&T.
--
        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
      [e-mail]       | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

------------------------------

From: Michael Dorl - MACC <[e-mail]>
Subject: ATT Repair Part
Date: 20 Jun 89 19:14:40 GMT
Organization: University of Wisconsin Academic Computing Center


I'm trying to locate a source for a speaker from a ATT cordless
phone remote unit.  The ATT service number listed in the documents
that came with the phone tell me that no parts are available and
that my only choice is to return the phone for a $40.00 trade in.

In any case, the speaker is a round disk about 1.6 inches in diameter
and 0.5 inches thick.  It has the following text on the back...


     RIGHT
    P15FOIG
  8 OHM 0.1W
    TAIWAN

Thanks,

Michael Dorl [phone]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 20 Jun 89 18:29:33 EDT
From: dave o'leary <[e-mail]>
Subject: T3 services and products


Are any of the operating companies tariffed to provide T3 services at this
point?  I see ads mentioning products that do T3, but usually no details -

We are interested in information on products that do T3 muxing, etc.
also where does one get info about T3, i.e. where is the "community".
, users, advertisers, etc.

Thanks for any info -

                    dave o'leary
                    [e-mail]

                    [e-mail]

                    Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
                    [phone]


------------------------------

From: John Higdon <apple!zygot![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public
Date: 18 Jun 89 06:06:43 GMT
Organization: ATI Wares Team


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Lars J Poulsen) writes:
> I would like to see more regulation of the local telephone service, to
> include the following:
>
> (1) More readable phone bills. All mandatory charges, taxes etc included
>     in the basic monthly price of service, and all optional components
>     identified on separate line items.

I think one reason they are not included is that the telco doesn't want
you to think more money goes into their pocket than actually does. As
far as listing options, etc., Pac*Bell on each and every bill lists all
of the services that the subscriber pays for. For instance, it shows
each custom calling feature and the monthly charge as well as optional
"calling plans" (discounts that cost money).

> (2) Elimination of the "federally mandated LD access charges". Since
>     this charge goes straight to the local service provider as part of
>     the general revenue stream, there is no need to list it separately,
>     nor to mandate a particular amount. This is sheer obfuscation.

Again, they don't want you to notice what that local service really
costs. The LD access charge appears to be analogous to a "dealer
incentive" or "holdback". In all the rate negotiations with the PUC and
consumer groups that figure never comes up. Then when all is said and
done, the telcos get that "few bucks more" added right on top. If you
look at the reasons for the charge, you will get even more angry. It
was originally designed to offset the new inability of the telcos to
subsidize local exchange cost with long distance revenues. From the
profits being rolled up by the telcos (at least Pac*Bell), that charge
seems a bit superfluous.

> (3) Equitable charges for all customers. Includes elimination of CENTREX
>     service. If your subscription includes 20 instruments, each with its
>     own wire pair into a switch at CO premises, this is really 20 lines.
>     The pricing of Centrex service to pretend that this is a virtual PBX
>     is sheer obfuscation.

Ah, but the little guy pays in full. For the residence and small
business, Pac*Bell offers Commstar, a mini-centrex-type service that
includes some (but not all) of the features of a standard centrex. It
is available for 1(!) to 30 lines.

For this service you first get the lines involved at *full* price. Then
you are charged $8 a month PER LINE on top of that. ADD to that $2 per
month for each optional feature PER feature PER line and things get
somewhat pricy.

Compare this with *real* centrex where the price per line is less than
a stand-alone line and the centrex is included. It also does more than
Commstar.

So once again the little guy subsidizes the sacred *major* customer.
--
        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
      [e-mail]       | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #206
*****************************










Date:     Thu, 22 Jun 89 0:58:57 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #207
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Thu, 22 Jun 89 00:45:22 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 207

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Party Line Attack Ladies (John R. Levine)
    Overseas Collect Calls (Jeff Minnig)
    Automatic Conversation Recording Device (Gary L. Crum)
    British Telecom's `Le Beep' Service (Peter T.)
    Re: Long Distance Carrier Sound Comparisons (John Higdon)
    Re: Is Touchtone Still a Protected Trademark? (Dr. T. Andrews)
    Re: Pacific Bell plans access to computers (Robert Cohen)
    What Is 10288? - Question from new reader (Don Peaslee)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 20 Jun 89 20:13:34 EDT
From: "John R. Levine" <ima![e-mail]>
Subject: Party Line Attack Ladies
Reply-To: "John R. Levine" <ima!ima.isc.com![e-mail]>
Organization: Segue Software, Inc.

While talking to my cousin who runs an independent telco in rural Vermont, he
introduced me to Party Line Attack Ladies, an aspect of telephone practice not
heretofore described here.

In Vermont, the cheapest service you can order is four-party, and many of my
cousin's customers do order it. Traditionally, a four-party line consisted of
a single loop of wire running to a neighborhood with four houses in that
neighborhood wired in parallel. Nowadays, though, the outside plant wiring is
in most cases private line, i.e. each customer has a separate physical loop
back to the exchange. To make up the party lines, he ties four loops together
at the CO. This has a variety of advantages for him -- nearly all of his
four-party customers do in fact have four parties on the line so they're not
getting better service than they're paying for, and it's much easier to
diagnose line problems, change peoples' service, and rearrange the four-line
groupings as needed.

It also means that his costs for four-party and private line service are the
same even though the rates for private lines are higher (four-party probably
costs him slightly more since an operator has to ask for the caller's number
for toll calls.) He'd naturally rather have people order and pay for private
lines. So he takes advantage of Attack Ladies, local ladies who make extensive
use of their party line phones and have strong opinions about people who want
them to get off the line to make their own calls. One per line is all that's
required. When a customer decides to go private, the modern exchange equipment
allows my cousin to put another client on to the same line with the Attack
Lady without needing to rewire or change phone numbers.

He assures me that this is standard practice in the independent phone
business. I don't doubt it. He'd prefer that the state get rid of four-party
service and implement some sort of low-use minimum cost private line service
instead.
--
John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, [phone]
{ bbn | spdcc | decvax | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, [e-mail]
Massachusetts has 64 licensed drivers who are over 100 years old.  -The Globe

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 22 May 89 18:20:09 cdt
From: Jeff Minnig <[e-mail]>
Subject: Overseas Collect Calls

[Moderator's Note: This message, dated *May 22* was delayed, for reasons
unknown, in reaching me. Mr. Minnig probably thinks I ignored him. Sorry! PT]

        Heard an amusing story from an employee of my regular fill'er up
        gas station the other day.  It seems that someone in Lebanon
        has been calling the station's pay phone collect to talk to
        a friend for hours at a time.  The average length of the call
        was just over 1 hour.

        The local phone company is pretty much up in arms about the whole
        deal.  Seems that overseas collect calls are EXPENSIVE... :-)

        If you try to call a pay phone collect from a phone here in
        the U.S., the operator knows that you shouldn't be doing that.

        Is is possible to call a pay phone collect from overseas in
        this manner?

        Besides larceny and possible intent to defraud, what can
        the local phone company do with the person(s) even if they
        do catch them?


        Thanks

        -jeff-

Jeff Minnig                     | LL:   [phone]
Systems Analyst                 |
Design Data                     |
Lincoln NE 68508                |

------------------------------

From: "Gary L. Crum" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Automatic Conversation Recording Device
Date: 22 Jun 89 03:33:12 GMT
Organization: University of Southern California


Hi.  Does anyone know of a phone or accessory that can record all
phone sessions, "automatically" (without explicit action like using a
common tape recorder and suction cup microphone)?  Such a device along
with a computer interface and indexing system would be ideal, but...
I already have an automatic email archive system in place, and it
would be nice to have a similar system for phone communication.

I have heard of phone archive systems used for police lines, but I am
thinking of something small and less reliable and less expensive, for
consumers.

Thanks,
Gary
[e-mail], usc!crum

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 20 Jun 89 14:50:20 +0100
From: [e-mail]
Subject: British Telecom's `Le Bleep' Service

With reference to the recent conversation regarding REN quotas. Surely the
simplest solution if there exist too many phones is simply to switch the
ringer OFF on one or more sets. Many of the cheaper phones have a switch for
this and for those that do not, simple surgery should do the trick.

A question here directed at UK listeners (sorry, no UK.TELECOM ... yet?).
Has anyone experience with BT`s 'le bleep' service. Le Bleep is an automated
residential answering service/pager combination. I have tried BTs sales
line twice, armed with a handful of questions, but the two people I recieved
knew about as much about telephones as a teabag knows about .... etc etc.
Any comments would be appreciated, particular questions are listed below;

   1) How do you enable/disable the service
   2) Do you require equipment attached to the phone line
   3) Can more than one pager be used with the service
   4) Is it possible to call the pager direct (ie, use it as a normal pager)
   5) Does the phone ring first for a bit or otherwise
   6) (out of interest) If answer to (2) is NO, how is the system implemted,
      particularly with respect to older telephone exchanges.

please reply via e-mail, I'll forward any responses to anyone interested too.

Peter T.

[Moderator's Note: Why not post replies here, please. Let's all share. PT]

------------------------------

From: John Higdon <apple!zygot![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Long Distance Carrier Sound Comparisons
Date: 20 Jun 89 05:17:48 GMT
Organization: ATI Wares Team


In article <[e-mail]>, jimmy%denwa.uucp (Jim
Gottlieb) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
> (Ole J. Jacobsen) writes:
>
> >Which LD carrier is the best?  I have found that calling the East Coast
> >from the West Coast almost universially gives you a clear digital circuit
> >when the call is placed via SPRINT, and almost universally gives you a
> >cruddy circuit when placed via AT&T.

> I agree.  I get tired of hearing all the AT&T employees on here who buy
> the company line about their LD being best.  I must say that AT&T's
> digital connections are superb, even surpassing Sprint's, but they are
> still all too rare.

Oh, really. I just made test calls to every out-of-the-way place I
could think of on AT&T and every single one of them was carried
digitally. Even a call to Washington state, the last hold out of analog
connections for AT&T was digital. Or how about St. Marys, KS? Or
Thistle, UT? All digital.

> Let me say that I appreciate the level of service offered by AT&T, and
> this is especially obvious after having to deal with Sprint.  We also
> use nothing but AT&T computers here (even though AT&T doesn't make
> them) because of the great service we get from them.

Just had a modem problem with calls to St. Marys. A call to AT&T
service reached a live person in seconds. My complaint was taken and I
was promptly called back by someone in "network". I told him that my
Trailblazer was having consistent difficulty establishing contact with
another like unit and then he promised to get back to me. Within a
couple of minutes my Trailblazer answered what sounded like a "wrong
number" (no modem at the other end). Later that day, Alan in "network"
called to tell me that the modem levels looked good at each end, so
they were going to turn down the trunks between San Jose and St. Marys
and test them. He told me that the alternate circuits would probably be
OK to use in the interim. They were.

Today he called to tell me that they had found timing problems in the
main circuits that have been repaired and the trunks had been returned
to service.

Contrast that with Sprint, where you can wait 45 minutes just for
someone to answer the phone. Then you talk to someone who takes your
complaint and you never hear anything from them again. If you call back
to check the progress of your complaint, you first have to re-invent
the wheel to get them to acknowledge your first call (AT&T gives you a
ticket number when you first call). Then they either tell you it's all
fixed when it isn't, or they tell you that they could find no trouble
and that it must be your equipment that is to blame. At no time do you
speak to anyone knowledgeable. This fact alone tells me what Sprint
thinks of its customers.

> And I would be willing to pay a little more for that service.  But AT&T
> LD is not a little more, and they are decidedly inflexible.  I always
> give them a chance when we are re-evaluating LD service, but because
> they won't let us combine all our locations for a quantity discount
> (unless we pay a $2500 monthly fee), they are just way too expensive.

Too bad. It really is superior.

> Not to mention those analog connections...

Not any more.
--
        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
      [e-mail]       | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

------------------------------

Subject: Re: Re: Is Touchtone Still a Protected Trademark
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 89 20:37:36 EDT
From: "Dr. T. Andrews" <[e-mail]>

Follow-up on the summary: one source (tnx to [e-mail])
advises that British Telecom claimed the name "TouchTone", and that
it is now their property.

I'm no lawyer; I can't say how this affects folks on the other side
of the pond.  I would hope that few US courts would support BT if
they objected to me referring to touch-tone w/o ACKing their claim.
--
 ...!bikini.cis.ufl.edu!ki4pv!tanner  ...!bpa!cdin-1!ki4pv!tanner
or...  {allegra killer gatech!uflorida uunet!cdin-1}!ki4pv!tanner


------------------------------

From: Robert Cohen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Pacific Bell plans access to computers
Date: 20 Jun 89 06:08:03 GMT
Reply-To: Robert Cohen <[e-mail]>
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA

Brad (and others),
I'll pass along the telephone numbers for more info our marketing people
are putting out.  I'm not in that area so I know nothing about planned
offerings.

For more information, contact:

Information Services Group sales center on 811-7704 or the product
manager on 415/867-7046.  Out-of-state customers may call collect
on 415/867-7704.

Hope this helps!

--

Robert Cohen San Ramon, California {att,bellcore,sun,ames,pyramid}!pacbell!rhc
415-823-1460            [e-mail]


------------------------------

Reply-To: [e-mail]
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 89 08:46:11 CST
From: Don Peaslee <[e-mail]>
Subject: What Is 10288?

Recently I've seen some discussion on a local BBS concerning the prefix 10288
(or possibly 102880).   It was said that adding this sequence to a
modem-dialed phone number will "give cleaner lines."   Any truth to that, and
what the heck IS this number anyway?

Don


[Moderator's Note: '10288' is the Carrier Access Code for AT&T. At the time
the local telephone companies split away from AT&T, the new rules required
that every phone subscriber be allowed to choose which long distance carrier
was desired. People who did not return 'ballots' to their local phone company
were assigned at random to one of several companies handling long distance
calls, including AT&T, Sprint and MCI. The long distance carrier of assignment
became your 'default' -- or dial one plus -- carrier; meaning that when
you dialed a long distance call, your call was automatically handled by
the 'default' carrier. You are free to choose whatever carrier you want
to handle your long distance calls. If you do not want the carrier assigned
to your line to handle your long distance calls, then you must dial a five
digit Carrier Access Code *before* dialing the long distance number.

For example, MCI might be the carrier assigned to your line. In order to
have AT&T handle the call instead of MCI, you must first dial 10288, *then*
the long distance number. If AT&T was your 'default' (or assigned) carrier,
then to force the call to be handled by Sprint you would dial '10333' before
entering the long distance number. Likewise, MCI access is via '10222',
and there are numerous other carriers, each with a five digit code of the
form '10xxx' which will handle your long distance call if you dial their
code first.

The message you saw on your local BBS was probably trying to say that the
author felt long distance calls with a modem were better handled by AT&T.
Since he did not know for sure what default carrier was assigned to the
line he was using, he assured himself of AT&T handling of his call by
using the '10288' prefix before each call dialed.  PT]

[FURTHERMORE: In Friday's Digest -- How a radio transmitter religiously
irritates Indiana Bell in Hammond, IN; and how complaints by the telco
and its subscribers to the FCC have accomplished very little. See you
tomorrow!   :)  PT]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #207
*****************************










Date:     Fri, 23 Jun 89 0:01:36 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #208
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Fri, 23 Jun 89 00:00:34 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 208

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters (TELECOM Moderator)
    How to put an answering machine on a System 25 (Roy Smith)
    Re: Automatic Conversation Recording Device (Dave Platt)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 22 Jun 89 19:23:26 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters

Indiana Bell service in the northeast section of Hammond, IN has gone to
hell, but the telco says its not their fault, and they are trying to work
with the people involved to correct the problem.

For instance, consider the case of Steve Gescheidler, a resident of north
Hammond, living just a few blocks from the Illinois/Indiana state
line: he shares a party line with Jesus. When he picks up his telephone,
a voice will often be on the wire reading from Ephesians, or bellowing at
him to repent before he Burns In Hell forever. Sometimes the voice is
trying to sell him spiritually enlightening audio tapes -- Visa and
MasterCard accepted, of course.

His neighbor around the corner, Judy Maruszczak, has a heavenly instrument
also: When she tries to make a phone call, it will often times be drowned
out by hand-clapping gospel music. Her VCR also likes to preach to her.

The Hammond legal firm of Efron and Efron owns a pious dictaphone machine.
When the secretary is in the midst of transcribing legalese, threats of
fire and brimstone suddenly are heard on the tape. In addition, their phone
system is electronic, and when they put calls on hold, as often as not a
few seconds later the hold is broken and the call is lost. Several times
per day the phone will ring, and no one is on the line at all.

Linda Reynolds, another resident in the area said her television, her VCR
and her cordless phone all began urging her down the righteous path last
fall. She said sometimes at night the cordless phone begins ringing by
itself, and going off hook for no reason, tying up their wire-line.

Nine year old Tommy Kotul learned how to find salvation while he was trying
to play 'Sports Baseball', an Atari game cartridge. He also said that one
day in school, a choir started singing hymns over the school's public
address system, which is in the form of speakerphones connected to the
intercom phone on each teacher's desk.

Although the sanctified interference shows up in the damndedest ways, on
all sorts of electronic gizmos, it invariably is on the phone lines of
the good (and presumably by now, God-fearing) residents of North Hammond,
an Indiana community which straddles the Illinois state line with the
communities of Burnham and Calumet City, Illinois to the south and west,
and Chicago at it's northwest tip on the state line.

So people began asking Indiana Bell, "what the heck is this, anyway?"...

WYCA-FM Christian Broadcasters, Inc....that's what it is.... this religious
station, operating at 92.3 on the dial, licensed in Hammond, IN, with
transmitter facilities in Burnham, IL is the culprit. Operating with an
antenna height of 500 feet, and 50,000 watts of radiated power, the folks at
WYCA-FM Christian Broadcasters, Inc. are literally *saturating* a two mile
area around the northern end of the Indiana/Illinois state line, 24 hours
per day, seven days per week.

Gescheidler lives about four blocks from WYCA's transmitter. He first began
noticing the sanctified interference last fall, and it became louder and
louder as the months went on, always on his end. "It seems like when
I am in the middle of an important conversation, some preacher always comes
on and tells me I'm going to Hell," he said, adding that the phone lines
had already gone to hell, and no one seemed to give a damn about it.

After complaining several times to Indiana Bell, Gescheidler and his
neighbors complained to the Federal Communications Commission, the Indiana
Utilities Regulatory Commission, and finally to the radio station itself.
No one, he realized, least of all the radio station, was willing to take
any responsibility for the problem.

WYCA isn't breaking any broadcasting rules according to Paul Gomell, an
FCC Chicago office technician whose duties include periodic examination
of WYCA's equipment. "The home equipment is probably not adequately filtered,"
he said.

"The problem has nothing to do with Indiana Bell's equipment," said Delores
Steur-Wagner, Indiana Bell's community affairs manager for Hammond. "If
there are complaints, they should go to the FCC."

Chris Alexander, Dallas-based Vice President-Engineering for WYCA-FM Christian
Broadcasters parent corporation said, "The signal is so strong, you expect
this kind of interference in devices that are not well-shielded. We try
to advise people as best we can, and we have worked closely with Indiana
Bell and Illinois Bell to resolve complaints."

In November, 1986, the station raised its antenna to 500 feet from 400 feet,
and increased its power from 30,000 to 50,000 watts, Alexander said. "We
made these changes only after receiving permission to do so from the Federal
Communications Commission."  Alexander said that this change in power and
antenna height created a so-called 'blanketing area' -- an area of about
1.7 miles in any direction of the transmitter and antenna -- where the
signal is so strong and so permeating, it is literally everywhere, in
everything.

"Indeed this is the case," said one neighbor five blocks from the site.
"I have gone for early morning walks in the open field where the antenna
is constructed. In the crisp, early morning air, you can almost feel the
signal; smell that ozone; sense the corona."

Alexander said, "We operate completely within the law. We observe all FCC
regulations at all times." He noted that one condition for the change in
antenna height and power output being granted by the Commission was that
WYCA was ordered to assume responsibility for correcting certain types
of radio interference in an area 1.7 miles in any direction of the station
for a period of *one year* afterward. Alexander said during that time they
worked closely with the telcos involved and "....anyone who complained
about interference was given free of charge the filtering devices they
needed...some of our people helped install them....just what the FCC said
we had to do, we did it, in the geographic area required, for the length
of time required...."

Alexander noted one of the first complaints about the increased power came
when prosecutors in a federal drug trial in Hammond tried to play wiretap
evidence for the jury: instead, the tape recorder offered up hymns and
homilies.

Paul Gomell of the FCC noted that they have received complaints about the
station relating to answering machines, speed-dialing equipment, cordless
phones, cheapie phones, hold buttons, Touch-Tone service, and VCR's. These
appurtenances and others -- like the preaching Atari game -- lend to the
appearance that God is everywhere, at least in Hammond.

One Indiana Bell service representative spoke, on the condition that she
could remain nameless, saying that the telco had handled over 130 WYCA-
related problems in the past year, but Bell spokeswoman Steur-Wagner said
the company does not keep track of such things and she had no way of
confirming this report.

The next step to reduce the interference -- with no guarentees that it will
completely end -- is to have all the interior phone wire shielded in steel
casings, said Tim Timmons, Indiana Bell's regional maintainence manager
for northern Indiana, "...plus of course have good filtering where the phone
lines come into the building..."

"What a deal!", said Gescheidler. He recently priced the job at $300 per
phone from an independent contractor. "Indiana Bell said *maybe* they could
do it a little cheaper for us...but they say it is not their obligation to
resolve the problem any further."  He mentioned that, "...one day some guy
from WYCA came here with a phone man; they had some cheapie looking filter
they plugged in...it didn't seem to do any good."

Although the parent corporation of WYCA in Dallas may have good public
relations, the neighborhood says local staff at WYCA-FM Christian Broadcasters,
Inc. isn't at all concerned any longer. "They have heard so many complaints
I guess they quit listening to them any longer," said a neighbor. "When
I called one day -- one day when it seemed like they were much louder than
usual -- and asked them in a nice way couldn't they modulate their signal
a little better, a lady there told me I was being blasphemous. She told
me it was anti-religious to complain. She said I should be thankful that
I was able to hear the Word of God, and she hoped I would someday realize
I would Burn In Hell without accepting Jesus as my Savior. That's the last
time I bothered calling *them* to complain. Now the FCC and Indiana Bell say
*they* can't do any more either?"

No madame, they cannot. As Chris Alexander, VP-Engineering has explained
time and again when asked, the Corporation follows all FCC rules at all
times. "We ALWAYS do exactly what the government tells us to do," he said.

And Indiana Bell brings the wire to the drop by your house. They say the
line is as clean as it can be at that point. You do the rest.

An old folk-prayer says, "My Lord....nothing is going to happen that You
and I can't handle together. Amen." But one can have too much togetherness,
as the residents of North Hammond will attest.

Said Steve Gescheidler, "On the radio, they are praying for me. Meanwhile,
I am praying for a phone line I can talk on without being disrupted by
the choir and the organist."

Radio Station WYCA-FM
Studios and Executive Offices
6336 Calumet Avenue
Hammond, IN 46301
92.3 on FM dial throughout northern Illinois and northern Indiana.

------------------------------

From: Roy Smith <[e-mail]>
Subject: How to put an answering machine on a System 25
Date: 8 Jun 89 01:52:58 GMT
Organization: Public Health Research Institute, NYC, NY


    At work, we've got an AT&T System-25 PBX.  It supports two kinds of
lines and phones.  The first is the plain old 2-wire tip/ring DTMF set
(although, it will recognize pulse dialers as well).  The second is a
new-fangled multiline setup which replaced the old key sets.  These lines
use 3 pairs.  I believe they are tip/ring, power, and some sort of digital
2-way communication between the phone (er, excuse me, "voice terminal") and
the switch.

    How does one hook up something like an answering machine or a fax
machine to one of the 3-pair lines?  We've tried the obvious; just pulling
tip and ring out to an RJ-11 and plugging the answering machine in, but
that didn't work.  In retrospect, I don't suppose there was any reason to
think it would work; what I'm calling tip and ring really aren't tip and
ring in any normal sense, just the voice signal for the currently active
conversation.  All the contol information (ring, off-hook, etc) probably go
over the digital control pair.

    What we ended up doing was running an old-style line into the
office where our main number is and putting the answering machine on that.
When the office staff leaves for the day, they forward the main number's
calls to the other line so the answering machine can catch them.  It seems
like there has to be a better way.  Is there?
--
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
{allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- [e-mail]
"The connector is the network"

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 22 Jun 89 10:39:47 PDT
From: Dave Platt <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Automatic Conversation Recording Device
Organization: Coherent Thought Inc., Palo Alto CA

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
> Hi.  Does anyone know of a phone or accessory that can record all
> phone sessions, "automatically" (without explicit action like using a
> common tape recorder and suction cup microphone)?  Such a device along
> with a computer interface and indexing system would be ideal, but...
> I already have an automatic email archive system in place, and it
> would be nice to have a similar system for phone communication.
>
> I have heard of phone archive systems used for police lines, but I am
> thinking of something small and less reliable and less expensive, for
> consumers.

DAK sells a device called the Phone Tap for about $50.  It plugs into
your phone line and into your tape recorder's "mike" and "remote" jacks.
Whenever the phone goes off-hook, the device closes the "remote" circuit
and feeds the audio into the "mike" circuit.

However... since you're posting from USC, I feel obliged to inform you
that the law places some substantial restrictions on the taping of phone
conversations.  To quote from my local phone book:

"According to Federal and State tariffs your phone calls cannot be
 legally recorded unless you hear short 'beep' tones, consent has been
 gained from all parties to the conversation, or conversation is
 preceeded by verbal notification which is recorded at the beginning (as
 part of the call) by the recording party.  Use of a recorder without an
 audible beep-tone is not permitted except for commercial broadcasting
 when the person being recorded has been informed.

 It is a crime under Federal Law for any person, including a telephone
 subscriber, to wiretap or otherwise intercept a telephone call, unless
 that person has first obtained the consent of one of the parties
 participating in the call.  Under California State Law, the consent of
 all of the parties participating in the call must be obtained before
 a person who is not a party to a call may eavesdrop on or wiretap the
 call."

DAK points out these facts (in briefer form) in their catalog.  The
Phone Tap that they sell does not generate the 'beep' tones required by
the tariffs.  So... if you want to use this device (or any similar one)
and to comply with the rules and with the law, you'll be required to
notify _everyone_ with whom you speak on the phone that the call is
being recorded.  Furthermore, you'll have to be careful to switch off
the device when you, personally, are not using the phone... if the
device records a call to which you are not a party, then you will very
probably have violated both State and Federal laws concerning wiretapping.

My advice is, don't do this.  Remember how much trouble Dick Nixon got
into?

--
Dave Platt    FIDONET:  Dave Platt on 1:204/444        VOICE: [phone]
  UUCP: ...!{ames,sun,uunet}!coherent!dplatt     DOMAIN: [e-mail]
  INTERNET:   coherent![e-mail],  [e-mail]
  USNAIL: Coherent Thought Inc.  3350 West Bayshore #205  Palo Alto CA 94303

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #208
*****************************










Date:     Fri, 23 Jun 89 1:16:51 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #209
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Fri, 23 Jun 89 00:49:19 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 209

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Call Quality (David Lewis)
    Wilmington <--> 215-347 (Carl Moore)
    Re: More on Cellular Overseas (Lars J. Poulsen)
    Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public (Richard Edell)
    Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public (David Lewis)
    Dial Back Codes (Ron Fink)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: David Lewis <nvuxr![e-mail]>
Subject: Call Quality
Date: 22 Jun 89 23:01:05 GMT
Organization: Bell Communications Research


To get in my two cents on the discussion of call quality...

There is more to call quality than just the amount of noise on the line.
Call quality also includes Grade of Service (the percentage of a call
getting blocked somewhere in the network); call setup time; and
percentage of calls "lost".  (May be more -- that's all I can think of
right now.)

In other words, even if the calls that get through have a fabulous
signal to noise ratio, if only one in two calls get through because the
IXC doesn't have sufficient capacity to handle all the traffic, the
call quality isn't that good.  If it takes 35 seconds from end of
dialing to beginning of ringing, ditto.  If every third call gets
dropped out in the network, ditto.  (These examples are exaggerated, but
you get the picture).

Anecdote -- I changed my primary IXC from USSprint to AT&T because the
call setup times were atrocious and about one call in ten was dropping
out (end of dialing -> silence for about 15 seconds -> dial tone).
These were, of course, a small sample and all calls were from Ithaca, NY
primarily to New Jersey and Pitsburgh -- Your Mileage May Vary.  But,
the lesson is, even though the amount of the noise on the line may be
very good, the call quality may be poor.

Just a note to keep in mind...

--
David G Lewis                ...!bellcore!nvuxr!deej

            "If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower."

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 22 Jun 89 11:14:12 EDT
From:     Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Wilmington <--> 215-347

I have heard that in the latest batch of phone bills sent to the Wilmington
(Del.) exchange, there was a note saying that a certain bug had been corrected.
The bug was that 347-xxxx dialed from a Wilmington phone would make a local
call to Unionville, Pa. on 215-347 prefix.  Unionville is just north of Kennett
Square (uses 215-444, which IS supposed to be a 7-digit local call from
Wilmington, although a recent message from me to telecom indicated 11 digits
for the local call the other way around). 347-xxxx from Wilmington is supposed
to have NO meaning that I know of.

------------------------------

From: Lars J Poulsen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: More on Cellular Overseas
Date: 22 Jun 89 16:49:22 GMT
Organization: Advanced Computer Communications, Santa Barbara, California


The first generation of Nordic Mobile Telephones (Scandinavia's Cellular
system) NMT-450 operated at 450 MHz; the new system runs at 900 Mhz.

In article <[e-mail]>
 John Wheeler <techwood![e-mail]> writes:
>Curious as to how "cellular" can be operated at 450 MHz. At frequencies that
>"low" the cells would spill all over the place. 400-500 MHz is in fact
>"famous" for its abilities to get into nooks and crannies everywhere,
>bouncing off every building and hill within sight.

That was the idea; the cells are about 75 to 150 miles across; base
stations are co-located with television transmitters (both operated by
the national Post and Telegraph service).

How many cells are in Dallas under the current system ?

 Lars Poulsen <[e-mail]>     [phone]  or [phone] ext 358
 ACC Customer Service                Affiliation stated for identification only
                 My employer probably would not agree if he knew what I said !!

------------------------------

From: Richard Edell <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public
Date: 22 Jun 89 22:32:13 GMT
Reply-To: Richard Edell <[e-mail]>
Organization: University of California, Berkeley (student)


In article <[e-mail]> apple!zygot!john@decwrl.
dec.com (John Higdon) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
>(Lars J Poulsen) writes:
>> I would like to see more regulation of the local telephone service, to
>> include the following:

>> (1) More readable phone bills. All mandatory charges, taxes etc included
>>     in the basic monthly price of service, and all optional components
>>     identified on separate line items.

>I think one reason they are not included is that the telco doesn't want
>you to think more money goes into their pocket than actually does. As
>far as listing options, etc., Pac*Bell on each and every bill lists all
>of the services that the subscriber pays for. For instance, it shows
>each custom calling feature and the monthly charge as well as optional
>"calling plans" (discounts that cost money).

Pacific Bell only itemizes the monthly service charges for *residential*
accounts.  For instance:
   Measured Rate Service          4.25
   Touch-Tone Service             1.70    (not actual ammounts)

Business customers only get "Monthly Service (start date) thru
(end date)" and some amount.  Beginning this year Pacific Bell has been
sending to every business account holder a "Customer Service Record".
These reports are sent according to one of three schedules: 1) annually, which
month depends on the last digit of the account number; 2) every month (!); and
3) no record.  Each account defaults to schedule #1, then Pacific mails
a postcard asking which schedule the business would like to be on in the
future.  In addition, a report is sent each time there is a change in
the account records (service added/removed).  These reports are not as
simple as the a couple additional lines as is the case with residential
service (business accouts are more complicated!)

Before they began sending these reports is was a real hassle to find-out
what you're paying for each month - you could ask for a "customer service
report" (same name) but this would be screen images of what the account
reps see (USOC codes only, no descriptions).  A few years back I asked
for, and got, an explanation for what "Monthly Service" included.  Then
by doing a simple audit of what services we were using I discovered that
Pacific Bell and AT&T were charging for a key telephone system that was
removed four years earlier when Pacific Telephone (the old pre-1984 CA)
telco) sold my employer a new PBX.  We got a refunds totalling $15,000!

-Richard Edell
 ([e-mail])

------------------------------

From: David Lewis <nvuxr![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Divestiture, Business and the General Public
Date: 22 Jun 89 22:52:31 GMT
Organization: Bell Communications Research


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Lars J Poulsen) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]>
>    [e-mail] (Marvin Sirbu) writes:
> > The subscriber line charge (SLC) is an element of interstate phone rates.

> I consider that to be a fiction. It is something that *I* pay to my
> local telephone company, and which cannot be waived, even if I disable
> all toll calls from the line. The local telco does not have to
> substiantiate the expense that is alledgedly covered by this charge, and
> it is not tied to the actual access provided.

The Subscriber Line Charge represents the cost to the LEC for providing
your line with access to interexchange carriers.  If you disable
interexchange calls from a given line using CPE, you also have the
ability to re-enable IX calls from that line without notifying the LEC.
As far as the telco is concerned, you have the ability to gain access to
IXCs at any point in time; therefore, you should be charged for this
access.

It is not technically infeasible to (either) block interexchange calls
in the LEC network (or) to have the CPE notify the LEC when a given line
has IXC access blocked or unblocked.  However, either option requires
some technical changes from the way the network functions today.
Blocking in the network requires a database lookup either at the
switch or a centralized database; CPE notification of the LEC is a
customer network management-type function which could *probably* be
handled by a new Q.932 (ISDN Supplementary Services) message.  Neither
case, though, is doable today.

> I wrote:
> >> (3) Equitable charges for all customers. Includes elimination of CENTREX
> >>     service. If your subscription includes 20 instruments, each with its
> >>     own wire pair into a switch at CO premises, this is really 20 lines.
> >>     The pricing of Centrex service to pretend that this is a virtual PBX
> >>     is sheer obfuscation.
> Marvin said:
> > Equity requires that 20 ordinary phone lines should not cost simply 20
> > times the cost of one phone line, since there are economies of scale.
> I do not object to volume discounts. But Centrex is NOT a volume
> discount. Centrex is a tariff that allows a subscriber with 400
> instruments to describe this as a virtual PBX with 12 outside lines. You
> then pay only for 12 lines plus rental on the non-existent PBX. I
> maintain that this is sheer obfuscation.

You've lost me here.  I don't work with Centrex, so my knowledge is
limited, but my understanding is that, if you have 400 telephone sets
(or modems or whatever), you have the equivalent of 400 loops running
back to the CO (whether they be individual loops, or a few multiplexed
T1s, or whatever).  You're paying the telco for what it costs to run the
lines to your locations, install whatever muxes are necessary, and
manage the system for you.  With a PBX, you pay for however many trunks
to the local CO you want, plus the cost of the PBX.  If you want 12
trunks, you can have at most 12 conversations outside the PBX at any
time.  With Centrex, if you have 400 phones, you have the capacity to
have all 400 simultaneously conversing outside the Centrex group.  Yes,
Centrex is a tariff -- but a "virtual PBX"?  Not really.  It has its own
advantages and disadvantages.

> >> (4) Least call call routing.
> >Centrex users can in fact buy such a service from the local telephone
> >company, but it is costly.  The reasons it costs so much is an element
> >of the divestiture which could be changed without changing the
> >Constitution.  Bascially, the MFJ forbids a BOC from having anything to
> >do with "selecting" which long distance company carries your traffic.
>
> This makes some sense. I still think it would be a great convenience.

I'm not so sure.  The IXC market, even though 90% of the traffic is
carried by the big three, is still pretty wide open (I think there are
still on the order of 100+ IXCs).  There's a wide range of cost,
quality, coverage, and so forth.  I, as a user, know my needs for
interexchange telephone service.  Cost may be the driver; service may be
the driver; billing quality may be the driver; etc.  This fits with the
parallel discussion that's been going on -- how would you like it if
your midnight data dump from your satellite office back to the main
office got routed via Joe's Long Distance Company, which has such lousy
sound quality that your holding time doubles because of all the
retransmits you need, because the algorithm decided on by the FCC
mandates that that's the "best" carrier for you to be carried by?  A lot
more decides the choice of IXC beyond cost, and the person in the best
position to decide is the user.

Disclaimer:  Bellcore doesn't even know I'm saying this.

--
David G Lewis                ...!bellcore!nvuxr!deej

            "If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower."

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 22 Jun 89 08:49:00 GMT
From: [e-mail] (XMPD4-R.FINK)
Subject: Dial-back Codes
Date: 22 Jun 89 12:49:49 GMT
Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ
Lines: 15


Some time ago I saw some news which discussed the dial-back codes
which BOCs use to call back a number which just dialed to the
local instrument.

Does anyone have those articles or some suggestion as to how to find these
codes?
I believe they vary by area code, even by office.
Is this true?
Is there a compendium?

Thanks

Ron Fink
mtuxo!rf1
attmail!rfink
voice 201-576-4032


[Moderator's Note: There is no compendium. They do vary office by office.
Ask at the office in particular for the desired code. See if they give it to
you. No two places work the same. No list kept here since they change each one
each month, or so it seems.

FURTHERMORE - In Saturday's Digest: Two reports by Will Martin on recent
news of interest (1) Southwestern Bell Tel must cut rates, and (2) Supreme
Court rules 'no expectation of privacy on cordless phones'.  Bye!   PT]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #209
*****************************










Date:     Sat, 24 Jun 89 1:11:53 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #210
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sat, 24 Jun 89 00:46:08 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 210

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Telecom In The News (Will Martin)
    Proper Way to Disconnect Ringers on Phones (Julian Macassey)
    Re: Is TouchTone Still a Protected Trademark (Peter Thurston)
    Questions About New Line (Sten Peeters)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 22 Jun 89 13:54:11 CDT
From:     Will Martin <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Telecom in the news

Two major telecom-related articles in the Wednesday, 21 June, St. Louis
Post-Dispatch:

Page 1: BELL MUST CUT PHONE RATES BY $101 MILLION

by Jim Mosley, Post-Dispatch Jefferson City Bureau

In a move that will result in savings to many telephone customers in the
St. Louis area, the Missouri Public Service Commission has ordered
Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. to reduce its annual revenue by about
$101 million.

The commission's order, made public Tuesday, will cut rates for
customers with Touch-Tone dialing and those who make long-distance calls.

The commission's 113-page decision will not affect the charges for basic
telephone service.

The changes will be effective July 1. The PSC's order calls for:

* A 30% reduction in rates charged customers with tone dialing. For
residential customers, the rate will decrease to $1.45 a month from $2.05.
For business customers, the rate will decrease to $3.10 a month from $4.40.

* A 20% cut in charges for long-distance calls made within the same area
code. The specific amount of savings will depend on the distance of the call.

* A cut in residential-service-connection charges of 23%. Under the order,
the rate will decrease to $36.50 from $47.40. Service-connection charges
for businesses will reduce by 38% -- to $52.25 from $84.25.

* Lowering access charges that Bell charges companies that provide
long-distance service. That provision should benefit consumers, because
long-distance companies pass on their access charges to customers, the
commission said.

The commission said the cost of long-distance calls between area codes
should drop by about 10% if long-distance carriers pass on their savings to
customers.

* Lowering "mileage" charges that are paid by rural customers. Currently,
the charges range from $2.05 a month to $16.55 a month, depending on where
a customer lives.

Under the commission's order, the charge will be $2.05 for all customers
who must pay it.

* Reducing rates for Wide Area Telecommunications Service, known as WATS,
and 800 service. The amount of those reductions will depend on the type of
WATS and 800 service a customer has and where the calls begin and end.

A Southwestern Bell official said Tuesday that the company was "deeply
disappointed by the size of today's revenue reduction."

"While it may make for some big headlines, the order does not provide for
changes in the regulatory framework that are required by today's
increasingly competitive telecommunications environment," Dan T. Hubbard, a
Bell assistant vice president, said in a statement.

The decision Tuesday stems from complaints filed last year against the
utility by the PSC staff and the state's Office of Public Counsel, which
represents consumers in utility-rate cases before the commission.

The complaints alleged that in 1987 Bell had earned more than $200 million
too much from its Missouri customers. Bell has about 1.6 million customers
in Missouri; about 750,000 of those customers live in the St. Louis area.

Both complaints had sought cuts in basic local service charges. Bell had
opposed any rate reductions; the utility disagreed that it had earned too
much in 1987 from its customers in Missouri. [Big surprise! WM :-)]

[This thing reads like it is heavily padded. I will summarize some
paragraphs here: the PSC said that Bell was doing better than when the
last rate case was decided in 1983, and tax law changes would help it too.
The basic rates weren't raised because they are still below the national
average. The Public Counsel was disappointed because the changes will
affect only a minority of customers (those with touchtone and who make LD
calls -- see, I TOLD you they were the minority! WM).]

The commission also rejected a plan by Bell that would have given the utility
the authority to annually raise local rates by an amount needed to keep pace
with inflation plus a 3% "productivity factor".      [I should hope so! -WM]
***End of article***

And, on page B1 (first page of the editorial section):

REACH OUT, TAP SOMEONE
Court Overrules Privacy On Cordless Telephones

by Tim Bryant

Is the privacy of your telephone conversation protected by federal law? Not
if you are using a cordless phone.

The 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the 21-year-old Omnibus
Crime Control Act does not prohibit interception of cordless phone
conversations.

In a unanimous opinion, a three-judge appellate panel said: "Courts have
not accepted the assertions of privacy expectation by speakers who were
aware that their conversation was being transmitted by cordless telephone."

The appeals court ruling, handed down last week in St. Louis, arose from a
case in Iowa in which criminal charges were filed against a man who had
been unaware that a family four blocks from his house was listening to his
conversations over his cordless phone.

The man, Scott C. Tyler, filed a civil suit over the matter and said that
he would press his case to the Supreme Court, if necessary.

"It's been a five-year battle, and this is not over by any means," Tyler said.

Tyler, 44, of Dixon, Iowa, spent 123 days in prison on two theft convictions
in Iowa. Authorities said Tyler had set up a dummy company to bilk two food
distributors out of $35,000 in goods.

The case began in 1983 when Richard and Sandy Berodt, who lived four blocks
from Tyler and his family, discovered that their cordless phone was picking
up conversations from the Tylers' cordless phone.

"Based on what they overheard, the Berodts suspected Scott Tyler of criminal
activity," the appeals court said in its opinion.

The Berodts called the Scott County Sheriff's Department in Davenport, Iowa,
and were asked to continue eavesdropping on the Tylers. Although no court
order was obtained, the Berodts tape-recorded some of the conversations with
equipment that Tyler said the sheriff's department had provided.

A jury convicted Tyler of theft, even though the judge refused to allow the
recordings as evidence.

In July 1985, Tyler and four members of his family filed a damage suit
against the Berodts, Scott County, the sheriff and a deputy. US District
Judge Harold D. Vietor of Des Moines, Iowa, ruled against the Tylers, saying
that federal wiretap laws, the 1968 crime control act and the Fourth
Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures did not
apply to cordless phone transmissions.

Scott County Prosecuting Attorney Thomas C. Fritzsche said he agreed with
Vietor's decision. He added that the appeals court's ruling puts the 8th
Circuit "in the mainstream" of recent decisions involving cordless phones.

"What gave Mr. Tyler some type of credibility was that there has been a split
in the case law that has looked at this type of case," Fritzsche said. "But a
whole recent trend of opinions has been away from that type of decision. All
the courts -- and there have been three or four of them -- have gone the
other way.

"Mr. Tyler has ideas that this is a case of burning social issues. It really
isn't."

Tyler had relied on a case that the 9th US Court of Appeals decided in 1973.
In that case, telephone conversations were disallowed as evidence when at
least one participant in a phone call used an ordinary phone line.

But among the cases that the 8th Circuit cited in its ruling against Tyler
was a 1970 case involving former Teamsters union boss Jimmy Hoffa. In that
instance, the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals said there was no "expectation
of privacy" for conversations over a mobile telephone.

In a footnote to its opinion, the appeals court here said that the 1986
overhaul of federal wiretap laws had changed the definition of wire
communications to say that "such term does not include the radio portion of
a cordless telephone [call] that is transmitted between the cordless
telephone handset and the base unit."

"As a matter of federal law, we do not believe the Tylers had a justifiable
expectation of privacy for their conversations," the court said.

Tyler said it was time for the law to catch up with technology.

"Everybody is going to be walking around with a pocket phone in the next
five to ten years," he said. "The Fourth Amendment needs to be extended."

He said his cordless phone had been a Father's Day gift.

"Little did I know it would cause five years of hell in my life," he said.

Judges George G. Fagg of Des Moines, Gerald W. Heaney of Duluth, Minn., and
Frank J. Magill of Fargo, N. D., issued the opinion.
***End of Article***

[Whew! Fingers are tired! WM]

[There is also a sidebar item telling what a cordless phone is. I won't
bother typing that in; people here know that... :-) It does mention that
"modern cordless phones are equipped to use 10 channels ... Each channel has
a digital security code that can be programmed 256 different ways. The
result is a 2560-to-1 chance that two cordless phones with channels
programmed the same way will be within each other's broadcast range..."
That calculation of probability sounds a bit specious to me, but I'll leave
the rebuttal up to others for now... -WM]

One last comment -- I find it surprising that the article does NOT mention
the ECPA in any way. Of course, the court case has to be based on law in
effect at the time, but the ECPA has changed things since then, and I would
have thought that the writer and editor would have wanted to bring that
point out...

Regards, Will Martin

------------------------------

From: julian macassey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Proper Way to Disconnect Ringers on Phones
Date: 23 Jun 89 06:41:44 GMT
Organization: The Hole in the Wall  Hollywood CA U.S.A.


In article <[e-mail]>, pwt1%ukc.ac.uk@
nsfnet-relay.ac.uk writes:
> With reference to the recent conversation regarding REN quotas. Surely the
> simplest solution if there exist too many phones is simply to switch the
> ringer OFF on one or more sets. Many of the cheaper phones have a switch for
> this and for those that do not, simple surgery should do the trick.
>
    Simple surgery is what you need. The OFF switch on telephones,
disconnects the speaker or mechanically stops the clapper on a gong ringer.
The ringing circuit is still connected and so absorbs power. The Telco
wanted it that way, so they could use the ringer circuitry for loop testing.
They also could measure the impedance of your line and tell if you had been
naughty and attached bootleg phones. So if you have too many ringers and the
phones are not ringing or are intermittent, you have to open up and get
at the leads to the ringer or electronic rining circuit. With electronic
ringers (the ones that warble) disabling the 1 uF capacitor will do the
trick.

    Note for UK readers: BT approved phones will not have a cap, it is in
the primary jack. With an approved phone it can be silenced and the ringer
disconnected by removing the lead to pin 3 on the jack (blue with white
stripe). As I recall U.K. phones will handle 4 standard ringers. A warble
ringer on a modern phone usually consumes about half the power of a standard
Plessey gong ringer (old fashioned bell).

    If the moderator wants, I can produce more drivel on wiring U.K. phones
etc. Note that what is public and free information in the U.S. is considered
"proprietary" by British Telecom. I know cos I was foolish enough to ask.
The funny part was I was doing work for them and provided info on U.S.
phones to B T., even gave a training course to some of their R&D folks from
Martlesham.

--
Julian Macassey, n6are  julian@bongo    ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian
n6are@wb6ymh (Packet Radio) n6are.ampr.org [44.16.0.81] voice [phone]

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Jun 89 14:21:12 +0100
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Is TouchTone Still a Protected Trademark


TouchTone is a trademark of British Telecom in the UK only. This they
state quite clearly when it is used.

BTW: In one brochure issues by BT to increase awareness of TouchTone and
other services, they claim that TouchTone speeds up connection of the call
(fine) and gives you a clearer conversation !!! Well, that is how it read.

Peter Thurston

------------------------------

Reply-To: [e-mail]
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 89 14:16:49 EST
From: Sten Peeters <[e-mail]>
Subject: Question About New Line Installed


I just got a new line to maybe set up a BBS. It cost me about 40 dollars. Is
this a good deal or was I ripped off? They also tried to charge me for
connecting the line at my house which would have cost me another 40 dollars
and 14 dollars for every 15 minutes they were working. I said no to this
because I knew that all I had to do was connect two wires to two other wires.

                     =========================

[Moderator's Note: I would say $40 is about the right price for turning
on a new line. And unless a person is totally without any electrical/
electronic/wiring skills at all, you can always save money by doing as you
did and having the wire dropped off at a point of entry into your home
then you doing the rest.  PT]

[In other correspondence, Mr. Peeters asks a question, better suited to comp.
dcom.modems, but posted here if anyone cares to write him back with an answer.]

   I have a IIc and a supra 2400 baud modem. When I boot the IIc and go into
the modem, I can't seem to get the HS(high speed) light on. the only way I can
do that is by running programs like Proterm or some other modem program. How
can I initialize my built in serial card so it will work at 2400 baud?
Thanks.
                                        sten
        Sten Peeters            |       sp@pro-palace
        2005 Buckman Avenue     |       User #2 @PhD GBBS
        Wyomissing, PA 19610    |       215/678-5741    2400 baud
        215/678-7954            |


[Moderator's Note: If you are using the Apple Super Serial Card (or compatible)
then you set the dip switches on the card for the default baud rate desired
when power is applied. Your comm program is changing these values through
software; by setting the dip switches, you set the default values through
hardware.  PT]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #210
*****************************










Date:     Sat, 24 Jun 89 1:55:38 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #211
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sat, 24 Jun 89 01:45:37 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 211

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Those {{{{{{{{{{{{ 's (Hal Eden)
    Two apartments on one telephone line (Thomas Lapp)
    Finding cheap phone rates (Todd M. Hoff)
    Re: Automatic Conversation Recording Device (Brent Chapman)
    Re: How to put an answering machine on a System 25  (Ben Ullrich)
    Re: Consumer Opts for POTS (Bennett Todd)
    Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters (Fred R. Goldstein)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Hal Eden <boulder!sigi.Colorado.EDU.colorado.edu![e-mail]>
Subject: those {{{{{{{{{{{{ 's
Date: 23 Jun 89 13:22:09 GMT
Organization: University of Colorado


I'm sure that this has been discussed here before, so if you reply
to me, that would be fine.

Could someone give me a semi-technical explanation for those {{{{{{{{
which appear as interference at 1200 baud?  I am going round and round
with USWestComm about this.

About a month ago a new office was installed in Boulder (apparently a
DMS100 ? 3rd hand info) and ever since then I have had to re-call
numerous times to get a "clean" line.  It seems that discussions I
have seen in the past referred to something being "out-of-phase".
What exactly is out of phase?  Whose responsibility is it?  How would
be the best way to pursue this?  I have gone through several levels of
supervisors and still get "no satisfaction".  I am not the only one
with the problem, and I have pursued it from the "other" end (the
problems only happen when I call modems at the university where I
work).  Apparently the problem has been fixed for most people, but I
am served by a different central-office than most of my colleagues.

Here's some idea of the interaction from this end --

Calls 1-3: I have "data noise" (with description) on my line
response 1-3: your line checks out, must be your equipment
counter response: but I can call englewood, denver, elsewhere with no
    problems; I only get this when I call the university in boulder!

Call 4: Escalate, supervisor says he will check it out
call 5: no response so I call again this time another supervisor gives
    me a (next level) supervisor, this supervisor gives me a spiel
    about how above 300 baud they cannot guarantee anything
    without me acquiring a "conditioned line"
my response: well, let's see; a conditioned line from where to where?
answer: from your home to the central office.
resp: and don't I go through that same central office when I call
    denver, englewood, etc?
answer: yes
resp: then why do I need a conditioned line from my house to the
    central office when when I go via that path to denver,etc I
    have no problems?
answer: I don't know.  Well maybe you could turn down your bauds a
    little bit, say to a thousand or so and see if you still have
    the problem....
me: sheesh!

so HELP, can someone educate me a little bet so that I can better
communicate what the problem is AND perhaps point me to the sort of
department within the operating company which would understand the
problem and could do something about it?  I am primarily a software
person who knows enough about hardware to get my self in trouble, and
have worked at a company who was working on an integrated phone/data
network/workstation (but I was in the database group not the telecom
group) so I know some small amount of terminology related to this, but
not a lot, so too low level a description might lose me, but I don't
need a laymans explanation either.

thanks
hal

[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Jun 89 23:19:19 edt
From: Thomas Lapp <[e-mail]>
Subject: Two apartments on one telephone line
Reply-To: mvac23![e-mail]

Here is an interesting situation which I have never heard of before.  It
occurred to my co-worker who is in the process of moving from one apartment
to another one about 8 miles away.

She has a roommate who is staying in the old apartment for a short time
longer than my co-worker.  My co-worker asked for the phone in the new
apartment to be connected as soon as possible (the number is to stay the
same).  I have not asked her, but I assume that she also requested that the
old number be disconnected at some date which was later than the request
for the new line.

The end result is that the new line was connected and the old location is
also still connected resulting in two phones in two physically separate
locations having the same phone number and both ringing when a call is
received.

Just thought it was interesting to note, since I didn't know the telco
could do that.  I just assumed it was one number per line.
                         - tom
==============================================================================
uucp:     ...!udel!mvac23!thomas    ! Internet: mvac23![e-mail]
Location: Newark, DE, USA           !      or   [e-mail]
==============================================================================

[Moderator's Note: An 'extension phone' can be hooked up anywhere in the
loop. Two or more wire pairs can be wired in parallel from the central
office as easily as they can be in your home.  What you are describing is
how 'answering services' have always been wired. A wire pair to the answering
service is attached to your pair in the phone office; you both get the same
calls. If you pick up first, the ringing stops on their end.

I might add this is how the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA
also listen to you (assuming authorized taps, of course). When telco is
served with a court order to apply a tap to your line, they tie another
pair on your line in the office and send it through a coil and off to the
FBI. **And they charge both YOU and the FBI for the price of the line!!**
No smiley given here.      PT]

------------------------------

From: "Todd M. Hoff" <well![e-mail]>
Subject: Finding cheap phone rates
Date: 23 Jun 89 00:10:09 GMT
Reply-To: "Todd M. Hoff" <well![e-mail]>
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA


I'm interested in the CHEAPEST way for a large group of geographically
disperse people to dial a bulletin board. This includes actual
phone configuration (800 number, Tymenet, etc), hardware configuration,
and anything else that seems relevent. I'm not an expert in this
area so I would prefer to learn from the wisdom of those who are.
I greatly appreciate any help you can give.

Thanx in advance

Todd
tmh@well

------------------------------

From: Brent Chapman <capmkt![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Automatic Conversation Recording Device
Date: 23 Jun 89 15:34:58 GMT
Reply-To: Brent Chapman <[e-mail]>
Organization: Capital Market Technology, Inc.; Berkeley, CA


Can anyone point me to a source for a device to generate the beeps
required for recording phone calls?

On a related note, are there any good general catalogs for telephone
equipment (both junk for someone's desk and junk to stick in the wiring
closet)?


Thanks!

-Brent
--
Brent Chapman                    Capital Market Technology, Inc.
Computer Operations Manager            1995 University Ave., Suite 390
[e-mail]                Berkeley, CA  94704
{apple,lll-tis,uunet}!capmkt!brent        Phone:  [phone]

------------------------------

Subject: Re: How to put an answering machine on a System 25
Organization: sybase, inc., emeryville, ca.
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 89 10:16:27 -0700
From: ben ullrich <[e-mail]>

No, there isn't a better way to hook an answering machine to a 25 (or 75, for
that matter.)  We did just what you did here at sybase when we first got into
a new building with our system 75 and our at&t audix voicemail wouldn't answer
the main number after business hours.

Why do you have to hook the answering machine to the 3-pair phone anyway?
What does that buy you that the 2 pair (2500 set, i suppose) doesn't?


 ...ben
----
ben ullrich           consider my words disclaimed,if you consider them at all
sybase, inc., emeryville, ca
+1 (415) 596 - 3500                 "something sporty ... like a probe."
[e-mail]                   {pyramid,pacbell,sun,lll-tis}!sybase!ben

------------------------------

Date: 23 Jun 89 20:24:10 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Bennett Todd)
Subject: Re: Consumer Opts For POTS
Organization: Diagnostic Physics, Radiology, DUMC

In article <[e-mail]>, decvax!decwrl!apple!
zygot!john@ucbvax (John Higdon) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, bet@bent (Bennett Todd)
>writes:
>> Our old electromechanical system worked vastly better.
>
>Please, please, no yearning for the good old days of electo-mechanical!
>[describes various line-quality deficiencies, maintenance troubles]
>                     Any CO upgrading costs are quickly recovered, not
>only from these charges, but from the reduced maintenance and plant
>staff required.
>
>Now tell me who is paying for it!

I'm paying for it. I get to pay more and more for service that is less
and less reliable, to the point where I finally decided to shut the
danged thing off (which has turned out to be *wonderful* -- I'd never
get it switched back on, even if they reduced their rates and got their
service stabilized and reliable).

And I'm paying for it. Our new super-spiffy AT&T digital PBX has amazing
features -- when it works. Half the time my phone won't ring when
callers try to reach me, and I have to get the guy who is attempting to
administrate this system to re-initialize my line, since its parameters
are getting hosed somehow.

If they could have maintained as reliable and straightforward a level of
service, while adding new features and improving maintainability, then
I'd be delighted. As it is, they are adding new features and improving
their maintainability, at the expense of reliability and simplicity of
use.

However, I am enjoying the chance to learn that I don't need to be so
dependant on a telephone; it is wonderful not having one at home, and at
work I can walk down the hall, or across campus, or (if it is long
distance) walk to a local mini-mart and use their pay phone.

It's a good thing they are recovering more money from the folks who
enjoy exploiting the features; they are certainly losing POTS-lovers as
they leave in disgust.

-Bennett, still unrepentant for his heresy
[e-mail]

------------------------------

From: "Fred R. Goldstein dtn226-7388" <[e-mail]>
Date: 23 Jun 89 09:38
Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters

That's a great story, but either it's a put-on, or the facts don't sound
quite right.  (Marvelous writing, though.  Is our moderator a journalist
by trade?)

Had WYCA been an AM station, then it would have been perfectly
believable.  Indeed, "blanketing" by AM transmitters is a common
problem.  I grew up about 3 miles from the WABC-AM transmitter (which is
in Lodi, NJ) whose 50kw 770 kHz signal had a habit of getting into
everything, including the phone.  People who live within blanket zones
routinely pick up transmissions on everything from telephones to dental
fillings.  It's the "crystal set" phenomenon:  Any nonlinear element
will rectify the signal, "detecting" AM transmissions, whose transmitted
power varies (in the time domain) in accordance with the modulation.

In fact, I'm guilty of it myself.  I have my ham radio antenna strung in
the attic, and when I use a mere 100 watts of single-sideband on the HF
shortwave bands, our telephone is clobbered.  Of course, the antenna
comes within 15 feet of the inside phone wire.  (Sticking a "split bead"
ferrite inductor on the phone wire didn't solve it, but may help a
little; you can buy them at Radio Shack.)

But an FM station?  Not so fast.  FM transmitters maintain a constant
amplitude, so if you "detect" them with a simple rectifier, you won't
get anything but perhaps a steady DC voltage.  (It'll light a
fluorescent tube, though, if you're close enough.)  Telephones won't
detect FM the way they detect AM.  I've noticed a faint hum on phone
lines caused by FM blanketing, but not the actual modulation.

Perhaps WYCA is on AM too.  In any case, raising the FM tower would
actually lessen blanketing, since the "pancake" pattern of an FM antenna
points very little signal downwards.
       fred (k1io)


[Moderator's Note: Well.....:).....I have been 'guilty of it' myself a few
times with CB radios and the like. The story was NOT a put-on. And I quite
agree with your assessment that FM signals should not operate in the manner
described in the story.

In fact, people in North Hammond have used your same argument with the FCC:
to wit, if WYCA is running so legally all the time, how *possibly* could
their signal be so all pervasive, heard everywhere including via my gold
fillings, etc. The answer has never been forthcoming.

WYCA does *not* have an AM operation. They are strictly FM, and have been
since they first went on the air about thirty years ago. I can recall as
far back as the middle seventies people complaining about abuse of the
airwaves by WYCA. The [Hammond Times] remarked on it occassionally a number
of years ago, when the station was in its early days, and sharing studio
space with WJOB, an independent AM station at 1230 kc in Hammond.

This is a group of people, who in their early days, when FM receivers were
not as common as they are now, told their listeners -- and I quote -- "if
you don't have an FM radio, you can *still* listen to us: just turn on
your television set and tune it as far above Channel 6 as you can; you will
probably hear us." In those days they routinely splattered all over their
frequency neighbors and could have cared less.

Calls to their studio in those days got you an automatic reply: "We operate
in accordance with FCC regulations. Thank you for calling. Goodbye."

The trouble stopped around 1980 for several years while their antenna was
still in South Hammond in the lot behind their studio on Calumet Avenue.
They bought the Burnham, IL location in 1981-82 sometime, and still there
was no trouble. Once the FCC got off their case a couple years ago, all
of a sudden the complaints started coming in again.

You tell me. I know the people in North Hammond -- at least the ones who
hate WYCA -- would be eternally grateful if *someone* could convince the
FCC that there were problems. When I had my little pocket size transistor
radio out there, within maybe two blocks no matter *where* I tuned on the
dial all I got was WYCA. There is something wrong. Fred, maybe you can
intervene. I would *love* to see WYCA get their license yanked.   PT]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #211
*****************************










Date:     Sun, 25 Jun 89 8:20:47 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #212
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sun, 25 Jun 89 07:48:24 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 212

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Annual Report of British Telecom ([e-mail])
    Re: Overseas Collect Calls (Jeff Woolsey)
    RE: Wilmington <--> 215-347 (Thomas Lapp)
    Re: Two Apartments on One Telephone Line (John R. Levine)
    Re: Two Apartments on One Telephone Line (Kenneth R. Jongsma)
    Telco Insists on Making Premise Visit (Jon Solomon)
    No Requirement of Telco for Conditioned Lines (Jon Solomon)
    Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters (Rich Kulawiec)

[Moderator's Note: I think delivery of the Digest to Bitnet sites has
now resumed, effective with this issue. There were some problems with
the gateway being used (like, no copies being delivered at all!) for
about three weeks. Bitnet people got a re-transmission of *many* back
issues early Sunday. Hopefully they are back with us again!  PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Annual Report of British Telecom
Date: Sat, 24-Jun-89 02:09:48 PDT

The Annual Report of British Telecom just flopped through the letterbox.

BT made UKP2437m pounds profit or UKP77.27 per second.
  [IBM makes UKP170/sec]
The profit in 1985 was 1,461m and in 1988 2,292m

Dividends have gone from 3.9p in 1985 to 10.5p this year.

The chairman had a payrise of 56,000 to bring him up to 282,915

The BT Group has 7,340m in the bank.


Income reached 11,071m of which 4,397m came from inland phone calls.
The British public spent 1,548m on phone calls to 190 countries
overseas. Some of this due to the growth of Facsimile traffic. The
Telex usage went down by 21% though. What BT calls Other Servics,
including IPSS had an income of 501m.

Dispite a profit rise of 6.3%  the amount to be used for an Employee
Share Ownership Scheme will be only 30m this year against 38m last year.

The  exchequer will profit by 858m in taxation and 51% of the 636m  in
dividends.  The goverment will also get 25% in income tax on the  311m
paid to the public.


------------------------------

From: Jeff Woolsey <nsc![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Overseas Collect Calls
Date: 24 Jun 89 01:15:05 GMT
Reply-To: Jeff Woolsey <nsc!nsc.nsc.com.UUCP![e-mail]>
Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Jeff Minnig) writes:
>        Heard an amusing story from an employee of my regular fill'er up
>        gas station the other day.

>        If you try to call a pay phone collect from a phone here in
>        the U.S., the operator knows that you shouldn't be doing that.

>        Is is possible to call a pay phone collect from overseas in
>        this manner?

It seems to be a common practice here for the gas station to have a coin
telephone on its line.  It's a regular coin line, in that local calls
require a coin deposit, but it is also listed in the directory as the
phone number for that gas station.  The bulk of the telephone usage at a
gas station is either incoming calls for the business, or calls placed
by customers waiting for work to be done.

Some public telephone lines are set up to disable incoming calls, but
this would not be a good idea in this application.  Since it is a real
business line, the owner might actually want to accept collect calls
when answering the phone, so it is a little presumptuous of the operator
to make this determination beforehand.

--
Qualify nearly everything.

Jeff Woolsey    [e-mail]    [phone]

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Jun 89 15:19:16 edt
From: Thomas Lapp <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: Wilmington <--> 215-347
Reply-To: mvac23![e-mail]

> I have heard that in the latest batch of phone bills sent to the Wilmington
> Del. exchange, there was a note saying that a certain bug had been corrected.
> The bug was that 347-xxxx dialed from a Wilmington phone would make a local
> call to Unionville, Pa. on 215-347 prefix.  Unionville, just north of Kennett
> Square (uses 215-444, which IS supposed to be a 7-digit local call from
> Wilmington, although a recent message from me to telecom indicated 11 digits
> for the local call the other way around). 347-xxxx from Wilmington is
> supposed to have NO meaning that I know of.

I live in the Wilmington area.  I'll watch for my next bill and let you
know what I find...
                         - tom
==============================================================================
uucp:     ...!udel!mvac23!thomas    ! Internet: mvac23![e-mail]
Location: Newark, DE, USA           !      or   [e-mail]

==============================================================================

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Jun 89 12:53:53 EDT
From: "John R. Levine" <ima![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Two Apartments on One Telephone Line
Reply-To: "John R. Levine" <ima!ima.UUCP![e-mail]>
Organization: Segue Software, Inc.

In article <[e-mail]> mvac23![e-mail]
writes:
>[Moderator's Note: An 'extension phone' can be hooked up anywhere in the
>loop. Two or more wire pairs can be wired in parallel from the central
>office as easily as they can be in your home.  What you are describing is
>how 'answering services' have always been wired. ...

I was reading a book on Bell System practices circa 1984 yesterday.  It says
that physically bridged answering services are now considered extremely
obsolete.  What they do now is that the answering service installs a
peculiar kind of PBX with no regular extensions, a lot of attendant stations,
and some DID trunks.  When the customer wants his phone answered, he forwards
his phone using regular call forwarding to one of the DID numbers.  Calls show
up at the answering service, the service's PBX can then report the DID number
called which tells the service who the call was for.  A clever way of using
technology.
--
John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, [phone]
{ bbn | spdcc | decvax | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, [e-mail]
Massachusetts has 64 licensed drivers who are over 100 years old.  -The Globe

------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Two Apartments on One Telephone Line
Date: Sat, 24-Jun-89 11:32:41 PDT

Regarding the person that had two locations ring to the same number: This
is quite common, especially if you are in the same central office srving area.
I used it a few yaers ago when I moved from a condo to a house. For a week
or so, I was moving between both places and wanted the same number. Michigan
Bell was glad to do it, with no additional charges (other than the
prorated monthly rate at each location).

A very useful service!

[Moderator's Note: Several years ago, when I moved to my present apartment,
Illinois Bell offered the same thing. Since I was in the same district,
thus keeping the same number, they said have it both places for a week or
two during your transition. It was a great help during moving week. PT]

------------------------------

Date:  Sat, 24 Jun 89 13:15:06 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Telco Insists on Making Premise Visit

I should point out that New England Telephone is insisting on sending out
an installer on every line except the primary line for residence service,
and for *every* business customer.

What a ripoff!

--jsol

------------------------------

Date:  Sat, 24 Jun 89 13:18:12 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: No Requirement of Telco for Conditioned Lines

Regarding conditioned lines and telephone company response to data call
problems: The Phone company doesn't have to provide a data quality line
for you. If you insist, they can give you a measured business line data
quality. It's not worth it tho.

See if you can get a foreign exchange from some other CO.
Certainly that would be cheaper than paying for measured units on
data calls.

--jsol


[Moderator's Note: Jon Solomon (jsol) was the founder of TELECOM Digest
and the moderator for several years.  PT]

------------------------------

From: Rich Kulawiec <boulder!boulder![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters
Date: 25 Jun 89 00:08:27 GMT
Reply-To: Rich Kulawiec <boulder!boulder![e-mail]>
Organization: CU-Boulder CS Department


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail].
com (Fred R. Goldstein dtn226-7388) writes:
>That's a great story, but either it's a put-on, or the facts don't sound
>quite right.

I can assure you that it's true.  I lived in West Lafayette, Indiana
for six years, and frequently drove through their (WYCA's) area of coverage
on my way to Chicago.  When using a cheap FM converter in the car, I could
pick them up anywhere from 92 to 94 FM; when I later got a nicer FM radio
(with pretty good selectivity) I *still* found them all over the dial.
Their signal was strong enough that it overpowered WXRT-FM (93) halfway up
the Dan Ryan on the south side of Chicago!

Cheers,
Rich

[Moderator's Note: I know, I know!  One simply has to *be here*, and listen
to WYCA-FM to realize how extremely obnoxious they are. Their religion does
*not* enter the discussion; but their disregard for, or very narrow
compliance with FCC regs is the issue.  PT]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #212
*****************************










Date:     Mon, 26 Jun 89 0:54:45 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #213
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Mon, 26 Jun 89 00:00:18 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 213

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Quirks of ESS in my exchange (Frank G. Kienast)
    Re: those {{{{{{{{{{{{ 's (Bob Clements)
    Premium-priced call forwarding (David Smith)
    Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters (William Mihalo)
    Supreme Court Rules Dial-Porn is Legal (TELECOM Moderator)

[Moderator's Note: The Bitnet gateway is *presumed functional* at this
time. Copies are being routed differently than in the past. I would
appreciate it if at least the two people who have recently been writing
to help identify this problem would let me know if the Digest is getting
through regularly once again.  PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Frank G Kienast <well![e-mail]>
Subject: Quirks of ESS in my exchange
Date: 25 Jun 89 18:33:01 GMT



I am curious as to how an exchange with ESS can have so many bugs and quirks
in it.  I have noticed the following over the past couple years since we got
ESS.  Each of the things described below has happened to me at least several
times.

Sometimes I pick up the phone and their is no dialtone.  The touch tone pad
works, so there is a voltage, but no tone.  If I hang up and retry several
times, eventually I get a dial tone.  Often this is preceeded by a series of
half a dozen or so rapidly ascending tones.

Sometimes in the middle of a call (both local and long distance), I get
mysteriously disconnected.  All of a sudden there is a click and then
silence, but the voltage is still there.  The party on the other end notes
the same thing.

Occasionally, the system won't let me program in call forwarding.  I dial
72# and get a fast busy (reorder).  I dial 73# to make sure I'm not already
forwarding, and get the reorder here too.  I try hanging up, making other
calls first, etc. and forwarding still won't work.  Then an hour or so later
it cures itself.

Sometimes when you dial three digits that are not a local exchange, you get
a recording right away.  Other times, you don't get the recording until you
dial seven digits.  Also, no distinction is made between a number that is
invalid and one that is valid but requires a 1 first.  In fact, the
recordings are used interchangably, with the "you must first dial a 1 when
calling this number" being used for a few weeks for both, then "your call
cannot being completed as dialed" being used for several weeks.

If you listen to a recording until it times out (twice), you get a reorder
signal.  A few seconds later, it starts playing other recordings, such as
"All circuits are busy now", or even "The call you have made requires a 25
cent deposit"!

When you call an AT&T LD operator (by dialing 10288 0#, for example), you
hear four DTMF tones followed by a loud "clunk" followed by about ten more
DTMF tones (these tones sound different from regular touch tones).

Does anyone have any ideas what is causing any of the things I described
above?  I could understand this type of thing with the old mechanical
switches, but since ESS has no moving parts, it seems to me it should either
always work or not work at all.  I don't understand how things can work just
part of the time, or work different at different times.

In real life: Frank Kienast
Well: well![e-mail]
CIS: 73327,3073
V-mail: 804-980-3733

------------------------------

Subject: Re: those {{{{{{{{{{{{ 's
Date: Sun, 25 Jun 89 15:56:49 -0400
From: [e-mail]

>Could someone give me a semi-technical explanation for those {{{{{{{{
>which appear as interference at 1200 baud?  I am going round and round
>with USWestComm about this.

> [Saga, involving new phone exchange in the area, deleted.]

Assuming that the errors happen at a quite steady rate, this is
the problem known as "clock slip" or "frame slip" on a digital
inter-office trunk.  The basic concept is that all the digital
phone exchanges and trunks in the USA are supposed to be run from
one master clock!  That is, the 1.544 MHz frequency on all T1
lines (and related ones on other lines) and the internal clocks
of the digital exchanges which pass samples through them are all
supposed to be locked together.  If they are not, one end will
supply bits slightly faster or slower than the other end will
consume them.  When this happens, and the error builds up to the
length of one sample on the trunk, all channels on the trunk drop
or gain one digital sample, causing a phase error of 1/8000
second, typically causing the data error you are seeing.

So the new exchange, or some of the trunks through it, are not
properly phase-locked to the rest of the system.  Fixing it is
PROBABLY just a matter of flipping a configuration switch (in
hardware or software) to establish master clock distribution
correctly through the system.  The hard part is finding one of
the few people in your local TELCO who understands the issue.

Keep asking for technical supervisors until you find someone who
sounds like they recognize the concepts of master clocks and
phase locking and frame slip on a digital trunk.  You may have to
find a name at the "engineering" department of the TELCO, who
normally don't deal directly with customer complaints, and get
them to work back from their side.  They probably specified the
system and would be annoyed that it wasn't implemented correctly.

>thanks
>hal
>
>[e-mail]

Bob Clements, K1BC,  [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Jun 89 04:11:03 -0400
From: David Smith <[e-mail]>
Subject: Premium-priced call forwarding
Reply-To: David Smith <dcscg1.dcsc.dla.mil![e-mail]>
Organization: DCSC-ZWR, Columbus, Ohio

A member of my family moved recently from one part of town to another
about three miles away, served by a different telephone exchange of
the same phone company, Ohio Bell.  It was essential to keep the same
phone number.  Ohio Bell residence service quoted the cost at $289
for setting up a service that would refer callers of the old number
to the new number and $66/month for measured service.

Since someone was going to continue to live at the moved-from
residence, he decided to keep the line there, add Phone Forward
service to it (at $3/month), get a new number at the new location,
and use Phone Forward to send all calls to the new number.  The cost
for this arrangement was about $42/month -- $24/month less expensive
for two lines and a custom calling feature than for a single line
with an arrangement it seems ought to be no more complicated than
having a central office computer programmed permanently to do the
forwarding.

What's so difficult about setting it up so that when people dial one
number it rings at another number -- so difficult that there has to
be a $289 setup charge?  And even if that cost is somehow justified,
what could possibly justify a $66/month charge on the service once
the setup work is complete -- compared to a $16 or $19/month charge
for a normal measured service line?

Probably needless to say, the residence service person couldn't
answer those questions -- the best she could do was to say that the
monster setup charge was justified because a lot of paperwork was
involved and some kind of physical wire had to be strung and the
continuing excessive charge was justified because the wire had to be
maintained.

What's happening here?

------------------------------

From: William Mihalo <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters
Date: 25 Jun 89 23:18:05 GMT
Organization: Chinet - Chicago, Ill.


Since I live near this radio station, but far enough away not to be
affected by it, I thought I'd make some comments.

First, the areas that appear to be affected include North Hammond
and parts of the downtown area (there really isn't much left of
downtown Hammond) which includes the Hammond Times.  Earlier this year
the Hammond Times published a series of articles criticizing a
fundamentalist Christian church with a number of things including
financial misconduct.  It wouldn't surprise me if the interference
is aimed at the Hammond Times.

Second, the lack of interest on the part of the FCC in this area
doesn't surprise me. The Calumet Region, as this part of the state
is called, includes the Gary-Hammond-East Chicago area and the
surrounding suburbs. This part of Indiana is quite different politically
and economically from the rest of Indiana.  The situation is analogous
to the Chicago/Downstate Illinois rift across the border. Consequently,
few people in downstate Indiana would seem concerned about such a problem.

Third, Indiana Bell has never expressed much interest in this part of the
state anyway. Illinois Bell ran the telephone company in Northwest Indiana
for years. In the 1970's the operation of the telephone circuits was turned
over to Indiana Bell, which has its headquarters in Indianapolis.  Since
divestiture, Indiana Bell has a lock on telephone calls placed to nearby
communities (for example I live about a mile from Chicago) but must
use Indiana Bell and pay Indiana Bell's tariffs for phone calls that
terminate nearby. Alternate long distance carriers are blocked since they
can't kick in unless I make a phone call that exceeds a certain distance.
The end result of this is that its cheaper for me to call Columbus, Ohio
than it is to place a long distance phone call to Chicago. If you complain
to Indiana Bell about the problem they just laugh.

Finally, there is a Chicago rock radio station that has its frequency
near WYCA. Although I'm not affected by the blanketing that is going
on in North Hammond, I cannot tune in this particular station. If I try to
tune it in, I'll hear the station and WYCA at the same time.

These are just a few comments that might enlighten why this situation is
occurring.  I don't anticipate a resolution of this problem for a
>long< time.

Bill Mihalo

uucp: att!chinet!mihalo
      or
      att!osu-cis!david!calumet!wem

[Moderator's Note: Your notes are generally correct. Hammond and Whiting
used to be *great* towns thirty years ago; but after Gary Works/US Steel and
three-quarters of Whiting Refinery/Amoco closed up shop, everything went
bust. There is no downtown Hammond anymore. Just boarded up storefronts.
All that is left downtown is the Hammond Times, the public business office
for Northern Indiana Public Service Company; and of course Jack Hyles' First
Baptist Church. The Hammond Times has been on his case for several years
regards financial misconduct in the same way the Charlotte (NC) Observer
kept hammering on Jimmy Bakker.

First Baptist (or at least Dr. Hyles) has some financial interest in WYCA,
but I don't know how much. You are correct about Indiana Bell. Illinois
Bell had the Hammond/Whiting/East Chicago exchanges for years, and they
were more than pleased to pull out and turn it over to Indiana Bell several
years ago when the area dried up financially. Is the 219-931/932/933 central
office still on Fayette Street, across the street from the Hammond Times?
Illinois Bell also had a business office there; that office was closed many
years ago. Indiana Bell took the territory over grudgingly; they did it
through some slight of hand with Illinois Bell; I never have figured out
why.

The Chicago Tribune has started breathing hard on WYCA, just as they have
been doing to the Reverend Doctor Hyles for about a year now. The FCC may
be forced to intervene and stop WYCA from jamming all the other stations
in the south suburban area. I don't think WYCA is acting purely out of spite
to the Hammond Times though; the station was pulling the same kind of stuff
in the early seventies as well. *Then* the FCC made them cool it. This time
the FCC has backed off for whatever reason.

Fred Goldstein, where are you? Wanna start a good fight with the FCC in
Chicago?  I only wish you were here to hear it yourself, and become a
'true believer'!    PT]

------------------------------

From: TELECOM Moderator
Date: 25 June, 1988  23:55 PM
Subject: Supreme Court Okays Dial-Porn

Just a short note in closing this issue of the Digest: I assume everyone
read the news in the paper over the weekend. The Supreme Court has ruled
that the telcos *cannot* disconnect the 1-900 and 976 porn lines unless
the services are specifically obscene, a definition that is hopeless to
reach, community standards being as they are these days. Good or bad
decision by the Supremes? I don't know...but don't start up here, whatever
you do!  :)  I'm sure talk.misc.sunday.sermons would be glad to have you
share your thoughts!   See you tomorrow!


Patrick Townson
------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #213
*****************************










Date:     Tue, 27 Jun 89 0:13:06 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #214
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 27 Jun 89 00:00:07 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 214

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Automated Operator Services (Kenneth R. Jongsma)
    ATT wins over AOS at La Quinta (Will Martin)
    Follow-up on Rate Cut For SW Bell (Will Martin)
    Remote Line Unit! (Arun Kandappan)
    What does CKL mean? (Thomas Lapp)
    AT&T Mail vs MCI Mail (Peter da Silva)

[Moderator's Note: Heavy mail again today; a second issue of the Digest
will be released about 1:00 AM. Bitnet gateway adjustments are in progress;
letters from Bitnet subscribers *to me personally* advising non/receipt
of Digest over the past three days appreciated.  PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]
Subject: Automated Operator Services
Date: Mon, 26-Jun-89 17:36:40 PDT

The following article appeared in the local paper recently. It gives a
little more detail on the automated operator services I wrote about
some weeks ago. It's fairly long but rather comprehensive, edit as
you see fit!

(Copied without permission from the Grand Rapids (Michigan) Press,
 Attributed to the New York Times and local editorial staff)

  If you make a collect call in Grand Rapids, the operator that comes
on the line may not be a human. It could be electronic equipment that
recognizes and mimics the human voice.

  On June 1, Michigan Bell's Grand Rapids based office began using the
first electronic telephone operator system in the US, according to Phil
Gould, public relations manager for the local office. (Possible exageration
here: I have heard of COCOTS doing this, though I haven't seen one. He's
probably refering to the local operating companies. - Ken)

  It's the first test of computer aided telephone equipment that other
regional and local telephone companies are expected to embrace as human
telephone operators become more costly for telephone companies to retain.

  Michigan Bell will expand the use of the equipment to Pontiac next and
the system should be operation in Detroit by November, Gould said.

  The BellSouth Corp., which serves the Southeast, will introduce the system
later this year, and NYNEX Corp plans to offer a computerized operator
system next late next year.

  It's too early to gauge consumer response to the new system in Grand Rapids,
Gould said. "Like any new process, customers have to get used to it." he
said.

  Business customers who are accustomed to electronic switchboards at their
companies have embraced it more readily than the general public, he said.
"There's still a lot of people that want to talk to an Operator."

  The telephone companies contend that the systems will greatly reduce the need
for human operators and the cost of completing calls at a time when the
number of collect and third party calls is increasing.

  Union leaders say the new technology will provide an excuse for layoffs, and
others question the quality of service provided by the electronic operators.

  The savings will only be for the companies, calling rates are not expected
to fall. (Hmm. Sounds like poor PR to me. Especially when the RBOCs are
pushing to Rate Cap authority in place of Rate of Return - Ken)

  "This was bound to happen sooner or later because it's just too expensive
for phone companies to keep completing these types of calls with human
operators," said John Reddy, a business professor at the Wilkes-Barre
campus of Pennsylvania State University.

  Reddy, who spent 25 years as a Strategic Planner in operator services
with the old Bell System, predicted that "electronic operators will eventually
replace about half of the estimated 70,000 operators employed by local
and long distance phone companies across the nation."

  For now, though, it's a local phenomenon. The nation's three leading long
distance companies - AT&T, MCI and Sprint - say they have no immediate plans
to use the technology because consumers place a high value on human
operators.

  Because of the stiff competition in the long distance industry, the carriers
are afraid to offend customers by introducing electronic operators. The
regional companies have a monopoly on local service (or lack there of! - Ken)
and face no competition.

  Using voice synthesis and voice recognition technology, the electronic
operator can make collect and third party calls. It relies on the caller's
response from a push button (read touchtone - Ken) keypad, similar to the
way current network processes calls made with a credit card.

  To make a collect call, for example, the caller dials 0, the area code,
and the seven digit number. The caller then punches 1 on the keypad to
alert the electronic operator that a collect call is desired. (Well, sort
of: I tried it out, comments later. - Ken)

  The computer then asks the caller to state whom the call is from, records
the callers response and waits for the called party to answer.

  The computer informs the called party that there is a collect call, plays
back the name of the caller and instructs the party to answer yes or no to
accept or reject the call.

  The automated system recognizes the callers' response and processes the
call accordingly. The system, made by Northern Telecom Inc., compares the
callers response with thousands of yes and no responses on a digital
template.

  Michigan Bell spent about $2 million to install the system while other
companies declined to give any figures.

  A caller can reach a live operator at any point by dialing a designated
number on the keypad. Live operators are needed in emergency situations,
when callers are connected to wrong numbers (I always know in advance when
I'm going to get a wrong number! - Ken), or when a call is not completed.

  A caller with a rotary dial telephone can also reach a live operator,
by depressing the switchook, said Gould. (Hmmm... And who's going to
explain to some novice how long a switchhook press is, or for that
matter, what a switchhook is? - Ken)

  Telephone company executives say they have no plans to reduce the number
of operators on staff and that the electronic service is part of an effort
to reduce the rising cost of providing live operators. Demand for operator
assisted calls is increasing dramatically.

  The executives say they expect the electronic services to cut overhead
by more than half, eliminating the need to hire operators to handle the
increasing number of collect and third party calls.

  Whether human or electronic operator handles the call, the surcharges for
collect and third party calls will remain the same. New York Telephone
assesses a surcharge of $1.20 to $1.48 for collect and credit card calls that
require an live operator.

  The surcharge for thrid party calls, in which a live operator charges the
call to another phone number, is $1.23. By comparison, a credit card call that
is processed electronically has a surcharge of 30 cents.

  In an early trial of the automated systems by Southern Bell in Atlanta,
a survey of consumers found that when given a choice between a live operator
and and electronic one, 60 percent prefered the automated systems.

  Customers who chose the electronic operator said they did so because it was
a much quicker way completing the call and that they did not like dealing with
human operators.

  Customers who chose human operators said they found the automated systems
disorienting because they expected a human operator to handle the call.

  Few forsee the day when human operators are totally eliminated. "There will
always be the need for live operators because there will always be situations
 -such as an elderly person who has difficulty dialing or a child who
doesn't understand the technology- that machines cannot handle," said
Robert Morrow, a Southern Bell spokesman.

                         (End of Article)

Well, I had a few more comments, including my experiences with the system, but
I'm tired of typing, so they shall wait for another time!

[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 26 Jun 89 10:40:46 CDT
From:     Will Martin <[e-mail]>
Subject:  ATT wins over AOS at La Quinta

Just got a copy of the La Quinta Motor Inns newsletter for members of their
frequent-stayers club. It has this telecom-related item:

"After much research, La Quinta has chosen AT&T because of consistency and
quality of service. All Inns will utilize AT&T long distance service for
Bell and AT&T credit card calls, operator assisted calls, and collect calls.
All pay phones will also be serviced by AT&T long distance."

(This is a motel chain primarily in the South and West.)

Regards, Will

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 26 Jun 89 9:01:38 CDT
From:     Will Martin <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Follow-up on Rate Cut For SW Bell

Reference the newspaper article I transcribed last week on the SW Bell rate
cut ordered in Missouri; here is another article on Bell's response:

 From the Saturday, 24 June 89, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, page 11A (first
page of Business section):

SW BELL APPEALS RATE CUT ORDER

by Jerri Stroud, of the Post-Dispatch Staff

Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. asked the Public Service Commission on
Friday to reconsider its order for a $101 million annual rate cut
scheduled to begin July 1.

The request, officially called an application for rehearing, was filed
minutes before the commission's office closed for the weekend.

In its 39-page application, Southwestern Bell asked the commission to
accept a plan that linked modernization of its network with a new method
of setting telephone rates.

The petition says the order "has effectively precluded the company from
proceeding with the network modernization plan." The company had proposed
spending $180 million to replace 112 electromechanical switches with
digital switches and to make other improvements, mostly in rural areas.

In return, the company said it would freeze local rates for two years
and accept a $19.8 million rate cut. After two years, the plan called
for any increases in rates to be based on the Consumer Price Index
offset by a 3% productivity factor.

[NOTE -- The original article had cited this as being "inflation *plus*
the 3% "productivity factor" -- this indicates "minus" instead, which
would agree with what [e-mail] said in an e-mail to me and
which makes a lot more sense! :-) -WM]

In Friday's petition, Southwestern Bell also asked the commission to
reconsider the reduction in its allowable rate of return to 12.61% from
14.7%. The company says the new rate is the fourth lowest in the country.

"We do not take this action lightly," sad Dan Hubbard, the telephone
company's assistant vice president for comptrollers and external affairs.

"After a thorough review of the ruling, we're firmly convinced this is a
devastating order which will have long-term implications for our
customers, the state's economic development opportunities and Missouri's
telecommunications industry," said Hubbard.

Martha Hogarty, the state's public counsel, said her office and the
commission staff had opposed Southwestern's rate plan because they
believed it "would guarantee automatic increases for local service."
Hogarty also contended that using the CPI as a basis for rates was
illegal and that the company had planned to modernize its network
whether the new plan was accepted or not.

In filing Friday, Southwestern Bell beat the deadline to apply for a
rehearing by a week, said Kevin Kelly, a commission spokesman.

Hubbard said the company "wanted to move very quickly because of the
serious consequences of this order."

Kelly said the next step would be for the commission to decide whether
to grant the request for a rehearing. If the commission grants a new
hearing, all or part of the rate case could be reopened.

If the commission denies the request, the company may appeal the order
in court, said Kelly.
***End of article***

If I see any more on this, I'll try to pass it along...

Regards, Will

------------------------------

From: Arun Kandappan <[e-mail]>
Subject: Remote Line Unit!
Date: 26 Jun 89 13:36:29 GMT
Organization: University of Texas at Austin


    I called up home (in India) and found that a new exchange was being
installed. They said it was a Remote Line Unit and that it was not a CO.
I do not know what difference it makes. Does anyone know about this and the
difference between the two.

    Thanks
    Arun Kandappan
--
Arun Kandappan                                  [e-mail]
512+345-1616   EE Dept, UT at Austin TX 78712   uunet!cs.utexas.edu!arunk

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Jun 89 17:21:23 edt
From: Thomas Lapp <[e-mail]>
Subject: What does CKL mean?
Reply-To: mvac23![e-mail]

I have a co-worker who talks with AT&T on a regular basis on ordering lines
as well as disconnects.

When one puts several phones on the same long-distance line, we call them
multiple drops, but AT&T uses the term CKL for the same thing.  We were
wondering what C.K.L. stands for.  Can you help?  Thanks.
                         - tom
==============================================================================
uucp:     ...!udel!mvac23!thomas    ! Internet: mvac23![e-mail]
Location: Newark, DE, USA           !      or   [e-mail]
==============================================================================



------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Jun 89 21:39:38 -0400
From: ficc![e-mail]
Subject: AT&T Mail vs MCI Mail

Would anyone care to give me some feedback on the relative merits of MCI
Mail and AT&T Mail? I'd like to be able to send FAXes to my father in
Australia, and the two companies charge about the same amount for the
service. I've used MCI Mail in the past and wasn't overly fond of the user
interface back then, but my brief examination of AT&T Mail didn't lead me
to believe it'd be any better. Has MCI got any better? What other facilities
do they have that might help me make a decision?
---
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.

Business: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, [e-mail], [phone].
Personal: ...!texbell!sugar!peter, [e-mail].


------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #214
*****************************










Date:     Tue, 27 Jun 89 1:01:00 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #215
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 27 Jun 89 00:50:39 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 215

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters (Peter Desnoyers)
    Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters (Michel Denber)
    Re: Those {{{{{{{{{{{{ 's (Hector Myerston)
    Re: Those {{{{{{{{{{{{ 's (Charles Buckley)
    Re: Collect Calls to Payphones (Peter Thurston)
    Re: Overseas Collect Calls (Otto J. Makela)
    Re: More on Cellular Overseas (Torsten Dahlkvist)
    Re: Two apartments on one telephone line (Kent Borg)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Peter Desnoyers <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters
Date: 26 Jun 89 17:06:38 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc.


In article <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] (Fred R. Goldstein dtn226-7388) writes:
>  Any nonlinear element
> will rectify the signal, "detecting" AM transmissions, whose transmitted
> power varies (in the time domain) in accordance with the modulation.
>  [...]
> But an FM station?  Not so fast.  FM transmitters maintain a constant
> amplitude, so if you "detect" them with a simple rectifier, you won't
> get anything but perhaps a steady DC voltage.

Not so fast again - to detect AM you only need a non-linear element; to
detect FM you need a non-linear element combined with a frequency
response that is not flat at the frequency being detected. Seeing as
telephony equipment is designed for audio frequencies, it should have
a pretty steep roll-off at 100MHz. The oxide on any connector will provide
a small non-linearity, and the high field strength should make up for
the huge inefficiencies involved.

(I once had a poorly shielded turntable that would receive WBCN in Boston
from an MIT dorm - I know it was BCN because it would come in clear enough
that you could hear the DJ. One of the connectors from the turntable had
broken, and I had screwed up the shielding when I replaced it. Of course,
there's a world of difference between interfering with a magnetic pick-up
signal at 10-20 mV into 47k ohms and interfering with a telephone signal
of perhaps 500-1000 mV into 600 ohms.)


                                      Peter Desnoyers
                                      Apple ATG
                                      [phone]

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jun 89 17:14 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters

    "But an FM station?  Not so fast.  FM transmitters maintain a constant
amplitude, so if you "detect" them with a simple rectifier, you won't get
anything but perhaps a steady DC voltage. "

Uh, this wouldn't perhaps be slope detection, would it?  Although the
amplitude of the signal is constant, if you tune your AM radio right to the
edge of the FM signal, you can pick up the change in amplitude caused by
the frequency deviation at that point as the carrier is modulated.  I've
heard FM transmitters on AM radios.  It isn't pretty, but it works.

"if you don't have an FM radio, you can *still* listen to us: just turn on
your television set and tune it as far above Channel 6 as you can..."

The channel 6 sound carrier is at 87.75 MHz., or right at the bottom edge
of the commercial FM band in the U.S., so this isn't too surprising (back
in the days when you could still "tune" a TV set).

Oddly enough, we get the Voice of the Lord at home on our phones too, from
a nearby 10 KW AM station.  They have a great ploy when you call them -
"Well, our telephones are right *next* to the antenna, and *we* don't have
any problems."

There's only one theing more annoying than RFI - that's "music on hold".
Yech!  Listening to music over the phone is like listening to, to, well,
music over the phone.  And someone else's choice of music at that.  Like
maybe I don't *like* the E-Z listening version of "Stairway to Heaven".
Maybe I'm *already* listening to something else on the radio.  Give me a
break.

            - Michel
            KB2BQ

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Jun 89 09:35:45 PDT
From: HECTOR MYERSTON <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Those {{{{{{{{{{{{ `s

    Here are (some) answers to your question, although I am sure,
not the one's you want to hear. :-(
    The {{{{{s, as you surmised, are modem-generated characters
which indicate unhappiness with the incoming tones from the distant
end device.
    The problem is often not noisy lines but phasing and timing
anomalies caused by Analog/Digital and Digital/Analog conversions
in the transmission path.  Digital Devices in the path can include
Subscriber Loop Carriers, Central Offices themselves (like the
DMS-100) and inter-office Digital carrier trunks.
    You have, for practical purposes, zero control over any of
these and they may, in fact, vary from call-to-call.
    These disturbances do not affect voice calls to any appreciable
degree and, since that is what the telephone network is designed for,
are little cause for concern to the average telco (as you found out).
    If it is any consolation, we periodically experience this
problem here (Palo Alto CA).  Calls to some hosts never fail, others
are constantly thrashed by {{{{{{{{.
    The last time we went through this exercise here the end
result was that:
    o  Yes it is a problem
    o  Data-grade local loops may (or may not) help
    o  We can't spend any more of the rate-payers money on this
           issue

+HECTOR+
-------

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Jun 89 20:59:28 PDT
From: Charles Buckley <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: those {{{{{{{{{{{{ 's


Concerning the following:
   From: [e-mail]
   Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
   Date: 25 Jun 89 19:56:49 GMT

   >Could someone give me a semi-technical explanation for those {{{{{{{{
   >which appear as interference at 1200 baud?

   Assuming that the errors happen at a quite steady rate, this is
   the problem known as "clock slip" or "frame slip" on a digital
   inter-office trunk.

That may well be, but it can also simply mean that the isolation
relay in the modem has dirty contacts.  I had a 1200'er which would
work error free for a month or two, and then start to generate such
errors, at a more or less steady rate too.

To fix it, I would open it up, pop the cover off the relay, clean
it with electronic solvent (doing my share for the ozone layer, I'm
sure ;-{), and then be okay for two more months.  I just bought a new
modem, and was surprised to find such a relay still present.  I guess
they're needed for FCC regulations, or something, but my ideal solution
would probably use silicon and *no* *moving* *parts*.

One easy way to tell if this is what needs to be done is to thwack
on top of the modem.  If that gives you a fistful of {'s, then clean
the relay, and leave the poor functionaries at the telephone company
alone.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Jun 89 12:09:12 +0100
From: [e-mail]
Subject: re: Collect Calls to Payphones


>                   *** text deleted ****
>
>        If you try to call a pay phone collect from a phone here in
>        the U.S., the operator knows that you shouldn't be doing that.
>
>        Is is possible to call a pay phone collect from overseas in
>        this manner?
>
>        -jeff-

Payphones here (in the UK) will generate "bleeps" for about 1 minute
when making an operator call or receiving an inward call. This informs the
operator that the phone is payphone, therefore a payphone and a regular
phone may share the same line and be treated accordingly. I presume that
foreign international operators will have been told about the bleeping (it
could even a CCITT standard .. ???).

Peter Thurston

------------------------------

From: "Otto J. Makela" <mcvax!jyu.fi![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Overseas Collect Calls
Date: 26 Jun 89 22:42:10 GMT
Reply-To: "Otto J. Makela" <mcvax!jyu.fi![e-mail]>
Organization: Grand Hall of Justice, Mega-City One


It IS possible to call an overseas coin-phone collect !  A friend of mine
tried it, just for the heck of it.  Seems that in the US, a collect operator
will know from the telephone number if the phone is unbillable (could someone
supply the rule ?  xxn-xxxx, with n>4, or how was it ?)  Not so if you are
calling overseas (or probably even from any country with radically different
phone systems than the US).
A similar note is that since bank and other money cards are internationally
standardized, they are also formatted in a similar way.  Now, a credit-card
operated phone here won't accept any bank card... but the Swedish ones will
accept a Finnish card !  And since the banks in question have no common
billing arrangements, the poor telco computer just has to chuck the bill in
spite of having very detailed info on the card owner...

Otto J. Makela, University of Jyvaskyla
InterNet: [e-mail], BitNet: [e-mail]
BBS: [phone] (V.22bis/V.22/V.21, 24h/d), Phone: [phone]
Mail: Kauppakatu 1 B 18, SF-40100 Jyvaskyla, Finland, EUROPE

------------------------------

From: Torsten Dahlkvist <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: More on Cellular Overseas
Date: 26 Jun 89 13:34:32 GMT
Reply-To: Torsten Dahlkvist <[e-mail]>
Organization: Ellemtel Utvecklings AB, Stockholm, Sweden

In article <[e-mail]> John Wheeler <techwood!
[e-mail]> writes:

>Curious as to how "cellular" can be operated at 450 MHz. At frequencies that
>"low" the cells would spill all over the place. 400-500 MHz is in fact
>"famous" for its abilities to get into nooks and crannies everywhere,
>bouncing off every building and hill within sight.

That's largely the idea. The tranceivers are built into the (nation-wide)
net of FM-repeaters covering the country. Because of the size of the cells,
the NMT-450 rapidly out-grew its' capacity (nobody had even dreamed it would
get that popular) and nowadays NMT-900 is recommended unless you absolutely
MUST have nation-wide access. A friend just bought a cellular phone and he said
if you wanted a 450 subscription there was a waiting-line of several months
while a 900 one you can get overnight. Apparently the Telco is restricting the
numbers of 450 users and diverting as much of the traffic as possible to 900.

Even in a 900 MHz-system, there's always some overlap between two adjoining
cells and a certain "spill" is bound to occur. Due to this, adjoining cells
never share the same channels and the net-phone protocol handles the
supervision necessary to detect when a phone has moved into a new cell and
a switch is indicated. Since 900-cells are smaller, there are never as many
phones in any one cell at the same time as there can be in the 450-system,
so even with the same number of channels, 900 would have higher throughput.
As it is, I believe 900 also has more channels than 450, so capacity is MUCH
higher. However, 900 does not work if you get too far away from the urban
areas and/or high up into the mountains. I have for a fact used a NMT-450
in the border mountains between Sweden and Norway. The Swedish carrier reached
well into Norwegian territory and vice-versa. A rough estimate is that the
overlap was at least 6 miles (10 km). NMT phones have a "Nation Select" key
where you can switch between the different carriers. This is to prevent the
phone from suddenly locking onto the "wrong" cell and causing your calls to
be charged extra for "international". This also makes it possible to see how
far into Norwegian territory the Swedish carrier reaches.

/Torsten
 Torsten Dahlkvist                        ! "I am not now, nor have I ever
 ELLEMTEL Telecommunication Laboratories  !  been, intimately related to
 P.O. Box 1505, S-125 25  ALVSJO, SWEDEN  !  Dweezil Zappa!"
 Tel: [phone]                      !        - "Wierd" Al Yankowitz

------------------------------

From: Kent Borg <lloyd![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Two apartments on one telephone line
Date: 26 Jun 89 01:58:26 GMT
Reply-To: Kent Borg <lloyd![e-mail]>
Organization: Camex, Inc., Boston, Mass USA


In article <[e-mail]> mvac23![e-mail]
writes:
[about two locations having the same line]

>[Moderator's Note: An 'extension phone' can be hooked up anywhere in the
>loop. Two or more wire pairs can be wired in parallel from the central
>office as easily as they can be in your home.  What you are describing is
 ...
>I might add this is how the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA
>also listen to you (assuming authorized taps, of course). When telco is
>served with a court order to apply a tap to your line, they tie another
>pair on your line in the office and send it through a coil and off to the
>FBI. **And they charge both YOU and the FBI for the price of the line!!**

Is it really done that way with modern electronic switches?

If so, does this mean that the electronically inclined and paranoid
among us might be able to keep track of when we are being bugged by
measuring the impedence and capacitance of our lines?  I'm not
electronically enough inclined to know off hand how I might easily do
this (though I wonder whether a detailed frequency response curve
might not be a good start), nor am I paranoid enough to bother, but I
am curious...

Maybe Sharper Image will start selling a box to watch your line and
tell you when its electrical properties change in a suspicious way?

One more thing.  When the CIA taps your domestic US line they are
seriously violating the law, they are supposed to only operate outside
the USA.  Now, if you believe that they *always* behave...

Anybody out there handled the CO end of wire taps?  Got any
interesting details for us?

Kent Borg
[e-mail]
or
 ...!husc6!lloyd!kent

P.S.  The NSA (No Such Agency) always listens to all the international
traffic they can get their hands on--like Usenet.  Their computers
will sift through this message, see the use of "CIA", "NSA", "FBI",
and possibly add another entry in my file.  (I've used these words
before you see.)

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #215
*****************************










Date:     Wed, 28 Jun 89 0:03:19 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #216
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Wed, 28 Jun 89 00:00:29 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 216

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters (Aaron Heller)
    Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters (John Higdon)
    Re: Quirks of ESS in my exchange (Charles Rader)
    Re: Quirks of ESS in my exchange (John Higdon)
    Re: Quirks of ESS in my exchange (James J. Sowa)
    Re: Telco Insists on Making Premise Visit (Mike Morris)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Jun 89 18:59 EDT
From: Aaron Heller <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters

Fred R. Goldstein writes:
>That's a great story, but either it's a put-on, or the facts don't sound
>quite right. ... Had WYCA been an AM station, then it would have been
>perfectly believable.  ... But an FM station?  Not so fast.  FM
>transmitters maintain a constant amplitude, so if you "detect" them with
>a simple rectifier, you won't get anything but perhaps a steady DC
>voltage.

Actually it is possible for an FM station's signal to be AM'ed as well,
if the transmitter is mis-aligned.  I have seen it happen and I think
the circumstances may lend some insight to what may be the problem with
WYCA.

About 12 years ago, I was chief engineer of my college's radio station
(WRPI, Troy, NY, 91.5 MHz, 10,000 watts ERP, 470 ft. HAAT).  We would get
about 2 or 3 RFI complaints a year almost invariably from someone who
lived within a mile or so of our transmitter.  These could always be
handled by properly orienting their antenna or installing an inexpensive
tunable RF trap.

According to FCC R&Rs, an FM station can measure its power output in
either of two ways:  The direct method -- a watt meter installed in the
transmission line as it leaves the transmitter; or the indirect method
-- multiplying the input power to the final amplifier by an efficiency
factor.  Even though we determined the power output by the direct method
I would still calculate the efficiency factor to monitor the aging of
the final amplifier tube.  This was usually about 65 percent (i.e. 65
percent of the power going into the final amplifier was coming out of
the transmitter as RF and 35 percent as heat).

Once, while studying the FCC R&Rs, I noticed that they said that the
efficiency factor for indirect power calculation was a number determined
by the transmitter's manufacturer.  I looked it up for our transmitter,
at that time a Gates FM-5H, and the manual said 50 percent.  This meant
that if we switched to the indirect method and used Gates' efficiency
factor of 50 percent we would be legally underestimating our power
output and actually running at 13 kW ERP.

The next morning before sign-on I went out to the transmitter installed
our newest final amplifier tube and spent about an hour adjusting the
tuning of the transmitter to the highest efficiency I could and achieved
an efficiency of 78 percent.  Add to that the fact that you are actually
allowed to operate at up to 105 percent of licensed power output and you
get 16.4 kW -- more than a 2dB increase in signal strength.  I patted
myself on the back for improving our reception in fringe areas and
headed back for campus.

Later that afternoon, I stopped by the station and was told by the
station manager that we had received about a dozen RFI reports since we
had signed on.  People were getting us all over the FM band, on their
telephones and TV sets (this is before the days of home VCRs and video
games).  I drove back out to the transmitter site and retuned it to the
old settings and reset the (true) power output to 10kW.  I called as
many of the people complaining of RFI that I could reach and confirmed
that things were back to normal.

The following Saturday morning I fed a tone into the control room board
and headed out to the transmitter with a spectrum analyzer and 100MHz
'scope to see what was actually going on that would cause all of this
interference.  I returned the transmitter settings to those of earlier in
the week and hooked everything up.  On the 'scope I saw that the signal
was being AM'ed at about 20 percent modulation with the tone from the
studio as well as another 1 MHz wave.  The spectrum analyzer showed
spurious emissions up and down the band at 1 MHz spacing.

I realized that in tuning the final stage for such a high efficiency
also caused it to have a very narrow peaked response instead of the
broader and flatter response it was supposed to have.  This caused the
AM'ing.  I also figured that some instability caused that 1 MHz
oscillation.

The symptoms described in the WYCA case sound very similar to those I
observed here.  It would seem that their signal could use some serious
scrutiny with an oscilloscope and spectrum analyzer.  This could all be
done without their cooperation from any site near their transmitter.  If
the AM'ing is severe enough you can actually see the signal strength
meter on a receiver move in time to the audio.

Aaron Heller ([e-mail]  uunet!crdgw1!heller  518-387-5542)

------------------------------

From: John Higdon <apple!zygot![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters
Date: 27 Jun 89 08:34:27 GMT
Organization: ATI Wares Team


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail].
dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein dtn226-7388) writes:
> [description of FM station being heard in all kinds of devices]
> But an FM station?  Not so fast.  FM transmitters maintain a constant
> amplitude, so if you "detect" them with a simple rectifier, you won't
> get anything but perhaps a steady DC voltage.  (It'll light a
> fluorescent tube, though, if you're close enough.)  Telephones won't
> detect FM the way they detect AM.  I've noticed a faint hum on phone
> lines caused by FM blanketing, but not the actual modulation.

FM can easily be heard on non-FM receiving devices by one of two
methods. The first is called "slope detection" and depends on the
device doing the detecting to have a slight frequency dependent
characterisic. As the frequency changes with modulation, so does the
voltage produced by detection and voila! you have audio detection of
the signal.

A more common occurance involves "synchronous amplitude modulation". If
an FM transmitter is not perfectly tuned, its output (amplitude) will
vary with normal modulation. The FCC requires broadcasters to maintain
this AM component at least 50 db below carrier level, but even at that,
given sufficient signal you will easily hear the sermon. From what I've
read here, these people might have more synchronous AM than the FCC
allows.

In any event, I have frequently had to exorcise FM-induced audio out of
telephone lines. Not uncommon at all.
--
        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
      [e-mail]       | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

------------------------------

Date: Tue Jun 27 02:23:52 1989
From: Charles Rader <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Quirks of ESS in my exchange

Some of the problems mentioned in Telecom 9.213 sound like an overloaded
switch.

When Michigan Bell first installed a new Northern Telecom switch in Southfield
(major suburban office and commercial area) it was quite common for subscribers
to wait several minutes before receiving a dialtone.

Lack of response to call forwarding requests and inconsistencies in how many
digits are dialed before a recording or reorder tone could also result from
a switch that isn't responding fast enough.

The variations in recordings could be caused by programming mistakes.

Michigan Bell ultimately had to upgrade the switch as well as correct whatever
programming bugs were present.  It took many months before it stabilized.


------------------------------

From: John Higdon <apple!zygot![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Quirks of ESS in my exchange
Date: 27 Jun 89 07:54:37 GMT
Organization: ATI Wares Team


In article <[e-mail]>, well![e-mail].
gov (Frank G Kienast) writes:
> I am curious as to how an exchange with ESS can have so many bugs and quirks
> in it.  I have noticed the following over the past couple years since we got
> ESS.  Each of the things described below has happened to me at least several
> times.

Gee, I thought at first you were describing my office! However, being
an old hand at living with a clapped-out #1 ESS (NOT 1A!!!) maybe I can
shed a little light. The switchmen there consider me their #1 PEST, but
I feel entitled to bitch with my 10 lines!

> Sometimes I pick up the phone and their is no dialtone.  The touch tone pad
> works, so there is a voltage, but no tone.  If I hang up and retry several

This can be one of two things. The most likely is that the office is
simply overloaded. The 1E processor is much less adept at handling
calls than the 1A, and since this is, after all, a common-control
system, a lot of people going off-hook and dialing is going to make
other people wait.

Of a smaller possibility: the office has crashed! They're famous for
that.

> Sometimes in the middle of a call (both local and long distance), I get
> mysteriously disconnected.  All of a sudden there is a click and then
> silence, but the voltage is still there.  The party on the other end notes
> the same thing.

In all fairness, this could be occuring outside of the office in either
the trunk circuits or your LD carrier. This happened to me the other
night; I had no dial tone for fifteen minutes and when it came back all
of my call forwarding on three lines had been cancelled. This was the
processor crashing. A "reboot" clears tmp memory which is where call
forwarding is stored.

> Occasionally, the system won't let me program in call forwarding.  I dial
> 72# and get a fast busy (reorder).  I dial 73# to make sure I'm not already

This is defined as "temporary memory failure". Very common. Generally,
it sounds like this: dial 72# [dial tone]. Dial number [two dial tone
bursts then immediate busy signal (60 ipm)]. Dial 72# [dial tone]. Dial
number [immediate reorder (120 ipm)]. I've heard your way, also.

> Sometimes when you dial three digits that are not a local exchange, you get
> a recording right away.  Other times, you don't get the recording until you
> dial seven digits.  Also, no distinction is made between a number that is
> invalid and one that is valid but requires a 1 first.  In fact, the
> recordings are used interchangably, with the "you must first dial a 1 when
> calling this number" being used for a few weeks for both, then "your call
> cannot being completed as dialed" being used for several weeks.

This is just out and out sloppiness in your CO. Small telcos usually
are plagued with this, but not BOCs. A "1" is not required in my
exchange for long distance, so I've never heard that particular
recording.

> When you call an AT&T LD operator (by dialing 10288 0#, for example), you
> hear four DTMF tones followed by a loud "clunk" followed by about ten more
> DTMF tones (these tones sound different from regular touch tones).

This is very surprising. It is identical to what you hear when dialing
"0+" on a CONTAC equipped Xbar exchange. I can't believe that they glued
CONTAC into an ESS office. Even a 1ESS can handle equal access in its
generic programming. I'd love to hear that one for myself.

> Does anyone have any ideas what is causing any of the things I described
> above?  I could understand this type of thing with the old mechanical
> switches, but since ESS has no moving parts, it seems to me it should either
> always work or not work at all.  I don't understand how things can work just
> part of the time, or work different at different times.

Oh, but there are moving parts! The 1/1A ESS is simply an electonically
controlled mechanical office. The actual switching is done with little
bi-stable relays. Apply current in one direction and they close. Apply
current in the other and they open. Why do you think it goes
"kaplunk-klunk" when you get call-wasted? It disconnects you from your
party, connects you momentarily to the call-wasting tone, then
reconnects you to your party through a "conferencing" path. That's why
the second beep (klunk) is less violent: you're already connected to
the conferencing port. If you don't answer the second call and they
hang up, it goes kaplunk. That's you and your party being moved back to
the normal talk-path.
--
        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
      [e-mail]       | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

------------------------------

From: "james.j.sowa" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Quirks of ESS in my exchange
Date: 27 Jun 89 13:21:08 GMT
Reply-To: "james.j.sowa" <[e-mail]>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories

In article <[e-mail]> well![e-mail]
(Frank G Kienast) writes:
>X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 213, message 1 of 5

>Occasionally, the system won't let me program in call forwarding.  I dial
>72# and get a fast busy (reorder).  I dial 73# to make sure I'm not already
>forwarding, and get the reorder here too.  I try hanging up, making other
>calls first, etc. and forwarding still won't work.  Then an hour or so later
>it cures itself.


Frank, I though the call fowarding activate and deactivate codes were
*72.... and *73 respectively. Is this just a typo or are they really
different on your local switch.


---
============================================================
Jim Sowa, att!cbnewsc!jjjs  [phone]
        These views are not necessarily those of my employer

------------------------------

From: Mike Morris <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Telco Insists on Making Premise Visit
Date: 26 Jun 89 06:45:49 GMT
Reply-To: Mike Morris <[e-mail]>


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

>I should point out that New England Telephone is insisting on sending out
>an installer on every line except the primary line for residence service,
>and for *every* business customer.
>
A few years ago my roommate installed a secondline in the house, and
a visit was necessary to install the drop cable and second protector.
Nothing further was needed since I had installed the premise wiring
(I was working for an interconnect part-time at the time).
After he moved out, the line was disconnected.  Six or seven months later
I decided to get a second line for the modem.  I called up Pacific Bell
and was told that a visit was necessary.  I said "Why - all you need to do
is hook it up to the second line in this house that is presently unused -
the old <number> that was moved to an apartment two blocks away 6 months
ago."   After a minute of hemming and hawing (and furious typing on the
therminal) she agreed.  A few days later I happened to be home for lunch,
and saw a lineman on the pole.  When asked, he informed
me that "a guy over in that house is getting a second line - I'm hooking
it up to his cable".

There wasn't a charge for a premise visit.

>What a ripoff!
>
Agreed.  Try fighting it.  What have you got to loose?
>--jsol


US Snail:  Mike Morris                    UUCP: [e-mail]
           P.O. Box 1130                  Also: WA6ILQ
           Arcadia, Ca. 91006-1130
#Include disclaimer.standard     | The opinions above probably do not even

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #216
*****************************










Date:     Wed, 28 Jun 89 0:50:34 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #217
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Wed, 28 Jun 89 00:44:50 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 217

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Re: Two Apartments on One Telephone Line (J. Philip Miller)
    Re: Two Apartments on One Telephone Line (Edward Greenberg)
    Re: Supreme Court Okays Dial-Porn (Doug Krause)
    Re: Telecom in the news (John Cowan)
    Re: Consumer Opts For POTS (John Higdon)
    Re: Overseas Collect Calls (John Higdon)
    Re: Proper Way to Disconnect Ringers on Phones (David Carter)
    Northern Telecom DMS-100 (was: those {{{{{{{{'s) (Edward Greenberg)
    Dial-Up Connections to Israel (Eli Weber)
    Intra-LATA calls w/10 digits (John Boteler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "J. Philip Miller" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Two Apartments on One Telephone Line
Date: 27 Jun 89 04:53:56 GMT
Reply-To: "J. Philip Miller" <[e-mail]>
Organization: Washington University (St. Louis)


>[Moderator's Note: Several years ago, when I moved to my present apartment,
>Illinois Bell offered the same thing. Since I was in the same district,
>thus keeping the same number, they said have it both places for a week or
>two during your transition. It was a great help during moving week. PT]

I was offered this service almost 15 years ago by SWBT, but declined since I
could not figure out a way in which I could call from one house to the other.
During the time of getting ready to move (over a month in my case), I just put
in a seperate line and then changed the number when I actually made the move.

Seems to me that this was before call forwarding was offered, but that would
make it even more convenient now.

-phil
--
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
J. Philip Miller - Div of Biostat - Washington Univ Medical School
[e-mail] - Internet        [e-mail] - bitnet
[phone]                   c90562jm@wuvmd - alternate bitnet

------------------------------

From: Edward Greenberg <claris!apple!netcom![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Two apartments on one telephone line
Date: 27 Jun 89 20:58:03 GMT
Reply-To: Edward Greenberg <claris!apple!netcom![e-mail]>
Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System [phone] guest


When moving within the same Central Office, it's quite normal to order
"duplicate service" for a short period of time.   Tariffs and company
policies will determine whether The Phone Company will do this and how
much it costs.  The technical requirement is that you are going to be
served by the same CO that serves you now.
                -e


------------------------------

From: Doug Krause <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Supreme Court Okays Dial-Porn
Date: 26 Jun 89 11:55:54 GMT
Reply-To: Doug Krause <[e-mail]>
Organization: University of California, Irvine


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
writes:
>Just a short note in closing this issue of the Digest: I assume everyone
>read the news in the paper over the weekend. The Supreme Court has ruled
>that the telcos *cannot* disconnect the 1-900 and 976 porn lines unless
>the services are specifically obscene

Was it that telcos can't disconnect them, or that they couldn't be
outlawed?  Big difference.

Douglas Krause                     CA Prop i:  Ban Gummie Bears(tm)!

University of California, Irvine   ARPANET: [e-mail]
Welcome to Irvine, Yuppieland USA  BITNET: DJKrause@ucivmsa

------------------------------

From: John Cowan <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Telecom in the news
Reply-To: John Cowan <[e-mail]>
Organization: ESCC,  New York City
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 89 17:59:08 GMT

In article <[e-mail]>,
    [e-mail] (Will Martin) writes:
>[There is also a sidebar item telling what a cordless phone is. I won't
>bother typing that in; people here know that... :-) It does mention that
>"modern cordless phones are equipped to use 10 channels ... Each channel has
>a digital security code that can be programmed 256 different ways. The
>result is a 2560-to-1 chance that two cordless phones with channels
>programmed the same way will be within each other's broadcast range..."
>That calculation of probability sounds a bit specious to me, but I'll leave
>the rebuttal up to others for now... -WM]

Utterly bogus.  The "256 different ways" refers only to control signals;
the security codes are designed to minimize the chance that the wrong base
station will respond to a handset's keystrokes (or that the wrong handset
will ring in response to a base's ring transmission).  Two systems sharing
the same channel and in an overlapping area will collide and allow eaves-
dropping; however, if set to different security codes, the bases/handsets
will ignore commands from the non-corresponding handset/base.
--
John Cowan <[e-mail]> or <[e-mail]>
UUCP mailers:  ...!uunet!hombre!{marob,magpie}!cowan
Fidonet (last resort): 1:107/711
Aiya elenion ancalima!

------------------------------

From: John Higdon <apple!zygot![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Consumer Opts For POTS
Date: 27 Jun 89 08:21:28 GMT
Organization: ATI Wares Team


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Bennett Todd) writes:
> [regarding who's really paying for switching upgrades]
> I'm paying for it. I get to pay more and more for service that is less
> and less reliable, to the point where I finally decided to shut the
> danged thing off (which has turned out to be *wonderful* -- I'd never
> get it switched back on, even if they reduced their rates and got their
> service stabilized and reliable).

Then your problem is incompetent installation/service people. Even the
relatively crummy 1ESS in my CO is vastly superior to the crossbar it
replaced. It is more reliable, it is faster, and it is capable of all
"modern" features. Are you claiming that phone service is universally
going to hell because of electronic and digital switching? That's
baloney.

> And I'm paying for it. Our new super-spiffy AT&T digital PBX has amazing
> features -- when it works. Half the time my phone won't ring when
> callers try to reach me, and I have to get the guy who is attempting to
> administrate this system to re-initialize my line, since its parameters
> are getting hosed somehow.

Find some competent people to operate and maintain your equipment. Your
anecedotal accounts of *one* bad installation can hardly be considered
an authoritative assessment of the future of telephony.

> If they could have maintained as reliable and straightforward a level of
> service, while adding new features and improving maintainability, then
> I'd be delighted. As it is, they are adding new features and improving
> their maintainability, at the expense of reliability and simplicity of
> use.

Of course, the reverse is true. With the self-diagnostics and lack of
mechanical unreliability, newer switching equipment is an *order of
magnitude* MORE reliable and capable of providing basic telephone
service. By your argument, we should all go back to horse-drawn carts
because you bought a lemon automobile.

> However, I am enjoying the chance to learn that I don't need to be so
> dependant on a telephone; it is wonderful not having one at home, and at
> work I can walk down the hall, or across campus, or (if it is long
> distance) walk to a local mini-mart and use their pay phone.

I, on the other hand, rely a great deal on the telephone for both work
and play. That is why I welcome the new technology with open arms.
Hell, why not just do away with automatic switching and go back to
operators?

> It's a good thing they are recovering more money from the folks who
> enjoy exploiting the features; they are certainly losing POTS-lovers as
> they leave in disgust.

Turn out the lights when you leave. (Or should I say "blow out the
lamps"?)
--
        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
      [e-mail]       | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

------------------------------

From: John Higdon <apple!zygot![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Overseas Collect Calls
Date: 27 Jun 89 07:12:41 GMT
Organization: ATI Wares Team

In article <[e-mail]>, nsc![e-mail].
com (Jeff Woolsey) writes:
> Some public telephone lines are set up to disable incoming calls, but
> this would not be a good idea in this application.  Since it is a real
> business line, the owner might actually want to accept collect calls
> when answering the phone, so it is a little presumptuous of the operator
> to make this determination beforehand.

At least with Pac*Bell (and I assume elsewhere) there is a database
which handles "called number screening". When you place an operator
assisted call on Pac*Bell or AT&T, this database is automatically
checked. If you are trying to place a collect call to a coin phone, it
shows on the operator console as "collect denied" and he/she *cannot*
override it. I have collect and third-number-billing screening on my
home phone(s) and if someone tries to call me collect, the operator
will say "I'm sorry, this number does not accept collect calls." Same
if you try to bill a call to my number.

Pac*Bell customers can call their business office and get this
screening free of charge. The front line response is denial and
run-around, but if you press it you can get it. BTW, it is this
database which made possible the assignment of ordinary numbers to coin
telephones. It California, they used to be of the form NNX-9XXX, but
now they can be anything at all.

Oh, try calling me collect; my number is below. :-)
--
        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
      [e-mail]       | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

------------------------------

From: David Carter <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Proper Way to Disconnect Ringers on Phones
Date: 28 Jun 89 02:48:29 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology


In article <[e-mail]> julian%bongo.uucp@eecs.
nwu.edu (julian macassey) writes:
>    . The OFF switch on telephones,
>disconnects the speaker or mechanically stops the clapper on a gong ringer.
>The ringing circuit is still connected and so absorbs power.

The above is not always the case:
I have two phones with electronic ringers.  One, a Radio Shack (ET-100, I
think; discontinued model), included a schematic that clearly showed that
the OFF position of the ring loudness switch electrically disconnected the
ringer circuit.  The other, an AT&T Trimline 210, causes the other phones
in the house to ring more loudly when its switch is set to OFF; so one would
guess that it absorbs no ring power when set OFF.

David Carter

------------------------------

From: Edward Greenberg <claris!apple!netcom![e-mail]>
Subject: Northern Telecom DMS-100 (was: those {{{{{{{'s)
Date: 27 Jun 89 20:56:09 GMT
Reply-To: Edward Greenberg <claris!apple!netcom![e-mail]>
Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System [phone] guest


I also had trouble at 1200 baud when my CO cut to a DMS-100.  You'll
know this baby by the sound.  There are no clicks generated.  Local
calls go from dialing to ringing to connecting with nary a hard click.
Also, the call waiting beep has no clicks surrounding it either.
Finally, calling up repair service and asking them may produce the
info that it is/is not a DMS-100.

Now, when I had this problem, I was able to escalate the problem to
the point where a technicial would talk to me, and she changed the
line card on my line, curing the problem.  Unfortunately, she did not
know what was different between the old line card and the new one.
She said (as you did) that something was out of phase.  She said that
she'd continue changing line cards for me until I got a good one, but
the first one she tried worked fine.  Never had a problem again.

The problem is that the whole thing is so damned nebulous that it's
impossible to cite an applications note or other document to convince
the phone company that there is a problem.

Only suggestion, try to talk to someone technical, try to get them to
change the line card, and good luck.
                -e

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Jun 89 15:10:01 PDT
From: Eli Weber <[e-mail]>
Subject: Dial-up connections to Israel

Has anyone succeeded in establishing dial-up communications
with any station in Israel at 2400 bps or better? How??
Please e-mail responses to uunet!daisy!eliw or call Eli
Weber at [phone].  Thank You.


------------------------------

Subject: Intra-LATA calls w/10 digits
Date: Mon Jun 26 12:19:31 1989
From: John Boteler <csense![e-mail]>

(in reference to)
Subject: Re: 1+302 on calls from Pa. to Del.


>From article <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail] (VLD/VMB):
> I talked to my local business office today and hear that 1+302
> is now required on local calls from Pennsylvania to Delaware

Check that...

The Washington DC metro calling area has been put on warning that
10 digits (NOT 11) shall be mandatory in the near future for
calling across the LATA. The differentiation between
long distance calls and local calls across the LATA will
be the leading '1', as always.

Are you sure your business office included the leading '1'
when they told you to dial the area code? Or is DC
going to remain the odd-man-out in the dialing
standards arena?


Bote
uunet!cyclops!csense!bote
{mimsy,sundc}!{prometheus,hqda-ai}!media!cyclops!csense!bote

[Moderator's Note: In Thursday's Digest:  An article which first appeared
in {Computer Risks} transcribing a conversation between fire and police
dispatchers in the UK at the time of the soccer incident a few months ago.
Also, a schedule of seminars, "Understanding ISDN" taking place throughout
the United States during July and August.   PT]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #217
*****************************










Date:     Thu, 29 Jun 89 0:01:51 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #218
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Thu, 29 Jun 89 00:00:05 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 218

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Police/Fire Dispatch Conversation at Sports Disaster (David Gast)
    Understanding ISDN: Seminars this summer (TELECOM Moderator)
    US Sprint cannot talk to Italy (Alex Beylin)
    Flash Hook & Line Disconnect (Daniel M. Greenberg)
    Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters (Fred R. Goldstein)
    Re: AT&T Mail vs MCI Mail (A. V. Reed)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Jun 89 17:35:12 -0700
From: David Gast <[e-mail]>
Subject: Police/Fire Dispatch Conversation at Sports Disaster


Given the recent discussion about the usefulness of computerized 911
systems, I thought I would pass this item on from comp.risks.

Date: Mon, 19 Jun 89 15:27:43 +0100
From: Charles Lindsey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Hillsborough Football -- Another Computer Connection

In the UK, we recently had a major disaster at the Hillsborough football
ground in Sheffield, in which 95 people died after being crushed against the
steel barrier which is supposed to prevent the spectators from invading the
pitch. It is estimated that the pressure per person on the fence, due to the
weight of the people behind surging forward, was in excess of one ton.

           [The computerized turnstile problem was noted in RISKS-8.60. PGN]

Now the official enquiry into the disaster is sitting, and the papers are full
of reports. At some point, it seems the Police decided they needed cutting
gear to use on the fence, and telephoned the Fire Brigade for it to be sent.
Clearly, its need was EXTREMELY URGENT.

Note that Hillsborough is the major football ground in Sheffield. It must
occupy something the size of a city block, and it can be approached from
several roads. The following is quoted from the Daily Mail for June 14.

Two vital minutes were wasted in helping victims of the Hillsborough tragedy.

The fire brigade refused to send vital cutting gear until they knew what street
the football stadium was on. Four times telephone operator Susan Davies
demanded the address. Then she asked five times what the equipment was needed
for.

Yesterday Miss Davies told the enquiry ... that the fire service computer
would not recognise the Hillsborough ground as a place.
'It needs a specific address and district in order to determine what pumps are
required to attend', she explained.
'My training is not to assume what an address is. It's up to me to ascertain
that from the person calling'.  As far as she was concerned, she added, there
could have been several football grounds at Hillsborough. ... The conversation
 ... went like this:

Police: Can we have cutting gear for Hillsborough please straight away?

Fire: Just a minute. Right, what's the address?

Police: Cutting equipment for Hillsborough football ground straight away.

Fire: Hillsborough football ground?

Police: Yes, Hillsborough football ground.

Fire: What road is that on, do you know?

Police: There has been a major accident, all the ambulances are there.

Fire: What road is it on?

Police: I have no idea. Hillsborough football ground.

Fire: What road is it on, do you know?

Police: Hillsborough football ground, what road is it on? (this to someone in
police control). Penistone Road.

Fire: Penistone Road?

Police: Penistone Road, OK.

Fire: Penistone Road, just a minute. What's exactly involved?

Police: It's football, a big match, Liverpool v Nottingham Forest.

Fire: Yes, but why do you want us? You said it was an RTA (Road Traffic
Accident).

Police: No, major incident inside the ground.

Fire: Major incident inside. Do you know exactly what it is?

Police: No I don't. They want all the cutting gear.

Fire: For what, do you know?

Police: Hang on a sec.

Police: (another voice) Hello.

Fire: Hello, now you want some cutting gear. What exactly is it for?

Police: ... full explanation ...

Fire: Right. OK. Leave it with us.


[Moderator's Note: My thanks to PGN/Risks for permitting the re-use of this
item, and to David Gast for sending it along.  PT]

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 28 Jun 89 1:53:07 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Understanding ISDN: Seminars this summer

A clear understanding of ISDN is crucial for successful telecommunications
management. A series of seminars this summer are being given in several
locations around the United States. These two day seminars are sponsored
by Telecommunications Research Associates of St. Mary's, KS.

First, the dates and locations, then the details:

July 10-11     Honolulu, Hawaii    (Hawaiian Regent Hotel)
July 11-12     Anchorage, Alaska   (The Clarion Anchorage Hotel)
July 18-19     Branson, Missouri   (Rock Lane Lodge)
July 27-28     New Brunswick, NJ   (Hyatt Regency)
August 2-3     Hilton Head, SC     (Hilton Head Hyatt Regency)
August 17-18   Minneapolis, MN     (Minneapolis Hyatt Regency)
August 24-25   Washington, DC      (Park Hyatt Washington)
August 28-29   Detroit, Michigan   (Westin Detroit)

The programs are identical in every case. Here are some excerpts from the
schedule of events for each of the two days:

Day 1
=====

8:00 AM - 9:20  Digital Telecommunications Concepts Review. This is an
                explanation of Digital Encoding of Voice and T1 Carrier.

9:30 AM - Noon  ISDN Services: A Case Study.  This will discuss End to
                End Digital Connectivity, and local area network features.

1:00 PM - 5:00  Standards Bodies: ANSI T1 Committee; CCITT's Three Stage
                   Standardization Process

                The ISDN Reference Model: Interfaces and CPE. This will
                   include an exhibit and discussion of Customer Premises
                   Equipment.

                X.25 and ISDN  (Layer 3)  Covers explanation of X.75

                Recommendation I.451 (Q.931) and I.452 (Q.932) Signaling
                (Layer 3). Includes Out of Band Signaling and ISDN Call
                   Establishment.

5:00 PM - 6:00  A cocktail reception for the participants.


Day 2
=====

8:00 AM - 11:45  Recommendation I.451/I.452 (continued from first day.)
                    This session will discuss use of Information Elements.

                 Signaling System #7  (SS#7).  Evolution to a Nationwide
                    ISDN. Hardware and software requirements.

                 Numbering Plans  for voice; data (X.121) and ISDN E.164

                 Recommendation I.441 (Q.921)  Layer 2. This will be a
                    discussion of Link Access Procedure on the D Channel
                    (LAPD), and an introduction to Frame Relay and Frame
                    switching.


1:00 PM - 4:45   Recommendation I.430 Basic Interface S/T  (Layer 1)
                    Contention resolution with Echo D Channel; and
                    Use of Passive Bus.

                 ANSI T1 U Basic Interface (Layer 1)   This will be an
                    explanation of ANSI T1 U Interface Standard; also
                    Adaptive Echo Canceled Hybrid Techniques.

                 T1 Carrier Primary Rate Interface (Layer 1)  This will
                    deal with how to achieve 64 kbs Clear Channel; also
                    a comparison of T1 carrier formats: CPI, DMI, and PRI.

                 ISDN Field Trials and Commercial ISDN Rollouts.

                 ISDN Central Office Products.  Protocol Analyzers and remote
                     switch equipment will be discussed, including BRITE,
                     ORM, LRU, etc.


Who are the Seminar leaders?
============================

John Swart: his experience includes six years in R&D with Bell Labs.
Michael E. Diesel:  thirteen years with Bell Labs.
James L. Neigh: fifteen years with Bell Labs. Founder of DMI/ISDN User Group.
Charles T. Cranford: AT&T Headquarters specialist on ISDN/Centrex vrs. PBX.

Registration, Miscellaneous Information
=======================================

Call 1-800-TRA-ISDN (800-872-4736) or 913-437-2000. If you prefer --
but time is short -- write to TRA, Post Office Box A, St. Mary's KS 66536.

Registration fee is $950 US / $1250 Canadian. This fee includes all course
materials, continental breakfasts, luncheons and coffee breaks both days
and a cocktail reception the first evening. Each person who completes the
program is eligible for 1.4 Continuing Education Uhits.

Two or more persons from the same organization attending together are
eligible for a $100 discount. For five or more from the same group, special
rates apply. Call for details.

Each participant is responsible for making their own travel and hotel
arrangements, of course. Each hotel is holding a block of rooms, and has
special rates available. Contact the hotel direct, and mention the TRA
Seminar.

There is a charge of $200 /$260 Canadian if cancellations are received
within three days of the seminar.

TRA Seminars have been held in very high regard in the past. The instructors
are always very well qualified. If you decide to attend, please plan on
writing a report afterward for [TELECOM Digest] describing the seminar and
your impression of the instruction, etc.

My special thanks to '[e-mail]' for making this brochure available
for transmission to Digest/comp.dcom.telecom readers.


Patrick Townson


------------------------------

From: Alex Beylin <cfctech![e-mail]>
Subject: US Sprint cannot talk to Italy
Date: 28 Jun 89 16:29:37 GMT
Reply-To: Alex Beylin <cfctech![e-mail]>
Organization: Chrysler Financial Corp., Troy, MI


Earler today I needed to call a friend in Italy.  Being that
I had to call from work and it was a personal call, I desided
to use the US Sprint FON card.

Direct dialing did not work at all. ass soon as I entered the
country and city codes (39+766), I got a busy signal.
The Sprint operator tried to place the call and after about 5 minutes
on hold told me that I man not use the US Sprint to call this
country code.

Calling via the AT&T calling card got me a connection within
30 seconds.

Can anybody explain the difference?

-- Alex


 Alex Beylin, Unix Systems Admin.       | [phone]
 [e-mail]                     | Chrysler Financial Corp.
 [e-mail] | MIS, Technical Services
 {sharkey|mailrus}!cfctech!alexb        | 901 Wilshire, Troy, MI

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Jun 89 21:00 EDT
From: "Daniel M. Greenberg" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Flash Hook & Line Disconnect

There is a very interesting curiousity I've noticed here in Rochester since
Rochester Telephone went digital.  One day, I was playing around with my
phone and pressed flash hook repetitively for about 30 seconds.  The
telephone line died for 2 minutes!  If someone were to call it, they'd
hear a recording that reported "We're sorry, the number you are calling is
out of order, it is a temporary condition, and has been reported".  Then,
in around 2 minutes, the line would reset and calls could be received or
dialed on that line.  What exactly is it that happens here?  If I do it
a lot will it get me in trouble?  Does it confuse the telco equipment?

Thanks,
Daniel


------------------------------

From: "Fred R. Goldstein dtn226-7388" <[e-mail]>
Date: 28 Jun 89 09:45
Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters

I think Aaron Heller has it right.  Of course, his mention of WRPI
brings back memories...  I was chief engineer of WSPN in Saratoga Springs
when we got the FM license (10 watts at the time) in 1974, and we were
on 91.1, vs. 91.5 for WRPI.  Now WRPI was the most-listened-to station
on our campus at the time, so I wasn't really happy about going only
400 kHz away, but our consulting engineer noted that WRPI's protected
zone (60 dB above 1 microwatt per meter, per FCC rules Part 1 if I
recall) ended about 3 miles from our tower (high-rise dorm), so we
could freely clobber them.  Had WRPI been (legally) 2 dB stronger,
they'd have prevented us from fitting in!

The reason FM broadcasting sounds so good (hi-fi, relatively) is because
it has a wide bandwidth.  A signal is nominally 150 kHz wide.  At 92
MHz, that's about .16% of the bandwidth.  If you tune the transmitter
sharply enough (as Aaron Heller tried), it'll indeed probably be a bit
out of tune by the edges of the channel, causing the FM to have an AM
component.  It's slope-tuning itself.  And that's of course a flagrant
violation of FCC technical standards.  If, just as a hypothesis, the
engineering dept. decided that they "answered to a higher authority"
and wanted to "spread the word" without regard for the FCC, then they'd
indeed tune for "maximum smoke".

BTW, under the terms of the Communications Act, licenses aren't permanent;
every renewal must be weighed equally against competing renewals for the
same frequency (i.e., applications for new construction specifying the
existing station's frequency).  This caused two of Boston's big 3 network
TV stations to be reassigned!  Flagrant violation of FCC standards could
weigh heavily in such an application, if somebody in Chicago wanted to
apply for a new station on 92.3...
         fred

[disclaimer:  opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission, etc.]

------------------------------

From: "a.v.reed" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: AT&T Mail vs MCI Mail
Date: 28 Jun 89 17:30:28 GMT
Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ


In article <[e-mail]>, ficc![e-mail]
writes:
> Would anyone care to give me some feedback on the relative merits of MCI
> Mail and AT&T Mail? I'd like to be able to send FAXes to my father in
> Australia, and the two companies charge about the same amount for the
> service. I've used MCI Mail in the past and wasn't overly fond of the user
> interface back then, but my brief examination of AT&T Mail didn't lead me
> to believe it'd be any better.

I can't comment on the comparison (and since I work for AT&T you
probably would be justified in discounting any comaprisons I made
anyway), but I'd like to point out that the "user interface" of
AT&T Mail is just a "backup" kind of capability - it's there so
you can still get to your mail if your UNIX(r) system is down.
For normal use, you register your machine with AT&T Mail (no need
to buy any special software if you are running UNIX with UUCP),
and then use your favorite UNIX mailer to send mail to an AT&T
Mail address, such as attmail!adamreed/paper for a hardcopy letter
(delivered via USPS) to yours truly. There is also a special
address, attmail!dispatcher, for mail to people (or FAX machines
etc) without registered AT&T Mail addresses. For example, I use
the following sh script to send nroff -mm letters via FAX:

    NUMBER=$1;ATTENTION=$2;shift;shift
    (echo "To: attmail!fax!$NUMBER(/$ATTENTION)";\
        nroff -mm -rL60 -rW65 $@ | col -bx)|\
        /bin/mail attmail!dispatcher

I can't comment on how you would do this with MCI Mail, but if I
were choosing an electronic mail service my key question would
be, "can I use it, transparently, from my usual UNIX system, with
mailers and tools I already know?". Could someone comment on how
MCI Mail, and other commercial E-Mail services, compare in this
regard?
        Adam Reed ([e-mail], attmail!adamreed)

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #218
*****************************










Date:     Fri, 30 Jun 89 0:55:51 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #219
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Fri, 30 Jun 89 00:00:57 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 219

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    FCC Clears Way For New AT&T Rates (Will Martin)
    Re: Consumer Opts for POTS (Bennett Todd)
    Re: AT&T Mail vs MCI Mail (John R. Levine)
    Re: AT&T Mail vs MCI Mail (Peter da Silva)
    Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters (Carl Moore)
    Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters (Jim Gonzalez)
    Re: ESS overloading (Jon Solomon)
    Re: Two Apartments on One Telephone Line (Charles Daffinger)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 29 Jun 89 9:30:49 CDT
From:     Will Martin <[e-mail]>
Subject:  FCC Clears Way For New AT&T Rates

The following item was in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of Wednesday,
June 24, 1989, page 3C:

FCC CLEARS WAY FOR NEW AT&T RATES

Washington (AP) -- The Federal Communications Commission denied a request
to delay a new pricing scheme scheduled to go into effect July 1 for the
nation's largest long-distance company, AT&T, the agency said Tuesday.

The requests for a stay had been filed in June by the Puerto Rico
Telephone Co. and La Telefonica Larga Distancia, which had said the new
plan to place a "cap" on the prices AT&T can charge would put the two
companies at a competitive disadvantage. They also said the plan would
harm the public interest.

But the FCC, in a decision reached Friday and made public Tuesday, said
that the companies failed to provide adequate reasons for a stay and
that the public would benefit from the new pricing.

The so-called "price cap" plan, which the FCC adopted in March after a
two-year study, replaces a 20-year-old "rate of return" regulatory
scheme that had placed limits on what AT&T could earn above costs. Most
recently that limit was 12.2%.

FCC spokeswoman Patricia Chew said the commission also was reviewing
other petitions to suspend the price cap plan, so it was not immediately
known if the plan would go into effect July 1.

AT&T spokesman Herb Linnen said the company was confident it would prevail.

"We expect price caps will go into effect July 1," Linnen said.

AT&T last month told the commission it would lower its prices by $140
million on July 1, through reductions in its basic long-distance rates
and its special Reach Out America calling plan.

In its decision, the FCC said "Price cap regulation offers significant
consumer benefits that do not exist under rate of return regulation...
In light of the proposed decreases, we believe that the public interest
weighs strongly in favor of proceeding with the implementation of our
price cap rules."

The price cap plan allows AT&T, which in 1988 controlled 68% of the US
long-distance market, to raise rates three percentage points less than
the rate of inflation in three categories of service: residential and
small business; 800 calls; and other business services, mainly for large
customers.

The FCC has said that the plan is intended to give AT&T an incentive to
cut costs and that consumers could save $900 million in charges over
four years.
***End of article***

I recall the original announcement of this did appear in the Digest, so I
hope this follow-up is worthwhile... Will

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Bennett Todd)
Subject: Re: Consumer Opts For POTS
Date: 29 Jun 89 19:52:21 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Bennett Todd)
Organization: Diagnostic Physics, Radiology, DUMC

In-reply-to: apple!zygot![e-mail] (John Higdon)

In article <[e-mail]>, I wrote a fairly
deliberately inflammatory overstatement of how bad the local telco and
the new departmental PBX have been at providing POTS.

In article <[e-mail]>,
apple!zygot!john@decwrl (John Higdon) writes a fairly reasonable
rebuttal, which I liked. He rightly pointed out that I am wide of the
mark criticising the technology; what is happening here is inept
installation and maintenance.

However, I would tend to maintain that inept handling of installation
and support of the new digital technologies is extremely common. What
I've seen in the circumstances I enjoy matches what I've heard and read
about in other places. Faced with costs rising on all sides, a telco
buys a new switch (or an organization buys a new PBX) on cost savings
grounds, and fails to plan for the necessary (but hopefully temporary)
increased manpower costs of additional training and whatnot to manage
the switchover gracefully; instead of delivering improved performance,
they deliver an immediate severe degradation, which may or may not
settle out over time and eventually leave the customers better off. I
would hazard that the smart money is on "not".

This kind of situation, where a new technology offers real improvements,
but is so over-hyped that switchover is botched, is responsible for a
large proportion of the traffic on RISKS digest.

To provide more detail, the problems at home were mostly of the
"incoming callers get forwarded to never-never land", and "no dial tone"
variety, and are easily explained by a badly overloaded and somewhat
ineptly programmed switch. I am sure that they aren't intrinsic to the
new technology; however I am also sure that it isn't coincidence that
they came bundled in with it.

The problems at work are even more blatently obvious; we hit the
capacity of our very old switch, and had to buy a new one (we couldn't
even get our current one properly maintained, never mind expanding it).
Simultaneously and completely independantly, we had a problem with too
few operators, not well enough trained. The new PBX was sold to the
folks in the business office who chose it partially on the claim that
its new features would allow a smaller number of operators to be able to
handle more traffic efficiently, since the operator's console interaction
was more streamlined. This may be true; however, in the face of a
shortage of operators, and extant problems with their level of training,
the new technology exacerbated the existing difficulties.

So on one hand I agree that I am wrong to criticise the new digital
telephony innovations; they really are technologically superior. I still
maintain that I am not imagining the problems they have brought. Even
though these problems are a consequence of bad planning decisions, if
they commonly accompany "upgrades" to digital switches then they have to
be counted as part of the cost of the newer technology. Technological
innovation doesn't exist in a vacuum; evaluation of costs and benefits
has to take into account the people in the situation, and how they will
handle the changes. I am griping that the changes to newer telephony
switching systems are often handled extremely poorly, enough to produce
an overall severe drop in functionality delivered to the customers.

-Bennett
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Jun 89 21:50:02 EDT
From: "John R. Levine" <ima![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: AT&T Mail vs MCI Mail
Reply-To: "John R. Levine" <ima!ima.UUCP![e-mail]>
Organization: Segue Software, Inc.

Since someone commented on AT&T Mail, here's my two cents about MCI Mail.
MCI recently changed their pricing for the better -- so-called advanced
service which gets you such distinctly unadvanced features as forwarding
messages used to cost extra but now is the standard interface.  Unlike AT&T
mail it is not integrated with uucp mail (though there is an undocumented
gateway to the Internet -- if you have an MCI Mail account try sending
something to the EMS "internet" with the internet address as the mailbox.)
There are nice interface programs for IBM PCs (Lotus Express) and Macs
(Dow Jones Desktop Express) which let you do your message sending and reading
on your desktop machine.  Email messages are 75 cents apiece (up to 3K
characters) or they have a deal where you get up to 40 email and fax
messages a month for a flat rate of 10 dollars.  Connect time is always free
and they have nationwide 800 numbers.

As far as faxes (faxen?) and telexes go, MCI does a good job of both.  MCI
owns Western Union International, which is one of the major international
telex carriers, and has a good two-way gateway to telex.  They say that sending
an international telex via MCI mail is cheaper than any other way and I've
no reason to doubt them.  Each MCI mailbox has an associated telex number;
telex users can call that number and send a telex and it shows up as a message
in your mailbox.  This really works, and I routinely use it to send and
receive telexes to and from Europe.  MCI is also a telephone company, so they
also make it cheap and easy to send faxes, by treating "fax" as a fake
electronic mail system to which they have a gateway.  (They also have gateways
to Compuserve and a lot of corporate Email systems.)  You can only send text
faxes, and can't receive them at all.  On the other hand, what do you want for
25 cents apiece?

Another facility that is of use is their paper mail.  You can have any message
run off on a laser printer and mailed; it looks very nice.  They have printers
in Belgium and Australia so that mail to Europe and the South Pacific usually
arrives in a day or two, much faster and cheaper than express mail.  If you
use Desktop Express you can apparently send quickdraw graphics in your paper
messages, though I haven't tried it.
--
John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, [phone]
{ bbn | spdcc | decvax | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, [e-mail]
Massachusetts has 64 licensed drivers who are over 100 years old.  -The Globe

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Jun 89 22:04:32 -0400
From: ficc![e-mail]
Subject: Re: AT&T Mail vs MCI Mail

Thanks to everyone who's sent me mail on the subject. I suppose I should
clarify one thing... I'm looking for a personal account and I don't have
a UNIX system at home, so the ability to send mail from your UNIX box is
unfortunately not a factor. Is it possible to send UUCP mail from Usenet
to AT&T Mail accounts?  Is there any other advantage to the link between
AT&T Mail and Usenet?
---
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.

Business: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, [e-mail], [phone].
Personal: ...!texbell!sugar!peter, [e-mail].


------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 28 Jun 89 11:18:02 EDT
From:     Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters

                  Address Correction for WYCA

Recent Telecom digest had 6336 Calumet Avenue, Hammond, IN 46301.
Try 46324 zipcode.  46301 is for Beverly Shores, with PO in Porter
County.

[Moderator's Note: Thank you for the correction.  PT]
------------------------------

Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 89 14:32:28 -0400
From: [e-mail]

There used to be a radio station in West Orange, NJ that caused a similar
problem.  I don't remember their call sign, but they referred to their
operation as "Inspirational Radio".  They transmitted from one of the
ridges of the Watchung mountain range, thus putting them well above
nearby Newark and most of Manhattan.  Car radios within several miles
of the station would receive their broadcast, regardless of tuner setting.
Several times a year, this same effect would occur even with fixed (home)
radios at ranges of over 15 miles.  This station operated on the FM band.
We thought that their relative height and broadcast power were responsible
for their intrusiion on neighboring allocations.  Is it possible that radio
stations operated by the chosen only operate legally when the FCC is around?

                -Jim.

------------------------------

Date:  Wed, 28 Jun 89 10:11:47 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: re: ESS overloading


It's much more common with DMS switching to be overloaded.  I haven't
seen an ESS in overloaded state, and I know for sure NET has some
pretty loaded CO's (although I haven't seen NYC's phone service, I'll
bet they are FAR worse off). Newton MA has a DMS1000 and they have the
MF (not touchtone) tones distributed across the call before it is
completed.  Also, DMS equipment is far flakier than ESS so watch out
for it.

You can't easily distinguish between a DMS and an ESS 5. They are
largely the same technology (hooray for competetion). You pick up the
phone, sometimes you hear clicks and sometimes you don't. I think with
ESS5 you always hear clicks, so if you don't get a click or two before
your "goooooooooooo" (dialtone), then you are probably on a small DMS
office.

ESSen crash. They definitely crash. I've tried relentlessly to get
access to the other switch in my CO, and now I have finally gotten a
line on it.  Unfortunately this other CO loses it's OE's all the time,
so I don't get any better service by having lines on both CO's.

I like ESS5 and ESS1[A] as well, I don't like DMS. I would probably get
a FEX if I lived in a DMS area, just so I can have reliable phone
service. The Cambridge ESS1 is converting to ESS5. I can't wait!

Oh, the main reason why ESS has so many bugs in it now is that the
BOC's are hiring programmers to work on it, where before, the
coding was done by PHD's at ATT Bell Labs.

You figure it out......

--jsol

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Jun 89 11:03:15 -0500
From: Charles Daffinger <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Two Apartments on One Telephone Line


->From: [e-mail] (J. Philip Miller)

->I was offered this service almost 15 years ago by SWBT, but declined since I
->could not figure out a way in which I could call from one house to the other.
->During the time of getting ready to move (over a month in my case), I just put
->in a seperate line and then changed the number when I actually made the move.

WHen I was growing up in Western Pa, we had a house, and a summer place
5 miles away, both which had the same number.  In order to call from
one house to another, you just dailed 9091 and hung up.  The phone
would ring until someone picked up, after which you picked up, and had
your conversation.  This was on an ancient mechanical switch.

-charles


------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #219
*****************************










Date:     Sat, 1 Jul 89 17:45:24 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #220
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sat, 1 Jul 89 17:41:58 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 220

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Two-way Radios in Equipment Installation (Ernest H. Robl)
    How Exactly Do Private Payphones Work? (S.M. Krieger)
    Coin Calls and Long Distance Carriers (Robert E. Stampfli)
    Making International Phone Calls From France? (Michel Jacquemin)
    Re: Intra-LATA calls w/10 digits (Carl Moore)
    Re: LD carrier span comparisons (Dell Ellison)
    Re: Long Distance Carrier Sound Comparisons (Gene R. Trindell)
    Re: Praise the Lord and pass the RF filters (John Boteler)
    Re: Cell Phone Question (John Boteler)
    Re: Two apartments on one telephone line (David Lewis)

[Moderator's Note: Happy Canada Day to our readers to the north, and
Happy Independence Day to the United States subscribers on Tuesday. I
hope some of you, at least are able to take advantage of the four-day
weekend which results from having July Fourth on Tuesday this year.
Try to have fun *safely*. PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Ernest H. Robl" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Two-way Radios in Equipment Installation
Date: 30 Jun 89 20:10:33 GMT
Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service


After several recent minor but annoying problems in the
installation of remote equipment (terminals, modems, multiplexers,
etc.) which required repeated trips back and forth between the
terminal site and our computer room, we are seriously looking
at acquiring two-way radios to help in such trouble-shooting.
(Some of our terminals are located in public areas without
nearby phones.)

Since readers of the group may have some experience in this area,
I'm looking for pointers before we spend any money.  (If there's
a better newsgroup for this question, please let me know.)

Here's a brief description of the application:  All we want is
two walkie-talkie type sets (no base station with any kind of
large antenna).  Most of the transmissions would take place
between locations in the same building (but several floors
apart), but it would occasionally also be helpful to have enough
range to talk to sites as much as two miles away.

I'm aware that units on any of the so-called business frequencies require
FCC licenses.  I also think that I have a reasonably good general understanding
of the principles of these units.  (I've owned scanner receivers for a number
of years.)

I'm also aware that for the same power, VHF units have greater
range while UHF units are better at penetrating buildings.

Here are a couple of specific questions:  Would a one watt unit
have sufficient power for our application?  Are we better off
with a VHF or UHF system?

Suggestions for specific brands or suppliers or even specific
units are also welcome.

Please reply by email; if there's sufficient interest, I'll
post a summary.

Of course, if there are considerations or questions that I
haven't mentioned that I should look at, tell me about those,
too.

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide.

-- Ernest

--
My opinions are my own and probably not IBM-compatible.--ehr
Ernest H. Robl  (ehr@ecsvax)  [phone] w; [phone] h
Systems Specialist (Tandem System Manager), Library Systems,
027 Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, NC  27706  U.S.A.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Jun 89 23:01:30 EDT
From: S M Krieger <[e-mail]>
Subject: How Exactly Do Private Pay Phones Work?
Organization: Summit NJ


I recently needed to make a long distance call, and the only public
telephone available was one of those new private pay phones.  It
did not support 10xxx LD carrier selection, but my coinless call
to '0' got me the local telco operator, who then, at my request,
connected me to an AT&T operator.

Now, I'd like a little education on exactly how these private
phones work; for example,

    1.  If I am going to deposit coins to pay for the call,
        what is computing how much I pay?   Is it the
        central office, or is it some computer in the phone
        itself?

    2.  Will these phones connect me free of charge to a
        local telco operator,  or could even a single '0'
        connect me to some pre-selected LD operator?

    3.  If I make a call from these phones without ever deposting
        any coins, does the phone owner get any revenue from
        the call (e.g., in my case, '0' got me to a telco
        operator, she connected me to an AT&T operator, and the
        call was billed to my AT&T Calling Card.  I wasn't misled
        by anyone; the call did show up on my AT&T bill a few
        days ago)?

    4.  Am I entitled to 10xxx LD carrier selection if I use
        one of these phones?
--
Stan Krieger
Summit, NJ
 ...!att!attunix!smk

------------------------------

From: "Robert E. Stampfli" <[e-mail]>
Subject: coin calls and long distance carriers
Date: 30 Jun 89 01:24:30 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories


Recently, the following subject came up in the office and no one knew the
answer:  If you want to make a long distance call from a coin phone the
old fashioned way -- ie: pay for it as-you-go by inserting vast quantities
of coins into the phone as directed by the operator -- how is this
accomplished?  Is it possible to use other than the default long distance
carrier in this case?  Just curious.

Rob Stampfli
att!cbnews!res (work)
osu-cis!n8emr!kd8wk!res (home)

------------------------------

From: Michel Jacquemin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Making International Phone Calls From France?
Date: 30 Jun 89 02:59:16 GMT
Reply-To: Michel Jacquemin <[e-mail]>
Organization: Yale University, New Haven, CT


I am going to be in France next month and will need to make some
international phone calls (more precisely to Spain).  Can people tell me
what the most convenient way to do that is?  I don't want to have to
use tons of coins or have to go through an operator.  I think they
have some computerized phone cards down there; can you buy them in any
postal office, or at airports?  In which amount do they come?

Stupid question: can I make any use of an MCI or an ATT phone card
for that purpose?

Thanks,
    Michel Jacquemin
[e-mail];  [e-mail]
 ...!harvard!yale!jacquemin
"C'est qu'on a vite fait de manger epice ... mais pas en meme temps", Coluche

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 29 Jun 89 19:14:25 EDT
From:     Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Re:  Intra-LATA calls w/10 digits

That's a good question regarding 1+ being included on local calls from
Pa. to Del.  I could go to Kemblesville, Pa. and try a local call to
Newark, Del.  I don't have the wording available for such new dialing
instruction.  I did notice that years ago, I could leave the 1+ off
calls made from pay phones on 302-475 and 302-478, which are local to
Pa. points, and 302-674 about halfway downstate in Delaware.

As for your comment about DC area:
What does this mean concerning area code 202?  Is it being withdrawn from
the Maryland and Virginia suburbs?  Apparently you mean that local calls
across the area code boundaries (i.e., from Md. to DC & Va., from Va. to
DC and Md., and from DC to Md. and Va.) will require the area code.  If
1+ is NOT to be used for such calls, it means that:
202 and 703 can NOT be used as prefixes in Md. suburbs
202 and 301 can NOT be used as prefixes in Va. suburbs
301 and 703 can NOT be used as prefixes in DC
(local calls within Md. suburbs, within Va. suburbs, and within DC to
remain 7 digits)
It is apparently the practice anyway that nearby area codes are not to
be used as prefixes.
At this time (i.e. WITHOUT this revision), prefixes 261 and 621 in Md.
suburbs dial 569-xxxx to make a local call to that prefix in Springfield,
Va., and 1-301-569-xxxx to make a local call to that prefix in Severn, Md.

In NYC, if you are calling within the local message-unit area, you have to
dial 1+516 or 1+914 as the case may be on calls to suburban points.  (At
least the phone book says to do that.)  And I believe local calls from
areas 213, 818, and 415 in California to neighboring area codes are 11
digits.

------------------------------

From: Dell Ellison <asuvax!gtephx![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: LD carrier span comparisons
Date: 28 Jun 89 18:10:10 GMT
Organization: AG Communication Systems, Phoenix, Arizona


In article <[e-mail]>, cblph![e-mail]
writes:
> Steve Elias suggests that we discuss perceived quality on a carrier by
> carrier basis for calls between various cities.  This sounds like an
> excellent topic.  I would enjoy reading these accounts, I hope people
> post some.  This is *not* the sort of thing I flamed Dell Ellison about,
> however.  Posting shallow references to his corporation's widely
> publicized media advertising campaign was what I thought to be a
> bit out of line with the guidelines for technical discussion.

U.S. Sprint is owned by GTE and Northern Telecom (and soon to be totally
owned by Northern Telecom).  The company that I work for is also
partially owned by GTE.  However, that does not mean that I have any
affiliation with U.S. Sprint.  I am NOT affiliated with U.S. Sprint.
So please refrain from accusing others of 'tooting their own horn.'
(Interesting that HE works for AT & T)

(However, I Did enjoy his implication that flaming is a 'technical
discussion.')


------------------------------

From: "Gene R. Trindell" <wa3wbu!gt5000![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Long Distance Carrier Sound Comparisons
Date: 25 Jun 89 00:31:58 GMT
Organization: Unisys, Harrisburg, PA


In article <[e-mail]>, apple!zygot!john@decwrl.
dec.com (John Higdon) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]>, jimmy%denwa.uucp (Jim
> Gottlieb) writes:

> Oh, really. I just made test calls to every out-of-the-way place I
> could think of on AT&T and every single one of them was carried
> digitally. Even a call to Washington state, the last hold out of analog
> connections for AT&T was digital. Or how about St. Marys, KS? Or
> Thistle, UT? All digital.

Naive question time:  How do you tell if a line is digital or analog ?

--
Gene R. Trindell  |            UUCP: uunet!wa3wbu!gt5000!gene
UNISYS            |               ARPA: gene @ gt5000.uucp
1035 Mumma Rd     |
Lemoyne, PA 17055 |    /*  My hovercraft is full of eels.   M.P.  */

------------------------------

Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and pass the RF filters
Date: Fri Jun 30 02:18:38 1989
From: John Boteler <csense![e-mail]>

I read the account of WYCA interference with interest, and
then realized at the end of the article that we are talking
about an FM station, not an AM station.

Even with strong field strengths, it is difficult to demodulate
an FM signal with just any old electronic device. More likely
are the accounts of phones ringing and garage doors opening
without Human intervention.

Curiouser and curiouser.


------------------------------

Date: Fri Jun 30 01:28:13 1989
From: John Boteler <csense![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Cell Phone Question

 From article <[e-mail]>, by DREUBEN@eagle.
wesleyan.edu) (DOUGLAS SCOTT REUBEN):
> Let's say I have a 666 channel cell phone, and am in a system that
> uses all 832 channels.

[ does it know? how? do the carriers spare channels? ]

Among the many pieces of information the phone transmits in its
data burst is the Station Class Mark, which indicates the
transmit power capability of the radio and the maximum channel
capacity of the transceiver.

The carriers have enough capacity problems right now in
downtown metropolis that reserving channels for 666 channel
radios is the least of their worries. There will always be
others with radios capable of more channels to pay the
bill, and that's all that matters.

Further, each site is assigned a discrete set of channels to operate
on; even though coverage overlaps greatly in a metro area,
it would be difficult to fully accomodate 666 channel units
in peak periods--there just isn't enough sites with the right
channels at the right times to accomodate your scenario
reliably. Sorry.

Bote
uunet!cyclops!csense!bote
{mimsy,sundc}!{prometheus,hqda-ai}!media!cyclops!csense!bote


------------------------------

From: David Lewis <nvuxr![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Two apartments on one telephone line
Date: 30 Jun 89 15:04:01 GMT
Organization: Bell Communications Research


In article <[e-mail]>, lloyd![e-mail].
edu (Kent Borg) writes:

] >I might add this is how the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA
] >also listen to you (assuming authorized taps, of course). When telco is
] >served with a court order to apply a tap to your line, they tie another
] >pair on your line in the office and send it through a coil and off to the
] >FBI. **And they charge both YOU and the FBI for the price of the line!!**

] Is it really done that way with modern electronic switches?

] If so, does this mean that the electronically inclined and paranoid
] among us might be able to keep track of when we are being bugged by
] measuring the impedence and capacitance of our lines?

Actually, it's already been done.

] Maybe Sharper Image will start selling a box to watch your line and
] tell you when its electrical properties change in a suspicious way?

I don't know if Sharper Image sells them, but there are any number of
"security consulting" firms which do.  They include boxes which sit
beside/beneath the phone to a replacement microphone for a 2500 set
which has a little LED that lights up if the characteristics of the line
change...



--
David G Lewis                ...!bellcore!nvuxr!deej

            "If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower."

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #220
*****************************










Date:     Mon, 3 Jul 89 0:59:19 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #221
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Mon, 3 Jul 89 00:51:20 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 221

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    New Toll-Rates in NJ (Dave Levenson)
    Re: Quirks of ESS in my exchange (Frank G. Kienast)
    Re: ESS overloading (Julian Macassey)
    Re: Long Distance Carrier Sound Comparisons (John Higdon)
    Re: Praise the Lord and pass the RF filters  (David Lesher)
    Re: How Exactly Do Private Pay Phones Work? (Paul Guthrie)
    Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment (TELECOM Moderator)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Dave Levenson <westmark![e-mail]>
Subject: New Toll-Rates in NJ
Date: 2 Jul 89 13:53:25 GMT
Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA


It used to be that you could determine the cost of an intra-lata
call if you knew the CO prefix of the called number.  A recent
ruling by the NJ Board of Public Utilities changes that.  The ruling
makes all calls within a municipality local calls.

Many NJ municipalities are smaller than a CO serving area.  Others
are split between two or more CO serving areas.  The effect of this
ruling is that calls to different numbers with the same CO prefix
are billed differently.  The determination is made based upon the
customer's post office address.

For example, a customer calling from a 647+ number in Harding
Township who calls a 267+ number in Harding Township is making a
local call.  But the same customer who calls a 267+ number in Morris
Township is making a toll call.

This probably plays havoc with a number of ARS algorithms, and once
again makes it impossible to know, when you make a call, whether or
not it is local.

--
Dave Levenson                Voice: [phone]
Westmark, Inc.               Internet: [e-mail]
Warren, NJ, USA              UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave
[The Man in the Mooney]      AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave


------------------------------

From: Frank G Kienast <well![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Quirks of ESS in my exchange
Date: 2 Jul 89 16:07:01 GMT
Reply-To: Frank G Kienast <well![e-mail]>
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA


Thanks for all the responses to my questions about quirks in my ESS
exchange.  In addition to responses to this group, I have received nearly a
dozen mail responses.  The following is a summary of responses so far.

Sometimes not receiving a dialtone is caused by the fact that the switch
scans the subscriber loops.  A bug in the software occasionally causes it to
go off into oblivion until it times out and resets.  (No explanation yet for
the sequence of ascending tones that are sometimes heard just before
receiving a dialtone.)

Getting disconnected in the middle of a call (which I forgot to mention
happens on local calls as well as long distance) could be caused by the
failure of the (mechanical) relays which are driven by the ESS software (I
had thought before that electronic switches were used).

Inability on occasion to program in call forwarding is caused by a temporary
lack of available memory, which is dynamically allocated when the request is
made.   Someone asked me if the 72# and 73# codes were a typo (they thought
they were *72 and *73).  I checked and 72# and 73# are indeed correct, but I
tried *72 and *73 and these work also.  Apparently they are interchangable.

Sometimes receiving a recording after dialing three invalid digits, and on
other occasions not receiving any response until seven digits are dialed may
result from changes to the on-line database which are constantly being made
due to trunk changes, the addition of new exchanges, etc.  ESS screens each
digit as it is dialed, so the capability of detecting an invalid sequence
before seven digits are dialed is built in.  The mixup between the "You must
first dial a 1" and the "Your call cannot be completed as dialed" recordings
is apparently a programming mistake. (The software comes with the switch,
right?  Wouldn't all switches of the same type and company have this problem
then?)  Getting different recordings after the first recording times out is
also a programming problem (Hmm.. maybe they used GOTO's to branch to the
routines that play the various recordings and forgot the jump out between
them :-))

The tones heard when connecting to an AT&T operator are MF (Multi-Frequency)
tones which are used by the network for routing calls.  They are
combinations of 700-900-1100-1300-1500-1700 Hz.  Apparently intermediate
routing is required because my area is served by a small telephone company
that is not a former part of Bell.

In response to questions I have received:  I am in the 804-979 exchange.
The local phone company is Centel.  I believe they have a Northern Telecom
switch.

Finally, I'm wondering if someone could recommend a good book on ESS.  I
have only a very basic knowledge of telephone switching systems, but have a
good understanding of programming (from high level languages down to
assembly language) and electronics.  I'm looking for such things as the
history of ESS systems, problems that were encountered in their design and
how they were overcome, information on the hardware and software typically
used (type of processor and operating system, some sample flow charts or
code, etc.), a listing of the various ESS versions (#1,1A, etc.) and their
specifications, etc.  Please let me know if you have any recommendations
on what book(s) to read and where they can be obtained.

In real life: Frank Kienast
Well: well![e-mail]
CIS: 73327,3073
V-mail: 804-980-3733

------------------------------

From: julian macassey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: ESS overloading
Date: 2 Jul 89 00:48:00 GMT
Organization: The Hole in the Wall  Hollywood CA U.S.A.


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes:
>
> You can't easily distinguish between a DMS and an ESS 5. They are
> largely the same technology (hooray for competetion). You pick up the
> phone, sometimes you hear clicks and sometimes you don't. I think with
> ESS5 you always hear clicks, so if you don't get a click or two before
> your "goooooooooooo" (dialtone), then you are probably on a small DMS
> office.
> --jsol

    Here is a way to spot a DMS. Using a Touch Tone phone, get dialtone and
dial one digit. Immediately after you take your finger off the dial pad, you
will hear a very short burst of dialtone before silence. This means the
switch is a DMS. Certainly works in Southern California. So the sequence
is:

Dialtone, Touch Tone, dialtone, silence.

A X-Bar or AT&T ESS will have the following sequence:

Dialtone, Touch Tone, silence.


There are of course other quirks that identify a DMS, but this is a quick,
certain, cheap and dirty test.

Yours
--
Julian Macassey, n6are  julian@bongo    ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian
n6are@k6iyk (Packet Radio) n6are.ampr.org [44.16.0.81] voice [phone]

------------------------------

From: John Higdon <apple!mojave![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Long Distance Carrier Sound Comparisons
Date: 2 Jul 89 08:41:05 GMT
Organization: ATI, High desert research center, Victorville, Ca


In article <[e-mail]>, wa3wbu!gt5000!gene@
wb3ffv.ampr.org (Gene R. Trindell) writes:
> Naive question time:  How do you tell if a line is digital or analog ?

Easy. Analog repeaters generate noise known as "hiss". After a couple
of hundred miles or so, their presence is quite noticable. Complete
absence of noise on the call, therefore, would be a strong indication
that on a 1000 mile call, the bulk of the mileage is being covered by
digital transmission. No, there are no "noise free" analog circuits in
long distance telephony.

------------------------------

From: David Lesher <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and pass the RF filters
Date: Sun, 2 Jul 89 9:46:45 EDT
Reply-To: David Lesher <[e-mail]>

> I read the account of WYCA interference with interest, and
> then realized at the end of the article that we are talking
> about an FM station, not an AM station.

Now AM stations, that brings out the old WLW stories.
WLW is the clear channel station in Cincinnati. Before
the FCC cut them back to 50kw, they were rumored to run
500+. Farmers working on barbed wire fences heard them.
(other farmers FELT them, when they grabbed the wire)
Folks with metal roofs, too. Some poor folks with dental
work were SURE they heard voices telling them to do
things.

Last I heard, WLW still has the old transmitter, just
waiting for the rules to change again.
--
      Read my Lisp! No Gnu Faxes!
  {gatech!} [e-mail] (305) 255-RTFM

------------------------------

From: Paul Guthrie <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: How Exactly Do Private Pay Phones Work?
Date: 3 Jul 89 00:05:02 GMT
Reply-To: Paul Guthrie <[e-mail]>
Organization: The League of Crafty Hackers


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(S M Krieger) writes:
>Now, I'd like a little education on exactly how these private
>phones work; for example,
>    1.  If I am going to deposit coins to pay for the call,
>        what is computing how much I pay?

With COCOT type phones (Intellicalls, Alcatels, etc) the phone itself computes
the rates.  The methods they use are not as complex or accurate as most
LD carriers.  They mainly have NPA+NXXs stored in a table mapping to
rate centres.  They then store latas and V&H coordinates of the rate
centres and compute distance to look up in mileage band tables for combos
of inter/intra state/lata calls.  Tax is often added at a highest possible
rate.  In short, they take shortcuts, and generally compute a higher
than normal rate to cut down on the amount of memory needed for the
ROM based tables.  These tables are often out-of-date.  Some of the newer
phones have modems in them to receive downloaded rates from a PC program.

>    2.  Will these phones connect me free of charge to a
>        local telco operator,  or could even a single '0'
>        connect me to some pre-selected LD operator?

They can be programmed either way.  The amount of options for dialing plans
on these things is huge.

>    3.  If I make a call from these phones without ever deposting
>        any coins, does the phone owner get any revenue from
>        the call

No.  It's part of the price of doing business.

>    4.  Am I entitled to 10xxx LD carrier selection if I use
>        one of these phones?

Not really.  I've even seen them programmed to take the 10xxx and still
send the call through the AOS (transparently).

Of course, none of these comments apply to BOC phones necessarily.
--
Paul Guthrie
chinet!nsacray!paul

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 3 Jul 89 0:50:24 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment

In a conversation with jsol on Sunday, we discussed the merits of speed
dialing. As all TELECOM readers probably know, you can get 'speed dialing'
(sometimes known as convenience dialing) from the telco, as programmed in
the central office switch, or you can purchase a variety of equipment which
maintains the speed dialing repretoire at your own premises.

Which is better, if either? Is it purely a matter of personal taste, or
can you suggest reasons why providing it for yourself might be preferable
to that version sold by the telco and maintained in the CO?

Just wondering. We came to the conclusion it was purely an individual
choice, with no apparent advantages to either; certainly not as long
as the CO version can be programmed with ease from your own phone. Opinions,
anyone?

(And do have a safe and happy Independence Day holiday! Driving, drinking,
firecrackers, all usual admonitions apply.)

Patrick Townson

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #221
*****************************










Date:     Tue, 4 Jul 89 1:11:21 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #222
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 4 Jul 89 00:46:26 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 222

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Re: Making International Phone Calls From France? (John R. Levine)
    Re: Making International Phone Calls From France? (Sergio Gelato)
    Re: Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment (Edward Greenberg)
    Re: AT&T Mail vs MCI Mail (Eric M. Carroll)
    MCI Mail or what, in Australia? (Peter da Silva)
    Re: Those {{{{{{{{{{{{ 's (Charles Bryant)
    Re: Consumer Opts For POTS (Gregory G. Woodbury)
    Where are TELECOM Archives? (Jeff Kaplan)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 3 Jul 89 14:55:19 EDT
From: "John R. Levine" <ima![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Making International Phone Calls From France?
Reply-To: "John R. Levine" <ima!ima.UUCP![e-mail]>
Organization: Segue Software, Inc.

In article <[e-mail]> Michel Jacquemin
<[e-mail]> writes:
>I am going to be in France next month and will need to make some
>international phone calls (more precisely to Spain).  Can people tell me
>what the most convenient way to do that is? ...
>
>Stupid question: can I make any use of an MCI or an ATT phone card
>for that purpose?

Last question first, no you can't; MCI and AT&T don't handle calls that don't
have at least one end in the U.S. French payphones are tons of fun. There are
two kinds, the kind that take coins and the kind that don't. In Paris, they're
all coinless except for the funky little ones you find inside stores, other
places they're being converted to coinless from coin as they get around to it.

To use a coinless phone, you need a Telecarte (accute accents over the first
two e's) which is sold at all France Telecom offices which are generally
inside or next door to post offices. They come in two (logical) sizes, 50
units and 120 units. Last year the 50 unit card cost F40 and the 120 unit card
cost F100, I don't know if they've gone up. All calls in France are charged in
units, with the time per unit depending on the distance, ranging from 12
minutes for a local call at 2 AM to 1.2 seconds for a call to the South
Pacific. For calls to Spain, I'd expect a unit to be worth something between
30 seconds and a minute, depending on the time of day. It's all in the front
of the phone book.

To use your card, you stick it in the phone and wait a moment, and a little
display shows you how many units you have left. Then dial 19 for an
international call, get a second dial tone, and dial the country code, 34 for
Spain, and the city code and phone number. When the calling party answers, the
phone starts counting down the units until you hang up. Then it tells the
little microprocessor in the card how much it's worth and gives you the card
back. I've never used up a card, but I presume if you run out of units if cuts
you off and you have to call back with a fresh card.

Once you get the hang of this it's very handy. The price per unit is about the
same as you'd pay for a call from a regular phone. If you have to use a coin
phone, you dump all your change into it and it eats the coins as needed,
giving back the ones it didn't use. You get no change. It is still possible
many places to call from a post office and pay them, but I can see no
advantage to doing so unless you know you'll never place another call and the
one you're making will cost less than F40. (F40 is worth about $7.00.)

For the particular case of calling back to the United States, you can get an
AT&T or MCI operator by calling 19-0011 or 19-0019 and place a calling card or
collect call to the U.S. In a coinless pay phone you need a telecarte but it
won't deduct any units.
--
John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, [phone]
{ bbn | spdcc | decvax | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, [e-mail]
Massachusetts has 64 licensed drivers who are over 100 years old.  -The Globe

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 3 Jul 89 15:59:48 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Making International Phone Calls From France?

>I am going to be in France next month and will need to make some
>international phone calls (more precisely to Spain).  Can people tell me
>what the most convenient way to do that is?  I don't want to have to
>use tons of coins or have to go through an operator.  I think they
>have some computerized phone cards down there; can you buy them in any
>postal office, or at airports?  In which amount do they come?

This is only a partial answer. Yes, they have prepaid cards. and you can
buy them in post offices, and probably other places as well.
If you can go to a post office during normal opening hours, there may be a
better solution: use one of the phone booths within the post office itself.
In many places, you can pay to the cashier as you leave. I use this whenever
I don't have change for a coin phone, or the streets are too noisy.

>Stupid question: can I make any use of an MCI or an ATT phone card
>for that purpose?

Probably not (and anyway, it wouldn't be to your advantage, as you would
almost certainly be incurring a surcharge - on top of the French PTT's regular
rates for international calls).
                        Sergio Gelato
                    ([e-mail])

------------------------------

From: Edward Greenberg <claris!apple!netcom![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment
Date: 4 Jul 89 04:20:05 GMT
Reply-To: Edward Greenberg <claris!apple!netcom![e-mail]>
Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System [phone] guest


I use Telco Speed Dialing (8 numbers).  I like it because I don't have
to get expensive feature phones style sets around the house.  Rather,
I can use older more reliable Bell System Style sets (with real
networks. :-)

Basically 8 numbers does it for me.  I had thirty numbers in a
previous life, and found that I was using about ten of them and had
forgotten what the other twenty were used for.  I tried to allocate
them in groups, like 20-30 are for family, 30-40 are her friends,
40-49 are my friends, etc., but it never took.  Since
then, I've learned to live with 8 and saved a buck or two.

Actually, I remember why I needed more.  Way back then, I used several
of them for 950-xxxx.

Now that Grandma is in a home, I expect that I could reprogram #3.
Maybe Dominos Pizza :-) callous youth...  forget the pizza, call your
granny.

------------------------------

From: "Eric M. Carroll" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: AT&T Mail vs MCI Mail
Date: 4 Jul 89 00:43:45 GMT
Reply-To: "Eric M. Carroll" <[e-mail]>
Organization: Institute for Space and Terrestrial Science


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (a.v.
reed) writes:
>... then use your favorite UNIX mailer to send mail to an AT&T
>Mail address, such as attmail!adamreed/paper for a hardcopy letter
>(delivered via USPS) to yours truly. There is also a special
>address, attmail!dispatcher, for mail to people (or FAX machines
>etc) without registered AT&T Mail addresses.

This touches on an area that I am now actively investigating for my
organization. Namely, I would like to gateway much of my email traffic
into things like Bell Canada's Envoy, Canada Post's paper mail service
and FAX. I have found no commercial rfc822 compliant gateways for either
of these as yet. I had not investigated attmail as it was indicated
to me that it was a US only service.

Does anyone know of FAX boards that are mungable into dealing with
Internet Mail? Outgoing is the priority, but incoming would be great
too. How about commercial gateways that can deal with
*Canadian* email traffic? (ie they don't requite huge long distance
bills and know about Envoy) Contact addresses and phone numbers would
be most welcome.

----
Eric Carroll                    [e-mail]
Institute for Space and Terrestrial Science    uunet!attcan!ists!eric

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 3 Jul 89 21:39:09 -0400
From: ficc![e-mail]
Subject: MCI Mail or what, in Australia?

Hi, it's the MCI mail question man again. AT&T mail is looking really bad
now, and I'm probably going to go MCI (when their order line opens up after
the 4th :-<). I have another question...

What Email services are available in Australia?
---
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
Business: [e-mail], [phone]. | "X3J11 is not in the business
Personal: [e-mail].         |  of legislating morality ..."
Quote: Have you hugged your wolf today? `-_-' |      -- Henry Spencer


------------------------------

Date: 30 Jun 89 20:27:50 GMT
From: Charles Bryant <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: those {{{{{{{{{{{{ 's
Reply-To: Charles Bryant <[e-mail]>
Organization: Maths Dept., Trinity College, Dublin


In article <[e-mail]> boulder!sigi.Colorado.EDU.
colorado.edu![e-mail] (Hal Eden) writes:

<X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 211, message 1 of 7

<I'm sure that this has been discussed here before, so if you reply
<to me, that would be fine.

<Could someone give me a semi-technical explanation for those {{{{{{{{
<which appear as interference at 1200 baud?  I am going round and round
<with USWestComm about this.

When a V.22 (or Bell 212) modem gets a single bit error (when no data is
supposed to be being transmitted), this gets turned into a DEL character (which
normally is not seen on the screen) and a '{'. This is due to the scrambling
used with this type of modem (the scrambling is used to spread the frequencies
used).
<About a month ago a new office was installed in Boulder (apparently a
<DMS100 ? 3rd hand info) and ever since then I have had to re-call
<numerous times to get a "clean" line.  It seems that discussions I
<have seen in the past referred to something being "out-of-phase".
<What exactly is out of phase?  Whose responsibility is it?  How would
There should be nothing that can get 'out of phase'.

<so HELP, can someone educate me a little bet so that I can better
<communicate what the problem is AND perhaps point me to the sort of
<department within the operating company which would understand the
<problem and could do something about it?

You have described the problem perfectly. If you can get a clean line by
redialling it must be a problem between the exchanges (damn!).

cb
--

                Charles Bryant.
Working at Datacode Electronics Ltd. (Modem manufacturers)

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Gregory G. Woodbury)
Subject: Re: Consumer Opts For POTS
Date: 2 Jul 89 02:39:23 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Gregory G. Woodbury)
Organization: Red Wolfe Software, Durham NC

In article <[e-mail]> apple!zygot!john@decwrl.
dec.com (John Higdon) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
>(Bennett Todd) writes:
>> [regarding who's really paying for switching upgrades]
>> I'm paying for it. I get to pay more and more for service that is less
>> and less reliable, to the point where I finally decided to shut the
>> danged thing off
 Bennett is (of course) entitled to his opinion, but he does have a
real reason to complain.  Duke University and Durham NC have a rather
interesting set of telephone interactions.
    Durham (a satrapy of GTE South) has a relatively bad service
reputation.  The area is undergoing a period of rapid growth and new CO
numbers are being opened rather quickly.  As they open the new numbers,
they are not necessarily installing new switches.  Some parts of town
get modern equipment and good service, and other parts get stuck with
the older stuff.  In fact, I can generally know how reliable the
service to a given number is going to be by just the CO code.  I even
asked specifically to have my service provided by one of the new COs.
    Going from my home to Duke, or any computers in the newer COs
will be fairly good (only fair :-( ) but bbs's in other COs are subject
to the }}i}} type interference.  I don't know the particulars of the
actual switches, but they aren't AT&T.

>Then your problem is incompetent installation/service people. Even the
>relatively crummy 1ESS in my CO is vastly superior to the crossbar it
>replaced. It is more reliable, it is faster, and it is capable of all
>"modern" features.

    Yes, we do have most "modern" features, why just last month
they announced that they could now offer temporary cancellation of call
waiting!  (I do want to thank the Digest/newsgroup for giving us the
ammunition necessary to get this "new feature" made available.)

>> And I'm paying for it. Our new super-spiffy AT&T digital PBX has amazing
>> features -- when it works. Half the time my phone won't ring when
>> callers try to reach me, and I have to get the guy who is attempting to
>> administrate this system to re-initialize my line, since its parameters
>> are getting hosed somehow.

>Find some competent people to operate and maintain your equipment.

    This is easier said than done.
    Duke University's phone system is almost totally independent of
the Durham phone system.  It even has its own tarriff hearings before
the state PUC.  It has 3 CO codes (684,681,680) and leases ists own set
of AT&T LD access trunks.
    Early this year, the University cut over to a 5ESS all digital
switch.  This has brought the usual set of settling in bugs. The AT&T
PBX that Bennett complains about is the PBX for the Department of
Radiology in the Medical Center and is actually on the floor next to
the 5ESS (I think, it may be in the hospital, Bennett?)
    Being an independent entity, yet committed to AT&T equipment,
Duke has to compete in the market for technical people, but can only
bid (substantially) lower academic salaries.  Occasionally, Duke can
manage to get some good people and hold onto them, but most of the
phone crafts are ....

>> If they could have maintained as reliable and straightforward a level of
>> service, while adding new features and improving maintainability, then
>> I'd be delighted.
>
>Of course, the reverse is true. With the self-diagnostics and lack of
>mechanical unreliability, newer switching equipment is an *order of
>magnitude* MORE reliable and capable of providing basic telephone
>service.
>
    Duke and Durham have phone systems in transition, ISDN is going
to be here (sometime) and that will be a "Good Thing" for some, but others
are just too confused to deal with it.  "bet" is really just frustrated by
technology that doesn't work right.


------------------------------

Date: Mon, 3 Jul 89 19:05:11 EDT
From: Jeff Kaplan <[e-mail]>
Subject: Where are TELECOM Archives?

Are there archives of telecom kept where I can FTP them?

Could you please send me an index?

Thank you.

Jeff Kaplan
[e-mail]  [35.8.8.108]
[e-mail]  {uunet,pur-ee,gatech!mailrus}!frith!kaplanj


[Moderator's Note: The archives of TELECOM Digest, along with many other
interesting articles relating to telecom subjects, is available by
anonymous ftp from bu-cs.bu.edu. After ftp'ing to bu-cs.bu.edu, you would
log on as 'anonymous' and enter some non-null password. You would then
'cd telecom-archives', and 'ls' or 'ls -la' to see what all is available.

Most (not all) back issues of TELECOM Digest are available. They are filed
by year and volume, then by issues within given volumes. The sheer size
of the archives forced me to compress all but the last year's worth, along
with many of the other feature stories. You'll need to be able to uncompress
the files on your end. Sorry, no index was kept for earlier volumes. PT]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #222
*****************************










Date:     Wed, 5 Jul 89 0:01:46 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #223
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Wed, 5 Jul 89 00:00:25 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 223

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    A History of the Rogers Park Telephone Office (TELECOM Moderator)
    Local vs. Toll (Jonathan Alan Solomon)
    I Tried a Local Call From Pa. to Del. (Carl Moore)
    Re: How Exactly Do Private Pay Phones Work? (John R. Levine)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 4 Jul 89 21:02:11 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  A History of the Rogers Park Telephone Office

The information in this article comes to me courtesy of the Rogers Park
Historical Society here in Chicago. Their source of information comes from
notes prepared March 5, 1958 by R. L. Mahan, an employee of Illinois Bell,
for the occassion of the 75th anniversary of telephone service in Rogers
Park, the Chicago neighborhood in which I reside.

September 15, 1883:  Rogers Park was served by a toll station from Chicago.
The charge was 25 cents for 5 minutes of connection. The name and address
given in the directory of the Chicago Telephone Company was simply, "Rogers
Park, public toll station # 1".

September 15, 1886: In the Chicago Telephone Company directory issued this
date, two toll stations are listed, with the second one being "Dr. C.H.
Burbank, drug store, toll station # 2".

July 15, 1889: The south edge of the present (1958) Rogers Park office (that
below Devon Avenue) was annexed to Chicago, as a part of the city then known
as Lakeview.

April 4, 1893: The territory east of Kedzie Avenue and between Howard Street
and Devon (most of the present [1958] Rogers Park office) was annexed to
the city of Chicago. This included the villages of Rogers Park and West
Ridge.

December 1, 1895: The Chicago Telephone Company announced the establishment
of a telephone exchange in Rogers Park. The proposed rate for service was
$42 per year for local community service, with a toll fee for calls to
Chicago.

January 1, 1897: The wiring and installation of the exchange was complete,
and it opened for business this date. The switchboard was located in the
drug store at the corner of Clark Street and Lunt Avenue, and was operated
by the wife of the pharmacist and her family.

1903: At year end, stations in service throughout Rogers Park totaled 372,
versus 255 the year before.

February 1, 1905: The switchboard was moved to the building at the rear
of the drug store (actually 722 Lunt Street). Chicago Telepone Company
announced that effective that date, service would be provided 24 hours per
day, seven days per week. Prior, the board had been open during the day
and early evening hours, and closed on Sunday. The residents of the
community had a 'gentlemen's agreement' with the operator: Calls would not
be placed during overnight hours or on Sunday when she was off duty except
in cases of emergency. In a middle of the night emergency, a loud bell
connected to the switchboard rang when a phone went off hook and it would
awaken her, sleeping nearby.

September 1, 1909: The street number of the phone office changed to 1754
West Lunt, when all house numbers were changed to conform with the new
street numbering system in Chicago.

1909: The village of Birchwood (including the Germania community in the
far south end of Evanston) was served from Rogers Park on "Birchwood"
theoretical prefix.

March 6, 1915: Rogers Park office cutover; many number changes were
involved. The "Birchwood" theoretical prefix was discontinued. The office
moved to its present ([1958] and still, in 1989) location, 1622 West
Pratt Avenue.

April 24, 1915: Area north of Howard Street, east of the Elevated tracks
and north to the south boundary of Calvary Cemetery (neighborhood known
as "Little Germania") annexed to the city of Chicago, and served by the
new "Rogers Park" prefix.

March 13, 1920: Area along the lake front which had been served by the
Edgewater office (1007 stations) was transferred to the Rogers Park
office. The "Sheldrake" prefix was started to accomodate these phones.
Some of the residents in the area had "Rogers Park" numbers, and as
nearly as possible kept the same number, but with "Sheldrake" as the
new prefix. Records indicate that a John Townson, whose telephone number
was formerly "Rogers Park 6" was transferred to "Sheldrake 1".

1921-23: The Chicago Telephone Company was aquired by the rapidly growing
American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and over a two year period, all
facilities of Chicago Telephone were transferred to the control of the
newly formed corporation, "Illinois Bell Telephone Company". Throughout
its history until now (1958), Illinois Bell was never owned exclusively
by AT&T. Although AT&T owned and still owns about 95 percent of the stock
in the corporation, about 5 percent is owned by private investors, who
retained some stock rights from their prior ownership of Chicago Telephone.

April, 1925: "Briargate" opens as a third prefix in the area.

April, 1928: "Hollycourt" opened as a fourth prefix.

September, 1940: "Ambassador" opened as a theoretical prefix in the
Sheldrake exchange.

September 18, 1948: Most of Chicago, including Rogers Park had been converted
to automatic dialing in lieu of manual calling. The Rogers Park neighborhood
exchanges converted to the two letter, five figure numbering system.
The third letter of the exchange name became the first digit of the five.
Old style numbers less than four digits took leading zeros as filler when
the dial conversion was complete, i.e. a number such as ROGers Park 6
became RO-4-0006.

July 25, 1949: "ROgers Park-1" opened as the sixth prefix in the area.

December 31, 1950: Stations in service on six prefixes in Rogers Park
totalled 53,055. Prefixes were "ROgers Park-1", "ROgers Park-4", "SHeldrake-3",
"BRiargate-4", "HOllycourt-5" and "AMbassador-2".

April 28, 1957: "BRoadway-4" opened as a theoretical prefix in "BRiargate-4",
which it will eventually replace.


<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

At the bottom of Mr. Mahon's notes, dated in 1958, the following additional
notes had been written in:

February, 1961: All number calling prefix 338 was opened. Ironically, had
we still been going with exchange names, 338 would have been presented as
"DEvon-8", a logical choice, the main street in the area being named Devon.

September 16, 1962: Direct distance dialing for station to station calls
became available to phones in the community. We can call many places in
the United States by just dialing three more digits at the start of the
number.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Rogers Park Telephone Statistics:
                                                   other/
Year       Total     1-party    2-party   4-party   business
1900       85          unk       unk       unk      unk
1905       372         23        unk       unk      unk
1910       2117        172       169       1553     243
1915       5322        700       388       3657     577
1920       12,376      2073      1072      7574     1657
1925       23,648      5355      5202      9572     3519
1930       36,691      11,861    12,823    5725     6282
1935       35,732      8556      12,760    8568     5848
1940       40,527      10,055    19,284    4410     6778
1945       43,010      11,994    22,190    2649     6177
1950       53,055      17,984    22,804    1257     11,010
1955       66,547      29,020    18,869    -- 7     18,581

Notes:
1. During the depression years 1930-35, many people could not afford phones
and had to give them up. The net decrease in that period was almost 900
stations; this is the only period in which there was a decrease rather than
an increase. In that same time period, many people chose to give up private
service and take the less expensive party line service.

2. Illinois Bell Telephone Company, successor to Chicago Telephone Company,
discontinued offering four party service in 1949, but 'grandfathered' it
to existing customers. By 1955, it was almost gone. The last of the four
party subscribers dropped out about 1962.

3. Several large business phone installations occurred during the 1950-55
period, and payphones became much more common, appearing on street corners,
the elevated train platforms, etc. In addition, Loyola University of Chicago
greatly expanded its phone service during the early 1950's. This is shown
in the large increase in other/business category in 1950 and 1955.

4. The largest single increase in subscribers was during the 1900-1910
period, when the number of subscribers increased more than twenty fold in
that decade. The increase between 1905 and 1910 alone was six fold. Having
the exchange staffed full time in its own office became a necessity!

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Long after this was prepared and presented at an IBT Company anniversary
dinner, we added the prefix '973' in our area; then five years ago we added
'508'. We 'went ESS' in 1984, as one of the last neighborhoods in the city
to be thus equipped. All the early exchanges are still around, but known
now as 262, 274, 465, 743, 761, and 764. The relative 'newcomers' 338, 508
and 973 never had names.

Patrick Townson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 3 Jul 1989 13:32:53 EDT
From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <[e-mail]>
Subject: Local vs. Toll

I don't think the NJ DPU decision was meant to lower the number of
local calls in a given exchange. I think what was meant was that if a
town is connected to more than one exchange (local calling area boundary)
which would normally cause a toll be charged, that now that call is local.

New England Telephone has had that in place for years. You sometimes have
to dial 1 first even for local calls in NET's rural areas, but the DPU
here guarantees the same thing. Calls from anywhere within a municipality
are local calls, even if the exchange boundaries differ.

It's a billing hack. They just simply have to change their billing records
so that the call is local.

--jsol

------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 3 Jul 89 15:56:54 EDT
From:     Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject:  I Tried a Local Call From Pa. to Del.

OK, I went to Kemblesville, Pa. (215-255 prefix) and tried a
local call from there to U of Del computer status line at 451-2761
in area 302.
1. Dialed 7D (7 digit).  "The call you have made requires a 25
   cent deposit."
2. Put in 25 cents and dialed 7D.  I got recording saying I now have
   to dial 1 and areacode 302 in front of the Delaware number I have
   just dialed; "there is no change in the billing".  Got my money back.
3. Put in 25 cents and dialed 302 and 7D (left off leading 1).
   The call went thru, although I know this exchange has required
   1+7D for toll calls within 215 area (prefixes 368 and 453 in Newark,
   Del. are duplicated in distant parts of area 215).

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 3 Jul 89 14:21:16 EDT
From: "John R. Levine" <ima![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: How Exactly Do Private Pay Phones Work?
Reply-To: "John R. Levine" <ima!ima.UUCP![e-mail]>
Organization: Segue Software, Inc.

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(S M Krieger) writes:

>    1.  If I am going to deposit coins to pay for the call,
>        what is computing how much I pay? ...
If it's a real telco pay phone, central equipment computes the charge.  If
it's a COCOT (Customer Owned Coin Operated Telephone) it's generally a computer
in the phone itself.  That's why COCOTs cost over $1000 while regular pay
phones are closer to $500, even though they're externally the same.

>    2.  Will these phones connect me free of charge to a
>        local telco operator,  or could even a single '0'
>        connect me to some pre-selected LD operator?
Technically, the COCOT can do whatever it wants.  Legally, most places seem
to require that 0 give you someone who can complete emergency calls 24 hrs
a day, and pragmatically that means the telco operator.

>    3.  If I make a call from these phones without ever deposting
>        any coins, does the phone owner get any revenue from
>        the call ...
Ho ho.  If you place an inter-lata calling card call from one of these things,
it will invariably route you to an "alternative operator service" such as NTS
or ITI who will charge you several times the AT&T rate for the call.  For
intra-lata calls, it depends on the state tarriffs; if your call is carried by
a real phone company such as AT&T, Sprint, or the local BOC, the phone owner
doesn't get a cut.  If it's an AOS, they probably do.  I've seen ads in the
business pages of the local paper saying "get $1.00 per call when customers
use your payphone."

By the way, the magic of equal access is now coming to real telco pay phones,
so that if you dial 0+number your call gets routed to the LD carrier of the
phone owner's choice. If it's NTS or ITI, you pay the same exorbitant rates.
Check the instruction plate of the phone; it legally has to say who carries
the LD calls, and the operating companies are pretty good about making sure
they tell the truth. (They're no fonder of NTS or ITI than is anyone else.)

>    4.  Am I entitled to 10xxx LD carrier selection if I use
>        one of these phones?
Yes you are, although many of them are programmed, probably illegally, to
make that difficult or impossible.  I've also had them ask me for $9.95 when
I dialed 950-1022.  What a bunch of slimeballs.
--
John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, [phone]
{ bbn | spdcc | decvax | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, [e-mail]
Massachusetts has 64 licensed drivers who are over 100 years old.  -The Globe

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #223
*****************************










Date:     Thu, 6 Jul 89 0:29:32 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #224
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Thu, 6 Jul 89 00:09:18 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 224

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Tokyo Goes to 8 Digits (Kenneth R. Jongsma)
    New AT&T dialable countries as of 15 July (John R. Covert)
    Hello Direct (TELECOM Moderator)
    PC telephone interface card (Rick Watson)
    Re: Making International Phone Calls From France? (Christian Lotito)
    Re: Making International Phone Calls From France? (ab4@cunixb)
    Re: Coin Calls and Long Distance Carriers (John R. Levine)
    Re: Flash Hook & Line Disconnect (*Hobbit*)
    Re: I tried a local call from Pa. to Del. (Jon Solomon)
    Re: Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment (Steve Elias)
    Re: Two way radios in Equipment Installation (L. J. Judice)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Tokyo Goes to 8 Digits
Date: Wed,  5-Jul-89 16:01:46 PDT

The following article was in tonight's local paper. It's attributed to
Associated Press:

                Tokyo to Add 8th Digit to Phone Numbers

  Move over Paris, Tokyo will join you in the ranks of cities with eight
digit phone numbers.

  Nippon Telephone and Telegraph Corp. said Tuesday the change from seven
digit phone numbers in Tokyo will take place January 1, 1991. Subscribers
will add a 3 at the beginning of their seven digit numbers.

  The national telephone utility said a shortage of exchange numbers began
in 1981 as demand increased for facsimile and microcomputer communications
on top of demand for regular telephone lines.

  Some eight digit phone numbers were given to pocket pages in 1987, and in
1988 some new subscribers for regular telephone service received eight digit
numbers, NTT said, but by early 1991 the shortage will be accute.

                  (End of Article)

This started bothering me when I first heard France was going to eight digit
numbers a few years back. It's probably just my American Provincialism, but
it seems as if "the rest of the world" is ignoring the Bell Labs studies on
how easy it is recall numbers. I figured it was the French desire to different
from the rest of the world, even though they had already implemented the
equivilent of an area code (city codes). Now the Japanese are going that way.

What am I missing here? What's wrong with a "downtown" city code and a
"suburb" city code? If a country doesn't need a full up 3 digit area code,
the equipment could be easily programmed for less, but the concept of an
area (city) code makes a lot more sense than making everyone dial (and
remember!) and extra digit.

Ken @ cup.portal.com

------------------------------

From: "John R. Covert" <[e-mail]>
Date: 5 Jul 89 10:27
Subject: New AT&T dialable countries as of 15 July

The following countries become dialable by AT&T on 15 July 1989:

222    Mauritania
223    Mali
224    Guinea
230    Mauritius
233    Ghana
250    Rwanda
676    Tonga
960    Maldives

There appears to be some confusion about the first two, i.e. their country
codes have not been put into AT&T 4E toll switches yet, whereas all the rest
have, and one (not necessarily reliable) source indicated that they would have
the same country code as the Maldives, 6000 miles distant.  Of note is the fact
that the capital of the Maldives is Male.

/john

------------------------------

Date:     Tue, 4 Jul 89 19:35:40 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Hello Direct

The nice folks at 'Hello Direct' sent me another of their catalogs
this past week. The issue I am referring to is dated Summer, 1989.
This 48-page catalog has many interesting telephone peripherals, including
headsets, amplifiers, phones, memory dialers, fax cards for use in PC's,
privacy devices, toll restrictors, and several other items.

The catalog is well prepared, and just plain *fun* to read. If you are not
on their mailing list and would like to be, write or call them.

Hello Direct
2346 Bering Drive
San Jose, CA  95131-1121
Phone 1-800-HI-HELLO   (1-800-444-3556)

The catalogs seem to be published quarterly. I do think their headsets may
be a little high priced however; not that Radio Shack is the best comparison,
but the Radio Shack headsets are about half the price, and the AT&T Phone
Center store near me also sees good headsets for about $50. Hello Direct
merchandise does seem to be high quality, though.


Patrick Townson


------------------------------

From: Rick Watson <ut-emx![e-mail]>
Subject: PC telephone interface card
Date: 5 Jul 89 03:04:55 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas


Does anyone know of a telephone interface card card I can plug into my
PC (or some kind of programmable standalone unit) with the following
features: DTMF encode/decode, ring detect, remote ring/busy detect,
a/d and d/a converters for digitizing the audio signal, etc...

Rick Watson
The University of Texas Computation Center
 arpa:   [e-mail] (128.83.1.26)
 uucp:   ...cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!rick
 bitnet: watson@utadnx
 span:   utspan::watson (UTSPAN is 25.128)
 phone:  [phone]

------------------------------

From: Christian LOTITO <hp-sdd!hpgnd.HP.COM![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Making International Phone Calls From France?
Date: 4 Jul 89 16:57:11 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, GND


Hello Michel,

you'll find phone memory cards in every french post office.

1) french PTTs are public administration => don't expect to find
   an open post office on saturday or sunday or after 7 PM
   (this is France...).

2) There are 2 available cards: 40 and 120 UNITS.
   An unit correspond to 1 local call. For long
   distance calls it depend of how far you call
   and the time of the day:
   calling after 9:30 PM is 1/2 price,
   calling Spain is cheaper than calling Bangkok.

   You'll get info in any post office.

Enjoy your trip in France,

Chris (born there...) Lotito.

- Mon mari me fait cocu
- Vous avez de la chance, le mien me fait partout: Coluche.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 5 Jul 89 13:29:20 EDT
From: And Drawn <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Making International Phone Calls From France?
Organization: Columbia University

In article <[e-mail]> you write:

>X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 222, message 2 of 8
>
>>I am going to be in France next month and will need to make some
>>international phone calls (more precisely to Spain).  Can people tell me
>>what the most convenient way to do that is?  I don't want to have to
>>use tons of coins or have to go through an operator.
>This is only a partial answer. Yes, they have prepaid cards. and you can
>buy them in post offices, and probably other places as well.
One addition -- calls via a telecarte are *much* cheaper than using
coins, at least for local calls.  I am told that they are same as
those from a home line -- having aphone installed is a painstaking
procedure,and many people use the quite comfortable and roomy booths
as miniature offices.  The prices given a few messages back are still
current, and the current discount-for-calling-at-off-peak-times
schedule (quite involved, including a discount during lunch hour!) is
printed on the back of the newer cards.

/a
ab4@cunixc.[cc.]columbia.edu
[e-mail]
{backbone}!columbia!cunixc!ab4

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 3 Jul 89 14:31:47 EDT
From: "John R. Levine" <ima![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: coin calls and long distance carriers
Reply-To: "John R. Levine" <ima!ima.UUCP![e-mail]>
Organization: Segue Software, Inc.

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Robert E. Stampfli) writes:
>If you want to make a long distance call from a coin phone the
>old fashioned way -- ie: pay for it as-you-go by inserting vast quantities
>of coins into the phone as directed by the operator -- how is this
>accomplished?  Is it possible to use other than the default long distance
>carrier in this case? ...

I don't know much about the details of call completion other than that
calls from regular payphones are routed to equipment at the long distance
company that looks up the price and listens for the sounds the phone makes
when you put in the money, and sends a signal back to the phone when the call
is answered to tell the phone whether to drop the money into the coin box or
the coin return.  COCOTs do it all themselves with internal microprocessors.

Until recently AT&T was the only LD carrier that had arrangements with the
local telcos to handle coin calls.  With the recent extension of equal access
to pay phones, MCI and Sprint are now phasing in coin service.  I can dial,
10222-1-number or 10333-1-number from a payphone here in Cambridge and I get
a computer that sounds exactly like AT&T's asking for exactly the same amount
of money that AT&T asks for.  The volume and background noise are different,
though.  I don't know whether MCI and Sprint are subcontracting their coin
service to AT&T (as they do their directory assistance) or if it's just that
everybody buys their coin call processing equipment at the same place.

I also note that if I dial 10222-0-number or 10333-0-number, I get MCI or
Sprint recordings asking me to dial my calling card number, but the only
card number that works is my New England Tel number (which is the same as
my AT&T number), not my MCI or Sprint number.  I don't understand that at all.
--
John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, [phone]
{ bbn | spdcc | decvax | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, [e-mail]
Massachusetts has 64 licensed drivers who are over 100 years old.  -The Globe

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 5 Jul 89 18:46:35 EDT
From: *Hobbit* <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Flash Hook & Line Disconnect

DMS switches seem to have excessively "safe" ways to deal with what they
consider error conditions.  Lots of up-and-down on the hookswitch is
apparently interpreted as something wrong with the line or instruments, and
one attempted corrective action is to remove the line voltage completely
for a while with the hope that whatver's causing the problem out there will
eventually reset itself and be quiet.  My office [Dunellen NJ] does the same
thing.  I discovered this while playing around with my series-resistance
feature, that simply increases the DC resistance of the phone until the
line card gives up.  With older offices the finder used to go crazy, and
oscillate back and forth.  The DMS cards have hysteresis, so if you turn
this thing down until it disconnects you have to turn it up a ways again
to get the dialtone back.

What really annoys me is the automatic diagnostics the office does around 2am
every night.  My fone is such that significant DC variations on one line
seriously affect a modem on the other line -- admittedly a design flaw in
the fone, but I know it also annoys lots of people out there who have the
cheap little ringer circuits that click and chirp when this sort of thing
is going on...

_H*

------------------------------

Date:  Wed, 5 Jul 89 11:18:02 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: I Tried a Local Call From Pa. to Del.

You must have called from a COCOT. It would make sense that the
COCOT phone doesn't know anything about the call until you dial
either 1+ 0+ or insert a quarter.

Then 2) was the Bell of Pa. recording saying you have to dial 1+302

as for 3) I suspect the ESS machine was misprogrammed, or that this
is a feature to declare the 302-XXX-XXXX call a local call.

Next time you're there, it would be interesting to call 302-Some-toll-call
and see if it tells you you need a 1.

--jsol

------------------------------

From: chipcom.chipcom.com![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment
Date: Wed, 05 Jul 89 07:47:05 -0400


My bet is that the speed dialing that the CO provides allows you to
dial calls in more rapid succession than any telephone's repeat dial
features...  this is handy if you are trying to get through to a group
long distance (or other) trunks which are very busy...


-- Steve Elias
-- [e-mail], [e-mail]   [mail to chipcom.chipcom.com bounces!]
-- voice mail: 617 859 1389
-- work phone: [phone]



------------------------------

Date: Wed, 5 Jul 89 09:54:43 PDT
From: "L. J. Judice (DTN: 323-4103 FAX: [phone]" <[e-mail]>
Subject: re: Two way radios in Equipment Installation


Two way radios REALLY help for this kind of work. A couple of years back
we built a large LAN and a terminal network at a very large (2,000,000
sq ft) plant.

We used Motorola MT series radios in the VHF band. They were very rugged
and always reliable. The only problem we had in terms of penetration was
talking from the computer room to some outlying location. Two solutions
would be UHF (which we considered but never had time to demo), or an
inexpensive base station radio, with antenna on the roof. Uniden (Regency)
and others make these (see ads for Scanner World in Popular Communications
magazine).

Motorola also has a line of more compact radios, and I believe I saw a pair
advertised in the Jensen Tool Catalog.

By all means consider a radio system - it really helped turn drudgery into
fun!

/ljj

(Standard disclaimers apply - I don't work for any of the above, but I've
used their products).

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #224
*****************************










Date:     Fri, 7 Jul 89 1:25:40 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #225
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Fri, 7 Jul 89 01:09:53 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 225

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Dow Jones and AT&T Future Plans (TELECOM Moderator)
    Looking for X.25 pricing to overseas (Hank Nussbacher)
    Cheap X.25 service for bulk data transmission (Geoff Goodfellow)
    How to route LD call not changing LD carrier? (arnor![e-mail])
    Re: Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment (Epsilon)
    Re: Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment (D. Stanwyck)
    Buggy Lines (Epsilon)
    Re: Remote Line Unit! (Dell Ellison)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 6 Jul 89 0:46:31 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Dow Jones and AT&T Future Plans

Are Dow Jones and AT&T {thisclose} to making a deal on a national computerized
information service?

Is the only impediment right now waiting for his honor to give the green
light to AT&T?

Will it take the form of a daily newspaper delivered to the spools of
subscribers; at their home, their office or wherever?

Will it also function a lot like Dow Jones News Retrieval does now, where
people can call in to read the news, markets, weather and other features?

Will it be on an 800 number, with charges for time on line billed to your
AT&T card?

Is AT&T so certain that his honor will give them permission to enter this
new venture that the technical details with Dow Jones are almost in place,
allowing a start up within days or a month at most once the judge has
delivered himself of the ruling?

Just asking. Just a few innocent questions to fill up some space in the
Digest.

Inquiring Moderator,

Patrick Townson


------------------------------

Date: Wed, 05 Jul 89 14:40:59 IST
From: Hank Nussbacher <[e-mail]>
Subject: Looking for X.25 pricing to overseas

I am interested in finding out the following X.25 charges from the
USA to Europe and from the USA to Israel:

- cost per hour
- cost per kilosegment

In addition, I am interested in general information such as:

- cost of installation of a 9.6kb leased x.25 line
- monthly rental cost of a 9.6kb leased x.25 line

I have heard of the following prices for example (which may be out
of date):

Globesat (Canada) to Europe: $10.99/hr and $13.7/kilosegment

Telenet: $1200 installation and $1512 monthly rental (this seems very
         wrong to me and I hope someone can correct it).
Telenet to Europe:  $10/hr and $10-$12/kilosegment

RCA Globecom to Europe: $10/hr and $10-$12/kilosegment

ITT UDTS to Europe: $10/hr and $12/kilosegment

Tymnet to Europe: $10/hr and $12/kilosegment

AT&T Accunet to Europe: $8/hr and $10/kilosegment

I am not on the list so please send your replies directly to me.

Thanks,
Hank

------------------------------

From: Geoff Goodfellow <[e-mail]>
Subject: Cheap X.25 service for bulk data (netnews?) transmission.
Date: 6 Jul 89 16:36:55 GMT
Organization: Anterior Technology, Menlo Park, CA  USA


Prior to USENET in Baltimore last month I stopped in and visited the folks
at NetExpress Communications in Vienna, VA.  NetEx offers a X.400 document
switching service for FAX and X.25 packet switching services geared for
bulk data transmission.  The NetExpress X.25 services seem to be priced
substantially below other X.25 Public Data Networks such as Telenet & Tymnet
and might be a cost effective to transfer USENET netnews and bulk data.

    o  $.20/Kseg for US domestic transmission.
    o  $.80/Kseg for US to Europe transmission.
    o  $1.20/Kseg for US to all other countries.
    o  1 Kseg=1000 segments=64,000 bytes.
    o  1 Kseg per call minimum for US to international transmissions.
    o  $1000 per month communications minimum @ 56Kbs access.
    o  $500 per month communications minimum @ 9.6 access.

NetExpress was started by Larry Roberts and Barry Wessler.  Larry is best
known for being father of packet switching technology (i.e. the ARPANET)
when he was director of ARPA-IPTO in the late 60's and then went onto to
found Telenet.  A good contact for further information at NetEx is Chris
Yordy at [phone] voice or [phone] FAX.

Geoff Goodfellow

------------------------------

From: arnor![e-mail]
Subject: How to route LD call not changing LD carrier?
Date: 6 Jul 89 20:27:12 GMT
Reply-To:  arnor![e-mail]
Organization: IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, N. Y.


Hello!

Sorry, I've seen somebody's poster on a similar question, but it's gone (:-)...

I want to know codes, which allow me to route my long-distance calls through
various LD companies (I'm going to try MCI and US Sprint, not saying about AT&T)As far as I know one should just dial five digits before the actual number - and
this way the call will be sent to a proper router.

Questions:
        1) What are the codes for AT&T, MCI, US Sprint (and others, if
           they exist)?

        2) Where should I put that code? The # is: 1-xxx-yyy-yyyy
           Where the code should be placed - before 1, after 1 but
           before xxx?

Thanks to everybody who answers (without flames, I mean!).

Uri.

[Moderator's Note: The three main codes are: MCI = 10222; Sprint = 10333;
AT&T = 10288. There are many others; not all long distance carriers work
in all parts of the country. Consult the long distance carrier of choice
and see if they accept incoming traffic in your community. As for the
placement of the codes, if the carrier chosen is the default carrier for
your line, then you *do nothing*. Just dial the call normally. If you wish
to route the call to one of the other carriers, dial their code first, and
then the long distance number. For example, to call 1-310-555-2368 using
Sprint, you would dial 10333-1-310-555-2368. To dial it via MCI you would
enter 10222-1-310-555-2368.  Maybe one of the readers will send you a
complete list of carrier codes; you sort them out.  PT]

------------------------------

From: claris!wet![e-mail]
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 89 01:05:38 PDT
Subject: Buggy lines
Organization: Wetware Diversions, San Francisco

I have one of those GE multiline phones with the line-monitoring
LEDs; each day around 0200 (the exact time varies) they flicker
briefly.  (415-337)  Counting RENs?  :-)

                    -=EPS=-


------------------------------

From: "D. Stanwyck" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment
Date: 6 Jul 89 14:49:22 GMT
Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(TELECOM Moderator) says:
> In a conversation with jsol on Sunday, we discussed the merits of speed
> dialing. As all TELECOM readers probably know, you can get 'speed dialing'
> (sometimes known as convenience dialing) from the telco, as programmed in
> the central office switch, or you can purchase a variety of equipment which
> maintains the speed dialing repretoire at your own premises.
>
> Which is better, if either? Is it purely a matter of personal taste, or
> can you suggest reasons why providing it for yourself might be preferable
> to that version sold by the telco and maintained in the CO?
>
> Just wondering. We came to the conclusion it was purely an individual
> choice, with no apparent advantages to either; certainly not as long
> as the CO version can be programmed with ease from your own phone. Opinions,
> anyone?

The reason why (at my last residence) we chose to use the
USWest supplied CO-based speed calling feature was the presence
of several (>5) separate telephones in the house.  Some telephones
had memories - 1 lost memory everytime there was a commercial
power flux.  Some did not have memories.  Some were pulse only,
others were tone-dial.  The only solution that allowed the user
to use a short-dial sequence from any phone in the house was to use
the CO-based solution.  The alternative was several new phones, and
economically that didn't seem workable.

Also - the one telephone that couldn't be replaced was a combination
phone/speakerphone/AM-FM radio/alarm clock/desk lamp that my wife
kept on her nightstand.  It was also the one that lost memory everytime
the commercial power blinked.  Since it was too much trouble to re-enter
the numbers several times a week, we choose the above solution.
--
Don Stanwyck                o  o            201-957-6693
AT&T-Bell Labs               ||             mtfmi!stanwyc
Middletown, NJ  USA        \__/            Education Center

------------------------------

From: claris!wet![e-mail]
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 89 04:05:50 PDT
Subject: Re: Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment
Organization: Wetware Diversions, San Francisco

When I was living in 818, one of my favorite vices was playing
radio station contests.  Nearly all of these calls were to 213 or
714.  Speed-8 wins--especially when used in conjunction with
premises equipment.  (It doesn't make that big a difference, but
it more than pays for itself.)
                    -=EPS=-
P.S. the "dead phone for several minutes" syndrome described by
another contributor wasn't that uncommon when 213-520 and 714-977
were taking a serious pounding...


------------------------------

From: Dell Ellison <asuvax!gtephx![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Remote Line Unit!
Date: 6 Jul 89 15:47:48 GMT
Organization: AG Communication Systems, Phoenix, Arizona


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Arun Kandappan) writes:
>     I called up home (in India) and found that a new exchange was being
> installed. They said it was a Remote Line Unit and that it was not a CO.
> I do not know what difference it makes. Does anyone know about this and the
> difference between the two.

A Remote Line Unit (RLU) is attached to a Central Office (CO) and could be
a good ways off.  Every call does have to go through the CO to terminate.
(It's like an appendage.)


------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #225
*****************************










Date:     Sat, 8 Jul 89 0:03:04 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #226
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sat, 8 Jul 89 00:00:31 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 226

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Beijing People Fear Phone Tapping (Rupert Zhu via Xu Gang)
    Will This Work and is it Legal? (Russell Shackelford)
    I Can't Hangup! (Mike Koziol)
    CCITT R2 Signaling Scheme (Edward Logex)
    ISDN Mini Switch: Help Requested (Bo Newman)
    Association Contact Request (Bo Newman)
    Phone Calls From Japan To US (Shozo Mori)
    German Cellular/Landline Rates; and Network Blockage (John Covert)
    Re: Two way radios in Equipment Installation (Edward Greenberg)
    Re: Praise the Lord and pass the RF filters (Thomas Lapp)
    RE: Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment (Kenneth R. Jongsma)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 07 Jul 89 20:48:23 EDT
From: "Xu, Gang" <[e-mail]>

[Moderator's Note: This party passed along the message which follows,
which appeared on Usenet recently. Thank you for sending it!  PT]


From: [e-mail] (Rupert Zhu)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china
Subject: Beijing People Fear Phone Tapping ---- revealed in Beijing Youth News

                            Tapping Fears
                            =============

     (Quoted from The Times "Jiang Eases up on Deng's Hard Line")

                            June 29, 1989

Catherine Sampson, Peking
=========================

        Telephone tapping has become so common in Peking that Peking Youth News
has been trying  to reassure  the public that  all is well.  But the article is
hardly  one  to  bring  comfort  to its readers.   It is  one of  the first  to
acknowledge that Peking is a city living in fear.

        "In recent days,"  it says, "people in Peking who normally love to make
phone calls  have suddenly become cautious,  and many of them  say on the phone
`Let's  write  or  chat  face to face  instead,  otherwise  we  might  get into
trouble.'"

        There are  rumours  that  all phones are being tapped, or that advanced
scanning equipment  is being used,  according to the article,  entitled "You do
not have to be on tenterhooks when you make a phone call".

        Mr. Zhao Jizhi,  a senior engineer at the telecommunications management
bureau,  said  that  half  of  the  280,000  phones  in  Peking  were computer-
programmed,  and could not be tapped.  The other half could be tapped, but were
not -- there were  far too many of them.  And in 30 years,  Mr. Zhao  had never
heard of scanning equipment.

================================= End =========================================

Information Exchange
Rupert Zhu  (in Canada)          [e-mail]  (Elsewhere)

------------------------------

From: Russell Shackelford <[e-mail]>
Subject: Will This Work and is it Legal?
Date: 7 Jul 89 06:06:26 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology


Scenario: exchange "b" that has local calls to exchanges "a" and "c". Calls
between "a" and "c" are toll calls.

1. If I get a phone line in b, can I use call forwarding to transfer
calls originating in a to my number in c.

2. If so, can I use a little box like the one sold by Hello Direct that
allows user to change the call-forwarding destination number from another
phone to achieve the following: I am in exchange "c"; I make local call
to my other line in exchange "b" and program the call forwarding to my
intended destination in exchange "a". I then call the number in "b" a
second time and reach the number in "a" from ny phone in "c" without
a toll call.

3. Is there an easier way to accomplish this?

Thanks.

--
Russell Shackelford
School of Information and Computer Science
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332
[e-mail]         [phone]


[Moderator's Note: We have covered this territory before. Yes, you can do
what you are suggesting. It is marginally legal, or within the tariff.
Telco will advise you that is not what they had in mind when call forwarding
was offered. And yes, there is an easier *and cheaper* way: Dial direct!
It is very rare that the cost of two or three local calls strung together
turn out to be less expensive than a single call to the place you are
calling. If you have unmeasured local service in your community and in
surrounding areas, you *might* be able to save money -- if not time and
bother in dialing -- by stringing local points together. But if you have
measured local service, as most of us do these days, you are kidding no
one but yourself thinking that two or three measured, timed local calls will
cost less in the end than the cost of the toll call itself. Besides which,
you have to amortize the cost of the device you purchased. And after you
have programmed it to forward the line, how do you regain control of the
device itself on subsequent calls without going to the physical location
and resetting it?   PT]


------------------------------

Date: Fri, 07 Jul 89 04:21:15 EDT
From: Mike Koziol <[e-mail]>
Subject: I Can't Hangup!

Recently I've seen some postings on problems with getting dialtones
on ESS systems. I have a slightly different problem. Two years ago
Rochester Telephone installed an ESS (model unknown to me) and since
then I've had a problem of hanging up and being able to place another
call. If I should misdial and get an intercept message (ie That number
is not in service), I try to hangup and get a dialtone and I can't.
I keep hearing the message over and over again. Also if I call someone
and the phone is ringing, but no one answers, I can't hangup. This
doesn't happen all of the time but several times a week. I have to
hang the phone up and wait, wait, wait (up to 20 minutes, most of the
time 5 or 6 minutes). When the line does finally clear the bell on
the phone "bings" once and I'm back in business. I've tried
disconnecting all of my extensions (4 extensions, 1 answering machine)
but this doesn't seem to have any effect. Any ideas what might be
causing this?

------------------------------

Subject: CCITT R2 Signaling Scheme
Date: Fri, 7 Jul 89 6:00:28 MEZ
From: logex <[e-mail]>


Hi all:
I am located in Mexico City, and I am interested in getting more information
about the CCITT R2 signaling system (phone, of course). As far as i know, it
has 2400 and 2040 hz signaling tones, and it also has 6 reverse frecuencies:
540,660,780,900,1020 and 1140 hertz, and 6 forward direction frecuencies:
1380,1500,1620,1740,1860,and 1980.

What I want / need to know is how this signaling scheme works, i.e., what is
the matrix of digits and other tones and what is the purpose of each tone, such
as the 'Key Pulse' and 'ST' in the USA signaling system?

Thanks in advance for your help, and please email your responses to me, I will
summarize to the net.


Edward Logex.

uucp:  [e-mail]
       [e-mail]
       [e-mail]


------------------------------

From: Bo Newman <inco![e-mail]>
Subject: ISDN Mini Switch: Help Requested
Date: 7 Jul 89 16:12:16 GMT
Reply-To: Bo Newman <inco![e-mail]>
Organization: McDonnell Douglas-INCO, McLean, VA


 . . . . . . .    H E L P  N E E D E D  . . . . . . .

Can anyone supply me with information about products or devices
or software that will allow me to create a "mini ISDN Switch"
suitable for creating a small laboratory ISDN Environment (2-6
Basic Rate Lines).  I need to be able to "feed" this switch from
a variety of digital and video sources as well as from a System
75 for voice.

***************************************************************
:Bo Newman      [e-mail]       uunet!inco!newman    :
:McDonnell Douglas Electronics Systems Company (MDESC-WDC)    :
:McLean Virginia                                              :
:Voice Mail USA [phone] (Answers as "The Newman Group"):
:Fax USA [phone]                                       :
***************************************************************
:  ALL STANDARD DISCLAIMERS APPLY                             :
***************************************************************

------------------------------

From: Bo Newman <inco![e-mail]>
Subject: Assiciation Contact request
Date: 7 Jul 89 16:52:41 GMT
Reply-To: Bo Newman <inco![e-mail]>
Organization: McDonnell Douglas-INCO, McLean, VA


I am looking for contact points within the following
organizations.  E-Mail, Voice (telephone/Voice-Mail) or postal
addresses welcome.  Please include the persons name and function
within the organization if known.


X.400 Application Program Interface Association (APIA)

Electronic Mail Association (EMA)

The North American ISDN Users' Forum

OSI/Network Management Forum


***************************************************************
:Bo Newman      [e-mail]       uunet!inco!newman    :
:McDonnell Douglas Electronics Systems Company (MDESC-WDC)    :
:McLean Virginia                                              :
:Voice Mail USA [phone] (Answers as "The Newman Group"):
:Fax USA [phone]                                       :
***************************************************************
:  ALL STANDARD DISCLAIMERS APPLY                             :
***************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 7 Jul 89 12:06:34 PDT
From: Shozo Mori <[e-mail]>
Subject: Phone Calls From Japan To US


    I am going to Japan at the end of the next week (7/15).
I want to be able to call US phone numbers from Japan and to
charge to my phone number (of course my home).

    Could someone know how to do this ?  I do not have any  phone
card.  I even do not know who is our long distance carrier.

    Any number to call ?  Can something be arranged within a week ?

    Thank you very much.

    - Shozo


[Moderator's Note: You can detirmine your long distance carrier by dialing
1-700-555-1212 *from your own phone* and listening to the recorded message
which follows. I doubt that you can get a calling card account set up
in a week. If AT&T is your default carrier, call 1-800-222-0300 for assistance
on this, but I think you are not allowing enough time. Without a calling
card you will have to pay locally for the calls unless you can convince
the people you are calling here to accept your calls collect. Or, if someone
is going to be at your home number while you are gone, by using the 'USA-
Direct' service of AT&T, the United States operator will attempt to get
an okay for third number billing to your home.   PT]

------------------------------

From: "John R. Covert" <[e-mail]>
Date: 7 Jul 89 16:17
Subject: German Cellular rates, landline rates, and network blockage

re 9#205, Marvin Sirbu <[e-mail]>

>Note that, at the current exchange rate of approximately 2DM/$US, the monthly
>base charge is about $60/month, and the usage charge is about $0.92 per
>minute.
>This is at least twice the comparable charges in the U.S.

Yes it is, but it's quite in line with other charges in Germany.

Note that a long distance call over 62 miles (100 km) is about 60 cents a
minute, whereas we can call coast to coast for 25 cents a minute.  The cellular
charge includes the rate for a call to anywhere in Germany, so the marginal
usage cost (except on local calls) is actually pretty close to U.S. rates.

The landline rate must be set so high to discourage calling:  it's quite hard
to get a landline call through during peak hours.  In the U.S. the grade of
service in the public network is usually better than P.01 (one out of 100 call
attempts will get a circuits busy rejection) and businesses usually engineer
their private networks at P.05 or better (one in twenty fails).

In Germany, I don't know what the busy hour design is, but it seems like it's
around P.50 (one out of two calls will get a circuits busy).  I've had to try
ten times to get a landline call through from Stuttgart to Munich at the peak
time in the mid afternoon.  (That would be P.90, but it can't be that bad.)

/john

------------------------------

From: Edward Greenberg <claris!apple!netcom![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Two way radios in Equipment Installation
Date: 6 Jul 89 23:21:20 GMT
Reply-To: Edward Greenberg <claris!apple!netcom![e-mail]>
Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System [phone] guest


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(L. J. Judice (DTN: 323-4103 FAX: [phone])) writes:

>Two way radios REALLY help for this kind of work. A couple of years back
>we built a large LAN and a terminal network at a very large (2,000,000
>sq ft) plant.

You can probably rent a few portables from one of many radio vendors.
Just consult the yellow pages under Two-Way Radio's or some such
listing.

If you want better coverage, you can get radios that share time on a
"Community Repeater."  There you have tone squelch that allows you to
hear only your own traffic, but it's like a party line.  If someone
else is using it, you have to wait.

Speaking as someone who has installed key systems using a pair of
portables, I highly recommend this route, and specifically recommend
that you rent portables with small speakermikes that can be clipped to
your shirt up near your mouth.  Saves continuously putting the radio
on your belt and removing it again.
                -edg


------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Jul 89 20:15:08 edt
From: Thomas Lapp <mvac23![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and pass the RF filters
Reply-To: mvac23![e-mail]

> Now AM stations, that brings out the old WLW stories.
> WLW is the clear channel station in Cincinnati. Before
> the FCC cut them back to 50kw, they were rumored to run
> 500+. Farmers working on barbed wire fences heard them.

I thought I saw somewhere that AM stations were limited to 50kW max in the
US.  I believe that shortwave stations are AM as well, and are permitted
much higher powers.  I would think that they would have the same effect
near their multi-tower antennae.
                         - tom
==============================================================================
uucp:     ...!udel!mvac23!thomas    ! Internet: mvac23![e-mail]
Location: Newark, DE, USA           !      or   [e-mail]
==============================================================================

------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Subject: RE: Central Office Speed Dial
Date: Fri,  7-Jul-89 05:30:46 PDT

For the person who selected CO Speed Dial because they had 5 phones
of various types and wanted to use the same codes from each one and
didn't want to have reprogram each phone every time there was a power
failure:

Seems to me Hello Direct sells a box that plugs into any outlet that
allows you to speed dial from any phone in the house. I don't have the
catalog handy here, but if it was an inexpensive device, it would be
much cheaper than paying the telco each month...

[e-mail]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #226
*****************************










Date:     Sun, 9 Jul 89 7:59:26 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #227
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sun, 9 Jul 89 07:42:02 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 227

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (Kian-Tat Lim)
    Unusual Recorded Messages (TELECOM Moderator)
    IQ services (Rodney Amadeus)
    Re: Automated Operator Services (Wendy Thrash)
    Re: Using an alternate LD carrier for coin calls (Ilya Goldberg)
    Rate Tables Wanted (Tim Kuehn)
    8 Digit French Numbers (was: Tokyo goes to 8 Digits) (Charles Buckley)
    Re: Tokyo Goes to 8 Digits (Jim Gottlieb)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 9 Jul 89 00:43:45 PDT
From: Kian-Tat Lim <[e-mail]>
Subject: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin [from LA Times]

[From the LA Times "Consumer Views" column, by Don G. Campbell, 7/7/89.
Paraphrased except for items in quotes.]

QUESTION: J. T. observes several one-minute call charges on his/her MCI phone
bill.  These were made to answering machines that answer on the fifth ring;
he/she always hung up after the third or fourth ring.

MCI first claims that J. T. would not have been charged if the machine hadn't
answered.  An MCI manager later informs the customer that "when [you] call a
number with an answering machine -- no matter how soon [you] hang up -- [you]
will be charged because the two machines have made a connection," and therefore
no reimbursement can be made.  The MCI manager also claimed that "all long-
distance companies have the same problem because of this 'connection' over
which they have no control."

AT&T told J. T. that "they charge only when a person, or a machine, actually
answered."  But J. T.'s mother has AT&T and has the same problem.

ANSWER: "Both answers [from MCI and AT&T] are perfectly valid. [...] Here's
how it works: You call a number serviced by an answering machine. [...] About
'2 to 3 seconds' *before* the ringing stops and the pause indicating that the
machine is about to respond, there is a distinct *click* on the line.  This is
described by [a Panasonic technical person] as 'a plunger in the relay making
contact with the cassette player.'  And this is when the telephone company's
meter starts running." [emphasis theirs]

Campbell tested his own machine; it exhibited the click 12 seconds after the
first ring had begun and continued ringing for 2 seconds after the click.  He
was charged for the call if he hung up after the click.

" 'I think that a lot of people have this misunderstanding,' said [an AT&T
spokesperson], 'that if they hang up while the phone is still ringing, the
call hasn't gone through.  Actually, the recording machine has been triggered
at the instant that click takes place, but in many cases the caller is in the
process of hanging up and doesn't have the phone at his ear, and so he doesn't
hear the click.' "  MCI confirms that it operates similarly.

The MCI spokesperson points out that this is *not* the same as lack of call
supervision, which caused "ring-no-answer" billing.

"Just when the telephone answering machine kicks on isn't standardized [...]
among the manufacturers."

"There's one possible moral in all this: If your timing is off and you hear the
click, you might just as well stay on the line long enough to announce
yourself."

"Because you've paid for it anyway."

--
Kian-Tat Lim ([e-mail], KTL @ CITCHEM.BITNET, GEnie: K.LIM1)

------------------------------

Date:     Sun, 9 Jul 89 6:44:56 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Unusual Recorded Messages

Talk about specialization. Callers in the Chicago area can now listen to
a recorded message from 'Dial-A-Gay-Atheist'.

A call to 312-255-2960 will activate a five minute tape of Don Sanders from
Houston, national director of American Gay Atheists, in a message
which is changed weekly.

Why is this necessary? Homosexual non-believers have a special perspective,
Sanders said in a telephone interview. Sanders, who makes a living producing
900 and 976 phone lines for heterosexual dating services said he hopes the
new line in Chicago will promote atheism among gay people.

Dial-A-Gay-Atheist is joining Dial-an-Atheist, which has been available
since 1979 by dialing 312-506-9200.

If you know of unusual or different recorded announcements in your community,
please send them along to the Digest.


Patrick Townson


------------------------------

Reply-To: [e-mail]
Date: Fri, 7 Jul 89 23:19:03 EST
From: Rodney Amadeus <[e-mail]>
Subject: IQ services

Just got this page in my phone bill today (Bell of Pennsylvania)... It reads:
"Bell Atlantic announces the availablility of its IQ Services Information
line!
Now you can get the information on how to use your favorite IQ Family
Service.  The Bell Atlantic Family of IQ services includes our existing
services...Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, 3-Way calling and Speed Calling and
an exciting group of new services*...Identa Ring, Return Call, Repeat Call,
Call Block, Priority Call, Select Forward and Call Trace.
Just call 1 800-365-5810, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, for descriptions of
all Bell Atlantic IQ Services and instructions on how to use them.
So if you forget hpw to program Call Forwarding, or you want information on
Identa Ring, don't worry, don't waste time--just call the Bell Atlantic
Information Line:  1 800-365-5810.
*IQ Services are available in technically equipped areas only."

Just thought I'd post this, as there was a good discussion on these a while
back....

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
        Rodney Amadeus Anonymous, Jr.   |       pro-palace!r.a.a.
        User #1  PhD GBBS               |       215/678-5741  2400 baud
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

------------------------------

From: Wendy Thrash <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Automated Operator Services
Date: 7 Jul 89 21:41:40 GMT
Reply-To: Wendy Thrash <[e-mail]>
Organization: Pyramid Technology Corp., Mountain View, CA


In article <[e-mail]> portal!cup.portal.com!
[e-mail] writes:
>  The computer then asks the caller to state whom the call is from, records
>the callers response and waits for the called party to answer.
>
>  The computer informs the called party that there is a collect call, plays
>back the name of the caller and instructs the party to answer yes or no to
>accept or reject the call.

Is the computer smart enough to know that my name is not [phone]
(or whatever the number from which I'm calling happens to be)?

------------------------------

From: Ilya Goldberg <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Using an alternate LD carrier for coin calls
Date: 8 Jul 89 02:01:46 GMT
Reply-To: Ilya Goldberg <[e-mail]>
Organization: Stanford University


I have noticed the new explanation cards posted on Pacific Bell
telephones specifying the default LD carrier's name as well as
giving instructions on how to use an alternate carrier (i.e. 10XXX
codes), but until now, the default carrier has always been AT&T.

Well, today, I was using a Pac Bell payphone which specified that
all coin calls default to AT&T while credit card, collect, and
other operator-assited calls default to US Sprint.

COCOT owners can choose any LD carrier they want.  What about the
local telephone companies who own the majority of payphones -- are
they free to choose carriers or do they have to give some share
of the 0+ calls made from payphones to every LD carrier which provides
operator services?  If the local phone company can choose any carrier,
then why would they choose different carriers for different phones?

-Ilya
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Fri Jul  7 15:36:10 1989
From: Tim Kuehn <[e-mail]>
From: [e-mail] (Tim Kuehn)
Subject: Rate Tables Wanted
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Tim Kuehn)
Organization: A Box in the Basement, Kitchener, ON

I'm looking for a source of Ma-Bell telecom rates from a given exchange
to *any* or as many other exchanges that I can get my hands on. I know that
such creatures exist since the office complex I'm in has a system that
uses this information to bill back all these long-distance phone calls
to me. (But they won't share their sources(s) with me... sigh.)

Anybody know where I can find this kind of information?


|Timothy D. Kuehn                       timk@egvideo           |
|TDK Consulting Services                   !watmath!egvideo!timk  |
|871 Victoria St. North, Suite 217A                          |
|Kitchener, Ontario, Canada N2B 3S4                (519)-741-3623           |
|DOS/Xenix - SW/HW. uC, uP, DBMS.                Satisfaction Gauranteed|

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 8 Jul 89 02:20:29 PDT
From: Charles Buckley <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: 8 Digit French Numbers (was: Tokyo goes to 8 Digits)


Kenneth R. Jongsma writes recently in Telecom Digest 9(224)1/11:

  >This [kind of thing] started bothering me when I first heard France
  >was going to eight digit numbers a few years back. It's probably
  >just my American Provincialism, but it seems as if "the rest of the
  >world" is ignoring the Bell Labs studies on how easy it is recall
  >numbers. I figured it was the French desire to [be] different from
  >the rest of the world, even though they had already implemented the
  >equivilent (sic) of an area code (city codes). Now the Japanese are
  >going that way.

I don't know about Japan, but the French decision to go to 8-digit
codes is easy to understand.  In French, you don't read single digits
out, but you give them by two.  Thus, the number 67.54.78.94 is read
out "sixty-seven fifty-four sixty-eighteen eighty-fourteen".

The norm was the 6-digit number, but when there were 7 digit numbers
in Paris, this was unconfortable: the number 597.25.17 was read
"five-hundred-eighty-seventeen twenty-five seventeen", which is not
noticeably less work than the 8-digit example.  Splitting off the 5
would tend to get it confused as a city code (especially by Belgians,
whose city codes are that short).  It was simply aesthetically
pleasing to return to an even number of digits - it allowed people to
talk about telephone numbers "normally" again.

Even the French special numbers come in groups of 2 - information is
12 (I believe), long distance is 16, videotex is 36 15, etc. - only when
you go international do you have to worry about lonely digits.  I keep
expecting to see telephones for the French market with 100 buttons on
a 10 by 10 grid, but I guess you'd have to have some confusing feature
for international service, so it probably wouldn't go over well.

As far as the Bell study is concerned, I wasn't around at the time,
but I'm sure that it had the single-digit American parochialism
built-in.  Who's to say how this influenced the results?

I do agree that there should be more flexibility in number lengths.
Germany is a good example - they have 3 digit area codes and up to 8
digit numbers for the big cities, and 5 digit area codes with down to
3 digit telephone numbers for the smallest towns, plus anything in
between.  More important numbers are often shorter than those of
individual subscribers.  As the town grows, they discretely hang
single digits on the fronts of old numbers as needed, or some such
thing.  They will never run out of numbers (unlike the US).

The inappropriate rigidity of the American 7-digit system is well
demonstrated on one extreme by the relatively traumatic phenomenon of
area code splitting in big cities, and on the other by a local radio
ad I heard once passing through a small town in rural America:

" . . . that's Mabry's Drugstore, First Street n' Depot Avenue, for
all your prescription needs, call 582- hmm! (crash, boom, rustle, rustle)
- 'scuse me whahl I look up the number - (shuffle shuffle) call
582-1478 for Mabry's Drugs.

Movin' now to the obituaries . . . "

------------------------------

From: Jim Gottlieb <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Tokyo Goes to 8 Digits
Date: 8 Jul 89 18:03:26 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: Info Connections, West Los Angeles


In article <[e-mail]> Kenneth_R_Jongsma
writes:
>
>                Tokyo to Add 8th Digit to Phone Numbers
>
>What am I missing here? What's wrong with a "downtown" city code and a
>"suburb" city code?

Well, Tokyo already has that.  The '3' area code is only for the
central 23-ku central area.  The rest of the municipality of Tokyo has
other area codes.

But that is not to say that they _couldn't_ further divide it.  I guess
they could split it North-South or inside-outside the Yamanote loop.
Or split it into four quadrants as related to the Imperial Palace.
--
                              Jim Gottlieb
  E-Mail: <[e-mail]> or <[e-mail]> or <attmail!denwa!jimmy>
         V-Mail: [phone]  Fax: [phone]  The-Real-Me: 824-5454


[Moderator's Note: In Monday's Digest, two recent articles from the papers
demonstrating the frivilous and foolish uses of that new toy, the fax machine.
Have a nice weekend!   PT]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #227
*****************************










Date:     Mon, 10 Jul 89 5:14:44 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #228
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Mon, 10 Jul 89 05:10:23 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 228

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Please, Anything *But* the FAX, Ma'am (TELECOM Moderator)
    FAX Radio (TELECOM Moderator)
    AT&T Int'l Gateway Configuration (Kent Hauser)
    Re: Buggy lines (Roy M. Silvernail)
    Re: Buggy lines (Julian Macassey)
    Re: Using an alternate LD carrier for coin calls ([e-mail])
    Re: Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment (Julian Macassey)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:     Sun, 9 Jul 89 7:08:30 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Please, Anything *But* the FAX, Ma'am


(From the [News-Star], Chicago area newspaper, June 30, 1989)

Lately, I find myself having the same conversation over and over:

Caller: Hello. Is this the editor?

Me: Only if you don't have a complaint.

Caller (chuckling indulgently): Oh, no. I'm with Flack's Unlimited Public
Relations, and I'm calling to get your fax-machine number.

Me: Why?

Caller:  Why, what?

Me: Why do you want our fax number?

Caller: Because I want to send you something.

Me: Can't you just mail it?

Caller: But we want this to really stand out. We know that editors get
dozens of pieces of mail a day, and we want to make sure this gets to you.

Me: I'm sorry, but we are not giving out our fax number. We've been having
trouble with obscene phone calls.

Caller: I beg your pardon?

Me: People have been making obscene calls to our fax machine. I'm sorry,
you sound like a perfectly nice person, but you never know.

Caller: Who on earth would make an obscene call to a fax machine?

Me: You'd be surprised. The last guy was some pervert from Australia. The
tone reminded him of a wild dingo in heat.

(alternate answer)  Me: Sorry, but our fax machine is staging a wildcat
strike. No matter what you send it, it prints out the collected speeches
of Samuel Gompers.

The truth is, of course, I say these things because we don't like giving
out our fax number to people. I know faxes are supposed to be great, time-
saving conveniences, and indeed, there have been times when I've been
glad to have mine around.

But more and more, our fax is getting clogged up with advertisements, press
releases that are utterly unsuitable for our newspaper, and other junk.
This annoys me even more than nuisance phone calls. At least with a phone
call, you get to slam the receiver in the guy's ear.

Others are beginning to notice this problem. There is a movement afoot to
restrict junk fax messages. Connecticut recently passed a law subjecting
senders of unsolicited fax messages to a $200 fine.

The way the law came to be passed was this: When the Connecticut state
legislature passed the measure, some business lobbyists made a last minute
effort to persuade the governor not to sign it. They inudated his office
with -- you guessed it -- fax messages, tying up his machine for more than
two hours and preventing his staff from receiving a report they needed.
The governor, infuriated, signed the bill into law immediatly.

I say, hat's off to Connecticut. And I'd like to send him a letter, but
it might get lost in the shuffle. Does anybody know his fax number?



------------------------------

Date:     Sun, 9 Jul 89 7:38:10 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  FAX Radio

Reaching your favorite deejay in Chicago is now more graphic, and even a
bit obscene, according to Katherine Seigenthaler, writing in the [Chicago
Tribune] on June 20, 1989.

Steve Dahl and Garry Meier, disk-jockey hosts of a popular afternoon radio
show on WLUP-AM (1000 kc) in Chicago now have a fax machine in their studio
to accept comments and other items from listeners.

In the past, the only way to get through to them was by managing to break
through WLUP's jammed phone lines. But technology, like time, marches on,
and radio audiences can now use fax machines to communicate with these two
fellows and other radio personalities.

The fax machine in their studio operates almost continually all day. Every
few minutes, something new comes through. While some of it is usable on
the air, much of it is unsavory, and best used for a private laugh in the
studio, with only a brief (and cleaned up) mention on the air.

One WLUP disk jockey is Rob Lowe. Someone sends a fax which has altered
the spelling of his name with unwholesome results. The very next item
to arrive is a lewd cartoon featuring a pig and a chicken.

Rick Kaempfer, producer of Steve Dahl and Garry Meier's afternoon radio
show said, "We get a lot of things that people are afraid to say themselves,
but they fax it hoping that Steve or Gary will talk about it on their show.
Frankly, much of it is so lewd there is no way we can clean it up well
enough to use over the air. It is funny though."

Kaempfer claims Dahl and Meier were the first to incorporate a fax machine
into their on-air schtick, and they have been giving the fax number to
listeners for at least a year.

But according to Brian Kelly, program director at station WLS (890 kc),
his station was the first to have an *in-studio* fax machine. WLS, like
competitor WLUP, welcomes the frivilous, and the more-so the better.
Both stations invite people to 'Fax your face' to the station, so the
deejay's can describe you to the listeners. People are to make a copy of
their face on the office copy machine, then fax the copy to the station.

Kelly noted that "...faces are not the only body parts they fax to us. They
actually put the naked part of the body on the copy machine, and then
fax the results to us. We've gotten enough body parts to make a complete
person, although we have a big overstock of certain parts. I guess they
think it will shock us."

WLS' midday deejay, Doug Blair, is by far the most fax-infested at that
station because the vast majority of fax-ers work 9 AM to 5 PM, in offices
where fax machines are available and the employees obviously are not kept
busy enough and have idle time to create mischief. Indeed, the dawning of
radio's fax era has updated, but hardly altered, the time-honored practice
of goofing off at the office when your supervisor is not watching.

In a less state-of-the-art era, the average employee pretended frantically
to be calling a client when, in truth, he was hoping to be the lucky
'caller number ten' in the radio station's cash giveaway contest. Today,
that same employee stands at the office fax machine, ostensibly sending
a copy of that important report off to the client. After looking around
furtively to make sure the supervisor is elsewhere, he in fact sends an
obscene joke to Dahl and Meier, hoping they will read it over the radio,
or else a copy of that picture he made on the copy machine the night
before, after everyone had left the office but he '..stayed late to
finish that urgent report...'


------------------------------

From: Kent Hauser <tfd![e-mail]>
Subject: AT&T Int'l Gateway Configuration
Date: 9 Jul 89 19:42:05 GMT
Organization: Twenty-First Designs, Wash, DC

I am currently trying to devise a method of reconfiguring a network
which is physically in the US but is connected to the AT&T
International gateways in New York City and Sacramento.  I'm having
trouble getting technical info from AT&T and hoped some of you might
know about AT&T's int'l system.

Currently, the networks connect on the Int'l side of the AT&T gateways
and use CCITT No. 5 signalling.  This arrangement was fine when the
inital connections were established since the switch and tranmission
facilities were analog.

However, now there are digital facilities connected directly with the
gateways & we have a digital switch being procured. Unfortunately the
new switch doesn't support No. 5 so the choice is to install a channel
bank & signalling converters to convert from R1.  This seems silly.

The word from AT&T is that inbound they *use* KP1/KP2 to determine if a call
is terminal or transit (I guess that's so they won't have to reprogram
if country code `1' is reassigned :=).  This of course is not standard R1,
but hopefully we can hack this.

The more troublesome problem is AT&T claims that outbound, there is no
way to configure the gateways to generate R1 line signalling on the
international side..  The only choices seem to be CCITT No 5, 6, and 7.
(None of which are found on your basic toll switch.)  This problem does
not seem to be easily solved, unless of course the information is incorrect.
This is what I am hoping.

For what it's worth, there are multiple 3-digit country codes involved,
and either 7 or 8 national digits.  There is also an analogous problem
with the connections to Teleglobe's gateways in Montreal & Vancouver,
but we're not having so much trouble getting help solving them.

Help/pointers/contacts/info appreciated.

--
Kent Hauser            {sun!sundc,uunet!cucstud}!tfd!kent
Twenty-First Designs        [e-mail]


------------------------------

From: Alaska's leading Cyberpunnk <comcon![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Buggy lines
Date: 9 Jul 89 09:41:52 GMT
Organization: Computer Connection


In article <[e-mail]>, claris!wet!epsilon
@ames.arc.nasa.gov writes:
> I have one of those GE multiline phones with the line-monitoring
> LEDs; each day around 0200 (the exact time varies) they flicker
> briefly.  (415-337)  Counting RENs?  :-)
>
>                     -=EPS=-


That's the ESS switch running diagnostics on your line.  Several years ago,
just after deregulation, I bought onne of those El Cheapo Profundo 1-piece
phones at a grocery store. I plugged it, and dutifully called the PhoneCo
office to report my FCC registration number. The woman didn't have any idea
why I would want to tell her such a thing, but she agreed to copy it down
and forward it to somebody Generally in Charge of A Lot of Things.

The very next day, I heard someone banging about behind the apartment,
and looked out to see a telephone man working in the box outside. I
picked up the phone, and there was no dial tone, so I asked him if he had
disconnected my phone. He told me he unhooked it to check the line,
because the "computer said you had some trouble out here"... seems the
little tortured-cricket ringer doesn't couple to the line the same way
a coil does, and it makes your phonne pair appear unterminated _and_
of uneven length(!?)

Oh, he did hook it back up....:-)

Roy M. Silvernail
Sub-Arctic Programmer-at-large
UUCP: uunet!comcon!roy
(spif sig Real Soon Now)
[my account, my opinions]


------------------------------

From: julian macassey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Buggy lines
Date: 10 Jul 89 00:51:51 GMT
Organization: The Hole in the Wall  Hollywood CA U.S.A.


In article <[e-mail]>, claris!wet!epsilon
@ames.arc.nasa.gov writes:
> I have one of those GE multiline phones with the line-monitoring
> LEDs; each day around 0200 (the exact time varies) they flicker
> briefly.  (415-337)  Counting RENs?  :-)

    They flicker because the telco is testing the loop (Your line to the
Central Office).

    The lights should not flicker if the phone actually met FCC Part 68 and
Bell Pub 48005 and the GTE equiv the number of which escapes me right now.

    The phone when On Hook should have a DC resistance above 10 Meg Ohm and
a particular on hook impedance. Exact numbers escape me, but without getting
too techie let me explain what is expected.

    A phone on hook should present a 0.47 uf Capacitor and a large coil of
wire in series to the loop. This means a gong ringer and the DC blocking
capacitor. Most ringer ICs (the ones that chirp and warble) do not present
this impedance curve to the phone line. The Motorola ones do and I think the
AT&T ones may. No one ever gave me AT&T phone ICs to play with.

    Now the lights on the GE phone are possibly controlled by Zener diodes
that turn on the lights when the DC voltage drops below say 26 Volts. The
normal on hook voltage is 48 V and off hook it will drop to about 9 to 3 V.
When testing the telco may lower the line voltage and your lights may
flicker. They also sometimes use low frequency and low voltage test sigs.
Maybe someone at the CO side of biz could supply us these specs? The Telco
would probably love you if you junked the phone and got a real one so they
could get meaningful test results.

Yours
--
Julian Macassey, n6are  julian@bongo    ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian
n6are@k6iyk (Packet Radio) n6are.ampr.org [44.16.0.81] voice [phone]

------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Date: Sun, 09 Jul 89 10:25:50 EDT
Subject: Re: Using an alternate LD carrier for coin calls

     Date: 8 Jul 89 02:01:46 GMT
     Reply-To: Ilya Goldberg <[e-mail]>
     Organization: Stanford University

     Well, today, I was using a Pac Bell payphone which specified that
     all coin calls default to AT&T while credit card, collect, and
     other operator-assited calls default to US Sprint.

Local newspaper articles a few months ago mentioned that it was
technically very difficult to make coin calls default to some other
carrier.  They didn't say why.

     COCOT owners can choose any LD carrier they want.  What about the
     local telephone companies who own the majority of payphones -- are
     they free to choose carriers or do they have to give some share

The choice is made by the owner of the property on which the phone resides,
up to and including the local municipality.

------------------------------

From: julian macassey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment
Date: 10 Jul 89 01:00:11 GMT
Organization: The Hole in the Wall  Hollywood CA U.S.A.


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(D. Stanwyck) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
> (TELECOM Moderator) says:
>
> The reason why (at my last residence) we chose to use the
> USWest supplied CO-based speed calling feature was the presence
> of several (>5) separate telephones in the house.  Some telephones
> had memories - 1 lost memory everytime there was a commercial
> power flux.  Some did not have memories.  Some were pulse only,
> others were tone-dial.  The only solution that allowed the user
> to use a short-dial sequence from any phone in the house was to use
> the CO-based solution.  The alternative was several new phones, and
> economically that didn't seem workable.

    Did you consider the Demon Dialer by Zoom Telephonics?  If you put one
of their diallers by the protector, every phone in the house can use the
same dialler which is controlled by the Touch Tone pad or Hook Switch
flashes. Plus it comes with a supercap that keeps the memory alive for 7
hours if there is a power outage. Not only can any phone in the house dial
via a short sequence, you can store numbers that are dialled via built in
account codes i.e. selected common carriers or phone credit card numbers
that can be accessed during a call. Plus it will "Demon Dial", redial a busy
number. Great for calling houses with teenagers. And yes, you can store over
100 numbers in a Demon Dialer.

Yours


--
Julian Macassey, n6are  julian@bongo    ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian
n6are@k6iyk (Packet Radio) n6are.ampr.org [44.16.0.81] voice [phone]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #228
*****************************










Date:     Tue, 11 Jul 89 0:39:15 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #229
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 11 Jul 89 00:17:16 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 229

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (John Higdon)
    Re: Tokyo goes to 8 digits (David Gast)
    Re: Rate Tables Wanted (Paul Guthrie)
    Re: Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment (John DiLeo-Lopez)
    Re: Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment (Joel B. Levin)
    Re: Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment (Scott D. Green)
    Re: FAX Radio (Doug Krause)

[Moderator's Note: TWO issues of the Digest today. In part two, which
will be issued in about one hour, Kevin Hopkins and John Covert present
an up to date list of international dialing codes.  PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: John Higdon <zygot![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin [from LA Times]
Date: 10 Jul 89 07:08:39 GMT
Organization: ATI Wares Team


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Kian-Tat Lim) writes:
> [From the LA Times "Consumer Views" column, by Don G. Campbell, 7/7/89.
> Paraphrased except for items in quotes.]
>
> QUESTION: J. T. observes several one-minute call charges on his/her MCI phone
> bill.  These were made to answering machines that answer on the fifth ring;
> he/she always hung up after the third or fourth ring.
>
> ANSWER: [Complete and utter nonsense about clicks and machines making
> connections before ringing stops and such.]

When you place any call, local or long distance, upon connection of the
call you hear "ringback tone". This tone is supplied by the central
office at the called end and tells you that your call was successful
and that the party's phone is ringing (as opposed to not going through
or busy).

When the called party answers, ringback tone ceases immediately and the
connection "supervises", or in older parlance, "reverses". For the
majority of carriers that handle supervision, this is when the clock
starts. It makes no difference whether a machine answers or a person
answers, one thing is certain: ringback tone ending and supervision
beginning are a simultaneous event. If the machine answers on the fifth
ring, that's when billing begins and not before.

> An MCI manager later informs the customer that "when [you] call a
> number with an answering machine -- no matter how soon [you] hang up -- [you]
> will be charged because the two machines have made a connection; therefore
> no reimbursement can be made.  The MCI manager also claimed that "all long-
> distance companies have the same problem because of this 'connection' over
> which they have no control."

Garbage! No long distance company can tell whether an answering machine
or a person answers the phone, especially before they've answered it!
My answering maching has this "cheap realtor" mode and I have *NEVER*
been charged for a call when I hung up before the [CLUNK]"Hello....".
Sounds like MCI just doesn't want to deal with THEIR problem and
particularly doesn't want to refund any money.

> AT&T told J. T. that "they charge only when a person, or a machine, actually
> answered."  But J. T.'s mother has AT&T and has the same problem.

Does J. T.'s answering machine answer then continue to deliver its own
ringback tone? I doubt it.

> " 'I think that a lot of people have this misunderstanding,' said [an AT&T
> spokesperson], 'that if they hang up while the phone is still ringing, the
> call hasn't gone through.  Actually, the recording machine has been triggered
> at the instant that click takes place, but in many cases the caller is in the
> process of hanging up and doesn't have the phone at his ear, and so he
> doesn't hear the click.' "  MCI confirms that it operates similarly.

I find it hard to believe that AT&T would spew forth this type of
rubbish. My dealings with AT&T have been most straightforward and the
technical people have been generally informed.

> The MCI spokesperson points out that this is *not* the same as lack of call
> supervision, which caused "ring-no-answer" billing.

Right. It's a nonsense explanation made up by marketing types.

> "Just when the telephone answering machine kicks on isn't standardized [...]
> among the manufacturers."

But when it answers, it answers. And not before.

> "There's one possible moral in all this: If your timing is off and you hear
> the click, you might just as well stay on the line long enough to announce
> yourself."
>
> "Because you've paid for it anyway."

If it really answers, then yes. If not, get your money back.

Actually, I had a discussion of this matter with someone at Pac*Bell.
Ms. PB said that by all rights, a subscriber should be charged for a
call made to an answering machine that answers after many rings when it
has no messages for its owner. Reason: information has been passed
(that the machine has no messages). I countered with the fact that
while the owner now knows that there are no messages, no "communication"
has occurred. It's the same as a busy or no-answer: the caller knows
that the party is on the phone or isn't home. That's information but
not communication.

Oh, well. Some cellular companies have solved the whole problem: charge
for everything, unsuccessful attempts and all!
--
        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
      [e-mail]       | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 9 Jul 89 23:13:25 -0700
From: David Gast <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re:  Tokyo goes to 8 digits

> From: [e-mail]
> Subject: Tokyo Goes to 8 Digits

>                Tokyo to Add 8th Digit to Phone Numbers

>  Nippon Telephone and Telegraph Corp. said Tuesday the change from seven
>digit phone numbers in Tokyo will take place January 1, 1991. Subscribers
>will add a 3 at the beginning of their seven digit numbers.

>What am I missing here? What's wrong with a "downtown" city code and a
>"suburb" city code? If a country doesn't need a full up 3 digit area code,

I did not see the article in the paper, but I have double checked with a
friend in Tokyo via e-mail before sending this mail.

First off, it should be noted that area codes in Japan like many other
countries vary with where you are calling.  Thus, the *area code* for
Tokyo is currently 03, but the area code for Mitaka just to the west of
Tokyo is 0422.  I am sure that some cities have two digit area codes, but
I cannot name them with certainty off the top of my head.  [  BTW, the
leading zero is not a typo; in Japan a single leading zero indicates a long
distance number; a separate number is dialed to get an operator.]

As another poster pointed out, the 03 area code is only used for "central
Tokyo", not the entire metropolitan area.  Thus, there are many area codes
in the suburban area.  I don't know how many area codes are within a 60
minute or 90 minute commute from central Tokyo although many if not all
of the numbers are only 6 digit numbers.  I would guess there are
possibly up to 100 area codes surrounding Tokyo.  (Some of these are
however, presumably currently unsigned).

My source indicates that the 03 area code will be broken into smaller area
codes, Tokyo will not go to eight digit numbers.  If you think about it,
however, the difference can be merely semantic.  Thus, it seems that
all current Tokyo area codes will change from 03 to 033.  Whether the
relatively small geographic area of Tokyo will be subdivided or not is
in may respects irrelevant.  It may be different from U.S practice, but that
does not make it bad or good; the answer to that implicit question depends
on how the change is implemented.  [For example, I live in area code 213
in the city of Los Angeles; if you were to call information (at least from
LA) and ask for David Gast in LA, you would be told that I do not exist
because the teleco thinks I live in *West* Los Angeles even though the
PO says I live in Los Angeles, CA 90025.  That is, if directory assistance
can handle all Tokyo numbers (03x), not subdividing a small geographical
area might be preferable to the LA situation where GTE/PacBell cannot even
handle one area code properly.  I do not, however, know what will happen
to the central Tokyo area code except that it will become 2 digits instead
of one.  (Even though I live in LA, I do not propose to know the exact
demarcation line between 213 and 818 in LA).]

BTW, if you think about it, merely adding a 3 to the beginning of all
numbers does not add any numbers to those possible to dial.

David Gast
[e-mail]
{uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!{ucla-cs,cs.ucla.edu}!gast

P.S. Nippon tends to be a rather conservative and militaristic reading for
the characters which can also be read *Nihon*.  As I recall, the
official name of this telephone company is NTT.  If you suspected that
the two T correspond to English words and not Japanese words, you are
correct.  The Japanese names for the two T's are Denwa Denshin
(Telephone Telegraph).


[Moderator's Note: An example of the complete opposite of the 213/818
situation described by Mr. Gast is in metropolitan Kansas City, MO/KS. An
inquiry can be directed to either 816-555-1212 or 913-555-1212 with equal
results. Call either one; get information on either side of the river. PT]

------------------------------

From: Paul Guthrie <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Rate Tables Wanted
Date: 10 Jul 89 16:17:19 GMT
Reply-To: Paul Guthrie <[e-mail]>
Organization: The League of Crafty Hackers


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tim
Kuehn) writes:
>I'm looking for a source of Ma-Bell telecom rates from a given exchange
>to *any* or as many other exchanges that I can get my hands on. I know that
>such creatures exist since the office complex I'm in has a system that
>uses this information to bill back all these long-distance phone calls
>to me. (But they won't share their sources(s) with me... sigh.)


Are you sure they don't just get detailed billing tapes back from your
CO operator?

Anyway, this information comes from FCC tariff number 5.  This at least
contains intra and inter lata/state (yes there is such a thing as intra-lata
inter state calls) mileage bands for (last I checked) ATT, MCI and Sprint.
I don't recall seeing  things like the reach-out-America plan in there,
but then again I wasn't looking for that.  To calculate the mileage bands
you need a V&H tape.  Both of these are available from Bellcore, at no
small cost.  Oh, you also need software to drive these, taking things like
rate corridors, taxes, discount periods, volume discounts, etc into
account.  Ie, rating calls accurately is not easy.

--
Paul Guthrie
chinet!nsacray!paul

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 6 Jul 89 12:02:33 EDT
From:     [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment
Organization: USAMSAA, APG, MD 21005

Pat--

In article <[e-mail]> you write:
>
>In a conversation with jsol on Sunday, we discussed the merits of speed
>dialing.
>
>Which is better, if either? Is it purely a matter of personal taste, or
>can you suggest reasons why providing it for yourself might be preferable
>to that version sold by the telco and maintained in the CO?
>

   My response to this question is that the personally owned equipment beats
the CO maintained system far and away on price and convenience.

   In Maryland (C&P country), the charge for 8 number speed calling is $1.50
per month and $4.00 per month for a 30 number list. Approximately 30 months
ago, I purchased a 40 number memory feature phone for $80.00 (LCD Display,
speaker, hold, redial, etc.). Thus, on speed dialing alone, I've already
saved $40.00.

   The convenience aspect comes into play when it's time to dial one of these
numbers. My phone has 20 buttons and a shift button, so no number requires
more than two keystrokes to dial. To dial from a regular Touch-Tone phone to
a CO maintained list requires that you 1)Remember a CODE for the number you
want to dial and 2)Press a three key sequence (two if you don't press '#' and
are willing to wait..).

   Oh yeah, programming the feature phone is easier, too.

   Just in case you're wondering, I did have the CO maintained speed calling
way back when. I just decided, for the reasons outlined above that it was
more worthwhile to buy a feature phone (my decision was aided by the
premature death of my standard desk phone at the hands of my cat).

                                                    --John DiLeo-Lopez
                                                      [e-mail]

------------------------------

From: Joel B Levin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment
Date: 6 Jul 89 13:25:20 GMT
Reply-To: Joel B Levin <[e-mail]>
Organization: BBN Communications Corporation


I use CO speed dialling for two reasons: (a) I have two extensions at
present, both vanilla.  Speed dialling works from both.  (b) If I had
two phones with speed dialling I would have to be careful to keep the
programming identical in both (required by the nature of the users
around the house).  Of course, the on-premises solution which would
satisfy these is a separate box on the line to do the speed-dialling.
I have never looked into the cost of this option.

Steve Elias mentioned the rapidity.  I hadn't thought of that; but
it's true.  When I speed-dial a number on one of the local ESS
exchanges, the call is placed _instantly_ (e.g., if it is busy, I get
the signal with no delay after keying #).  This is not one of the
reasons I have it, though.

    /JBL
UUCP:     [e-mail] (new) or {backbone}!bbn!levin (old)
INTERNET: [e-mail]               POTS: [phone]
   "Earn more sessions by sleeving."

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 10 Jul 89 10:48 EDT
From: "Scott D. Green" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Speed Dialing: CO vrs. Premises Equipment

The DEMON DIALER not only gives you access to the same codes from every
phone in the house, but also adds features like continuous auto redial for
busies and no answers.  I think its about $100, but I don't know from
where.  (Radio Schlock used to carry it).

-scott

------------------------------

From: Doug Krause <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: FAX Radio
Date: 10 Jul 89 14:02:04 GMT
Reply-To: Doug Krause <[e-mail]>
Organization: University of California, Irvine


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(TELECOM Moderator) writes:
>Steve Dahl and Garry Meier, disk-jockey hosts of a popular afternoon radio
>show on WLUP-AM (1000 kc) in Chicago now have a fax machine in their studio
>to accept comments and other items from listeners.

Ken Minyard and Bob Arthur of the Ken and Bob Company (KABC, Los Angeles)
have a fax club.  Companies send in a fax application and then every day
Ken and Bob pull a name and somebody at the company has 30 minutes to
fax in a response.  If they make it they get 6 EGBOK (everything's gonna
be ok) mugs and put in a drawing.  On Friday one name is drawn from the
week's winners and the employees of the company get a catered lunch.

Douglas Krause                     CA Prop i:  Ban Gummie Bears(tm)!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
University of California, Irvine   ARPANET: [e-mail]
Welcome to Irvine, Yuppieland USA  BITNET: DJKrause@ucivmsa

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #229
*****************************










Date:     Tue, 11 Jul 89 1:26:03 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #230
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 11 Jul 89 01:12:05 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 230

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    International Country Codes (Kevin Hopkins)
    New AT&T Countries effective 15 July 89 (correction) (John R. Covert)

[Moderator's Note: This issue of the Digest, part two for July 11, is
devoted entirely to presenting an up-to-date list of international
dialing codes. My thanks to Kevin Hopkins and John Covert for researching
and providing this information.  PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: International Country Codes
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 89 14:42:43 +0100
From: Kevin Hopkins <[e-mail]>


Included here is  an updated list  of   International Country Codes,  using
information supplied by British Telecom International. The codes seem to be
allocated according  to  which part of the  world the country is located in
with the first  digit of the country code  indicating the region, though as
always there are exceptions (codes 297-299).

Harking back to a few  digests ago, I  think it would be  wise for CCITT (I
think that's the correct regulatory body) to split  country code 1  so that
Canada and  the  Carribean  Islands have their  own codes (e.g.   USA = 11,
Canada = 12, Islands = 1[3-9]X). I know there would be some hassle in going
through with such a major change, but it will have to happen  some day.  It
is the only major country code that is split between independent nations.

+--------------------------------------------+--------------------------------+
| [e-mail] | Kevin Hopkins,              |
| or    ..!mcvax!ukc!nott-cs!K.Hopkins         | Department of Computer Science,|
| or in the UK: [e-mail]         | University of Nottingham,      |
| CHAT-LINE: [phone] x 3815         | Nottingham, ENGLAND, NG7 2RD   |
+--------------------------------------------+--------------------------------+

-----------------------------------CUT--HERE-----------------------------------
1    North America and the Carribean        Also code 297
2    Africa                    Except for codes 297-299
3    Europe                    Also codes 298 and 299
4    Europe
5    Central and South America
6    Indochina and Australasia
7    USSR
8    East Asia
9    West and Central Asia
-----------------------------------CUT--HERE-----------------------------------
(Split on columns 1, 37 and 49 if necessary)
Algeria                             213
Andorra                             33 628      Sub-country code of France
Angola                              244
Anguilla                            1 809 407
Antigua & Barbuda                   1 809
Antilles (Netherlands)              599
Argentina                           54
Aruba                               297
Ascension Islands                   247
Australia                           61
Austria                             43
Azores                              351
Bahamas                             1 809
Bahrain                             973
Bangladesh                          880
Barbados                            1 809
Belgium                             32
Belize                              501
Benin                               229
Bequia                              1 809 45
Bermuda                             1 809 23    Numbers starting 4,6 or 8
Bermuda                             1 809 29    Numbers starting 2,3,5 or 7
Bolivia                             591
Botswana                            267
Brazil                              55
Brunei Darussalam                   673
Bulgaria                            359
Burkina Faso                        226
Burma                               95
Burundi                             257
Cameroon                            237
Canada                              1
Canary Islands                      34
Cayman Islands                      1 809 94
Central African Republic            236
Chile                               56
China                               86
Christmas Island                    672
Cocos (Keeling) Islands             672
Colombia                            57
Congo                               242
Cook Islands                        682
Costa Rica                          506
Cote d'Ivoire, La                   225
Cuba                                53
Cyprus                              357
Czechoslovakia                      42
Denmark                             45
Djibouti                            253
Dominica                            1 809 44    5 figure numbers
Dominica                            1 809 449   4 figure numbers
Dominican Republic                  1 809
Ecuador                             593
Egypt                               20
El Salvador                         503
Ethiopia                            251
Falkland Islands                    500
Faroe Islands                       298
Fiji                                679
Finland                             358
France                              33
French Guiana                       594
French Polynesia                    689
Gabon                               241
Gambia                              220
German Democratic Republic (East)   37
Germany, Federal Republic of (West) 49
Ghana                               233
Gilbraltar                          350
Greece                              30
Greenland                           299
Grenada (including Carriacou)       1 809 440   Numbers starting 1,2,3,7 or 9
Grenada (including Carriacou)       1 809 443   Numbers starting 5
Grenada (including Carriacou)       1 809 444   Numbers starting 4,6 or 8
Guadeloupe                          590
Guam                                671
Guatemala                           502
Guyana                              592
Haiti                               509
Honduras                            504
Hong Kong                           852
Hungary                             36
Iceland                             354
India                               91
Indonesia                           62
Iran                                98
Iraq                                964
Irish Republic                      353
Israel                              972
Italy                               39
Ivory Coast                         225         See Cote d'Ivoire, La
Jamaica                             1 809
Japan                               81
Jordan                              962
Kenya                               254
Kiribati                            686
Korean, Republic of (South)         82
Kuwait                              965
Lebanon                             961
Lesotho                             266
Liberia                             231
Libya                               218
Liechtenstein                       41 75       Sub-country code of Switzerland
Luxembourg                          352
Macao                               853
Madagascar                          261
Madeira                             351 91      Sub-country code of Portugal
Malawi                              265
Malaysia                            60
Maldives                            960
Mali                                223
Malta                               356
Marshall Islands                    692
Martinique                          596
Mauritania                          222
Mauritius                           230
Mexico                              52
Micronesia                          691
Monaco                              33 93       Sub-country code of France
Montseratt                          1 809 491
Morocco                             212
Mozambique                          258
Namibia                             264
Nauru                               674
Nepal                               977
Netherlands                         31
Nevis                               1 809 469
New Caledonia                       687
New Zealand                         64
Nicaragua                           505
Niger                               227
Nigeria                             234
Norfolk Island                      672
North Mariana Islands               670
Norway                              47
Oman                                968
Pakistan                            92
Panama                              507
Papua New Guinea                    675
Paraguay                            595
Peru                                51
Phillippines                        63
Poland                              48
Portugal                            351
Puerto Rico                         1 809
Qatar                               974
Reunion                             262
Romania                             40
Rwanda                              250
Saipan                              670         See North Mariana Islands
Samoa (US)                          684
Samoa (Western)                     685
San Marino                          39 549      Sub-country code of Italy
Saudi Arabia                        966
Senegal                             221
Seychelles                          248
Sierra Leone                        232
Singapore                           65
Solomon Islands                     677
Somalia                             252
South Africa                        27
Spain (including Balearic Islands)  34
Sri Lanka                           94
St. Christopher                     1 809 465   Also known as St. Kitts
St. Kitts                           1 809 465   See St. Christopher
St. Lucia                           1 809 45
St. Pierre & Miquelon               508
St. Vincent and the Grenadines      1 809 45
Sudan                               249
Surinam                             597
Swaziland                           268
Sweden                              46
Switzerland                         41
Syria                               963
Taiwan                              886
Tanzania                            255
Thailand                            66
Togo                                228
Tonga                               676
Trinidad and Tobago                 1 809
Tunisia                             216
Turkey                              90
Turks and Caicos Islands            1 809 946
USSR                                7
Uganda                              256
United Arab Emirates                971
United Kingdom                      44
United States                       1
Uruguay                             598
Vanuatu                             678
Vatican City                        39 66982    Sub-country code of Italy
Venezuela                           58
Virgin Islands (UK)                 1 809 49
Virgin Islands (USA)                1 809
Yemen Arab Republic                 967
Yemen People's Democratic Republic  969
Yugoslavia                          38
Zaire                               243
Zambia                              260
Zimbabwe                            263
-----------------------------------CUT--HERE-----------------------------------

------------------------------

From: "John R. Covert" <[e-mail]>
Date: 10 Jul 89 22:25
Subject: New AT&T Countries effective 15 July 89 (correction)

[Correcting my earlier article in issue 224:]

The following countries become dialable by AT&T on 15 July 1989:

224    Guinea
230    Mauritius
233    Ghana
250    Rwanda
676    Tonga
960    Maldives

The other two countries previously listed, Mali and Mauritania, are not
becoming dialable; however, new operator station-to-station rates are going
into effect for those two countries, which previously had only person-to-person
rates.

/john

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #230
*****************************










Date:     Wed, 12 Jul 89 0:35:03 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #231
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Wed, 12 Jul 89 00:15:25 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 231

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Charges for Payphone 411 Calls? (David E. Bernholdt)
    Demon Dialers (was: Speed Dialing) (Mike Morris)
    Lightning Strike and Telco's Response (Gordon Meyer)
    Call Forwarding to Bypass Tariffs (Steve Elias)
    Why can't I choose AT&T? (Steve Kass)
    Wardialers (George Wang)
    Oops!! (Mark Brader)
    How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card? (Rodney Amadeus)

[Moderator's Note: There is presently about a two-day backlog of mail
waiting. Two digests will be issued today and again Thursday, hopefully
to get everything distributed which is waiting.  PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "David E. Bernholdt" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Charges for Payphone 411 Calls?
Date: 10 Jul 89 17:15:55 GMT
Reply-To: "David E. Bernholdt" <[e-mail]>
Organization: University of Florida Quantum Theory Project

While traveling recently in Louisville, Kentucky I needed to make a local
phone call from a pay phone, first getting the number from a directory.

The COCOT I stopped at first demanded $0.50 to be connected to 411.
So I moved on to a South Central Bell payphone I saw a couple of
blocks away.  They wanted $0.25 to reach 411. (Neither had phonebooks).

I spoke to the '0' operator and her supervisor, explaining to both
that there were no phonebooks in the booth & that as a consequence I
needed to get the number from 411.  I was told by both people that
their instructions are to ASSUME THAT THE CUSTOMER IS LYING and charge
for the call regardless.  Their theory is that since So. Cent. Bell
once placed phone books there, they will always be there and anyone
who stand there in the booth & claim they aren't there is a liar.
They offered to connect me to 411 at a charge of $0.55 (it would be
operator assisted).

I found both of the people I talked to rather rude, and the
entire idea of charging for 411 when there are no phonebooks available
is (to me) ludicrous.

I there anything I could/should have done at the time to complain
about this in a way that might make any kind of difference?  (I am
assuming that it is too late to accomplish anything now.)

I also wonder how common this is (charging for 411, not the rudeness)?


--
David Bernholdt            [e-mail]
Quantum Theory Project        [e-mail]
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL  32611        904/392 6365

------------------------------

From: Mike Morris <[e-mail]>
Subject: Demon Dialers (was: Speed Dialing)
Date: 11 Jul 89 05:59:30 GMT
Reply-To: Mike Morris <[e-mail]>


[e-mail] (julian macassey) writes:
>(D. Stanwyck) writes:
>> (TELECOM Moderator) says:
>>
>> The reason why (at my last residence) we chose to use the
>> USWest supplied CO-based speed calling feature was the presence
>> of several (>5) separate telephones in the house.  Some telephones
>> .....edited...
>    Did you consider the Demon Dialer by Zoom Telephonics?  If you put one
>of their diallers by the protector, every phone in the house can use the
>same dialler which is controlled by the Touch Tone pad or Hook Switch
>flashes. Plus it comes with a supercap that keeps the memory alive for 7
>hours if there is a power outage. Not only can any phone in the house dial
>via a short sequence, you can store numbers that are dialled via built in
>account codes i.e. selected common carriers or phone credit card numbers
>that can be accessed during a call. Plus it will "Demon Dial", redial a busy
>number. Great for calling houses with teenagers. And yes, you can store over
>100 numbers in a Demon Dialer.
>
I've had one since the 1st week they were out.  The concept is great, but the
execution leaves a little to be desired.  There is no true touchtone decoder-
the custom Rockwell chip uses a zero-crossing detector and sone firmware.
There is no way to read out the data, or to clone the data into a second
unit for a second line (if my wife is on line 1, I have to grab the phone book
and _look up_ (gasp) the number and use line 2).  The last-number-dialed
memory gets zapped by an incoming call (ring voltage?).  The transformer
(wall-plug-power-cube) is buzzy - we had to move the device into the basement
as it kept my wife away when it was behind the curtain in the living room,
adjcent to the bedroom (we have a quiet house).  At the office, wiring the
unit into the 1A2 keyphone was a grade AAA bitch.

All in all, it's the only game in town for the tricks it does.  But if
somebody made one with a Mitel 8870 chip, and a bit better design, I'd
toss the three I have in a minute.  Maybe the next version will have a
RS-232 port, and some firmware that will talk to a printing terminal.

US Snail:  Mike Morris                    UUCP: [e-mail]
           P.O. Box 1130                  Also: WA6ILQ
           Arcadia, Ca. 91006-1130
#Include disclaimer.standard     | The opinions above probably do not even

------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 11 Jul 89 13:50 CDT
From:    Gordon Meyer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Lightning Strike and Telco's Response

Last September I lost a modem in a lightning storm.  My computer
and the modem itself (external) were turned off, but still
connected to the phone line and the electrical outlet.  I was
home at the time and after a very close (or at least LOUD) bolt
all of the lights on my modem came on, my telephone answering
machine went off (started playing the announcement message) and
all of the LEDS on my GTE memory phone lit up.  I knew immediately
that this was going to be expensive. <grin>  The answering machine
survived the ordeal without damage.  The telephone survived okay
but I had to remove all of the batteries to get the lights to
go back off.  The modem was killed as were two chips in my
computers RS232c card.  I lost telephone service (no dial tone)
for about 15 minutes, it came back all by itself (how I know this
in a second...)
Now I'm almost a complete novice when it comes to the telephone
network but I assumed that somewhere along the line there should
have been arrestor to stop this spike before it reached my line.
(I wonder if I would have been shocked had I been on the phone
at the time?!?)  I went to the telco to complain...(Contel) (yes,
I went in person) and spoke with a lower level managment person.
I had a hell of time convincing him that the spike had come over
the phone line...and not the power line  (he wanted me to take
my complaint to Commonwealth Edison).  Finally he checked the
tarrifs and decieded that if a fault could be found in the
spike arrestors at my sight then the Telco would discuss paying
the damages.  He really doubted that the spike even came over
the phone line because the protection "fuses" would have blown
and stayed blown...requiring physical replacement.  Since my
service was working, and there hadn't been any repairs (thus it
fixed itself) the fuses hadn't blown.  I have no proof that
the spike did come from the phone line...other than the fact that
only phone equipment went bonkers.  And the phone was dead for
a short time.  Anyway..to bring this long story to an end he sent
out a repairman who checked my line to see if it met "specs" (it
did) and I ended up buying a new modem myself.  I don't harbor
any ill feelings or regrets but wonder what those of you who are
more familar with the system would have to say.
-=->G<-=-
PS: Yes, I now have a phone line surge protector, an rs232 surge
protector, and loss/damage insurance on my PC. :)

------------------------------

From: chipcom.com![e-mail]
Subject: Call Forwarding to Bypass Tariffs
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 89 08:22:19 -0400


Regarding Patrick's comments about call forwarding...  in particular that
it is not cheaper to pay for two local hops than the one toll hop...

Not true, here in the beantown area.  If you have unlimited metro service
on one line and unlimited local on the other, the two local hops are both
free calls.  No message units, no cost, excepting the fixed cost of the
second line with call forwarding.


-- Steve Elias
-- [e-mail], [e-mail]   [mail to chipcom.chipcom.com bounces!]
-- voice mail: 617 859 1389
-- work phone: [phone]


------------------------------

Date: Mon, 10 Jul 89 14:09 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Why can't I choose AT&T?

  I'm about to move into housing built by my employer, who owns the
switch that my phone service will be on.  According to everyone I've
asked, I will not have a choice of long distance carrier.  Access
codes won't work (I'll get a busy signal after dialing 1-0, just like
I do now from my work phone), and the local company (NJ Bell) says
they can't install a phone for me.
  I'll be renting, but some of the housing units will be sold, and the
buyers are in the same situation.  Now it's not such a bad deal - free
basic service and local calls (a smaller "local" area than NJ Bell),
but long distance calls are carried by MCI, and I would do better with
AT&T (I subscribe to Reach Out, America and use USprint for nearby
calls when the AT&T flat rate is in effect).  Maybe MCI has some
options like Reach Out, America, but they aren't available to me.
  What's the legality of all this?  Can I get a calling card from
anyone at all?  Can I use an 800 number for any of my long distance
calls, bypassing MCI?
  Thanks,

Steve Kass/Department of Mathematics and Computer Science/Drew University
Madison, NJ  07940 / (201)-408-3614 / [e-mail]

------------------------------

From: George Wang <nsc!berlioz.nsc.com![e-mail]>
Subject: Wardialers
Date: 10 Jul 89 17:24:50 GMT
Reply-To: George Wang <nsc!logic.nsc.com![e-mail]>
Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara


Hi there...

I just recently saw some interesting information on the subject
of war-dialers and phone "hackers".... Supposedly there are
people who use their personal computers to "hack" out 950-XXXX
or 800 LD phone services....

I was just curious as to the reality of this and also the
circumstances involved in doing such a thing (I'm sure you'd
get into a LOT of trouble, no doubt!)... More importantly, what
have the LD phone companies been doing on this matter? It seems
that a while back someone had "hacked" my LD calling card.
No doubt I was upset, but what can the phone company do to prevent
such a thing?  With all the info here on ESS and other sophisticated
systems, do these devices provide "anti-hacking" routines??

I heard that many LD companies have a device called ANI? What
is this? Also I heard that the rapid dialing of digits by wardialers
also set off a "suspicious" activity flag.. Is this true??

I am new to this net and any information would be appreciated...
It's quite interesting to see how the phone co really works
when you make an ordinary call... Please send email to my unix
address or post here....

Thanks in advance,
George Wang
[e-mail]


------------------------------

From: Mark Brader <[e-mail]>
Subject: Oops!!
Date:     Mon, 10 Jul 89 21:12:40 EDT


My latest phone bill from Bell Canada included a patch -- a sticker to be
pasted over part of page 267 of the Metropolitan Toronto directory.  The
note attached to the sticker reads in part:

    Some telephone numbers for Canadian Airlines International were
    inadvertently omitted ...  As a result, a large number of mis-
    directed calls are seriously affecting the telephone network.

No comment.

For those who don't know, CAI is the name of the merged Canadian Pacific
and Pacific Western airlines.

--
Mark Brader            "...most mistakes are made the last thing before
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto            you go to bed.  So go to bed before you do
utzoo!sq!msb, [e-mail]    the last thing."    -- David Jacques Way

------------------------------

Reply-To: [e-mail]
Date: Sun, 9 Jul 89 23:24:44 EST
From: Rodney Amadeus <[e-mail]>
Subject: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card?

While we're on the subject of calling cards, I was wondering if anyone has the
numbers to get AT&T's calling card and/or Sprint's FON card.  I've been in
need of such a card for quite a while..

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
        Rodney Amadeus Anonymous, Jr.   |       pro-palace!r.a.a.
        User #1  PhD GBBS               |       215/678-5741  2400 baud
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[Moderator's Note: To obtain a calling card from the long distance carrier
supplying your service, call their business office. For AT&T, the number
is 1-800-222-0300. However, I got *my* calling card from Illinois Bell,
and although the number is identical (including the PIN) to the one I also
got from AT&T, I like the artwork on the IBT card better, and carry it.
Sprint also issues cards, as does MCI. You have to be on their network to
get their cards however. I don't think AT&T requires this.  PT]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #231
*****************************










Date:     Wed, 12 Jul 89 2:34:03 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #232
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Wed, 12 Jul 89 02:23:05 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 232

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Re: Flash Hook & Line Disconnect (Dell Ellison)
    Re: Quirks of ESS in my Exchange (Chuck Huffington)
    Re: PC Telephone Interface Card (Vance Shipley)
    Re: Dow Jones and AT&T Future Plans (Mathew Zank)
    Re: Unusual Recorded Messages (Dave Fiske)
    Re: 8 Digit French Numbers (was: Tokyo goes to 8 Digits) (Sean Phelan)
    Re: Tokyo goes to 8 digits (David Smallberg)
    Re: While Phone Rings, Charles May Begin (Vance Shipley)
    Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (Ihor Kinal)
    Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (Gordon Meyer)
    Re: Will This Work and is it Legal? (John Wheeler)
    Re: Praise the Lord and pass the RF filters (John Wheeler)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Dell Ellison <asuvax!gtephx![e-mail]>



Subject: Re: Flash Hook & Line Disconnect
Date: 10 Jul 89 20:43:29 GMT
Organization: AG Communication Systems, Phoenix, Arizona


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Daniel M. Greenberg) writes:
> ... One day, I was playing around with my
> phone and pressed flash hook repetitively for about 30 seconds.  The
> telephone line died for 2 minutes!  If someone were to call it, they'd
> hear a recording that reported "We're sorry, the number you are calling is
> out of order, it is a temporary condition, and has been reported".  Then,
> in around 2 minutes, the line would reset and calls could be received or
> dialed on that line.  What exactly is it that happens here?  ...

I would guess that the switch detected the trouble and automatically ran
some diagnostic program to find out what was wrong with the line.  While
this program is running the line is taken out-of-service.
After a while, it found the line to be working fine and it was put back
in service.


------------------------------

From: apex![e-mail]
Date: Mon Jul 10 16:07:56 1989
Subject: Re: Quirks of ESS in my exchange
Organization: Apex Computer Co., Redmond  WA

I tried to mail this but it bounced, and since others may be interested, here
it is.

well![e-mail] asked for books on ESS. These are some of the
better articles I know of:

Number 5ESS System is well written up in:

AT&T Technical Journal Vol 64 Jul-Aug 1985, No 6, Part 2

about 250 pages all about the 5ESS system.

Older AT&T Tech Journals (and Bell System Tech Journal,
and Bell Labs Tech Journal, the name keeps changing :-) )
had similar material on the 1ESS, the 4ESS.

I think the No 1 ESS was written up in BSTJ 43, No 5 (Sep 1964)

    I highly recommend the 1ESS issue.  The processor
    used is very strange and entertaining!

No 10A Remote Switching System (very interesting)
    BSTJ  61, No 4 (April 82)

No 4 ESS BSTJ 56 NO 7 (Sep 1977)
    also (BSTJ 60, No 6 (Jul-Aug 1981)

All of these should be available in larger city libraries
and certainly any university library.  They are in at least
three different ones in Seattle, so you should be able to locate
them.

These will give you a good starting point, just follow the references.


                Chuck Huffington
                Apex Computer Company
                [phone]
                uunet!apex!chuckh


------------------------------

Date: Mon Jul 10 22:38:58 1989
From: Vance Shipley <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: PC Telephone Interface Card
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Vance Shipley)
Organization: Linton Technology - SwitchView


In article <[e-mail]> ut-emx![e-mail]
(Rick Watson) writes:
>
>Does anyone know of a telephone interface card card I can plug into my
>PC (or some kind of programmable standalone unit) with the following
>features: DTMF encode/decode, ring detect, remote ring/busy detect,
>a/d and d/a converters for digitizing the audio signal, etc...
>

Give 'Dialogic Corporation' a call.  They supply many of the voice mail
manufacturers with the hardware for mating a pc with telephone systems.
they even have UNIX(tm) drivers!

They are:

    Dialogic Corporation
    129 Littleton Road
    Parsippany, NJ 07054
    [phone]

Disclaimer:  I am not associated in any way with these people nor have I
             bought any of their products to date.

Vance Shipley

------------------------------

Subject: Re: Dow Jones and AT&T Future Plans
Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System [phone] guest
Date: 10 Jul 89 23:15:09 PDT (Mon)
From: Mathew Zank <netcom![e-mail]>


-And will it cost a arm and a leg. Like Dow Jones is now. Or will it be
a flat rate deal?

[Moderator's Note: I dunno. Are you asking, or telling? I've heard it was
to be 'competitively priced', whatever that means. I guess we will get all
the specifics from AT&T/Dow Jones when they finally make up their mind. PT]

------------------------------

From: Dave Fiske <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Unusual Recorded Messages
Date: 11 Jul 89 14:53:18 GMT
Organization: BRS Info Technologies, Latham NY


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(TELECOM Moderator) writes:
> Talk about specialization. Callers in the Chicago area can now listen to
> a recorded message from 'Dial-A-Gay-Atheist'.

 ....
> If you know of unusual or different recorded announcements in your community,
> please send them along to the Digest.

We used to have one locally called "Dial A Poet", but it disappeared
from the directory a couple years ago.  One of my friends called it
once, and said it was really depressing.  This leads me to wonder
whether maybe it changed to "Dial A Sober Thought", which IS in our
directory [[phone]].

We also have "Dial A Bird" [[phone]], which has been around for
several years.  One time we left a phone message for a particularly
stuffy co-worker, and wrote down the "Dial A Bird" number.  This person
was very officious, and, as it happened, had a visitor with him when he
came back to his desk and found the message.  "Oh, excuse me, I have to
return this call", he said, like he was expecting it to be someone
asking for his help in ending the Cold War.  Then, as it turned out, he
got this recording about yellow-bellied sapsuckers.  The guy was so
embarrassed, he turned beet red.  It was great.

--
"MY SPACE ALIEN HUBBY DUMPED ME      Dave Fiske  ([e-mail])
 FOR A YOUNGER WOMAN, SOBS WIFE"
                                     Home:  [e-mail]
Headline from Weekly World News             CIS: 75415,163  GEnie: davef

------------------------------

From: Sean Phelan <geac![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: 8 Digit French Numbers (was: Tokyo goes to 8 Digits)
Date: 10 Jul 89 14:41:19 GMT
Reply-To: Sean Phelan <geac![e-mail]>
Organization: Geac Computers, Markham, Ontario Canada


In addition to the way numbers in French are spoken as two-digit pairs,
it is helpful to remember that Paris does not have a "downtown core"
which fades slowly out to endless suburbs.  You are either IN PARIS
or you're not ( in which case you are in the banlieue <sp?> ). If you
are in Paris, you have an eight digit number, starting with 4.

Property prices, and to a certain extent pace of life, respect this
sharp dividing line between being in the city and outside it.  Try
walking though the flea-market at Porte de Clingangcourt, starting
from the Paris side and leaving on the northern side, to experience this.
I think the peripherique ( ring-road ) more or less follows the boundaries
of the city, but I'm not certain.

Sean ( being francophile again )

--
Sean Phelan                                   | "Education furnishes the mind,
Geac Computer, Markham, Ontario               |  making it a pleasant place to
sean@geac                                     |  spend the rest of one's life"
{uunet!mnetor,yunexus,unicus,utgpu}!geac!sean |

------------------------------

From: David Smallberg <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re:  Tokyo goes to 8 digits
Date: 11 Jul 89 22:47:37 GMT
Reply-To: David Smallberg <[e-mail]>
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department


In article <[e-mail]> the moderator writes:
>
>[Moderator's Note: An example of the complete opposite of the 213/818
>situation described by Mr. Gast is in metropolitan Kansas City, MO/KS. An
>inquiry can be directed to either 816-555-1212 or 913-555-1212 with equal
>results. Call either one; get information on either side of the river. PT]

Either side of the river.  Feh!  How about the ocean:  At least through the
early 1970's, information calls for Hawaii (808-555-1212) actually went to
Granada Hills, California (a suburb of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley).
Friends were amused by the following:
Me:  [dial 808-555-1212]
Operator:  What island, please?
Me:  I'd like the number of the Shakey's Pizza at Reseda and Devonshire.  [The
     Shakey's was near the phone company office, and the operators were sure to
     know it.]
Operator:  Uh, you should really dial 411 for that.
Me:  Oh, sorry.  Could you look it up anyway, please?
Operator:  Well, all right ... that number is XXX-XXXX.

The story I heard was that the weather in Honolulu was posted in the office,
since so many callers would ask "How's the weather out there?"

I also had heard that Alaska information was handled in or near Seattle and
Carribean islands in Florida.  I don't know what the situation is today.

-- David Smallberg, [e-mail], ...!{uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!cs.ucla.edu!das

------------------------------

Date: Mon Jul 10 23:32:29 1989
From: Vance Shipley <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Vance Shipley)
Organization: Linton Technology - SwitchView

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Kian-Tat Lim) writes:
>
>The MCI spokesperson points out that this is *not* the same as lack of call
>supervision, which caused "ring-no-answer" billing.
>
I believe that this sort of thing can happen because of transmission time for
the supervisory signals.  A user on one CO calls a distant CO; the supervisory
signals to pass the destination and billing info are passed thru each switch
along the path and then the end user terminal is rung.  When the set is
answered the CO sends the supervisory signals back to the originating CO along
the same path they took to get there.  Propagation delay is as much as 10
seconds I am told (this would not be typical).  If the originator gave up
before (real time) the destination answered the near CO would begin to send
the necessary supervision signals toward the end CO.  There is a window here
where the path is reserved but no thru connection was ever achieved, this
should not be billable.
I should mention that with SS#7 (which MCI has in place) this should be changed
for the better.

Vance Shipley


------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin
Date: 11 Jul 89 19:04:46 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories


One thing that many people might not be aware off is that what you hear ringing
is NOT the end user's phone ringing [the user's phone might not be
plugged in, and you'll still get a ring back.]

Futhermore, the number of rings is not consistent with what you hear and
what the user hears [sometimes, I've had people answer their phone before I
even hear a ring - since I'm not a real believer in ESP, ...].

So, you might be counting the rings, and hang up on the third, while
the answering machine has heard 4, and has started to answer.

Ihor Kinal
att!cbnewsh!ijk

Standard disclaimer - although I work for Bell Labs, I'm a software
person, and my real interfaces with phones are primarily the ones
at home and sitting on the desk. My opinions are my own.


------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 11 Jul 89 23:08 CDT
From:    Gordon Meyer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin

In regards to MCI/AT&T charging for calls because the answering
machine goes "clunk"....:
Three years ago about ten 1 min. calls showed up on my MCI bill.
I called customer service and was told that they happened because
"the computer" thought the call had gone through.  When I explained
that I NEVER make one minute phone calls (doubt that many do...)

They made the adjustment.  I was told (no fooling) that the computer
can get confused when it hears a noise on the line...it makes "the
computer" think the call was connected.  The rep suggested that
(don't laugh) I may have coughed to the phone and confused
the billing system.

-=->G<-=-

------------------------------

From: John Wheeler <techwood![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Will This Work and is it Legal?
Date: 12 Jul 89 02:36:10 GMT
Reply-To: John Wheeler <techwood![e-mail]>
Organization: Turner Entertainment Networks Library; Atlanta


In Patrick Townson's response to a posting regarding call-forwarding
between two otherwise tolled areas, he mentioned that "if you have
local metered service, as most of us do these days..."
We do not, and never have had metered service here in Atlanta,
discussably (which we have done on here) the largest local
calling area. How many other major cities still are unmetered?

--
          Turner                                       John Wheeler
     E N T E R T A I N M E N T     ...!gatech!nanovx!techwood!johnw
                Networks
     Techwood Library * home of Superstation TBS * TNT * TBS Sports


------------------------------

From: John Wheeler <techwood![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and pass the RF filters
Date: 12 Jul 89 02:08:25 GMT
Reply-To: John Wheeler <techwood![e-mail]>
Organization: Turner Entertainment Networks Library; Atlanta


In article <[e-mail]> mvac23![e-mail]
writes:
>
>I thought I saw somewhere that AM stations were limited to 50kW max in the
>US.  I believe that shortwave stations are AM as well, and are permitted
>much higher powers.  I would think that they would have the same effect
>near their multi-tower antennae.

That is true - but as I recall reading somewhere (Popular Communications
magazine probably) there was a time when WLW was running 500kw...let's
also not forget that in the mid-'70's, the FCC was contemplating allowing
the 12 50kw clear-channelers to go to 750(!) kw...here in Atlanta, the
50,000 clear channel watts of WSB eminate from right in the middle of
the parking lot at Northlake Festival Shopping Center.
One of these days I swear I'm gonna take a florescent tube out there
just to see if it glows...betcha it does!


--
          Turner                                       John Wheeler
     E N T E R T A I N M E N T     ...!gatech!nanovx!techwood!johnw
                Networks
     Techwood Library * home of Superstation TBS * TNT * TBS Sports


------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #232
*****************************










Date:     Thu, 13 Jul 89 0:22:53 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #233
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Thu, 13 Jul 89 00:00:30 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 233

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Local Calling in Various Cities (Jon Solomon)
    Help Needed With HST Problems (Chris Graham)
    The Importance to *You* of "auto reply" (TELECOM Moderator)
    My Experience Using the Automated Operator (Kenneth R. Jongsma)
    How do payphones work? (Daniel M. Rosenberg)
    Re: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card? (Mark Robert Smith)
    Re: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card? (John Owens)
    Re: Lightning Strike and Telco's Response (Ron Natalie)
    Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (Ron Natalie)

[Moderator's Note: This is the first of two Digests being issued today.
In the next issue, John Covert has prepared a numerical listing of
international country codes to go with the alphabetical listing by
countries which was published here a few days ago.  And in Friday's
Digest, a very special report entitled, "Myth and Reality About
Eavesdropping", written by Larry Lippman. Some good reading! PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:  Wed, 12 Jul 89 13:00:37 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Local Calling in Various Cities

Boston has several plans:

1) measured service. each call is measured, including local calls. Only
available as the only type of service in your home (you can't get measured
and unmeasured service in the same house).

2) unmeasured: you get a small (?) local calling area. everything else is
either measured or toll. cost is in between measured and metropolitan

3) metropolitan: entire boston region (most of 617) is local and included
in the service. There are really 3 tiers to metropolitan service. The
outer regions of the metro area have a larger calling area (for instance,
Stoneham, MA (617-438) can call Lynnfield (617-334) but Somerville (617-623)
can't for free. Places outside the metro area (like Framingham, 508-879)
can opt for metro service and place most 1-617-XXX-XXXX calls free.

I live in Somerville, but with a Cambridge phone number. Cambridge has the
best unlimited local calling service for my calling pattern. I don't have
metropolitan service, however I do make a few out-of-local calls and pay the
message units to the phone company. Not enough revenue to warrant switching
to metro service tho.

Oh, there is also suburban service. That's metro minus the Boston Central
Exchange (which is where most calls go). If you never call Boston Central,
you might find this a useful feature.

Then there's Hartford, CT. They are expanding their already huge local
calling area in leaps and bounds. Hartford can call all of its
suburbs, including some other cities (New Britain just became a local
call). I think it's part of their desire to make businesses in other
areas flourish by making them a local call to the Hartford market (or
the other way around, make the Hartford market better by allowing
people from, say, Canton (203-693) able to call Downtown).

Hartford has the largest local calling area *by* *far* than any other place in
the state. New Haven is starting to play the same sort of game, but they have
a long way to go to make something as good as Hartford has.

SNET has 3 plans now for local calls. Flat rate (most expensive), Measured
rate (next cheapest) and Select-a-call. Select-a-call breaks it down like
Boston's LCA so that calls to the same exchange (Newington to Newington) are
1c/minute, calls to Hartford are 2c and calls to say Rockville (203-872)
(on the other side of Hartford, about 20 or so miles away) are 3c.

I did extensive research on calling areas in NYC, parts of New Jersey,
and Los Angeles. If there is enough desire to hear about them, I will
post them too.

--jsol

[Moderator's Note: Jon Solomon, aka 'jsol' was founder of TELECOM Digest,
and Moderator for several years. Yes indeed, please Jon, post another message
or two, summarizing the local plans for the cities you've been in. I'll
do Chicago, and readers are invited to summarize the local calling scheme
in their own community.  PT]

------------------------------

From: Chris Graham <[e-mail]>
Subject: Help Needed With HST problems
Date:     Tue, 11 Jul 89 20:28:25 EDT
Organization: Ziebmef Public Access Unix, Toronto, Canada


I have a FidoNet number (1:250/716) and I poll various FidoNet systems
to exchange packets.  That much is normal.  The problem is that I can't
send packets to sites that are using the 14.4k HST modem.  On the other end,
the problem manifests itself as repeated CRC errors and my end keeps getting
NAKed until it times out and hangs up in disgust.

  The problem is even worse now because my hub has been changed so that I
must poll a system that has one of these modems and if the problem isn't
fixed then I'll have to get a new modem, change my FidoNet number or
leave the FidoNet altogether.

  I've spoken to a number of sysops and they all feel that it's modem
incompatibility but nobody knows exactly what it is.  The strange thing is
that I can dial these BBSs interactively and xModem tons of stuff with no
problems.

  If anyone can send me an explanation of what the problem is, and even how
to fix it, I would be very grateful.

  And I have another problem with SEAdog 4.50.  The problem is that there is
a site that uses it from which I can't receive any mail packets that are
waiting for my system for most of the day.  I'm told that that version of
SEAdog has a bug that precludes the pickup of mail during a crash-mail
event.  If anyone can send an explanation or solution to that, it would be
a great service.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 12 Jul 89 20:46:08 CDT
From: TELECOM Moderator
Subject:  The Importance to *You* of "auto reply"

Take a look at the information which appears immediatly below --

=> Message sent to: [e-mail]
=> Dated: Wed, 12 Jul 89 21:42:19 EDT
=> Subject: "Whatever Title Was On Your Message Here"
=> Received by Telecom Moderator: Wed Jul 12 20:46:07 CDT 1989
=> Message size: 442 bytes

>This is an automatic reply from TELECOM Digest. Your recent correspondence
>was received here per the information shown above. Because the volume of
>mail received is frequently quite heavy, this computer generated response
>is used to speed a reply to you. It is not intended to lessen the value
>of your correspondence.......

(and the reply goes on....I will stop here for now)

The above is a letter very familiar to those of you who have written to
TELECOM Digest or comp.dcom.telecom with a submission for publication, or
to request addition/deletion/changes to the mailing list. If you have not
written to me **or if you have, but have not received the above letter**,
then what I say now will be of particular importance:

Sad story: One regular reader in the Chicago area recently sent <four>
items for publication. He spent his time and effort preparing these articles
to share with us. *All four got lost in transit*....swallowed by a black
hole somewhere. It made me upset to have to report to him that not a single
one of his submissions made it through the network, and he felt badly also.

But he was tipped off that something was wrong when he did not receive the
"auto reply" message sent out each time mail hits my box at eecs.nwu.edu.
He was alert and contacted me to ask 'if auto reply is no longer being used'.

"Auto.reply" is a program in my directory which kicks in each time mail
is received. Other than a list of exceptions, such as 'mailer.daemon' and
a few others known to themselves be automated responses, everyone who writes
the Digest gets back the above receipt, and the form letter attached to
it.

This is intended to quickly inform you if your letter was somehow lost;
and at the same time, it protects me against claims that perhaps some
messages are deliberatly ignored while claiming non-reciept. It is intended
as your proof that your letter was received here. Likewise, if you get two
or more copies of the receipt, based on the same message, then you are
alerted to the fact that somehow your message was inadvertently duplicated
in the process of its transmission.

I think all Moderators (and other users who receive heavy mail) should use
"auto.reply", or something similar to assure their readers/correspondents
that mail was received, or alert them when it was not received. I use
"auto.reply" as a way of showing my concern for the hard work *you readers*
do in writing the articles which have made TELECOM Digest a success.

Always watch for "auto-reply" after you write me. If you don't get it in
several hours -- maybe a day at most -- then send a duplicate of your
correspondence. And always save a copy of what you have written until you
actually see it in the Digest. Sometimes I get things, but still manage
to lose them or mangle them in emacs.

Also, please note that *sometimes* "auto-reply" itself fails to address
you correctly, and *I* get it back undeliverable. Nothing is perfect! :)
It has been written to attempt to get your correct address from the
letter you send me. As we all know, those can get hysterical at times! :)

Patrick Townson

------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Subject: My Experience Using the Automated Operator
Date: Mon, 10-Jul-89 10:12:20 PDT

I've had a chance to make a call using Michigan Bell's new automated
operator. It does work as advertised, though the command numbers used
are slightly different than what was in the press release.

One drawback: One person I called though the computer voice sounded like
one of those automated soliciting machines and almost hung up before she
realized I was calling!

[e-mail]

------------------------------

From: "Daniel M. Rosenberg" <[e-mail]>
Subject: How do payphones work?
Date: 12 Jul 89 21:13:12 GMT
Reply-To: "Daniel M. Rosenberg" <[e-mail]>
Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U.


I'm wondering about how payphones work. It seems as if there are
three main types: old fortress phones, that require a coin
before you can do anything. The coin "opens" the phone for you.
These seem to be connected to payphone-type central office pairs.
New fortress phones also seem to have special pairs (or are there
four wires?) that run to the CO, but don't require a coin first.
And COCOTS seem to have more regular lines, with a lot more equipment
in the phone itself.

What's on those two/four wires for fortress phones? How do they work?


--
# Daniel M. Rosenberg     //  Stanford CSLI  // Opinions are my own only.
# [e-mail]  // decwrl!csli!dmr // [e-mail]

------------------------------

From: Mark Robert Smith <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card?
Date: 12 Jul 89 13:37:38 GMT
Organization: Rutgers - The Police State of New Jersey


I know for a fact that MCI does NOT require that they be your home
default carrier.  In fact, they will give you a card with appropriate
credit references if you don't have a phone.

In addition, they have been very good to me about allowing my MCI card
account to carry over the summer, after my school phone is
disconnected in May.  (I end up in a different dorm room each year,
which means a new phone number every year.)  I just call before I
disconnect, and they take the residential service off of the account,
but leave the card active with the same number.  Then, after calling
NJ Bell to establish the new number in August, I call MCI, close the
old account the day before Labor Day, and request a new account with a
new card.

Mark
--
Mark Smith     |  "Be careful when looking into the distance,       |All Rights
61 Tenafly Road|that you do not miss what is right under your nose."| Reserved
Tenafly,NJ 07670-2643|rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!msmith,[e-mail]
You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise.

------------------------------

Organization: SMART HOUSE Limited Partnership
Subject: Re: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card?
Date: 12 Jul 89 10:59:07 EDT (Wed)
From: John Owens <[e-mail]>

> [Moderator's Note: [...] I got *my* calling card from Illinois Bell,
> and although the number is identical (including the PIN) to the one I also
> got from AT&T, I like the artwork on the IBT card better, and carry it.

I also like the artwork on the Bell Atlantic card I got from C&P better,
but two things led me to carry the AT&T card instead.  1) The AT&T card
reader phones in airports, hotels, etc., won't take the C&P card (even
though the PIN is the same), and 2) the C&P card doesn't have the PIN
printed on it (which is silly, since it's on the magstripe).  No flames
about carrying my printed PIN please; it's no worse than carrying a
credit card.


--
John Owens        [e-mail]        uunet!jetson!john
[phone]        [e-mail]

------------------------------

From: Ron Natalie <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Lightning Strike and Telco's Response
Date: 12 Jul 89 15:13:46 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.


Anything billed as a "lightening arrestor" as are the things at
the entrance to your house for the phone lines, are there to
avoid fires from  lighting strikes.   They don't operate anywhere
near quickly enough to stop electronic equipment from being
damaged.  Likewise most of the "surge suppressors" on the market
are just MOV's, and while these have use on AC power lines, if that's
all they used in your telephone surge supressors (likely) it's not
adequate either.

-Ron

------------------------------

From: Ron Natalie <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin [from LA Times]
Date: 12 Jul 89 15:00:06 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.


Further more, the ring the caller hears may have nothing to do
with the ringing the phone gets.  Calling adjacent CENTREX
extensions in my office causes me to hear the ring not in
phase with the ringing noise my phone makes.

-Ron

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #233
*****************************










Date:     Thu, 13 Jul 89 1:11:04 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #234
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Thu, 13 Jul 89 00:28:44 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 234

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    CCITT E.163 Complete Country Code List (John R. Covert)
    NNX-0000 (Kent Borg)
    Cabling and Wiring Seminar and Workshop (TELECOM Moderator)

[Moderator's Note: The featured item in this part two of the Digest for
Thursday is a numerical listing of international country codes, prepared
by John Covert, to compliment the alphabetical listing presented here
a few days ago. In Friday's Digest, a very special report by Larry
Lippman: "Myth and Reality About Eavesdropping".   PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "John R. Covert" <[e-mail]>
Date: 11 Jul 89 09:02
Subject: CCITT E.163 Complete Country Code List

Thanks to Kevin Hopkins for providing the alpha sorted country code list.  It
is, however, missing the following assigned codes, possibly because they are
not dialable by United Kingdom subscribers.  Those indicated with an "*" are
dialable from the U.S. by AT&T, and Mayotte is dialable by U.S. Sprint.

224 *    Guinea            688    Tuvalu (Ellice Islands)
235    Chad            690    Tokelan
238 *    Cape Verde        84    Viet Nam
239    Sao Tome and Principe    850    Democratic People's Republic of Korea
240    Equatorial Guinea    855    Khmer Republic
245    Guinea-Bissau        856    Laos
246    Diego Garcia        871    Marisat, Atlantic Ocean
269 x    Comoros and Mayotte    872    Marisat, Pacific Ocean
355    Albania            873    Marisat, Indian Ocean
680    Palau            93    Afghanistan
681    Wallis and Futuna    976    Mongolia
683    Niue

In addition, two minor typographical errors were found:  Numbers on Anguilla
are in NXX 497, not 407, and there is only one Ascension Island.  I would
caution against putting too much emphasis on the NXXs in area code 809; a
concerted effort is under way to get seven digit dialing in place on all
islands.  New codes are being assigned which don't fit into the previous
single code per island.  For example, St. Kitts now also has 467 numbers.

Attached I am reposting the entire numerical country code list from CCITT
E.163 (with additions such as Taiwan, which lost 86 to the PRC several years
ago and was ex-officio assigned 886).  It won't include such things as Madeira
and the Canary Islands for the same reason it doesn't include Hawaii or the
Channel Islands.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the North American Integrated Numbering Area
to be split into multiple country codes.  The community of interest is too
strong to require dialling four additional digits on calls between the possible
portions.  It is more likely that Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands would
get their own area code, leaving more of 809 available for the rest.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    World Numbering Zone 1 (Integrated Numbering Area)
1    Canada, USA including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands,
    Jamaica, Barbados, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Cayman Islands,
    British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Bahamas, Dominica, Dominican
    Republic, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Christopher and Nevis,
    St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines (Bequia, Mustique,
    Prune (Palm) Island, Union Island), Trinidad and Tobago

    Note: Mexico locations with Zone 1 style area codes are a hack
    for use from the U.S. and Canada *only* and are not official.

    World Numbering Zone 2:  Africa, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Aruba
20    Egypt
21    Integrated Numbering Area:
    Morocco (212 in service, also has 210, 211 assigned, but not used)
    Algeria (213 in service, also has 214, 215 assigned, but not used)
    Tunisia (216 in service, also has 217 assigned, but not used)
    Libya    (218 in service, also has 219 assigned, but not used)
220    The Gambia
221    Senegal
222    Mauritania
223    Mali
224    Guinea
225    Ivory Coast
226    Burkina Faso (Upper Volta)
227    Niger
228    Togo
229    Benin
230    Mauritius
231    Liberia
232    Sierra Leone
233    Ghana
234    Nigeria
235    Chad
236    Central African Republic
237    Cameroon
238    Cape Verde
239    Sao Tome and Principe
240    Equatorial Guinea
241    Gabon
242    Congo
243    Zaire
244    Angola
245    Guinea-Bissau
246    Diego Garcia
247    Ascension Island
248    Seychelles
249    Sudan
250    Rwanda
251    Ethiopia
252    Somalia
253    Djibouti
254    Kenya
255    Tanzania including Zanzibar
256    Uganda
257    Burundi
258    Mozambique
259    Zanzibar (this code is assigned in E.163, but use Tanzania, 255 54)
260    Zambia
261    Madagascar
262    Reunion (France)
263    Zimbabwe
264    Namibia
265    Malawi
266    Lesotho
267    Botswana
268    Swaziland
269    Comoros and Mayotte
27    South Africa
297    Aruba (Autonomous from the Netherlands Antilles as of 1 Jan 86)
298    Faroe Islands (Denmark)
299    Greenland
Spare:    28, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296

    World Numbering Zones 3 & 4: Europe except Soviet Union
30    Greece
31    Netherlands
32    Belgium
33    France
33 628    Andorra
33 93    Monaco
34    Spain
350    Gibraltar
351    Portugal
352    Luxembourg
353    Ireland
354    Iceland
355    Albania
356    Malta
357    Cyprus
358    Finland
359    Bulgaria
36    Hungary
37    German Democratic Republic (East)
38    Yugoslavia
39    Italy
39 541    San Marino
3966982    Vatican City
40    Romania
41    Switzerland
41 75    Liechtenstein
42    Czechoslovakia
43    Austria
44    United Kingdom
45    Denmark
46    Sweden
47    Norway
48    Poland
49    Federal Republic of Germany (West)

    World Numbering Zone 5: Mexico, Central and South America
                + St. Pierre & Miquelon
500    Falkland Islands
501    Belize
502    Guatemala
503    El Salvador
504    Honduras
505    Nicaragua
506    Costa Rica
507    Panama
508    St. Pierre et Miquelon (France)
509    Haiti
51    Peru
52    Mexico
53    Cuba
53 99    Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base (located on Cuba, dialable only from U.S.)
54    Argentina
55    Brazil
56    Chile
57    Colombia
58    Venezuela
590    French Antilles (St. Barthelemy, St. Martin, Guadeloupe)
591    Bolivia
592    Guyana
593    Ecuador
594    French Guiana
595    Paraguay
596    Martinique
597    Suriname
598    Uruguay
599    Netherlands Antilles (Sint Maarten, Saba, Statia, Curacao, Bonaire)

    World Numbering Zone 6: Pacific
60    Malaysia
61    Australia
62    Indonesia
63    Philippines
64    New Zealand
65    Singapore
66    Thailand
670    Northern Mariana Islands (Saipan)
671    Guam
672    Australian External Territories (Norfolk Island, Christmas I. Cocos I.)
673    Brunei
674    Nauru
675    Papua New Guinea
676    Tonga
677    Solomon Islands
678    Vanuatu (New Hebrides)
679    Fiji
680    Palau
681    Wallis and Futuna
682    Cook Islands
683    Niue
684    American Samoa
685    Western Samoa
686    Kiribati Republic (Gilbert Islands)
687    New Caledonia
688    Tuvalu (Ellice Islands)
689    French Polynesia
690    Tokelan
691    Micronesia
692    Marshall Islands
Spare:    693, 694, 695, 696, 697, 698, 699

    World Numbering Zone 7
7    Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

    World Numbering Zone 8: East Asia + Marisat
81    Japan
82    Korea (Republic of) (South)
84    Viet Nam
850    Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North)
852    Hong Kong
853    Macao
855    Khmer Republic
856    Laos
86    China (People's Republic)
871    Marisat, Atlantic Ocean
872    Marisat, Pacific Ocean
873    Marisat, Indian Ocean
880    Bangladesh
886    Taiwan
Spare:    80, 83, 851, 854, 857, 858, 859, 870, 874, 875, 876, 877, 878, 879,
    881, 882, 883, 884, 885, 887, 888, 889, 89

    World Numbering Zone 9: Middle East, Indian Subcontinent
90    Turkey
91    India
92    Pakistan
93    Afghanistan
94    Sri Lanka
95    Burma
960    Maldives
961    Lebanon
962    Jordan
963    Syria
964    Iraq
965    Kuwait
966    Saudi Arabia
967    Yemen Arab Republic
968    Oman
969    Yemen (People's Democratic Republic of) (Aden)
971    United Arab Emirates
972    Israel
973    Bahrain
974    Qatar
976    Mongolia
977    Nepal
98    Iran
Spare:    970, 975, 978, 979, 99

------------------------------

From: Kent Borg <lloyd![e-mail]>
Subject: NNX-0000
Date: 12 Jul 89 16:51:50 GMT
Reply-To: Kent Borg <lloyd![e-mail]>
Organization: Camex, Inc., Boston, Mass USA



I recently noticed that the pizza place across from my laundromat has
a phone number which ends with 4 zeros.

I don't think I have seen this before.  In fact, I remember as a kid
(I was a strange kid) thinking that those numbers would probably be
reserved for phoning the exchange itself, but I never remember seeing
0000--at least until yesterday.

Why are NNX-0000 (I hope I have the N's and X's straight) numbers so
rare?


Kent ("I have clean clothes again") Borg
[e-mail]
or
 ...!hscfvax!lloyd!kent

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 13 Jul 89 0:17:46 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Cabling and Wiring Seminar and Workshop

A two day seminar designed for the end user dealing with the wiring and
cabling used in your phone system will help you learn about this important
part of your connection to the public network.

This seminar will be going on all over the United States this fall. First,
the schedule of sessions, then a detailed look at the events scheduled:

September 11-12    Bellevue, WA  (Bellevue Hilton Hotel)
September 25-26    Crystal Bay, NV  (North Lake Tahoe/Cal-Neva Lodge)
October 16-17      Cleveland, OH  (Holiday Inn/Hopkins Intl. Airport)
October 30-31      Philadelphia, PA  (Holiday Inn City Line)
November 8-9       Austin, TX  (Ramada Airport)
November 13-14     Myrtle Beach, SC  (Myrtle Beach Hilton/Arcadian Shores)
December 4-5       Falls Church, VA  (Ramada Hotel)

Day One
-------

Deregulation Issues:
  1) Detariffed inside wire/embedded base - Relinquishing by the LEC
  2) Black and Gray wiring
  3) Transferring ownership of wire
  4) Use the wire without buying it
  5) Expensed or Capitalized? Riser cable
  6) Non-existent as builts
  7) Maintainence of wiring

Identifying Today's Wiring and Distribution Systems
  1) Telephone inside and outside wiring
  2) Building and campus environments
  3) Data communications wiring
  4) Using today's wiring for voice and data
  5) Local area network/IBM cabling and computer wiring
  6) New NEC wiring laws  (you may be responsible)

Cable, Wire and Distribution Equipment
  1) Wire and cable types
  2) Connecting, terminating and integrating devices
  3) Home run cabling
  4) Main distribution frames and intermediate framing
  5) Cross connecting/jumpering
  6) Multiplexing

Today's Applications
  1) Premise Distribution System for voice and data; no coax cable
  2) IBM Wiring Plan - Type II - High and low speed data and voice
  3) Fiber optic design and pricing
  4) DEC and Northern Telecomm applications

Practical Technology, Methods and Formulas
  1) Steps to reduce rising telecom administrative expenses
  2) Why inventory cables and wires?
  3) How to use information gained from inventory
  4) Labor estimates/costing estimates; wiring adds and changes

Day Two
=======

Step by Step Method of Installation Requirements/Cost and Installation Info
   1) 66 Connector Systems
   2) 110 AT&T System
   3) BIX/Northern Telecom
   4) New High Density and Low Displacement Blocks
   5) Patch Panel System
   6) Wire wrap
   7) Fiber optics cabling

Planning and Designing
   1) Floor distribution system
   2) Building riser cables and closets
   3) Outside campus feeder and plant distribution cable system
   4) Converting coaxial to twisted pair and RS232
   5) Reusing existing cable for voice and data
   6) How to design an RFP for inside and outside campus wiring
   7) RJ11,45, and 48 wiring
   8) Sending 10 mbps on twisted pair

Comparison/Cost Analysis
Testing and trouble shooting cable and wiring
Cable techology
Using the proper tools to trim and connect twisted pair and coaxial

Finally, everyone will participate in terminating, and learning to use a
variety of tools.

Tuition for the seminar is $595, and includes the workbook, use of tools,
and breakfast each of the two mornings. A discount is available for three
or more persons enrolling and attending together.

In addition, if you are unable to fit any of the seminar locations/dates
into your schedule, then a program of SELF-STUDY is available, for $345,
which includes all the same materials you would receive if you were actually
in attendance, including the software program and diskettes.

For more information, to receive a copy of the complete brochure or make
reservations, phone or write Telecom Professionals International Institute.

International Institute
Post Office Box 475575
Garland, TX  75047-5575
Phone: [phone]

Special hotel rates are available, as are special rates on American Airlines
for persons attending the seminars. Inquire from the hotels, or ask when
calling International Institute.


Patrick Townson




------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #234
*****************************










Date:     Fri, 14 Jul 89 0:09:24 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #235
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Fri, 14 Jul 89 00:00:13 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 235

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Pay Phone TDD (C. E. Reid)
    Ringback by dialing one's own number (Tom Ace)
    Supplementary and Intelligent Network Services Interactions (Anthony Lee)
    Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (Dave Levenson)
    Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (Andrew Boardman)
    Re: Lightning Strike and Telco's Response (Julian Macassey)

[Moderator's Note: This is the first of two Digests for Friday. We have
approximatly a two day backlog of messages. Please be patient. All
messages sent recently should be published over the weekend. In the
second part of the Digest today, a special report, "Myth and Reality
About Eavesdropping" by Larry Lippman.   PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 13 Jul 89 21:28 EDT
From: "C. E. Reid" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Pay Phone TDD

Dear Telecom Readers:

I found this article to be of interest and I thought you'd be interested to
learn about new technology development for the hearing impaired.

The following article is quoted from a newsletter for members of the
Telecommunications for the Deaf, Inc. (TDI), a non-profit organization
dedicated to improving the telecommunications for the hearing impaired, "GA-SK
Newsletter", vol. 20, no. 1, Spring, 1989, page 18:



                             PAY PHONE TDD UPDATE
                               Cindy E. Hanson

   If you happen to be near Terminal Two in Chicago's O'Hare Airport and need
to make a TDD call, just look for the "TDD Equipped" sign next to the
information desk.  The first Pay Phone TDD is now installed and ready for use.
For the first time ever, the Pay Phone TDD allows people to have access to a
TDD equipmed pay telephone.
   The Ultratec-developed Pay Phone TDD, which is located next to the
information desk in Terminal Two, is well marked with a large "TDD Equipped"
sign above it.
   O'Hare Airport was chosen as the first Pay Phone TDD installation site
because of its high traffic.  It's also only a short distance from Ultratec's
corporate headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, which makes it convenient for
frequent testing and evaluations.
   According to O'Hare Airport's Susan Mally, Coordinator of Airport
Information, the Pay Phone TDD is much better equipped for public use than the
previous standard TDD.  "There is no comparison" she says, "The Pay Phone TDD
is very self-sufficient.  We haven't had any problems."
   Prior to the Pay Phone TDD, the only TDD available in the Airport repeated
showed signs of wear and tear because it was not enclosed or designed for
public use.  The Pay Phone TDD is attached to the bottom of a regular pay
telephone, housed inside a vandal-proof metal drawer which opens only when a
TDD number is dialed and a TDD signal is returned.  Because of this design, the
Pay Phone TDD does not show any signs of vandalism or misuse.
   While testing continues at O'Hare Airport, other locations including
universities, schools, and public buildings are being researched as possible
Pay Phone TDD locations.
   For more information about the Pay Phone TDD, including how to get one
installed in your area contact:

                        Jayne Turner of Ultratec Inc.
                    6442 Normandy Lane, Madison, WI 53719
                          (608)-273-0707 (Voice/TDD)


------------------------------

Date: Thu, 13 Jul 89 11:10:10 PDT
From: Tom Ace <sje![e-mail]>
Subject: Ringback by dialing one's own number


There was some discussion here a while ago about ringback numbers; I found
another way to get my phone to ring when I lived in NY City (Chelsea area)
back in 1980.  It depended on the way that NY Telephone processed local
calls preceded by your own area code; evidently, they went through
some other path than calls dialed with 7 digits.  If I dialed my own
area code followed by my own number (i.e, 212-929-0110), I'd hear both
a ringback tone, and a call-waiting tone to tell me "another" call was
coming in.  I'd then hang up, and the phone would ring once.  Obviously,
I had to have call-waiting to make this possible; it may also have
depended on my having three-way calling.  Without three-way calling, I
suspect the call would've been killed quickly after I hung up.  With
three-way calling, the connection was maintained for some timeout period,
to determine whether I'd really hung up, or whether it was a hook flash.
It was during that period that my phone would ring.

Dialing one's own number without the 212 first gave an immediate
busy signal.  Evidently, dialing a 212 first sent you out of the
switch and back in on another path.  Calls preceded by the 212 code took
an extra 2 seconds or so to complete, during which you'd hear some
whirring/clicking noises.

When NY Telephone went to "one plus" dialing in 1980, this still worked,
but of course I had to dial 1-212-929-0110.  I moved out of NY in 1981,
and have no idea if this still works there.  (No other area I've lived in
was set up to complete calls which were dialed starting with the local
area code.)

Tom Ace

[e-mail]
 ...!mntgfx!sje!tom

------------------------------

From: Anthony Lee <munnari!batserver.cs.uq.oz.au![e-mail]>
Subject: Supplementary and Intelligent Network Services Interactions
Date: 13 Jul 89 12:00:46 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail]


Hi there,

This is the first time I am reading this newsgroup so the topic
might have been mentioned before.

I am currently doing a PhD in the "Formal Specifications of Intelligent
Network Services".  The main area I am interested in is the use
of formal specifications of IN services in clarifying and possibly
solving the problem of service interactions.

One of the major problem in my research is finding examples of
service interactions for supplementary services.  The examples I
have so far all include Call Forwarding e.g. Call Forwarding and
Closed User Group, Call Forwarding and Completion of Call to Busy
Subscriber (CCBS).

If anyone out there knows of more examples of service interactions
please let me know.  I am particularly interested in hearing from
people in BNR (Bell Northern Research) because they seems to be
the leaders in service creation.

Please reply to me by email -- not via this journal -- since I will
be out of town for a couple weeks.

Thanks in advance.

Anthony Lee (Humble PhD student) (alias Doctor(Time Lord))
ACSnet:    [e-mail]    TEL:[phone]
Internet: [e-mail]        ([phone] (w)
SNAIL: 243 Carmody Rd, St Lucia, 4067 Australia

------------------------------

From: Dave Levenson <westmark![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin
Date: 13 Jul 89 04:15:17 GMT
Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA


In article <[e-mail]>, zygot![e-mail]
(John Higdon) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
> (Kian-Tat Lim) writes:
> > [From the LA Times "Consumer Views" column, by Don G. Campbell, 7/7/89.
> > Paraphrased except for items in quotes.]

> > QUESTION: J. T. observes several one-minute call charges on his/her MCI
> > phone bill.  These were made to answering machines that answer on the fifth
> > ring; he/she always hung up after the third or fourth ring.

> > ANSWER: [Complete and utter nonsense about clicks and machines making
> > connections before ringing stops and such.]

> When you place any call, local or long distance, upon connection of the
> call you hear "ringback tone". This tone is supplied by the central
> office at the called end and tells you that your call was successful
> and that the party's phone is ringing (as opposed to not going through
> or busy).

> When the called party answers, ringback tone ceases immediately and the
> connection "supervises", or in older parlance, "reverses". For the
> majority of carriers that handle supervision, this is when the clock
> starts. It makes no difference whether a machine answers or a person
> answers, one thing is certain: ringback tone ending and supervision
> beginning are a simultaneous event. If the machine answers on the fifth
> ring, that's when billing begins and not before.



There is an exception to this.  If the called number is not a POTS
(plain old telephone service) subscriber but an extension of a PBX
(private branch exchange) that is reached by DID (direct inward
dialing) trunks, then the audible ring signal is not generated by
the far-end central office, but by the far-end PBX.  Most PBX
equipment acts like a central office in this case; it does not
return answer supervision (start charging the caller) until the
called end answers, and it stops the ring tone at the same time.

Some PBX equipment also contains ACD (automatic call distribution)
equipment.  This usually answers immediately, and then plays a
recording telling you that you are in a queue, until an agent is
available.  If no recording is provided, most ACD equipment will
generate ring tones, even though the call has been answered.

The AT&T System 85 PBX, when equipped with AUDIX (a voice-mail and
call-coverage system that functions like a multi-user answering
machine) will provide off-hook supervision at the time a call is
sent to AUDIX for coverage (typically after three rings, if the
station still hasn't answered).  AUDIX will then generate ring tone
until it is able to play the called party's personal greeting.
This may mean that charging begins while ringing is still audible.

--
Dave Levenson                Voice: [phone]
Westmark, Inc.               Internet: [e-mail]
Warren, NJ, USA              UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave
[The Man in the Mooney]      AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave


------------------------------

Date: Thu, 13 Jul 89 02:26:38 EDT
From: Andrew Boardman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin
Organization: Columbia University

In article <[e-mail]> Ihor writes:
>One thing that many people might not be aware off is that what you hear
>ringing is NOT the end user's phone ringing.  [...]
>Futhermore, the number of rings is not consistent with what you hear and
>what the user hears. [...]

This is, I believe, dependent on one's switch; at one point I lived
on an old crossbar on which it was possible (through playing games with
my loop resistance, etc.) to recieve a call while the switch was under the
impression that the phone was still ringing.  This is definitely *not*
the case with my 5ESS box now; would someone who has specifics care
to elaborate on them?

Andrew Boardman, wrting from the phone-happy city of White Plains, NY.
[e-mail]   [e-mail]  {backbone}!columbia!cunixc!ab4

------------------------------

From: julian macassey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Lightning Strike and Telco's Response
Date: 13 Jul 89 07:38:22 GMT
Organization: The Hole in the Wall  Hollywood CA U.S.A.


In article <[e-mail]>, TK0GRM1%NIU.BITNET@uicvm.
uic.edu (Gordon Meyer) writes:
> Last September I lost a modem in a lightning storm.  My computer
> and the modem itself (external) were turned off, but still
> connected to the phone line and the electrical outlet.
   (stuff deleted)
> all of the LEDS on my GTE memory phone lit up.  I knew immediately
> that this was going to be expensive. <grin>  The answering machine
> survived the ordeal without damage.  The telephone survived okay
> but I had to remove all of the batteries to get the lights to
> go back off.  The modem was killed as were two chips in my
> computers RS232c card.  I lost telephone service (no dial tone)
> for about 15 minutes, it came back all by itself (how I know this
> in a second...)
> Now I'm almost a complete novice when it comes to the telephone
> network but I assumed that somewhere along the line there should
> have been arrestor to stop this spike before it reached my line.
> (I wonder if I would have been shocked had I been on the phone
> at the time?!?)  I went to the telco to complain...(Contel) (yes,
> I went in person) and spoke with a lower level managment person.
> I had a hell of time convincing him that the spike had come over
> the phone line...and not the power line  (he wanted me to take

This is not unusual, telco biz office people can sometimes be
staggeringly ignorant about technical stuff

> my complaint to Commonwealth Edison).  Finally he checked the
> tarrifs and decieded that if a fault could be found in the
> spike arrestors at my sight then the Telco would discuss paying
> the damages.  He really doubted that the spike even came over
> the phone line because the protection "fuses" would have blown
> and stayed blown...requiring physical replacement.  Since my
> service was working, and there hadn't been any repairs (thus it
> fixed itself) the fuses hadn't blown.  I have no proof that
> the spike did come from the phone line...other than the fact that
> only phone equipment went bonkers.  And the phone was dead for
> a short time.  Anyway..to bring this long story to an end he sent

    Getting lightening strikes on phone lines is not uncommon. Yes, in the
U.S. telephone lines have either gas or carbon surge arrestors that will
conduct a surge of over 300V or so to ground. If the surge is big enough,
the carbon arrestors (which are slower than gas, but cheaper) will permantly
short to ground and remove you from service until the telco comes out to
change them.

    In Bell Pub 48005 a standard single line phone should be able to survive
a simulated lightning strike of 1,000Volts @ 1,000Amps. And Yes a standard
AT&T, ITT or Comdial 500 and 2500 set will, as will an ATC Mickey Mouse
phone. Cheap and sleezy phones may or may not survive a hit. Many answering
machines will die. A few years ago a rep for an answering machine Co in the
Kansas area told me that it was not uncommon for over 300 machines to be
brought in for repair after a good day of thunderstorms. So anyhow, the
protector that the telco puts in will help some if you have a hit, but the
equipment has to do some of the work too. If you look at some equipment, you
will notice surge protection devices of various kinds. There are series
carbon composition resistors, varactors and back to back zeners, besides gas
discharge devices.

    So I regret to say that you are somewhat responsable for the equipment
on your lines in these days of deregulation. But in the old days, the telco
wouldn't have let you put all those modems, fancy telephones or answering
machines on "their network".

    I have seen phones and modems that are just charred circuit board, some
with big holes in them after a lightning strike, so yes, you can be killed
if this happens. In the 24 June issue of New Scientist (p. 55) there is a
mention of someone being zapped in the ear by a phone reciever during a
thunderstorm.

Yours with gas discharge tubes in his arrestors.

--
Julian Macassey, n6are  julian@bongo    ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian
n6are@k6iyk (Packet Radio) n6are.ampr.org [44.16.0.81] voice [phone]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #235
*****************************










Date:     Fri, 14 Jul 89 1:03:16 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #236
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>



TELECOM Digest     Fri, 14 Jul 89 01:00:00 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 236

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Myth and Reality About Eavesdropping (Larry Lippman)

[Moderator's Note: This issue of the Digest is devoted exclusively to
a special report on wire tapping. I hope you will enjoy it as much as
I did. Thanks to Larry for doing *a lot* of work to prepare it. PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Myth and Reality About Eavesdropping
Date: 12 Jul 89 23:34:02 EDT (Wed)
From: Larry Lippman <kitty![e-mail]>

In article <[e-mail]>, nvuxr!deej@bellcore.
bellcore.com (David Lewis) writes:

> ] >I might add this is how the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA
> ] >also listen to you (assuming authorized taps, of course). When telco is
> ] >served with a court order to apply a tap to your line, they tie another
> ] >pair on your line in the office and send it through a coil and off to the
> ] >FBI. **And they charge both YOU and the FBI for the price of the line!!**

    The above comment was made by the Telecom Digest moderator.  I'm
not certain what the point of the last sentence was, unless it was merely a
disdainful reference to authorized eavesdropping.  Surely one does not
expect the telephone company to provide the intercept circuit free of charge
(the intercept circuit may often have interexchange mileage charges since
the monitoring point is often not within the same central office), nor does
one expect the law enforcement agency to pay for the subject's telephone
line, either!

    Most CO (central office) eavesdropping intercepts in a BOC CO
are today performed using a modified MFT (Metallic Facility Termination)
circuit pack which places about a 100,000 ohm isolated bridging impedance
across the subscriber line.  Supervisory signaling is detected on the
subscriber loop using a high-impedance electronic circuit, and the
signaling is repeated in an isolated fashion using the A and B leads of
the repeating coil in the MFT to "reconstruct" a CO line for the benefit
of monitoring apparatus.

    The entire purpose of the above effort is to prevent any trouble
or noise on the intercept line or monitoring apparatus from causing any
trouble, noise or transmission impairment on the subject line.

    Some BOC's may elect to use service observing apparatus to provide
the necessary isolation and repeated loop supervisory signaling.  Less
common are locally engineered variations which merely use an isolation
amplifier from an MFT or other 4-wire repeater, and which provide no
repeated supervisory signaling (which is not all that necessary, since
voice-activated recorders and DTMF signaling detectors can be used, and
since dial pulses can be counted by playing a tape at slow speed).

    Today, the use of a "bridge lifter" retardation coil for the
purpose of connecting an eavesdropping intercept line is virtually
non-existent since they do not provide sufficient isolation and since
they provide a fair amount of insertion loss without loop current on
the "observing" side.  Bridge lifter coils are primarily intended for
answering service intercept lines, and consist of a dual-winding inductor
which passes 20 Hz ringing and whose windings easily saturate when DC
current flows.  Bridge lifter coils are used to minimize the loading effect
(and consequent transmission impairment) of two subscriber loops on one
CO line.  Bridge lifter coils provide a significant insertion loss at voice
frequencies toward the idle loop; i.e., the loop in use will have DC
current flow, saturating the inductor, and reducing its insertion loss to
1.0 dB or less.

> ] If so, does this mean that the electronically inclined and paranoid
> ] among us might be able to keep track of when we are being bugged by
> ] measuring the impedance and capacitance of our lines?

> Actually, it's already been done.

> ] Maybe Sharper Image will start selling a box to watch your line and
> ] tell you when its electrical properties change in a suspicious way?

> I don't know if Sharper Image sells them, but there are any number of
> "security consulting" firms which do.  They include boxes which sit
> beside/beneath the phone to a replacement microphone for a 2500 set
> which has a little LED that lights up if the characteristics of the line
> change...

    As the author of the second article stated, these gadgets are for
the paranoid who have nothing better to waste their money on.

    The simple truth of the matter is that there is NO WAY for any
person using ANY type of apparatus at the telephone set location to
ascertain whether there is a properly installed eavesdropping device
connected across their line in the CO.  The only way such a determination
can be made is through the cooperation of the telephone company.

    For that matter, there is virtually no way for any person using
any type of apparatus in their premises to ascertain if there is ANY type
of eavesdropping apparatus installed ANYWHERE on their telephone line
outside their premises, unless the eavesdropping apparatus was designed
or installed in an exceptionally crude manner (not likely today).  Some
types of eavesdropping apparatus may be located, but only with the full
cooperation of the telephone company.

    The sole capability of these nonsense gadgets is to ascertain if
an extension telephone is picked up during a telephone call, which is
hardly a likely scenario for serious eavesdropping!

    These screw-in-the-handset gadgets work by sensing the voltage
across the carbon transmitter circuit, and using a control to null this
voltage using a comparator circuit.  When a person makes a telephone call,
the control is adjusted until the light just goes out.  If an extension
telephone at the user's end is picked up during the call, the increased
current drain of a second telephone set will decrease the voltage across
the carbon transmitter circuit, unbalancing the voltage comparator circuit,
and thereby causing the LED to light.

    These voltage comparator "tap detectors" cannot even be left with
their setpoint control in the same position, because the effective voltage
across a subscriber loop will vary depending upon the nature of the call
(except in the case of an all digital CO), and upon other conditions in
the CO.  Electromechanical and analog ESS CO's may present different
characteristics to the telephone line, depending upon whether it is used
at the time of: an originated intraoffice call (calling side of intraoffice
trunk), an answered intraoffice call (called side of intraoffice trunk),
an originated tandem call (interoffice tandem trunk), an originated toll
call (toll trunk), or an answered tandem/toll call (incoming tandem or toll
trunk).  There is usually enough variation in battery feed resistance due
to design and component tolerance changes on these different trunks to
cause a variation of up to several volts measured at the subscriber end
for a given loop and given telephone instrument.

    Even more significant are variations in CO battery voltage, which
can vary (within "normal limits") from 48 volts to slightly over 52 volts,
depending upon CO load conditions.  50 to 51 volts in most CO's is a typical
daily variation.  If anyone is curious, connect an _isolated_ voltage
recorder or data logger to a CO loop and watch the on-hook voltage
variations; in many CO's the resultant voltage vs 24-hour time curve will
look just like the inverse of a busy-hour graph from a telephone traffic
engineering text!

    In some all-digital CO apparatus, the subscriber loop signaling is
performed by a solid-state circuit which functions as a constant-current
(or current-limiting) device.  With such a solid-state circuit controlling
loop current, there is no longer ANY meaningful reference to CO battery
voltage; i.e., one cannot even use short-circuit loop current at the
subscriber location to even estimate outside cable plant resistance.

    To explode this myth even further, let's do a little Ohm's Law:

1.    Assume a CO loop with battery fed from a dual-winding A-relay (or
line relay, ESS ferrod line scanner element, or whatever) having 200 ohms
to CO battery and 200 ohms to ground.

2.    Assume a CO loop of 500 ohms (a pretty typical loop).

3.    Assume an eavesdropping device with a DC resistance of 100,000 ohms
(this is still pretty crude, but I'm being generous with my example).

4.    Using some simple Ohm's law, the presence or absence of this
hypothetical eavesdropping device at the SUBSCRIBER PREMISES will result
in a voltage change of less than 0.5 volt when measured in the on-hook
state.  This voltage change is much less than normal variations of CO
battery voltage.

5.    Using some simple Ohm's law, the presence or absence of this
hypothetical eavesdropping device at the CENTRAL OFFICE LOCATION will
result in a voltage change of less than 0.2 volt when measured in the
on-hook state.  This voltage change is an order of magnitude less than
the expected normal variation of CO battery voltage!

    Measuring voltage variations on a subscriber loop in an effort to
detect a state-of-the-art eavesdropping device is meaningless, regardless
of resolution of a voltage measuring device, since the "signal" is in
effect buried in the "noise".

    Moving on to the subject of subscriber line impedance...

    There is simply no way for any device located on the subscriber's
premises to obtain any MEANINGFUL information concerning the impedance
characteristics of the subscriber loop and whether or not anything "unusual"
is connected at the CO (or for that matter, anywhere else on the subscriber
loop).  There are a number of reasons why this is the case, which include
but are not limited to:

1.    The impedance of a typical telephone cable pair results from
distributed impedance elements, and not lumped elements.  Non-loaded
exchange area cable (22 to 26 AWG @ 0.083 uF/mile capacitance) is generally
considered to have a characteristic impedance of 600 ohms (it actually
varies, but this is a good compromise figure).  Loaded exchange area cable,
such as H88 loading which are 88 mH coils spaced at 6 kft intervals, is
generally considered to have a a characteristic impedance of 900 ohms (it
actually varies between 800 and 1,200 ohms, but 900 ohms is generally
regarded as a good compromise figure for the voice frequency range of 300
to 3,000 Hz).  What this means is that a bridged impedance of 100,000 ohms
located in the CO on a typical subscriber loop will result in an impedance
change measured at the SUBSCRIBER LOCATION of 0.1% or less.  That's IF you
could measure the impedance change at the subscriber location.

2.    As a general rule of thumb, the impedance of an exchange area
telephone cable pair changes ONE PERCENT for every TEN DEGREES Fahrenheit
temperature change.  Actual impedance changes are a function of the
frequency at which the impedance is measured, but the above rule is
pretty close for the purposes of this discussion.

3.    Moisture in the telephone cable causes dramatic changes in its
impedance characteristics.  While this may appear obvious in the case of
pulp (i.e., paper) insulated conductors, it is also characteristic of
polyethylene (PIC) insulated conductors.  Only gel-filled cable (icky-PIC),
which still represents only a small percentage of installed cable plant,
is relatively immune from the effects of moisture.

4.    From a practical standpoint, it is extremely difficult to measure
impedance in the presence of the DC potential which is ALWAYS found on
a telephone line.  The subscriber has no means to remove the telephone
pair from the switching apparatus in the CO to eliminate this potential.
Therefore, any attempt at impedance measurement will be subject to DC
current saturation error of any inductive elements found in an impedance
bridge.  The telephone company can, of course, isolate the subscriber cable
pair from the switching apparatus for the purpose of taking a measurement -
but the subscriber cannot.  In addition to the DC current problem, there
is also the problem of impulse and other types of noise pickup on a
connected loop which will impress errors in the impedance bridge detector
circuit.  Such noise primarily results from the on-hook battery feed, and
is present even in ESS offices, with ferrod scanner pulses being a good
source of such noise.  While one could possibly dial a telephone company
"balance termination" test line to get a quieter battery feed, this still
leaves something to be desired for any actual impedance measurements.

5.    Devices which connect to a telephone pair and use a 2-wire/4-wire
hybrid with either a white noise source or a swept oscillator on one
side and a frequency-selective voltmeter on the other side to make a
frequency vs return loss plot provide impressive, but meaningless data.
Such a plot may be alleged to show "changes" in telephone line impedance
characteristics.  There is actual test equipment used by telephone companies
which functions in this manner to measure 2-wire Echo Return Loss (ERL), but
the ERL measurement is meaningless for localization of eavesdropping devices.

6.    It is not uncommon for the routing of a subscriber line cable pair
to change one or more times during its lifetime due to construction and
modification of outside cable plant.  Outside cable plant bridge taps (not
of the eavesdropping variety) can come and go, along with back taps in
the CO to provide uninterrupted service during new cable plant additions.
Not only can the "active" length of an existing cable pair change by several
percent due to construction, but lumped elements of impedance can come and
go due to temporary or permanent bridge taps.

    The bottom line of the above is that one cannot accurately measure
the impedance of a telephone pair while it is connected to the CO switching
apparatus, and even if one could, the impedance changes caused by the
installation of an eavesdropping device will be dwarfed by changes in cable
pair impedance caused by temperature, moisture, and cable plant construction
unknown to the subscriber.

    In some previous discussions in Telecom Digest about a year or so
ago, there was mention of the use of a time domain reflectometer (TDR) for
localization of bridge taps and other anomalies.  While a TDR will provide
a rather detailed "signature" of a cable pair, it has serious limitations
which include, but are not limited to:

1.    A TDR, in general, cannot be operated on a cable pair upon which
there is a foreign potential; i.e., a TDR cannot be used on a subscriber
cable pair which is connected to the CO switching apparatus.

2.    A TDR contains some rather sensitive circuitry used to detect the
reflected pulse energy, and such circuitry is extremely susceptible to
noise found in twisted pair telephone cable.  A TDR is works well with
coaxial cable and waveguide, which are in effect shielded transmission
lines.  The use of a TDR with a twisted cable pair is a reasonable
compromise provided it is a _single_ cable pair within one shield.
The use of a TDR with a twisted cable pair sharing a common shield with
working cable pairs is an invitation to interference by virtue of
inductive and capacitive coupling of noise from the working pairs.

3.    Noise susceptibility issues notwithstanding, most TDR's cannot
be used beyond the first loading coil on a subscriber loop since the
loading coil inductance presents far too much reactance to the short
pulses transmitted by the TDR.  There are one or two TDR's on the market
which claim to function to beyond _one_ loading coil, but their sensitivity
is poor.

    There is simply no device available to a telephone subscriber that
without the cooperation of the telephone company which can confirm or deny
the presence of any eavesdropping device at any point beyond the immediate
premises of the subscriber.  I say "immediate premises of the subscriber"
because one presumes that the subscriber has the ability to isolate the
premises wiring from the outside cable plant, and therefore has complete
inspection control over the premises wiring.

    I have used the phrase "without the cooperation of the telephone
company" several times in this article.  No voltage, impedance or TDR
data is meaningful without knowing the actual circuit layout of the
subscriber loop in question.  Circuit layout information includes such
data as exact length and guages of loop sections, detailed description of
loading (if present), presence and location of multiples and bridge taps,
calculated and measured resistance of the loop, loop transmission loss, etc.
Ain't no way that a telephone company is going to furnish that information
to a subscriber!  Sometimes it's even difficult for a government agency to
get this information without judicial intervention.

    Despite what I have stated in this article, readers will see claims
made by third parties as to the existence of devices which will detect the
presence of telephone line eavesdropping beyond the subscriber's immediate
premises.  With the exception of the trivial cases of serious DC current
draw by an extension telephone or the detection of RF energy emitted by
a transmitter, this just ain't so.  Companies like Communication Control
Corp. (which advertises in various "executive" business publications) get
rich by selling devices which claim to measure minute voltage and impedance
changes on a telephone line - but consider those claims in view of the
voltage changes due to CO battery variations and due to temperature changes
in outside cable plant - and one should get the true picture.

<>  Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp.
<>  UUCP   {allegra|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry
<>  TEL  [phone] | 716/773-1700  {hplabs|utzoo|uunet}!/     \uniquex!larry
<>  FAX  [phone] | 716/773-2488     "Have you hugged your cat today?"

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #236
*****************************










Date:     Sat, 15 Jul 89 0:03:21 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #237
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sat, 15 Jul 89 00:00:23 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 237

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Satanic Long Distance Carrier (Nathan Glasser)
    Multi-function phone device? (Will Martin)
    Bugging Detectors (Frank Cunningham)
    Call For Papers: Voice In Computing (Ragui Kamel)
    Readers' Experiences With Broken Payphone (S.M. Krieger)
    Telephone Intercom Wanted (John Hall)
    Two questions -- CM8 Mux and Intellidial (Barry Shein)
    Re: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card? (John Cowan)

[Moderator's Note: There is about a two day backlog of mail. Please be
patient. I hope to have it all cleared out and posted this weekend. PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Nathan Glasser <[e-mail]>
Subject: Satanic Long Distance Carrier
Date: 13 Jul 89 19:08:32 GMT
Organization: MIT EE/CS Computer Facility, Cambridge, MA

I am served by New England Telephone in Somerville, MA, which became
ESS and began allowing custom calling features a couple of years ago.
I have had the same phone number since before this change took place.
For the record, AT&T is my primary long distance carrier.

I discovered an interesting feature a couple of nights ago involving
three-way calling and equal access. If, while talking on the phone to
someone, I flick (my word for pressing the switch hook in order to
activate three-way calling) and call 10-666-1-<area code><number>,
after the <area code>, I get a ringing following by an error message
"Your long distance call cannot be completed as dialed..."

Fine, that sounds like maybe an invalid long distance carrier code, you
say. So I hang up on this message by flicking a few more times. However,
it is no longer possible for me to dial any other calls after flicking! If
I flick and begin dialing any phone number, I get the same message given
above after dialing any of 10,1<area code>,0<area code>,<local prefix>, or
00. (I didn't try 0 or 0<local prefix>). This seems to last for the
duration of the original call, or at least for quite a long time. However,
hanging up the phone entirely, disconnecting the original call, solves the
problem.

A feature(?) of the three-way calling in my area is that if I flick,
wait for the dial tone, and then hang up, my phone will begin ringing
until I answer it, at which point I'm back with the original call.
Handy for transferring between phones on the same line in different rooms.
(Is this true of three-way calling in all areas?)

Anyway, I found that if I do the flick-and-hang-up trick, things also
go back to normal.

So is 666 the code for a Satanic long distance carrier, or what?
--
                Nathan Glasser
fnord                nathan@{mit-eddie.uucp, brokaw.lcs.mit.edu}
ST Quote: "I've never heard a malfunction threaten me before." - Sulu
Question: "Our prices range from $20-$40, and up." What does that mean?

[Moderator's Note: It is worth noting that '666' has never been, and probably
never will be assigned as part of a carrier access code, due to the ignorance
and superstition so prevalent among many Americans. Illinois Bell even has
a hard time getting people to take service on the old Monroe CO, which went
from Monroe to MONroe to MO-6 and finally '666'.  Checker and Yellow Taxicab
Radio Dispatching was on there for over sixty years: MON ==> MO 6 ==> 666-3700,
and they finally gave up and moved to a different CO. They say they got a lot
of harassing phone calls from, uh, strange people. PT]

------------------------------

Date:     Thu, 13 Jul 89 8:01:43 CDT
From:     Will Martin <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Multi-function phone device?

>From: Mike Morris <[e-mail]>
>Subject: Demon Dialers (was: Speed Dialing)
>...
>memory gets zapped by an incoming call (ring voltage?).  The transformer
>(wall-plug-power-cube) is buzzy - we had to move the device into the basement
>as it kept my wife away when it was behind the curtain in the living room,
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                    ^^^^
I know some people who would pay a lot for such a device... :-) :-) :-)

Regards, Will

PS I think the poster meant "awake" instead of "away", right?... WM :-)

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 13 Jul 89 12:07:41 edt
From: Frank Cunningham <[e-mail]>
Subject: Bugging Detectors

About a week back, someone mentioned in passing bugging detectors.
I would like to know:
-What are some of the detection technologies used ?
-What assumptions do they make about the nature of the bug ?
-How are they calibrated ?
-How sensitive are various schemes to local line variations due
to extension loading, rain and ice, etc ?
-How can a user distinguish between an honest supplier and some
ex-intelligence type selling snake oil for gullible Republicans ?
-Frank Cunningham    smart: [e-mail]
            dumb: {husc6,linus,harvard,bbn}!spdcc!lexicon!fc
            phone: [phone]


------------------------------

From: ragui Kamel <bnr-di![e-mail]>
Subject: Call For Papers: Voice In Computing
Date: 13 Jul 89 14:44:30 GMT
Organization: DI, Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Ont.



               Call for Papers and Referees

              Special issue of IEEE Computer

                    Voice in Computing

The August 1990 issue of IEEE Computer is dedicated to the topic of
Voice in Computing.  Surveys, Tutorials, system or application
descriptions or case studies are solicited in the following areas:

*    Computer interface to voice communications including call
         management, phone answering and voice conferencing.

*    Voice manipulation by computer including recording, storage
         and editing.

*    Computer voice applications including voice mail systems and
         voice response systems.

*    Integrated voice/data applications, including voice annotation
         voice/data conferencing and uses of ISDN.

*    Voice in computer user interfaces including use of speech-
         synthesis and recognition.

*    Speech synthesis or recognition systems

*    Computer architectures for voice including workstation
         support, voice servers and distributed connection control.


                                Manuscript Submission
                                ------------------------
Papers should be original submissions of no more than 30 typed double-
spaced pages single-sided (approx. 8,000 words) , including all illustrations
and references.  Other than for survey articles, no more than 12 references
should be cited.

Papers should include a cover sheet providing the name and affiliation of
the author(s), their complete address, E-mail address, Fax and telephone
number.  A short (300 word) abstract and a list of keywords should also be
part of the title page.


                                  Deadlines
                                  ----------
    300 word abstract due as soon as possible

    8 Copies of manuscript due                November 1, 1989

    Notification of acceptance                January 1, 1990

    Revised manuscripts due                March 1, 1990


                                 Submissions
                                 -------------
Please send submissions or questions to

    Ragui Kamel,
    Computing Research Laboratory
    Bell-Northern Research
    P.O. Box  3511 - Station C
    Ottawa, Canada K1Y 4H7

    Tel [phone]
    Fax [phone]
    E-mail: [e-mail]


                                  Referees
                                  ---------
If you are willing to review papers for IEEE Computer, please contact

    Dr. Bruce Shriver,
    Editor-in-Chief, Computer
    Vice-President for Research
    University of Southwestern Louisiana
    Drawer 42730
    Lafayette, LA 70504

    Tel [phone]
    E-mail  [e-mail].


------------------------------

Date: Thu, 13 Jul 89 14:54:41 EDT
From: S M Krieger <[e-mail]>
Subject: Readers' Experiences with Broken Payphones
Organization: Summit NJ
Lines: 42


After the fourth time in about a year and a half where I had
a problem with an NJ Bell payphone, and the operator was
anywhere from totally uncooperative to totally useless, I
complained to the president of NJ Bell.  The response I got
was to the effect that if a payphone customer needs operator
help because a payphone won't accept coins, the customer will
be charged at the coin-deposit rate, once the NJB software is
updated to let operators bill like that.  Through this posting,
I'd like to know what readers' experiences have been, both in NJ and
elsewhere.

In the four cases I complained about, I could not put coins in a
payphone.  In one case, a payphone was dead, but a "coinless" phone
right next to it worked; in the second case, coins went right from
the slot to the coin return, and in the other two cases, the slot
was blocked (and as it was later explained to me, it meant the coin
box was full).  Also, in all four cases, only intra-LATA calls where
involved (two local and two toll calls), and all the phones were NJ
Bell phones.

In all these cases, I called the operator (from the adjacent coinless
phone in the first case, from the phone that didn't want my money in the
other three cases), explained the problem, and the operator happily
offered "alternative billing";  in all cases though, even a credit
card call would have been more expensive than feeding in coins.  In each
case I said OK, but that she could bill my credit card only the amount
of a coin-deposit call.  In all cases, she refused, as did her
supervisor.  What finally prompted me to complain though was not the
fact that the operator wouldn't work with me, but when, as usual I
told the operator that she could charge only the coin deposit rate to
my credit card, she merely repeated her question about alternate billing,
and as I was repeating my response, she hung up on me.

I have not encountered a payphone that didn't want my money since
then, so I'm just curious to find out if others have had NJ Bell
work with them in a case like this, as well as how this problem has
been handled elsewhere (this letter and response were written about
four months ago).
--
Stan Krieger
Summit, NJ
 ...!att!attunix!smk

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 14 Jul 89 08:17:10 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Telephone Intercom Wanted

I have six telephones in my house.  I'd like to be able to call from one
phone to another by dialling a one or two digit code.

Does anyone know of a box that does this at a reasonable price?

I'd prefer a system that understands both tone and pulse dialling, but
tone only would be OK.  I imagine that such a system would require me to
dial an extra digit like '1' or '9' to connect to the outside line.

It should have a "conference" capability, so that when we make an
outside call, my wife and I can be on separate phones.

Six phones to one outside line will meet my current needs.  Some
expansion capability, maybe ten phones to two lines, would be nice.
Price is important.  It shouldn't cost more than, say, a VCR.

Each phone has a separate set of wires that all connect to a common
terminal block where the phone line enters the house.  I envision a unit
that I can mount right at that box.

Thanks,

John Hall, Product Software Engineering, Software Systems Division
EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY, 901 Elmgrove Rd., Rochester, NY 14653-5403
[e-mail]       ...!rochester!kodak!john        716 726-9345


[Moderator's Note: Please see the solution discussed by Barry Shein in
the message which follows.  PT]


------------------------------

Date: Fri, 14 Jul 89 21:30:45 EDT
From: Barry Shein <[e-mail]>
Subject: Two questions -- CM8 Mux and Intellidial


1) Our building ran out of capacity so New England TelCo told us that
they will be running a "CM8" which provides a multiplexed line
service. Any caveats regarding this, particularly with using data
modems?

2) New England TelCo called me and offered a new service called
"Intellidial" which claims to offer all the services of a Merlin or
similar key system onto your regular phone lines from the central
office. Since I'm about to move into new office space and I'm looking
for a key or hybrid anyhow (suggestions very welcome!) I bit.

It can be ordered on a month by month basis and would only cost me
about $50 to try for one month in this location so what the heck. I
was just wondering if anyone has any experience with this service,
particularly things we should try or ask about before committing to it
rather than a key/hybrid system.

    -Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade
1330 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA 02146, [phone]
Internet: [e-mail]
UUCP:     encore!xylogics!skuld!bzs or uunet!skuld!bzs

[Moderator's Note: In reference to your question (2) above, here in Chicago
this is called "Starline", and I've had it on my phones for a couple years
with good results. In addition to intercom service between phones, Starline
(or Intellidial as you called it) offers the ability to pick up any ringing
phone from any other location; transfer of calls between phones; distinctive
ring for intercom versus incoming calls from outside, and more. I'd take
it anyday over more conventional PBX equipment. Cheaper, too.   PT]

------------------------------

From: John Cowan <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card?
Reply-To: John Cowan <[e-mail]>
Organization: ESCC,  New York City
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 89 18:40:49 GMT

>[Moderator's Note:  ... I got *my* calling card from Illinois Bell,
>and although the number is identical (including the PIN) to the one I also
>got from AT&T,

Naturally.  A BOC calling card >is< an AT&T calling card.  I frequently use
my New York Telephone calling card out-of-state, dialing 10288 where necessary,
and never have a problem.  Why this hook between AT&T and the BOCs still exists
I don't know -- doesn't the MFJ prevent BOCs from giving AT&T special
treatment?

--
Internet/Smail: [e-mail]    Dumb: uunet!hombre!marob!cowan
Fidonet:  JOHN COWAN of 1:107/711    Magpie: JOHN COWAN, [phone]
        Charles li reis, nostre emperesdre magnes
        Set anz toz pleins at estet in Espagne.

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #237
*****************************










Date:     Sat, 15 Jul 89 1:04:31 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #238
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sat, 15 Jul 89 01:00:00 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 238

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Local Area Calls in New Jersey/California/Mass (Jon Solomon)
    Local Area Calls in the Bay Area of California (Ben Ullrich)
    Local Area Calls in Chicago (TELECOM Moderator)
    Local Area Calls in Hartford, CT/Metro New York (Douglas S. Reuben)
    Local Area Calls in Metro Denver (Steve Spearman)
    Local Area Calls in New Hampshire (Joel B. Levin)
    Local Area Calls in 508 Area of Massachusetts (Michael A. Patton)

[Moderator's Note: This theme began when a user wrote, "can I save on
toll charges by linking two local lines together via call forwarding?"
I responded he could do so, but the savings, if any, would be very
dubious, since two or three local calls tallied together seldom were
less expensive than a straight-through toll call. In the messages below,
you will read that with the notable exceptions of New York City, most cities
still have at least some local 'free' calling zone. Chicago has a rather
small local area considered free *for residence customers only*  PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:  Thu, 13 Jul 89 10:23:54 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Local Area Calls in New Jersey/California/Mass

Okay, you asked for it....:-)

New Jersey: I've been in two places, Hoboken (newark,jersey city); and
New Brunswick.

New Jersey has 2 area codes (not for long); 201 and 609. But that's
not what I came to talk about. I came to talk about the Hoboken "local
calling area". The Hoboken area has a 3-tier system just like Boston,
local calls are the 1 message unit calls for measured service if you
buy unmeasured service.  Here you can have both in the same house, so
if you make alot of calls to zone 2 and 3, you can get a flat rate
line for the zone 1 calls and a measured line (which includes 30
units) for zone 2 and 3. Measured service has the advantage that most
of the charge for the line is in providing the message units. In Boston,
Measured service costs $3.50/month and $2.75 of it is paying for the
30 message units, so you get a phone line for $0.75 if you make enough
calls to warrant getting it.

Once you leave the "metropolitan area" near Hoboken and Newark, you
go into Suburban NJ, where the calling plan basically works like most
suburban systems. Local calling to the areas that border yours, and maybe
an exchange or two further, and toll calls for the rest. New Brunswick had
a fairly large local calling area, and I never lived so far away from
Rutgers that calling in via data was a toll call. In this area it is just
like the rest of them, you can't get measured and flat rate service in the
same area; however, in most of NJ, measured service is designed for those
who can't afford or don't want flat rate service. The default is flat
rate. The rates for phone service in NJ are quite reasonable.

Now onto California. Much of California is a desert wasteland with
basically local calling areas much like NJ with toll calling everywhere
else. Notable exceptions are the Bay area and LA (where most of the people
live ;-)). In these areas, zone calling replaced much of the major local
calling some years ago. Local calling areas shrunk in size drastically,
and now some places in San Francisco are toll calls (as opposed to cheaper
Zone calls) from other places in San Francisco. Basically Pac Tel tried to
find some way to increase revenues and the PUC bought it.

Right now there is a plan in consideration for returning zone 2 calls to
the local calling area in exchange for raising the rate for local service
(currently set to $8.25/mo). It is cheap to get phone service in California,
but you can't call anywhere.

In most cities I have lived in, the zone charges are reasonable, and toll
charges either are or aren't. In CT, the toll charges are quite high and
SNET receives alot of revenue from them. Local exchange rates are also
quite high. SNET has a well managed rate system in my opinion. California
has outrageous toll calling rates. The price for a call to San Francisco
from LA is higher than a call to Boston from LA by a hefty margin.

New Jersey, and Mass, have reasonable toll calling rates within their
states. I can talk for 5 minutes to someone on the other side of (508)
for about a buck (so they advertize), and it's not much of a bite out
of my phone bill to use the phone. I like Mass' multiple-choice local
exchange service rates (measured, flat rate, metropolitan, circle calling,
etc), since you can pay for what you get.

One thing I remember in LA which was being phased out when I lived
there was FEX service. If you lived, say in Santa Monica (213-828) and
wanted to call the USC dialups (213-743), it was generally suggested
that you get a Culver City (213-558) or Beverly Hills (213-556)
Foreign Exchange line and make the calls for free. At that time,
FEX charging was a bit higher than regular lines, but it was worth
it in the cost savings on data calls which had high holding times.
Flat rate FEX was axed at the time I was there, so if you *did* get a
FEX, you had to pay 20% more than the normal 1 message unit rate on
calls made from the FEX. You could still receive calls, but you
couldn't make the calls. PacTel seems to have something against DATA
calls. NET in Boston doesn't mind them (NET converted all their
interexchange lines to T1 and send 24 calls on each set of 2 pairs),
however they insist that incoming data lines be business service
(higher cost). You don't need FEX service in NET land unless you
live outside of the extended Metropolitan Calling area, and want
to call into it. You then needed a FEX to the nearest exchange that
has Metro service (for residences) or a FEX to the nearest exchange
inside the metro calling area, or 1 message unit from your target
exchange (business).

Nowadays FEXes in California are extremely expensive. Mileage is
something like $15/mile and you don't get flat rate service (the
installation charge is outrageous). They really discourage the use of
FEXes but don't offer any alternative to them. If you make more than
$600/month in data calls to one specific number, then you can justify
a FEX for that one number. If you require further service, PacTel
recommends that you get several PBXes or a Centrexen and run tie lines
between your locations and use them to make your calls.

Both PacTel and NET are pushing 800 service for incoming use and OUT-WATS
for outgoing use to save money. Of course, you don't save much. Basically,
PacTel is pushing the high cost of their past mistakes in the setting up
of phone service (loans they have to pay back, interest, etc) on those
who use the network, while other phone companies are charging their customers
for basic service to cover costs (SNET is doing BOTH -- they were the
first phone company to be all-dial-it-yourself back when Step Switching
was the rage, and now they have to convert to electronic switching and
need capital to do it).

One final note: In LA, I can remember choosing my place of residence
based on the local calling area, particularly if it would be local to
USC, where I worked, and got my daily fix of compute cycles. :-)

--jsol

------------------------------

Subject: Local Area Calls in the Bay Area of California
Organization: sybase, inc., emeryville, ca.
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 89 18:58:36 -0700
From: ben ullrich <[e-mail]>

> How many other major cities still are unmetered?

Here in the Bay Area, at least 408 & 415 are unmetered for residential service
(when you get the flat rate service from Pacific Bell, as ooposed to measured
service), and metered for business service.  I bet this is the case for the
whole Pacific Bell service area, but I don't know for sure.


 ...ben
----
ben ullrich           consider my words disclaimed,if you consider them at all
sybase, inc., emeryville, ca
+1 (415) 596 - 3500                     this space for rent
[e-mail]                   {pyramid,pacbell,sun,lll-tis}!sybase!ben

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 14 Jul 89 1:00:39 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Local Area Calls in Metro Chicago Area

Here in Chicago, in fact all over northern Illinois in the 312/708/815
area codes, there is one class of service for all residential subscribers
and one class for business users.

For business users, ALL calls are timed, including the ones to very near-by
places. Measurement is done in 'units', which is a function of the length
of the call times the distance. A one minute call could range between 0.6
and 5 units, depending on the distance between subscribers. Between 9 PM
and 9AM daily, the total number of units used is adjusted by 33 percent.

For residential subscribers, the situation is a little different. The charge
for a 'local call' is one unit during the day, and 0.67 units during the
9 PM to 9 AM time period each day.

The 'local area' calls are untimed, and are always one (or .67ths) of a
unit. The local area is a relative matter. It includes your own switching
center, as well as most, if not all, of the ajoining offices. Your local
area is always approximatly eight miles in any direction of your switch.

Calls outside this area are timed, and the units keep adding up. The
charge is calculated on length of time the connection was up times the
mileage between switches. If your eight mile -- your switch and neighbor
switches -- crosses the boundary from one city to another, fine. If it
crosses the Indiana/Illinois border, again fine. If a call is timed, then
the cost will be at least two units, and probably a lot more. Like the
business deal, calls made between 9 PM and 9 AM are given a thirty percent
discount.

For both business and residence subscribers, the cost per unit ranges
from 5.2 cents for the first thirty units. The cost of units drops to
3.5 cents each as you use more. It is worth noting that if you make a lot
of your calls in the evening, the 33 percent discount in *the number
of units used* -- as opposed to the cost of each unit -- it takes longer
to reach the required number of units in Illinois Bell's tariffs.

Residential users with modems typically use $100 - 150 worth of units
per month.

There is virtually no such thing as a 'free call' in northern Illinois.
We had unlimited calling, (that is, calls from around Chicago) until 1987.
In March, 1987, this plan was dropped (actually, there were about 100
variations on the plan) and the ESS computer took over.


------------------------------

Date: 14-JUL-1989 03:10:50.62
From: "DOUGLAS SCOTT REUBEN)" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Local Area Calls in Hartford, CT/Metro New York City Area

In response to jsol's post about untimed/unlimited toll-free calling
areas, I noted that he mentioned how Hartford was expanding their local
area.

About 2 years ago, we got a ballot from SNET asking if Middletown
customers (203-344,346,347,638) would agree to pay a slightly higher
monthly rate if in return SNET would give us unlimited toll-free
access to Hartford.

In light of what appears to be an expansion of the Hartford toll-free
area, I am wondering if anyone has heard if the plan to allow toll-
free Middletown -> Hartford calls has been approved?

Also, as for NYC, there is no unlimited service there. Callers IN
the 5 boroughs of NYC pay 10.2 cents for a call anywhere in the
718/212 areas, or between the two. (This is daytime...standard eve/night
discounts apply). If you have unlimited service, you can talk as
long as you want (years, for that matter...), and still pay only
10.2 cents.

There used to be unlimited calling, or "flate rate", where you pay
a certain amount per month and all calls within your local area
(nearby exchanges) were free. They don't offer this anymore in NYC,
but people who had it before this was changed can still keep it.
Some of the "flate rate" area crosses into area code 516 for certain
border communities in Nassau County. I assume this is the same case
near the Bronx/Westchester Co. Line.

The nearby suburbs in New York all have unlimited "flat rate" as an
option, but there are no "free" calls to NYC, from anywhere, as
there are in the Boston suburbs.

Recently down-state New York set up a new Regional Calling Plan, which
replaced the "band" system of calling. Previously, you were billed
by distance, IE, a call from NYC to Montauk Point at the tip of Long
Island would be something like a Band "E", the most expensive (or
was there an "F"?). Now, calls are billed by area. If you call within
your area (NYC for example) you pay a set rate for that area (10.2
cents in NYC). If you call from one area to another, ie, NYC to
Westchester, your call is not itemized but billed as a "Westchester
Region" call, and you pay whatever the fixed rate NYC to Westchester is.

This is a bit simpler than the "band" calling, as there are only a few
ares to remember (NYC, Nassau Co, Western Suffolk Co, Eastern Suffolk Co,
Lower Westchester Co + Greenwhich/Byram CT, and Upper Westchester Co.)
Moreover, you don't have to know the distance of your call, but just
the area you are calling in order to know what you will pay.

Some customers are paying more because of this, ie if you live in
the nothern section of "Lower Westchester" and want to call the
southern section of "Upper Westchester", but are not local. However,
if this happens, NY Tel will credit you with the difference between
what the new plan charges you and what the old plan would have charged.
This is automatic and appears on every bill where it is applicable.

I'm sure there are plenty of things I left out, but so as not to stretch
the patience of readers who are not from the area, I'll end it here.

I'm almost sure that's how things work in the NY Metro area, but not
having been in one place for a while now, I'm not sure...As usual,
corrections are welcome...

-Doug

[e-mail]
[e-mail]@wesleyan.bitnet
(and just plain old "dreuben" to locals! :-)  )
(Hmmm...I need a new .sig file...That's *so* passe' !)

------------------------------

From: Steve Spearman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Local Area Calls in Metro Denver
Date: 14 Jul 89 14:06:54 GMT
Organization: AT&T, Denver, CO


In article <[e-mail]>, techwood![e-mail]
(John Wheeler) says:
> We do not, and never have had metered service here in Atlanta,
> discussably (which we have done on here) the largest local
> calling area. How many other major cities still are unmetered?

The Denver metro area does not have metered service for most
customers, though you can hear them salivating at the idea over
at U.S. West.  They have also claimed that we have one of the largest
local calling areas in the country; I think it is from about Castle
Rock on the South through Boulder on the North which must be at least
40 or 50 miles North to South.

Steve Spearman  att!druco!spear

------------------------------

From: Joel B Levin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Local Area Calls in New Hampshire
Date: 13 Jul 89 12:50:14 GMT
Reply-To: Joel B Levin <[e-mail]>
Organization: BBN Communications Corporation


In article <[e-mail]> John Wheeler <techwood!
[e-mail]> writes:
|We do not, and never have had metered service here in Atlanta,
|discussably (which we have done on here) the largest local
|calling area. How many other major cities still are unmetered?

Nashua, the second largest city in New Hampshire, and its surrounding
towns do not have metered service.  I believe the same is true of
Manchester, the largest city, though I don't recall having read the
relevant parts of the Manchester white pages.  This means that
(probably) the entire state of New Hampshire is free of measured
service (for residents-- I'm not sure about business service).

Of course, I don't know if any of the above (or all of it) qualifies
as a "major city".  :-)

    /JBL
=
UUCP:     [e-mail] (new) or {backbone}!bbn!levin (old)
INTERNET: [e-mail]               POTS: [phone]
   "Earn more sessions by sleeving."

------------------------------

Date:  Fri, 14 Jul 89 22:53:09 CDT
Subject: Local Area Calls in 508 Area of Mass.
From: "Michael A. Patton" <[e-mail]>


I have a side note to JSol's message about Boston area calling plans.
I used to live in a suburb quite a way outside Boston (it's now part
of area 508) and had Metropolitan service.  The free calling area
consisted of two non-contiguous areas, the normal local area and the
Metro area.  Since the introduction of 508 was promoted as not
changing local calling areas I assume this service would still be
available with two free areas each completely within different area
codes and not touching in any location.

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #238
*****************************










Date:     Sat, 15 Jul 89 12:16:12 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #239
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sat, 15 Jul 89 11:43:04 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 239

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Re: Wardialers (Dave Fiske)
    Re: Praise the Lord and pass the RF filters (Chuck Bennett)
    Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters (John Wheeler)
    Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (John Higdon)
    Re: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card? (John Wheeler)
    Re: Why Can't I Choose AT&T? (John Wheeler)
    Re: NNX-0000 (Andrew Boardman)
    Re: NNX-0000 (Laura Halliday)
    Re: NNX-0000 (Seth Zirin)
    Re: NNX-0000 (John DeBert)
    Re: NNX-0000 (Roy Smith)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Dave Fiske <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Wardialers
Date: 14 Jul 89 16:20:49 GMT
Organization: BRS Info Technologies, Latham NY

In article <[e-mail]>, nsc!berlioz.nsc.com!
[e-mail] (George Wang) writes:
> Hi there...
>
> I just recently saw some interesting information on the subject
> of war-dialers and phone "hackers".... Supposedly there are
> people who use their personal computers to "hack" out 950-XXXX
> or 800 LD phone services....
>
> I was just curious as to the reality of this and also the
> circumstances involved in doing such a thing (I'm sure you'd
> get into a LOT of trouble, no doubt!)... More importantly, what
> have the LD phone companies been doing on this matter? It seems
> that a while back someone had "hacked" my LD calling card.
> No doubt I was upset, but what can the phone company do to prevent
> such a thing?  With all the info here on ESS and other sophisticated
> systems, do these devices provide "anti-hacking" routines??

About 6 weeks ago, I was desperate to get through to a Technical
Support number for a mail-order place I had bought some computer
equipment from.  Of course the line was nearly constantly busy.
Finally, I decided I would just keep dialing the number as long as it
took, until I got through.  Since I was calling from the office, I was
using my US Sprint Fon Card.

After probably a half hour of repeatedly dialing the same busy number,
I started getting a recording that my Fon Card number was not
authorized.  By this time, I was tired of dialing anyway, so I figured
maybe it was just Sprint having a computer problem or something, so I
didn't try again till the next day.  Same thing.  So I called Sprint
Customer Service.  They cross-examined me about my address, various
details about my account, what number I had been calling and when, etc.
Once they determined that I was really the person who belonged to that
account, they said the unusually high  number of calls in such a short
period of time had triggered their security system.  Apparently Sprint
Security tried to contact me, but when I moved a couple years ago, I
forgot to tell them of the change of my home phone number.  So they
called the number they had, which, of course, has been assigned to
someone else now, and I guess they figured they had really caught a
phone hacker, and they cancelled my Fon Card.

The representative said they have no way to reinstate a cancelled card,
so they would have to give me a new number and card, which would take
two weeks.

I certainly had mixed emotions on this.  I was glad to know that Sprint
does some type of monitoring for security purposes, but it seemed like
they jumped the gun a bit--since all the calls I attempted had only
reached busy numbers, no revenue was being lost.  Plus, wouldn't it be
natural to assume that since I had kept getting busy signals, that it
really was me calling over and over again, trying to get through?
(Also, I had called this same number several times in the preceding
weeks, and gotten through--a quick check of my billing information
would have shown this.)

Having to wait two weeks to get another Fon Card is goofy, too.  It
makes the customer suffer for what was really Sprint's problem.
--
"MAN USES TAPE TO STICK              Dave Fiske  ([e-mail])
 HIS TOE BACK ON!"
                                     Home:  [e-mail]
Headline from Weekly World News             CIS: 75415,163  GEnie: davef

[Moderator's Note: Mr. Fisk, you forgot to mention the article said it was
*electrical tape* he used for the repair work. But in a more serious vein,
Sprint pulls this kind of garbage all the time. They have no reluctance
to cancel accounts at will. No advance notice; no provision for immediate
restoration in the event of an error, etc. One reason some of us have
remained loyal users of AT&T over the years has been that AT&T would not
simply knock someone off the network -- completely disrupting their use
of long distance -- without advance warning whenever possible.  PT]

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 13 Jul 89 08:21 EST
From: "Chuck Bennett    [phone]" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and pass the RF filters

> From: John Wheeler <techwood![e-mail]>
> Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and pass the RF filters
> Date: 12 Jul 89 02:08:25 GMT
> Reply-To: John Wheeler <techwood![e-mail]>
> Organization: Turner Entertainment Networks Library; Atlanta

 ... (deleted)

> One of these days I swear I'm gonna take a florescent tube out there
> just to see if it glows...betcha it does!
>
My father a Bell Labs, WECo, "Telephone Pioneer", etc., graduated from
Ga. Tech in 1942 (I was born 5 months later).  He tells a story about
an apartment where he and my mother lived that was located VERY near
WSB and that the lights never really went completely dark, even when
switched off ;-).

Chuck Bennett

------------------------------

From: John Wheeler <techwood![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and Pass the RF Filters
Date: 15 Jul 89 02:55:45 GMT
Reply-To: John Wheeler <techwood![e-mail]>
Organization: Turner Entertainment Networks Library; Atlanta


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(TELECOM Moderator) writes:

>X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 208, message 1 of 3
>
>In November, 1986, the station raised its antenna to 500 feet from 400 feet,
>and increased its power from 30,000 to 50,000 watts, Alexander said.

This is certainly not POWERFUL as far as FM'ers go, of course. FM simply
CAN'T do these things...either it's an AM simulcast or one heck of
a bad transmitter.

--
          Turner                                       John Wheeler
     E N T E R T A I N M E N T     ...!gatech!nanovx!techwood!johnw
                Networks
     Techwood Library * home of Superstation TBS * TNT * TBS Sports

[Moderator's Note: See various technical messages over the past month which
discussed this message in great detail, and the suspected problems. PT]

------------------------------

From: John Higdon <zygot![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin [from LA Times]
Date: 14 Jul 89 06:55:54 GMT
Organization: ATI Wares Team


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Ron
Natalie) writes:
> Further more, the ring the caller hears may have nothing to do
> with the ringing the phone gets.  Calling adjacent CENTREX
> extensions in my office causes me to hear the ring not in
> phase with the ringing noise my phone makes.

Ah, that's the key. What you observe is ringback tone "out of phase"
with the ringing current on the called line. It will, however, have
identical cadance. Ringing current may actually be applied before the
first cycle of ringback tone. But it is incorrect to say that which the
caller hears has NOTHING to do with ringing current.
--
        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
      [e-mail]       | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

------------------------------

From: John Wheeler <techwood![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card?
Date: 15 Jul 89 03:43:51 GMT
Reply-To: John Wheeler <techwood![e-mail]>
Organization: Turner Entertainment Networks Library; Atlanta


Replying to...
>[Moderator's Note:
>Sprint also issues cards, as does MCI. You have to be on their network to
>get their cards however. I don't think AT&T requires this.  PT]

Not true, Patrick. I have never had Sprint as my carrier and I have
had a Sprint FonCard for 2 years.
--
          Turner                                       John Wheeler
     E N T E R T A I N M E N T     ...!gatech!nanovx!techwood!johnw
                Networks
     Techwood Library * home of Superstation TBS * TNT * TBS Sports


------------------------------

From: John Wheeler <techwood![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Why can't I choose AT&T?
Date: 15 Jul 89 03:40:17 GMT
Reply-To: John Wheeler <techwood![e-mail]>
Organization: Turner Entertainment Networks Library; Atlanta


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

>X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 231, message 5 of 8

>  I'm about to move into housing built by my employer, who owns the
>switch that my phone service will be on.  According to everyone I've
>asked, I will not have a choice of long distance carrier.  Access
>codes won't work (I'll get a busy signal after dialing 1-0, just like
>I do now from my work phone), and the local company (NJ Bell) says
>they can't install a phone for me.

The apartment complex I live in has the same sort of arrangement. Instead
of a Southern Bell line, my service comes from a company called Star*Touch,
and they have an agreement with Telecom*USA (all these stars!). The switch
simply dials an access number, pops in the appropriate access code, and
you have long distance service. They simply have no way of accounting
for any other carriers than the one they provide. You, as a user never
get a REAL Southern Bell dialtone (even though they actually provide the
lines) so you have no way of dialing 10+ codes. Of course you can
use the surcharged Travel Card 800 numbers...
--
          Turner                                       John Wheeler
     E N T E R T A I N M E N T     ...!gatech!nanovx!techwood!johnw
                Networks
     Techwood Library * home of Superstation TBS * TNT * TBS Sports


------------------------------

Date: Thu, 13 Jul 89 10:53:47 EDT
From: Andrew Boardman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: NNX-0000
Organization: Columbia University

In article <[e-mail]> Kent writes:
>Why are NNX-0000 (I hope I have the N's and X's straight) numbers so
>rare?

In New York, at least until recently, calling this number on many exchanges
would tell you what kind of machinery the exchange was running on.  I have
also noted recently (although down in C&P territory) regular subscriber
numbers in the NNX-99XX range, which also used to be generally inviolable.

/a

------------------------------

Date: 13 Jul 89  9:30 -0700
From: laura halliday <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: NNX-0000

In TELECOM Digest V9 #234, Kent Borg asks:

> Why are NNX-0000 (I hope I have the N's and X's straight) numbers so
> rare?

Assuming that the interdiction stemmed from an oddity of step-by-step
switching, I asked my Dad, who worked for BCTel from the early 1950's
until his retirement in the mid 1980's, and was part of the team that
converted Vancouver to automatic switching. For reasons that were never
clear (testing purposes?), the position in Strowger switches that
corresponded to NNX-0000 was left blank, and calls could not be completed
to such a number. Now, of course, any number is fair game, but there are
still echos of this. For example, a system used at BCTel to keep track of
service orders could not process an order for NNX-9999 or NNX-0000, as it
used such numbers internally as sentinels.

Speaking of local calling areas, though Vancouver's is largish, there are
some *huge* calling areas in the interior of B.C. You can phone from
Baker Creek, B.C. (604-249) to Macalister (604-993) on a local call. The
road distance is approximately 80 miles, but due to the sparse population
the entire area is served by only 4 telephone prefixes.

 ...laura halliday, University of B.C.

------------------------------

From: "seth.zirin" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: NNX-0000
Date: 13 Jul 89 18:42:59 GMT
Reply-To: "seth.zirin" <[e-mail]>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories


In article <[e-mail]> Kent Borg <lloyd!kent@
husc6.harvard.edu> writes:
>
>Why are NNX-0000 (I hope I have the N's and X's straight) numbers so
>rare?

Because there are precious few of them. :-)

------------------------------

From: John DeBert <claris!apple!netcom![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: NNX-0000
Date: 13 Jul 89 19:43:04 GMT
Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System [phone] guest


In article <[e-mail]>, lloyd![e-mail].
edu (Kent Borg) says:
> X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 234, message 2 of 3

> I recently noticed that the pizza place across from my laundromat has
> a phone number which ends with 4 zeros.

> I don't think I have seen this before.  In fact, I remember as a kid
> (I was a strange kid) thinking that those numbers would probably be
> reserved for phoning the exchange itself, but I never remember seeing
> 0000--at least until yesterday.

> Why are NNX-0000 (I hope I have the N's and X's straight) numbers so
> rare?

Because there's only one per prefix?

0000 is the last number of the old mechanical CO's. Every try pulse-dialing
four zero's? I suppose that it was reserved because it took so long to dial.

I recall that it once had a purpose, such as a test number or something.
That was a long time ago, though.

It may begin to see use if an area is running out of numbers, though.

JJD
[e-mail]

> Kent ("I have clean clothes again") Borg
> [e-mail]
> or
>  ...!hscfvax!lloyd!kent

------------------------------

From: Roy Smith <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: NNX-0000
Date: 15 Jul 89 02:10:26 GMT
Reply-To: Roy Smith <[e-mail]>
Organization: Public Health Research Inst. (NY, NY)


Kent Borg <lloyd![e-mail]> writes:
> Why are NNX-0000 (I hope I have the N's and X's straight) numbers so rare?

    Seems to me they should be no greater than 1 in 10,000.  That seems
pretty rare to me.

    Anyway, just for fun, I just tried dialing 636-0000.  I got a
ringing tone, except that it was much too long to be a ringing, and about
half way through the "on" cycle, it got a bit softer.  Strange.  I just
called it again, and got a normal (roughly 1.5-sec on, 2.5-sec off)
ringing, but nobody answered the phone.

--
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
{att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- [e-mail]
"The connector is the network"

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #239
*****************************










Date:     Sun, 16 Jul 89 18:58:54 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #240
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sun, 16 Jul 89 18:28:29 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 240

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    What's the legal status of state tax on long distance? (Ralph Hightower)
    10288 numbers revisited (Don Peaslee)
    Local Area Calls in Silicon Valley (The Watcher)
    10666 and 5ESS (Jon Solomon)
    Local Area Calls in LA Metropolitan Area (David Gast)
    Warning to All! Archives Being Cleaned Out (TELECOM Moderator)
    Re: Tokyo goes to 8 digits (Roy Silvernail)
    Re: Multi-function phone device? (Mike Morris)
    Re: Praise the Lord and pass the RF filters (Mike Morris)
    Local Area Calls in New Mexico (Michael I. Bushnell)
    Local Area Calls in Arizona (author's name unknown)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Date: 14 Jul 89 13:57:14 EDT
Subject: What's the legal status of state gov't taxing long distance calls?

Can anyone tell me what the legal status of state governments taxing long
distance calls is?  [It seems that a while back, Illinois state government
tried to tax long distance calls and a Federal court struck down that
attempt.]  This seems to me an effort of state governments taxing
interstate trade.

Recently, South Carolina state government tried to tax long distance calls.
Fortunately, nobody voted that in and for the moment, our pockets are safe
while the lawbreakers' session for this year is closed.
--
            [e-mail]  <Ralph M. Hightower>
            NCR Corp., Engineering & Manufacturing - Columbia, SC
                               Home of THE USC!
    South Carolina had a University 49 years before California was a state.

------------------------------

Reply-To: [e-mail]
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 89 08:36:36 CST
From: Don Peaslee <[e-mail]>
Subject: 10288 numbers revisited

Patrick, thank you for your earlier explanation of the various "10"
prefixed numbers.  Here is a recent message on a local San Antonio
bulletin board that is in reference to the message I posted with your
information.  Seems that this fellow was charged on a private line for
calls to an IN TOWN BBS. (?!?)


(The following message was posted by Larry Collins)

>Now comes an interesting story about using "10288". I saw several
>messages indicating that you could get a cleaner line by prefixing your
>numbers with "10288". Something changed several months ago, and I can
>no longer connect with Shadow Taker from home, due to noise. I have to
>dial in to a Unix machine at work, then have IT dial out to Shadow
>Taker.

( DP:  Shadow Taker is a LOCAL number for this caller... )

>I tried adding "10288" to the front of S.T.'s number, and have been able
>to get pretty clean connections consistently for the last few weeks.
>HOWEVER, all the messages said this was free, which seemed too good to
>be true, and it WAS. I got my phone bill today and found a bunch of
>long-distance calls to San Antonio, Tx.

>I was charged by the minute, and there were several calls of exactly one
>minute, some of which were .05 and some for .06, probably difference in
>rounding. The longest call was 54 minutes for $2.85, which averages out
>to .053 per minute.

>So everyone be warned about the "10288". It's far from free.
>I had some problems with Black Angel, too, and when I tried the 10288
>here, it didn't improve the connections any at all.

>I have a single long-distance call from San Antonio Texas to Fratt Texas
>which was my B.A. call. Eight minutes for .43.
=-=-=-=-

( DP:  If this is the case, then everyone better be very careful about
  using the 10288, etc., numbers as one might be incurring charges that
  one's not aware of.   Patrick, can you shed some additional light on
  this?? )

Don Peaslee

[Moderator's Note: Baloney, baloney, baloney! Prefixing a call with 10288
does nothing except force the call to be routed via AT&T. It does not
incur extra charges other than whatever slight difference there is between
AT&T rates to the point in question and whatever other carrier was being
used. If you dial an intra-lata call (a call within your own town, for
example) using 10288 as the leading code, it is likely the call will be
rejected and you will have to dial over again. I've tried this, and at least
here in Chicago, dialing 10288 followed by a seven digit (or ten digit,
but within IBT's lata) number and a recording says the call cannot be
completed as dialed. Whether or not you get 'cleaner' lines by forcing your
call over AT&T is a very subjective matter. But in and of itself, 10288
is a way of routing long distance calls -- not a special feature to insure
clean lines at an added cost.   PT]

------------------------------

From: the Watcher <uuwest![e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 89 04:50:47 PDT
Organization: The Dark Side of the Moon +1 408 245 SPAM
Subject: Local Area Calls in Silicon Valley

In response to "what the billing is like around here", it seems to have been
arranged for the phone company (pacific*bell and/or GTE, depending) to make
lots of money. Unmeasured service is available, except that calls outside of
an 8-mile radius of where you are calling from are "zone" charges. If you
happen to live in the GTE service area, just about everywhere else in the
valley ("silicon" valley, also known as 408) costs money (ridiculous amounts,
at that) to call. I happen to be one of these unfortunates; by being less than
a quarter mile from where the pac*bell service area ends, my phone bill is
about three times what it would be otherwise (or six times what would be
reasonable). There is also no "metropolitan" option, so it all boils down to
getting the most strategic 8-mile radius you can.

[e-mail]

[Moderator's Note: And per your notes to me: '[e-mail]' is a
bad address. Mail is returned. Phrasing it as '[e-mail]'
causes it to bounce. Likewise, 'uuwest![e-mail]' fails. Please
provide an alternative address to reach you.  PT]

------------------------------

Date:  Sat, 15 Jul 89 13:30:39 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: 10666 and 5ESS

Complain to Bellcore. They are the ones who programmed the beast.

I know of a similar bug regarding 411 and 3-ports on the 1AESS. If you
three-way to 411, and then try to release, you can't get away from the
circuit. You have to hang up entirely, call the party back, and re-begin
the call sequence again, omitting the call to 411.

That bug has been around for years.

--jsol

------------------------------

Subject: Local Area Calls in LA metropolitan area
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 89 12:04:03 PDT
From: [e-mail]

As J. Sol points out, new FX (foreign exchange) lines in the LA
metropolitan no longer have flat rate service and their installation
is VERY expensive.  However, those of us who have had FX lines for
years still have "grandfathered" flat-rate service and, moreover, with
call-forwarding, can, in effect, use them for two calls simultaneously.

I live in a suburban GTE exchange area from which the call to UCLA is
a toll-call.  However, an adjacent GTE exchange has flat-rate service
both to my exchange and also to UCLA.  I have a flat-rate FX line from
that exchange (installed in 1974); the basic rate is about $54.00 per
month -- mostly mileage charges.  I have call-forwarding on that line to
a local-exchange line, also in my home.  This allows friends to call us
without paying a toll charge at the SAME time I am using the line for an
outgoing modem call.

Actually, we have TWO local-exchange lines in the home, on a "rotary"
and the FX line forwards to the first.  I was most surprised to discover
that if one of my rotary lines is idle while the FX line is forwarding
one call to the other rotary line, and the FX line receives a second
call, then the caller gets a busy signal.  That is, even though the line
being forwarded to is the first of a multi-line rotary, with idle lines,
only one call at a time will be forwarded!

A substitute for this FX line, which would be cheaper and is available
without "grandfathering" but is more of a nuisance, would be to have
one or two flat-rate ordinary lines in a friend's home in the adjacent
exchange area.  I could set one to always forward to my home and the
second to always forward to UCLA (for modem calls).  Varous devices sold
by Comcor allow remote changing of forwarding numbers using various
tricky strategies.

dgc

David G. Cantor
Department of Mathematics
University of California at Los Angeles
Internet: [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date:     Sat, 15 Jul 89 20:09:37 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Warning to All! Archives Being Cleaned Out

Because the Telecom Archives at bu-cs.bu.edu is becoming *very* crowded,
with eight years of digests and many other articles, it will be
necessary in the near future to take the oldest issues of the Digest, from
the period 1981 through 1986 and put them on tape.

Once they are on tape, they can be accessed -- it just takes more work,
and intervention by a human operator to load the tape, etc.

A word of warning: If you want anything from those old issues, get it now.
They do make good reading, but much of the information is of course very
dated and useless today.

They will be in place for at least a few more days if there is anything
you'd like to get.

Patrick Townson


------------------------------

From: Roy Silvernail <comcon![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Tokyo goes to 8 digits
Date: 16 Jul 89 09:21:16 GMT
Organization: Computer Connection


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (David
Smallberg) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]> the moderator writes:
> >
>
> I also had heard that Alaska information was handled in or near Seattle and
> Carribean islands in Florida.  I don't know what the situation is today.
>
Since I moved to Alaska some 19 years ago, the information operators have
been in the state, at least. Outlying areas such as Nome are serviced from
Anchorage or Fairbanks. (Nome's information calls are done in Fairbanks)

In years past, though, Nome's telephone information was located in one of the
local taxi companies, and at one time the taxi company was headquartered out
of a local bar. Thus, the bartender was the information operator.

Roy M. Silvernail
Sub-Arctic Programmer-at-large
UUCP: uunet!comcon!roy
(spif sig Real Soon Now)
[my account, my opinions]


------------------------------

From: Mike Morris <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Multi-function phone device?
Date: 16 Jul 89 07:34:58 GMT
Reply-To: Mike Morris <[e-mail]>


(Will Martin) writes:
>
>>From: Mike Morris <[e-mail]>
>>Subject: Demon Dialers (was: Speed Dialing)
>>...
>>memory gets zapped by an incoming call (ring voltage?).  The transformer
>>(wall-plug-power-cube) is buzzy - we had to move the device into the basement
>>as it kept my wife away when it was behind the curtain in the living room,
>    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>                    ^^^^
>I know some people who would pay a lot for such a device... :-) :-) :-)
>
>Regards, Will
>
>PS I think the poster meant "awake" instead of "away", right?... WM :-)

Yes, that's what i get for typing late at night, and not carefully proofreading
my stuff.  It's a good thing she wasn't reading over my shoulder...

For clarification, the living room is adjcent to the bedroom, and we sleep
with the bedroom door open for air circulation.  The transformer was noisy
enough to keep a light sleeper awake.  BTW, I've got three of the demon-
dialers, only one had a buzzy trnasformer - the first one I bought.


US Snail:  Mike Morris                    UUCP: [e-mail]
           P.O. Box 1130                  Also: WA6ILQ
           Arcadia, Ca. 91006-1130
#Include disclaimer.standard     | The opinions above probably do not even

------------------------------

From: Mike Morris <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and pass the RF filters
Date: 16 Jul 89 06:55:55 GMT
Reply-To: Mike Morris <[e-mail]>


John Wheeler <techwood![e-mail]> writes:
>X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 232, message 12 of 12

>......here in Atlanta, the
>50,000 clear channel watts of WSB eminate from right in the middle of
>the parking lot at Northlake Festival Shopping Center.
>One of these days I swear I'm gonna take a florescent tube out there
>just to see if it glows...betcha it does!

It will...  One of my hobbies is amateur radio, and the home of 90% of
Los Angeles' TV and FM stations is 8.5 miles (at a 35 degree up-angle(!))
from my house.  Also the home of our autopatch repeater.  If you plug the
antenna cable (yes, the one going to the antenna) into a dummy load / power
meter, you see over 20w coming down!  Also the outside light over the
building door is a 100w bulb, and shines at about 60w level - on a one
turn loop of #12 wire - yes, for DC the socket is shorted.  And the
workers on the mountaintop (7 VHF TV stations, 6 UHF stations, and I'm
not sure how many FM, but at least 12) use flourscent tubes as flashlights.
To "turn them off" they are kept in mailing tubes...

A friend of mine is the weekend engineer at a local spanish language 10kw
AM operation that runs a directional pattern - 4 towers, 3 during the day,
3 at night (2 common).  Don uses a flourscent tube to read the antenna
current meters at the feed points.

I'd be careful handling a tube around a 50kw station, you could get a nasty
RF burn - and they take forever to heal (mine took over 5 times as long as
a similar soldering iron burn I got a few years ago).


US Snail:  Mike Morris                    UUCP: [e-mail]
           P.O. Box 1130                  Also: WA6ILQ
           Arcadia, Ca. 91006-1130
#Include disclaimer.standard     | The opinions above probably do not even

------------------------------

From: "Michael I. Bushnell" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Local Area Calls in New Mexico
Date: 15 Jul 89 21:45:17 GMT
Reply-To: "Michael I. Bushnell" <[e-mail]>
Organization: University of No Money, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Way back when, before divestiture, when measured service for local calls
was first dreamed up, Mountain Bell decided it wanted to get on the bandwagon.
Their first proposal said that there would be measured service for all New
Mexico calls.  The New Mexico State Corporations Commission (which has
oversight responsibilities for all public utilities in the state) said nothing
doing.

Next proposal was to drastically split local calling areas, effectively
converting intra-city calls in Albuquerque and Santa Fe often into long
distance calls.  Again, the NMSCC rejected the proposal.  The final arrangement
was what we still have.  First, measured service is allowed only if
unmeasured service is also offered; second, unmeasured service will be priced
as if it were all that was offered; third, incorporated cities cannot be
split into more than one local calling area.

It works nicely.

    Michael I. Bushnell      \     This above all; to thine own self be true
LIBERTE, EGALITE, FRATERNITE  \    And it must follow, as the night the day,
   [e-mail]     /\   Thou canst not be false to any man.
 Telephone: [phone]  /  \  Farewell:  my blessing season this in thee!

------------------------------

From: Admin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Local Area Calls in Arizona
Date: 15 Jul 89 17:01:53 GMT


In article <[e-mail]>, techwood![e-mail]
(John Wheeler) writes:
> calling area. How many other major cities still are unmetered?

The state of Arizona is un-metered.

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #240
*****************************










Date:     Mon, 17 Jul 89 0:24:35 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #241
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Mon, 17 Jul 89 00:00:31 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 241

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Residence PBX Service (Dave Levenson)
    Calling cards (John R. Levine)
    Choices for a 2nd (data) line at home? (Joe Hamlin)
    Archives Being Put On Tape (Jon Solomon)
    Local Area Calls in Natick, MA (Jon Solomon)
    Re: NNX-0000 (Mike Morris)
    Re: NNX-0000 (Gil Kloepfer Jr.)
    Re: Two questions -- VM8 Mux and Intellidial (Jon Solomon)
    Re: Two questions -- CM8 Mux and Intellidial (Mike Morris)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Dave Levenson <westmark![e-mail]>
Subject: Residence PBX Service
Date: 16 Jul 89 22:01:35 GMT
Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA


A few articles back, we were asked about what might be described as
Residence PBX service.  The poster asked about connecting six
telephone sets to one CO line, providing intercom, conference
calling, and similar PBX features.  The poster also asked if it
could be done for the price of a VCR (a couple of hundred $ ?).

Residential Centrex (aka StarLine) service was suggested.  This is
probably less expensive than a VCR, but requires six pair from the
CO.  What do they charge for the installation?  How many months of
the service can one buy for the price of a VCR?

Another option is the residential PBX.  Mitel makes (or at least,
made) a small switch called the SX-5.  This supports six tip-ring
stations, two CO trunks, and offers the usual PBX features.  It
allows locally-stored speed-dial, conference calling,
call-forwarding, universal answering, selective ringing, call hold,
call transfer, call-waiting, and data security.

As is usually the case with the premises-based vs CO-based
comparison, the better price depends upon how long you intend to use
the service.  The Mitel SX-5 used to sell for about $700 or almost
three times the price of a VCR.  But you only buy it once.  No
extra monthly charge for its use.  You maintain it.  You own it (and
can sell it, perhaps).  We use one here to connect a bunch of
computers.  We have five modems on two CO lines.

Key systems are also available.  The central switch is less
expensive than a PBX, but the telephone sets are not standard
tip-ring, and tend to cost more.

Not a definitive answer, but perhaps a few points for consideration.

--
Dave Levenson                Voice: [phone]
Westmark, Inc.               Internet: [e-mail]
Warren, NJ, USA              UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave
[The Man in the Mooney]      AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave


------------------------------

Date: Sun, 16 Jul 89 15:37:35 EDT
From: "John R. Levine" <ima![e-mail]>
Subject: Calling cards

In article <[e-mail]> John Cowan <cowan@marob.
masa.com> writes:
>>[Moderator's Note:  ... I got *my* calling card from Illinois Bell,
>>and although the number is identical (including the PIN) to the one I also
>>got from AT&T,
>
>Naturally.  A BOC calling card >is< an AT&T calling card. ...

You might think so, but it's not so.  The calling card numbers are made up by
the operating companies and then picked up by AT&T.  Although the card numbers
are the same, the BOC cards and the AT&T cards are separate.  Your AT&T card is
good for AT&T calls, your BOC card good for intra-LATA calls.  All of the BOCs
have billing arrangements with each other, so you can use your BOC card for
intra-LATA calls anywhere.

Other LD companies could perfectly well use the same numbers, but for reasons
that now seem largely historical, they all make up their own calling card
numbers which have the same format as the BOC numbers but different PINs.  An
insert in my Sprint bill a few months ago mentioned that they're starting to
make agreements with the BOCs to take each other's calling card numbers.

Furthermore, I have found that if I go to a payphone and dial 10333-0-number,
Sprint will take my BOC card number but not by Sprint FON number.  Curiouser
and curiouser.

--
John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, [phone]
{ bbn | spdcc | decvax | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, [e-mail]
Massachusetts has 64 licensed drivers who are over 100 years old.  -The Globe

------------------------------

From: Joe Hamlin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Choices for a 2nd (data) line at home?
Date: 16 Jul 89 01:25:19 GMT
Organization: Air Force Institute of Technology; WPAFB, OH


     Due to popular demand (by my wife :-), I am considering
ordering a second line.  This line will only be used for my
modem, and only for local out-going calls (mainly for dialing
in to work and to a local BBS).

     After reading a recent article in this group in which the
author had to demand some unadvertised service, I was wondering
if perhaps there was some little known service I should request.
At any rate (no pun), what is the cheapest service that will
meet my requirements?  Is there such a thing as an out-going
only line?

Thank you.


--
Joe Hamlin    <[e-mail]>

[Moderator's Note: Yes, there are one way outgoing only lines. If someone
dials the number while you are on it, they get a busy signal. If the number
is dialed when it is not in use, it cuts to an intercept message, "The number
you dialed, 123-4567 is not in service for incoming calls." I would not
personally box myself in in that way. You might want to receiving incoming
data calls from time to time; then what? Just keep the number non-published,
and get as large a calling area package for the line as your telco allows. PT]

------------------------------

Date:  Sun, 16 Jul 89 21:09:42 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Archives Being Put on Tape

I will be the "human operator" for all archive requests for the issues
between 1981 and 1986. If you have an archive request for that time
period, you can send the mail to [e-mail] or
[e-mail] and I will restore the file or issue number you request.

I will be making tapes of the archives and storing the tapes in my office
at BU. I will mount the tapes on bu-cs when I need to do restores, and bring
them back to my office when not in use. I expect them to be useable for
at least 2 years, hopefully longer (I'm shooting for 5 years).  After that
these files will be lost, so if you want copies, GET THEM NOW.

I will do the tape migration this coming week (probably Thursday or
Friday). Please get your copies before then. Thanks.

--jsol

------------------------------

Date:  Sat, 15 Jul 89 19:11:27 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Local Area Calls in Natick, MA

Yep, calls from say Natick, MA (508-653) to Boston (617-536) can be made 1+617,
and are included in the Metropolitan service area. The local calling area
for Natick was of course local, and calls into Boston were local if you have
Metro service.

What I was trying to point out is for places like Stoneham (617-438), you
could call 1-508-653-XXXX to Natick for free if you had Metropolittan service,
and you could call ANYWHERE THAT HAD METROPOLITAN SERVICE from that zone,
but from Somerville and Cambridge that is not the case. Somerville and
Cambridge live too close to Boston.

--jsol

------------------------------

From: Mike Morris <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: NNX-0000
Date: 16 Jul 89 07:13:06 GMT
Reply-To: Mike Morris <[e-mail]>


Kent Borg <lloyd![e-mail]> writes:
>
>I recently noticed that the pizza place across from my laundromat has
>a phone number which ends with 4 zeros.
>
>I don't think I have seen this before.  In fact, I remember as a kid
>(I was a strange kid) thinking that those numbers would probably be
>reserved for phoning the exchange itself, but I never remember seeing
>0000--at least until yesterday.
>
>Why are NNX-0000 (I hope I have the N's and X's straight) numbers so
>rare?
>
I was told (years ago) by a knowledgeable installer that the 0000-0020
numbers in the first exchange installed in an area was reserved.  There
was, and still is (but to a lesser degree) a need for test numbers.
At least here in the LA area, 0004 is the test board, and 0000 is the
switchroom foreman.  Years ago 0018 and 0019 were loop-arounds.  I've
forgotten the rest, but one was a sweep tone, one was a dead short (for
measuring loop resistance), one was a never-answer, one was a always-
busy, etc.

US Snail:  Mike Morris                    UUCP: [e-mail]
           P.O. Box 1130                  Also: WA6ILQ
           Arcadia, Ca. 91006-1130
#Include disclaimer.standard     | The opinions above probably do not even

[Moderator's Note: I guess the rules change over the years. My personal
number is < 0020 on a very old exchange in the area. The custom in Chicago
has always been the numbers from 9900 - 9999 were used internally by telco.
9900/01 was the chief operator; 9902/03 was the Directory Assistance direct
number (where 411 went through some routing); and from 9990 to 9998 were
all technical in nature, including always-busy, silent termination, etc. PT]

------------------------------

Subject: Re: NNX-0000
Reply-To: "Gil Kloepfer Jr." <harvard!talcott!limbic![e-mail]>
Organization: ICUS Software Systems, Islip, NY
Date: 16 Jul 89 22:13:12 EDT (Sun)
From: "Gil Kloepfer Jr." <harvard!talcott!limbic![e-mail]>

In article <[e-mail]> Roy Smith <roy%phri@uunet.
uu.net> writes:
>    Anyway, just for fun, I just tried dialing 636-0000.  I got a

Just for fun, I tried dialing 746-0000 [area code 516] and I got the
strangest message myself... It said, "The number you have reached,
seven four six, oh oh oh oh, may not yet be connected."  Some exchanges
in 516 I picked at random said that the number was disconnected, one just
kept ringing, and another was not in service.

-------
| Gil Kloepfer, Jr.
| ICUS Software Systems/Bowne Management Systems (depending on where I am)
| ...icus!limbic!gil   or    [e-mail]

[Moderator's Note: Programming errors abound. For a laugh, try 312-922-4600.
For about seventy years, that was the main number for Sears, Roebuck &
Company at their downtown store and offices. They've been gone for years,
and now dialing the number results in a recording, "you must dial one before
calling this number". No matter how I dial it, with a one or not, that
recording still comes on the line.  PT]

------------------------------

Date:  Sat, 15 Jul 89 13:28:59 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Two Questions -- CM8 Mux and Intellidial

Barry: Intelledial is just like Centrex, only more expensive (but not
more expensive than the BU centrex :-). Intelledial lets you have
between 2 and 6 lines in your home or office, and connect them
together like centrex.  You can transfer between the lines and have
busy-call-forwarding and call-forwarding-no-answer and other features.

Merlin costs more up front, but gives you more control over your services.

If you want to just try something and see how it works, use intelledial.
If you are sure you want a key system, go with merlin. These days,
costs for phone services are fairly equal no matter what you buy.

--jsol


------------------------------

From: Mike Morris <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Two questions -- CM8 Mux and Intellidial
Date: 16 Jul 89 08:52:57 GMT
Reply-To: Mike Morris <[e-mail]>


(Barry Shein) writes:
>
>1) Our building ran out of capacity so New England TelCo told us that
>they will be running a "CM8" which provides a multiplexed line
>service. Any caveats regarding this, particularly with using data
>modems?

YES.  DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO KEEP YOUR MODEM CIRCUITS, ESPECIALLY
ANYTHING FASTER THAN 1200 BAUD OFF THE DAMMED BOX !!!!!

I installed customer premise stuff for 5 years, and still take care of
several clients that have unique requirements/systems/just plain want me
doing their work.

      One gentleman had a similar situation, and his data throughput went
to hell.  We ended up giving his data circuits preferential treatment-
copper to the CO, and his incoming voice circuits took the copper that
was left, and the carrier circuits got the outgoing voice.  Oh well.

If you can, force the telco to run additional pairs in from the street,
if the shortage is in the cable from the manhole to your service entrance.
This assumes that there are pairs in the manhole... If not, you're in
deep manure if you ever run out of copper for data...
Note that all of this is based on one installation datum, which makes for
rotten statistical analysis.  Your milage may vary...

>2) New England TelCo called me and offered a new service called
>"Intellidial" which claims to offer all the services of a Merlin or
>similar key system onto your regular phone lines from the central
>office. Since I'm about to move into new office space and I'm looking
>for a key or hybrid anyhow (suggestions very welcome!) I bit.
>
>It can be ordered on a month by month basis and would only cost me
>about $50 to try for one month in this location so what the heck. I
>was just wondering if anyone has any experience with this service,
>particularly things we should try or ask about before committing to it
>rather than a key/hybrid system.

Sounds like Centrex services in residential clothing (definition: pay Ma Bell
now, pay Ma later. and later. and later.).  I'd bite the bullet, and put
in my own key system.  Some of the stuff these days have everything you'll
ever want - including SMDR, in a 6 by 16, or smaller!  Find and read a copy
of Teleconnect's periodic EKS summary issue.

>[Moderator's Note: In reference to your question (2) above, here in Chicago
>this is called "Starline", and I've had it on my phones for a couple years
>with good results. In addition to intercom service between phones, Starline
>(or Intellidial as you called it) offers the ability to pick up any ringing
>phone from any other location; transfer of calls between phones; distinctive
>ring for intercom versus incoming calls from outside, and more. I'd take
>it anyday over more conventional PBX equipment. Cheaper, too.   PT]

Cheaper?  Maybe the initial cost, but what do you spend during the time you
          stay at that location?  And what do you have when you leave?
          I'd rather buy something...
          I picked up a second hand Comdial 6 by 16 EKS for $100, including
          4 phones.  And 1A2 key is damn near free (6 584 shelves, including
          power supplies, 4 620 panels, including power supplies, 6 KC19s
          3 KC10s and a KC37, and 30-35 phones, a mix of 5, 9 and 19 line
          phones, about half with PC-4 speakerphones and one 5 line touch-
          a-matic with PC4, all for $300.  That's 10 complete 1A2 systems,
          including all the station wire (25 & 50 pair) we could remove..
          We reconditioned all the equipment (16 man-hours) and later sold
          6 of them for $300-$700 each.
US Snail:  Mike Morris                    UUCP: [e-mail]
           P.O. Box 1130                  Also: WA6ILQ
           Arcadia, Ca. 91006-1130
#Include disclaimer.standard     | The opinions above probably do not even

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #241
*****************************










Date:     Tue, 18 Jul 89 0:08:59 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #242
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 18 Jul 89 00:00:45 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 242

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    FAXability and Merlin (John Russell)
    Charging for DA / Obtaining Calling Cards (David Gast)
    Telephone Number Formats (Peter G. Capek)
    Local Calling Area in Metro Rochester, NY (C. E. Reid)
    Phone line surge protection (Chris Schmandt)
    US Sprint Code-abuse Policies & Systems (Steve Elias)
    Re: US Sprint Code-abuse Policies & Systems (TELECOM Moderator)
    Re: Local Area Calls in the Bay Area of California (John DeBert)
    RE: NNX-0000 (Steve Glaser)
    Re: NNX-0000 (Joel B Levin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:    17 July 89, 10:33:20 EST
From:    John Russell <[e-mail]>
To:      TELECOM at EECS.NWU.EDU
Subject: FAXability and Merlin

I have a Merlin 410 system that I'd like to use with a FAX machine.  I have
a few questions that I hope someone could answer for me. . .

The research I've done (calling vendors) indicates that there are switches
designed to "screen" FAX calls, only passing voice calls on to the connected
phone system.

I found a fax machine (Sharp UX350) with one of these switches built in.
I was told it would do what I wanted it to do.  It does, with a single
phone hooked up to it.  When introducing Sharp and AT&T (now be nice, boys),
we had a little conflict.  FAX messages are intercepted... that part works
fine.  Voice calls, however, get Merlin confused.  When Sharp passes on the
ring, (it's supposed to ring the phone for 15 seconds if it isn't a fax)
Merlin doesn't recognize it as a ring.  hmmm....

I've tried the fax machine with another "smart" phone system... they're
too smart to be outsmarted, it seems (the other one was TIE EK612).  Now,
since we have so many technology junkies in one place...  does anyone know
of a switch that will do what I want it to do on the Merlin (or other)
phone system??

PS - Sharp is the first fax I've found with this switch built in ... the
others I've heard of are all external.  Viking is the one that comes to
mind, but it sounds like it will have the same problem with the Merlin.

PPS - Anyone had any experience with the Merlin BTMI for this purpose??
(btmi - basic telephone modem interface, methinks)

any insight would be *greatly* appreciated
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
| John Russell  (JR)   |Experience is a marvelous|     *  * * *   |
| Michigan Tech (MTU)  |thing that enables you to|     *  *    *  |
| [e-mail]     |recognize a mistake when |     *  * * *   |
|                      |you make it again.       | *   *  *   *   |
| Disc: I said what?   |             - F.P.Jones | * * *  *    *  |
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 Jul 89 00:34:59 -0700
From: David Gast <[e-mail]>
Subject: Charging for DA / Obtaining Calling Cards


> I found both of the people I talked to rather rude, and the
> entire idea of charging for 411 when there are no phonebooks available
> is (to me) ludicrous.

AT&T and hence the entire non-competitive long distance industry has
been charging for directory assistance for some years now.

Actually, in all fairness, AT&T does allow a few free information calls
per month if a long distance call is made to offset the call to information;
no other carrier that I know of does.

> [Moderator's Note: ...
> Sprint also issues [calling ] cards, as does MCI. You have to be on their
> network to get their cards however. I don't think AT&T requires this.  PT]

I can't speak for Sprint, but I know that it is not necessary to have
MCI has one's primary carrier to get an MCI credit card.  AT&T also
does not have this requirement.

David Gast
[e-mail]
{uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!{ucla-cs,cs.ucla.edu}!gast

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 Jul 89 16:23:49 EDT
From: "Peter G. Capek" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Telephone Number Formats

I'm looking for a source of information on the formats of city codes (number
of digits), exchange numbers (number of digits), lengths of phone numbers,
and international access codes for (ideally, all) countries.  Information
about the form in which direct-inward-dialing is provided, if available,
would also be helpful.  Machine-readable would be ideal, but beggars can't
be choosers.

Separately, I'd like to ask a question about long distance access codes.  In
many countries, city codes are commonly quoted with a leading 0.  In all
cases that I know of, this leading 0 is really an access code, and isn't
intended to be used, for example, when the city code is dialed from outside
the country.  Is there any case in which this isn't true?  That is, is there
any country which has an city code which starts with a zero?

Peter Capek
IBM Research -- Yorktown Heights, NY

[Moderator's Note: We had a complete listing of international country codes
published here just a few issues ago. Perhaps the two fellows who compiled
the lists (one by country in alpha order; the other in numerical order)
would be so kind as to email a copy of each to Mr. Capek.  Thanks!     PT]

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 Jul 89 11:31 EDT
From: "C. E. Reid" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Local Calling Area in Metro Rochester, NY

I will discuss Rochester, NY's local calling plan offered by Rochester
Telephone Corporation (the largest independent telephone company in the
country, I believe).

Exchanges within the city of Rochester is quite large: 68 exchanges for
Rochester itself alone plus 38 suburban exchanges for a total of 106 exchanges
available to the subscriber.

Almost all suburban echanges have local calling to Rochester exchanges with the
exception of Avon exchange which does not have any local calling plan except
itself.

Depending on what service you have (flat-rate or message-rated), you have a
pretty large area to call!   With flat-rate service (which I have) is very
useful to modem callers.  (Recently, I heard that Rochester Telephone sent a
rate change request to the Public Utilities Commission that they put a 80 calls
cap on flat-rate calls.  In other words, if I make more than 80 calls, they
will charge me the message unit rate of 8.3 cents over the 80 for my flat-rate
service.  I believe it is an incentitive for me to switch to the 80 call
allowance ($8.53 versus $11.61.  There is a public outry now so I don't know if
this will get approved or not.)

The exchanges are grouped by Group Number which corresponds to the monthly
charges.  There are 5 groups:

        Group 2 (Avon, Cohocton, Nunda)
        Group 3 (Atlanta, Castile-Gainsville-Silver Springs, Dansville,
                Hemlock, Leicester, Mt. Morris, Perry, Springwater, Warsaw,
                Wayland)
        Group 4 (Canandaigua, Geneseo, LeRoy, Livonia, Naples, Pavilion)
        Group 5 (Wyoming)
        Group 9*** (Bergen, Brockport, Caledonia, Churchville, E.
                Rochester-Pittsford, Fairport, Hamlin, Henrietta, Honeoye
                Falls/Lima, Rochester, Rush, Scottsville, Victor, Webster,
                West Webster)

Groups 1 and 6-8 are not listed in the phone book and I do not know what these
are for.  I suspect these groups are for business use.

Basic Schedule of Residence Rates:

                                  Rate Group
Service                 2       3       4       5       9
Residence
  Flat Rate Lines
   Individual, each     5.49    5.91    6.35%   7.00    10.41%
   2-Party, each pty    -       -       -       -        8.31%
   4-Party, each pty    3.72    4.08    4.57%   4.84     -

  Message Rated, Lines
   Individual-80, each  -       -       -       -       8.53
   Individual-50, each  -       -       -       -       6.93
   Individual-0, each   3.95    3.95    3.95    3.95    3.95

  LifeLine #
   Basic*               1.00    1.00    1.00    1.00    1.00
   Expanded**           10.00   10.00   10.00   10.00   10.00


Message Units
   Messages above allowances for Message Rated Lines are charged at a rate of
8.3 cents for each additional message.  Calls placed to "974" public
announcement services are not part of message call allowances and are billed
separately.

%       EAS surcharge applies to all of Rate Group 9 and to Livonia in Rate
        Group 4. (A monthly surcharge of $1.20 will apply to those exchanges
        which are provided with flat-rate, non-adjacent Extended Area Service
        (EAS)).
#       For more information, see Call Guide 11 & 12.
*       No Monthly allowance for local calls.  Message units are charged at the
        rate of 8.3 cents per unit.  A 10% discount applies to the first five
        dollars of direct dialed local usage.
**      Includes a monthly usage allowance of $10.00; message units in excess
        of this allowance will be charged 8.3 cents per unit.
***     Rochester Metropolitan Service Area.


                Curtis Reid
                [e-mail]
                [e-mail]

------------------------------

From: Chris Schmandt <mit-amt![e-mail]>
Subject: Phone line surge protection
Date: 18 Jul 89 03:17:04 GMT
Reply-To: Chris Schmandt <mit-amt![e-mail]>
Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA


Well, as long as we're on the topic of surge protection and lightening
arresters...   Several postings have painted a pretty bleak picture
on the probability of my gear surviving a strike on the phone line,
which is claimed to be not that uncommon an event.  So, can anyone
suggest a reasonable approach to protection (i.e., a product?) and
any evidence that it will work?

With surge protectors on my power lines, I now feel a bit like
Ben Franklin dangling those phone wires out of my house during
our summer thunderstorm season.

chris

------------------------------

From: chipcom.com![e-mail]
Subject: US Sprint Code-abuse Policies & Systems
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 89 09:07:08 -0400


US Sprint has probably the most advanced code-abuse detection system
in the telecom industry, if I can believe my friend who works there.

He has described the system which 'caught' Mr. Fisk, the telecom reader
who complained that his account was pulled without warning.  As Mr. Fisk said,
Sprint tried to contact him to determine what the deal was with his card.

Patrick, I think you are being a bit harsh on US Sprint.  They have to
do something to stop the code abuse that goes on.  One of their major
problem areas is Port Authority and Grand Central Station in NY.  Certain
individuals look over the shoulder of people using calling cards, and then
sell the calling card number to anyone who happens by.

US Sprint's solution to this was to disable all FONCard access from
Port Authority.  I'm not sure if this is still the case...

One time my friend travelled to Boston to work with one of their larger
customers who had been experiencing code abuse.  People had been dialing
in to the customer's PBX and dialing out on a US Sprint WATS line.
Nearly a hundred thousand dollars worth of calls to Haiti had been spent.
Naturally, Sprint did not charge the customer for any of these calls.
The phone bill for one month during the customer's "code-abuse" problem
period was more than a foot thick!


-- Steve Elias
-- [e-mail], [e-mail]   [mail to chipcom.chipcom.com bounces!]
-- voice mail: 617 859 1389
-- work phone: [phone]


------------------------------

Date:     Mon, 17 Jul 89 23:02:49 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Re: US Sprint Code-abuse Policies

In the message before this one, Steve Elias describes a problem which has
plagued telephone companies for years; namely fraudulent billing information
passed to the operator, which ultimatly is written off uncollectible and
later passed on to legitimate users in the form of rate increases. The most
famous, or would you say infamous case on record was several years ago when
New York Telephone went before the state commissioners to seek an increase
in rates. The question arose, 'How much did NY Tel write off in uncollectibles
due to calling card fraud last year?' .....the answer: $7 million!
So it <is> a problem which requires action.

But I will suggest that if for no other reason than their size, anything
US Sprint gets, the Mother Company gets four times as much of. And how does
AT&T handle fraud? Certainly not by red-lining certain parts of cities where
fraud is prevalent, as Sprint has done with NY Port Authority or Grand
Central.

Suppose I was a Sprint customer, and innocently took the bus to New York
and got off at the terminal. Ah yes, I am supposed to call home right away
and let the folks know I arrived okay....but at the last minute, in quite
an inappropriate way, I find out *my* calling card won't work there either.
Sprint may choose to say, 'so what'....but that is simply indicative
of their attitude in general toward their customers. If AT&T pulled something
like that, they would be immediatly censured by the FCC. And of course I
am sure there are no signs on the payphones saying "phones won't work with
Fon Cards", so it is left to the confused telephone user to wonder why the
calling card issued just last week which worked fine at home won't work
here now that he has no change, and needs to make an urgent call.

I operated a BBS here in Chicago for several years called <Lakeshore Modem
Magazine>. It was open without pre-registration to all callers except that
to post messages, one had to have a validated password. It was NOT a phreak
board, yet there were phreaks from all over the country calling it at one
time or another. One day at my office -- a place totally unrelated to any
and all of my computer hobby activities over the years -- a miserable little
man called me, identified himself as "Sprint Security" and demanded a full
print out of all the users on my system. He kept calling, threatening and
harassing me for several days because I would not give him the information.
I told him *I* would investigate; *I* would purge the board if I found
anything; but that *he* had no right to make such demands.

Sprint is not the only offender. US Telecom in Cedar Rapids, IA is another
bunch that makes up the rules as they go along. Their thing is, if they
do not like what you say on the phone, they refuse to extend *paid* calls!
I kid you not. They block all calls on their network terminating at the
phone number in Chicago of a BBS which they suspect of being a phreak hive.
So as a BBS user, I sign up with US Telecom for long distance, only to find
after the fact that I cannot call certain BBS' if the Cedar Rapids gang
has not approved.

You can't do it this way! AT&T takes the good with the bad. They do prosecute
for theft of service, as they rightly should; as as Sprint and others should
do. But AT&T takes the concept of universal service and the importance of
service availability quite seriously. They won't ever chop off innocent
customers just to spite someone else.

And I might add that if your AT&T card is ever compromised for any reason,
if you call them immediatly -- 24 hours per day -- they will kill the card
on the spot AND issue you a new pin within three or four hours. That is
how serious they are about keeping service available to their customers
at all times.

AT&T is running some ads in Chicago right now which say it all: "You've
tried all the rest -- now come back home to the best."

Patrick Townson


------------------------------

From: John DeBert <apple!netcom![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Local Area Calls in the Bay Area of California
Date: 16 Jul 89 19:22:13 GMT
Organization: NetCom Services - Public Access Unix System [phone] guest


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (ben
ullrich) says:

>> How many other major cities still are unmetered?
> Here in the Bay Area at least 408 & 415 are unmetered for residential service
> (when you get the flat rate service from Pacific Bell, as ooposed to measured
> service), and metered for business service.
>
>  ...ben

 From what I could find out, local flat-rate service is available in all
Pacific Bell locations, save toll-stations, for residential service, as
well as measured 30 call (aka LifeLine) and measured 60 call.
Businesses may have measured 60 call or several options of payphone
service, including various COPT service options.

JJD
 [e-mail]


------------------------------

From: Steve Glaser SHR1-3/E29 DTN 237-2586 <[e-mail]>
Date: 17 Jul 89 11:52
Subject: RE: NNX-0000

In article <[e-mail]> Kent writes:
>Why are NNX-0000 (I hope I have the N's and X's straight) numbers so
>rare?

Some of us live in systems that still allow 4 or 5 digit dialing.  NNX-0000
would not be dialable as 4 digits as that would get you the operator.

I am served by the (508) 838 prefix (Berlin, MA) and only need 4 digits.
The next town over (Clinton) needs 5 digits.

Real fun switch.  We get lots of wrong numbers.  Equal access -- what's
that?We cet a choice of AT&T or AT&T.  Touch Tone -- what's that?  Custom
calling -- you've got to be kidding?  Hunt group -- has to be contiguous
numbers, to add a line to our hunt group we have to change our phone number
or convince the other guy to change his.  Also, about 10% of the time
dialing long distance gets us an operator asking what number we're dialing
FROM.

What's really amazing to me is that we get pretty good data service.  We
used to have a problem when it rained but they fixed the local loop.  It was
bad enough that voice service was unusable so we had no problem convincing
then to fix it.

It's real fun talking to the salesfolk from NET when they try to sell you
custom calling and such.  We're not even on any of their schedules. Confuses
the daylights out of them.

Steve Glaser
Digital Equipment
[phone] [home]
[phone] [work]


------------------------------

From: Joel B Levin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: NNX-0000
Date: 17 Jul 89 19:26:28 GMT
Reply-To: Joel B Levin <[e-mail]>
Organization: BBN Communications Corporation


Of course, these numbers are rare because there are so few of them. :-)

I find it interesting; around here and most of the country, it's
terrific to have a number ending in two or more zeros (for the obvious
reasons of memorability and I suppose prestige).  I always thought the
preferences in Arizona were much more practical.  There an average
large store or company would (when I was there ~20 years ago) strive
to have a number ending in -11, or if possible, -111.  These numbers
were equally memorable, and since almost everyone was using pulse
equipment with a rotary dial, they were fast and easy to dial!  (I
really felt sorry for a high school acquaintance whose number was
N99-0990 [the digits permuted to preserve anonymity].)

    /JBL
=
UUCP:     [e-mail] (new) or {backbone}!bbn!levin (old)
INTERNET: [e-mail]               POTS: [phone]
   "The night was"

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #242
*****************************










Date:     Tue, 18 Jul 89 1:04:14 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #243
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 18 Jul 89 01:00:37 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 243

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Audible Ringback vs. Ring Plant (John Boteler)
    Class Plus (John Boteler)
    Re: Why can't I choose AT&T? (John Higdon)
    Re: Why can't I choose AT&T? (Michael C. Berch)
    Re: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card? (Dell Ellison)
    Re: 10666 and 5ESS (Edwin G. Green)
    Re: Tokyo goes to 8 digits (David Smallberg)
    Re: Satanic Long Distance Carrier (Mark Anderson)
    Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin (Dave Fiske)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Audible Ringback vs. Ring Plant
Date: Mon Jul 17 12:12:39 1989
From: John Boteler <csense![e-mail]>


The audible ringback heard when an outgoing call is placed has,
in the past, always been generated by the distant office. Not so
with ISDN and SS7, anymore. But, for simplicity, let us stick
with the here and now.

Office    Tone Plant
------    ----------
Stepper    in phase(when it feels good)
XBar1    in phase
XBar5    in phase
ESS1    not in phase
ESS5    not in phase
DMS100    not in phase
Rolm PBX    lucky to get anything!

Where 'in phase' indicates the audible ringback tone plant is always
in phase with the ring plant; when you hear ringback signal, the
distant phone is ringing at the same instant. 'Out of phase' means
that the distant ring plant may or may not be in phase with the
audible ringback--there are no guarantees here.

Steppers sent the same Holzer-Cabot ring plant back to you as they
sent to the called phone, hence you KNEW they were in phase.
#1 and #5 crossbars had tone plant for signalling and a separate
ring plant for ringing called phones (#1s sounded neater).

ESS changed all this, probably to distribute the load over
the tone plant more evenly. It was not an infrequent occurrence
on a stepper that the dial tone frequency would sag for a few seconds
when too many people requested dial tone simultaneously :>

In any case, the ring cycle calls for 2 seconds of plant interspersed
with 4 seconds of pause. Consider the following scenario: a caller
places a local call (to eliminate the vagaries of the long distance
network for the moment). The instant the distant office connects,
it places ring plant on the line, ringing the distant phone--2 seconds.
Then two seconds of pause, and the audible ringback begins for 2 seconds.
Immediately after the audible ringback ends, the ring plant begins
on the distant end again. Now, no matter how many rings one extrapolates to
from here on out, if the caller hangs up after X rings the distant
phone will have rung X+1 times. Graphically:

         <2 sec>
Local    -------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|
                         XringXX                 XringXX...

Distant  -------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|
         XringXX                 XringXX                 XringXX...

These time pieces may appear in any of the finite phase relationships
above to yield any number of confusing situations to those
who don't know of them. Applications are left to the reader.



------------------------------

Subject: Class Plus
Date: Mon Jul 17 11:40:24 1989
From: John Boteler <csense![e-mail]>


After experiencing the Bell Atlantic 'IQ' demo line, I decided to
hack for other interesting codes not yet mentioned.

'*52' returns the acknowledgment dial tone, similar to Tone*Block '*70'.
Since I don't (and won't) have Call Waiting on the line under
test, I have not been able to ascertain what function this code
performs. Any ideas?

'*91' returns a dial tone and performs the same function as
'*72', Call Forwarding. '*93' clears the forwarding. Very interesting...

Now, since I have grown accustomed to the conservative, almost
backward attitude which prevails in Washington, DC, I was shocked
to find that progress may actually be knocking on Congress'
door; surely these features, whatever they may be, will not be
implemented before they have been tested, retested, and
somebody else tries them first!

I have not turned up any others yet, but the thot plickens...

Bote
uunet!cyclops!csense!bote
{mimsy,sundc}!{prometheus,hqda-ai}!media!cyclops!csense!bote


------------------------------

From: John Higdon <zygot![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Why can't I choose AT&T?
Date: 17 Jul 89 19:49:02 GMT
Organization: ATI Wares Team


In article <[e-mail]>, techwood![e-mail]
(John Wheeler) writes:
> The apartment complex I live in has the same sort of arrangement. Instead
> of a Southern Bell line, my service comes from a company called Star*Touch,
> and they have an agreement with Telecom*USA (all these stars!). The switch

Is all this for real? It sounds like the plot of a scary, futuristic
movie. It almost seems that what Judge Greene does with one hand is
undone with the other. Divestiture was supposedly going to enhance
competition, improved service offerings, and create a healthy business
climate for telecommunications.

So instead what we have is an apartment complex owner linking up with
some get-rich-quick scam operation to deny residents the opportunity of
choosing their long distance carrier, deprive them of having local
operating company special services, and effectively cut them off from
the outside world.

So if Star*Touch charges the normal monthly local service rate, they
make tons of profit, since they will only be paying for a fraction of
the number of trunks compared to the number of subscribers they will be
serving. And so if a resident can't call out because all trunks are
busy, who cares? He has no choice. Where's he gonna go?

And what about the resident who wants ten lines? I sure hope this bad
idea never catches on!
--
        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
      [e-mail]       | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

------------------------------

From: "Michael C. Berch" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Why can't I choose AT&T?
Date: 18 Jul 89 00:13:16 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore CA


[e-mail] writes:
>   I'm about to move into housing built by my employer, who owns the
> switch that my phone service will be on.  According to everyone I've
> asked, I will not have a choice of long distance carrier.  Access
> codes won't work (I'll get a busy signal after dialing 1-0, just like
> I do now from my work phone), and the local company (NJ Bell) says
> they can't install a phone for me.

Hmmm. Isn't there some sort of tariff that requires RBOCs not to
refuse to install residential service in various places where it might
be more expensive than the normal installation?  What grounds does NJ
Bell give for refusing to install normal service?

This sounds like a pretty poor deal; I would have to be *very*
satisfied with my employer to agree to something like this, since it
sounds like the potential to screw the consumer is very high.

What sort of housing is this?  I assume it isn't a military base or
other government reservation, since it was mentioned that some units will
be sold, but it sounds rather unusual.  Even student/faculty housing on
most campuses does not have this problem.

--
Michael C. Berch
[e-mail] / uunet!tis.llnl.gov!mcb

[Moderator's Note: There is indeed a tariff which says the local Bell cannot
refuse to provide service to any QUALIFIED subscriber. A qualified subscriber
is any person who has exhibited an *ability* and *willingness* to pay for
the service. The correspondent should contact the local telco office, and
order service. He'll need to meet any reasonable credit requirements they
may impose. If telco says they will not install service, then he should
immediatly ask to speak with the manager. He should advise the manager that
he does not wish to be placed in a position where he must appeal to the
Chairman's Office, but he will do so if the manager is unable to arrange
the installation promptly. The next step would be to appeal to the Chairman,
then file a formal complaint with the appropriate utility regulators. They
know the rules, as does the Chairman and most likely the manager. He will
wind up getting local service from the telco; from there, getting AT&T on
the line is a breeze.

Actually, when his complaint hits the regulators, he will get a call back
from the Chairman's office. In truth, it will be a highly placed flunkie
authorized to respond in the Chairman's name. He'll get his service.  PT]

------------------------------

From: Dell Ellison <asuvax!gtephx![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card?
Date: 17 Jul 89 19:31:06 GMT
Organization: AG Communication Systems, Phoenix, Arizona


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Rodney Amadeus) writes:
> [Moderator's Note: To obtain a calling card from the long distance carrier
> ...
> got from AT&T, I like the artwork on the IBT card better, and carry it.
> Sprint also issues cards, as does MCI. You have to be on their network to
> get their cards however. I don't think AT&T requires this.  PT]

You don't have to be on U.S. Sprint's 'network' to get their FON card.

[Moderator's Note: But just don't plan on making any calls from Port Authority
or Grand Central Station, or wherever else Sprint has red-lined. And it
would be prudent not to dial repeatedly to get past a busy signal.  PT]

------------------------------

Subject: Re: 10666 and 5ESS
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: 17 Jul 89 07:54:28 EDT (Mon)
From: "edwin.g.green" <[e-mail]>

In article <[e-mail]> you write:

>I know of a similar bug regarding 411 and 3-ports on the 1AESS. If you
>three-way to 411, and then try to release, you can't get away from the
>circuit. You have to hang up entirely, call the party back, and re-begin
>the call sequence again, omitting the call to 411.

>That bug has been around for years.

Not a bug!  Generally, when you dial 411, call supervision is passed
to the called party (411).  This is done so that when some one calls
with an emergency, the connections stay in place until the caller
can be identified.  Consequently, you cannot drop the connection.



------------------------------

From: David Smallberg <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Tokyo goes to 8 digits
Date: 17 Jul 89 20:13:14 GMT
Reply-To: David Smallberg <[e-mail]>
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department


In article <[e-mail]> comcon![e-mail]
(Roy Silvernail) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (David
>Smallberg) writes:
>> I also had heard that Alaska information was handled in or near Seattle and
>> Carribean islands in Florida.  I don't know what the situation is today.
>>
>Since I moved to Alaska some 19 years ago, the information operators have
>been in the state, at least. Outlying areas such as Nome are serviced from
>Anchorage or Fairbanks. (Nome's information calls are done in Fairbanks)

What I meant, of course*, was that to save communications costs, information
calls to Alaska or the Caribbean islands *from the 48 states* were handled in
Seattle and Florida (so I had heard; Hawaii was definitely handled in Granada
Hills, Calif.).   When you say "the information operators have been in the
state", do you mean for other than calls originating in Alaska?

(If Alaskans called Hawaii information, or vice versa, where did the calls go?)

*I guess my "lower-48ism" is showing, using a phrasing that presumes Alaska is
"out there".

-- David Smallberg, [e-mail], ...!{uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!cs.ucla.edu!das

------------------------------

Date: 17 Jul 89 15:41 -0700
From: Mark Anderson <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Satanic Long Distance Carrier

In <[e-mail]>, Patrick Townson writes:
>[Moderator's Note: It is worth noting that '666' has never been, and probably
>never will be assigned as part of a carrier access code, due to the ignorance
>and superstition so prevalent among many Americans. Illinois Bell even has
>a hard time getting people to take service on the old Monroe CO, which went
>from Monroe to MONroe to MO-6 and finally '666'.  Checker and Yellow Taxicab
>Radio Dispatching was on there for over sixty years: MON ==> MO 6 ==> 666-3700
>and they finally gave up and moved to a different CO. They say they got a lot
>of harassing phone calls from, uh, strange people. PT]

Interestingly, the 666 prefix does have extensive use here in British
Columbia (604) -- by Federal Government offices.  Glancing at the 'Blue
Pages' government listings in the directory, I noticed that most of the
Vancouver numbers listed for Government of Canada offices are 666-XXXX.

Just coincidence? :-)
---
Mark Anderson <[e-mail]>
{att!alberta,uw-beaver,uunet}!ubc-cs!{good,bad,ugly}!manderso
"Narrow mind would persecute it, die a little to get to it..."

------------------------------

From: Dave Fiske <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: While Phone Rings, Charges May Begin
Date: 17 Jul 89 21:08:11 GMT
Organization: BRS Info Technologies, Latham NY


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Kian-Tat Lim) writes:
> [From the LA Times "Consumer Views" column, by Don G. Campbell, 7/7/89.
> Paraphrased except for items in quotes.]
>
> QUESTION: J. T. observes several one-minute call charges on his/her MCI phone
> bill.  These were made to answering machines that answer on the fifth ring;
> he/she always hung up after the third or fourth ring.
>
> MCI first claims that J. T. would not have been charged if the machine hadn't
> answered.  An MCI manager later informs the customer that "when [you] call a

Yet another twist on the "Did the call go through or not" dilemma:
If a party has one of the following devices hooked up, the call is
actually completed, but the caller is fooled into thinking that the
number is still ringing.

"...[T]he autoswitch answers the call on the first ring and listens for
the 1100-Hz tone that is transmitted by an autodialing fax machine.  If
it senses the tone, the TF500 connects the incoming call to the fax
machine.  If it does not sense the tone, the device rings on through to
the local telephone five times.  If the phone is not answered the
autoswitch automatically switches in the fax..."

"Since the autoswitch actually answers the phone on the first ring and
then takes a few seconds to decide whether the call is fax or phone, to
prevent the caller from holding a 'dead line' while the device makes up
its mind, the TF500 generates a phantom ringing signal back to the
caller.  As far as the caller is concerned, he hears the telephone
ringing--he does not know that the call has actually been answered."

from a review of the Command Communications TF500 Autoswitch,
Radio-Electronics, November, 1988
--
"MAN USES TAPE TO STICK              Dave Fiske  ([e-mail])
 HIS TOE BACK ON!"
                                     Home:  [e-mail]
Headline from Weekly World News             CIS: 75415,163  GEnie: davef

[Moderator's Note: It was electrical tape he used, by the way, not scotch
tape. In Wednesday's Digest, installers sometimes have a devil of a time
finding unused pairs in the cable run, and not just on the 666 exchange
either! And jsol expresses concern that when he gets some additional service
the telco will skimp on pairs rather than run more. See ya tomorrow!  PT]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #243
*****************************










Date:     Wed, 19 Jul 89 0:05:54 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #244
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Wed, 19 Jul 89 00:00:17 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 244

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    When You Run Out of Pairs (TELECOM Moderator)
    Concern About Future Availability of Pairs (Jon Solomon)
    Re: Two questions -- CM8 Mux and Intellidial (Barry Shein)
    How good is "Cable and Wireless" LD service? (Hokey)
    Review of Article: ATT LD Network Risk Management (John Croll)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 18 Jul 89 02:02:53 EDT
From: TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject: When You Run Out of Pairs


The discussion in [Telecom Digest] in recent issues regarding the scarcity
of pairs has been interesting, and brings to mind a problem which is
chronically popping up in older urban areas like Chicago: the lack of pairs
between the central office and each premise. I've experienced both a
scarcity of house pairs and a scarcity of central office pairs in the past,
and it is interesting watching the installer scrape together a working pair
from a selection of three or four wires not in use in the junction box.

In the late 1920's and early 1930's, many high rise buildings (six or more
stories) were constructed which operated as 'apartment-hotels'. They had
front desk, switchboard, and maid service, among other amenities. In those
days not as many people had their own private phone line. Typically, in a
building twenty stories tall, there would be a dozen apartments per floor,
or about 240-275 units in all. Each unit had a phone through the switchboard,
as did the administrative offices. So the switchboard would typically be a
two or three position cord board, serving 250-275 'stations' or extension
phones; all manual switching of course. Under the accepted rule of thumb
that ten percent of the subscribers (tenants, in this case) maximum would
be on the phone at any given time, and that some of these would be local,
from one apartment to another, typically there would be only 20-25 central
office trunks coming in, to handle all incoming and outgoing traffic through
the board at the front desk.

In the building I lived in from 1967-1974, the switchboard had 26 trunk lines
in rotary hunt, from Dorchester 3-7500 up to 7525. We also had ten 'extensions'
from the board at University of Chicago, where we were Ext. 4100 --> 4109
also in rotary hunt for anyone dialing from a campus phone. Now there were
perhaps 3000 such buildings in Chicago at one time; there were two others like
this on my block alone. Sometime in the early to middle seventies, the
economics of running older high rise apartment buildings was such that the
owners of the building decided to close the front desk and switchboard. If the
tenants wanted phones, let them get it direct from Illinois Bell. As more and
more buildings chose to pull the boards out, these posed considerable
problems for Bell in getting at least one pair to each person in the building.

Generally the buildings had an IT, or inside terminal block somewhere near
the switchboard where all the central office lines came in. From the board
to the basement would be the (usually) several hundred pairs needed to bring
each phone to the board. From the basement, these house pairs would typically
run up through conduits to each floor, where they would open up on a smaller
terminal block of maybe twenty pairs each. Let's say the apartment building
had twelve apartments per floor; every apartment would have two pairs to the
local box with one pair actually wired to a house pair coming into the box
and the second pair just loose. Of the twenty pairs that came up through the
conduit to that floor, twelve would in fact be specifically dedicated, or
wired, one to each apartment on the floor. The remaining eight pairs would
be multipled to the floor above and below. The end result would be a pair
for every apartment, and maybe 100-150 extra pairs which could be manipulated
throughout the building by tying any one of the extra pairs to the second
pair for a given apartment. If necessary, the installer could open up a
line at one place and tie down the multiple on the next floor, etc.

The only problem then was the bottleneck *coming into the building*. Only
maybe fifty pairs in all, considering the board had (like ours) around
twenty five central office lines; a few direct lines to long distance if
the board was big/busy enough, and maybe a pair or two to Western Union.
If the building had Muzak, or Western Union Clock Service, or a telegram
machine, then those each took a pair, etc.

When the switchboards were pulled out, suddenly telco had to find enough
pairs on the pole or in the street to bring a line (or two) into the
building for everyone. This stretched things pretty thin for a few years,
and in older areas where a lot of these buildings still stand, you can go
into any building on the block; go to the big, humongous old fashioned
wooden terminal box in the basement and get the dial tone from everyone on
the block! In theory, when one person moves out somewhere in the vicinity,
the phone man goes to *their basement* and opens up the pair, then goes
to the place where a new subscriber wants service and attaches the multiple
there. But people have moved into an apartment, plugged their phone into the
jack, gotten dial tone and assumed they were connected only to later on
hear someone talking on 'their' line who was actually down the street and
across the alley somewhere. Other times telco has insisted the service was
working, and the new subscriber was equally insistent that the line was
dead. Phone man comes on scene, goes to the basement, fiddles around awhile,
gets no where, goes out and climbs pole for awhile, comes back to basement
and still dead pair, etc. Using a good pair to call the test board, they
finally scrounge up one wire here and one wire there to make a pair for
the bewildered customer, who *does* have two perfectly good pairs in his
apartment.

BEWARE THE INVASION OF THE PAIR-SNATCHERS! Even the most ignorant installer,
if he hears dial tone on a pair will leave it alone and assume it belongs to
someone in the building. But sometimes the pairs are incorrectly labled, or
not labled at all. I have two lines here. One day looking out my window I
saw a phone man on the pole in the alley. Two minutes later, my first line
is dead. I called repair immediatly, and had a young lady sass me back and
tell me it was 'impossible' that the guy on the pole had messed me up. I
finally convinced her supervisor to at least call the guy on the pole and have
him reconsider what he had done. There are some installers however who wish
to avoid extra work for themselves and they will 'accidentally' snatch a
working house pair from someone else, figuring it is just as easy for that
person to call repair service and complain about their phone not working as
it is for them to keep searching and ringing out (or sounding) pairs until
they find a good *idle* one for themselves. In these older buildings, the
house pairs are now sixty years old, and with faded tags written on by phone
men who have long since departed this life; so it does get hairy at times.

THE LADY INSTALLER COMES TO VISIT (OR, SHE MEANT WELL, I'M SURE...) About
ten years ago, lady telephone installer comes to the door. Very concientous
young lady that she is, she carefully holds up her ID badge and asks me
to let her in the basement to work on the big box. "I am to turn on the
phone in apartment 902", she beams at me. In the basement, with the covers
off the terminal box she looks at this spaghetti-like mound of wire and
said, "my gracious! I wonder how I will find apartment 902". I told her,
you might go to 902 *first*, and see if it -is- working already. If not,
put your sounder on the line up there. Then, check the box in the hall on
the ninth floor and listen for your sounder. If you hear it, take note of
the numbers written on the little strip of wood next to the screw terminals
and then come back down here and find the same numbers on the screw terminals
at this end. "Oh, do you think that would work?"  Yes ma'm, I do.

Sure enough, she was back five minutes later, to tell me the box on the
ninth floor said HP206. I told her, now why don't you look for house pair
206 in this box. We found it, and she heard her sounder over the wire and
decided 'this must be it'.... She looked puzzled and said well now we have
to get the line from our office. Brilliant deduction, lady... I told her
her order ticket said Rogers Park Cable 97, Pair 34 was assigned to this
customer. By default, the entire terminal box in our basement is Rogers cable
97. It shows up across the street also, but that is beside the point. I
told her you start in the upper left hand corner of the box and count down
pair by pair. The first number is 18, so count from 18 to 34, down one
row, then start at the top of the next row. Stop when you reach 34. She
found it eventually, and jumped it to house pair 206. I had to feel sorry
for the lady. She had only been working for Bell for a short time, and had
probably never done anything in a large high rise building like that before.

She even started to leave *without going back up to 902 to get her sounder
and replace the cover on the modular box in the apartment*!! As I was in need
of a line sounder at the time myself, I should have kept my mouth shut, but
I knew she would get bawled out if she had lost it.

In the past decade, Illinois Bell has added quite a bit of additional cable,
so the shortages and pair snatchings are not as severe as they were, but
in some older buildings, particularly when there are two or three on the
same street, there is still a lot of 'fun and games' when someone wants a
second or third line installed.

Patrick Townson


------------------------------

Date:  Mon, 17 Jul 89 11:44:41 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Concern About Future Availability of Pairs

I had 5 business lines installed in my house (in addition to 2 residence
lines), back about 3 months ago, and they had to run new wire to the
Central Office from my home to accomodate me. They ran the wire because
it was easy (overhead on the pole) and because there were other businesses
in the area that were likely to use the excess facilities.

Now I have a total of 4 lines (2 res and 2 bus), and I am worried that
someday when I actually do install the remaining 4 data services (well,
I don't really know how many I will need), that they will offer me something
like CM8.

Oh well.
--jsol

------------------------------

From: Barry Shein <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Two questions -- CM8 Mux and Intellidial
Date: 18 Jul 89 15:57:50 GMT
Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.



From: [e-mail] (Mike Morris)
>(Barry Shein) writes:
>>
>>1) Our building ran out of capacity so New England TelCo told us that
>>they will be running a "CM8" which provides a multiplexed line
>>service. Any caveats regarding this, particularly with using data
>>modems?
>
>YES.  DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO KEEP YOUR MODEM CIRCUITS, ESPECIALLY
>ANYTHING FASTER THAN 1200 BAUD OFF THE DAMMED BOX !!!!!

Ok, the story takes a new twist...

Now they've changed their mind (they == N.E. TelCo) and are scheduling
upping the capacity of the building to 600 pairs of copper.
Unfortunately this will take two months or so and they say they're
flat out of capacity until then. It seems to me that at this point it
might be worth trying to get them to put something else in, something
a little more modern that won't require digging up the streets and
taking so much time like... (I dunno, we're only about 800 feet from
the central office.)

Suggestions and ammunition welcome, I get the feeling that a good
suggestion here will save both parties a lot of trouble (the building
tenants and TelCo.) The building is an office building with four
floors, several retail on the first and a few dozen business on the
others. We currently have about 150 lines going into the building and
they're all used up with people screaming for more.
--
    -Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade
1330 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA 02146, [phone]
Internet: [e-mail]
UUCP:     encore!xylogics!skuld!bzs or uunet!skuld!bzs

------------------------------

From: Hokey <[e-mail]>
Subject: How good is "Cable and Wireless" LD service?
Date: 18 Jul 89 19:39:17 GMT
Reply-To: Hokey <[e-mail]>
Organization: Plus Five Computer Services, St. Louis, MO


The Cable and Wireless company is trying to convince us that we should
use them as our Long Distance company.

While we can judge their rates, we'd like some information on the quality
of their service.

We place calls all over the world, for what it's worth.

Any feedback on these folks would be appreciated.
--
Hokey                We are space guys.  We know what we are doing.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 18 Jul 89 14:01:01 PDT
From: "I say it's spinach, and to hell with it!" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Review of Article: ATT LD Network Risk Management

The June 1989 issue of IEEE Spectrum is a special issue on designing and
operating minimum-risk systems.  One of the articles is about the ATT phone
system, and it talks some about the last year's disaster at the Hinsdale
telephone switching center.  The article is primarily about how ATT manages its
long distance network to minimize catastrophes, large and small.  MCI and US
Sprint are mentioned only briefly, because, as the article says, their LD
networks are not as large or extensive as ATT's, and they have not adopted the
flexible network architecture ATT now uses.

Although the other articles in this issue are not about telephony, they are
equally interesting.  There are two articles about risk analysis techniques,
and about their limits and pitfalls, and there are articles about aircraft
aging, the Savannah River nuclear weapons plant, the Challanger explosion, and
the Bhopal disaster.  This issue is a good introduction to managing engineering
risk.

John

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #244
*****************************










Date:     Wed, 19 Jul 89 1:12:40 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #245
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Wed, 19 Jul 89 01:00:44 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 245

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Re: US Sprint Code-abuse Policies (Steve Elias)
    Re: US Sprint Code-abuse Policies (John Higdon)
    Re: Wardialers (John Higdon)
    Re: Satanic Long Distance Carrier (Andrew Scott Beals)
    Local Area Calls in Detroit (Miguel Cruz)
    Re: Local Area Calls in Silicon Valley (John Higdon)
    Local Area Calls in Research Triangle Area, NC (Gregory G. Woodbury)
    Local Area Calls in Houston (Peter da Silva)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: chipcom.com![e-mail]
Subject: Re: US Sprint Code-abuse Policies
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 89 07:50:51 -0400


> But I will suggest that if for no other reason than their size, anything
> US Sprint gets, the Mother Company gets four times as much of. And how does
> AT&T handle fraud? Certainly not by red-lining certain parts of cities where
> fraud is prevalent, as Sprint has done with NY Port Authority or Grand
> Central.

    I guess they just eat the cost, right?  There is basically no
    way to catch these guys who sell FONCard numbers.  I think we
    all know why ATT can afford to eat the cost of code-abuse.

    They are rolling in cash.  YOUR CASH.

> Suppose I was a Sprint customer, and innocently took the bus to New York
> and got off at the terminal. Ah yes, I am supposed to call home right away
> and let the folks know I arrived okay....but at the last minute, in quite
> an inappropriate way, I find out *my* calling card won't work there either.

    Just off the bus in New York City :)
    You aren't trying to elicit empathy here, are you Patrick...

    I know that Sprint used to block the direct-dial access from
    Port Authority and Grand Central.  I wonder if one can go through
    a US Sprint operator manually?  I will check with my pal at Sprint
    and verify their current policies at those two sites.

    The 'advanced' code-abuse detection that I referred to is the
    circuitry and software which enables Sprint to detect when
    hundreds of calls are being placed with the same FONCard number,
    and then to shut off the number.

> Sprint may choose to say, 'so what'....but that is simply indicative
> of their attitude in general toward their customers.

        So you say.  I contend that ATT's attitude towards their customers
    is not much better.  ATT just has had more money and time to
    blow on PR.  Though Sprint seems to buy a bit of PR, themselves.

> If AT&T pulled something like that,
> they would be immediatly censured by the FCC.

    So you contend that the FCC is forcing ATT to live up
    to higher standards than the other long haul carriers?
    Would you care to cite some more examples?  (I'm sure you can.)

> Sprint is not the only offender. US Telecom in Cedar Rapids, IA is another
> bunch that makes up the rules as they go along. Their thing is, if they
> do not like what you say on the phone, they refuse to extend *paid* calls!
> I kid you not. They block all calls on their network terminating at the
> phone number in Chicago of a BBS which they suspect of being a phreak hive.
> So as a BBS user, I sign up with US Telecom for long distance, only to find
> after the fact that I cannot call certain BBS' if the Cedar Rapids gang
> has not approved.

    US Telecom is US Sprint.  Each has bought the other out at
    one time or another...  So your enemy is the same!

> AT&T is running some ads in Chicago right now which say it all: "You've
> tried all the rest -- now come back home to the best."

    A matter of opinion.  Cliff Robertson usually plays an evil genius
    in the movies, you know!


------------------------------

From: John Higdon <zygot![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: US Sprint Code-abuse Policies
Date: 19 Jul 89 00:47:10 GMT
Organization: ATI Wares Team


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(TELECOM Moderator) writes:
> You can't do it this way! AT&T takes the good with the bad. They do prosecute
> for theft of service, as they rightly should; as as Sprint and others should
> do. But AT&T takes the concept of universal service and the importance of
> service availability quite seriously. They won't ever chop off innocent
> customers just to spite someone else.

Another item of interest: the alternative carriers have really let the
small-town user down. Several years ago, as the result of pressure from
MCI, along with others, the California PUC passed an edict that all
Pac*Bell exchanges would have to be fully equal access compliant by the
end of 1987. This sent Pac*Bell scrambling to replace ancient SXS
switches with DMS and caused them to glue CONTAC onto their remaining
#5 crossbar war wagons.

As a result of all this, Pac*Bell probably has the highest percentage
of equal access exchanges in the country, but so what? If you go out
of metropolitan areas, like Weed, or Baker, or Los Banos, you will find
equal access telephones with no carriers available except for Mother.
Why? Well, Sprint, MCI, Telesphere, and all the rest don't *really*
want to bother with sleepy little out-of-the-way communities. Since
only Mother has to provide universal service, why should they spend all
that money just so a few people can use their service.

No, my friends, what they were really after was to have the metro areas
have universal equal access so that they could maximize their
penetration in areas that required minimal cost. Someone from Weed let
me know when someone other than AT&T provides feature group D long
distance from up there. I'm not holding my breath.
--
        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
      [e-mail]       | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

------------------------------

From: John Higdon <zygot![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Wardialers
Date: 18 Jul 89 07:32:55 GMT
Organization: ATI Wares Team



In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Dave Fiske) writes:
> After probably a half hour of repeatedly dialing the same busy number,
> I started getting a recording that my Fon Card number was not
> authorized.
> [...]
> Once they determined that I was really the person who belonged to that
> account, they said the unusually high  number of calls in such a short
> period of time had triggered their security system.

Of course, turning off authorization on suspicion of unauthorized use
doesn't make any sense, either. If Sprint really suspected that the
card had fallen into evil hands, it would be better to let a call go
through and then investigate and possibly identify the culprit.

But more important, it's this cavalier attitude that puts AT&T in a
class by itself. Phone service in this country has been reliable enough
that we have all taken it for granted. We *rely* on it. Over recent
years, Sprint, MCI, Telesphere, etc., ad nauseum, have demonstrated
that they consider telephone service in the same category as cable
television: nice when it works, but not really essential. After all, as
one Sprint rep told me once, "If it doesn't work, you can always use
AT&T."

Customers' loyalty to the "OCCs" is truly amazing. If your local
operating company took the same attitude in providing dial tone that
Sprint et al take in providing long distance service, your life and
property would be at serious risk.

Furthermore, the OCCs act as though they are doing you a favor by
completing a call. "If you play by our screwy rules, and kiss it up
just right, we'll put your call through if it's convenient." While it
may sound like commercial copy, AT&T acts as though every single call
is essential to their business.

Not a bad attitude from a company who just a few years ago was indeed
the only game in town.
--
        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
      [e-mail]       | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 Jul 89 09:49:56 PDT
From: Andrew Scott Beals <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Satanic Long Distance Carrier

>[Moderator's Note: It is worth noting that '666' has never been, and probably
>never will be assigned as part of a carrier access code, due to the ignorance
>and superstition so prevalent among many Americans. Illinois Bell even has
>a hard time getting people to take service on the old Monroe CO, which went
>from Monroe to MONroe to MO-6 and finally '666'.  Checker and Yellow Taxicab
>Radio Dispatching was on there for over sixty years: MON ==> MO 6 ==> 666-3700
>and they finally gave up and moved to a different CO. They say they got a lot
>of harassing phone calls from, uh, strange people. PT]

The Internal Revenue Service office in Manchester New Hampshire has a '666'
prefix.

I've also had cashiers change my tab to $6.65 when it's come out
to $6.66.

[Moderator's Note: Some people regard IRS as the Great Satan. I wonder if
this is why IRS got phone service on a 'local exchange' -- ha ha!   PT]

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 Jul 89 04:18:16 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Local Area Calls in Detroit

Roy M. Silvernail wrote about Alaska Directory Assistance...
I just wondered.. is Alaska the only state where D.A. won't provide
subscriber addresses (for ANYONE, not just customers who requested
that their addresses not be given out..)?  The business office will
give it out (if you whine at them after they say "sorry, sir, it's
the RULE" 6 or 7 times), but it seems strange that 5551212 won't.
Are Alaskans just very secretive?

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure Detroit still has flat rate service
divided by nominal municipalities.  In Ann Arbor, I can almost
reach Detroit (about 25 miles away) for free, but not quite.
Every time Michigan Bell starts making measured service noises,
there are some pretty loud rumblings, it seems.

------------------------------

From: John Higdon <zygot![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Local Area Calls in Silicon Valley
Date: 17 Jul 89 19:22:20 GMT
Organization: ATI Wares Team


In article <[e-mail]>, uuwest![e-mail]
(the Watcher) writes:
> In response to "what the billing is like around here", it seems to have been
> arranged for the phone company (pacific*bell and/or GTE, depending) to make
> lots of money. Unmeasured service is available, except that calls outside of
> an 8-mile radius of where you are calling from are "zone" charges. If you

Current reregulation attempts by Pac*Bell would extend the 8 mile
radius to 12 miles. This would (hopefully) correct some of the gross
inequities that exist in the south Bay Area.

For example, Campbell is a community surrounded on all sides by San
Jose, yet is has its own exchange. San Jose itself is divided into
three zones. All "San Jose" prefixes are local to each other, but each
zone has a different local calling area, and this is where the
inequities lie. Campbell<>Zone 1 is toll, and yet there are many San
Jose addresses in the "Campbell" exchange. Zone 1 is the east side, but
from there it's a local call to Zone 2 telephones that are located far
west of the Campbell exchange all the way to the Cupertino hills!

Depending on where you draw your route, a five mile call can be toll
and a thirty mile call can be local. Most of this is due to the fact
that the zones have very irregular shapes that resemble political
gerrymandering (coincidental?) and have little to do with geographical
realities.
--
        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
      [e-mail]       | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

------------------------------

Date: 18 Jul 89 06:14:35 GMT
From: "Gregory G. Woodbury" <wolves.uucp![e-mail]>
Subject: Local Area Calls In Research Triangle Area, NC

Research Triangle Area of North Carolina is the area around the cities of
Durham, Chapel Hill and Raleigh.   Durham is served by GTE-South, Raleigh
and Chapel Hill are Southern Bell.  Research Triangle Park is in the GTE
domain (Durham County).   Enough geography.  Generally, GTE provides Durham
with flat rate service that includes: Durham, RTP, Butner and
Creedmore, GTE provides RTP with Business service (flat rate, mostly)
that includes: Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill.  SBT provides Raleigh
flat rate service to: Raleigh (and suburbs to west, south and north -
east is Durham), and RTP.  Chapel Hill gets Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

Given this, lots of businesses like RTP exchange services, but FTX is
not available due to the strange politics of the RTP. (They have to be
in the RTP or certain specific areas near it to qualify.)   Many
businesses in Chapel Hill (about 20 miles from Durham, 32 from Raleigh)
got FTX lines from Durham (note past tense).

There have been calls (for many years) to extend "local area" service
between Durham and Chapel Hill, but this was prevented by the PUC's
unwillingness to force GTE and SBT into bed together.  Finally, they
did make a "Tri-wide" calling plan available.  It is basically just a
measured rate service that lets consumers in each city call all the
others.  This, in effect, makes each calling area in the Triangle look
like the descriptions I have seen of Boston.  There is an unmeasured
local area, and then there is a measured service extended area, and
then there is "Long Distance"  (there are the usual disctinctions about
intra-LATA, and inter-LATA and the carrier wars).  Tri-wide also
changed is so that you don't need 1+ to call in the extended calling
areas.

When Tri-wide was announced, it was very poorly handled, most people in
Durham got it by default (you had an option to refuse it, but they did
NOT make this very well known).  Chapel Hill and Raleigh implemented it
about a month later and the users had to request it.  Also, Raleigh and
Chapel Hill (SBT) users can get more extensions to other areas (e.g.
Chapel Hill-Hillsboro, or Raleigh-Smithfield) at additional cost.

The Duke University TelCom system (independent of GTE and SBT) chose to
not participate, thus there is still 1+ service from Duke to Raleigh or
Chapel Hill.

Greg Woodbury

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 18 Jul 89 21:36:00 -0400
From: ficc![e-mail]
Subject: Local Area Calls in Houston

Houston is one of the largest local calling areas in the country. Basic
exchange rates for one-party, two-party, and four-party lines are for the
line only. "Economy service" (with 25 free calls) is only available at
some COs.

The local calling area is about 40 miles by 40 miles, with a population
of about 3,000,000 people.

Of course this must be balanced with SWBell's current attempt to charge
BBSes in Houston at Business rates.
---
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
Business: [e-mail], [phone]. | "A char, a short int, and
Personal: [e-mail].   `-_-' |  an int bit-field were walking
Quote: Have you hugged your wolf today?  'U`  |  through the forest..."


------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #245
*****************************










Date:     Thu, 20 Jul 89 7:32:53 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #246
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Thu, 20 Jul 89 07:30:58 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 246

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    The Lost Submissions (David W. Tamkin)
    New Custom Calling Features in Chicago (TELECOM Moderator)
    Archives Final Day! (TELECOM Moderator)
    CD ROM Directories (Kenneth R. Jongsma)
    London (UK) New Area Codes (Julian Macassey)
    Two Odds and Ends (Ken Jongsma)
    Expensive Motel Phone Calls (K.J. Chang)
    Labels for 2500 TouchTone Sets (Doug Faunt)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: The Lost Submissions
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 89 17:59:57 CDT
Reply-To: jolnet.ORPK.IL.US!dattier
From: chinet.chi.il.us!dwtamkin (David W. Tamkin)

In the past two weeks I've submitted four articles to the Digest at
[e-mail]; one bounced after ten days and three are in limbo.  For
all the readers' electronic viewing pleasure, here they come again in one
swell foop, plus a fifth I was going to submit the day I first tried mailing
this compendium.

I don't save Digest issues, so I cannot say who originally brought what up
nor quote exact phrasing.  My original submissions did, but once I had
responded I deleted my copies of the inspirational texts to which I was
replying.  If saying that "someone spoke about a situation" without precise
citation offends you, please skip this article in its entirety.

1. The moderator and the moderator emeritus were discussing the pros and
cons of telco-controlled Speed Dialing and saved numbers in the memory of
one's own telephone instrument.  For my purposes the latter is much more
useful: no setup fee, no monthly fees, larger memory capacity in most cases,
and the ability to program partial numbers.  If you frequently call
different extensions of a business you can preprogram their common digits;
if you live near an area code border you can preprogram 1+NPA to spare your
fingers the labor on all your calls across the line.  Try doing that with
Speed Dialing.

2. The moderator stated that Dial-an-Atheist has been available since 1979
at 312-506-9200.  Until 1983 all prefixes in area code 312 were NNX.  Either
Dial-an-Atheist doesn't date back as far as 1979 or it has had a phone number
change over the course of its history.

3. Said moderator commented that, quite the opposite of David Gast's
experiences in Los Angeles, published telephone numbers in metropolitan
Kansas City are available from Directory Assistance at either [phone]
or [phone], regardless of whether the number you request is located
in Missouri or Kansas.  After 708 is split from 312 this November, it
appears that both [phone] and [phone] will ring at 10 S.
Canal Street in area code 312, where Directory Assistance for both area codes
will be handled in one place.

4. I believe it was Ilya Goldberg who asked about the assignment of default
long distance carriers to telco-owned pay phones.  In the parts of
metropolitan Chicago served by Illinois Bell, the owner of the premises on
which the public coin phone is located selects the default long distance
carrier.  One very curious result is that Illinois Bell pay phones outside
Illinois Bell's own corporate headquarters are assigned to MCI rather than
to IBT's pre-divestiture parent.

5. Finally, I had believed that 708 was to be the first geographically
discontiguous NPA in the North American Numbering Plan.  The city of Chicago
has four cartographic holes, subscribers in two of which having service on
suburban telephone prefixes.  As a result, area code 708 will be in three
pieces: the bulk outside the perimeter of the city of Chicago and the two
islands of 708 that will be surrounded by 312.  (To continue the metaphor, I
live along the strait that separates those two islands.  That makes it sound
as though I live in a houseboat, doesn't it?)

   But I remembered that Liberty Island and Ellis Island are politically part
of the borough of Manhattan and the County of New York, even though they are
on the far side of Staten Island from Manhattan Island itself.  If telephone
numbers on Liberty Island and Ellis Island are in area code 212, reflecting
political boundaries, instead of area code 718 to reflect geographical
intuition, then 212 has been a discontiguous NPA ever since the 212/718 split
back in 1983 or 1984.  Do any of you New Yorkers or New Jerseyites out there
know for sure?

--
David W. Tamkin    Post Office Box 567542    Norridge, Illinois  60656-7542
most of the time   [e-mail]  or  ...!attctc!jolnet!dattier
[e-mail]  BIX: dattier  CIS: 73720,1570  GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN
The post office box address in Norridge will be valid until August 26, 1989.
Absolutely no other users of Chinet share any of my opinions on any subject.


------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 19 Jul 89 1:34:21 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  New Custom Calling Features in Chicago

The new genre of smart features are being phased in by Illinois Bell
Telephone beginning September 30. Automatic callback to the last connection;
call identification in the form of distinctive ringing with up to three
distinct phone numbers per line; call blocking of unwanted calls and home
intercom are the features being added.

They have been offered on a trial basis in the Hyde Park office for the
past several months. They will be available in most south side exchanges
beginning in October, and throughout other areas of the city early in 1990.
The suburbs will be equipped during the summer of 1990.

They are *not* offering calling party ID at this time. These additional
features are being offered at an average price of $5 each per month. A
discount will be given to people taking all of them.

In the case of distinctive ringing (what they are calling call identification),
the cost of one additional number parked on your line is $4.85 per month.
The cost of two additional numbers is $8.90. If you wish, you can also have
calling cards issued on those numbers to provide a sort of internal billing
and accounting of long distance calls by family members, etc.

Patrick Townson

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 19 Jul 89 1:24:03 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Archives Final Day!

As noted earlier this week, the TELECOM Archives at bu-cs has become very
full. We must cut it back in size, and have decided to roll the first five
years, 1981-86 off onto tape.

They will be available from tape for perhaps another two years, but this
is a tedious and time consuming process.

      ** GET WHAT YOU WANT FROM THE ARCHIVES VOLUMES 1 - 5  TODAY **

Use ftp protocol to bu-cs.bu.edu.  If you can't do anything else, then send
a message to '[e-mail]' TODAY and tell him specifically what you
want from the old back issues.

By the weekend they will be gone to tape storage.  You've been advised.


Patrick Townson

------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Subject: CD ROM Directories
Date: Tue, 18-Jul-89 11:25:51 PDT

Several RBOCs have anounced that they have published CD ROM versions of
their phonebooks. Unfortunately, the prices on these are very high. I
would like to use these to see if I could locate  some old friends, but
I have no desire to spend large sums of money doing this!

Seems like this could be agreat opportunity for someone, if it hasn't been
done already. Does anyone have any idea if this kind of service is available?

[e-mail]

------------------------------

From: julian macassey <[e-mail]>
Subject: London (UK) New Area Codes.
Date: 19 Jul 89 01:34:23 GMT
Organization: The Hole in the Wall  Hollywood CA U.S.A.



    It appears that British Telecom is changing the London area code from 01
to 071 for central London and 081 for Outer London. I read this in the July
1st edition of the New Scientist - not exactly a reliable source of Telco
info. But I have read nothing here about it yet, and am sure some of would
like to know. I am also sure that I will be flamed from the UK for not
getting my facts right. So here are the facts as I have divined them from
California:

    The change is to 2 digits if you consider the 0 digit is a leader as the
1 digit is in the U.S. i.e. 1(213).

    Paraphrased here is the New Scientist article:

There are currently 4 million subscribers in the London (01) area code.
British Telecom says the practical limit is 4.5 Million which will be
reached some time in late 1990. Central London currently has 1.5 Million
subscribers. Outer London has 2.5 Million. Note that the standard London
phone number is a 7 digit number, just like the U.S. a three digit CO code
and a four digit subscriber suffix. i.e. 353-4622.  The Changeover will be
May 6 1990. The master plan they say is to have all major cities with a 3
digit (0NN) area code.

    The New Scientist moans and groans about the inconvenience and futility
of it all. Alas, the usual moaning and groaning of people who wake to find
they have a new area code.

    And a final question for all amateur spooks and freaks of old: What
exactly was the FEDeral manual exchange in London during the sixties? Does
it still exist?

Yours
--
Julian Macassey, n6are  julian@bongo    ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian
n6are@k6iyk (Packet Radio) n6are.ampr.org [44.16.0.81] voice [phone]

------------------------------

Subject: Two Odds and Ends
Date: Wed Jul 19 10:24:25 1989
From: Ken Jongsma <[e-mail]>

Found the following in the latest issue of Inbound/Outbound:

{As prveviously mentioned in Telecom Digest} Companies in Northern California
counties of Alameda and Contra Costa should start thinking about ordering new
stationery and business cards. Those counties will be getting a new area code
-510- effective October, 1991. {Previously discussed as well - the first use
of a non traditional numbering for area codes}

{As mentioned on almost every morning radio show around the country!} You
don't have to fly to Italy to get a private audience with the Pope. For the
price of an overseas phone call you can access the Vatican's voice mail system
and hear a recorded message from Pope John Paul II himself.

Vatican Radio uses the system to broadcast daily messages recorded by the Pope
in English, Italian and Spanish. To access the English language service from
the US, dial 011-39-7779-3020. {Gasp! More 8 digit phone numbers!}

[e-mail]


------------------------------

From: "K. J. Chang" <hp-sdd!hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM![e-mail]>
Subject: Expensive Motel Phone Calls
Date: 19 Jul 89 20:48:12 GMT
Reply-To: "K. J. Chang" <[e-mail]>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories

I stayed in a motel near San Jose for four weeks recently. During my staying
there, I made two dozen phone calls at weekends or midnights to Los Angeles.
When I checked out, I found that I have to pay more than three hundred
dollars for the calls.

The rate I was charged is more than five times as much as that of AT&T's
discount rate. I am waiting for what the motel would say about their rate. At
the same time, I want to know what kind of actions I can take to get back the
money I was overcharged.

Thanks for your attention!

Keh-jeng Chang

[Moderator's Note: As the above letter demonstrates, one of the nightmares
of post-divestiture telephone service is the way innocent users are routinely
victimized by the johnny-come-latelys on the telecom scene. Unfortunatly,
there is probably nothing our correspondent can do to get a refund. I wonder
if the architects of divestiture knew, or even cared about the confusion
and rip offs the American consumer has endured the past few years as a result
of their decision to make the highly technical -- and I will assert also
naturally monopolistic -- telephone industry open to anyone and everyone who
said they were operating a 'phone company'. Shame on all of them.  PT]

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 19 Jul 89 18:03:51 PDT
From: Doug Faunt N6TQS 415-688-8269 <[e-mail]>
Subject: Labels for 2500 TouchTone sets

Does anyone know where I can get blank light cardboard labels for the 2500
tone dial sets, preferably in a form that can be fed through a
printer, so that we can do instruction sheets for the users of the
telephone system here?

I don't keep up with this group, so mail would be desirable.  Thanx.


------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #246
*****************************










Date:     Thu, 20 Jul 89 8:17:52 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #247
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Thu, 20 Jul 89 08:10:13 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 247

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Re: Satanic Long Distance Carrier (Fred Fierling)
    Re: Satanic Long Distance Carrier (Roy Smith)
    Re: Why can't I choose AT&T? (John Limpert)
    Re: Why can't I choose AT&T? (Jay Elinsky)
    Re: NNX-0000 (Richard R. Grady, Jr.)
    Re: Praise the Lord and pass the RF filters (Amanda Walker)
    Re: Local Area Calls in New Jersey/California/Mass  (Ben Ullrich)
    Re: Local Area Calls in New Hampshire (Richard R. Grady, Jr.)
    Re: 10288 numbers revisited (Jim Gottlieb)
    Re: Myth and Reality About Eavesdropping (David Michael McCord)

[Moderator's Note: Did you get everything you want from the first five
volumes of the Digest? They are going off line today!  The contact for
these 'archived archives' in the future is [e-mail]    PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Fred Fierling)
Subject: Re: Satanic Long Distance Carrier
Date: 18 Jul 89 20:02:35 GMT
Organization: Microplex Systems Ltd

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Nathan Glasser) writes:

[ Article deleted.  I'm responding to Moderator's note... ]

> [Moderator's Note: It is worth noting that '666' has never been, and probably
> never will be assigned as part of a carrier access code, due to the ignorance
> and superstition so prevalent among many Americans. Illinois Bell even has
> a hard time getting people to take service on the old Monroe CO, which went
> ...

Here in Vancouver we have found a very appropriate use for the devilish
666- prefix.  It is used by Revenue Canada (our equivalent of the I.R.S.)
and other government "services".
--
Fred Fierling    Tel: [phone]   Microplex Systems Ltd, 265 East 1st Avenue
uunet!mplex!fff  Fax: [phone]   Vancouver, BC, V5T 1A7, Canada


------------------------------

From: Roy Smith <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Satanic Long Distance Carrier
Date: 19 Jul 89 01:49:33 GMT
Reply-To: Roy Smith <[e-mail]>
Organization: Public Health Research Inst. (NY, NY)


> [Moderator's Note: It is worth noting that '666' has never been, and probably
> never will be assigned as part of a carrier access code, due to the ignorance
> and superstition so prevalent among many Americans.

    Westwood and Washington Township, NJ are 201-664 and 201-666 (both
exchanges in both localities).  It never occured to me that I had a satanic
phone number (we were 666) when I was growing up.  But I guess it does
explain a few things :-).
--
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
{att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- [e-mail]
"The connector is the network"

------------------------------

From: John Limpert <gronk![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Why can't I choose AT&T?
Date: 19 Jul 89 21:38:09 GMT
Reply-To: John Limpert <gronk![e-mail]>
Organization: BFEC/GSFC Greenbelt, Maryland


In article <[e-mail]> zygot![e-mail]
(John Higdon) writes:
>So instead what we have is an apartment complex owner linking up with
>some get-rich-quick scam operation to deny residents the opportunity of
>choosing their long distance carrier, deprive them of having local
>operating company special services, and effectively cut them off from
>the outside world.

I am in a similar situation with cable TV service.  The apartment complex
owner supplies a poor quality, overpriced service that uses a microwave
distribution system instead of the "official" county cable system.  I was
told that the building owner solicited bids from a number of companies (~6)
and picked the best offer.  Are phone companies and cable companies
both considered common carriers?  I would be interested in any information
on the legal aspects of this situation.  Does the owner have the right to
only grant access to those companies who give him the best kickbacks?

--
John Limpert        [e-mail]    uunet!n3dmc!gronk!johnl


------------------------------

Date: Wed, 19 Jul 89 23:04:37 EDT
From: Jay Elinsky <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Why can't I choose AT&T?

The moderator describes how to convince the local Bell company to install
regular phone service in an employer-built housing complex.  But doesn't
the phone company need the housing complex's permission to run wires or to
use the existing wires?  Do they have to give permission?

                                       Jay Elinsky
                                       IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
                                       Yorktown Heights, NY

[Moderator's Note: Telephone companies have easement rights, permitting
them to cross your property with their wires, etc. Likewise, here in
Illinois, cable companies have easement rights; that is, a landlord cannot
prohibit a cable company from providing service to an individual tenant.
Here in Chicago however, cable firms as well as telco have a monopoly
status granted to them based on neighborhood.   PT]

------------------------------

From: "richard.r.grady..jr" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: NNX-0000
Date: 18 Jul 89 20:35:05 GMT
Reply-To: "richard.r.grady..jr" <[e-mail]>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories


In article <[e-mail]> Kent Borg <lloyd!kent@husc
6.harvard.edu> writes:
=I recently noticed that the pizza place across from my laundromat has
=a phone number which ends with 4 zeros.
=
=I don't think I have seen this before.  In fact, I remember as a kid
=(I was a strange kid) thinking that those numbers would probably be
=reserved for phoning the exchange itself, but I never remember seeing
=0000--at least until yesterday.
=
=Why are NNX-0000 (I hope I have the N's and X's straight) numbers so
=rare?

NNX-0000 numbers are not unusual in my area:
     Lawrence MA   (508)-68X-
     Salem NH      (603)-89[0348]-
These offices are ESS.
Some are assigned to businesses, some to private residences.
The numbers seem to exist here at about the proper frequency (1/10000).

Dick Grady               [e-mail]          ...!att!mvuxd!r4

------------------------------

From: Amanda Walker <intercon![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Praise the Lord and pass the RF filters
Date: 18 Jul 89 20:50:31 GMT
Reply-To: Amanda Walker <[e-mail]>
Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Mike Morris) writes:
> you could get a nasty
> RF burn - and they take forever to heal (mine took over 5 times as long as
> a similar soldering iron burn I got a few years ago).

RF burn is nasty--I first experienced it while helping a friend adjust the
impedance matcher between his ham transceiver and the long-wire antenna we
had just strung.  Yow!  Gave me a real visceral appreciation for how a
microwave oven works :-).  After that I made *him* key the transceiver
while *I* adjusted the matcher...

--
Amanda Walker
InterCon Systems Corporation
--
[e-mail]  | ...!uunet!intercon!amanda

------------------------------

Subject: Re: Local Area Calls in New Jersey/California/Mass
Organization: sybase, inc., emeryville, ca.
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 89 22:02:41 -0700
From: ben ullrich <[e-mail]>


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes:

> Okay, you asked for it....:-)

Yes, you did. (;-) :

> Now onto California. [...]
> Local calling areas shrunk in size drastically,
> and now some places in San Francisco are toll calls (as opposed to cheaper
> Zone calls) from other places in San Francisco.

This is incorrect.  According to my own experience (I LIVE in San Francisco!
(;-) ), and the Pac Bell phone directory, all calls from SF prefixes/areas to
other areas of SF are zone 1 == no charge.  It's areas outside the city (South
San Francisco, Marin County, and the East Bay [all different municipalities]
that are zone or toll calls.  Even so, I am able to call my office in
Emeryville (across the bay!) for $0 because it is closer than 8 miles.  This is
really nice.

> Right now there is a plan in consideration for returning zone 2 calls to
> the local calling area in exchange for raising the rate for local service
> (currently set to $8.25/mo). It is cheap to get phone service in California,
> but you can't call anywhere.

These statements aren't related.  Why would adding a zone to your calling area
imply that you ``can't call anywhere?''  Sure, adding zone 2 to the no charge
calling area would be nice for those that call those areas a lot, and would
likewise be a bummer for those who don't (they get to pay the extra $$ for
getting a calling area they don't use).  But who knows if this really makes a
difference to the average caller?  The usefulness of such a move (from a
consumer point-of-view) would depend on how much more the extra zone would
cost, and how many zone 2 calls are made by how many people.

If I remember correctly, the proposal you cite plans to do a lot more than
expand free calling areas.  I believe it also hopes to give standard
subscribers more services (such as touch tone for FREE! (;-) ) for a miniscule
increase.  I really don't remember the particulars too clearly, though.



 ...ben
----
ben ullrich           consider my words disclaimed,if you consider them at all
sybase, inc., emeryville, ca
+1 (415) 596 - 3500                     this space for rent
[e-mail]                   {pyramid,pacbell,sun,lll-tis}!sybase!ben

------------------------------

From: "richard.r.grady..jr" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Local Area Calls in New Hampshire
Date: 19 Jul 89 16:03:05 GMT
Reply-To: "richard.r.grady..jr" <[e-mail]>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories


In article <[e-mail]> Joel B Levin <levin@bbn.
com> writes:
>  [...]
>Nashua, the second largest city in New Hampshire, and its surrounding
>towns do not have metered service.  I believe the same is true of
>Manchester, the largest city, though I don't recall having read the
>relevant parts of the Manchester white pages.  This means that
>(probably) the entire state of New Hampshire is free of measured
>service (for residents-- I'm not sure about business service).
>  [...]

I live in Salem, NH, which is next-door, exchange-wise, from Nashua
(There are two intervening towns, but Nashua serves Hudson, and Salem
serves Windham), and with-in the local dialing area of Nashua.
For the last 15 years in Salem (ever since they replaced the SXS switch
with ESS), residential phones have a choice of unlimited or metered
local service.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, so the following may by slightly
inaccurate, but the dollar values are approximately right.
Unlimited costs ~$12/month.  Metered costs ~$5/month, and includes 50
message units (increments of 5-minutes).

I chose metered, because I make very few local calls [ but you should see
my long-distance bills :-) ]; I have never gone over the initial 50 units.
A few years (and a couple of rate changes) ago, the break-even point
was about 125 message units.

Business local service is metered only.

Dick Grady               [e-mail]          ...!att!mvuxd!r4

------------------------------

From: Jim Gottlieb <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: 10288 numbers revisited
Date: 19 Jul 89 16:31:25 GMT
Reply-To: Jim Gottlieb <denwa![e-mail]>
Organization: Info Connections, West Los Angeles


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
writes:
>
>>So everyone be warned about the "10288". It's far from free.
>
>[Moderator's Note: Baloney, baloney, baloney! Prefixing a call with 10288
>does nothing except force the call to be routed via AT&T.

True, but if the call is an intra-LATA one, you will be charged AT&T
intra-state rates instead of your local telco's rate (which may be
free).  Many telcos block 10XXX calls to intra-LATA numbers, but
obviously this guy's doesn't.
--
                              Jim Gottlieb
  E-Mail: <[e-mail]> or <[e-mail]> or <attmail!denwa!jimmy>
         V-Mail: [phone]  Fax: [phone]  The-Real-Me: 824-5454

------------------------------

From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Myth and Reality About Eavesdropping
Date: Wed, 19-Jul-89 21:13:34 PDT

Mr. Lippman's detailed article regarding detection of wiretaps was quite
interesting reading.  However, there is yet another possible method to
implement a "wiretap" (reason for quotes will become apparent) that is
totally impossible to detect, because it does not even cause the very-slight
changes Mr. Lippman discussed.

On any line served by an all-digital switch, all line signals pass through
a digital cross-connect device which is essentially a large block of random
access memory (RAM).  Connections through this device are made by
simply copying the digital image of the line audio signals from one RAM
location (address) to another.

It does not require a degree in computer science to see that the digitized
audio may be copied just as easily to a second location, thus allowing
completely undetectable monitoring of the line in question.

I do not *know* that software to perform this function exists.  But I
suspect that it would only take fifteen minutes for a #5ESS-trained
programmer to write it...  A wiretap without any wire!

[e-mail]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #247
*****************************










Date:     Fri, 21 Jul 89 0:15:59 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #248
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Fri, 21 Jul 89 00:02:12 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 248

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Equal Access Time! (Larry E. Kollar)
    Connecting a Modem to a Merlin ([e-mail])
    Re: When You Run Out of Pairs (Ben Ullrich)
    Re: US Sprint Code-abuse Policies & Systems (Ben Ullrich)
    Re: Sprint Calling Card Fraud (Douglas Scott Reuben)
    Re: Wardialers (John DeArmond)
    New York Geography ([e-mail])
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 19 Jul 89 21:30:33 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Larry E. Kollar)
Subject: Equal Access Time!
Organization: DCA Inc., Alpharetta, GA

In article <[e-mail]> zygot![e-mail]
(John Higdon) writes:
>Another item of interest: the alternative carriers have really let the
>small-town user down....
>
>... If you go out
>of metropolitan areas, like Weed, or Baker, or Los Banos, you will find
>equal access telephones with no carriers available except for Mother.
>Why? Well, Sprint, MCI, Telesphere, and all the rest don't *really*
>want to bother with sleepy little out-of-the-way communities. Since
>only Mother has to provide universal service, why should they spend all
>that money just so a few people can use their service.

Well, we recently received our equal access ballots in Dawsonville, GA
(404-265) along with other customers of "Standard Telephone" (an independent
but all-digital telco in northeast GA).  We have *five* choices:

    "AT&T - The Right Choice" (no kidding -- that's what it says!)
    MCI
    Sprint
    Southernnet
    Teleconnect(? ballot's at home)

The ballot also has the three-digit access codes for each company, but with
NO explanation of what they might be good for.  Some fine print at the bottom
reads (paraphrased) "some of these carriers bill you separately, unless they
have made billing arrangements with us."  Once again, no indication of who
may have made such arrangements (besides AT&T, who has and will continue to
handle our long-distance calls).

404-265 *might* have 2000 subscribers; I seem to remember reading that
Standard has 15000 total subscribers in six exchanges.  Dawsonville is about
60 miles from Atlanta, 30 miles into the long-distance-to-Atlanta desert,
and the fastest-growing of Standard's exchanges.  (I could relate a few
stories about when we used to call it "Sub-Standard," but they've really
grown & grown up in the last few years.  An ESS in every exchange, and
all that.)

The thing I'm interested in is this "The Right Choice" tag.  I thought
that was just a motto/advertising slogan; has AT&T actually changed their
name to get that on the ballots?
--
Larry Kollar    ...!gatech!dcatla!mclek
: life BEGIN funds @ enough_to_retire < WHILE work REPEAT ;

------------------------------

From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]
Subject: Connecting a modem to a Merlin
Date: Wed, 19-Jul-89 21:34:28 PDT

I would like to connect a modem to the Merlin system at work but need a bit
of help.  The phones that we use have an extra jack on the bottom for use (I
am told) with a speakerphone or a "universal device interface".  The people
from AT$T are quite willing to sell me a little box to plug into it for a sum
over $250.00 (which seems a bit high for what is undoubtedly a very simple
little box).

Is there a way to connect the modem without the interface box to either the
phone itself or to the wall jack?  Will I be forced to run a line back to the
service entrance?

[e-mail]

------------------------------

Subject: Re: When You Run Out of Pairs
Organization: sybase, inc., emeryville, ca.
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 89 21:43:47 -0700
From: ben ullrich <[e-mail]>

Thanks to Patrick for another nice telecom history tidbit.  I did like it.

BUT, your sexist, female-disparaging remarks leave MUCH to be desired.

> THE LADY INSTALLER COMES TO VISIT (OR, SHE MEANT WELL, I'M SURE...) [...]
> Brilliant deduction, lady... [...]
> I had to feel sorry for the lady. [...]

It is interesting to me that this section is preceded by one in which a male
installer who makes a much worse ``blunder'' (disconnecting one of your phone
lines) gets nowhere near the demeaning comments that the ``lady installer''
gets.  The above (quoted) section sounds to me like this installer was
bad simply because she was a woman, and that for some reason women just
aren't as suitable for installers as men are.  Or that they are, but
their blunders are blamed on different sources.  Disgusting.


 ...ben
----
ben ullrich           consider my words disclaimed,if you consider them at all
sybase, inc., emeryville, ca
+1 (415) 596 - 3500                     this space for rent
[e-mail]                   {pyramid,pacbell,sun,lll-tis}!sybase!ben

------------------------------

Subject: Re: US Sprint Code-abuse Policies & Systems
Organization: sybase, inc., emeryville, ca.
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 89 21:29:23 -0700
From: ben ullrich <[e-mail]>

 chipcom.com![e-mail] writes:

> One time my friend travelled to Boston to work with one of their larger
> customers who had been experiencing code abuse.  People had been dialing
> in to the customer's PBX and dialing out on a US Sprint WATS line.
> Nearly a hundred thousand dollars worth of calls to Haiti had been spent.
> Naturally, Sprint did not charge the customer for any of these calls.

That's interesting.  I would think that since the offenders had broken into the
PBX to make the calls, Sprint wouldn't be at fault, and wouldn't pay.  Whomever
manages that PBX should shell out!

I guess it was thus a goodwill gesture.  This is also interesting to me,
considering the war I had with Sprint trying to get them to credit us for $16
in calls someone had made to one of our *outgoing* PBX trunks without a PIN
number, without true authorization.  My brian-dead Sprint rep said that it is
normal practice for their operators (and ``everyone else does it'') to
just take a phone number and charge a call to it.  No ringing the 3rd
number, no nothing.  For if they had done this in this case, the number
would never have answered (incoming numbers don't get answered by our
switch.)

Not to just badmouth Sprint or anything; I think they have a nice network and
decent prices.  But the reps in my area are just too much (really too little
 ...), and they didn't pay enough attention to our needs for the $14K per month
we were giving them.

 ...ben
----
ben ullrich           consider my words disclaimed,if you consider them at all
sybase, inc., emeryville, ca
+1 (415) 596 - 3500                     this space for rent
[e-mail]                   {pyramid,pacbell,sun,lll-tis}!sybase!ben

------------------------------

Date: 20-JUL-1989 02:14:47.16
From: "DOUGLAS SCOTT REUBEN)" <[e-mail]>
Subject: re: Sprint calling card fraud

Hi all!

Since we are seem to be on the topic of US Sprint and the way they
deal with calling card fraud, I thought I'd mention a similar
experience I had with them.

I was a US Telecom "access port" customer. This was before the days
of "US Sprint", and we didn't have Equal Access, nor did I want
US Tel. as my 1+ company. I signed up so I could use their service
when their rates were less than AT&T's, and would  use the 950-1033
access port to call via US Tel.

I used it for about 5 months, and finally realized that there was so
little difference (even 'back' then, 1986) between US Tel and AT&T
that I rarely used them.

A little while later, I tried using US Tel, yet when I entered
my code, I got a message "Your long distance service has been
temporarily suspended." So I called Customer Service (a misnomer,
I know...:-) ), waited the mandatory 30 minutes on hold, got the
usual "It's all your fault" customer service rep, who said "Well,
if you didn't use us for 4 months how should WE know that you
still were our customer?" (Well, like, just MAYBE you could have
used that great network of yours and call me from wherever you
are and ASK me if I still wanted US Tel, see??!?)

So they re-issue the code to me, and I used it maybe 3 times.

Then I get a call from them, saying that "We have turned of your
service since we have detected code abuse". So I asked, "Well,
to where?" They didn't know. I asked "how many calls?" Same
answer. I asked "How *much* is the bill?" No idea. But they *did*
know someone was using my code!

So I told them to call me back when they knew something more definite,
and in the meantime they turned off my code again. (no big loss...)

I got a call from them 3 days later saying "Since you didn't use
your code number for 4 months, we thought that maybe someone found
your card and was making illegal calls..." I asked, "Well, how many
were there?" And the guy checks and says "Uhhh..I think 3..."

Hmmm...wow...3 calls...fraudulent use! Geee...sounds like a great
method for detecting little kiddie hackers to me! (Actually,
a great way to get rid of customers, which they did indeed!)

Now, 3 years later, I use my AT&T card over 32 times in one hour. This
triggers off a "high roller" trouble card (?) at the SNET office back
in CT. (I was in California). They called my machine, told me that
there was trouble, told me they'd have the numbers that were being
called in 24 hours, and told me they would cancel the card until
I called back.

So I call back on a SATURDAY, get someone at the emergency repair
unit, and after explaining it to him for 2 minutes, he understands
completely (he was the one who told me they call people who use the
"#" sign too frequently "high rollers".) He told me that my SNET/ATT
card would be back in service in CT almost immediately, and throughout
North America within 3 hours.

Now you can draw whatever conclsusions you want from this, however,
you may want to note that I spent maybe 3 hours in total dealing
with US Tel, while I called COLLECT back to CT and had SNET rectify
the problem with my AT&T card in 5 minutes. And they did indeed
take the matter quite seriously. They didn't ask me why I made the
calls, or have some lame "It's not our fault" excuse. Rather, they
handled the matter as if they were embarrassed to bother me so much,
and apologized for having to cut off my Calling Card for a while.

This is not to say that all my experiences with AT&T have been
quite as pleasant, as they have been a bit sloppy in one or
two cases. But AT&T has always taken the approach that "the customer
is always right", while after plenty of other bad experiences with
Sprint, US Tel, and Allnet, I am convinced, that despite whatever
extra-perky/cheerful/etc. customer service reps. they have hired
since I subscribed to them, their attitude is more like "..and why
should WE care about you, anyhow?".

And I *don't* work for or in any way have anything to do with AT&T
other than being a customer of theirs, so please don't use that
as an excuse to flame me! :-)  Thanks!

-Doug

[e-mail]
[e-mail]
(and just plain old "dreuben" to locals!:-)  )

------------------------------

From: John DeArmond <stiatl![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Wardialers
Date: 19 Jul 89 23:09:13 GMT
Reply-To: John DeArmond <stiatl![e-mail]>
Organization: Sales Technologies Inc., "The Procedure IS the product"

In article <[e-mail]> zygot![e-mail] (John
Higdon) writes:
>
>But more important, it's this cavalier attitude that puts AT&T in a
>class by itself. Phone service in this country has been reliable enough
>that we have all taken it for granted. We *rely* on it. Over recent
>years, Sprint, MCI, Telesphere, etc., ad nauseum, have demonstrated
>that they consider telephone service in the same category as cable
>television: nice when it works, but not really essential. After all, as
>one Sprint rep told me once, "If it doesn't work, you can always use
>AT&T."
>
>While it
>may sound like commercial copy, AT&T acts as though every single call
>is essential to their business.

John,

I have to agree with you 100%.  I've always had a love-hate with AT&T
(Damn, they sure got mad when they caught me reselling residential
service via a homemade switch and wires strung thru ditches :-)  Before
hissoner got involved, they could be the most rude, most incosiderate,
most hateful people imaginable.  I remember being stunned the first time
I had an AT&T operator THANK me for using the service.  Or actually
having time for directory assistance.  And none of mere civilians will
ever be able to imagine what we've lost by having Bell Labs become
commercial.

On the other hand, I could call "the phone company" when I had a problem.
I didn't have to worry about whether it was in-house wiring or network
wiring.  It all got taken care of.  And I could rely absolutely on getting
a dial tone AND getting reliable long distance service merely by dialing
1+ or 0+.  No AOS, no COCOTS or any of these other cuss words.  Yeah, yeah,
rates have come down but subscriber rates, especially business have more
than risen to compensate for the small users.  Of course, big business got
the deals they always wanted.

Perhaps the solution is simply to speak with our pocketbooks.  Enough of
us should probably use sprint or mci (flush the others) so that they
can stick around and provide competition.  Other than that, let's make
AT&T "the phone company" again.  A little lobbying in congress to keep
them and the FCC out of AT&T's hair and things will be complete.

John

--
John De Armond, WD4OQC                     | Manual? ... What manual ?!?
Sales Technologies, Inc.    Atlanta, GA    | This is Unix, My son, You
 ...!gatech!stiatl!john    **I am the NRA** | just GOTTA Know!!!

------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 89 13:50:34 EDT
Subject: New York Geography

     But I remembered that Liberty Island and Ellis Island are
     politically part of the borough of Manhattan and the County
     of New York, even though they are on the far side of Staten
     Island from Manhattan Island itself.

No they aren't; they're off the southern tip of Manhattan.

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #248
*****************************










Date:     Fri, 21 Jul 89 1:10:04 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #249
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Fri, 21 Jul 89 01:00:13 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 249

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    Why We Have Seven Digit Numbers (Bob Goudreau)
    Dialing Area Peculiarities Near San Francisco (Richard P. Gruen)
    Understanding ISDN: More Seminars Planned (TELECOM Moderator)
    CO Programming Error Discovered (Vance Shipley)
    Re: London (UK) New Area Codes. (Kevin Hopkins)
    Re: Residence PBX Service (Vance Shipley)

[Moderator's Note: A *temporary* reprieve has been granted to the Archives
at bu-cs. They will remain as is for a few more days only.  PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 20 Jul 89 11:50:56 edt
From: Bob Goudreau <[e-mail]>
Subject: Why We Have Seven Digit Numbers

[Charles Buckley ([e-mail]) writes: ]

>As far as the Bell study is concerned, I wasn't around at the time,
>but I'm sure that it had the single-digit American parochialism
>built-in.  Who's to say how this influenced the results?

 From what I understand, the Bell study was the reason that the current
7-digit system was set up in the first place.  There was no American
parochialism before then, because there was no standard telephone
number length or format in use at the time; there was a only mish-mash
of different setups.  From what I remember reading, the study tested
people to discover the longest number-length that could be easily
remembered, and the best format for such numbers.  The optimal answer
they came up with was 7 digits, arranged in a 3-4 split.  (Correct
me if I'm wrong, you other Telecom readers who remember this better.)

>They [Germany] will never run out of numbers (unlike the US).

Once NXX area codes are implemented in a few years, the NANP will have
on the order of 5 * 10^9 possible numbers.  I hope never to have to see
the day when North America has enough people to consume all those
numbers!  For all practical purposes, NXX-NXX-XXXX means that we'll
never run out of numbers.  And by the time that we need >10 distinctly
addressable communications channels per person, do you think we'll
still be using telephone numbers directly?

>The inappropriate rigidity of the American 7-digit system is well
>demonstrated on one extreme by the relatively traumatic phenomenon of
>area code splitting in big cities, ...

I don't see how you can use area code splitting as an example that
proves the superiority of variable-length systems over fixed-length
ones. It seems to me that it would be just as annoying to have my
number changed from (say) 369.56.78 to 73.69.56.78 as it would be to
have my number changed from (say) 617-369-5678 to 508-369-5678.  You
still have to get all the stationery reprinted, etc.  In fact, I could
argue that an area code split can be *less* traumatic overall.
Consider that when Paris went to 8 digits, *everybody* in Paris had
their number changed.  Now consider that when New York City split 718
off from 212, *only* the people consigned to the new code had their
numbers changed.  The denizens of Manhattan and the Bronx (which
continue to be 212) weren't inconvenienced at all.

Fixed-length numbers have other advantages as well.  The well-known
number format is an easily-memorized template, and makes it extremely
easy to notice dropped digits and such, since the result is a malformed
number.  Also, they can allow telco switching equipment to be used more
efficiently because, once the first few digits have been entered, the
length of the rest of the number can generally be calculated (excepting
international calls, of course!).  This means that the switching
equipment doesn't have to waste time by constantly asking itself "is he
done dialing?" after each and every digit is sent; it can just wait
until all the digits are in.

Bob Goudreau                [phone]
Data General Corporation        ...!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!goudreau
62 Alexander Drive            [e-mail]
Research Triangle Park, NC  27709, USA

------------------------------

Date: Thu 20 Jul 89 13:25:52-PDT
From: "Richard P. Gruen" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Dialing Area Peculiarities Near San Francisco

Two peculiarities of my dialing area in Palo Alto, California
located about 35 miles south of San Francisco:

Although my Zone 1 (local) calling area meets the 8-mile description,
calls to Santa Clara, about 10 miles away, are charged as
intra-LATA toll calls, skipping the potential zones 2 & 3 which
apply to calls to the north.  And yes, they are in a different area code
(408 vs. 415), but so is Sunnyvale which is Zone 2.

I am also the proud purchaser of a "CALL BONUS Community Plan"
which provides reduced rates on calls to an island consisting of
about a third of San Francisco.  This plan has no effect on calls
to other parts of San Francisco nor to other parts of my LATA.
Calls to the island are subject to a 30% discount (as well as to
time-of-day discounts); the remaining charges for calls to the island
are subject to a credit of $14.90 (being twice the $7.45 which I pay for
this plan).  Thus Pacific Belle shows a preference for a sure-thing
monthly charge over the possibility that I'll call my ladyfriend
in San Francisco somewhat less frequently.  No time of day restrictions
on this rate, but I'll bet many of the people who use this residence
service scheme do so during off-peak hours.  They even offer a double
size version, providing $30 of credit for a $15 monthly charge.

I've selected a San Francisco island, but any of the exchanges (billing areas)
within my LATA are available for selection as islands of calling.

-- [e-mail]  N6HKU  +1-415-U-KNOW-IT

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 21 Jul 89 0:37:34 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject:  Understanding ISDN: More Seminars Planned

A while back in the Digest, I printed a schedule of seminars on the subject
of 'Understanding ISDN' (Integrated Services Digital Network). These
seminars are sponsored by Telecommunications Research Associates of
St. Marys, Kansas.

I have recently been notified that some additional seminars have been planned.
For specifics on the course itself, and the topics covered, see the earlier
mention in the Digest. Below are the additional cities where programs will
be given, and the dates:

Minneapolis, MN  August 17-18     Minneapolis Hyatt Regency
Washington, DC   August 24-25     Park Hyatt Washington DC
Detroit, MI      August 28-29     Westin Detroit
Dallas, TX       September 7-8    Dallas Parkway Hilton
Birmingham, AL   September 12-13  Wynfrey Riverchase Hotel
San Fransisco CA September 14-15  Four Seasons Clift Hotel
Denver, CO       September 26-27  Stouffer Denver Concourse Hotel
Oklahoma City OK September 28-29  The Waterford Hotel


These seminars cover all aspects of ISDN rather thoroughly, and are led
by telecom professionals all of whom seem to have come from Bell Labs
at one time or another.

The registration fee is $950 ($1250 Canadian), and this includes breakfast
and luncheon both days along with coffee breaks; all course materials
including workbook, etc.

See previous mentions in the Digest for details of each session. For more
information or to register, call or write:

Telecommunications Research Associates
Post Office Box A
St. Marys, KS   66536
Phone: [phone]  or 1-913-437-2000

And thanks again to our subscriber in the Land of Ahs for sending along
the latest notice!

Notices of telecommunications related seminars, exhibitions and meetings
open to the public should be sent to TELECOM Digest, Post Office Box 1570,
Chicago, IL 60690 to be included in a future issue of the Digest.

Patrick Townson

------------------------------

Date: Wed Jul 19 23:30:37 1989
From: Vance Shipley <[e-mail]>
Subject: CO Programming Error Discovered
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Vance Shipley)

In article <[e-mail]> "Gil Kloepfer Jr."
<harvard!talcott!limbic![e-mail]> writes:

>[Moderator's Note: Programming errors abound. For a laugh, try 312-922-4600.
>For about seventy years, that was the main number for Sears, Roebuck &
>Company at their downtown store and offices. They've been gone for years,
>and now dialing the number results in a recording, "you must dial one before
>calling this number". No matter how I dial it, with a one or not, that
>recording still comes on the line.  PT]

I once got a call back from a pbx I had recently installed, they couldn't
dial a particular NXX in a neighbouring NPA. They had automatic routing and
an 'FX' that went to the same neighbouring NPA. I checked my programming
remotely and found it entered correctly.  I tried it myself (again remotely).
the call didn't proceed when dialed with a preceeding '1'. This NXX was listed
in the phone book as belonging to a foreign exchange, one needing a leading one
(and a toll call).  The telephone company had been doing rebuild in the area
recently and twice before several trunks had been reversed, so I reported the
trouble to Bell.  What ensued was a very entertaining series of conference
calls with CO people of different levels until finally I had been handed off
to the very craftsmen who maintained the office serving this 'FX' line.  He
checked my statements and confirmed that that dialing arrangement was indeed
the programmed routing for that exchange.  It turned out that this entire
switch had been allowing seven digit dialing (and consequently no toll!)
to that one particular NXX within the same office as other 'toll' NXX's,
contrary to the published tariff's (and the phone book). I was told that it
had been that way for some matter of months.

Vance Shipley                          uucp:  ..!{uunet!}watmath!xenitec!vances
Linton Technology - SwitchView         INTERNET:            [e-mail]
180 Columbia Street West                            (soon)  [e-mail]
Waterloo, Ontario
CANADA                                                      tel:  [phone]
N2L 3L3                                                     fax:  [phone]
# "Twenty-Five pins in a D shell does not RS-232C make!"                     #


------------------------------

Subject: Re: London (UK) New Area Codes.
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 89 16:37:22 +0100
From: Kevin Hopkins <[e-mail]>


In his message Julian Macassey said:
-> But I have read nothing here about it yet, and am sure some of
-> would like to know.

Try the archives late April / early May, I  sent a full  description of the
notification that  BT had released to  their UK customers.  I can't find my
copy of that digest just now, and I'm off on my holidays tomorrow, otherwise I
would have tried to find it.

-> The change is to 2 digits if you consider the 0 digit is a leader as the
-> 1 digit is in the U.S. i.e. 1(213).

Like many other countries - Japan I believe is one of  them along with West
Germany, rest of Europe, etc. - we don't consider 0 to be a  leader.  It is
an intergral part of our area codes. London  is considered to  be moving to
*3* figure area codes from next May.

-> The master plan they say is to have all major cities with a 3
-> digit (0NN) area code.

All major cities will in fact have a 0N1 code, the rest use 0NMN where M is
the digits 0 and 2-9. The "master plan" is completed on 6th May 1990.

These are not flames, just clearing up a few points.

+--------------------------------------------+--------------------------------+
| [e-mail] | Kevin Hopkins,              |
| or    ..!mcvax!ukc!nott-cs!K.Hopkins         | Department of Computer Science,|
| or in the UK: [e-mail]         | University of Nottingham,      |
| CHAT-LINE: [phone] x 3815         | Nottingham, ENGLAND, NG7 2RD   |
+--------------------------------------------+--------------------------------+


------------------------------

Date: Thu Jul 20 23:22:53 1989
From: Vance Shipley <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Residence PBX Service
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Vance Shipley)
Organization: Linton Technology - SwitchView

In article <[e-mail]> westmark![e-mail]
(Dave Levenson) writes:

>Another option is the residential PBX.  Mitel makes (or at least,
>made) a small switch called the SX-5.  This supports six tip-ring
>stations, two CO trunks, and offers the usual PBX features.  It
>allows locally-stored speed-dial, conference calling,
>call-forwarding, universal answering, selective ringing, call hold,
>call transfer, call-waiting, and data security.

Does this switch allow an incoming CO call to ring _all_ extensions?  This was
the reason I abandoned my 'residential' pbx (a Seimens Venus). Night bells and
call pickup don't go over well in a house.

Vance Shipley                          uucp:  ..!{uunet!}watmath!xenitec!vances
Linton Technology - SwitchView         INTERNET:            [e-mail]

[Moderator's Note: The small PBX I've always thought ideal for home use
is the Melco 212. This unit has two trunk lines and 12 extensions, with
various PBX features. Two extensions ring by default for the two trunks,
but 'call forwarding' allows the trunks to ring on whatever two extensions
you designate. There is common audible of course, and universal pickup by
dialing '7'. I used one of these for about three years before I got my
Starline installation.   PT]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #249
*****************************










Date:     Sat, 22 Jul 89 2:21:09 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
To:       [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V9 #250
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sat, 22 Jul 89 02:10:06 CDT    Volume 9 : Issue 250

Today's Topics:                             Moderator: Patrick Townson

    10xxx Codes Revisited (R. Blake Farenthold)
    Answering Machine Interrupter (Glen M. Marianko)
    Fax Switch (David Dodell)
    Dialing Area Codes ([e-mail])
    Re: US Sprint Code-abuse Policies & Systems (Dr. T. Andrews)
    Re: Local Area Calls in New Hampshire (Joel B. Levin)
    Re: Satanic Exchanges (Scott D. Green)
    Re: Telephone Number Formats (Christopher J.S. Vance)
    Re: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card? (David Lewis)
    Re: Unusual Recorded Messages (John Opalko)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 21 Jul 89 16:01:06 CDT
From: "R. Blake Farenthold" <[e-mail]>
Subject: 10xxx codes revisited


| [Moderator's Note: Baloney, baloney, baloney! Prefixing a call with
| 10288 does nothing except force the call to be routed via AT&T.
| It does not incur extra charges other than whatever slight
| difference there is between AT&T rates to the point in question
| and whatever other carrier was being used. If you dial an intra-
| lata call (a call within your own town, for example) using 10288
| as the leading code, it is likely the call will be rejected and
| you will have to dial over again. I've tried this, and at least
| here in Chicago, dialing 10288 followed by a seven digit (or ten digit,
| but within IBT's lata) number and a recording says the call cannot be
| completed as dialed. Whether or not you get 'cleaner' lines by
| forcing your call over AT&T is a very subjective matter. But in
| and of itself, 10288 is a way of routing long distance calls --
| not a special feature to insure clean lines at an added cost.   PT]

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.  Just tried an experiment.. from one of my 12 lines,
at home, 512/829-1028, I dialed pro-party, my bbs at 512/829-1027 with the
followwing variations:

     AT&T       10288-829-1027 (connect)
     MCI        10222-829-1027 (connect)
     Sprint     10333-829-1027 (connect)
     Westel     10085-829-1027 (connect)
     National   10737-829-1027 (connect)

     All of the above 10XXX-1-829-1027 (It is not necessary to dial a 1
                                        recording)
     All of the above 10XXX-512-829-1027 (It is not necessary to dial the
                                          areacode first.  On long distance
                                          calls dial 1 or zero first.)

     Westel      950-0085pp829-1027ppPIN (connect)

     Westel      950-0085pp512-829-1027ppPin (connect)

Also, Inter-Lata Calls (San Antonio -> New Braunfels) can be completed
using 10xxx codes (and are billed at a lower rate than SW Bell inter-
lata long distance calls.. though its still cheaper for me to go into
my car and call New Braunfels because its a local call from my cellular
and the LD charges are more than the cellular airtime).  SW Bell is
aware of the inter-lata problem.. I saw one of their public notice
ads in the paper saying that though you wern't supposed to be able to
do it you could and that they were petitioning the PUC to allow them
to block inter-lata 10xxx dialing.

I do not know if they are aware of the 10xxx-local number situation..
it sounds like a bug in their switch.  It does raise some interesting
questions about pay phone calls.  My average local payphone call is
less than 5 minutes, so at $.053/minute short 10xxx calls would be
cheeper than a $.25 coin call. (Dosn't MCI offer a local call from
payphone program using their calling card?).


------------------------------

From: "Glen M. Marianko" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Answering Machine Interrupter
Date: 21 Jul 89 17:52:01 GMT
Organization: Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY

Age old answering machine problem:  forget to turn off answering machine
when you get home, phone rings, answering machine picks up and you
pick up.  You scream to the person on the line to hold on while you
run to shut the &#*$% thing off.

Some companies have added a nifty feature to answering machines which
will kill the machine if an extension picks up.  Anyone hear of any
such add-on gizmo to go in-line with the answering machine and the
telco jack?  Seems doable...

--
-- Glen M. Marianko, Supervisor of Data Communications and Hardware Support
   [e-mail] - {uunet}!aecom!glen - CIS: 76247,450

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 20 Jul 89 21:48:32 mst
From: David Dodell <asuvax!stjhmc!stjhmc.fidonet.org![e-mail]>
Subject: Fax Switch


Don't know if this is of any interest to anyone, but saw this news mentioned
in Businessweek (July 17th) ... I don't know anything about the product or
company, but the price seemed right ...


"For small offices that run a computer, fax, and answering machine on one
telephone line, electronics shops sell "automatic branching" modules for
about $100.  The $96 FaxJack III from Viking Electronics (715-386-8861) know
whether a call is from a fax, a modem, or a person and connects it to the
proper device."

--
   -------------------------------------------------------------------------
               uucp:  {decvax, ncar} !noao!asuvax!stjhmc!ddodell
        uucp:  {gatech, ames, rutgers} !ncar!noao!asuvax!stjhmc!ddodell
    Bitnet: ATW1H @ ASUACAD                    FidoNet=> 1:114/15
                  Internet: [e-mail]

------------------------------

Subject: Dialing Area Codes
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 89 13:59:08 -0700
From: [e-mail]

Why is it that I'm not allowed to dial the area code when I'm calling somebody
local?  I live within a few miles of the 408/415 area code line and I'm
constantly forgetting that I'm already in the right area code and I don't
have to dial the area code.  The number I dialed is correct, all the
information is there...but it won't put the call through.

This is so agravating!

                                Malcolm

------------------------------

Subject: Re: US Sprint Code-abuse Policies & Systems
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 89 7:11:23 EDT
From: "Dr. T. Andrews" <ki4pv![e-mail]>
Organization: Evildrome Boozarama

There are two primary classes of security violation:
    (a) unauthorized use of resources
    (b) denial of service

It sounds like US Sprint doesn't want to wait for electronic
burglars to arrange for (b); their own "security" system will
assure it instead!

For their sake, I am glad that their customers are so tolerant.
It surely saves the president much unhappy mail saying "cancel
account account of lousy parody of service."
--
 ...!bikini.cis.ufl.edu!ki4pv!tanner  ...!bpa!cdin-1!ki4pv!tanner
or...  {allegra attctc gatech!uflorida uunet!cdin-1}!ki4pv!tanner


------------------------------

From: Joel B Levin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Local Area Calls in New Hampshire
Date: 20 Jul 89 20:34:39 GMT
Reply-To: Joel B Levin <[e-mail]>
Organization: BBN Communications Corporation


In article <[e-mail]>  I wrote:
|Nashua, the second largest city in New Hampshire, and its surrounding
|towns do not have metered service. . . .

Aaargh! I was looking through the phone book (to see how to get
up-to-date neighboring area phone books), and found I had lied!  We do
indeed have metered service:

  $5.04/month plus $.161/per msg unit after 30;

  $5.04/month plus usage charges below (includes $1.50 usage allowance);

  $6.75/month plus usage charges below (includes $4.00 usage allowance).

  Usage charges for last two plans are:
    $.04/call plus $.03/minute (own and adjacent exchanges)
    $.05/call plus $.04/minute (other local calls)
    50% discount evenings nights and weekends.

  Message unit for first plan above is for 5 minutes.

  Unlimited local service: ~$15/month.

I screwed that one up.  Sorry.

    /JBL
=
UUCP:     [e-mail] (new) or {backbone}!bbn!levin (old)
INTERNET: [e-mail]               POTS: [phone]
   "The night was"

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 21 Jul 89 09:54 EDT
From: "Scott D. Green" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Satanic Exchanges

Here in 215-land, Hewlett-Packard uses the 666 exchange.   (Fill in your own
comment. . .)

Scott

------------------------------

From: Christopher JS Vance <munnari!csadfa.cs.adfa.oz.au![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Telephone Number Formats
Date: 21 Jul 89 01:41:54 GMT
Organization: Computer Science, Univ. of NSW, ADFA Canberra, Australia


 From article <[e-mail]>, by CAPEK%YKTVMV.
BITNET (Peter G. Capek):
> Separately, I'd like to ask a question about long distance access codes.  In
> many countries, city codes are commonly quoted with a leading 0.  In all
> cases that I know of, this leading 0 is really an access code, and isn't
> intended to be used, for example, when the city code is dialed from outside
> the country.  Is there any case in which this isn't true?  That is, is there
> any country which has an city code which starts with a zero?

I believe in Finland the code for the capital city is a 0.  Presumably they
use something else (like 9?) as an area code introducer.

Closer to home, Australian area codes all start with a 0 which is not dialled
when you come in from overseas.  However, some of the area codes start with
two 0s, e.g. Hobart is 002, so from the USA you'd dial something like:
    011 61 02 nx xxxx
to get a number in Hobart. If you leave off the 0 you'd get a number in Sydney:
    011 61 2 nx xxxx

But then local numbers in Sydney can be 5, 6 or 7 digits, so you might end up
not dialling a full number.

------------------------------

From: David Lewis <nvuxr![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: How Do I Obtain a Phone Calling Card?
Date: 21 Jul 89 18:54:24 GMT
Organization: Bell Communications Research


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(John Cowan) writes:
> Naturally.  A BOC calling card >is< an AT&T calling card.  I frequently use
> my New York Telephone calling card out-of-state, dialing 10288 where
> necessary, and never have a problem.  Why this hook between AT&T and the BOCs
> still exists I don't know -- doesn't the MFJ prevent BOCs from giving AT&T
> special treatment?

Yes, but...  The calling card databases were one of several types of
facilities (particularly "Class 4" tandem switches) which were in effect
"shared" between the BOCs and AT&T Long Lines, which couldn't be split.
(I can't recall offhand what the name of the AT&T Calling Card DB is
called; I'm sure some willing Bell Labs soul could help me out....)

For this reason, at divestiture the BOCs were in essence granted a
waiver to allow them to continue to use the AT&T calling card
verification databases until they were able to develop and deploy their
own systems.  They've developed them, using a database system called
LIDB (Line Information DataBase), but deployment is being held up in
legal maneuverings, the extent of which I can't recall offhand.
Probably something to do with call setup times, like 800 DBS.

I believe there's a time limit on the waiver, but I suspect if the RBOCs
went to Judge Green with a case that they've developed a system but have
been unable to deploy it because of legal challenges, the waiver would
be extended.

Disclaimer: I don't work on LIDB, so I don't really know any of this.


--
David G Lewis                ...!bellcore!nvuxr!deej

            "If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower."

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 20 Jul 89 16:27:57 pdt
From: John Opalko <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Unusual Recorded Messages
Organization: McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc., Seattle

In <TELECOM Digest volume 9, issue 227> you write:

>If you know of unusual or different recorded announcements in your community,
>please send them along to the Digest.

Seattle has an interesting one.  The Center for Non-Traditional Religion
has a weekly message for people who practice magic.  Not stage magic, mind you,
but what most people would (unfortunately) call "witchcraft".

The number is 206-527-2426  (206-LA-PAGAN).


                John Opalko

                [e-mail]
                uunet!nwnexus!thebes!mcgp1!jgo

Note to any Pagans on the net:  I apologize for the gross oversimplification,
but the TELECOM Digest isn't the place for a treatise on earth religions.


------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V9 #250
*****************************