Telecom/1996-04-telecom-walnutcreek.iso/back.issues/1991.volume.11/vol11.iss651-700

Text File | 1991-09-06 | 902KB | 21,815 lines

NOTE: Issues arrive in the archives out of order at times due to mail
system problems. All issues between 651-700 should be here. You will
find most of them in order, but if some are out of order, they will
usually be within an issue or two of where they belong.    PAT











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Date:     Wed, 21 Aug 91 0:53:11 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #651
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Wed, 21 Aug 91 00:53:05 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 651

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    We're Sorry, But the Country is Low On Phone Numbers [Paul Sutcliffe, Jr.]
    Running Out of Numbers [Carl Moore]
    NYNEX to Charge For 411 in Massachusetts as of 9/14/91 [Ron Newman]
    More TCIA: Telecom and Computer Industry Acronyms [Dennis Blyth]
    Telephone Scrambler [Colin Plumb]
    Using 10555 For Long Distance Calls [Bob Frankston]
    Hurricane Bob Knocks Out 617-262 [Bob Frankston]
    Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power [Steven Gutfreund]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Paul Sutcliffe Jr." <[e-mail]>
Subject: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low On Phone Numbers
Organization: Personal System, Lancaster, PA, USA
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1991 03:04:20 GMT


Reprinted from the {Lancaster, PA Sunday News}:

    We're Sorry, But the Country is Low On Phone Numbers

By John Markoff
N.Y. Times News Service

    The nation is rapidly running out of telephone numbers.

    As facsimile machines, cellular phones, pocket pagers, computer
modems and business telephones proliferate, the supply of unassigned
numbers is being exhausted in the area codes serving the largest
American cities, like 212 for Manhattan and the Bronx and 213 for Los
Angeles.

    When that happened in the past, an area code was split into two,
based on geography, but today only three unallocated area codes
remain: 210, 810 and 910, and they may not be enough to satisfy the
booming demand.

    Yet they must last until July 1995, when a new numbering plan is
scheduled to take effect, telephone industry executives say.  The
expansion cannot take place until then because all of the nation's
telephone switches must be reprogrammed -- a complex and time-consuming
task.

    ``You have four full years to go,'' said Frank J. Saletel,
director of major-market access planning for New York Telephone.

    ``It's not a New York City concern as such, but there could be
some areas of the country that may have to resort to rationing their
delivery of numbers.''

    The change in the numbering system planned by Bellcore, the
telephone industry research organization responsible for allocating
phone numbers in North America, will permit the creation of area codes
that do not have a ``0'' or ``1'' as the middle digit.

    Computerized telephone switching equipment currently looks at the
second digit of an area code to determine whether a long-distance call
is being made.

    Some telephone industry executives say the needed changes may be
costly and frustrating and will require many callers to dial eleven
digits, rather then seven, even when calling a neighbor in the same
area code.  They also say the change will be difficult for the
telephone companies and create serious problems for businesses.

    Further confusion will be created because of differences in how
toll calls are dialed within area codes.

    Bellcore cannot enforce standards but can only recommend changes
to individual state public utility commissions.

    So far the Bellcore plan has been put in place in 23 area codes,
and about half of those require callers to dial 1 plus their own
area code before the number, while the others just have to dial the
number.

    A number of alternative solutions to the Bellcore plan are being
proposed.

    Some industry people are backing an idea that would increase the
local dialing sequence to eight digits, rather than seven, and several
smaller telephone companies have proposed shifting to a four-digit
area code.

    No serious consideration is being given to the idea of combining
lightly used area codes to provide more numbers to congested areas.

    ``Like lambs to the slaughter, American telephone users are being
led into a course that will have far worse implications than what most
of us see at the moment,'' said David C. Henny, president of the
Whidbey Telephone Co. in Langley, Wash.

    In a recent industry technical journal, Henny proposed a system of
four-digit area codes, which he says would be a simpler alternative to
the Bellcore plan and provide a 10-fold increase in area codes.

    He says his plan would require fewer changes in telephone
switching systems and would result in numbers that are easier for
people to remember.

    Bellcore officials say their plan is the most efficient and
inexpensive method of coping with the proliferation of telephone
numbers and that their system will last well into the next century.

    They also say the alternatives would likely cause more confusion
or would be more expensive because every telephone customer would have
a new number.

    Such a switch would force businesses across the country to change
stationery and business cards, among other adjustments.

    Bellcore's interchangeable area code plan will increase the
potential number of phone numbers to approximately six billion.  The
plan would add 640 area codes to the current supply of 152.

    These area codes allow a potential of 900 million numbers, with
about 250 million numbers in use now.  Within each area code, there
are 792 available prefixes, consisting of 10,000 numbers.

    Area codes and prefixes that begin with 0 or 1 are avoided, and
some numbers like ``800'' and ``900'' are reserved for special uses.

    The plan will also create overlapping area codes.  Rather than
carve Manhattan into two geographic areas with different codes, in
January New York Telephone will add a second area code, 917, to
overlap Manhattan's existing 212 dialing area.


INTERNET: [e-mail]
UUCP:      ...!rutgers!devon!paul

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

Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 11:09:29 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Running Out of Numbers


I'd like to discuss the {New York Times} article of this past weekend
with some brief remarks.

Displayed in a little box by itself is the excerpt "There could be
some areas of the country that may have to resort to rationing their
delivery of numbers," by Frank J.  Saletel, identified in the article
as director of major-market access planning for N.Y.Telephone.

It also says "But now only three unallocated area codes remain: 210,
810 and 910, and they may not be enough to satisfy the booming
demand."  What are 610 and 710 to be used for?


[Moderator's Note: 'Area code' 610 is used by Canadian TWX machines,
and must remain that way for the time being. All the old Western Union
codes for TWX here in the USA (310,410,510,710,810,910) have been or
are being converted to regular area codes. Canada is a different
situation, and since they are part of the North American numbering
plan 610 has to be kept unavailable for area code use right now. 710
is something called 'special government services' or 'government
special services', and although I've asked a couple times, I've never
received any information about it. Perhaps someone can comment about
it now.  PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (Ron Newman)
Subject: NYNEX to Charge For 411 in Massachusetts as of 9/14/91
Date: 20 Aug 91 19:26:02 GMT
Organization: Bolt, Beranek & Newman, Inc.


 From a New England Telephone bill insert:

(big type, front cover):

     Calling Directory Assistance more than ten times
        a month may add to your telephone bill.

   Announcing a new Residence Directory Assistance
   Charging Plan.

Beginning September 14, 1991, residence customers will be charged 34
cents for each directly dialed Directory Assistance call made in
excess of ten calls per month.  For example, if you make 20 calls to
Directory Assistance during your billing month, you will be charged
for ten calls totalling $3.40.

This new charging plan includes all 411 and 1-555-1212 calls within
your Eastern Massachusetts (617/508) or Western Massachusetts (413)
New England Telephone calling area.

   How will the money be used?

According to recent legislation, New England Telephone will use the
revenue generated from Directory Assistance to help fund a statewide
Enhanced 911 emergency network, as well as help provide special
telecommunications services and equipment for the speech and hearing
impaired.


   Are there any exemptions from Directory Assistance
   charges?

There is no charge for Directory Assistance calls made from pay
phones.

<A list of other exemptions follows. including: people over 65,
legally blind, visually handicapped, and physically handicapped people
certified as unable to use ordinary printed materials.>


Ron Newman    [e-mail]

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

Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 15:53:36 -0400
From: Dennis Blyth <[e-mail]>
Subject: More TCIA: Telecom and Computer Industry Acronyms


I'm not a telecom employee or phone phreak but can answer limited
questions about acronyms.  I work in the marketing side of the
computer business in a company soon to be owned by a giant
telecommunications company.

Well, here goes my attempt at some answers:

CO     is   Central Office, not COmpany,  IMHO
IMHO   is in my humble opinion, BTW
BTW    is by the way
ESS    is Electronic Switching System
PUC    is Public Utilities Commission

This is a state group which regulates utilities in each state.  So in
Ohio we call it the : PUCO <get it?> IBT is *most probably* Illinois
Bell Telephone.  (My guess is the telecom moderator, PAT, used to work
for IBT.)  One of AT&T's Chairmen used to be the President of IBT, and
IBT was reported to be 'one of the best, if not the best' of the state
Bell organizations when under AT&T.

Another possibility for the above: IBT income before tax is a commonly
used term by accountants in the computer and telecom industries as
well as in others.

X.25 is a communications protocall for sending messages between
computers. (Ask the techies for more detail, if you dare/care!)

Some others you may find worthwhile:

AOS  Alternative Operator Service

COCOT   is something similar to AOS, IMHO, actually I don't know what
this is exactly and I would like to see a posting which clarifies the
difference between an AOS and a COCOT.

(Also, what follows below: some acronyms for the computer industry
(plus one government agency.)

What follows should be interpreted as :-)

IBM stands for 'Itty Bitty Monopoly' used to refer to a large
corporation which is until recently, reasonably successful in
dominating the computer business worldwide.  (In Europe, for example,
they are more than twice the size of their nearest competitor, another
American headquartered corporation.)

THE CASH  is slang for National Cash Register.  The predecessor to the NCR
Corporation, the result of the merger of AT&T Computer Systems and
NCR.

NCR  'means computers' according to former advertisements of THE CASH.

T  is the stock symbol for AT&T, short for 'telephone'.

T-CASH  is the marriage of T plus THE CASH :-) :-) No relation to Tom
Cash, Johnny Cash, or Johnny Paycheck.  Or T-Bills.

MA BELL is a reference  to  AT&T, mother of the RBOCs.

MAMA CASH is the marriage of MA BELL AND THE CASH according to an
analyst from the Gartner Company, a market research company servicing
the data processing industry.

CRAP  is an acronym given to the NCR-AT&T merger by a scientist from
NASA in an exchange over the net.  He said it stands for 'CASH
REGISTERS AND PHONES'.

I am sure this acronym is not related to our product quality.  Our
products are some of the most reliable in the computer industry.

NASA the acronym for the agency that pays the salary for the person
who called us CRAP. I say it stands for National Aeronautics and Space
Administration.  Others say it stands for "NOT ALWAYS SAFE ALOFT".

Hope this adds to your understanding of our industry/(ies)!!  :-) :-)  :-)


Dennis Blyth, Manager, Marketing Research, NCR Europe Group
[e-mail]

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

From: Colin Plumb <[e-mail]>
Subject: Telephone Scrambler
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1991 23:12:07 -0400
Organization: Array Systems Computing, Inc., Toronto, Ontario, CANADA


I just received a fascinating present, and this seems like the forum
to talk about it in.  It's a 500 set (basic black) bolted to the top
of a black box with a light on the front labelled "CIPHER REC. IND."
(Cipher Receive Indicator?).  The line cord goes into the phone, but
the handset (with a "confidencer", instructions: "hold close to
mouth", and a rocker bar in the handle, like the volume adjustments
made by Western Electric) goes into the box.  The back of the box has
two six-pin screw-collar plugs, one female labelled "J1 AUDIO" and one
male labelled "J2 RADIO".  (Both are threaded externally.)  There's
also a gold-plated miniature coax connector (like a cable TV one, only
smaller) labelled "J3 CIPHER REC."

The box itself is labelled

COMMERCIAL  TELEPHONE ADAPTER
HYX-60/TSEC  ASSY NO. ON288082-1
SERIAL NO. ###   MFR. CODE NO. ##### (Omitted in case it's a cipher key.)

The telephone has a pull-up switch on the left plunger which causes
some sounds to come from relays in the box.  The box has an external
power supply (20 VAC 500 MA PART NO ON 288124) but it isn't needed for
normal operation.

Inside are two 15 x 2 pin edge connectors with cards plugged in.  One
has the telephone handset plugged into it, holds three relays, a power
transistor, several heavy-duty caps and resistors, and two SSI IC's
(Motorola LM339N/L8217 and NS :M8237/LM723CN).  It's generally pretty
sparse.  ASSY NO. ON288164 ARTWK REV B.

The other board is green (as opposed to yellowish-white), ASS'Y NO.
ON321903, has a number of chips (the biggest is CD4067BE/RCA/231, a
24-pin chip that's .6 in wide) and removing it doesn't interrupt
normal telephone use.

The telephone is connected to the base through a 9-pin D connector.
Male on the bottom of the phone, female on the box (which is about
1.75" thick), but only six pins are used.  (All nine are wired in the
box, though.)

Anyway, I'm busy extracting a schematic from the thing and attempting
to figure out what the damn thing does.  Does anyone out there know
anything about such a box?

The line cord has six wires (Red, Green, Black, Yellow, Blue, White)
ending in spade lugs.  The red and green pair connect to the voice
circuitry and are polarity-insensitive.  The phone's wiring is rather
more complicated than a usual 500 set (the pull-up plug has two NO
contacts and the hookswitch has six double-throw switches). It'll take
me a while to unscramble that.


Colin

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

From: frankston![e-mail]
Subject: Long Distance Dialing Using 10555
Date: 20 Aug 1991 08:41 -0400


I dialed 10555-1-xxx ..., and got the boingish sound from Telesphere.
Since I was using 1- and not 0-, I didn't want to enter a credit card
number, and the Telesphere operator never heard of 10555 dialing.  But
then the 1-700-555-4141 recordings generally thank me for choosing the
particular carrier as my "dial 1" carrier.  And the 411 nor 0#
operators know about giving out 10xxx codes.

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

From: frankston![e-mail]
Subject: Hurrican Bob Knocks Out 617-262
Date: 20 Aug 1991 08:41 -0400


Bob downed the 617-262 exchange. (No, not me, the hurricane).  The
problem is that 617-262-4700 is used to report problems to Boston
Edison.  One would think that that particular exchange would get some
special protection from electrical outages.  Anyone know the details?
As an aside, I'm impressed by the ability of the power lines to hold
up a heavy tree for hours without collapsing.

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

From: Steven Gutfreund <[e-mail]>
Subject: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power
Date: 20 Aug 91 15:19:02 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: GTE Laboratories, Waltham MA


Bob visited Eastern MA yesterday. He took out a lot of the power
lines in Southeast MA and on the Cape. But not the telco lines. Can
someone answer why, when both lines are on poles, (and sometimes the
same ones) that it always seems that the power lines get it worse?


Yechezkal Shimon Gutfreund     [e-mail]
GTE Laboratories, Waltham MA     harvard!bunny!sgutfreund


[Moderator's Note: But as another correspondent noted, the storm did
punch out 617-262. It was really nasty; I noticed the net connections
around the east coast were pretty wobbly. My backup site (bu.edu)
would not answer all evening, nor would the archives at lcs.mit.edu.
And around 1 PM Monday here in Chicago our backlash from the east
coast storm was a torrential downpour. Despite all our technology,
Mother Nature can still kick our butts ...  PAT]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #651
******************************










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From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #652
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Wed, 21 Aug 91 01:54:53 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 652

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Telecommunications in France [Randall L. Smith]
    Telecom Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) List to be Prepared [Dave Leibold]
    GTE Mobilnet and 415-510 Split [Bruce Perens]
    Beat the High Cost of LATA Calls by Using Your Car Phone! [Bruce Perens]
    DMS is Cheaper Than FMR? [Bruce Perens]
    US West Terminates 976/960 in All 14 States [Joe Mann]
    Telephone Engineering and Management [Timothy R. Wilhite]
    Is Possession of Telephone Test Set Illegal? [Gordon D. Woods]
    AT&T Operates BBS for 5ESS, Other Information [John Holman]
    Fake 'Extension' Numbers [Carl Moore]
    Re: Who Needs 900, 976-WEATHER When You Got USENET, Internet [Joel Jones]
    Re: Who Needs 900, 976-WEATHER When You Got USENET, Internet [W. Carpenter]
    Re: 900 'Lawyer' Number Comments [Weaver Hickerson]
    Re: AT&T Data Network [Tim Irvin]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Randall L. Smith" <rls![e-mail]>
Subject: Telecommunications in France
Date: 20 Aug 91 19:29:30 GMT
Organization: The Internet


I'm in the process of reading a book called _2020_Vision_ (ISBN 0-671-
73237-4) by Stan Davis and Bill Davidson (not of c.b.i.p fame).  It is
fascinating reading for anyone interested in speculating on global
informationalization futures.

The authors develop convincing arguments and explicit depictions of
what is happening with information systems and telecommunications now
and of the future as well.  They focus on the competitiveness of
corporations and countries to the year 2020, but the majority of the
book's focus is on the time frame upto 2000 and a lesser extent to
2010.  Extensive examples are used such as Japan's Kansai Science
City, Singapore's telcom services, French Minitel, AT&T, etc.  Many
private networks are discussed at length as well.  Examples are GM's
and Toyota's inter-company networks for dealers and suppliers.

Of several points in the dialogue that *seems* incongrous to me is the
discussion of the French telecommunications services.  The authors
rave of the advanced services such as video services (Videotel),
electronic shopping, health care, etc.  My reservations stem from
ancedotal information of horrendous delays in even getting something
as simple as a dial tone.

Another of the broad points in the book criticizes the US phone/data
communications systems.  What I read into the book's dialogue is
applause for central planning and disdain for decentralized networks.
They claim that all the private networks in the US are evidence of the
failure of the public access networks.  While the motivations for
privitizing networks stem from deficiencies and costs of the public
network, I still don't know.  Is that a bug or a feature?  I tend to
believe it's a bug with seniority, ergo a feature.

The book says the terrible condition of the French networks is 1970's
information.  Now the French are a global leader.  If that's reality,
fine.  But I'm sure there's some middle ground in there somewhere.
What I'd like to hear is, where?

Can anyone with current (as in today's) knowledge tell me what the
reality of communications are in France?  France, are you listening?

Postings or e-mail gladly accepted.  Thanks!

Cheers!


randy     Uucp: [e-mail]
Bangpath: ...<backbone>!osu-cis!rls!randy
Internet: rls![e-mail]

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

Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 19:06:59 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Telecom Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) List to be Prepared


There are often many questions about topics and items in the TELECOM
Digest which get asked repeatedly. For instance, "What is a COCOT?" or
"What's this Archives stuff?".

I hope to create an initial FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) list for
use with the Digest. This could be posted on a monthly basis, with any
timely revisions, and also kept in the Digest Archives at lcs.mit.edu
for FTP access, or the letni.lonestar.org archives mail server.

As I'll be at vm1.yorku.ca for a bit yet, I will accept contributions
at [e-mail] until 26 August (Monday). The initial list
will go out sometime after that. From then on, contributions may be
directed to the other mail addresses ([e-mail] or
[e-mail]).

FAQ lists pop up in various newsgroups like rec.arts.tv and other
places where topics tend to make repeated appearances.


for now... [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: My sincere thanks for your efforts. We have needed
this file for a *long* time ... and I will run it at least monthly
when it is finished.    PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (Bruce Perens)
Subject: GTE Mobilnet and 415-510 split
Organization: Pixar -- Point Richmond, California
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1991 06:28:00 GMT


I got a note today from GTE Mobilnet (San Francisco Bay Area)
regarding the 415-510 split. They say that if I want to change my cell
phone from the 415 area to 510, they will do it for free, and put a
forwarding number intercept recording on my old number for 60 days.
They do not offer permissive dialing, but then this isn't a prefix
change, they are simply offering to give me a new number. They give
you a selection of cities where they have representatives to reprogram
your phone. They say there is no charge before January 27, 1992, but
they also say to return the order card by August 21, 1991!


Bruce Perens

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

From: [e-mail] (Bruce Perens)
Subject: Beat the High Cost of LATA Calls by Using Your Car Phone!
Organization: Pixar -- Point Richmond, California
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1991 06:33:09 GMT


GTE Mobilnet (San Francisco Bay Area) mentions that they have "the
largest toll-free calling area in Northern California, within the 408,
707, 415, and the new 510 area code, from as far north as Cloverdale,
south past King City, east to Dixon and Livermore". My evening/weekend
airtime is .20/minute, so I can make cellular phone calls for less
than the price of a Pac*Bell landline call for many calls between 7
and 11 P.M. Monday-Friday. This wouldn't be true if Pac*Bell didn't
charge too much for LATA calls.


Bruce Perens

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

From: [e-mail] (Bruce Perens)
Subject: DMS is Cheaper Than FMR?
Organization: Pixar -- Point Richmond, California
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1991 06:49:00 GMT


This will come as no surprise to lots of you, but I'm just learning
about roaming. Most California and Nevada cellular phone companies are
hooked up with something I think is called "DMS". If you dial *28,
just once, then when your phone isn't in its home area it will be
ringed in the system it is in, without any need to activate follow-me
roaming. I don't know if the remote systems know you are in them, or
if you just get paged in lots of systems, but it works. I do know that
the "ping" feature of my phone is activated, so there is a way for a
foreign system to know that I am in range without my placing a call.

I do know that activating FMR often results in a daily charge, and
temporarily disables the no-answer-transfer I programmed in my home
system.  Using "DMS" instead of "FMR" does not disable my no-answer-
transfer, goes through about as fast as "FMR", and doesn't seem to
cause the daily roam charge.

I did notice that Centel Las Vegas doesn't like to place calls for
roamers unless they've activated FMR. Sounds like a rip-off.


Bruce Perens

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

Subject: US West Terminates 976/960 in All 14 States
Reply-To: Joe Mann <[e-mail]>
Organization: Orbit TimeSharing [orb], Minneapolis, Mn.
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1991 11:17:49 -0500
From: Joe Mann <[e-mail]>


US West Communications has sent certified letters out to all
Information Providers (IPs) last week.  The letters tell Information
Providers of US West's recent "business decision" to discontinue to
provide 976/960 service by the end of the year.

The letter goes on to suggest that IP's switch to 800/900. This forces
formally 'local' IPs to move service to mostly 'nationwide' coverage,
and the costs of the involuntary move will cost many IPs their
businesses.

This is very disappointing news for existing IPs.  The "business
decision" comes barely two weeks after Judge Green lifted the
'information' curbs on baby-bells.

US West's action sets the stage for the 'Orwellian' information age,
and we should all be concerned about this.


J. Mann  [phone]  Systems Dynamics Inc.

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

From: "Timothy R. Wilhite" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Telephone Engineering and Management
Reply-To: "Timothy R. Wilhite" <[e-mail]>
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix (sponsored by U. of Denver Math/CS dept.)
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 15:12:46 GMT


I would like to subscribe to Telephone Engineering and Mgmt.  Would
someone post the address and phone number.  Thanks in advance.


Timothy R. Wilhite  kb0aso

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

Date: Mon, 19 Aug 91 10:14:32 EDT
From: Gordon D Woods <[e-mail]>
Subject: Is Possession of Telephone Test Set Illegal?
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories


According to the August 14 {Morris County Daily Record} a former AT&T
trainer's home was searched (unrelated to telephony). Four "telephone
test sets" were found and he is being charged with possessing said
test sets (butt sets?). Inspector Peterson of the Morris County
prosecutor's office said that it is "illegal to possess telephone test
sets unless you can prove your job requires it." Does anyone know if
this is true or just some overzealous detective spouting off? There
must be a lot of illegal test sets out there from the looks of the
flea markets and ham fests.


[Moderator's Note: You may be assured that is nothing more than a lot
of police BS ... whatever else he is charged with, any good lawyer
will get him off on that part of it.  PAT]

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

Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1991 12:12:05 CDT
Subject: AT&T Operates BBS For 5ESS, Other Information
From: John Holman <[e-mail]>
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Whitewater


AT&T has a massive data base of 5ESS hardware and software available
on a bulletin board called CAPIS/EBBS (Customer Accessible Product
Information System/Electronic Bulletin Board System.  It is available
free to 5ESS User Group Members and switch owners.  The CAPIS/EBBS is
a reference database of on-line documentation.  The service offers:

 * Menu Acess
 * Direct Index Access
 * Extensive Keyword Search Capability
 * Help Screens
 * Glossary and Acronym Capability
 * Printing
 * Copying from Database to Customise

There is plenty here to fill up at least a hard drive or two!!!!  The
bulletin Board Service is on an 800 line. To get an account call:

AT&T Network Systems
Kolleen Schulze
2600 Warrenville Rd.
Dept. NANW062340        (no kidding!)
Lisle, Ill. 60532

Phone [phone]

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

Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 10:19:50 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Fake 'Extension' Numbers


Out of curiosity (and the call not being expensive) I called a 900
horoscope line I had seen in a newspaper.  It was printed as
900-xxx-xxxx ext. 95.  The 95 (guessing from what I heard in the
recorded message) was not really a telephone extension but instead
like those "Department" numbers you see on some mail-in offers; in
other words, it helps the receiving party to learn how you found out
about the ad.  (I was asked to punch in the two-digit number referring
to the newspaper where the ad appeared for that horoscope line.)

I am from Delaware, and the number had appeared in a Wilkes-Barre (Pa.)
newspaper when I was in that area recently.

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

From: Joel Jones <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Who Needs 900, 976-WEATHER When You Got USENET, Internet
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1991 17:10:45 GMT


[e-mail] (David Lemson) writes:

> A programmer here at UIUC has written a package that will display
> current weather maps on an X terminal, in color even.  The sources are
> in uxc.cso.uiuc.edu:/pub/wxmap-1.13.tar.Z, I don't know what it takes
> to set up a server for this. The package is extremely versatile -- you
> can display radar, storm watches, temps, winds, and much more (and all
> at the same time, even).

The programmer is Charley Kline, and it really is a nice piece of
work.  However, due to the contract we have with the provider of the
weather information, the wxmap server is unavailable to people off
campus.  If you want an example of what wxmap can do, anonymous ftp to
vmd.cso.uiuc.edu, then cd to phil.515 and get the file WXMAP.GIF in
binary mode.  This is a gif file for latest hour of information.


Joel Jones   [e-mail]

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

Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 14:51:52 EDT
From: William J Carpenter <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Who Needs 900, 976-WEATHER When You Got USENET, Internet
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories


Again quoting David Lemson:

> A programmer here at UIUC has written a package that will display
> current weather maps on an X terminal, in color even. The sources
> are in uxc.cso.uiuc.edu:/pub/wxmap-1.13.tar.Z, I don't know what it
> takes to set up a server for this. The package is extremely
> versatile -- you can display radar, storm watches, temps, winds, and
> much more (and all at the same time, even).

We ran "wxmap" for a while here.  It is pretty nice.  However, by
default it expects to get its data from UIUC.  They allowed that for a
while but had to shut it down due to licensing restrictions.

I just thought I'd mention this to save anyone from wasting time
bringing the software up in the expectation that they could get the
data from UIUC.  If you have weather information locally, it may be
possible to feed it into "wxmap", but I haven't looked into that.


Bill Carpenter         att!hos1cad!wjc  or  attmail!bill

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

Subject: Re: 900 'Lawyer' Number Comments
Organization: Holos Software, Inc., Atlanta, GA
Date: 20 Aug 91 12:11:01 EDT (Tue)
From: Weaver Hickerson <holos0![e-mail]>


In article <[e-mail]> rescon![e-mail].
unisys.com (Bob Falcon) writes:

> I saw a 'new' 900 number advertisement on one of our local channels
> this morning.  It caught my eye (ear?) because it mentioned one of
> my 'pet-peeves': LAWYERS!

> 1-900-976-LAWS, just $39.50 per minute.

> Now we all know lawyers (for the most part) are 'sleazy', but this
> really is ridiculous. The advertisement goes something like this

Are you sure that it is $39.50 / minute?  I find that to be a little
hard to swallow.  ($2,370.00 / hour) I doubt that anybody would use
the line much, since it is much cheaper just to talk to a lawyer in
person.  Hell, he'd probably come to your house and bring a six pack
and a pizza, your choice of toppings, at those rates.  Perhaps 3.95 /
minute?  There are some questions that I might find it worth four
bucks a minute to have answered, depending on how fast I got my
answer.

You can probably have unlimited access to WESTLAW for $2,370.00 /
hour.

900-976 ...

Perhaps Captain Midnight was transmitting to your breakfast table.


Weaver Hickerson   Voice [phone]   :  ..!edu!gatech!holos0!wdh


[Moderator's Note: In fairness to the original author, that price
*may* have been a typographical error. It was unclear in the original
unedited queue message ... might have been $39.50 per *call*. If
someone gets clarification on this, I'll clarify it here.  PAT]

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

Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: AT&T Data Network
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 10:36:11 [phone]
From: [e-mail]


In TELECOM Digest V11 #639, Ken Jongsma <wybbs![e-mail].
edu> writes:

> The number they gave in the magazine article was 950-1288 as a
> national access number. This number indeed works from my area.

> [Moderator's Note: From 312 at any time during the past day, calls to
> 950-1288 return an IBT intercept 'all circuits are busy now'.  PAT]

 From 603 calls to 950-1288 gets NET's infamous: "{tri-tone} The
number you have reached 9-5-0-1-2-8-8 is being checked for trouble,
please try your call again later."

Which experience has shown really means:   ". . . is not in service."


Tim Irvin

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #652
******************************

















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From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #653
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Thu, 22 Aug 91 00:32:27 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 653

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Hurricane Status Report [NEARnet News via Steven Gutfreund]
    Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power [Patton M. Turner]
    Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power [Tom Coradeschi]
    Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power [Steven Gutfreund]
    Vulnerability of Telephone and Power Lines [Jerry Leichter]
    Re: Lightning Surge Protection [Stephen Tell]
    Re: Dial 0 for Operator? (In Schools / Office Buildings) [Alan Barclay]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 10:31:32 EDT
From: Steven Gutfreund <[e-mail]>
Subject: Hurricane Status Report


Here is some stuff from ne.nearnet.tech about the outage. As you can
see these net gurus tend to think that most of the outage is power
related not telco. You might want to put this in telecom.


 Article: 640 of ne.nearnet.tech
 From: [e-mail]
 Subject: Hurricane Status Report
 Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 13:45:35 EDT
 Organization: NEARnet News/Mail Gateway

 Folks,

 The following is a brief summary of what happened during the heavy
weather experienced on Monday, Aug 19th. This list has been culled
from the logs kept by the various software monitors running at the
NOC. It is interesting to note what outages occurred, perhaps even
more interesting to notice what stayed up (Brown). This list
represents a manual examination of the logs, it is not guaranteed to
be 100% accurate. I have ommitted brief line flapping from this log.

Steve Miller

 Monday August 19th

    9:30am    Heavy rains caused the simplex ethernet links go
        down.

    10:00    BBN announced shutdown

    10:15    NOC staff began turning selected microwave interfaces
        off. Shutdown were the simplex ethernet links to
        Prospect and the link between BBN and Harvard. We
        to shut off the link between Prospect and Lincoln
        but could not due to a T1 failure on the redundant
        line to Lincoln.

    10:30     The NOC was shut down, personel were sent home
        The following outages were recorded during the next
        20 hours:

        Xylogic        10:27
        Merrimack    10:59 - 10:30am Tuesday
        Samsung        11:00 - 20:38
        Xyplex        11:05 - 8:23am Tuesday
        MITRE        11:19 - 1:08am Tuesday
        Bost.Pub.Lib.    11:25 - 6:09am Tues. Ethernet disc.
        BC        11:36 - 00:07amTues.
        Bowdoin        12:13 - 7:08am Tues
        Hyperdesk    12:42 - 7:15am Tues
        NUSC        13:50 -
        Dartmouth Branch14:38 - 22:26
            Sites affected: UNH
        Encore        14:48 - 9:09am Tues.
        Tufts        14:51 - 23:50
        Stratus        14:49 - 00:44am Tues
        Prospect Branch 15:00 - 23:51
            Sites affected: Brandeis, Wellesley, GTE, HRI
        Banyan        15:43 - 23:58
        M2C Branch    16:05 - 7:00am Tues.
            Sites affected: Clark, Clearpoint, OMG, Process
            Hyperdesk, Sequoia, Viewlogic, Banyan
        Stratus        16:44 -
        Jackson     17:00 - 17:41 Line Bouncing
        Colby        19:18 -
        Bates        20:54 - 7:46an Tues
        Clearpoint up @    8:15am Tues
        Process up @    10:42am Tues

        At approx. 00:00  Tuesday, BBN staff began turning the
        simplex ethernet links to Prospect back on.

Tuesday, August  20th
        As on 12:00 Tuesday, the only remaining sites which
        appears to be out  due to the storm are NUSC and
        Xylogic. The NOC has been unable to contact anyone at
        these sites.
        Additionally, we have lost contact with Woods Hole
        and have not been able to contact them.


  Article: 636 of ne.nearnet.tech
  From: [e-mail]
  Newsgroups: ne.nearnet.tech
  Subject: Re: Hurricane Status Report
  Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 16:56:24 EDT
  Organization: NEARnet News/Mail Gateway


Steve,

Although it is difficult to say for sure (the logs only record up
and down), my impression was that these outages were for the most part
due to power (A sampling of 10 or so hosts indicated recent
power-ups). A majority of these outages were due to site staff turning
the power off rather than losing it.

 On the microwave links, surprisingly only the DEC -> MIT line was
affected.  Microwave ByPass had people in the field and had already
been to MIT when we called this morning. It was initially thought to
have been a baseband amp which failed but, after replacing it the link
remained down. The cause of that failure remains to be determined. I
had also anticipated that the wind may have blown the dishes out of
alignment but it doesnt seem to have. A tribute to the strength of the
mounting hardware...:-)

Steve Miller

  Article: 641 of ne.nearnet.tech
  From: [e-mail] (stev knowles)
  Subject: Re: Hurricane Status Report
  Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 15:36:22 EDT
  Organization: NEARnet News/Mail Gateway


An interesting thing to find out for those outages was: were most of
them caused by power loss, or line failure? If they were power
failure, there is not much to have been done.

Did any of the microwave stations need to be adjusted because the aim
was off? we have one here between our buildings, and we had no
problems.   Good stuff, I would say . . . .


  Article: 642 of ne.nearnet.tech
  From: [e-mail] (Dan Long)
  Subject: Re: Hurricane Status Report
  Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 16:07:10 EDT
  Organization: NEARnet News/Mail Gateway

> An interesting thing to find out for those outages was: were most
> of them caused by power loss, or line failure? If they were power
> failure, there is not much to have been done.

Virtually all were power-related.  Either the site shut down for
preventive reasons or they really did have a power failure.  There was
only one phone line outage I'm aware of and that went bad well before
the brunt of the storm hit.

> Did any of the microwave stations need to be adjusted because the aim
> was off? We have one here between our buildings, and we had no problems.

We had one NEARnet link that was DOA after the storm.  They have tried
replacing an amplifier with no lasting success.  We'll mention to them
that the antennas should be checked.  It's a short shot so it could
have shifted into a marginal position.

WHOI is connected through MIT via their own Microwave.  They are still
down -- cause unknown.

> Good stuff, I would say.


Thanks,

Dan

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

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 14:52:14 CDT
From: "Patton M. Turner" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power


Steven Gutfreund <[e-mail]> writes:

> Can someone answer why, when both lines are on poles, (and sometimes
> the same ones) that it always seems that the power lines get it
> worse?

There are several reasons I can think of:

1) Power lines are located above telephone and CATV lines.  This means
they are the first to be hit by falling limbs.

2) The telephone plant must be physically damaged for it to be put out
of service.  The power plant can fail because of fault induced
transients.  The use of reclosers does help prevent or isolate the
loss of power due to faults (especially temporary faults).  If the
power company's protection system isn't up to par a fault on the drop
at my house could wipe out power to the whole neighborhood.

3) Telephone plant is frequently buried.  This is generally not
possible for power distribution, except for back lot applications in
some subdivisions.  Buried AC distribution or subtransmission cables
will inductively couple with each other, which can cause large
reactive losses.

4) With a few exceptions (mostly drops), telephone cable is lashed to
a support line usually 6M or 10M strand.  The strand is attached to
the poles with large steel clamps (three bolt clamps) bolted to the
pole.  The cable itself has no tension on it as power cable does, as
it is lashed to the strand with galvanized wire similar to electric
fence wire.  Power cable is instead sagged. meaning it is run under
tension between poles, and attached to ceramic insulators on the
poles.  The lines are under much more tension in the winter because of
contraction of the conductor.  This is especially true of power lines
which are frequently aluminum or steel reinforced aluminum (ACSR),
which has a higher coefficient or thermal expansion.

After the fact, however the power plant is much easier to restore than
the telephone company's.  This can be especially true in areas still
using lead sheath cable.  Phone company rules also generally call for
linemen to wait until the power company has finished in an area before
they will begin work.  This rule is often violated if the company has
time to repair drops in areas with no downed power lines.


Pat Turner      KB4GRZ @ K4RY.AL.USA.NOAM       [e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 9:02:35 EDT
From: Tom Coradeschi <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power
Organization: Electric Armts Div, US Army ARDEC, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ


Steven Gutfreund <[e-mail]> writes:

> Bob visited Eastern MA yesterday. He took out a lot of the power
> lines in Southeast MA and on the Cape. But not the telco lines. Can
> someone answer why, when both lines are on poles, (and sometimes the
> same ones) that it always seems that the power lines get it worse?

A quick guess would be that the power lines are the uppermost set on
any given pole, with phone lines next down, and CATV the lowest. As
they are the highest, any branch, tree trunk, whatever, falling will
be reasonably likely to strike power lines first (assuming, of course,
that the falling object started life *above* the power lines...).

Sure would be nice if all that stuff were buried. My wife and I live
at the top of a reasonably (for New Jersey) tall mountain. Our power
regularly goes out during thunderstorms. But the strike which causes
the outage occurs at a much lower altitude than we. This is simply
because all our power, phone and cable lines are underground. The
13(?)kV feed into the area is not!


             tom coradeschi    <+>    [e-mail]

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

From: Steven Gutfreund <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power
Date: 21 Aug 91 14:19:42 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: GTE Laboratories, Waltham MA


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Steven Gutfreund) writes:

>> Bob visited Eastern MA yesterday. He took out a lot of the power
>> lines in Southeast MA and on the Cape. But not the telco lines. Can
>> someone answer why, when both lines are on poles, (and sometimes the
>> same ones) that it always seems that the power lines get it worse?

>> [Moderator's Note: But as another correspondent noted, the storm did
>> punch out 617-262. It was really nasty; I noticed the net connections
>> around the east coast were pretty wobbly. My backup site (bu.edu)
>> would not answer all evening, nor would the archives at lcs.mit.edu.
>> And around 1 PM Monday here in Chicago our backlash from the east
>> coast storm was a torrential downpour. Despite all our technology,
>> Mother Nature can still kick our butts ...  PAT]

But why were they down? GTE Labs shut down all their machines because
of worries about power flakiness. Most of the universities closed at
10:30am and I suspect many machines were turned off. In those few
areas where phone service was lost, it is back in a day, but power is
out on the cape till this weekend.

It really seems to me that there is an anomoly to be explained. We
have people at the labs who have lost power for hours or days but not
phone service. The radio talk shows are still full of calls from
people on Cape Cod that have no power.


Yechezkal Shimon Gutfreund    [e-mail]
GTE Laboratories, Waltham MA    harvard!bunny!sgutfreund

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

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 22:33:49 EDT
From: Jerry Leichter <[e-mail]>
Subject: Vulnerability of Telephone and Power Lines


In a recent TELECOM, Steven Gutfreund wonders why storms always seem
to hit power lines more severely than telephone lines, even if both
are on the same pole.

If it's a matter of the lines being physically knocked down, I doubt
there are significant differences -- though it's worth noting that
power lines are strung above phone lines, and that a pole will have
two or three power wires but usually only one phone cable.  So perhaps
power lines ARE more vulnerable.

However, in many cases when power is out the wires themselves are
fine.  Rather, a momentary glitch -- whether from a nearby lightning
flash, from a branch falling across two phases and quickly vaporizing,
or whatever -- tripped a breaker somewhere.  Breakers on power lines
are designed to reset automatic- ally; but if they are tripped too
often (in a limited amount of time?), they STAY tripped.  Resetting
them must be done by hand.  Not only that, but for safety one would
never simply reset a tripped breaker -- it's important to first ensure
that the line downstream is safe.  It takes time just to walk the
length of the line and check.  A couple of hundred tripped breakers
can take a while to reset, even if no wires are actually down.


Jerry

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

From: Stephen Tell <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Lightning Surge Protection
Date: 21 Aug 91 00:42:20 GMT
Organization: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

> In article <whatever> somebody writes: [The original reference was lost]

>> For those who have to know, the TISP2290 works in a manner similar to
>> a zener array connected between the A and B wire and earth so as to
>> limit the voltage between any of three points to about 200 Volts. As
>> you know this is not entirely effective and so if the voltage rises to
>> 290 Volts (hence TISP2*290*) then this crafty critter cuts in triacs
>> to crowbar the offending points to earth until the surge has passed.

The behavior of each half of each of the three protectors is
essentialy that of an SCR with a zener diode in the gate circuit.
Once triggered, it crowbars the voltage down to only a few volts.  It
is designed so the SCR has a rather high holding current to avoid
"latch-up" by the normal phone line voltage after the surge has
passed.

All this info from the Texas Instruments "Telecommunications devices
data book", 1989, which has data sheets and detailed applications
notes on this gadget.  The application notes are oriented towards use
in line cards for electronic central office equipment.

> Does anyone know of a US source for small quantities of this part?

Newark Electronics has them.  At least, they have several members of
the family; I got a half dozen of the TISP2180 from them (same device,
but only a 180-volt zener voltage).


Steve Tell       [e-mail]    H: [phone]   #5L Estes Park apts
UNC Chapel Hill Computer Science    W: [phone]   Carrboro NC 27510

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

From: Alan Barclay <ukpoit![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Dial 0 for Operator? (In Schools / Office Buildings)
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 91 09:28 CDT


In article <[e-mail]> Dan Jacobson writes:

> A common scenario is to have special phone number(s) for
> emergencies, e.g., "93151".  "911" (what United States children are
> drilled to remember to call in emergencies) is often disabled, as it's
> a prefix to office phones "91100" thru "91199".

> One day a panicked visitor (or even a local person who forgets the
> "93151" and can't find a reminder sticker or poster) will try calling
> "911", then "0" and get nowhere.  Later, lawsuits and bad press will
> result from whatever disaster occurred, not to mention loss of life,
> etc.

Here in the UK most PABX use 9 as the prefix for external calls, as
our emergency number is 999 that means that the visitor dialing 9-999
will get connected as normal.

Also 0 isn't labeled as Oper, infact none of the keys is labelled with
anything other than the number,#,* so that confusion doesn't come up
either.

The only confusion is when somebody with a pulse dial phone which
often use the * & # for things like redial & mute trys to use a MF
phone.


Alan Barclay
iT                     |   E-mail : [e-mail]
Barker Lane            |   BANG-STYLE : .....!ukc!ukpoit!alan
CHESTERFIELD S40 1DY   |   VOICE : [phone]
Derbys, England        |   FAX   : [phone]

iT - The Information Technology Business Of The Post Office

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #653
******************************










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From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #654
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Thu, 22 Aug 91 02:00:00 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 654

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    P&G And The Grand Jury [Walter C. Scott]
    Telephones and the Soviet Coup [AP via Bill Berbenich]
    Settlement Announced in Hayes/Everex Patent Case [Toby Nixon]
    Weather Information Servers [Darin S. Lory]
    Information Wanted on AT&T Tariff 12 [David Leibold]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: P&G And The Grand Jury
From: halcyon![e-mail]
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 07:25:12 PDT
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service


     On 8-12-91, the {Wall Street Journal} published a front page
story on an investigation by Cincinnati police of phone records
following a request by Procter & Gamble Co. to determine who might
have furnished inside information to the {Wall Street Journal}. The
information, ostensibly published between March 1st and June 10th,
1991, prompted P&G to seek action under Ohio's Trade Secrets Law. In
respect to a possible violation of this law, a Grand Jury issued a
subpoena for records of certain phone calls placed to the Pittsburgh
offices of the {Wall Street Journal} from the Cincinnati area, and to
the residence of a {Wall Street Journal} reporter. By way of context,
the Pittsburgh offices of the {Wall Street Journal} allegedly were of
interest in that Journal reporter Alecia Swasy was principally
responsible for covering Procter & Gamble, and worked out of the
Pittsburgh office.

On 8-13-91, CompuServe subscriber Ryck Bird Lent related the Journal
story to other members of CompuServe's TELECOM.ISSUES SIG. He issued
the following query:

           ================ TEXT BEGINS =================

Presumably, the records only show that calls were placed between
two numbers, there's no content available for inspection. But
what if CB had voice mail services? And what if the phone number
investigations lead to online service gateways (MCI MAil, CIS),
are those also subject to subpoena?

           ================ TEXT ENDS ====================

     At the time of Mr. Lent's post, it was known that the {Wall
Street Journal} had alleged a large amount of phone company records
had been provided by Cincinnati Bell to local police. An exact figure
did not appear in Lent's comments. Thus, I can't be certain if the
Journal published any such specific data on 8-12-91 until I see the
article in question.

     On 8-14-91, the Journal published further details on the police
investigation into possible violation of the Ohio Trade Secrets Law.
The Journal then asserted that a Grand Jury subpoena was issued and
used by the Cincinnati Police to order Cincinnati Bell to turn over
phone records spanning a 15-week period of time, covering 40 million
calls placed from 655,297 phone numbers in the 513 area code. The
subpoena was issued, according to the {Wall Street Journal}, only four
working days after a June 10th, 1991 article on problems in P&G's food
and beverage markets.

     Wednesday [8-14-91], the Associated Press reported that P&G
expected no charges to be filed under the police investigation into
possible violations of the Ohio Trade Secrets Law. P&G spokesperson
Terry Loftus was quoted to say: "It did not produce any results and is
in fact winding down". Loftus went on to explain that the company
happened to "conduct an internal investigation which turned up
nothing. That was our first step.  After we completed that internal
investigation, we decided to turn it over to the Cincinnati Police
Department".

Attempts to contact Gary Armstrong, the principal police officer in
charge of the P&G investigation, by the Associated Press prior to
8-14-91 were unsuccessful. No one else in the Cincinnati Police
Department would provide comment to AP.

     On 8-15-91, the Associated Press provided a summary of what
appeared in the 8-14-91 edition of the {Wall Street Journal} on the
P&G investigation. In addition to AP's summary of the 8-14-91 Journal
article, AP also quoted another P&G spokesperson -- Sydney McHugh. Ms.
McHugh more or less repeated Loftus' 8-13-91 statement with the
following comments: "We advised the local Cincinnati Police Department
of the matter because we thought it was possible that a crime had been
committed in violation of Ohio law. They decided to conduct an
independent investigation."

Subsequent to the 8-14-91 article in the Journal, AP had once again
attempted to reach Officer Gary Armstrong with no success.  Prosecutor
Arthur M. Ney has an unpublished home phone number and was therefore
unavailable for comment on Wednesday evening [08-14-91], according to
AP.

      In the past few weeks, much has appeared in the press concerning
allegations that P&G, a local grand jury, and/or Cincinnati Police
have found a "novel" way to circumvent the First Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution. In its 8-15-91 summary of the 8-14-91 Journal article,
AP quoted Cincinnati attorney Robert Newman -- specializing in First
Amendment issues -- as asserting: "There's no reason for the subpoena
to be this broad.  It's cause for alarm". Newman also offered the
notion that: "P&G doesn't have to intrude in the lives of P&G
employees, let alone everyone else".

The same AP story references Cincinnati's ACLU [American Civil
Liberties Union Regional Coordinator, Jim Rogers, similarly commenting
that: "The subpoena is invasive for anyone in the 513 area code. If I
called {The Wall Street Journal}, what possible interest should P&G
have in that?"

      In a later 8-18-91 AP story, Cleveland attorney David Marburger
was quoted as observing that "what is troublesome is I just wonder if
a small business in Cincinnati had the same problem, would law
enforcement step in and help them out?"  Marburger also added, "it's a
surprise to me," referring to the nature of the police investigation.

In response, Police Commander of Criminal Investigations, Heydon
Thompson, told the Cincinnati Business Courier "Procter & Gamble is a
newsmaker, but that's not the reason we are conducting this
investigation."  P&G spokesperson Terry Loftus responded to the notion
P&G had over-reacted by pointing out: "We feel we're doing what we
must do, and that's protect the shareholders. And when we believe a
crime has been committed, to turn that information over to the
police."

     Meanwhile, the {Cincinnati Post} published an editorial this past
weekend -- describing the P&G request for a police investigation as
"kind of like when the biggest guy in a pick-up basketball game cries
foul because someone barely touches him."  Finally, AP referenced what
it termed "coziness" between the city of Cincinnati and P&G in its
8-18-91 piece. In order to support this notion of coziness, Cincinnati
Mayor David Mann was quoted to say: "The tradition here, on anything
in terms of civic or charitable initiative, is you get P&G on board
and everybody else lines up." As one who lived near Cincinnati for
eight years, I recall Procter & Gamble's relationship with Cincinnati
as rather cozy indeed.


Walter C. Scott

  The 23:00 News and Mail Service - [phone] - Seattle, WA USA
                           PEP, V.32, V.42

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Telephones and the Soviet Coup
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 19:19:41 EDT
Reply-To: [e-mail]


Here's the telecom angle on the Soviet coup, from the Associated Press
financial wire.

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

By W. DALE NELSON
 Associated Press Writer

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Communications Commission on
Wednesday approved the use of a Soviet communications satellite system
by two U.S. phone companies to meet the "dramatic increase " in demand
for U.S.-Soviet circuits in the wake of the political turmoil in
Moscow.

   The FCC's Common Carrier Bureau granted AT&T and IDB Communications
Inc.  temporary authority to use 24 circuits on the Soviet satellite
system Intersputnik. It will be the first time Intersputnik will be
used for voice transmissions between the two countries, AT&T spokesman
Herb Linnen said.

   He said such calls are now carried over Intelsat, a consortium of
western nations that provides satellite service.

   AT&T said it had previously reached an agreement with Soviet
officials for use of the Intersputnik satellite system, but the
agreement was subject to approval by the FCC.

   Linnen said it was not certain how soon the new circuits could be
in service, "whether it's a day, or two days or a week or a month."

   Linnen said AT&T had been trying since December 1989 to get permission to
beef up circuits to the Soviet Union.

   "Since Monday, it's been an absolute nightmare trying to complete
calls," he said.

   The FCC said the temporary authority was not to extend beyond Feb.
19.

   In a filing with the commission on Tuesday, AT&T said it was
experiencing as many as 4,000 attempts in a five-minute period to make
telephone calls from the United States to the Soviet Union, compared
with about 5,000 call attempts in an hour normally.

   Both AT&T and IDB had sought emergency authority to use the
Intersputnik circuits even before the outbreak Monday of the coup
attempt in the Soviet capital that collapsed Wednesday. They argued
the additional circuits were needed because of warmer relations
between the two countries.

   In its reply to IDB, the commission said, "Although the quality of
telephone service between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was at
unacceptable levels at the time IDB's request was filed, recent
political events have led to a dramatic increase in demand ..."

   It told AT&T that as a result of this increase, "it appears that
the service quality between the U.S. and the Soviet Union has
deteriorated dramatically."

   The commission said AT&T and IDB, an international service based in
Rockville, Md., were the only carriers in a position to make use of
Intersputnik capacity.

   IDB applied for 30 circuits and AT&T for 90, but the commission
said only 24 are available.

   AT&T said it notified Soviet communications officials of the FCC
action so that engineering and other technical work could be started
in both countries.

   John Berndt, president of AT&T International Communications
Services, said the additional circuits will help ease traffic
congestion, but calling volume in recent years indicates as many as
2,300 circuits are actually needed.

   The company said service over the 67 satellite and cable circuits
it has been using for Soviet service had diminished somewhat on
Wednesday, with news that the coup against President Mikhail Gorbachev
had failed.

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

So there you have it!  Because of those extra international telephone
circuits, Gorbachev was able to arise from the ashes.  :-)


Bill Berbenich, School of EE, DSP Lab   Georgia Tech, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp: ...!{backbones}!gatech!eedsp!bill Internet: [e-mail]

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

From: Toby Nixon <hayes![e-mail]>
Subject: Settlement Announced in Hayes/Everex Patent Case
Date: 21 Aug 91 13:54:04 GMT
Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA


HAYES MICROCOMPUTER PRODUCTS, INC.
P.O. Box 105203   Atlanta, Georgia  30348
Telephone:  [phone]  Fax:  [phone]
Beth Logan/Peggy Ballard

EVEREX SYSTEMS, INC.
415/683-2421  415/683-2491
Kimball Brown/Anne Butler


                        FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
                              H-1891


               HAYES AND EVEREX REACH A SETTLEMENT OF
               MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR PATENT LITIGATION

        Atlanta, GA, 21 August 1991 -- Hayes Microcomputer Products,
Inc.  and Everex Systems, Inc. jointly announced today that they have
reached an amicable settlement of the patent litigation between the
two companies involving the Heatherington '302 Patent owned by Hayes.
As part of the settlement, Everex joined the increasing number of
modem manufacturers who have taken a royalty-bearing license under the
Patent.  Everex also agreed to pay Hayes $2.5 million in satisfaction
of the judgment awarded to Hayes for past infringement.

        On 25 January 1991, a San Francisco Jury found that the
Heatherington '302 Patent was valid and that Everex and co-defendants,
Ven-Tel Systems, Inc. and OmniTel, Inc., had each willfully infringed
the Patent.  The Jury awarded damages to Hayes totalling $3.5 million,
with Everex's portion totalling $1.6 million.  Because of the Jury's
finding of willful infringement, Judge Conti, in his ruling of 22
April 1991, doubled the damages and awarded Hayes attorneys' fees and
expenses of litigation.  In addition, the Judge issued an injunction
against further infringement, but stayed that injunction with respect
to the defendants pending the appeal, so long as they pay royalties
for use of the Patent.  Although Everex initiated an appeal of the
rulings against it, Everex has dropped its appeal as part of the
settlement and has agreed with Hayes to end the litigation between the
companies.  This decision releases Everex of the necessity of
continuing with the posting of bonds and payment of other substantial
expenses related to the litigation.

        "We are pleased with Everex's decision to settle this
litigation and hope that this decision will encourage more companies
to come to the table to discuss taking a license with Hayes instead of
requiring the expense of a trial and risking increased damages with a
finding of willful infringement," said Hayes President Dennis C.
Hayes.

        Hal Clark, President of Everex, expressed satisfaction with
the settlement.  "We are pleased that the uncertainty and expense of
the appeal process is now behind us," stated Clark.  "The resolution
of this matter opens up new avenues of opportunity for our two
companies."

        The settlement with Everex does not involve OmniTel and
Ven-Tel, the other defendants from the San Francisco case.  Those
parties have appealed the adverse decisions against them.  "We expect
a favorable ruling from the appellate court against these two parties
in the near future," said Hayes.

        Companies may obtain further information about Hayes Licensing
Program for its 40 U.S. Patents and corresponding foreign patents by
contacting Hayes Business Development/Intellectual Property Licensing
at Hayes World Headquarters (P.O. Box 105203, Atlanta, Georgia 30348).

[marketing blurbs deleted]

                                    ###

Toby Nixon, Principal Engineer      | Voice   [phone]  Telex 151243420
Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc.  | Fax     [phone]  CIS   70271,404
P.O. Box 105203                     | BBS     [phone]  AT&T    !tnixon
Atlanta, Georgia  30348             | UUCP uunet!hayes!tnixon  Fido   1:114/15
USA                                 | Internet       [e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 09:39:56 EDT
From: "Darin S. Lory" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Weather Information Servers


I, too, once enjoyed in the weather information that I display on my
Sun workstation using WXMAP.  Matter of fact, I have the last WXMAP I
could display hanging on my refrigerator.  But I found by luck, two
Information DBMSs - both at the University of Michigan.

141.212.100.9   telnet martini.eecs.umich.edu 3000  Location DBMS
141.212.196.79  telnet madlab.sprl.umich.edu 3000   Weather/Earthquake DBMS

Telnet to either one, the first gives you location information of any
town or city in the US with latitude and longitude.  The second gives
weather and earthquake information in the US, with several locations
in each state (depending on the state).

Both are text based.  Hope this helps.

Darin S. Lory  Kaman Sciences Corporation  Advanced Technology Division
<[e-mail]>   Network Analyst       Utica, New York +1.315.734.3663

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

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 23:22:38 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Information Wanted on AT&T Tariff 12


This sounds like an infrequently asked question, but the recent
{Communications Week} had a feature story on MCI being allowed to use
a "Tariff 12" service, or something like that, which seemed to be
proprietary to AT&T. MCI hopes it will allow for better value to their
international service, but MCI had been somewhat critical of this.

My quick peek at the CW didn't reveal what a Tariff 12 was supposed to
be, other than it involved some secretive, proprietary material and
that MCI was plugging into it ... whatever it is. Are there any other
details about this, at least details which can be revealed?


[e-mail]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #654
******************************










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Date:     Thu, 22 Aug 91 2:35:11 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #655
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Thu, 22 Aug 91 02:35:03 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 655

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Telecom in the Channel Islands [Martin Baines]
    Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Satellite? [Steve Dillinger]
    Flakey T1/What is BELL PUB 62411 [Bob Stodola]
    RISKS of Calling 911 From Cellular Phones [RISKS Digest via Seng-Poh Lee]
    Phone Company Cut Me Back to Pulse Dialing [Jack Meth]
    Properly Calibrated Electric Meters [John W. Shaver]
    Re: Transport Protocols for Operating Environment Platforms [Lars Poulsen]
    Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low On Phone Numbers [David Bernholdt]
    Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low On Phone Numbers [Ron Newman]
    Re: 900 'Lawyer' Number Comments [David Leibold]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Martin Baines <[e-mail]>
Subject: Telecom in the Channel Islands
Date: 21 Aug 91 08:19:54 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: Sun Microsystems Ltd


Hi all,

I have just returned from a much needed break to Guernsey in the
Channel Islands. While I was there, I got bored and was looking
through the local telephone Book. It appears that the phone service is
run by an organization called the "Guernsey Telecommincations
Commission" which trades as "Guernsey Telecom". However, for all
dialing purposes Guernsey is a part of the UK phone system (STD code
0481), the phone book even lists "Star Services" that are available
from the (in)famous System-X exchange.

My question is this: could someone who knows, say how Guernsey Telecom
(and Jersey Telcom for that matter) relates to the rest of the UK
phone network, and BT in particular? A friend suggested that BT
operated the service under contract from the States of Guernsey (the
government), is this true? All input greatly received.

[For those not familiar with the Channel Islands (Les Iles
Anglo-Normandy), they are a small group of islands off the North West
Coast of France, that due to historical accident owe alligence to the
British Crown, but are self governing. They are split into two
administrations: Jersey (the largest Island) and the Balliwick of
Guernsey (all the other Islands).]


Martin Baines, Sales Support Manager,
Sun Microsystems Ltd, 306 Science Park, Cambridge, CB4 4WG, UK
Phone                           Email
UK:            0223 420421      JANET:     [e-mail]
International: [phone]   Other UK:  [e-mail]
                                Internet:  [e-mail]

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

From: Dill <[e-mail]>
Subject: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Satellite?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 1991 15:46:15 GMT


   This is something that has been bothering me for well over a year
and I am curious exactly what causes it.  When calling from Champaign,
IL, to a friend on Long Island NY I find the conversation often drops
into what can be called half-duplex.  If I am talking and she is not,
her side of the conversation seems to 'drop.'  Ie: I hear nothing from
her end.  It is very annoying and noticable when there is somekind of
background noise whether it just be line noise or a TV on in the
background.  I find myself going "hello, hello?" (to her annoyance
also..).  I think I remember hearing some years ago that the
coversation does indeed go half duplex because the signal is going
over a satellite.  When one side of the connection is silent the
satellite releases the channel for someone else.  When they start to
talk again it reconnects it.  Is this the case?

   It's -really- bothersome.


[ Steve Dillinger :: [e-mail] :: [e-mail] ]
[               University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign              ]

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

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 15:37:50 EDT
From: Bob Stodola <[e-mail]>
Subject: Flakey T1 / What is BELL PUB 62411


Our local phone company supplies us with a T1 line connecting two
buildings.  We connect two ethernets using a Vitalink bridge and
Digital Link Corporation DSU/CSU.  Over the last six months, Bell has
been trying to "upgrade" our T1 line from copper to fiber.  Each time
they do, the link becomes flakey from ethernet to ethernet even though
TPC says the line is clean.  Each time, they restore the copper link
and problems disappear.

The reference manual for the DSU/CSU has an internal switch which
"controls whether or not the DL551V II will be forced to comply with
BELL PUB 62411."  What is BELL PUB 62411, and why might it make the
difference here?  Also, the vendor suggested we explore a switch which
controls the scrambler/descrambler which purportedly "will pseudo
randomly change DTE data to improve the ones density."  Again, why
might this make a difference here?

Alternately, if anyone has any suggestions, please email them to me.  Thanks.


Robert K. Stodola                            Phone: [phone]
Manager, Research Computing Services         FAX: [phone]
The Fox Chase Cancer Center                  internet: [e-mail]
7701 Burholme Avenue         Philadelphia, PA  19111     USA

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

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 22:00:46 -0400
From: Seng-Poh Lee <[e-mail]>
Subject: RISKS of Calling 911 From Cellular Phones
Organization: GNUest - GNU Guest


Spotted in RISKS DIGEST 2.14

 Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1991 08:09 EDT
 From: "E. M. Culver x5416" <[e-mail]>
 Subject: RISKS of calling 911 from cellular phones

I have wondered what happens when you call 911 from a cellular phone.
In Connecticut, you get the State Police who will (maybe) help you.
911 coverage here approaches 100%, so calling 911 from a cellular
phone is not necessarily silly.  Somebody tried, nobody got hurt and
the human side of the system did not work ...

[Digested from "Cellular Caller Gets Runaround Reporting Fire", New Haven
(Connecticut) Register, 13 August 1991.  I removed the individual names.]

A Wallingford, Connecticut woman called to report a fire in her public
housing duplex on August 9 (at about 11:45am) by calling 911 on her
cellular telephone.  In Connecticut, 911 calls from cellular phones
are routed to the nearest state _State Police_ barracks. The State
Police dispatcher told the woman "This number is for state police
emergencies only. You have to call 1-411 {the information number } and
get the number of your local fire department."  Fine -- she did that.
The Wallingford Fire Department's dispatcher told her to call 911.

In frustration, she called the Wallingford Police, told the story and
waited.  After a few minutes (this was less than a mile from the fire
house) she concluded the Fire Department had not been told. She called
the fire department again, saying "My house is burning down and
nobody's going to come?" and getting agitated. About 25 minutes after
the call to 911 the fire trucks arrived. A maintenance worker sent by
the housing authority had already put out the fire. There were no
injuries.

The Fire Chief said the Fire Department is instituting a policy change
so dispatchers will handle emergency calls on non-911 lines instead of
directing callers to dial 911.

The State Police get 911 calls from cellular phones because these
calls are usually report traffic accidents. State Police dispatchers
are supposed to route fire calls to the appropriate local fire
department.  911 calls made from regular phones can be traced to the
physical address from which the call originated -- either the old
fashioned way or with an advanced form of caller ID, which give the
dispatcher the physical address of the phone originating the call.


Seng-Poh Lee    <[e-mail]>

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

Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center
Date: Wednesday, 21 Aug 1991 10:52:56 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Phone Company Cut me Back to Pulse Dialing


Last night my phone service was downgraded from tone/pulse to pulse
only.  Aside from dialing taking a bit longer, it has had no ther
effect.

About a week ago I got a note from my local TelCo (NY Telephone area
code 718).  It told me that I have been using tone dialing without
paying for it.  If I want to keep tone service, I was asked to call an
number to make this service request and be prepared to pay >$5.00 per
line per month.  If I don't make the service request, NYTel would
switch me back to pulse dialing.

It has always been my understanding that tone service was easier
(cheaper) for the TelCo to provide that pulse.  Has this changed?

Has this happened to anyone else?

Any other comments are welcome.


Jack Meth   John Jay College of Criminal Justice
New York, NY 10019    BITNET JKMJJ@CUNYVM

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

Date: 20 Aug 91 08:19:32 MST
From: Mr John W Shaver <[e-mail]>
Subject: Properly Calibrated Electric Meters


I used to be a board member of an electric utility. Our lab standards
were traceable to NBS in two steps. The state regulations required us
to get individual meters to a certain accuracy (I don't remember how
close but it was about +/- 0.1 %. The readings were taken at a very
low power level and at about 75% of rating.) Meters tend to slow down
with age, the grease on the bearings stiffens and the friction slows
the meter up. I am not sure, but 20 years ago one electric clock in a
residence did not draw sufficient power to move the meter.


             John W. Shaver
    602 538 7622 // DSN 879 7622 // FTS 658 7622
    FAX [phone] // DSN 879 0656_// FTX 658 0656

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

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 09:21:35 PDT
From: Lars Poulsen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Transport Protocols for Operating Environment platforms


Dan Pezely wrote in comp.dcom.telecom:

> For Tele-presence/Operating Environment platforms, we need a rugged
> transport protocol like in the IP suite since we don't know all of the
> network types we'll be running on.  That is, we would like one
> transport protocol for LANs and WANs at a wide range of speeds and
> signal-to-noise ratios.

To which I replied:

> I would suggest that you implement TCP and IP as per the RFC's;
> NO CHANGES. What makes you think you might need to change it ?

And Dan countered:


> We need more than just connection-oriented and straight datagrams; we'd
> like something which is semi-reliable and gives up after a few tries--
> fewer than with TCP.  However, we don't know exactly how many tries to give
> up after, and with newer CPUs and networks, the params may change.

> We will, of course, use UDP/IP for its header info for compatibility, but
> some of the organizations funding our lab are willing to run any protocol
> developed for our projects-- protocols which would probably be developed
> jointly with another lab or school.

>  Also, IP is being used on the high speed nets, but with gigabit nets, I
>  understand that the ID field can get wrapped around while some packets are
> still traveling from coast-to-coast.  Some of our projects will definately
>  put such things to the test (when, I don't know).

And here I (Lars) speak again:

I am glad to hear that you are willing to use IP; at least this lets
you route through other people's networks, and through local network
built with off-the-shelf components into your (monitoring?) systems.

As to your specific list of issues:

(1) The point at which a TCP implementation gives up and resets the
    connection is an implementation issue, not a protocol issue. You
    could make it tunable and still stay TCP compatible/interoperable.
(2) If you need a "soft reset" capability to allow data loss to be
    recognized without breaking the connection (X.25-like) then you do have
    a requirement that TCP cannot handle.
(3) If you have more than 2**32 bytes in flight, you do have a sequence
    number wrap-around problem. I respectfully submit, though, that if
    you expect to carry gigabits per second over a SINGLE connection, you
    will have MANY technical obstacles to overcome, and you had better have
    beaucoup funding.


>> Thank you!  Does this criteria alter your opinion at all?

Actually, Rockwell is probably fairly indifferent ... but your note
sounded very much like the usual calls for "reliable datagram
protocols" which usualy turn out to require more overhead and work
less well than TCP. In fact the biggest shortcoming of TCP for most
applications that claim to need to invent another protocol, is the
lack of record boundaries. And these can usually be inserted by
prefixing each record with a byte count, and sending the last buffer
of the record with a PUSH bit.

If you need to get something operational with two years, I still think
TCP is your best bet. If you have funding for long-term research, you
could take a look at XTP, and if that doesn't work for you either, you
could start an IETF working group towards a "super-TCP" with the extra
features that you need.

> ps - I'd like to post this to the list of newsgroups which the
> moderator of comp.dcom.telecom forgot to cross-post to:
> comp.protocols.misc, comp.protocols.tcp-ip, comp.protocol.iso,
> comp.dcom.lan, and comp.dcom.telecom
> is this ok with you?

I personally have no objection, but be forewarned, that as a matter of
editorial policy, TELECOM does not accept crosspostings.  In my
opinion, the "right" place for this discussion is on the TCP-IP
mailing list, also seen as comp.protocols.tcp-ip. Thus, I have cc'd
this to both TELECOM and TCP-IP.


Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer   CMC Rockwell  [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: Thanks for the follow up on this, and yes, TCP-IP
is probably better suited to handle the discussion from this point
foreward. Regards cross posting, I prefer not to do it for routine
stuff, but will occassionally for good, solid material the readers
here might otherwise miss.   PAT]

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

From: "David E. Bernholdt" <bernhold@red8>
Subject: Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low On Phone Numbers
Date: 21 Aug 91 14:36:53 GMT
Organization: Quantum Theory Project, Univ. of Florida


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Paul
Sutcliffe Jr.) writes:

>    We're Sorry, But the Country is Low On Phone Numbers

I wonder if anyone has statistics on the number of phone numbers per
capita in this country?  Not only do we have an explosion in the
number of uses for telephone lines, we have recently seen the telcos
selling "virtual telephone lines" -- things like "RingMaster", which
use additional phone numbers put no more physical circuits.


David Bernholdt            [e-mail]
Quantum Theory Project        [e-mail]
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL  32611        904/392 6365

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

From: [e-mail] (Ron Newman)
Subject: Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low On Phone Numbers
Date: 21 Aug 91 17:32:11 GMT
Organization: Bolt, Beranek & Newman, Inc.


The NYT article mentions "the current supply of 152" area codes.

So just what are the 152 legal area codes?

The formula N[0/1]X gives 8*2*10 = 160.  If we remove all the N00 and
N11 codes, we get 160 - 16 = 144.

Someone on this list must know the answer.

Also, is there any reason that the following could
not be used as area codes?

   211,311,511,611,711,811,200,300,400,500,600


Ron Newman        [e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 23:16:57 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: 900 'Lawyer' Number Comments


Any $39.50/minute service like the dial-a-lawyer described makes
Inmarsat calls look like quite a bargain; however, the Law Society of
Upper Canada has had a service called Dial-A-Law which gives out
recorded general information on various legal topics. The Toronto
number is [phone], and they had an 800 number operating which
was valid for at least Ontario. It should be noted that the
information on there is subject to all sorts of legal disclaimers, and
that what you get will be based on Canadian law (and in turn with
emphasis on the province of Ontario).

Disclaimer: this information is subject to change or cancellation; no
warranty expressed or implied; ... batteries not included; etc :-)


[e-mail] (for a bit yet; get those FAQ's in)

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #655
******************************










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Date:     Fri, 23 Aug 91 7:36:29 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #656
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Fri, 23 Aug 91 07:35:56 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 656

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Billing INTRA-Lata Calling to My Carrier [Jack Decker]
    Re: FAX/Modem Autoswitches - Which Ones Work? [Terry Gold]
    Re: Are There Rules Against Rapid Repeat Dialing? [Tony Shepps]
    Re: Tour of a CO [Thomas Lapp]
    Re: NYNEX to Charge For 411 in Massachusetts as of 9/14/91 [Ethan Miller]
    Re: Phast Food [Chris Farrar]
    Re: AT&T Data Network [Ken Jongsma]
    Re: AT&T Data Network [John Higdon]
    Re: AT&T Data Network [Phydeaux]
    Re: Cable TV Competition [Shawn Goodin]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 17 Aug 91 18:00:55 CDT
From: Jack Decker <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Billing INTRA-Lata Calling to My Carrier


> I take it this means that AT&T CAN carry intra lata calling but MI
> BELL chooses to route ALL 1+ dialing via themselves.  If the FCC
> doesn't allow this, why do the carriers complete the call?

Actually, since these are intrastate calls, the FCC has nothing to do
with it.  What happened is that maybe two or three years ago the
Michigan Public Service Commission decreed that Interexchange Carriers
should be allowed to carry intralata calls within Michigan, but that
customers would have to dial the appropriate "10XXX" code to specify a
carrier other than the Local Exchange Carrier (either Michigan Bell or
GTE North, depending on which company serves your exchange).

Part of the reasoning behind this (and I don't recall all the details
offhand, so this is from memory) is that the Michigan Public Service
Commission decided that according to law (either Michigan or federal,
don't recall which) they could only regulate facilities-based
carriers, not those that simply resold transmission capability of
other carriers.  At the time, the only facilities-based Interexchange
Carriers in the state were (as I recall) AT&T, MCI, and U.S. Sprint.
Even Allnet was not considered a facilities-based carrier, if I recall
correctly.  So if the MPSC had decreed that only Michigan Bell or GTE
could handle intraLATA calls, it would have prohibited the three
largest carriers from handling such calls, but the other carriers
would have been perfectly free to handle such calls.  Of course, the
Local Exchange Carriers could still have blocked transmission of such
calls to Interexchange Carriers when 1+number (or 10XXX+1+number) was
dialed, but not calls sent via mechanisms.

Also, on a purely practical level, Michigan Bell had been allowing
calls dialed using 10XXX+1+number to go to the desired carrier for
quite some time, and of course calls placed using "950-" or other
access numbers had always worked, and I suspect that the Commission
didn't want to deal with complaints from folks who suddenly found that
this formerly available access was denied.

At the time all this was going on I was following it quite closely.  I
think the result is pretty fair -- the local telcos get the default
traffic from those who don't care to choose a carrier, yet those who
do care and who want to save a little extra money can dial around the
local telco.  In practice, last I heard was that somewhere between 95%
and 98% of all intraLATA calls still go to Michigan Bell or GTE North.
I don't mind that as long as the choice to do otherwise remains
available.

> I was told be the local MCI representative that he'd put a dialer on
> my lines to "dial around" the intra lata calls to save money on the
> Michigan Bell (Ameritech RBOC) rate.  If the reps can be this blatant
> about it, it MUST be legal.

Yep, sure is.  MetroNet (a company out of Lansing) does this too, and
they offer some interesting features that are unique to their
company ... like the first 47 seconds of every call are free (if your
call is completed within 47 seconds, you're not charged for it), free
directory assistance calls, and some really great rates on intrastate
calls.  The flip side is there is a monthly minimum or service charge
and some of these feature work differently for intrastate vs.
interstate calls, plus the first minute of calls that DO last longer
than 47 seconds is a bit loaded (not too badly, though).  I have to
believe they lose some money doing things like this but they must make
it back somewhere.

Disclaimer: I don't work for Metronet, although if you sign up with
them and tell them I referred you, I supposedly get a $20 referral
bonus.  If you think that makes this message too self-serving, just
don't tell 'em I sent you!  :-)


Jack Decker 1804 West 18th St. #155, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan 49783
Via Node 1:154/600, 20:19 8/12 ReMapper To Point 99

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

From: [e-mail]
Date: Tue Aug 20 13:54:27 MDT 1991
Subject: Re: FAX/Modem Autoswitches - Which Ones Work?


I have a Sharp UX-182 fax machine that is not dedicated to the line it
is on.  The problem with autoswitches seems to me to be that many
people will dial the fax number and wait for the machine to answer.
If they don't hear the fax machine, they think they've made a mistake.

The UX-182 has a feature that allows an answering machine to be
connected.  When someone calls my fax line, the answering machine
answers and instructs them to "press start now" if they are sending a
fax, or wait for the beep if they want to leave a message.  Most
automated fax systems can deal with it, though some can't.  If the
caller does try to send a fax, the answering machine is disconnected
and the fax works as usual.

I have it set up this way to avoid dedicating a line for the
infrequent incoming fax.  I have roll-over on two lines, so if one is
busy, they go to the fax/answering machine.


Terry Gold
Gold Systems, Inc.  ISDN PBX-to-host and voice response
[e-mail]   [phone]

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

Subject: Re: Are There Rules Against Rapid Repeat Dialing?
From: cellar![e-mail]
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 09:55:29 EDT
Organization: The Cellar BBS and public access system


[e-mail] writes:

> In article <[e-mail]> William Degnan writes:

>> It is a problem but not for the reason you may think. Some BBSs have
>> end of call processing that may take a minute or several minutes. If
>> you hammer dial a system, you may cause it to be unavailable to
>> callers -- including yourself.

> Then don't use brain dead software.

Brain-dead software -- like Unix?

We run a BBS under Unix.  Although the BBS itself (Waffle) handles
end-of-call processing quickly, Unix requires a few seconds to reset
the modem and the port.  We find that calling at just the wrong moment
 -- always accomplished by hammer dialing -- causes the caller to get
an interrupted carrier signal from the modem.  This isn't too bad a
situation, since the caller's comm program will probably just time
out, but one could imagine a caller with brain-dead comm software.

This kind of war dialing should be done by the switch anyway, shouldn't
it?


Tony Shepps      [e-mail]     (...{tredysvr|uunet}!cellar!toad)  -
The Cellar BBS  [phone]

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

Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 21:39:36 EST
From: Thomas Lapp <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Tour of a CO
Reply-To: [e-mail]


"Donald E. Kimberlin" <[e-mail]> writes:

> In article <Digest v11,iss632> Tom Lapp tells about visiting
> his local Telco's central office to be:

>> One of the highlights was watching my host do a line test on my
>> residential line (which is serviced out of that office).  Everything
>> (DC, AC, etc) tested well within specs, and I also found out that my
>> "pair" from CO to my end-user equipment is 31,800 (+/- 10) feet!  (It
>> measured a 65 dB loss for this distance, by the way).  All the testing
>> was done via a single terminal console in an office in the CO.

>         A subscriber cable pair 31,800 feet long would put your house
> about six miles from that building, Tom.  Is that the case?  I query
> it because the VAST majority of telephone stations in the US are
> within about three miles (15,000 feet) and most are closer than that.

In answer to your question, yes, my house *is* about six miles from
the CO that it is serviced from.  I understand that a significant
portion of that is on fiber, and not copper.

>  [more discussion over figures showing that the numbers I quoted
>  couldn't possibly be right]

>         If he obtained a reading of 65 decibels loss on your loop, it
> would be a circuit just plainly out of business in analog telephony.

I plead ignorance on this one.  I was reading a computer screen which
had 65 dB on it, and I *thought* my host said that it was the loss
over that length of circuit.  I obviously need to get clarified on
that.

>         Based on what you were shown, it seems the greatest lacking in
> that CO is competent transmission technicians.  But don't feel too

I wouldn't say that.  My host had over 25 years experience doing
everything from line work to management.  I'd say the fault is in the
person telling the story -- me.  I'll check back with my host and get
some clarification on what I was shown and post an explanation when
*I* understand it :-).


tom

internet     : mvac23![e-mail]  or  [e-mail] (home)
uucp         : {ucbvax,mcvax,uunet}!udel!mvac23!thomas

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

From: ethan miller <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: NYNEX to Charge For 411 in Massachusetts as of 9/14/91
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 1991 09:56:59 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron Newman) writes:

> From a New England Telephone bill insert:

>     Calling Directory Assistance more than ten times
>    a month may add to your telephone bill.

> Beginning September 14, 1991, residence customers will be charged 34
> cents for each directly dialed Directory Assistance call made in
> excess of ten calls per month.  For example, if you make 20 calls to
> Directory Assistance during your billing month, you will be charged
> for ten calls totalling $3.40.

This is nothing new.  This charge has existed for several years in
California, and I recall it existing in Providence, RI (NYNEX/New
England Telephone) when I was in college in 1987.  Here in the SF Bay
Area, the charge is $.25 per call over five for residences, and $.25
per call over two for businesses.  I see nothing wrong with this
charge, as long as the phone company is willing to provide free
directories for local areas (and exemptions for those who can't use
the directories).


ethan miller--cs grad student  [e-mail]
#include <std/disclaimer.h>

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

Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 20:04:13 PDT
From: Chris Farrar <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Phast Food
Organization: Professional Thinkers Guild, Windsor, Ont., FidoNet 1:246/20


* forwarded from Imex's TELECOM echo
by Nigel Allen ([e-mail])

Replying to a message from Jeff Sicherman

>   According to this week's {Network World}, Domino's is teaming with
> AT&T and Bell Laboratories (getting a Pizza the action?) to develop a
> service that will route a phone call to a single nationwide number to
> the store closest to the caller.

How will this work in Canada, where Domino's also operate, and the
only way to order a pizza is to look in the phone book and find the
closest Domino's or let the store you call transfer the call to the
store that serves your area.

> [Moderator's Note: Only 49 states? I think there's no Domino Pizza in
> Alaska because that state has a law against driving an  old junked-up
> machine faster than 85 miles an hour on municipal streets.  :) Is it

You watched the 60 Minutes episode where they followed Domino's
drivers in a van equipped with traffic radar that clocked a driver at
65mph in a 25 mph zone who then denied speeding, didn't you?

> true Domino's is trying to cut the delivery time down to fifteen
> minutes in midtown Manhattan during the evening rush hour?

That should be about half a block, unless they are delivering by bicycle :-)


* Origin: Professional Thinkers Guild [phone] (Windsor)  (1:246/20)

Chris Farrar - via FidoNet node 1:250/98
INTERNET: [e-mail]

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

Subject: Re: AT&T Data Network
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 10:46:49 EDT
From: Ken Jongsma <wybbs![e-mail]>


I went back and reread the {PC Magazine} article on the AT&T data
network and extracted a few more details:

Information Access service started in July of this year. It is intended
as an adjunct service for those who already subscribe to AT&Ts Accunet
packet data network. If the 950-1288 number does not work in your area,
AT&T provides an 800 number. Users pay an extra flat rate fee for use
of the service, based on access speed and expected usage. Upon logging
in, the user is presented with a customized menu of third party services
available. International access is expected in the near future.

No data on what services Information Access can connect to were
listed.  (PC Magazine, Sep 10, 1991, page 386)


Ken Jongsma              [e-mail]
Smiths Industries        [e-mail]
Grand Rapids, Michigan   ..sharkey.cc.umich.edu!wybbs!ken

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

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 09:16 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Re: AT&T Data Network


[e-mail] writes:

>  From 603 calls to 950-1288 gets NET's infamous: "{tri-tone} The
> number you have reached 9-5-0-1-2-8-8 is being checked for trouble,
> please try your call again later."

> Which experience has shown really means:   "... is not in service."

This is probably true, but what is really happening is that the number
is being forwarded to an intercept announcer which has no programming
for that particular number. When a number is changed or disconnected
it is simply forwarded (with DNIS) to the mechanical intercept. The
intercept machine looks up the number dialed and give the new number
or even just a curt, "No further information is available about...".
If a call shows up on its doorstep and there is NO entry at all, then
you get the "being checked for trouble" business.

This can sometimes happen when the CO people are faster than the
intercept/business office people.


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

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

Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 09:23:02 PDT
From: Phydeaux <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: AT&T Data Network


Hmm ... here in 708 land all I get is an "all circuits busy" intercept...

reb
*-=#= Phydeaux =#=-*  [e-mail]   or   [e-mail]
ICBM:  41.55N 87.40W  h:558 West Wellington #3R Chicago, IL 60657 312-549-8365
w:reb ASK/Ingres 10255 West Higgins  Suite 500 Rosemont, IL 60018 708-803-9500


[Moderator's Note: That's because you're getting the same fine service
from IBT that I, your neighbor in 312 get from IBT. I get the same
message here.   PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (Shawn Goodin)
Subject: Re: Cable TV Competition
Organization: Crash TimeSharing, El Cajon, CA
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 1991 11:16:33 GMT


[e-mail] (Nick Sayer) writes:

> By the way, if your house is pre-wired for cable, don't be surprised
> if the developer made a deal with the cable company to trade
> pre-wiring for antenna restrictions.

Unfortunately, no such luck.  I believe the usual reason for the
restriction is to preserve the "look and value" of the homes in the
neighborhood -- heaven forbid that those unsightly antennas and dishes
would dare contribute to urban decay/blight/home values.

Meanwhile, they seem to allow these fences around the yards that
appear to have been designed and built by Tarzan ...

I'll try the dipoles ... if I wanted to cut one for, say, channel 7,
wonder what the measurements should be?


UUCP:  ....!crash!pro-charlotte!shawng      | Pro-Charlotte - [phone]
ARPA:  crash!pro-charlotte![e-mail]  | 300-9600 baud (HST) 24 hrs/day
INET:  [e-mail]         | Log in as "register"


[Moderator's Note: I'm not going to do all this math at this hour of
the morning. Essentially, find channel 7's frequency (about 180 megs).
Detirmine the length of the electromagnetic wave on the assumption
that the wave travels at about the speed of light, and makes 180
million such trips, or 'cycles' in a second. Cut a piece of wire to
some fraction of the resulting length ... probably a few inches.  PAT]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #656
******************************










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Date:     Fri, 23 Aug 91 8:03:12 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #657
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Fri, 23 Aug 91 08:03:01 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 657

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Information Wanted on AT&T Tariff 12 [Jack Dominey]
    Re: Information Wanted on AT&T Tariff 12 [Andy Sherman]
    Re: Information Wanted on AT&T Tariff 12 [John R. Levine]
    Re: Long Distance Across a Road [Scott Hinckley]
    Re: Long Distance Across a Road [Mike Morris]
    Re: Fake 'Extension' Numbers [John Higdon]
    Re: Is Possession of Telephone Test Set Illegal? [Patton M. Turner]
    Re: Massive Privacy Invasion [Jim Redelfs]
    Re: Phast Phood [Robert E. Zabloudil]
    Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Satellite? [Toby Nixon]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Date: Thu Aug 22 10:34:57 EDT 1991
Subject: Re: Information Wanted on AT&T Tariff 12


In Volume 11 : Issue 654 of the digest, David Leibold (DLEIBOLD@vm1.
yorku.ca) asked about AT&T's recent Tariff 12 agreement with MCI.

*Disclaimer - my knowledge of Tariff 12 is rather vague and general.
I work with small customers who seldom even use T1's.  The following is
based on what I've picked up in company-wide news and announcements
and in trade publications.*

Tariff 12 is another FCC tariff that describes what network services
AT&T can legally offer.  (It's sometimes known as Virtual
Telecommunications Network Service, or VTNS.) Unlike other tariffs
that describe general offerings like WATS (Tariff 2) or interstate
private lines (Tariff 11), Tariff 12 consists mainly of a series of
Options. Each of these Options details a specific package of inbound,
outbound, and dedicated services, available to customers fitting a
given description (number of locations using each service, etc.). I
*believe* specific commitments to x years and y minutes of usage are
included. The rates for the services are, as I understand, lower than
any comparable AT&T offerings, up to and including Software Defined
Network.

Each Tariff 12 Option is written with a particular (and very large)
customer in mind, and the value of the agreement is usually in the
millions of dollars per year.  But, since AT&T is prohibited from
making special deals, there is a constant tug-of-war with the FCC over
whether each new Option is general enough to be legal.  MCI and Sprint
have argued strongly that Tariff 12 agreements are unlawful, though I
guess MCI may change their tune.

The Tariff 12 agreement with MCI is apparently for a very large volume
of international service but I don't know the specifics.


Jack Dominey, AT&T Commercial Marketing, Tucker GA
404-496-6925 or AT&TMail: !dominey

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

From: Andy Sherman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Information Wanted on AT&T Tariff 12
Date: 22 Aug 91 16:33:31 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ, USA


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

> This sounds like an infrequently asked question, but the recent
> {Communications Week} had a feature story on MCI being allowed to use
> a "Tariff 12" service, or something like that, which seemed to be
> proprietary to AT&T. MCI hopes it will allow for better value to their
> international service, but MCI had been somewhat critical of this.

Tariff 12 is a tariff under which AT&T may make offerings to
businesses which are cheaper than normal in order to meet comptitive
offerings.  MCI and Sprint are frequent commenters against particular
Tariff 12 filings, for obvious reasons.

The piece refers to the fact that MCI has become a Tariff 12 customer,
I believe for International Service (which they will resell).  There
are two schools of thought about the uninitiated (including me) about
this.  One is that MCI bought a Tariff 12 service to find out as much
about the process so that they can fight Tariff 12's more effectively.
The other school of thought is that MCI just undercut their own
objections to Tariff 12 by becoming a Tariff 12 customer.


Andy Sherman/AT&T Bell Laboratories/Murray Hill, NJ
AUDIBLE:  [phone]
READABLE: [e-mail]  or att!ulysses!andys
What? Me speak for AT&T?  You must be joking!

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

Subject: Re: Information Wanted on AT&T Tariff 12
Organization: I.E.C.C.
Date: 22 Aug 91 20:56:26 EDT (Thu)
From: "John R. Levine" <[e-mail]>


Tariff 12 is the way that AT&T cuts special deals with large
corporations.  One of the rules with common carriers is that they are
supposed to offer the same rates to all customers in a given category,
e.g. if one customer gets a 5% discount at $200, they all do.  Under
Tariff 12, they've filed a few dozen extremely specific rate plans
each of which applies to a single very large customer.  I suppose that
if your telecom needs happened to be exactly the same as, say, DEC's,
you could get the same Tariff 12 rate, but you'd better have exactly
the same requirements in the same cities as they do.  Exactly how much
of a Tariff 12 filing is in the public record seems to be a sticky
issue.

I haven't seen the {Communications Week} article, so I can't say
whether MCI is buying service from AT&T under Tariff 12 (quite
possible for things like service to third world countries) or they're
cutting deals of their own.

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

From: Scott Hinckley <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Long Distance Across a Road
Date: 22 Aug 91 13:51:42 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail]


In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dill) writes:

>  On the thread of Illinois Bell's new 'pay-as-you-go-service,' my
> phone bills have tripled.  I live in an apartment with three other
> roommates and according to our phone bill we make 600-800 calls a
> month.  That ends up being a lot of cash.

>   I love it when IB gives us this story of how they switched plans to
> bill the people who use the service.  That is such bullshit.  Some

Well, lets see...

assuming: average 700/month

    700calls   12month   1year
    -------- X ------- x ------ = 23 outgoing calls / day
    1month      1year    365day

You DON'T consider this above average use???

It sounds to me like they are charging those who use the services. I
wouldn't be surprised if the average calls/day was in the three to
five neighborhood.

If you assume each call lasted ten minutes, that's 3:50/day, or 116
hours/month.  Even at only five min/call that is some HEAVY useage.


VoiceNet:Scott Hinckley | ATTnet:[phone]  | VW & Apple Forever!
Internet:[e-mail] | UUCP:...!uw-beaver!bcsaic!hsvaic!scott
US snail:110 Pine Ridge Rd / Apt# 608/ Huntsville / AL / 35801
DISCLAIMER: All contained herein are my opinions

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

From: Mike Morris <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Long Distance Across a Road
Organization: College Park Software, Altadena, CA
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1991 07:45:30 GMT


[e-mail] (Gary Snow) writes:

Jeff Carroll writes:

>> Depends on the city. I'd agree that Hillsboro-Portland ought to be a
>> local call (at least the part of Hillsboro you're calling from); in
>> fact I'm surprised it's not, since we have the same telco, and you
>> have to get fairly far away from Seattle (except to the north, where
>> there's GTE and a county line) before it's long distance to call
>> there. I guess Hillsboro is GTE too, though, huh?

> Yes, unfortunately Portland is GTE (I like having US West and I live
> just across the river in Vancouver).  From what I hear though all of
> Portland's outlying areas will be local calls, starting in November.

> Now if they would just make it a local call between Portland and
> Vancouver we would be all set.

In a similar vein, a friend of mine lives in Mohave Valley, AZ. just
across the river from Needles, CA and has an office in Needles, ten
minutes from his house.  Not only is it a toll call to call home, it's
a different LATA.  On a regular basis, he and his wife drive 20-25
minutes to Bullhead City, AZ and over the bridge to Laughlin, NV for
dinner at the Riverside Casino - $4.95 for all you can eat, and
multiple trips to the cafeteria line are encouraged.  That's a third
LATA, all within a 30 minute circle of their house.

I was in Needles to do the 7/4/91 fireworks show and needed to call
someone - I was in the only 24-hour restaurant in the area - the
Needles Denny's). The COCOT wanted $1.90 for a three minute call
across the river.  Ouch.  I won't tell you what I had a mental picture
of putting down the coin slot of the COCOT.


Mike Morris   WA6ILQ
PO Box 1130   Arcadia, CA. 91077  818-447-7052
All opinions must be my own since nobody pays
me enough to be their mouthpiece...

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

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 09:23 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Re: Fake 'Extension' Numbers


Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]> writes:

> (I was asked to punch in the two-digit number referring
> to the newspaper where the ad appeared for that horoscope line.)

Now I know why I read TELECOM Digest! This is a great idea -- I cannot
begin to add up all the money clients have wasted on misdirected
advertising.  In some cases, when an ad was discontinued, call counts
actually went UP. Using these psuedo extensions would give
instantaneous feedback to an advertiser who could make weekly surgical
corrections and not dump money down the rat hole.

Advertising can be very expensive, especially if it is not working.


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !


[Moderator's Note: The use of 'department numbers' has long been a
very good way to detirmine *where* someone saw your ad, or on what
radio station they listened to your message.   PAT]

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

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 15:28:43 CDT
From: "Patton M. Turner" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Is Possession of Telephone Test Set Illegal?


Gordon D Woods <[e-mail]> writes (Quote from newspaper ...
parts deleted)

> Inspector Peterson of the Morris County
> prosecutor's office said that it is "illegal to possess telephone test
> sets unless you can prove your job requires it."

I was told the same thing by a sheriff's deputy nicknamed "Bubba".  He
confiscated an old rotary test set I had, but let me go.  His story
was that only the phone company could buy them legally, thus it was
probably stolen.  He didn't believe I stole it, so he let me go.  I
didn't argue, since I had a TS-21, lasher, climbing belt and hooks,
and a TDR in the toolbox of my truck.  He refused to believe that one
could work on phone lines, without working for AT&T (to him AT&T, not
SCB was the phone company). He said he was going to return the test
set to it's rightful owner.  Somebody at the phone company must have
gotten a laugh out of that one. BTW: I had a pistol in the truck, and
he never asked to see my permit; unfortunately our county doesn't
issue test equipiment permits.

Just to be safe, I now have Xerox copies of some reciepts for
equipiment that I carry with me.  I thought I would need them last
Saturday morning when I was pulled over by the campus police because I
had a reel of hardline in the back of my truck.


Patton Turner        KB4GRZ @ K4RY.AL.NOAM        [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: More police BS! If/when they confiscate that stuff,
demand a receipt for it, and sue if necessary to get it back!   PAT]

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

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 13:33:16 cst
From: Jim Redelfs <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Massive Privacy Invasion
Reply-To: ivgate!macnet![e-mail]
Organization: Macnet Omaha


Ethan Miller wrote:

> Why are phone companies allowed to charge for unlisted and
> non-published numbers? In particular, Pacific Bell doesn't charge me
> for keeping my modem line unlisted. The reason? There's already a
> listed number at my address. Anyone know the rationale behind this?

In the case of NPU (Non-published) services, the telephone company
does indeed offer a SERVICE, albeit rarely used.

When a caller to Directory Assistance is told that the service is
NON-published, and then tells the operator that an EMERGENCY exists,
the Service Assistant takes the CALLER's name and number and then
attempts to call the non-published service customer and convey the
message.

*WHY* they are allowed to charge for this service is certainly debatable.

Non-Listed Service?  I've never been able to figure out that charge.

As for your MODEM line, you have a choice (probably) of either another
listing (even under another name else where in the directory) or NO
listing at all.


JR

Tabby 2.2
MacNet Omaha [phone]  -  O.M.U.G. On-Line    (1:285/14)


[Moderator's Note: Actually, it is rarely the local DA operator who
will intervene, but if you declare an emergency to the supervisor or
her superior, *someone* will attempt to reach the party; advise them
of your claims; and provide them with *your* number if they wish to
respond to your 'emergency'.   PAT]

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

From: "Robert E. Zabloudil" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Phast Phood
Date: 22 Aug 91 15:23:22 GMT
Organization: Defense Logistics Agency Systems Automation Center, Columbus


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(William Kucharski) writes:
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 635, Message 7 of 13

> This is interesting.  When Domino's originally expanded into the
> Milwaukee, WI area, there was one central Domino's number that you
> called.  ...

> However, in the past few years Domino's changed to a "call
> your local store" scheme in Milwaukee like they use everywhere else in
> the country.  What the reasons were for the change, I don't know.  I

They had a single number here in Columbus, too, like Pizza Hut did and
does.  The last time I called the Domino's central number, they said
my store had to be called direct at 47x-0030.  I don't seem to recall
calling that number very much since.  No real grudge, just a
coincidence ... the market here has several good pizza places 8^) but
no Happy Joe's  8^(.


Bob Zabloudil        [e-mail]

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

From: Toby Nixon <hayes![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Satellite?
Date: 22 Aug 91 13:17:14 GMT
Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Dill) writes:

> and I am curious exactly what causes it.  When calling from Champaign,
> IL, to a friend on Long Island NY I find the conversation often drops
> into what can be called half-duplex.  If I am talking and she is not,
> her side of the conversation seems to 'drop.'  Ie: I hear nothing from
> her end.

Actually, this can happen on just about any long-distance circuit that
is going through circuit multiplication equipment that uses TASI (Time
Assignment Speech Interpolation), including international submarine
cables (including fiber) and satellites.  TASI takes advantage of the
fact that most of the time only one side of the connection is active,
and allows the other direction to be used for other conversations.  In
some TASI systems, you hear this as a complete absence of sound from
the remote end, which can be quite annoying (as you noted!).  Newer
(better) TASI systems incorporate "noise regeneration" technology;
they measure the level and nature of noise on the circuit, and when
they reassign the circuit to another connection, the equipment on the
receiving end regenerates that level of noise so that you don't hear
the confusing silence.

I'm very surprised, though, that you would hear this at all on a call
from Illinois to New York; you normally encounter it only on
international connections.  Virtually all US calls are carried as
duplex PCM 64kbps channels, with no TASI, ADPCM, DCME/PCME, or other
multiplication equipment involved.  Which long distance carrier are
you using?  Is it sensitive to time of day or other factors?  Has it
always been this way, or is this a new (hopefully temporary)
phenomenon?


Toby Nixon, Principal Engineer      | Voice   [phone]  Telex 151243420
Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc.  | Fax     [phone]  CIS   70271,404
P.O. Box 105203                     | BBS     [phone]  AT&T    !tnixon
Atlanta, Georgia  30348             | UUCP uunet!hayes!tnixon  Fido   1:114/15
USA                                 | Internet       [e-mail]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #657
******************************










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Date:     Fri, 23 Aug 91 21:08:03 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #658
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Fri, 23 Aug 91 21:07:30 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 658

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Telesphere Sued By Creditors; Forced Into Bankruptcy [TELECOM Moderator]
    Thank You For Calling, on Echo-Tel [Linc Madison]
    CWA Stages Informational Picket at Radio Shack Against AT&T [Jeff Leyser]
    German Modem Query [Eric Brunner]
    Looking For a Phone Line Simulator [Dan Everhart]
    Book Review: Women and The Phone Company [David Leibold]
    Greene Decision Appealed [halcyon![e-mail]]
    HAW-4 Repeater Failure ... Anybody Know the Skinny? [Robert Gutierrez]
    Recommendations For Protocol Conversion to/from TCP/IP [John C. Schultz]
    RJ11, RJ14, RJ45 Specifications: Mechanical, Electrical, Both? [Peter Lee]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 19:53:37 CDT
From: TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject: Telesphere Sued By Creditors; Forced Into Bankruptcy


On Monday, August 19, Telesphere Communications, Inc. was sued by a
group of ten creditors who claim the company best known for its 900
service isn't paying its bills.

The group of creditors, all information providers using 900 lines
provided through Telesphere claim they are owed two million dollars in
total for services rendered through their party lines, sports reports,
horoscopes, sexual conversation lines and other services. They claim
Telesphere has not paid them their commissions due for several months.

The group of creditors filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Maryland
asking that an Involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy (meaning, liquidation
of the company and distribution of all assets to creditors) be started
against Telesphere.

The company said it will fight the effort by creditors to force it
into bankruptcy. A spokesperson also said the company has already
settled with more than 50 percent of its information providers who are
owed money. Telesphere admitted it had a serious cash flow problem,
but said this was due to the large number of uncollectible bills the
local telephone companies are charging back to them. When end-users of
900 services do not pay the local telco, the telco in turn does not
pay the 900 carrier -- in this case Telesphere -- and the information
provider is charged for the call from a reserve each is required to
maintain.

But the information providers dispute the extent of the uncollectible
charges. They claim Telesphere has never adequately documented the
charges placed against them (the information providers) month after
month. In at least one instance, an information provider filed suit
against an end-user for non-payment only to find out through
deposition that the user *had* paid his local telco, and the local
telco *had* in turn paid Telesphere.  The information providers allege
in their action against the company that Telesphere was in fact paid
for many items charged to them as uncollectible, 'and apparently are
using the money to finance other aspects of their operation at the
expense of one segment of their creditors; namely the information
providers ... ' Telesphere denied these allegations.

Formerly based here in the Chicago area (in Oak Brook, IL), Telesphere
is now based in Rockville, MD.


Patrick Townson

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

Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 02:56:40 PDT
From: Linc Madison <[e-mail]>
Subject: Thank You For Calling, on Echo-Tel


I received a call on Monday from my parents, who were on vacation in
International Falls, Minnesota.  They were calling me from a telephone
served by ConTel, and I must say it was the worst telephone connection
I have had in years.  The problems, though, were oddly lopsided.

They, on the originating end, heard me faintly and their own voices at
a roughly normal level.

I heard them normally, and my own voice echoed about a dozen times.
There was no echo suppression whatsoever, except for minimal
attenuation over the lines.

It was a dramatic demonstration of the usually transparent fact that
the two voice paths are separate.  Any speculation on what exactly
went awry with the connection?  The call was just a brief "Happy
Birthday," so we didn't try again for a better line.


Linc Madison  =  [e-mail]  =  ucbvax!tongue1!linc


[Moderator's Note: And from all of your friends on the net, best
wishes for many more happy birthdays to come. :)    PAT]

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

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 13:03:20 -0400
From: Jeff Leyser <[e-mail]>
Subject: CWA Stages Informational Picket at Radio Shack Against AT&T
Organization: North Coast Public Access Un*x (ncoast)


Several members of the Communications Workers of America local office
were outside a Radio Shack in downtown Cleveland today handing out
leaflets.  The leaflet is reprinted below.

Has anyone else seen this in other parts of the country?  Does anyone
know the specific complaints of the CWA?

            FOR YOUR INFORMATION

                AT&T UNFAIR

            CONTRACTING OUT EMPLOYEES' WORK
        DISREGARDING EMPLOYEE'S JOB CLASSIFICATION

AT&T and the Communciations Workers of America are party to contracts
which establish the terms of employment for AT&T employees.  The
purpose of those contracts is to create a set of fair working
conditions which apply equally to everbody -- so that AT&T employees
are treated and paid fairly in return for their professional and
skilled work.

AT&T, however, is ignoring those conditions by unfairly contracting
out some of its employees' work and by assigning work without regard
to its employees' job classifications established by its contract with
them.  Some of the work AT&T is unfairly contracting out is being
performed at Radio Shack's facilities.  AT&T promises to provide
quality telecommunications service to Radio Shack, and its employees
are a big part of that quality service which AT&T provides.  Now AT&T
is changing the rules on its employees; can its promises to Radio
Shack be far behind?

The Communications Workers do not want to interefere with, restrain,
or coerce anyone or in any way interfere with their business.  It only
seeks to inform you, the public -- AT&T customers -- about what is
going on here today at Radio Shack and other places.

Be certain that the service you purchase from AT&T is done by AT&T
employees and CWA members.

Thank you for your support.


        COMMUNCIATIONS WORKERS OF AMERICA
                  LOCAL 4340
             216-292-4340


                             --------

Jeff Leyser    [e-mail]  [e-mail]
     Opinions?  I thought this was typing practice!

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

From: Eric Brunner <[e-mail]>
Subject: German Modem Query
Organization: Well maybe: Telebit Corporation; Sunnyvale, CA, USA
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1991 09:55:29 GMT


Some of Telebit's brass are going to the Federal Republic(s) in two
week's time to speak with senior Bundespost volks. I'd like to get as
much as the telecom list's corporate knowledge as is available in
August, (not much I'm guessing), before they (Tbit's brass, less me,
I'm busy) toddle off.

In addition to modems (which I personally care not too greatly about),
Tbit also makes a dialup IP router (I'm the "tester, or consulting
director" thereof, multi-ouches, it (the NetBlazer) is usable, even
admirable, actually effective) -- think "just add dial tone, modems,
and IP routes to Mars" and you've got the idea -- under interesting
conditions crashes still produce, but for vanilla (real life less
UUNET-like pseudo-carriers) it works fine, unless you speak kanji.
Fixes for this, ppp and misc junk by InterOp 91.

Buzz words are:

  o who's who in the Deutches Bundes Post (DBP),
  o V.32 w/wo "bis", and the rest of the obvious modem standards,
  o Federal Republic modem "regulation" (read: vascular restriction),
  o IP over J-random-euro-corp's private X.25 backbone,
  o IP over J-random-euro-corp's utilization of a public X.25 carrier,
  o who's who in the FGR modem OEM market,
  o any "auto-dial is verboten/answering machines must speak DBP-esse"
       horror stories or better (more on target) given the above,
  o Euro (better mainstream German) X.25 board+software vendors or
    consulting persons/houses,
  o economic health of Euro modem vendors (Nokia et cetera),
  o J-random words-of-advice for a router/vmunix hack trying to advise
    a modem (now also dialup router) vendor principals about
    to blow beaucoup silver bullets on a senior DBP meeting
  o viewing the above, anything semi-rational, even semi-irrational.

Yes, I know, host-side software (various ppp implementations, various
slip implementations) _must_ be made NetBlazer friendly. They're on my
lengthy queue.

Thanks in advance, and stone the crows at home,

Consulting for, definitively authoritatively speaking for NetBlazer features
and bugs, but not representing Telebit Corp. or any modem, pad, or pbx, but
equally authoritative on InterOp [88, 89, 90, and 91], and the Pre- and
Post-Reno releases of 4bsd on the IBM RT.


Eric Brunner
Tule Network Services - 4bsd/rt project

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

Subject: Looking For a Phone Line Simulator
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Date: 21 Aug 91 09:11:37 PDT (Wed)
From: Dan Everhart <[e-mail]>


I would like to find out about equipment one would use for simulating
various qualities of phone line connections.

A client has an application which communicates using a pair of modems.
We would like to measure the performance of the application as the
quality of the connection is degraded.  E.g. noisy lines, long
distance connections, echo, delay, distortion, etc.

I'm interested in finding out names, model numbers, and capabilities
of equipment, who the manufacturers and vendors are, and any personal
recommendations people have.

Are there any circuit designs around for such devices?  Building one
ourselves is an alternative.

I know only the basics about telephone line characteristics, so I'd
also appreciate references to articles which have relevant or detailed
information.

Thanks a lot!


[e-mail]  uunet!{camco,fluke}!dyndata!dan  206-743-6982
7107 179th St SW    Dynamic Data & Electronics    Edmonds, WA 98026, USA

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

Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 22:30:55 EDT
From: David Leibold <[e-mail]>
Subject: Book Review: Women and The Phone Company


{The Toronto Star} on 17 August 1991, pg F11, features a review of
"'Hello Central?' - Gender, Technology, And Culture In The Formation
Of Telephone Systems" by Mich`ele Martin (McGill-Queen's University
Press, 219 pgs). The idea of this book, from what the review seems to
indicate is "This new technology did not sweep over a sheep-like
population. Women, in particular, forced the phone company to change
its plans for an elite instrument for the business community by using
it to overcome the isolation Victorian society had imposed on them."

A number of other interesting items are noted:

 - 676 independent telcos in the province of Ontario from 1906-1915
   (this number was drastically reduced by Bell's predatory nature,
   plus what the Star review noted as "cozy relations with government".)

 - Bell's construction of plant, with its poles and wires, had some
   organized opposition in the late 19th century.

 - six pound headsets for operators in the old days.

 - when a businessman's wife phoned him at work to ask for a loan
   of $5, he had the phone disconnected promptly. (This was 1878.)

 - footnote 2 of the book apparently states that "for instance,
   a television set cannot be used as a sewing machine".

'Hello Central' seems to be an academic work, but one with some
interesting telephone history and the concept that women made the boys
at the phone company dance to their tune.

I have no formal connections with McGill-Queen's University Press,
{The Toronto Star}, or most other entities implied by the above. As
for getting the actual review, check your nearby major library. As for
the actual book, try McGill University in Montreal or Queen's in
Kingston, Ontario.


[e-mail]

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

Subject: Greene Decision Appealed
From: halcyon![e-mail]
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 15:41:55 PDT
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service


     The American Newspaper Publishers Association [ANPA] was the
first to file an appeal of the July 25 ruling by Judge Harold Greene
allowing the Regional Bell Operating Companies [RBOCs] to become
original providers of electronic information. ANPA filed their appeal
in the U.S. Court of Appeals on 8-20-91, according to the Associated
Press. AP reports ANPA President Catherine Black as stating "today's
filing is just the next step in ANPA's continuing fight to preserve
competition and to protect consumers by preventing the ... (Baby
Bells) from providing information services over telephone lines they
totally control as regional monopolies."


Walter

  The 23:00 News and Mail Service - [phone] - Seattle, WA USA
                           PEP, V.32, V.42
                  +++ A Waffle Iron, Model 1.64 +++

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

From: Robert Gutierrez <[e-mail]>
Subject: HAW-4 Repeater Failure ... Anybody Know the Skinny?
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 01:11:55 GMT
Reply-To: Robert Gutierrez <[e-mail]>
Organization: NASA Science Internet - Network Operations Center


I was involved in a circut restoration for a couple of international
data lines (one to Japan, one to Korea, and one to Hawaii), and a
repeater failure on HAW-4 made us reroute over spare Intelsat
capacity.  Any info about what exactly is going on, like is it true
AT&T has an ETR of two weeks for the barge to get there???

We had to rewrite geography by jumping over Intelsat from San
Francisco to Tokyo, then Tokyo to Hawaii via TPC-3.  Our Korean circut
is doing a double hop because it was a HAW-4/San Fran/Intelsat hop to
Korea, now it's Hawaii-Tokyo (TPC-3), then Tokyo-San Fran (Intelsat),
then San Fran - Korea (Intelsat again).  Two second ping time ...
wheee!!!


Robert Gutierrez   NASA Science Internet,  Network Operations Center.

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

From: "John C. Schultz" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Recommendations For Protocol Conversion to/from TCP/IP
Organization: 3M Company, 3M Center, Minnesota, USA
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 02:10:43 GMT


If this is a FAQ, please let me know and point me in the right direction.

I have a need to transfer data interactively over various wide area
networks such as X.25, SNA, DECNET, various TCP/IP systems and some
token ring networks (IBM, Novell).  Interactive in this sense means I
need to be able to request and obtain data interactively as for
example how ftp works on TCP/IP networks.

I am solicting opinions on what people recommend to go between varied
networks and protocols in terms of hardware and software.

Coming from the UNIX world, I would prefer an SNA, X.25, conversion to
and from TCP/IP though I am open to other suggestions.

My idealized solution would be a relatively low cost (< $10,000 or
so?)  hardware/software solution which could be implemented on a per
node basis.  Thus one node may have only an X.25 connection, another
may have only SNA, some nodes may have both, etc.  I presume that the
<$10,000 price excludes IBM hardware/software solutions.

I would also be interested in maintenance and support issues that
people ahve found from what I hope are more than one vendor.

Thanks for any suggestions and I can summarize if there is any interest.


John C. Schultz                    EMAIL: [e-mail]
3M Company,  Building 518-01-1     WRK: [phone]
1865 Woodlane Drive, Dock 4,       Woodbury, MN  55125

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

Subject: RJ11, RJ14, RJ45 Specifications: Mechanical, Electrical, Both?
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 23:08:15 -0400
From: Peter Lee <[e-mail]>


I am in search of specs for RJ11, RJ14 and RJ45 modular jacks.  I have
looked through most of the promising ANSI/EIA (RS) standards without
much result; and most books on telephony don't even acknowledge their
existence.  I am primarily interested in what these terms, RJ11, etc.,
specify.  Are they mechanical specifications for the jacks, jacks with
cabling, electrical signalling protocols, or what?  Is there a body
that defines these standards, or is it just de facto ones set by
telephone companies?  Any pointers to documents (on-line, or otherwise)
would be appreciated.


Peter Lee    MIT Information Systems   [e-mail]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #658
******************************










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Date:     Fri, 23 Aug 91 23:32:15 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #659
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Fri, 23 Aug 91 23:32:06 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 659

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Telex and the USSR [Newark Star-Ledger via Tom Coradeschi]
    Peculiar "Service Order Confirmation" [Linc Madison]
    Help Needed Identifying Mystery 900 Call [[e-mail]]
    Need Phone Number For Compression Labs [Allen Robel]
    "Great Technologies" Sighted [Bruce Perens]
    Does the ISDN DC Signalling Spec Violate Hayes' Patent? [Russ Nelson]
    GTE and Strange Charges [Justin Leavens]
    No Letters on Dial/Keypad? [Carl Moore]
    Information Wanted on Call Back / ANI Number for 619-755 [David G. Cantor]
    FAQ List: Get Those Entries Submitted [Steve Thornton & TELECOM Moderator]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 14:26:13 EDT
From: Tom Coradeschi <[e-mail]>
Subject: Telex and the USSR
Organization: Electric Armts Div, US Army ARDEC, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ


 From the Newark, NJ {Star-Ledger}, Friday August 23, 1991

ACCESSING THE TRUTH
Jersey Telex Bases Kept Soviets Abreast of Ongoing Event

By JOHN T. HARDING

Photo, with caption: "MCI technician Rocco Berardi, center, inspects
the company's major switching center for international telex calls
with engineer Susan Tobey and staff specialist John Rodin."

   Citizens in the Soviet Union kept informed of coup events and world
reaction by tapping into information databases in New Jersey this
week.

   MCI International, which operates its Insight database in
Piscataway, got a "thank you" message from the citizens of Togliatti
City in the U.S.S.R.

   "This was the only channel which we were able to get during the
coup," the message from Togliatti said.

   Using Associated Press news reports in events in Moscow, officials
said they decided to support Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian
republic, and oppose the leaders of the coup that ousted Mikhail
Gorbachev.

   Local authorities in Togliatti "had the ability to obtain the full,
true information via your agency immediately," the Soviet citizens
said.

   "We thank you for the possibility to obtain the truth about the
information of events," the city said, and "our position supporting
elected government" of Yeltsin "was based on information obtained from
MCI Insight."

  "Your information was the weapon which today is the cause that legal
government returned its power," the message said.

   Togliatti, named after the Italian communist leader Palmiro
Togliatti, is on maps with the spelling Tolyatti. It is an industrial
city on the Volga River, about 500 miles east of Moscow.

   The Soviet customers called in to the Piscataway computer using
telex, the station-to-station printing telegraph system introduced in
1950 but surpassed by computers and facsimile machines in America,
Western Europe and other industrialized countries around the world.

   Telephone traffic during the crisis was running much as 100 times
the normal level, according to American Telephone and Telegraph Co.
And this clogged the lines not only for voice traffic but for
computers and fax machines as well, since they use same lines, said
AT&T spokesman Monty Hoyt.

   "Telex lines are independent," Hoyt said, and while traffic was
heavier on the telex system, it was not delayed.

   AT&T acquired its Update international information service and its
FYI domestic information service from Western Union early this year.

   Nina Scozzari, global telex programming director at AT&T Easylink,
based in Upper Saddle River, said that "whenever there is any kind of
major world issue, good or bad, we have increased traffic."

   In the Soviet Union last week, radio and television stations were
shut down, she noted. And with telephone lines jammed, telex remained
a major information source, accessible to 1.7 million users in 160
countries worldwide through MCI International and AT&T Easylink, the
two major telex operators.

   There are 1,627 telex users in the Soviet Union.

   The central computers in Piscataway and Upper Saddle River are
programmed to relay messages from telex senders to computer receivers
and vice versa, officials said, enabling two-way communications.

   "Normally, Soviet citizens have so many sources of news they don't
have to use American sources," according to Hoyt.

   But during the first two days of the coup, "There were as many
inquiries to our Update news service in those two days as there was
all year," Hoyt said.

   On Wednesday, the MCI Insight news file "accounted for 80 percent
of all calls from the Soviet Union," according to MCI spokesman Alan
Garratt, compared to as little as three percent a week before.

   Don Casey, director of inbound telex: traffic at AT&T pointed out
that telex "is central to communications worldwide because it is
reliable, and you know who you're talking to."

   An "answerback" code on the printing telegraph machines prevents
phony messages, he said.

   Garratt said, "You can almost judge world crises by the number of
inquiries we get."

   When people in Third World nations "want unbiased reports," Garratt
said, they connect to the database "and go right to the news section."

   Whenever local news access breaks down, telex users dial back to
the U.S.  for information contained in the databases, industry
spokesmen said.

   MCI provides news reports from the Associated Press, while AT&T
feeds UPI news reports.

   In worldwide communications, Garratt pointed out, "You have to use
a system that works at both ends," and in many parts of the world,
that means telex.

   "In the U.S. and Europe, we have combined everything -- telephone,
fax machines and computers," Garratt said. But less-developed areas
only have telex machines, which operate separately from the telephone
system.

   In America, customers use computer terminals, which are much faster
and display and store the information electronically.

   Telex machines operate at 66 words per minute, and can print
information only on paper. "Any telex terminal, in the world can
access this data base," Garratt noted.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 03:10:45 PDT
From: Linc Madison <[e-mail]>
Subject: Peculiar "Service Order Confirmation"


I got a rather curious letter from Pacific*Bell today, in an envelope
marked "Important Information About Your Telephone Service."  The
letter begins, "Thank you for the opportunity to help plan your
telecommunications service.  The enclosed material confirms:

* The services you recently ordered
* The itemized monthly rates for those services
* Any service connection charges
* Your Service Order number"

Page two lists a S.O. number, with a notation to add 1 PAC*BELL
calling card.

So far, it's all pretty routine, except for one minor thing: I haven't
recently ordered any services.  I haven't spoken to Pac*Bell, order or
billing dept., in a couple of months at least.  So I calls in to me
order rep and asks her what's the story here.  It occurred to me while
I was on hold during this conversation, that the change might be to
switch to the new area code, since my calling card is 415-NXX-XXXX-XXXX
and I'm switching to 510 in a week and a half.  The obvious hitch
there, though, is that I have two Pac*Bell calling cards; 1 regular
and 1 one-number.  The rep went off into hold land for a while longer,
and then came back with the answer:

Somehow, Pac*Bell's PIN database had gotten munged, so they entered my
current PIN as a new card in order to make sure it continues to work.
The confirmation letter was then automatically generated.

Sounds pretty strange to me, all around.  I've used this calling card
on a number of occasions, including earlier this year, with no
problems, so any error would have to be moderately recent.


Linc Madison  =  [e-mail]  =  ucbvax!tongue1!linc
Area Code 510: 10 days and counting....

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

Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 02:09 CDT
From: BBS Public Access <[e-mail]>
Subject: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call


Ok, I have a question.  Hopefully someone can enlighten me.  First, a
bit of background.  I have US Sprint as my long distance company.  I
reside in Illinois, therefore I have Illinois Bell as my local
telephone service.  I got my bill today, and there was a charge from
AT&T (no, that's not a typo) for $50.00.  Looking at the itemized
page, I see that there was a 1-900 number dialed (specifically,
1-900-884-2900) even though NO ONE in this household dials 900 numbers
at all (no, no small children, brain-dead teenagers or anything of
that sort).

I called AT&T and found out that certain numbers, no matter what LD
carrier you have, are billed under AT&T anyway.  So, that's not a
problem.  I also had the charge removed from my bill and had 900
blocking switched on by my local telephone company.  The thing that
was really strange about this is that the "Called Place" section gave
the abbreviation of "FINNCLINFO" and the call lasted for only *one
minute or less*.  The charge for this one call was $50.00.  I am quite
baffled.  Here are my questions ... I hope someone can help:

1) Does anyone have any idea at all what service (fraud) this could
be?  Maybe, by some freak chance, someone will recognize the number or
can look it up?  The fellow at AT&T said it was NOT listed in his
papers or whatever, and that he just could NOT figure out what it was.

2) There is a slight possiblity that an irresponsible idiot friend of
the family could have dialed (possibly accidentally) this number.
However, barring that, is there ANY WAY whatesoever for someone to
charge a number like this to my bill without actually being in my
house and dialing from my phone?

3) Who the hell can get off charging $50.00 for a ONE MINUTE call???
<this last one, of course, can be taken as rhetorical ... I'd still
like to know what sort of shady deal this is, though.>

Thanks for any help or info anyone can provide.


Terry
[e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail] (Allen Robel)
Subject: Need Phone Number For Compression Labs
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 05:03:14 GMT


Hi,

Does anyone have a phone number or address for Compression Labs, maker
of codecs and MCUs?

Any help, naturally, will be appreciated.


Allen Robel                         [e-mail]
University Computing Services       [e-mail]
Network Research & Planning         voice: [phone]
Indiana University                  FAX:   [phone]

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

From: [e-mail] (Bruce Perens)
Subject: "Great Technologies" Sighted
Organization: Pixar -- Point Richmond, California
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1991 17:55:46 GMT


There were some messages a while back about a Pacific Bell "Great
Technologies" cordless telephone product that was supposed to have a
couple of miles range. To my knowledge, that product was never
released and "Great Technologies" had their phone number disconnected.

While shopping in "Whole Earth Access" (the Northern California
equivalent of a general store), I noticed three Pac*Bell phones, one
or two of which said "Great Technologies" on the boxes. There was a
feature desk phone, a one-channel cordless phone for $39, and a
10-channel cordless phone for $69. Neither of the cordless phones made
claims of enhanced range.


Bruce Perens

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

From: [e-mail] (Russ Nelson)
Subject: Does the ISDN DC Signalling Spec Violate Hayes' Patent?
Reply-To: [e-mail] (aka [e-mail])
Organization: Crynwr Software, guest account at Clarkson
Date: 22 Aug 91 22:12:38


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

> The patent in question was 4,549,302, "Modem with Improved Escape
> Sequence", related to the combination of guard time and a pattern of
> characters to change a modem from online data state to command
> state.

The ISDN U-interface DC signalling specification requires a guard time
and pattern of bits (either 6, 8, or 10) to put the NT-1 into Quiet or
ILM state.

You know, I think that we're going to have to see a few *big*
companies like AT&T, Northern Telecom, or Siemens screwed before we
see any change in the software patent botch ... hopefully it will
happen before we completely lose our lead on software innovation.


russ  <[e-mail]>

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

From: Justin Leavens <[e-mail]>
Subject: GTE and Strange Charges
Date: 23 Aug 91 22:58:21 GMT
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA


Well, to anyone who likes to bash Pac*Bell, I suggest giving GTE a
shot.  They make Pac*Bell look like a "service-oriented" company.

Anyway, I got the bill for installation of my new GTE phone line the
other day and was fairly ticked about the whole thing. First of all,
my roommate and I wanted our own lines. However, since GTE claimed
there was only a single phone line "allocated" for our apartment, the
second line would cost $80 to install, while the first one would be
$40. There was no inside wiring work needed, no problems involved, all
they had to do was give us two lines instead of one, and we'd take
care of the wiring from the protector box. Still, the second line was
twice the price. Pac*Bell provided all lines at the same price,
charging extra only if you needed inside wiring work done. Can GTE do
this?  I assume they can, since they did, but still ...

Another thing, there was an item on my bill labeled "Temporary
Surcharge as Allowed by the CPUC" for about $20. GTE claims that this
is a surcharge of 19.01% that is levied on basically all charges
except for long-distance calls on your bill each month, to cover
things "Like if the phone lines go down or something. ..". 19.01%? Is
this right? I don't remember this from Pac*Bell either. God, I never
thought I'd say this, but I want my Pac*Bell back. They actually seem
pretty good right now.


Justin T. Leavens    Microcomputer Specialist
University of Southern California     :Mail to: [e-mail]
Student Health and Counseling Services:         [e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 15:54:22 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: No Letters on Dial / Keypad?


Recently, a call guide I looked at had a note about businesses' use of
letters in phone numbers.  It said that if your dial or keypad does
not have letters, to refer to the sketches provided in that call
guide.  Since when do "they" make phones without letters?


[Moderator's Note: "They" makes lots of phones with numbers only. Not
AT&T of course, not that I've seen of theirs, but many of the other
manufacturers of phones choose to put numbers only on a few of their
models.  One had numbers only on the keys, and a little chart on the
bottom of the phone which translated the letters to numbers.    PAT]

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

Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Information Wanted on Call Back / ANI Number for 619-755
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 15:11:38 +0100
From: "David G. Cantor" <[e-mail]>


Can someone tell me what the call back number and line identification
numbers, etc. are in Del Mar, California (area-code, prefix = 619-755)?

Thanks.

dgc

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

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 09:49:26 EST
From: Steve Thornton <[e-mail]>
Subject: FAQ List: Get Those Entries Submitted


> I hope to create an initial FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) list for
> use with the Digest. This could be posted on a monthly basis, with any

(etc.)

> [Moderator's Note: My sincere thanks for your efforts. We have needed
> this file for a *long* time ... and I will run it at least monthly
> when it is finished.    PAT]

This would make a nice present for new subscribers to the Digest. Give
people a little bit of grounding and they won't be so confused at
first (well, I was).


Steve Thornton / Harvard University Library / [phone]
[e-mail] / [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: Yes, it should be a very welcome addition to the
Telecom Archives and as a file for new readers. And there is still
time for suggestions and submissions to go to the compiler of the
list. So if you have ideas for things which should be in an FAQ file
for telecom, send them to David Leibold <[e-mail]>.  PAT]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #659
******************************










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          24 Aug 91 1:30 CDT
Date:     Sat, 24 Aug 91 0:52:55 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #660
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sat, 24 Aug 91 00:52:47 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 660

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    AT&T American Transtech and Pastor Bob's 'Success-N-Life' [Dave Leibold]
    Phone Rates for Major Carriers [Hansel]
    Radio Days: The ARI System [Bob Izenberg]
    Telephones in Elevators [TELECOM Moderator]
    NET's Call Answering Service [Jon Sreekanth]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 21:54:57 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: AT&T American Transtech and Pastor Bob's 'Success-N-Life'


{The Door}, the magasine with the 'Green Weenie' awards, had another
winner -- or actually loser -- relating to telecom. It's Jan/Feb '91
issue (#116) had as its "Loser of the Month" one Robert Tilton who
runs a televangelist ministry known as "Success-N-Life", a program
that tends not to preach historic Christianity as much as it does the
gospel according to Barnum, namely the separation of fools and cash.

The particular incident which prompted this Green Weenie was
documented in {The Courier-News} of Bridgewater, NJ in its 27
September 1990 edition.  Its front-page story, "AT&T employees didn't
have a prayer", dealt with Tilton's hiring of AT&T American Transtech
telemarketers as "prayer partners". {The Door} included {The
Courier-News} report in its Loser of the month award.

One portion of {The Courier-News} article goes like this:

"There were people with major problems, in tears and hysterical," the
<unidentified AT&T Transtech> employee said. "They were saying
personal things that you wouldn't tell a stranger. They thought they
were calling professional people in a ministry. If those people only
knew they were calling AT&T and talking to temps and God knows who
else, I'm sure a lot of those people would be terribly, terribly
upset."

This particular incident resulted in 135 AT&T workers handling some
40,000 calls. A spokesman for AT&T Transtech stated that
Success-N-Life normally took its own calls, but that the overflow of
calls during Tilton's trip to Israel ({The Door} quips, "Israel, TX,
perhaps?)  meant that Success-N-Life wanted AT&T Transtech in
Jacksonville, FL to handle the overflow. There was apparently an
option for AT&T to transfer callers over to Success-N-Life directly if
necessary, say for extremely distraught persons.

 From other parts of the {Door} article, it appears that a specific
telemarketing script was used for this campaign. Telemarketers were to
end all calls with the statement "Your miracle will come to you as you
pray with Pastor Bob the prayer of agreement." {The Courier-News}
obtained that telemarketing script which was used during Tilton's
Israel campaign during 11-24 September 1990.

{The Door} ended its award with the declaration "To Pastor Robert
"Bob" Tilton, we proudly present our AT&T Green Weenie. All he needs
to do is call 1-800-IMA-**** and a "concerned weenie" will answer."

And concerned that person on the other end of the 1-800- number would
be, as it represents that same collision firm as mentioned in my
previous post of that other telecom-related Green Weenie from {The
Door} (that number being censored by me to protect the innocent
bystanders)

Having said that, {The Door} is definitely not a telecom publication;
it just seems to have had some phone-related incidents to work with
lately.


[e-mail],  [e-mail], and plenty other mail drops


[Moderator's Note: {The Door} is a funny magazine though. Considered
the 'MAD Magazine' of religious publications, it does a tremendous job
of satirizing the worst features of organized religion.  PAT]

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

Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 08:39 PDT
From: Hansel <[e-mail]>
Subject: Phone Rates for Major Carriers


MCI Rates                                               1-800-444-4444

                    400 Mile Call (CA-CA)           800 Mile Call (CA-NM)

Day                     $.18 / $.1687                   $.2279
Night                   $.1655 / $.1191                 $.13

Calling Card Surcharge  :       $.45 Instate Calls
                                $.75 Out of State Calls

->  MCI Has National PrimeTime, $7.50 First Hour ($.125/Min) and $.10833 each
    aditional minute (for evening hours only, M-F 1700-0800, Sat, Sun -1700).
->  MCI Has SuperSaver Saturday,$5.00 First Hour, 4 Hours Max, Saturday Only
->  Friends & Family, 20% Discount on All Calls to other registered numbers
        with MCI (No Charge)

-       -       -       -       -

US Sprint Rates                                           1-800-877-4646

                    400 Mile Call (CA-CA)           800 Mile Call (CA-NM)

Day                     $.23 / $.18                     $.23
Evening                 $.18 / $.14                     $.14 / $.15
Night                   $.17 / $.12                     $.13

Calling Card Surcharge:         $.55 Instate
                                $.75 Out of State
                                $1.75 Op Assist Station to Station
                                $3.50 Op Assist Person to Person

-> Over $20 in Evening Calls = 20% Discount (May be a combination of different
        lines and your calling card)
-> USAA Members, 7% Discount

-       -       -       -       -

AT&T Rates                                              1-800-CALL-ATT

                     400 Mile Call (CA-CA)          800 Mile Call (CA-NM)

Day                     $.19 / $.17                     $.23
Evening                 $.17 / $.13                     $.14 / $.15
Night                   $.16 / $.12                     $.13 / $.14

Calling Card Surcharge: $.53 Instate
                        $.80 Out of State

-> Reach Out America: First Hour $10 (.16666)

-       -       -       -       -

Metromedia/ITT                                          1-800-275-0100

                      400 Mile Call (CA-CA)         800 Mile Call (CA-NM)

Day                     $.29 / $.19                     $.22
Evening                 $.23 / $.15                     $.15
Night                   $.17 / $.11                     $.12

Calling Card:           950-0488        No Surcharge
                        1-800-347-0488  $.75 Surcharge

Local Calls:    1-10 Mile       11-22 Mile      23-100 Mile

Day             $.17            $.20            $.22
Evening         $.11            $.13 / $.14     $.15
Night           $.08            $.10            $.11

-       -       -       -       -

Thrifty Tel                                             213-516-8202

Round Town Calling Card
        Accessable only from 213, 818, 714, 805, 619

        $.25 Minute Flat Rate Any time of Day, anywhere you call.

-       -       -       -       -

All Net                                                 1-800-783-2020

                  400 Mile Call (CA-CA)           800 Mile Call (CA-NM)

Day                     $.26                            $.25
Evening                 $.22                            $.21
Late Evening            $.18                            $.14
Night                   $.14                            $.12


Calling Card:   No Surcharge, No Monthly Charge, you pay only for the calls/
                services you use.  It will be billed directly to a major
                credit card unless you have All Net Dial 1.

Local Calls : InterLATA:        Day:    $.30 Min
                              Night:    $.255 Min

All Net Dial 1 Rates (I'm not sure how they correspond to Calling Cards, Dial 1

AllNet Inforeach        $.38 Minute
AllNet voiceQuote:      $.70 Minute
Call Delivery           $1.60 / Message
                        $.25 to verify Call Delivery (Optional)
VoiceMail               $6.00 / Month
                        No Charge to leave messages (parties leaving
                                messages)
                        $.38 / Min to Listen to Messages
Teleconferencing:
   Dial-Out/Call-In:    $2.00 first Minute
                        $.49 each additional minute
                                (* Rates are PER PARTICIPANT)

See next post for more information on Allnet's services...


Hansel Lee       Internet:  [e-mail]
Office:          Bitnet:    [e-mail]
213-390-9363     Pro-Line:  [e-mail]



[Moderator's Note: Due to space limitations, Hansel's article on
Allnet could not be included here, but will follow in the next issue
of the Digest later Saturday morning.    PAT]

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

From: Bob Izenberg <[e-mail]>
Subject: Radio Days: The ARI System
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 23:06:01 CDT
Reply-To: [e-mail]


    The recent post about Telebit personnel in Germany reminded of
a project that Blaupunkt was working on back in 1982 over here.

    The FM/AM station that I was working at was a test site for
what Blaupunkt called ARI, for Automotive Road Information.  The plan
was for the system to carry traffic information that you wouldn't have
to be tuned to all the time.  If you were in a region that was
affected by a reported road condition, your radio would turn on and
play the report.

    As I recall, the ARI signals that we were testing were
harmonics of the 38 khz stereo pilot.  The test system didn't
interfere with our regular SCA.

    I've heard that the German equivalent is still going.  Does
anyone know if Blaupunkt gave up on the U.S. ARI system, and, if so,
when and why?  Did any television stations do ARI testing?


Bob

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

Date: Sat, 24 Aug 91 0:22:31 CDT
From: TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject: Telephones in Elevators


I got a chance to use a phone in an elevator today. Most of us have
seen the little door above the elevator buttons, opened it and saw the
phone or intercom inside ... but fortunatly the need to use it is
rare.

I took some things to an attorney Friday, downtown in the Chicago
Temple Building, and as luck would have it the elevator got stuck on
the way down, between the 8th and 9th floors. We had stopped on 9,
someone got off, I was then alone as the doors closed and the car
started down, only to go about ten feet and slam to a halt ... and sit
there.

Inside the little box was a 'wall phone', older vintage, with a rotary
dial, receiver and very short curly cord from receiver to the phone
unit.  But instead of a phone number on the little round disk in the
center of the dial, there appeared the phrase "Private Line 64112" or
a similar number.

Lifting the phone off hook caused a phone elsewhere to start ringing
immediatly. The ring was obviously coming from a 5-Xbar type CO, which
surprised me, since I *thought* those were all gone in Chicago. The
phone was answered after three or four rings by someone I found out
was the 'elevator starter', or lobby monitor in the Chicago Temple
Building on the first floor.

The conversation went:

(him) Hello there car three. What can I do for you this afternoon?

(me)  You can try getting me out of here for starters.

(him) Oh yeah? Where'you at? Let me look ....

He apparently was looking at the lighted status panel showing which
elevator is where at any given time.

(him) Oh yeah, I see ya ... between eight 'un nine ... the alarm light
I get here is a fuse blew. How many's in the car?

(me) Just me.

(him) Okay, well sit tight a minute. I'll get the building engineer to
change the fuse; he's up in the penthouse working now, so it should
just be a minute.

I told him I wouldn't go anywhere, and would wait for someone to show
up so I could 'show them what was wrong' ... he laughed and thought
that was a great joke, saying 'keep your sense of humor about you,
son, and thank god its Friday.'

I hung up the phone, and waited two or maybe three minutes in silence,
just standing there. The phone rings ...

(another man) Hi, this is the engineer. Who's in there, just you?

I told him I was alone.

(him) Well do me a favor and press the red stop button in, so the
elevator is on emergency stop.

I did so.

(him) Okay what I'm gonna do is crank by hand, and lower you to eight.
The door circuit is working okay so when it levels on eight the door
will come open by itself.

And true to his word, the car started c-r-e-e-p-i-n-g slowly downward.
After thirty seconds or so of this, it stopped, and the door opened;
a welcome sight indeed on the eighth floor. I told him I was getting
out and hung up the phone. The car stood there for a few seconds and
the doors closed. It apparently remained parked there until the repair
man came around to fix the problem.

But feeling adventerous, I decided to go look at the other end of the
operation and took another elevator back up to the top floor then
walked up another flight of stairs to the elevator machinery to meet
my rescuer ... the guy had a twelve button, eleven line phone (with a
hold button) and a headset jack. Most of the buttons were terminations
for the 'private lines' which apparently were ring-downs, one per
elevator car. A couple buttons were extensions from the PBX serving
the building. The guy had the headset on and was chatting away with
someone from the elevator company. This *big* giant hand crank was in
place on one of the gears, and apparently by turning the crank, he was
able to lift or lower the elevator a reasonable distance by hand.

As he told the story to the elevator company (and I listened) one of
the big 'sixty amp stick fuses' had blown, and although he had put in
a couple new ones, 'they keep popping as soon as I put them in'.

I had never paid attention before -- as often as I have been in the
Temple Building -- but in the lobby the attendant had the same kind of
phone without a headset, along with a few other things on his phone.
All in all, an educational afternoon for me, even if I did get back to
the office later than planned.


Patrick Townson

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

From: Jon Sreekanth <[e-mail]>
Subject: NET's Call Answering Service
Organization: The World
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1991 04:47:26 GMT


I recently signed up for New England Telephone (Nynex) voice mail, on
my home line, 617-547-. Here are some observations :

1. It costs $11.60 to turn on the service, plus $4 per month.
Outgoing message can be up to two minutes, up to 30 incoming messages,
each of two minutes maximum, can be stored.

2. The DTMF-based command interface is un-intuitive, but there is
continuous, occasionally irritating voice help.

3. A big surprise was the lack of programmability: they ask for the
number of rings at which you want the answering to kick in, and it
costs $11.60 to change it later (!) The outgoing message and password
can be changed, though.

4. Initially, I did not get the promised stutter dial tone. After
calling and complaining, they fixed it. An unexpected side effect is
when I use my no-name modem while there are still messages waiting,
the stutter dial tone confuses it, and it occasionally hangs up with
"No dial tone".

5. The message access number is not toll free. I guess that was asking
too much. Of course, there's no concept of toll saver.  It's a local
number, and calls to that number are counted towards Measured Rate
totals. This seems like nickel and diming.

6. The thing that bothers me the most (and may prompt me to turn off
the service after a while) is there is no mention of how to turn off
the answering temporarily. When I'm expecting an important call,
especially an international call, etc., this could be a hassle.

7. The interaction with call waiting is also annoying. I have
selective call waiting, and when I don't turn call waiting off, it
produces the beep, which is fine. However, when I turn off call
waiting, by dialling *70, number, callers get a busy.  This is fairly
brain-damaged, because it forces me to choose between call waiting and
voice messaging, rather than selectively having one or the other
during a particular call.

8. There seems to be no interaction with call forwarding. Yes, I have
both call waiting and call forwarding. They weren't offering Ringmate
(distinctive ringing), or I'd have gotten that too :-)

On the whole, I'm not pleased with it. In the beginning, the only
advantage of a service over my trusty Panasonic answering machine was
the potential that no caller would ever hear a busy. Given the various
flaws, I'm tempted to ask: is it just the residential service that's
crippled, or does the business service also have all the above
restrictions?

Regards,


Jon Sreekanth
Assabet Valley Microsystems, Inc.           |  Fax and PC products
346 Lincoln St #722, Marlboro, MA 01752     |  [phone]
[e-mail]                      |

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #660
******************************










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          24 Aug 91 2:38 CDT
Date:     Sat, 24 Aug 91 1:47:44 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #661
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sat, 24 Aug 91 01:47:41 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 661

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Allnet Calling Features [Hansel Lee]
    Recent AT&T Changes [Justin Leavens]
    Automated Collect Calls [Carl Moore]
    Department Numbers and ANI [Terry Gold]
    Definitions Wanted For RJ-11 / RJ-14 [Christopher Cotton]
    Payphones Begin Showing 0 + 215 + 7D [Carl Moore]
    Re: Lonely Repair Service [Bud Couch]
    Re: Cable TV Competition [Roy Stehle]
    950-1288 Explained [Ed Hopper]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 08:42 PDT
From: Hansel <[e-mail]>
Subject: Allnet Calling Features


Well, I received an Allnet calling card in the mail yesterday and was
suprised by the number of features it offers.

The Calling Card is 11-Digits, the access port is 1-800-783-1444 or
1-800-783-2000 (They don't advertise the 2000 number), Their customer
service number is 1-800-783-2020 (or 1-800-783-0000, 1-800-783-4255)..

Allnet features:

 -:-

International Calls to over 100 countries (Standard)

Option USA, for calling outside the country.  Friendly Allnet Access
operators make quick connections for you from select international
locations to anywhere in the US.  Option USA Numebers (when dialing
from other countries:)

Country:           Option USA Number:

Australia           0014-800-125-197
Belgium             118671
Canada              1-800-965-1444
Denmark             8001-0658
Finland             9-800-1-59601
France              05-90-2919
W. Germany          0130-8-14247
Greece              00800-12-2100
Hong Kong           800-6159
Ireland             1-800-55-7508
Israel              00177-150-1067
Italy               1678-97038
Japan               0031-12-2453
Malaysia            800-0758
The Netherlands     06-0228491
Singapore           800-1881
Spain               900-99-1450
Sweden              020-79-3934
Switzerland         046-05-8812
United Kingdom      0800-89-2695

  -:-

SpeedLink: Connects you to the reservations lines of most major
airlines, hotels, and car rental agencies.

SpeedLink Codes:

Airline         Code    Hotels          Code    Car Rental      Code

American        10      Days Inn        30      Alamo           50
Continental     11      Embassy Suites  31      Avis            51
Delta           12      Hilton          32      Budget          52
Northwest       14      Holiday Inn     33      Dollar          53
Pan Am          15      Hyatt           34      Enterprise      54
Southwest       16      Marriot         35      Hertz           55
TWA             17      Quality Inn     36      National        56
United          18      Radisson        37      Thrifty         57
US Air          19      Ramada          38
                        Sheraton        39

  -:-

InfoReach: connects you to a world of information, 24 hours a day.
Call for timely stock market updates, weather, news, financial
information, health tips, sports updates and more.

Weather Updates:

6701    Atlanta         6711    Detroit         6720 Minneapolis
6703    Boston          6712    Honolulu        6721 New York
6705    Chicago         6713    Houston         6723 Phoenix
6707    Cleveland       6715    Indianopolis    6725 Pittsburgh
6708    Columbus        6717    Los Angeles     6726 St. Louis
6709    Dallas          6718    Miami           6727 San Diego
6710    Denver          6719    Milwaukee       6728 San Francisco
6729    Seattle         6730    Tampa           6731 Washington DC

News & Financial Information:

6050    National News   6055    Business News   6059    Currencies
6052    Internat News   6057    Stock Market    6061    Commodities
6063    Precious Metals

Sports Updates:

6011    Sports Facts    6230    National Sports 6239    NFL Report
6013    Sports Heros    6251    NBA Report      6256    Maj League Baseball
6016    Big Game        6237    Sports Stumpers 6253    NHL Report
6258    College Report

Health Tips

8010 Symptoms of Alcoholism     8226 High Blood Pressure
8013 Co-Dependency              8283 Diet, Exercise & Weight Loss
8036 Arthritis Symptoms         8290 Dieting Tips
8075 Burn Prevention            8506 Sun Protection
8112 The Common Cold            8523 How to Quit Smoking
8139 What is Depression?        8526 Effects of Smoking
8221 Reducing Cholesterol       8532 Muscle Injuries
8533 Muscle Cramps              8556 Active Nutrition
8567 Coping with stress         8613 First Aid for a Choking Child

Home Tips:

6300 Your Daily Smile           8832 Advice for Home Buyers
6302 Wine Rack                  8855 Electrical Re-wiring and Repair
6305 Recipe Line                8856 Fusebox/Circut Breaker Checklist
6309 Today in History           8875 Types of Home Security Systems
8693 What is a Will             8881 Interior Home Improvement
8811 Air Conditioning Check     8812 Furnace Checklist
8886 Exterior Home Improvement  8896 Weed Control
8902 Garden Tips                8923 Services of a Real Estate Agency
8753 Real Estate Agents

Horoscopes

6586 Aquarius   6588 Aries      6590 Gemini     6592 Libra
6587 Pices      6589 Taurus     6593 Virgo      6596 Scorpio
6597 Sagittarius                6598 Capricorn

Entertainment

6110 Top 10 Pop Albums          6112 Top 10 Pop Singles
6115 Top 10 Country             6123 Movie Review
6128 Video Rentals              6130 Hollywood Starline
6553 All My Children            6555 Another World
6556 As The World Turns         6557 The Bold & The Beautiful
6559 Days of Our Lives          6560 General Hospital
6561 Guiding Light              6562 Knots Landing
6563 LA Law                     6565 Loving
6566 One Life to Live           6567 Santa Barbara
6570 The Young And the Restless

  -:-

VoiceQuote: Real time, last trade stock market updates.  You can even
create a  [sorry, message was truncated here.  PAT]

  -:-

Allnet Voice Mail: You're assigned a personal voice mail-box
(1-800-875-SEND).

  -:-

Allnet Teleconferencing

Meet-Me Conference: You get your own personal 800 number.  Schedule
conference through the Allnet operator.  Participants use your 800
number to join.

Dial-Out conference: The conference operator contacts and connects all
the participants

Call-In Via Allnet Access: If someone is hard to reach or you would
like their portion of the conference to be charged to their Allnet
card, they may call in to join your conference using Allnet access.

  -:-

Allnet Call Delivery: Enables you to leave a recorded message to be
delivered via the phone, whenever you'd like.  For instance, if the
person you're calling is on the line or not answering and you can't
wait to call back, our IMMEDIATE Delivery option lets you leave your
message and our automated service will continue calling for you.  Up
to 8 attempts will be made to deliver your message.  With FUTURE
Delivery you can schedule the time and date your message should be
delivered, or even schedule your own wakeup call.  (NOTE: The message
will be considered received when the phone is answered regardless of
wether it is an answering machine, call attendant, computer, or
person).

  -:-

Rates:

AllNet InfoReach:       $.30 Minute
AllNet voiceQuote:      $.70 Minute
Call Delivery           $1.60 / Message
                        $.25 to verify Call Delivery (Optional)
VoiceMail               $6.00 / Month
                        No Charge to leave messages (parties leaving
                                messages)
                        $.38 / Min to Listen to Messages
Teleconferencing:
   Dial-Out/Call-In:    $2.00 first Minute
                        $.49 each additional minute
                                (* Rates are PER PARTICIPANT)

  -:-

Dialing Procedures:

        National/International Calls:
        1-800-783-2000 (1444)
                Domestic:       0+ACN + 11 Digit Code
                International:  011+Country Code+City Code+Number + Code

        Special Features (voiceQuote, InfoReach, Call Delivery, etc)
        1-800-783-2000 (1444)
                * + 11 Digit Code
                At Special Features Menu Enter:
                1: InfoReach            4: SpeedLink
                2: Call Delivery        5: Teleconferencing
                3: Voice Mail

        SpeedLink: Quick Access:
                1-800-783-2000 (1444)
                        SepedLink Code (2 Digits) + * + Calling Code

        Voice Mail (Leave Messages)
                1-800-875-SEND (7363)
                        Mailbox's 875 + 4 Digits
                                  878 + 4 Digits

  -:-

Note: Most Information is directly quoted from the Allnet Access
Service Guide "Your Complete guide to calling convenience with Allnet
Access"

  -:-

See previous message in earlier Digest for rate information.


Hansel Lee      Internet:  [e-mail]
Office:         Bitnet:    [e-mail]
213-390-9363    Pro-Line:  [e-mail]

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

From: Justin Leavens <[e-mail]>
Subject: Recent AT&T Changes
Date: 23 Aug 91 22:40:40 GMT
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA


Isn't it AT&T that boastfully advertises that their calling cards are
easier to use than any other company's (they poke at Sprint very
directly, in fact)?

I just read this little notice in the LA Times that says:

"AT&T is issuing new AT&T Calling Cards with a 14 digit number that is
no longer based on the customer's home phone number. Customers will be
notified by AT&T regarding the new AT&T Calling Card before the tariff
becomes effective January 1, 1992."

Interesting move. I guess their planners weren't in very good touch with
their Marketing Department.


Justin T. Leavens   Microcomputer Specialist
University of Southern California     :Mail to: [e-mail]
Student Health and Counseling Services:         [e-mail]

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

Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 16:29:05 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Automated Collect Calls


I have placed a collect call via the C&P carrier within the Baltimore
LATA.  After the normal "bong", if I did not punch in a credit-card
number, I was told to punch in 11 for a collect call or to hold the
line for an operator.  I punched the 11, then got a different prompt
for me to say my name, which I did, then I was told to wait while the
phone system determined if the charge would be accepted.  I was told
there would be a period of silence after the phone was answered
(although I then heard the receiving party's initial greeting before
the silence cut if off); when the charge was accepted (I don't what is
done to accept it) the receiving party was again heard on the line.

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

From: [e-mail]
Date: Fri Aug 23 14:33:36 MDT 1991
Subject: Department Numbers and ANI


John Higdon commented about department numbers being used to determine
where someone heard or saw an advertisement.  This is called
"sourcing" and is one use for ANI delivery.  If your telemarketing
application can look at the caller's area code and prefix, it can keep
track of what areas are being reached most effectively without using
many different 800 numbers or extensions.


Terry Gold                [e-mail]
Gold Systems, Inc.        303 447-2837


[Moderator's Note: What you say would be true if the advertising was
purely local in nature, i.e. ads in various newspapers around the
country with mostly local circulation. But ANI, as valuable as it is,
would not answer the question of effective advertising if your ads
were in national publications likely to be read anywhere in the USA.
How can ANI detirmine for example if I read your ad in the {Wall
Street Journal}, {Time} or {News Weak} Magazines or the {Reader's
Digest}?    PAT]

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

From: Christopher Cotton <[e-mail]>
Subject: Definitions Wanted For RJ-11 / RJ-14
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1991 23:46:50 GMT


Can someone please tell me where I could find a definitive answer to
exactly what RJ-11 and RJ-14 are.

The problem is this: From what I understand is that connectors on the
back of your analog phone may or may not be called a RJ-11 connector.
The Modular Handset may/may not be called RJ-14 (It is the smaller of
the connectors.)

All I know is that if I go to Radio Shack and ask them to give me a
RJ-11 connector they give me the ones with six tracks (the larger one
that is in the back of your phone), and if I ask for RJ-14 connector I
get the smaller one (used in the handset cord).

Anyone know the correct answer?  Are they protocols?

And I would like references as to where you got the information.

Thanks,


Christopher Cotton

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

Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 18:06:30 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Payphones Begin Showing 0 + 215 + 7D


On a recent stop at a Pennsylvania Turnpike service area (westbound
near King of Prussia), I noticed the "Out of Change?" card on the pay
phones there.  They now have "area code +" inserted for the 0+ notice.
(215 area is preparing for N0X/N1X prefixes.)

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

From: Bud Couch <kentrox![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Lonely Repair Service
Organization: Kentrox Industries, Inc.
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1991 19:56:40 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Jeff Sicherman) writes:

>  Having got some either wrong or confusing information about wiring
> for my newly 'installed' additional line, I called 611 for some
> information.

>  The guy who called (not the one who did the outside wiring was very
> helpful but went on and on about what to look for on the inside
> wiring, repeating the same instructions many times. Are these guys
> starved for human interaction?

>  Also thought I heard kids in the background. I hadn't realized that
> Pac*bell was a home-based business.

Actually, what it means is that you raised enough h*ll that they
called some poor guy at home who was either on vacation or worked a
different shift, to answer your questions. As someone who has handled
these kind of calls while my wife is tapping her foot at the door,
waiting to go out to the theater, I tend to empathize more with the
guy on the other end of the line.


Bud Couch - ADC/Kentroxb   If my employer only knew... standard BS applies

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

Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 09:38:35 -0700
From: Roy Stehle <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Cable TV Competition
rganization: SRI International, Menlo Park, CA


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail].
com writes:

> Unfortunately, no such luck.  I believe the usual reason for the
> restriction is to preserve the "look and value" of the homes in the
> neighborhood -- heaven forbid that those unsightly antennas and dishes
> would dare contribute to urban decay/blight/home values.

I have a friend whose home has such a restriction.  We mounted a
standard TV (log periodic) antenna in his attic suspended from the
rafters.  There is a slight attenuation from the roof, but the added
gain and installation height of the antenna gave superior results over
a set of rabbit ears.


Roy Stehle - SRI International

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

Subject: 950-1288 Explained
From: ED HOPPER <[e-mail]>
Date: Thu 22 Aug 91 20:49:05 CST
Organization: Ed Hopper's BBS - Houston, TX - 713-997-7575


The September 10, 1991 issue of {PC Magazine} (I'm not kidding)
explains 950-1288.  The article states:

"A new AT&T service, released in July of this year, is the company's
Information Access Service.  Intended primarily for Accunet Packet
Service customers who regularly access on-line third-party databases,
IAS allows users to dial the toll free 950-1288 from anywhere in the
United States.  A customizable menu appears that allows users to
choose from among the third party services available under IAS,
eliminating the need to pay the local dial-up charges usually
associated with online database access.  Information Access Service
users pay an extra flat-rate fee, based upon speed (300-9600 bps) and
expected usage, on top of their regular Packet Service charges."

I'll query the salescritters in the office tomorrow for (publicly
distributable) info on the service.

What do you want to bet that PC Ragazine has at least part of the above
wrong??? :-)


Ed Hopper

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #661
******************************










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Date:     Sat, 24 Aug 91 2:25:21 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #662
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sat, 24 Aug 91 02:25:02 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 662

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Tour of a CO [Al L. Varney]
    Re: Tour of a CO [Thomas Lapp]
    Re: Phast Phood [Nigel Allen]
    Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power [Paul S. Sawyer]
    Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power [Owen M. Hartnett]
    Re: Phone Company Cut me Back to Pulse Dialing [John Higdon]
    Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service [Tony Harminc]
    Re: Telecommunications in France (Summary) [Randall L. Smith]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 22:47:57 CDT
From: Al L Varney <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Tour of a CO
Organization: AT&T Network Systems


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

> I had the opportunity to take a tour of my local CO (Wilmington, DE)
> this afternoon, and was pretty amazed by both the equipment that they
> have. ... What they don't have is a lot of bulky equipment ...
> I even saw a large section of raised floor which was completely empty.

I don't believe "raised floor" space is used for any switching or
transmission equipment, so maybe that area used to be an old IBM
mainframe/disk ranch.??  Or an old operator area, perhaps.  The TIRKS
database (all those cross-connect records, etc.) used to justify some
pretty huge systems.

> However, it is not ALL empty.  Back when I was in elementary school,
> the telco opened a new office in my section of Morgantown, WV
> (Suncrest) and installed a brand-new 1AESS which had DTMF
> capabilities!  About all I can remember more than 20 years down the
> road was the clicking noises of the relays.  This afternoon was an
> audio trip down memory lane, since I found that indeed this CO still
> has several 1AESS switches in use.  As my tour guide pointed out,
> "they're just workhorses that don't justify taking them out."

Having worked on 1A ESS(tm) from the first office in 1975, I will take
that as a compliment.  But the first such office was cut over in 1976,
and Suncrest wasn't one of the follow-on ten offices I helped install
in 1976/77, so your "more than 20 years" must be less than 15!  Or
maybe you saw one of the many number 1 ESS offices installed in West
Virginia in the late '60s and early '70s?  The only difference in in
the processor and support equipment, so they are difficult to tell
apart by listening.

> But the 1A's can't handle all of the traffic of the CO, so they do
> have some newer Northern Telecom equipment for some of the newer
> exchanges.

The 1A ESS's in Wilmington could handle ALL the Wilmington traffic, if
sufficient lines/trunks were added.  But they don't do ISDN, or
support fancy operator consoles, so more modern switches are typically
needed.  Once you put in the other switches, there is little reason to
use them to handle some of your customer growth.

Just a few comments (from memory):

Wilmington was the third or fourth 1A ESS CO site, back in the mid
'70s.  It was also the largest (probably still is) in terms of area
covered by the Switch.  Almost 500 frames, with about half of the
frames used to hold the old trunks that interfaced to the T1 Carrier
system (maybe D3?) channel banks on another floor.  All later 1A ESS
COs used a cheaper/smaller unit, with about a 5:1 reduction in space
for those types of trunks.

I never saw Wilmington actually in service.  My last visit was when
the cable racks and frames were installed, and the massive trunk/line
wiring effort was in full swing.  (My job was to give the installers
some on-the-job training on testing the 1A ESS Processor.  Testing on
the processor usually overlapped much of the multi-week network wiring
effort, and wiring of the actual cross-connects to the "real world"
overlapped the testing of the network fabric.)  I was always impressed
with the skill with which a good Western Electric installation
supervisor could keep all those folks busy, in spite of scheduling
problems in deliveries, etc.


Al Varney, AT&T Network Systems, Lisle, IL

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

Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 21:25:46 EST
From: Thomas Lapp <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Tour of a CO
Reply-To: [e-mail]


A while back, I wrote about a tour I recently took of my local CO.
"Donald E. Kimberlin" <[e-mail]> then took me to task
for some comments I made:

>> One of the highlights was watching my host do a line test on my
>> residential line (which is serviced out of that office).  Everything
>> (DC, AC, etc) tested well within specs, and I also found out that my
>> "pair" from CO to my end-user equipment is 31,800 (+/- 10) feet!  (It
>> measured a 65 dB loss for this distance, by the way).  All the testing
>> was done via a single terminal console in an office in the CO.

>         A subscriber cable pair 31,800 feet long would put your house
> about six miles from that building, Tom.  Is that the case?  I query
> it because the VAST majority of telephone stations in the US are
> within about three miles (15,000 feet) and most are closer than that.

I talked with my tour host again to get the Real Story.  The equipment
was indeed correct in showing that I was 31,800 ft. from my CO.
HOWEVER, most of that distance is via fiber with signal regenerators
at the appropriate distances.  In further conversation, I discovered
that indeed it is fiber up to a location which is about one to two
miles from my location (as the cable runs -- about 3/4 mile as the
planes fly).  The rest of the distance is on copper.  Therefore, for
loss purposes, my line is only about one to two miles from the "CO".
I also found out that I am about equidistant from two COs, so I'm
further than most people.

>         If he obtained a reading of 65 decibels loss on your loop, it
> would be a circuit just plainly out of business in analog telephony.

Agreed.  The reading was mis-interpreted on my part.  This was the
loss on the TOTAL LOOP IF there were no loading coils or fiber
regerators on the line.  To me, that means that the line test took
into account the total amplification of the loop and removed it to
come up with the figure.  I guess if one says that loss should not be
over 10 dB, than there would be 55 dB of "amplification" on my loop,
eh?

> Based on what you were shown, it seems the greatest lacking in
> that CO is competent transmission technicians.  But don't feel too

My host knows his stuff.  It is just your lowly reporter who doesn't
know diddly.


tom

internet     : mvac23![e-mail]  or  [e-mail] (home)
uucp         : {ucbvax,mcvax,uunet}!udel!mvac23!thomas

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

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 15:00:16 PDT
From: Nigel Allen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Phast Phood


If you would like to get a 950- number for your pizza restaurant so
you can compete more effectively with Domino's, or perhaps for the
long distance company you will be opening in a few weeks, or if you
just plain bored, you can request a 950 number by writing to the
following official at Bellcore:

   Mr. Bob Cantu
   Bell Communications Research
   290 Mt. Pleasant Avenue, Room 1B230
   Livingston, N.J. 07039
   or telephone him at 201-740-4639

(I found this person's name and address listed in {Telephone Engineer &
Management} magazine, by the way.)

I have this terrible feeling that all the soon-to-be-opened pizza and
chicken delivery restaurants owned by TELECOM Digest readers will
exhaust the supply of available 950 numbers before the end of the
month.


Nigel Allen - via FidoNet node 1:250/98
INTERNET: [e-mail]

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

From: "Paul S. Sawyer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power
Organization: UNH Telecommunications and Network Services
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 17:21:04 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

> Bob visited Eastern MA yesterday. He took out a lot of the power
> lines in Southeast MA and on the Cape. But not the telco lines. Can
> someone answer why, when both lines are on poles, (and sometimes the
> same ones) that it always seems that the power lines get it worse?

Overhead telephone plant is usually MUCH more rugged than electric (at
least since open wire was replaced by cable ...) and the nature of high
voltage electric lines is to burn or kick out fuses/breakers when
crossed by branches.

Telephone service around New England is becoming more and more reliant
on local power, however, as remote nodes and SLIC's are being
installed.  We had a freak local storm the day before Hurricane Bob
(MUCH worse than the hurricane ...) The power was out for about 12
hours; after a few hours NE Tel brought a portable generator to the
nearby SLIC, as the batteries therin had started to fail; the phone
service was noisy, but did not fail during this period.  When
Hurricane Bob hit, the power was out at my house for about 25 hours;
this time, since the affected area was much larger, they did not get
around to starting the generator, and we were without phone service
for several hours.


Paul S. Sawyer {uunet,attmail}!unhtel!paul
[e-mail] UNH CIS - - Telecommunications and Network
Services VOX: [phone] Durham, New Hampshire 03824-3523 FAX: +1
603 862 2030

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

From: "Owen M. Hartnett" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power
Date: 22 Aug 91 20:49:16 GMT
Reply-To: "Owen M. Hartnett" <[e-mail]>
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science


An interesting phenomena occurred after Bob: Although my home in Rhode
Island never lost telco service, (I did lose power, but that's
irrelevent) when I went to work Tuesday in Boston, I was unable to
dial home.  The message "Due to the hurricane, we are unable to
connect calls in that area.  Please try again later."

It appears that although phone service was functional, NETel shut down
certain areas where the hurricane hit.

Having the operator dial the number did connect me, however, so if you
really have to get through in such a circumstance, the operator is
worth a try.

I believe that the same tactic was used in the Bay area after the big
earthquake.


Owen Hartnett    [e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 11:20 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Re: Phone Company Cut me Back to Pulse Dialing


[e-mail] writes:

> It has always been my understanding that tone service was easier
> (cheaper) for the TelCo to provide that pulse.  Has this changed?

This is one of those "perceived value" issues. Yes, with modern
equipment it IS cheaper for various reasons to have customers use tone
dialing. But there are telcos with mindsets that this (now standard)
method of signaling can be an excuse for higher charges.

Pac*Bell got bitten in the butt over this, however. Several years ago,
one of my clients suddenly found higher charges on his bill. An
inquiry revealed that Pac*Bell had arbitraily started charging for
tone service on lines that were specifically ordered without it. I was
advised that a representative of Pac*Bell had visited the premesis and
had seen tone phones and reported this to the company. (That's right:
we were using the TT service, but I knew that they could not deny it
with the crossbar switch. A Pac*Bell friend told me that all the ORs
were tone equipped.)

I told Pac*Bell to "turn off the tone service immediately", refund the
extra charges, and to stop charging in the future. I got various hems
and haws, one of which was that my client would not be able to make
calls if they did that. I said, "We will take that chance. Turn it off
NOW." The long and the short of it was that Pac*Bell could NOT turn
off the tone service and my client did not pay for it either. My
client was NOT going to pay extra for a "service" that the utility had
to supply to everyone anyway.

Pac*Bell's answer to this utimately (with all of its antiquated
crossbar offices) was to simply raise EVERYONE's rates and then offer
tone service as "standard". This way it got its "enhanced services"
revenue and no one could wiggle out of it.

> Has this happened to anyone else?

It would have happened here if Pac*Bell had even semi-modern equipment
that would have enabled it to turn off non-payers.

> Any other comments are welcome.

I think $5.00 per line is really a rip-off. Is your base rate exceptionally
low?


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

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

Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 14:49:18 EDT
From: Tony Harminc <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service


[e-mail] (Marcel Mongeon) wrote:

> Toronto to Oakville is a local call.  Oakville to Burlington is a
> local call and Burlington to Hamilton is a local call.  Can I put a
> phone in each of Oakville and Burlington both with call forwarding and
> then forward the calls from the Oakville number to Burlington and then
> from the Burlington number to my ultimate number in Hamilton.

Well one thing (surprisingly) about this is that is explicitly legal.
The CRTC ruled a year or two ago that a Toronto company offering
similar service commercially (between Markham and Oakville I believe)
was not breaking any laws or regulations because they were not
reselling or repackaging a long distance service! The reasoning is
slightly bizzare, but it stands.

> As a related question can a Northern Telecom DMS forward more than one
> call at a time? For example, if the Hamilton number that I am pointing
> the Burlington calls to in the above is actually a set of hunted
> trunks, can more than one person at a time from Toronto call me using
> only one line in Oakville?

In a word: no.  Or is that yes?  That is, the CO *does* know that it
is currently forwarding a call, and the original number is marked
busy.

> Finally, Bell Canada offers a service that I have heard of called
> Remote Call Forwarding where they give you a telephone number in one
> CO that is automatically set to forward calls to a number in another
> CO.  There is no physical set associated with the remote number.
> Although it would seem this was originally designed to generate LD
> revenues from the forwarded calls, would such a service be allowed in
> the above scheme?

RCF is tariffed by Bell Canada as a business service only.  At our
outrageous 800 rates however, it might conceivably come out worth
while.


Tony H.


[Moderator's Note: But bear in mind that the individual links in a
chain-call-forward scheme have to in total cost less than the toll
charge would otherwise. Else where is the savings?  This working out
in a way financially beneficial to the subscriber is very rare.  PAT]

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

From: "Randall L. Smith" <rls![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Telecommunications in France (Summary)
Date: 22 Aug 91 19:45:47 GMT
Organization: The Internet


Not too long ago I posted the request relating to the subject line
above and I received several very interesting replies.  In general it
seems Teletel (a French public initiative) has a modern, successful
and active system called Minitel.  Minitel offers 13,000 different
information services to the average French household and businesses.

While I received a warm fuzzy regarding its success and usefulness,
not too many tangables were provided.  All in all, most felt it was
modern.  Thats helpful :-(.  One reply indicated some vague problems
and reservations of maintaining its state of the art position in world
class telecommunications.  I couldn't get anything solid in that area
though.  Perhaps it's just telecom envy.  :-)

One person reminded me I didn't give the publisher of the book, 2020
Vision by Stan Davis and Bill Davidson.  They then proceeded to fail
to give me their return e-mail address (of course the header was
munged).

Well, for the record it is published by Simon and Schuster.  Their
address is:

    Simon & Schuster Building
    Rockefeller Center
    1230 Avenue of the Americas
    New York, New York  10020

    ISBN # 0-671-73237-4

Thanks for all the help.

Cheers!


randy    Uucp: [e-mail]
Bangpath: ...<backbone>!osu-cis!rls!randy
Internet: rls![e-mail]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #662
******************************










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From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #663
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sat, 24 Aug 91 03:02:06 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 663

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Satellite? [Floyd Davidson]
    Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Satellite? [Christopher Lott]
    Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Satellite? [Herman R. Silbiger]
    Re: Cable TV Competition [Tad Cook]
    Re: Cable TV Competition [Nick Sayer]
    Re: RISKS of Calling 911 From Cellular Phones [Michael A. Covington]
    Risks of Calling 911 From Radio Links [Ed Greenberg]
    Re: Vulnerability of Telephone and Power Lines [David Hawkins]
    Re: Pac*Bell is Eager to Begin [Brett G. Person]
    Re: NYNEX to Charge For 411 in Massachusetts as of 9/14/91 [Henry Schaffer]
    Re: NYNEX to Charge For 411 in Massachusetts as of 9/14/91 [Dave Niebuhr]
    Re: Billing INTRA-Lata Calling to My Carrier [Jack Dominey]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Floyd Davidson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Satellite?
Organization: Chinet - Chicago Public Access UNIX
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1991 01:28:23 GMT


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

> When calling from Champaign, IL to a friend on Long Island NY I
> find the conversation often drops into what can be called half-duplex.

Are you getting a satellite circuit on that route?  What carrier are
you using? !!

> If I am talking and she is not,
> her side of the conversation seems to 'drop.'  Ie: I hear nothing from
> her end.  It is very annoying and noticable when there is somekind of
> background noise whether it just be line noise or a TV on in the
> background.  I find myself going "hello, hello?" (to her annoyance
> also..).  I think I remember hearing some years ago that the
> coversation does indeed go half duplex because the signal is going
> over a satellite.  When one side of the connection is silent the
> satellite releases the channel for someone else.  When they start to
> talk again it reconnects it.  Is this the case?

It might be the case.  The old way of doing satellite circuits was
called SCPC, Single Channel Per Carrier, which puts up a single FM
modulated carrer for each voice channel.  It is voice actuated, so it
does in fact drop out when you don't talk.  The point at which it
comes up is -32 to -36 dB below test tone level.  Background noise in
many locations is just about that.  You can hear dogs bark, kids cry
and scream, and loud blower motors.  And it is in fact annoying when
it cuts in and out.  If it is not adjusted correctly (say it won't cut
in until 5 or 10 dB louder than it should), it is extremely annoying.

There are other types of equipment that actually do use a different
channel every time you start talking ... They really sound bad.  I
don't think any major carrier is still using it.

Most satellite systems being installed now use one carrier per T1
group.  The carrier is always present and there is no VOX to make it
click and clunk.  The digital systems also use echo suppression
instead of echo cancellors, which is another big improvement.  On the
old systems you can hear the EC cut in and out if you both talk at the
same time.

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

Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 11:46:39 -0400
From: Christopher Lott <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Satellite
Organization: University of Maryland Dept of Computer Science


About so-called half-duplex phone calls:

I noticed similar behavior on calls from Ohio (614-486) to Maryland
(301-699) on MCI -- calls from Mom.  Dead silence while I was speaking,
and a very slight lapse before the line began to transmit her speech
when she said something.  All of these calls were during cheap rate
periods, I think mostly Saturday and Sunday.  It didn't happen on
every call, though.

If the room where you are is noisy, you don't notice.  It took me a
while to go from thinking "this connection is poor, hmm, oh well" to
"gosh, it's DEAD silent when I'm speaking, this feels like a
multiplexed line!"

Now I'm at 301-422, a few miles away, and it hasn't happened yet that
I've noticed.  Or maybe it's always been noisy when she calls ;-)


Christopher Lott \/ Dept of Comp Sci, Univ of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
 [e-mail] /\ 4122 AV Williams Bldg  301 405-2721 <standard disclaimers>

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

Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 21:07:16 EDT
From: Herman R Silbiger <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Satellite?
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories


In article <[e-mail]>, hayes![e-mail]
(Toby Nixon) writes:

> Actually, this can happen on just about any long-distance circuit that
> is going through circuit multiplication equipment that uses TASI (Time
> Assignment Speech Interpolation), including international submarine
> cables (including fiber) and satellites.  TASI takes advantage of the
> fact that most of the time only one side of the connection is active,
> and allows the other direction to be used for other conversations.  In

Actually, TASI is rapidly being replaced by a newere technology called
DCME, Digital Circuit Multiplication Equipment.  This not only
performs TASI like functions, but also recodes the speech to a lower
bit rate, currently 16 Kbps.  The equipment also demodulates facsimile
and transmits it at baseband, gaining a 6:1 advantage.  For packet
transmission there is a similar PCME.

None of the major carriers uses TASI or DCME domestically.


Herman Silbiger

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

Subject: Re: Cable TV Competition
From: Tad Cook <hpubvwa![e-mail]>
Date: 23 Aug 91 22:58:30 GMT


[e-mail] (Shawn Goodin) writes:

> I'll try the dipoles ... if I wanted to cut one for, say, channel 7,
> wonder what the measurements should be?

Here it is ... more than you wanted to know.

For the half wave dipoles that Nick was describing, the approximate
length for each TV channel would be:

Channel             length
  2                  8', 2 1/2 "
  3                  7'  5 1/8 "
  4                  6'  9 3/8 "
  5                  5'  11 "
  6                  5'  6 "
  7                  2'  7 3/4 "
  8                  2'  6 11/16 "
  9                  2'  5 3/4 "
 10                  2'  4 3/4 "
 11                  2'  3 5/16 "
 12                  2'  3 1/8 "
 13                  2'  2 3/8 "


For a half wavelength in feet, divide 468 by frequency in MHz.


Tad Cook   Seattle, WA   Packet: KT7H @ N7DUO.WA.USA.NA  Phone: [phone]
MCI Mail: 3288544   Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW
USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad   or, [e-mail]
or, [e-mail]    or, [e-mail]

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

From: Nick Sayer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Cable TV Competition
Organization: The Duck Pond public unix, Stockton, CA
Date: 24 Aug 1991 04:48:56 UTC


[e-mail] (Shawn Goodin) writes:

> [e-mail] (Nick Sayer) writes:

>> By the way, if your house is pre-wired for cable, don't be surprised
>> if the developer made a deal with the cable company to trade
>> pre-wiring for antenna restrictions.

> Unfortunately, no such luck.  I believe the usual reason for the
> restriction is to preserve the "look and value" of the homes in the
> neighborhood -- heaven forbid that those unsightly antennas and dishes
> would dare contribute to urban decay/blight/home values.

Still, FOAF word has it that this has occured in at least one case.
And most HOAs and CATV companies are just slimy enough to do this sort
of thing.

> [Moderator's Note: I'm not going to do all this math at this hour of
> the morning. [...]

The length of a dipole is half the length of the wave you want. The
length of a wave in meters is 300/x where x is the frequency in MHz.
Channel 7 is 174-180 MHz. Split the difference to get 177.  300/177 is
1.694915. Divide that by 2 and you get 84.745 centimeters.  I'll leave
it as an exercise to the reader to convert that into inches, but it's
a few inches short of a yard. Purists will bitch and moan that light
doesn't travel 300 km/s in a wire, but I've never known it to make a
difference, and certainly not when trying to receive a signal 6 MHz
wide, let alone a band of 6 of them.


Nick Sayer    [e-mail]
N6QQQ         209-952-5347 (Telebit)

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

From: "Michael A. Covington" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: RISKS of Calling 911 From Cellular Phones
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 02:48:30 GMT


That is a sad story.  In our county, *any* emergency service is
equipped to take requests for any other, and to route them to the
proper place immediately.

When I see traffic accidents, I often use our ham repeater to inform
authorities. The best way to do this is to call University of Georgia
Security and tell them what's going on.  They are the least busy of
the various dispatchers, they are accustomed to dealing with high
technology (i.e., they don't disbelieve any technology they aren't
familiar with), and they are very good at getting messages to the
right place in a hurry.


Michael A. Covington | Artificial Intelligence Programs
The University of Georgia  |  Athens, GA 30602   U.S.A.
[e-mail]      [e-mail]

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

Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 11:33 PDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Risks of Calling 911 From Radio Links


A recent poster discussed problems calling in non auto-related
emergencies to the 911 center servicing cellular phones.  Many systems
hand all cellular 911 calls to the highway patrol, for example.

Ham operators are subject to similar problems.  We use repeaters with
interfaced telephone lines for reporting emergencies.  A call to 911
is useless, since it will typically get the 911 center that dispatches
for the repeater site, usually a desolate mountain top.  The
dispatcher cannot understand how somebody on the mountaintop could be
reporting an emergency on the freeway, or in downtown.

As a result, and due to the patchwork of cities and towns in the Santa
Clara Valley, most repeaters offer between ten and twenty emergency
autodials, to reach police and fire services for the various
jurisdictions in the area.  This makes it difficult for us to offer
emergency autodial to hams not previously affiliated with the repeater
sponsor.

One local repeater owner is an 18 year veteran dispatcher for the
county sheriff.  He is unable to effect a notation on his E-911 record
that would indicate that the caller is on a mobile phone.  They just
don't have the facility.

It's frustrating, at best, and I have to keep emergency autodial codes
for three repeaters in the car.


edg

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

From: David Hawkins <mtxinu!shalom.sybase.com![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Vulnerability of Telephone and Power Lines
Date: 23 Aug 91 16:31:58 GMT
Organization: Sybase, Inc.


In the referenced article, [e-mail] (Jerry Leichter) wrote:

> In a recent TELECOM, Steven Gutfreund wonders why storms always seem
> to hit power lines more severely than telephone lines, even if both
> are on the same pole.

The difference is that power lines are normally insulated by air, and
phone lines with a more solid form of insulation.  Storms have more
impact on the insulating properties of air.  ;-)

> Not only that, but for safety one would
> never simply reset a tripped breaker -- it's important to first ensure
> that the line downstream is safe.  It takes time just to walk the
> length of the line and check.  A couple of hundred tripped breakers
> can take a while to reset, even if no wires are actually down.

In theory that might be nice, but it doesn't often happen in practice.
I've reset breakers that were feeding 20 miles of line.  The actual
delay is the length of time that is the total of (1) time until
someone calls the power company, (2) time until the power company can
catch an available employee, and (3) length of time until the employee
can get to the breaker.  In one case the customers on one branch line
didn't call in for 48 hours, so it was more than 48 hours before they
got service resumed.


Later,

(former employee of Georgia Power)   David Hawkins    [e-mail]

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

From: Brett G Person  <plains![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Pac*Bell is Eager to Begin
Date: 23 Aug 91 12:43:11 GMT
Organization: North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND


I think this is a BAD THING.  These people can barely find a local
number for me now.  It taks them a couple days to fix a simple problem
with my phone line -- and they still charge me for it.

Come to think of it, wasn't AT&T broken up in the first place because
they had too strong a hold on communications?


Brett G. Person   North Dakota State University
uunet!plains!person | [e-mail] | [e-mail]

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

From: "Henry E. Schaffer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: NYNEX to Charge For 411 in Massachusetts as of 9/14/91
Reply-To: "Henry E. Schaffer" <[e-mail]>
Organization: NCSU Computing Center
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1991 15:14:43 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(ethan miller) writes:
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 656, Message 5 of 10

> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron
> Newman) writes:

> ...  I see nothing wrong with this charge, as long as the phone
> company is willing to provide free directories for local areas (and
> exemptions for those who can't use the directories).

  I suggest that they should not charge for information on numbers
which were issued after the directory was issued.  This gets to be a
concern when the directory is nearly a year old.


henry schaffer  n c state univ

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

Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1991 12:45:22 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Dave Niebuhr, BNL CCD, 516-282-3093" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: NYNEX to Charge For 411 in Massachusetts as of 9/14/91


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron Newman)
writes:

> From a New England Telephone bill insert:

>     Calling Directory Assistance more than ten times
>    a month may add to your telephone bill.

> Beginning September 14, 1991, residence customers will be charged 34
> cents for each directly dialed Directory Assistance call made in
> excess of ten calls per month.  For example, if you make 20 calls to
> Directory Assistance during your billing month, you will be charged
> for ten calls totalling $3.40.

The customers of the New York Telephone portion of NYNEX get charged
as soon as three calls have passed and that may go the way of the
dinosaurs if the Telco gets its way.

I can't state with any degree of accuracy, but I seem to remember that
the NY Tel calls to 411 cost more, too.

On the surface, it sounds like the Utility (oops - Public) Service
Commissions may have a little more backbone in the NE Tel portion of
NYNEX than NY Tel.


Dave Niebuhr      Brookhaven National Laboratory
Internet: [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail]
Date: Fri Aug 23 11:02:45 EDT 1991
Subject: Re: Billing INTRA-Lata Calling to My Carrier


In Digest Volume 11 : Issue 656, Jack Decker <[e-mail]>
writes:

> Yep, sure is. MetroNet (a company out of Lansing) does this too, and
> they offer some interesting features that are unique to their company
> ... like the first 47 seconds of every call are free (if your call is
> completed within 47 seconds, you're not charged for it) ... I have
> to believe they lose some money doing things like this, but they must
> make it back somewhere.

This is an interesting "feature".  Sounds to me as though MetroNet
doesn't have answer supervision, so they just crank up the biller 47
seconds after they get the call.  Be sure you hang up any call if the
other end rings seven times -- I'll bet you get billed if you wait
until after the eighth ring.  On second thought, that's optimistic.
How much of that 47 seconds gets eaten up *before* the other end
rings, anyway?  (My guess is about 17, with the other 30 being the
real 'grace period'.)

If my somewhat educated guess is correct, they make their money back
on calls that never complete.

Also, thanks for a lucid explanation of the how's and why's of
intra-LATA dialling in Michigan.  I've seen lots of discussion of this
topic, but usually the guesswork/information ratio is much higher.


Jack Dominey   AT&T Commercial Marketing, Tucker GA
404-496-6925  AT&T Mail: !dominey or !bsga05!jdominey

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #663
******************************










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          24 Aug 91 23:04 CDT
Date:     Sat, 24 Aug 91 22:22:20 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     telecom@eecs
Subject:  A Decade of TELECOM Digest: 10 Years Old Today!
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


This weekend marks the tenth anniversary of the founding of TELECOM
Digest, which began August 24-25, 1981.

TELECOM Digest was begun as an offshoot of the HUMAN-NETS discussion
group on the Arpanet of those days. There had been some technical
discussion about phones that summer on the HUMAN-NETS group, and it
was decided to move the technical phone stuff to a list of its own for
people who were interested.  Thus, TELECOM Digest was started with Jon
Solomon as the Moderator.  The first message in the Digest was one of
introduction, and explained the purposes of the new mailing list. That
first message appears below:


 25-Aug-81 01:35:31-EDT,0013963;000000000001
 Date: 25 Aug 1981 0135-EDT
 From: JSOL
 Subject: TELECOM Digest V1 #1
 To: Telecom: ;

TELECOM AM Digest     Tuesday, 24 Aug 1981       Volume 1 : Issue 1

Today's Topics:     Administrivia - Welcome Aboard
            USRNET - Alternative to A. T. & T.
           Problems with Dimension - One Persons Views
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 Date: 24 Aug 1981 0118-EDT
 From: the Moderator <JSol at Rutgers>
 Subject: Administrivia

Welcome to TELECOM. This digest is a spinoff from the HUMAN-NETS
discussion on the telephone network and switching equipment.  Parts of
this digest are in fact submissions to HUMAN-NETS which were never
published, and are presented here to spark the discussion.

The archive for this is in the usual place, DUFFEY;_DATA_ TELCOM at
MIT-AI, and we will shortly be adding to the archive the discussions
that have taken place in HUMAN-NETS relating to telecommunications.

I will be moderating this list from Rutgers, as I do with POLI-SCI,
but you can still send mail to TELECOM@MIT-AI, or TELECOM@RUTGERS.
If you want to communicate with the maintainers then you should
send mail to TELECOM-REQUEST@MIT-AI, or TELECOM-REQUEST@RUTGERS.

Enjoy,
JSol

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

JSol, as he was known to many netters of the day, was employed at the
time by Rutgers University, and maintained the list from his work
station there. Eventually Jon Solomon wound up at Boston University,
and the Digest was published there for a couple years. When personal
problems forced Jon to give up his work with the Digest, I assumed the
responsibility of Moderator in November, 1988. I continued using the
facilitites of Boston University to publish the Digest and maintain
the Telecom Archives for few months, pending a move to a more locally
based site here in the Chicago area. And early in 1989, the Digest
relocated at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where I am
the guest of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Department of the University. Jon continued as a technical advisor to
the Digest for a few more months, until further personal matters
forced him to 'resign' completely from networking. For about two years
now, he has no network access of any kind.

Although Usenet's 'comp.dcom.telecom' newsgroup was originally a
separate group entirely (and technically, still is separate from the
Digest), for a few years now, the Digest has been gatewayed to Usenet
for the benefit of many readers there who prefer to read telecom as
part of net news rather than through a separate e-mailing. The gateway
to Usenet had been inoperative for about a year during the middle
eighties, but resumed in 1988 when Chip Rosenthal agreed to maintain
it for awhile while I was publishing the Digest in Boston. Once the
relocation to Northwestern was complete, the postmaster here at the
time (Jacob Gore) helped set up the gateway to operate from here, and
I took over the responsibility for it as well as the Digest itself.

Just as TELECOM Digest itself was spun-off from HUMAN-NETS now a
decade ago, two recent groups had their origin in telecom: The
Computer Underground Digest began when discussion of 'hacking and
phreaking' versus the legal ramifications of same began to dominate
telecom. Then later, the Telecom Privacy Digest began as an overflow
for messages from telecom on the controversial topic of Caller-ID, and
it has since expanded to include discussions on many aspects of
privacy and telecom.

Originally, TELECOM Digest was distributed only via the Internet and
Bitnet. For the past couple years, distribution has been considerably
expanded to include delivery on mcimail.com, attmail.com, sprintmail.com,
fidonet.org, and various international networks. From a limited number
of reader/participants in the summer, 1981 the readership has grown to
about 50,000 readers daily. And speaking of readers, several of the
readers have been around since issue one ... they know who they are,
and if I tried to list them here I would surely forget some by
accident. But the real increase in readership has occurred in the past
two years.

The early issues of the Digest talked about 'rumors' of new services
AT&T was starting which have since become quite commonplace. Writers
in the early eighties pondered whether or not the divestiture of AT&T
would actually happen, or if the company would be spared. When
divestiture finally did take place, the Moderator called for
discussion on the historic changes which were then going on. By that
time, Jon Solomon was publishing the Digest at USC-ECLB. The Digest
started 1983 with this note:

 1-Jan-83 23:18:53-PST,8663;000000000001
 Return-path: JSOL@USC-ECLB
 Mail-From: JSOL created at  1-Jan-83 21:01:26
 Date:  1 Jan 1983 2101-PST
 From: Jon Solomon <TELECOM at USC-ECLB>
 Subject: TELECOM Digest V3 #1
 Sender: JSOL@USC-ECLB
 To: TELECOM: ;
 Reply-To: TELECOM at USC-ECLB

TELECOM AM Digest   Saturday, 1 January 1983    Volume 3 : Issue 1

Today's Topics:
        Administrivia - New Year - New Volume - TCP/IP Cutover
               Life Line Service And Unmeasured Service
                Interstate Vs Intrastate Long Distance
                  ANI Failures Common In Some Areas
                        Holiday Dialing Trivia
      Mixed Flat- And Timed/Measured- Service In Providence, RI
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 Date:  1 January 1983  2045-PST
 From: The Moderator <JSol at USC-ECLC>
 Subject: Administrivia

First of all, I wish to extend best wishes to all of TELECOM's readers
on this new year. This year marks the beginning of the deregulation of
Telephone companies across the country. I would like to encourage
discussion of what the telephone companies seem to be doing now that
they are in a more relaxed regulatory market. I heard a rumor that at
1201 AM on Jan 1st, AT&T opened a computer company, anyone have news
about that?

Also, there are some articles on measured service, and while I realize
that this is a hot issue right now, I would like to remind everybody
that TELECOM (and the ARPANET for that matter) cannot be used to rally
support for any particular viewpoint because the DCA consideres that
abuse of the network resources. TELECOM is forced to comply with this.
Please, no political messages, thanks.

We are now in Volume 3. Volume 2 has 141 issues in it, the last issue
of Volume 2 (#141) was delivered on December 28th. If you did not
receive it, please let me know.

Also, the ARPANET is now running TCP (Transmission Control
Protocol)/IP (Internet Protocol) instead of NCP (Network Control
Protocol).  Basically this transmission protocol was developed to
facilitate the growing number of networks and media to connect them
with. This protocol is expected to bring a great improvement in
functionality over the next coming months, but during the initial
phases of installation, stability on the ARPANET is expected to be
marginal (if at all). If you receive garbled digests, or repeated
copies, it is most likely due to this conversion.

Finally, I wish to publicly apologize to Alyson Abramowitz, who sent
the note about the DEC ENet addressing bug. She apparently did not
wish me to broadcast her note on the digest (she sent it to
TELECOM-REQUEST, and I felt it was appropriate to distribute as useful
information, but I neglected to ask her permission).

Once again, I wish everyone an excellent year in 1983!

            [--JSol--]

The reference to 'AM', as in TELECOM AM Digest was a mystery to me at
first, but Jon explained it saying in the early days the estimate was
that two issues would be necessary some days, with news items in the
AM or morning edition, and overflow discussion in the PM edition. But
the so-called PM edition never really got off the ground, and in
actual practice, Jon published the Digest as time permitted each day.
His call for a discussion of divestiture brought forth this response
from a reader several days later:

 11-Jan-83 15:18:19-PST,6004;000000000000
 Return-path: JSOL@USC-ECLB
 Mail-From: JSOL created at 11-Jan-83 15:13:20
 Date: 11 Jan 1983 1513-PST
 From: Jon Solomon <TELECOM at USC-ECLB>
 Subject: TELECOM Digest V3 #3
 To: TELECOM: ;
 Reply-To: TELECOM at USC-ECLB

TELECOM AM Digest   Wednesday, 12 January 1983    Volume 3 : Issue 3

Today's Topics:          Baby Bell - The First Day
               Cellular Mobile In Washington, D.C. Area
                      V&H, Area Codes 307 & 308
           Query - How To Deal With Harrassing Phone Calls
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

 Date: Wed 5 Jan 83 17:02:33-PST
 From: Jim Celoni S.J. <CSL.JLH.Celoni@SU-SCORE>
 Subject: 1st-day encounter w/ Baby Bell

We've been deciding on a new PBX, and Pacific Telephone was one of the
contenders.  I decided to call our account executive Monday, but
didn't have her number at the new local American Bell, Inc. office (a
different building from Pac Tel), so called her old number.  A
secretary from another group answered and told me what she thought the
new number was.  I called it and got a recording ("not in service ...
no referral"), so called our Pac Tel Market Administrator (who worked
with her on the proposal).  He said he couldn't give me her number,
that he'd signed an agreement that if he talked business to an ABI rep
without a customer designating ABI as its agent, he was fired. (He
also said that last year he had ten accounts, now 300.)

So I called local directory assistance, but all they had was one
American Bell *PhoneCenter* (there are many in the area!).  Then I
called 415 directory assistance, which gave me the SF office, which
gave me the numbers for the ABI National Response Center (800/
247-1212), which gave me another SF office I could call collect (but
"wasn't likely to be for our account"--we're over cutoff of 40
stations), which gave me a local ABI employee's number, which I called
but got no answer.

Then I called 800 information, which gave me an ABI "general business"
number (800/ 521-5221), which gave me a local "general business"
number (also 800, even though office is 3 mi away) . The one at the
last number didn't know whether our rep or her boss worked there, but
that I'd gotten the right number.

Next, I called the local ABI employee, who answered this time and had
numbers for my AE and her boss (and the correct local office number,
which differed from the one that gave me the recording in one digit).
I was disconnected when she tried to transfer the call to her.  (Today
I found out the ABI office has a Dimension PBX, incidentally.)

I talked with the AE today, who gave me her address (but didn't know
zip) and said she still has the file on us she had as a Pac Tel
employee, except for the network-related binders she couldn't take.
She confirmed the PBX pricing she preannounced last month (20% off
tariffs--still high--and no change on Applications Processor).
Switches still aren't for sale, but peripherals will be (are?), and
other maintenance options will be available (less service for less
cost).

According to her, the local ABI office is now a profit center--if it
doesn't achieve E-to-R (expenses to revenue) ratio better than 12:1
this year, it vanishes.  ABI is part of AIS (AT&T Information
Systems), as is AT&T International.  At mid-year, when the Operating
Companies' installed base (e.g.  existing Dimensions & Horizons) is
transferred to ABI, ATIX (AT&T IntereXchange Service) will become part
of AIS to handle current Long Lines accounts.  Finally, she said
there's a lot she still doesn't know.  (From my understanding of the
breakup, it's not clear some of what she told me is right,
either--please publish corrections.)

Many questions remain about Baby Bell, big and little.  (Our former
Pac Tel repairman works for ABI now.  What will he be doing until the
installed base moves?)  I hope to hear about developments, as they
break, in TELECOM.

    +j

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

And indeed there were many messages in the Digest throughout 1983
talking about the historic breakup of 'Ma Bell'.  Not everyone then or
now agrees divestiture was in the public interest, and one frequent
contributor in years past to the Digest sent along his feelings in the
form of a song:


 12-Jul-83 09:14:32-PDT,4930;000000000001
 Return-path: <@LBL-CSAM:vortex!lauren@LBL-CSAM>
 Received: from LBL-CSAM by USC-ECLB; Tue 12 Jul 83 09:12:46-PDT
 Date: Tuesday, 12-Jul-83 01:18:19-PDT
 From: Lauren Weinstein <vortex!lauren@LBL-CSAM>
 Subject: "The Day Bell System Died"
 Return-Path: <vortex!lauren@LBL-CSAM>
 Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
 Received: by LBL-CSAM.ARPA (3.327/3.21)
    id AA17341; 12 Jul 83 09:14:35 PDT (Tue)
 To: TELECOM@ECLB

Greetings.  With the massive changes now taking place in the
telecommunications industry, we're all being inundated with
seemingly endless news items and points of information regarding
the various effects now beginning to take place.  However, one
important element has been missing: a song!  Since the great
Tom Lehrer has retired from the composing world, I will now
attempt to fill this void with my own light-hearted, non-serious
look at a possible future of telecommunications.  This work is
entirely satirical, and none of its lyrics are meant to be
interpreted in a non-satirical manner.  The song should be sung
to the tune of Don Mclean's classic "American Pie".
I call my version "The Day Bell System Died"...

 --Lauren--

**************************************************************************

           *==================================*
           * Notice: This is a satirical work *
           *==================================*


                    "The Day Bell System Died"


              Lyrics Copyright (C) 1983 by Lauren Weinstein

                      (To the tune of "American Pie")

             (With apologies to Don McLean)


  ARPA: vortex!lauren@LBL-CSAM
  UUCP: {decvax, ihnp4, harpo, ucbvax!lbl-csam, randvax}!vortex!lauren

**************************************************************************

Long, long, time ago,
I can still remember,
When the local calls were "free".
And I knew if I paid my bill,
And never wished them any ill,
That the phone company would let me be...

But Uncle Sam said he knew better,
Split 'em up, for all and ever!
We'll foster competition:
It's good capital-ism!

I can't remember if I cried,
When my phone bill first tripled in size.
But something touched me deep inside,
The day... Bell System... died.

And we were singing...

Bye, bye, Ma Bell, why did you die?
We get static from Sprint and echo from MCI,
"Our local calls have us in hock!" we all cry.
Oh Ma Bell why did you have to die?
Ma Bell why did you have to die?

Is your office Step by Step,
Or have you gotten some Crossbar yet?
Everybody used to ask...
Oh, is TSPS coming soon?
IDDD will be a boon!
And, I hope to get a Touch-Tone phone, real soon...

The color phones are really neat,
And direct dialing can't be beat!
My area code is "low":
The prestige way to go!

Oh, they just raised phone booths to a dime!
Well, I suppose it's about time.
I remember how the payphones chimed,
The day... Bell System... died.

And we were singing...

Bye, bye, Ma Bell, why did you die?
We get static from Sprint and echo from MCI,
"Our local calls have us in hock!" we all cry.
Oh Ma Bell why did you have to die?
Ma Bell why did you have to die?

Back then we were all at one rate,
Phone installs didn't cause debate,
About who'd put which wire where...
Installers came right out to you,
No "phone stores" with their ballyhoo,
And 411 was free, seemed very fair!

But FCC wanted it seems,
To let others skim long-distance creams,
No matter 'bout the locals,
They're mostly all just yokels!

And so one day it came to pass,
That the great Bell System did collapse,
In rubble now, we all do mass,
The day... Bell System... died.

So bye, bye, Ma Bell, why did you die?
We get static from Sprint and echo from MCI,
"Our local calls have us in hock!" we all cry.
Oh Ma Bell why did you have to die?
Ma Bell why did you have to die?

I drove on out to Murray Hill,
To see Bell Labs, some time to kill,
But the sign there said the Labs were gone.
I went back to my old CO,
Where I'd had my phone lines, years ago,
But it was empty, dark, and ever so forlorn...

No relays pulsed,
No data crooned,
No MF tones did play their tunes,
There wasn't a word spoken,
All carrier paths were broken...

And so that's how it all occurred,
Microwave horns just nests for birds,
Everything became so absurd,
The day... Bell System... died.

So bye, bye, Ma Bell, why did you die?
We get static from Sprint and echo from MCI,
"Our local calls have us in hock!" we all cry.
Oh Ma Bell why did you have to die?
Ma Bell why did you have to die?

We were singing:

Bye, bye, Ma Bell, why did you die?
We get static from Sprint and echo from MCI,
"Our local calls have us in hock!" we all cry.
Oh Ma Bell why did you have to die?

<End>

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

The new features available on phones in the middle eighties were the
source of many messages here. One contributor to the Digest from the
very beginning -- and still we hear from him now and again -- was John
Covert. A problem submitted to columnist Ann Landers caught his eye,
and he forwarded it to the group:


 Date: 14-Jan-1983 09:42
 From: decwrl!RHEA::CASTOR::J_COVERT%Shasta at Sumex-Aim
 Subject: Call Waiting makes it to Ann Landers

Dear Ann Landers:

What is proper when one has the new telephone device that allows a
person to receive a second call while engaged in a first?

I believe it is rude to cut off the first caller just because another
call comes in.  A once-close friend of mine always did that.  Recently
she bawled me out for avoiding her, complained that I never call
anymore.  Just as I began to explain, her phone clicked.  She told me
she had to take another call.

Unless the second call is an emergency, I believe one should tell the
second caller, "I have someone on the line and will return your call
as soon as possible," then go back to the first call and wind it up
gracefully.  Right or wrong?

                - San Antonio

You are right.  This problem is one I've been hearing a lot about
since all the high-tech telephone equipment has been popping up.
Thanks for writing.


                           --------------
Imagine considering call-waiting to be 'high-tech'!  But when the
Digest started, almost all the readers were serviced from crossbar or
step switch central offices. Things like Caller-ID and CLASS were
unheard of except by a very few people working on developing them.

John Covert also submitted about the same time a message discussing
the 'new' cellular phone system being installed in Washington, DC. In
fact, cellular service was still new and a novelty all over the United
States during the early eighties. A review of old issues of TELECOM
Digest during this time period found several messages from people
wanting to know what cellular service was and how it worked.

Someone said to me that none of the topics in the Digest are new any
longer, that all have been discussed in the past, and this is probably
true.  Today we talk about area code splits and the new calling cards
being issued. In 1984, Carl Moore and John Covert both discussed the
'new' area code 818, and how well or poorly it was being phased in at
telco offices around the USA.

This special issue of the Digest noting the tenth anniversary could go
on and on with old messages from the past, but I would hardly know
where to begin and where to stop. To review the back issues of the
Digest, clear back to the beginning in 1981, all you need to do is use
anonymous ftp to lcs.mit.edu, and pull back issues to your heart's
content. You'll no doubt be amazed at the topics under discussion
eight, nine and ten years ago ... and how indeed, there is 'nothing
new' in the Digest today. But there are new topics of course, things
that none of the readers in those days imagined would occur.

In the begining days, the Telecom Archives was intended to simply be a
repository for back issues, but as time went on, various files were
also stored away with items of interest. Today, the Telecom Archives
is loaded with interesting files on a variety of subjects of interest
in areas of telephony. Like the Digest itself, the archives have been
stored at various institutions. Shortly after I assumed responsibility
for the Digest at Boston University, the archives (which were stored
there at the time) were moved to the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, where a huge amount of room had been set aside. At BU we
were unfortunatly running out of space, and the older issues had to be
compressed. Even then, space was at a premium. Not so at lcs.mit.edu,
where we have many times more space alloted for the archives than in
the past.

In another message over this tenth anniversary weekend, I'll post a
current index of files available in the archives, with instructions
for obtaining them for yourself, if you wish to read the back issues
or other interesting items we have stored there.

Here's hoping the Digest is around ten years from now, in 2001!

Goodnight.



Patrick Townson
TELECOM Moderator












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Date:     Sun, 25 Aug 91 1:41:52 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #665
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sun, 25 Aug 91 01:41:34 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 665

Inside This Issue:                         A Decade of TELECOM (1981-91)

    Re: Need Phone Number For Compression Labs [John Higdon]
    Re: NET's Call Answering Service [John Higdon]
    Re: AT&T Data Network [Jack Decker]
    Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service [Conrad Nobili]
    Re: Telephones in Elevators [Randal L. Schwartz]
    Re: Cable TV Competition [John Higdon]
    Re: Looking For a Phone Line Simulator [Patton M. Turner]
    Half-Duplex Phone Conversations via Speakerphone [Dan Jacobson]
    Re: Are There Rules Against Rapid Repeat Dialing? [David B. Thomas]
    Re: Help Wanted: Just an Address! [Dan Fandrich]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Aug 91 01:28 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Re: Need Phone Number For Compression Labs


[e-mail] (Allen Robel) writes:

> Does anyone have a phone number or address for Compression Labs, maker
> of codecs and MCUs?

 From the San Jose telephone directory:

Compression Labs
2860 Junction Avenue
San Jose, CA

408 435-3000


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

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

Date: Sat, 24 Aug 91 02:25 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Re: NET's Call Answering Service


Jon Sreekanth <[e-mail]> writes:

> On the whole, I'm not pleased with it. In the beginning, the only
> advantage of a service over my trusty Panasonic answering machine was
> the potential that no caller would ever hear a busy. Given the various
> flaws, I'm tempted to ask: is it just the residential service that's
> crippled, or does the business service also have all the above
> restrictions?

Actually, compared to an answering machine, the service is lacking in
many ways. You are severely limited as to storage capacity. As you
pointed out there is no toll saver, no conveniently adjustable rings,
and (now get this) poorer reliability. WHAT? -- you say. Why that is
one of the big selling points. It is in all the commercials for the
product.

Well, look at it this way. On Thurday, the Pac*Bell "Message Center"
died in the Bay Area for about a day. According to Pac*Bell, the
problem was caused by failure in TWO pieces of hardware. Now was
someone inconvenienced because an answering machine failed? No,
THOUSANDS of people were inconvenienced because an answering machine
failed.

Reliability? My answering machine has not skipped a beat in many
years.  Ask any user of the "Message Center" if the service has been
that dependable.


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

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

Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 09:42:00 EDT
From: Jack Decker <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: AT&T Data Network


In a message dated 17 Aug 91 17:39:17 GMT, wybbs![e-mail].
umich.edu (Ken Jongsma) writes:

> The current {PC Week} has an article about packet data networks
> available to the public. One of the ones they mentioned was an AT&T
> network designed for those that access database vendors without the
> need to go through a gateway such as Compuserve. The number they gave
> in the magazine article was 950-1288 as a national access number.  This
> number indeed works from my area.

Strangely enough, while this number may work from lower Michigan, it
apparently does not yet work from the 906 area code (Michigan's Upper
Peninsula), 632 exchange (Sault Ste. Marie).  And it's not that 950-
numbers are completely blocked from here, because 950-1232 reaches
Superior Telecom (however, it does seem to be "no man's land" for
certain other carriers - 950-1022 [MCI] reaches an intercept operator,
as does the 950-1288 number you mentioned along with any other invalid
950-number, but 950-1033 [Sprint?] yields a busy signal and 950-1488
[ITT?] cuts to a reorder [fast busy] after a LONG delay).

You would think that if ANYBODY's 950 access number would work
correctly, it would be AT&T's, but it doesn't, so it isn't truly
national access yet (of course, this is the same phone exchange that
blocks 950- calls that originate from coin phones, so who knows what
sort of weird programming they've got in this switch?).

> That is, a modem answers and one can get carrier. However, at that
> point the AT&T net is apparently waiting for some type of account
> number or handshaking arrangement, as there is no response to the
> usual carriage returns or breaks.

> Does anyone have any additional information on this net, what it
> connects with and what the rates are?

I don't, but I hope someone else picks up on this.

> Almost as an aside, what an interesting concept for someone like
> Compuserve.  That is, using a single national 950-XXXX number
> instead of individual numbers for each city.

I truly wish that somebody like GEnie would do this.  As I understand
it, 950- numbers are SUPPOSED to be accessible from an entire LATA,
and can usually be made to work by dialing the number as given, or
with a preceeding "0" or "1" in some older exchanges, or failing all
of that, by complaining to the PUC (this works in Bell and possibly
GTE areas, but I wouldn't guarantee that an independent would open up
access to these numbers ... does anyone know the legality of an
independent telco deliberately blocking calls to 950- numbers?).

Actually, I'd like to know what the costs are to have a 950 access
number.  I would imagine that there is a monthly charge, but are calls
to 950 numbers also charged by the minute?  If so, does the charge
vary depending on where the call originates, or is it a flat rate no
matter where in the LATA the call is coming from?  Does it vary
depending on the time of day?  And can any firm get a 950 number, or
is it only available to "common carriers?"

Just curious...


Jack    Fido: Via D'Bridge 1:232/10  08/22 17:22

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

Date: Sat, 24 Aug 1991 18:17:13 -0500
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Cheap Foreagn Exchange Service


In <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Tony Harminc)
wrote:

> [e-mail] (Marcel Mongeon) wrote:

>> Toronto to Oakville is a local call.  Oakville to Burlington is a
>> local call and Burlington to Hamilton is a local call.  Can I put a
>> phone in each of Oakville and Burlington both with call forwarding and
>> then forward the calls from the Oakville number to Burlington and then
>> from the Burlington number to my ultimate number in Hamilton.

[stuff deleted]

> RCF is tariffed by Bell Canada as a business service only.  At our
> outrageous 800 rates however, it might conceivably come out worth
> while.

[more stuff deleted]

> [Moderator's Note: But bear in mind that the individual links in a
> chain-call-forward scheme have to in total cost less than the toll
> charge would otherwise. Else where is the savings?  This working out
> in a way financially beneficial to the subscriber is very rare.  PAT]

Pat, a couple others have missed the point here too....  I believe
the original poster was running some sort of dial-up BBS service.
It may well be that "working out in a way financially beneficial to
the subscriber" was not the primary issue ... or it could be that
doing so involves other elements besides phone charges.

The original poster wants his BBS to be reachable by a local call from
Toronto.  This way he reaches more people and his BBS gets more widely
known.  Or maybe he even *charges* for access to his BBS (I'm not
saying he does -- I don't recall that he said either way in his
original post -- the point is that he *could*) in which case the
equation to determine whether his setup was "financially beneficial to
the subscriber" would involve these charges.

So, it sounds like his scheme may be a reasonable one.  If he really
can reach more people (in Toronto) with this setup, and they are
paying enough to him for BBS access, obviously, he will have to do
some math first, as it sounds reasonably elaborate and he will only
get *one* connection from Toronto to Hamilton at a time unless he gets
business service and RCF. His computation will involve estimates of
how many subscribers he will get from Toronto that he wouldn't
otherwise if he just charges flat monthly rates; how many calls each
of these people will be able to get through the single path if he
charges on a per-call basis; what percentage the line will be used if
he charges per minute of access.


Conrad  C. Nobili


Harvard University       Internet: [e-mail]
Office for Info. Tech.   BITNET:   CONRAD AT HARVARDA
1730 Cambridge Street    voice:    [phone]
Cambridge, MA  02138     fax:      [phone]


[Moderator's Note: The largest companies in the USA wish to have their
customers be able to call them conveniently from anywhere and
everywhere. So they use in-wats (800) service; they use foreign
exchange service; they use tie-lines. Please note they do NOT chain
several call-forwards together. What do they know that our BBS sysop
is missing? They know that the cost of two or more local calls plus
the associated recurring line charges, etc are not an efficient and
less expensive approach. If our BBS correspondent wishes to receive
calls from a wide area and pay for those calls as a part of the cost
of promoting his BBS, I assume he wants to do it as inexpensively as
possible also. Therefore the way to go is with 800 or FX; both are
perfectly legal in business (not quasi-legal at best) as is the chain
forwarding scheme.   PAT]

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

Date: Sat, 24 Aug 91 17:14:48 PDT
From: "Randal L. Schwartz" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Telephones in Elevators
Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Beaverton, Oregon, USA


In article <[e-mail]> you write:

> (him) Okay what I'm gonna do is crank by hand, and lower you to eight.
> The door circuit is working okay so when it levels on eight the door
> will come open by itself.

> And true to his word, the car started c-r-e-e-p-i-n-g slowly downward.
> After thirty seconds or so of this, it stopped, and the door opened;
> a welcome sight indeed on the eighth floor. I told him I was getting
> out and hung up the phone. The car stood there for a few seconds and
> the doors closed. It apparently remained parked there until the repair
> man came around to fix the problem.

Interesting.  If he's cranking it by hand, it should have been easier
to take you *up* to nine, instead of down to eight, because the
counterbalances are typically set for a "half-full" load.

I wonder why he chose to lower you instead.  Hmm...

Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services [phone]
[e-mail] ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn


[Moderator's Note: I won't swear to it, but I think he tried that, and
said something about it was 'locking up on him' so we would go the
other way instead. Shows what I know about elevator machinery!   PAT]

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

Date: Sat, 24 Aug 91 18:41 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Re: Cable TV Competition


Roy Stehle <[e-mail]> writes:

> I have a friend whose home has such a restriction.  We mounted a
> standard TV (log periodic) antenna in his attic suspended from the
> rafters.  There is a slight attenuation from the roof, but the added
> gain and installation height of the antenna gave superior results over
> a set of rabbit ears.

There is a distinction that has not been mentioned yet. You should
determine whether the restriction on antennas is via covenent in the
deed or a local law or ordinance. If written into the deed or other
land use agreement, then you are hosed. If it is simply a law or
ordinance, there is a workaround.

Get your ham ticket. Then put up whatever towers and antennas you deem
necessary to pursue your hobby. No local law or ordinance can prevent
you from doing this (per applicable Federal Titles). While you are at
it, you might slip in some wideband antennas that are capable of
receiving various bands from 54 Mhz to around 700 Mhz (otherwise known
as TV antennas). After all, hams have TV as well as SSB, CW, RTTY,
etc.


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

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

Date: Sat, 24 Aug 91 23:42:26 CDT
From: "Patton M. Turner" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Looking For a Phone Line Simulator


Dan Everhart <[e-mail]> asks about phone line simulators to
test modem performance under marginal conditions.

Micro Seven Inc. makes such a device.  It allows one to simulate
amplitude and frequency dependant attenuation, as well as distortion.
I have never used this model so I can't comment on it.  The only line
simulators I have used were made by Progressive Electronics or
Proctor.  Both companies build reliable equipiment and may make what
you need.

Jensen sells the Micro Seven simulator for $1625.  They should be able
to fax you more info.


Pat Turner       KB4GRZ @ K4RY.AL.NOAM      [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Speakerphone
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 91 08:28:00 GMT


Regarding Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Satellite; cml@cs.
umd.edu (Christopher Lott) adds:

> Dead silence while I was speaking, and a very slight lapse before
> the line began to transmit her speech when she said something.

> "gosh, it's DEAD silent when I'm speaking, this feels like a
> multiplexed line!"

Don't you also hate those folks who love to put you on their low
quality speakerphones?

Me: "I can't tell if you're trying to interject something while I'm
talking, James.  As you insist on putting me on your speakerphone
instead of stooping to pick up the handset, I recommend we use
Citizen's Band radio protocol: "roger", "over". Over, Rover."

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

From: "David B. Thomas" <mailrus!gatech!unmvax!bbx!yenta![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Are There Rules Against Rapid Repeat Dialing?
Organization: yenta unix pc, rio rancho, nm
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 91 16:17:52 GMT


I know I tuned in late on this thead, but I hope to sneak this in.

I just wrote and posted a program that dials a number over and over
again.  I was doing this manually to try to win radio contests, and so
I thought, "why no automate it?".  Someone warned me that I could get
into trouble.

Is this true?  What does this law actually say?  I could understand if
it were illegal to use the program, but it amazes me if I could do
some hard time for publishing a totally obvious programming quickie
that's actually no faster than the "redial" button on my phone.

Please, no lectures on the antisocial character of such a program.  I
want to know what the law is.


little david

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

From: Dan Fandrich <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Help Wanted: Just an Address!
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 91 19:41:18 GMT


> Would someone please send me the address of PC Dialog, the makers of
> PC based VOX mail cards?

The PC Diallog voice mail card was made by CMC International (of
Seattle, I think).  They were bought out six or seven years ago by
Votrax (the voice synthesis IC people) and the father of a friend of
mine.  I don't know the whereabouts of Votrax, but Vic Greek of KTV
Inc. has offered to field any questions you have at [phone].
Chances are he won't be around and you'll have to leave a message on
his PC Diallog box.


Dan
Internet: [e-mail]   CI$: 72365,306   FidoNet: 1:153/511.1

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #665
******************************










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Date:     Sat, 24 Aug 91 23:12:46 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     telecom@eecs
Subject:  A Decade of TELECOM Digest: The Archives Files
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest is ten years old! The Digest first began publication on
August 24-25, 1981. Another message today gives a little history and
background from the early days of the Digest and comp.dcom.telecom.

Over this tenth anniversary weekend, I decided to bring everyone up to
date on the files available in the archives, and explain how to go
about pulling them as desired.

There are two methods available for using Telecom Archives:

1)  If you have internet ftp permission, then you can use anonymous
ftp to reach the archives.


      a) ftp lcs.mit.edu
      b) login anonymous   give your username@site as password
      c) cd telecom-archives

For ease in reviewing the main and sub-directories for titles of
files, you might wish to pull the files with the first word 'index'
in their name.  The main directory is listed below, along with one of
the more popular sub-directories.

Just use regular ftp commands to get the files you wish.


2) If you do NOT have internet ftp permission, then you will need to
use an ftp/mail server. Bitnet sites can use the server sponsored by
Princeton University, however all non-internet readers of telecom are
specifically encouraged to use the mail/ftp server especially set up
for telecom use. The details appeared in a help file published in the
Digest in May, and are repeated below:


 From: TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
 Subject: New Telecom Archives Server on Line; Current Index of Files
 Date: Wed, 29 May 1991 00:00:00 GMT


I am pleased to announce a new mail service is available for use with
the Telecom Archives. It is just in the beginning stages, and will
have more and more of our files on line as time goes on. My
understanding is this service is *only* for the Telecom Archives at
this time.

Furthermore, this service is intended for NON-INTERNET sites who would
otherwise not have access via ftp. If you can use ftp lcs.mit.edu,
then you are strongly encouraged to continue doing so. The program
described below was written by Doug Davis so that our many readers on
the commercial mail services, Fido, and similar sites (Portal and
Chinet for example) can also participate.

FIRST, here is a help file, prepared by Doug Davis:

   From: "Doug Davis at letni.lonestar.org" <[e-mail]>
   Subject: Help File
   Date: 27-May-91 23:14:40 CST (Mon)


This mail server is pretty simple minded, commands are sent as a
single line in the body of the message.  The ``Subject:'' (if any)
will be returned as the subject line from the mail off of this site.
This way you can keep track of your own requests.

The following commands are available. Pretend the parser is stupid and
spell and space them exactly as they are listed here.  Anything else
in in the body of the message will be quietly ignored.

Path:<space>{rfc-976/internet/@) return address for yourself}

   The parameter of this command should be internet style
   notation for your username.  If your machine is not locateable
   on the internet via an MX record or gethostbyname() don't bother
   trying this, since the returning mail will undoubtably be lost.

Command:<space>[sub-command]<space>{parameters/filenames}

   Currently the only supported subcommand right now is "send" with the
   parameters being the filenames separated via spaces to be sent via
   return mail to you.

For example, to get the index file, send the server a message with the
line below in the body of the message.

Command: send index

This will cause the index of available files to be sent back to you.
Also, this is a system V site (hey it was cheap) so you will have to
request the file via it's short time.  Some later version of the
server software will work with the longer names. Oh, yeah, in the
above, <space> means the space-bar, i.e. a character with the value of
0x20 hex. Not the word <space> itself.

Mailing addresses:

  [e-mail]:      The mail server itself

  [e-mail]:       Returning mail to
                                                   you will come from this
                                                   address.  Mail sent
                                                   TO this address will be
                                                   silently ignored.

  [e-mail]:                         My address.


Other notes, There is a 500k (per-day) limit on messages leaving the
server. If the backlog has exceeded this you will be sent a short note
saying your request is acknowledged and how many requests are in the
queue before yours.

Also presently the back issues of the Digest are being reformatted and
are not presently available, my hope is to finish them by the first
part of June.


doug
(Mon May 27 1991)

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

Pat again:

What Doug means is the back issues of the Digest are not yet available
*via this service*.  If using ftp, then of course you can get the back
issues or any other desired files.  When this project is finished, I
believe it will be set up so that individual back issues can be
pulled, at least for the most recent volumes created here at
Northwestern. (We may have some problems with lack of standardization
from the JSol days ... time will tell how those old issues work out.)

                           --------

Next, I have attached here the current index to the archives, for the
benefit of ftp users. *This is not the same index as Doug will give
you if you use his new program*.  Same articles, but use his index to
order via his service.  Below is the main directory, and the sub-
directory devoted to telecom.security.issues.  I have not included
here the sub-directories on Minitel, Tymnet or a couple other things.
The back issues of the Digest are in sub-directories by year and
volume number.  Again, I stress this is the ftp version ... Doug does
not yet have any back issues of the Digest on line.

We are running TWO archives right now in parallel: the one at MIT
which has always been there for users with ftp-ability, and the new
one at Doug's site which is gradually being constructed, although
quite a bit is available now.

Bitnet people may continue to use '[e-mail]' if they wish,
or they may use this new service. Internet people can use it if they
want to see how it works, but please don't abuse it: keep the load
down for the benefit of the folks who *must* use this system.

Now here is the main directory for the Telecom Archives at lcs.mit.edu
updated as of 8-24-91:

total 3188
drwxrwxr-x 12 telecom  telecom      5632 Aug 24 23:29 ./
drwxrwxr-x 24 root     wheel        1024 Aug 24 01:03 ../
drwxr-xr-x  2 ptownson telecom       512 Mar  2 23:40 1981-86.volumes.1-5/
drwxr-xr-x  2 ptownson telecom       512 Mar  2 23:14 1987.volumes.6-7/
drwxr-xr-x  2 ptownson telecom       512 Mar  2 23:07 1988.volume.8/
drwxr-xr-x  2 ptownson telecom       512 Mar  2 22:54 1989.volume.9/
drwxr-xr-x  2 ptownson telecom      1024 Mar  2 22:51 1990.volume.10/
drwxr-xr-x  2 ptownson telecom       512 Aug 22 02:04 1991.volume.11/
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom       663 Jan 27  1991 READ.ME.FIRST
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     25799 Sep 12  1990 abernathy.internet.story
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     68508 Mar 14 03:38 aos-new.fcc.proposals
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     68224 Nov 20  1990 aos-rules.procedures
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     60505 Feb 24  1991 apple.data.pcs.petition
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     18238 Nov  9  1990 area.214-903.split
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     35017 Mar  2 21:24 areacode.guide
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      9397 Mar  2 21:26 areacode.program.in.c
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     20826 Mar  3 00:09 areacode.script-c.moore
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     21264 Apr 14  1990 areacode.script-dupuy
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      9078 Mar  2 21:29 areacode.script-revised
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom       474 Feb 11  1990 att.service.outage.1-90
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom     18937 Aug  1  1989 auto.coin.collection
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      4788 Jun 10  1990 books.about.phones
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     21702 Nov 20  1990 braux.bill.call.blocking
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     10019 Jan 27  1991 calendar.of.events.1991
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     61504 Jul 30  1990 caller-id-legal-decision
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      4569 Apr 14 21:03 caller-id-specs.bellcore
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     39449 Dec 14  1990 cellular.carrier.codes
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     16188 Mar 14 03:22 cellular.fraud.abernathy
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      2755 Mar 14 03:34 cellular.fraud.prevention
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     17016 Aug  5  1990 cellular.phones-iridium
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     24455 Feb  6  1991 cellular.program-motorola
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom     15141 Aug  1  1989 cellular.sieve
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom       298 May 31  1990 cellular.west.germany
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     16292 Mar 18  1990 class.ss7.features
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     15023 Sep 30  1990 cocot-in-violation-label
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     38981 Oct 12  1990 cocot.complaint.sticker
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     70477 Sep  5  1990 computer.bbs.and.the.law
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom     23944 Aug  1  1989 computer.state
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom      9150 Jan 31  1990 country.code.list
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     11370 Feb  9  1990 country.codes.revised
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     11267 Feb 25  1990 cpid-ani.developments
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom       436 Mar 16 16:54 deaf.communicate.on.tdd
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     15877 Sep  1  1990 dial.tone.monopoly
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     28296 Sep 29  1990 dialup.access.in.uk
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     39319 Aug  1  1989 docket.87-215
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     13622 Aug 18 21:42 e-mail.system.survey
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     16367 Sep  1  1990 e-series.recommendations
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      3422 Jan 20  1990 early.digital.ESS
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     62602 Aug  1  1989 ecpa.1986
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     97987 Aug  4  1990 ecpa.1986.federal.laws
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     39956 Jul 14  1990 elec.frontier.foundation
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      5922 Feb 22  1991 email.middle-east.troops
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     20660 Sep  5  1990 email.privacy
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      8504 Jan 27  1990 enterprise-funny-numbers
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     19836 Nov 20  1990 fax.products.for.pc
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom     33239 Aug  1  1989 fcc.policy
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom     19378 Aug  1  1989 fcc.threat
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom       484 Jan 14  1990 fcc.vrs.aos-ruling
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom      9052 Aug  1  1989 find.pair
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom     47203 Aug  1  1989 fire.in.chgo.5-88
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      1998 Jan 27  1990 fire.in.st-louis.1-90
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom       377 Jan 27  1990 fires.elsewhere.in.past
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      1247 Feb 10  1990 first.issue.cover
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     14105 Nov 24  1990 genie.star-service
-rw-r--r--  1 map      telecom    116881 Aug 24 23:28 glossary.acronyms
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     43101 Jan 27  1991 glossary.isdn.terms-kluge
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     42188 Jan 14  1990 glossary.phrack.acronyms
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     67113 Jan 14  1990 glossary.txt
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     68804 Feb  2  1990 hi.perf.computing.net
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      2337 Jan 27  1990 history.of.digest
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     32625 Mar 29  1990 how.numbers.are.assigned
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     31520 Aug 11 01:49 how.phones.work
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     15302 Jan 20  1991 how.to.post.msgs.here
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      1616 Nov 20  1990 index-canada.npa.files
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom       411 Nov 20  1990 index-minitel.files
-rw-r--r--  1 ptownson telecom         0 Aug 24 23:29 index-telecom.archives
-rw-r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      1715 Jun 22 22:24 index-telecom.security
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom       343 Jan 20  1991 index-tymnet.info
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom       936 Mar  3 00:06 intro.to.archives
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     12896 Nov 20  1990 isdn.pc.adapter-hayes
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     10590 Aug 11 01:50 lata.names-numbers.table
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom      4816 Aug  1  1989 lauren.song
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom       801 Aug  1  1989 ldisc.txt
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom      2271 Aug  1  1989 ldnotes.txt
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom     13675 Aug  1  1989 ldrates.txt
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     12961 Aug 18 21:42 lightning.surge.protect
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     12260 Jan 20  1990 london.ac.script
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     12069 Mar  5  1990 london.codes.script
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     15604 Aug  1  1989 mass.lines
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom       463 Aug  1  1989 measured-service
drwxr-xr-x  2 ptownson telecom       512 Nov 20  1990 minitel.info/
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     36641 Aug  1  1989 mnp.protocol
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      2450 Jan 20  1990 modems.and.call-waiting
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     29973 Aug 11 01:58 monitor.soviet.xmissions
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom      7597 Feb 10  1990 named.exchanges
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     16590 Oct 21  1990 net.mail.guide
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom      3014 Jan 27  1990 newuser.letter
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     32815 Mar 25  1990 nine.hundred.service
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     34805 Jul 30 00:57 npa.301-410.split
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      2795 Aug  3 16:09 npa.510.sed.script
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     45105 Mar  2 22:14 npa.800-carriers.assigned
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     30091 Jul 23 19:27 npa.800.carrier.list
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     13779 Sep 19  1990 npa.800.prefixes
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     45109 Mar  2 21:28 npa.800.revised
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     33440 May 12  1990 npa.809.prefixes
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     15488 Nov 20  1990 npa.900-carriers.assigned
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     15099 Mar  8 06:42 npa.900.how.assigned
dr-xr-xr-x  2 ptownson telecom      1024 Feb  2  1991 npa.exchange.list-canada/
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     16534 Feb 11  1990 nsa.original.charter-1952
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      9886 Jan 23  1990 occ.10xxx.access.codes
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      6847 Mar  2 21:28 occ.10xxx.list.updated
-rw-r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      7714 Jul 23 19:26 occ.10xxx.new.revision
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      8593 May  5  1990 occ.10xxx.notes.updates
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     14354 Aug 12  1990 octothorpe.gets.its.name
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      8504 Jan 27  1990 old.fashioned.coinphones
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom      2756 Jan 27  1990 old.hello.msg
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     60707 Aug 18 21:44 pager.bin.uqx
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     13079 Aug 22 01:34 pager.ixo.example
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     70153 Aug  1  1989 pc.pursuit
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom      5492 Aug  1  1989 pearl.harbor.phones
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     28922 Aug 11 01:49 phone.patches
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     38772 Aug  1  1989 pizza.auto.nmbr.id
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     14189 May  6 02:39 radio-phone.interfere.1
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     11696 May  6 02:40 radio-phone.interfere.2
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      8452 May  6 02:40 radio-phone.interfere.3
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     17950 Jan 14  1990 rotenberg.privacy.speech
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      4184 Jul 27 23:58 sprint.long-dist.rates
----------  1 ptownson telecom     20526 Jun 11 00:32 st.louis.phone.outage
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      9764 Jan 20  1990 starline.features
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     46738 Jan 18  1990 starlink.vrs.pcp
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom    103069 Apr 26  1990 sysops.libel.liability
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom      3857 Aug  1  1989 tat-8.fiber.optic
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     27533 Feb  9  1990 telco.name.list.formatted
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     31487 Jan 28  1990 telco.name.listing
-rw-rw-r--  1 ptownson telecom    224495 Aug 24 06:28 telecom-recent
drwxr-xr-x  2 ptownson telecom      1024 Jun 22 22:12 telecom.security.issues/
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     21831 Jan 20  1991 telsat-canada-report
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom     11752 Aug  1  1989 telstar.txt
drwxr-xr-x  2 ptownson telecom       512 Dec 10  1990 tymnet.information/
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     26614 May 29  1990 unitel-canada.ld.service
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom       116 Oct 22  1990 white.pages
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     37947 Aug  1  1989 wire-it-yourself
-rw-rw-r--  1 telecom  telecom      4101 Aug  1  1989 wiring.diagram
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     24541 Aug  1  1989 zum.debate

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

Next is the sub-directory for the security related files. The other
sub-directories for Mintel, Canadian NPA, etc are not included here
but can easily be examined by ftp users on line.

total 1001
drwxr-xr-x  2 ptownson telecom      1024 Jun 22 22:12 ./
drwxrwxr-x 12 telecom  telecom      5632 Jun 22 22:24 ../
-rw-r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      6144 Mar 14 03:29 cellular.fraud.abernathy
-rw-r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      2755 Mar 14 03:32 cellular.fraud.prevention
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     13343 Feb 25  1990 computer.fraud.abuse.act
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     27395 Jun 23  1990 craig.neidorf.indictment
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      9354 Jul 30  1990 craig.not.guilty
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     67190 Jun 23  1990 crime.and.puzzlement
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     62602 Aug 12  1990 ecpa.1986
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     97987 Aug 12  1990 ecpa.1986.federal.laws
-rw-r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     21918 Dec  2  1990 illinois.computer.laws
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     28935 May 19  1990 jolnet-2600.magazine.art
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     30751 Mar  7  1990 jolnet-attctc.crackers
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     43365 Jan 28  1990 kevin.polsen
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     35612 Apr  1  1990 legion.of.doom
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     20703 Aug 12  1990 len.rose-legion.of.doom
-rw-r--r--  1 ptownson telecom      2516 Jun 14 01:03 len.rose.in.prison
-rw-r--r--  1 ptownson telecom    184494 Jun 22 22:04 len.rose.indictment-1
-rw-r--r--  1 ptownson telecom    192078 Jun 22 22:05 len.rose.indictment-2
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     67099 Nov  4  1990 telecom.usa.call.block-1
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     31995 Nov 20  1990 telecom.usa.call.block-2
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     10833 Nov 20  1990 telecom.usa.call.block-3
-r--r--r--  1 ptownson telecom     14821 Sep 12  1990 war.on.computer.crime

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

People using Doug's new service will probably find the same file names
as above in the index there ... but use his index to check exact
spellings and any little differences there may be.

Have fun!  Do catch up on back issues you have missed as well as any
special files you may have not seen before .... and remember to check
Doug's index regularly since it will be getting larger as he gets his
files completely on line.

And why not send a note of thanks to Doug also, for his work over the
holiday weekend in getting this up and running for telecom readers.
 From all of us Doug, thanks!


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

So that, in a nutshell, is what the Telecom Archives is about. The
first half dozen entries in the directory above are sub-directories to
the back issues. Older issues are somewhat haphazard in the way they
are filed, owing to troubles long ago with storage and mail. Newer
issues are in groups of fifty issues per file, along with any special
issues which may have come out at the same time.

The file entitled 'telecom-recent' are the most recent issues. We
flush this file every fifty issues, on the issues numbered x50 and
x00, with the file then being moved into the appropriate back issues
area. So for your convenience if you have missed an issue or two in
recent days, the telecom-recent file would usually be the first place
to look. Of course, I can supply the most recent dozen or so back
issues from my own archives here at eecs.nwu.edu on request.

Hopefully soon, there will be an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) file
as part of the Archives. David Leibold is working on it now should you
wish to add contributions.

Wish list: eventually, I'd like to see an index to the back issues
which can be searched by subject and author. As of yet, this does not
exist, as I tell at least one person every week. Sorry!

Here's hoping the Digest is around ten years from now in 2001!


Patrick Townson
TELECOM Moderator











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          25 Aug 91 0:13 CDT
Date:     Sun, 25 Aug 91 0:00:38 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     telecom@eecs
Subject:  Usenet Introductory Message
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


               Welcome to comp.dcom.telecom / TELECOM Digest
               ---------------------------------------------

                    (starting year eleven, 8-25-91)

This is a periodic posting to readers of the comp.dcom.telecom
newsgroup to let you know a little about the group and how to go about
posting here.

TELECOM Digest is a mailing list publication distributed on several
computer networks worldwide, including the Internet, MCI Mail, Fido,
ATT Mail and many others. It is gatewayed to Usenet where it appears
as 'comp.dcom.telecom'. It is distibuted to subscribers of the PC
Pursuit network operated by Sprintnet on their free BBS "Net
Exchange". On Fido, it appears on many BBS' at the option of the local
sysop.

'Telecom' is a moderated newsgroup, meaning that all submissions must
be routed through the Moderator for approval, editing, sorting and
final posting. Unlike an unmoderated group where you can <f>ollow up
direct to the group with your article, moderated newsgroups will not
accept your posting direct. Although you may respond to individual
writers by email, all postings or follow ups to the newsgroup must be
sent by email to '[e-mail]'.

TELECOM Digest and comp.dcom.telecom are one and the same. The Digest
is a mailing list sent to people who do not receive net news or who
prefer to read the Digest (single long message with several articles)
version. Messages in the Digest are the identical messages you read
here in this newsgroup, single message style. At the time each issue
of the Digest is mailed out (usually there are three or four issues
each day) a copy is 'burst' into individual messages and gatewayed to
Usenet for the comp.dcom.telecom newsgroup where they are available at
about the same time the mailing list copies are delivered. Which
version you receive is up to you. Write and ask if you wish to be
added to the mailing list version.

TELECOM Digest is a news and discussion forum on subjects relating to
telecommunications in general and voice telephony in particular. The
messages range from technical in nature to questions and answers for
novices.  Comments about telephone company services and operations are
welcome, however we are unable to print any messages containing
information which could be used to defraud telephone companies or long
distance carriers. We have to prohibit 'phreaking' information in
order to legally protect the many sites and networks which carry this
newsgroup and/or TELECOM Digest.


Please help reduce bandwidth:
=============================

Before you reply to an article you see here*, please read *all*
messages in the group. If someone else has responded, please do not
send your own response unless you have something substantially
different to say, or some correction which must be made. Unfortunately,
because of the volume of mail received, I am only able to print at
best about half of what is received daily, and usually much less.
More people can have a chance to participate if you will hold
repetitive replies to a minimum.  Please try to edit your message
according to the style in which you see other messages appearing here.
Messages which require the *least* editing work are more likely to be
used.  Make sure you have a relevant, descriptive header attached to
your message. Observe previous headers, and make your REply header
match exactly!

Please DO NOT cross post to other newsgroups and TELECOM Digest
without advising me. No one wants to read the same article in a half
dozen different groups!

Signatures are automatically truncated with cute.quotes, fancy.borders
and drawings removed. This frees up enough space for another one or
two messages each day.


Other newsgroups we are affiliated with:
========================================

Telecom Privacy

Because of the large volume of mail received on the topic of
Caller*ID, we have an 'overflow' mailing list just for that purpose.
The Digest/comp.dcom.telecom prints *news and technical comments*
about Caller*ID.  We request that political and social commentaries on
this volatile topic be addressed to '[e-mail]'. This
list was started just for the topic of telecommunications privacy.

 => To subscribe, write the moderator:  [e-mail]

Computer Underground Digest

Likewise, the social and legal ramifications of 'hacking' and 'phreaking'
have been hot topics of discussion. CuD began as a 'side-discussion'
of these topics in the Digest, and now is an email publication in its
own right.

 => To be added to the mailing list or submit articles, write the
moderator: [e-mail].


Articles sent to comp.dcom.telecom which more appropriately belong in
one of the two above categories are automatically forwarded by myself.


The Auto-ACK shows your article was received:
=============================================

Most of you will receive an auto-reply 'form letter' when you write to
[e-mail].   Sometimes it does not work right and you may
not get a reply, but usually you will. Due to the volume of mail
received, I am unable to answer personal questions/comments about
telephony except in the Digest itself. If your article cannot be used
for some reason, I will try to return it or at least send you a note
explaining why it cannot be used. This will probably be a form letter
also.  If you do not get the ACK, *and* you do not see your article
*and* you do not get a reply from me within a week, please write and
ask if your article was received.  DO NOT send a duplicate copy unless
I ask for it. If your article is not printed, don't take it personally:
I get about a hundred submissions daily and print 20-30 of them. Good
spelling, punctuation, and following the Chicago Manual of Style will
greatly enhance your chances.

If you get a personal reply to a telecom message from me, you were one
of very few who did. I can't usually reply personally to telecom mail.


Back issues / other files in Telecom Archives
=============================================

To obtain back issues of TELECOM Digest (ten year's worth!) and obtain
dozens of other telecom files of interest, visit the Telecom Archives.
This collection of material was started in 1981 and contains
everything you ever wanted to know about the US phone system, and a
lot more.  [ Well, almost everything  :) If it hasn't appeared in this
newsgroup in the last few years, then it wasn't worth knowing about! :)
"All the telecom news that fits, we print", and all that! :)  ]

If at an Internet site:  ftp lcs.mit.edu
                         login anonymous  give name@site as password
                         cd telecom-archives
                         dir the main and several sub-directories

For Bitnet:  use an archives mail server, such as the one
                         at [e-mail]


For UUCP/Fido/MCI Mail/ATT Mail and others: an archives mail server is
maintained exclusively for telecom files. Write and *specifically* ask
for the email/ftp server help file: [e-mail].

The massive amount of space needed to maintain the Telecom Archives
was donated by and is maintained by MIT and Mike Patton of their
staff. My thanks to MIT for their help.


Other stuff:
============

TELECOM Digest was founded by Jon Solomon in August, 1981. I've been
the Moderator/producer/editor/facilitator since the summer of 1988. I
live in Chicago, and work from accounts provided to me by the
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at Northwestern
University, Evanston, IL.  As one of the larger users of mail and news
on delta.eecs.nwu.edu, I thank the folks involved for their patience
and resources.

To contact me:

[e-mail]  (for submissions to Digest)
[e-mail] (for administrivia; mailing list stuff, etc)
[e-mail] (personal NON-TELECOM mail to me)
[e-mail]            (ditto)
[e-mail]       (ditto)
[e-mail]   (ditto)
[e-mail]           (ditto)
[e-mail]             (ditto)
[e-mail]         (ditto)

Telex: 155296378 or 6502224956

SNAIL:  POB 1570, Chicago, IL 60690    Voicemail: 708-518-6335  (Ext. 1)


That's it!  Enjoy the TELECOM Digest/comp.dcom.telecom!


Patrick Townson
TELECOM Digest Moderator












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Date:     Sun, 25 Aug 91 0:48:15 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #664
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sun, 25 Aug 91 00:47:26 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 664

Inside This Issue:                         A Decade of Telecom: 1981-1991

    Ten Years of It: Starting Year Eleven [TELECOM Moderator]
    Re: Ten Years of It [Gene Spafford]
    Re: Ten Years of It [Werner Uhrig]
    Re: Ten Years of It [RISKS Forum]
    Re: Ten Years of It [Funny Guy]
    Re: More TCIA: Telecom and Computer Industry Acronyms [John Adams]
    Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low On Phone Numbers [Carl Moore]
    Re: Phast Food [David Leibold]
    Re: What Are 700 Numbers Used For? [Barton F. Bruce]
    Re: Converting Old Phone With Four Wires to Three Wires [Barton F. Bruce]
    Re: German Modem Query [Lars Poulsen]
    Re: Cable TV Competition [Eric Lee Green]
    Re: Cable TV Competition [Scott Dorsey]
    Re: Cable TV Competition [William Degnan]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Aug 91 0:09:41 CDT
From: TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ten Years of It: Starting Year Eleven


The Digest completes ten years of publication this weekend. The
changes we have seen in telecommunications in the past decade are far
too numerous to mention regardless of how many special issues I put
out devoted to the topic.

We start year eleven with this issue. I suspect Jon Solomon would be
very proud of his creation.


Patrick Townson

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

Subject: Re: Ten Years of It
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 07:31:34 EST
From: Gene Spafford <[e-mail]>


That is definitely one of the older lists.

On a slightly different topic, where are the telecom ftp archives?


spaf

[Moderator's Note:  Use anonymous ftp to lcs.mit.edu.   PAT]

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

Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 9:00:15 CDT
From: Werner Uhrig <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: Werner Uhrig <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Ten Years of It


    Congratulations and thanks for all the good work!

            Cheers,        ---Werner

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

Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 8:10:00 PDT
From: RISKS Forum <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Ten Years of It


Congratulations!


[Moderator's Note: Of course, PGN, like Gene Spafford, needs no
introduction here. PGN moderates his own highly successful, highly
readable RISKS Digest, and has done so for many years.   PAT]

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

Subject: Re: Ten Years of It
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 91 17:01:22 EDT
From: Funny Guy <[e-mail]>


I am not sure what you mean by mailing list.  Sf-lovers existed long
before then.  Human-nets, from which telecom sprang, is the earliest I
know of, but it is of course now dead.


[Moderator's Note: I hope when CuD and Telecom Privacy have their
tenth anniversary there will be no messages saying 'they sprang from
telecom, but it is of course long dead.' Hopefully the Digest will be
here under someone's moderation in 2001 to accept congratulatory notes
on the twentieth anniversary.  And to the several of you who wrote
notes of congratulations not included here, thanks very much.  PAT]

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

From: john adams <nvuxl![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: More TCIA: Telecom and Computer Industry Acronyms
Date: 23 Aug 91 19:54:46 GMT
Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail].
ncr.com (Dennis Blyth) writes:

> I'm not a telecom employee or phone phreak but can answer limited
> questions about acronyms.  I work in the marketing side of the
> computer business in a company soon to be owned by a giant
> telecommunications company.

> AOS  Alternative Operator Service

> COCOT   is something similar to AOS, IMHO, actually I don't know what
> this is exactly and I would like to see a posting which clarifies the
> difference between an AOS and a COCOT.

COCOT is Customer Owned Coin Operated Telephone with an excellent article
on the whole subject of AOS's and COCOT's appearing in a recent IEEE
Spectrum January ('90 or '91 Technology review issues).  As such, a COCOT
refers to the actual instrument while AOS refers to the *Service* provided
from an *alternate* *operator*.


Jack (John) Adams      | Bellcore RRC 4A-253

[phone] {Voice}      | [phone] {Facsimile}
[e-mail] | [e-mail]

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

Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 18:01:09 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low On Phone Numbers


Here is the table that was given in the {Baltimore Sun's} version of
the article.  It's input "as is"; I know that 201/908 and 214/903
are fully cut over already, and that some split dates might be off.

Running out of numbers:
The seven most crowded U.S. telephone area codes follows (sic).

(Area code) -- City or area --  Number of prefixes in use

(213)  Los Angeles County (excluding San Fernando Valley) 742
  Will split to 213 and 310 in February.

(201)  Northern New Jersey                                708

(301)  Maryland (entire state)                            701
  Will split to 301 and 410 in November.

(404)  Atlanta and northern Georgia                       691
  Will split to 404 and 706 in November.

(415)  San Francisco metropolitan area                    679
  Will split to 415 and 510 in October.

(212)  New York City (Manhattan and Bronx only)           674
  Will split to 212 and 917 in January.

(214)  City of Dallas                                     672

Source: Bellcore
{N.Y.Times} News Service


[Moderator's Note: Carl is another contributor who 'came along opening
day' so to speak; he's been writing in these columns since 1981.  PAT]

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Phast Food
Organization: Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 1991 01:33:23 GMT


[e-mail] (Chris Farrar) writes:

> Replying to a message from Jeff Sicherman

>>   According to this week's {Network World}, Domino's is teaming with
>> AT&T and Bell Laboratories (getting a Pizza the action?) to develop a
>> service that will route a phone call to a single nationwide number to
>> the store closest to the caller.

> How will this work in Canada, where Domino's also operate, and the
> only way to order a pizza is to look in the phone book and find the
> closest Domino's or let the store you call transfer the call to the
> store that serves your area.

Since Canada doesn't have 950 service (yet), it seems that Domino
outlets in Canada (yes, there are some in Ontario, at least) will
likely continue to use local number arrangements, or if anything an
800 number could be set up. Telecom Canada is planning an 800 service
that could route to various numbers, but that service might not be
specific enough for certain cities, or parts of cities.

However, Caller ID and other technologies could be used instead.

Incidentally, Pizza Pizza in Toronto made its 967.1111 number quite
famous.  Indeed, one pizza outlet responded with a 767.1111 number.
Catchy pizza outlet numbers also include 2-4-1 Pizza's Toronto
241.0241 and Vancouver's 222 Pizza, which is 222.2222. In Ottawa,
Pizza Pizza uses 737.1111 since 967 prefix in 613 NPA already belongs
to another city (Belleville, if I recall correctly). In fact, Pizza
Pizza had the 967.1111 number booked in New York City at one time.

Disclaimer: I'm no mouthpiece for any particular pizza operation. I
rarely order for pizza these days anyway.


[e-mail], [e-mail] and others


[Moderator's Note: David is compiling the FAQ file for the Telecom
Archives, and wants *your* submissions. Send them to him at his
various addresses.   PAT]

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

From: "Barton F. Bruce" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: What Are 700 Numbers Used For?
Date: 23 Aug 91 22:01:34 EDT
Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc.


In article <[e-mail]>, overlf!n2aam@kb2ear.
ampr.org (Dave Marthouse) writes:

> I know that 800 numbers are free and 900 numbers are pay services.
> What about 700 numbers? I know that 1-700-555-4141 will let you know

> [Moderator's Note: Most long distance carriers have stuff going on in
> ... each carrier can do what they want with their portion of 700.   PAT]

NOPE, no such thing as 'THEIR PORTION'. This is NOT 800 service. EACH
carrier gets the WHOLE 700 NPA code, just as each gets to carry ALL of
say 212 to NYC. It is 800 and 900 that are hacked and divied up.

If you dial 10abc + 1.700.234.5678 it might be free Father Joe's
Dial-a-Prayer, but 10def +1.700.234.5678 might be Sleezoid's BIG BUCKS
for DIAL-A-PORN.  Of course you need not use 10xxx if 'your' default
carrier was the desired one.

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

From: "Barton F. Bruce" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Converting Old Phone With Four Wires to Three Wires
Date: 23 Aug 91 22:26:49 EDT


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Todd Inch)
writes:

> So, who can tell me why there are two different series-connected
> windings on the bell?  Were these rewired funkily for party line
> ringing or something?

Yup. Each 'half' are actually to quite different values and were used
for different CO types to indicate the second party on a two party line.
The connection, when off hook, was from the B terminal which is
supposed to be the electrical 'center' of the transmission network
through one or the other of the ringer coil 'halves' to ground. Being
in the 'center' no noise is supposed to be added to the talk path.

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

From: Lars Poulsen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: German Modem Query
Organization: CMC (a Rockwell Company), Santa Barbara, California, USA
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 91 05:32:44 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Eric
Brunner) writes:

> Some of Telebit's brass are going to the Federal Republic(s) in two
> week's time to speak with senior Bundespost volks.

I have a slightly sour taste at the thought that you would like to
pick our brains so that you as a consultant can sell the collective
wisdom of the net to your temporary employer. It would not have been
quite so sour if you personally could use the information. But I won't
let that keep me from offering some technical information about the
German Datel networks.

Like a number of other European countries, Germany believes in
separate facilities for voice and data. For data, they offer a choice
between a circuit-switched system (Datex-L, I think it is called) with
an X.21 interface, complete with dialling, and a packet-switched-system,
called Datex-P, with a very standard X.25 interface. Dial-up modem use
is considered a necessary evil, and Bundespost really wants you to use
their modems if you have to use modems.

X.21 is a great interface in the 9600 to 64,000 bps class (much more
robust than V.35) but for some reason it never caught on in the US, so
few if any US vendors have anything that can do X.21 dialling.

X.21 is also used for access circuits to the packet network, but since
the circuit always goes to the packet exchange, you don't need to
dial, so you can use adapters for either RS422 or RS232 interfaces.

Bundespost's X.25 is very flexible, but before you get approval, they
want to know your profile in excruciating detail. How many seconds is
your T21 timer, what happens on a RESET timeout, ... that kind of
stuff.  And once recorded and approved, the profile is frozen. If the
switch ever catches you doing differently than what is approved, the
subscriber circuit is taken out of service, even if it matches exactly
somebody else's approved equipment. No unauthorized testing here, and
no bugfix releases without recertification.

Say hi to Denis Aull for me.


Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer    CMC Rockwell  [e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 21 Aug 91 00:55:49 CDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Cable TV Competition


[e-mail] (S M Krieger):

>> The upstart competitor was Cablevision, bigger, already in many areas
>> on Long Island, and 'ready to serve you better.'

[description of Cablevision refusing to carry MSG as a "basic" service:]

One thing overlooked in the TCA vs. MTV censorship controversy down in
the Southland was that the crux of the problem was TCA's insistence
upon making MTV a "premium" service. Since MTV is basically an
advertising medium and makes its money by reaching the widest audience
possible, they refused to do so, at which point TCA cut off the MTV.
Despite the fact that the MTV folks had already told them that it was
perfectly allowable to cut off INDIVIDUAL subscribers who had problems
with MTV's contents.

The eventual "compromise", after all the fuss, was that TCA said
"Okay, we'll carry MTV again as a basic converter-box channel, but now
we'll cut it off for free for anybody who doesn't want it." In other
words, they made it sound as if MTV had given them something
unprecedented. In actuality, MTV had allowed such all along.

TCA has also dealt very arrogantly with the local governments, and has
increased rates with little regard for public opinion. Currently,
local governments don't have much of a stick to use on TCA. The FCC
forbids them from setting TCA's rates, apparently, and the local
market is too small (population-wise) and spread-out (area-wise) to
make it profitable for two cable companies to compete in this market.
Yet another example of a "natural monopoly", and why such "natural
monopolies" should be under strict governmental control. It scares me
that they're considering loosening controls on the "Baby Bells", when
the "Babies" have exhibited much of the same sort of arrogance and
disdain for the public that TCA exhibited.


Eric Lee Green  [e-mail] uunet!mjbtn!raider!elgamy!elg

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

From:  Scott Dorsey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Cable TV Competition
Organization: NASA Langley Research Center
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 1991 16:17:52 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Nick Sayer) writes:

> The length of a dipole is half the length of the wave you want. The
> length of a wave in meters is 300/x where x is the frequency in MHz.
> Channel 7 is 174-180 MHz. Split the difference to get 177.  300/177 is
> 1.694915. Divide that by 2 and you get 84.745 centimeters.  I'll leave
> it as an exercise to the reader to convert that into inches, but it's
> a few inches short of a yard. Purists will bitch and moan that light
> doesn't travel 300 km/s in a wire, but I've never known it to make a
> difference, and certainly not when trying to receive a signal 6 MHz
> wide, let alone a band of 6 of them.

   Multiply that 300 by .94 to get the speed of light in a metal rod,
or .90 for the speed of light in a hollow metal tube.  Greater
diameter means a greater bandwidth; 1/2" copper piping is great.

   I got these correction factors many years ago from a 1940's edition
of the ITT handbook, and they seem to work.  If they are a bit off, go
get a grid dip meter and fine tune things by hand.


Scott

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

From: William Degnan <[e-mail]>
Date: 23 Aug 91  20:43:12
Subject: Re: Cable TV Competition


On <Aug 21 11:16> Shawn Goodin ([e-mail] ) writes
to all:

> the neighborhood -- heaven forbid that those unsightly antennas and
> dishes would dare contribute to urban decay/blight/home values.
> Meanwhile, they seem to allow these fences around the yards that
> appear to have been designed and built by Tarzan ... I'll try the
> dipoles ... if I wanted to cut one for, say, channel 7, wonder what
> the measurements should be?

How about 468/(frequency in Mhz) for total length? The ARRL antenna
book has lots of formulae.

We explored setting up a microwave dish at a client's residence (and
home office) to avoid attracting attention of the neighbors, we were
going to build a tree house and put the antenna in the tree house's
attic. Urban camoflage!

Can you have a tree house? Got room in the back yard for a gazebo?
Hang the antenna and rotor from the apex.


Origin: Private Line - Stealth Opus in Austin (1:382/39.0)
William Degnan,  Communications Network Solutions
-Independent Consultants in Telecommunications-
P.O. Drawer 9530       | ARPA: [e-mail]
Austin, TX 78766-9530  | ![e-mail]  | Voice [phone]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #664
******************************










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Date:     Sun, 25 Aug 91 9:53:03 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #666
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sun, 25 Aug 91 09:52:38 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 666

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Phone Company Cut me Back to Pulse Dialing [Mickey Ferguson]
    Re: AT&T Data Network [Roy M. Silvernail]
    Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service [Floyd Davidson]
    Handouts Wanted :-) [Jack Decker]
    Measuring T1 Jitter in dB [Dave R.Turk]
    Re: Flakey T1 / What is BELL PUB 62411 [Dave R.Turk]
    ISDN Call Tracker Needed -- HELP! [Conrad Nobili]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Mickey Ferguson <[e-mail]>
Date: 22 August 1991, 12:07:59 PDT
Subject: Re: Phone Company Cut me Back to Pulse Dialing


[e-mail] writes:

> Last night my phone service was downgraded from tone/pulse to pulse
> only.  Aside from dialing taking a bit longer, it has had no other
> effect.

> About a week ago I got a note from my local TelCo (NY Telephone area
> code 718).  It told me that I have been using tone dialing without
> paying for it.  If I want to keep tone service, I was asked to call an
> number to make this service request and be prepared to pay >$5.00 per
> line per month.  If I don't make the service request, NYTel would
> switch me back to pulse dialing.

> It has always been my understanding that tone service was easier
> (cheaper) for the TelCo to provide that pulse.  Has this changed?

> Has this happened to anyone else?

About five years ago I bought a VERY cheap tone dialing phone to give
to my parents so that they could access Sprint and call me using my
Sprint number, charging the call to me, but also allowing them to call
using their 11 PM night rate for Ohio instead of me calling them using
my 8 PM California rate.  They had tone only service (this was with an
old GTE service - don't know what kind of switch) in Wadsworth, OH.  I
was playing around with the phone one time when I was home visiting
and noticed that when I dialed using the tone phone, to my amazement,
the call was completed.  Thus, for some amount of time, they had tone
service but weren't paying for it.

About a year or two ago, Wadsworth got a new (probably only ten years
old technology instead of thirty :) switch from GTE, and the tone
dialing no longer worked.  They would have to pay some amount (was it
$1.50 or $2.00 per month?  I don't remember.) to have tone service.
Of course, they had no need for the tone service, so didn't pay for
it.  They just dial Sprint using one of the pulse phones, then pick up
the tone phone when Sprint is connected to punch in my access code.

This reminds me of another story about phone service in Wadsworth.
For many years we had a party line, and we didn't want to pay extra
each month (along with a changeover fee) to convert to a private line.
But even more important to my Dad was that he didn't want to have to
change his phone number, which was the only way GTE would give us the
private line.  But they also told us that as soon as service on all of
the other parties on the party line had been disconnected, we could
get our private line without changing the number.  It took about ten
years, and GTE didn't add new customers to our existing party line,
but eventually we got our private number without having to pay the
changeover fee.  If I recall, the other party got tired of having to
share the line with three *TEENAGERS* and converted *THEIR* line to a
private line, and *THEY* probably ended up paying a conversion fee! :)
(Boy, was it THAT long ago? :)


Mickey Ferguson      Rolm Systems      [e-mail]

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

Subject: Re: AT&T Data Network
From: "Roy M. Silvernail" <cybrspc![e-mail]>
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 91 10:36:15 CDT
Organization: Villa CyberSpace, Minneapolis, MN


[e-mail] writes:

>> [Moderator's Note: From 312 at any time during the past day, calls to
>> 950-1288 return an IBT intercept 'all circuits are busy now'.  PAT]

>  From 603 calls to 950-1288 gets NET's infamous: "{tri-tone} The
> number you have reached 9-5-0-1-2-8-8 is being checked for trouble,
> please try your call again later."

In Minneapolis, 950-1288 gets me a modem.  It sounds like a USR
connect sequence, which connects to my machine at 2400 (since I have a
2400 modem).

I got no response, though.  It seemed insensitive to characters entered.


Roy M. Silvernail |+|  [e-mail]

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

From: Floyd Davidson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service
Organization: Chinet - Chicago public access UNIX
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1991 08:07:14 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tony
Harminc) writes:

> [e-mail] (Marcel Mongeon) wrote:

>> As a related question can a Northern Telecom DMS forward more than one
>> call at a time? For example, if the Hamilton number that I am pointing
>> the Burlington calls to in the above is actually a set of hunted
>> trunks, can more than one person at a time from Toronto call me using
>> only one line in Oakville?

> In a word: no.  Or is that yes?  That is, the CO *does* know that it
> is currently forwarding a call, and the original number is marked
> busy.

I'm not sure what a DMS-100 does, though I'd find that strange.  A
Northern Telecom SL-1 PBX definitely can forward multiple calls, and I
can't think any good reason not to allow it with a DMS-100.  Is there
a reason?


Floyd

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

Date: Mon, 12 Aug 91 18:48:00 EDT
From: Jack Decker <[e-mail]>
Subject: Handouts Wanted :-)


So, you say you've got some unusual or antique telephones, or phone
parts sitting around, and you hate to throw it away but you just don't
have room to keep it laying around?  Is that what's bothering you,
Bunky?

Well, grab a carton from the shipping department and toss it all in
and address the carton to:

Mr. Bob Riddell
Northern Telephone Company
Wawina, Minnesota  55794

Now, this isn't a joke, although Bob doesn't know I'm posting this
message here. But I visited Bob a couple of weeks ago, and besides
owning one of the nation's smallest telephone companies (I think he
has about 30 customers, give or take a few), he is an avid collector
of antique (and not so antique) phones, switchboards (corded and
otherwise), and even CO switching equipment (he has an operating
strowger CO in his basement, that connects all his various makes and
models of working antiques phones together).  The truth is, I doubt
there is as complete a collection of old and antique phones
(especially early common-battery manual and dial phones) anywhere,
although some museums may have some rarer models that he doesn't have.
Not only that, but he can tell you the history of just about every
phone he has.  The funny part is, he has more phones on his basement
phone exchange than on the "real" one that serves Wawina.

Mind you, I don't think he's into BUYING antique phones but if someone
gives him one, it will get a good home (he has them displayed on three
walls of his basement now, and the whole collection may be moved to a
converted mobile home soon).  I know I have a couple boxes of 30 years
accumulation of miscellaneous old phone parts and I intend to send him
a surprise package real soon now!

While I'm soliciting handouts :-), if anyone ever has a dialer that is
capable of doing tone to pulse conversions but perhaps doesn't
function properly in some other area, I could give it a good home
here.  Actually, I already have such a device but it's a real cheapie
(got it surplus ... a small, unbranded unit in a white PLASTIC case
that runs very warm) but the problem is that it often detects voices
as touch tones and will occasionally send out a string of dial pulses
in the middle of a conversation, sometimes even cutting off a call!
So if anyone has something like a Mitel dialer lying around and it's
just surplus to you, let me know, maybe we could work something out.
(Wishful thinking, I know, but it never hurts to ask.)


Jack Decker
U.S. Snail address:  1804 W. 18th Street #155, Sault Ste. Marie, MI 49783-1268
Fido: Via D'Bridge 1:1/211  08/23 12:55

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

From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]
Subject: Measuring T1 Jitter in dB
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 18:13:05 PDT


Netters-

I am trying to measure the jitter transfer characteristics of a piece
of T1 equipment.  According to the applicable specs (TR62411 and
others), jitter transfer is measured in dB.  I have a question about
the dB calculation.

If I want to measure power gain in dB, it looks like this:

             GAIN (dB) = 10 LOG (Pout/Pin)

If I want to measure voltage gain in dB, it looks like this:

             GAIN (dB) = 20 LOG (Vout/Vin)

In the above two cases, the things being measured are power and
voltage, respectively.  In measuring jitter, the thing being measured
is unit intervals.  What is the equation for calculating jitter gain?

I have tried to work the problem backwards by examining jitter
transfer tolerance plots showing corner points and a known dB/decade
slope, but the multiplier I come up with is weird ... 14.14.  Any
ideas would be appreciated.

[e-mail]


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

From: portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Flakey T1 / What is BELL PUB 62411
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 18:11:14 PDT


[e-mail] (Bob Stodola) writes:

> ...Bell has been trying to "upgrade" our T1 line from copper to
> fiber.  Each time they do, the link becomes flaky...

Check that the DSU/CSU is in close proximity to the fiber modem
(within 85').  Fiber modems require a signal which is around 0 dBsx on
its equipment side.  The copper line would be unaffected because the
line repeaters are able to regenerate the signal.

> What is BELL PUB 62411, and why might it make the difference
> here?

The current version of this document is AT&T Technical Reference
62411, dated December, 1988.  (A more widely accepted document is ANSI
T1.403-1989.)  Setting the DSU to comply with 62411 causes a change in
the way the DSU/CSU enforces one's density.  62411 specifies that for
every window of 8(N+1) bits, there be at least N ones present.  N goes
from 1 to 24.  This is commonly referred to as the 8(N+1) algorithm.
If the data stream does not have the requisite number of ones, the CSU
inserts them, corrupting data.

To prevent the one's density issue from ever coming up, the DSU/CSU
should be optioned for 1.344 towards the Vitalink LAN bridge.  If this
is done, the DSU/CSU will have enough overhead (1.544-1.344) to ensure
the signal always has enough ones.

> ...the vendor suggested we explore a switch which controls
> the scrambler/descrambler which purportedly "will pseudo
> randomly change DTE data to improve the ones density."

The effects of a pseudo-random scrambler on a digital bit stream in an
effort to increase average one's density is dubious.  What you gain in
scrambling long sequences of zeros is lost in scrambling long
sequences of ones.  Scramblers are sometimes used in digital radios to
reduce the effects of all ones or all zeros idle codes on spectral
emissions (birdies), and I have heard of scramblers being used in
DS1C.  Again, if the DSU/CSU is optioned for 1.344 towards the LAN
bridge, density should not be an issue.

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

Date: Sat, 24 Aug 1991 20:18:44 -0500
From: [e-mail]
Subject: ISDN Call Tracker Needed -- HELP!


Greetings telecom gurus.  I have been reading this group off and on
over the past year and have been very impressed with the expertise
here.  I am confident that something will come of my queries.

Here is the situation.  We operate several computer "hotlines" here.
It has been deemed necessary that management have information such as
the number, day of week, time, and duration of calls, the affiliation
of the caller, name of the answerer, and rough category of problem
(operating system and application).

Currently this information is recorded on paper forms by the answerers
(technical support super-geniuses such as myself ;-) ), entered into a
Mac database by casual staff members who are largely unfamiliar with
the problem domain and the intended use of the data, and then uploaded
to an IBM mainframe where SAS programs are run to analyze and
summarize the data. Needless to say this whole procedure is way
sub-optimal.  The information collected in the first place is not even
close to complete -- if we're _really_ busy almost no data is recorded
at all.  In addition, there are lots of errors introduced along the
way.  And the whole concept of trying to pigeonhole Harvard
affiliations is ridiculous.

So, I have had a vision for over a year.  We have this slick new
digital phone system -- a 5ESS switch and our phones are AT&T ISDN
7506 phones with LCD displays and data interfaces.  The displays show
time of day, CallerID, call duration, and other things.  It strikes me
that we are getting most of the stuff that management _really_ needs
at our phones courtesy of the switch.  And we can even _see_ most of
it.  Now if we could only have it all recorded in an automated fashion
 ... we could then use it to calibrate (and hopefully invalidate) or
replace parts of our manual data collection system.

In an effort to realise this vision, I contacted our phone service
consultants. After much mulling and consulting with manufacturers they
seemed to think that they would be able to make a change to our
service that would record a (very small) subset of the information
that arrives at our LCD displays and summarize it in monthly reports.
When they actually tried to implement this change total destructive
chaos ensued.  I don't remember the details, but something about the
multiple lines that we have appearing (and maybe not ringing) on
various phones fought with the new change.  At any rate we were
without service on some of the lines for days, and other lines blinked
in and out of existence in a somewhat wanton fashion.  We had to back
off of the test of this stuff.

Subsequently I have seen a CallerID device in a phone accessories
catalog. It would seem to be exactly what we need, but that it only
records the last 70 or so calls (and may not record duration) and it
has no interface to the outside world other than through its LCD
display.  What we need is a similar device that would also record the
call duration and that would provide for output to a computer via
RS-232, so that the data could be put into a database without (much)
human intervention (no data entry).

Does such a device exist?  If so where and how do we get one (or
more)?  If not does anyone have any suggestions as to how best to go
about making one? I took my 7506 phone apart at work in an attempt to
get ideas. Unfortunately I am at home now and can't give chip numbers
or otherwise describe things in detail.

It would be really wonderful if we could find this device.  And if not
it seems like it would not be impossible to _make_ one (although most
of the chips in the phones are the low-profile soldered type, possibly
making it annoying to do so).  I can _see_ virtually all the info we
need on the LCD panel already. I suppose I could simply point a camera
at it -- but digital electronics would seem a much more elegant
solution.

We would have _complete_ and (largely) _correct_ data!  Although we
would not be gathering the (meaninglessly) fine affiliation details
automatically, we _could_ make some broad categorizations by exchange:
495 = faculty and staff, 493 = student, 432 = Medical Area....

I lust for this.  I think my coworkers and management would too if
they really understood it (maybe they do, but sometimes they look at
me strangely when I suggest stuff like this.)  Please, I hope
someone can help us out.

Please copy any postings to me, as I cannot always keep up with this
group. I anxiously look forward to any information out there.
Apologies if this has been discussed before. All I have seen is a
mention of a CallerID device with an RS-232 port, but it was a
not-very-definitive passing mention.  A query to the poster
revealed that he did not in fact know manufacturers or model
numbers.  And he was at AT&T, so I figured if he didn't know it was
worth my posting this.


Conrad C. Nobili

Harvard University      Internet: [e-mail]
Office for Info. Tech.  BITNET:   CONRAD AT HARVARDA
1730 Cambridge Street   voice:    [phone]
Cambridge, MA  02138    fax:      [phone]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #666
******************************










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          25 Aug 91 23:03 CDT
Date:     Sun, 25 Aug 91 22:08:15 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #667
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sun, 25 Aug 91 22:08:08 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 667

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Speakerphone [Michael Ho]
    Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Speakerphone [Conrad Nobili]
    Re: Help Wanted: Just an Address! [Dave Levenson]
    Re: NET's Call Answering Service [Darryl Jacobs]
    Re: AT&T Data Network [David W. Tamkin]
    Re: Telephones in Elevators [Bill Berbenich]
    Re: Looking For a Phone Line Simulator [Conrad Nobili]
    Re: NYTel Charges for 411 [Dave Niebuhr]
    Re: Department Numbers and ANI [Dan Jacobson]
    Re: Telephone Line Status Indicator Box [[e-mail]]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Tiny Bubbles..." <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Speakerphone
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1991 14:50:55 GMT


[e-mail] writes:

> Don't you also hate those folks who love to put you on their low
> quality speakerphones?

Which brings up a question: Is there any such thing as a "high-quality
speakerphone"?  I, personally, have never seen such a beast.  My AT&T
cordless has a speakerphone on it, but like all other speakerphones
I've seen, it sounds from the other end like you're talking into a
toilet.


    ... Michael Ho, University of Nebraska
Internet: [e-mail]                |  "Florida Or Bust."
Disclaimer:  Views expressed within are purely personal and should not be
         applied to any university agency.

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

Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1991 22:00:10 -0500
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Speakerphone


> Don't you also hate those folks who love to put you on their low
> quality speakerphones?

I've found a good way of dealing with this is to put the call on *my*
speakerphone.  I am not sure why, but I find that the conversation
goes much more smoothly that way.  I don't know how speakerphones
compare, but our AT&T ISDN 7506 phones seem to have decent
speakerphone capabilities.

Anyone else found this to work?


Conrad C. Nobili                Harvard University OIT
[e-mail]       1730 Cambridge Street
CONRAD AT HARVARDA              [phone]

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

From: Dave Levenson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Help Wanted: Just an Address!
Date: 25 Aug 91 20:19:57 GMT
Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Dan Fandrich) writes:

> ...  I don't know the whereabouts of Votrax...

    Votrax, Inc.
    24027 Research Drive
    Farmington Hills, MI  48335
    800 521 1350


Dave Levenson        Internet: [e-mail]
Westmark, Inc.        UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave
Warren, NJ, USA        AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave
Voice: 908 647 0900     Fax: [phone]

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

From: JacobsD <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: NET's Call Answering Service
Date: 25 Aug 91 21:59:12 GMT
Reply-To: JacobsD <[e-mail]>
Organization: AT&T, Denver, CO


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jon
Sreekanth) writes:

> I recently signed up for New England Telephone (Nynex) voice mail, on
> my home line, 617-547-. Here are some observations :

> 1. It costs $11.60 to turn on the service, plus $4 per month.
> Outgoing message can be up to two minutes, up to 30 incoming messages,
> each of two minutes maximum, can be stored.

I was one of the early subscribers to US West's Voice Messaging
service in Denver.  I dont remember the exact details, but I believe I
got free installation and a couple of months free service when I
signed up.  Now the service is 6.95 per month.  I don't recall any
limits on message length or number, but messages currently can be held
for 999 days.  All of this subject to change, of course, whenever US
West decides to change it.

> [discussion of other features that are identical to US West's setup]

> 4. Initially, I did not get the promised stutter dial tone. After
> calling and complaining, they fixed it. An unexpected side effect is

Sounds like the people doing the voice mail setup in your CO are still
learning the ropes.

> 5. The message access number is not toll free. I guess that was
> asking too much. Of course, there's no concept of toll saver.  It's
> a local number, and calls to that number are counted towards
> Measured Rate totals. This seems like nickel and diming.

I have flat rate service, so it doesn't bother me that the message
access number is not toll free.  One thing US West didn't mention
until I asked about it is that it is possible to retreive messages by
calling your home phone number; if you press the * key while your
message is playing, you get prompted to press #, then enter your
number and security code just like on the message access number.

This is nice if you're out of town and have AT&T's Reach Out America
with the Calling Card option, MCI's Personal 800 service, or some
other way to place cheap calls to your home from other parts of the
country.

NET's service may be different, of course.  If the above doesn't work,
either call them and ask, or play around with the touch tone pad and
see if you can figure it out.

> 6. The thing that bothers me the most (and may prompt me to turn off
> the service after a while) is there is no mention of how to turn off
> the answering temporarily. When I'm expecting an important call,
> especially an international call, etc., this could be a hassle.

If you have two lines and call fowarding, just forward the calls to
the second line (assuming that line doesn't have voice mail) or to a
cellphone (if you have one).  If you only have one line, you're
probably out of luck.

> 7. The interaction with call waiting is also annoying. I have
> selective call waiting, and when I don't turn call waiting off, it
> produces the beep, which is fine. However, when I turn off call
> waiting, by dialling *70, number, callers get a busy.  This is fairly
> brain-damaged, because it forces me to choose between call waiting and
> voice messaging, rather than selectively having one or the other
> during a particular call.

Again, sounds like the CO crew doesn't know what they're doing.  I
have call waiting and voice mail, and *70 redirects all calls to voice
mail.  The problem here with voice mail and call waiting is that when
you are getting the beeps indicating that someone is calling, that
call will never go to voice mail, no matter how long the call rings.

When I first signed up, I was given a choice of what kind of calls
went to voice mail, busy and/or non-answered.  I was also asked if I
had call waiting and had explained to me the scenarios where calls
would *NOT* go to voice mail, depending on whether call waiting was
disabled or not and what type of calls were administered to go to
voice mail.  Sounds to me like they did not set you up so that calls
that would be indicated as busy by the CO would go to your mailbox.

> 8. There seems to be no interaction with call forwarding. Yes, I have
> both call waiting and call forwarding. They weren't offering Ringmate

Ask New England Bell how to send all calls immediately to voice mail
if you have call forwarding.  When I asked US West that question, they
gave me what they called the 'port number'.  This is the number in
your CO that all busy/nonanswered calls get forwarded to if you are a
voice mail subscriber.  An immediate call forward (*72) to that number
will send all your calls straight to your mailbox.  Calling that
number from outside the switch or from a nonsubscriber on the same
switch gets a prompt to reenter the number you are dialing or to press
# to retreive messages.  Entering your phone number gets your mailbox.
Entering another voice mail subscriber's (on the same CO) phone number
gets their mailbox.  (I have yet to try other voice mail subscribers
on different COs.)

I've found several uses for the port number.  For instance, if I'm
expecting an important call at home and must go out for a while, I can
forward calls from my home number to the cellphone, then forward
nonanswered calls from the cellphone to the port number (most cellular
switches have three flavors of call forwarding -- immediate, busy, and
non-answered).  If I don't answer the cellphone, the caller gets
prompted to reenter the number they just dialed to get to my mailbox.
This trick just can't be done with an answering machine on the home
phone line.  Indeed, since I rarely turn off non-answered call
forwarding on the cellphone, those few people who have my cellphone
number know to enter my *home number* when they hear the prompt in
order to leave me a message.  That means I only need one voice mailbox
for home and cellular calls (and I don't have to pay an extra
6.95/month for a cellular voice mailbox :-).

> On the whole, I'm not pleased with it. In the beginning, the only
> advantage of a service over my trusty Panasonic answering machine was
> the potential that no caller would ever hear a busy. Given the various
> flaws, I'm tempted to ask: is it just the residential service that's
> crippled, or does the business service also have all the above
> restrictions?

No caller should hear a busy, keep on complaining to NET until they
get your mailbox set up right.

I know one person here who got misadminstered with business voice mail
instead of residental.  We played with it for a while and found it had
all the traditional voice mail features (urgent messages, offline
message preparation, message forwarding, etc).  Unfortunatly, they
took it away when I called to complain that MY voice mail service
didn't have the same features as hers :-(.

If you don't like the service, call up and complain first before
dropping it.  Most of the limitations of the current home voice mail
offerings are there because the telcos think we're too stupid to use
the same advanced features at home that they are selling to businesses
(where do they do think office workers come from? :-).  If customers
start demanding more, maybe they'll see the light and give us more
(fat chance, I know, but what else can you do, it's unregulated).
Here at least, the voice mail people are in a separate office (with
their own 800 number no less) and are willing to tell you ways to
improve the service that aren't in the user guides.  Various trade
articles I've seen indicates that the telcos are aware of the
shortcomings (especially the lack of call screening) and are trying to
improve the situation.


Darryl Jacobs        Bell Laboratories, Denver   [e-mail]
Note: I won't even claim these views as mine.

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

Date: Sun, 25 Aug 91 17:52 CDT
From: "David W. Tamkin" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: AT&T Data Network


Jack Decker asks in volume 11, issue 665:

> Actually, I'd like to know what the costs are to have a 950 access
> number.   And can any firm get a 950 number, or is it only available
> to "common carriers?"

Citibank VISA and Citibank MasterCard, at least for the ordinary
silver cards whose customer service number is [phone], can be
dialed at 950-1492.  It took them the longest time to stop printing it
as "1-950-1492" on my bills, even though I live in an area where the 1
isn't just unnecessary but is outright forbidden.  That number reaches
the same people as [phone] as far as I know.

Holders of their Preferred cards have a different 800 number to call,
so I don't know about 950 service for them.

So Citibank's credit card division and Domino's Pizza appear to be
able to get 950 numbers without being long-distance carriers.


David W. Tamkin  Box 7002  Des Plaines, Illinois  60018-7002  [phone]
[e-mail]   GEnie:D.W.TAMKIN  CIS:73720,1570  MCI Mail:426-1818

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Telephones in Elevators
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 91 21:14:48 EDT


Here in the lovely Van Leer Electrical Engineering Building, where I
have my palacial office, there is an elevator.  It is intended
primarily for freight, but the building lazy-bones (like me,
occasionally) use it as a passenger elevator.  The building is only
five stories - four of which are served by the elevator.  My office is
on the fourth floor.

About once a month, I'd guess, the elevator gets stuck.  About a year
ago, I was the lone stuck-ee.  When it looked as though things weren't
going to start back up, I picked up the phone in the elevator to
summon help.  Rather than being an expensive ringdown, the phone is a
POTS line (under the local DMS-100) with an autodialer that calls out
as soon as the receiver is lifted.  The phone has no dial - but I'd
imagine that if one had a DTMF dialer they could at least place an
on-campus phone call.

In any event, I lifted the receiver and heard the autodialer call an
on-campus extension.  The campus police promptly answered and I told
them of my dilemma and where I was.  The dispatcher said help would be
on the way.  Moments later (sooner than anyone could have responded to
a call from the police), the elevator was back in motion and I was
released from my erstwhile coffin.  Came to find out that someone had
inadvertently switched off the breaker which controls the elevator
(but obviously NOT its lights or the autodialer - thank heavens).


Bill Berbenich, School of EE, DSP Lab   Georgia Tech, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp: ...!{backbones}!gatech!eedsp!bill Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1991 22:21:33 -0500
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Looking For a Phone Line Simulator


Dan Everhart <[e-mail]> wants a phone line simulator...

I have noticed that MacUser Labs always uses something from Processing
Telecom Technologies.  You can see the equipment in a picture on
page 109 in the May, 1991 MacUser review of fax modems.

I don't know anything about these devices except that MacUser seems to
stick with them, and their modem reviews seem to be among the best in
the consumer computer rags (I know, that doesn't necessarily say
much...).


Conrad C. Nobili                Harvard University OIT
[e-mail]       1730 Cambridge Street
CONRAD AT HARVARDA              [phone]

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

Date: Sat, 24 Aug 1991 9:28:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Dave Niebuhr, BNL CCD, 516-282-3093" <[e-mail]>
Subject: NYTel Charges for 411


I looked on this month's bill for 411 calls and it shows five at .45
EACH.  I wish I had NETel for their freebie calls (10 would be too
many for me).

Again, another example of NYTel getting their way at the expense of
the ratepayers with the express approval of the Public Service
Commission.


Dave Niebuhr  Brookhaven National Laboratory   Internet: [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Department Numbers and ANI
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 91 08:09:00 GMT


> would not answer the question of effective advertising if your ads
> were in national publications likely to be read anywhere in the USA.
> How can ANI detirmine for example if I read your ad in the {Wall
> Street Journal}, {Time} or {News Weak} Magazines or the {Reader's
> Digest}?    PAT]

[Boring side fact:] often a seemingly national publication often has
different ads when read in different parts of the country.  An easy
example is for the middle most sheet (middle four pages) at the
magazine's staple to be a regional insert.

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Telephone Line Status Indicator Box
Date: 23 Aug 91 21:30:15 GMT


I am sharing a telephone line with several other individuals that we
use in an async dial-up situation with a separate modem on each PC.
The problem is that we can not discern when the line is in use since
we each have simply a modular plug in the office.  If we don't check
beforehand and dial out through the modem, we disconnect the
individual who is already logged on.

I understand that AT&T used to sell a modular plug box with a small
light which glowed when the line was in use.  I can't find that part
anywhere!  I would appreciate your help in locating a vendor for that
part or any suggestions you have for our situation.

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #667
******************************










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From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #668
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sun, 25 Aug 91 22:58:08 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 668

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Flakey T1/What is Bell Pub 62411 [Bud Couch]
    Call Extenders [Jack Decker]
    Need Help Choosing AT&T Plan [Steve Shimatzki]
    950 Data Access (was AT&T Data Network) [John R. Levine]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Bud Couch <kentrox![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Flakey T1 - What is Bell Pub 62411?
Organization: Kentrox Industries, Inc.
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1991 16:26:30 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Bob
Stodola) writes:

> Our local phone company supplies us with a T1 line connecting two
> buildings.  We connect two ethernets using a Vitalink bridge and
> Digital Link Corporation DSU/CSU.  Over the last six months, Bell has
> been trying to "upgrade" our T1 line from copper to fiber.  Each time
> they do, the link becomes flakey from ethernet to ethernet even though
> TPC says the line is clean.  Each time, they restore the copper link
> and problems disappear.

> The reference manual for the DSU/CSU has an internal switch which
> "controls whether or not the DL551V II will be forced to comply with
> BELL PUB 62411."  What is BELL PUB 62411, and why might it make the
> difference here?  Also, the vendor suggested we explore a switch which
> controls the scrambler/descrambler which purportedly "will pseudo
> randomly change DTE data to improve the ones density."  Again, why
> might this make a difference here?

Actually, it's AT&T Pub 62411, and it was the controlling document for
years for interconnection of customer owned T1 CSU's to the network
(when the FCC first allowed this in 1983? '84? they told AT&T to write
a spec and then issued it as if it was part of Part 68).

The ones density requirement is there because the clock on a T1 signal
is derived from the signal - no one's, no clock. This was a "Network
Harm" issue because some (older) repeaters would "sing" at frequencies
that would interfere with some other carrier types if they had no
signal; i.e.  lots of zeros. Therefore CSUs were required to insert
extra one's in the signal (which are errors) if the terminal equipment
didn't generate enough.

62411 had the usual Bell Labs imprimatatur -- the one's density
requirement was written by the same people who describe the generation
of the QRSS signal in terms of Modulo 2 arithmetic, instead of as a 20
bit shift register, with 17 and 20 fed back through an XOR gate to the
input.

But I digress ... the spec required not less than N ones in any
(N+1) x 8 window, with the window length limited to one frame. Because
the FCC didn't give AT&T much time to come up with this, not a lot of
testing was done, and there turned out to be a big glitch. The
aforementioned QRSS signal, the standard test signal for T1, turns out
to *not* meet this spec. If a CSU manufacturer builds a CSU to meet
it, said CSU will return errors when a QRSS signal is looped through
it for testing. This requirement was changed when the "official" Part
68 came out, but the inertia of the telephone system insured that it
hung on, in the form of tariffs. Therefore, manufacturers put in
switches to do one's density enforcement in different ways, one of
which was "62411".

And as to your question; it should make no difference at all. There is
no mechanism in 62411 to remove the extra ones at the other end. If
they didn't appear on the mettalic circuit, they shouldn't appear on
the fiber.The metallic-to-fiber converter has it's own method of
insuring one's density, but this is transparent (it's converted back
at the other end).

Perhaps another netter can help with the "scrambler" portion;
personally, I don't see how any scrambler with a psuedorandom sequence
length of less than ten or so frames is going to "improve" one's
density. Even it out, perhaps, but not improve.

I would look at the clock sources involved here. If you had a
dedicated point to point metallic circuit, one end was master and the
other slaved it's clock to it. When you convert to fiber, your signal
is undoubtedly going through a mux. If this mux is a synchronous
device, your clock is being changed.


Bud Couch - ADC/Kentrox  If my employer only knew...  standard BS applies

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

Date: Sun, 25 Aug 91 18:10:00 EDT
From: Jack Decker <[e-mail]>
Subject: Call Extenders


In a message dated 30 Jul 91, [e-mail] (Dennis G. Rears)
writes:

> I would like to be able to call line two or three and be connected
> to one so that I can dial out on one.  Ideally, be able to call out on
> both if I want a conference call.  Is it possible?  What equipment do
> I need?  I am not really worried about security right now.  Also will
> the phone company (NJ Bell) allow me to block outgoing calls on a
> particular line?

And the Moderator Notes:

> [Moderator's Note: You need a call extender which will pick up one
> line and connect to one or two other lines on request via touch tone
> instructions you enter. Call extenders are available many places. The
> telco will also equip a line for one-way service (incoming or outgoing
> calls only) on request.

Actually, I had once envisioned a computer controlled interface that
would connect to one or two phone lines, detect (and be able to
generate) various common tones, detect the line voltage at any given
time, and that would be able to tie the two phone lines together (with
or without inline amplification).  Sort of along the same lines,
except that the interface would be a slave under the control of a host
PC, so that you could easily program it for any application you might
have in mind.  I wrote up a text file on this proposed device several
years ago, and if anyone is really interested I suppose I could post
it here (so long as you realize up front that it's NOT a
professionally prepared proposal, therefore it may take a couple of
readings before you fully understand what I'm talking about).

But anyway, I'd be interested in sources for these call extenders, and
there's one other product I'd love to see.  This would be a single
line unit designed to plug into a home phone line.  After a
predetermined number of rings it would answer the line and present the
caller with a dial tone.  The caller would then enter one of two
possible security codes (four to ?? digits in length) followed by a
phone number.  Then, depending on which code was entered, the unit
would do one of two things:

1) Three way calling mode: It would "flash" the line, receive dialtone
for three way calling, if necessary dial the (user programmable) local
code to activate three-way calling (or "call transfer", where
available), wait for dialtone if necessary, dial the desired number,
and either (depending on how the unit is programmed) disconnect after
the extended call is answered (for those with "call transfer") or just
hold the line open for the duration of the call (probably until line
voltage momentarily drops to zero, or standard dialtone is heard,
although other triggers could be used to disconnect the unit... but
not just any continuous tone, please, or it might take modem/fax tones
as a disconnect signal!).

2) Call forwarding mode: It would hang up, wait five seconds, pick up
the line, send the local code to activate call forwarding, send the
number to call, wait for ring or busy signal, hang up and immediately
do it again (to make sure it "takes"), then wait for single ring or a
certain number of seconds to pass, then pick up line and send code to
DEactivate call forwarding.  To use this feature you'd call in, give
the unit your access code and the number you want to call, hang up
(and let it set up the call forwarding), then call back.  After you
have been connected, the unit would cancel the call forwarding so that
you could do the same thing with a different number later.

Obviously, the idea behind this is so that someone could put one of
these units at a location in an area that is both a local call to
their number, and to a number they want to call.  Or, for a traveling
salesman that has to make a lot of calls back to his home city, he
could hang one of these on a phone line, get an 800 number to
terminate on that line, then call in and make "local" calls (in his
home area) for the price of an 800 number call, rather than a credit
card call.

In the three way calling mode (which would probably be the way most
people would use it, unless audio quality is degraded between the two
end points of the conversation), it might be nice to have a way to end
one call and start another by pressing various touch tone keys (e.g.,
press the "#" key for two seconds to disconnect the current call and
begin another).

Also, it might be nice if the unit could be used to remotely program
call forwarding on a semi-permanent basis (the only problem with this
is, once you've programmed it the first time, you can't very well call
back in to re-program it later since your second call would be
forwarded!  I haven't figured out a way around that yet!).

A deluxe model could also allow act as a typical voice/answering
machine/fax/modem switch ... a caller could be instructed to enter a
digit to signify a voice, FAX, or modem call ... but if the caller
entered one of the special security codes, then the call forwarding/
call transfer functions would be activated.

BTW, I know you could POSSIBLY do something like this with some of the
add-on cards for the PC, but many people would not want to dedicate a
PC to this type of function, even if they knew how to set one up in
this way.  I think in this case the standalone unit is the way to go.

Now, if anyone happens to know of an EXISTING device that operates
anywhere near to the way I've described, please send some information.
Either a manufacturer's or distributor's name and address, plus phone
number if you have it, would be great.


Jack

P.S. Thanks very much to all who sent information on sources for
Merlin system parts, it was much appreciated!


Fido: Via D'Bridge 1:232/10  08/22 17:21


[Moderator's Note: One way to regain control of a device which is on a
phone line that has been call-forwarded elsewhere is to have a second
'ringmaster' (or as IBT calls them, a 'distinctive-ringing' number which
camps on the first line but does NOT forward along with the main line.
I have a distinctive-ringing number attached to my first line for just
this reason. In addition, my 800 numbers go to the distinctive number,
enabling me to identify these calls when they come in.   PAT]

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

Organization: Penn State University
Date: Saturday, 24 Aug 1991 15:49:55 EDT
From: Wish-Bringer (Steve Shimatzki) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Need Help Choosing AT&T Plan


Hi, I know that most people here have their favorite LD carrier, and
for good reasons, but I'd like some UNBiased oppinions/help if you
could.

When I bought my books for our fall semmester here at Penn
State-Fayette, I got something called a 'college survival pak'.  In
this little 'college survival pak' was an AT&T brochure for the AT&T
Student Saver Plus Plan ... some of its benefits are:

       @ Full Hour of EVENING and WEEKEND calls:  (all day Sat. Sun.
         until 5Pm and Sunday - Friday, 10Pm -> 8AM.)  With additional
         time being $6.60 an hour, prorated.

       @ 25% of AT&T's evening Rates (Sun - Friday, 5Pm -> 10Pm)

       @ 10% off Daytime Calling (Mon- Fri., 8Am -> 5pm)

And when you sign up You get an AT&T LD certificate good for 60 minutes of
free AT&T LD calling ... (a value of $8.25 according to back of
brochure so it may be more or less minutes, depending on WHERE you call.  :)

I get all this for just $8.70 a month.

So, here are my questions for the AT&T reps ... or MCI (ITT.. etc.) if
you want a chance to steal a (currently) loyal customer...

1) Is the full hour for EVERY MONTH?  (Ie... I pay $8.70 for the first
   hour, and then $6.60 for each additional hour?  Or is the hour
   free each month, and the $8.70 is like a Membership (??) fee?)
   Or is it a ONE TIME DEAL, and is it separate from the FREE hour
   for signing up????

2) I thought night rates ran all day Saturday and Sunday along with
   10PM through the night Mon. -> Friday ... when did this change?
   At least that is it says in my phone book, but the brochure says
   "Sunday UNTIL 5Pm...."


3) Basically, I just want a plan for me and my rooomate, we don't care
   about the call manager; we are not so lazy that we can't keep track
   of who and where we call ... we just want good rates/savings on
   regional calls  (for my roomate) and intrastate calls for me (same
   state, but different area codes.)

I know the internet isn't supposed to be used for business dealings,
that's why I only wish to have input for others, that may have the
services mentioned, or that know of such services that may be better
or not.  Also if anyone knows what to look out for ... ie, the local
Bell company charging to change the service we have and such.


Thanks,

Steven Shimatzki-| InterNet : [e-mail] | BBS : (412)-277-0548   |
Snail Mail: ---- Rd# 1 Box 20-A  Dunbar, Pa 15431


[Moderator's Note: The brochure you received sounds like AT&T's Reach
Out America plan. You get one hour of calling for the basic rate shown
each month with additional hours at the lesser amount. Apparently the
coupon was for a free hour of calling as an inducement to join.
Although it may suit your roomate's purposes, be sure the plan will
allow intrastate (same state) calling for the same price. It may not
work for your calls!  Usually AT&T (or any long distance carrier) will
pay the fee charged by your local telco to make the change in service.
And yes, Sunday evening from 5-10 PM is *not* in the plan ... this is
a very popular time to use the phone and the rates are higher then.
For specifics about Reach Out America and how it might apply in your
case, call 800-222-0300.  PAT]

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

Subject: 950 Data Access, was AT&T Data Network
Organization: I.E.C.C.
Date: 25 Aug 91 12:12:09 EDT (Sun)
From: "John R. Levine" <[e-mail]>


In article <[e-mail]> you write:

>> Almost as an aside, what an interesting concept for someone like
>> Compuserve.  That is, using a single national 950-XXXX number
>> instead of individual numbers for each city.

> Actually, I'd like to know what the costs are to have a 950 access
> number.  I would imagine that there is a monthly charge, but are calls
> to 950 numbers also charged by the minute?

Ho ho.  They sure are.  Remember the 1987 modem tax furor that keeps
popping up from time to time (as in "send little Craig a card telling
him that you don't want a modem tax")?

What the FCC was proposing was, basically, that packet nets like
Tymnet, Sprintnet, and Compuserve (CIS has a very large packet net
used by many services other than their own) be treated the same as
voice long distance carriers, with 10XXX, 950 numbers, etc.  The
reason that everyone had a panic attack is that there is a per minute
access cost of six to nine cents which seems quite reasonable for
voice calls but pretty awful for on-line services which now cost
between one and twenty cents/minute.  The access cost is split between
the originating and terminating ends so there would probably be no
terminating end charge, but even three or four cents/minute would be a
disaster to the lower-priced services such as Genie, Delphi, and
Prodigy.

Note that even if they didn't switch to 950, the existing numbers
would have been reclassified as Feature Group A access for which there
is still a per-minute charge for both incoming and outgoing calls.

In a rational world, it would clearly make sense to get modem calls
off the PSTN and onto a data net as close to the endpoints as possible
to avoid the silliness of dedicating a 64KBPS voice channel to a 1200
BPS modem call.  I note that this is already starting to happen a
little -- a message a few days ago reported that the latest whizbang
multiplexors used on international phone circuits recognize fax calls
and transmit just the fax bits, not the digitized analog version of
them.  But until there is pricing that reflects that it should be
cheaper to pass 2400 or even 9600bps than 64K bps, don't hold your
breath.  I suppose the RBOCs will shortly be telling us how much
better off we'd be if the nasty old judge let them do it themselves,
but given the way they've overpriced ISDN, no thanks.


Regards,

John Levine, [e-mail], {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #668
******************************










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Date:     Sun, 25 Aug 91 23:48:21 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #669
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sun, 25 Aug 91 23:48:14 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 669

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Pager.IXO.example File Addition to Archives [TELECOM Moderator]
    More Millenium Payphone Notes [David Leibold]
    Cable Companies and "Other Antennas" [Jerry Leichter]
    More Troubles With New York Telephone [Dave Niebuhr]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 25 Aug 91 23:07:32 CDT
From: TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject: Pager.IXO.example File Addition to Archives


Here is a little information about a new file in the Telecom Archives.
In the archives it is filed as 'pager.ixo.example' in order to keep it
near the other pager file there.

The notes below will give you a little idea what to expect from the
file itself which is considerably larger and includes the required
coding.

PAT
                            ----------

IXO PROTOCOL EXAMPLE

Author:    J. Brad Hicks
Language:  HyperTalk
Rev. Date: 20 Aug 91


The following two HyperTalk functions implement the IXO/TAP protocol
sufficiently to handle numeric paging.  To use these scripts in
HyperCard or SyperCard, place them in the stack/project script, then
call them using:

   DialPager param1,param2,param3

where param1 is the modem phone number of the local paging company,
param2 is the phone number for the pager you want to beep, and param3
is the message to appear on the pager.

For debugging purposes, everything sent back from the modem is stored
in global variable SaveBuffer.

REQUIREMENTS: You will also need four of the HyperCard XCMDs/XFCNs for
serial port control: configureSPort, recvUpTo, sendSPort, and
closeSPort.  These commands are all availabe via the "HyperCard Serial
ToolKit" from APDA.  For those of you who are translating this into
other languages, those all do what you'd expect except for recvUpTo,
which takes three parameters.  Param1 is the byte to stop at; if "",
then it runs until it times out.  Param2 is the maximum wait time, in
60ths of a second.  Param3 is optional, and if it's anything but empty
then it gets inserted before the serial port data.

IMPLEMENTATION LIMITS:  The IXO/TAP protocol supports sending multiple
messages and multiple phone numbers in a single transaction.  Since I
didn't need it for my purposes, I didn't implement them.  If you feel
brave (and have the cooperation of your local paging company), you can
send a theoretically infinite number of pager id/message packets in a
single phone call by ending every packet except the last one with <ETB>
instead of <ETX>.

CONTACTING THE AUTHOR: J. Brad Hicks can be most reliably contacted
via MCI Mail at JBHICKS or Internet to the same address,
[e-mail].  CompuServe users can also send mail to
76012,300.  AppleLink subscribers can send mail to B0186.  Via US
mail, send to 12364 Spanish Trace Dr., Apt.  G, Maryland Heights, MO
63043-2354, USA. Absolute last-ditch efforts only may be made to
1-314-275-3645, roughly 8:30 am to 5:30 pm Central Time (UCT+6).

DISCLAIMER:  This script is provided as-is and for free, and warranted
to be worth at least that much.  Although I developed it while at
MasterCard, neither MasterCard International nor its membership endorses
this product.  The author denies responsibility for any consequences,
positive or negative, arising out of anybody's use of this code, or any
work derived from this code.  Test thoroughly.  Protect yourself.


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

If you use paging devices a lot, I hope this new addition to the
Archives will be of help to you. My thanks to Mr. Hicks for sending it
along to telecom.


PAT

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

Date: Sun, 25 Aug 91 01:11:14 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: More Millenium Payphone Notes


I had a chance to examine (in better detail) the Millenium payphones
that are starting to appear in Bell Canada territory. These are
card-oriented phones that take a variety of cards: Calling card from a
Telecom Canada telco (Bell Canada, BC Tel, AGT, etc - we had baby
Bells up here long before the U.S. :-) ), Visa, MasterCard, American
Express, AT&T cards, and recently the Enroute card. Alas, attempts to
get an MCI card or a Southern Bell card met with failure, as the
phones sense these as invalid card types.

The Southern Bell cards can be used in card dialing, however, as 0 +
area code + number (boing) + SB card #; operators manually verified
the Southern Bell cards when dialed from payphones, but not when
called from more conventional lines. This is likely due to fraud
prevention considerations; it's easier to go after people on regular
phone lines if there was a problem with a card call. The Bell Canada
cards, on the other hand, tended not to require manual verification,
since the databases for the numbers were likely handy, even in other
provinces.

I did some more exploration on how tolerant the Millenium phones were
to various dialing methods. The tests were based on dialing a long
distance number within 416, then a local number. After the number was
dialed from the payphone, the rate would either be determined and then
displayed on the unit (and voice-synthesised through the receiver) or
it would be declared as an invalid number. (On a few occasions, the
rating of a call would fail, with a message asking the caller to hang
up and try again, without explaining much else; overall, this was not
common from my findings).

Long Distance, within 416:

  - dialed as 1 + number       : timeout, then call was rated
  - dialed as 1 + 416 + number : call was rated shortly thereafter
  - dialed as just number      : timeout, then message that call was invalid
  - dialed as 416 + number     : message that call was invalid

Local number:
  - dialed as 1 + number       : timeout, then call was rated local (25c)
  - dialed as 1 + 416 + number : call was rated as local call
  - dialed as just number      : timeout, then call was rated as local call
  - dialed as 416 + number     : call was rated as local call

The system is fairly tolerant of dialing methods; it is even fairly
flexible when it comes to payment methods. I put in 20c, then dialed a
local number, then the display came back to indicate the 20c credit
and that 5c more was needed to make up the full amount of the local
call (25c). Cards could also be put through at various stages; I
didn't try mixing cards and coins, though, but that might be a
possibility.  The only curious point about the dialing was that local
seven-digit calls had a timeout after the last digit, whereas dialing
them as 416 + number would cause them to dial immediately after the
last digit.

One interesting feature is the use of a lighted green fluorescent
display that can be read in various lighting conditions. This is a
two-line display where informational messages and call costings are
found, in either English or French (according to a toggle button on
the phone, allowing switching between languages).

And that's a more precise idea of how the Millenium payphone operates;
for reference, I posted some other basic impressions of the Millenium
in the Digest a few weeks ago.


[e-mail] (only for a few more days)
[e-mail], [e-mail] --- thereafter...


[Moderator's Note: Readers will please remember that David Leibold is
currently preparing a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) file for the
Telecom Archives, and to be distributed to new subscribers to the
list. He wants your input -- ASAP -- since he intends to finish this
in the next day or two. Send your FAQ text to him at the above
addresses. Please do it now. Thanks.    PAT]

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

Date: Sun, 25 Aug 91 08:37:16 EDT
From: Jerry Leichter <[e-mail]>
Subject: Cable Companies and "Other Antennas"


The apartment building where I used to live (in New Haven, CT)
provided a great example of how cable companies play the game.

When I moved in (let's see, it's almost twelve years ago now), you had
three choices for your TV: Rabbit ears or some other internal antenna
(which gave you a good signal on one local New Haven channel and was
just passable on something like two Hartford channels from about 30
miles away); a central antenna provided by the building, which gave
you excellent reception on the New Haven and Hartford channels as well
as on the New York City channels from about 75 miles away - but VHF
only); and cable.

The building antenna system consisted of a large antenna on the roof,
a distribution amp in the basement, and some nice coax run internally
to the building.  It was free.

The cable plant was HORRIBLE -- wires kind of strung randomly around
the outside of the building, rusted connectors.  At its best, the
cable signal was comparable to what you could get from the building
antenna; often, it was worse.  It was also known for going out
completely for hours at a time, and of course no one ever answered the
phone at the cable company's trouble line.

The only reason to subscribe to cable was to get some of the special
cable channels.  A few people did, but it was rare.

About six years after I moved in, the cable company decided to upgrade
their plant.  They worked their way through the neighborhood; at my
building, the ripped out all the old crap, put in all new wiring from
the street, up the driveway, in neat runs over the outside of the
building, with new, sealed junction boxes.  Nice, professional job.
(Too bad the junction boxes would start to rust within a year or two.)

One day about the time they finished the new installation, my TV,
connected to the building system, stopped working: The building system
was no long delivering any signal.  Fortunately, I had long ago
figured out where the distribution amp was, and that it was easily
accessible.  A quick check showed that the whole system was still in
place -- someone had just unplugged the amp.  Plugging it back in
restored the signal.

In talking to other people from the area, I determined that this was
not an isolated case.  Because of New Haven's location, building
systems had been fairly common at one time.  They usually "broke"
about the time cable was installed or upgraded.  Word had it that the
cable company paid off the building super.

In the case of my building, the service was interrupted once more,
months later, perhaps when someone from the cable company happened to
be in the building on a job.  I plugged the amp back in again, and
service returned.

I eventually subscribed to cable -- I wanted to watch Star Trek, The
Next Generation, which wasn't available at the time on any channel
accessible without cable.  So I don't know whether the system was
disconnected again later.  Of course, it will eventually break, and no
one will fix it.

BTW, just to give you an example of the meanness involved in all this:
At the time I moved in, almost all of my neighbors were retired
people, many in their 80's and 90's, living on fixed incomes.  Many
had been in the building for twenty years or more.  Hardly the group
that would know what to do when the amp was unplugged.  Also, hardly
in a position to pay for cable -- though many they did, because
especially in bad weather they were heavy TV watchers.

One interesting sidelight on the cable business should be of interest
to TELECOM Digest folks: There's a simple reason why cable rates rose
sharply, even while they were nominally regulated (and even more, of
course, when regulation was eliminated).  During the '80's, cable
systems were considered hot investment properties.  They had at least
two things going for them: A captive market, and an easy way to
determine "value".  Sales of systems were on the basis of number of
subscribers; there was a "magic number" of dollars per sub- scriber.
To investors, things like condition of plant were irrelevant; all they
cared about was subscriber count (and for less-developed systems,
market penetration, I suppose -- but the stuff on the block was
generally "mature").  In the ra-ra days of the early to mid '80's, the
"magic number" went up with every sale.  I no longer remember how much
it went up, but I think it was by a factor of twelve or so in a couple
of years.  Some proposed sales, especially just before the collapse of
the market at around the time the stock market crashed in '87, went
completely overboard.  But the game for investors, of course, was to
borrow money, buy, wait a bit for the "magic number" to go up (and it
always did), then sell and go on to the next racket.  Some cable com-
panies changed hands three or four times in a couple of years, at a
jacked-up price each time.

Now, to a cable subscriber, the ultimate owner of the local franchise
is of little importance -- except for one problem: The purchases were
always made with borrowed money, much of it at very high interest
rates for junk bonds.  The interest payments, of course, were
legitimate business expenses.  When it came time to calculate cable
rates that would guarantee the franchisee's fixed rate of return, the
interest expenses had to be covered first.  So, of course, the rates
kept going up.  Cable companies could, and did, argue the rightness of
their position with a straight face -- after all, THEY had nothing to
do with the (increased -- though they neglected to mention that)
interest expense -- that was just money due to banks and bondholders!
The cable company was doing its best to keep costs down (by not having
enough staff to answer phones -- except on the initial sales line, of
course) and by not maintaining its plant.

Fortunately, we weathered the '80's without the RBOC's "coming into
play" in the way the cable companies did.  (The end result of all the
financial shenanigans for the cable companies was the consolidation
that had always been anticipated.  These days, three or four large
companies own almost all the franchises -- but a huge amount of money
was sucked out of "the system" -- AKA the subscribers -- by
intermediaries along the way.)  Changes in the economy and general
atmosphere make a return to '80's-style finance unlikely any time
soon.  However, the whole form of the manipulation -- turning wild
speculation into "legitimate" business expenses -- is hardly unique to
the cable industry.  The RBOC's, with their "hands off" unregulated
subsidiaries, are in a position to play the same kinds of games, and
some of them have.  Expect to see more of that.


Jerry

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

Date: Sat, 24 Aug 1991 9:20:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Dave Niebuhr, BNL CCD, 516-282-3093" <[e-mail]>
Subject: More Troubles With New York Telephone


Mike Brown at jpradley.jpr.com writes about the hassles he had with
New York Telephone and the frustration in trying to get them to do
something.  My daughter recently went through one of their seemingly
continual runarounds.

When she had her number assigned, we had found out that it had
previously belonged to a real sleaze who had bill collectors and other
assorted ilk constantly pestering her.

Telco's answer: change your number (first time free).  Since it was
new and she had given it to several friends she didn't want that
hassle.  Well, the calls continued and the telco said "Our hands are
tied if you don't want to change the number and anyway we don't
reassign numbers for several months anyway".

To make a long story short, she had the d****d thing ripped out and is
now using ours much to her relief.

In general, New York Telephone is incompetent to do much of anything
except collect money each and every month.  And then, they tend to
goof up too many times.  I wish there were an alternative to them so I
could get away from their greedy pockets.

The Utility (oops Public) Service Commission can't seem to do much of
anything except rubber-stamp rate increases on a yearly basis.


Dave Niebuhr      Brookhaven National Laboratory
Internet: [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: It sounds to me like they were perfectly competent
in this case. What would you have had them do, intercept all arriving
calls and ask 'are you a bill collector calling?'.  They offered to
give her a new number -- free, which they don't have to do -- and
probably would have given her a free intercept as well for awhile so
her friends could catch up with her. NY Tel may be 'incompetent' in
some ways, but in this instance you and your daughter were being very
unreasonable. The previous subscriber might well have been off the
number for several months; it is that long before some past due
accounts go to collection. Just what would you have had NY Tel do? And
I can just imagine her saying "oh, what a relief it is to have to run
over to mom and dad's place whenever I want to make a call."  PAT]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #669
******************************










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Date:     Mon, 26 Aug 91 22:31:50 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #670
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Mon, 26 Aug 91 22:31:09 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 670

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Radio Days: The ARI System [Lars Poulsen]
    Re: GTE Switches [Brian Crowley]
    Re: 950 Data Access, was AT&T Data Network [John Higdon]
    Re: Is Possession of Telephone Test Set Illegal? [Julian Macassey]
    Re: Telephone Line Status Indicator Box [Toby Nixon]
    Re: Telephone Line Status Indicator [Dan Wheeler]
    Re: Weather Information Servers [Darin S. Lory]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Lars Poulsen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Radio Days: The ARI System
Organization: CMC (a Rockwell Company), Santa Barbara, California, USA
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 04:20:16 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
writes:

>    The FM/AM station that I was working at was a test site for
> what Blaupunkt called ARI, for Automotive Road Information.  The plan
> was for the system to carry traffic information that you wouldn't have
> to be tuned to all the time.  If you were in a region that was
> affected by a reported road condition, your radio would turn on and
> play the report.

The German radio traffic information system is indeed a joy to behold.
And it cannot possibly work here, for a variety of reasons.

The European world of broadcasting has been somewhat decentralized and
deregulated in the last decade; if that invalidates any of what I tell
below, I'll be happy to hear about it. After all, it's been almost 14
years since I cruised the autobahns regularly.

Germany -- like most European countries -- has three full-coverage FM
radio networks. The German system is state-by-state. One is mostly
news, talk, and family programs. One is usually classical music. And
one is mostly easy listening, country and western, rock oldies, and
occasionally "teenager music"; it also carries a two-minute news
update on the hour.  This latter channel -- which is usually by far
the most listened to -- is what carries the traffic information
system: A one-minute specific report from the highway patrol hourly
most of the day, every 15 minutes at commute times, or if there is
significant roadwork going on.

You don't need an ARI-equipped radio to benefit from the system. The
frequency of the ARI-channel is posted on a blue 12"x18" sign by the
side of the autobahn every 10 km or so. There is also a letter which
is useful if you have an ARI-equipped radio: If you dial the letter on
a special switch on the receiver, it will ONLY receive the ARI station
for this zone !! Since the traffic bulletin opens and closes with a
DTMF sequence (usually hidden in a bar of music) the receiver can also
be set to be silent except during the bulletin. Presumably, it can
also be set to silence only the bulletin.

Where this differs from US "drivetime traffic bulletins" is that it is
delivered with German precision from the horse's mouth. The following,
while entirely fictional, is typical of the compact style: On E-96
southbound before the E-67 interchange on the West side of Frankfurt,
traffic is slow due to roadwork. Traffic is backed up 6 kilometers,
expect a 17-minute wait. If desired, the choke point can be avoided by
taking the Kesselofen exit and following the U-26 detour route. On
E-67 westbound before the E-96 interchange traffic is slow but not
stopped due to the same roadwork. There is no effective detour.
Overall traffic is heavy due to vacationtime. There is a one hour wait
at the Garmisch-Partenkirchen border crossing."

Driving in Germany, one learns to pay attention to these bulletins.
The German autobahns get resurfaced every four years or so; always in
the summer. When it's time to start work, they will close one side of
the highway for a week, divide the three lanes plus shoulder on the
other side into 2 narrow lanes in each direction, and then switch and
do the other side. The resulting choke is spectacular. When the
regular cruise speed is 100 mph you want to know about this in
advance.

The other specialty above, is the "U-number". The freeway
administration has designated detours from each exit to the next. Get
off at any offramp. Notice the U-number on the blue square on the
offramp, and follow the blue squares and arrows along country roads
until they deposit you on the next on-ramp. Instant pre-signed detours
for any accident, closure, overload etc.

The system cannot be transplanted here, because no commercial
broadcasting station would allow the State Police to interrupt its
programming at will. What if they should break during a commercial?
Also, with the local nature of US broadcasting, it is difficult to set
up a reasonable full-coverage network. The US has a similar system
specifically designated for emergencies -- the EBS system -- but it
usually does not work when needed.

Finally, the European freeway systems are "extras". There is always a
"traditional" highway parallelling a freeway; thus available as a
fallback. In the US, there often is no alternate. Around here, even
bicycles have to use the freeway if they want to go up the coast.
(Something that leads to fatal accidents every year). So do tractors.
As a result, when the freeway is closed or overloaded, there is
nowhere else that can be recommended. Alternate routes only work until
they become widely known, then they clog up instantly.

The question is not why ARI dies in the US; the question is why
Bosch/Blaupunkt thought it could possibly work.

Thank you for reminding me of this wonderful system, though.


Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer    CMC Rockwell  [e-mail]

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

Date: Sun, 25 Aug 91 23:23:51 PDT
From: Brian Crowley <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: GTE Switches


In Telecom-Digest Volume 11, Issue 564, Joe Kelsey ([e-mail].
tele.com) presents an interesting discussion on the type of switching
equipment used by GTE in area code 206:

> In GTENW for area code 206, there are six #5ESS COs, in addition to
> the tandem #5ESS in Everett (Everett (Casino), Bothell and Redmond COs
> are #5ESS in the Puget Sound area).  Almost all of the rest of the
> switches (especially in the 206 area) are GTD-5's (sixteen total).
> There is one Vidar, four EAX2's (early SPC switch), three CXP5's (#5
> cross-bar) and four SXS (step-by-step!).  According to my list, GTENW
> (Washington, Oregon, Idaho) has 73% of the #5ESS in all of GTE!

My home is served by the Bothell CO (206-488).  When GTE replaced the
old switch with the #5ESS (about two years ago?  How time flies...), I
received a little flier in my bill explaining what was to happen, when
the cutover date was, etc.  Imagine my suprise when I saw that they
were going to provide me with the best in phone service with a #5ESS!
It seems to me that GTE must have put a *lot* of development money
into the GTD-5 switch, so why are they upgrading CO's with 5ESS
switches?

There has been a lot of talk in the Seattle papers lately about US
West wanting to implement CLASS services in Washington State.  Anyone
know if GTE has similar plans?  I would *love* to get CALLER-ID or
CALL-TRACE after my recent experience with my wifes ex-husband abusing
our telephone and our local law enforcement departments inability to
deal with the same (but that's another story).


Brian Crowley                  DNS: [e-mail]
Applied Microsystems Corp.     UUCP: uunet!amc-gw!brian
Redmond, WA                    ATT: 206-882-2000  Ext. 328

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

Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 01:47 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Re: 950 Data Access, was AT&T Data Network


"John R. Levine" <[e-mail]> writes:

> Ho ho.  They sure are.  Remember the 1987 modem tax furor that keeps
> popping up from time to time (as in "send little Craig a card telling
> him that you don't want a modem tax")?

> In a rational world, it would clearly make sense to get modem calls
> off the PSTN and onto a data net as close to the endpoints as possible
> to avoid the silliness of dedicating a 64KBPS voice channel to a 1200
> BPS modem call.

As I read this, I was musing over that very furor about a year ago.
Message after message talked about why a telco should be justified in
charging MORE for a modem connection than for a voice connection. But
as John has so clearly pointed out, the telco is using a 64 KBPS data
circuit to carry data at about 1/10 that rate. The reality is that
when you make a data call, you are transmitting much LESS information
than when you simply talk (and your voice must be faithfully
represented at the other end.)

But we all thought ISDN would be the answer. Subchannels that would
run at the actual data rate and all that. The problem is, telcos such
as Pac*Bell only want ISDN to serve its Centrex marketing needs. The
company has no interest in using the technology to actually serve
customers -- hence the silly pricing. When T1 and ISDN are priced
according to reality, the people will benefit, but the telcos will
have to suffer revenue reductions from people taking advantage of
lower cost alternatives. You don't suppose that this is why the
pricing is the way it is.

> I suppose the RBOCs will shortly be telling us how much
> better off we'd be if the nasty old judge let them do it themselves,
> but given the way they've overpriced ISDN, no thanks.

We may be back to this notion of perceived value. Since ISDN is "the
latest and greatest", it should cost more, right? Never mind that it
makes it possible for the telco to more effectively use its bandwidth
and save money hand over fist. I fear ISDN may be the new "Touch Tone"
of inappropriately priced "value added" services.


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

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

From: Julian Macassey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Is Possession of Telephone Test Set Illegal?
Date: 25 Aug 91 13:58:30 GMT
Reply-To: Julian Macassey <[e-mail]>
Organization: Xenon Systems News n Mail, Hollywood


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gordon D Woods) writes:
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 652, Message 8 of 14

> According to the August 14 {Morris County Daily Record} a former AT&T
> trainer's home was searched (unrelated to telephony). Four "telephone
> test sets" were found and he is being charged with possessing said
> test sets (butt sets?). Inspector Peterson of the Morris County
> prosecutor's office said that it is "illegal to possess telephone test
> sets unless you can prove your job requires it." Does anyone know if
> this is true or just some overzealous detective spouting off? There
> must be a lot of illegal test sets out there from the looks of the
> flea markets and ham fests.

    In my chats with telco security types, I know they often throw
in a charge re possesing stolen telco property. If an ex employee has
telco property in his possession, then the telco assume it is stolen.
So maybe AT&T security and the DA got their wires crossed with a "he
shouldn't have four AT&T butt sets if he is an ex employee" message.

    In the U.S.A., anyone can buy, own and use a butt set. When I
came to the U.S., I was amazed to see an IMTS phone installer have a
butt set in his toolbox. He laughed when I reacted as if he had an
anti tank gun in his possession. I checked (in Southern California)
and yes, anyone, even an illegal alien, could own as many butt sets as
he could afford. But obviously using a butt set to clip to the
neighbours phone line for "dicount long distance" service will put you
in prison.

    Also, you can make your own butt sett with an AT&T trimline
phone, a couple of aligator clips and some wire. That is what Susan
Thunder used to use. See the recent book "Cyberpunk" for a description
of what she used her home brewed butt set for.


Julian Macassey at xenon. [e-mail] Voice: [phone]
Paper Mail: 742 1/2 North Hayworth Avenue, Hollywood, California 90046-7142

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

From: Toby Nixon <hayes![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Telephone Line Status Indicator Box
Date: 26 Aug 91 11:00:29 GMT
Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
writes:

> I am sharing a telephone line with several other individuals that we
> use in an async dial-up situation with a separate modem on each PC.
> The problem is that we can not discern when the line is in use since
> we each have simply a modular plug in the office.  If we don't check
> beforehand and dial out through the modem, we disconnect the
> individual who is already logged on.

I can't help you with finding the "line in use" indicator light box,
but I thought I'd ask whether or not you've tried using the Dial Tone
Detection feature of your modem?  This is enabled with the X2 and X4
settings (X4 also enables busy signal detection).  When the modem goes
off-hook, it first listens for dial tone before it starts to dial, and
(assuming the feature is well-designed in your modem) if it hears a
modem carrier will simply go back on hook and issue a NO DIALTONE
result code.  I share a single phone line in my office between the
modems on my Mac and my PC, and having dial tone detection enabled
keeps me from inadvertently interrupting a call from one computer by
trying to start one on the other.


Toby Nixon, Principal Engineer      | Voice   [phone]  Telex 151243420
Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc.  | Fax     [phone]  CIS   70271,404
P.O. Box 105203                     | BBS     [phone]  AT&T    !tnixon
Atlanta, Georgia  30348             | UUCP uunet!hayes!tnixon  Fido   1:114/15
USA                                 | Internet       [e-mail]

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

From: Dan Wheeler <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Telephone Line Status Indicator
Date: 26 Aug 91 23:02:16 EST
Organization: Univ. of Cincinnati


[e-mail] wrote:

> I am sharing a telephone line with several other individuals that
> we use in an async dial-up situation with a separate modem on
> each PC. The problem is that we can not discern when the line is
> in use since we each have simply a modular plug in the office.
> If we don't check beforehand and dial out through the modem, we
> disconnect the individual who is already logged on.

> I understand that AT&T used to sell a modular plug box with a small
> light which glowed when the line was in use.  I can't find that part
> anywhere!  I would appreciate your help in locating a vendor for that
> part or any suggestions you have for our situation.

There were plans for building in-use lights posted to the TELECOM
Digest a few months ago.  I was about to build a couple when I found
what seems to be a better solution to exactly the same problem you
have.

I was afraid that we would forget to look at the light -- and mess up
the modem calls in spite of the indicator.  Radio Shack sells a device
called a Teleprotector Voice/Data Guard (43-107, $7.95).  You need one
for each extension.  The catalog description is so poor that I
couldn't tell what it did, but the salesman claims that with one on an
extension, if the line is in use, the phone or modem on the extension
will not be connected to the line.

The people I'm working with on this bought two of them, but I
have not seen them yet and I cannot vouch for how well they work.


Peace,

Daniel D. Wheeler       Internet: [e-mail]
Education & Psychology    Bitnet: wheeler@ucbeh
University of Cincinnati   Phone: [phone]-3941
Cincinnati, OH 45221-0002    FAX: [phone]

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

Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 09:42:27 EDT
From: "Darin S. Lory" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Weather Information Servers


> 141.212.100.9   telnet martini.eecs.umich.edu 3000  Location DBMS
> 141.212.196.79  telnet madlab.sprl.umich.edu 3000   Weather/Earthquake DBMS

Sorry if I didn't state this, that you are to telnet to the specific
port 3000 like so:

telnet madlab.sprl.umich.edu 3000

Help information and next-step information is available as soon as you
are connected.


Darin S. Lory        Kaman Sciences Corporation    Advanced Technology Division
<[e-mail]> Network Analyst    Utica, New York +1.315.734.3663

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #670
******************************










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From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #671
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Mon, 26 Aug 91 23:31:36 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 671

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Cable Companies and "Other Antennas" [Carol Springs]
    Re: Telephones in Elevators [Michael Katzmann]
    Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power [Dean Cookson]
    Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service [Peter Sleggs]
    Re: Does the ISDN DC Signalling Spec Violate Hayes' Patent? [oberman
    Re: Long Distance Across a Road [Kim Bailey]
    Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low On Phone Numbers [Carl Moore]
    Re: Phast Food [Floyd Vest]
    Re: Half Duplex Conversations via Speakerphone [Sandy Kyrish]
    Re: More Troubles With New York Telephone [Rich Zellich]
    Re: More Troubles With New York Telephone [John Higdon]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Carol Springs <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Cable Companies and "Other Antennas"
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 11:06:02 EDT


This is getting away from telecom, but I had to laugh when I read
Jerry Leichter's account (Volume 11, Issue 669) of sudden TV reception
interruption in his old apartment building after cable upgrades.  He
was able to correct the problem himself by plugging in the
distribution amp for the building antenna.

I live in an apartment outside Boston that has both cable access (the
choice of most residents) and an old master antenna on the building
roof.  The master antenna is mentioned prominently in the promotional
literature for the building.

When I moved in, I found that reception of VHF stations via the free
master antenna was excellent but that that of UHF stations was
nonexistent (so I thought).  I set up a UHF antenna atop my TV, which
could pick up some stations albeit with poor reception.  Later I
discovered that the signal for channel 38 was being frequency-shifted
to channel 9 on the receiving end, and channel 56 to channel 11.  "How
clever of them!" I thought.  "This must be the only way they could
make things work.  Now, if only they'd thought about channels 25, 44,
and 68 as well ..."  (Note that my original connections had been made
on the assumption that the UHF stations could come in "as is" through
the coax for the master antenna; it was only later that I had rerouted
for separate UHF input.)

Some months later, I was talking to an elderly neighbor who, although
not technically inclined, is in full possession of her faculties.  She
told me that the building's master antenna used to pick up all
stations, including the UHF stations, and route them properly to the
appropriate dial settings -- until cable had been installed some ten
years ago.  After that, "because the wires were a mess," she and her
husband weren't picking up most stations properly.  When she and other
neighbors complained, "they" sent someone out to fix things and, when
the initial attempt "didn't work," kept sending repair people for some
time.  The upshot was that 38 and 56 stayed "mixed up," and 25, 44,
and 68, which had earlier come in clearly, were no longer available
via the master antenna.  My neighbor and her husband especially missed
44, a PBS station.

When I later called my landlord, who, with his late father, had been
around when all this was going on, he professed mystification about
the whole thing and expressed surprise that I was getting any kind of
decent UHF reception from the master antenna at all, being "down in
the bowl" as I am.  He said he would discuss the situation with "an
electrician friend" of his.  I followed up with a letter containing my
neighbor's account (without naming names -- no sense getting her in
trouble!), in which I described clearly what stations we could get as
what and what we couldn't get at all, and added that reception on all
receivable stations, including channels 38/9 and 56/11, was excellent
despite our being "down in the bowl."  I added that I would appreciate
hearing from him on the matter at his earliest convenience.

Needless to say, I never heard from my landlord and am still using my
indoor antenna to get a fuzzy signal on channels 25 and 68, neither of
which, fortunately, I'm inclined to watch often in any case.  I
content myself with ripping down the cable ads that appear every now
and then on the bulletin boards in our supposedly secure laundry
rooms.


Carol Springs    [e-mail]

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

From: Michael Katzmann <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Telephones in Elevators
Organization: University of Maryland at College Park
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 15:47:34 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
writes:

> Here in the lovely Van Leer Electrical Engineering Building, where I
> have my palacial office, there is an elevator.

In the category of strange but true:

When I was an undergrad at the Univ. of N.S.W. (in Sydney) the phone
system was grossly overloaded, and the radio club, which was on the
roof of the Elec. Eng. building was low on the list to get a line! We
were, however, next to the lift well and could tap into the emergency
phone line. Well after making alot of calls to find one that was
engaged all the time, we worked out what our number was!

One day I got in to the lift on my way to a lecture. It was crowded
with students and a professor of mine and, yes you guessed it, the
phone rings.  The girl nearest the phone picks it up and, with a very
incredulous look enquires whether Michael Katzmann is here!  Of course
I answer, "Oh yes, That's the call I've been expecting."

Later on, in response to my professor's enquiry so you think you've
got a small office!


Michael Katzmann (VK2BEA/G4NYV/NV3Z)

Please email to this address | Broadcast Sports Technology | 2135 Espey Ct.
 ...uunet!opel!vk2bea!michael| #4 \|/ Crofton MD 21114-2442 [phone]

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

From: Cookson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1991 17:23:21 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Patton M. Turner) writes:

> Steven Gutfreund <[e-mail]> writes:

>> Can someone answer why, when both lines are on poles, (and sometimes
>> the same ones) that it always seems that the power lines get it
>> worse?

> There are several reasons I can think of:

> 1) Power lines are located above telephone and CATV lines.  This means
> they are the first to be hit by falling limbs.

Telco cables are also pretty bloody stong.  There is a large (three
foot diameter) oak tree lying across some telco cables on the route
from my house to office.  The weight of the tree on the cables has
caused the poles on either side to bend inward, and the tree has
pulled the cable to within six or eight feet of the ground.  The tree
has been there since hurricane Bob rolled through (last Monday), and
the lines seem to be holding it up quite nicely.


Dean Cookson  (Opinions?  What opinions??)    [e-mail]
The MITRE Corp. Unix Systems Group
M/S B020 Burlington Rd. Bedford Ma. 01730
508-851-9341 (H) 617-271-3642 (W)

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

Subject: Re: Cheap Foreagn Exchange Service
From: Peter Sleggs <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1991 10:38:04 -0400
Organization: Bellatrix Systems Mississauga, ONT Canada


>>> Toronto to Oakville is a local call.  Oakville to Burlington is a
>>> local call and Burlington to Hamilton is a local call.  Can I put a
>>> phone in each of Oakville and Burlington both with call forwarding and
>>> then forward the calls from the Oakville number to Burlington and then
>>> from the Burlington number to my ultimate number in Hamilton.

> [Moderator's Note: The largest companies in the USA wish to have their
> customers be able to call them conveniently from anywhere and
> everywhere. So they use in-wats (800) service; they use foreign
> exchange service; they use tie-lines. Please note they do NOT chain
> several call-forwards together. What do they know that our BBS sysop
> is missing? They know that the cost of two or more local calls plus
> the associated recurring line charges, etc are not an efficient and
> less expensive approach. If our BBS correspondent wishes to receive
> calls from a wide area and pay for those calls as a part of the cost
> of promoting his BBS, I assume he wants to do it as inexpensively as
> possible also. Therefore the way to go is with 800 or FX; both are
> perfectly legal in business (not quasi-legal at best) as is the chain
> forwarding scheme.   PAT]


I think one piece of info is missing here.

A call from Toronto to Oakville that is not long distance costs
nothing!  There is currently [at least there better not be as they
haven't told me on my bill] no charge for local calls [yet!]

I know of one BBS who is doing exactly this as I understand the setup.


[e-mail] or torag!beltrix!peters


[Moderator's Note: But are those local calls 'free' when business
service is involved, or only when residential service is used?  And
where will space be found to put the phones in those towns along the
way? Hang them on the wall of an answering service, per chance? Will
the space they occupy be given gratis?  Don't forget to include rental
of space for the instruments (or are there friends who will allow the
instruments in their home for free?) in the costs involved.  PAT]

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Does the ISDN DC Signalling Spec Violate Hayes' Patent?
Date: 26 Aug 91 18:03:17 GMT


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Russ Nelson) writes:

> You know, I think that we're going to have to see a few *big*
> companies like AT&T, Northern Telecom, or Siemens screwed before we
> see any change in the software patent botch ... hopefully it will
> happen before we completely lose our lead on software innovation.

First, having read the patent in question, I'm not sure it's not
legal. The only real question would seem to be prior art. But I'm not
a lawyer.

But as to the question of AT&T or NT paying royalties, I suspect that
they already license this patent. While I don't think Hayes has
disclosed just who has licensed it, it is my understanding that a
great many companies have done so. It would not surprise me if AT&T is
one of them.


R. Kevin Oberman        Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Internet: [e-mail]    [phone]

Disclaimer: Don't take this too seriously. I just like to improve my typing
and probably don't really know anything useful about anything.

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

Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 14:46:06 EDT
From: Kim Bailey <blsouth![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Long Distance Across a Road


> Wow! Eight whole miles.  The Houston free calling area is at least
> fifty (50) miles in each direction.  It includes 3.5 million people.
> Basic local service is about $12 for unlimited calling throughout that
> area from SW Bell.  Virtually all offices are electronic.  Facilities

> [Moderator's Note: But where you pay $12 for unlimited local service,
> we only pay about $4.50 for line access, and about 3.9 cents for each
> untimed call in our local zone.  For the $6-7 difference, we can get a
> lot of untimed local calls.

The Atlanta free calling area is also extensive.  It parallels
that which was described for Houston.  Our rates:

      Line Access/Unlimited Local Service ....... $16
      Measured Service/Line Access .............. $ 8
         First 25 calls/month are free
         $.12/call after that -- no limit on duration

Kim Bailey

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

Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 10:04:13 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low On Phone Numbers


The {Baltimore Sun} version of this article had the following
additional stuff (besides putting in a local note, i.e. the new 410
area code in Maryland):

     The 917 code initially will be used for assigning new numbers for
cellular phones, pagers and New York Telephone's internal operations,
but officials say they may eventually distribute numbers in the new
area code to computer users and regular telephone customers.

     This model, in which one geographic region will have a pool of
two or more area codes, will ultimately require callers to dial 11
digits for both local and long-distance calls.  For example, a
Manhattan resident with a 212 area code might have a next-door
neighbor in the 917 area, and eventually, a third neighbor might end
up in yet another new area code.

     The Bellcore officials prefer a standard, nationwide 11-digit
dialing sequence to avoid different dialing procedures in different
parts of the country.

     "People are going to get used to 10-digit numbers," said Ron
Conners, the Bellcore district administrator in charge of the North
American numbering plan.  "Psychological studies have shown people
don't care what they have to dial, as long as it's consistent.

    "I think we can pretty much say that the United States has the
best numbering plan in the world," Mr. Conners said.

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

From: Floyd Vest <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Phast Food
Date: 26 Aug 91 09:29:10 CDT


[e-mail] (Chris Farrar) wrote:

>> true Domino's is trying to cut the delivery time down to fifteen
>> minutes in midtown Manhattan during the evening rush hour?

> That should be about half a block, unless they are delivering by bicycle :-)

Auburn, AL, a city of 10,000 non-students swells to 100,000 on a
football weekend in the fall.  Domino's delivers by bicycles ...
without the 950 number.


Floyd Vest <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Manager, Administrative Systems--Auburn University, Alabama USA
Voice: [phone]  BBS: [phone]  FIDO: 1:3613/3

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

Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 14:36 GMT
From: Sandy Kyrish <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Half Duplex Conversations via Speakerphone


There are several good speakerphones but they all cost in the hundreds
or thousands of dollars.  The Shure ST-3000 is an excellent model
(looks like a spaceship).  The NEC VoicePoint is also remarkable.  You
get what you pay for ...

Also, responding to the question of why two people each on
speakerphones sound better than one on speakerphone and one on
handset ... partially the effect is psychological.  When you're on the
handset, you can hear the half-duplex effect clearly and annoyingly,
but when you're also on a speakerphone, you're less likely to hear (or
notice) the other end cutting in and out.

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

Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 14:34:46 CDT
From: Rich Zellich <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: More Troubles With New York Telephone


In TELECOM Digest V11 #669, PAT writes:

> [Moderator's Note: It sounds to me like they were perfectly competent
> in this case. What would you have had them do, intercept all arriving
> calls and ask 'are you a bill collector calling?'.  They offered to

Damn straight!  Southwestern Bell would do it here in St. Louis (and
did, for a friend of mine; I was startled one evening to receive such
an operator intercept inquiring as to what party I was calling).

Rich

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

Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 02:02 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: More Troubles With New York Telephone


On Aug 25 at 23:48, TELECOM Moderator writes:

> The previous subscriber might well have been off the
> number for several months; it is that long before some past due
> accounts go to collection. Just what would you have had NY Tel do?

Not to mention the fact that some numbers can almost NEVER be
reassigned. Any business that receives a high volume of calls will
destroy that number for anyone else's use for many years. In fact, one
of the numbers that appears in my home has probably been permanently
tainted. I had an associate that also had a voice BBS for a couple of
years and then he moved. The number was referred, but it was some time
before he got the system running at his new residence. In fact, the
referral was discontinued months before the system was running on the
new number. When the system was turned on, it was packed within two
hours with kids who had obviously been trying the new number
regularly.

Heaven help anyone who gets reassigned his old number!


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #671
******************************










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[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #672
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 27 Aug 91 00:41:00 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 672

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low on Phone Numbers [M. Covington]
    Re: Recent AT&T Changes & MCI [Mikel Manitius]
    Re: ISDN Call Tracker Needed -- HELP! [David E. Martin]
    Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service [Pierre Lavallee]
    Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call [Tad Cook]
    Re: Are There Rules Against Rapid Repeat Dialing? [Toby Nixon]
    Re: Looking For a Phone Line Simulator [Toby Nixon]
    Re: FAX Machine Message [Brian Gordon]
    Re: Telesphere Sued By Creditors; Forced Into Bankruptcy [Chris Dinkel]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Michael A. Covington" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low On Phone Numbers
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 04:44:59 GMT


The obvious thing to do is split North America into more than one
"country" for dialing purposes.

Currently most of North America is country number 1.

I propose:  10 for USA east;  11 for USA west;  12 for Canada and the
               appropriate parts of Mexico, Bahamas, and what-not.

Then each of the three regions could have a full set of area codes,
and you would have to dial *one* extra digit *only* when calling
another region.

Why not?


Michael A. Covington, Ph.D.  |  [e-mail]   |  N4TMI
Assistant to the Director, Artificial Intelligence Programs
The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, U.S.A.


[Moderator's Note: It would come out a little lop-sided. You'd recover
a huge number of area codes for the US-west, and an even greater
number for Canada and Mexico. They'd never use them all up, yet the
US-east would recover fewer codes by comparison, and use them all up
very quickly (ten years, perhaps?). It might work if 'US-west' started
well east of the Mississippi River. Mental exercise for readers: Where
would is the 'mathematical center' of area codes in the USA? That is,
in what state are there an equal number of area codes to the east and
west of it?  North and south? What if Canada is included?   PAT]

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

Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 14:09:10 EDT
From: Mikel Manitius <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Recent AT&T Changes & MCI
Reply-To: [e-mail]


> "AT&T is issuing new AT&T Calling Cards with a 14 digit number that is
> no longer based on the customer's home phone number. Customers will be
> notified by AT&T regarding the new AT&T Calling Card before the tariff
> becomes effective January 1, 1992."

> Interesting move. I guess their planners weren't in very good touch with
> their Marketing Department.

When I lived in Fairfax, VA for a short time in an appartment I
subscribed to the MCI Calling Card. They first tried to give me a
regular calling card number with a four-digit PIN, but then said that
they could not because an account with that number was still active.
So they had to issue a card to me with a derivative of my home phone
number (I don't pretend to follow they logic here).

The interesting part of the story is that the new number in itself could
end up being a potential MCI customer's home phone number, thus starting
(or continuing) a chain reaction.

Now living in Florida I have an MCI and an AT&T calling card, each
differ only in their four digit PIN. My only grumble is that when
calling your home number, MCI doesn't let you just key in the PIN like
AT&T does.

The other main difference is that MCI has an access number (like
others), and you can't just dial 10222 + 0 + NUMBER and then use your
MCI card, like with AT&T. However I find having the access number an
advantage, with it you are not subject to many hotel surcharges, or
getting some carrier other than that of your choice, which can happen
when dialing just 0 + NUMBER on many payphones and using an AT&T
calling card.

One more interesting point regarding MCI's "Friends and Family"
program.  I'm not an "MCI Dial 1" customer, but do often use MCI. I
found out it is possible to participate in the program if you are an
MCI customer with a calling card. MCI will code your phone number to
your calling card account number. Any 10XXX calls made thereafter from
that number are eligable for the F+F discount, PLUS anyone calling
that number will be eligable for the F+F discount if that number is in
their F+F list. The side effect is that any 10XXX calls made will now
be billed directly from MCI, not the telco.


Mikel Manitius   [e-mail]

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

From: "David E. Martin" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: ISDN Call Tracker Needed -- HELP!
Date: 26 Aug 91 21:07:09 GMT
Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Batavia, IL


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
writes:

> Subsequently I have seen a CallerID device in a phone accessories
> catalog. It would seem to be exactly what we need, but that it only
> records the last 70 or so calls (and may not record duration) and it
> has no interface to the outside world other than through its LCD
> display.  What we need is a similar device that would also record the
> call duration and that would provide for output to a computer via
> RS-232, so that the data could be put into a database without (much)
> human intervention (no data entry).

Since you have ISDN lines, no commercial caller ID equipment will
work.  Caller ID sends a modem tone down the line that the caller ID
equipment picks off.  Your ISDN phone communicate digitally during
call setup using a standard called Q.931.  I don't know of any phones
that make the setup information available, but some of the ISDN
terminal adapters (the equivalent of a modem with ISDN) do make a
subset of the setup information available.  Try Hayes ISDN
Technologies, [phone]; AT&T Network Systems [phone]; or
Fujitsu Network Switching, [phone].


David E. Martin
National HEPnet Management                     phone: [phone]
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory          fax: [phone]
P.O. Box 500; MS 234; Batavia, IL 60510  USA   e-mail: [e-mail]

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

From: Pierre Lavallee <mitel!Software![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service
Date: 26 Aug 91 20:06:39 GMT
Organization: Mitel. Kanata (Ontario). Canada.


In <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Tony Harminc)
wrote:

> [e-mail] (Marcel Mongeon) wrote:

>> Toronto to Oakville is a local call.  Oakville to Burlington is a
>> local call and Burlington to Hamilton is a local call.  Can I put a
>> phone in each of Oakville and Burlington both with call forwarding and
>> then forward the calls from the Oakville number to Burlington and then
>> from the Burlington number to my ultimate number in Hamilton.

> [Moderator's Note: But bear in mind that the individual links in a
> chain-call-forward scheme have to in total cost less than the toll
> charge would otherwise. Else where is the savings?  This working out
> in a way financially beneficial to the subscriber is very rare.  PAT]

Local calls are free in Bell Canada's area. Make a ten second call, a
ten minute call or even a ten hour call, its the same price: FREE!
Make one call a day, ten calls a day, a hundred ... you get the point,
its free!

A user is charged a monthly rate for his phone lines (about $10) and
then a monthly rate for the Call Forwarding feature ($4). The rates
listed are for residential services.


Pierre Lavallee

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

Subject: Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call
From: Tad Cook <hpubvwa![e-mail]>
Date: 26 Aug 91 19:01:57 GMT


Terry [e-mail] writes:

> I got my bill today, and there was a charge from AT&T (no, that's
> not a typo) for $50.00.  Looking at the itemized page, I see that
> there was a 1-900 number dialed (specifically, 1-900-884-2900) even
> though NO ONE in this household dials 900 numbers at all (no, no
> small children, brain-dead teenagers or anything of that sort).

> The thing that was really strange about this is that the "Called
> Place" section gave the abbreviation of "FINNCLINFO" and the call
> lasted for only *one minute or less*.  The charge for this one call
> was $50.00.  I am quite baffled.

No, I don't think there is a way for anyone to charge this to your
account without actually dialing it from your line.  At least no
conventional way.

A friend of mine who would love to have a credit card, but has no
credit rating, got a call recently from a solicitor that offered her a
credit card if she would dial a 900 number that he gave her.  In
exchange they would send a list of banks that she could apply to for a
credit card, and if she didn't end up getting one, they would refund
the $50 charge for the 900 call.  They offered this as a "guaranteed"
VISA card service.

This sounded to me like one of the notorious "credit clinic" scams
that offer to "fix" your credit rating for a fee.  I wonder if the
call on Terry's line to "FINNCLINFO" could have been to some entity
such as "FINANCIAL CLINIC INFO" ??


Tad Cook  Seattle, WA  Packet: KT7H @ N7DUO.WA.USA.NA  Phone: [phone]
MCI Mail: 3288544      Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW
USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad   or, [e-mail]
or, [e-mail]  or, [e-mail]

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

From: Toby Nixon <hayes![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Are There Rules Against Rapid Repeat Dialing?
Date: 26 Aug 91 10:40:14 GMT
Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA


In article <[e-mail]>, mailrus!gatech!unmvax!bbx!
yenta![e-mail] (David B. Thomas) writes:

> I just wrote and posted a program that dials a number over and over
> again.  I was doing this manually to try to win radio contests, and so
> I thought, "why no automate it?".  Someone warned me that I could get
> into trouble.

> Is this true?  What does this law actually say?

The FCC does not regulate software -- OR human-initiated dialing.  It
only regulates what the Part 68-approved hardware can do.  Your modem
is not what is dialing repeatedly on its own, so it is not breaking
the rule (and it would be on the head of the manufacturer if it did,
not you).  Even the most recent proposed revision of the redialing
rule specifically exempts "equipment under external computer control",
because the FCC knows it would be futile to try to get into the
business of regulating software.  So, don't worry.

By the way, if you're really serious about winning the contests, you
probably have a better chance doing it manually and using your redial
button -- your ear can detect a busy signal much faster and more
reliably than a modem or telephone.


Toby Nixon, Principal Engineer      | Voice   [phone]  Telex 151243420
Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc.  | Fax     [phone]  CIS   70271,404
P.O. Box 105203                     | BBS     [phone]  AT&T    !tnixon
Atlanta, Georgia  30348             | UUCP uunet!hayes!tnixon  Fido   1:114/15
USA                                 | Internet       [e-mail]

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

From: Toby Nixon <hayes![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Looking For a Phone Line Simulator
Date: 26 Aug 91 09:55:32 GMT
Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Dan
Everhart) writes:

> I would like to find out about equipment one would use for simulating
> various qualities of phone line connections.

The three major vendors of telephone line simulation equipment are:

    Consultronics Ltd., (AEA Division)
    6270 Perth Street
    P.O. Box 938
    Richmond, Ontario K0A 2Z0, Canada
    [phone]

    Processing Telecom Technologies
    4955 Corporate Drive
    Huntsville, AL 35805
    [phone]

    Telecom Analysis Systems, Inc.
    34 Industrial Way East
    Eatontown, NJ 07724
    [phone]

Sorry, I can't offer any more information about their equipment,
except to say that we use primarily TAS equipment in our labs.

> Are there any circuit designs around for such devices?  Building one
> ourselves is an alternative.

No, it's not an alternative.  They are very complicated devices.  Each
of the major simulator manufacturers have dozens of man-years of
engineering tied up in their equipment.  Modern simulators are based
on DSPs, which take considerable expertise to program.  A phone line
simulator is not just a spool of wire and some components.

> I know only the basics about telephone line characteristics, so I'd
> also appreciate references to articles which have relevant or detailed
> information.

Obtaining a copy of EIA standard 496-A would be a good start, although
there are several other books and documents that would be of interest.
The three major vendors all produce equipment that can perform the
tests outlined in 496-A.  Also, all three are active participants in
the standards committee (TIA TR-30.3) that is working on the next
generation specification of test lines (EIA-496-B) that will include
impairments specifically designed to test echo cancelling modems.


Toby Nixon, Principal Engineer      | Voice   [phone]  Telex 151243420
Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc.  | Fax     [phone]  CIS   70271,404
P.O. Box 105203                     | BBS     [phone]  AT&T    !tnixon
Atlanta, Georgia  30348             | UUCP uunet!hayes!tnixon  Fido   1:114/15
USA                                 | Internet       [e-mail]

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

From: Brian Gordon <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: FAX Machine Message
Date: 26 Aug 91 23:40:23 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

> I recently misdialed a number and received a fax machine.  What was
> interesting is that the owner of the fax machine had an announcement
> that said something like "You have dialed a fax machine.  If you are
> sending a fax, press your start button now.  Otherwise, check your
> number and call again".  I called it back again, but from my fax
> machine that sends the tones while it calls, and it didn't play the
> message.  Apparently the device listens for the tones and plays the
> message if it doesn't get the tone.

I've had the opposite class of problems -- my computer, acting as a
FAX sender, calling a FAX number and never getting through.  I
eventually called from a voice line and got that same message.  Since
my system was never convinced that a FAX had answered, it never sent
tones.  A mixed blessing, at best, that device would seem to be.


Brian G. Gordon      [e-mail]   [e-mail]

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

Date: 26 Aug 91 22:39:49 EDT
From: "CHRIS D." <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Telesphere Sued by Creditors; Forced Into Bankruptcy


I need to help Patrick Townson get his facts straight about
Telesphere.  I am one of the 11 not 10 companies involved in the IPG
(information providers group) attempting to settle with Telesphere.

> On Monday August 19, Telesphere Communications, Inc.  was sued by a
> group of ten creditors who claim the company best known for its 900
> service isn't paying its bills."

Where did this information come from?

> ...claim they are owed two million dollars

Actually it is alot higher than that; we are willing to settle for two
million.  We have not placed an order of chapter 7 against Telesphere.
Telesphere is still based in Oak Brook IL. They moved a portion of
their operations back to MD.  They have always been a MD corporation.

Due to the situation I can not say very much, but it makes me sick to
read things that haven't even been investigated properly.


Chris Dinkel


[Moderator's Note: If you are going to get sick, I suggest you do
it in the offices of the Associated Press (they sent out the story);
the Clerk of the Bankruptcy Court (those records were examined by the
AP), or the attornies who filed the paperwork and are litigating with
Telesphere.  The same article appeared in both the {Chicago Sun Times}
and the {Chicago Tribune} the same day; on Friday following the events
of the Monday prior. So don't get sick here, okay?

By the way, how does it feel to be the one *getting* ripped off for a
change? Your whole industry is badly in need of reform; what with
horoscope readings, Tarot sessions, Madame Nina Nostradamus, sex and
more sex; Lucky Winning Numbers For Your State Lottery and more. How
much were *you* raking in per call?  My personal reaction is a plague
on both your houses.    PAT]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #672
******************************










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Date:     Tue, 27 Aug 91 1:35:44 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #673
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 27 Aug 91 01:35:04 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 673

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Pacific Bell "Message Center" Breakdown, August 22, 1991 [D. Schacter]
    Re: NET's Call Answering Service [Henry Mensch]
    Wyoming, Land of the Friendly COCOT? [David Singer]
    Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls [Justin Leavens]
    Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service [Marcel Mongeon]
    Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service [Ken Abrams]
    Re: Telephones in Elevators [Clay Jackson]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: llustig![e-mail]
Subject: Pacific Bell "Message Center" Breakdown, August 22, 1991
Date: Sun Aug 25 23:24:19 1991


(My comments follow the article.)

{San Francisco Chronicle}, Saturday, August 24, 1991, page A10

Headline: Pac Bell Message Center Breaks Down
Subhead: Electronic answering service out of whack for 21 hours

By Dan Levy, Chronicle Staff Writer

In its worst high-tech collapse yet, Pacific Bell's Message Center
answering service broke down for 21 hours around the Bay Area before
being repaired yesterday, leaving thousands of irate customers without
access to their phone messages.

Pac Bell officials said yesterday that two components in the system's
main switching facility failed simultaneously just before noon
Thursday, throwing the entire Message Center system into disarray.

It was the longest-ever shutdown for the ten-month-old system, put
into service by Pacific Bell in November as a precursor to a wide
range of modern telecommunications services, including access to
stock quotations and other financial data.  A Message Center failure
left the system down for four hours in December.

The shutdown caused customer mailboxes to stop taking messages at
11:40 a.m.  Thursday in San Francisco and the East Bay.  People trying
to leave messages could not get through to the system, and customers
trying to retrieve messages encountered an unending ring.

The failure affected thousands of Bay Area customers who have signed
up for the pioneering system since November, touted as a reliable,
contemporary alternative to the phone answering machine.  Subscribers
pick up messages by punching a personal code into a telephone.

Although company officials stressed that no messages were lost,
customers were fuming.  Hundreds of subscribers bombarded Pac Bell
switchboards with complaints.

"It's been down lots of times, but I can't believe it this time," said
Larry Littlejohn of San Francisco, a subscriber since December who
relies on the service for his business.

"They're playing on the edge of high-tech and they don't know what
they are doing.  They're finding all these bugs in the system at the
expense of the customers."

The system failure occurred at the point where phone voice
transmissions are converted to a digital signal and sent to the
company's main computer in Pleasant Hill, where messages are stored
and retrieved, according to network control manager Tim Keese.

Two "hardware cards" failed to make the conversions, so that the main
computer was unable to recognize the signals, Keese said.  Previous
glitches occurred in the system's programs, which can be corrected
relatively quickly, he said.  It was also rare that two hardware cards
should break down at the same time, he added.

Service was restored in San Francisco at 8:10 a.m. yesterday and 10:10
p.m.  Thursday in the East Bay after technicians discovered the faulty
equipment in the downtown San Francisco switching center, said Sandy
Hale of Pac Bell's information services group.

Pac Bell experienced a rash of breakdowns earlier in the year but
attributed them to the newness of the system.  The system would
occasionally hang up on callers or shut down unexpectedly.

"It was definitely unexpected," Hale said.  "The system has been quite
stable for many months now.  We're getting pretty good at diagnosing
these kinds of things."

<end of article>

My comments:

1. Pacific Bell has been touting its residential voice mail as a more
reliable replacement for the answering machine.  They stopped the
promotion for a time after word got out that their system was losing
about ten percent (!) of all messages.

2. Pacific Bell's current promotion points out that answering machines
are an old technology, but voicemail is new.  Apparently, the company
expects us to believe that new == more reliable.

3. There are times when centralizing a function makes it more
reliable.  This doesn't appear to be one.  When the voicemail system
went down, customers could not even rush to a store to buy their own
answering machine as a workaround, it would appear.  And what
voicemail customer would know about the failure?  Unlike an answering
machine, which has a light to blink rapidly when the machine detects a
fault, residential voicemail does nothing, and since the service is
pitched as being "more reliable," why would you suspect it?


David Schachter

internet:    [e-mail]
uucp:        ...!{decwrl,mips,sgi}!llustig!david

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

From: Henry Mensch <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 11:25:03 -0700
Subject: Re: NET's Call Answering Service
Reply-To: [e-mail]


John Higdon <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Well, look at it this way. On Thurday, the Pac*Bell "Message Center"
> died in the Bay Area for about a day. According to Pac*Bell, the
> problem was caused by failure in TWO pieces of hardware. Now was
> someone inconvenienced because an answering machine failed? No,
> THOUSANDS of people were inconvenienced because an answering machine
> failed.

> Reliability? My answering machine has not skipped a beat in many
> years.  Ask any user of the "Message Center" if the service has been
> that dependable.

It hasn't.  I've had it since May, and last week was the last straw.
(I had hoped I was buying into a service *more reliable* than my
answering machine, which fails about twice a year.)  As a result of
last week's outage, I missed connecting with some friends who were
visiting from Berlin ...

I've personally identified at least five outages of several hours
duration during the time I've had the Message Center service (they
only tell you about service outages half the time ... I found out
because I dialed in to pick up messages and they never picked up).

Most laughable remark of the day: The Pac*Bell people keep bleating
"No messages were lost."  Well, none were taken, either, and in my
book those messages were "lost."

(In case you couldn't tell, I'm about to unplug the Message Center.)


Henry Mensch / Advanced Decision Systems / <[e-mail]>

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

Subject: Wyoming, Land of the Friendly COCOT?
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 91 22:19:31 -0800
From: [e-mail]


While driving through Wyoming earlier this month, I noticed that all
the RBOC payphones I encountered wanted 35 cents for a local call, but
the COCOTs were happy with a quarter.  I didn't need to make any local
calls from payphones, but if I had, I'd've gone COCOT-hunting.

On a related note, one of the COCOTs used an outfit named "TelTrust"
as its long distance carrier; it claimed that, if you were to charge
your call on Visa or MasterCard, you'd save 25% over AT&T
operator-assisted charges.  If you used a telco credit card, you'd pay
more.  Again, I didn't try it (I refuse to make credit-card LD calls
on anybody but the "big three"), but it was an interesting marketing
ploy.


David Singer -- Internet: [e-mail]   BITNET: SINGER at ALMADEN
                Voice: [phone]              Fax: [phone]
(If I needed a disclaimer, I'd put one here.)

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

From: Justin Leavens <[e-mail]>
Subject: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls
Date: 26 Aug 91 22:19:15 GMT
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA


I used a 900 number to order a product, given certain promises from
the salespeople who I had talked to over the phone. When I received
the product, it was exactly *not* what they had told me, and so I
returned the product and expected a refund.

AT&T (who billed the call) took the charge off my bill for 30 days,
during which time I wrangled with the company to get the charge
reversed, but after 30 days of wrangling, the company was still not
responding and wouldn't reverse the $50 charge.

Now, four months later, AT&T wants money for the call; I've returned the
product to the 900 company, and the 900 company has sent me a letter
stating that due to billing disputes with AT&T and their collecting
company, they've gone out of business, AT&T has stopped billing for
their service, and the 900 company has no money for refunds.

Can AT&T still force me to pay this bill? According to what I've been
able to gather, AT&T retroactively stopped billing customers for their
service the same month I was billed for the call, and the company is
now gone. AT&T claims that it is simply the "bill collector" for the
call, but it seems to me that if they do the billing, then they
probably profit off the calls, and should shoulder *some*
responsibility when it comes to rip-off companies doing fraudulent
business. Or are they protected under their common carrier status?


Justin T. Leavens
University of Southern California     :Mail to: [e-mail]
Student Health and Counseling Services:         [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: AT&T's claim at this point is against the 900
company. The fact that the 900 company is now out of business is their
problem, not yours. They're taking the easy way out, with you as an
easy to reach target, but you complied with all the rules. Tell them
to stay off your case.   PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (Marcel Mongeon)
Subject: Re: Cheap Foreagn Exchange Service
Organization: The Joymarmon Group
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 01:07:42 GMT


[e-mail] writes:

(Lot's of stuff from my original post deleted by chaining call-forward
phones.)

> Pat, a couple others have missed the point here too....  I believe
> the original poster was running some sort of dial-up BBS service.
> It may well be that "working out in a way financially beneficial to
> the subscriber" was not the primary issue ... or it could be that
> doing so involves other elements besides phone charges.

Stuff deleted concerning my "BBS"

> [Moderator's Note: The largest companies in the USA wish to have their
> customers be able to call them conveniently from anywhere and
> everywhere. So they use in-wats (800) service; they use foreign
> exchange service; they use tie-lines. Please note they do NOT chain
> several call-forwards together. What do they know that our BBS sysop
> is missing? They know that the cost of two or more local calls plus
> the associated recurring line charges, etc are not an efficient and
> less expensive approach. If our BBS correspondent wishes to receive
> calls from a wide area and pay for those calls as a part of the cost
> of promoting his BBS, I assume he wants to do it as inexpensively as
> possible also. Therefore the way to go is with 800 or FX; both are
> perfectly legal in business (not quasi-legal at best) as is the chain
> forwarding scheme.   PAT]

First: No its not a BBS.  Actually it's a hotel!!  (C'mon Pat remember
me? The guy with the somewhat enlightened hotel phone charging policy
 :-) :-) ) Why?  Because a lot of our guests (that's what we call our
customers in our trade) are from Toronto and letting their offices
etc. phone them toll free would be just another service in our
enlightened telecommunications policy.

Second: Pat, You have no idea what Mother Bell in Canada charges for
lines!  We have an FX from Hamilton to Oakville (abt 30 km. CO to CO)
right now.  Cost is $450.00 per month!!!  Into the Toronto CO proper
would be about $750.00 per month for 70km (abt 40 miles).  Incoming
800 service effectively costs 50 cents per minute from Toronto so even
a minimal 15 hours of use per month would be up in these sort of
dollars as well.  On the other hand (and I notice a lot of people from
Chicago make this mistake :-) ) we have flat local service.  Each of
the two lines I would need to chain would cost about $50 per line
tops.  No matter how you slice it $200 is cheaper than $400 or more!

Final: The real issue is using Call forward on a Northern Telecom
switch can two or more calls be going on the forwarded line at a time?
If so, then the system of using chained call forwards works even
better in that I don't have to but extra trunks except at the
destination.  If anyone has call forwarding in Canada, I would
appreciate their trying it.


Marcel D. Mongeon   e-mail:  (uunet, maccs)!joymrmn!root  or joymrmn!marcelm

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

From: Ken Abrams <samsung!athenanet.com![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service
Organization: Athenanet, Inc.,  Springfield, Illinois
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1991 18:28:27 GMT


> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tony
> Harminc) writes:

> I'm not sure what a DMS-100 does, though I'd find that strange.  A
> Northern Telecom SL-1 PBX definitely can forward multiple calls, and I
> can't think any good reason not to allow it with a DMS-100.  Is there
> a reason?

There is a very good reason for imposing a limit, although it need not
(necessarily) be only one.  Line A forwards to line B in another C.O.
Line B, in turn, forwards back to Line A.  If there is no limit on the
number of calls that will forward at either end, a loop is formed that
will VERY quickly tie up all the circuits between office A and B.
Fixed forwarding can be set to a number of calls greater than one.
Variable (dial) call forwarding is set to a limit of one because most
users don't need more than one at a time and (probably more
importantly) it is easier and cheaper to have a fixed limit of one.


Ken Abrams        nstar!pallas!kabra437
Springfield, IL   [e-mail]
                  (voice) 217-753-7965

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

From: Clay Jackson <uswnvg![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Telephones in Elevators
Date: 26 Aug 91 17:38:58 GMT
Organization: US West NewVector, Bellevue, Wash.


Well - here's my 'phone in elevator' story: About four years ago, my
wife, two year old daughter and 70 year old mother visited the (newly
opened) University Bookstore in Bellevue.  They have a parking lot
under the store that is a floor down from the main store.  Since my
mom sometimes has a hard time with stairs, and my wife had our
daughter in her arms, we decided to take the elevator rather than walk
up the stairs from the parking lot.  We got in, the doors closed and
up we went.  When we got to the top level, the doors didn't open.  We
went back down and the doors STILL didn't open.  After about three
trips, we decided that they weren't going to open.  So, I hit the
'STOP' button on the top floor (where there were at least people
outside the elevator) and opened the door to pick up the phone.  It
was a POT, with a plastic plate over the buttons and an autodialer
(this happened at about 1400 on a summer Sunday afternoon).

After the autodial and about 40 rings, someone answered 'ADT Security
 -- what's the trouble?'.  I explained the situation to him, at which
point he said 'OK -- get off the line, joker!' and hung up.  So, I
repeated the autodial and got the same guy.  We went through this
drill another two times before I could finally convince him (by
suggesting to him that if he ignored me again and maybe, just maybe we
were REALLY stuck in this elevator, he might not have his job) that we
really WERE stuck in the elevator in Bellevue.

It turns out that HE (the ADT guy) was in ADT's SEATTLE (about 10
miles as the crow flies, about 13 miles across a rather large lake by
car) dispatch center.  All he was able to do was call the store, where
no one there knew what to do, except page the manager, who was out
sailing, and call the number listed on the elevator for 'Service'.
The elevator service number was a recording, with a 'Leave your number
at the tone and our after hours rep will be paged'.  The head cashier
(or whoever we were shouting at thru the still closed doors) kept us
informed of all these developments as it was getting warmer and warmer
in the elevator.

After about 25 minutes, I decided I'd had enough, and told the person
on the other end to call '911', and tell them that there was a 70 year
old woman and a two year old trapped in an elevator.  That worked!  In
ten minutes, Bellevue FD was there and had us out.  Although we left
our names and phone numbers with the bozos at the U Bookstore, we
never did hear word one from them.  We DID get a nice postcard from
the Bellevue FD, asking us to comment on our 'interaction' with them.


Clay Jackson - N7QNM
US WEST NewVector Group, Inc  [e-mail] | ...uunet!uswnvg!cjackso

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #673
******************************










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From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #674
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 27 Aug 91 00:29:38 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 674

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Telecom's Tenth Anniversary [ED HOPPER]
    Happy 10th. Where's the Cake? [Jim Thomas / Gordon Meyer, CuD]
    More on US West and 976 IPs [Peter Marshall]
    States Covered by Baby Bells [Dave Niebuhr]
    Compatibility of Australia / New Zealand Phones [Richard Batt]
    Video TeleConferencing List Needed [Allen Robel]
    Payphones Thanking Me [Brett G. Person]
    Addresses of Local Phone Companies [Joel Jones]
    Pennsylvania LATA Map Wanted [Sean Williams]
    HAW-4 Repeater Failure [Steve W. York]
    AT&T Calling Cards [IronEagle]
    What is Illegal About Butt Sets? [Michael L. Gantz]
    It's no Accident [Carl Moore]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Telecom's Tenth Anniversary
From: ED HOPPER <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon 26 Aug 91 14:01:22 CST
Organization: Ed Hopper's BBS - Houston, TX - 713-997-7575


Pat, I guess this counts as the world's slowest followup (:-)), but
since I was there, I want to correct a few inaccuracies:

> Date: Wed 5 Jan 83 17:02:33-PST
> From: Jim Celoni S.J. <CSL.JLH.Celoni@SU-SCORE>
> Subject: 1st-day encounter w/ Baby Bell

> We've been deciding on a new PBX, and Pacific Telephone was one of the
> contenders.  I decided to call our account executive Monday, but
> didn't have her number at the new local American Bell, Inc. office (a
> different building from Pac Tel), so called her old number.  A
> secretary from another group answered and told me what she thought the
> new number was.  I called it and got a recording ("not in service ...
> no referral"), so called our Pac Tel Market Administrator (who worked
> with her on the proposal).  He said he couldn't give me her number,
> that he'd signed an agreement that if he talked business to an ABI rep
> without a customer designating ABI as its agent, he was fired. (He
> also said that last year he had ten accounts, now 300.)

All of the above was part of the brick wall that the FCC put up
between ABI and the rest of the company.  Giving phone numbers out was
a no-no.  In fact on January 3, 1983, I walked into an office with an
empty desk.  No files, no manuals, no nothing.

> So I called local directory assistance, but all they had was one
> American Bell *PhoneCenter* (there are many in the area!).

It was then policy, and remains so, in some areas to this day, for
marketing offices to have "non-pub" service.  Yes, that is incredibly
stupid.  My theory as to why: Sales oriented people still do not have
control of most parts of AT&T.  The "hard-liners" from outfits like
Methods and Procedures still have a lot of influence on the mindset
internally particularly in organizations like DP&CT (Data Processing
and Corporate Telecommunications).  They believe the 800 number is all
that is necessary.  Since they don't understand how sales is structured,
they don't see the irrelevance of their assumptions. (Perhaps we need
a coup???)

I recall an event in early January, 1983 in my ABI office.  Two of our
"star" sales people were approached by their manager (we were all in a
bullpen office together) around 5 PM.  I didn't hear much of the
conversation, but the two "stars" gathered up their personal effects
and promptly left the building.  It turns out that they had been
suspended without pay for three days for attempting to get Bell data
improperly.

> Many questions remain about Baby Bell, big and little.  (Our former
> Pac Tel repairman works for ABI now.  What will he be doing until the
> installed base moves?)

That wasn't true then.  The service people worked for the Bell
companies for another year, doing installation and maintenance for ABI
under contract.

Finally, there were a couple of mentions about this being "divestiture".
Not so, this was the formation of American Bell, Inc., the fully
separated subsidiary chartered to sell new equipment.  This was an
outgrowth of the FCC Computer II case, not Judge Greens decision.
That (the MFJ) was not really implemented until 1/1/84.


Ed Hopper    formerly American Bell, Inc. Class of 83

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

Date: Sun, 25 Aug 91 13:24 CDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Happy 10th. Where's the Cake?


Happy 10th Pat. And, as one of the offspring that you and TELECOM
Digest have spun off, keep it up for another ten.  Like Joannie
Mitchell says, "you never know what you have 'til it's gone," so hang
in there at least until the Cubs win a world series.


Jim Thomas / Gordon Meyer
Co-Editors, CuD

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

Date: Sun, 25 Aug 91 08:25:10 -0700
From: Peter Marshall <[e-mail]>
Subject: More on US West & 976 IPs


 From Tim Healy, "US West to Curtail Pay-Per-Call Information
Services," {Seattle Times}, 8/24/91, B7:

US West Communications says it plans to eliminate pay-per-call
services such as Taxline, Tel-A-Date and other 976 information
services by the end of the year because they aren't as profitable as
the company would like.  The companies affected say the decision will
put them out of business and deprive customers of valuable information
and services.

The dispute is likely to be played out before state utilities
regulators throughout US West's 14-state region ... US West said it
will file with regulators next month to eliminate the service.

Earlier this month, US West sent letters to 131 companies that provide
the information services, including 35 in Washington, informing them
of the decision.

Valeriu Comsa, who operates a 976 line providing Washington Lottery
results, said a group of information providers plans to meet early
next month to map a strategy to fight US West's decision.

US West is the first of seven regional phone companies to say it wants
to eliminate 976 offerings.

Comsa and others said they think US West wants to get into the
business of providing information services itself. But Maureen
Brothers,advertising manager for US West in Denver, said the move is
strictly a "business decision...."  "(976) isn't as profitable as we
need it to be. It isn't losing money yet, but if we continued offering
it, it could well become a money loser," Brothers said.

Frank Blethen, publisher of {The Seattle Times} and chairman of a
newspaper industry committee on telecommunications issues, said US
West should have to prove to regulators that its 976 service is not
profitable.  US West is the gateway through which telephone
information services must go, said Blethen. "With that kind of
control, US West has a high burden of proof to show why these services
are being discontinued," he said.

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

Date: Sat, 24 Aug 1991 17:23:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail]
Subject: States Covered by Baby Bells


I know that this information had been around before and I had it at
one time but can't find it.

I know that NYNex covers New York and the New England states, but what
states are in the other Baby Bells?  I can figure some of them out by
their general area but could easily have left some out.

Could the net help me with this (I promise not to lose the list this
time).

(Ignore the address in the header, my regular mailer on bnlcl6.bnl.gov
is broken).

Thanks in advance.


Dave Niebuhr Brookhaven National Laboratory
Internet: [e-mail]

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

From: R Batt <[e-mail]>
Subject: Compatibility of Australia / New Zealand Phones
Date: 24 Aug 91 16:44:22 GMT
Organization: University of Adelaide, South Australia


Hi. Does anyone know what government agency in New Zealand should be
approached to find out what phones and modems are approved for use?
Could an Australian phone be used with two adapters Oz -> modular ->
Kiwi ?  Are Netcomm modems (Oz 240 volt) sold in New Zealand?

Thanks for any help.


cheers,  Richard

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

From: [e-mail] (Allen Robel)
Subject: Video/TeleConferencing List Needed
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 19:12:42 GMT


Hi,

Anyone know if there's a list dealing with Video and Teleconferencing?
If not, is anyone interested in starting such a beastie?

I've been more or less charged with coming up with a list of
organizations that are currently running/maintaining privately owned
conferencing facilities. The powers that be would like to talk with
some of these organizations before we plunge headlong into this mire
and I haven't the foggiest notion of where to start.  Thus, the
question about the list.

I'd be more than happy to share the information I've been able to
acquire about these technologies with anyone that's interested.

Thanks!


Allen Robel                         [e-mail]
University Computing Services       [e-mail]
Network Research & Planning         voice: [phone]
Indiana University                  FAX:   [phone]
schedule: finger [e-mail]

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

From: Brett G Person <plains![e-mail]>
Subject: Payphones Thanking Me
Date: 26 Aug 91 06:38:46 GMT
Organization: North Dakota State University, Fargo


I called home tonight (a local call) and was surprised when I got a
"thank you" after depositiong the last of my $0.25.  Seems to me that
the last time I used a payphone, I didn't hear any message like that.
Maybe the phone company was just happy to see that I did indeed have
enough money to make the call.


Brett G. Person    North Dakota State University
uunet!plains!person | [e-mail] | [e-mail]

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

From: Joel Jones <[e-mail]>
Subject: Addresses of Local Phone Companies
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1991 16:50:25 GMT


Well, the Telecom Archives has a wonderful list of local phone
companies, but it is lacking in any other kind of detail.  I am
interested in addresses, coverage areas, exchange numbers, etc.  Does
anyone know where such information can be found?  I've asked at the
libraries around here, but when purchasing phone books, they are
mainly concerned with the Baby Bells and those larger cities that
aren't covered by RBOCs.  I want a complete list.


Joel Jones     [e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 23:07 GMT
From: Sean Williams <[e-mail]>
Subject: Pennsylvania LATA Map Wanted


Does anyone know where I can get/access a LATA map of Pennsylvania.  I
need one to use in a presentation.  It can be a GIF or RLE graphics
file, or anything else I could access with a Mac.  If I can't find
one, I'll have to cut one out of the phone book and paste it in ...
(what an archaic method!)

Thanks!

Sean "Back to school in 6 days" Williams   Rochester Institute of Technology

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: HAW-4 Repeater Failure
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 23:04:21 PDT


Robert Gutierrez <[e-mail]> asked if anyone had
information on HAW-4 that had gone down and left him routing his
circuits all over God's creation.  I was also inconvienienced by this,
but not to the degree he was.

I had called LA from Maui to make sure that an 800 number worked from
808.  I intended to do a brief live broadcast on KFI the nest day.  On
Sat 8/17 the connection was perfect.  Of course, that was the day of
the test call, not the broadcast.  The next day, we flew over to the
Big Island. I looked at the clock and figured that I might have to do
the broadcast on my hand held phone, as it took a while for my wife to
haggle for a decent rent-a-car.  Though the signal level in the
airport was not great, it would be usable (one or two blocks of five
possible).

As we drove out of the Kona airport and headed north, the hand held
went to NO SERVICE.  It remained this way for the rest of the stay
unless we went south into Kailua.  Anyway, we arrived at the hotel and
I ran for a payphone and called into the station.  After a variety of
slow and rapid busy signals, I got through about 30 seconds prior to
air time.  The connection was awful.  I could barely hear the host
broadcasting from the studio.  It felt like the delay was almost a
second, though I know that it must have been less.  On my end there
was echo as well.  That made for a very short call.

Two days later I was looking at a copy of the {Honolulu Advertiser}
and found a story buried on page 15.  The failure occured at about 1
AM on Sunday, 8/18.  The undersea cable in question is three years old
and runs between Makaha and Point Arena in Northern CA.  It is part of
a connection that actually runs from California to Hawaii to Guam and
on to Japan.  The article also pointed out that the cable is fiber and
has the capacity to carry 30,000 simultaneous conversations.

There is another cable that can be used, but it is lower capacity,
being METAL.  It runs between Makaha and San Louis Osbispo, CA.

AT&T was sending their Honolulu based cable ship, the Charles L.
Brown, to find and fix the problem.  She was scheduled to depart
Monday 8/19.  Sailing time was projected to be 3 1/2 days.  The
problen apparantly was "nearer California than Hawaii."

Apparently the cable is 40% owned by AT&T and the rest by more than 20
other carriers.  Anybody care to guess what AT&T will charge the other
carriers for their share of the repair cost?

In the meantime, trafic is being routed to the skies and callers are
learning to tolerate the poorer transmission quality.


Steve York

Internet  [e-mail]      Compu$erve  72617,503

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

From: IronEagle <[e-mail]>
Subject: Can AT&T Calling Cards be Used in Australia?
Organization: RMIT Computer Centre, Melbourne Australia.
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1991 00:14:09 GMT

I am posting this for a friend from the USA who has an AT&T calling
card and who would like to use it in Australia ... is this
possible?  I know that it is possible to use the Australian
version of this device (the Telecom Telecard) overseas, etc.

If anyone can help, email me, and I will pass the infomation on.


Thanks in Advance,

    Damien

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

Subject: What is Illegal About Butt Sets?
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 0:01:13 EDT
From: "Michael L. Gantz" <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]


O.K. I have to ask,

Why are butt sets illegal in some areas, and who made them illegal?
I've been reading about these things in this group and don't
understand what the big deal is.  When we say butt sets we ARE talking
about the little phone thingys with the touchtone pad on the back and
alligator clips, right?  Who decided that you can't have them, and
why?  My specialized catalog has about twelve different models, some
cheap some expensive.  And if I couldn't purchase one, couldn't I just
put alligator clips on any ol' phone and have the same thing.

Just trying to figure out what the big deal is ...


Michael L. Gantz        ! [e-mail]
213 Napoleon Rd.        ! osu-cis!bgsuvax!gantz!gantzm
Bowling Green, Oh 43402 ! [phone]


[Moderator's Note: Buttsets are NOT 'illegal' anywhere. Possession of
stolen property (including stolen telco buttsets) is illegal, of
course, but the units themselves are legal.  PAT]

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

Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 16:56:16 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: It's no Accident


I have passed through Accident, Md. on U.S. 219.  This was formerly
served by 826, apparently absorbed into 746.  (Area 301 and remaining
there when 410 is formed.)

Pay phones I found in the former Accident exchange were 746-8442 and
746-8455.  One business displayed the numbers 826-8333 and 387-4081
(387 being the Oakland exchange serving the McHenry area), and when I
called local directory assistance, I was told it had numbers on 387
and 746, and I then asked for the 746 number: 746-8333 (notice the
same last four digits as the 826 number).  Another business had
telephone [phone] displayed; notice everything being xxx-8xxx.

Dialing 826 got an immediate intercept "cannot be completed as
dialed".

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #674
******************************










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Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #675
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Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Wed, 28 Aug 91 02:52:43 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 675

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service [Ken Dykes]
    Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service [David Lesher]
    Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service [Tony Harminc]
    Re: Radio Days: The ARI System [Ralf Bayer]
    Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Speakerphone [William Degnan]
    Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power [Juliet Sutherland]
    Instruction Card For 412-329 [Carl Moore]
    Calls From Ridgely, W. Va. [Carl Moore]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 06:18:20 EDT
From: Ken Dykes <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service
Organization: Thinkage Ltd.


In article <[e-mail]> is written:

> In <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Tony Harminc)
> wrote:

>> [e-mail] (Marcel Mongeon) wrote:

>>> Toronto to Oakville is a local call.  Oakville to Burlington is a
>>> local call and Burlington to Hamilton is a local call.  Can I put a
>> RCF is tariffed by Bell Canada as a business service only.  At our
>> outrageous 800 rates however, it might conceivably come out worth

> [Moderator's Note: The largest companies in the USA wish to have their
> customers be able to call them conveniently from anywhere and
> everywhere. So they use in-wats (800) service; they use foreign
> exchange service; they use tie-lines. Please note they do NOT chain
> several call-forwards together. What do they know that our BBS sysop
> is missing? They know that the cost of two or more local calls plus
> the associated recurring line charges, etc are not an efficient and

What they do NOT know is that in this part of *CANADA* we do not have
*measured* local service -- local calls are essentially free.  Just
monthly line costs to worry about.

Also, our 800 and long distances services really are grossly
overpriced.

Of course each "hop" would cause signal loss, I would suspect 2 or 3
hops would be about the practical maximum.


 Ken Dykes, Thinkage Ltd., Kitchener, Ontario, Canada    [43.47N 80.52W]
   [e-mail]  [e-mail]  thinkage!kgdykes
   [e-mail]  [129.97.128.1]   [e-mail]

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

From: David Lesher <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 18:06:34 EDT
Reply-To: David Lesher <[e-mail]>
Organization: NRK Clinic for habitual NetNews abusers


Peters and others were talking about chaining call forwarding.  PAT
stated that if this was such a good idea, why wouldn't Big Business do
it?

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the amount of money Big
(and little) Business wastes in this country. Over the years, at a
number of employers, I have seen all kind of good ideas be discarded.

Why? Well, the reasons vary:

1) It (the idea) threatens some sacred cow. Maybe it's a better
idea than the boss's.

2) The boss can't understand it, but does not want to admit his lack
of comprehension.

3) It *WILL* save money -- that's the problem. Power in a bureaucracy
is measured in dollars controlled. If the money is spent by the
Telecommunications Dept. but it is billed back to Marketing, so much
the better. Why should Telco Dept. worry about the cost?

4) Your reason goes here....

Please also remember that PAT is stuck in a metered_call mindset.
There are many, many places in the USA where business and residence
calls are flat rate. I've made it a point to NEVER live in a "every
call as expensive as a COCOT" environment. Instead of comparing local
calling areas, let's compare the # of flat rate phones callable.

I have several friends with call forwarding permanently installed. In
one case, it's been there so long, the service address is not there
anymore! But so long as Ma gets a check ...

The whole process became much easier since Ma introduced remotely
programmed Call Forwarding. I just proposed that another site here in
town get this to cut $300.00 worth of cross-county UUCP to $33.00
worth of local service. Guess what, said site's Telecommunications
Office won't agree. Guess they'd lose their cut.


[e-mail]    (305) 255-RTFM

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

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 19:42:21 EDT
From: Tony Harminc <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service


Floyd Davidson <[e-mail]> wrote:

> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tony
> Harminc) writes:

>> [e-mail] (Marcel Mongeon) wrote:

>>> As a related question can a Northern Telecom DMS forward more than one
>>> call at a time? For example, if the Hamilton number that I am pointing
>>> the Burlington calls to in the above is actually a set of hunted
>>> trunks, can more than one person at a time from Toronto call me using
>>> only one line in Oakville?

>> In a word: no.  Or is that yes?  That is, the CO *does* know that it
>> is currently forwarding a call, and the original number is marked
>> busy.

> I'm not sure what a DMS-100 does, though I'd find that strange.  A
> Northern Telecom SL-1 PBX definitely can forward multiple calls, and I
> can't think any good reason not to allow it with a DMS-100.  Is there
> a reason?

The DMS100 may well be capable of forwarding multiple calls at a time,
but there are good reasons why they don't set it up that way in public
telephone service.

When a call is forwarded (and assuming that there are three COs
involved i.e. the originating, the middle (forwarding one) and the
destination, then during the forwarded call you are actually tying up
inbound and outbound hardware.  If they let you do this for the price
of one line with call forwarding, you could forward an entire PBX
worth of calls for next to nothing.

The easiest example of how this could go wrong is if you set up a call
forwarding loop between two COs, i.e. A forwards to B which forwards
to A.  This would quickly tie up all the trunks between the COs (and
even alternate routes, tandems etc. if available).  To prevent this
the forwarding CO must mark the line as being in use.

In theory, with SS7 the COs could all "know" what was going on (in
fact they wouldn't have to use any hardware, trunks etc. at all in
some cases, (e.g. if a number in CO A calls one in CO B which is
forwarded to a third in CO A, then a little exchange of data is all
that's required to complete the call entirely within CO A's
facilities.)  Whether they actually do this I don't know.


Tony H.

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

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 10:24:17 BST
From: Ralf Bayer <motcid!glas![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Radio Days: The ARI System


In article <telecom11.670.1> Lars Poulsen writes:

> [...] The German radio traffic information system is indeed a joy to
> behold.  And it cannot possibly work here, for a variety of reasons.

> The European world of broadcasting has been somewhat decentralized and
> deregulated in the last decade; if that invalidates any of what I tell
> below, I'll be happy to hear about it. After all, it's been almost 14
> years since I cruised the autobahns regularly.

They started to admit 'private' radio stations -- but they use the ARI
system happily, just like the public stations do.

> [...] A one-minute specific report from the highway patrol hourly
> most of the day, every 15 minutes at commute times, or if there is
> significant roadwork going on.

They have the traffic report with a summary of all the conditions as
you described (varying in length from 10 seconds "Nothing to report"
to several minutes), and they will interrupt their programming for
updates. The 'one-minute' reports would have been the norm 14 years
ago, but these times are gone.

The traffic report will interrupt EVERY programming (even the news)
when there is a report of a so called "Geisterfahrer", someone driving
in the wrong direction on the autobahn. All other traffic reports will
interrupt music, but usually neither the news nor the advertising, nor
the (usually short) news/reports items brought on these channels.

The interruption of the programming is completely in the hands of the
radio stations themselves. The police sends the traffic reports to the
stations by telex, and the stations take it from there.

> You don't need an ARI-equipped radio to benefit from the system. The
> frequency of the ARI-channel is posted on a blue 12"x18" sign by the
> side of the autobahn every 10 km or so. There is also a letter which
> is useful if you have an ARI-equipped radio: If you dial the letter on
> a special switch on the receiver, it will ONLY receive the ARI station
> for this zone !! Since the traffic bulletin opens and closes with a
> DTMF sequence (usually hidden in a bar of music) the receiver can also
> be set to be silent except during the bulletin. Presumably, it can
> also be set to silence only the bulletin.

There are not many receivers anymore with the letter-regions buttons,
this appearently never got off the ground. Many stations will also
send traffic reports from neighbouring zones, and some stations are
more popular than others, like in southern Hessen almost nobody tunes
into the official local station (Hessischer Rundfunk), everbody
listens to the station from neighbouring Rheinland-Pfalz and
Baden-Wuertemberg (SWF 3), just because they have much better
programming. Also, the region-letters can't distinguish between
different stations carrying ARI for the same region, e.g. public vs.
private stations.

Modern receivers sometimes have a facility to recognize the station by
name and also the name of the particular transmitter, by using a data
protocol that is carried over the air. These receivers can try and
tune to a different frequency for the same station whenever reception
on the current frequency gets bad.

I haven't seen any receivers that could blank out the bulletin.
Sometimes this would be useful (like Fridays between 4 and 6 pm, when
the traffic summary easily runs five to ten minutes, or on that
fateful first day with snow each winter, when traffic just grinds to a
halt).

If you have a cassette radio and have tuned the radio to an ARI
station, the traffic bulletin will interrupt the cassette -- useful if
you don't like their regular programming.

> [...] Driving in Germany, one learns to pay attention to these bulletins.
> The German autobahns get resurfaced every four years or so; always in
> the summer.

Though this is not TELECOM related -- they save a lot of money doing
this, as the road doesn't have to be rebuilt completely, just the
topmost part of the surface gets replaced. And they have to do this in
summer as the weather conditions in Germany won't allow anything else.

> The system cannot be transplanted here, because no commercial
> broadcasting station would allow the State Police to interrupt its
> programming at will. What if they should break during a commercial?

As mentioned above, the radio stations control the bulletins
themselves, the only case when traffic reports interrupt everything
that might go on is the "Geisterfahrer", all other reports will be
done in time.

> Finally, the European freeway systems are "extras". There is always a
> "traditional" highway parallelling a freeway; thus available as a
> fallback.

Many times it's just not worth the while to use an alternate, it's
just as well to sit in the traffic jam and wait through it. Sometimes
the alternate routes are as clogged as the autobahn, and the
'traditional' highway often goes through villages (which are narrower,
and much more frequent even in rural areas than they are in the
States).


Ralf Bayer, Software Engineer -------------------- email: [e-mail]
Motorola European Cellular Infrastructure Division
European Software Centre, Cork, Eire          ---- Only speaking for myself.


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

From: William Degnan <[e-mail]>
Date: 26 Aug 91  19:01:25
Subject: Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Speakerphone


On <Aug 25 14:50> Tiny Bubbles... ([e-mail] ) writes to All:

> Which brings up a question: Is there any such thing as a
> "high-quality
> speakerphone"?  I, personally, have never seen such a beast.

The Mitel Superset 4 is as close to hot stuff as there is. But, you
need to buy a PBX to make it work (with some noteable exceptions (so
don't write ok?)).

I kinda like the Plantronics Phonebeam. You can stick the microphone
in your shirt pocket or pass it around the conference table (kinda
like token ring passing). The link from the microphone to the base is
via free-space IR. I don't know if they still make 'em but you can get
one used from any number of secondary market sources in any case.

Know how to get _off_ the other guy's lousy speakerphone? Just start
talking with something very embarressing.

"Hey, you know that long-legged babe you were shacked up with ..."

"Hey, that package you were waiting for from Columbia ever show up ..."

They get you on the handset _real_ fast. }8-)


 * Origin: Private Line - Stealth Opus in Austin (1:382/39.0)

William Degnan,  Communications Network Solutions
-Independent Consultants in Telecommunications-
P.O. Drawer 9530       | ARPA: [e-mail]
Austin, TX 78766-9530  | ![e-mail]  | Voice [phone]

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

Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 14:06:16 EDT
From: Juliet Sutherland <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Paul
S. Sawyer) writes:

> Telephone service around New England is becoming more and more reliant
> on local power, however, as remote nodes and SLIC's are being
> installed.  We had a freak local storm the day before Hurricane Bob
> (MUCH worse than the hurricane ...) The power was out for about 12
> hours; after a few hours NE Tel brought a portable generator to the
> nearby SLIC, as the batteries therin had started to fail; the phone
> service was noisy, but did not fail during this period.  When
> Hurricane Bob hit, the power was out at my house for about 25 hours;
> this time, since the affected area was much larger, they did not get
> around to starting the generator, and we were without phone service
> for several hours.

Please note that SLC is a registered trademark of AT&T Network
Systems.  The general category name for that type of equipment is
Digital Loop Carrier (DLC).

Most DLC installations are provided with battery reserve sufficient
for about 8 hrs, with hookups for emergency generators to provide
power after that.  The 8 hrs is somewhat nominal, though, since the
actual reserve depends on the calling traffic volume, age of the
batteries, temperature, etc.  As DLC is being used for more and more
loops, the local phone companies are starting to have to think about
emergency power plans in cases of natural catastrophe.  Some areas are
better prepared than others (that is, have plans and equipment,
including enough generators, in place).

BTW, the person who took the CO tour in Wilmington and mentioned that
he was served off of fiber feeder is almost certainly being served by
some type of DLC system.  The technician in the CO could have showed
him the fiber multiplexer in the CO and the central office end of the
DLC system (assuming that his line is served from one of the analog
switches).


Juliet Sutherland    Digital Loop Carrier Systems Engineering
AT&T Bell Labs         Whippany, NJ

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

Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 17:00:39 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Instruction Card For 412-329


412-329 exchange (Farmington, Pa.) is in SE corner of 412 area and
touches both W.Va. and Md., so that 814 does not touch W.Va.
Instruction card on a Bell of Pa. pay phone says, for long distance, 1
+ 7D within area and 1 + NPA + 7D to other areas.  But I got automated
requests for money when I dialed 391-xxxx (391 is Pittsburgh) and
301-746-xxxx (301-746 is Friendsville in nearby Md.), so that at least
part of 412 would need reprogramming for N0X/N1X prefixes (no
indication yet they'll come to 412) or for NXX area codes.

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

Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 16:49:57 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Calls From Ridgely, W. Va.


As I wrote earlier, subject exchanges (304-726 & 738) have 7D local
calling to Cumberland, Md. (staying in 301 at 301/410 split).  Cumber-
land includes a 707 prefix, and sure enough, this is what I got on a
pay phone on 304-726 (notice that 707 and 916 are adjacent area codes
in California):

707-xxxx got intercept telling me I had to deposit 25 cents.
916-xxx-xxxx got intercept telling me I had to dial a 1 first.

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #675
******************************










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Date:     Thu, 29 Aug 91 0:22:58 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #676
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Thu, 29 Aug 91 00:22:47 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 676

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Pacific Bell "Message Center" Breakdown, August 22, 1991 [John Higdon]
    Re: Telephones in Elevators [Rob Woiccak]
    Re: Telephones in Elevators [Herman R. Silbiger]
    Re: GTE Switches [Herman R. Silbiger]
    Re: Telephone Line Status Lights [Rob Woiccak]
    Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Short on Phone Numbers [Steve Thornton]
    Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power [Scott Hinckley]
    Re: NYNEX to Charge For 411 in Massachusetts as of 9/14/91 [Scott Hinckley]
    Re: 950 Data Access, was AT&T Data Network [Mikel Manitius]
    Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call [Justin Leavens]
    Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call []
    Re: More Troubles With New York Telephone [David Lesher]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 04:19 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Re: Pacific Bell "Message Center" Breakdown, August 22, 1991


llustig![e-mail] wrote:

> The system failure occurred at the point where phone voice
> transmissions are converted to a digital signal and sent to the
> company's main computer in Pleasant Hill, where messages are stored
> and retrieved, according to network control manager Tim Keese.

How much do you suppose Pac*Bell pays itself for all of that trunkage
from every single central office in the Bay Area back to Pleasant
Hill?  If it had to pay what independent providers would be charged,
you know very well that the "Message Center" would not cost under $5
per month.

Be that as it may, besides the poor reliability there appear to be two
serious flaws in the Message Center:

1. Lack of storage space. Lately, I have called many people, heard the
outgoing announcement, and then been told, "That box is currently
full.  Please call again later. Goodbye." A standard answering machine
tape can hold an enormous amount of speech compared to the tiny
allocation for each subscriber to the Message Center.

2. The privacy fanatics would have us use answering machines to screen
calls rather than the much more effective CPID. Well, you cannot use
the Message Center for that purpose. Once the call is intercepted by
the Message Center, you have lost control of and you cannot monitor
the call. So call screening would be a matter of periodically checking
your box to see who called and then calling them back. On your nickel.

Is it not interesting how if an independent provider offered something
as flawed and unreliable as the Message Center, we would be calling
him a sleaze and a fraud? But when it is the sublime telco, we stroke
our beards, contemplate our navels, and lightly dance around some of
the "small" shortcomings of the "otherwise great, innovative product".


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

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

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 09:13:16 EDT
From: funky love flower <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Phones in Elevators


An interesting twist on the phone in the elevator theme exists at the
school I attended as an undergraduate. There was an elevator in the
two story library. And in that elevator was a phone. But the twist was
that the phone was not just a direct link to a service desk. Rather,
it had its own number and none of its calls out were blocked (great
potential for evil there ...).

However, we were honest types -- the only calls I made from that phone
were local. But we did use it as an "office" phone when we were
working upstairs in the library: we'd just sit ourselves close enough
to the elevator door so that we could hear the phone ring. Sometimes,
during finals, it was the only way to reach us.


rob woiccak - [e-mail] - zyxwvtsrqnmlkjhgfdcb

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

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 08:58:17 EDT
From: Herman R Silbiger <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Telephones in Elevators
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories


Another elevator story:

Some 20 years ago, at a large telecommunications research laboratory
which will remain unidentified, a group of human factors researchers
decided for a to perform a survey using the telephone in the elevator.

The phone would be called, and the person answering it would be asked
questions.  A sample conversation might be as follows:

Q: To make better use of the elevators in this building, we are making
an elevator travel survey.  In which direction are you traveling.

A:  Down

Q:  Are you traveling with anyone.

A:  Yes, a friend.

Q:  What floor are you getting off.

A:  First.

Q:  What will you do on the first floor.

A:  Get coffee.

Q:  Will you have cream in your coffee.

A:  No.  Can you finish, I have been holding the door open, and people want
to use the elevator.

Very few people caught on that the survey was not serious!


Herman Silbiger

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

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 09:06:47 EDT
From: Herman R Silbiger <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: GTE Switches
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Brian
Crowley) writes:

> In Telecom-Digest Volume 11, Issue 564, Joe Kelsey ([e-mail].
wrote:

> My home is served by the Bothell CO (206-488).  When GTE replaced the
> old switch with the #5ESS (about two years ago?  How time flies...), I
> received a little flier in my bill explaining what was to happen, when
> the cutover date was, etc.  Imagine my suprise when I saw that they
> were going to provide me with the best in phone service with a #5ESS!
> It seems to me that GTE must have put a *lot* of development money
> into the GTD-5 switch, so why are they upgrading CO's with 5ESS
> switches?

About three years ago GTE sold their switch business to AT&T, since
GTE did not want to invest in developing ISDN capability.  Initially,
AT&T had a 50% interest, which would increase to 100% over five years.
The company is still operated independently, but this will probably
change in the long run.  I think it is called ATG.


Herman Silbiger

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

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 09:29:46 EDT
From: funky love flower <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Telephone Line Status Lights
Organization: fegmaniax anonymous, inc


Daniel Wheeler sez:

> Radio Shack sells a device called a Teleprotector Voice/Data Guard
> (43-107, $7.95).  You need one for each extension.  The catalog
> description is so poor that I couldn't tell what it did, but the
> salesman claims that with one on an extension, if the line is in use,
> the phone or modem on the extension will not be connected to the
> line.

It works, but it can work too well. When I moved into my current
apartment, I bought one of these things knowing that my roommate was
pretty clueless and would occasionally pick up the phone when he knew
I was on the modem (maliciousness aside, that is an extremely annoying
habit I've been trying to cure him off). I put the voiceguard (I got
mine from an AT&T Phone Center as I recall) on the jack downstairs and
it worked like a charm.  If I was on the modem, never was I
interrupted by him picking up downstairs. However, all was not solved
 -- if, for instance, we got a phone call and I answered it upstairs
and it was for him, he could not pick up the phone downstairs with the
guard installed. Eventually, we both got sick of this and I can put up
with the occasional interruption.

Now, if I can only convince him that we don't need Call Waiting.


rob woiccak -- [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: Your mistake was putting the device downstairs
where everything on the wiring-in-common from upstairs (modem, phones
upstairs, etc) would trigger it. Make your modem the last stop on the
circuit (which runs around your house) if possible; then put the
device on the back of the modem. That way the modem will kill
everything downstream, but other phones in the middle will not affect
each other.  PAT]

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

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 09:18:29 EST
From: Steve Thornton <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low on Phone Numbers


On Tue, 27 Aug 91 0:41:30 CDT in TELECOM Digest, TELECOM Moderator
noted:

> well east of the Mississippi River. Mental exercise for readers: Where
> would is the 'mathematical center' of area codes in the USA? That is,
> in what state are there an equal number of area codes to the east and
> west of it?  North and south? What if Canada is included?   PAT]

The area code map in my phone book, like most maps these days, is real
purty but not even close to accurate. Nonetheless, I did a rough count
and found 65 area codes east and 65 west (give or take a couple) of a
line following the western borders of Mississippi, Tennessee,
Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, and Ontario. North/south is a little
trickier -- there aren't any good east/west divisions in the east; I
decided to include New Jersey in the north and Pennsylvania in the
south. The north then includes the top half of Ohio, Indiana, and
Illinois (north of 309), all of Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, and
Oregon, plus obviously Canada. This would put the area code center of
North America at the intersection of 815 and 217 in Illinois with 219
and 317 in Indiana, which is pretty close to Indianapolis, at least on
this crummy map. This is (_very_ approximately -- no scale) about 500
miles due northeast of the geographical center of the US, somewhere in
Kansas. Canada is so huge that the geographical center of the
continent is probably way up by Minneapolis or someplace.


Steve Thornton / Harvard University Library / [phone]
[e-mail] / [e-mail]

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

From: Scott Hinckley <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power
Date: 27 Aug 91 14:47:28 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail]


> [Moderator's Note: But as another correspondent noted, the storm did
> punch out 617-262. It was really nasty; I noticed the net connections
> around the east coast were pretty wobbly. My backup site (bu.edu)
> would not answer all evening, nor would the archives at lcs.mit.edu.
> And around 1 PM Monday here in Chicago our backlash from the east
> coast storm was a torrential downpour. Despite all our technology,
> Mother Nature can still kick our butts ...  PAT]

That is because of the brain-dead practice of hanging lines that I
have seen ever since I moved to the south. In CA all the lines were
underground (of course there we have earthquakes to move the ground
around for us, severing those lines.)

Every time we have:

  a) an ice storm
  b) a tornado
  c) heavy winds
  d) an ailing tree

We can lose electricity,cable,phones.

It seems like the lower frequency of outages for underground cables
would compensate for the higher installation cost in a fairly short
time.

Oh well ...


VoiceNet:Scott Hinckley | ATTnet:[phone]
Internet:[e-mail] | UUCP:...!uw-beaver!bcsaic!hsvaic!scott
US snail:110 Pine Ridge Rd / Apt# 608/ Huntsville / AL / 35801
DISCLAIMER: All contained herein are my opinions

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

From: Scott Hinckley <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: NYNEX to Charge For 411 in Massachusetts as of 9/14/91
Date: 27 Aug 91 14:56:15 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail]


In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ron Newman) writes:

> From a New England Telephone bill insert:
> Beginning September 14, 1991, residence customers will be charged 34
> cents for each directly dialed Directory Assistance call made in
> excess of ten calls per month.

Wow, this is a good deal compared to everywhere I have lived.  One or
two calls free, all others $.50/each.


VoiceNet:Scott Hinckley | ATTnet:[phone]
Internet:[e-mail] | UUCP:...!uw-beaver!bcsaic!hsvaic!scott
US snail:110 Pine Ridge Rd / Apt# 608/ Huntsville / AL / 35801
DISCLAIMER: All contained herein are my opinions

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

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 13:59:30 EDT
From: Mikel Manitius <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: 950 Data Access, was AT&T Data Network


> We may be back to this notion of perceived value. Since ISDN is "the
> latest and greatest", it should cost more, right?

In Canada, according to Canadian communications laws, any "new and
improved" service must cost less than the old service it replaces.
Therefore a 9600bps DDS circuit costs less than an old analog four
wire pt-pt leased line.


Mikel Manitius    [e-mail]

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

From: Justin Leavens <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call
Date: 27 Aug 91 20:53:31 GMT
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA


> A friend of mine who would love to have a credit card, but has no
> credit rating, got a call recently from a solicitor that offered her a
> credit card if she would dial a 900 number that he gave her.  In
> exchange they would send a list of banks that she could apply to for a
> credit card, and if she didn't end up getting one, they would refund
> the $50 charge for the 900 call.  They offered this as a "guaranteed"
> VISA card service.

Just to let you know, the now defunct company that AT&T was trying to
bill me for offered exactly this same approach. They went by the name
of Credit Builders and they were located in Texas. Their sales people
offered me a "credit card" and denied that it had anything to do with
a secured card, though their money-back guarantee stipulated that you
had to be declined for *three* secured cards (no easy feat for even
the worst credit histories) to receive a refund.

Stay away from this service. All they offer is a ten page booklet with
names and addresses of places offering credit cards, all information
that can be found for a lot less than $50. And that's if you ever
actually receive the information.


Justin T. Leavens
University of Southern California     :Mail to: [e-mail]
Student Health and Counseling Services: [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1991 01:05:24 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> Tad Cook <hpubvwa!tad@ssc.
wa.com> writes:

> No, I don't think there is a way for anyone to charge this to your
> account without actually dialing it from your line.  At least no
> conventional way.

Third-party billing will sometimes work.  I just had PacBell remove a
charge for a 900-call which somebody had made from another phone and
charged to my number (I've since had third-party billing turned off ... )


Al Stangenberger                    Dept. of Forestry & Resource Mgt.
[e-mail]          145 Mulford Hall - Univ. of Calif.
uucp:  ucbvax!ucbviolet!forags      Berkeley, CA  94720
BITNET: FORAGS AT UCBVIOLE          [phone]  FAX: [phone]


[Moderator's Note: I was not aware that calls to a 900 number could
ever be operator-assisted. The only tariff I knew existed was for
direct dial rates. And coin phones in Chicago may *not* call 900.  PAT]

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

From: David Lesher <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: More Troubles With New York Telephone
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 23:05:34 EDT
Reply-To: David Lesher <[e-mail]>
Organization: NRK Clinic for habitual NetNews abusers


> Not to mention the fact that some numbers can almost NEVER be
> reassigned. Any business that receives a high volume of calls will
> destroy that number for anyone else's use for many years.

A friend of a friend did just that. The FOAF ran some kind of
wheeler-dealer operation whereby he tried to be a middleman on a 100
million dollar deal to get cement from say: France to Spain.

In doing so, the FOAF ran up large overseas bills. When business got
worse, the bill got bigger as he tried to bambozzle some deal.

In the early 70's Ohio Bell cut him off for being ten days late.  But
you see, the amount due was $42,000.00. The number assignments went
untouched for years, despite one of them being an x000. Every so
often, for a lark, my friend would call and ask about getting service.
The name, number or the FOAF's {former} address was enough to get
bumped to a supervisor ASAP. I can almost hear the lock and trace
starting from here ;_}

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #676
******************************










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Date:     Thu, 29 Aug 91 1:51:50 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #678
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Thu, 29 Aug 91 01:51:40 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 678

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: More on US West & 976 IPs [Tad Cook]
    Re: More on US West & 976 IPs [Eric Smith]
    Re: Addresses of Local Phone Companies [Tad Cook]
    Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low On Phone Numbers [Ethan Miller]
    Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low On Phone Numbers [Super Abuser]
    Re: Telecommunications in France [Jeff Carroll]
    Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Speakerphone [Ron Bean]
    Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Satellite [Don Lewis]
    Re: FAX Machine Message [W.A.Simon]
    Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service [Steve Elias]
    Reprogramming Switches [Carl Moore]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: More on US West & 976 IPs
From: Tad Cook <hpubvwa![e-mail]>
Date: 28 Aug 91 17:35:20 GMT


Peter Marshall <[e-mail]> writes:

> From Tim Healy, "US West to Curtail Pay-Per-Call Information
> Services," {Seattle Times}, 8/24/91, B7:

> US West Communications says it plans to eliminate pay-per-call
> services such as Taxline, Tel-A-Date and other 976 information
> services by the end of the year because they aren't as profitable as
> the company would like.  The companies affected say the decision will
> put them out of business and deprive customers of valuable
> information and services.

I was the guy who tipped the reporter about this story, after reading
about it here on TELECOM Digest.  There was a posting here last week
from someone who complained that the letter to the information
providers came out a couple of weeks after the Judge Green decision to
allow the Bell companies into the business of providing information
themselves, rather than just transporting it.  This was after the Baby
Bells had been doing some heavy lobbying, saying that they wouldn't do
anything unfair or anti-competetive if they were allowed in this
business.

I gave the reporter the phone number of the fellow who had posted the
article here on TELECOM Digest, and encouraged him to dig a little
deeper than what US West might tell him.  I hoped he would find a
story in the timing of the two announcements, and the fact that US
West only cited "business reasons" as their reasons for shutting off
all the information providers.  But in the end there was no mention in
his article of the Baby Bells being allowed to compete with
information providers themselves, and how unfair it seems for US West
to shut down the IPs immediately after US West was allowed into the
business.


Tad Cook  Seattle, WA   Packet: KT7H @ N7DUO.WA.USA.NA  Phone: [phone]
MCI Mail: 3288544       Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW
USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad    or, [e-mail]
or, [e-mail]    or, [e-mail]

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

From: Eric Smith <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: More on US West & 976 IPs
Organization: Telebit
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1991 18:49:46 GMT


On 25 Aug 91 15:25:10 GMT, [e-mail] (Peter Marshall) said:

> Frank Blethen, publisher of {The Seattle Times} and chairman of a
> newspaper industry committee on telecommunications issues, said US
> West should have to prove to regulators that its 976 service is not
> profitable.  US West is the gateway through which telephone
> information services must go, said Blethen. "With that kind of
> control, US West has a high burden of proof to show why these services
> are being discontinued," he said.

What, now everyone has a right to have US West do their billing for
them?  They can just get a 800 line or even a normal line and bill via
credit card.  If they do it right it might even make them more money
than they get now.

The mistake isn't eliminating 976 service now, it was instituting it
in the first place.


Cheers,

Eric

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

Subject: Re: Addresses of Local Phone Companies
From: Tad Cook <hpubvwa![e-mail]>
Date: 28 Aug 91 17:37:07 GMT


Joel Jones <[e-mail]> writes:

> Well, the Telecom Archives has a wonderful list of local phone
> companies, but it is lacking in any other kind of detail.  I am
> interested in addresses, coverage areas, exchange numbers, etc.  Does
> anyone know where such information can be found?  I've asked at the
> libraries around here, but when purchasing phone books, they are
> mainly concerned with the Baby Bells and those larger cities that
> aren't covered by RBOCs.  I want a complete list.

One good source is the state PUC for the area you are interested in.
If you want a list of complete addresses and exchanges for independant
telcos, try the TE&M Directory.  It lists all of the exchanges,
addresses and phone numbers, state by state, for all of the non-Bell
telephone companies.

It comes out annually, and is available from:

Edgell Communications
24th floor  233 N. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL  60601     Phone: [phone]


Tad Cook   Seattle, WA  Packet: KT7H @ N7DUO.WA.USA.NA   Phone: [phone]
MCI Mail: 3288544       Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW
USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad   or, [e-mail]
or, [e-mail]   or, [e-mail]

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

From: ethan miller <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low On Phone Numbers
Organization: utter chaos
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1991 02:14:37 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> Carl Moore <[e-mail]>
writes:

>     The Bellcore officials prefer a standard, nationwide 11-digit
> dialing sequence to avoid different dialing procedures in different
> parts of the country.

>     "People are going to get used to 10-digit numbers," said Ron
> Conners, the Bellcore district administrator in charge of the North
> American numbering plan.  "Psychological studies have shown people
> don't care what they have to dial, as long as it's consistent.

There's a problem with this.  Other studies have shown that people's
short-term memory can hold about seven unrelated items.  That's how
long phone numbers are now.  Area codes are considered separately (you
know you're calling San Francisco, and you remember 415 as a unit).
If numbers go to ten (somewhat random) digits, it'll be considerably
harder to remember the number between phone book or directory
assistance and dialing.  Instead of assigning random area codes to a
locality, why not just vary the second digit of the area code?  Thus,
Manhattan would get 212, 222, 232, and so on.  Now, someone only has
to remember one extra digit instead of three.


ethan miller -- cs grad student
[e-mail]  #include <std/disclaimer.h>

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

Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 22:37:59 -0400
Subject: Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low On Phone Numbers
From: Super Abuser <[e-mail]>


> The obvious thing to do is split North America into more than one
> "country" for dialing purposes.
> Currently most of North America is country number 1.
> I propose:  10 for USA east;  11 for USA west;  12 for Canada and the
> appropriate parts of Mexico, Bahamas, and what-not.

A typical Yankee attitude    |8-)

I am led to believe that US maps, that do show Canada, have it placed
somewhere in the West Indies. I always thought we were a third
world country, but that's pushing it a bit far ...

> Then each of the three regions could have a full set of area codes,
> and you would have to dial *one* extra digit *only* when calling
> another region.  Why not?

As communication satelites and hand held phones are becoming the
standard, area codes and long distance rates are making less and less
sense.  We should start thinking in terms of individual phone number
(wholly randomly assigned), coded into a smart-card of some kind,
which we could plug in any telephone device in the world, and make it
our phone for the duration of the insertion.  We should also think of
phone calls as something we pay by the second, not by the mile.


William "Alain" Simon
[e-mail]  [e-mail]

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

From: Jeff Carroll <ssc-bee!ssc-vax![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Telecommunications in France - Summary
Date: 28 Aug 91 23:06:04 GMT
Reply-To: Jeff Carroll <ssc-vax![e-mail]>
Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics


In article <[e-mail]> rls![e-mail]
(Randall L. Smith) writes:

> Not too long ago I posted the request relating to the subject line
> above and I received several very interesting replies.  In general it
> seems Teletel (a French public initiative) has a modern, successful
> and active system called Minitel.  Minitel offers 13,000 different
> information services to the average French household and businesses.

> While I received a warm fuzzy regarding its success and usefulness,
> not too many tangables were provided.  All in all, most felt it was

    I had brief exposure to a public Minitel terminal a couple of
years ago in Paris. It took me five or ten francs to figure out how to
place a call (although I thought I understood what the terminal was
telling me, my French is pretty limited), and I spent another fifteen
or twenty francs, walking away with precious little in the way of
useful information (I think I was after train schedules, or something
like that).

    On the basis of my brief encounter, I'd say that Minitel is
slightly more difficult to operate than my videocassette recorder,
with some hefty user interface problems.

    My understanding is that Minitel was heavily subsidized and
slow to take off, with much of the early use being the equivalent of
our phone sex traffic. Has this situation really changed significantly
in the average French home?


Jeff Carroll        [e-mail]

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

Subject: Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Speakerphone
Date: Tue Aug 27 18:29:46 1991
From: Ron Bean <[e-mail]>


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Tiny
Bubbles)  writes:

> [e-mail] writes:

>> Don't you also hate those folks who love to put you on their low
>> quality speakerphones?

> Which brings up a question: Is there any such thing as a "high-quality
> speakerphone"?  I, personally, have never seen such a beast.  My AT&T
> cordless has a speakerphone on it, but like all other speakerphones
> I've seen, it sounds from the other end like you're talking into a
> toilet.                                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  ^^^^^^

   This reminds me of the cheap-o "speakerphone" device from Radio
Shack that we bought my grandparents back in the early 70's. It had no
direct connection to the phone; you put the handset in a cradle, where
a coil picked up the signal from the earpiece, and a sort of funnel
directed sound into the mouthpiece. The weight of the handset
activated the amplifier, which was run by a 9v battery. There was no
amplification of the outgoing sound.

   Of course we had to try it out, so my Uncle went out to call us
from a payphone. His first comment was "You sound like you're yelling
down a sewer pipe." So, that's what we called it. At family gatherings
like Thanksgiving and Christmas, if a relative called from some other
part of the country, we'd say "hang on a sec, I'll put you on the
sewer pipe".

   I'm pretty sure we still have it somewhere. In later years, I
achieved a similar effect by connecting a suction-cup pickup coil to
the stereo in the next room (with about 30' of wire), so several
people could listen, but only one could talk.


[e-mail] (Ron Bean)
{harvard|rutgers|ucbvax}!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!zaphod

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

From: [e-mail] (Don Lewis)
Subject: Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Satellite?
Organization: Silicon Systems, Nevada City CA
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1991 08:07:37 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> hayes![e-mail]
(Toby Nixon) writes:

> I'm very surprised, though, that you would hear this at all on a call
> from Illinois to New York; you normally encounter it only on
> international connections.  Virtually all US calls are carried as
> duplex PCM 64kbps channels, with no TASI, ADPCM, DCME/PCME, or other
> multiplication equipment involved.  Which long distance carrier are
> you using?  Is it sensitive to time of day or other factors?  Has it
> always been this way, or is this a new (hopefully temporary)
> phenomenon?

I've had connections like this from Nevada City, CA to Melbourne, FL
on MCI.  I don't recall the time of day.


Don "Truck" Lewis              Phone: [phone]   Silicon Systems
Internet: (under contruction)  FAX:   [phone]   138 New Mohawk Road
UUCP: {uunet,tektronix!gvgpsa.gvg.tek.com}!ssigv!lewis  Nevada City, CA  95959

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

Subject: Re: FAX Machine Message
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 17:22:02 EDT
From: "W.A.Simon" <[e-mail]>


> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

>> I recently misdialed a number and received a fax machine.  What was
>> interesting is that the owner of the fax machine had an announcement
>> that said something like "You have dialed a fax machine.  If you are
>> sending a fax, press your start button now.  Otherwise, check your
>> number and call again".  I called it back again, but from my fax
>> machine that sends the tones while it calls, and it didn't play the
>> message.  Apparently the device listens for the tones and plays the
>> message if it doesn't get the tone.

> I've had the opposite class of problems -- my computer, acting as a
> FAX sender, calling a FAX number and never getting through.  I
> eventually called from a voice line and got that same message.  Since
> my system was never convinced that a FAX had answered, it never sent
> tones.  A mixed blessing, at best, that device would seem to be.

The problem is that both machines expect the other one to initiate the
exchange.  In regular modems, the standard is that the answering
machine starts.  In the fax world, it is still free for all.  However,
I would not be too worried by this technology, it is sure to follow
the Darwinian path of least resistance.  Manual fax machines are
becoming extinct, so will this "smart" box, as it relies on the
existence of the dying beast.  And ISDN is supposed to address these
problems much more elegantly, whenever it happens.


William "Alain" Simon
[e-mail]  [e-mail]

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

Subject: Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 12:40:31 PDT
From: [e-mail]


[e-mail] (David Lesher) wrote:

> Peters and others were talking about chaining call forwarding.  PAT
> stated that if this was such a good idea, why wouldn't Big Business do
> it?

Because it's illegal.  In Massachusetts, anyway.  The tariffs are
written such that it is illegal to use call forwarding as a means of
avoid toll charges.


eli    steve elias

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

Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 15:20:54 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Reprogramming Switches


There's been a lot said about the NXX area codes (generalized from
N0X/N1X) and how they will require reprogramming of all switches.  Now
go back to the beginning of N0X/N1X PREFIXES (first used in 1970s in
Los Angeles area); is it true that some switches would not accept long
distance calls (within country code 1, that is) where the 10-digit
number (including the area code but excluding leading 1 or 0), was not
of the form N[01]X-NNX-XXXX ?


[Moderator's Note: Absolutely!  And not just years ago ... some are
still confused now. The *only* way I could convince someone to fix a
Rolm PBX downtown as of a couple years ago was to give them my voice
mail number (708-518-6335) as the *only* way to reach me. For a year,
I could not call my voicemail from that location, and everyone ignored
my complaints. Trouble is, they like to call me for advice and counsel
every week or so ... when they *had* to call that number, they soon
got ahold of someone at Rolm and spent the money to get it fixed.  PAT]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #678
******************************










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          29 Aug 91 3:30 CDT
Date:     Thu, 29 Aug 91 2:27:34 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #679
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Thu, 29 Aug 91 02:27:11 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 679

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Intl Workshop on Quality in the Evolving Telecom Network [Susan Webber]
    CLASS Service Comes to Rural America [Jack Decker]
    US and Canadian Telex Numbers [Dan Sahlin]
    AT&T Likely to Block Calls From Ark. to News Service [[e-mail]]
    FAQ List Coming Up [Dave Leibold]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Susan Webber <asuvax!gtephx![e-mail]>
Subject: Intl Workshop on Quality In The Evolving Telecom Network
Organization: gte
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1991 20:15:23 GMT


                         CALL FOR PARTICIPATION


International Workshop on Quality In The Evolving Telecommunication Network

  Tuesday, April 28 through Thursday Noon, April 30, 1992
  L'Auberge de Sedona, Sedona, Arizona
  Sponsor: IEEE Quality Assurance Management Committee,
  IEEE Communications Switching Committee &
  IEEE Communications Software Committee


OBJECTIVE

There are many factors influencing the evolution of the
telecommunication network and the associated support systems.  There
is a trend toward enhanced services, reduced cycle time, increased
intelligence of the network itself, and a move to features developed
and controlled by service providers and users.  These trends will
mandate significant change in today's quality processes.  Quality
expectations will continue to rise, along with continued pressures to
deliver new features and services in shorter time frames.  These
driving forces of schedule and quality will require new, creative,
multiple vendor#customer partnerships.

The goal of this workshop is to provide a forum for end users, service
providers, and telecommunication developers to discuss future quality
needs and issues relative to the evolving telecommunication network
and Operational Support Systems (OSS). Throughout each session, one or
more of the following issues should be addressed:

  -  How will quality of new services be assessed?
  -  How can quality be improved with reductions in cycle time?
  -  How can creative quality partnerships be forged as the needs for
     services developed and controlled by service providers increase?
  -  What is the best way to manage the quality of products/services
     provided by multiple vendors?
  -  What are the impacts of software reuse on quality, productivity, and
     associated metrics?
  -  How does the Malcolm Baldrige Award process and the ISO 9000 Series
     standards help us move toward network evolutionary needs?
  -  How can the telecommunication network be  protected (security and
     reliability)?

Participation in the following topics is invited:

  -  Software reuse and other development initiatives and associated quality
     and productivity metrics.
  -  Development interval reduction.
  -  Quality and reliability needs as more intelligence in the network is
     provided.
  -  Vendor/Customer/User partnerships.
  -  Measurement of new customer services.
  -  Quality issues relative to customer developed and controlled services.
  -  Use of Malcolm Baldrige Award process to improve quality.
  -  System integration quality issues associated with hardware, operating
     systems and application software provided by multiple vendors.
  -  The role of the ISO 9000 Series Standards in quality system improvement

ADVISORY COMMITTEE

  -  George Grzybowski (AGCS, Phoenix, AZ)
  -  Venkita Seshadri (AT&T#BL, Holmdel, NJ)


ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

  -  Susan Webber, Co#Chair (AGCS, Phoenix, AZ)
  -  Richard Blue, Co#Chair (SSC, Lake Mary, FL)
  -  John Salcido (Pacific Bell, San Ramon, CA)
  -  Chuck Bish (Pacific Bell, San Ramon, CA)


PROGRAM COMMITTEE

  -  Francois Coallier (Bell Canada, Montreal, Canada)
  -  Tony Donato (GTE, Phoenix, AZ)
  -  Lynda Francks (Pacific Bell, San Ramon, CA)
  -  Sheryl Hawes (Pacific Bell, San Ramon, CA)
  -  Bill Hoberg (AT&T, Lisle, IL)
  -  Kelly Krick (Northern Telecom, Research Triangle Park, NC)
  -  Randy Sanders (Bellcore, Livingston, NJ)
  -  Frank Straka (Ameritech Services, Rolling Meadows, IL)
  -  G. T. (Tim) Surratt (AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL)
  -  Robert Webber (AGCS, Phoenix, AZ)

DATES

  November 29, 1991    - Deadline for abstracts
  January 31, 1992     - Notification of acceptance
  February 14, 1992    - Deadline for registration and payment of fees
  Sun., April 26, 1992 - Organizers arrive
  Mon., April 27, 1992 - Participants arrive
  Tue., April 28, 1992 - Workshop begins
  Thu., April 30, 1992 - Workshop ends


INFORMATION FOR PARTICIPANTS

Workshop sessions will be organized into groups of brief presentations
of up to 15 minutes each, followed by an open discussion period.
These presentations should emphasize practice, problems, and
directions in meeting new technologies.  Where possible, case studies
should be presented to illustrate results.  In addition to prepared
discussions, a number of panel discussions will be arranged to discuss
relevant issues.

Speakers should submit an abstract (between 200 and 500 words) and a
high#level outline of a proposed presentation.  A full paper will not
be required.  Other participants should submit a brief statement of
their relevant experience on a particular topic.  The attendance will
be limited to 70 in order to facilitate open discussion and enhance
interactions.


ADDRESS ALL CORRESPONDENCE TO:

Susan Webber
AG Communication Systems Corporation
2500 West Utopia Road, P. O. Box 52179
Phoenix, AZ 85072-2179
TEL: [phone], FAX: [phone]

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

Susan Webber, AG Communication Systems, Phoenix, AZ
Internet: gtephx![e-mail]
UUCP: !{ncar!noao!asuvax | uunet!samsung!romed!asuvax | att}!gtephx!webbers
TEL: [phone],  FAX: [phone]

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

Date: Sat, 24 Aug 91 10:36:00 EDT
From: Jack Decker <[e-mail]>
Subject: CLASS Service Comes to Rural America


The following message was originally posted in the Fidonet MDF
conference:

 Original From: Dan J. Rudiak
            To: All
       Subject: CLASS Service Comes to Rural America

CLASS FEATURES COME TO RURAL AMERICA

Research Triangle Park, N.C., August 20 -- For the first time, a broad
range of sophisticated telecommunications services traditionally found
in the work place will be available to residents in rural America.
Custom Local Area Signaling Services, known as CLASS, transform the
telephone into a powerful tool that puts subscribers in control of who
can call them at home and when.

Two rural telephone operating companies this week begin a two-week
technical trial of CLASS on Northern Telecom's DMS-10 telephone
company central office switch.  The trials, involving some 150 lines,
are being conducted with Geneseo Telephone Company in Geneseo, Ill.,
and Molalla Telephone Cooperative in Molalla, Ore.  CLASS features
include Calling Number Delivery, Calling Number Delivery Blocking,
Customer Originated Trace, Automatic Recall, Automatic Callback,
Distinctive Ringing/Call Waiting, and Selective Call Rejection,
Selective Call Forward and Selective Call Acceptance.

CLASS capabilities are made possible through the deployment of Common
Channel Signaling System No. 7 (CCS7), an intelligent network
architecture which uses special signaling for call setup and routing.
It improves the efficiency of the network and provides telephone
companies with the capability to offer their customers a host of
advanced services.

"We wanted to be the first to introduce CLASS to the rural market
because our customers are demanding the same sophisticated
telecommunications features they see available in Chicago," says
Darrell Oldfield, manager, Central Office Equipment, Geneseo Telephone
Company.  "Deploying CLASS on the DMS-10 makes it possible for a
telephone company like ours to cut costs and offer our customers the
latest services through CCS7."

The Geneseo trial involves testing all CLASS features between three
DMS-10s on approximately 100 lines.  Geneseo will install CLASS on its
four other DMS-10s in December.  All CLASS features will be tested on
approximately 50 lines on Molalla Telephone's one DMS-10 and five
remote switching centers, including three of Northern Telecom's
original DMS-10 remotes.

"Our customers have been asking for CLASS features ever since we
introduced CCS7 into our network last year," said Gil Stenger, Molalla
Telephone General Manager. "We also wanted to link our CCS7 network
with nearby Stayton." After the trial, Molalla customers can subscribe
to all CLASS features except Calling Number Delivery.  Geneseo
subscribers will be able to get all CLASS features except Calling
Number Delivery and Automatic Recall.  Tariffs for Calling Number
Delivery in Illinois and Oregon are expected in 1992.

Both Geneseo Telephone and Molalla Telephone have contracted with
Independent Telecommunications Network, Inc. (ITN) in Kansas City,
Mo., to be their CCS7 network provider.

Installing CLASS on the DMS-10 involves hardware and software
upgrades. The new software, the 404.40 release, will be generally
available November 1. An upgrade to the 400E processor is also
required.

Geneseo Telephone, in northwestern Illinois, was founded in 1926.
Serving some 6,500 subscribers, it has seven DMS-10 400 Series central
office switches in its network.

Molalla Telephone Cooperative, located in a rural area 28 miles
southeast of Portland, was founded in 1912.  Molalla Telephone is a
member of the Oregon Telephone Association, a group of 21 rural
operating companies joining together to offer CCS7 and other
sophisticated telecommunications to their rural serving areas.

Northern Telecom is the leading global supplier of fully digital
telecommunications switching systems, providing products and services
to telephone operating companies, corporations, governments,
universities and other institutions worldwide.  Northern Telecom has
49,000 employees and had 1990 revenues of $6.8 billion.  In addition,
in the first quarter of 1991 th company acquired STC PLC, a leading
United Kingdom telecommunications firm with 14,000 employees and 1990
telecommunications revenues of approximately $1.6 billion.


 --- BWave/Max v2.00 [NR]
 * Origin: Gorre & Daphetid [phone] SDS GSDS (1:134/14.0)

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

From: Dan Sahlin <[e-mail]>
Subject: US and Canadian Telex numbers
Organization: SICS, Swedish Inst. of Computer Science
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1991 19:14:40 GMT


What is the secret on how to decode US and Canadian Telex numbers?

According to my (Swedish) Telex directory there are several Telex
networks (or networks reachable from Telex) in the US and Canada.
Each of them is assigned a "country number" as follows.  Some are also
assigned a two letter country code.

                 country   country
Canada                 number       code
  TWX, 610 series                   26
  others, 01-07 series              21

USA except Alaska,
  Hawaii and the TWX network        23
  CCI                               237
  FTCC                              238
  Graphnet                          233     UB
  ITT                               234     UI
  ITT (DTS)                         235
  RCA                               232     UR
  TRT                               231     UT
  TWX                               25      UQ
  WUI                               236     UW
  WUTCO                             230     UD
  Teletex                           2306 or 256

Given a number with the country code supplied there are no problems.
However, it seems that the country code is usually omitted, and so
also information about which network the number belongs to.  For
example, to what networks do these numbers belong: 15529XXXX,
650222XXXX, 470XXX (where X corresponds to a digit)?

I have been told the following.  Ten digit numbers starting with
310,410,510,710,810,910 are most probably US TWX numbers.  Ten digit
numbers starting with 610 are Canadian TWX numbers.

But how do I distinguish between the other networks?

In my older Telex directory, CCI, FTCC, Graphnet, ITT, RCA, TRT and
WUI all had country number 23, but apparently this has changed as you
can see from the table above.

My interest is not purely academic, as I have recently connected our
Telex/Teletex box (an IX44 from Intertex) to our Unix machines. (If
you also have an IX44, I'll be glad give you the software I have
written.)  We are now able to send a receive Telex/Teletex just as
ordinary email.  Subaddressing has been implemented in the Teletex
network, and I am hoping to give each Unix user his personal
Telex/Teletex number.

I would like to put the burden on finding out what network a
particular number belongs to on my software, to simplify the use of
the system.

As I am still testing out my software, I would very much appreciate
getting mail, in particular from Teletex subscribers abroad. Our Telex
number is "8126154 SICS" (in Sweden; the country code S is not used
for Teletex machines) and our Teletex number is "2401-8126154 SICS".


Dan Sahlin, SICS, Sweden   email: [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: Telex numbers beginning 650 are assigned to MCI
Mail for use as non-interactive (non-conversational) telex message
drops. That is, you can write to them, and they back to you, but not
in real time. Telex numbers beginning 15, followed by seven more
digits (at present, the first three are always 529) are the same as
above, for AT&T Mail. For example, my AT&T Mail telex number is
written as 155296378, based on my box 529-6378 on that system. My MCI
telex number is 6502224956 based on my mailbox 222-4956. Numbers
beginning with 610 are Canadian TWX (*not* telex), and numbers
beginning 910 are the Easy Link email service which used to belong to
Western Union and now belongs to AT&T. The others you mentioned of
410, 510, 710, 810 were snatched back from Western Union by Bellcore
and are or will be soon used as area codes for voice telephones in the
USA.  PAT]

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

From: 99700000 <[e-mail]>
Subject: AT&T Likely to Block Calls From Arkansas to News Service
Date: 28 Aug 91 00:50:15 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz Open Access Computing


This was in the {Arkansas Gazette} last week.

By DeAnn Smith, Gazette staff

"A news service in San Diego has asked American Telephone & Telegraph
Co. to block all incoming calls from Arkansas because of a Pine Bluff
woman who ties up phone lines claiming she's married to singer Michael
Jackson.

"Copley Radio Network, which serves about 1000 radio stations, calls
the 31-year-old woman 'The Pine Bluff Blabbermouth Menace.'

"Capt. Lee Hurd of the Pine Bluff Police Department said he was
reviewing the woman's calls for possible misdemeanor harassment
charges.

"The phone company is expected to approve the news service's request.

"The network says the woman dials a toll-free number at least 20 times
a day to ramble on about being married to Michael Jackson.

"Hurd says she claims Jackson and pop singer Whitney Houston have a
conspiracy to steal her and Jackson's two teen-age children.

"The police captain says she has racked up almost $1,000 worth of
telephone calls on the number used by radio stations.  He said he
talked to the Pine Bluff woman Monday in an effort to get her to stop
calling.  The woman has called the number at least 15 times since
their talk, he said."


[e-mail]    [e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 23:16:40 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: FAQ List Coming Up


The Frequently Asked Questions list, version 1, will be following
along shortly. This file deals with some common questions and topics
raised in TELECOM Digest. Hopefully, readers will check this file
before sending reams of inquiries to the Moderator.

Many thanks go to York University, which supplied an account (and some
lodging to boot) during the past few weeks. Mail to me from this point
on should be directed to the other accounts: [e-mail]
(provided their Internet gateway comes back to life soon), [e-mail].
us, [e-mail], [e-mail].  The
vm1.yorku.ca should be considered obsolete as of Thursday night.

Thanks to those who sent in suggestions for this. The information in
the FAQ list will be updated as information and new developments roll
in.  Hopefully, this will become part of the monthly postings on
comp.dcom.telecom not to mention an Archives file.


[Moderator's Note: Watch for this as a special mailing over the
weekend. It will be in the archives beginning about the same time, and
will be phased into the 'new reader letter' which goes out to all
mailing list additions about the same time. My sincere thanks for this
effort!   PAT]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #679
******************************










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From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #677
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Thu, 29 Aug 91 01:10:15 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 677

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Radio Days: The ARI System [Wolf Paul]
    Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls [Michael A. Covington]
    Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service [Floyd Davidson]
    Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service [John R. Levine]
    Re: What is Illegal About Butt Sets? [W. H. Sohl]
    Re: What is Illegal About Butt Sets? [Gordon D. Woods]
    Re: What is Illegal About Butt Sets? [John R. Covert]
    Re: States Covered by Baby Bells [Dave Niebuhr]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Wolf Paul <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Radio Days: The ARI System
Organization: Alcatel Austria - ELIN Research Center G.m.b.H.
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1991 19:47:24 GMT


[e-mail] (Lars Poulsen) writes:

> The system cannot be transplanted here, because no commercial
> broadcasting station would allow the State Police to interrupt its
> programming at will. What if they should break during a commercial?

 From listening to German and Austrian ARI traffic announcements, I
would conclude that they are made by broadcasting station announcers,
under broadcasting station control, even though the information comes
from the police or automobile associations. Thus, it would not have to
disrupt a commercial or any other important part of programming.  (I
have never heard the news interrupted, which on these stations usually
comes in five-minute blocks at the top of the hour).  The few seconds
delay while waiting for a convenient slot would not reduce the
announcement's usefulness.

> Also, with the local nature of US broadcasting, it is difficult to set
> up a reasonable full-coverage network. The US has a similar system
> specifically designated for emergencies -- the EBS system -- but it
> usually does not work when needed.

If someone -- Blaupunkt or whoever -- wanted to set up a system like
this and signed up one station per coverage area, it could be made to
work, I should think. Actually, the AAA would be a more likely
organizer.

> Finally, the European freeway systems are "extras". There is always a
> "traditional" highway parallelling a freeway; thus available as a
> fallback. In the US, there often is no alternate. Around here, even
> bicycles have to use the freeway if they want to go up the coast.
> (Something that leads to fatal accidents every year). So do tractors.
> As a result, when the freeway is closed or overloaded, there is
> nowhere else that can be recommended. Alternate routes only work until
> they become widely known, then they clog up instantly.

Unfortunately your last sentence above is more and more true in
Europe, as well. The traditional highways have often not been kept in
shape, or have actually been narrowed to discourage traffic going
through towns and villages, and they are no longer a good alternative,
especially during the heavy travelling season of summer.

Nonetheless it is still useful to know ahead of jams or other
problems, one can always decide to take a break at the next roadside
cafe rather than in the middle of the jam.


Wolf N. Paul, Computer Center
Alcatel Austria - Elin Research Center, Ruthnergasse 1, A-1210 Vienna-Austria
E-Mail: [e-mail]     Phone: [phone] (h) [phone] (w)

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

From: "Michael A. Covington" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 00:59:17 GMT


Concerning 900 numbers and billing disputes, here are comments that I
submitted to the FCC in April, 1990.  Basically, this sums up the case
against having 900 numbers at all.

                           COMMENTS ON
                       PROPOSED REGULATION
                     OF ``900 NUMBERS'' AND
                   SIMILAR TELEPHONE SERVICES

These comments refer to the FCC's proposed regulation of telephone
services in which part of the telephone company's charge for the call
is paid to the recipient of the call ("900 numbers" and "976 numbers").

The FCC should consider a total ban on services of this type because:

(1) They are a misuse of the financial arrangements between the
subscriber and the telephone company.

*    Telephone subscribers establish a credit rating for the
     charges normally levied by the telephone company. This does
     not prove that they can handle the much larger debts genera-
     ted by 900 and 976 services.

*    Telephone accounts normally have no credit limits. This is
     the root of the problem in numerous widely publicized bil-
     ling disputes.

*    Telephone subscribers are accustomed to the normal charges
     for long-distance calls. They are often aghast at the high
     charges for 900 and 976 calls.

(2) They impose an unreasonable security burden on telephone
subscribers.

*    In the old days I didn't have to worry much about children
     or visitors misusing my telephone. The most they could do
     was run up long-distance charges by calling individuals, and
     it would be easy to find out whom they called and thereby
     identify the person responsible for any misuse.

*    Today, however, it's quite possible for my children and
     guests to run up gigantic charges calling 900 numbers, and
     because they don't speak with identifiable individuals, I
     would have no way to find out who made the calls.

*    Telephones are not normally kept under lock and key. The
     security risk created by 900 and 976 numbers is unreas-
     onable.

(3) As is frequently pointed out, 900 and 976 numbers create a
gigantic opportunity for fraud, deception, and exorbitant pricing of
worthless services.

*    The root of this problem is that direct telephone billing is
     not an appropriate way to sell anything other than telephone
     service; it is much too easy to conceal the fact that there
     is a charge, or make customers forget about the charge, or
     misrepresent the amount of the charge.

*    This problem is inherent in the technology and cannot be
     solved by regulation alone. No law of physics requires
     people to tell the truth over the telephone. Even when
     regulated, some vendors will break the regulations whenever
     no one is listening.

(4) The existing credit-card industry provides a reasonable
alternative.

*    If callers to 900 and 976 numbers were required to give a
     credit card number (by voice or by keypad), this would
     establish that:

     *    The subscriber knows there is a charge for the call.

     *    The subscriber has adequate credit (this can be checked
          electronically in just a few seconds).

     *    The caller is not a child or visitor playing pranks.
          (Existing methods of detecting unauthorized credit card
          use could be brought to bear.)

     *    The consumer is fully protected by existing regulations
          in the credit industry.

*    Further, this would impose no security risk on telephone
     subscribers other than the presently-existing need to keep
     credit card numbers confidential.

In summary, the telephone companies, by instituting 900 and 976
services, have attempted to re-invent the credit-card industry and to
drag the FCC into credit regulation, which is not the FCC's job. The
existing credit-card industry, with its own regulations, should do the
job instead.


Michael A. Covington, Ph.D.  |  [e-mail]   |  N4TMI
Assistant to the Director, Artificial Intelligence Programs
The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, U.S.A.

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

From: Floyd Davidson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service
Organization: University of Alaska Institute of Marine Science
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1991 12:45:11 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> samsung!athenanet.com!
[e-mail] (Ken Abrams) writes:

>> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tony
>> Harminc) writes:

Tony didn't write it.  I did.

>> I'm not sure what a DMS-100 does, though I'd find that strange.  A
>> Northern Telecom SL-1 PBX definitely can forward multiple calls, and I
>> can't think any good reason not to allow it with a DMS-100.  Is there
>> a reason?

> There is a very good reason for imposing a limit, although it need not
> (necessarily) be only one.  Line A forwards to line B in another C.O.
> Line B, in turn, forwards back to Line A.  If there is no limit on the
> number of calls that will forward at either end, a loop is formed that
> will VERY quickly tie up all the circuits between office A and B.

Ok, that makes sense.  (I don't work line switches and don't think of
things like that.)

> Fixed forwarding can be set to a number of calls greater than one.
> Variable (dial) call forwarding is set to a limit of one because most
> users don't need more than one at a time and (probably more
> importantly) it is easier and cheaper to have a fixed limit of one.

I don't agree with either the idea that a user doesn't need it, or
that its easier or cheaper.  But...

The DMS-100 has several types different of call forwarding, and
arrangments may be different from one switch to the next.  I've
verified that on at least one DMS-100 and on one SL-1 the line that is
forwarded to a hunt group can be dialed multiple times.

There are problems with drawing conclusions from examples though, and
I don't mean to say that because I know of a case where it works this
way, that it always works that way.  The two example cases are a
couple rather specially arranged switches and are likely to do most
anything.  One is owned by the military (it does handle commercial
traffic as well as autovon traffic), and does not allow universal call
forwarding (ie.  a line can't be forwarded out of the switch).  The
SL-1 is owned by the long distance company .... it does all kinds of
things you don't allow on your PBX.

I also checked out one of the local commercial line switchers here
(Fairbanks Municpal Utilities System) and it will not forward more
than one call at a time. (That was fun ... we forwarded their
testboard number to mine.  If it had allowed multiple calls we were
gonna forward mine back and ...)

For the person who originally asked if it can be done, it seems
that yes it can be ... but what he really needs to know is if
the particular switch he will be getting service from is arranged
to provide what he wants or not.  It could be either way.

And it seems that another answer to his problem is just ordering more
lines from the distant exchange, and forwarding each one.


Floyd L. Davidson   | Alascom, Inc. pays me, |UA Fairbanks Institute of Marine
[e-mail]| but not for opinions.  |Science suffers me as a guest.

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

Subject: Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service
Organization: I.E.C.C.
Date: 27 Aug 91 15:13:50 EDT (Tue)
From: "John R. Levine" <[e-mail]>


I gather that some implementations of call forwarding will only allow
a single unsupervised forward per number at a time.  Once the call
supervises, other forwards for the same number are allowed.  This
avoids forwarding loops.  The number of simultaneous forwards is
doubtless a software parameter.  I can easily imagine that the telco
sets the limit to one to maximize the number of RCF numbers it sells,
though it seems a pretty poor use of phone numbers.


Regards,

John Levine, [e-mail], {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl

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

From: W. H. Sohl <bellcore!taichi.cc.bellcore.com!whs70>
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 13:18:43 GMT
Subject: Re: What is Illegal About Butt Sets?
Reply-To: W. H. Sohl <bellcore!taichi.bellcore.com!whs70>
Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail].
us writes:

> O.K. I have to ask,
> Why are butt sets illegal in some areas, and who made them illegal?

> [Moderator's Note: Buttsets are NOT 'illegal' anywhere. Possession of
> stolen property (including stolen telco buttsets) is illegal, of
> course, but the units themselves are legal.  PAT]

PAT's comment MAY be true, and possibly may not.  It is possible that
one or more states may have a law(s) on their books that makes it
illegal to possess telephone test equipment.  Remember, if such a law
exists, it was probably written years ago when no one owned their own
equipment.

Now before anyone jumps on me with the argument that states can't
regulate telephone stuff (ie, only the FCC can), rest assured that
such situations have not prevented states in the past from attempting
to exert control on state levels.  Case in point, at least seven
states have laws which make it illegal to have a radio reciever in an
automobile that is capable of receiving police radio transmissions.
While there is currently an FCC docket that is addressing this with a
possible end result being a stated federal preemption, no such
explicit federal preemption exists now, so people (usually with a
radio scanner) that are stopped in those states can and are prosecuted
for violation of those laws.

Again, I am not aware that any law exists in any state to actually
prohibit possession of telephone test equipment, but with 50 states,
it is possible.


Bill Sohl   (K2UNK)            ||  email
Bellcore, Morristown, NJ       ||   UUCP    bcr!taichi!whs70
(Bell Communications Research) ||    or
201-829-2879 Weekdays          || Internet  [e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 08:36:46 EDT
From: Gordon D Woods <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: What is Illegal About Butt Sets?
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories


> [Moderator's Note: Buttsets are NOT 'illegal' anywhere. Possession of
> stolen property (including stolen telco buttsets) is illegal, of
> course, but the units themselves are legal.  PAT]

I forgot to include in the beginning of this thread the reason
(excuses?) given for it being illegal to own butt sets.  According to
the Morris County, NJ prosecutor, the reason they are illegal is
because they can be used to illegally tap telephone lines. No mention
was made of them being stolen property. The latter concept came up
from people's actual experiences with the law.  It would appear you
need more than a sales receipt to protect yourself.


[Moderator's Note: The Morris County NJ prosecutor needs to litigate
this with a good defense attorney who will slow him down a little. We
do not make legal-to-own things illegal in the USA because they 'can
be used' for some illegal activity. After all, cigarette lighters 'can
be used' to burn down people's houses, and automobiles 'can be used'
to make the commission of many crimes more feasable for the person who
needs to get away afterward. I think Morris County would lose on
appeal, if it got that far.  PAT]

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

Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 17:49:53 PDT
From: "John R. Covert  28-Aug-1991 2049" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: What is Illegal About Butt Sets?


Sorry Pat.

In about 1972 a good friend of mine (since 1975) was arrested in a
phone closet at SUNY Stoneybrook.

He was charged and convicted of "possession of burglar's tools" -- the
butt set.

He was not charged with anything else, no toll fraud, no nothing.


john


[Moderator's Note: The context is all important here, John. If he was
in the phone closet without authorization, then he was indeed a
burglar. In that case, had he jimmied open the door with a screw
driver, the screw driver would have been a burglar's tool also. Are
you suggesting that any non-(establishment)-telco person who contracts
for repair of privatly owned telephone equipment and lines can be
convicted (forget about the arrest, that's just police BS) for owning
burglar's tools?  Of course, in 1972 there were no such 'independent
contractors' with any lawful status, I guess. What you say was
probably correct twenty years ago, but not now, I feel certain.   PAT]

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

Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1991 10:21:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dave Niebuhr <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: States Covered by Baby Bells


When I posted my request for states that are covered by the various
Baby Bells, I neglected to mention that it was for overall geographic
information and that the internal distribution wasn't necessary.

I know that NYNEX covers New York and the New England area.  I wasn't
interested in who the operative companies are/were such as NYTel,
NETel or any others.

Sorry for the confusion.


Dave Niebuhr  Brookhaven National Laboratory   Internet: [e-mail]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #677
******************************










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Date:     Fri, 30 Aug 91 1:20:37 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #681
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Fri, 30 Aug 91 01:20:32 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 681

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Seeking Information on Mongolian Telecommunications [Paul Gillingwater]
    Information Wanted on Demon Dialer Model 176T [Scott Keller]
    Scientific American on Information [[e-mail]]
    976 and 900 Billing by Telcos [Lauren Weinstein]
    Security and Privacy at the Message Center [Lauren Weinstein]
    ISDN in California [Electronic Design via [e-mail]]
    Canadian Long Distance Competition Update [Dave Leibold]
    Other Bell Canada News Notes [Dave Leibold]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Paul Gillingwater <[e-mail]>
Subject: Seeking Information on Mongolian Telecommunications
Organization: Actrix Information Exchange
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1991 08:29:00 GMT


Yes, there really is a telephone network in the People's Republic of
Mongolia.  I understand that the Japanese government has recently
announced investment in this area, and that there is a proposed
satellite ground station to be established there.

I would appreciate hearing people's opinions on what sort of network
would be appropriate for introducing into that country, given its low
population (two million) and large geography, as well as lack of
in-depth technical infrastructure.

Other areas of interest are the legislative framework, other foreign
investment and references to recent information on this matter.  I
would also appreciate knowing about any recent initiatives on behalf
of the ITU or Asian Development Bank.

Please reply by e-mail; I will summarize if appropriate.


Paul Gillingwater, [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Information Wanted on Demon Dialer Model 176T
Date: 28 Aug 91 23:44:12 -7
Organization: Monsanto Company, St. Louis, MO


    A friend recently picked up a "Demon Dialer" at a hamfest. He
was told that the manual with it does not apply to this particular
model. After trying it out, it looks like it really doesn't. I would
appreciate hearing from anyone having a manual for this device that
they would be willing to sell or copy. Or perhaps just an address or
phone for Zoom Telephonics, Inc. In addition, any info on the
operation of the device, internal jumper settings, and type of battery
this thing takes for memory backup (two inches long with 9v-like clips
on either end) would be greatly appreciated.

INFO:    Demon Dialer by Zoom Telephonics, Inc.     Model 176T.  Rear of
"incorrect" manual has "0903DDI" printed on it and is copyright 1983.
This unit has a battery of some sort for backup and not the capacitor
as described in this manual.


Scott Keller        KA0WCH        Monsanto Agricultural Company
[e-mail]     [phone]    packet: [e-mail]

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

Subject: Scientific American on Information
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 09:14:19 -0700
From: [e-mail]


This month's issue of Scientific American is devoted to articles about
computers and information.  All of them are very well written.  There
are a number of telecom related issues such as this quote from
Nicholas Negroponte (MIT Media Lab):

"Over the next 20 years, television and telecommunications will swap
their primary means of transmission."

This idea comes from his belief that intelligent network nodes will do
more to improve the information flow then just bigger data pipes.  By
trying needlessly to justify the inevitable, many network products and
services being proposed now are contrived or, worse, made with total
disregard for concurrant advances in computing.  People with vested
interest in the network are saying that we need big data pipes
connecting our machines because we will be naive about how to process
and store information.  One such claim, for example, is that we will
need broadband networks to transmit video.  In fact, we already know
that video can be delivered over the T1 (1.5 megabit-per-second)
twisted pair copper wires existing today.  The real products and
services of the future will come from imaginative applications of both
channel and computing capacity, not from either alone.

Check out the September 1991 Scientific American for this and other
visions of the future.


Malcolm

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

Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 13:04:21 PDT
From: Lauren Weinstein <[e-mail]>
Subject: 976 and 900 Billing by Telcos


Greetings.

No, the telcos aren't obligated to do billing for information
providers (IPs).  But if they aren't willing to do so, they damn well
better not expect to have permission to provide their own information
services billed to customers' phone bills!  The telcos know that the
reason the IPs like 900 and 976 numbers is because of the "impulse"
nature of the purchase.  The telcos want to cash in on those impulses
as much as all the existing IPs.

While I am generally opposed to the concept of the telcos becoming
information providers due to the obvious anticompetitive problems that
would result (note that I say "would", not "could"!), at the very
least the telcos must expect to provide the same access and billing
services to external IPs that they would to their own internal
operations.  Unfortunately, this is very difficult to police.  The
telcos have vast resources in their regulated rate base, and it is
almost impossible for outsiders to determine whether the internally
charged rates are realistic or nothing but "funny money" being pushed
around between internal telco accounts.

I am not a big fan of 976 and 900 numbers in general -- I suspect that
some valuable services that are offered through these mechanisms are
being negated by the overall "sleaze factor" that the public has come
to associate with these systems (obviously this isn't fair to all IPs;
many are anything but sleazy operations; I simply point out the
prevailing public attitude -- driven home by endless late night "Girls
Girls Girls" ads on television...)  I suspect that in the end the
problems with 900 and 976 numbers may eventually result in their
demise through legislative action on a national level -- whether or
not this would be a serious loss is of course open to discussion and
argument.

But in any case, we can at least demand as even a playing field as
possible from the telcos if they are (unwisely) permitted to enter the
IP business.

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

Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 13:04:21 PDT
From: Lauren Weinstein <[e-mail]>
Subject: Security and Privacy at the Message Center


On the subject of the PacBell "Message Center" ... one topic rarely
discussed in this regard relates to the security of messages.  Exactly
who at telco has access to them, and under what conditions, both
"officially" and "unofficially"?  What is the legal situation
regarding the privacy of messages stored on a telco computer?  Can
government agencies request access to stored messages, with or without
a search warrant?  Could they get permission to listen to large
numbers of messages looking for particular conversations, targetting
particular persons or topics?

What about similar unofficial or official access to possible archives
of old messages on backup tapes?  One assumes that the Message Center
disks are well backed up, and you could store a *lot* of voicemail
messages on a single Exabyte tape.  It would be completely practical
for year's worth of everyone's messages to be archived in
comparatively little space.  Could a party under investigation be
subjected to having years worth of their telephone messages being
purused?

Subscribers are being encouraged by the telcos to think of these
voicemail services as just "super" answering machines.  But as people
are gradually learning, they aren't "super" at all, and are far
different from conventional answering machines, with decidedly
different potential problems.


 --Lauren--

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

Subject: ISDN in California
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 14:05:59 -0700
From: [e-mail]


 From {Electronic Design}, August 22, 1991

ISDN Spreads through the Golden State - Growing interest in Integrated
Services Digital Network (IDSN) services in California is prompting
Pacific Bell, a subsidiary of the Pacific Telesis Group to step up its
deployment of the technology, which it offers as Centrex IS
(Integrated Systems).  The company cites two reasons for the increased
interest.  First, business organizations are becoming more aware of
the benefits of ISDN for desk-to-desk networking, file transfer,
remote LAN access, personal-computer LAN bridging, Group IV facsimile,
and customer service call management.  The second reason is new
ISDN-based applications, such as Pacific Bell's RealtyLink, are
finding homes in a variety of new markets among business and
residential customers, and manufacturers of central-office switches,
ISDN terminal equipment, and computer-software developers.  The
multichannel RealtyLink connects all participants in a transaction for
exchange of voice, data, and images.

Why does this paragraph seem to have so little to do with reality????

Anxiously awaiting the day when the bits get home ....


Malcolm

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

Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 22:39:48 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Canadian Long Distance Competition Update


(From {Bell News} (Bell Canada) 19 August 1991 edition)

Bell files part one of final argument in long distance case.

We're into the home stretch in the long distance proceeding <ie. the
bids by Unitel and BCRL to provide competing long distance service in
Canada - djcl>.

On July 29, Bell and the other parties in the debate filed part one of
their final argument to the Canadian Radio-television and
Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

This argument related to issues raised by the federal regulator in its
public notice of last year on long distance competition rather than
the bids of Unitel and B.C. Rail/Lightel (BCRL) to enter the long
distance market.

Also on July 29, Unitel and BCRL submitted final argument on their own
applications (see accompanying story).

Final argument is based on information brought forward in the evidence
of the parties, and during the hearings held by the CRTC from April 15
to July 5.

Once this part of the process is concluded, it will be up to the commission
to decide the future of long distance in Canada.

Different scenarios for long distance

In last summer's public notice on this question, the CRTC asked for
comments on a number of issues besides the Unitel/BCRL bids, such as
the benefits and disadvantages of various structures for the long
distance business.

Three different structures include:

* staying with today's system;
* extending the current rules for resale to the Atlantic provinces
(resale refers to the bulk purchase of private line facilities from
carriers such as Bell or Unitel, for resale at a discount);
* reselling bulk discount long distance services which cannot be resold
under today's rules (e.g. WATS);
* entry into the market by one or more long distance carriers (i.e.
companies with their own networks) besides the telephone companies.

In its argument, Bell said that implementing the Vision and keeping
the industry structure in place today would bring customers more
benefits and be less costly to the country than the other options.

Bell Vision would deliver more benefits.

The Vision is Bell's five-year plan to reduce long distance rates
while keeping rates for local service low.

The plan also includes continued modernization of the network, high
levels of research and development (R&D) and productivity gains which
could not be matched by Unitel or BCRL.

Although Bell will file its argument on the Unitel/BCRL bids later on,
the company did comment on them because they provide a useful example
of several carriers entering the market.

Bell pointed out that both proposals would result in much higher costs
to the industry than the current system, and in more limited cuts to
long distance rates as well as higher local rates.

In addition, Bell said that neither Unitel nor BCRL would be able to
stay in business if those companies were to contribute as much to
local service as Bell does.

Unitel/BCRL couldn't stay in business.

Referring to discussions which took place during the hearings, Bell
noted that BCRL proposed to pay only about 11 percent of its revenues
towards local service, while Unitel proposes to pay about 35 per cent.

By contrast, about 63 per cent of Bell's revenues from public long
distance revenues go to support basic local service.

On the subject of WATS resale in the long distance business, Bell said
in its arguments that resellers would add $1 billion to industry costs
over the next ten years.

In addition, Bell said resellers tend to focus on large customers
rather than the needs of medium and small customers.

On August 23, Bell and the other telephone companies will file
arguments on the Unitel/BCRL bids, with reply from the would-be
competitors due September 3.

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

Unitel and BCRL say competition will benefit customers.

While each party in the debate filed its argument on the CRTC public
notice issues July 29, Unitel and BCRL also filed argument on their
own proposals to provide long distance service in Canada.

Both companies claim their brand of competition would deliver more
benefits to Canadians than the Bell Vision.

In particular, Unitel says that competitive entry would force the
telephone companies to become more innovative and customer responsive.

On the hotly debated issue of local rates, Unitel claims its
"contribution" payments to local service would be enough to keep local
rates from rising.  This assumes that its forecasts of two per cent
productivity growth and four per cent market growth are realized.

Bell maintains that Unitel's proposal for contribution is much less
than it pays and that this, along with the extra costs of connecting
two networks, would force local rates up.

Unitel's argument also says that if Bell and the other telephone
companies are unable to achieve the productivity gains they predict,
local rate increases would be necessary to reduce local rates to the
levels set out in the Vision.

However, Bell is confident that it will achieve the productivity gains
it forecasts because of the spread of new technology such as digital
and fiber optics.

Like Unitel, BCRL claims that the Bell Vision is a poor substitute for
competition and promotes its own vision which it says would be of
special benefit to small business customers.

BCRL is a reseller, and as such is interested in serving selected
business markets.

The company's argument stated again that its proposed rate of
contribution -- a fraction of what Bell pays -- would be enough to
keep local rates affordable.

Bell will file its argument on these applications August 23.


reply-to: [e-mail]   [e-mail]  etc etc.

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

Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 23:44:27 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Other Bell Canada News Notes


The Bell News (Bell Canada) had some recent items such as:

  - Advantage Canada, a volume discount long distance service from
    Bell, receives final approval from the CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television
    and Telecommunications Commission). Discounts of up to 30% are
    possible.

  - Bell Canada employees in Toronto and Ottawa can get to try a
    voicemail service for free; after the trial, it will cost $5.50/month
    plus regular service charge.

  - Bell begins to file concluding arguments regarding long distance
    competition in Canada; Ontario and Quebec governments are opposed
    to long distance competition, particularly as specified in the
    Unitel/BCRL bids; Unitel and BCRL on the other hand say competition
    will benefit consumers

  - Quarterly financial notes

  - Bell employees get a jump ahead of most of the public for tickets
    to a series of Anne Murray concerts in Ontario (October-November).
    These concerts are part of the Bell Legacy Concerts, this year
    supporting The Environmental Youth Alliance.

If time permits (and it's running out fast...) some more details on
the above might be posted tomorrow. Otherwise, those with access to a
Bell News could probably elaborate on any or all of these items.


(vm1.yorku.ca is closing... replies please to [e-mail], or
[e-mail], or whatever....)

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #681
******************************










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Date:     Fri, 30 Aug 91 2:08:21 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #682
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Fri, 30 Aug 91 02:08:04 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 682

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    "Swinging Grounds?" [Robert Wier]
    510 Revisited [Carl Moore]
    Mitel - New Products [Dave Leibold]
    No More PacBell Personal Number Charges [Mark Lottor]
    Wireless Headset Phone Wanted [Mike McNally]
    AT&T ACUS System Just Installed Here [Kevin Kadow]
    VCR Plus Number Formats [Eric Kiser]
    For Emergency Dial 1-900-911 :-( [Jack Winslade]
    Happy 10th [Dennis G. Rears]
    Ten Years Ago in TELECOM Digest # 1 [Bill Huttig]
    Re: Ten Years of It: Starting Year Eleven [Joe Pistritto]
    Re: GTE Switches [Bud Couch]
    Re: US and Canadian Telex Numbers [Carl Moore]
    Re: 950-1288 Explained [Darren Alex Griffiths]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 23:23:20 -0700
From: Robert Wier <[e-mail]>
Subject: "Swinging Grounds?"


Recently, my house (which is situated in a little mountain town in
S.W. Colorado) was visited by a telco tech after I has talked with US
West about a problem.

The ACTUAL problem was that there is still a stepper switcher in use
there, and I have touch tone service.  Thus there is a converter in
the CO which converts the TT to pulse to actually dial. I was having
problems this summer because of the increase in banks and other large
institutions starting to use tt based response systems, like for
checking your account balance.  The TT to pulse converter was
intercepting my TT signals even after I was connected to the bank, and
sending pulses.  This of course totally zonked the bank's response
system. I had asked them how to get the TT signals thru without the
converter kicking in once the connection was established.  The
suggestion is to hit the # key after the connection is established.  I
havn't tried this yet (I've been away from home since the fall
semester started here).  Anyone know anything about a solution to
this?

However, the point of this message is that they surveyed my line and
found a "swinging ground", probably caused by water in a box, or
having gotten into my cable.  They came out and checked, and sure
enough the problem is on MY side of the box.  Now here is the
question: he disconnected from the telco system, and measured my cable
(with no phones attached).  Now, this was an *OLD* instrument,
bakelite case, probably 50's or early 60's.  And sure enough the
needle (digital, we don't need no stinkin' digital!) swung up and down
in a somewhat random manner.  I asked he was he was measuring, but I
never could get a clear answer (all he would say was that he was
measuring "to ground").  After he left I tried to get the same sort of
reading as a diagnostic tool with an analog VOM (which measures up to
the megaohm scale on the high end and down to 100 ohms on the low
end).  I couldn't duplicate what he was seeing, no matter what
combination of connections I tried (ring - ground rod, tip - ground
rod, etc).  The ONLY thing I could see was about a 500K resistance
between the tip and ring (should have been infinite).

I cut off that branch of the wiring, called the guy in the CO back,
and he said the diagnostic now looked fine.  My question is, what were
they measuring and how can I do the same to check to see if I have
cured the condition?

THANKS!


Bob Wier

                      College of Engineering
         Northern Arizona University / Flagstaff, Arizona
  Internet: [e-mail] | BITNET: WIER@NAUVAX | WB5KXH
                or   uucp:  ...arizona!naucse!rrw

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

Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 15:14:07 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: 510 Revisited


I tried 510-215-3596, posted in this Digest earlier.  It failed again
from my residence phone in Delaware, on 302-731, via AT&T and MCI.
Does the local switch weed out incorrect area codes before handing off
the call to a long distance carrier?

But it worked from office phone on 301-278, and also from a pay phone
on 301-272, carried by AT&T.  (These Maryland prefixes will go into
410 area.)

I intend to stick to the announced effective date of 2 Sept 1991
(Labor Day) for area code 510.  i.e., I do not intend to contact the
local company unless the above calls from Delaware still don't work
after then.

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

Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 23:26:29 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Mitel - New Products


Mitel Corp., maker of PBX systems and other telephone equipment,
announced on Tuesday a new line of "modular" equipment that can be
tailored to individual uses. The idea presented seems to be that the
equipment can be put together like "Lego". As Mitel marketing
vice-president Tony Bawcutt put it, "We've done for telephones what
Macintosh did for computers ... we've made it easy, we've made it
intuitively appealing and we've made it compelling."

Mitel production is to be streamlined with production of four phones
that can be programmed for any language, and sold throughout the
world.  Third parties could now be able to write software for the new
system, similar in concept to how companies can make software and
hardware for PCs.

CEO Anthony Griffiths stated that Mitel is still selling in more than
70 countries, is fourth largest in North American PBX sales, and might
be able to turn a small profit this year, after losing $107 million
last year. Staff and operations have been cut since, particularly the
Boca Raton, FL office which was moved to Virginia and scaled back to
perform marketing functions.

The rest of the story can likely be found in papers from Wednesday on.
{The Toronto Star} had a business article regarding the Mitel
announcement today (28 August 91).


[e-mail]   [e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1991 16:26:21 PST
From: Mark Lottor <[e-mail]>
Subject: No More PacBell Personal Number Charges


   I just got a note that said PacBell will no longer charge monthly
fees for personalized numbers starting next month.  This will save me
$3.50 a month on my business line ($1.50 if you have a personal line).
They claim they are doing this to be nice, but I can't believe it.  Is
there some reason they were forced to drop the charges?  Maybe so
customers won't claim they "own" a number since they were paying for a
specific one?

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

From: [e-mail] (Mike McNally)
Subject: Wireless Headset Phone
Organization: DEC Palo Alto
Date: 29 Aug 91 16:17:29 GMT


I'd like to buy a wireless phone, and I'd be happiest if it had a
headset option for hands-free use.  Does such a thing exist, and if so
is it priced within reason?

Note that I don't mean a cellular phone; I want a typical domestic
cheap-o cordless.


   Mike +   Software +   Digital Equipment +   Western Software +      mcnally@
McNally +    Laborer +         Corporation +         Laboratory +   wsl.dec.com


[Moderator's Note: Check out 'Hello Direct';  1-800-HI-HELLO.   PAT]

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

From: Kevin Kadow <[e-mail]>
Subject: AT&T ACUS System Just Installed Here
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Kevin Kadow)
Organization: Technology News, IIT, Chicago, IL
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 05:31:15 GMT


We just got ACUS installed in the dormitories (activated just one week
ago) and since then I've stumbled across a few questions ...

According to the brochure, we pay AT&T a $11.00 monthly fee for
outgoing service, rather than getting the service direct from Illinois
Bell. Since we don't get a bill from Bell, I'm confused as to how my
local calls are billed.

Each room gets a four digit number, used for free calls between the
dorms.  Incoming callers must dial 808-xxxx where xxxx is the extension.

Does ACUS have any interesting "features"?  Like a standard PBX we get
a four-digit phone number. After they activated the phones they sent a
rep. around to "verify" each number -- does ACUS have an internal ANI
(line identifying number?)

To make outgoing calls one must dial:

9-(desired number) + (your seven digit code)


[e-mail]  kadokev@iitvax (bitnet)  My Employer Disagrees.

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

Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 10:48:54 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: VCR Plus Number Formats


I know this isn't a telecom related issue, but does anyone know how
the VCR Plus entries are encoded?

All that I know is that is Huffman compressed, and I think it contains
the time on, time off, channel and date.  None of this is verified,
but some of it came out of Scientific American.

Also, if anyone has any good info on Huffman encoding, that would be
of use too.  I'm just curious about the whole encoding process & how
it uses Huffman encoding to make each entry simple.  Any help or
direction on this is appreciated.


Thanx in advance,

Eric


[Moderator's Note: Answers should be directed to Eric; not the Digest.
Thanks.   PAT]

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

Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 21:49:10 cst
From: Jack Winslade <[e-mail]>
Subject: For Emergency Dial 1-900-911 :-(
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Organization: DRBBS Technical BBS, Omaha, Ne. 402-896-3537


In his monologue tonight, Johnny Carson stated that beginning shortly
in Los Angeles, they <the ubiquitous 'they'> would begin charging for
emergency calls to 911.  He did say he was serious, and clarified by
stating that before an ambulance would be dispatched, the caller must
either have Blue Cross insurance or a credit card.

I know Carson kids a lot, but he >DID< say he was serious.  Does
anyone have the full story on this ??  This is the first I have heard
of it.


Good day!  JSW

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

Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 9:54:21 EDT
From: Dennis G. Rears <[e-mail]>
Subject: Happy 10th


  This is probably getting old by now, but happy 10th anniversary.
The TELECOM Digest along with the RISKS Digest are the best moderated
lists I have subscribed to.  Keep up the good work.  Hope to see you
at your 20th anniversary.


Dennis


[Moderator's Note: Dennis Rears is the Moderator of Telecom Privacy, a
mailing list which originated with this group.   PAT]

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

From: Bill Huttig <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ten Years Ago in TELECOM Digest # 1
Date: 29 Aug 91 03:10:19 GMT
Reply-To: Bill Huttig <[e-mail]>
Organization: Florida Institute of Technology, ACS, Melbourne, FL


I thought it might me interesting to pull some stuff from old issues
of the Digest and start a column. Here is the first installment.

Some articles/headers may be missing due to archive.
Items will be separted by ###

Ten Years ago in Telecom-Digest                Number:    1

      ###

 From the 26 Aug 81 issue of MIS Week newspaper:
              W.U. TO ACQUIRE 50% OF AIRFONE

 Upper Saddle River, N.J.

- Western Union Corp. said last week it has agreed to acquire a 50
percent interest in a new communications system, owned by Airfone
Inc., that will allow passengers on commercial airlines to place a
telephone call while in flight.

[stuff deleted]

The system, it said, is expected to be operational during the second
half of next year.

 ###

 Date: 27 Aug 1981 17:47:36-PDT
 In real life: Steven M. Bellovin, U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
 Subject: direct-dial credit card calls

There certainly are plans for it; about two years ago, the phone
company changed the format of their credit card numbers to 14 digits
(from a shorter string containing alphanumerics) specifically to pave
the way for direct dialing.  I don't know that service will be
available from ordinary phones, or only the special "Charge-a-Call"
phones in the airports, etc.

 ###

 Date: 28 Aug 1981 0225-EDT
 From: Hobbit <AWalker at RUTGERS>
 Subject: Credit calls, etc.


To throw some more ideas into that bucket:

I heard someplace that they are going to implement a central-database
system wherein the user will enter his credit code from the phone and
then make his call.  This would supposedly eliminate the use of
'synthesized' credit codes or out-of-date ones, or codes that the sys
people can tell the machine to ignore because of problems.  What it
will introduce of course is being able to beat on codes without human
intervention [operators] and I have a feeling that it would lead to
about the same crime rate as before!

[stuff deleted]

 ### End of Ten Years ago in Telecom-Digest ###

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

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 09:55:57 PDT
From: Joe Pistritto <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Ten Years of It: Starting Year Eleven


In comp.dcom.telecom you write:

> The Digest completes ten years of publication this weekend. The
> changes we have seen in telecommunications in the past decade are far
> too numerous to mention regardless of how many special issues I put
> out devoted to the topic.

Well, thanks Pat, for all the effort you've put into this thing.  I
know I've been reading it off and on (mostly on) since 1982, and
contributing occasionally, and know how much of your time it must take
to make this thing work.

It's been fun, and here's hoping we'll still be doing this ten years
from now!

Telecom Digest, a net institution you are now!

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

From: Bud Couch <kentrox![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: GTE Switches
Organization: Kentrox Industries, Inc.
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1991 00:11:30 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Brian
Crowley) writes:

> Imagine my suprise when I saw that they
> were going to provide me with the best in phone service with a #5ESS!
> It seems to me that GTE must have put a *lot* of development money
> into the GTD-5 switch, so why are they upgrading CO's with 5ESS
> switches?

Because GTE is no longer in the telephone switch or transmission
equipment manufacturing business. First they gutted (deliberately or
inadvertantly?)  Lenkurt, and sold the still-warm corpse off to
Siemens. Then they formed a "joint venture" with AT&T for the
switchgear (Automatic Electric) side -- which was just a thinly
disguised method to allow the Reagan "anti-trust" (hah!) section of
the DOJ an excuse to ignore the fact that AT&T would have sole
ownership of a competitor after some time period (which I beleive is
past).  Anybody in Phoenix - does AT&T own you wholly now?


Bud Couch - ADC/Kentrox   If my employer only knew...  standard BS applies

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

Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 10:23:14 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: US and Canadian Telex numbers


Moderator writes:

> Numbers beginning with 610 are Canadian TWX (*not* telex), and numbers
> beginning 910 are the Easy Link email service which used to belong to
> Western Union and now belongs to AT&T. The others you mentioned of
> 410, 510, 710, 810 were snatched back from Western Union by Bellcore
> and are or will be soon used as area codes for voice telephones in the
> USA.

This doesn't quite fit in with what was said in the recent "running
out of numbers" article, which said that 210, 810, 910 are available as
area codes (not announced or in use).  We know 310,410,510 are coming
as area codes before the year is out, and I wondered aloud what 610 &
710 were used for.  ("USA" should be country code 1; 905 has been
announced, but is not in use yet, for Ontario.)


[Moderator's Note: I wish someone would write in detail about 710,
which is defined as 'special government services'.  Please.    PAT]

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

From: Darren Alx Griffiths <unisoft![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: 950-1288 Explained
Date: 29 Aug 91 23:05:54 GMT
Reply-To: Darren Alx Griffiths <unisoft![e-mail]>
Organization: Open Systems Solutions, Inc. -- UNIX R Us.


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(ED HOPPER) writes:

> "A new AT&T service, released in July of this year, is the company's
> Information Access Service.  Intended primarily for Accunet Packet
> Service customers who regularly access on-line third-party databases,
> IAS allows users to dial the toll free 950-1288 from anywhere in the
> United States.

(other parts of description deleted)

> What do you want to bet that PC Ragazine has at least part of the above
> wrong??? :-)

I'm willing to bet quite a lot.  I just tried the number and got a
rather interesting result.  After two rings a recorded voice said "71-G
we're sorry" and it was followed immediately by a fast busy signal.
I suppose this new AT&T service could be very useful if you're having
a bad day, your SO just dumped you or your boss decided to cut your
pay, simple call the above number and a pleasant female voice will say
that someone cares.


Darren Alex Griffiths,
OS Solutions, Inc.

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #682
******************************










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TELECOM Digest     Fri, 30 Aug 91 02:36:33 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 683

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Pizza and Telecom Inflation (was Phast Food) [Dennis Blyth]
    CallerID Program For PC Hits the Street [Phydeaux]
    VISA/Mastercard Automated Authorization [Douglas Scott Reuben]
    MCI Friends and Family [John Higdon]
    Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls [John Higdon]
    Re: Phones in Elevators [Jeff M. Carlson]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Dennis Blyth <[e-mail]>
Subject: Pizza and Telecom Inflation (was Phast Phood)
Organization: NCR International - Europe Group, Dayton
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 16:21:00 EDT


(Previous post about how university town goes from 10,000 to 100,000
on a football weekend, and that the pizza company delivers by
bicycle.)

(A lot of this is not very telecom related, but I thought it might
teach a competition lesson, a market economy lesson, and might
entertain besides.)

The same pizza company being mentioned in this newsgroup (I avoid name
since we are not allowed commercial messages on this net) :-) in the
'late 60's' (I date myself :-) :-) advertised having the 'WORLD'S
LARGEST pizza ovens' at its store right next to (and almost
exclusively serving) the campus of MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY, and they
delivered using both a fleet of compact cars and some motorcycles.

This company was headquartered near the campus of another well known
UNIVERSITY (IN) MICHIGAN, (two guesses, folks!! but the first guess
does not count!) :-); and I was never aware of them advertising large
pizza ovens there....  :-) so maybe the folks at that other university
were not such big pizza fans as we were... although the owner of that
company was able to take his profits and buy a famous local
professional sports team.  (If you can't guess who this is by now,
then you (1) know nothing about MICHIGAN (2) know little about
professional sports, and (3) are not into franchise pizza joints.)

BTW, the profits from this little pizza venture sponsor an amazing
Christmas season light display in the Detroit area that is sooooo
popular that it generates monumental traffic jams and that some of the
locals would like it banned.  Also, this firm is a major contributor
to many non-profit agencies, United Way, etc., all from the profits
from pizza!  And pizza is one of the most nutritious fast foods there
is!!!  Hurray for free enterprise, profits are a good thing, IMHO.

Now, the telecom connection comes in (yes, it was a stretch! :-) Now,
who can compare the inflation in delivered pizza prices to U.S.
telecommunication costs: In 1969, their delivered pizza price was $
1.25 for a 12 inch pizza with pepperoni and extra sauce.  The same
pizza is in the $ 8 - 10 dollar range today, what an impact inflation
makes!!  How does this compare to the price changes in the long
distance market and POTS local market?  It may make one wish they were
in the pizza business (?)  Some of your telecom readers of the bean
counter, excuse me, financial analyst mentality may wish to fill in a
chart which looks like this:

               (all costs in current dollars)
         12 inch pizza    3 min ld call    3 min local call

1969
1991

and maybe repeat the excercise in constant 1969 dollars (eg, inflation
adjusted) to make the point.

Go ahead, somebody do it and post to the net, (if Pat, alias 'the
king' moderator, will permit this thread to continue) so others can
see.

Related note: as we analyze the 'market' price for pizza and telecom,
consider the impact competition has on the market.  That Detroit area
headquartered pizza place has competition from ANOTHER DETROIT area
headquartered pizza company that offers two pizzas (whatever type and
variety) for the price of one.  A COLA company related pizza
restaurant now enters the fray with home delivery.  And look what is
happenning to the pizza cost for us 'end - users' !!

Now maybe you telecom competition watchers can draw an anology.

More related to telecom:

A consultant friend of mine told me that 'many moons ago', he worked
on an assignment for a 'Michigan based pizza delivery company' (guess
who, probably hq'd in the Detroit metropolitan area) that was
investigating setting up a 'single number nationwide' for pizza
delivery.  He tells me that a (telecom) trade industry publication
published an estimate of costs and various other factors for this
project.  The consultant was quite proud of the fact that (allegedly)
their estimates / forecasts of the costs are very close in line with
what is being published today.

BTW, I can't disclose the consultant firm name, nor the name of the
pizza company due to professional ethics, market research
confidentiality practices, and the fact that that might constitute a
commercial message on the net.

Disclaimer: I own no stock in any pizza delivery company, but I really
love eating pizza (lots of pepperoni and sauce, please!).  I do own
stock in several long distance telecom providers, and I hope the
profits from these stocks will enable my children to attend University
and eat a lot of pizza while there and between now and then!

(smirk on: I'd love to post this to privacy and perhaps risks as well,
but honestly, I can't see the risk in anybody knowing my pizza
ingrediant preference.  smirk off.)

BTW, with CID, that Michigan pizza company could note, "thank you, Mr.
Blyth, we note that your last order was for a large pepperoni, extra
sauce, extra cheeze, would you like that again?  Ohhhh, yes, Mr. B.
(pause while order taker scans screen of information about past
delivery problems to the B residence), could you please have your
Doberman locked up approximately 25 minutes from now, so our delivery
person can get through?")  Ahhhh, the wonders of ISDN technology.


Dennis Blyth, Manager, Marketing Research, NCR Europe Group
[e-mail]
Fax: [phone]  Phone: [phone]


[Moderator's Note: It is certainly true that unlike everything else,
phone calls cost *less* than they did twenty years ago. Try the chart
shown above and see the difference for yourself.    PAT]

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

Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 17:02:43 PDT
From: Phydeaux <[e-mail]>
Subject: CallerID Program For PC Hits The Street


The 8/26 issue of {PC Week} has a review of a program for the PC which
"correctly identifies callers by phone number and in some cases, by
name, from the caller ID signals sent through the phone line by the
 ...central office."  The product is $295 and includes an adapter for a
serial port.

Sounds pretty expensive to me.


reb
-- *-=#= Phydeaux =#=-* [e-mail]  or  [e-mail]
ICBM:  41.55N 87.40W  h:558 West Wellington #3R Chicago, IL 60657 312-549-8365
w:reb ASK/Ingres 10255 West Higgins  Suite 500 Rosemont, IL 60018 708-803-9500
           f U cn rD tHs thN u cN Us Unx 2

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

Date: 30-AUG-1991 02:47:47.95
From: Douglas Scott Reuben <[e-mail]>
Subject: VISA/Mastercard Automated Authorization


Hi all,

I was asked a question a bit out of my area of expertise, and thought
perhaps a few people here might know:

I am looking at a project where a computer will have to interface with
a credit-card validation system (VISA, MC, etc...NOT BOC/AT&T).

Basically, what will be needed is a means by which a user at the
computer will be able to enter his/her credit card number and
expiration date, and while online, have the card checked for validity.
If so, the user will be able to proceed. Upon termination of the
session, the computer will then bill the card for the amount of time
used.

I can do the software for this, but what I need to know is how to
connect the computer to the VISA/MC system(s). Is there a way to do
this via touch tones? (I recall a few "enhanced" Charge-A-Calls from
Pac*Bell would dial out some number when you slid your Visa card
through, and seemed to "communicate" with the VISA/MC validation
system via Touch-Tones (no modem, etc.)

If not, how do you connect a POS (modem) terminal to a PC? Are there
any devices out there which will do that? (I am pretty sure there are
 -- I hate to bring up the name, but Radio Shack seems to do this
regularly ...)

Finally, a bit of an aside: I recall that there was an 800 number for
the "Watson" card demo. I thought it was something like 800-4WATSON.
Does it still exist? Anyone know the correct number?

Thanks in advance for any and all help!


Doug   [e-mail]   [e-mail]

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

Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 00:04 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: MCI Friends and Family


I have been watching the MCI spots for "Friends and Family". Various
"users" give their stories, which generally include and statement of
how much they save per year over AT&T. The one I saw moments ago
featured an elderly woman who claimed a projected savings of $300 per
year.

I thought about that for a minute and realized that $300 per year
would not even begin to pay for the sort of trouble I have experienced
with MCI in the past. So even MCI's own spots have convinced me to
stay with "that other company".


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

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

Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 11:30 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls


"Michael A. Covington" <[e-mail]> writes:

> Concerning 900 numbers and billing disputes, here are comments that I
> submitted to the FCC in April, 1990.  Basically, this sums up the case
> against having 900 numbers at all.

I was going to avoid raising my blood pressure and let all of this
pass, but after several re-readings, I could not stand it any more.
Your inaccuracies and faulty conclusions need to be addressed.
Hopefully, the FCC has recognized them as well. But then knowing the
FCC as I do, maybe not.

> *    Telephone accounts normally have no credit limits. This is
>      the root of the problem in numerous widely publicized bil-
>      ling disputes.

This is absolutely not true. Most telcos (including Pac*Bell) have
some very definite limits on telephone credit. If those limits are
exceeded, an immediate effort is made to contact the customer and make
special payment arrangements, which usually means an immediate payment
for the charges currently owed.

> *    Telephone subscribers are accustomed to the normal charges
>      for long-distance calls. They are often aghast at the high
>      charges for 900 and 976 calls.

This is more a matter of taking responsibility for one's own actions
and usage than it is a matter of other's practices. It is common
knowledge that 900/976 calls cost extra. It is widely known that some
of them are very expensive. If a person makes the call ignorant of the
charge (and then does not bother to listen to the announcement of the
charges at the beginning of the call and THEN does not hang up during
the grace period), he deserves whatever bill he gets.

> *    In the old days I didn't have to worry much about children
>      or visitors misusing my telephone. The most they could do
>      was run up long-distance charges by calling individuals, and
>      it would be easy to find out whom they called and thereby
>      identify the person responsible for any misuse.

900/976 blocking is free and takes one phone call to implement. Then
you can have all of the undisciplined and mentally ill people you want
around your telephone. If you are too lazy to call about such
blocking, you deserve to pay.

> *    Today, however, it's quite possible for my children and
>      guests to run up gigantic charges calling 900 numbers, and
>      because they don't speak with identifiable individuals, I
>      would have no way to find out who made the calls.

Again, what is the matter with blocking?

> *    Telephones are not normally kept under lock and key. The
>      security risk created by 900 and 976 numbers is unreas-
>      onable.

Blocking?

> (3) As is frequently pointed out, 900 and 976 numbers create a
> gigantic opportunity for fraud, deception, and exorbitant pricing of
> worthless services.

So does the world at large. To eliminate an industry because there is
a chance or an opportunity for fraud reeks of the government providing
cradle to grave security for everyone. Besides, there have been a
number of protections implemented by the industry itself to protect
morons from themselves.

> *    The root of this problem is that direct telephone billing is
>      not an appropriate way to sell anything other than telephone
>      service; it is much too easy to conceal the fact that there
>      is a charge, or make customers forget about the charge, or
>      misrepresent the amount of the charge.

So does the credit card industry. Most people would be aghast at the
interest charges and fees that are paid to these "service providers".
Have you made similar filings with the FTC? Again, many of the new
procedures voluntarily adopted by IPs themselves prevent this very
thing. Most services say right up front what the charge is and that
hanging up now will prevent it. What more do you want?

> *    This problem is inherent in the technology and cannot be
>      solved by regulation alone. No law of physics requires
>      people to tell the truth over the telephone. Even when
>      regulated, some vendors will break the regulations whenever
>      no one is listening.

No law can force people to tell the truth anywhere at anytime. Do you
advocate eliminating all business transactions between private
parties?  Shall we eliminate all commerce because some people
somewhere will break the rules? If you are defrauded by a 900/976
provider, you have the same (if not better) recourses that you do in
any other business dealings. You can refuse to pay; you can have the
charges removed; you can take legal action; etc., etc.

> *    If callers to 900 and 976 numbers were required to give a
>      credit card number (by voice or by keypad), this would
>      establish that:

The customer has a credit card. And what if one does not have a credit
card? Sorry, he is just out of luck. So what you advocate is just
another restriction on the lives of people who, sometimes by choice,
do not possess a bank credit card. Obviously, you missed the whole
point of 900/976: the ability to casually use a service without having
to make prior billing arrangements or having to carry a bank or other
credit card.

Your entire filing is based on matters of inconvenience, stupidity,
and fraud. If we could eliminate those factors from life, frankly life
would be a big bore. However, two currently common practices nullify
100% of your arguments. The first is 900/976 blocking. The second is
up-front announcement of the charges and a hang-up grace period.

> In summary, the telephone companies, by instituting 900 and 976
> services, have attempted to re-invent the credit-card industry and to
> drag the FCC into credit regulation, which is not the FCC's job.

I beg your pardon. It is not the telcos that have been behind this,
but our everything-to-everyone congresscritters. Frankly, I would just
as soon have the FCC stay out of this lest it become like everything
else the FCC is in charge of. The FCC is one of the most inept
agencies in the Federal government.


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

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

From: "Jeff M. Carlson" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Phones in Elevators
Date: 29 Aug 91 22:26:54 GMT
Organization: NSF ERC for Computational Field Simulation


Ah yes, the fun we used to have with the phone in the four story EE
building on campus.  We discovered the telephone number of this phone
one day by accident.  We used to call it in hopes of finding some
undergrad riding up and down instead of walking and ask them to bring
up a snack or coffee from the vending machine on the ground floor.


NSF Engineering Research Center  email: [e-mail]
P.O. Box 6176                    Phone: [phone]
Mississippi State, MS  39762     Fax:   [phone]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #683
******************************










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Date:     Fri, 30 Aug 91 0:42:27 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #680
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Fri, 30 Aug 91 00:42:15 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 680

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Coresident Area Codes [Don Lynn]
    Phone Gall [Brendan Kehoe]
    TDD/TTY Devices [Joshua E. Muskovitz]
    Baudot Related Information Wanted [Dipto Chakravarty]
    What's a GTD5 Switch? [Jeffrey C. Honig]
    A New Breed of Payphone [Bob Frankston]
    Transpacific TCP/IP [Chet Wood]
    Some USOC RJ-Codes From the Good Old Days [Dave Mausner]
    Cellphones and 911 in CA [Marty Brenneis]
    NY Tel Ringmate Problems Update [Michael Brown]
    How Do You Get TT LD Access? [Robert Wier]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1991 11:12:44 PDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Coresident Area Codes


Messages on the Digest indicate that having 917 and 212 area code
numbers intermixed in the same area is a new concept.  I believe that
in certain areas this has already been happening.  Many years ago I
used to live in an area in which this mixing should happen when the
310 area code split occurs.  If someone reading this can provide more
up-to-date information, I would be glad to hear it.  But here is my
current understanding:

Inglewood is a suburb of Los Angeles.  I grew up there.  Back then
telephone prefixes had letters (but only two, not three like Chicago).
For example, my family had an ORegon 8-xxxx number for awhile, and
later had an ORchard 1-xxxx number.  Of course they both became 67
prefixes many years ago when the powers that be decided we could darn
well learn all numbers.

Why, might you ask, would they use two different prefix words for the
same numbers (ORegon and ORchard for 67)?  Well the Inglewood CO was
just barely out of the local (= Free, unmeasured, uncounted calls)
calling area for downtown Los Angeles.  Several other areas also sat
just beyond a local call to/from downtown LA, and had similar
situations to what I describe below.  In the days before ZUMs and
such, that meant you paid Message Units (per-minute charges) to call
downtown LA from Inglewood.  So Pac Tel, as they were known in those
days, offered ORegon numbers (678-xxxx) for those who wanted a weird
shaped local calling area that included downtown LA and a small area
around Inglewood, or ORchard numbers (67{anything-but-8}-xxxx) for
those who wanted a standard approximately 8 mile radius local calling
area about Inglewood that excluded downtown LA.  The cost difference
was small, not like getting a Foreign eXchange number, or even wide
area calling, like is offered now.  So far all this is from memory of
happenings 30 plus years ago, but I just checked a new phone book, and
678 still has a different local area biased toward downtown LA.  So in
the area served by the Inglewood CO you have a sprinkling of houses
with 678 mixed in practically every block of houses with 671, 677,
etc.

The surprise is that by Thanksgiving, all the 67{not8}s will have
moved to area code 310, while the 678s will remain in area code 213.
So it will be 11 digit time to dial some of your next door neighbors,
even though it is a local call.  Of course right at the area code
boundary (which appears to be the middle of the first street wholly
within the city of Inglewood, NOT precisely at the city limit, but
that is the subject of another harangue), people will have to dial (1
and) the area code to reach their neighbor, but the effect with the
678 numbers will occur at thousands of points up to several miles into
area code 310.  I believe that this same effect happened with a few
prefixes similar to 678 when they split 818 off from 213 several years
ago.

(Because it affects this discussion, I will mention that the LA area
has had for MANY years the requirement to dial 1 ONLY to indicate area
code.  That is, seven digits for numbers with the same area code, whether
long distance or not, and 1+AC+7digits for another area code, whether
long distance or not.  It appears this will remain so for the
foreseeable future.)


Don Lynn


[Moderator's Note: Although we do not have coresident area codes as
will has been suggested with 212/917, we do have on the far northwest
side of Chicago an area where 312/708 are comingled frequently, owing
to telco's strict observance of 312=Chicago and 708=not Chicago. We
have lots of little pockets which are either other towns (or no town
at all, unincorporated areas) all jumbled together with the two area
codes literally next door or across the alley from each other.  PAT]

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

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1991 14:36:00 -0400
From: Brendan Kehoe <[e-mail]>
Subject: Phone Gall
Reply-To: [e-mail]


 The latest copy of {Information Week} (August 26, 1991) includes a
story entitled "Phone Gall".  It details an IW investigation into how
AT&T has sued (or is in the process of suing) nearly 20 of its large
business users for refusing to pay for calls made by hackers through
their corporate telephone systems.

 The list includes:
    Avis
    Citgo Petroleum Group
    Perkin-Elmer Corp
    Jiffy Lube
    Procter & Gamble
    FMC Corp
    the United Nations (the largest bill, with nearly $1M)
    Nassau/Paradise Island Promotion Board

 It's a fascinating article that I'm sure will be of interest to
TELECOM Digest and Computer Underground Digest readers.


Brendan Kehoe    Widener Sun Network Manager
Widener University, Chester, PA    [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: And indeed, AT&T *should* make them pay. It is not
the fault of AT&T that those organizations have trap doors into their
phone systems -- of their own volition, for their own convenience --
which were left unguarded. The real 'phone gall' belongs to the
phreakers who ripped them off (and their supporters, I might add, who
feel phreaking is such a harmless, victimless thing to do.)   PAT]

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

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 15:55:37 EDT
From: "Joshua E. Muskovitz" <[e-mail]>
Subject: TDD/TTY Devices


A few questions:

  1.  Is TDD and TTY the same?
  2.  I know that TDD is not compatible with "normal" modem traffic.
      Is there a "hayes-compatible" TDD-type device available anywhere?

I'm interested in (possibly -- for now I'm just getting feelers)
setting up a TDD-based BBS.  It would have to be specially designed
for the limitations of TDDs (like one/two line screens, etc.)

I'm not that familiar with TDDs.  Does anyone have any suggestions,
comments, or observations about what would be helpful, useful, or
relevant?  Sorry to be wordy, verbose, and obfuscating ...

Also, are there any readers who are members of the deaf community who
would be interested in working on this with me?

Please email your response, copying telecom if you think it is
relevant.


Thanks,

Josh Muskovitz   [e-mail]

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

From: Dipto Chakravarty <umbc3!umbc3.umbc.edu![e-mail]>
Subject: Baudot Related Information Wanted
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1991 20:46:41 GMT


I am trying to locate some info on one of U.S Army's character sets,
called BAUDOT, a five-bit character set that used be used in the army
for teletype devices.

We plan to use 'stty cs5' setting on a UNIX machine so that the bits
can be mapped to the Baudot character set. I need to know where can I
find out a Character Set Conversion Chart that lists the "Baudot"
codes and relate them to Unix's 'stty' setting "cs5".

Any pointers on this will be much appreciated. Please send e-mail to
[e-mail].
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[e-mail]    uunet!ats!dipto
[e-mail]      In-real-life:     [phone]
[e-mail]   Dipto Chakravarty  CMSC, U. of MD

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

From: [e-mail] (Jeffrey C Honig)
Subject: What's a GTD5 Switch?
Organization: Info Technologies/Network Resources; Cornell U. Ithaca, NY USA
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1991 13:33:17 GMT


I'm buying a house served by a local phone company (the Trumansburg
Home Telephone Company) and recently found out that they have a GTD5
switch.  Can someone comment on the vintange and technology of a GTD5?
Who is the manufacturer?  They offer ringmate, call waiting and the
like, is it also possible for the GTD5 to support ISDN?


Thanks.

Jeff

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

From: frankston![e-mail]
Subject: A New Breed of Payphone
Date: 28 Aug 1991 10:26 -0400


I was in Forest Hills, New York (Queens) Monday and ran across a new
breed of payphone.  Service was provided by an outfit called NAI
(their service number is 800-FONE-FIX I think).  The phone itself
didn't seem to have a number, just a way of reporting problems (#450
in this case).

The card said that LD service was via ATT and offered to accept MC and
Visa.  What made me suspicious was that they didn't say that they
weren't adding a surcharge since the LD service was not provided by
ATT, just the lines were.

10288 got the standard machine-voice explaining that was it was
invalid.  Dialing 00# got me some sort of operator who was unable to
get me ATT.  I tried again and did get someone to connect me with ATT.
The ATT operator claimed the line was already defaulting to ATT.

Maybe I'm overestimating NAI and it is possible this it was just a
plain outgoing only phone.  But there seems to be an opportunity to
route all the phones through an NAI PBX which can do its own billing
and call handling and then resell ATT LD services with a markup.

Does anyone know more about this kind of phone?  If it doesn't exist,
then it will.

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

From: Chet Wood <arc![e-mail]>
Subject: Transpacific TCP/IP
Organization: Advansoft Research Corp, Santa Clara, CA
Date: 28 Aug 91 08:56:59


Hi,

    We have a need to establish a TCP/IP link with our parent
company in Japan. Our bandwidth requirements are not great, so I had
the idea of getting a 56KB line and a multiplexer, and using 19.2KB or
so to run a SLIP/PPP link, and using the rest of the bandwidth for
voice and fax lines. Does anyone have any experience with such a
setup?


Thanks,

Chet Wood             .  [phone] X269
   [e-mail]    .  Advansoft Research Corporation
     arc![e-mail]    .      4301 Great America Parkway, 6th floor
            apple!arc!chet   .            Santa Clara, CA 95054, USA

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

Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1991 10:42:49 CDT
From: "Dave Mausner; Datalogics, Inc; Chicago" <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Some USOC RJ-codes From the Good Old Days


A few telecom readers have asked about the RJ codes. I have an old
USOC book from IBT here on my lap. It lists the order code and tariff
reference number for many familiar jacks in the "RJ" series. For the
benefit of the many, here are some RJ order codes, IBT descriptions,
and Chicago-area prices as of 12/82:

USOC    Description                            Price $

RJA1X    4 pin jack                            1.80
RJA2X    mini module jack                        6.40
RJA3X    12 pin jack                            3.15
RJ11C    single line bridged tip and ring                4.50
RJ12C    single line bridged tip and ring ahead of line cct        4.50
RJ13C    single line bridged tip and ring behind line cct        4.50
RJ14C    two-line bridged tip and ring                    4.50
RJ15C    single line bridged tip and ring weather proof            n/a
RJ16X    voice jack with mode indication leads for 9dB data eq        4.50
RJ17C    single line bridged tip and ring hosptal critical care area    4.50
RJ25C    three line bridged tip and ring                    4.50


Dave Mausner, Sr Tech Consultant / Datalogics Inc / Chicago IL / 312-266-4450
                        [e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 10:32:09 PDT
From: Marty the Droid <[e-mail]>
Subject: Cellphones and 911 in CA


When you dial 911 in California from a cellphone you get the local CHP
(Highway Patrol) dispatcher. This comes in to them on a 911 line that
they can use to transfer you to local agencies.

Here is the rub ...

When they transfer you, it is to a regular line into the requested
agency, not a 911 line. This means that that agency can't transfer you
to the proper desk to take your call. (Part odf this is due to
ignorance on the part of the local folks who don't know how to
transfer a line on a PBX. :-} )

I learned this when I needed an ambulance in SF and couldn't remember
the number for C-MED (Central Medical dispatch for SF). The CHP 911
operator transferred me to the SFPD who would not take the call and
said they could not transfer me to C-MED. It took some cajoling on my
part to get the PD person to give me 431-2800 as the C-MED numnber.
Luckly on my part the patient was not in critical condition.

I called the CHP supervisor today and spoke with her about this
matter.  She agreed that this could cause a problem and perhaps a
change is needed in the system. She said she'd call me back and let me
know what's going on.

Perhaps the CHP 911 folks should be able to transfer to the local
PSAPs just like a 911 landline call.


Marty 'The Droid' Brenneis                            ...!uupsi!kerner!droid
Industrial Magician                                    [e-mail]
[phone]       ~~~     KAE7616 - 462.700 - 162.2      ~~~        KC6YYP

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

Subject: NY Tel Ringmate Problems Update
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 12:58:43 EDT
From: Michael Brown <[e-mail]>


NY Telephone's latest pronouncement on my Ringmate service problem is
that when the replacement number was assigned, it was done so at the
CO level, but not at the local switch. Consequently, the replacement
number may have had a dial tone accessible to it for a period of time
in July. Their opinion was that it was possible for an accidental
cross-connection at the switch to have caused my account to be charged
for someone else's calls. They report that there are no further
inconsistencies in their database, and that they are continuing to
monitor the situation.


Michael Brown      [e-mail] or uunet!murphy!jpradley!vtssys!mike
VTS Systems            718-968-1971
871 East 55th Street   Brooklyn, NY 11234

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

Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 23:30:55 -0700
From: Robert Wier <[e-mail]>
Subject: How Do You Get TT LD Access?


This summer I travelled quite a bit (drove about 6,000 miles in two
months).  Since the type of travel I was doing involved differing
length stops in the places I was going thru, I would not know where I
might need to stop that night until, say, about 2 in the afternoon.
So, I'd call ahead to Motel 6 (or whatever) and make a reservation.

Here's my question: on pay phones which don't have ATT as the default
LD carrier (which is the one I use and have a card for) I would as
often as not have to call the local operator and ask for an ATT access
line.  (102880 doesn't seem to work a whole lot in little bitty towns
in NM, CO, TX, and AZ).  Fine, but since I was usually calling from a
gas station or convenience store, there were normally a bunch of
people standing around.  I didn't particulary want to announce my card
number and PIN aloud in these situations.  However, even at places
with TT phones, I could never get the ATT operator to connect me with
a LD dial tone where I could punch in my number from the keypad.  This
problem was bad enough in some places it might take me 30 mins or so
to get a "slot" where no one was around so I felt safe giving my card
number.

Does anyone know of a way to do this?  Maybe an 800 access number to
the LD computer at ATT?  Sure would make things easier.


THANKS!

Bob Wier
                      College of Engineering
         Northern Arizona University / Flagstaff, Arizona
  Internet: [e-mail] | BITNET: WIER@NAUVAX | WB5KXH
                or   uucp:  ...arizona!naucse!rrw


Moderator's Note: Most of the little towns you speak of where 10288
does not seem to work in fact default to AT&T anyway, and there are
very few places where zero-plussing the number will not work. If by
chance after zero-plussing you do not hear the AT&T oral logo, *then*
hang up and dial the local operator if 10288+0+ does not work. And
small town gas stations are not like LaGuardia; ie, I don't think you
have much to worry about speaking softly into the phone unless you see
someone actually standing there pad and pencil in hand, etc. There is
no provision for 'getting an AT&T dial tone'; nor does AT&T plan on
any sort of 800 line in the near future that I am aware of. The same
people you are afraid will be listening to you could also be watching
over your shoulder as you touch the buttons, couldn't they?    PAT]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #680
******************************










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Date:     Fri, 30 Aug 91 23:45:30 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #684
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Fri, 30 Aug 91 23:45:25 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 684

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls [Justin Leavens]
    Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls [Sander J. Rabinowitz]
    Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls [Jeff Wasilko]
    Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls [Michael A. Covington]
    Re: FAX Machine Message [Herman R. Silbiger]
    Re: FAX Machine Message [William Simon]
    Re: FAX Machine Message [Bob Frankston]
    Re: Telephones in Elevators [Chris McEwen]
    Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call [Carl Moore]
    Re: AT&T Likely to Block Calls From Arkanasas to News Service [Carl Moore]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Justin Leavens <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls
Date: 30 Aug 91 22:46:39 GMT
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA


In article <[e-mail]> John Higdon <[e-mail].
com> writes:

> "Michael A. Covington" <[e-mail]> writes:

>> *    Telephone accounts normally have no credit limits. This is
>>      the root of the problem in numerous widely publicized bil-
>>      ling disputes.

> This is absolutely not true. Most telcos (including Pac*Bell) have
> some very definite limits on telephone credit. If those limits are
> exceeded, an immediate effort is made to contact the customer and make
> special payment arrangements, which usually means an immediate payment
> for the charges currently owed.

Yes, but when you run over your bank card credit limit, you can't
charge any more. Your phone will never tell you that you can't make a
call because you've already called too many times and owe too much
money.

> 900/976 blocking is free and takes one phone call to implement. Then
> you can have all of the undisciplined and mentally ill people you want
> around your telephone. If you are too lazy to call about such
> blocking, you deserve to pay.

I'd love to put blocking on my phone, but if you're involved with
computers or software at all, you'll notice that more and more
companies are switching over to 900 number customer support programs.
Usually you get maybe 30 days free support or so, but then all support
after that is done by the 900 number.  As a consultant, I find that I
need to use these numbers more and more often, much to my chagrin. But
if I blocked 900/976, I'd be stuck unable to support some of my
clients without major hassle.

>> *    The root of this problem is that direct telephone billing is
>>      not an appropriate way to sell anything other than telephone
>>      service; it is much too easy to conceal the fact that there
>>      is a charge, or make customers forget about the charge, or
>>      misrepresent the amount of the charge.

> So does the credit card industry. Most people would be aghast at the
> interest charges and fees that are paid to these "service providers".
> Have you made similar filings with the FTC? Again, many of the new
> procedures voluntarily adopted by IPs themselves prevent this very
> thing. Most services say right up front what the charge is and that
> hanging up now will prevent it. What more do you want?
> No law can force people to tell the truth anywhere at anytime. Do you
> advocate eliminating all business transactions between private
> parties?  Shall we eliminate all commerce because some people
> somewhere will break the rules? If you are defrauded by a 900/976
> provider, you have the same (if not better) recourses that you do in
> any other business dealings. You can refuse to pay; you can have the
> charges removed; you can take legal action; etc., etc.

I disagree. You've obviously never been defrauded by an IP.  There are
laws concerning credit card charges and your rights regarding them, as
well as credit card companies that are willing to help you investigate
fraudulent charges and clear up problems. Information providers are
generally at least two or three levels away from the carrier, which
means that someone caught by a fraudulent IP has to track down the
number of the providor from the billing party, which is generally some
kind of middleman/broker operation, who will then refer you to another
company, and so on. It seems to me that the regulations and operation
of companies concerning credit cards work towards the rights of the
consumer, whereas the 900/976 industry includes a billing party
(generally AT&T or another carrier) who really has no idea with whom
they're doing business, a brokerage that just wants to profit, and has
nothing to do with telco billing OR information, and the IP who has
guaranteed billing no matter what their operation is like. And most of
them are small operations which are content to cash in big and then
disappear out of business as soon as any problems mount.  Something
seems wrong with that.


Justin T. Leavens
University of Southern California     :Mail to: [e-mail]
Student Health and Counseling Services:         [e-mail]

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

Date: Sat, 31 Aug 91 01:46 GMT
From: "Sander J. Rabinowitz" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls


JH> John Higdon <[e-mail]> (on 29 Aug 91), responding to:
MC> "Michael A. Covington" <[e-mail]>...

JH> I was going to avoid raising my blood pressure and let all of this
JH> pass, but after several re-readings, I could not stand it any more.

Ah, there's nothing like sitting back and reading TELECOM Digest and
watching the 900/976 debates fly once again.  ;-) I think my very
first article in the Digest [last year] was on this subject.  The fact
that controversy has gone on this long appears to indicate that
solutions are hard to come by.  Tonight I'll try to present a possible
compromise.

MC> *    Telephone accounts normally have no credit limits. This is
MC>      the root of the problem in numerous widely publicized bil-
MC>      ling disputes.

JH> This is absolutely not true. Most telcos (including Pac*Bell) have
JH> some very definite limits on telephone credit.

If that's the case, shouldn't the credit limit be revealed to the
customer?  With my bank cards, I know *exactly* what my credit limit
is even before I make my very first purchase on the card.  But with
the telco, I haven't the slightest idea what the credit limit is.
[One exception: I have a $100 credit limit on my old AT&T card from
college, which I still use.]

JH> If those limits are
JH> exceeded, an immediate effort is made to contact the customer and make
JH> special payment arrangements, which usually means an immediate payment
JH> for the charges currently owed.

In that case, shouldn't the customer have the right to voluntarily
lower the threshold when this is done?  For example, I have never
exceeded $200 on any single phone bill.  If the calls suddenly went
over, say, $300, I'd rather be advised of that right then and there
then have the telco wait some higher threshold is reached.  [Note: I'm
not saying this should be mandated, but it strikes me as being a good
business practice.]

JH> It is common knowledge that 900/976 calls cost extra. It is widely known
JH> that some of them are very expensive. If a person makes the call
JH> ignorant of the charge (and then does not bother to listen to the
JH> announcement of the charges at the beginning of the call and THEN does
JH> not hang up during the grace period), he deserves whatever bill he gets.

Ah, but you're assuming first of all that the grace provision you
speak of is used by all telcos and with all 900/976 services.  I'm not
sure that is the case.  Secondly, some of the 900/976-type services
are appearing on other exchanges (212-540 was one of them, I believe),
and *THAT* is not widely known.

MC> *    In the old days I didn't have to worry much about children
MC>      or visitors misusing my telephone. The most they could do
MC>      was run up long-distance charges by calling individuals, and
MC>      it would be easy to find out whom they called and thereby
MC>      identify the person responsible for any misuse.

JH> 900/976 blocking is free and takes one phone call to implement. Then
JH> you can have all of the undisciplined and mentally ill people you want
JH> around your telephone. If you are too lazy to call about such
JH> blocking, you deserve to pay.

BUT ... is this 'all or nothing' approach acceptable?  There are
actually 900 or 976 services which I find I might have some use for
later.  The use of those services would be lost along with
Dial-A-[Censored]-Story- For-Only-$4.00-a-minute.  [But I have a
possible compromise.  See below.]

JH> Most services say right up front what the charge is and that
JH> hanging up now will prevent it. What more do you want?

Frankly, I think it should be mandated.

MC> *    If callers to 900 and 976 numbers were required to give a
MC>      credit card number (by voice or by keypad), this would
MC>      establish that:

JH> The customer has a credit card. And what if one does not have a credit
JH> card? Sorry, he is just out of luck. So what you advocate is just
JH> another restriction on the lives of people who, sometimes by choice,
JH> do not possess a bank credit card. Obviously, you missed the whole
JH> point of 900/976: the ability to casually use a service without having
JH> to make prior billing arrangements or having to carry a bank or other
JH> credit card.

*** POSSIBLE COMPROMISE ***

Option 1: All 900/976/540/etc. calls are billed directly on the phone
bill.  For responsible adults with a grip on their children, or others
who feel that toll-call security is not a major concern.

Option 2: Total 100% blocking.  Used where security *is* a concern,
and where future use of these services is not anticipated anytime in
the near future.

Option 3: Credit card authorization.  Used where security remains a
concern, but a responsible telephone user still wishes to occasionally
use a toll service.  The user would be prompted to enter the credit
card number each time a call is made.  Perhaps the user could be
charged a small fee each month the service is used so that the telco
can recoup the additional costs behind this option.

Now, then:  What's wrong with having this type of choice?

JH> [...] two currently common practices nullify
JH> 100% of your arguments. The first is 900/976 blocking. The second is
JH> up-front announcement of the charges and a hang-up grace period.

But to reinterate: I don't think that practice is universal.  Can
someone outside of Pac*Bell country verify this?


Sander J. Rabinowitz | [e-mail]        [phone] | 1981 - 1991
Brentwood, Tenn.     | Celebrating 10 years of TELECOM Digest |     8-)

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

From: Jeff Wasilko <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 12:01:11 EDT
Organization: RIT Communications, Rochester, NY


To this day, I'm still trying to figure out why John Higdon
<[e-mail]> said:

> "Michael A. Covington" <[e-mail]> writes:

>> *    Telephone accounts normally have no credit limits. This is

> This is absolutely not true. Most telcos (including Pac*Bell) have
> some very definite limits on telephone credit. If those limits are
> exceeded, an immediate effort is made to contact the customer and make
> special payment arrangements, which usually means an immediate payment
> for the charges currently owed.

I realize that the local telco could keep tabs on a customer's LD
bill, but isn't there a considerable delay while the IP and the
billing telco exchange billing tapes? Wouldn't it be possible to rack
up a large bill in a month, unbeknownst to the telco? Or is the
billing information exchanged quickly?

John was right: 900/976 blocking and a hangup grace period are all the
protection most people need ...


Jeff ([e-mail])

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

From: "Michael A. Covington" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 19:41:56 GMT


Re my comments to the FCC on 900 calls, look at the date.  Those
comments were submitted quite a while back, _before_ 900 blocking was
widely available, and _before_ 900 calls has to begin with an
announcement of charges and a grace period.

Of _course_ it's not an accurate description of the situation now.


Michael A. Covington, Ph.D.  |  [e-mail]   |  N4TMI
Assistant to the Director, Artificial Intelligence Programs
The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, U.S.A.

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

Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 18:27:16 EDT
From: Herman R Silbiger <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: FAX Machine Message
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories


In article <[e-mail]>, alain%elevia.UUCP@larry.
mcrcim.mcgill.edu (W.A.Simon) writes:

> The problem is that both machines expect the other one to initiate the
> exchange.  In regular modems, the standard is that the answering
> machine starts.  In the fax world, it is still free for all.  However,
> I would not be too worried by this technology, it is sure to follow
> the Darwinian path of least resistance.  Manual fax machines are
> becoming extinct, so will this "smart" box, as it relies on the
> existence of the dying beast.  And ISDN is supposed to address these
> problems much more elegantly, whenever it happens.

In fax communication, the called machine also starts.  When the
calling machine is in manual mode, and the operator pushes the "start"
button, the calling machine starts its reply.

There is work going on today on call identification, but so far no
elegant solutons have been found.

There are also potential problems on ISDN, when multiple devices are
on a passive bus, and the High Level Compatibiity (HLC) signaling
element is not carried, or the device has more than one capability.


Herman Silbiger

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

Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 21:49:34 -0400
Subject: Re: FAX Machine Message
From: Super Abuser <[e-mail]>


> There is a CCITT standard for a calling FAX machine to announce its
> presence.  This is optional in the interests of supporting compatibility with
> older and manual systems.  If a remote system doesn't recognize a call from a
> computer FAX board, I'd put the blame on the PC Board.

And it is because it is optional that it voids the whole benefit of
having a standard.

I love standards, everybody should have one.


William "Alain" Simon
[e-mail]  [e-mail]

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

From: frankston![e-mail]
Subject: Re: FAX Machine Message
Date: 29 Aug 1991 20:24 -0400


There is a CCITT standard for a calling FAX machine to announce its
presence.  This is optional in the interests of supporting
compatibility with older and manual systems.  If a remote system
doesn't recognize a call from a computer FAX board, I'd put the blame
on the PC Board.

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

From: Chris McEwen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Telephones in Elevators
Date: 30 Aug 91 15:26:10 GMT
Organization: The Graphics BBS (2D,3D,GIF,Animation) +1 908/469-0049


A few years ago a person working for me would program the shop's
telephone to forward calls to the elevator in a local office building
whenever he was alone in the shop. It took about a week for the
complaints to reach a crescendo.


Chris McEwen      Internet: [e-mail] | The Computer Journal
Editor, TCJ    uucp: ..!att!nsscmail!gnat!cmcewen | PO Box 12
                        GEnie: c.mcewen -or- TCJ$ | S Plainfield NJ 07080
                                                  | [phone]

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

Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 9:32:51 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call


This replies to [e-mail]:

You mean someone called 0-900-xxx-xxxx?  How would the call have been
dialed?

The operator didn't try to verify the charge being authorized by the
3rd party before putting the call through?  What did you do to turn
the 3rd-party billing off?

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

Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 10:10:20 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: AT&T Likely to Block Calls From Arkansas to News Service


Oh, and have there been any legitimate calls from Arkansas to that
news service?

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #684
******************************










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          31 Aug 91 0:40 CDT
Date:     Sat, 31 Aug 91 0:25:19 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #685
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sat, 31 Aug 91 00:25:09 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 685

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Telephone Line Status Lights [Tad Cook]
    Re: Telephone Line Status Lights [H. Peter Anvin]
    Re: Telephone Line Status Lights [Jeff Sicherman]
    Re: Telephone Line Status Lights [Jim Rees]
    Re: What is Illegal About Butt Sets? [Wolf Paul]
    Re: What is Illegal About Butt Sets? [Steve Suttles]
    Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service [Vance Shipley]
    Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service [Dave Levenson]
    Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power [Bob Frankston]
    Underground Cable (was Himicane Bob) [Gerry Lawrence]
    Re: Reprogramming Switches [Carl Moore]
    Re: More on US West and 976 IPs [Chris McEwen]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: Telephone Line Status Lights
From: Tad Cook <hpubvwa![e-mail]>
Date: 29 Aug 91 18:23:27 GMT


Daniel Wheeler sez:

>> Radio Shack sells a device called a Teleprotector Voice/Data Guard
>> (43-107, $7.95).  You need one for each extension.  The catalog
>> description is so poor that I couldn't tell what it did, but the
>> salesman claims that with one on an extension, if the line is in
>> use, the phone or modem on the extension will not be connected to
>> the line.

rob woiccak -- [e-mail] sez:

> It works, but it can work too well. (stuff deleted)  If I was on the
> modem, never was I interrupted by him picking up downstairs. However,
> all was not solved - if, for instance, we got a phone call and I
> answered it upstairs and it was for him, he could not pick up the
> phone downstairs with the guard installed. Eventually, we both got
> sick of this and I can put up with the occasional interruption.

Moderator's Note sez:

> Your mistake was putting the device downstairs where everything on
> the wiring-in-common from upstairs (modem, phones upstairs, etc)
> would trigger it. Make your modem the last stop on the circuit (which
> runs around your house) if possible; then put the device on the back
> of the modem. That way the modem will kill everything downstream, but
> other phones in the middle will not affect each other.  PAT]

Actually, this won't work either.  Putting an exclusion device on the
back of the modem will only exclude the modem when anyone else is off
hook first.  Probably what Patrick meant to say is to wire the modem
jack directly to the demarc, and put everything else on a branch in
series with the exclusion device.

To solve the problem of transferring control from a non-excluded to an
excluded phone, you need a better quality exclusion module than what
Radio Shack has to offer.

Proctor and Associates makes a wide variety of exclusion modules for
many applications.  There are unbalanced and balanced voltage operated
modules (they split either one side of the line, like the Tandy unit,
or both sides, for optimum balance, noise immunity and voice privacy)
and there are models that are current sensitive and split the lines
into groups, with different hierarchies of exclusion.

You can reach Proctor and Associates for information on exclusion
modules at :

Proctor & Associates
15050 NE 36th St.   Redmond, WA  98052-5317
Phone:  [phone]  Fax:    [phone]   internet: [e-mail]


Tad Cook    Seattle, WA   Packet: KT7H @ N7DUO.WA.USA.NA  Phone: [phone]
MCI Mail: 3288544         Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW
USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad   or, [e-mail]
or, [e-mail]   or, [e-mail]

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

From: H. Peter Anvin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Telephone Line Status Lights
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1991 19:40:55 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> of comp.dcom.telecom,
funky love flower <[e-mail]> writes:

> It works, but it can work too well. When I moved into my current
  [...]
>  -- if, for instance, we got a phone call and I answered it upstairs
> and it was for him, he could not pick up the phone downstairs with the
> guard installed. Eventually, we both got sick of this and I can put up
> with the occasional interruption.

I use the Teleprotector from Radio Shack for just this purpose.  We
have two phones in our apartment, and I have one Teleprotector on
each, plus one on the modem.  It works fine, this way:

1. If the modem in running, the phone will not interrupt.
2. If someone is on the phone, the modem will not try to dial out (I am a
   FidoNet point).
3. If my roommate tries to pick up the phone while I am talking, it will
   be dead quiet.
4. To transfer a call (if my roommate picks up a call for me, for example):
   First pick up the other phone (which will be quiet), then hang up in
   the other room.  The second phone will be "alive" as soon as the first
   one is hung up, and the call will be properly transferred.

This Teleprotector thing is the second best thing to a home PBX or
distinctive-ring decoder ...

> Now, if I can only convince him that we don't need Call Waiting.

Change your modem dial string from "ATDT" to "ATDT*70W" (if your modem
supports the * tone) or "ATDT1170W" if it does not.


INTERNET: [e-mail]   ([e-mail] after this summer)
BITNET:   HPA@NUACC           HAM RADIO:  N9ITP, SM4TKN
FIDONET:  1:115/989.4         NeXTMAIL:   [e-mail]
"finger" the Internet address above for more information.

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

Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 01:39:09 -0700
From: Jeff Sicherman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Telephone Line Status Lights
Organization: Cal State Long Beach


  The September, 1991, {Radio Electronics Magazine} has a project for
a Phone-line sentinel that indicates if a line is in use.

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

From: [e-mail] (Jim Rees)
Subject: Re: Telephone Line Status Lights
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Jim Rees)
Organization: University of Michigan IFS Project
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 22:11:02 GMT


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (funky
love flower) writes:

> I put the voiceguard (I got
> mine from an AT&T Phone Center as I recall) on the jack downstairs and
> it worked like a charm.  If I was on the modem, never was I
> interrupted by him picking up downstairs. However, all was not solved
>  -- if, for instance, we got a phone call and I answered it upstairs
> and it was for him, he could not pick up the phone downstairs with the
> guard installed.

> [Moderator's Note: Your mistake was putting the device downstairs
> where everything on the wiring-in-common from upstairs (modem, phones
> upstairs, etc) would trigger it. Make your modem the last stop on the
> circuit (which runs around your house) if possible; then put the
> device on the back of the modem. That way the modem will kill
> everything downstream, but other phones in the middle will not affect
> each other.  PAT]

Another way to do this is leave the VoiceGuard downstairs.  Then when
you're upstairs and get a call for your roommate, tell the other party
to hold, and hang up the phone.  Then tell your roommate to pick up
the phone.  Every CO I've used will keep the connection up for a
minute or two on incoming calls.  This is by design, so that you can
hang up and then pick up a different phone.  Is this universal or have
I just been lucky?


[Moderator's Note: In crossbar and other older offices, you can do
what you say. In newer ESS offices, you take your chances.   PAT]

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

From: Wolf Paul <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: What is Illegal About Butt Sets?
Organization: Alcatel Austria - ELIN Research Center G.m.b.H.
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1991 08:22:56 GMT


[e-mail] (Michael L. Gantz) writes:

> O.K. I have to ask,

> Why are butt sets illegal in some areas, and who made them illegal?

> [Moderator's Note: Buttsets are NOT 'illegal' anywhere. Possession of
> stolen property (including stolen telco buttsets) is illegal, of
> course, but the units themselves are legal.  PAT]

And the situation seems to be that a lot of cops and other law
enforcment people have not yet realized that one can get butt sets
other than by stealing them from the telco :-) ...

I also think that they cannot imagine what you might want with one if
you're not telco staff, other than illegaly tap into someone's line,
either for snooping purposes, or to steal phone service.

It's a little bit like being caught with a skeleton key in your
possession, without a pretty good explanation. Although that, to my
knowledge, actually IS illegal in some jurisdictions.

The underlying problem is that law enforcement people tend to consider
their perception of things as binding on everyone else :-).


Wolf N. Paul, Computer Center
Alcatel Austria - Elin Research Center, Ruthnergasse 1, A-1210 Vienna-Austria
E-Mail: [e-mail]     Phone: [phone] (h) [phone] (w)

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

From: Steve Suttles <troi![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: What is Illegal About Butt Sets?
Date: 29 Aug 91 22:49:11 GMT
Organization: DB Access Inc., Santa Clara, CA


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Gordon D.
Woods) says:

> I forgot to include in the beginning of this thread the reason
> (excuses?) given for it being illegal to own butt sets.  According to
> the Morris County, NJ prosecutor, the reason they are illegal is
> because they can be used to illegally tap telephone lines. No mention
> was made of them being stolen property. The latter concept came up
> from people's actual experiences with the law.  It would appear you
> need more than a sales receipt to protect yourself.

    Pat's rebuttal (sorry) aside, I feel obligated to point out
that I can do anything with a standard telephone and some wire that
most people can do with a buttset.  A buttset is simply a telephone
that is more modular than most.  Whichever argument applies to one
applies to the other.

    To give even more weight to Pat's argument, consider that
hands can be used for illegal purposes, and are largely required for
most illegal purposes.  I do not expect the proposal that possesion of
hands to be made illegal would fly.  Not because it is ridiculous, but
because lawmakers have hands.


sas

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

From: Vance Shipley <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service
Organization: SwitchView
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1991 14:29:54 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> our Mmoderator injects:

> [Moderator's Note: But bear in mind that the individual links in a
> chain-call-forward scheme have to in total cost less than the toll
> charge would otherwise. Else where is the savings?  This working out
> in a way financially beneficial to the subscriber is very rare.  PAT]

Remember that in Canada we usually get flat rate local service with a
fairly large free calling area too.  So this sort of thing is
realistic.


Vance Shipley     vances@xenitec  vances@ltg  ..uunet!watmath!xenitec!vances

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

From: Dave Levenson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Cheap Foreign Exchange Service
Date: 29 Aug 91 11:45:32 GMT
Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA


NJ Bell has offered remote call forwarding, under tariff, for a number
of years.  The service consists of a phone number, anywhere in New
Jersey, with no physical line or phone associated.  The number is
forwarded to the number of the paying subscriber, somewhere else in
the state.  There is a small monthly charge, and each forwarded call
is charged the normal direct-dial rate (as if there were a physical
line with forwarding in effect).

They offer this as a low-cost alternative to 800 or FX service, for
businesses who want a 'phone presence' in a distant area.  I don't
know if it is offered to residential customers.  (Note that all
business service in NJ is measured rate, so there are no 'free'
calls.)


Dave Levenson        Internet: [e-mail]
Westmark, Inc.        UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave
Warren, NJ, USA        AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave
Voice: 908 647 0900     Fax: [phone]

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

From: frankston![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power
Date: 29 Aug 1991 20:13 -0400


It was the whole 617-262 exchange, located in the Prudential Center in
Boston that went down (fast busy).  All the wiring is underground
there.  Especially the interexchange wiring.

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

From: [e-mail] (Gerry Lawrence)
Subject: Underground Cable (was Himicane Bob)
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Gerry Lawrence)
Organization: UFNET University of Florida Network Operations
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 14:27:58 GMT


 Subject: Re: Hurricane Bob, Telco, and Power

[e-mail] (Scott Hinckley) writes:

> That is because of the brain-dead practice of hanging lines that I
> have seen ever since I moved to the south. In CA all the lines were
> underground (of course there we have earthquakes to move the ground
> around for us, severing those lines.)

> Every time we have:

>   a) an ice storm
>   b) a tornado
>   c) heavy winds
>   d) an ailing tree

Other reasons to put cable (fiber, TP, electric or CATV) underground:

    e) gunshots, intentional and otherwise (yes, that's right!)

    f) cars hitting poles (even if they don't bring it down, they can
       cause major havoc)

    g) more danger for cable types (like me!)

    h) Tree service trucks and other "Cherry Pickers" ("Move it over to
       the left, Jethro! BZZZZZZZT!! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!)

    I) less disruption of traffic etc during installation.

    j) Once the conduit is laid, installations are much cheaper, more
       timely and cause less disruption to traffic and the public.

    k) Cable on poles LOOKS LIKE SHIT!

> It seems like the lower frequency of outages for underground cables
> would compensate for the higher installation cost in a fairly short
> time.

> Oh well ...

It is well known that cable buried in conduit is more cost effective
in the LONG run than airial, even in earthquake zones.  The problem
with putting more of it underground is the CWA, who think it means
less jobs for them, in the LONG run. (idiots in my opinion, fiber to
the home is on the way, it might not be them that gets to pull it!)

Here at the University of Florida, all cableing between buildings
(electric, telecom, UFNET fiber and CATV video) is underground.

BACKHOES are still a problem.  Every time I see one on campus, I ask
the operator who he is and where he's going.  We've only experienced
one cable break via these guys, and we believe it was intentional.  If
you're REALLY woried about backhoes, you can encase the conduit in
concrete, as is required for electric cable underground.


Gerry Lawrence   UFNET


[Moderator's Note: Wires on poles do look pretty bad. Have you ever
seen real old photographs of large urban areas right after the turn of
the century? Poles every few feet with lots of wires criss-crossing
in all directions ... the sky above you was covered with wires.  PAT]

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

Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 10:24:20 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Reprogramming Switches


Responding to the Moderator's Note: That's why longer time has to be
allowed for a new area code to be fully cut over.

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

From: Chris McEwen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: More on US West and 976 IPs
Date: 30 Aug 91 15:35:33 GMT
Organization: The Graphics BBS (2D,3D,GIF,Animation) +1 908/469-0049


[e-mail] (Eric Smith) writes:

> The mistake isn't eliminating 976 service now, it was instituting it
> in the first place.

Hear! Hear!

Chris McEwen      Internet: [e-mail] | The Computer Journal
Editor, TCJ    uucp: ..!att!nsscmail!gnat!cmcewen | PO Box 12
                        GEnie: c.mcewen -or- TCJ$ | S Plainfield NJ 07080
                                                  | [phone]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #685
******************************










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          31 Aug 91 11:53 CDT
Date:     Sat, 31 Aug 91 11:43:21 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #687
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sat, 31 Aug 91 11:43:07 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 687

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Phone Gall [Gary L. Dare]
    Re: Phone Gall [Justin Leavens]
    Re: More TCIA: Telecom and Computer Industry Acronyms [Robert E. Zabloudil]
    Re: For Emergency, Dial 1-900-911 [Robert L. McMillin]
    Re: For Emergency, Dial 1-900-911 [John Higdon]
    Re: AT&T ACUS System Just Installed Here [Michael Ho]
    Re: Compatibility of Australia / New Zealand Phones [Paul Gillingwater]
    Re: MCI Friends and Family [Michael Graff]
    Friends and Family is Really Friendly! [Paul Wilczynski]
    800 Number Abuse (was AT&T Blocks Calls From Arkansas) [Mikel Manitius]
    Re: What's a GTD5 Switch? [John Higdon]
    Re: 950-1288 Explained [Justin Leavens]
    Re: 950-1288 Explained [Michael Schuster]
    Re: NY Tel Ringmate Problems Update [Tad Cook]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Gary L Dare <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Phone Gall
Reply-To: Gary L Dare <[e-mail]>
Organization: Curious Goods (formerly Louis Vendredi Antiques)
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1991 15:37:34 GMT


Wednesday's {New York Times} Business section (Aug. 28/91) had an
article on this topic; legally, the firms are liable to the bills run
up on their LD carrier.  Mitsubishi is taking AT&T to court, though,
for having provided them with an office switch and their service
contract -- thus, being ultimately responsible for hacker break-ins on
their system.


Gary L. Dare   [e-mail]   [e-mail]

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

From: Justin Leavens <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Phone Gall
Date: 30 Aug 91 22:01:00 GMT
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

> The latest copy of {Information Week} (August 26, 1991) includes a
> story entitled "Phone Gall".  It details an IW investigation into how
> AT&T has sued (or is in the process of suing) nearly 20 of its large
> business users for refusing to pay for calls made by hackers through
> their corporate telephone systems.

[more details deleted]

> [Moderator's Note: And indeed, AT&T *should* make them pay. It is not
> the fault of AT&T that those organizations have trap doors into their
> phone systems -- of their own volition, for their own convenience --
> which were left unguarded. The real 'phone gall' belongs to the
> phreakers who ripped them off (and their supporters, I might add, who
> feel phreaking is such a harmless, victimless thing to do.)   PAT]

I agree with most of what you say, but part of the point of this
article is that these organizations are dealing with telecom equipment
that they obviously don't know how to use efficiently enough to plug
up the all the cracks. Whether this is a fault on the part of the
businesses or the equipment dealers there's debate. But the companies
argue that AT&T, who has the technological resources to keep hacker
problems low, seem more interested in finding hacker problems and
billing the companies anyways rather than work for solutions to plug
the leaks in the first place.

I can't find the article at this moment, but I seem to remember that
AT&T has maybe five staff members working with businesses to curb
hacking, and "tens" of lawyers dedicated to suing the people who don't
want to pay the hacker's bills. I dunno, I always seem to have a hard
time feeling sorry for AT&T.


Justin T. Leavens
University of Southern California     :Mail to: [e-mail]
Student Health and Counseling Services:         [e-mail]

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

From: "Robert E. Zabloudil" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: More TCIA: Telecom and Computer Industry Acronyms
Date: 30 Aug 91 15:51:46 GMT
Organization: Defense Logistics Agency Systems Automation Center, Columbus


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail].
ncr.com (Dennis Blyth) writes:
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 651, Message 4 of 8

> PUC    is Public Utilities Commission

> This is a state group which regulates utilities in each state.  So in
> Ohio we call it the : PUCO <get it?>

Although each state has one, they go under various names.  Not to be
nitpicky, of course 8^).  I grew up with the Illinois Commerce
Commission in the news ... I think they use the same initials in
Iowa ... of course, veteran readers of this group I'm sure would
understand PUC...

> IBT is *most probably* Illinois Bell Telephone.  (My guess is the
> telecom moderator, PAT, used to work for IBT.)

PAT's LEC is IBT, or Illinois Bell.  As a kid, I always wondered why
we had IBT on our side of the river, but they had Northwestern Bell
across the mississloppy (why not Iowa Bell?)

> AOS  Alternative Operator Service

> COCOT   is something similar to AOS, IMHO, actually I don't know what
> this is exactly and I would like to see a posting which clarifies the
> difference between an AOS and a COCOT.

 From what I remember, when you pick up a COCOT, often designed to
look like a common payphone, you get connected to an AOS.  However,
there are other ways to get an AOS (like some hotel/motel phones).

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

Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 10:04:01 PDT
From: "Robert L. McMillin" <rlm@ms_aspen.hac.com>
Subject: Re: For Emergency, Dial 1-900-911


Jack Winslade ([e-mail]) asks:

> In his monologue tonight, Johnny Carson stated that beginning shortly
> in Los Angeles, they <the ubiquitous 'they'> would begin charging for
> emergency calls to 911.  He did say he was serious, and clarified by
> stating that before an ambulance would be dispatched, the caller must
> either have Blue Cross insurance or a credit card.

I don't know for sure if this is true, but I wouldn't doubt Johnny's
word if he were being serious.  The City of Angels, strapped in a
financial crisis, was investigating the possibility of charging for
911 dispatches.  I suppose that this means they've gone ahead and done
it, unless Carson's wrong... I'll have to check the back issues of the
Times I keep for just such an emergency.

The LA city Fire Department now responds to every call they get.  This
didn't used to be so; dispatchers routinely screened calls, looking
for those that just sounded like cranks or hypochondriacs.  However,
last year a 911 dispatcher repeatedly refused to send paramedic units
a woman whose husband was dying from a heart attack because she didn't
sound convincing.  About two years ago, a 911 call to LA county
sheriffs went unanswered.  In this second case, a woman having a
birthday party at her apartment received a phone call from her
ex-husband, who threatened to kill her and then did.  Owing to the
negative publicity ensuing from both these events, LACFD now must
answer every call no matter how trivial sounding.  The ensuing
tremendous increase in responses has resulted in an explosion of
costs.  Plans call for LACFD to close certain station houses, reduce
shifts, and run on smaller crews, as well as charging outrageous fees
for anything used by emergency crews.  If there is further interest, I
can post the figures here: memory tells me that a $2.00 band-aid was
the least expensive item on the list.

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

Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 12:14 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Re: For Emergency, Dial 1-900-911


Jack Winslade <[e-mail]> writes:

[Re: Los Angeles charging for 911]

> I know Carson kids a lot, but he >DID< say he was serious.  Does
> anyone have the full story on this ??  This is the first I have heard
> of it.

There was a newspaper story about a month ago that indicated that if
someone uses the services of the paramedics, the County of Los Angeles
would be sending them a bill. It was stressed over and over that a
dispatch would occur regardless of anyone's ability to pay, but
afterwards there would be a settlement. The purpose was to recoup some
of the cost of maintaining the 911 emergency medical service.


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

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

From: "Tiny Bubbles..." <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: AT&T ACUS System Just Installed Here
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1991 18:27:04 GMT


Kevin Kadow <[e-mail]> writes:

> According to the brochure, we pay AT&T a $11.00 monthly fee for
> outgoing service, rather than getting the service direct from Illinois
> Bell.

Er, well, I've heard of universities levying fees to have phone
service, but AT&T?  Is it legal for a long-distance company to sell
dial tone?


        ... Michael Ho, University of Nebraska

Internet: [e-mail]
Disclaimer:  Views expressed within are purely personal and should not be
         applied to any university agency.

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

From: Paul Gillingwater <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Compatibility of Australia / New Zealand Phones
Organization: Actrix Information Exchange
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1991 19:27:46 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(R Batt) writes:

> Hi. Does anyone know what government agency in New Zealand should be
> approached to find out what phones and modems are approved for use?
> Could an Australian phone be used with two adapters Oz -> modular ->
> Kiwi ?  Are Netcomm modems (Oz 240 volt) sold in New Zealand?

This is no longer controlled by a government agency.  It is now
managed by the Access Standards Section of Telecom Corporation of New
Zealand, which is owned by Bell Atlantic and Ameritech (as well as a
recent public share issue).

The phone number to try:  [phone]    Ask for Access Standards.

Netcomm modems are sold in NZ, but they must be modified before it is
permitted to connect them to the network.  (Basically, this means
disabling any Bell standard capabilities, and changing some of the
voltage levels).

The general situation is that only items with a NZ Telecom
"Telepermit" are allowed to be connected.  This is no longer enforced
by law however -- at worst, Telecom NZ may ask you to disconnect the
apparatus from their network, and may engage in civil action if you
persist in connecting unapproved equipment.

I have personally used an Australian specs. Netcomm modem on the NZ
network without problems.  Remember that NZ uses BT jacks, so you may
require a different connector cable.  These are readily available.


Paul Gillingwater, [e-mail]

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

Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 12:27:02 PDT
From: Michael Graff <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: MCI Friends and Family
Reply-To: [e-mail]


In TELECOM Digest V11 #683, John Higdon <[e-mail]> writes:

> an elderly woman ... claimed a projected savings of $300 per year.

$300!  Let's see, suppose she's saving 20% off AT&T, that means her
annual phone bill was $1500.  That's $125 per month.  Isn't that a bit
much for Grandma?  Somehow, I don't think this is a typical calling
pattern for an elderly woman.

(Yes, I'll grant that she's probably calling relatives all over the
country, but still, this seems excessive to me.  I don't think my
grandmother spends nearly this much, and she has plenty of
grandchildren to keep in touch with.)


Michael

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

Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 19:16 GMT
From: Paul Wilczynski <[e-mail]>
Subject: Friends and Family is Really Friendly!


I'm an MCI Telephone subscriber, and have one person on my Friends and
Family list.  (All of my other friends and family were scared off from
converting to MCI for my benefit!)

The first bill I received after I signed on to the program didn't have
the F&F discount.  I called MCI, and they not only credited me with
the discount to the one number on the F&F list, they credited me 20%
on *all* my calls for that month.  They *did* know that I only had one
person on the list at the time they issued the credit.

Pretty good customer service, if you ask me.


Paul Wilczynski

[I have no affiliation with MCI Telephone except as a satisfied customer.
I do have an affiliation with MCI Mail as an agency.]

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

Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 11:31:14 EDT
From: Mikel Manitius <[e-mail]>
Subject: 800 Number Abuse (was AT&T Blocks Calls From Arkansas)


> "A news service in San Diego has asked American Telephone & Telegraph
> Co. to block all incoming calls from Arkansas because of a Pine Bluff
> woman who ties up phone lines claiming she's married to singer Michael
> Jackson.

 From what I hear 800 number abuse is fairly common. Here at the
American Automobile Association we have an 800 number that members can
call from anywhere in North America for Emergency Road Service
("Supernumber").

On a recent tour through those facilities they said they receive many
"crank" calls each day, many from the same people over and over. There
is one guy in particular that keeps calling from the San Fransisco Bay
Area, he calls about ten times a day and rambles on about various
obscenities.

They've contacted the local police department, but apparently there is
little that can be done. Unlike the news service above, they can't
block calls from any one area, because they may be from genuine AAA
members requiring service.


Mikel Manitius   [e-mail]

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

Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 12:20 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Re: What's a GTD5 Switch?


[e-mail] (Jeffrey C Honig) writes:

> Who is the manufacturer?  They offer ringmate, call waiting and the
> like, is it also possible for the GTD5 to support ISDN?

GTE is the manufacturer and it will not support ISDN. Development was
abandoned on the switch before ISDN became a reality for it. Or, more
accurately, a joint venture was created with AT&T. AT&T has no
interest in seeing the GTD5 progress in any way to compete with its
very own product, the 5ESS.


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

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

From: Justin Leavens <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: 950-1288 Explained
Date: 30 Aug 91 22:20:22 GMT
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA


Okay, this 950-1288 ... I think I missed exactly what this number is
supposed to provide, but I tried it from my phone (213-740) and I got
a modem to answer... Unfortunately, my office line is digital so I
can't hook a modem up to it right now and check it out.


Justin T. Leavens
University of Southern California     :Mail to: [e-mail]
Student Health and Counseling Services:         [e-mail]

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

From: Michael Schuster <panix![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: 950-1288 Explained
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 12:45:11 GMT
Organization: PANIX - Public Access Unix Systems of NY


In article <[e-mail]> Darren Alx Griffiths
<unisoft![e-mail]> writes:

> After two rings a recorded voice said "71-G
> we're sorry" and it was followed immediately by a fast busy signal.
> I suppose this new AT&T service could be very useful if you're having
> a bad day, your SO just dumped you or your boss decided to cut your
> pay, simple call the above number and a pleasant female voice will say
> that someone cares.

In New York City it produces "I'm sorry, all circuits are busy".


Mike Schuster
NY Public Access UNIX: [e-mail]      | [e-mail]
The Portal (R) System: [e-mail] | -MCI Mail,GEnie: MSCHUSTER

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

Subject: Re: NY Tel Ringmate Problems Update
From: Tad Cook <hpubvwa![e-mail]>
Date: 30 Aug 91 20:22:42 GMT


Michael Brown <[e-mail]> writes:

> NY Telephone's latest pronouncement on my Ringmate service problem is
> that when the replacement number was assigned, it was done so at the
> CO level, but not at the local switch.

Huh?  I thought the local switch WAS the CO.


Tad Cook   Seattle, WA  Packet: KT7H @ N7DUO.WA.USA.NA  Phone: [phone]
MCI Mail: 3288544       Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW
USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad  or, [e-mail]
or, [e-mail]   or, [e-mail]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #687
******************************










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Date:     Sat, 31 Aug 91 11:06:20 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #686
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sat, 31 Aug 91 11:05:58 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 686

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Baudot Related Information Wanted [John Nagle]
    Re: Baudot Related Information Wanted [Bob Clements]
    Re: Baudot Related Information Wanted [Dipto Chakravarty]
    Re: TDD/TTY Devices [Dave Niebuhr]
    Re: Coresident Area Codes [Carl Moore]
    Re: Coresident Area Codes [John R. Levine]
    Re: GTE Switches [Jefferson George]
    Re: More on US West and 976 IPs [Jayson Raymond]
    Re: 900 'Lawyer' Number Comments [Brett G. Person]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: John Nagle <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Baudot Related Information Wanted
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 06:32:20 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)


umbc3!umbc3.umbc.edu![e-mail] (Dipto Chakravarty) writes:

> I am trying to locate some info on one of U.S Army's character sets,
> called BAUDOT, a five-bit character set that used be used in the army
> for teletype devices.

> We plan to use 'stty cs5' setting on a UNIX machine so that the bits
> can be mapped to the Baudot character set. I need to know where can I
> find out a Character Set Conversion Chart that lists the "Baudot"
> codes and relate them to Unix's 'stty' setting "cs5".

      A detailed discussion of conversion between ASCII and Baudot can
be found in "The 1988 ARRL Handbook", pages 19-18 through 19-23.  The
governing international standard for this conversion is ISO/DIS 6936,
along with CCITT Recommendation S.18.  The character sets don't match
well, and conversion is messy.  Some characters are not the same on
all Baudot machines.

      Baudot (not an acronym, but the name of the inventor) is used
today in two main applications.  Older radioteletype systems,
including ship-to shore systems, still use Baudot.  If you're working
with RTTY, the ARRL handbook cited above will give a good overview of
the subject.

      The other remaining application involves the Telecommunications
Device for the Deaf (TDD).  Old teletype machines used to be used for
this purpose, so the TDD is a Baudot device.

      The usual baud rates for Baudot teletype machines are 45.45 baud
(called "60 speed") and 56.92 baud (called "75 speed").  Most Baudot
teletypes can be geared for either speed, and some can also be geared
for 74.20 baud ("100 speed").  You may have trouble finding UARTs that
support these speeds; older ones do, but many newer ones don't.
Baudot is always sent with 5 data bits, no parity, 2 stop bits ("5N2"
mode).

      Baudot mechanical teletypes are not RS-232 compatible.  They
normally use a 60 mA current loop connection.  Since they are
low-resistance devices, 100 to 300 ohms, loop voltages as high as 300
volts may be required.  This requires special interfacing circuitry.

      Are you sure you want to bother with those antiques?


John Nagle

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

Subject: Re: Baudot Related Information Wanted
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 10:44:10 -0400
From: [e-mail]


X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 680, Message 4 of 11
[e-mail]   Dipto Chakravarty  CMSC, U. of MD writes:

> I am trying to locate some info on one of U.S Army's character sets,
> called BAUDOT, a five-bit character set that used be used in the army
> for teletype devices. [And asks for the character set info.]

A lot more people than the Army used (and still use) Baudot coded TTY
machines.  The entire worldwide TELEX network still uses it.  Lots of
shortwave transmissions use it rather than (e.g.) ASCII, for good
technical reasons.

I was tempted to write a LONG article expounding on ancient Model 26,
12 and 15 TTY's, including notes about use in radio, stock exchanges,
Western Union/RCA/etc.; the wondrous(!) design of the mechanical
predecessor of a UART; the first time I saw a prototype of a Model 28
TTY at the AT&T building in Manhattan; the fact that I wrote the TELEX
interface for MCI Mail (through which all MCI-mail customers can get
and send Telexes); the time that I as a 12-year-old was pictured on
the cover of a magazine sitting in front of my trusty Model 26 TTY;
the time we disconnected the UPI press machine at MIT to move it into
another room and thereby cut off Harvard's news feed which was in
series with us.

But I won't do that.  I'll just give some info on the various Baudot
codes.  (There are those who insist on calling it Moore code, since
Baudot's code didn't look like today's versions any more than Morse's
original code looks like today's Morse.)

The Baudot code is really a family of codes.  There are two "cases",
called "LTRS" and "FIGS".  The data is five bits, usually with one
start bit and 1 or 1.42 or 1.5 or 2 stop bits.  This allows for 32
code combinations, obviously too few to be useful.  So the two cases
were invented, one for the letters and one for the digits and
punctuations.

Two characters are used to shift between the two cases.  On many
machines, the "SPACE" character also causes a shift back to the LTRS
case, but this is not universal.

The LTRS case is standard.  The FIGS case comes in many varieties,
depending on the intended uses.  The ten digits are pretty standard,
being the shifted version of the top row of the keyboard [QWERTYUIOP].
But beyond that there are many variations, such as weather symbols
(clear, cloudy, etc.) and more ordinary text.  The currency symbols
vary from country to country, and the position of the "BELL" has two
common variations.  Note that the most common letters have the fewest
"one" bits in their codes, meaning the fewest holes in the paper tape.
This is to minimize wear on the paper tape punches.

Here's a common version of the code (Yes, I DO know this pretty much
by heart, but I did check a listing. :-)

[The bar in the "Holes" pattern is where the feed hole goes.]


    Holes   Hex     LTRS    FIGS
    ...|..  00      [blank] [blank]   Idle, blank tape.
    ...|.O  01      E       3
    ...|O.  02      LF      LF        Linefeed
    ...|OO  03      A       -
    ..O|..  04      SPACE   SPACE
    ..O|.O  05      S       BELL      BELL = ' on some TTYs
    ..O|O.  06      I       8
    ..O|OO  07      U       7
    .O.|..  08      CR      CR        Carriage Return
    .O.|.O  09      D       WRU       Who Are You, causes answerback
    .O.|O.  0A      R       R
    .O.|OO  0B      J       '         ' = BELL on some TTYs
    .OO|..  0C      N       ,
    .OO|.O  0D      F       $
    .OO|O.  0E      C       C
    .OO|OO  0F      K       (
    O..|..  10      T       5
    O..|.O  11      Z       +
    O..|O.  12      L       )
    O..|OO  13      W       2
    O.O|..  14      H       #          # = Motor Off on some TTYs
    O.O|.O  15      Y       6
    O.O|O.  16      P       0
    O.O|OO  17      Q       1
    OO.|..  18      O       9
    OO.|.O  19      B       ?
    OO.|O.  1A      G       &
    OO.|OO  1B      FIGS    FIGS        Shift into Figures case
    OOO|..  1C      M       .
    OOO|.O  1D      X       /
    OOO|O.  1E      V       =
    OOO|OO  1F      LTRS    LTRS        Shift into Letters case
                        BS also called RUBOUT,
                        used to overpunch errors


Bob Clements, K1BC, [e-mail]

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

From: Dipto Chakravarty <umbc3!umbc3.umbc.edu![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Baudot Related Information Wanted
Organization: Univ. of Maryland Baltimore County, Academic Computing Services
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1991 23:03:40 GMT


Many thanks to all of you who sent me a lot of valuable info on Baudot.


Dipto

[e-mail]  uunet!ats!dipto
[e-mail] ------>   In-real-life:   <------ [phone]
[e-mail] -----/  Dipto Chakravarty  \----- CMSC, U. of MD.

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

Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1991 15:58:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Dave Niebuhr, BNL CCD, 516-282-3093" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: TDD/TTY Devices


In Message-ID: <[e-mail]> [e-mail].
com (Joshua E. Muskovitz) writes:

> I'm not that familiar with TDDs.  Does anyone have any suggestions,
> comments, or observations about what would be helpful, useful, or
> relevant?  Sorry to be wordy, verbose, and obfuscating ...

> Also, are there any readers who are members of the deaf community who
> would be interested in working on this with me?

Responder on:

I think a TDD would be useless if the person accessing the BBS has a
regular type of screen such as found on a PC or some such animal.

Two lines at a time will turn a person off quite fast if they have to
keep forcing line feeds or pages after a little bit of information.

We have a TDD in our shop and it is used for phone calls to/from our
hearing-impared staff (longest running started here in '78 and we had
temps before that).  These people are screen oriented just like a
non-hearing-impared person.

I can't put myself directly in their situation but I know that I'd be
insulted if the rest of my colleagues had access to full screens and I
had to use a two-liner to obtain information.

These things have almost no speed at all unless you call 110 baud
lightning.  Even a TTY based system would be almost useless since it's
speed is ridiculously low.

So, please don't go the TDD/TTY route.

I'll forward your request to our hearing-impared operators and solicit
their opinions for you.


Dave Niebuhr  Brookhaven National Laboratory  Internet: [e-mail]

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

Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 10:42:42 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Coresident Area Codes


Yes, there are L.A. foreign exchanges serving points (such as
Pasadena) which are now in 818, with those L.A. foreign exchanges
staying in 213 when 818 was formed.  The same thing is to happen with
L.A. foreign exchanges in Inglewood etc.  when 310 is formed.  (Only
the L.A. exchange, including these "foreign" exchanges, and the
Montebello exchange will stay in 213.)

In this Digest, I also heard that a few Chicago exchanges, staying in
312 when 708 was formed, actually serve points now in 708.

And in Maryland near Baltimore and Washington, you have a similar
thing happening; some areas such as Laurel and Annapolis have special
prefixes available for both Washington metro service and Baltimore
metro service, in addition to the "default" prefixes (to be found on
pay phones).  When 410 is formed, it will pick up prefixes local to
Baltimore, with prefixes local to Washington staying in 301.

I don't think any of the above is quite the same as what is proposed
for area code 917 in New York City.

When I review zip-area notes (directory published by Pilot Books), I
ignore such "foreign" prefixes.  The best indicator of what area code
or exchange you are in is the exchange on the pay phone; the only
foreign exchange I know of on a pay phone would be 301-621, provided
on some pay phones at Baltimore-Washington International Airport so
that the Washington metro area is a local call.  (The "default"
exchange at BWI is Glen Burnie/Friendship 859 etc., part of the
Baltimore metro exchanges.)


[Moderator's Note: There are a few oddities such as you describe here.
I know Cell One has 312-504 and Ameritech Mobile has 312-415 wired
from the Chicago-Congress CO downtown, although both cell companies
are out in the Oak Brook area. David Tamkin knows a little more about
such cases.   PAT]

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

Subject: Re: Coresident Area Codes
Organization: I.E.C.C.
Date: 30 Aug 91 09:10:44 EDT (Fri)
From: "John R. Levine" <[e-mail]>


When Maryland splits into two area codes I'd expect to find 410 and
301 numbers all intermixed in central Maryland.  In many areas,
subscribers have a choice of a number that is local to Washington or a
number that is local to Baltimore.  This among other things means that
it can be an inter-lata toll call to your next-door neighbor, even
though you're on the same switch.  (There was some argument about
whether such calls had to be sent out to an LD carrier, I think the
judge agreed they didn't.)

Baltimore numbers will be in 410 while Washington-local numbers will
stay in 301, so 11-digit dialing will presumably be the norm all over
the place.


Regards,

John Levine, [e-mail], {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl

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

From: Jefferson George <asuvax!gtephx![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: GTE Switches
Organization: AG Communication Systems
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1991 19:50:49 GMT


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Herman R Silbiger) writes:

> About three years ago GTE sold their switch business to AT&T, since
> GTE did not want to invest in developing ISDN capability.  Initially,
> AT&T had a 50% interest, which would increase to 100% over five years.
> The company is still operated independently, but this will probably
> change in the long run.  I think it is called ATG.

The company's name is AG Communications ( A = AT&T and G = GTE)

GTE still has a controlling interest of 51% till 1994.  After that
AT&T will have the controlling interest of 80% till 1999, when it will
own AG.


Jefferson George      AG Communication System, Phoenix, Arizona
Inet: gtephx![e-mail]
UUCP: {ncar!noao!asuvax | uunet!hrc | att}!gtephx!georgej

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

From: Jayson Raymond <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: More on US West and 976 IPs
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 91 13:55:54 PDT


Eric Smith <[e-mail]> writes:

> What, now everyone has a right to have US West do their billing for
> them?  They can just get a 800 line or even a normal line and bill via
> credit card.  If they do it right it might even make them more money
> than they get now.

If only it were as easy as that. Getting a credit card merchant
account for telephone ordered services is quite difficult. Most banks
simply refuse, and those that are "generous" enough to grant you one,
require a signficant (read: > $100k) bond. This simply puts a typical
credit card as a means of collections out of reach for most small
businesses.

This leaves very few avenues available for collections for an
information provider (IP) service. The 900 and 976 services are of
little value in any case, due to the exorbitant price an IP _must_
charge to recover the cost the carrier charges the IP for the service.
There are damn few services that I as a consumer would pay for, even
if the IP merely passed on the carriers fee, and absorbed the rest.

Tad Cook <hpubvwa![e-mail]> points out the truely scary part ...
the minute U.S. West could enter the IP industry, they, in a fell
swoop, eliminated _all_ competition by discontinuing the service (and
it's quite unfortunate the {Seattle Times} didn't point this out).
Now, while their business decision may indeed have been sound (perhaps
it is, in light of Telespheres troubles, but I doubt it), the real
problem as Mr. Higdon has so poignantly brought to light, is that when
the medium and the message are controlled by the same group, a
_natural_ conflict with the publics best interest immediately arises.

 From a business stand point, the RBOC's and their managers would be
fools _not_ to make decisions that would increase their competitiveness
in the "message", via their influence upon the medium.  The system
needs natural checks and balances, not regulation for pseudo-checks
that are ineffective and cost the taxpayers for their inefficiency.


Jayson Raymond   [e-mail]

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

From: Brett G Person  <plains![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: 900 'Lawyer' Number Comments
Date: 30 Aug 91 07:21:51 GMT
Organization: North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND


In article <[e-mail]> rescon![e-mail].
unisys.com (Bob Falcon) writes:

> I saw a 'new' 900 number advertisement on one of our local channels
> this morning.  It caught my eye (ear?) because it mentioned one of
> my 'pet-peeves': LAWYERS!

> 1-900-976-LAWS, just $39.50 per minute.

Ye gad's!  It'd be cheapper to go see a real lawyer!  What can you
tell someone in a minute?  How short of an answer can they give you in
another minute that would impart some usefull advice or information?


Brett G. Person
North Dakota State University
uunet!plains!person | [e-mail] | [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: I think the rate is $39.50 per *call*, but I am not
positive.   PAT]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #686
******************************










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[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #688
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sun, 1 Sep 91 01:18:07 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 688

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call [Ken Abrams]
    Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call [Al Stangenberger]
    Re: Telephone Line Status Indicator Box [Barton F. Bruce]
    Re: 950 Data Access, was AT&T Data Network [Barton F. Bruce]
    Re: What is Illegal About Butt Sets? [Eric Lee Green]
    Re: FAX Machine Message [Gordon Burditt]
    Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls [Roger B.A. Klorese]
    Re: Billing responsibility and 900 Calls [Charlie Mingo]
    Re: AT&T ACUS System Just Installed Here [[e-mail]]
    Re: MCI Friends and Family [David Lemson]
    Re: Wireless Headset Phone Wanted [Tad Cook]
    MCI Mail Personal Network Promo Until Dec 31 [Paul Wilczynski]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Ken Abrams <samsung!athenanet.com![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call
Organization: Athenanet, Inc.,  Springfield, Illinois
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1991 14:00:12 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
writes:

> Third-party billing will sometimes work.  I just had PacBell remove a
> charge for a 900-call which somebody had made from another phone and
> charged to my number (I've since had third-party billing turned off ... )

> [Moderator's Note: I was not aware that calls to a 900 number could
> ever be operator-assisted. The only tariff I knew existed was for
> direct dial rates. And coin phones in Chicago may *not* call 900.  PAT]

You are quite correct.  In Illinois, we do not allow 0+900 from any
class of service and do not allow 900 from coin.  This is apparently
not true in some other states and may not remain true in Illinois for
very long.  It seems that some carriers are dismayed that people
cannot call their 900 lines by using a credit card.  Some LECs have
already capitulated to a request to open up 0+900 on a selective basis
(ie available to some 900 numbers but not to others).


Ken Abrams                     nstar!pallas!kabra437
Springfield, IL                [e-mail]
                               (voice) 217-753-7965

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

From: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call
Organization: University of California
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1991 20:40:14 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> Carl Moore (VLD/VMB)
<[e-mail]> writes:

> You mean someone called 0-900-xxx-xxxx?  How would the call have been
> dialed?

Apparently so - it just showed up on my bill as a 900-call made from a
phone in Berkeley and billed to my number.

> The operator didn't try to verify the charge being authorized by the
> third party before putting the call through?  What did you do to
> turn the third party billing off?

The call was never verified (it occurred while I was at work).  Maybe
the caller told the operator that verification was impossible since
the only thing that would answer my phone was the answering machine.

In California (and probably other states), third party billing can
be blocked by a simple request to the telco.  My service rep said,
however, that this may not be totally effective since some other
carriers are not linked into PacBel's computer and cannot check that
third party billing is blocked.


Al Stangenberger                    Dept. of Forestry & Resource Mgt.
[e-mail]          145 Mulford Hall - Univ. of Calif.
uucp:  ucbvax!ucbviolet!forags      Berkeley, CA  94720
BITNET: FORAGS AT UCBVIOLE          [phone]  FAX: [phone]


[Moderator's Note: However, when 'other carriers' stick you with a
third party billing, you would just automatically refuse it when you
were paying your telco bill. Or if the bill for the third party call
came direct from the 'other carrier', just toss it in the wastebasket
and forget it. Maybe as a courtesy -- just once -- send it back to
them with a note explaining they defrauded you and not to push the
matter further. I have all my lines auto-blocked from collect and
third party billing by IBT.  PAT]

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

From: "Barton F. Bruce" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Telephone Line Status Indicator Box
Date: 31 Aug 91 01:34:10 EDT
Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc.


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
writes:

> I am sharing a telephone line with several other individuals that we
> use in an async dial-up situation with a separate modem on each PC.
> ... or any suggestions you have for our situation.

If you got the little Proctor exclusion jobbies that only let one
phone have the line at a time you would be all set. Try 800 info.
Failing that, Proctor (and?) Associates is in Redmond WA. There is
sometimes a Proctor guy that posts here, maybe he can supply a phone
number and part model number.

Whoever picks up first gets a line, others get dead air. Proctor ALSO
makes a module to give you "A" lead contact closure when anything goes
off hook on a line. That could run indicator lites, but all would need
to be wired up.

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

From: "Barton F. Bruce" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: 950 Data Access, was AT&T Data Network
Date: 31 Aug 91 01:40:55 EDT
Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc.


Another cute user of 950-xxxx feature group B is CitiBank using
950-1492. I bet they are getting all their calls at a LOT less than
the best 800 deal available. Which carrier's POP does 1492 go to?

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

Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 21:26:47 CDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: What is Illegal About Butt Sets?


[e-mail] (John R. Covert  28-Aug-1991 2049):

>> In about 1972 a good friend of mine (since 1975) was arrested in a
>> phone closet at SUNY Stoneybrook.

>> He was charged and convicted of "possession of burglar's tools" -- the
>> butt set.

Around 1984, I worked for a small oilfield electrical contractor. One
of the things I did was wire up a new toll-booth type hut at an oil
refinery (the hut was to be occupied by the guy who oversaw filling
the tank trucks). We trenched from the main building to the hut, laid
conduit and shoveled in concrete then re-filled the trench, pulled
some twisted-pair through the conduit for the phone and the various
instruments, and one last test -- using the butt-set to make sure we
were hooking up correctly up at their PBX.

Somehow, I suspect that we weren't in any danger of being arrested for
possession of burglar tools.

Totally private contractor. No connection to the phone company. In
fact, our main orientation was installing automation and
instrumentation, and the phone end of it came about simply because we
already had to pull all that twisted-pair through for the
instrumentation.


Eric Lee Green   [phone]  P.O. Box 92191  Lafayette, LA 70509
[e-mail]               uunet!mjbtn!raider!elgamy!elg

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

From: Gordon Burditt <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: FAX Machine Message
Date: 31 Aug 91 03:34:18 GMT
Organization: Gordon Burditt


> I've had the opposite class of problems -- my computer, acting as a
> FAX sender, calling a FAX number and never getting through.  I
> eventually called from a voice line and got that same message.  Since
> my system was never convinced that a FAX had answered, it never sent
> tones.  A mixed blessing, at best, that device would seem to be.

A better device for this purpose is the "Fax/Phone Switch II" from
Electronic Speech Systems.  One of the critical requirements for a
particular installation (which I call a lot) is that the associated
phone must ring ONLY when there is an actual incoming voice call (it's
sitting next to a sleeping person), not when there is a fax coming in
(the fax machine is out of hearing range).

Their device answers the phone with (approximately) "to reach our fax,
please remain silent.  To reach a telephone, please say "telephone" at
the tone.  <BEEP>".  Then it generates ringing (and ringback) to
either the phone or the fax machine, whichever was selected.  The
device also provides lockout for outgoing call collision between fax
and voice calls.  If you've got a fax that sends out tones when it's
doing the calling, it's supposed to recognize those, also.

There has been some trouble attempting to use the device's power
connection as an enable/disable control.  It's only supposed to be
active at night, to receive incoming faxes but also allow emergency
calls to get through.  If the power fails, it's supposed to let the
phone have the line (and it does).

A timer controlling the box power and a couple of relays does
automatic switching (this is not part of the box), but there is some
evidence that the box may not answer the phone properly after power-up
until the associated phone is taken off-hook and back on.  Then again,
it might be wrong-number calls or phone company tests causing
inappropriate ringing at certain times, or it might be a broken alarm
clock instead of the phone, or it might be a dream.  Anyway, after
getting procedures established, it's been working well.


Gordon L. Burditt    sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon

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

From: "Roger B.A. Klorese" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls
Reply-To: "Roger B.A. Klorese" <[e-mail]>
Organization: QueerNet
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 91 12:55:42 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Sander J. Rabinowitz) writes:

> JH> John Higdon <[e-mail]> (on 29 Aug 91), responding to:
> MC> "Michael A. Covington" <[e-mail]>...
> MC> *    Telephone accounts normally have no credit limits. This is
> MC>      the root of the problem in numerous widely publicized bil-
> MC>      ling disputes.
> JH> This is absolutely not true. Most telcos (including Pac*Bell) have
> JH> some very definite limits on telephone credit.
> If that's the case, shouldn't the credit limit be revealed to the
> customer?

Should they?  Probably.  Will they be?  I doubt it.  And there's
precedent.

Do you have an American Express or Diner's Club card?  You know how
they keep saying you have no credit limit?  Look again: they actually
usually say no "fixed" or "pre-determined" credit unit.  In fact, they
set it, and ratchet it up or down depending on your history, without
ever telling you what it is.  The telcos behave the same way.


ROGER B.A. KLORESE +1 415 ALL-ARFF [e-mail]
{ames,decwrl,pyramid}!mips!unpc!rogerk

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

From: Charlie Mingo <[e-mail]>
Date: 31 Aug 91 17:07:59
Subject: Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls


In the TELECOM Digest, Sander J. Rabinowitz <[e-mail]> writes:

> JH> This is absolutely not true. Most telcos (including Pac*Bell) have
> JH> some very definite limits on telephone credit.

> If that's the case, shouldn't the credit limit be revealed to the
> customer?  With my bank cards, I know *exactly* what my credit limit
> is even before I make my very first purchase on the card.  But with
> the telco, I haven't the slightest idea what the credit limit is.
> [One exception: I have a $100 credit limit on my old AT&T card from
> college, which I still use.]

   Telephone billing is more akin to "charge cards" (where you have to
pay the bill in full each month), than "credit cards" (where you have
a revolving line of credit).

   Charge cards, where you have to pay in full with 30 days, usually
don't tell you how much you can charge.  In fact, American Express'
Green Card even boasts of "no pre-set spending limit."  Nevertheless,
there is a limit to what Amex will accept, as you will discover if you
try to put a yacht on your Amex.

> JH> If those limits are exceeded, an immediate effort is made
> JH> to contact the customer and make special payment arrangements,
> JH> which usually means an immediate payment for the charges
> JH> currently owed.

> In that case, shouldn't the customer have the right to voluntarily
> lower the threshold when this is done?  For example, I have never
> exceeded $200 on any single phone bill.  If the calls suddenly went
> over, say, $300, I'd rather be advised of that right then and there
> then have the telco wait some higher threshold is reached.  [Note: I'm
> not saying this should be mandated, but it strikes me as being a good
> business practice.]

    I once had American Express call me to the phone, tell me the
outstanding balance this month, and ask me "do you intend to pay this
bill?"  (Some kind of trick question?)  This was when I was in college
and shared a card with my father, who was vacationing in Europe at the
time.  I said "yes", and there was no problem.

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: AT&T ACUS System Just Installed Here
Date: 31 Aug 91 21:10:26 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: Marquette University - Computer Services


We have the ACUS system here at Marquette University (Milwaukee) as
well.  However, ACUS does not serve as a Bell "substitute".  As far as
I know they only handle our long distance service.  We have never been
billed for local service, only long distance.  The ACUS service was
instituted this year to keep roommate arguments over who pays what on
a long distance bill to a minimum.  Since every student has their own
code it is pretty nice.

I am insterested as to how ACUS can also serve as your local service
provider as well.  I would think that Illinois Bell would be a bit
miffed at this.

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

From: David Lemson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: MCI Friends and Family
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1991 19:37:26 GMT


[e-mail] (Michael Graff) writes:

> In TELECOM Digest V11 #683, John Higdon <[e-mail]> writes:

>> an elderly woman ... claimed a projected savings of $300 per year.

> $300!  Let's see, suppose she's saving 20% off AT&T, that means her
> annual phone bill was $1500.  That's $125 per month.  Isn't that a bit
> much for Grandma?  Somehow, I don't think this is a typical calling
> pattern for an elderly woman.

Well, worst-case for AT&T and best case for MCI, I'm sure she could
save a lot more than 20%.  Compare MCI's PrimeTime plus Friends and
Family vs. AT&T plain old evening rates, and I'm sure the figures come
out much more reasonable.


David Lemson  University of Illinois CSO NeXT Lab System Administrator
Internet : [e-mail]            UUCP :...!uiucuxc!uiucux1!lemson
NeXTMail : [e-mail]         BITNET : LEMSON@UIUCVMD

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

Subject: Re: Wireless Headset Phone Wanted
From: Tad Cook <hpubvwa![e-mail]>
Date: 30 Aug 91 20:26:29 GMT


[e-mail] (Mike McNally) writes:

> I'd like to buy a wireless phone, and I'd be happiest if it had a
> headset option for hands-free use.  Does such a thing exist, and if
> so is it priced within reason?

> Note that I don't mean a cellular phone; I want a typical domestic
> cheap-o cordless.

I use one that was made by Plantronics, discontinued, and then sold
real cheap in the DAK catalog.  I am sure that DAK is out of these.

I have heard that the neatest one on the market is the Wicom Walk 'n
Talk.  It has a Walkman-style binaural headset with a little boom
mike, and the deluxe version has an FM stereo radio.  You can listen
to music between calls!

Wicom is at:

WICOM
6758 Eton
Canoga Park, CA  91303

or:

P.O. Box 1305
Woodland Hills, CA  91364

phone: [phone]
       800-942-6601


Tad Cook   Seattle, WA   Packet: KT7H @ N7DUO.WA.USA.NA   Phone: [phone]
MCI Mail: 3288544        Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW
USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad   or, [e-mail]
or, [e-mail]   or, [e-mail]

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

Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 19:17 GMT
From: Krislyn Companies <[e-mail]>
Subject: MCI Mail Personal Network Promo Until Dec 31


MCI Mail is currently offering a Personal Network promotion.

Current subscribers who refer friends and associates will get a $10
usage credit for each referral who becomes a subscriber.
Additionally, the new subscriber will receive a $20 discount on the
$35 registration fee.


Paul Wilczynski    Krislyn Computer Services   Authorized MCI Mail Agency

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #688
******************************










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From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #689
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sun, 1 Sep 91 02:45:44 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 689

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Phone Gall [John Higdon]
    Re: Baudot Related Information Wanted [Dik T. Winter]
    Re: Information Wanted on Demon Dialer Model 176T [Tad Cook]
    Re: Swinging Grounds? [Tad Cook]
    Re: VISA/Mastercard Automated Authorization [John R. Levine]
    Re: For Emergency, Dial 1-900-911 [Lauren Weinstein]
    Credit Card Blocking (was Billing Responsibility and 900) [Bob Frankston]
    How Billing Works (was Billing Responsibility and 900) [John R. Levine]
    New Archives File: USA Direct Phone Numbers [Bill Huttig]
    Re: Ten Years of It: Starting Year Eleven [Roger B.A. Klorese]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Aug 91 12:44 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Re: Phone Gall


Justin Leavens <[e-mail]> writes:

> I agree with most of what you say, but part of the point of this
> article is that these organizations are dealing with telecom equipment
> that they obviously don't know how to use efficiently enough to plug
> up the all the cracks. Whether this is a fault on the part of the
> businesses or the equipment dealers there's debate. But the companies
> argue that AT&T, who has the technological resources to keep hacker
> problems low, seem more interested in finding hacker problems and
> billing the companies anyways rather than work for solutions to plug
> the leaks in the first place.

Whose responsibility is it to know how to effectively use one's own
equipment if it is not one's own self? Why is it AT&T's (or Sprint's
or MCI's) responsibility to become some company's equipment mentor? If
you read your contract with virtually any carrier you will find that
YOU, not the carrier, are responsible for the calls made on your
account.

AT&T can institute all of the anti-hacking procedures it likes, but if
calls come through your equipment and appear to be fully authorized,
what can AT&T do about it except carry the call and charge you for it?
Any debate over responsibility here is bovine excretion. It is the
vendor's responsibility to the customer to make sure he knows about
his equipment. It is the customer's responsibility to make sure he
knows about his equipment. It is AT&T's responsibility to carry any
calls presented to it by the customer. And it is the customer's sole
responsibility to pay for them.

I have several clients who have telephone switches that can be
accessed from the outside world. Even I have such a switch. The last
place I would go for relief from unauthorized calls made through this
connection would be to AT&T. It is not any decision on the part of
AT&T that my (or my clients') systems have "back doors" that allow
access to the AT&T network, so why does AT&T share any risk relating
to such access?

This is a non-issue. The fact that it was brought up in some popular
press article is just another nail in the coffin of the popular press
concerning telecom matters, IMHO.


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

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

From: "Dik T. Winter" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Baudot Related Information Wanted
Date: 31 Aug 91 23:27:44 GMT
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

> But I won't do that.  I'll just give some info on the various Baudot
> codes.  (There are those who insist on calling it Moore code, since
> Baudot's code didn't look like today's versions any more than Morse's
> original code looks like today's Morse.)

Sorry, not Moore but Murray.

> Two characters are used to shift between the two cases.  On many
> machines, the "SPACE" character also causes a shift back to the LTRS
> case, but this is not universal.

No, certainly not!  Some equipment may have used it; it was part of
original Baudot (all letter shifts and figure shifts were spacing,
so generally a letter shift was used as space).

Other related codes I have (were the given codes indeed correct?),
and to show how different Baudot and Murray are:

        CCITT#1        CCITT#2        Teletype    AT&T
        Baudot        Murray        (Only shown where different)
Holes        LET  FIG    LET  FIG    FIG        FIG
 ...|..        [blank]        [blank]
 ...|.O        LTRS        E    3
 ...|O.        FIGS        LF
 ...|OO        ERASE        A    -
 ..O|..        A    1        SPACE
 ..O|.O        -    .        S    '                BELL
 ..O|O.        J    6        I    8
 ..O|OO        K    (        U    7
 .O.|..        E    2        CR
 .O.|.O        X    9/ *    D    WRU    $        $
 .O.|O.        G    7        R    4
 .O.|OO        M    )        J    BELL            ,
 .OO|..        /    1/ *    N    ,                7/8 ****
 .OO|.O        Z    :        F    ***    !        1/4 ****
 .OO|O.        H    4/ *    C    :                1/8 ****
 .OO|OO        L    =        K    (                1/2 ****
O..|..        Y    3        T    5
O..|.O        S    7/ *    Z    "
O..|O.        B    8        L    )                3/4 ****
O..|OO        R    -        W    2
O.O|..        U    4        H    ***    #        #
O.O|.O        T    2/ *    Y    6
O.O|O.        C    9        P    0
O.O|OO        Q    /        Q    1
OO.|..        I    3/ *    O    9
OO.|.O        W    ?        B    ?                5/8 ****
OO.|O.        F    5/ *    G    ***    &        &
OO.|OO        N    **        FIGS
OOO|..        O    5        M    .
OOO|.O        V    '        X    /
OOO|O.        D    0        V    ;                3/8 ****
OOO|OO        P    +        LTRS

*    Digit followed by fraction bar
**    Pound symbol (UK pounds that is)
***    Reserved for national use (where have I seen that also, think 5)
****    A fraction

I have also CCITT#3 (a three out of seven code) and CCITT#5 (who
doesn't know that, aka ISO 646).  I still have not found CCITT#4, is
there someone who knows about that?


dik t. winter, cwi, amsterdam, nederland    [e-mail]

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

Subject: Re: Information Wanted on Demon Dialer Model 176T
From: Tad Cook <hpubvwa![e-mail]>
Date: 30 Aug 91 20:24:03 GMT


Scott Keller, [e-mail] writes:

> A friend recently picked up a "Demon Dialer" at a hamfest. He was
> told that the manual with it does not apply to this particular
> model. After trying it out, it looks like it really doesn't. I would
> appreciate hearing from anyone having a manual for this device that
> they would be willing to sell or copy. Or perhaps just an address or
> phone for Zoom Telephonics, Inc.

Here it is:

Zoom Telephonics
207 South Street
Boston, MA  02111

800-631-3116
617-423-1072

They make a nice modem.  They are no longer making Demon Dialers.


Tad Cook   Seattle, WA  Packet: KT7H @ N7DUO.WA.USA.NA  Phone: [phone]
MCI Mail: 3288544       Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW
USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad  or, [e-mail]
or, [e-mail]   or, [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: Thanks also go to Donald Ekman of Palo Alto, CA who
supplied the above information in a message to the Digest.   PAT]

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

Subject: Re: Swinging Grounds?
From: Tad Cook <hpubvwa![e-mail]>
Date: 30 Aug 91 20:25:15 GMT


Robert Wier <[e-mail]> writes:

> The TT to pulse converter was intercepting my TT signals even after I
> was connected to the bank, and sending pulses.  This of course
> totally zonked the bank's response system. I had asked them how to
> get the TT signals thru without the converter kicking in once the
> connection was established.  The suggestion is to hit the # key after
> the connection is established.  I havn't tried this yet (I've been
> away from home since the fall semester started here).  Anyone know
> anything about a solution to this?

Hitting the pound key to disable tone-to-pulse conversion is standard
on many of the Teltone tone-to-pulse converters.  Another method
involves the converter sensing reverse loop polarity when the calling
party answers.

Sounds like you already have the solution.


Tad Cook   Seattle, WA   Packet: KT7H @ N7DUO.WA.USA.NA  Phone: [phone]
MCI Mail: 3288544        Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW
USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad   or, [e-mail]
or, [e-mail]     or, [e-mail]

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

Subject: Re: VISA/Mastercard Automated Authorization
Organization: I.E.C.C.
Date: 30 Aug 91 10:50:02 EDT (Fri)
From: "John R. Levine" <[e-mail]>


In article <[e-mail]> is written:

> Basically, what will be needed is a means by which a user at the
> computer will be able to enter his/her credit card number and
> expiration date, and while online, have the card checked for validity.
> If so, the user will be able to proceed. Upon termination of the
> session, the computer will then bill the card for the amount of time used.

The little credit card verification terminals found next to every cash
register in the U.S. contain a vanilla 300 baud modem and use a simple
ASCII protocol.  A few years ago, I programmed an old IBM PC on our
LAN in an afternoon to be such a terminal to process phone order
charges.

The terminal calls the verification computer, and when it answers
sends a record consisting of the store's merchant number, the card
number, the expiration date, the amount of the charge, and a two-digit
code identifying the transaction type, followed by a one-byte
checksum.  The computer responds with the message to be displayed,
typically something like "APPROVED: 123456".  The format is fixed and
trivially decoded.

Although the terminals usually do one transaction at a time, once
you're on the phone you can do as many transactions in a row as you
want.  The transactions are authorize (validate a charge), post
(actually put a previously validated charge on the customer's bill),
auth/post (both at once), and refund.  Any charge posted by 1800
central time is in the merchant's bank account the next day.  The
precise format, e.g. the order of the fields and the type codes, seems
to vary from bank to bank, but it's always plain old ASCII.  American
Express will allow validation this way, but the last time I checked a
few years ago, still insisted on paper charge slips from small
merchants.  I found continuous pin feed charge forms to print for
Amex.

Technically, this turns out to be amazingly easy.  The hardest part is
probably to find someone at the bank who understands what you want
well enough to get you the documentation you need.  Since all charges
are authorized and you do all of the data entry, the bank should give
you a very favorable rate.  They charged us under 2%.


Regards,

John Levine, [e-mail], {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl

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

Date: Sat, 31 Aug 91 13:08:05 PDT
From: Lauren Weinstein <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: For Emergency, Dial 1-900-911


The last I heard about this, the emergency services were *considering*
charging for paramedic dispatches in the L.A. area -- I don't believe it
has passed through the entire enabling process at this time.  I don't
remember the proposed fee, though it wasn't totally outrageous.  It is
worth noting that there has always been a charge for any use of
medicine or other "expendables" by the paramedics in the course of
treatment in the L.A. area (and in most other municipalities, I would
assume).

An interesting question might arise if someone is presented with a
bill for a paramedic dispatch triggered by *someone else* calling 911
(perhaps overreacting to an observed fender-bender).  If that person
did not call for help and refuses treatment by the paramedics, it
would be interesting to see how the bill would be handled.  One could
imagine situations where a person might hesitate to risk calling 911
for another person in "questionable" situations for fear of getting
stuck with the bill.


 --Lauren--

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

From: frankston![e-mail]
Subject: Credit Card Blocking (was Billing Responsibility and 900)
Date: 31 Aug 1991 10:37 -0400


In the spirit of 900, 976, 540 blocking, I propose that anyone who has
ever gotten an invalid credit card charge try credit card blocking.
There is no need for fraud handling in the credit card system, just
don't use any.  Also, stop using checks.  You can also protect
yourself from counterfeit money by just not using any.  And get 911
blocking so you can be sure it doesn't get abused from your phone.  And
411 blocking.


Isn't life simple?

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

Subject: How Billing Works (was Billing Responsibility and 900)
Organization: I.E.C.C.
Date: 31 Aug 91 12:21:34 EDT (Sat)
From: "John R. Levine" <[e-mail]>


In article <[e-mail]> is written:

> I realize that the local telco could keep tabs on a customer's LD
> bill, but isn't there a considerable delay while the IP and the
> billing telco exchange billing tapes?

In the good olde days, all billing information was captured at the
originating CO on paper tape or something and all phone bills were
computed from that.  With the advent of equal access, it would be
technically possible for LD companies to do it either that way or by
capturing the ANI information themselves as each call is passed from
the local telco to the LD carrier at the POP.  (Love these acronyms.)

It is my impression that Sprint captures the information themselves,
since my bills always contain all of the calls up to the day before
the bill was printed.  Does AT&T still do it the old way?  I presume
they do for the bills still computed by the local telcos.  For that
matter, what is the schedule for AT&T to compute and/or mail their own
bills?

Also, are calling card billing records exchanged in real time or in
batches?  I use my RBOC calling card so infrequently that I can't tell
whether there's still a billing delay or not.


Regards,


John Levine, [e-mail], {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl

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

Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 09:55:50 -0400
From: Bill Huttig <[e-mail]>
Subject: New Archives File: USA Direct Phone Numbers


A new file for the Telecom Archives lists USA Direct phone numbers
from all over the world.


Bill


[Moderator's Note: The file will be available after September 3 and
will be filed as 'usa.direct.numbers'.    PAT]

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

From: "Roger B.A. Klorese" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Ten Years of It: Starting Year Eleven
Reply-To: "Roger B.A. Klorese" <[e-mail]>
Organization: QueerNet
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 91 12:59:51 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Joe
Pistritto) writes:

> Well, thanks Pat, for all the effort you've put into this thing.  I
> know I've been reading it off and on (mostly on) since 1982, and
> contributing occasionally, and know how much of your time it must take
> to make this thing work.

And to keep it in perspective, not to diminish Pat's work, I'd like to
thank jsol for getting it going and all his efforts.


ROGER B.A. KLORESE             +1 415 ALL-ARFF
[e-mail]       {ames,decwrl,pyramid}!mips!unpc!rogerk


[Moderator's Note: Indeed, without Jon Solomon getting the Digest
started and tending to it for several years, it would not be around
today. I certainly would not have had the ability to start it on my
own. The problems jsol faced with the Digest in the early days were
things that are handled very easily now. The software used for mail
has been greatly improved in the past few years. Jsol told me that
early on, he was almost constantly plagued with poor connectivity,
poor or non-existent delivery of the Digest at times, and multiple
copy delivery (due to net connections timing out, etc) at other
times. Getting each issue to the readers -- once, once only, and in
numerical order -- was a hassle, as those of you who have scanned
through the old archives can attest.

And jsol's personal life never did leave as much time for the Digest
as he wanted. He told me there were times he had to be away from home
for a period of several days, only to be home for a day before leaving
again. While at home, his main concern would be to 'get out the
Digest'. He had the luxury of going for a few days between issues with
only a small backlog of stuff waiting, but even so that made him
nervous. He called me in a panic one day in the summer of 1988 to help
get an issue printed when there were all of 20 messages (about 40 K of
text) waiting in the hopper!  These days I always have 30-40 messages
carried over from one day to the next ... and if I skip a day, the
backlog takes most of the week to get under control. In the early
days, 200 issues per year was considered a lot ... this year we will
have a thousand issues.

So although I take credit for making TELECOM Digest what it is today,
(good or bad, you be the judge), Jon Solomon is the person who made it
happen to begin with. I wish he was still around to join us.   PAT]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #689
******************************










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Date:     Sun, 1 Sep 91 4:58:46 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #690
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sun, 1 Sep 91 04:58:39 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 690

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Are Cellular Towers Good Neighbors? [Toby Nixon]
    Cellular Phones and Scanner Radios Legislation [Sander J. Rabinowitz]
    CLASS in California Delayed? [John Higdon]
    Moderator's Comments on Telesphere [Steve W. York]
    ARI in the USA [Dave Levenson]
    Phone Rental Rates at Schools / Corporations [Jeff Wasilko]
    How Phone Bills Compare Around the USA [Dave Niebuhr]
    AT&T Tip When Calling From a COCOT [John Higdon]
    Questions About CO Switches and UNIX [Brian Crowley]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Toby Nixon <hayes![e-mail]>
Subject: Are Cellular Towers Good Neighbors?
Date: 30 Aug 91 13:42:43 GMT
Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA


Pactel Cellular is proposing to construct a cellular tower (150-200
feet tall) on top of a hill adjacent to our subdivision.  It would be
within 300-500 feet of some of the homes.  Since I'm the president of
the homeowners association, several residents are looking to me for
guidance on what, if anything, we should do about it.

There is some concern about the visual impact, but I've checked with
real estate agents and the unanimous opinion is that there would be no
negative impact on property values being that far away (it would be
different if it was right in one's back yard).  But some folks are
concerned about the site interfering with radio, television, phones
(hardwired, cordless, cellular), wireless baby monitors, garage door
openers, and even their health (although I think they're confusing
this with the reports of problems with extremely low frequency
emissions from high-voltage power lines).  I can't imagine that the
FCC would permit towers in residential areas if any of these problems
would result, but then I have a basic distrust of government
regulators anyway, so ...

What can y'all tell me about this?  Any truth to the assertions of
interference?  Or would objections be based solely on esthetics?
Anybody out there have one of these towers close-by now that cares to
comment on how they are as neighbors?


Toby Nixon, Principal Engineer      | Voice   [phone]  Telex 151243420
Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc.  | Fax     [phone]  CIS   70271,404
P.O. Box 105203                     | BBS     [phone]  AT&T    !tnixon
Atlanta, Georgia  30348             | UUCP uunet!hayes!tnixon  Fido   1:114/15
USA                                 | Internet       [e-mail]

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

Date: Sat, 31 Aug 91 02:06 GMT
From: "Sander J. Rabinowitz" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Cellular Phones and Scanner Radios Legislation


As an FYI, I wish to announce that a bill will be up before the entire
House of Represenatives sometime in September.  Known as H.R.  1674,
it is as I understand it an FCC funding bill with a specific provision
which directly affects the manufacturers of scanner radios.

The text of that portion of the legislation now follows:

"...SEC. 8...(d)(1) INTERCEPTION OF CELLULAR TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Within 180 days after the date of enactment of the Federal
Communications Commission Authorization Act of 1991, the Commission
shall prescribe and make effective regulations denying equipment
authorization ... for any scanning receiver that is capable of --

   (A) receiving transmissions in the frequencies allocated
   to the domestic cellular radio telecommunications service,

   (B) readily being altered by the user to receive
   transmissions in such frequencies, or

   (C) being equipped with decoders that convert digital
   cellular transmissions to analog voice audio.

(2) MANUFACTURE OF NONCOMPLYING EQUIPMENT. -- Beginning one year after
the effective date of the regulations adopted ..., no receiver having
the capabilities described in subparagraph (A), (B), or (C) of
paragraph (1) shall be manufactured that does not comply with the
requirements set forth in paragraph (1)."

                           ---------

My thanks to Robert Horvitz <[e-mail]> for posting the
original announcement to Usenet.

I am posting the above without comment.  I do have strong opinions
about this legislation, but I suspect the more appropriate forum is
the Telecom Privacy Group (which, unfortunately, I don't subscribe
to).


Sander J. Rabinowitz | [e-mail]        [phone] | 1981 - 1991
Brentwood, Tenn.     | Celebrating 10 years of TELECOM Digest |     8-)

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

Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 00:17 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: CLASS in California Delayed?


Announcements, public and private, have indicated that CLASS features
were to begin in California (at least in LATA 5 and LATA 1) in October
of this year. However, a very knowledgeable source has indicated that
the CLASS offerings may be delayed for another year.

Does anyone know of this? Is it technical or political? Is it real?


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Moderator's Comments on Telesphere
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 01:06:20 PDT


Several days ago, Chris Dinkel clarified some points which the
Moderator drew from an apparantly inaccurate wire service story.  Due
to Telesphere's poor cash situation, a group of information providers
(900 number people) are settling for a lot less than they are due.

Our Moderator used her message as an opportunity to editorialize and
in the process maligned the Dinkels.  They don't offer $50 for the
first minute rip offs.  They do have several voice mail systems where
people meet each other.  They have good reason to do this legitimately
and honestly.  They met and got to know each other on such a system.
Eventually they married.  They also have other 900 services such as
classic car infomation.  Tony Dinkel is a friend, and I feel obliged
to respond on his behalf, as he is out of the country at the moment.
He is a well regarded RF engineer and friends with a number of well
regarded folks here at the Digest.  Indeed it's through him that I met
such celebrities as John Higdon and Julian Macassey.

When our Moderator asks "How does it feel being the one *getting*
ripped off for a change?" and then wishes a plague on both your
houses, he has clearly overstepped the bounds of good taste and
politeness I normally associate with the Digest.  Frankly, I would
never wish plague on anyone.  I've never seen a case of it, but when I
was in medical school, the books made it seem pretty dreadful.  It's
comparable to wishing cancer or AIDS on someone.

No rational person would argue that all 900 "services" are a good
deal.  But no one has had a gun held to their head and been forced to
squander their money on a poor telephone investment.  If this sort of
thinking were to prevail we could outlaw women's magazines because
they have ads for breast enlarging cream or magazines and newspapers
with a large number of personal ads, some of which are questionable.
How about eliminating all videos because some are pornographic?

I ask that our Moderator not tar all individuals of a group with the
same brush.  Just because some of the "information providers" are
sleeze doesn't mean that they all are.  This forum has always been a
place for considered discussion, rather than predjudice.  Lets keep it
that way.  Thanks, Pat.


Steve York

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

From: Dave Levenson <[e-mail]>
Subject: ARI in the USA
Date: 30 Aug 91 12:35:13 GMT
Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA


There is an obvious reason why ARI won't work in the US.  While lots
of radio stations broadcast road advisory messages, they do it to
attract an audience for their advertisers.  (That is generally true of
anything they broadcast.)

ARI allows a motorist to drive along listening to a tape, or to
nothing at all, and only hear the traffic advisory.  The advertisers
would never go along with that.  And it's the advertisers who pay,
isn't it?


Dave Levenson        Internet: [e-mail]
Westmark, Inc.        UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave
Warren, NJ, USA        AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave
Voice: 908 647 0900     Fax: [phone]


[Moderator's Note: Well we do get something like this here in the
Chicago area by tuning our car radios to 1610 kc on the AM dial.  The
Illinois Department of Transportation operates a low power (one watt)
radio station with repeaters every mile or so along all the
expressways. This station plays a mobious (endless loop) tape which
discusses road conditions, accidents, traffic congestion and emergency
situations for motorists. The message repeats about every three
minutes, and is updated three or four times an hour.  PAT]

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

From: Jeff Wasilko <[e-mail]>
Subject: Phone Rental Rates at Schools / Corporations
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 12:17:36 EDT
Organization: RIT Communications, Rochester, NY


I just had my phone upgraded from 7403 (on a System 85 PBX) to a 7406
so I could have a speakerphone in addition to multiple lines. I was
amazed to see that our Telecom department is charging $55/month rental
for the 7406. The 7403 that I had previously was $35/month (!!), while
a standard 2500 desk set is $4/month. A 7405 with a display is
$75/month.

This leads me to ask what other school and corporate telecom
departments are charging their users?

In a previous issue of the Digest, a student mentioned that they had
to make arrangements with AT&T for local service. Students here at RIT
are not charged for local service (or for rental of a wall-mounted
phone), but they must make their own arrangements (calling card) for
long distance calls.


Jeff ([e-mail])

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

Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1991 12:41:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dave Niebuhr <[e-mail]>
Subject: How Phone Bills Compare Around the USA


I'm curious as to how my basic phone bill stacks up against those of
others around the country.  I keep hearing and reading how NYTel has
some of the highest rates in the country.

First of all there are the various basic packages: Flat Rate (all the
calls you want to make in your primary area and adjacent areas).
Primary area is your exchange and all other exchanges in handled by
your CO.

Because of this, some exchanges can reach many others due to the
number of the exchanges in their CO and the number in adjacent COs.
This can add quite a distance for some depending on the location of
the COs and just how far from the CO the exchanges abut or could
overlap.  Seems confusing, but it's not.

I know that this is quite possible the norm for the rest of the
country but I want to make clear where I stand.

There are other packages but I have Flat Rate.  Now for the goodies.
It costs .106 for each call outside of the above but within my region
for the first minute with each additional minute at .022.

Big difference for me: I'm at the western edge of my region so I get
local calling in two other exchanges but can't for those exchanges
that are more than 'one' exchange away.

Calls to two nearby regions (one adjacent and the other just beyond
that) are at the going rates of .133/.042 and .191/.064.  Discounts
are given to all by time of day and day of week (certain holidays
included).

Since this particular area fluctuates monthly, I'm going to eliminate it
from the below.

 From my last itemized statement (two phones)

    FCC Line Charge       $3.50
    Exchange Access Line   6.60
    Flat Rate Usage        9.36
    Non-Published Svc      1.95 *
    Touch-Tone Svc         1.53 *
                         $22.94 + whatever else is added for the other
                                  usage.
* optional

For the second line in my home, I pay for all but the non-published
service even though I didn't specifically request it (long story --
not germaine to this).  NY tariffs state that if one phone is
non-published and paid for, all others at the same location and in the
same name must follow that regardless of what was wanted (main -
unlisted, data - listed).

Both numbers are on one bill as requested; in fact the telephone company
rep suggested it for my simplicity.

The turn-on fee for the second number is $55 and can be paid for
monthly for up to 12 months with no interest charged.

The overall bill, naturally, fluctuates monthly as the number and
length of the toll calls increase or decrease (I'm including credit
card, 411, collect (from the kids if they don't have a quarter -
rare), etc.).


Dave Niebuhr   Brookhaven National Laboratory  Internet: [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: Here is what Illinois Bell charges me each month
for what is termed 'monthly service':

1 non-pub directory service  @ 1.45      1.45  covers both lines
2 automatic callback         @ 3.50  ea. 7.00  on both lines
2 repeat dialing             @ 3.50  ea. 7.00  on both lines
1 call screening             @ 5.50      5.50  only on line 1
1 three way calling          @ 2.50  ea. 2.50  only on line 1
2 call forwarding            @ 2.50  ea. 5.00  on both lines
1 call waiting               @ 2.50      2.50  only line 1
2 speed calling (8 number)   @ 2.50  ea. 5.00  different list each number
11 feature discount          @ 7.50 (cr) 7.50  (cr)
2 touchtone service          @  .73  ea. 1.46  on both lines
2 line access charges        @ 5.56  ea 11.12  network connection charges
1 multi-ring first line      @ 4.95      4.95  2 numbers on first line
Supplemental Line Charges    @ 3.48  ea. 6.96  FCC mandated surcharge
Total Monthly Service                   52.94

My local usage for last month was about $23, which included 1.20 for
calls to directory assistance (4 @ .30). 'Local government surcharges'
for 911, city tax, etc plus state and federal tax added another $10.15.
Total $85.43, not including long distance, of course.  They get 95
cents per line for the 911 surcharge here.   PAT]

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

Date: Sat, 31 Aug 91 14:20 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: AT&T Tip When Calling From a COCOT


For those of you stuck at a COCOT that will not allow AT&T access via
normal channels, I am told of a workaround:

Call 800-661-0661. Explain that you are at a COCOT (or hotel or
whatever) that will not allow 10288 access. Ask to be connected with
an AT&T operator (you will then be connected). Explain to the AT&T
operator that you cannot use the normal calling card procedure from
the telephone you are using. Your calling card call will be completed
at the normal rates.

The source is good on this one. I will try it when I get a chance.


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !


[Moderator's Note: I tried it ... I got some customer service office
of AT&T, however I waited on hold for about five minutes while 'all
representatives are busy', albiet some delicious Vivaldi was the
music-on-hold selection. Some sales pitches for AT&T long distance
were tossed in. I finally got someone who did confirm what you say;
however a five minute wait on hold at 4:50 AM Sunday morning would
make me *almost* willing to go ahead and pay the COCOT/AOS price!  PAT]

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

Date: Sat, 31 Aug 91 14:11:43 PDT
From: Brian Crowley <[e-mail]>
Subject: Questions About CO Switches and UNIX


Thanks to all who replied to my recent questions regarding the GTD5
switch.

If Pat will indulge me, I have another question concerning modern CO
switches in general.

I understand that modern CO switches run a software program called a
generic which is based on the UNIX system.  Just how different is the
kernel the switch runs from the kernel which is running my
workstation?  What sort of interface does the CO technician have to
the switch (dumb terminal, graphics terminal, etc.)?  Is it possible
to bring up a shell on a CO switch?  What type of filesystem is
typically used?  How are the subscriber line cards interfaced to the
kernel (/dev/555-1212 :-])?

Maybe somebody "in the know" could post a short discussion.

My interest is strictly personal, I am an EE, but I am not a telecom
professional.  Like most EE's, I have had a telephone fascination
since I was a kid (fortunately, or unfortunately, when I got into
college, I developed a larger fascination for computers:-]).


Brian Crowley                DNS: [e-mail]
Applied Microsystems Corp.   UUCP: uunet!amc-gw!brian
Redmond, WA                  ATT: 206-882-2000  Ext. 328

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #690
******************************










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Date:     Sun, 1 Sep 91 5:23:54 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     telecom@eecs
Subject:  FAQ - Frequently Asked Telecom Questions
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


Here it is! The long-awaited Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) file for
telecom. This file will be going out to new subscribers to TELECOM
Digest beginning today, and will be available in the Telecom Archives
under the file name 'frequently.asked.questions'.  If you like this
file, and find it useful, please send thanks to the author.


PAT

  From: [e-mail]
  Subject:  Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for TELECOM


TELECOM Digest - Frequently Asked Questions - 28 August 1991

This is a list of frequently asked questions made in the TELECOM
Digest. As this list is rather new, some topics and questions will no
doubt be updated and added as time goes on.

Much of the telecom information that is requested can be found in the
TELECOM Digest Archives, which is a collection of text files on
telecom topics. These archives are available for access through the
FTP protocol at lcs.mit.edu, or through another Archive site that has
been set up at letni.lonestar.org.  The monthly posting of the
description of TELECOM Digest should contain more details on how to
access these Archives.

Direct netmail requests to persons posting on topics of interest to
you may also be helpful. Future editions of this list could include
netmail addresses of contacts for certain topics (say for ISDN,
cellular, area codes/numbering plan, consumer protection matters,
etc).

The index to the Archives should be obtained and kept for reference.
This index has also occasionally appeared as a posting in the Digest.
You may also read the file intro.to.archives in the Archives to get a
better understanding of the Archives.

A list of terms commonly used in TELECOM Digest may be obtained from
the Archives under the file names glossary.acronyms, glossary.txt and
glossary.phrack.acronyms.

Suggestions for other common questions, or corrections or other
amendments to this file may be made to [e-mail],
[e-mail] or [e-mail].  This file
will be updated as necessary and all information herein should be
considered subject to change.

Thanks to Nathan Glasser, Dan Boehlke and Maurice E. DeVidts and those
other inquiring TELECOM Digest minds for their frequent questions.

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

Q: How do phones work?

A: A file in the TELECOM Digest archives under the name "how.phones.work"
   is available and should explain some details of the workings of
   the common telephone.

Q: What is a COCOT?

A: Customer-Owned Coin-Operated Telephone, or perhaps Coin-Operated
   Customer-Owned Telephone. Essentially, this is a privately-owned
   public telephone as opposed to the traditional payphone that
   is owned and operated by the local telephone company. The COCOT
   is the target of much scorn, as it often delivers less than what
   one would hope for in competition. Cited deficiencies of many
   of these units include lack of access to carriers like AT&T,
   default "carriers" that charge exorbitant rates for long distance
   calls, etc. Some of them don't even understand the new 908
   area code that is now officially in service in New Jersey.

Q: What does NPA, NNX, or NXX mean?

A: NPA means Numbering Plan Area, a formal term meaning the common
   North American area code (like New York 212, Chicago 312,
   Toronto 416 etc).

   NNX refers to the format of the telephone number's prefix;
   (the first three digits of a phone number). The N represents
   a digit from 2 to 9; an X represents any digit 0 to 9. Thus,
   NNX prefixes can number from 220 to 999, as long as they do
   not have a 0 or 1 as the middle digit.

   NXX means any prefix from 200 to 999 could be represented,
   allowing for any value in the middle digit. Obvious special
   exceptions include 411 (directory assistance) and 911 (emergency).

Q: What happens when all the telephone numbers run out?

A: Within an area code, there are a maximum number of prefixes
   (ie. first three digits of a phone number) that can be assigned.
   In the original telephone "numbering plan", up to 640 prefixes
   could be assigned per area code (of the NNX format, 8 * 8 * 10).
   Yet, prefixes get used up due to growth and demand for new
   numbers (accelerated by popularity of separate fax or modem
   lines, or by new services such as the distinctive ringing
   numbers that ring a single line differently depending on which
   phone number was dialed).

   When the prefixes of NNX format run out, there are two options
   in order to allow for more prefixes, and in turn more numbers:

      1) "splitting" the area code so that a new area code can
         accomodate new prefixes, or

      2) allowing extra prefixes to be assigned by changing from
         NNX format to NXX format.

   The preferred option is to go with 2) first, in order to avoid
   having a new area code assignment. Yet, this gives the area code
   a maximum of 160 new prefixes, or 8 * 10 * 10 = 800. When the
   NXX format prefixes are used up, then 1) is not optional.
   New York and Los Angeles are two regions that have gone from
   NNX to NXX format prefixes first, then their area codes were split.

   Interestingly enough, some area codes have split even though
   there was no change from NNX format prefixes to NXX. Such
   splits have occurred in Florida (305/407) and Colorado (303/719).
   The precise reasons why a change to NXX-style prefixes was not
   done in those cases is unknown to this author, but switching
   requirements in those areas, plus telephone company expenses in
   changing from NNX to NXX format (and the likelihood of an eventual
   area code split) are likely factors in these decisions.

   Note that it is prefixes, and not necessarily the number of
   telephones, that determines how crowded an area code is. Small
   exchanges could use a whole prefix for only a few phones, while
   an urban exchange uses most of the 10 000 possible numbers per
   prefix. Companies, paging, test numbers and special services can
   be assigned their own prefixes as well, such as the 555 directory
   assistance prefix (555.1212).

Q: Why does the long distance dialing within an area code often
   change so that 1 + home area code + number has to be dialed,
   or changed to just seven digits (like a local call)?

A: When prefixes change to NXX, that means that the prefix numbers
   can be identical to area codes. The phone equipment is no longer
   able to make an easy distinction between what is an area code and
   what is a prefix within the home area code, based on the first
   three digits. For instance, it is hard for central offices to
   tell the difference between 1+210 555.2368 and 1+210.5552

   Thus, 1 + area code + number for all calls is used in many
   area codes. Or ... just dialing seven digits within the area
   code for all calls, local or long distance (thus risking
   complaints from customers who thought they were making a local
   call when in fact the call was to a long distance exchange).

   It is up to each phone company to decide on how to handle prefix
   and dialing changes. The rules can change from place to place.

Q: Are we really running out of area codes?

A: Indeed, there are only a few possible area codes that can be
   assigned from the existing format. At present, all area codes
   have a 0 or 1 as the middle digit (212, 907, 416, 708, etc).
   However, the only standard area codes left to be assigned in
   that format would be 210, 810 and 910. It may be possible to
   free 610 from its usage in Canadian TWX service, and 710 from
   what is apparently reserved for government services.

   These exclude special cases such as area codes ending in -00 for
   special services like 800 or 900. Also, -11 area codes could
   be confused with services like 411 (directory assistance) or
   911 (emergency); indeed, a few places require 1+411 for directory
   assistance.

Q: How will we make room if the area codes are running out?

A: Bellcore, which oversees the assignment of area codes and
   the North American Numbering Plan in general, has made a
   recommendation that "interchangeable" area codes be allowed
   as of July 1995. That means that there no longer need to be
   a 0 or 1 as the middle digit of an area code, and in fact the
   area code will become NXX format. While some suggest that
   eight-digit local numbers or four-digit area codes be
   established, the interchangeable area code plan has been
   on the books for many years.

   One aspect of the plan is that, initially, the new area codes
   will end in 0 (such as 220, 650, etc). This would make it
   easier on a few area codes so that they could conceivably
   retain the ability to dial 1+number (without dialing the home
   area code) for long distance calls within the area code, provided
   that they have not assigned prefixes ending in zero that would
   conflict with new area codes. That option is not possible for
   many area codes that have already assigned some prefixes
   of "NN0" format, however. Eventualy, the distinction between
   area code and prefix formats would be completely lost.

   It is conceivable that the date for changing North America
   over to interchangeable area codes (yes, this change will be
   felt throughout the U.S. and Canada) could be moved to an
   earlier date, or that the existing area codes plus the few
   waiting to be assigned will have to make do until 1995,
   causing some service shortages in some areas. Another possibility
   includes using some of the special -00 or -11 codes (like 200
   or 311) as area codes as a last resort.

Q: What are touch tones made of?

A: The touch tone system uses pairs of tones to represent the
   various keys. There is a "low tone" and a "high tone" associated
   with each button (0 through 9, plus * (star) and # (octothorpe
   or pound symbol). The low tones vary according to what
   horizontal row the tone button is in, while the high tones
   correspond to the vertical column of the tone button.

   The tones and assignments are as follows:

          1     2     3     A  :  697 Hz

          4     5     6     B  :  770 Hz
                                           (low tones)
          7     8     9     C  :  825 Hz

          *     0     #     D  :  941 Hz
        ----  ----  ----  ----
        1209  1336  1477  1633 Hz
               (high tones)

   When the 4 button is pressed, the 770 Hz and 1209 Hz tones
   are sent together. The telephone central office will then
   decode the number from this pair of tones.

   The tone frequencies were designed to avoid harmonics and
   other problems that could arise when two tones are sent
   and received. Accurate transmission from the phone and
   accurate decoding on the telephone company end are important.
   They may sound rather musical when dialed (and representations
   of many popular tunes are possible), but they are not intended to
   be so.

Q: Why is a touch tone line more expensive than a rotary dial
   line (in many places)?

A: This has been an occasional debate topic in the Digest. Indeed,
   there can be a surcharge from $1 to $3 per month to have the
   ability to dial using touch tone. In modern equipment, touch
   tone is actually better and cheaper for the phone company
   to administer that the old pulse/rotary dialing system.
   The tone dialing charge can be attributed to the value of
   a demanded service; tone is better, thus a premium can be
   applied for this privilege. Also, it is something of a holdover
   from the days when tone service required extra expense to decode
   with the circuitry originally available. This is especially
   true on crossbar exchanges, or where tone would have to be
   converted to dial pulses as is the case with step-by-step.
   Today, integrated circuits are readily available for decoding
   the tones used in dialing, and are a standard part of electronic
   switching systems.

   Some telephone companies have abandoned a premium charge
   for tone dialing by including this in local service.
   Others still hold to some form of tone surcharge.

Q: What's this about the FCC starting a modem tax for those
   using modems on phone lines?

A: This is one of those tall urban legends, on the order of the
   Craig Shergold story (yes, folks, he's doing okay as of last
   report). This is an unsubstantiated rumour and as such should
   not be acted on. Official information from the FCC would come
   forth were such a proposal to occur. Reading up on regulators'
   announcements is a good pastime in any case, just to get the
   information from the source rather than from some dubious
   posting on a network.

Q: How can I prevent the call waiting tone from beeping in
   mid-conversation?

A: If you place the call, and don't want to get interrupted,
   a call waiting suppression code is dialed before dialing
   the call itself. The most common code for this is *70 or
   1170 (on rotary dial phone lines). 70# (or 70 and wait on
   rotary phone) could also be used in some areas.

   Thus, to call 555.0000 so that call waiting is disabled,
   dial *70 (or whatever the correct code is for your area),
   wait for another dial tone, then dial 555.0000 as usual.

   Suppressing call waiting tone on an *incoming* call may
   be possible depending on how your phone company has set
   the central office. One possible way of doing this is to flash
   your switch-hook briefly, see if a dial tone comes on, then
   try dialing the call waiting suppress code (*70 or whatever).
   This method is not guaranteed, however; your phone company
   might be able to give a better answer if the preceding
   doesn't work.


The following questions were suggested by Nathan Glasser
([e-mail]):


Q: What are the A, B, C and D touch tone keys used for?
   Why are they not found on touch tone phone sets?

A: These are extensions to the standard touch-tones (0-9, *, #)
   that had their origins in the miltary's phone network.
   The original names of these keys were FO (Flash Override),
   F (Flash), I (Immediate), and P (Priority) which represented
   priority levels that could establish a phone connection
   with varying degrees of immediacy, killing other conversations
   on the network if necessary with FO being the greatest priority,
   down to P being of lesser priority. The tones are more commonly
   referred to as the A, B, C and D tones respectively, and all
   use a 1633 Hz as their high tone.

   Nowadays, these keys/tones are mainly used in special applications
   such as amateur radio repeaters for their signalling/control.
   Modems and touch tone circuits tend to include the A, B, C and
   D tones as well. These tones have not been used for general
   public service, and it would take years before these tones could
   be used in such things as customer information lines; such
   services would have to be compatibile with the existing 12-button
   touch tone sets in any case.

Q: Where can I find a list of equal access (10XXX) codes?

A: The TELECOM Digest Archives has lists of these codes.
   They are contained in the files occ.10xxx.access.codes and
   occ.10xxx.list.updated in the Archives at lcs.mit.edu or
   letni.lonestar.org. New information on these codes, or
   other access codes, appears in TELECOM Digest on occasion
   as well.

Q: How can I tell who my default carrier is (or that of a 10XXX+
   carrier)?

A: Dial 1 700 555.4141, and that should get a recording indicating
   the default carrier. This should be a free call. From regular
   lines, dialing 10XXX + 1 700 555.4141 can yield the identifying
   recordings of other carriers. On payphones, AT&T is always a
   "default" carrier for coin calls (not for calls placed on other
   carriers cards, though), thus their recording is heard whatever
   carrier access codes are used.

FAQ submission from Dan Boehlke <[e-mail]> (with formatting
and some proofreading thrown in):

Q: What is the best way to busy a phone line?  I have a bank of modems
   which are set up as a hunt group.  When a modem dies I would like to
   be able to busy out the line that is disconnected, so that one of the
   other modems in the hunt group will take the call.

A: Our modem lines all enter on RJ21 "punchblocks" so I've got some
   rather nice clips that can be pushed over the terminals on the blocks
   and make contact with the pair that I want to busy out.  Between the
   two terminals on the clip I have a red LED and a 270 ohm 1/2w resistor
   in series.  As long as I get the clip on the right way, it busies out
   the line and lights up so I can see that I've got one of the lines
   busied out.

   Since most of our modems have error correction, I've even gotten away
   with putting one of these on a line that's in use -- when the user
   disconnects, the line remains busy and I can then pull the modem at my
   leisure.  The modem's error correction fixes the blast of noise from
   the clip as I slip it in.

   Brian

[Further notes:  A setup like this is not necessary.  For most systems
simply shorting tip and ring together will busy out the phone line.
Some older systems, and lines that do not have much wire between the
switch and the point at which it terminates will need a 270 ohm 1/2 watt
resistor.  The resistor is necessary because on a short line will not
have enough resistance to make up for the lack of a load.  Most modern
systems have a current limiter that will prevent problems.  Older
system may not have a current limiter and may supply more current than
modern systems do.  In the followup discussion, we learned that we should
not do this to incoming WATS lines and other lines that will cause
the phone companie's diagnostics centers to get excited.  A particular
example was an incomming 800 number that was not needed for a few days.
The new 800 number was subscribed to one of those plans that let you move
it to another location in the event of a problem.  Well the AT&T
diagnostic center saw the busy'ed out line as a problem and promptly
called the owner. -dan]

From Maurice E. DeVidts ([e-mail]):

Q: How can I get specifications on how Caller ID service works?

A: The official documentation on how the Caller ID or calling line ID
   works is available for purchase from Bellcore. A description of
   what those documents are and how to get them is available in the
   TELECOM Digest Archives file caller-id-specs.bellcore.

   In general, the Caller ID information is passed to the set in
   ASCII using a 1200 baud modem signal (FSK) sent between the
   first and second rings.


( end of list )

                         ---------

Thanks!  Send future Frequently Asked Questions direct to the author
at the address shown at the top of this file ... NOT to Telecom!











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From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #691
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sun, 1 Sep 91 14:16:32 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 691

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: FAQ List [Alan Barclay]
    Re: "Swinging Grounds" [Niall Gallagher]
    Wiring Questions For New Home [Dennis G. Rears]
    Re: Phone Gall [Bob Izenberg]
    Visa / MC Verification with PC and Modem [Greg Broiles]
    Re: Disconnect Timing (Telephone Line Status Lights) [Al L. Varney]
    Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls [Sander J. Rabinowitz]
    Re: AT&T Data Network [Bill Mayhew]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Alan Barclay <ukpoit![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: FAQ List
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 14:51:30 bst


I noticed that you are building a FAQ list for the list/group, and
thought I'd put in my 0.02$ worth in.

One common question is can my US modem or phone work in the UK, or
some other European country, the answer to this is usually yes,
provided that the AC Voltage and the physical jack are compatable or
converted, and it can generate pulse dialing, as many exchanges are
not equipped for touch tone.

But I think there should be a disclaimer put in, as in most European
countries it is illegal to fit non-approved equipment. In the UK
approving equipment is the reponsability of BABT, and the penelty is
confiscation of the equipment plus a fine of up to 2000 pounds
sterling. Approved equipment has a mark, usually a sticker, of a green
circle with the words "APPROVED for connection to the telecommunication
system specified in the instructions subject to the condition set out
in them" and the number of the BABT certificate.  Non-approved items
if they are sold in the UK must have a sticker with a red triangle
with similar wording execpt that it's saying the exact opposite. It's
perfectly legal to sell non-approved equipment subject to the above,
as there may be a valid reason for using it, just not on the UK
network.


Alan Barclay, iT, Barker Lane, CHESTERFIELD, S40 1DY, Derbys, England
[e-mail], ..!ukc!ukpoit!alan, FAX:[phone], VOICE:[phone]
iT - The Information Technology Business     | Presume the std disclaimer here
Of The Post Office : In Tune With Technology | as I never said this!

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

Date: 30 Aug 91 14:12:00 EDT
From: Niall (N.)Gallagher <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: "Swinging Grounds"


Bob Wier [Telecom #682] asks what the phone company was measuring in
his inside wiring.

> Now, this was an *OLD* instrument, bakelite case, probably 50's or
> early 60's.  And sure enough the needle (digital, we don't need no
> stinkin' digital!) swung up and down in a somewhat random manner.  I
> asked he was he was measuring ...

What the phone company technician checked at Bob Wier's house was
probably Earth Impedance Balance. This is a measurement of how
balanced the two impedances Tip-GND and Ring-GND are.  If there is
imbalance then transmission suffers, typically with increased sidetone
and transhybrid reflection. You can't measure the Earth Impedance
Balance with a DC voltmeter; it's an audio frequency measurement and
requires an AC signal source and special measurement bridge. The
needle swung up and down with frequency.

The problem is frequently caused by water breaking down cable
insulation. It must have pretty bad for the phone company to check
your inside wiring ...

Regarding your problem with DTMF tones causing your CO to convert bank
PINs etc. into dialpulse, the advice to use "#" is sound.  The # digit
(or octothorpe) is normally used as the end-of-dialling signal and
should cause the DTMF to DP convertor to ignore further DTMF digits on
a given call. Try it, it should work.


Niall Gallagher   Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada  [e-mail]

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

Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 22:04:06 EDT
From: Dennis G. Rears <[e-mail]>
Subject: Wiring Questions For New Home


  I will be buying and moving into a new condo in April, 1992.  The
unit will be constructed in about three months.  I am wondering about
the wiring.  The standard wiring is normal electrical, cable, and
three pair telepohne wiring.  I will be living there for at least four
years.  I forsee a need for at least six phone lines, additional
wiring for computer networking, stuff for audio/visual.  I am not an
engineer, but a computer scientist.

  What type of additional wiring should I request:

    o 2 three pair telephone wiring + another coax (audio/visual)
    o 25 pair telephone wiring.

  If I get 25 pair telephone wiring could it present problems to the
telephone company?


Dennis

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

From: Bob Izenberg <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Phone Gall
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 91 4:59:19 CDT
Reply-To: [e-mail]


On Sat, 31 Aug 91 12:44 PDT, John Higdon <[e-mail]> wrote,
answering Justin Leavens message saying that AT&T should eat the cost
of hacked phone service made possible by customer unfamiliarity with
their hardware:

> Any debate over responsibility here is bovine excretion. It is the
> vendor's responsibility to the customer to make sure he knows about
> his equipment. It is the customer's responsibility to make sure he
> knows about his equipment. It is AT&T's responsibility to carry any
> calls presented to it by the customer. And it is the customer's sole
> responsibility to pay for them.

A different standard of care exists amongst some computer
manufacturers.  Picking Sun Microsystems as an example, they take
pains to make security fixes for SunOS available to registered
customers.  They make them ftpable on CERT's machine (and others.)
While a company may not be legally liable for a security breach made
possible by its product, it isn't good business sense to just do
nothing (or, nothing but present a bill for the unauthorized services
used during the breach.)  It can be a PR liability ... but some
companies are decades and thousands of lobbyists beyond having to
worry about what they do looking bad.

Are computer manufacturers that different from telephone equipment
makers?


Bob

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

From: Greg Broiles <[e-mail]>
Subject: Visa / MC Verification With PC and Modem
Organization: Open Communications Forum
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1991 10:53:43 GMT


The August, 1991 issue of {Boardwatch Magazine} (a magazine which
seems to be about BBS's and modem use in general) has a short article
discussing the use of PC's and modems for posting/verifying Mastercard
and Visa transactions.  Apparently, the lion's share of online
validation is done through either of two large clearinghouses --
Visanet or First Data Resources.

The article also reviews each clearinghouse's software.  It says that
FDR's program, First Data Resources Personal Ticket Capture, has
"quite poor" documentation, and suggests that "... the program itself
is only marginally better."  FDR-PTC costs $250 and "... does not allow
interface to other databases or programs"; it is based on a batch-
processing model, though one could, perhaps, run single-transaction
batches.

The other product, SOFT*DEPOSIT, met with more favor.  SOFT*DEPOSIT
files are apparently all-text and readable/writable by other software.
S*D will process transactions individually or in batches. SOFT*DEPOSIT
costs $289; contact information is listed as:

David Carter
American Digital Corporation
8585 SW Fir Lane Terrace
Portland, OR 97223
[phone]

Contact information is not listed for the perpetrators of FDR-PTC.  I
have no connection to {Boardwatch}, FDR, or ADC, and have never used
any of these products.  Heck, I don't even subscribe to the magazine.


Greg Broiles   CI$: 74017,3623  [e-mail]
PO Box 8988, Portland, OR  97207-8988  MCIMail: gbroiles

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

Date: Sun,  1 Sep 91 09:01:24 CDT
From: Al L Varney <[e-mail]>
Subject: Disconnect Timing (was Telephone Line Status Lights)
Organization: AT&T Network Systems


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jim
Rees) writes:

[ regarding techniques for using 'phone exclusion' devices ]

> Another way to do this is leave the VoiceGuard downstairs.  Then when
> you're upstairs and get a call for your roommate, tell the other party
> to hold, and hang up the phone.  Then tell your roommate to pick up
> the phone.  Every CO I've used will keep the connection up for a
> minute or two on incoming calls.  This is by design, so that you can
> hang up and then pick up a different phone.  Is this universal or have
> I just been lucky?

   Ah, yes, one of my favorite LSSGR (CO requirements from Bellcore)
issues is the required 10-12 second "disconnect timing" for POTS
calls.  But it's not 1 minute in any Switch I've supported.  Any way,
it is by design.  Many elements in the existing switching and
transmission plant still present brief (.5 to 2 seconds) off-hook
indications in the backward call direction before answer occurs.
Similar conditions exist after answer (only then it's a brief on-hook)
for calls using certain features such as call waiting, etc.

   These brief signals have caused many problems over the years, but
backwards compatibility doesn't come without costs.  The problems with
brief false answer are probably obvious -- the call is billed but no
one really answered.  The problems with an early (false) disconnect
are also pretty obvious.  However, the disconnect timing "solution"
has it's drawbacks as well.

   Briefly, the 10 - 12 second timing should occur in the Originating
CO when the Called Party goes on-hook.  The Terminating CO should also
start a "disconnect guard" timer of about 15 seconds.

   Originating CO   [Call in progress..]    Terminating CO
   --------------                           --------------
   Caller Off-hook (C.off),                 Called Off-hook (D.off),
   trunk off-hook (T.off) ----->   <------- trunk off-hook (T.off)
           [Called goes on-hook, signal on-hook via trunk]
   C.off, T.off --------------->   <------- D.on, T.on
     [start 10-12 second timing]            [start 15 second timing]

   At this point, three events could occur. Caller goes on-hook, and
the call terminates.  Or Called goes back off-hook, and the call
continues.  Or one of the timers fires and the call terminates, with
the off-hook Caller getting either dial tone or re-order.  Tandem
switches in between usually just pass the signals.

   The problem with this solution to false disconnect signals is that,
so long as the Caller stays off-hook, the Called line is tied up for
ten seconds or so.  Many business-folk find this to be a problem --
they want dial tone right after hanging up on incoming calls.  This is
what PBXs do, and folks want Centrex and business lines to do the
same.  So most Switches offer a line option that might be called
Prohibit Terminating Disconnect Timing (PTDT).  (Quick, find the
5ESS(tm) Switch Features Handbook!)

   This option in the Terminating CO will disconnect the line from the
trunk after about .8 seconds, after "flash" timing.  But the incoming
trunk cannot do more than signal on-hook to the Originating CO, where
the 10 - 12 second timer is still running.  So the Caller could still
hold the trunk(s) for up to ten seconds, even though a re-connect is
not possible.  With SS7, the Terminating CO can send a RELease message
when PTDT applies, otherwise a SUSpend message is sent.  So SS7 will
idle all the trunk(s) involved right away for PTDT terminating lines.

   Note that there is no option in the Originating CO to ignore the
10-12 second requirement, since the expectations (and equipment) at
the Terminating line are unknown.  Even ISDN terminals must implement
the timer at the originating end, if the call is not to another ISDN
terminal (with SS7 signaling for inter-office cases).

   Unfortunately, there are some CO vendors using PBX logic (for
business services, anyway) that fail to implement the LSSGR, so their
customers may find the required timing fails (either at the
originating or terminating end).  A PBX is usually insulated from all
these backward compatibility issues by the connecting CO; in that
case, the on-hook from the Terminating office will still have the
timing performed at the Originating CO.

NOTE: Disconnect timing applies to lines (not trunks).  And
multiple-connection (three-party, conference, etc.) calls have their
own set of rules.

> [Moderator's Note: In crossbar and other older offices, you can do
> what you say. In newer ESS offices, you take your chances.   PAT]

   Since ESS(tm) is a trademark of AT&T, I would take issue with your
literal remark.  Every ESS product does disconnect timing!  As for
other switch vendors, well ....

   If your CO doesn't allow you to call someone on a non-PTDT line and
have them hang up for five seconds and re-connect, or if your own
non-PTDT line doesn't allow this for incoming calls, you could
certainly complain to your Telephone Company.  The capability may not
be noted under tariff, but it's certainly a CO requirement.


Al Varney, Network Services Customer Support, AT&T-NS, Lisle, IL


[Moderator's Note: Five seconds! Well I suppose I get that long ...
but under the old system I could hang up the phone in my bathroom,
walk to my bedroom, sit down and pick up the phone there, etc. No
longer.  PAT]

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

Date: Sun, 1 Sep 91 16:42 GMT
From: "Sander J. Rabinowitz" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls


John Higdon (on 29 Aug 91):

> This is absolutely not true. Most telcos (including Pac*Bell) have
> some very definite limits on telephone credit.

Me (in a previous edition of TELECOM Digest, responding to John Higdon):

> If that's the case, shouldn't the credit limit be revealed to the
> customer?  With my bank cards, I know *exactly* what my credit limit
> is even before I make my very first purchase on the card.

Charlie Mingo <[e-mail]> replied:

>  Telephone billing is more akin to "charge cards" (where you have to
> pay the bill in full each month), than "credit cards" (where you have
> a revolving line of credit).

"Roger B.A. Klorese" <[e-mail]> added:

> Do you have an American Express or Diner's Club card?  You know how
> they keep saying you have no credit limit?  Look again: they actually
> usually say no "fixed" or "pre-determined" credit unit.  In fact, they
> set it, and ratchet it up or down depending on your history, without
> ever telling you what it is.  The telcos behave the same way.

I guess what sets a telephone bill apart from, say, American Express
or Diners Club, is that the telephone bill is linked to an essential
utility (namely, your telephone service).  The charge cards aren't.
That's why I think it is more critical that a customer be made aware
of his/her credit limit with respect to the use of a telephone in
general, and with 900/976 services in particular.

Hey ... I just thought of another possible solution!  Have two
seperate credit limits -- one for 900/976 services (like $100/month),
and another for everything else!  Then the customer could still change
some toll services direct to his phone bill, keep the convenience of
this billing method (as John Higdon points out, some people don't have
credit cards), yet prevent 900/976 charges from getting out of hand!
Does this sound plausible?


Sander J. Rabinowitz | [e-mail] -or-    | [phone]
Brentwood, Tenn.     | [e-mail]  |       8-)

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

From: Bill Mayhew <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: AT&T Data Network
Organization: Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine
Date: Sun, 01 Sep 91 17:11:09 GMT


Here in Akron, Ohio, dialing 950-1288 results in connecting to an
intercept recording that says (to my best approximation), "We are
sorry.  The number you have dialed can not be completed using your
carrier access code.  Please check the number and dial again...."

As usual, a call to 1-700-555-4141 shows that AT&T is still my LD
carrier.  Interesting.


Bill Mayhew      NEOUCOM Computer Services Department
Rootstown, OH  44272-9995  USA    phone: [phone]
[e-mail]   ....!uunet!aablue!neoucom!wtm
via internet: (140.220.001.001)

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #691
******************************










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Date:     Sun, 1 Sep 91 18:27:14 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #692
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Sun, 1 Sep 91 18:27:10 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 692

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Are Cellular Towers Good Neighbors? [John Nagle]
    Re: Are Cellular Towers Good Neighbors? [H. Peter Anvin]
    Re: Are Cellular Towers Good Neighbors? [Michael A. Covington]
    Re: Cellular Phones and Scanner Radios Legislation [Jordan M. Kossack]
    Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call [Bill Huttig]
    Re: Credit Card Blocking (was Billing Responsibility and 900) [John Higdon]
    Re: MCI Mail Personal Network Promo Until Dec 31 [Bill Huttig]
    Re: AT&T ACUS System Just Installed Here [Gabe M. Wiener]
    Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low on Phone Numbers [H. Hallikainen]
    Re: Underground Cable (was Himicane Bob) [Harold Hallikainen]
    Re: Caller ID Program For PC Hits The Street [Harold Hallikainen]
    Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls [Doug Conrad]
    Phone Color Boxes [Nathan Friedman]
    Specs Wanted on Telco Provided Lines [Harold Hallikainen]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: John Nagle <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Are Cellular Towers Good Neighbors?
Date: Sun, 01 Sep 91 18:16:00 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)


      Cellular phone is in the high UHF band, so you can receive
cellular transmissions on some old TV sets that tune channels 63-82.
(The bandwidth for cellular phone systems was obtained by taking those
channels out of the TV band).  It's barely possible that some old TV
set with a cheap RF section might get some interference from a
harmonic.  But I've never heard of this happening.  You could contact
the FCC field engineer in San Francisco for information.  But I
wouldn't expect interference problems.

      Cellular towers transmit at very low power levels.  That's the
whole point of cellular systems; to use just enough power to cover the
small areas assigned to each tower.  There are many transmitters on
the tower (in theory, up to 800, but few have that many installed),
each transmitting at a few watts if that channel is in use.  Cellular
towers transmit at about the same power level as cellular phones.

      In comparison, a police radio might transmit at 30 watts, an AM
broadcast station at 10,000 to 50,000 watts, and some TV stations
transmit more than a million watts.  There are houses within a few
hundred feet of the Twin Peaks broadcast tower in San Francisco; you
might ask if they have any problems.

      Cellular towers may be ugly, but their power output is low.


John Nagle

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

From: "H. Peter Anvin, N9ITP" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Are Cellular Towers Good Neighbors?
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1991 21:19:04 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> of comp.dcom.telecom, Toby
Nixon <hayes![e-mail]> writes:

> Pactel Cellular is proposing to construct a cellular tower (150-200
> feet tall) on top of a hill adjacent to our subdivision.  It would be
  [...]
> different if it was right in one's back yard).  But some folks are
> concerned about the site interfering with radio, television, phones
> (hardwired, cordless, cellular), wireless baby monitors, garage door
> openers, and even their health

Cordless phones, wireless baby monitors and garage door openers are
authorized under 47 CFR part 15, which specifically state that:

a) Use of these devices must not interfere with licensed radio services
b) Users of these devices must accept any interference from loicensed radio
services

Translation: if you get problems with interference of the above
devices, it is your tough luck.  You have *no* say against it.

Radio and television should not be affected, unless you have a bad
(usually = old) instrument.  If your radio/TV is of recent age, it
should not interfere; if it does, complain.  The solution may involve
modifying your own equipment, installing traps on the antenna wire
etc.

Cellular phones should work better than ever!

Health effects should be minimal, although exposure to high doses of
microwave radiation is potentially dangerous, the dose of a cell phone
tower should be negible.


INTERNET: [e-mail]   ([e-mail] after this summer)
BITNET:   HPA@NUACC           HAM RADIO:  N9ITP, SM4TKN
FIDONET:  1:115/989.4         NeXTMAIL:   [e-mail]
"finger" the Internet address above for more information.

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

From: "Michael A. Covington" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Are Cellular Towers Good Neighbors?
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 91 22:04:33 GMT


I would think the risk of radio or TV interference from a cellular
tower is minimal.  Interference is almost always on frequencies
*higher* than that of the transmitter.  This means that, for instance,
a CB on 27 MHz might interfere with TV reception in the 50-88 MHz
range, but a cellular transmitter on 850 MHz is very unlikely to
interfere with anything below 850 MHz.  This puts it well above all
radio and TV broadcasts.

The radiation hazard is also minimal because cellular towers use quite
low power.  (I don't know exactly, but based on my ham radio
experience I'd think a cellular tower would work fine emitting five
watts.)  That's the same as a CB radio or a police walkie-talkie, but
of course the cellular tower is much farther from human beings.

This is just some (partly) educated guessing.  Maybe someone will give
us actual experiences.


Michael A. Covington, Ph.D.  |  [e-mail]   |  N4TMI
Assistant to the Director, Artificial Intelligence Programs
The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, U.S.A.

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

From: "Jordan M. Kossack" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Cellular Phones and Scanner Radios Legislation
Organization: Taronga Park BBS
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1991 15:09:28 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Sander J. Rabinowitz) writes:

> Within 180 days after the date of enactment of the Federal
> Communications Commission Authorization Act of 1991, the Commission
> shall prescribe and make effective regulations denying equipment
> authorization ... for any scanning receiver that is capable of --

>    (A) receiving transmissions in the frequencies allocated
>    to the domestic cellular radio telecommunications service,

If this passes as written, I hope the companies that manufacture celtels
will be required to comply with this legislation.   :-)


[e-mail]    Jordan Kossack  [phone] <voice>

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

From: Bill Huttig <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call
Date: 1 Sep 91 17:21:55 GMT
Organization: Florida Institute of Technology, ACS, Melbourne, FL


At the local 7-11 they advertise a 900 number (well, really two of
them). I forgot exactly what they are but I think they were some kind
of game. Anyway, when you dial the number it translates into something
else and you end up getting a tone for a BOC calling card. I think
Visa / Mastercard might work.  On the very bottom of the poster in tiny
letters it says that the call might show up as a '700' call.

I guess that the LEC's allow 700 calls to be billed to them while not
allowing the 900 ones.

I remember about five years ago a TV comercial that said to dial 10441
(I think not sure) 1-700-xxx-xxxx. I assume thats how they get around
the 900 number blocking.


Bill


[Moderator's Note: More information on these numbers please.  PAT]

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

Date: Sun, 1 Sep 91 09:58 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Re: Credit Card Blocking (was Billing Responsibility and 900)


frankston![e-mail] writes:

> In the spirit of 900, 976, 540 blocking, I propose that anyone who has
> ever gotten an invalid credit card charge try credit card blocking.
> There is no need for fraud handling in the credit card system, just
> don't use any.  Also, stop using checks.  You can also protect
> yourself from counterfeit money by just not using any.  And get 911
> blocking so you can be sure it doesn't get abused from your phone.  And
> 411 blocking.

Nice little bit of witty sarcasm, but it misses the mark completely.
Go back and look at those who seem to overlook blocking as an
alternative (and even some who don't). The arguments are that 900/976
serves no purpose. Are you saying that some 900/976 services are OK
and that blocking would deprive you of them? If so, then
congratulations, we are in perfect agreement. There is nothing most
IPs would like better than to see the slime go away.

One other point of note: Pac*Bell offers "selective" 900 blocking.
Supposedly, you can block "sleaze" calls while allowing calls to
"family" operations.


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

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

From: Bill Huttig <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: MCI Mail Personal Network Promo Until Dec 31
Date: 1 Sep 91 17:30:22 GMT
Organization: Florida Institute of Technology, ACS, Melbourne, FL


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Krislyn Companies) writes:

> Additionally, the new subscriber will receive a $20 discount on the
> $35 registration fee.

I can see it now: they add a Business and Associate program to MCI
mail where you get a 20% discount to those most frequently MCI mailed
people.  ;-}


Bill

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

From: Gabe M Wiener <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: AT&T ACUS System Just Installed Here
Reply-To: Gabe M Wiener <[e-mail]>
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1991 22:01:23 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
writes:

> We have the ACUS system here at Marquette University (Milwaukee) as
> well.  However, ACUS does not serve as a Bell "substitute".  As far as
> I know they only handle our long distance service.  We have never been
> billed for local service, only long distance.  The ACUS service was
> instituted this year to keep roommate arguments over who pays what on
> a long distance bill to a minimum.  Since every student has their own
> code it is pretty nice.

> I am insterested as to how ACUS can also serve as your local service
> provider as well.  I would think that Illinois Bell would be a bit
> miffed at this.

We have ACUS here at Columbia in connection with the ROLM 9751 PBX
that serves about 95% of the CU campus.  All billing, local or LD,
comes on the ACUS bill.  Local service is provided by NYTEL, and long
distance by AT&T.  I think the ACUS setup is just for accounting
purposes, as I'm sure that Columbia itself pays NYTEL for local usage.


Gabe Wiener - Columbia Univ.  [e-mail]
N2GPZ in ham radio circles    72355,1226 on CI$

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

From: Harold Hallikainen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low on Phone Numbers
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1991 18:51:06 GMT


    Regarding running out of phone numbers, is there any reason to
assign multiple numbers to multiple lines that go to the same place
just to get "rotary" or "hunting" or whatever it's called when my
second line rings when the first line is busy?  Seems like a lot of
numbers could be freed up by assigning these numbers that are rarely
called.


Harold


[Moderator's Note: Perhaps what you are suggesting is telco should
make more use of circuits without dialable numbers assigned to them.
We have quite a few of those in Chicago. A business has X incoming
lines, but only one actual number. It is impossible to dial direct
into any of the back lines. You dial the listed number; telco gets
the call and hunts around for a circuit in your group which is free
and sends the call on it. Something like that would free up a lot of
numbers which are essentially irrelevant to the subscriber.   PAT]

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

From: Harold Hallikainen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Underground Cable (was Himicane Bob)
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1991 19:53:14 GMT


    Underground cables should also bring a lot less lightning
into the building to destroy our equipment.


Harold Hallikainen              [e-mail]
Hallikainen & Friends, Inc.     [e-mail]
141 Suburban Road, Bldg E4      phone [phone] fax [phone]
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401-7590  telex 4932775 HFI UI


[Moderator's Note: Maybe or maybe not. I wouldn't count on it and
remove all my lightning protection as being unneeded.   PAT]

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

From: Harold Hallikainen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Caller ID Program For PC Hits The Street
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1991 19:44:10 GMT


    Can someone provide the data format for caller ID?  What is
sent down the line when?


Harold

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

From: Doug Konrad <decwrl!edson.ee.ualberta.ca!liaison![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls
Organization: Univ. of Alberta
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1991 16:07:40 -0600


In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Sander J.
Rabinowitz) writes:

> Hey ... I just thought of another possible solution!  Have two
> seperate credit limits -- one for 900/976 services (like $100/month),
> and another for everything else!  Then the customer could still change
> some toll services direct to his phone bill, keep the convenience of
> this billing method (as John Higdon points out, some people don't have
> credit cards), yet prevent 900/976 charges from getting out of hand!

When this heated up a few days ago, I came to the identical conclusion
that Mr. Rabinowitz did. Other that making a few programmers rich at
the phone company's expense, I think it meets the needs (through
compromise) of all parties.


Doug Konrad    [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Phone Color Boxes
Date: Sun,  1 Sep 91 08:14:32 PDT


Recently, I have seen plans and kits advertised for telephone color
boxes (blue boxes, silver boxes, etc.).  I was wondering the legality
of them.  I am fairly confident that it is illegal to use them, but
what about making them or selling them?  Would it be legal to sell
them in kit form, but not as a completed unit?  What about possession?
Also, I would like to know who is responsible for the prosecution?
The FCC?


Thank you,

Nathan Friedman


[Moderator's Note: Indeed, those boxes are all highly illegal to use,
and of marginal legality at best to sell or construct in kit form
(where usually the leit motif is 'for educational purposes only'). The
FCC, like all federal agencies with a beef, refers the matter to the
Justice Department ... and a finer bunch of people you won't meet in
your life when it comes to their technical knowledge of hacking and
phreaking; and their desire to exhibit courtesy and respect the
private property rights of hackers and phreakers they, uh, 'visit' in
their homes and offices. :) Just get caught with a 'colored box' sir;
we'll be discussing your case here in the Digest also.  :) PAT]

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

From: Harold Hallikainen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Specs Wanted on Telco Provided Lines
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1991 21:34:29 GMT


    Is there somewhere archived a list of specs on various types
of switched and nonswitched lines that can be ordered from a local
telco?  I have an old book on 3002 circuits, but wonder what the
current specs and names are for Local Area Data lines, other analog
and digital dedicated circuits, etc.  Also, how does switched 56 kbps
service work?  If I want to send only a few bits per second across the
country, but want to keep the "virtual circuit" continuously up (so I
can detect loss of the circuit), are there any dedicated low speed
data circuits available (probably thru a packet network)?  I've been
told the most economical way to do this is using VSAT.  True?


Harold

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #692
******************************










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Date:     Mon, 2 Sep 91 1:34:13 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #693
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Mon, 2 Sep 91 01:34:00 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 693

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Labor Day, 1991 [TELECOM Moderator]
    Antenna Power (was: Are Cellular Towers Good Neighbors?) [Neil Rickert]
    LA's 213/310 Area Code Split [Robert L. McMillin]
    Re: Phone Rates Across the USA [Robert L. McMillin]
    Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls [John Higdon]
    Re: Phone Color Boxes [John Higdon]
    Re: Wiring Questions For New Home [Patton M. Turner]
    Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low on Phone Numbers [Bill Huttig]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Sep 91 18:53:26 CDT
From: TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject: Labor Day, 1991


I'd like to make a suggestion that each of you pause for a few minutes
and reflect on the role of the working people in America who have over
the years created our telecommunications networks.

Sadly, Labor Day has become a holiday just to mark the end of the
summer and the approach of fall and winter ... a chance for one last
fling in the sun as it were. But the origin of Labor Day in the late
nineteenth century was intended as a lot more than just another three
day weekend. It was intended to celebrate the labor of the working men
and women in the United States, and to honor them for their
contributions to society.

Perhaps if you get a little time free today between stuffing
yourselves with hotdogs, closing up the summer house and visiting the
fantastic holiday sales at the malls, you might ask yourself where
would we be today without them ... the working men and women of our
past who brought us to where we are today.

And don't forget also that our own labor is a heritage we leave for
future generations.  Remember how 'they' used to build things? Why
don't we begin to build things that way again, with the dedication and
craftsmanship which our grandparents and great-grandparents had?

Let's take pride in our own work, turning out products of which we
have nothing to be ashamed, remembering that 'made in the USA' used to
mean the best money could buy. And it can mean that again, if we all
do the very best we can at our chosen labors.


Patrick Townson

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

From: Neil Rickert <[e-mail]>
Subject: Antenna Power (was: Are Cellular Towers Good Neighbors?)
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1991 00:47:35 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John
Nagle) writes:

> In comparison, a police radio might transmit at 30 watts, an AM
> broadcast station at 10,000 to 50,000 watts, and some TV stations
> transmit more than a million watts.  There are houses within a few

I would be interested to hear if there are really any TV stations
which transmit more than a million watts.  The advertized power is
usually the "Effective Radiation Power", which is the actual power
multiplied by the antenna gain.  The actual power is much less than
the ERP.


Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science     <[e-mail]>
Northern Illinois Univ.
DeKalb, IL 60115   [phone]

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

Date: Sun, 1 Sep 91 18:46:57 PDT
From: "Robert L. McMillin" <rlm@ms_aspen.hac.com>
Subject: LA's 213/310 Area Code Split


On November 2, 1991, Los Angeles' 213 area code will split in two,
forming a new 310 code along the coast and in the northern, western,
and southern parts of the County.  The question I have is this:
currently, the 310 prefix is already assigned as a Santa Monica
exchange.  I have read of no plans to eliminate this prefix, since no
Los Angeles phone prefix begins with 213, 818, 714, 805, or, for that
matter, 415.  Since Santa Monica in its entirety (I would assume) is
to switch to the 310 area code, has anyone heard of the fate of this
prefix?

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

Date: Sun, 1 Sep 91 18:37:51 PDT
From: "Robert L. McMillin" <rlm@ms_aspen.hac.com>
Subject: Re: Phone Rates Across the USA


Dave Niebuhr <[e-mail]> requests info on how basic phone
bills stack up across the country.  Things aren't that different in
Los Angeles.  I get GTE service, as do most people near the beach, San
Pedro and the harbor area being a notable exception.

One problem with LA -- it's spread out.  Since distance is a primary
meter for phone calls, we get reamed here.  I remember the day I got
my phone bill after I first started dating a girl who lived in
Pasadena -- yikes!  The first minute was .25 and .16 thereafter, with
the usual rate reductions during evening and night hours.
(Fortunately, that relationship didn't last long... talk about
geographic undesirability!)  Because everyone has a car, and friends
tend to scatter, you can run up some ungodly phone bills quickly.  My
average GTE phone bill runs around $80, although it will rarely exceed
$100.

Since our fearless Moderator published the miscellaneous expenses on
his phone bill, here are mine for a recent month:

Basic service                                    $16.75
Inside wire maintenance contract                  $0.95
Interstate subscriber line charge                 $3.50
GTE communications devices fund for the deaf      $0.20
Funding to support the PUC                        $0.07
Universal lifeline telephone surcharge            $1.38
Temporary surcharge as allowed by the PUC         $3.72
FET                                               $2.18
911 tax                                           $0.50
Torrance City Tax (I don't live in LA proper)     $4.35

GTE recently stopped charging for touch-tone service.  The $16.75
figure includes frequent caller plans to two long-distance areas that
I call frequently, and a general circle-calling arrangement, the basic
service fee, and their "Smartest Call" package, which includes call
waiting, last number redial, and call waiting shutoff (yes, they make
you upgrade your calling package to shut it off, and at $15 a change,
too!).

The PUC recently forced some Zone Unit Measurement calls, what were
called "Zone 2", to be folded into the non-toll call area.  These were
those calls through exchanges 8 to 12 miles away.  This did me little
good, as my phone service goes through an exchange that is in a beach
community. In other words, I got "free" service calling to certain Los
Angeles exchanges, parts of Santa Monica, Marina Del Rey, and ...
Compton.  Whee!  Had I the foresight to live further inland, as do my
parents, I would probably have seen a substantially greater increase
in my non-toll area, and in areas that I could use, as well. A general
question to those more knowledgable than myself: Why haven't the
various PUC's considered a more equal-area approach?  It seems as
though getting phone service from a beach exchange leaves you a bit
screwed.

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

Date: Sun, 1 Sep 91 18:27 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Re: Billing Responsibility and 900 Calls


"Sander J. Rabinowitz" <[e-mail]> writes:

> Hey ... I just thought of another possible solution!  Have two
> seperate credit limits -- one for 900/976 services (like $100/month),
> and another for everything else!  Then the customer could still change
> some toll services direct to his phone bill, keep the convenience of
> this billing method (as John Higdon points out, some people don't have
> credit cards), yet prevent 900/976 charges from getting out of hand!

Some of the more progressive and responsible 900 IPs have stolen your
thunder. Many (but by no means all or even most) IPs capture ANI on
calls to their service. Each number is recorded and an "account" is
set up internally in the answering equipment. As the customer uses the
service the "account" accumulates charges. At some preset point,
determined by the IP, the service is "turned off" for that customer
and a recorded annoucement tells him of his "over limit" condition. He
can then make various arrangements to turn the service back on again.

Some of the calls to the "business office" are most entertaining. Such
as, "I only called a couple of times", or "I've never called your
service before and I'm certainly never calling it again." But the
majority willingly set up credit arrangements and go on their merry
way using the 900 program.

Again, this is how SOME of the IPs handle their shop. It requires
cooperation from the carrier (real-time ANI) and sufficient hardware
sohpisication on the part of the IP. And, please, think about this the
next time you have the inclination to complain about the 900 providers
getting ANI. And also remember that there are some IPs out there who
would rather NOT kill the goose that is laying the golden eggs.


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !

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

Date: Sun, 1 Sep 91 20:19 PDT
From: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: John Higdon <[e-mail]>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
Subject: Re: Phone Color Boxes


On Sep 1 at 18:27, TELECOM Moderator writes:

> [Moderator's Note: Indeed, those boxes are all highly illegal to use,
> and of marginal legality at best to sell or construct in kit form
> (where usually the leit motif is 'for educational purposes only').

> Just get caught with a 'colored box' sir;
> we'll be discussing your case here in the Digest also.  :) PAT]

But Pat, you just said in no uncertain terms that the possession of
test equipment is PERFECTLY legal with regard to butt sets. Is there a
different set of regulations that apply to other types of equipment?

In front of me is a 314A Trunk Test Set, manufactured by Berry
Electronics, serial number 1272. It transmits and receives DTMF and MF
tones. It can send a burst, a tone at a time, the ABCD keys, the
various 'KP's, the dreaded 2600, in fact any tone used in the known
world for telephone signaling purposes. Although it is no one's
business but my own, I use the unit regularly for setting up and
testing four-wire interswitch connections, ANI, and FX circuits.

This would have been a phone phreak's wet dream come true back in the
hey day of such things. While this unit COULD be used for fraud, to my
knowledge this unit has never been put to any such use. The color of
the box is, incidently, blue.

So what about it, Pat? Is it legal to own and use Harris/Dracon butt
sets but illegal or at least questionable to use BE 314A Trunk Test
Sets? Where do we find all of this information so we can all sort out
our equipment into two piles: legal and illegal.


        John Higdon         |   P. O. Box 7648   |   [phone]
    [e-mail]      | San Jose, CA 95150 |       M o o !


[Moderator's Note: Put everything in the proper context, John. There
is nothing illegal about your device **when it is not being used to
effect theft of service or other fraud** nor is there anything illegal
about butt sets under the same conditions. And the fact that your
device 'would have been a phreaker's delight ....' does not mean that
it was being used by phreaks to steal service.  You referred to your
device by its correct name ... not a 'blue box'. Somehow I did not
read the original correspondent's message as saying he was involved in
the testing and repair of telephone networks, lines and equipment. If
he sells his device to persons with bonafide uses for same -- but I
did not get the feeling he had that in mind -- then there would be no
need to sell it in 'kit form' as he suggested. The Heath Company
concept has largely been out of style for a few years now. He was
asking for suggestions to skirt around the law. Those questions do not
come to mind with you in your use of the device, or at least I don't
think they do.

So someone caught burglarizing a phone closet who has a butt set in
their possession has a burglar's tool in their possession.  Otherwise
they have bonafide equipment. And if you use your device to steal
phone service, then you have what in common parlance is called a 'blue
box'. If not, then you have a valid and legal instrument.  Same
equipment in both cases: your intended and actual use detirmines what
we call it and what response the authorities choose to give.  PAT]

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

Date: Sun, 1 Sep 91 22:37:03 CDT
From: "Patton M. Turner" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Wiring Questions For New Home


Dennis G. Rears <[e-mail]> writes:

> I will be buying and moving into a new condo in April, 1992.  The
> unit will be constructed in about three months.  I am wondering about
> the wiring.  The standard wiring is normal electrical, cable, and
> three pair telephone wiring.  I will be living there for at least four
> years.  I forsee a need for at least six phone lines, additional
> wiring for computer networking, stuff for audio/visual.  I am not an
> engineer, but a computer scientist.

> What type of additional wiring should I request:

>    o 2 three pair telephone wiring + another coax (audio/visual)
>    o 25 pair telephone wiring.

Unless you are planing on installing a 1A2 type key system, I would
forget about the 50 conductor cable.  Instead I would run four pair
cable to each telephone jack.  If you use RJ-14 jacks the cabling can
be used for single line phones or a electronic key system, with out
changing any thing.  The RJ-14 jack can be later replaced with a RJ-45
jack if you install a Merlin (tm of AT&T) or need the extra two
conductors for data.  The ideal way to handle the other end of the
cable is to punch it down on 66 blocks.  Try to get the phone company
to supply your incoming lines on a RJ-21X.  This can be plugged
directly into a 66 block or a key system.  BTW, for ease of expansion,
mount all these 66 blocks on a plywood backboard, rather than directly
on the wall.  Might as well buy a good (impact) punch down tool so
jumpers can be changed latter.

As far as data, you need to decide what kind of LAN you want before
installing cable.  Coax is a lot more expensive than twisted pair, so
you don't want to waste it.  For CATV, install a good grade of RG-59U
coax.  You might as well run the coax into the same room as the phone
lines.  Ethernet can be run over 75 ohm cable so this might make a
good choice to reduce the total amount of wiring needed.  F to BNC
adaptors are available for ease of cabling.

For audio you want shielded cable to reduce crosstalk because of the
higher power levels (assuming its run near phone lines, or subject to
EMI).

> If I get 25 pair telephone wiring could it present problems to the
> telephone company?

As far as CPE equipiment is concerned, 50 conductor cable is for 1A2
key systems.  The cable connects to KSU (I think a different term is
used when refering to 1A2 equipiment) to the phones sets.  The
incoming lines are connected to the cable through the KSU. The cable
is invisable to the phone company.  You can do anything you want on
your side of the demark, as long as it complies with Part 68 of the
FCC regs.  This was not always the case as John Higdon and others have
attested to.

The 50 conductor cable used for 1A2 isn't twisted pair cable, although
the color codes do pair certain wire together.

This is just my humble opinion, there are other ways to handle the problem.


Pat Turner  KB4GRZ @ K4RY.AL.USA.NOAM  [e-mail]

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

From: Bill Huttig <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low on Phone Numbers
Date: 2 Sep 91 03:53:04 GMT
Reply-To:  Bill Huttig <zach![e-mail]>
Organization: Florida Institute of Technology, ACS, Melbourne, FL


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Harold Hallikainen) writes:

In the Moderator's Note:

> You dial the listed number; telco gets the call and hunts around for
> a circuit in your group which is free and sends the call on it.

The problem with this is that there is no way to test each line in the
hunt group to make sure it works.


Bill


[Moderator's Note: Sure you can test them. Busy out all but the last
one, and dial the main (only!) number. Did the call find its way down
the line to the last circuit?  Good ... now busy the last one and
release the one before it and repeat the test. By keeping all the
lines busy except one and dialing the number, you should be able to
force the call to go on whatever line you want it, and if you see
along the way that the one trunk open to receive your forced call does
not light up, ring or otherwise accept the call, then that trunk is in
trouble. Of course the CO technicians can force their way onto any of
the circuits for testing also.  PAT]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #693
******************************










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Date:     Mon, 2 Sep 91 20:32:53 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     telecom@eecs
Subject:  Adminstrivia: Misnumbered issue
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>

Issue 691 got referred to as such at the start, but the end of the
issue referred to 692 ... please make that correction on your copy of
691, making it read that way at the end of the issue also.

Issue 692 was correctly numbered at the start and end of the Digest.

On Sunday and Monday we had (among others) issues 690, 691, 692 and
693.  In addition, there was a special mailing of the FAQ list. If you
did not receive any of those please let me know.


Patrick Townson










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          2 Sep 91 23:11 CDT
Date:     Mon, 2 Sep 91 22:20:32 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #694
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Mon, 2 Sep 91 22:20:24 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 694

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call [William Degnan]
    Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call [Bill Huttig]
    Re: MCI Friends and Family [Stan Brown]
    Re: How Phone Bills Compare Around the USA [[e-mail]]
    Re: LA's 213/310 Area Code Split [Lauren Weinstein]
    Re: More TCIA: Telecom and Computer Industry Acronyms [William Degnan]
    Re: What is Illegal About Butt Sets? [David B. Whiteman]
    Re: 800 Number Abuse (was AT&T Blocks Calls From Arkansas) [William Degnan]
    Re: Are Cellular Towers Good Neighbors [Mark Earle]
    Area Code 510 Works on Calls From UK [Clive Feather]
    Area Code 510 (Better Early Than Late) [Darren Alex Griffiths]
    Pac*Bell Inside Wiring Plan [Ole J. Jacobsen]
    ATT and Soviet Birds [Steve W.York]
    800 vs 900 -- a Proposal [Bob Frankston]
    Chronicle Reports on NASA and EMail [Ee Hopper]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: William Degnan <[e-mail]>
Date: 01 Sep 91  12:16:26
Subject: Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call


On <Aug 31 20:40> our esteemed Moderator Notes:

> [Moderator's Note: However, when 'other carriers' stick you with a
> third party billing, you would just automatically refuse it when
> you were paying your telco bill. Or if the bill for the third party
> call came direct from the 'other carrier', just toss it in the
> wastebasket and forget it. Maybe as a courtesy -- just once -- send it back
> to them with a note explaining they defrauded you and not to push
> the matter further.

Disclaimer: I cannot advise as an attorney. However, as a
telecommunications professional experienced in billing matters ...

I think it would be more appropriate to advise the "other carrier"
that "someone" had defrauded _them_. You see the difference? Otherwise
their argument is that it is between you and the persons unknown. This
lets _you_ counter with that argument. If necessary you can advise
them that unless they would like to defend fraud charges themselves
they should see that you are not further troubled by it.

I wonder if anyone can guess the magic words that strike fear in the
hearts of telco attornies?  No. It is not, "You've been transferred to
Brownsville."  That comes after.


* Origin: Private Line - Stealth Opus in Austin (1:382/39.0)
William Degnan,  Communications Network Solutions
-Independent Consultants in Telecommunications-
P.O. Drawer 9530       | ARPA: [e-mail]
Austin, TX 78766-9530  | ![e-mail]  | Voice [phone]

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

From: Bill Huttig <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call
Date: 2 Sep 91 03:47:52 GMT
Organization: Florida Institute of Technology, ACS, Melbourne, FL


One of the 7-11 pomotional/context numbers referred to earlier is
1-900-737-7777.  It says it maybe billed by the LEC as 700-737-7777.
The 737 exchange for 900 shows as belonging to AT&T.  Cost is .95 a
minute.  I wonder how they can bill it as a 700 call?  Dialing
1-700-737-7777 results in a recording saying call can not be completed
as dialed.


Bill

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

Date: Sun, 1 Sep 91 11:27:00 -0400
From: Stan Brown <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: MCI Friends and Family
Organization: North Coast Public Access Un*x (ncoast)


In article <[e-mail]> John Higdon <[e-mail].
com> writes:

> I have been watching the MCI spots for "Friends and Family". Various
> "users" give their stories, which generally include and statement of
> how much they save per year over AT&T. The one I saw moments ago
> featured an elderly woman who claimed a projected savings of $300 per
> year.

Let's see -- Friends and Family claims to be 20% reduced.  $300 a year
is 20% of $1500 a year, or $125 a month.  I find it hard to believe
anybody spends that on non-business long distance, month after month.


Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cleveland, Ohio, USA           [phone]
       email: [e-mail] -or- [e-mail]

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

From: Ron <uwm!carroll1.cc.edu![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: How Phone Bills Compare Around the USA
Date: 2 Sep 91 17:13:27 GMT
Organization: Lightning Systems, Inc.


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dave
Niebuhr) writes:

> I'm curious as to how my basic phone bill stacks up against those of
> others around the country.  I keep hearing and reading how NYTel has
> some of the highest rates in the country.

Here's my monthly phone bill for you.

Residence One-Party Line                                   $15.14
Subscriber Access Line - Interstate Residence                3.50
Non-Published Number                                          .50
Tone Dial Residence Line                                      .00  *
Emergency Service Number 911                                  .25
Metro Residence SVC                                         20.00  **
                               ------
                                                           $39.39

* -  Tone-Dial service charge eliminated starting this month.  Had been
     $1.00 per month.

** - Metro service is a one-way calling plan.  I live on the western
     fringe of the Milwaukee Metro Area, and this plan enables unlimited
     calling to all of the Milwaukee Metro area.  I can call them, but
     they pay LD charges to call me.


Ron                      | Lightning Systems, INC.
[e-mail]  | [phone]  60megs
carroll1![e-mail] | 14.4k HST/V.32bis

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

Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 10:47:16 PDT
From: Lauren Weinstein <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: LA's 213/310 Area Code Split


The 213-310 Santa Monica prefix was never assigned to "real"
subscribers; it was used for GTE billing/service offices.  Those users
were moved off to 213-350 (which will become 310-350).  There will not
be a 310-310 prefix.

  --Lauren--

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

From: William Degnan <[e-mail]>
Date: 01 Sep 91  12:01:44
Subject: Re: More TCIA: Telecom and Computer Industry Acronyms


On <Aug 30 15:51> Robert E. Zabloudil (nol2105%dsacg2.dsac.dla.mil@
dsac.dla.mil ) wrote:

> AOS  Alternative Operator Service

But, the folks who are AOSes want to be called OSPs (Operator Service
Providers), but they are such neophytes that the don't know that there
is already an OSP (OutSide Plant). The "Service" part remains a matter
of opinion.

> From what I remember, when you pick up a COCOT, often designed
> to look like a common payphone, you get connected to an AOS.

COCOT - Customer-Owned Coin-Operated Telephone.

You can have one without having an AOS. You can reach an AOS without a COCOT.

I'm resisting writing a few thousand words on this. I fear that every
word I would use requires a paragraph to explain it.


* Origin: Private Line - Stealth Opus in Austin (1:382/39.0)
William Degnan,  Communications Network Solutions
-Independent Consultants in Telecommunications-
P.O. Drawer 9530       | ARPA: [e-mail]
Austin, TX 78766-9530  | ![e-mail]  | Voice [phone]

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

From: [e-mail] (David B. Whiteman)
Subject: Re: What is Illegal About Butt Sets?
Organization: Crash TimeSharing, El Cajon, CA
Date: Mon, 02 Sep 1991 10:26:03 GMT


While in a shopping center in West Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles, I
found a store selling telephones and other communication equipment.
They had three butt sets on display and for sale.

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

From: William Degnan <[e-mail]>
Date: 01 Sep 91  12:14:04
Subject: Re: 800 Number Abuse (was AT&T Blocks Calls From Arkansas)


On <Aug 30 15:31> Mikel Manitius ([e-mail] ) wrote:

> There is one guy in particular that keeps calling from the San
> Fransisco Bay Area, he calls about ten times a day and rambles on
> about various obscenities.

> They've contacted the local police department, but apparently
> there is little that can be done.

There is a _lot_ that can be done. It is a case of saying the right
words to the right people at the right moment. The real problem is the
people who should be helping you have a conflict of interest. If you
continue to pay for the calls there is no incentive to help you make
it stop.


Regards,

* Origin: Private Line - Stealth Opus in Austin (1:382/39.0)
William Degnan,  Communications Network Solutions
-Independent Consultants in Telecommunications-
P.O. Drawer 9530       | ARPA: [e-mail]
Austin, TX 78766-9530  | ![e-mail]  | Voice [phone]

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

Date: Mon,  2 Sep 91 15:21:56 CDT
From: Mark Earle <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Are Cellular Towers Good Neighbors


Recently, Cellular One put a 180' tower 1/4 mile from our apartment
complex. So far other than having to look at it no major ill effects.
Note, I do now receive CMT calls on my scanners (various brands) and
some UHF business hand held radios! Technically this is just
overload/intermod I guess. It has not affected any consumer level
stuff. Note, the scanners here do not have explicit 800 Mhz frequency
coverage (CMT's are 870-890 Mhz approximately). And it doesn't happen
all the time.


[e-mail] (Mark Earle) [WA2MCT/5]
My BBS: (512)-855-7564       Opus 1:160/50.0
CI$ 73117,351   Packet: WA2MCT @ KA5LZG.TX.NA.USA

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

From: Clive Feather <[e-mail]>
Subject: Area Code 510 Works On Calls From UK
Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 9:46:06 BST


Calling from the UK, +1 510 275 XXXX worked at 0945 BST (0145 PDT). It
seems the cutover worked. (This number was *not* working on Friday).


Clive D.W. Feather     | IXI Limited
[e-mail]          | 62-74 Burleigh St.
Phone: [phone] | Cambridge   CB1 1OJ
(USA: 1 800 XDESK 57)  | United Kingdom

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

From: Darren Alx Griffiths <unisoft![e-mail]>
Subject: Area Code 510 (Better Early Than Late)
Date: 2 Sep 91 22:20:21 GMT
Reply-To: Darren Alex Griffiths <unisoft![e-mail]>
Organization: Open Systems Solutions, Inc. -- UNIX R Us.


I was just sitting around, reading news and waiting for the 49ers to
beat the Giants tonight and decided to try calling my office just
outside of Berkeley to check on any messages I might have gotten.  Of
course our voice mail system is down (it never seems to work, that's
what you get when you use PCs for anything more useful than flight
simulator games) and decided to try out the new area-code.

Sure, I know it's not 12:01am yet, but I'm the curious sort and I also
wondered whether some poor senior tech at the CO was actually going to
go in at midnight to make the change.  I wasn't too surprised to find
that it does work, at least from San Francisco where I live (415-647).
Did anyone else try to make calls earlier than me or from different
areas, it would be somewhat interesting to find out when Pac-Tel
actually made the switch.


Darren Alex Griffiths     [e-mail] (for now)   [e-mail] (RSN)

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

Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 16:46:48 PDT
From: "Ole J. Jacobsen" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Pac*Bell Inside Wiring Plan


Pac*Bell has filed with the PUC for an increase in the cost of "Inside
Wire Repair Services." The changes are to take effect on March 1, 1992
if approved.

I've always found that the inside wire plan was a rip-off. Unless you
own rabbits your inside wire is likely to survive for *many* years.
Paying $.50 per month for the peace of mind seems silly.

I also note with great displeasure that the Pac*Bell service techs are
less than cooperative when it comes to *preventing* service calls.
They would rather add another demark box to an existing rats nest than
clean it all up and get you a nice new multiline demark box. (They did
actually give me such a beast after I begged, but explained that they
don't like to do it since it reduces service calls!) [Your phone
dollars at work].

One day, I noticed a "sardine can" up a pole with its lid blowing in
the wind, exposing all the junctions. I happened to know that *my*
lines go through this particular can, and since this is fog city, I
asked a tech replace the cover when he was in the area. He explained
that I should call 611 so that he could get credit for the work. Lucky
for me he had to climb the pole anyway and did eventually replace the
lid.


Ole J Jacobsen, Editor & Publisher ConneXions--The Interoperability Report
Interop, Inc., 480 San Antonio Road, Suite 100, Mountain View, CA 94040,
Phone: [phone]  FAX: [phone]  Email: [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: ATT and Soviet Birds
Date: Sun,  1 Sep 91 23:50:42 PDT


Tonight I heard on the radio that AT&T had started using some Soviet
Satel for international calls to the USSR.  Does anyone have any
further information on this?  Is this the first time that a private
company has contracted with a communist launched and owned satelite?


Steve York
[e-mail]      or (if you must) CIS  72617,503

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

From: frankston![e-mail]
Subject: 800 vs 900 -- a Proposal
Date: 2 Sep 1991 10:36 -0400


If an 800 number can reliably capture ANI, then the only difference
between 800 and 900 numbers is whether your local telco serves as the
collection service or whether the provider does it directly.  If we
continue this logic on step further, one wonders how anyone let them
get into the third party collection business anyway.

Yes, I know that all 800 numbers are **FREE** and polluting the 800
number space with charges would confuse users.  But we can simply
reconstitute 900 numbers as identical to 800 numbers in that the telco
gets paid for each call at a fixed rate and the IP can then bill as
they wish but without getting telco involved in the process.

Obviously, there is still a value in common IP billing services, but
there would be plenty of takers ranging from the IP resellers to
credit card services.  The 800 number model could even allow for an
override by specifying a credit card number.

If the Baby Bells want to get into the billing services, they can
ascertain whether they are permitted to act as collection agents for
non-telco services.  If so, they can get into the business but would
not be permitted to intermix billing of IP services with their other
charges.

An aside, is the current 900 service related to the original use of
900 service for Jimmy Carter's national call-in show?  The idea there
was to reduce system congestion by blocking at the regional level
instead of the national.  I presume the software is related but that
original use was more like a distributed 800 service than a 900
service.

As to 876, 540 etc -- those are equivalent to local 800 number service
and thus local 900 number service.

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

Subject: Chronicle Reports on NASA and EMail
From: ED HOPPER <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon 02 Sep 91 10:01:47 CST
Organization: Ed Hopper's BBS - Houston, TX - 713-997-7575


Joe Abernathy had a piece in today's (9/2/91) {Houston Chronicle}
discussing NASA's decision to sever it's link to Applelink from the
shuttle.  He quotes NASA experiment manager Debra Muratore as saying:
"As a result of this whole experience (the 'leaking' of the shuttle's
email address) at least my project plans never to use a public
(electronic) mail system again."

He also quotes Peter G. Neumann (Moderator of Risks Digest) regarding
NASA's reported receipt of 80 "unauthorized" email messages:
"Threatened by 'unauthorized email', eh?  Sending email to someone
*requires no authorization*."

All in all, an interesting article.  I hope Joe forwards full text
here.

NASA's view on email is rather silly.  If you plug into a public
network, you should expect to get mail from the public.  I guess it
shows the rather massive gap in understanding that the typical
government|corporate manager has of technology in general and data
communications in general.  They fear what they do not understand.

One last point, Abernathy did not report on whether or not the shuttle
astronauts received alt.sex.pictures.  I'm sure that's planned for a
later expose.


Ed Hopper

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #694
******************************










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          3 Sep 91 0:18 CDT
Date:     Tue, 3 Sep 91 0:01:56 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #695
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 3 Sep 91 00:01:34 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 695

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    AT&T's Hopelessly Confused Marketing Department [TELECOM Moderator]
    Calendar Notice: Tele-Solutions Forum and Trade Show [TELECOM Moderator]
    Ten Years Ago in TELECOM Digest #2 [Bill Huttig]
    Baudot?? I'll Ask My Mom [Marty Brenneis]
    Re: What is Illegal About Butt Sets? [Perry Martin]
    Some Confusion About Moderator's Gender [J. Philip Miller]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 22:47:24 CDT
From: TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject: AT&T's Hopelessly Confused Marketing Department


Two letters arrived for me *in the same day's mail* from AT&T last
week. How could they possibly be so mixed up?

Letter # 1:

It said how much they missed me since I was no longer a customer of
AT&T. They wanted me to know if I were to subscribe once again to
Reach Out America or one of their other long distance programs I'd be
able to save BIG $$ on my calls to Toledo.  Toledo?  Holy Toledo!

The fact is, I still am and always was an AT&T subscriber.

I must be a pretty good customer, since in Letter # 2 of the same date
I got my regular mailing from the {AT&T Caller's Club}, with this
month's gift for members of the club: a coupon for $2.50 payable to
the order of the Telephone Company which can be used to pay for that
much telephone service.

The {AT&T Caller's Club} is a relatively unknown offering from the
company for those folks they perceive to be their better customers. I
guess my international calls each month (about $100 per month which my
employer reimburses me for) made me a candidate for membership in the
Club. When they invited me to join at no expense or obligation to
myself, I took them up on the offer. In addition to little special
gifts and things from time to time, we also get a different number to
call for customer service.

Maybe I should send a copy of each letter (one and two) to Mr. Robert
Allen and ask if he can figure it out.


Patrick Townson

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

Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 23:04:49 CDT
From: TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject: Calendar Notice: Tele-Solutions Forum and Trade Show


The second annual educational forum and trade show on delivering
quality customer service via the telephone will be held on Ottawa,
Ontario on October 16-17, 1991.

There will be two tracks of seminars on managerial and technical
issues in telephone customer service. The trade show will offer
telecommunications equipment, database and customer service software,
voice processing technology, list sources, trainers, service bureaus
and more.

John Goodman, President of the TARP Institute will be the keynote
speaker at the forum. In his address on Wednesday, October 16 entitled
"The Customer Service Revolution" he will discuss his belief that "It
is cheaper to give great service than mediocre service ..."

One of the several forums planned will deal with 800 Line Management.

Tele-Solutions is sponsored by Phone Power-Telecom Canada. For more
information and reservations, call 800-267-4529 from anywhere in North
America. Or from outside the continent, 1-416-691-6526.  If you prefer
to FAX, send to: 1-416-691-6928.

The forum and trade show will be October 16-17, 1991 at the Ottawa
Congress Center, Ottawa, Ontario. Fees for participation were not
mentioned in the announcement which was sent to me.


Patrick Townson

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

From: Bill Huttig <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ten Years Ago in TELECOM Digest #2
Date: 3 Sep 91 03:45:06 GMT
Reply-To:  Bill Huttig <[e-mail]>
Organization: Florida Institute of Technology, ACS, Melbourne, FL


Ten Years ago in Telecom-Digest                Number: 2


                    Bill paying by telephone - a demo.
          Has anyone else heard anything about the Hart Line?
                       A bit more info on Hart Line
                          "Foreign exchanges"
            Foreign Exchange Service, Vs. Selective Calling
                   Los-Angeles Earthquake & Telephones


###

 Date: 29 Aug 1981 0933-PDT
 From: Bob Knight <ADMIN.KNIGHT at SU-SCORE>
 Subject: Bill paying by telephone - a demo.

     First Interstate Bank out here has introduced a service of bill
paying by telephone.  A demo is available, to wit (gotta have a
touch-tone):

    1)  Dial [phone]
    2)  CUSTOMER NUMBER:  push 123456789#.
    3)  SECURITY CODE:  push 1234#.
    4)  PAYEE NUMBER:  push 12#.
    5)  AMOUNT:  Anything followed by # (3250#==$32.50,
        of course).
    6)  You'll be asked for # or month and day.  Terminate
            month/day with # (form mmdd#).  Default if no month/day
            entered is day you're making transaction.
    7)  You can go back to 4 or stop by pushing *2#.

     The capitalized stuff above is what the computer will be asking
you.  They have a voice synthesizer of some kind handling the
questions.

[stuff deleted - It still works!]

Bob

###

 Date: 27 Aug 1981 2022-PDT
 From: Lynn Gold <G.FIGMO at SU-SCORE>
 Subject: Has anyone else heard anything about the Hart Line?

     It's a new phone service which has been out for a few weeks.

How it works:

1) You call up toll-free (800) number (a list is given to all members;
   numbers vary from state to state).
2) After hearing a beep, you enter your 7-digit code
3) After hearing another beep, you then enter 1 + area code and number
   you want to dial

     My father got such a number, and after checking it out myself, I
would like to share my findings:


Advantages:

1) You pay a flat  fee of $65. per  month.  There are no  connect
   charges.

2) The service is new enough to not have hackers (yet).  Even  if
   someone DOES find out your number, you don't get billed for it.

3) You can use it anywhere in the continental United States.

4) You can use your Hart Line number 24 hours a day.

5) You can use your Hart Line number as frequently as you like.


Disadvantages:

1) It is only supposed to be used by its owner and not family members
   of the owner, as is permitted by several other systems.

   [Note: I don't know if they actually can catch anyone who violates
   this without a great deal of difficulty, since it IS allowable for
   someone to use it from anywhere...]

2) Once phone hackers DO figure out  how to crack this one,  they
   probably will.

3) The quality of  the connection provided  is poor.  Voices  are
   sometimes barely audible.  Data transmission would be impossible.

4) The connections only last 15 minutes, after which you and other
   party are suddenly disconnected with no warning.  (Of course, as
   mentioned above, you CAN call again right away and resume your
   conversation...)

5) It is difficult to get onto the line.  It seems to take anywhere
   from five to ten  minutes just to get  to the first tone,  and
   sometimes there is a wait of over a minute after the second tone
   has been punched in.  (Either they are inadequately set up or they
   are unusually popular.)

The people I know who are using it are satisfied with it, since they
tend to ring up huge long distance bills, rarely spend more than 15
minutes on the phone to anyone, and aren't interested in data trans-
mission.

 --Lynn

###

 Date: 3 Sep 1981 1039-PDT
 Subject: A bit more info on Hart Line
 From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin)

[stuff deleted]

"A tip that Hart Industries offers a computer-controlled pooled
WATS line service w/unlimited calling continental US from any
phone for $100 fee + $65/month.  Call (305)561-xxxx, check it out
to see."

Will Martin

###

 Date:      4 Sep 81 15:42:50-EDT (Fri)
 From:      Jcp.bmd70 at BRL
 Subject:   "Foreign exchanges"


In my area (Maryland), the telco offers a service called "foreign
exchange connection", whereby you can have a phone in one area act as
a phone on a non-local exchange.  (Very popular for people living
between Baltimore and DC, and wanting to call locally in both cities,
etc).  This isn't available from all CO's, just the newer ones (ESS, I
think).  They charge a fee per mile of distance from the foreign
exchange per month.  Could anyone tell me how this is done, and is the
cost to the telco related to the distance involved?  Also, is there a
better way to do this?

                    -Joe Pistritto-
                    jcp.bmd70@brl

###

 Date: 6 September 1981 01:42-EDT
 From: Jonathan Alan Solomon <JSol at Rutgers>
 Subject: Foreign Exchange Service, Vs. Selective Calling

There seems to be a bit of confusion over terms here. Foreign Exchange
service is specifically service which originates in the city or town
you wish your local calling area to be. Usually these lines travel
over reserved Toll lines (2 pair separated transmit and receive), and
special arrangements are made to allow you to dial (if you use a dial
phone) calls from here over that line.

Selective calling, on the other hand, is the ability for a customer to
select his local calling area range (given usually in "zones"), with
the cheapest service having the smallest calling area. Normally this
service is made available to suburban areas who desire access to their
city on a local basis. The Boston area has this service (called
"Metropolitan" service) which allows the surrounding areas to call
Boston as a local call. With ESS this is a simple twiddling of bits in
your "phone line status word" (similar to the priviledge word for an
account on many computers), Crossbar and Step Switching usually
requires some mechanical set of jumpers which permits you to dial
these calls as a local call (i.e. without prefixing it with a "1").

Sometimes Phone Companies simply tell you to place the call as if it
was a toll call, and then they will bill you at some smaller rate or
at flat rate, in which case you only need to tell the local final
billing computer not to include these calls on your bill.

 /Jsol

###

 Date: Saturday,  5 Sep 1981 10:03-PDT
 Subject: Los-Angeles Earthquake & Telephones
 From: nomdenet at RAND-UNIX


   The Southern California earthquake, Friday (9/4) at 8:51 a.m.,
disrupted the telephone system somewhat.  Home at the time and not
worried because the quake seemed minor, 5-10 minutes later I picked up
my telephone to make a data connection to work -- but no dial tone.
Finally, after 5-10 seconds, I got a dial tone.  Intrigued, I tried
taking the receiver off hook a few times, and encountered delays in
this same 5-10 second neighborhood.  Once I got tone, my call went
through with no further problems.

   The February, 1971, earthquake also affected the telephone system.
(Lauren, didn't you write in Human-Nets that TPC had to "turn off" the
213 area to incoming calls?)

[stuff deleted]


                            A. R. White
                          Nomdenet @ Rand-UNIX

### End of Ten Years ago in Telecom-Digest ###


[Moderator's Note: Bill Huttig supplies this feature to us about once
a week. He gathers his material from the Telecom Archives. Please let
him know if you enjoy this feature. Needless to say, net.addresses and
data given in these old stories should NOT be relied upon today as
accurate or representative of present circumstances.    PAT]

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

Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 09:30:54 PDT
From: Marty the Droid <[e-mail]>
Subject: Baudot?? I'll Ask My Mom


In my early days of computing we used a model 33 teletype to
communicate with an HP2000B machine.

One day when I got home from school and left my books on the table, I
left a paper tape with a program on it. When I returned to the kitched
my mom had unrolled part of the tape. She then proceeded to read my
program to me. I was a little suprised to find that my mom could read
5 level Baudot.  She then told me about working for the Blue network
as a wire operator.  Talk about the early days of email, she had 8
friends around the country she communicated with by teletype daily. :-)

The blue network is now known as ABC.

Keep smiling ... they'll wonder what you're up to.

Marty 'The Droid' Brenneis                            ...!uupsi!kerner!droid
Industrial Magician                                    [e-mail]
[phone]       ~~~     KAE7616 - 462.700 - 162.2      ~~~        KC6YYP


[Moderator's Note: And of course our astute readers also know what the
Red Network is now called.   PAT]

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

From: Perry Martin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: What is Illegal About Butt Sets?
Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 20:16:27 CDT
Reply-To: [e-mail]


In article <[e-mail]> W. H. Sohl writes:

> Now before anyone jumps on me with the argument that states can't
> regulate telephone stuff (ie, only the FCC can), rest assured that
> such situations have not prevented states in the past from attempting
> to exert control on state levels.  Case in point, at least seven
> states have laws which make it illegal to have a radio receiver in an
> automobile that is capable of receiving police radio transmissions.
> While there is currently an FCC docket that is addressing this with a
> possible end result being a stated federal preemption, no such
> explicit federal preemption exists now, so people (usually with a
> radio scanner) that are stopped in those states can and are prosecuted
> for violation of those laws.

As I understand it, states justify these laws by claiming to regulate
automobile safety, not radio communications.  States don't (and can't)
regulate the ownership of equipment that can receive particular radio
frequencies.  Instead, they prohibit the installation and use of such
equipment in motor vehicles, claiming it interferes with the safe
operation of the vehicle.  The same rationale has also been used to
ban microwave radio receivers (i.e. radar detectors).  They're legal
to own and use, you just can't put them in your car.

I haven't heard whether the constitutionality of this has ever been
tested.  I've also never heard an explanation of how these specific
frequencies cause safety problems, but others like amateur radio and
regular commercial AM/FM don't.

To tie this back to telecom, this same approach has been suggested to
restrict or prohibit the use of cellular phones in automobiles.  It's
hard to imagine such legislation making it very far since legislators
are often heavy users of mobile phones, but I'm curious: do any states
have laws restricting automotive use of cellular phones?

(To keep my bosses from going ballistic, I want to explicitly note
that if the Iowa Department of Public Safety even has an official
position on any of these issues, I'm not aware of it -- standard
disclaimers, etc.  The last I knew, Iowa has no laws regulating the
use of scanners, radar detectors, or cellular phones.)


Perry Martin                         [e-mail]
Iowa Department of Public Safety     ...!uunet!iadpsa!martin

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

From: "J. Philip Miller" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Some Confusion About Moderator's Gender
Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 21:11:36 CDT


[e-mail] writes:

> Our Moderator used her message as an opportunity to editorialize and
             ***

I have to admit to having always asumed that the gender of our
Moderator was male, but perhaps this is a sexist assumption :-*

In the spirit of all of the other personal information which you have
revealed over the years, would you like to establish your gender for
the list?


     J. Philip Miller, Professor, Division of Biostatistics, Box 8067
     Washington University Medical School, St. Louis MO 63110
         [e-mail] - Internet  [phone]
uunet!wuarchive!wubios!phil - UUCP [phone](FAX)  C90562JM@WUVMD - bitnet


[Moderator's Sassy Reply: Hey, as a privacy activist, I do not give
out personal information about myself like that! Why, first thing you
know, with the conspiracy between IBT and Radio Shack, some strange
man would have my number and call to sell me some gender-changing
adapters for my ... uh, my ... uh ... well, you know. Don't say it!
Yes, I know some people already have my number, ha ha. Anyway, the
'her' referred to the *writer of the original message to which I was
replying*, not to myself!  'Her' was Chris Dinkle; ie. "The Moderator
used Chris Dinkle's message as a chance to editorialize ..."

Moderator's Humble Note: To Chris Dinkle, my apology. I've received a
few notes saying you and your husband are definitly among the good
guys in the industry, and were hurt badly by Telesphere. Sorry.   PAT]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #695
******************************










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Date:     Tue, 3 Sep 91 0:54:17 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #696
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 3 Sep 91 00:54:10 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 696

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Phone Fraud Articles From comp.risks [NY Times, PGN via Jody Kravitz]
    Magic Date For 510 Passes [Phydeaux]
    Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low on Phone Numbers [Roger Fajman]
    Re: How Phone Bills Compare Around the USA [Sean Williams]
    Re: TDD/TTY Devices [Dick Barth]
    Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Speakerphone [Jack Winslade]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 14:07:25 PDT
From: Jody Kravitz <foxtail![e-mail]>
Subject: Phone Fraud Articles From comp.risks


> Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 10:27:41 PDT
> From: "Peter G. Neumann" <[e-mail]>
> Subject: Phone Fraud

Abstracted by PGN from an excellent article in the {New York Times}
(28Aug91), Theft of Telephone Service from Corporations is Surging, by
Edmund L. Andrews

Telephone fraud is reaching epidemic proportions, with some companies
getting billed for hundreds of thousands of dollars in bogus calls.
Stolen credit cards and line tapping are old techniques.  The new
craze involves cracking into switches and PBXs (private branch
exchanges).

"It is by far the largest segment of communications fraud," said Rami
Abuhamdeh, an independent consultant and until recently executive
director of the Communications Fraud Control Association in McLean,
Va. "You have all this equipment just waiting to answer your calls,
and it is being run by people who are not in the business of securing
telecommunications."

Mitsubishi International Corp. reported losing $430,000 last summer,
mostly from calls to Egypt and Pakistan. Procter & Gamble Co. lost
$300,000 in l988.  The New York City Human Resources Administration
lost $529,000 in l987. And the Secret Service, which investigates such
telephone crime, says it is now receiving three to four formal
complaints every week, and is adding more telephone specialists.

In its only ruling on the issue thus far, the Federal Communications
Commission decided in May that the long-distance carrier was entitled
to collect the bill for illegal calls from the company that was
victimized.  In the closely watched Mitsubishi case filed in June, the
company sued AT&T for $10 million in the U.S. District Court in
Manhattan, arguing that not only had it made the equipment through
which outsiders entered Mitsubishi's phone system, but that AT&T, the
maker of the switching equipment, had also been paid to maintain the
equipment.

For smaller companies, with fewer resources than Mitsubishi, the
problems can be financially overwhelming. For example, WRL Group, a
small software development company in Arlington, Va., found itself
charged for 5,470 calls it did not make this spring after it installed
a toll-free ``800'' telephone number and a voice mail recording system
machine to receive incoming calls.  Within three weeks, the intruders
had run up a bill of $106,776. to US Sprint, a United Telecommunications
unit.

The article goes on to document the experiences of WRL, pirate
call-sell phone operations, voice-mail cracking, etc., familiar to
RISKS readers, and discusses the possibilities of blocking calls by
area, shutting down out of hours, verifying callers (!), monitoring
for unusual traffic, etc.

In the past, long-distance carriers bore most of the cost, since the
thefts were attributed to weaknesses in their networks. But now, the
phone companies are arguing that the customers should be liable for
the cost of the calls, because they failed to take proper security
precautions on their equipment.

[...]

Consumertronics, a mail order company in Alamogordo, N.M., sells
brochures for $29 that describe the general principles of voice mail
hacking and the particular weaknesses of different models.  Included
in the brochure is a list of "800" numbers along with the kind of
voice mail systems to which they are connected.  "It's for educational
purposes," said the company's owner, John Williams, adding that he
accepts Mastercard and Visa. Similar insights can be obtained from
{2600 Magazine}, a quarterly publication devoted to telephone hacking
that is published in Middle Island, N.Y.

It's a good article for those of you whose telephone systems are being
cracked (but good for crackers as well!)...

> Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1991 09:46:29 -0500
> From: [e-mail] (Michael Barnett)
> Subject: Phone Fraud Story a Fraud? (Re: Phone Fraud, RISKS-12.19)

Missing from the quotes about the problems WRL has experienced is the
following:

Even more suprising to experts, they [the theives] had managed to log
129,315 minutes of talking time over one line -- a seemingly
impossible feat, because it equaled an average of roughly three calls
going out simultaneously every minute of the day ...

Later in the article a spokesman for Bell Atlantic is quoted as
saying, "There simply cannot be a single outgoing line that routes
multiple calls at once".  Perhaps the problems were not caused by
malicious persons at all, but problems in the billing system. How much
easier to blame "low-income immigrants" and "drug dealers"! (Anonymous
"authorities" claim these are the culprits.) What ever happened to the
reports that hackers were responsible for the breakdowns of the AT&T
switches? That made headlines until the true causes were discovered.

The real story, I think, which was buried in the article:

In the past, long-distance carriers bore most of the cost [of phone
theft], since the thefts were attributed to weaknesses in their
networks. But now, the phone companies are arguing that the customers
should be liable for the cost of the calls, because they failed to
take proper security precautions on their equipment.


Michael Barnett ([e-mail])

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

Date: Mon, 2 Sep 91 12:49:25 PDT
From: Phydeaux <[e-mail]>
Subject: Magic Date For 510 Passes


Well, it's now September 2nd and 510 now works from 312/708... And I'd
thought I'd lost faith in Sillynoise Bell...


reb
   *-=#= Phydeaux =#=-* [e-mail]  or  [e-mail]
ICBM:  41.55N 87.40W  h:558 West Wellington #3R Chicago, IL 60657 312-549-8365
w:reb ASK/Ingres 10255 West Higgins  Suite 500 Rosemont, IL 60018 708-803-9500

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

From: Roger Fajman <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 02 Sep 91  22:48:32 EDT
Subject: Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low on Phone Numbers


> [Moderator's Note: Sure you can test them. Busy out all but the last
> one, and dial the main (only!) number. Did the call find its way down
> the line to the last circuit?  Good ... now busy the last one and
> release the one before it and repeat the test. By keeping all the

True, but this method disrupts service.  It's also awkward with a
large rotary, especially if you want to test one one or two lines.
There are at least two other circumstances in which this method does
not work: (1) testing is being done by an automated device (perhaps a
PC with a modem and suitable software, as we use), or (2) the person
doing the testing is not at the location of the lines.


Roger Fajman                    Telephone:  [phone]
National Institutes of Health   BITNET:     RAF@NIHCU
Bethesda, Maryland, USA         Internet:   [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: My suggestion would work when testing was done
during off hours, or when the number of circuits was small enough to
enable someone to sit there with the line terminations all within
arm's reach. This would cover quite a few scenarios.    PAT]

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

From: "WILLIAMS, SX" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: How Phone Bills Compare Around the USA
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology
Date:  2 SEP 91 23:04:46


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Dave Niebuhr) writes...

> I'm curious as to how my basic phone bill stacks up against those of
> others around the country.  I keep hearing and reading how NYTel has
> some of the highest rates in the country.

And Pat added:

> [Moderator's Note: Here is what Illinois Bell charges me each month
> for what is termed 'monthly service':

[Stuff from Pat's bill deleted...]

Pat, what does IBT charge you for voicemail?  You didn't list that.


Sean E. Williams    Rochester Institute of Telcnology    [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: That's because I don't get voicemail from IBT. I
get it from the 'other phone company' here, Centel. IBT does not yet
have it available here except on an experimental basis in a single CO.
Centel charges $4.95 per box/month for standard service, but you can
get a lot of bells and whistles for a few dollars more. I have what
they call a 'front end' box with two internal boxes behind it. ("Press
one for Pat, two for Dan or Tina"). I pay about $10 per month for the
whole thing. I also have voicemail on my Ameritech cellular phone
(from Ameritech); it costs $4.50 per month. I have voicemail on an 800
number which I rarely use; it costs 29 cents per minute both to leave
or retrieve messages. How big is your bill each month?    PAT]

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

From: Dick Barth <ka3ovk..ssi![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: TDD/TTY Devices
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Dick Barth)
Organization: Internal Revenue Service, Washington, DC
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 91 04:28:40 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dave
Niebuhr, BNL CCD, 516-282-3093) writes:

> In Message-ID: <[e-mail]> [e-mail].
> com (Joshua E. Muskovitz) writes:

>> I'm not that familiar with TDDs.  Does anyone have any suggestions,
>> comments, or observations about what would be helpful, useful, or
>> relevant?  Sorry to be wordy, verbose, and obfuscating ...

>> Also, are there any readers who are members of the deaf community who
>> would be interested in working on this with me?

> I think a TDD would be useless if the person accessing the BBS has a
> regular type of screen such as found on a PC or some such animal.

However, there's no reason why a person using a TDD and someone
calling on a computer should be treated the same by the BBS software.
There is also no reason why a TDD caller should get only two lines at
time. The TDD operates at 45.45 baud (60 wpm), and anyone with normal
vision and reading ability can follow non-stop output at that rate.

> Two lines at a time will turn a person off quite fast if they have to
> keep forcing line feeds or pages after a little bit of information.

They don't have to.  Most BBSes allow a caller to select a page
length: two lines or 24 is all the same to the software.

> We have a TDD in our shop and it is used for phone calls to/from our
> hearing-impared staff (longest running started here in '78 and we had
> temps before that).  These people are screen oriented just like a
> non-hearing-impared person.

If they're used to computers they are; many aren't.

> These things have almost no speed at all unless you call 110 baud
> lightning.  Even a TTY based system would be almost useless since it's
> speed is ridiculously low.

110 baud is an ASCII speed; TDDs don't use it unless thay have a
built-in ASCII capability.  Many don't, and operate only at 45.45
baud.

> So, please don't go the TDD/TTY route.

You haven't given a good reason not to.

> I'll forward your request to our hearing-impared operators and solicit
> their opinions for you.

Your hearing-impaired *computer* operators do not represent a good
sample of the hearing impaired community.

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Joshua E. Muskovitz) writes:
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 680, Message 3 of 11

> A few questions:

>  1.  Is TDD and TTY the same?

The terms are basically interchangeable.  They both refer to devices
that send text over the phone line using the Baudot code and a unique
modem, and display it in visible form.  They're used by the deaf and
speech-impaired.

You will have some people tell you that the term "TTY" refers to
mechanical teleprinters ("Teletype" machines) and TDD (Telecommunications
Device for the Deaf) refers to the more modern electronic replacement.

>  2.  I know that TDD is not compatible with "normal" modem traffic.
>      Is there a "hayes-compatible" TDD-type device available anywhere?

What do you mean by a "Hayes-compatible" TDD-type device?  The TDD
uses a modem that is not compatible with any ASCII modem.  There are
TDDs in the upper price range that have ASCII capability as an added
(at extra price) feature; this is in addition to, and not part of,
their being a TDD. "Vanilla" TDDs do not talk to Hayes-type modems.

There are also modems available that will talk to a TDD.  Both
external and internals are around.  Internals are for the IBM-PC bus.
There used to be one (the Novation Apple-Cat) for the Apple bus but so
far as I know it's no longer made.  If I'm wrong, somebody yell.  Some
of these commercial modems claim to be "Hayes compatible".  They
necessarily use an expanded version of the Hayes command set, since
they have to change to non-ASCII baud rates, tone sets, etc.

If you're interested in sources, call the Handicapped Educational
Exchange BBS (see .sig) and download a copy of COMPARE.TTY from file
area two.  For a description of the TDD modem, check INFO file 'T'.

> I'm interested in (possibly -- for now I'm just getting feelers)
> setting up a TDD-based BBS.  It would have to be specially designed
> for the limitations of TDDs (like one/two line screens, etc.)

Welcome to the club.  I've been running a TDD-compatible BBS for about
twelve years, and I'd love to have company.

> I'm not that familiar with TDDs.  Does anyone have any suggestions,
> comments, or observations about what would be helpful, useful, or
> relevant?  Sorry to be wordy, verbose, and obfuscating ...

No problem.  I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Unless a whole lot of people express sudden interest in the subject,
though, we might be better off using email rather than the news.


Richard Barth, W3HWN **** HEX, the Handicapped Educational Exchange BBS
[phone] (TDD and 300 baud)    | Domain: [e-mail]
[phone] (300/1200 ASCII)      | UUCP:   uunet!media!ka3ovk!rbarth

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

Date: Mon, 02 Sep 91 11:34:40 cst
From: Jack Winslade <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Half Duplex Phone Conversations via Speakerphone
Reply-To: ivgate!drbbs![e-mail]
Organization: DRBBS Technical BBS, Omaha


I have a solution that seems to work when someone who calls me (or
someone I call) insists on using a speakerphone, at least one of those
that sounds like I am listening to someone speaking into an ash can.

I innocently and frequently ask the other person to repeat what he/she
just said (what ??  huh ??  eh ???) and in about 90% of the times the
caller will pick up the handset and continue the conversation.

For someone who simply speaks louder into the tin can, I ask the
caller to please call back, stating that we must have an awful
connection and that I can barely hear him/her.

When I got the cellular, the installer insisted upon installing the
'hands free' microphone despite my telling him not to worry about it.
I used it once.  My wife told me it sounded like I was calling from
the moon.

Until they (the ubiquitous 'they') can make a hands free phone that
sounds halfway decent, I won't attempt to inflict one on those I want
to speak with.

(Idea: If I use a tinny speakerphone when those obnoxious teleslime
people call, would they give up more easily ??)


Good day       JSW

Ybbat (DRBBS) 8.9 v. 3.13 r.5
DRBBS, Keep On WOC'n in the Free World  (200:5010/666.0)


[Moderator's Note: One problem, JSW -- how can *anyone* be expected to
have a good day when they return to the office after a three day
holiday weekend?  I hope you had a pleasant holiday, and the same to
all our USA readers who got Monday off.  Back to work, slaves! See
you tomorrow night, goddess willing and the creek don't rise!   PAT]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #696
******************************










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Date:     Tue, 3 Sep 91 22:49:52 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #697
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 3 Sep 91 22:49:45 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 697

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Baudot?? I'll Ask My Mom [Bob Frankston]
    Re: Baudot?? I'll Ask My Mom [[e-mail]]
    Re: Baudot?? I'll Ask My Mom [Ed Greenberg]
    Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call [Carl Moore]
    Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low on Phone Numbers [William Soley]
    Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low on Phone Numbers [Justin Leavens]
    Re: "Swinging Grounds?" [Ken Abrams]
    Re: AT&T ACUS System Just Installed Here [Kevin Kadow]
    Re: HAW-4 Repeater Failure [Tony Harminc]
    ATT Mail - Internet Gateway Status? [Fred Linton]
    Dialing 844 and 936 From Laurel, MD [Carl Moore]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: frankston![e-mail]
Subject: Re: Baudot?? I'll Ask My Mom
Date: 3 Sep 1991 09:26 -0400


Model 33 (ASR) teletype?? That's 8 level ASCII (yeah, the same ASCII
'cept, on some editions, for a few quibble over glyphs and the
assignment of ESC).  I think a model 32 teletype would have been 5
level (or 3 row).  A model 15 was more common from the old days.  Of
course, 8 level Ascii tapes are still readable.

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

From: 99700000 <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Baudot?? I'll Ask My Mom
Date: 3 Sep 91 16:35:44 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz Open Access Computing


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Marty
the Droid) writes:

> In my early days of computing we used a model 33 teletype to
> communicate with an HP2000B machine.

> One day when I got home from school and left my books on the table, I
> left a paper tape with a program on it. When I returned to the kitched
> my mom had unrolled part of the tape. She then proceeded to read my
> program to me. I was a little suprised to find that my mom could read
> 5 level Baudot.

Something's fishy here.  The Model 33 Teletype uses 7-bit ASCII
(punched into 8-bit tape) not Baudot.


[e-mail]     [e-mail]

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

Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 09:49 PDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Baudot?? I'll Ask My Mom


Marty the Droid <[e-mail]> writes:

> In my early days of computing we used a model 33 teletype to
> communicate with an HP2000B machine.

> One day when I got home from school and left my books on the table, I
> left a paper tape with a program on it. When I returned to the kitched
> my mom had unrolled part of the tape. She then proceeded to read my
> program to me. I was a little suprised to find that my mom could read
> 5 level Baudot.  She then told me about working for the Blue network
> as a wire operator.   [rest deleted]

Now wait a minute ... I expect that we have some facts crossed.

Model 33's were ASCII devices.  Model 28's and 32's were Baudot.  The
32 was made in the same case as the model 33.  OK, so a model number
was confused, that's not a big deal.  What surprises me is that the HP
used a Baudot terminal.  I would expect you would have had a hard time
programming with the limited Baudot character set.  Certainly the
program couldn't be stored in Baudot.  Are you aware of any character
conversion hardware?

Marty, perhaps you can shed some light in a followup posting.  I'm
interested in how this worked.

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

Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 14:48:26 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Need Help Identifying Mystery 900 Call


Moderator: What do you mean "auto-blocked"?  (You said you had your
lines auto-blocked from collect and third party billing by IBT.  I
recently noticed automation when I called collect within the Baltimore
LATA.)


[Moderator's Note: By 'auto-blocked' I mean that if someone attempts
to call me collect or if someone attempts to bill a call third-number
to me (and provided the operator bothers to check) the operator will
get a message from the network saying I automatically refuse to accept
the billing on these calls. This works if the caller is on any Bell,
GTE or Centel switch, or using AT&T, Sprint, MCI or Telecom-USA as the
LD carrier. It probably works on other carriers also. Any carrier who
accesses 'the' database gets told "that number refuses to accept
collect or third-party billing"; thus I don't have to even bother with
telling the operator myself. I have tested it myself from various
points around the USA using our office tie-lines to the New York and
Los Angeles offices, for example; then dialing 9 to jump off the
distant PBX and into the public network in that city. In every case
when I have tried to call my home number(s) collect or bill
third-number to them, the operator immediatly announces it can't be
done. Illinois Bell was glad to set it up for me at no charge.  PAT]

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

From: William Soley <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low on Phone Numbers
Date: 3 Sep 91 19:37:07 GMT
Organization: BT North America, San Jose CA.


In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Harold Hallikainen) writes:

>     Regarding running out of phone numbers, is there any reason to
> assign multiple numbers to multiple lines that go to the same place ...

> [Moderator's Note:  ...
> We have quite a few of those in Chicago. A business has X incoming
> lines, but only one actual number. ...

Yes!  There is another good reason to do it this way.  I have three
lines in my residence and I get more than three times the normal wrong
numbers.  I also tend to get three calls each whenever anyone does
"number block" style telemarketing.  I tried and tried to get Pacific
Bell to give me unnumbered service on the last two lines but they said
it couldn't be done on "normal lines".

Maybe I didn't use the right magic words.  Does anyone know of this
service actually being available to POTS customers?  If so, what is it
called?


Bill


[Moderator's Note: *Of course* it can be done on 'normal' lines,
whatever those are. You can have them for incoming calls only (when
picking up one of the incoming only circuits and listening on the line
when no call is coming in you will only hear the battery, or side-
tone); outgoing calls only or both.  For years in Chicago, even back
in the old 5-xbar days we had a class of service known as 'family
plan', complete with a two-line phone with a turn button to select the
desired line.  PAT]

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

From: Justin Leavens <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: We're Sorry, But the Country is Low on Phone Numbers
Date: 4 Sep 91 00:25:31 GMT
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Harold Hallikainen) writes:

> Regarding running out of phone numbers, is there any reason to
> assign multiple numbers to multiple lines that go to the same place
> just to get "rotary" or "hunting" or whatever it's called when my
> second line rings when the first line is busy?  Seems like a lot of
> numbers could be freed up by assigning these numbers that are rarely
> called.

Our phone system here at USC works like that: We have a department
phone number which has a certain number of "occurences" on the phone
(a AT&T ISDN 7505).  So there can be as many lines as we need with
just one number used.  We've also got our own 5ESS switch for our
campus, so maybe that makes a difference. It's a nice step up from the
Pac*Bell Centrex service we used to use. Now if only they'd put the
voicemail in ...


Justin T. Leavens
University of Southern California     :Mail to: [e-mail]
Student Health and Counseling Services:         [e-mail]


[Moderator's Note: Really the only thing you lose with this set-up is
the ability to direct incoming calls to any specific trunk, but if
that is not important, then who cares?  In fact, Illinois Bell took
many customers who had phones with one-way outgoing service on them
only (such as telemarketers) and pulled back the number entirely,
giving them instead 'numbers' such as 073-9920 for the purpose of
reference when needed. All those phunny-numbers then got billed under
a single regular number.  And they have always numbered outgoing WATS
lines here in that fashion.  PAT]

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

From: Ken Abrams <samsung!athenanet.com![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: "Swinging Grounds?"
Organization: Athenanet, Inc.,  Springfield, Illinois
Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1991 22:52:16 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Robert Wier) writes:

> suggestion is to hit the # key after the connection is established.  I
> haven't tried this yet (I've been away from home since the fall
> semester started here).  Anyone know anything about a solution to
> this?

For certain types of touchtone converters, the # key is the ONLY
solution.  Some timed out and released after about 45 seconds but
others stayed with the call forever unless you flagged them off with #.

> I cut off that branch of the wiring, called the guy in the CO back,
> and he said the diagnostic now looked fine.  My question is, what were
> they measuring and how can I do the same to check to see if I have
> cured the condition?

Alas, a general purpose VOM won't always show the same faults as a
telco test meter.  Your VOM probably uses no more than 4.5 volts when
making resistance measurements; the telco meter uses 90 volts that is
severly current limited.  This 90 V will sometimes arc across or break
down a high resistance short that is "damp".  This action is similar
to what might happen when your phone rings: 88 VAC super-imposed on 45
V dc.  It is tough to duplicate this high-voltage test meter but with
the instrument disconnected (wire open at both ends), you should
measure infinity between the conductors and from each to ground.  If
you find the source of the high-Z leakage you measured and fix it, the
path to ground will probably get fixed in the process (nail or staple
through the wire breaking the insulation and letting moisture in to
corrode the wires is the most likely cause).  Probably the best
solution is a new piece of wire.


Ken Abrams        nstar!pallas!kabra437
Springfield, IL   [e-mail]
                  (voice) 217-753-7965

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

From: Kevin Kadow <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: AT&T ACUS System Just Installed Here
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Kevin Kadow)
Organization: Technology News, IIT, Chicago, IL
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 06:52:36 GMT


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
writes:
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 688, Message 9 of 12

> We have the ACUS system here at Marquette University (Milwaukee) as
> well.  However, ACUS does not serve as a Bell "substitute".  As far as
> I know they only handle our long distance service.  We have never been
> billed for local service, only long distance.  The ACUS service was
> instituted this year to keep roommate arguments over who pays what on
> a long distance bill to a minimum.  Since every student has their own
> code it is pretty nice.

> I am insterested as to how ACUS can also serve as your local service
> provider as well.  I would think that Illinois Bell would be a bit
> miffed at this.

According to the limited information they`ve provided, room-to-room
calls are provided free, automatically.

For ANY outgoing service, you must pay $11.00/month for your seven
digit code, which is used to dial ANY outgoing calls, local or long
distance.

How can AT&T charge to provide local calls?

What would I do if I wanted to use MCI as my long distance company?

[e-mail]                           kadokev@iitvax (bitnet)
                         My Employer Disagrees.


[Moderator's Note: I don't think AT&T is providing local calls. I
think the local telco is still providing those and using AT&T as their
billing/collection agent. Through some inter-company accounting, part
of the $11 goes to your local telco. Have you tried prefacing your
long distance calls with 10222+ routing them via MCI to see what
happens? The $11 you pay the telco (via AT&T) could probably be
considered a line access charge similar to what anyone else pays in
addition to whatever service they use and features they have on the
phone.  PAT]

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

Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 19:04:51 EDT
From: Tony Harminc <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: HAW-4 Repeater Failure


[e-mail] wrote:

> Two days later I was looking at a copy of the {Honolulu Advertiser}
> and found a story buried on page 15.  The failure occured at about 1
> AM on Sunday, 8/18.  The undersea cable in question is three years old
> and runs between Makaha and Point Arena in Northern CA.  It is part of
> a connection that actually runs from California to Hawaii to Guam and
> on to Japan.  The article also pointed out that the cable is fiber and
> has the capacity to carry 30,000 simultaneous conversations.

Well isn't *that* interesting -- it answers a question that's been
bothering me for almost a year!  Last September while on vacation, my
wife and I drove from Gualala, California (just south of Point Arena)
to Ukiah (about 40 miles inland).  As usual, we looked for a small and
twisty looking road off the main highways, and found Fish Rock Road
from the coast south of Point Arena to state highway 128.  It started
out paved, but quickly gave way to gravel.  The weather started out
chilly and foggy by the coast, but quickly turned scorching.  About
two thirds of the way to highway 128, the paving restarted accompanied
by orange marker poles with some sort of signs in fine print.  I got
out to have a look, and read AT&T Transcontinental Telephone Cable and
a warning about digging and so on and an 800 number to call in case of
trouble.  The asphalt was very fresh looking - in many places the
cable cut and cover was clearly visible in the road pavement.

I thought at the time: "why on earth is there a transcontinental cable
here in the middle of nowhere ?"  Now, thanks to TELECOM Digest, I
know -- obviously the land continuation of HAW-4.  And to think of all
that Internet and voice traffic zooming along beneath us as we drove!
Some of the ranches didn't even seem to have local phone service, but
there was multi megabits/sec going by the front door.


Tony H.

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

Date: 3-SEP-1991 14:13:42.00
From: "Fred E.J. Linton" <[e-mail]>
Subject: ATT Mail - Internet Gateway Status?


  The Internet to AT&T Mail gateway was working for me in late June,
but has failed to work for me late in August.

  Can anyone shed more light on this problem, its history, its
eventual resolution?  Reply rather than post, so as not to offend
others.  Thanks.


Fred <[e-mail]> <attmail!fejlinton> <[e-mail]>


[Moderator's Note: Actually, it has been down for quite awhile now.
Mail comes out, but none gets in from the internet. I don't know if
they planned it that way, or are just refusing to fix whatever broke
down. Several Digest readers there have written to complain they are
not getting the Digest; I have no way to even respond to them, but
when I can reach them otherwise (they give some other email address)
all I have been able to suggest is they migrate to some other email
service until further notice. Some have gone to MCI Mail and restarted
their subscriptions from there. Sorry, I have no other solutions,
until ATT Mail gets reconnected to the internet.  PAT]

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

Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 17:01:22 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Dialing 844 and 936 From Laurel, MD


I tried reaching time and weather services in Washington from the
Laurel, Md. exchange (pay phone and a hotel room phone, both being
local to DC but not to all of DC metro area).  Believe it or not, I
had only to dial the seven digit number.  Dialing 202 + 7D produced a
fast busy signal.  (844 is time of day service; 936 is weather.)

By the way, I found that the Laurel prefix is in parts of three
counties: Prince Georges, Anne Arundel, and Howard.  Proceeding east
on Maryland 198 out of Laurel and into Anne Arundel County, I remained
in the Laurel exchange until I reached Fort Meade, apparently in the
Odenton exchange (which will go into 410 area while Laurel, except for
the Baltimore-metro prefixes, stays in 301).

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #697
******************************
^A^A^A^A











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Date:     Wed, 4 Sep 91 22:15:52 CDT
From:     TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
[To]:     [e-mail]
Subject:  TELECOM Digest V11 #700
BCC:
Message-ID:  <[e-mail]>


TELECOM Digest     Wed, 4 Sep 91 22:15:05 CDT    Volume 11 : Issue 700

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    NASA Severs Connection on Email Linkup [Houston Chronical via J. Abernathy]
    Rotary Phones Just Won't Go Away [Network World via Mark Lottor]
    ATC Caught Padding Bills [Communications Week via Ken Jongsma]
    COCOTs Lose Another Round [Communications Week via Ken Jongsma]
    Voicemail Charges [David W. Barts]
    PC Based Answering Machine Cards - Opinions Wanted [Cliff Yamamoto]
    Looking For Company That Provides PACBELL Billing Software [Kenneth Kron]
    Prefixes Combined in Maryland [Carl Moore]
    Problem Reaching AT&T Mail [Mark Horton]
    Japan Note From 1953 [Carl Moore]
    Re: HAW-4 Repeater Failure [Harold Hallikainen]
    Re: Bad Fact in FAQ List: Touchtones [Harold Hallikainen]
    900 Scam: Money Making Ideas [Mark Sandeen via [e-mail]]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 17:05:01 CDT
From: Joe Abernathy <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASA Severs Connection on Email Linkup


[This story appeared on Page 1A of the {Houston Chronicle} on Monday,
Sept. 2, 1991. Permission is granted for redistribution in the ACM
Risks Digest; Patrick Townson's TELECOM Digest and associated mailing
lists; the newsgroup sci.space.shuttle, Computer Underground Digest,
and the interesting_people mailing list. Our thanks to these groups
for their ongoing contributions to the online community and our
coverage of it.  Please send comments and suggestions to [e-mail].]


NASA Severs Connection on Electronic Mail Linkup

By JOE ABERNATHY
Copyright 1991, Houston Chronicle

Although declaring the experiment a success, NASA has called a halt
to a project by which space shuttle astronauts briefly were linked
with the nation's computer networks through electronic mail.

The e-mail experiment, conducted during the recent flight of Atlantis,
was part of a larger effort to develop computer and communications
systems for the space station Freedom, which is to be assembled during
the late 1990s.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration cited unauthorized
access as the reason for severing the network connection, but NASA
officials did not provide details.

The space agency initially attempted to carry out the project in
secrecy, but word leaked out on the nation's computer networks.
Details were closely guarded because of concerns over malicious
computer hacking and astronauts' privacy.

"Hello, Earth! Greetings from the STS-43 Crew! This is the first
Applelink from space. Having a GREAT time, wish you were here!" read
the first message home. It went from Atlantis astronauts Shannon Lucid
and James Adamson to Marcia Ivins, a shuttle communicator at Johnson
Space Center.

It was the use of AppleLink -- a commercial electronic mail network
connected to the global computer matrix -- that apparently contained
the seeds of trouble.

When an AppleLink electronic mail address for the shuttle was
distributed online and then published in the {Houston Chronicle}, it
generated about 80 responses from well-wishers.

Although the address was created just for this purpose, the flight
director nearly pulled the plug on the project, according to Debra
Muratore, the NASA experiment manager. The project was concluded as
scheduled and declared a success.

But ultimately, it was decided, at least for now, to cease all
interaction with public computer networks. The decision eventually
could mean that NASA's premier research facility, the space station,
may not have access to its premier research communications tool, the
NASA Science Internet -- the space agency's portion of the vast
Internet global computer network.

Electronic mail, which is becoming commonplace in offices, is simply
the transmission of messages via computers to one or more people,
using electronic addresses. Users linked to the right networks can
send electronic messages or other data to specific recipients nearly
anywhere in the world -- and for a short time, could send them to
space.

"The problem was that the information had gotten leaked prematurely.
There was no problem with security," Muratore said. Even previous to
the leak of the addresss, however, the experiment was structured in
such a way that it was vulnerable to hackers, she acknowledged.

"As a result of this whole experience, at least my project plans never
to use a public (electronic) mail system again," she said.

Muratore indicated that the space agency may explore other ways of
providing "connectivity" -- communication between orbiting astronauts
and NASA's broader collection of computerized resources -- which will
become increasingly important as the use of computerized information
grows.

The decision to sever the short-lived e-mail connection has drawn
strong criticism among computer security experts and other scientists,
who charge that NASA was attempting to design "security through
obscurity."

"This is another example of an ostrich-oriented protection policy --
stick your head in the sand and pretend no one will find out what you
know," wrote Peter G. Neumann, moderator of the Association for
Computing Machinery's RISKS Digest, a respected online publication
that assesses the risks posed by technology. "Things like that don't
stay 'secret' for very long."

NASA told Newsday, but would not confirm for the Chronicle, that more
than 80 "unauthorized" messages from around the world were sent to the
Atlantis address -- which a source told the Chronicle was set up
explicitly to handle public requests for a shuttle e-mail address.
Private addresses were used for the actual experiments.

"The old 'authorization' paradox has reared its ugly head again,"
wrote Neumann, who prepared a study for NASA on the security
requirements of the space station. " 'Threatened by unauthorized
e-mail,' eh? Sending e-mail to someone REQUIRES NO AUTHORIZATION."

Muratore defended the use of secrecy as a security tool.

"I feel that that was a viable option," she said. She said operators
of AppleLink told NASA that it was impossible to keep public e-mail
from being sent to the on-orbit address, so the only option was to try
to keep it secret.

But network users questioned this viewpoint.

"Why is an e-mail system 'in jeapordy' when it receives 80 messages?
And what is an 'unauthorized user?' " asked Daniel Fischer of the
Max-Planck-Institut feur Radioastronomie, in Bonn, Germany. "Once the
system is linked up to the real world, it should expect to receive
real mail from everyone.

"If NASA can't handle that, it really shouldn't get into e-mail at
all," added Fischer, writing in an online discussion group composed of
scientists involved with the space program. "Consider that (heavy
response) a success, NASA!"

The disposition of the electronic mail sent to Atlantis is still up in
the air. A Chronicle message was not acknowledged, and no one has
reported receiving a response.

                           -----------

Chronicle reporter Mark Carreau contributed to this report.

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

Date: Tue, 03 Sep 1991 16:41:49 PST
From: Mark Lottor <[e-mail]>
Subject: Rotary Phones Just Won't go Away


The following blurb was in the September 2 {Network World}.  The
percentages are certainly higher than I would have guessed.  Of
course, we don't know how they got their data.  Maybe they just asked
the telcos what percentage of residences weren't PAYING for touch tone
service?

RHBC            Percentage of residences with rotary phones

Ameritech        44.3%
Bell Atlantic        37.1%
BellSouth        38.3%
Nynex            41.5%
Pacific Telesis        27.3%
Southwestern Bell    41.3%
US West            38.3%

Average            38.5%

source: Advanced Telecom Services Corp, Wayne, PA

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

Subject: ATC Caught Padding Bills
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 19:58:43 EDT
From: Ken Jongsma <wybbs![e-mail]>


There is an interesting news comment regarding Advanced
Telecommunications Corporation (ATC) of Florida in the September 2
issue of {Communications Week}.

It appears that ATC was billing for call setup time in addition to the
actual call. A cost recovery firm caught them at it and sued them for
damages. ATC settled with the company blaming it on old billing
software, but claimed that their tariffs allowed them to bill setup
times.

The Florida PUC is now investigating how widespread the practice is
and what should be done. The Florida Attorney General says that
thousands of customers, including the State of Florida were misbilled.

Sort of reminds you of that bank programmer (Rifkin?) that shaved all
those fractions of a cent interest and deposited them in his own
account.


Ken Jongsma              [e-mail]
Smiths Industries        [e-mail]
Grand Rapids, Michigan   ...sharkey.cc.umich.edu!wybbs!ken

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

Subject: COCOTs Lose Another Round
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 19:59:44 EDT
From: Ken Jongsma <wybbs![e-mail]>


According to the September 2 issue of {Communications Week}, Southland
Corp, owner of the 7-11 stores, has signed a two year contract with
AT&T to allow AT&T to provide operator services at more than 3000
stores nationwide.

Weren't they the ones that had a large contract with ITI? Another AOS
bites the dust as corporate America realizes their customers don't
like being ripped off.


Ken Jongsma              [e-mail]
Smiths Industries        [e-mail]
Grand Rapids, Michigan   ...sharkey.cc.umich.edu!wybbs!ken

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

Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 18:29:14 -0700
From: "David W. Barts" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Voicemail Charges


The Moderator writes:

> . . . [regarding Centel VM] I pay about $10 per month for the
> whole thing. I also have voicemail on my Ameritech cellular phone
> (from Ameritech); it costs $4.50 per month. I have voicemail on an 800
> number which I rarely use; it costs 29 cents per minute both to leave
> or retrieve messages. How big is your bill each month?    PAT]

I have US West Voice Messaging on my single residential line; it costs
$6.95/mo (flat rate, no per-minute charge).


David Barts  N5JRN            UW Civil Engineering, FX-10
[e-mail]        Seattle, WA  98195
 ... Back on the Digest at my new job.


[Moderator's Note: My service from Centel and Ameritech is flat rate
per month. It is only the 800 voicemail service which bills by the
minute.  PAT]

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

From: [e-mail] (Cliff Yamamoto)
Subject: PC Based Answering Machine Cards - Opinions Wanted
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 01:49:30 GMT


Greetings,

I was wondering if I could solicit some opinions on these PC based
answering machines?  I've included Sci.electronics because I was
possibly going to build my own to save $$$ (maybe?).

I've seen two cards so far, the "Big Mouth" from JDR and "The Complete
Answering Machine" from Complete PC in the Softwarehouse catalog.

Does anybody have any experience with these cards or any other cards?
I'd basically like to know how good is the audio digitization, how
long can it digitize and does it have multi-digit DTMF decoding.  Also
can I write my own software for these? (meaning is any programming
info provided or obtainable?)

They're both over $250 and if I could make a cheapo one with an
ADC/DAC board, I'd like to.  Of course after putting a DTMF decode,
phone line interface, etc. I may spend $250 anyway.  :-(

Any comments or opinions welcomed.


Thanks,

Cliff
Email:  [e-mail]   [e-mail]
        [e-mail]     [e-mail]
        [e-mail]
MaBell: [phone] - off.   [phone] - alt.   [phone] - lab.

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

From: Kenneth Kron <[e-mail]>
Subject: Looking For Company That Provides PACBELL Billing Software
Date: Wed, 04 Sep 91 23:43:59 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)


I interviewed with a small Bay Area company some time ago that writes
billing software for PAC BELL.  I am trying to get in touch with them
I thought and I can't remember the name of the company.  I tried PAC
BELL but I they haven't been very helpful.  Anybody out there work for
them?  Anybody out there know the name or how I could get it?


Kenneth Kron -- Bit Whys Software & Technology Consulting
293 Sleeper Ave   Mountain View, CA 94040-3818
email: (usenet) [e-mail]      (compuserve)  76040,1756

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

Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 9:22:55 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Prefixes Combined in Maryland


Recently, I have come across three cases of Maryland prefixes
apparently being closed down and subscribers being put on a
neighboring prefix.  You have already heard of 301-826 Accident being
merged into 301-746 Friendsville.  Since then, I have come across:

301-395 Oldtown apparently merged into 301-478 Flintstone.
In what will become 410: 301-847 apparently merged into 301-397 (Wingate).

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

From: [e-mail]
Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 15:41:07 EDT
Subject: Problem Reaching AT&T Mail


The problem with incoming mail to AT&T Mail from the Internet has been
found and fixed this afternoon.

Please report problems to [e-mail] and we will look into
them.  We heard about the mail to TELECOM from an AT&T employee who
reads it.

We apologize for any inconvenience during the service interruption.


Mark Horton   AT&T Gateway Team


[Moderator's Note: Thanks for your help with this. The only thing is,
mail to attmail.com was falling in a hole somewhere. If other users
were receiving nothing how would the postmaster have gotten mail?  PAT]

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

Date: Wed, 4 Sep 91 11:21:40 EDT
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <[e-mail]>
Subject: Japan Note From 1953


Eight years after World War II ended, the Unicorn Book of 1953, page
442, had this among items for September of that year: "The Tokyo
Telephone Company began to do something about a backlog of
applications for phone service, some dating back to 1906."


[Moderator's Note: Does that sound like a typical delay on an open
trouble ticket for *some* OCC's I could name, but won't?    PAT]

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

From: Harold Hallikainen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: HAW-4 Repeater Failure
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1991 06:19:02 GMT


    A previous article on this subject mentioned that HAW-4 was a
fiber from Point Arena to Hawaii.  I think it's a fairly new
installation.  We have at least one (I think two) undersea coaxes
going from here in SLO to Hawaii.  At least one of these has vacuum
tube amps sitting on the ocean floor.  I believe they originally ran
SSB frequency division mux down the cable.  I think they've now put
some "real fast" modems on each end and just send everything as a
digital stream.  I seem to recall that another fiber is on its way
here from Hawaii.  All of this info is from a tour I had of the
facility a year or two ago.  Years and years ago on another tour, they
gave us a brochure titled "San Luis Obispo, Communications Center of
the World" or something like that.

    It was all pretty amazing stuff!


Harold

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

From: Harold Hallikainen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Bad Fact in FAQ List: Touchtones
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1991 06:26:47 GMT


    Touch tones and twist reminds me of an idea I never followed
up on.  Has anyone tried putting a band split filter and a couple
comparators or schmitt triggers in front of a single chip
microcontroller and then done touch tone detection in software?  In
some simple control applications, it seems the whole product could be
a quad op amp and a microcontroller.

    By the way, I believe the ideal design has zero parts.  I try
to have my designs approach the ideal...


Harold

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

Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 18:13:19 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: 900 Scam! Money Making Ideas


Forwarded for your amusement.

 From: Mark Sandeen <[e-mail]>
 Subject: 900 Money making ideas

A classified ad in the current {L.A. Weekly}, a weekly free paper:

CALL THIS NUMBER

           BEFORE YOU DIAL
           1-900-ANYTHING

           Learn to avoid
          900 _Hucksters_,
              scams &
             rip-offs.

                Dial

           1-900-737-1737

            24.95 per call
           Must be over 18

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

End of TELECOM Digest V11 #700
******************************