Telecom/1996-04-telecom-walnutcreek.iso/back.issues/recent.single.issues/V16_#12

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From [e-mail]  Thu Jan 11 15:18:06 1996
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Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #12

TELECOM Digest     Thu, 11 Jan 96 15:18:00 EST    Volume 16 : Issue 12

Inside This Issue:                          Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Snow, Snow, Go Away! (TELECOM Digest Editor)
    WUTCO `Grams' and LEC Telco Billing (Mark J. Cuccia)
    Canada Number Portability (Monty Solomon)
    Satellite Provides Remote Links (Monty Solomon)
    MCI Starts Charging For Incoming Mail (TELECOM Digest Editor)
    Telephone Bill Auditing Advice Wanted (Dan Pock)
    Advice Needed - Bulk Incoming Lines (Brian Kantor)
    A Question About Inside Wiring Standards (James A. Young)
    And Now ... For ctrycode.c (Country Code Lookup) (Dave Leibold)

TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 14:13:10 EST
From: [e-mail] (TELECOM Digest Editor)
Subject: Snow, Snow, Go Away!


This is directed mostly at our east coast readers who in the past several
days have seen the blizzard of their (hopefully) lifetimes ... with
snowfall ranging from 'merely' 18-20 inches some places to as must as
two feet or more in other locales. Please let us know how it has affected
phone service in terms of network traffic congestion, etc.

We've seen little else on the television news here in Skokie for the
past couple of days except scenes of the folks on the east coast as
they dig out; commute by dog sled to their employment, etc. I know
it is something you won't forget for years to come, and something you
will tell your children and grandchildren about.

Memories come rushing into my mind of the 'big one' here, a blizzard
which lasted about two days the first week in February, 1967. Before
it was over, two feet of snow in some areas with drifts of several
feet more in other areas. Traffic was completely snarled; phone service
was at a standstill, etc. It started snowing a little on Tuesday night,
but no one paid any attention. Wednesday, February 1 brought more
snow, but again no one thought anything much of it, but then it did
not stop, and snowed throughout the night and into Thursday, at which
point it was beginning to be of concern. In those days, the Weather
Service was not nearly as sophisticated as it is today in accurately
predicting just *how much* snow there would be, nor was any form of
disaster recovery plan in effect.

People got to work pretty well on Thursday morning even though the
snow was coming down but when it did not stop all day Thursday we
knew something big was going on. I worked the midnight shift at the
University of Chicago phone room at the time on a part-time basis,
a couple of nights per week. (I had been there full-time until about
1962 then left but returned for part time work a few years later.)
I lived pretty close, just a few blocks away, so I got into work okay
that Thursday night but Friday morning brought the real fun times ...

As of 7 AM that Friday morning, *none* of the day shift operators
had shown up for work. Most of the campus was closed down, but the
medical center was going full steam with the problem being most of
their employees had not made it in either. Now this was a large phone
room; a twenty-one position switchboard actually divided in three
parts: nine positions on one side of the room for what was called
the 'university board', nine positions on the other side of the
room for the 'hospitals board' and three positions at one end of the
room for the new 'Computation Center' (where all the new computers
were being installed a couple blocks away). Normally in the daytime
there were ten or twelve operators on duty and sometimes as many
as fifteen. During the overnight hours when the university board
and the comp center boards were mostly dead, there was one operator
who stayed mostly on the hospital side of the room but would unplug
his headset and walk over to the university side and plug in over
there when a call came up on that side. So the place was busy on
most days. That Friday morning, with half the people in the hospital
gone and most everyone on the campus side gone, the board was
still very busy; still far too busy for one poor guy working alone
left over from the night shift.

The supervisor called in about 7:15 and said she could not make it in
to work either, and by that time the place was a madhouse with
dozens of lights blinking on all positions going unanswered, and me
going crazy. She said to get on the public address system and announce
several times the following message: "Anyone with any experience in
running telephone switchboards please report immediatly to the phone
room, 5801 South Ellis, sixth floor."  I made that announcement several
times over a fifteen minute period and before long there were about
a dozen volunteer operators there, all of whom just moved in and
started taking calls, etc. When the afternoon shift was due to start
a couple of the regular operators arrived and they continued to work
with the handful of volunteers still around.

About the same time as the afternoon phone operators started arriving
the medical center was still struggling along very short handed and
the person in charge there announced that for anyone who wished to
do so, the cafeteria would be open the rest of the night at no charge
for anyone who wanted to eat 'whatever was available' since food
supplies (for the public, not the patients) had not arrived that day
either. There was a catch though; anyone who stayed to eat could
also stay overnight in vacant patient rooms provided they were willing
to help take care of the patients overnight.

I figured what the heck -- and I 'reported for duty'. My duty was to
work in Wyler Children's Hospital and help feed formula to the tiny
babies there, some of who were just days or weeks old. I had given
bottles to some of the babies which had been prepared by the nurses
and I came down the hall to a room where the door was closed but a
baby inside squalling like all the others. A sign on the door said
not to enter without permission so I asked Nurse what about that one?
Sort of grim, she replied to me the orders were 'do not sustain'. And
she said to me, 'do you want to see something pretty awful?' My
curiosity peaked at that point I said I did, so she said we would
go inside.

Inside, in an incubator, a little black baby which had been born the
day before. It was horribly misformed, with legs and arms sticking out
in the wrong places; a misshaped second head which appeared to have no
life in it attached crudely, etc. The nurse told me 'the mother
checked in through the emergency room with no valid identification; we
helped her through labor; afterward she saw the baby and walked out,
abandoning it here. The doctors state there is no corrective surgery
possible which will save the infant and allow it to live any semblance
of a normal life. It will die on its own in the next several hours or
at most within a day. We have tried to locate the mother to obtain her
permission to do what must be done but the identification she provided
us had all wrong addresses, etc.'

Later that night after all the babies were asleep and I was getting
ready to go to the room I had been given and do the same, I sat in the
nursing office drinking coffee and talking to the lady I was working
with. I asked her did she ever get so bummed out she felt like just
sitting down alone somewhere and crying after some of the things she
dealt with day after day there. Yes, she said, she did, but when she
felt that way she always realized that, 'if I am sitting off somewhere
crying, I cannot be of any help or service to the people the university
pays me to help and serve. I cannot be of much help to the patients
here if I cannot keep my own emotions in check.'  ....

Saturday morning I awoke early, and enough of the staff had managed
to come in that I was not needed to help with feeding on the
morning shift. I went home for the first time in about 36 hours. As
I walked past the train station I stopped in to buy a couple of papers
and eat at the lunch counter there. A handwritten sign on the door
says 'all trains running local with all-stop service today'. The agent
was arguing with a man who insisted the payphones must be out of
order since he had put in his dime and had not gotten dial tone. When
he hung up the dime had not returned. "Just pick up the same phone
and stand there a few minutes, sir; the dial tone will come on the
line eventually, probably in a couple of minutes ..." In the meantime
as he stood there arguing with her, the phone made a clicking sound
as supervision *finally* came to the line and returned his dime in
the slot on the bottom of the phone.

At home trying to call my mother, I waited a couple minutes for dial
tone only to misdial her number. I tapped the hook to start over and
immediatly realized I was going to wait another minute or two for the
next time around on the dial tone. Later that day I had my picture
taken by an enterprising fellow who would take your picture with a
Polaroid Instamatic Camera standing on top of a ten foot high pile of
snow which had been scooped over to the side of the road if you gave
him a dollar. I still have that picture around here somewhere since
no one now-days would ever believe a pile of snow that big had sat
at the entrance to the Museum of Science and Industry parking lot where
it exits onto Lake Shore Drive.

It was approximatly two months before all that snow had *finally*
either melted or been carted off and dumped in the lake. You east
coast people are going to see it on the ground at least all the rest
of this month and most of next.  And when it does finally all melt ...
you'll see floods the likes of which usually only occur in torrential
summer downpours. Big pools of water at every street corner which the
sewers cannot carry off fast enough as you walk with pants legs rolled
up, shoes soaking wet, etc. The ground will stay saturated all spring
so that the slightest amount of rainfall in the spring will bring flooded
basements, more backed up sewers, etc ... watch and see.

I found out that same day that an apartment building near where I
lived had burned to the ground late Thursday night two nights before.
It took a couple minutes to get dial tone to call the Fire Department.
After much effort and many delays, the Fire Department got about a
block away on a street completely buried in snow and could get no
closer. The firemen walked on foot the rest of the way and had to
spend valuable time searching in the snow for a hydrant. By the time
they were able to drag their hoses through the snow, get them hooked
up and get the hydrants turned on the building was mostly gone, with
about fifteen families left homeless on that, of all nights.

That was our 'storm of the century' now 29 years ago. Lots of stories
came out of it (people stuck on CTA busses in high drifts for several
hours; one woman giving birth on a CTA bus because it was impossible
to get out of the bus and get to a hospital), and I imagine a lot of
stories will be heard about the east coast blizzard in the years to
come.

PAT


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

Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 09:13:26 CST
From: Mark J Cuccia <[e-mail]>
Subject: WUTCO `Grams' and LEC Telco Billing


Last night while on the phone with the local BellSouth business office
regarding a minor billing matter (not associated with WUTCO), I
inquired if one could still place Western Union Telegrams and bill
them to the local telephone bill. I was told that as of Monday 30
October 1995, BellSouth and WUTCO ceased to have a billing contract.
The BellSouth service rep was located in Louisiana, and only handled
Louisiana accounts, so I don't know if this termination of WUTCO
charges billed via BellSouth applies only to Louisiana or to the
five-state (former) South Central Bell region or to the entire
nine-state BellSouth region.

I then called WUTCO's 800-325-6000 number (Telegrams, Cablegrams,
money wire transfers, etc) to inquire further. The WUTCO `operator'
didn't know for sure about BellSouth, but *did* tell me that WUTCO
does *not* bill Telegram charges to telephone numbers in GTE locations
anymore. I was told that WUTCO can still bill to (valid) major credit
cards (Visa, MasterCard, AmEx, etc), mail a bill to the customer
*directly*, and accept cash payments via *some* WUTCO agents. (Most of
the WUTCO agents around here are at neighberhood convenience stores
which do money by wire).

I asked why WUTCO is getting away from billing via a telephone billing
number and was told that there are people who `aren't always paying
their phone bills'. This seems a bit strange to me, since there would
be those who would ignore a direct bill from WUTCO and people who
don't pay their credit card bills. And WUTCO charges (IMHO) seem to be
`legit' communications charges when compared to TeleSLIME (900, 976,
etc, including PAY-PAY-PAY-per-call charges via 800/ANI). It *might*
be that WUTCO finds it more economical to *not* offer billing via the
LEC telco.

I would assume that WUTCO can reference a Bellcore maintained listing
of all US NPA-NXX codes which identify the local telco for that
NPA-NXX.  WUTCO's database would then indicate whether they had a
billing contract with that LEC operating telephone company. I was also
told by WUTCO that even for telcos where WUTCO still has a billing
contract, that a database is checked to see if the requested billing
telephone number is a `restricted' telephone number (payphone, PBX
trunk line, PBX extension, Cellular phone number or Cellular system
trunk line, customer requested billing restrictions, etc). This is
probably the LIDB or similar database containing numbers with Billed
Number Screening.

Even though few people probably send Western Union Telegrams these
days, this loss of WUTCO billing via the LEC is a historical loss,
particularly when TeleSLIME/PAY-PAY-PAY-per-call is billing via LEC
without even checking a Billed Number Screening database.

(There might `always' be a Western Union ... but there is no longer a
single Bell Telephone System).


MARK J. CUCCIA  Phone, Write or Wire:  HOME:  (USA)    Tel: CHestnut 1-2497
WORK: [e-mail] |4710 Wright Road| ([phone])
Tel:UNiversity 5-5954([phone])|New Orleans 28  |fwds on no-answr to
Fax:UNiversity 5-5917([phone])|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail

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

Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 02:07:36 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <[e-mail]>
Subject: Canada Number Portability
Reply-To: [e-mail]


Excerpt from Edupage, 4 January 1996


NUMBER PORTABILITY

The CRTC has ordered Canada's phone companies to prepare for local
service competition by developing a system that allows consumers to
take their phone number with them if they change service providers.
Phone companies have opposed portability because it serves as an
incentive to competition, according to the Public Interest Advocacy
Center.  The group adds that recent licensing of personal
communications services may provide an impetus to portability.

(Toronto Globe & Mail, 2 Jan 96 B3)

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

Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 02:11:23 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <[e-mail]>
Subject: Satellite Provides Remote Links
Reply-To: [e-mail]


Excerpt from Edupage, 7 January 1996


SATELLITE PROVIDES REMOTE LINKS

Ottawa-based TMI Communications saw its $500-million MSAT satellite
investment start to pay off: the world's most powerful satellite will
provide voice and data transmission service throughout Canada, the US,
Mexico, the Caribbean and Latin America to millions of people in
remote areas, including Canadians who live in the 85% of the country
outside the reach of cellular phone systems.  This mobility comes at a
price, however, since handsets with antenna cost between $5,000 and
$6,000 and calls are $2.50 per minute (Ottawa Citizen 4 Jan 96 C5)

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

Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 13:53:20 -0500 (EST)
From: [e-mail] (Telecom Digest (Group))
Subject: MCI Begins Charging For Incoming Email


A subscriber wrote to me recently saying MCI Mail is now going to
being charging for incoming mail ... and that would include Digests
from the Internet.  If it is true, then my sympathies to everyone
there. Now might be a good time to consider signing up with one of
several good and reliable local ISPs ... people who appreciate your
business and will offer you flat rate service.


PAT

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

Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 05:14:44 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Dan Pock)
Subject: Telephone Bill Auditing Advice Needed


HELP!

I am a full time telecommunications student at DeVry.  Working a full
time job is killing me and cutting into my studies but I have no
choice.  I've been thinking about starting a home based business
auditing phone bills but I don't study tariffs for another two
semesters.

Does anyone out there no where I can get started with this?  I think
the first step is to get training in understanding tariffs but I don't
know where to begin.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


Sincerely yours,

Daniel Pock

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

Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 20:54:58 -0800
From: [e-mail] (Brian Kantor)
Subject: Advice Needed - Bulk Incoming Lines


I run the University's incoming dial-up data service, consisting now
of about 450 Centrex and 1-MB lines each with its own modem and
terminal server port.  These lines currently enter via a 900-pair
terminal that's been in the building since before I started here over
a decade ago -- there are in fact 1500 pairs (most of them no longer in
use) running into the room from the Pac Bell CO down the road.

We use this to provide local call-in modem service.  We're looking at
doubling the capacity of this facility over the next few years, and
I'm interested in finding suggestions for bulk CHEAP incoming service.

Right now I pay about $400 to set up a single port -- that includes
the line installation, wiring, modem, and one port on a Xylogics
Annex-3 terminal server.  There's a lot of wire doing it this way, but
labor cost is NOT the important factor since student labor is cheap.

Unfortunately, we're now getting to the point where the number of
modems that need resetting or prodding or just adding new ones is
keeping a student pretty much busy all the time.  I'd like a more
manageable and flexible system if I can get it for not a whole lot
more.

I've looked at channelized T-1 services.  PacBell sez they can supply
us with "SuperTrunk" service, but I'm not convinced that's the answer;
the price seems higher than plain old Centrex pairs and we've no
shortage of entrance facilities.  (We use Centrex since the monthly
cost is about the same as a 1-MB and installation is $30 cheaper per
line.)

The old free Digital Entrance Facilities isn't available, our Pac Bell
representative says, so we'd have to go with the "supertrunk".

In addition, the Xylogics "Remote Annex" terminal server that can do
T-1 and still look like what people are used to seeing when they call
us is 20 grand (list) for 24 lines.  (Anixter, where we USED to buy a
lot of things, offered us a whopping 10% discount off list, which seems
to me to be a take-your-business-elsewhere sort of price.  Besides,
they've just finished reorganizing all the personal interaction out of
their business; it took me half an hour just to find the salesman we
need to deal with for a price quote on this product.)

The USR Total Control product looks attractive, but getting technical
data on the thing would seem to need intercession of some major diety;
all I can get is glossy brochures that don't tell me enough.

I'd like suggestions on how to best go about expanding (or refitting)
my dialin service -- or confirmation that I'm currently doing it about
the cheapest way I can already.  These are my tax dollars too, you
know.

Responses via E-mail, please.  I'm too busy to yack on the phone.


Brian Kantor
Academic Computing Network Operations 0124
University of California at San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093-0124 USA
[e-mail]    ucsd!brian

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

From: James A. Young <[e-mail]>
Subject: A Question About Inside Wiring Standards
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 11:33:02 GMT
Organization: Unisys Corporation


In cleaning out my file drawer last night I came across an old brochure
from my local telco (US West) about telephone inside wiring standards.
The brochure states that each outlet in my home should have separate
wires connecting to the demarcation point and sure enough, all the wiring
done years ago by the telco does just that.  (I'm embarrassed to say that
own hanidwork doesn't.) However, I also noticed that a new water meter
reading unit installed by the city water department also doesn't conform.
They just cut into the middle of one of the existing wires.  Is this
standard outdated or is the city not doing things quit by the book?
Running the wire all the way from the water meter sensing unit to the
demarc point would have involved very little extra, about 5 feet of wire
and no cutting of existing lines.  A second question I was wondering
about is should I bother to go back and rewire the outlet I installed?
It's been working fine for ten years as far as I know.



Jim Young                             | [e-mail]
Unisys Corp.                          | [phone] - voice
Roseville Software Development Center |
P.O. Box 64942  - M.S. 4313           |
Roseville, Minnesota, 55164, U.S.A.   |

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

Date: Thu, 11 Jan 96 13:09:00 EST
From: [e-mail] (Dave Leibold)
Subject: And Now ... For ctrycode.c (Country Code Lookup)


Found a bit of time to review the areacode.c program. Seems it wasn't
that hard after all to make a country codes program, mostly inspired
by the areacode.c one.

These are country codes only ... current as of now. Getting all the
area codes within countries will be another can of worms, one which
might gag some systems.

     ------ cut here -----

/* Based on the areacode.c for TELECOM Digest
(areacode.c received from Brint Cooper, updated 5 Jan 1996 by Carl Moore)
*/

#include    <stdio.h>
#include    <ctype.h>
/*
    ctrycode.c - adapted from areacode.c, originating with
    AREACODE.MAC (Ver. 1.0 - January 2, 1981 by Kelly Smith;
        Ken Yap ([e-mail]) also appears in that program's
        credits).

    Compile: cc -O -o ctrycode ctrycode.c
    Run: ctrycode nnn nnn ...

        ctrycode displays the country or region assigned to a
        telephone country code. These country codes may have
        1, 2 or 3 digits.

        This 1996 version was prepared by David Leibold using latest
        available country code information. Country codes are
        officially assigned by the International Telecommunications
        Union and published under their Recommendation E.164
        (as of 1996). Bug reports, corrections, comments can be
        sent to [e-mail].

**    Entries must be in sorted order because binary search is used.
*/

/* add country codes */

char *countrycode[]    = {
"1  Canada, United States, Bermuda, Caribbean nations",
"20 Egypt",
"212Morocco",
"213Algeria",
"216Tunisia",
"218Libya",
"220Gambia",
"221Senegal",
"222Mauritania",
"223Mali",
"224Guinea",
"225Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast)",
"226Burkina Faso",
"227Niger",
"228Togolese Republic",
"229Benin",
"230Mauritius",
"231Liberia",
"232Sierra Leone",
"233Ghana",
"234Nigeria",
"235Chad",
"236Central African Republic",
"237Cameroon",
"238Cape Verde",
"239Sao Tome and Principe",
"240Equatorial Guinea",
"241Gabon",
"242Congo",
"243Zaire",
"244Angola",
"245Guinea-Bissau",
"246Diego Garcia",
"247Ascension",
"248Seychelles",
"249Sudan",
"250Rwanda",
"251Ethiopia",
"252Somalia",
"253Djibouti",
"254Kenya",
"255Tanzania",
"256Uganda",
"257Burundi",
"258Mozambique",
"259Zanzibar",
"260Zambia",
"261Madagascar",
"262Reunion",
"263Zimbabwe",
"264Namibia",
"265Malawi",
"266Lesotho",
"267Botswana",
"268Swaziland",
"269Comoros and Mayotte",
"27 South Africa",
"290Saint Helena",
"291Eritrea",
"297Aruba",
"298Faroe Islands",
"299Greenland",
"30 Greece",
"31 Netherlands",
"32 Belgium",
"33 France",
"33 Monaco",
"34 Spain",
"350Gibraltar",
"351Portugal",
"352Luxembourg",
"353Ireland",
"354Iceland",
"355Albania",
"356Malta",
"357Cyprus",
"358Finland",
"359Bulgaria",
"36 Hungary",
"370Lithuania",
"371Latvia",
"372Estonia",
"373Moldova",
"374Armenia",
"375Belarus",
"376Andorra",
"377Monaco",
"378San Marino",
"379Vatican City State",
"380Ukraine",
"381Yugoslavia",
"385Croatia",
"386Slovenia",
"387Bosnia and Herzegovina",
"389The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia",
"39 Italy",
"40 Romania",
"41 Switzerland and Liechtenstein",
"42 Czech and Slovak Republics",
"43 Austria",
"44 United Kingdom",
"45 Denmark",
"46 Sweden",
"47 Norway",
"48 Poland",
"49 Germany",
"500Falkland Islands",
"501Belize",
"502Guatemala",
"503El Salvador",
"504Honduras",
"505Nicaragua",
"506Costa Rica",
"507Panama",
"508Saint Pierre and Miquelon",
"509Haiti",
"51 Peru",
"52 Mexico",
"53 Cuba",
"54 Argentina",
"55 Brazil",
"56 Chile",
"57 Colombia",
"58 Venezuela",
"590Guadeloupe",
"591Bolivia",
"592Guyana",
"593Ecuador",
"594Guiana",
"595Paraguay",
"596Martinique",
"597Suriname",
"598Uruguay",
"599Netherlands Antilles",
"60 Malaysia",
"61 Australia",
"62 Indonesia",
"63 Philippines",
"64 New Zealand",
"65 Singapore",
"66 Thailand",
"670Northern Mariana Islands",
"671Guam",
"672Australian External Territories",
"673Brunei Darussalam",
"674Nauru",
"675Papua New Guinea",
"676Tonga",
"677Solomon Islands",
"678Vanuatu",
"679Fiji",
"680Palau",
"681Wallis and Futuna",
"682Cook Islands",
"683Niue",
"684American Samoa",
"685Western Samoa",
"686Kiribati",
"687New Caledonia",
"688Tuvalu",
"689French Polynesia",
"690Tokelau",
"691Micronesia",
"692Marshall Islands",
"7  Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan",
"800International Freephone",
"81 Japan",
"82 Korea",
"84 Viet Nam",
"850North Korea",
"852Hongkong",
"853Macau",
"855Cambodia",
"856Laos",
"86 China",
"870Inmarsat: SNAC service",
"871Inmarsat: Atlantic Ocean East",
"872Inmarsat: Pacific Ocean",
"873Inmarsat: Indian Ocean",
"874Inmarsat: Atlantic Ocean West",
"875Reserved for maritime mobile services",
"876Reserved for maritime mobile services",
"877Reserved for maritime mobile services",
"878Reserved for maritime mobile services",
"879Reserved for maritime mobile services",
"880Bangladesh",
"886Taiwan",
"90 Turkey",
"91 India",
"92 Pakistan",
"93 Afghanistan",
"94 Sri Lanka",
"95 Burma (Myanmar)",
"960Maldives",
"961Lebanon",
"962Jordan",
"963Syria",
"964Iraq",
"965Kuwait",
"966Saudi Arabia",
"967Yemen",
"968Oman",
"969(formerly South Yemen - now 967 after unification)",
"971United Arab Emirates",
"972Israel",
"973Bahrain",
"974Qatar",
"975Bhutan",
"976Mongolia",
"977Nepal",
"98 Iran",
"994Azerbaijan",
"995Georgia",
"996Kyrgyz Republic"
};

char *where(code)
    char        *code;
{
    register int    i, codelen, high, low, mid;
    int        strncmp();
    char        incode[3];

    if ((codelen = strlen(code)) > 3)
        return ("not a valid country code");
    strncpy(incode, code, 3);
    if (codelen < 3)
        incode[2] = ' ';
    if (codelen < 2)
        incode[1] = ' ';

    low = 0; high = sizeof(countrycode) / sizeof(countrycode[0]);
    while (low <= high)
    {
        mid = (low + high) / 2;
        i = strncmp(incode, countrycode[mid], 3);
        if (i < 0)
            high = mid - 1;
        else
                if (i > 0)
                low = mid + 1;
            else
                return (countrycode[mid] + 3);
    }
    return ("not a valid country code");
}

main(argc, argv)
    int        argc;
    char        *argv[];
{
    char        *where();

    if (argc < 2)
    {
        printf("Usage: ctrycode nnn nnn ...\n");
        printf("This program displays countries for given ");
        printf("telephone country codes\n");
        exit(1);
    }

    for (--argc, ++argv; argc > 0; --argc, ++argv)
           printf("Country code %s is %s. \n", *argv, where(*argv));
}

    -----------------  cut here ------------

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But readers, you have seen *nothing*
yet!  <grin> ... based on corrections at hand, the areacode file is
being polished off, and an entirely different script which has more
flexibility and features is coming your way in a day or so ...

Country codes and USA/Canada area codes *in one large master file ...
Lookups not just by code number, but by any search string you wish
to use. It runs using Bourne, requires no compiling, and is very
simple to modify with new lines and codes at any time. It will be,
I think, the final word on area codes and country codes. When it is
ready it will come out as a special mailing and I hope you will
consider  replacing the areacode script I sent out a few days ago
with this vastly improved and enhanced version. Watch for it!    PAT]

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

End of TELECOM Digest V16 #12
*****************************