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- From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Jan 19 12:41:09 1996
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- id MAA15941; Fri, 19 Jan 1996 12:41:09 -0500 (EST)
- Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 12:41:09 -0500 (EST)
- From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson)
- Message-Id: <199601191741.MAA15941@massis.lcs.mit.edu>
- To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu
- Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #22
-
- TELECOM Digest Fri, 19 Jan 96 12:41:30 EST Volume 16 : Issue 22
-
- Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson
-
- Texas Prison Phones (Dallas Morning News via Tad Cook)
- UCLA Short Course on "Advanced Communications" (Bill Goodin)
- Re: Three Month Wait for Basic Phone Service (Lee Winson)
- Re: Three Month Wait for Basic Phone Service (Javier Henderson)
- US West Spends $1M Providing Substitute Cellular Service (John R. Levine)
- NPR News Story About IDT Internet Services (Lars Poulsen)
- Re: Motorola 550 Cell Phone Problem (Steve Forrette)
- WILDFIRE on DateLine (Steve Cogorno)
- Payphone DTMF Mystery (Peter Clitherow)
- Pacific Bell and Teleport Reach Interconnect Agreement (Mike King)
-
- TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not
- exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere
- there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of
- public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America
- On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated
- newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'.
-
- Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual
- readers. Write and tell us how you qualify:
-
- * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu *
-
- The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick
- Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax
- or phone at:
- Post Office Box 4621
- Skokie, IL USA 60076
- Phone: 500-677-1616
- Fax: 847-329-0572
- ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu
-
- Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using
- anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email
- information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to
- use the information service, just ask.
-
- *************************************************************************
- * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the *
- * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland *
- * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) *
- * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-*
- * ing views of the ITU. *
- *************************************************************************
-
- In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft
- to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in
- the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily
- represent the views of Microsoft.
- ------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as
- yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help
- is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars
- per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above.
-
- All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any
- organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages
- should not be considered any official expression by the organization.
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- From: Tad Cook <tad@ssc.com>
- Subject: Texas Prison Phones
- Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 14:51:57 PST
-
-
- Pilot program to allow Texas inmates access to phones
- By CHRISTY HOPPE
-
- Dallas Morning News
-
- AUSTIN, Texas -- Inmate access to telephones has led in some states to
- scams, credit card abuse, harassment, escape planning, drug dealing
- and gang activity.
-
- Regardless, Texas, the last holdout state in the nation, is planning
- to let its inmates reach out and touch-tone someone.
-
- Proponents of phones in penitentiaries say that inmates should be
- allowed to talk with their families and that new technology prevents
- old problems of fraud and abusive calls.
-
- The biggest plus is that it is like dialing for dollars. The
- comptroller estimates the state could demand 40 percent of the
- long-distance revenues from prison calls -- or $158 million over five
- years.
-
- "I don't think you could convince the average Texan that we should
- pass up $30 (million) or $40 million a year," Comptroller John Sharp
- said.
-
- Prison administrators are not beginning the pilot program on their own
- initiative. The legislature this year required that phones be
- installed.
-
- Many Texas prison officials hate the idea. So do some victims' rights
- groups. And most Texas Board of Criminal Justice members worry that
- the sound of ringing cash registers is obscuring the voices of reason.
-
- "I'm sure the state could make millions of dollars a year by selling
- chocolate cakes with metal files baked in them to inmates, but I
- wouldn't recommend it," said Allan B. Polunsky, chairman of the
- criminal justice board, which oversees state prison, probation and
- parole polices.
-
- Polunsky said he is all for generating new revenue, but he believes
- much of the money would be eaten up prosecuting new crimes committed
- over the phone.
-
- "There are scams that go on today that go on through the mail. So I
- can just imagine what they could do with the phones," he said.
-
- Polunsky said telephones are a headache that are not legally required
- and not socially needed.
-
- "I'm not sure we need to be providing this kind of service to our
- inmates," Polunsky said. "We're not running a hotel; we're running a
- penitentiary."
-
- Under current rules, most state prisoners are allowed one supervised
- phone call every three months for good behavior.
-
- But under consideration is a system to provide phones in recreational
- areas. As envisioned, each inmate would have an access code that would
- allow collect calls to a few designated numbers.
-
- The numbers of selected relatives or friends would be approved by
- prison officials. All other calls would be blocked, as would attempts
- to transfer calls to a third number.
-
- Republican State Sen. J.E. "Buster" Brown sponsored the legislation
- that forced prisons to offer the phones or face budget cuts.
-
- In public hearings, he largely dismissed the concerns of naysayers,
- defending technology that can determine what numbers are called, how
- long the calls last, block transfers and allow officials to record or
- listen to any conversation.
-
- He recently could not be reached for comment.
-
- The criminal justice board is scheduled to select a consultant in
- January to draw up specifications so that bids can be taken for
- equipment, carriers and service for about 20 prisons initially.
-
- While the state oversees more than 100 prison units, the first phones
- are slated for state jails -- reserved for nonviolent offenders -- and
- for low security units designated for drug treatment.
-
- The number of inmates with access to phones would be about 12,000.
-
- The phone systems in these first units, when operational, are expected
- to raise $5 million annually for the state.
-
- Criminal Justice executive director Andy Collins has fought the phone
- idea for three years and is less than enthusiastic about the current
- project.
-
- "There are security concerns and they have been evidenced all over the
- country," Collins said.
-
- Collins fears that inmates using phones could take advantage of
- unexpected circumstances to plan escapes -- such as flu depleting the
- number of guards for a few days. Such a situation would not be
- possible through the mail, he said.
-
- The mail is read, but phone calls are harder to monitor, he pointed
- out. If the program expands to the entire prison system, 150,000
- inmates will have access to phones.
-
- "You couldn't hire enough people to listen to all those calls,"
- Collins said.
-
- Technology provides that the calls can be taped, but Collins said that
- only helps after a crime has been committed and does not stop it
- before it occurs.
-
- In addition, no mechanical system is perfect, he said.
-
- "If mama has the technology to transfer that call to someplace else,
- I've been told privately that what's in place to protect against that
- is not fail-safe," Collins said.
-
- In addition, some inmates' families are involved with criminal
- enterprises such as gangs or drugs.
-
- "To me, it's penny-wise and pound foolish," Collins said.
-
- A 1990 survey conducted by {Corrections Compendium} magazine showed
- that 23 of the 49 states that have inmate-available telephones
- reported problems.
-
- Most were inmates using phones to conduct credit card scams, make
- harassing or threatening calls, or bypassing safety systems to make
- third-party calls.
-
- The survey also showed that at least three states had problems with
- families unable to pay phone bills, losing their telephone service, or
- being beset by creditors.
-
- Collins pointed out that revenue estimates provide that each inmate
- makes at least $40 a month in phone calls -- a price some families
- cannot afford.
-
- "When Johnny calls, it's hard for mama not to accept Johnny's phone
- calls," Collins said.
-
- Sharp said concerns and problems in other states have not been so
- severe or widespread that the phone service has been discontinued.
-
- "Forty-nine other states are doing it. They're making money for their
- states," he said. "There's no logical reason it shouldn't work in the
- Texas prison system."
-
- Sharp said any program involving inmates is also going to involve problems.
-
- "Nothing is trouble-free," he said. "But I don't think it's too much
- to expect that when taxpayers are forking over record money for the
- prison system to ask ... (inmates) to pay some of the costs."
-
- Andy Kahan, crime victims coordinator for the Houston mayor's office,
- said it is the lack of a trouble-free system that worries him and
- other crime victims advocates.
-
- "Anytime you give them access to the outside world, problems develop,"
- Kahan said.
-
- He pointed to an incident last year where convicted sex offender Hal
- Parfait, during his prison industries job of inputting data, gleaned
- private information about one female customer. The inmate wrote an
- 11-page obscene and threatening letter to her.
-
- "My concern would be this would be another way of access to get to
- victims' families, and I don't think they need to be put through the
- constant fear of worrying about being contacted, either by the
- offender or by his family," Kahan said.
-
- Polunsky said protection of victims is also one of the key concerns of
- the criminal justice board.
-
- "At a minimum, they can be harassed if the system is not done
- properly, and I'm not sure you can ensure against that possibility,"
- he said.
-
- Sharp, however, noted that phones are available in all county jails to
- inmates before the are transferred to state prisons. He said such
- access has not caused problems.
-
- "It's being done all over the nation. Every sheriff in every county
- from each end of Texas is doing it. None of the red herrings hold up,"
- he said.
-
- Sharp said his one major concern about a phone system in state prisons
- is that prison officials do not want to do it.
-
- "The only way this system will fail is if the prison system makes it
- fail," he said.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- From: BGoodin@UNEX.UCLA.EDU (Goodin, Bill)
- Organization: UCLA Extension
- Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 14:48:08 -0800
- Subject: UCLA Short Course on Advanced Communications
-
-
- On April 22-26, 1996, UCLA Extension will present the short course,
- "Advanced Communication Systems Using Digital Signal Processing", on
- the UCLA campus in Los Angeles.
-
- The instructors are Bernard Sklar, PhD, Communications Engineering
- Services, and frederick harris, MS, Professor, Electrical and Computer
- Engineering, San Diego State University.
-
- As part of the course materials, each participant receives a copy of
- the text, "Digital Communications: Fundamentals and Applications", by
- Bernard Sklar.
-
- This course provides comprehensive coverage of advanced digital
- communications. It differs from other communications courses in its
- emphasis on applying modern digital signal processing techniques to
- the implementation of communication systems. This makes the course
- essential for practitioners in the rapidly changing field.
- Error-correction coding, spread spectrum techniques, and
- bandwidth-efficient signaling are all discussed in detail. Basic
- digital signaling methods and the newest modulation-with-memory
- techniques are presented, along with trellis-coded modulation.
-
- Topics that are covered include: signal processing overview and
- baseband transmission; bandpass modulation and demodulation; digital
- signal processing tools and technology; non-recursive filters; channel
- coding: error detection and correction; defining, designing, and
- evaluating systems; signal conditioning; adaptive algorithms for
- communication systems; modulation and coding trade-offs and
- bandwidth-efficient signaling; and spread spectrum and multiple access
- techniques.
-
- The course fee is $1495, which includes the text and extensive course
- notes.
-
- For additional information and a complete course description, please
- contact Marcus Hennessy at:
-
- (310) 825-1047
- (310) 206-2815 fax
- mhenness@unex.ucla.edu
-
- ------------------------------
-
- From: turner7@pacsibm.org (Lee Winson)
- Subject: Re: Three Month Wait for Basic Phone Service
- Date: 18 Jan 1996 22:48:58 GMT
- Organization: PACS IBM SIG BBS
-
-
- Interesting problem. But the article didn't clearly state the technical
- causes for delays. That is ...
-
- Were the delays due to stringing new wire to newly built houses?
-
- Were the delays to merely "turning on" phone service with a new number
- to an existing house?
-
- Were the delays adding a second line to a house with one line?
-
- At the phone company -- why did the delays occur? Insufficient
- capacity at a CO to accomodate new subscribers? Insufficient manpower
- to do outside wire stringing? Bogdown in paperwork processing?
-
- When NY Telephone suffering serious problems in the 1970s, one cause
- was the increased "churning" from customer moves. In those days of
- distributor frames with long jumper wires manually strung each time a
- phone line was connected, the frames got overloaded. Further, things
- like cable assignment were all done manually and would bottle neck up.
- Lastly, NY Telephone had a lot of employee turnover and the newly
- hired employees were slow to pick up job skills.
-
- I wonder if any of those conditions are the current problems at US
- West. I would assume computerized order processing and ESS offices
- would eliminate a lot of problems.
-
- Anyone know any more details?
-
-
- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Not So Funny Joke: I always assumed it was
- because 'the person who can help you is away from their desk right
- now or in a meeting. Do you want me to transfer you to their voice-
- mail?' Either that, or the other common assumption is the company
- was secretly sold to some South American telco of whom they are
- now a subsidiary, and they have to go by the parent company's time
- table for new customer installations. <grin> PAT]
-
- ------------------------------
-
- From: javier@tgv.com (Javier Henderson)
- Subject: Re: Three Month Wait for Basic Phone Service
- Date: 18 Jan 96 15:01:01 -0800
- Organization: TGV
-
-
- In article <telecom16.21.1@massis.lcs.mit.edu>, Tad Cook <tad@ssc.com>
- writes:
-
- > Some US West Customers Faced Three Month Wait for Basic Phone
- > Service
-
- This belongs in the "and you think that's bad?" category ...
-
- I spent a few days in Montevideo, Uruguay, once, back in January 1983.
- Nice, quaint city, capital of the country, with very friendly people.
-
- I remember reading in the phone book, where it lists the information on how to
- order service, that your order would be placed in one of three categories:
-
- a. You were a member of law enforcement, doctor, judge, or any other
- profession for whom the telephone service was critical.
-
- b. Your order had 20 or more years of waiting.
-
- c. Your order had 10 to 19 years of waiting.
-
- It didn't say whether moving to a new place reset the counter or not ...
-
- I guess if you had been waiting for your phone 9 years or less, you'd
- keep on waiting until you entered (c), wait for another ten years, and
- enter (b), at which point, if you still wanted telephone service, you
- would get it. Or, if you got lucky, the phone company would expand
- facilities in your area and you would get service sooner.
-
- "Knowing someone" didn't hurt, either ...
-
-
- Javier Henderson, VMS Product Support
- javier@tgv.com
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 08:50:28 EST
- From: John R Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
- Subject: US West Spends $1M Providing Substitute Cellular Service
-
-
- A Knight-Ridder syndicated article reports that US West gave a million
- dollars worth of cellular phone vouchers to people to whom they were
- unable to provide regular phone service in Colorado.
-
- You qualify for a voucher if you have to wait more than a month for a
- phone. People have routinely been kept waiting two or three months,
- and in some cases as much as eight months for service. Even US West
- admits that this is largely due to their poor planning. They say
- they'll have the backlog cleared up by mid-1996 which by a remarkable
- coincidence is when local service competition starts. The problems
- seem mostly to be in rapidly growing edges of built up areas. The
- article notes that there's been no problem with power, CATV, water, or
- sewer. It's just US West.
-
- It occurs to me that many if not most of the cellular vouchers are
- being used to buy US West's own cellular service, so the true cost to
- US West of this band-aid is probably a lot less than the reported
- million bucks. I suppose the cellular is better than nothing, but if
- I were the Colorado PUC, I'd have opened up the underserved areas to
- competition ages ago.
-
-
- Regards,
-
- John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Trumansburg NY
- Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies"
- and Information Superhighwayman wanna-be
-
-
- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, either that or I would have
- insisted that the vouchers be used on the competitor's cellular
- service. That might have made them sit up and take notice. Although
- John, I am not sure merely opening the door to competition would
- help all that much. The competition basically has two choices:
- they can either distribute their own cable and wires everywhere,
- which would put them in approximatly the same backlog status as
- telco, or their other choice is they can lease telco facilities
- which leaves them at the mercy of telco anyway.
-
- Do you remember the article here some time ago from the guy in New
- York who signed up with some of the competition? I think he went
- with Teleport. Anyway, he wrote in here angrily asking how to
- make NYNEX do *their* job where Teleport was concerned so that
- Teleport could finish installing what he ordered from them. And
- others have written here at one time or another saying the problem
- with the competition often turns out to be they are never at their
- desk and you have to leave a message in their voicemail. Much of
- the problem would seem to be a shortage of outside plant, and I
- can't see where it matters if telco installs it or a 'competitor'
- does it because you-know-who is ultimatly in control and will be for
- the next several years, as far as any of us can see into the future.
- All that 'competition' is going to amount to for the next few years
- is telco will be working with a lot of wholesale accounts instead of
- individual end users. They'll still be boss of course. PAT]
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: NPR News Story About IDT Internet Services
- Date: Thu, 18 Jan 96 13:07:45 -0500
- From: Lars Poulsen <lars@RNS.COM>
-
-
- To the editor, NPR "Morning Edition"
- (cc: Telecom Digest)
-
- Yesterday's Morning Edition news program had a segment about the
- Internet Service Provider (ISP) "IDT", which I found disappointing.
- The story lionized the company and its founder/president; I think his
- name is Howard Jones. An industry analyst was quoted as comparing him
- to "MCI's McGowan when *he* was young, energetic and up-and-coming" or
- words to that effect. The comparison may have been apt, but for those
- who know the industry's history, it means something quite different
- than what was conveyed to the audience.
-
- When MCI was young, it was selling a substandard service with a
- promise of great savings, but the promised savings were often based on
- incorrect accounting in the price examples presented. For example, MCI
- would compare their price for a call from Los Angeles to St Louis
- against AT&T's price for the same call, but conveniently forget that
- in order to use the MCI service, you would have to pay for a local
- (measured business ) call from the subscriber to MCI's Los Angeles
- gateway in addition to the MCI charge. When this cost was factored in,
- MCIs rates were usually about equal to -- or sometimes even higher
- than -- AT&T's rates.
-
- In much the same vein, IDT has been running television ads with the
- punchline "always a local call" or "almost always a local call" even
- in areas where they have no local access gateway. When asked
- specifically for the locations of access gateways, their sales reps
- have persevered in promising access via free local calls in many
- specific cases where this was not true. Or they have been promising
- that a local access gateway would open "in two weeks" when it has
- actually taken months before local access became available.
-
- When and where local access has been available, it has often been
- severely under the capacity needed to serve the customers they have
- signed up, resulting in a busy signal on most calls.
-
- In the program, IDT shrugged off these complaints with a statement
- that "people tend to complain about everything: If their friend
- doesn't respond to their e-mail, if they read on the internet that
- their stock has gone down, they always complain to the internet
- service provider". I have no doubt that IDT has a lot of complaining
- customers: They deserve it.
-
- There are several problems with IDT. The most serious is that they
- have a defective business model. In order to attract the maximum
- number of customers, they have priced their service so low that it
- cannot generate enough revenue to pay for the equipment needed to
- serve the influx of customers. This is especially bad when the service
- offers flat rate pricing, rather than a usage based pricing where
- higer usage automatically generates the revenue needed to pay for the
- equipment to provide the service. As many local "mom-and-pop" Internet
- Service Providers demonstrate, it *is* possible to provide high-quality
- almost-flat-rate Internet service; it tends to cost $20 to $25 per
- month (I pay $25/month for up to 100 hours of connect time). In our
- town, we also have a provider who offers "unlimited access for
- $10/month" and their service is like IDT's: 75% busy calls, and no
- useful customer support.
-
- MecklerMedia maintains a list of ISPs (http://www.thelist.com/). For
- a while, they maintained an archive of subscriber comments and
- testimonials about various service providers. IDT's customers were
- unanimously negative about their service.
-
- To make things worse, IDT is now pushing the "Internet Telephone" fad.
- This seems an extremely irresponsible thing for an ISP to do. If this
- application takes off, it could bring as much traffic to the Internet as the
- World Wide Web, and in return will probably force the telephone companies
- and the regulatory agencies to end the availability of free local calls,
- or to force the reclassification of ISPs as long-distance telephone
- companies. (For more about this issue, read my article at
- http://www.silcom.com/~lars/editorial/telecom.htm
- which goes into more detail about the forces that are combining to make
- this happen.)
-
- As an engineer working behind the scenes to build the Internet, I
- welcome coverage of the Internet, but please, let it be informed
- coverage!
-
-
- Lars Poulsen
-
-
- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you *very much* for sending that
- communication to NPR and for sending a copy here. I am in complete
- agreement with you on a couple of points. Back in the early 1970's
- I was after MCI repeatedly for their false advertising on their so-
- called 'savings' when using their service. I wrote about it on a
- couple of occassions in {Telephony Magazine} and I filed an informal
- complaint with the Federal Communications Commission which required
- MCI to specifically respond to me which up to that point they refused
- to do; and which even then they did in a half-hearted, very vague way.
-
- I think they believed people would pay more attention to the coin-rated
- portion of their phone bill and somehow ignore or not care about the
- message units portion. MCI would demonstrate time and again how the
- long-distance portion of your bill -- real dollars and cents expressed
- as such -- went down, but they would gloss over or ignore how the
- local message units portion which you also had to pay for went up.
- They assumed -- and I guess they were correct if their early success
- means anything -- that most large companies (and that is all they
- really went for; they were cream-skimmers) would notice a reduction
- of a few dollars in their long distance bill but would somehow fail
- to notice the ten or fifteen percent increase in the number of local
- message units each month. If anything was said, MCI's response was
- 'well how do you know your employees are not making a lot more
- personal calls than they used to?' But rare was the manager who would
- question why if the company averaged fifty to sixty thousand local
- calls per month previously they were now up to seventy or eighty thou-
- sand local calls per month. They sure saw that bottom line on the
- long distance portion of the bill however; that was 'real money'.
- Such was MCI's successful but fraudulent approach in the early days
- when to make calls via their network you had to dial a seven digit
- local number which supervised and was billed for (or embedded in
- the local charges) by the local telco regardless of whether or not
- you got an answer or a DA/BY from the distant end.
-
- Now on to IDT for just a moment in this long commentary ... they have
- been hitting the market hard here in Chicago also, and your editor
- fell for their advertising. Their thing here has been an eighth of a
- page ad in the {Chicago Sun Times} on an almost daily basis asking
- people to sign up. Their thing here has been to promote 'uncensored
- news groups! You can check out the entire net; we don't censor what
- you are allowed to see or read' ... with the implication being if you
- sign up you can be just as naughty as you please for the mere sum of
- ten or fifteen dollars per month flat rate. Now I am not the sort
- of person to be naughty -- or if I were, I certainly would not come
- out of the closet and say so right here in my own columns! -- but
- I had one simple request for them, and if they could meet it, they
- could have my business.
-
- "Can you offer me a Unix shell account with rlogin and telnet ability?
- If so, I will use your local access number as a dialup to the several
- university sites where I have user privileges. If you have good connec-
- tivity I may consider operating my Digest from your site."
-
- Simple enough question ... and their answer was *yes*, they did offer
- Unix shell accounts, 'but very few people want those, they prefer
- to use Netscape or some other surfing tool.' I told them you give
- me the shell account; I'll take care of what clients and front-ends
- I need and stuff. It takes them about three weeks, but finally here
- comes stuff in the mail for me; my account name, password, phone number
- to use for dialup, etc. It is a local (in this area that means an
- 'A band') call -- just barely -- out of the Chicago-Newcastle central
- office, but it works at 9600 baud. The trouble is, as I find out
- when I call in, it is not a 'text-based' (as they referred to it)
- account. It works exclusively with Netscape, etc.
-
- I call them back, and now the fun begins. They answer their 800 order
- line on the first ring. Their custmer service and tech support lines
- take longer to get through on. (What else is old news?) *45* minutes
- on hold -- but it was their 800 number -- gets me a rep who tells me
- 'why no, we don't offer Unix shell accounts in the Chicago area. We
- do in some parts of the country but not in Chicago; the vendor we
- have there does not offer them.' I found out then that what they are
- doing is reselling other providers, at least in some markets. I asked
- her why then did I have to waste three weeks plus another 45 minutes
- to find this out. Her best guess was the salesperson who took my order
- must have been misinformed. 'They don't all seem to know that Chicago
- is an exception to our usual package and prices. We are giving the
- Netscape package there at a cheaper rate because we cannot provide
- 'text-based' type accounts in Chicago; not with the vendor we have there.'
-
- I said fine, thank you very much and please credit the ten dollars
- you quickly charged to my credit card the day I placed the order along
- with your start-up fee, etc. Furthermore, please don't force me to
- have to challenge a charge every month for the next six months while
- you get your act together and cancel my *totally unused* account.
-
- Overall, not a satisfactory thing. They originally promised my 'start
- up package' would arrive in seven to ten days; when I called after
- ten days (a 20 minute wait on hold that time) I was told it would
- arrive arrive any day now and in fact fifteen days after that it did
- arrive, only to be totally useless for my requirements. PAT]
-
- ------------------------------
-
- From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette)
- Subject: Re: Motorola 550 Cell Phone Problem
- Date: 18 Jan 1996 21:09:11 GMT
- Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn
-
-
- I had a similar problem with mine. I had lived with it for several
- months, because of the expense and inconvenience of having it service.
- But, I finally realized that the mechanical stress problem was in the
- battery, not the phone itself. Since the battery was about a year old
- and due for replacement anyway, I just got a new one, and the problem
- went away completely. So, my advice is to examine the battery
- carefully to see if that's where your problem is.
-
-
- Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com
-
- ------------------------------
-
- From: cogorno@netcom.com (Steve Cogorno)
- Subject: WILDFIRE on DateLine
- Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 10:42:38 PST
-
-
- Did anyone happen to catch the segment on WildFire on Tuesday's
- DateLine NBC? I have used the system before, and it is very nice to
- work with (for those who don't know, it is an extended voice mail
- service that responds to the user's voice).
-
- My question is that Jane Pauley commented after the taped segment that
- the unit costs about $50,000, but the service can be rented. Does
- anyone know of a company that provides dialin service using WildFire?
- (MyLine folks -- this may be a good opportunity to expand :-)
-
-
- Thanks!
-
- Steve cogorno@netcom.com
-
-
- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I guess I mentioned that the MyLine
- software is available for licensing. Call America was/is the first
- licensee, but they are not the exclusive providers. I was contacted
- a couple weeks ago by a fellow in Boston whose company was considering
- starting a MyLine franchise there. I assume if you want, you can
- contact them, and if you have the startup cash run a little 800
- resale of your own. On a related topic, word came to me that Steve
- Betterly, the Call America sales representative most of you who signed
- up for MyLine dealt with, has resigned his employment and gone on to a
- position better for him with another firm. I'll miss his fine and
- efficient service. Jeff Buckingham has not yet announced who will
- replace Steve, but assuming the service level remains as good as it
- was in the past, I'll probably keep recommending them as the Official
- supplier of 800 service to the Digest. Now don't misunderstand: it
- is not that their Love Offerings to my purse are any better or worse
- than anyone else's ... <g> ... they do have a really great service
- available for small to medium size users of 800 numbers. PAT]
-
- ------------------------------
-
- From: clithero@u.washington.edu (Peter Clitherow)
- Subject: Payphone DTMF Mystery
- Date: 18 Jan 1996 21:49:16 GMT
- Organization: Rural Health Research Center, Family Medicine, UW
-
-
- I was in LAX airport, and chanced to use an innocuous looking payphone
- there (United departure lounge). Can't recall who owned the thing,
- but the default LD carried was ATT. So, I called up 1800-CALL-ATT to
- make my call and was surprised to notice that the tones for successive
- identical digits (e.g. 00, 55, and 88) were non-standard and
- *different*. That is, if you push zero twice in succession, you got
- different DTMF tones.
-
- Anyone know why this should be the case? I've encountered it before,
- and always assumed that it was a sneaky attempt by COCOTs to prevent
- access to reasonable LD service.
-
- Further, once the COCOT connected me to ATT, the tones *reverted* to their
- normal behaviour!
-
-
- Peter Clitherow, <clithero@u.washington.edu> 206-685-0401
- Rural Health Research Center, UW, Seattle, 98195.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- From: mk@TFS.COM (Mike King)
- Subject: Pacific Bell and Teleport Reach Interconnect Agreement
- Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 01:09:08 PST
-
-
- Forwarded FYI to the Digest:
-
- Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 17:37:34 -0800
- From: tltinne@legsf.PacBell.COM
-
- NEWS FROM PACIFIC BELL
-
- Pacific Bell and Teleport Communications Group Reach Interconnect
- Agreement
-
- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
- Jan. 18, 1996
-
- For More Information:
- Pacific Bell:
- Jerry Kimata 415-394-3739
- jerry.kimata@pactel.com
-
- TCG:
- Tracy Corrington 718-355-4620
- corrington@tcg.com
-
-
- SAN FRANCISCO -- Pacific Bell and Teleport Communications Group (TCG)
- announced today the signing of an interconnect agreement that will
- enable TCG to offer Californians service in the recently opened local
- phone market.
-
- "This agreement is the first reached under new, competitive guidelines
- ordered by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on Dec.
- 20, and we're pleased with the outcome," said Lee Bauman, Pacific Bell
- vice president-Local Competition.
-
- "It will enable another formidable participant to compete for local
- phone customers in California," he said. "This is just the beginning.
- In the weeks and months ahead, there will be no doubt that local phone
- competition has arrived in California, as competitors rapidly move
- into the marketplace.
-
- "We'll be busy negotiating many interconnect agreements with companies
- anxious to offer local service," he said. "Phone customers will
- benefit because they'll have more choice; more choice in suppliers and
- also more choice from Pacific Bell, enabled by greater competitive
- flexibility."
-
- "Both companies worked hard at reaching this agreement in a very short
- time," said Jim Washington, TCG regional vice president. "I think it
- shows how eager TCG is to bring our services to California consumers
- and expand competition into the local exchange market, as well as
- Pacific Bell's determination to fulfill its role of facilitating that
- competition. California consumers are clearly the winners," he said.
-
- The agreement lays out the terms and conditions for interconnection
- of the companies* networks by two-way trunks. Either company's
- trunks may be used.
-
- Unlike other arrangements, such as the resale of local service or the
- lease of local links, TCG will use its own facilities to sign up and
- serve local phone customers. The interconnection with Pacific Bell
- will be made to complete calls to Pacific Bell's customers.
-
- Completing local calls on each others' networks will not be
- compensated and will be handled on a 'bill-and-keep' basis. Local
- toll calls completed by either company will be compensated at
- existing switched rates.
-
- Term of the agreement is one year, with automatic renewal unless
- canceled by either side after March 1, 1997. The local phone market
- was opened to competition on Jan. 1. Resale of local service for
- companies without their own network facilities will occur on March 1.
-
- TCG is the nation*s largest competitive local exchange carrier, with
- networks in 47 U.S. markets.
-
- Pacific Bell is a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis Group, a diversified
- telecommunications corporation headquartered in San Francisco.
-
- ----------------
-
- Mike King * mk@tfs.com * Oakland, CA, USA * +1 510.645.3152
-
- ------------------------------
-
- End of TELECOM Digest V16 #22
- *****************************
-