Telecom/1996-04-telecom-walnutcreek.iso/back.issues/telecom-recent/[e-mail] _Wed Jan 10 16:11:06 1996.msg

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Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #10

TELECOM Digest     Wed, 10 Jan 96 16:11:00 EST    Volume 16 : Issue 10

Inside This Issue:                          Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    News Release in TC94-121 (Steve Wegman)
    News: ISDN Moves To The Burbs (Mike King)
    Cellular Fraud Suspects Arrested in Santa Fe (Tad Cook)
    Continuing Poor Service for CO/NY Customers Poughkeepsie (Doug Reuben)
    Interesting Vanity 800 Number, 1-800-BANTING (Nigel Allen)

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

From: Wegman, Steve <[e-mail]>
Subject: News Release in TC94-121
Date: Tue, 09 Jan 96 08:35:00 PST


NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE          CONTACT:  Leni Hook
1/8/96                         605-773-3201

PUC AND U S WEST AGREE ON DEVELOPMENT PLAN; RATE INCREASE

     PIERRE, SD -- The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission (PUC)
today approved a Settlement between U S WEST Communications, Inc. (U S
WEST) and the Commission staff.  The Settlement covers all of U S
WEST's South Dakota service territory, except those exchanges
previously approved for sale by the PUC.  The Settlement received
unanimous approval by South Dakota's three Public Utility
Commissioners, Chairman Ken Stofferahn, Vice-Chairman Jim Burg, and
Commissioner Laska Schoenfelder.  It includes $25 million in
infrastructure development; a competition-oriented pricing structure;
elimination of all touch-tone charges; and a rate adjustment phased in
over 36 months.  "This was among the most important decisions the PUC
has ever made," said Stofferahn, who added, "Every square mile of
South Dakota will now have access to the most advanced
telecommunications services available anywhere."

     "Telecommunications is capable of extending telemedicine and distance
learning to every South Dakota community," said Stofferahn.  "With this $25
million investment, we will do just that," he said.  Combined with the
current infrastructures of U S WEST, South Dakota's Independent and
Cooperative telephone companies, and the South Dakota Network (SDN), this
new investment will make it even more possible for emergency, diagnostic,
and prescribed care to be administered remotely from a regional medical
center to any community where basic health care facilities are located.
 Regardless of its location, every public school can also use this
same infrastructure to enhance classroom education through remote
interaction with a regional education center.

     In addition to the infrastructure development, the Settlement
includes a $2 million Distance Learning Initiative for public schools,
Distance Learning training grants, a discount for state government to
defray a portion of the state's education network costs, statewide
deployment of Caller ID and other advanced custom calling features,
full replacement of multi-party lines with one-party service,
expansion of fiber-optics and local access to the internet.  "By
investing $25 million in this state for these and other upgrades,
South Dakota will enjoy access to leading-edge technologies and all
the benefits it may bring," said Stofferahn.

     U S WEST is a legal monopoly, and by statute allowed to recover
its fully allocated cost of service through customer rates.  Under
traditional regulation, the PUC determines the cost of service and
orders the utility to charge exactly that amount.  According to
Stofferahn, a nationwide movement toward competition requires a new
regulatory approach.  The Settlement still sets a cost of service
based price ceiling for U S WEST, but allows downward-flexing of
customer rates to remain competitive.  "We have not approved a general
rate increase for U S WEST since 1985.  This Settlement allows an
increase, but with a price ceiling below the cost of service, and a
three-year phase-in," he said.

     The three-phase customer rate adjustment will occur in 18-month
intervals, with a maximum price ceiling of $19.35 for basic
residential customer rates.  The first phase, effective on February
12, 1996, will affect customers in the following ways: Residents
living within or close to city limits who do not have touch-tone
service will have a monthly increase of $2.45.  Residents living
within or close to city limits who already have touch-tone service
will experience a net monthly increase of 95 cents after elimination
of the touch-tone charge.  Approximately 30,000 residents receiving
touch-tone and one-party service, and who live outside city limits,
will experience a net monthly decrease of $2.05 after elimination of
the Outside the Base Rate Area (OBRA) and touch-tone charges.

     Business customers who do not have touch-tone service will have a
monthly increase of $2.75 per line.  Business customers who already
have touch-tone will experience a net monthly increase of 75 cents per
line.

     The second phase adjustment is scheduled 18 months after the first.
  This adjustment limits the rate increase to not more than $2.10 for
all customers who have not reached the $19.35 ceiling.  However, the
second and third increases will only occur if U S WEST shows clear
improvement in its service quality performance.  The third phase of
not more than $2.10 is allowable under the plan 36 months after the
first adjustment, provided that customer rates have not reached the
ceiling.  Business customers will also experience second and third
phase increases during this 36-month period, provided that the
business basic rate ceiling of $38.40 is not exceeded.

     "I firmly believe this plan and its corresponding investment
completes the basic infrastructure necessary to meet South Dakota's
needs for voice, data and video communications for decades to come,"
said Stofferahn, who added, "We have accomplished this without
including the $25 million investment in the customer's rate base.  In
other words, this is a U S WEST corporate investment which will not be
recovered through basic customer rates."

 (A copy of the investment plan may be obtained by contacting the PUC.)

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

From: [e-mail] (Mike King)
Subject: News: ISDN Moves To The Burbs
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 10:51:50 PST


Forwarded FYI to the Digest:

 Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 10:45:10 -0800
 From: Tom Tinnes <[e-mail]>
 To: [e-mail]

NEWS FROM PACIFIC BELL: ISDN Moves To The Burbs

Pacific Bell Responds to Major Geographic Shift in User Base

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 4, 1996

For more information, contact Mary Hancock/Pacific Telesis Group
415 394-3620 or [e-mail]

As Californians become comfortable in cyberspace, they are asking for
more: more bandwidth, more speed and the ability to do more than one
task at a time.  People everywhere are getting up on the Internet,
tuning in to telecommuting from home and dipping their toes into
virtual meetings via videoconference.

As a result, demand is exploding for ISDN lines that can deliver speed
and functionality at a reasonable price -- right to the home.  But this
technology isn't just on the move.  It's moving to the suburbs.

In the past ten months alone, Pacific Bell has experienced an amazing
200 percent growth in the number of ISDN lines installed in
California.  Of 60,000 total lines, nearly 30 percent are located
three or more miles away from the nearest ISDN-equipped central
office, with the remaining 70 percent concentrated close to central
offices in metro areas.  Compare that to last year's statistics
showing that only 5 percent of installations occurred three miles out,
for a 95 percent metro concentration, and a clear geographic shift
emerges.  Pacific Bell projects that, by the year 2000, more than 70
percent of ISDN lines will be in homes for business or personal use.

Customers are continually finding more uses for ISDN, so we're always
fine-tuning the product to fit their needs," said Tom Bayless,
switched digital services director for Pacific Bell.  "In the last
year, we've learned a lot about who buys ISDN and how they want to buy
it.  The cost to bring service to remote users is higher, and their
ranks are growing.  And unlimited night and weekend usage has driven
many to never turn their lines off during those times.  These usage
trends have proven to be costly.  To address this, we've added a penny
per minute to our usage charges, while giving customers packages with
more features, flexibility and discount options.  Our monthly price
continues to be the lowest in the country."

Of course, the applications are in the driver's seat.  When ISDN was
first introduced in 1988, the typical user worked for a large business
in an urban center and was attracted by the outstanding voice
capabilities of ISDN.  Lightning-quick call connections, digital-quality
sound and the ability to install multiple phone lines on existing
twisted copper wires -- all at a significant cost savings for
businesses -- attracted corporate customers.  But as computer use
started to seep into the mainstream, fast access to the Internet and
on-line services, efficient remote work solutions, telecommuting and
videoconferencing all became possible and accessible at home.

Pacific Bell is a nationally-recognized leader in championing ISDN.
The company's installation and monthly charges are the lowest in the
U.S., and its usage rates are among the lowest.  The company's
Education First initiative offers free ISDN installation and service to
California schools and libraries for two years.  Pacific Bell is also
aggressively pursuing a special ISDN education access rate from the
CPUC offering affordable, predictable usage prices for schools and
libraries.

Customers wanting to order Pacific Bell ISDN or obtain more information
can call 800 4PB-ISDN.  Information on the company's ISDN services is
also available on the Internet World Wide Web at http://www.pacbell.com.

Pacific Bell is a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis Group, a diversified
communications corporation based in San Francisco.

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

Mike King   *   [e-mail]   *   Oakland, CA, USA   *   +1 510.645.3152

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

From: Tad Cook <[e-mail]>
Subject: Cellular Fraud Suspects Arrested in Santa Fe
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 23:08:24 PST


Suspects in cellular fraud scam arrested in Santa Fe; U S WEST
Cellular assists Secret Service in sting

SANTA FE, N.M.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 9, 1996--Acting on information
provided by U S WEST Cellular, U.S. Secret Service agents raided a
Santa Fe hotel room this morning and arrested three suspects with ties
to South America for alleged cellular fraud.

Inside the room agents confiscated at least ten cloned cellular phones
that had been used over a six-week period to place hundreds of
thousands of dollars worth of illegal long distance cellular calls to
countries throughout the world.

U S WEST Cellular fraud analysts first identified unusually high call
activity on several cellular phone numbers in the Phoenix area and
determined that most of the calls were routed internationally. Network
technicians, using sophisticated network technology, were able to
track the cellular bandits as they moved their operation from Phoenix
to Tucson, Albuquerque and finally, Santa Fe.

`The calling patterns we identified in Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque
and Santa Fe were typical of the call sell operations we have seen in
other cellular fraud operations,` said Lisa Bowersock, company
spokesperson. `Because many of the calling patterns were the same, we
were able to determine that a single cellular fraud operation was
simply moving its location in hopes of remaining undetected. Little
did they know, we were on their trail every step of the way.`

Using high-tech radio direction finding equipment, New Vector
technicians in Santa Fe pinpointed the source of the fraudulent calls
to a motel on Cerrillos Road. Private investigators hired by U S WEST
Cellular kept the hotel under constant surveillance until U.S. Secret
Service Agents were able to obtain the necessary warrants to search
the motel rooms and make the arrests.

`The support we received from the Secret Service and 9th Judicial
District Attorney's Office in New Mexico was outstanding,` Bowersock
said. `If they had not acted when they did, it's possible the suspects
would have left town in a matter of hours.`

U S WEST Cellular and other carriers that have been defrauded by the
same operation are still compiling losses from this particular
cellular fraud ring.  Confirmed losses have reached $700,000 and are
quickly approaching $1 million.

`While these cellular bandits set up shop in U S WEST Cellular
territory, the numbers used to clone phones and commit cellular fraud
were from out of the area so few, if any, New Mexico or Arizona
customers were affected,` Bowersock said.  `In addition, thanks to
proactive anti-fraud efforts by U S WEST Cellular employees, 95
percent of the fraudulent charges were identified before they reached
legitimate customers' bills.`

Cloning fraud involves the practice of programming stolen cellular
phone numbers and electronic serial numbers into other cellular
handsets, thus creating a `clone` of the the original cellular phone.
Once a phone has been cloned, the cellular bandit is then free to
place unlimited calls which are billed to the original account. Cloned
phones often are used in `Call Sell` operations in which cellular
bandits sell calls to individual users for a flat fee.

`U S WEST Cellular takes the theft of cellular service very seriously,
and we are aggressively pursuing cellular bandits. This is the first
of several significant investigations underway and we can expect more
arrests in the near future,` Bowersock said. `U S WEST Cellular has
one of the most sophisticated fraud detection programs in the country,
and when it comes to uncovering illegal activity, it's not a question
of if, it's when.`

Once fraudulent activity is detected, U S WEST Cellular turns the case
over to law enforcement for further investigation and prosecution.
Deliberately altering cellular phones to defraud a cellular company is
a federal felony under Title 18 of the United States Code, Section
1029, and carrier a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a
$50,000 fine for the first offense. Under the same code, the U.S.
Secret Service had primary jurisdiction over cellular fraud crimes.

U S WEST Cellular is a division of U S WEST New Vector Group Inc.
Based in Bellevue, Washington, New Vector has cellular operations in
12 midwestern, western and southwestern states and serves more than
1,400,000 customers. The company operates 25 Metropolitan Statistical
Area (MSA) and 26 Rural Service Area (RSA) cellular systems under the
brand name of U S WEST Cellular. New Vector is a subsidiary of U S
WEST Inc., a diversified corporation based in Englewood, Colorado.

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

From: [e-mail] (Doug Reuben)
Subject: Continuing Poor Service for CO/NY customers Poughkeepsie
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 05:25:28 EST


After this weekend's dramatic snow event, I'm convinced that US
Cellular/Poughkeepsie (00503) is both one of the most incompetant and
unsupervised cellular systems in the country

This weekend, while driving on Dutchess County Route 21 near Poughkeepsie,
NY, I noticed a stranded motorist who had hit a pole and was motioning for
help. (For those of you who may not have heard :), we had a pretty bad
blizzard in the Northeast, and it extended a good deal inland, even up to
Poughkeepsie. )

I stopped, and the guy asked if I could pull him. Since the car I was in
was an older rear-wheel drive vehicle with pretty poor traction and
control, I suggested that it may not be the best thing to do, but offered
to call my dad, who lived down the road a few miles, and have him use our
4-wheel drive vehicle to tow him back onto the road. We agreed, and then I
tried to use my Cell One/NY (00025) phone to place a call to the house in
order for my dad to come and meet us.

Foolish me -- I should have known -- it was a weekend, and no one was
on duty at CO/Poughkeepsie, so *of course* something had to go wrong
and prevent my phone from working. When I tried to use the B side, I
found that the coverage was so poor that I was unable to get a signal,
even by moving around a good deal. Eventually, I just drove home and
told my dad to follow me, and by the time we got back the motorist had
a tow-truck help to extricate him. However, had this been a more
serious emergency, or I had been all alone and stuck, I would not have
been able to use my carphone to call for help or to be available if
someone needed to reach me. And I don't mean not be able to call my
dad or AAA (which is bad enough!), but 911 and ALL calls were denied -
NOTHING would go through.

Frequent readers will know this is NOT the first time that I have
posted about this problem. It seems that on a regular basis, roamers
from Cell One/NY (aka ATT Wireless) are denied ANY sort of service in
the Poughkeepsie system.

Specifically, when the Poughkeepsie system "flakes out", CO/NY roamers:

1. Can not place any calls;
2. Can not receive any calls;
3. Can alternately not receive calls AND callers are greeted with
   "diconnected" or other erroneous recordings;
4. Can use feature codes, but they are not confirmed, or are only
   confirmed on alternate attempts;
5. Can not dial 911;
6. Can not dial 611;
7. Can not place calls to the Operator or anywhere else.

Interestingly, roamers from OTHER systems, besides CO/NY, have no
difficulty with most of these. (Although as an interesting aside, all
roamers on the NACN, of which CO/Poughkeepsie is now a member, will
experience a feature code confirmation failure on every other call.
Thus, if I were to roam with my Metro Mobile (aka Bell Atlantic in CT)
account into the Poughkeepsie system, and hit *72+10D to forward my
calls, the first time I'd get dead air, but the second time I'd
receive a confirmation dial tone. The third time would receive dead
air, and the fourth time would receive a confirmation dial tone. It
may be because they are in such close proximity to each other, but I'd
expect the FIRST *72 call or other feature code call I make to receive
a confirmation tone on the first try, while the 00503 system
*routinely* fails on the first try for nearly all roamers.)

What's most infuriating about this situation is that I have been on
the phone literally for hours about this with US Cellular and CO/NY,
and they keep "solving" the problem, only to find that it returns the
next weekend, when of course no one is on hand to experience it -- or
remedy it -- immediately. (It happens too during the week, which is
when the people from CO/NY first noticed it after a number of reports
from myself and other CO/NY customers who were roaming in the area.)

Moreover, the problem is sporadic -- it happens sometimes, and then it
stops. I've noticed that it usually starts towards early afternoon, and
then ends very late at night, usually after 1AM, although these times
vary. And it is NOT a coverage problem or a problem with CO/NY, as I am
able to place and receive calls on all the other nearby systems. It also
does not appear to be a Fraud Protection Feature issue, as this has been
going on well before the feature was in use (although the feature may be
compounding the problem).

Overall, I am becoming very irritated by the apparent inability (or
lack of interest) on the part of US Cellular to get this problem
resolved once and for all. From the endless and recurring nature of
the problem, it appears to me that US Cellular considers this to be
rather unimportant and have passively allowed it to drag on for over a
year, despite diligent attempts on the part of CO/NY to address the
issue and the severity of the problem manifested by the inability to
dial such basic emergency numbers like 911.

If there are any Cell One/NY roamers who travel to the Poughkeepsie
system on a regular basis and have some time, I'd appreciate hearing
about your experiences in this market. To my knowledge, all CO/NY
accounts who travel to the Poughkeepsie system will potentially be
affected by this -- I have tried out 917-855, 914-643, and 718-753
accounts and all have had the same problem.

If you do try out 911, please be careful (just see if it goes
through). I don't like the idea of making unecessary calls to 911,
even if you hang up before they answer, but it may be productive to
test those as well. I have tried 911 on our CO/NY accounts while in
the Poughkeepsie system, and as noted above, even 911 does NOT work
when the system chooses to selectively "act up" for (or more aptly,
"against") CO/NY roamers.

As a result, I have a hard time convincing my parents to stay with
CO/NY when they keep asking "Why won't my phone work?" and "What are
we supposed to do in an emergency when the regular phones fail?". The
problem is so bad that you can more or less expect your CO/NY phone
not to work more often than not. This is not acceptable for people who
need to rely upon their cellphone as means to call 911 and other help
when their landline phones fails. Hopefully, sooner than later, US
Cellular will get their act together and remedy this problem once and
for all, although after over a year, I am increasingly discouraged.

I'll keep the Digest updated as to developments, and thanks in advance
for any responses from other CO/NY roamers who have had or are having
similar problems in Poughkeepsie.


      Doug Reuben  *  [e-mail]   *  +1 (203) 499 - 5221
Interpage Network Services -- http://www.interpage.net, telnet interpage.net
E-Mail Alpha/Numeric Local/Nationwide Paging, WWW Fax, and E-Mail<->Fax Svcs


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can tell you that thus far in the
month or so I have used it, Frontier Mobile Line seems to have their
act together pretty well. I suppose the credit is really due to the
supplier here (Ameritech, B carrier) being well organized. An interesting
and useful feature here is that in any Ameritech service area throughout
the midwest, roaming and call transfer are automatic. Since I go up to
Milwaukee now and then, the Frontier people gave me a Milwaukee number
for the second NAM in my phone at no additional charge. Although it is
also Ameritech, there the carrier code is 00044 instead of 00020 as in
the Chicago market. When I have been here in Chicago but set the phone
to the Milwaukee number and then dialed the Milwaukee number on my
landline phone, without telling them anything, when the Milwaukee
number connects, a Frontier recording comes on telling me that 'we are
transferring your call to the place where your party is roaming', and
the call is transferred immediatly. At Ameritech they told me 'Fast
Track is old fashioned; we automatically track your phone all over our
region.'  No need to use *18 to establish it, however you can use *19
to turn it off as desired in which case you must use *18 if you want
it back on again.

But Ameritech also said to me that anywhere in their region of five
states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio) it is not
necessary to use a dual NAM phone 'to avoid romaing charges' since
calls are a flat rate of 50 cents per minute when out of your home
area. No daily rates or anything like that. So I get to call anywhere
in Ameritech's Chicago region (from Michigan City, Indiana in the east
to Morris, Illinois in the southwest to the Wisconsin state line in
the north, although that is merely the guarenteed coverage range -- it
may go further) for 35/18 per minute. If I call or from one of those
markets into Chicago or vice versa then I pay 50 cents per minute at
all hours. With my Milwaukee NAM turned on, I would pay 50 cents per
minute if here in Chicago or other Ameritech area and 35/18 when
actually in the Milwaukee coverage area which is roughly the Wisconsin
state line on the south to about forty miles north of Milwaukee to the
north and nearly to Madison, Wisconsin on the west.

To test this out, the other day I took the Greyhound Bus from Skokie
up to Milwaukee and monitored the phone conditions as we traveled
north on I-94. There was a very strong signal indicated on the phone
all the way north. Somewhere around the state line, the Chicago NAM
switched into 'Roam-B' mode. I punched in the Milwaukee NAM and
got the same strong coverage all the way to downtown Milwaukee. I
was only using the short little stubby antenna the entire trip. In
Milwaukee I punched *611 and again got an entity answering the phone
as 'Frontier Customer Service'. An interesting thing is when calling
*611 within 'home' territory (i.e. Chicago NAM when actually in this
area and Milwaukee NAM when actually north of the border) always
gets me Frontier. Calling *611 when in roaming mode always gets me
Ameritech customer service. They're both open 24 hours per day.

According to the Ameritech rep I spoke with in Milwaukee, it was
'silly' to bother with a dual NAM if the only intention was to save
on roaming charges within Ameritech territory. She said 'we auto-
matically find you wherever you are in our five state territory'; and
'at 15 cents per minute days and 32 cents per minute nights (roaming
versus home rate differential) it takes a lot of calls to amortize or
justify whatever you are paying as a monthly service charge on the
second NAM.' I told her I was getting the second (Milwaukee) number as
part of my package at no extra charge so any pennies saved were
pennies earned. At that point she put my account up on her screen for
the first time and her response was 'oh, I see you are a wholesale
account.'

But guess what Cellular One is doing here: if they don't recognize
you as one of their customers, they hand you right over to an outfit
called 'Cellular Express' -- (intercept ringing signal followed by
a message saying) "you are in Cellular One Chicago territory; we do
not recognize you; if you want to make any calls, hang up and then dial
star eight six five five ..."   8655 = 'TOLL'. Doing so gets you the
Cellular Express Operator who will be glad to help you at the rate of
$1.95 per minute plus $1.95 for the call itself, billed to a phone
company calling card or major credit card. No carrier pic codes allowed,
no free calls to 911 or 800 numbers and certainly no 500 numbers.

An interesting thing about Frontier Mobile Line: on long distance
calls, one plus defaults to Frontier/Allnet but zero plus defaults
to AT&T. The variety of standards for cellular service in the USA
is pretty amazing isn't it?     PAT]

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

Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 01:56:04 -0500
From: Nigel Allen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Interesting Vanity 800 Number, 1-800-BANTING
Organization: Internex Online (shell.io.org), Toronto, Ontario, Canada


The Canadian Diabetes Association has the phone number 1-800-BANTING.

It was convenient that one of the discovers of insulin had a
seven-letter surname. Frederick G. Banting and Charles H. Best were
the scientists at the University of Toronto who discovered insulin.
(Two other University of Toronto scientists who played an important
role in the discovery were Collip and J.J.R. Macleod.)


Nigel Allen    [e-mail]    http://www.io.org/~ndallen/

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

End of TELECOM Digest V16 #10
*****************************