Compu-Fix/Compu-Fix.iso/pubnews/td10465.txt

Text File | 1993-03-01 | 17KB | 426 lines

TELECOM Digest     Tue, 3 Jul 90 00:04:36 CDT    Volume 10 : Issue 465

Inside This Issue:                         Moderator: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: AT&T Red-Lining of Card Calls From Payphones [Robert Gutierrez]
    Re: Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed? [Art Berggreen]
    Re: Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed? [Darren Griffiths]
    Re: Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed? [Scott King]
    Re: Phony Bell Wanted (Not a Bell Phone) [Paul Krzyzanowski]
    Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA [John T. Grieggs]
    Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe [Dell H. Ellison]
    FAX Isn't Facsimile Exchange, is it, Really? [Edward Greenberg]
    Who Is John Galt? [Peter da Silva]
    Monitoring Device Information Needed [Bruce W. Mohler]
    Bellcore Number Down During July [Carl Moore]
    Answering Machine Recommendations Wanted [Bill Darden]
    Telecom is OFF LINE Until July 8 [TELECOM Moderator]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: AT&T Red-Lining of Card Calls From Payphones
Date: 2 Jul 90 00:24:02 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail]


In article <[e-mail]>, the TELECOM Moderator writes:

|> In recent issues of the Digest, people have mentioned their inability
|> to use the AT&T Calling Card from certain payphones in the United
|> States to call certain foreign countries.

|> Sometimes payphones reject credit card calls to one country, while
|> allowing the same type of call to other countries.

This is very true of MCI.  The red-lining entirely depends on the
amount of fraud traffic of the previous week that the security
department catches.

A good instance is San Francisco.  They are red-lined to the
Phillipines, and always have been for the last three years.  This was
because of the LARGE fraudulent calls to that country.

But calling from across the bay (Oakland and Berkeley) will let you
get to the Phillipines, since the red-lining is by switch, and the
Hayward switch covers those cities.

Now, if you called 800-950-1022, because of a quirk in the DMS-250's,
those card calls had to go to the Dominguez Hills, CA. switch, in
which they were not red-lining the Phillipines (as of a year ago).

(The quirk, I was told, was that the DMS-250's cannot return tone on
FGD's, which the 800 calls come in on, as opposed to FGB's, which the
regular 950-XXXX calls come in on...).

Oh, how do they determine, by the _week_, which is the highest fraud
country???  Well, any calling-card international call over a set
amount of minutes is automatically tagged, and the home phone number
of the account in question is called.  Well, if they're using a
calling card to begin with, they're probably not home, so the card is
cancelled until the account holder calls back.  But when the account
holder calls back, he/she finds out that the card can't be reinstated
until 3am the next day, when the CAC's (Card Authorization Computers)
update themselves for new calling card numbers.

I heard AT&T does the same thing, but can reinstate in thirty minutes
to one hour.  Is that true?

|> Is this sort of red-lining legal? Is it discriminatory to block calls
|> to, for example, Mexico or Colombia, while allowing the same payphone
|> to handle calls to the UK or France?  Is it discriminatory to allow
|> residents in one part of town to make credit card calls from payphones
|> while refusing other credit-worthy citizens in another neighborhood
|> the right to do the same thing?

My understanding is that a calling card is a privlege, as opposed to
direct-dial access (so called FGD access).

|> ....Since the Universal Card is a
|> bona-fide credit card (in addition to its role as a phone card), are
|> there violations of Federal Trade Commission regulations when AT&T
|> refuses to extend credit (in this case both as the credit grantor as
|> well as the seller) based on arbitrary red-lining of certain
|> neighborhoods?

This one is a good question.  How much liability has AT&T assumed when
it issued VISA/MC credit cards, and allowed payments of your calls on
them.  Do they have a disclaimer in their FCC Tariff stating "We
reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" in re: Calling Card
calls.  Again, C/C calls are tariffed, but are they a right, or a
privlege?


   Robert

[Moderator's Note: All extensions of credit are considered a privilege
and not a 'right'; however, extensions or denials of credit must be
based on *legal* criteria. I can deny you the privilege of credit
because you have not the ability or willingness to pay your bills; but
I cannot base my decision on your ethnic background or country of
origin, which seems to be what telco is doing by denying (for example)
Iranians the right to call their homeland from JFK; residents of
Colombia from calling home from Miami, or Mexicans calling from
southern California while allowing people of British origin to call
the UK from the very same payphones. By the way, AT&T did not call me
back today.   PT]

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

Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 10:03:08 PDT
From: Art Berggreen <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed?
Organization: Advanced Computer Communications, Santa Barbara, California


In article <[e-mail]> TELECOM Moderator writes:
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 463, Message 7 of 8

>Word has been reaching us the past few days of the tragic fires
>burning though parts of California, and the most disturbing news is
>that apparently much of the town of Santa Barbara is in ashes. Perhaps
>someone in the area could let us know what the effect has been on
>telco service in that area, and other parts of the state.

Rest assured, Santa Barbara is still here.  We're not exactly a "town".
The general area has approx. 150,000 people.

The fire was BAD though.  Almost 500 homes were destroyed (and got too
close to mine as well).

The phone system did get very overloaded during the fire, causing problems
for emergency services.


Art Berggreen
ACC

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

From: Darren Griffiths <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed?
Date: 2 Jul 90 22:39:25 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.


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

>Word has been reaching us the past few days of the tragic fires
>burning though parts of California, and the most disturbing news is
>that apparently much of the town of Santa Barbara is in ashes. Perhaps
>someone in the area could let us know what the effect has been on
>telco service in that area, and other parts of the state.

Well, I'm not from the area, but I used to be and still have many friends
there so I know a bit about what's going on.

The fire started on highway 151 near Painted Cave.  It burned down the
highway and the San Marcos valley.  A major residential area sits at
the bottom of this valley and was entirely destroyed.  Of the 500+
homes with major damage about 300 were completely destroyed.

As far as phone service is concerned it was incredibly good.  Many of
my friends were evacuated, some for two days and they found out about
the condition of their homes by calling and seeing if the answering
machine picked up.  The night the fire started the phones were out to
the Hidden Valley area for a few hours, this was the area of about
3000 homes close to the path of the fire.  The next day many calls
into the area were greeted with a message "Due to the forest fire in
the area you are calling your call cannot be completed at this time,
please try your call later."  If you called two or three times in a
row you did get through though, also switching to a different long
distance carrier sometimes helped.  AT&T, as is my experience with
most phone service, was the most reliable path into the town


   Cheers,

     --darren

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

Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 19:37:21 PDT
From: Scott King <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed?


In reguard to your posting about Santa Barbara...

I live here, and I have seen the damage.  I believe that Mark Twain
said "the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated".  Granted,
there are around 470 homes destroyed, but most of those were in the
hills and asking for it (eg. surronded by a lot of brush)

There were about ten businesses destroyed, but each only employeed
about four people.

Although the "sundowners" (a local version of a Santa Ana wind) were
resposible for the damage on the first day, they quit on the second
day and allowed the fire to be contained (the sundowners had been
blowing for about 3 weeks).

All in all, I would say that we should stop whining and start to count
our blessings.  The whole city would be gone had this happened a week
prior.

In summary, I would say that 1200 people lost their homes, 50 people
lost their jobs and 100,000 people stepped in to help in some form.


Scott King

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

From: [e-mail] (Paul Krzyzanowski)
Subject: Re: Phony Bell Wanted (Not a Bell Phone)
Date: 2 Jul 90 20:05:59 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ


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

> would pause and ask if I needed to get the other call.  Since I don't
> have the click anymore, and some people don't ever give me the chance
> to get a word in edgewise, I'd like to have a bell that sounds like a
> phone ringing --- I'd like to keep it next to the phone, and push (or

This probably isn't what you want, but I recently saw a small device
at a card store that produces one of four sounds depending on the
button you press: a ringing telephone (a call on another line), static
(bad connection), a nasal secretary ("you have a call on line 4"), and
a busy office (lots of phones ringing).


 - Paul Krzyzanowski
   paul2allegra.att.com

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

From: "John T. Grieggs" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA
Date: 2 Jul 90 20:58:59 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail] (John T. Grieggs)
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA


>Lang Zerner <[e-mail]> writes:

>> I don't know if anyone has reported this yet, but PacBell has finally
>> given in to my incessant whining and removed the "value-added" fee for
>> Touch-Tone service.

Another data point: I recently moved to a PacBell service area from a
GTE service area (finally!).  The customer service rep was a lot
friendlier than I am used to, and was a LOT more knowledgable about
stuff.

I refused Touch-Tone service, to see if tones would work anyway, since
the start-up fee and monthly service fee are no different whether you
get them right away or later.  Tone dialing works, so I saved the
$3.00 startup fee and the $1.20 monthly service fee.  Nice to win one.


John T. Grieggs (Telos @ Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, Ca. 91109 M/S 301-320T    [phone]
Uucp: {cit-vax,elroy,chas2}!jpl-devvax!grieggs
Arpa: ...jpl-devvax![e-mail]

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

From: "Dell H. Ellison" <motcid![e-mail]>
Subject: Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe
Date: 2 Jul 90 21:22:12 GMT
Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL


In article <[e-mail]>, motcid![e-mail] (Steven
King) writes:

> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Erik Naggum) writes:

> >    #5    means "number five"
> >    5#    means "five lbs (pounds)"

> >This has later been confirmed by several good dictionaries and
> >reference works (read: theory), but I've never seen in it practice.

I thought everyone used 'lbs.'  I guess I was wrong.

> I prefer calling it the "sharp" sign.  It doesn't get confused with
> the British pound, and is much less of a mouthful than "octothorpe".
> That last sounds like it should be on the menu at a seafood
> restaurant.

I've found that most people (at least in the states) call it
a pound sign.

But I like to call it a Number Sign, because it's hard to confuse
it with something else.  (Many people are not familiar with music
terminology.)

  ..
------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 08:42 PDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: FAX Isn't Facsimile Exchange, is it, Really?


I think that FAX is just shorthand spelling for FACSimile, and has
nothing to do with a particular "Exchange".

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

Subject: Who Is John Galt?
Date: Sun Jul  1 18:44:21 1990
From: peter da silva <[e-mail]>


John Galt is a sort of Buckminster Fuller on cocaine: an eccentric
engineer who mixes philosophy and engineering in equal doses ... but
instead of a sort of proto new-age without the flakiness, Galt's
philosophy is a aggressive mix of social darwinism and sociobiology.

Oh yes, he's also only a character in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged", a
political statement thinly disguised as fiction.

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

From: "Bruce W. Mohler" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Monitoring Device Information Needed
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 9:47:10 PDT


Patrick,

In an article (Volume 10, Issue 463, Message 3 of 8), you write
(as a postscript):

> [Moderator's Note: There are commercial devices available which allow
> what you want, and also accept incoming calls to tell you about the
> temperature at the place where the device is located, then allow you
> to listen to background noise for thirty seconds or so. In the event
> of some problem (usually a choice of three or four problems) they call
> out to up to four(?) different phones, and keep calling until someone
> presses certain tones on the phone to reset the device.  PT]

Could you please point me to a source for these devices?


Bruce W. Mohler
Systems Programmer (aka Staff Analyst)
[e-mail]
voice: 619/586-2218


[Moderator's Note: The last time I saw one advertised (a week or so
ago) it was in the Global Computer Supply mail order catalog. I wish I
had it here now -- I tossed it out -- so I could quote you the page
and other details. I think it can tell if there is water in the
vicinity (because a probe gets wet; a contact is shorted, etc); if
there is a fire (because the temperature gets very warm in the area);
if there is a break-in (because output of burglar alarm device is fed
to this unit), and more. These units are also used in cold storage
warehouses to tell if the power went off, i.e. the temperature is
above a certain point. When you call in, a synthesized voice says "the
time is 12:34:56 7/8/90". The temperature is X degrees. Everything is
normal. Now listen!" ... and the built in microphone lets you listen
for familiar (and unfamiliar) noises in the room. They also call you
when activated, and chant their message over and over until you shut
them off. Try Global (they have an 800 number), or other computer
peripheral supply houses.  Maybe someone with their catalog or a
similar one will write you with info. Please, someone?   PT]

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

Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 10:35:23 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Bellcore Number Down During July


On Saturday June 30, I called the Bellcore number at 201-644-5639, and
the synthetic voice said that the person working on it is on vacation
in July and to try again in August.  The recording does identify
Bellcore.

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

From: Bill Darden <[e-mail]>
Subject: Answering Machine Recommendations Wanted
Date: 2 Jul 90 23:20:33 GMT
Reply-To: Bill Darden <[e-mail]>
Organization: Northrop Research & Technology Center, Palos Verdes, CA


I would appreciate recommendations on answering machines.

Thanks,

BiLL......

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

Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 22:50:45 CDT
From: TELECOM Moderator <[e-mail]>
Subject: Telecom is OFF LINE Until July 8


This is just a reminder that TELECOM Digest and comp.dcom.telecom are
off line this week while I am out of town.  The messages appearing in
this issue and the final one(s) Tuesday evening are what was left in
the queue.

*Please hold further articles until July 7 or 8 before mailing them in
to this newsgroup* .... thank you!


Patrick Townson
TELECOM Moderator

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

End of TELECOM Digest V10 #465
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