Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa27436; 14 Apr 90 1:31 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa04317; 13 Apr 90 23:44 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa13676; 13 Apr 90 22:40 CDT Date: Fri, 13 Apr 90 21:49:14 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #251 BCC: Message-ID: <9004132149.ab15137@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 13 Apr 90 21:49:02 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 251 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Credit Card ID [Steve Glaser] Re: Credit Card ID [Mike Van Pelt] Re: Quirk With "The Universal Card" [C. Harald Koch] Re: Deutsche Bundespost Breakup [Jan Hinnerk Haul] Re: Access to the 'BTX' System of West German Telco [Bob Stratton] Re: The Card [Dave Esan] Re: MCI Mail Introductory Offer [Paul Wilczynski] Re: Loop Start vs Ground Start, a User Intro [Macy Hallock] Re: Networking in the Soviet Union [sovamcccp@cdp.uucp] A Real "555" Exchange [Will Martin] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Apr 90 12:24:52 PDT From: Steve Glaser Subject: Re: Credit Card ID >In a related vein (to the problems about AT&T needing SS#), I recently >read an article that quoted the head of CitiCorp's credit security. >He said that thousands of retailers all over the country had started >asking purchasers to supply a home phone number along with credit card >purchases. He stated that this had no purpose, because the merchant >is always payed by the card company, and that there was no need for >the merchant to call the customer. Actually, if you listen carefully, much of the time they ask for "a phone number". If they aren't specific about asking for "your phone number", you can can follow their instructions to the letter and give them any random phone number you feel like (though I think some salespersons might notice something strange about getting a 976 or 900 number). They may also ask for "a home phone number" instead of "your home phone number". I heard this from my boss who's been doing it for years. Steve Glaser glaser@starch.enet.dec.com ------------------------------ From: Mike Van Pelt Subject: Re: Credit Card ID Date: 12 Apr 90 20:16:07 GMT Reply-To: Mike Van Pelt Organization: Video 7 + G2 = Headland Technology In article <6295@accuvax.nwu.edu> cpqhou!scotts@uunet.uu.net writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 249, Message 10 of 13 >... the head of CitiCorp's credit security ... said that thousands of >retailers all over the country had started asking purchasers to supply >a home phone number along with credit card purchases. He stated that >this had no purpose ... > ... the reason they ask is simple. It is a great way to advertise. I came across another reason a few weeks ago. I went out for lunch with several people at work, and one person paid with a credit card. After we got back, he got a phone call telling him that he had left his card at the restaurant. At first he wondered how on earth they had gotten his work number, then he remembered that that's what he had written down when they asked for a phone number. Almost every place that accepts credit cards asks for a phone number. But I can't recall having gotten junk calls from any but a few big chain stores. Certainly not from restaurants. Mike Van Pelt Windows + Icons + Mouse Headland Technology/Video 7 + Pointer == WIMP. ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 90 13:58:22 EDT From: "C. Harald Koch" Subject: Re: Quirk With "The Universal Card" Reply-To: "C. Harald Koch" Organization: Alias Research Inc., Toronto ON Canada In article <6210@accuvax.nwu.edu> TELECOM Moderator writes: >[Moderator's Note: Probably the customer service representative was >'so haughty' because they perceived they were dealing with still >another in the growing number of people who mistakenly believe the >credit grantor *has* to give them credit no matter what. Credit >grantors are entitled to set any criteria they please -- save certain >illegal criteria -- and your options are to meet their criteria or do >without their credit. Credit is a privilege, not an automatic right; >and provided all applicants must meet the same requirements, there is >no unlawful discrimination; i.e. you have no valid complaint. You >chose not to identify yourself to their satisfaction. PT] [ While this does not have direct bearing on telephones, it is an issue that has been brought up here a few times now. ] In Canada it only legal to require a SIN (Social Insurance Number) for things involving taxation or benefits from Revenue Canada (Canada Pension Plan, Unemployment Insurance, etc). It is illegal to require a SIN for any other purpose, including all credit applications (although most companies have a SIN box on their forms). I am not sure about the legality of requiring a social security number for identification in the US, but for credit it is most certainly unecessary and 'immoral'. While I agree that a credit grantor does not have to give credit, they certainly must have just cause to refuse you credit. If they do not have a good reason, (and not giving your number is not a good reason) then they are practicing discrimination, which I am lead to believe is discouraged in the US... :-) C. Harald Koch Alias Research, Inc., Toronto ON Canada chk%alias@csri.utoronto.ca chk@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu chk@chk.mef.org ------------------------------ From: Jan Hinnerk Haul Subject: Re: Deutsche Bundespost Breakup -- Can Someone Tell the Story? Date: 10 Apr 90 21:25:35 GMT Organization: Me, Myself, and I - Wedel, West Germany dmwatt@athena.mit.edu (David M Watt) writes: >I read elsewhere on the net that Deutsch Bundespost has recently been >split into three parts, and is now competing under market conditions. True. One part for postal services ("Postdienst"), one for financial services (no-credit checkbook and savings accounts, "Postbank") and one for telecommunications ("Telekom"). >I understand that modems faster than 1200 baud are illegal (!) in the >FRG because of regulations that were promulgated and enforced by D.B. Not true. You can rent modems up to 2400 bps (V.22bis) async and 4800 bps sync. You can buy (sligthly modified) Trailblazer 2500s as "Logem T2500" from Kabelmetal Electro here. And you can (provided you live in one of the ten bigger cities, the rest of the country following until '93) go ISDN and use a PC Board (64 Kbit per second, about DM 2500, that's 1300-1400 US$) or terminal adapter (38.4 kbps, about DM 1250) if you like fast transfer rates for ordinary phone charges (national long-distance about 0.01 DM/second peek time). >I also heard that many, many people in Germany were disobeying those >rules. Could someone provide some background and history about all of >this? What does it mean to the German modem punter? True :-) Well, since the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Constitutional Court, like the Supreme Court in the U.S.) cancelled the law the Bundespost used to sue "inofficial" modem owners, subsequently another court decided that the use of a modem (or other telephone device) allowed by the P.T.T. of any European Community country is not legal, but you cannot get punished for doing so :-) The legal hassles will be somewhat unclear till midyear 1991, when all telephone equipment legal in one EC country will be legal in Germany. I hope this clarifies the situation a bit. Jan Hinnerk Haul ------------------------------ From: Bob Stratton Subject: Re: Access to the 'BTX' System of West German Telco Date: 11 Apr 90 19:48:29 GMT Reply-To: Bob Stratton Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA In article <6204@accuvax.nwu.edu> covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert) writes: >P.S.: I'd like to ask the Moderator to please not refer to X.131 >addresses on X.25 networks as "a network address on Telenet." [excellent clarification deleted] >Only numbers beginning with "3106" are "on Telenet." Just a quick correction: The DNIC for Telenet is 3110, Tymnet's is 3106. Bob Stratton | UUCP: strat@cup.portal.com, strat@well.sf.ca.us Stratton Sys. Design| GEnie: R.STRATTON32 Delphi: RJSIII Prodigy: WHMD84A Alexandria, VA | PSTN: 703.765.4335 (Home Ofc.) 703.591.7101 (Office) ------------------------------ From: Dave Esan Subject: Re: The Card Date: 12 Apr 90 19:14:56 GMT Reply-To: Dave Esan Organization: Moscom Corp., E. Rochester, NY In article <5757@accuvax.nwu.edu> PMW1@psuvm.psu.edu (Peter Weiss) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 215, Message 2 of 12 >I just applied for the above credit card. They wanted to know the >number of years at my current residence/job, address of home/job, my >bank name, my approx. salary, my mother's maiden name, how I heard >about the 800 number. I too applied for the card. They wanted my social security number. From too much reading of Misc.consumers I decided that it wasn't required for them to know that. If they were reporting interest paid to me they would have legitimate claim, but they don't give me money, I pay interest to them (if I am late with a payment). So I told them that I wouldn't give it to them. Well, Jim-Bob Good-Ole-Boy, who could barely read the prepared script, got real bent out of shape. He sent me off to his supervisor (a man whose voice gave the mental image of Ron Ziegler, Nixon's press secretary) who told me that VISA and MasterCard had given ATT permission to ask for SS numbers. I replied that requiring the number was a violation of federal law. He said everything was confidential. I replied that only the IRS and interest paying institutions required my SS number, and repeated the federal law statement. He again ignored me and told me that they would not tell anyone, that it was okay, he was aware of this problem. They decided to mail me an application. Six days later I am still waiting for that mail. Sure would like that card. Sure would like supervisors with some brains. --> David Esan {rutgers, ames, harvard}!rochester!moscom!de ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Apr 90 14:53 EST From: Krislyn Companies <0002293637@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: MCI Mail Special Offer David Tamkin writes ... > MCI Mail is running a special introductory offer; I'm not sure how > much longer it will be on. They are waiving the $25 annual fee for > the first year of the account and posting a $100.00 credit usable > toward email and, I believe, paper mail (but not, I think, fax or > Telex). The offer is good until the end of April (it was extended one month from the end of April). The credit is good until the end of May, so the sooner you sign up the more time you have to spend the credit. The credit is good on email, paper mail, fax, and telex. The only thing it's not good on is Dow Jones News Retrieval (and Tymenet access to MCI Mail, which you don't need to do in the continental U.S. because access is available via 800 numbers. I'd be happy to provide more information ... drop an email note or call (800) 648-3581. Paul Wilczynski Krislyn Computer Services Authorized MCI Mail Agency ------------------------------ From: fmsystm!macy@cwjcc.ins.cwru.edu Date: Wed Apr 11 21:16:42 1990 Subject: Re: Loop Start vs Ground Start, a User Intro Organization: F M Systems, Inc. Medina (where's that?) Ohio USA In article <6111@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Higdon writes: Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 235, Message 7 of 11 >>George Horwath writes: >> 2) Depending on how bad glare is/ground start trunk availability/costs/etc. >> loop start trunks can be marked as one-way incoming or one-way >> outgoing but now more trunks are needed. This feature also depends on >> the brand of PBX. >In the real world of modern CO switches (1ESS or newer) glare is a >negligible problem. Unlike SXS and crossbar, electronic/digital >switches apply ring current simultaneously with the connection to the >called party. Once any PBX sees that ring, the trunk is instantly >taken out of the pool for outside calls. Therefore, even systems with >loop start trunks need not segregate the available lines for incoming >vs outgoing. (It may not seem as though ring is applied instantly, >since all electronic/digital switches will at least occasionally >provide ringback which is out of phase with the actual ring voltage >cadence applied to the called line.) John, what you say should be true. Immediate ring is supposed to be a feature on those new-fangled electronic CO's, but it doesn't seem to work that way every time. On most CO's, one of the design parameters involves distributing the ringing load on the ring generator supplies. This is done by only ringing a portion of the lines at once...usually in four or five split groups. The "clocking" (if you will) of the groups always running, so when a line is to be rung, the CO assigns it to one of these groups (using whatever logic it has been given to select which group) and the line rings when the ring cycle time (1 on, 4 off) comes around. This is almost the same situation that would occur in Xbar and SXS offices. The primary difference is what happens during the glare interval ... some electronics CO's are not supposed to "land" the call until the ring cycle begins. Now, one of the features that came out with the more sophisticated Xbar system, and was to be continued with ESS was immediate splash of ring. This feature put a brief splash of ring out on the line just as the call "landed". This works well, but many newer CO's seem to drop this feature when they are busy. You often hear a funny, mis-timed "ring-ring" when the call lands, the splash of ring occurs and then the normal ring timing cycle takes over. In the past few years, I notice that fewer CO's have this feature. I wonder if they are phasing it out in the new generics? Another problem is intentionally slow ring sense in key systems and PBX's. Several people have mentioned in the Digest that their phones make an odd sound (a beep or click) and any line loop status indicators they have blink in the middle of the night. This is caused by the telco's automatic line test equipment, which changes the voltages on the line when it scans the line. This test scan voltage change can look like the first part of a ring to a phone system, and if the system is not properly designed, a false incoming ring state will occur. (Just try and get the telco to take the blame on this one! I have a couple of residence key systems that had this problem, and it was a real fight with the telco to prove it!)) So most phone equipment manufacturers design their equipment to ignore the first 0.5 second of ringing. Some even ignore the first ring altogether (Ugly! Ugly!) to prevent false rings. The better designed PBX's will prohibit an outgoing call from seizing a trunk during this 0.5 second interval, but its not too common. So, ground start lives, and will be with us for quite a while yet. It should be noted that I find very few lines give loop disconnect supervision anymore, except in older offices. The telco will sometimes give you loop (CPC) disconnect on a loop start line, on request, but don't count on it. Ground start is still the only reliable way to prevent call collisions and get reliable disconnect. Macy M. Hallock, Jr. macy@NCoast.ORG uunet!aablue!fmsystm!macy F M Systems, Inc. {uunet!backbone}!usenet.cwru.edu!ncoast!fmsystm!macy 150 Highland Drive Voice: +1 216 723-3000 Ext 251 Fax: +1 216 723-3223 Medina, Ohio 44256 USA Cleveland:273-3000 Akron:239-4994 (Dial 251 at tone) (Please note that our system name is "fmsystm" with no "e", .NOT. "fmsystem") ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Apr 90 08:35:27 -0700 From: sovamcccp@cdp.uucp Subject: Re: Networking in the Soviet Union Yes, you are right Robert. Complete name is Institute for Automated Systems. SovAm Joint venture occupied second floor at the same building in Moscow, so I'm here right now (-; Andrei ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 90 8:15:55 CDT From: Will Martin Subject: A Real "555" Exchange Reply-To: wmartin@st-louis-emh2.army.mil We're going to move our offices in mid-summer, and all our phone numbers will change. I just learned that our new Autovon exchange is going to be "555". Now, nobody will believe us when we tell them our Autovon numbers... :-) :-) :-) Regards, Will ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #251 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa29101; 14 Apr 90 2:23 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa00284; 14 Apr 90 0:48 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab04317; 13 Apr 90 23:44 CDT Date: Fri, 13 Apr 90 22:54:15 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #252 BCC: Message-ID: <9004132254.ab29074@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 13 Apr 90 22:53:01 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 252 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Urban Legend About Eavesdropping Using Key Telephone Lamps [Larry Lippman] Call *Captures* and the Modern-day Detective [Bruce Waldman] Telco Procedure for Installing DID [Steve Elias] Looking For Frequencies Used By Cordless Phones [John Hoekstra] Naushon Island, Mass. [Carl Moore] Telecommunications Standards [Paul Maclauchlan] Ten New AT&T Direct Dial Countries [John R. Covert] Voice/Modem Switches [mvm@cup.portal.com] Band Aids (TM) For the "Drug War" Hemorrage [John Boteler] Ground Start *Phones* [Edward Greenberg] Need Translators [Leonard P. Levine] Looking For Modem Design [Mike Jarvis] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Urban Legend About Eavesdropping Using Key Telephone Lamps Date: 12 Apr 90 01:06:31 EST (Thu) From: Larry Lippman In article <6195@accuvax.nwu.edu> Leichter-Jerry@CS.YALE.EDU@venus.ycc. yale.edu writes: > It's claimed that the reason Ma Bell was so slow to replace the little > incandescent bulbs in multi-line phones with LED's was a security > problem. It seems that voices on the line modulate the power > available to the indicators. The reluctance of the old incandescents > was high enough that no useful information could be gotten from > them, but it was alleged that the LED's provided a nice clear signal > which could be read, say, with a decent telescope and a little > equipment, from the building across the street. Just when I thought I'd heard them all... :-) In a 1A, 1A1 or 1A2 key telephone system, which is the only apparatus having incandescent lamps that fits your description, there is absolutely *no* connection between any voice path and the 10 VAC circuit which operates the lamps. Replacing the 51-type lamp with an LED isn't going to make any difference. The only device which *could* modulate lamp power is the 3-type speakerphone, where the lamp is powered from the same unregulated, rectified DC which feeds the amplifier circuitry. However, only gross variations on level with excessive receive gain to the point of distortion (not likely) could cause enough supply voltage fluctuation to be visible on the lamp. Even under these extremely rare circumstances, I doubt that any intelligence could be demodulated using a photometric detector aimed at the ON lamp - even if the ON lamp were an LED. By the time LED's became common, the 4-type speakerphone had already replaced its 3-type predecessor. Incidently, modulating lamps in a manner undetectable to the human eye has been used as a transmission medium for eavesdropping devices. However, there is no factual basis or connection to the particular urban legend which you relate. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp. <> UUCP {boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!acsu.buffalo.edu!kitty!larry <> TEL 716/688-1231 || 716/773-1700 {utzoo|uunet}!/ \uniquex!larry <> FAX 716/741-9635 || 716/773-2488 "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 90 01:09:25 EDT From: Bruce Waldman Subject: Call *Captures* and the Modern-day Detective I have recently been receiving various sorts of threatening calls from an anonymous person. I reported it to the police, and they offered to put a tap on the phone, etc. But I am wondering about the possibilites. One of my friends tells me she used to get regular calls from someone where nothing was said, and the person then hung up. New England Telephone registered her line in some sort of "capture" system. After she got one of these calls, she was supposed to call an 800 number immediately, and the origination of the previous call would be recorded. She had to sign some sort of agreement stating that she would press charges against the caller once he or she was identified. My friend was told that the length of the call did not matter, this would all be done automatically. Is this possible, and how? Only in special exchanges? (Apparently the caller was never identified or else New England Tel did not choose to communicate this information to my friend.) In my own case, what are the possibilities? How difficult would it be for the phone company to identify callers? Would it make a difference what sort of exchange the call originated from? Would it make a difference whether the call originated locally or from a long distance carrier, and would it make a difference which long distance carrier it was? As you can see, I am rather naive about the capabilities of the phone company. In the movies, the police always try to keep the ransom-demanders on the phone for enough time that they can physically trace the calls I guess, but is this now unnecessary? I'd be grateful for relatively non-technical enlightenment. Bruce Waldman, bw@harvarda.bitnet waldman2@husc4.harvard.edu ...!harvard!husc4!waldman2 ------------------------------ Subject: Telco Procedure For Installing DID Reply-To: eli@spdcc.com Date: Thu, 12 Apr 90 08:04:08 -0400 From: Steve Elias A friend of mine who makes voice mail & auto attendant systems for a living told me the standard procedure for getting DID lines installed: o Telco person arrives and says he can't find your line and isn't really sure what DID is, anyway. o A few days later, telco person arrives and says you aren't providing battery. o A few days later, telco person arrives and says you aren't providing wink. o A few days later, telco person says everything is working, but your equipment doesn't see any DID digits. o Telco person says, we are sending digits. You say: aren't. He says: are. o Finally, after a few weeks and possible iterations of all this, they get everything right! Currently, I'm on step three above. I'll have 100 incoming fax numbers here at work if the telco and my operating system ever get it together! Now, that's a big opportunity for incoming junk fax, eh? :) ; Steve Elias, eli@spdcc.com. !! MAIL TO eli@spdcc.com ONLY !! ; 617 932 5598, 508 671 7556, computerfax 508 671 7447, realfax 508 671 7419 ------------------------------ From: John Hoekstra Subject: Looking For Frequencies Used By Cordless Phones Date: 12 Apr 90 12:59:22 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL Someone posted a little while ago the ten frequencies assigned to cordless phones. I thought that I saved that article but I apparently failed to do so. Could that person repost those frequencies again? Mucho appreciated. What are the optimal channels for cordless phones? I just bought an AT&T 5200 cordless phone which uses channels seven and nine. When using channel seven I get an occasional buzzing hum but I do not get that hum when using channel nine. I first thought the cause was our Fisher Price baby monitor which uses channels A and D (I have no idea what the correlation of A and D have to the ten channels that the FCC allocates). The buzzing hum occurs for channel seven regardless if the baby monitor is set to channel A or D or if the baby monitor is turned off. This eliminates our baby monitor as the cause or so it seems. This leads to some questions: 1. Does anyone have a good explanation to why channel seven may be experiencing that buzzing hum? 2. Are there some of the ten channels that can be considered more optimal than others? The Phone Center that I went to only offered phones that consisted of either the channels seven and nine combination or the channels six and eight combination. Not much of a choice. I still would like to know because I can always go to another Phone Center store. 3. Does anyone know what frequency channels A and D use for the Fisher Price monitors? Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. John Hoekstra Motorola, Inc. General Systems Group uunet!motcid!hoekstra ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 90 10:12:15 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Naushon Island, Mass. There was a recent article about the 299 exchange on Naushon Island, Mass. in this Digest. (Now in area 508.) I was again able to use the Bellcore number for prefix punch-in, and got Falmouth (on the nearby mainland) for 508-299. Getting a town name does not mean that the prefix serves the town proper. ------------------------------ From: Paul Maclauchlan Subject: Telecommunications Standards Organization: Moore Corporation Limited, Toronto ON, Canada Date: Thu, 12 Apr 90 15:26:32 GMT We are in the process of establishing some minimum uniform standards for telecommunications. The standards are expected to define the requirements for development, operation, reliability, effectiveness and security. Does anyone have published standards within their organization that they would be willing to share with us, for the purpose of evaluation and providing a guideline for our own document? Our initial task is preparing standards for problem tracking. After that we plan to move onto other areas that should be addressed by the standards. Any suggestions? Any general comments on how you have established standards will also be appreciated. Please email any information you are willing to share. With permission from the authors, I will summarize and post my findings. Thank you. .../Paul Maclauchlan Moore Corporation Limited, Toronto, Ontario (416) 364-2600 paul@moore.UUCP -or- ...!uunet!attcan!telly!moore!paul ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 90 20:35:10 PDT From: "John R. Covert 12-Apr-1990 2335" Subject: Ten New AT&T Direct Dial Countries AT&T has begun direct dial service to the following ten countries: 964 Iraq (service being restored after several years of interruption) 95 Burma 685 Western Samoa 686 Kiribati Republic 262 Reunion 253 Djibouti 226 Burkina Faso (Upper Volta) 232 Sierra Leone 223 Mali 248 Seychelles The official due date is 15 April, but in most cases you'll find that it's in. I suspect everyone has heard the news that Albania will be able to be reached by AT&T international operators (currently manual transit through Italy is required) as of May. Direct dial service (355) will begin in September. Likewise Mayotte, currently transiting through France, will get direct operator service in May and then become dialable (269) at some future time. Mayotte has been dialable via Sprint for some time, but has only been reachable on direct access lines or in a few places (states near Minnesota) where the C.O.s put the code in without an order from AT&T. Sprint doesn't tend to request local telco installation of codes; in addition to Mayotte, Sprint provides difficult to reach direct dial service to 674 Nauru and 677 Solomon Islands. With AT&T's addition of Western Samoa and the Kiribati Republic, Sprint customers get access to Sprint's previously difficult to use direct dial service. /john ------------------------------ From: ames!ames!claris!portal!cup.portal.com!MVM@uunet.uu.net Subject: Voice/Modem Switches Date: Thu, 12-Apr-90 21:00:59 PDT Here in Southwestern Bell country (Oklahoma), new to the CENTREX offerings is Personalized Ring. It is known under different names in different locations, but what is offered (for a monthly fee, of course here, $10/month for three) are two or up to four (maximum) distinct rings/numbers via one telephone line. I have a modem answering device; it will answer via modem and store data in RAM to be retrieved later with your PC (or mini or frame). Unlike a fax, a calling modem does not generate a tone to trigger a switch, which is how ALL of the "automatic" fax switches work, i.e., the calling fax's tone switches the switch. No manufacturer I have queried can provide me with an "automatic" switch for a modem/voice line. The closest to such is one which can recognize a modem tone from the calling party, which means all users would have to be trained to call me in the answer mode. No way, Jose. (I cannot even get my clients to sign their names on the correct line!) Does anyone know of a switch which can do what I need? Or is my only answer to mortgage my soul for eternity to Southwestern Bell at $10/month for its Personalized Ring service (after buying an appropriate switch to switch among the rings)? mvm@cup.portal.com ------------------------------ Subject: Band Aids (TM) for the "Drug War" Hemorrage Date: Fri, 13 Apr 90 3:59:41 EDT From: John Boteler [ discussing US West's dial replacement program in the Minneapolis area to thwart drug dealers ] With the cash these boyz carry around with them, it is trivial to walk into Radio Shack, plunk down US$20 for a pocket tone dialer, and thumb their coca-stained noses at US West and the knights in shining badges. Changing the COS to outgoing only seems much more effective if callbacks are the MO. (Acronyms included for Robert's benefit.) John Boteler {zardoz|uunet!tgate|cos!}ka3ovk!media!csense!bote NCN NudesLine: 703-241-BARE -- VOICE only, Touch-Tone (TM) accessible ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Apr 90 10:10 PDT From: Edward_Greenberg@cso.3mail.3com.com Subject: Ground Start *Phones* John Higdon writes: >Except for some lineman's sets, there are no "ground-start phones". >Ground-start trunks are for PBXs and other complex equipment, not >for ordinary telephone sets. It's true that (almost) nobody would order a ground start line for a POTS (plain old telephone service) line, but here's a situation where a 2500 set (standard touch tone desk set) was equipped with a grounding button: In most PBX installations, when both power and backup power fails, certain stations are direct-connected to certain trunks. This allows, for example, the main number to ring at security, and one phone in each functional area to receive dial tone, for the duration of the power outage. This feature is called power fail transfer. In one installation, the sets designated for power fail transfer were equipped with grounding buttons, since the lines that they'd be receiving in case of outage were ground start lines. Those who "needed to know" were briefed that in case of switch outage, they needed to press the button to receive a dial tone. edg@cso.3mail.3com.com ------------------------------ From: Leonard P Levine Subject: Need Translators Date: 14 Apr 90 01:27:52 GMT Reply-To: len@csd4.csd.uwm.edu A student of mine works in the Miwaukee Bone Marrow unit and recently had a difficult experience with a patient who came from Brazil and spoke no English. No Portugese (sp?) speaking staff were available. I recall that some arm of ATT supported operators who had multilingual experience. Might they be pressed into service in a medical problem such as this? What are they called, where, etc. It is probably best just to email me this, as it did appear earlier and may not be of general interest. Leonard P. Levine e-mail len@cs.uwm.edu Professor, Computer Science Office (414) 229-5170 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Home (414) 962-4719 Milwaukee, WI 53201 U.S.A. FAX (414) 229-6958 ------------------------------ From: mjarvis@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Mike Jarvis) Subject: Looking for Modem Design Date: Thu, 12 Apr 90 21:36:6 GMT Reply-To: mjarvis@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Mike Jarvis) Organization: Cal Poly State Univ,CSC Dept,San Luis Obispo,CA 93407 I am looking for a modem kit to put together for a Manufacturing Processes course here at Cal Poly. If anyone has built their own modem and would be willing to share the schematic and other info for it, I would appreciate it. I would also be willing to pay for it. Plagiarism is not a factor here as this course emphasis production and not design. I will have to put the design onto our CAD/CAM system for production so legible schematics are needed. If you know of a design published in any magazines or kits available, these would also work. I am looking for a design for a 9600 bps (or 2400) external modem with it's own power supply contained in it and working led's providing status information. The connection would, of course, be through a RS-232 port using serial communications. Hayes compatible command set would be nice, but is not necessary. Please send all responses to mjarvis@polyslo.calpoly.edu Thank you. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #252 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa04066; 14 Apr 90 4:26 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa25300; 14 Apr 90 2:54 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa26706; 14 Apr 90 1:49 CDT Date: Sat, 14 Apr 90 1:10:20 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #253 BCC: Message-ID: <9004140110.ab27076@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 14 Apr 90 01:08:34 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 253 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Toll Free Phone Numbers in South Africa [Shawn Lipman] Re: Coin Station Fraud Using External Ground [Leo Williams] Re: Call Trace Question [Eric J. Johnson] Re: Sprint's Disconnections [Andrew Freeman] Re: US West and the War on Drugs [John Higdon] Re: Dutch, British Telecom [Herman R. Silbiger] Re: Cellular Phone Reprogramming [Kelly Goen] Re: Cellular Phone Reprogramming [John Boteler] Re: Cellular Phone Reprogramming [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Apr 90 20:20:41 MET DST Organization: IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria From: tuvie!gargoyle.uchicago.edu!tabbs!shawn (Shawn Lipman) Subject: Toll Free Phone Numbers in South Africa In TELECOM Digest 10/231, Peter J. Dotzauer writes: > > Does anyone have a list of toll-free services for foreign countries, > > such as the 800 service in North America and the 0130 service in > > Germany? South Africa has been testing tollfree systems for a short while now. The first test system (which will continue operating for approximately six months) is the 0100 system. This system allows users to call a number anywhere within SA (which is registered as tollfree) for the cost of a local call. This is only a small system which allows 999 numbers ie 0100-xxx (where xxx is from 001-999) A newer, more advanced system has just been introduced called the 080 system. The country is divided into five regions, of which each is assigned a region number (similar to that of the area dialing code). As an example here is an imaginary tollfree Johannesburg number .. 08011-10001 (where the 080 is the tollfree identifier, 11 the region code and the last five digits the actual number). One thing that is different to other tollfree systems in other countries is that the software running the system has been loaded onto the existing exchanges ... ie; no extra equipment has had to be put in place. Shawn ------------------------------ From: williams@cs.umass.edu Subject: Re: Coin Station Fraud Using External Ground Date: 11 Apr 90 19:16:49 GMT Organization: COINS, UMass, Amherst In article <6122@accuvax.nwu.edu>, wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (David Lesher) writes... >There was another type of fraud that seemed to be common a few years >ago in San Francisco. The {direct} victim, however was the user. >Someone was opening the one side of the line. Folks would come up, not >bother to listen for DTF, and drop in money. The powerless >one_arm_bandit would hold onto the money. After half a day or so, the >thief would come back, reconnect the pair, and collect all the money >spilling into the return chute. An even simpler version of this scam is used in many countries - just jamming the return path somehow. Broken phones that appear functional are favorite targets because none of the money is "lost" by the crook to a completed call, but in lots of places you don't get a dial tone until after you put in your money anyway. This scam is especially common in places that have lots of foot traffic and people in a hurry - train stations, info centers, etc. You can be on the lookout for such scams by noticing people hanging around waiting for a particular phone even when another phone becomes free. Another clue is when someone in a phone line lets you go ahead of them. These guys need to hang around to watch the phone and grab the money after every few attempted calls, otherwise some other con artist might beat them to it. In Amsterdam, it was a steady source of income for a bunch of train station regulars - from teenagers to old folks. The phone company keeps redesigning the phones to make it more difficult. When they made the return slot doors harder to jam, these guys started carrying screwdrivers and bars and just bent the doors to jam the return. When they changed the doors again to a cast material to prevent bending, they would jam the slot with gum or toilet/tissue paper coated with various disgusting and discouraging matter. The phone company recently replaced half the phones in the city with phones that only accept "phone cards". These are paper cards containing a magnetic strip with a number of pre-paid "call units" encoded on it. That way the phone company gets its money in advance and there's no money in the phone for the crooks. On the other hand, if you don't have a phone card and the adjacent regular phone is broken (very common), you're out of luck! Vandalizing phones seems to be a national sport in Holland - but that's another article. Trying to find a functional phone is a city can be very difficult. Often the best solution is to use a phone in a bar or hotel, but then you'll pay twice the normal rate. 8-( Leo c/o williams@cs.umass.edu ------------------------------ From: "Eric J. Johnson" Subject: Re: Call Trace Question Reply-To: "Eric J. Johnson" Organization: U S West Communications Date: Fri, 13 Apr 90 15:20:18 GMT In article <6246@accuvax.nwu.edu> smk@attunix.att.com (S M Krieger) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 246, Message 9 of 12 >Along with the Caller ID feature, NJ Bell quietly implemented a Call >Trace feature. By pushing a certain code (I think it's *79), the last >number that called will be saved and provided to the police; each >trace costs $1.00. 1. At least here, call traces cannot be provided to the police (or anyone else, for that matter) without a court order. NO EXCEPTIONS. To do otherwise would be an invasion of privacy. 2. COT traces will, however, be saved in a database to be used in the event of a security investigation/court order. >Now for my question: if the originating exchange does not support >Caller ID, etc., does anybody know what number will be provided if COT does not depend on 'Caller ID' being available. >Call Trace is activiated? Obviously it can't be the phone number that >just called, but will it be a "blank", or will it be the last number >for which a trace was available (and if it is, I don't even want to If the traced call originated outside the common channel signaling area, (SS7 area), the subscriber may receive an announcement informing them that the trace could not be performed. The current recommended message is: 'A complete trace cannot be generated for your last incoming call. Please contact your telco for further assistance.' In most cases, the fact that the trace was not complete will be recorded with as much information as possible, for instance the calling number may not be available, but the incoming trunk may be. This is still quite useful in a security investigation. >think about the legal implications of the telco reporting the wrong >originating number to the police)? I do not understand where you see a 'wrong number' being applied here. All COT traces are logged separately. Eric J. Johnson UUCP: eric@null.uucp The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and in no way reflect the will of Landru. (or U S WEST Communications) ------------------------------ From: drew@pro-europa.cts.com (Andrew Freeman) Subject: Re: Sprint's Disconnections Date: 13 Apr 90 03:36:08 GMT In-Reply-To: message from john@zygot.ati.com I have Sprint and I have not ever been disconnected. I guess that is pretty strange. I am probably going to subscribe to the AT&T new LD service. Pay $2 a month and receive 20-25% off all calls! That is a pretty nice deal. Drew uucp: crash!pro-europa!drew arpanet: crash!pro-europa!drew@nosc.mi inet: drew@pro-europa.cts.com bitnet: pro-europa.uucp!drew@psuvax1 america online: Drew5 ------------------------------ Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: US West and the War on Drugs Date: 13 Apr 90 10:51:29 PDT (Fri) From: John Higdon Clayton Cramer writes: > Don't laugh -- last year a Congresswoman from Maryland introduced a > bill that would make it a 3-year prison sentence for selling, renting, > or lending a pager to someone under 21. I think US West (by installing rotary phones) and our congresscritters (as mentioned above) are going about this all wrong. Without incurring the ire of anyone except possibly the curmugeons reading this forum, the area could be declared a "COCOT Zone" and only COCOTs would be allowed there. This would effectively prevent any useful communications to or from any drug dealers. I don't know how many times a COCOT has prevented me from checking my voice mail. The same roadblocks would also prevent activation of pagers! John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: hrs1@cbnewsi.ATT.COM (herman.r.silbiger) Subject: Re: Dutch, British Telecom (was Billing and Answer Supervision) Date: 13 Apr 90 03:26:12 GMT Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In article <6125@accuvax.nwu.edu>, john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > windowless room that had an entire wall of mechanical digital > counters. I was told that these were for traffic analysis, not for > billing. You are right, that's what they were used for. Interestingly enough, these counters were made in Geneva, Switzerland by SODECO. They were probably the same counters used by the PTTs for billing. I still have a few in a cigar box in my workshop. Herman Silbiger ------------------------------ From: Kelly Goen Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Reprogramming Date: 13 Apr 90 09:21:39 GMT Reply-To: Kelly Goen Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA Well Patrick, again you suprise me. Supporting end user programming of cellular phones doesnt sound like you ... but I LIKE it ... Are we allowed to publish openly for this contest??? I will contribute the magic numbers and sequences for the GE Mini and the Mitsubishi 800 if so. Also there is a master guide for about 795.00 per year with monthly updates available to service shops hard copy only as far as I know at this point, but I am hoping to find it published on CD ROM; I will let you know. If enough people contribute we can have our own independent archive. Seriously though I have found the best way to gain access and photocopies of these instructions is to tell the dealer that you are installing a dial tone simulator for cellular data transmission such as a tellujak. They instantly fall into NIH and hand over the instructions as most of this equipment requires several custom options you have to twiddle. Cheers, Kelly p.s. There's hope for you yet... [Moderator's Note: I'm glad you are optimistic about my condition. Do I in general support the rights of cell phone owners to program their units in a *non-fraudulent* way? Yes. Am I naive about the use some people would make of the programming information? No. Read the next message. PT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Reprogramming Date: Fri, 13 Apr 90 4:05:13 EDT From: John Boteler It should no more be permissible for customers to be able to change their cellular phone programming at will than it is for phone customers to be permitted dialup access to their ESSs to change their features at will, en masse. Unless chaos is the desired goal. In fact, some user-interface features are programmable, especially in the newer phones. The ones dealing with security and like concerns are clearly not included in this set. John Boteler {zardoz|uunet!tgate|cos!}ka3ovk!media!csense!bote NCN NudesLine: 703-241-BARE -- VOICE only, Touch-Tone (TM) accessible ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Reprogramming Date: Fri, 13 Apr 90 23:00:00 CDT There is no legitimate reason for a user to change the serial number identification of his unit. There are legitimate reasons to be able to change the phone number and Home Default, to name two options. Consider this: If I travel frequently between two or three cities, and I use cellular service in each, my options now are to have two or three phones (one homed in each city), or have one home city and pay (sometimes) outrageous roaming rates in the other two cities, or pay a dealer to reprogram the unit for another city as its home in the event I have an actual number there. Why can't I subscribe to cellular service (and have an actual phone number) in each city I routinely visit, with the numbers going to voice mail when I am not in town? When my plane lands, I, (me, myself rather than a dealer) reprogram the phone to let's say home on 00020 for Ameritech/Chicago or 00001 for Cellular One/Chicago. I put in the phone number I am paying for in this city, and proceed to do business with my (now) home carrier. The carrier already has my serial number, of course, since they got that when I first signed up for service in their city. Instead of roamer rates, I get home carrier rates. Why do I have to go to a dealer for that? Why would 'chaos' result from this any more than it results from me moving my landline phone from one apartment to another and plugging it in the jack? Why did the telcos replace hardwired phones with modular jacks if they were worried about chaos? People with the knowledge of how to defraud the cellular carrier are probably the same people who -- if they live in an older, rapidly decaying inner city area like myself -- also know how to go to the basement of their apartment building and snatch the pairs for anyone in the building and half the people on the same block. Should I be forced to live with a hardwired phone and a terminal box I can't get into merely because I *might* put calls on your line? Should I have to call telco installation if I want to move the wires from one place to another on my premises for the same reason? Does chaos result when people run new wires from the telco demarc to their apartment? If anything, cellular service is more secure than landline simply because unlike the wire pair, the cellular equivalent of the pair (the serial number) is virtually unchangeable. Program whatever phone number you like; if the ESN does not match -- at least in local service -- the call won't go through. I agree there are some problems with the absolute use of the serial number as the identification of last resort when roaming, but this is gradually being corrected by most carriers. Unlike what Geoff Goodfellow said in his article on cellular security (see TELECOM Archives), the manufacturers now are really keeping the serial number very secure. The chip is buried under wax on my unit, for gosh sakes! And even if it were not, would YOU want a bunch of ostentatious dip-switches or micro-toggle switches on your unit to show what you were up to? A hard-core phreak can/will break into anything telecom-related. But the honest cellular user should be able to adjust his phone for the city he is in and carrier he is using in the same way a subscriber of regular telco services picks up his phone, carries it across town and plugs it in right away. If I go to New York or Boston, and have a hardwired phone installed, I don't have to pay special 'roamer' rates, nor do I have to pay an installer to put the phone in to insure I don't cheat New York Tel of their due. Of course, if there were detailed, descriptive messages here in the Digest explaining how to do it model by model, it would only be a short time until some nitwit at the [New York Times] ran an article headlined 'Northwestern University computer used by phreaks to steal cellular phone service.' Mark my words. Or else one of television's Talking Heads; I call them the men with the fifty dollar hairdoos and the fifty cent brains. I have limited financial resources: I cannot afford a lawyer, and the cost of bribing a federal judge or the FBI here in Chicago is more expensive than a lot of places. I see nothing wrong with messages regarding topics such as the four or five digit carrier identification numbers; how Access, Group and Class values are assigned; or how Overload is handled. But let's keep quiet about the actual keyboard sequences typed in to enter program mode, eh? Either you know them or you don't. I haven't been in jail for so long I've forgotten what a Bologna sandwich tastes like. I'd like to keep it that way. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #253 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa07671; 14 Apr 90 7:46 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa09654; 14 Apr 90 3:58 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab25300; 14 Apr 90 2:54 CDT Date: Sat, 14 Apr 90 2:41:05 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #254 BCC: Message-ID: <9004140241.ab25784@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 14 Apr 90 02:40:21 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 254 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson PTT Station Sets; 4-Wire Circuits & "Hoot-n-holler Lines" [Larry Lippman] International TTY for the Deaf [Roy Smith] Duplexors (was: "Cellular Tech Questions") [Rob Warnock] Re: Loop Start vs Ground Start, a User Intro [Don Lewis] Re: Loop Start vs Ground Start, a User Intro [John Higdon] What Long Distance Company Does Patrick Use? [Dan Jacobson] Special Issues This Weekend [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: PTT Station Sets; 4-Wire Circuits & "Hoot-n-holler Lines" Date: 12 Apr 90 01:03:09 EST (Thu) From: Larry Lippman In article <6176@accuvax.nwu.edu> Robert.Savery@f666.n285.z1.fidonet.org (Robert Savery) writes: > >I saw a phone once ( Bell system 2500 ) that had a push to talk switch > >in the handset..... > When I was in the Air Force, I worked in a whole building of these > things. I can't remember who made them, but as the whole system was > older than the hills, I'm sure they were Bells. While Western Electric and the Bell System had the lion's share of the *fixed* installation military telephone communications market, Stromberg Carlson (div of General Dynamics) and Automatic Electric (later a div of GTE) were also well represented. I personally have a "souvenir" red secure telephone that I "rescued" from a DPDO scrap pile many years ago; this is a 4-wire device with PTT handset made by Stromberg Carlson. > As the entire building was a restricted area, quite often we'd be > discussing classified information when the phone rang. The PTT switch > was an added precaution to ensure that the person calling in didn't > hear anything they weren't supposed to. Since the phones were on > unsecure lines, you could never tell when Ivan might've been > listening! While the PTT switch may have appeared to benefit security, this was most likely not its intended purpose. Chances are the stations which had the PTT handsets were 4-wire with connection to AUTOVON and/or dedicated command circuits. While AUTOVON requires a 4-wire circuit and 4-wire station set, a PTT handset is not required. However, dedicated command circuits (i.e., "hotlines" which ring a predefined set of stations without requiring dialing), which are invariably 4-wire, often create a fixed conference arrangement with a large number if stations. The PTT handset is used to eliminate what could be a horrendous amount of background noise if the common receive path summed the ambient noise from all of the station transmitters. In addition, dedicated command circuits usually have a multiplicity of alternate routing possibilities to assure reliability. Such routings may range from landline to HF to UHF to troposcatter to microwave. In the particular case of the HF and UHF options, the PTT handset assures positive transmitter control instead of relying upon VOX. Since the telephone station set does not know what communication medium it is feeding at a given time, a PTT arrangement assures compatibility with all of the above media in a manner which is transparent to the user. Furthermore, many military fixed installation station sets are multiple-line, in which case if one line requires a PTT switch, then its operation carries over to all lines appearing on such a station set - even if they don't require it (like an AUTOVON line). While I have seen multiple-line station sets with an internal switching relay for 2-wire/4-wire operation depending upon the line selected, I have never seen one which enabled or disabled a PTT switch - i.e., the PTT switch was always enabled. Incidently, 4-wire stations with PTT handsets are not limited to the military, NASA or the FAA. While they are now being replaced with alternate methods of communication, for many years 4-wire conference circuits were extensively used by interstate trucking companies for coordination of dispatch, tracing and OS&D operations. This type of 4-wire conference circuit was commonly called a "full-period line" (somewhat of an anachronism) or "hoot-n-holler line" :-) [really!]. The most common implementation of this circuit involved one or more 4-wire station sets (sometimes with PTT, sometimes not, at discretion of facilities design engineer) at each location, along with 106-type loudspeakers in close proximity to the stations. The net result was that every station could be heard on *every* other station and *every* loudspeaker. When one station wanted to call another, they would pick up their telephone and announce in a loud voice whom they were trying to reach. The recipient would hear their name or location on the loudspeaker and then pick up their station to converse. Some of these circuits later used selective signaling (but not selective *talking*) such as SS1 or later variants to eliminate the loudspeaker. I betcha at least one TELECOM Digest reader has at one time worked for an interstate trucking company and used a "hoot-n-holler" line. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp. <> UUCP {boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!acsu.buffalo.edu!kitty!larry <> TEL 716/688-1231 || 716/773-1700 {utzoo|uunet}!/ \uniquex!larry <> FAX 716/741-9635 || 716/773-2488 "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ From: roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Subject: International TTY for the Deaf Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City Date: Fri, 13 Apr 90 15:36:56 GMT One of our faculty here in New York wants to communicate with his deaf parents in New Zealand. They have some sort of modem-and-TTY device, but we are unsure how to connect to it with the equipment we have here. Obviously, it would require an international phone call. I know that a similar service exists in the US (TDD, I think they call it) but I don't know much about it. Are the modems used compatable with any of the common data modems (v.22/bis, 212A, or 103J)? Is the system used in NZ the same as the system used in the USA? Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Apr 90 10:27:24 GMT From: Rob Warnock Subject: Duplexors (was: "Cellular Tech Questions") Reply-To: Rob Warnock Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA In article <6236@accuvax.nwu.edu> rees@citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees) writes: | I assume that any cellphone has to have an RF duplexor... These are usually | mechanical cavity resonators. At 900Mhz these would be about 8cm tall. | But in a cellphone, they must use something more sophisticated, | because the transmitter and receiver both have to be frequency-agile. No problem. All of the receiver freqs are above all of the transmitter freqs, so each is agile only on it's own side of the fence. A simple duplexor will do. John Covert gave the formula for the frequencies in <6156@accuvax.nwu.edu> (Telecom-Digest: V.10, I.239, Msg 5 of 6): | receive_freq = (if channel<991 then 870.030 MHz else 869.04) !chan 1/991 | + 30kHz x (channel - 1 or 991) | transmit_freq= (if channel<991 then 825.030 MHz else 824.04) !chan 1/991 | + 30kHz x (channel - 1 or 991) Rob Warnock, MS-9U/510 rpw3@sgi.com rpw3@pei.com Silicon Graphics, Inc. (415)335-1673 Protocol Engines, Inc. 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94039-7311 ------------------------------ From: Don Lewis Subject: Re: Loop Start vs Ground Start, a User Intro Organization: Harris Semiconductor, Melbourne, FL Date: Sat, 14 Apr 90 06:27:46 GMT In article <6358@accuvax.nwu.edu> fmsystm!macy@cwjcc.ins.cwru.edu writes: >Now, one of the features that came out with the more sophisticated >Xbar system, and was to be continued with ESS was immediate splash of >ring. This feature put a brief splash of ring out on the line just as >the call "landed". This works well, but many newer CO's seem to drop >this feature when they are busy. You often hear a funny, mis-timed >"ring-ring" when the call lands, the splash of ring occurs and then >the normal ring timing cycle takes over. This reminds me of a problem I was having with my home phones. Periodically, I would get one of these funny rings, then silence. It sounded sort of like someone had called and hung up on the first ring. I found out that if I answered the phone anyway, the party calling me was still on the line. I believe sometimes I didn't get a ring at all. Trying to explain this to the repair people was usually interesting. What was frustrating was that this tended not to be very reproduceable, and when the repair person called back it would work fine. Usually they would then go off and check it out anyway, and then it would work for a few months before breaking again. It seems to be fixed now, it's been working ok for the last nine months or so. Don "Truck" Lewis Harris Semiconductor Internet: del@mlb.semi.harris.com PO Box 883 MS 62A-028 UUCP: rutgers!soleil!thrush!del Melbourne, FL 32901 Phone: (407) 729-5205 ------------------------------ Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Loop Start vs Ground Start, a User Intro Date: 14 Apr 90 00:04:19 PDT (Sat) From: John Higdon fmsystm!macy@cwjcc.ins.cwru.edu writes: > John, what you say should be true. Immediate ring is supposed to be a > feature on those new-fangled electronic CO's, but it doesn't seem to > work that way every time. > [...] > Another problem is intentionally slow ring sense in key systems and > PBX's. Ah, this is where you have me! While I experimentally determined that my CO (a 1ESS) hit the called line with ring voltage immediately 100% of the time, sometimes it was very short indeed, sometimes not even enough to be seen by my KX-T1232 (which is very quick). So if that first ring is missed, it would be several seconds before the next ring would come along and glare could easily occur. > So, ground start lives, and will be with us for quite a while yet. Just so there's no doubt, the two ITT3100s that I take care of have nothing but ground-start trunks (and design trunks at that). That is of course the real professional way to go. Naturally, glare is never a problem and the system has positive sense of when dial tone is actually seized. This makes things go much faster when the ARS works. But there is a sad truth. Ground-start is a USA phenomenon. As I'm sure our non-US readers will confirm, ground-start is not generally available worldwide. (I'm sure it's available in Canada.) It might be interesting to find out where, other than North America, a PBX user can hook up to ground-start circuits. > It should be noted that I find very few lines give loop disconnect > supervision anymore, except in older offices. The telco will > sometimes give you loop (CPC) disconnect on a loop start line, on > request, but don't count on it. Ground start is still the only > reliable way to prevent call collisions and get reliable disconnect. More and more, I am hearing that telcos are becoming sensitive to this. There are just too many devices out there that depend on loop current interruption for disconnect. Every switch used for CO service is capable of providing it, assuming that it is equipped with the proper line cards and the correct programming options are invoked. Repair service will listen to you now about that. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: danj1@cbnewse.att.com Date: Thu, 12 Apr 90 15:32 CDT Subject: What Long Distance Company Does Patrick Use When He Calls Grandma? Organization: AT&T-BL, Naperville IL, USA OK, what long distance company does Patrick use when he calls grandma? (I can't resist asking.) [Patrick, honestly you had better not tell us for fear of never-ending flame-wars, etc.] Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM +1-708-979-6364 [Moderator's Note: He who controls the mailbox never has to worry too much about flame wars. Grandmother has been gone a few years now; she left us December 31, 1986. I have AT&T Reach Out for my outgoing calls on both lines. I have a couple of 800 numbers from Telecom*USA. I have a Sprint FON card which was awarded to me for my achievements and the depth of my knowledge of WD-40 and its many uses. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Apr 90 1:46:57 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Special Issues This Weekend Two special issues of the Digest are planned for this weekend. You will receive them sometime Saturday evening or overnight Sunday morning most likely. In one, Peter J. Dotzau has provided us with a comprehensive listing of the Minitel dialup numbers (and the appropriate baud rates for each) throughout the world. Yes, the whole world. Most of you will find a local access number to use in trying out the Minitel service. In the other, John G. DeArmond takes considerable exception to the remarks of Larry Lippman, which appeared in this space last weekend. Here are just a few excerpts: >In this article, Larry the Lid, henceforth referred to as LL, ........ >wrote a scathing personal attack against me regarding an article I >had posted earlier describing my use of an infinity transmitter in >my first job with the government in the mid 70's. As if to >add credence to his story, he preceded this attack with an exposition >of his rather limited knowledge of the generic family of devices >referred to as "Infinity transmitters". ........ >LL concluded his post with a couple of paragraphs of pontificating >regarding my obvious violation of the law by using this fairy tale >device ........ >from the Ham Radio Database in some sort of effort to further discredit >me because of my age. ........ >And yet he makes a slanderous attack on my character. What a guy. ........ >So here we have a situation where a pompous ass named Larry Lippman >has decreed from his throne that a rather detailed description of >an infinity transmitter I used years ago was a lie simply because >HE had never heard of it. ........ >And finally to Pat The Moderator. Let's see if you precede this posting >with all the fanfare and glee you greeted Larry's with. After all, >fair's fair. >John De Armond, WD4OQC Of course I will! To me, glee is glee! Gimme a big stick and I'll always stir the pot. As the headline on the [Honolulu Advertiser] said on Saturday morning, December 6, 1941, the day ** before ** the 'surprise' bombing of Pearl Harbor, "Severe attack expected over weekend". You betcha! Give 'em hell, John. And so, with strains of Elgar's 'Pomp and Circumstance' in the background, I invite you to call again tomorrow for another edition of these pompous circumstances known as TELECOM Digest. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #254 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa25794; 14 Apr 90 18:00 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa11656; 14 Apr 90 16:09 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa03446; 14 Apr 90 15:00 CDT Date: Sat, 14 Apr 90 14:48:14 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #255 BCC: Message-ID: <9004141448.ab00961@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 14 Apr 90 14:47:22 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 255 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson List of Magazines and Publications [Dave Leibold] Sprint / Network 200 Marketing [A Sprint Employee, via Steve Elias] More Comments From a US Sprint Employee [submitted via Steve Elias] Re: Toll-free 800 Equivalents in Foreign Countries? [Marc O'Krent] Re: US West and the War on Drugs [Mark Earle] Re: Credit Card ID [Charles Buckley] Re: Cellular Phone Reprogramming [Mark Earle] Re: Cellular Phone Reprogramming [Michael Gersten] New Areacode Script and Countrycode List [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: List of Magazines and Publications Date: Fri, 13 Apr 90 11:42:19 EDT From: woody I have a very partial list of periodicals and publications relating to the telecommunications industry. This is incomplete, and has a leaning towards Canadian sources. I would like to form a larger list of these publications; if you see anything that's missing or incorrect here, please mail me (djcl@contact.uucp) and I will collect the addresses. After a few weeks, I can post a revised listing based on new contributions. Submit these direct to me and I will make an updated article for the Digest. -=-=-=-=-=-= Telecom Magazine and Newsletters The following magazines are available for those interested in telephones and telecommunications. Some of these free offers are restricted to telephone professionals; but others are simply free for the asking. Thanks to Nigel Allen of 89:480/501 and Sir Dep for supplying many of the addresses and publication names that you'll see below... ----- If you would like to receive a free subscription to TELECOMMUNICATIONS magazine, just write to: Circulation Department Telecommunications, 685 Canton Street Norwood, MA 02062 USA. They'll send you a questionnaire to fill out and return, and once you've done that, you'll start receiving the magazine regularly. ----- CommunicationsWeek is a weekly tabloid newspaper for the telecommunications industry. It's free. If you'd like a subscription, just write to: CommunicationsWeek, Circulation Department, P.O. Box 2070, Manhasset, N.Y. 11030 U.S.A. ----- Bell Canada publishes Solutions, a free magazine distributed primarily to its large business customers. (You don't have to be a large business customer to get Solutions, though.) It's obviously intended to get people to buy or rent Bell equipment and services, but it's still fairly interesting. If you'd like to receive a free subscription to Solutions magazine, telephone toll-free 1-800-268-9100. ----- If you would like to receive a free subscription to Network World, just write to: Network World P.O. Box 1021 Southeastern, PA 19398 U.S.A. They'll send you back a questionnaire to fill out and return, so that you can receive your free subscription. ----- Here's a magazine about telemarketing, and has features on automatic call distributors (ACDs), 800/900 multi line services, how to keep people waiting on hold, etc. Address is: Inbound/Outbound 12 W 21 Street New York, NY USA 10160-0371 This address is for the Telecom Library folks who also publish magazines called "LAN" and "Teleconnect". There may or may not be freebie deals on those as well, depending on the type of work you do. Ask for subscription information in any case if you're interested. ----- Telesat Canada, the company that operates Canada's domestic telecommunications satellites, publishes a free newsletter called Telesat Report. If you would like a free subscription, write to The Editor Telesat Report, Telesat Canada 1601 Telesat Court Gloucester, Ontario K1B 5P4 telephone (voice) 1-800-267-1870 or, in Ottawa, (613)748-0123. ----- Consultants and Consulting Organizations Directory phone (301) 871-5280 or write to: Consultants and Consulting Organizations Directory Editorial Services Limited P.O. Box 6789 Silver Spring, Maryland 20906 ----- Telecommunications Systems and Services Directory telephone (313) 961-2242 or write to: Editor, Telecommunications Systems and Services Directory Gale Research Inc. Book Tower Detroit, Michigan 48226 ----- Telephony Magazine is published weekly by Intertec Press. I must say that while I don't see much change from the old company that used to publish it, at least the last time I subscribed I didn't have to prove that I did, like the previous two times before with the old company. Anyway, the address for Telephony is: Telephony P.O. Box 12948 Overland Park, KS 66212-9940 The subscription rate is currently $35.00 per year. They no longer offer 2 or 3 year subscriptions. ----- Telecom Gear is a publication, published Monthly. It is a plain jane newsprint type magazine (no slick pages). It runs $15.00 per year. Telecom Gear has ads in it for various brokers, etc for almost any type of telephone equipment ever made. (New and Used equipment.) The address for Telecom Gear is: Telecom Gear 1265 Industrial Highway Southampton, PA. 18966 ----- Subscriptions to Datamation, a U.S. computer magazine, are available free by writing to: Datamation P.O. Box 17162 Denver, Colorado 80217 U.S.A. This offer is not available to students. ------------------------------ Reply-To: eli@pws.bull.com Subject: Sprint / Network 200 Marketing Date: Fri, 13 Apr 90 15:21:03 -0400 From: Steve Elias [ This message is from an anonymous source within US Sprint. ] I don't quite understand what the deal is with these Network 2000 guys to be perfectly honest with you. I know that they are an outside marketing organization for one thing. I can only say that the operation is probably not set up and managed by Sprint. As a matter of fact I'm fairly positive it's not -- it's too complicated for our commission people. What probably is happening is that Sprint is paying a revenue commission of say 7% on any revenue generated by Network 2000 dudes. They give it to Network 2000 to do with as they please. Network 2000 gives 1% to each level down to 6 levels and keeps 1% for itself. These percentages are hypothetical but I'm reasonably sure this is what is going on. It makes sense to get as many people working on commission only plans as possible because it lowers overhead and only pays for results. Since Sprint doesn't have to deal with commission distribution it makes it simpler for Sprint. Believe it or not, says that we get less complaints about these guys than most of our other marketing means. [ end anonymous message ] [Moderator's Note: Steve Elias asked me to note that this message, and the one that follows were NOT written by himself but are merely being passed along. He HAS agreed to forward replies to the originator, who for whatever reason wishes to remain anonymous. PT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: eli@pws.bull.com Subject: More Comments From a US Sprint Employee Date: Fri, 13 Apr 90 15:24:47 -0400 From: Steve Elias [ this is from an anonymous source within US Sprint ] A few months ago, ATT wiped out more than 50% of ITS TOTAL CUSTOMER BASE, AND THEY COULDN'T MAKE CALLS FOR A PERIOD OF ABOUT 17 HOURS!!!!!! SPRINT NEVER DID THAT!!!!! A MONTH AFTER THAT, ATT DID THE SAME THING WITH ONE OF THEIR 800 EXCHANGES! Seriously, how quickly they (those who slam everyone but ATT) forget a major catastrophe like that! The fact remains - right now, we are the only 100% digital fiberoptic network there is PERIOD. ATT wrote down losses of >$6billion at the end of 88 for accelerated depreciation of old equipment for a REASON. They just are not as great as everyone thinks! They have 10 times the money that we do, but if you think they would have spent it on upgrading their equipment if they weren't responding to competitive pressure, you're nuts! Digital technology has been around for a long time; certainly before Sprint started using it. ATT had the opportunity to upgrade to digital technology many years ago, but they did not. The fact is, Sprint, MCI, and ATT all offer quality service these days. That wasn't always the case. But the service that you get from any of these carriers now is much better than the service you would have gotten from ATT six years ago. You should thank Sprint, rather than slamming them, for having the balls to push the modernization of America's phone system. And by the way, the probability of you getting disconnected on a Sprint call is certainly no greater than getting disconnected on an ATT call. Also, the long distance calls you make today cost you on average 40% less than they did six years ago. Maybe you should ask ATT to give you the service and higher prices that you had six years ago if that's what you want. (Note: The signalling system which ATT was deploying which caused the crash of 50% of their network has already been deployed at US Sprint for over a year!) [ end anonymous message ] ; Steve Elias, eli@spdcc.com. !! MAIL TO eli@spdcc.com ONLY !! ; 617 932 5598, 508 671 7556, computerfax 508 671 7447, realfax 508 671 7419 [Moderator's Note: I think this person makes some valid comments worth consideration. What I don't understand is why they felt it had to be anonymous. Since Steve Elias has assumed responsibility for replies, I agreed to post it, but Sprint employees should note they are as welcome to participate here as anyone. PT] ------------------------------ From: Marc O'Krent Subject: Re: Toll-free 800 Equivalents in Foreign Countries? Date: 14 Apr 90 07:22:21 GMT Reply-To: Marc O'Krent Organization: Cochran&Associates, Menlo Park, CA We have toll free service in the UK via an 0800 number. This is distingushed from their 0898 service which is the reverse: caller-pay. Marc O'Krent The Telephone Connection Internet: marc@ttc.info.com MCIMail: mokrent Voice Mail: +1 213 551 9620 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Apr 90 08:47:45 CDT From: Mark Earle Subject: Re: US West and the War on Drugs Patrick, Well, that's interesting. I wonder how quickly the paging companies will offer rotary operated service. It is available, but not generally used, because at peak times (lunch) it keeps the paging terminal tied up; fewer people can complete pages, since it takes longer w/rotary. But it *is* available. On a related note, in my little corner of Texas, built a decoder which monitors the paging channel with a receiver, and displays on screen what numbers were sent. The format is widely published. I further ran it through a simple data base. This showed pager addresses (no idea what phone number went w/what address; but it let me see who got a lot of pages) and could flag other than seven digit entries, i.e., non-phone numbers. Lots of fun. I suspect just from the traffic pattern alone, lots of 'interesting' things must be done via pagers! I'm sure if I figured out how to do this, it can be done by any professional/law enforcement type. Guess the rub would be getting such collected data admitted as evidence, in light of the ECPA, Comm. act of 1934 as amended, etc. I guess the drug dealers don't like voicemail, since retrieving the messages would be admittable evidence if they did it from a court approved wiretapped line ... no, wait, they could playback their voicemail with a cell phone ... yeah, that's it, since cell phone calls are sacred and private! Then all the 'customer' needs is a phone, no signalling at all ... and the 'dealer' just uses his cmt, say, once an hour, to scoop up the messages ... wonder if this will come to pass ... you heard it here first. RE: voicemail. Here, most paging/cmt provideres offer voice mail in conjunction with your pager/cmt, or as a stand alone, for about $10/month per mailbox. It's a cheap way to get a remote-controlable answering machine, special number for promotions, etc. I liked it in lieu of giving out my digital pager number. The caller had time to leave a detailed message, and I got the benefit of short term storage for later replay, and all msgs were date-time stamped -- great for a service person with a limited response time, prevents fudging the 'start of notification of trouble' time. Mark Earle Pro-Sparlkin, Corpus Christi, Tx ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Apr 90 11:24:26 PDT From: Charles Buckley Subject: Re: Credit Card ID From: glaser@starch.enet.dec.com (Steve Glaser) >He said that thousands of retailers all over the country had started >asking purchasers to supply a home phone number along with credit card >purchases. He stated that this had no purpose, . . . >Actually, if you listen carefully, much of the time they ask for "a >phone number". As it has been explained to me, this is a writing sample - digits are easier to use in forgery detection than a signature, which is so different that it lends itself to being practiced. One writes so many digits in one's life that it's hard to unlearn, even with practice. What kills me is that the merchants aren't told this by the credit card companies, so some of the more obsequious ones, in trying to make your job of purchasing lighter, ask you for the phone number, and write it on themselves! In my experience from having three credit cards stolen from my PO Box before I could collect them, the fraudulent user unashamedly writes another number, although I couldn't get the postal investigation organization to verify if it belonged to the thief. Guess they protect their own. [Moderator's Note: Addressing only the last paragraph of your message: Not really, they don't. The Chicago Main Post Office has had a few scandals over the years. The postal inspectors come down very hard on postal employees who steal from the mail. A major ripoff of Amoco Credit Cards by postal workers in the early seventies was dealt with very harshly. In those days, the Amoco Credit Card Processing Office was in downtown Chicago. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Apr 90 10:42:11 CDT From: Mark Earle Subject: Re: Reprogramming Cellular Phones I think it would be a good idea to collect/post the programming information with regards to various cell phones programming. My interest is from the viewpoint that the phones probably have a lot of capabilities that advanced users may wish to enable, but the dealer/service provider has no interest in turning on. At least being *aware* of the capabilities might help one pursuade the dealer to turn on that feature, or let the buyer make a more-informed purchase decision. The decision to buy which unit would be influenced by what features they all have. I have a personal interest since in the next 60 days I will be buying "something". Even with the possible advent of digital technology, I need something now not later. Mark Earle Pro-Sparlkin, Corpus Christi, Tx ------------------------------ Date: 14 Apr 90 10:28:19 PDT (Sat) From: Michael Gersten I am in favor of posting information on reprogramming cellular phones. Michael ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Apr 90 14:02:08 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: New Areacode Script and Countrycode List Alexander Dupuy of Columbia University has submitted a new areacode script to the Telecom Archives for interested parties. This is far too lengthy to include here (20K) and even includes a manual page, should you wish to put it up on your site. It is stored in the archives as 'areacode.script.new' if you wish to get a copy. REGULAR FTP: ftp lcs.mit.edu login anonymous, then give name@site.domain as password cd telecom-archives get areacode.script.new FTP MAILSERVER: Write to 'bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu' or 'bitftp.pucc.bitnet'. Put your FTP commands in UPPER CASE at the left margin, one to a line, i.e.: FTP lcs.mit.edu USER anonymous name@site.domain ASCII CD telecom-archives GET area.code.script.new GET index.to.archives BYE Within a few days -- maybe a week -- you will have the files. This new file is rather nicely done, and I think you will like it. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #255 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa11808; 15 Apr 90 2:02 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa15155; 15 Apr 90 0:23 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab11402; 14 Apr 90 23:17 CDT Date: Sat, 14 Apr 90 22:50:58 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest Special: DeArmond Response to Lippman BCC: Message-ID: <9004142250.ab25761@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 14 Apr 90 22:48:00 CDT Special: DeArmond Response Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Infinity Transmitters, Larry Lippman and the BIG LIE [John G. De Armond] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Infinity Transmitters, Larry "the LID" Lippman and the BIG LIE Date: 11 Apr 90 01:30:22 EDT (Wed) From: "John G. De Armond" To comp.dcom.telcom readers: Over the weekend, Pat the Moderator posted an article from Larry Lippman titled "Infinity Transmitter: Fact, Fiction, and Fairy Tale", an article preceded with significant fanfare in the days beforehand. In this article, Larry the Lid, henceforth referred to as LL, wrote a scathing personal attack against me regarding an article I had posted earlier describing my use of an infinity transmitter in my first job with the government in the mid 70's. As if to add credence to his story, he preceded this attack with an exposition of his rather limited knowledge of the generic family of devices referred to as "Infinity transmitters". In particular, he related the history, dated in the 60's, of the originator of the infinity transmitter, Manny Mittelman. After this brief history lesson, LL proceeds to extrapolate from the microscopic particular to the general and claim that the infinity transmitter I described could have NEVER existed and that I had simply made up a fairy tale (his words.). His justification was simply that he had never heard of the device I described and therefore it could not have existed. He further justified his opinion by citing the mid-60s technology he had previously described as making my kind of device impossible to implement. He went on to describe the details of a particular telephone switch and then extrapolated again to the general and stated that when a coupling capacitor was removed from a particular switch, no infinity transmitter anywhere could work. Even those connected to switches quite dissimilar to the one for which he had purported knowledge. And of course, all of this was sprinkled with the glut of obscure buzzwords, equipment model numbers, and figures for which LL is known. Well Hey, it works for the government. LL concluded his post with a couple of paragraphs of pontificating regarding my obvious violation of the law by using this fairy tale device (I'll bet LL NEVER phreaked - ever.) He then made reference to my age as gleaned from the Ham Radio Database in some sort of effort to further discredit me because of my age. Normally I ignore such LIDS as Larry when they make personal attack. At the most, I'll post something argumentative back just to poke fun at the poster. But this case is different. Larry is regarded in some circles as a very knowledgeable person. He is quite a prolific poster and can usually obfuscate the the subject with obscure details. Lastly, his attack was intensely personal. He basically called me a liar. I don't quite understand this state of affairs. Even though I've seen Larry post some pretty bad data, I've never commented on his postings either publicly or in private. This was a shot literally out of the blue. This was the kind of attack for which there is little defense. I obviously do not still have the device in question, having left it in place when I left the government service in 1979. There was another person involved in planting the device but since he still works for the government and since revelation of his participation could result in his being fired, I must respect his privacy and allow him to remain anonymous. Nonetheless, some important facts remain: 1) Larry has absolutely no knowledge of my activities other than by my postings on the net. He certainly knows nothing of my government career. 2) Larry has absolutely no knowledge regarding the origin of the infinity transmitter I used. He knows not, for example, whether the device was purpose-built, was a prototype or was an "off-the- shelf" unit. 3) Larry had absolutely no knowledge of the environment under which the device was used. For example, it was used on the relatively controlled environment of an old crosspoint PBX and not a Bell subscriber loop or phone. He did not know this, as evidenced by his description of a CO switch. 4) Larry displayed a rather complete lack of knowledge of the then-state- of-the-art in infinity transmitters, particularly the ones that might not fit into his preconceived notion of what one is. And yet he makes a slanderous attack on my character. What a guy. One of the central themes of LL's posting was that my device must be a fairy tale because the technology did not exist to make such a not- easily-detectable device. After stewing on this for a day or two, I decided to get proactive and prove that indeed such a device was not only feasible but easy to make. I decided to dig out the old Proto-Board and dedicate an evening to the project. Here is what I came up with in about 6 hours' work. The design criteria for my "bug" are as follows: 1. Be undetectable by DC means. This implies a quiescent current draw under 100 microamps. 2. Be undetectable by AC means applied to a subscriber loop. This implies a high AC impedance, preferably over 100kohms. 3. Be undetectable via emitted or induced EMI. In other words, no oscillators and no inductors. 4. Use technology available in 1975. My device was probably built closer 1977 or '78 but '75 is conservative. 5. Be small enough to fit in a network. An additional criterion was that I had to be able to breadboard it from junkbox parts in an evening. I modified the functional design a bit from the one I used a decade ago in the interest of simplicity and perhaps in the interest of added security. This device is designed to respond to a pair of tones alternately applied to the line at a moderate switching rate. Out of convenience, I used the tones of 1209 hz and 3266 hz alternated at a 7 hz rate. I'll explain why later. The design I arrived at uses a pair of cascaded 2nd order bandpass filters driving a precision rectifier whose output trips a micropower relay. One should note that the design presented here is meant to be a proof-of-concept exercise and is by no means a finished product. I have a HUGE "junk box" (actually, about 2500 sq feet of floor space) and a large library so I have a wide selection of parts to choose from and a good library that dates back to the late 60s (Yes, Larry, when I was in my early teens.). The filter design came from a book titled "Manual of Active Filter Design" by Hilburn and Johnson, copyrighted in 1973. This book is essentially a collection of nomographs used to design filters cookbook-style. I modified the filter shown on page 100. My active device is my old favorite of the linear devices, the 74C04 hex inverter. Yes, sportsfans, a digital CMOS part. This device, when properly biased and fed-back, is an excellent low power audio and low RF amplifier. According to my 1975 edition of the National Semiconductor CMOS data book, this device is rated at 0.01 microamp, 15 microamps max, with DC input. I would have expected the consumption to go up a bit when linearly biased. It does indeed but with the advances in processing since the early 70s, the consumption is much lower. I measured the consumption at 5 volts with a Keithley Model 614 digital picoammeter. With inputs grounded, this particular part consumed 0.002 microamp. With an input tied to an output to bias the device linear, the current rose to 0.015 microamps. Nitpickers will note that I am characterizing a modern part. That is because I don't have an ancient specimen of the part. The circuit is as follows: The input from the line is coupled in through a small capacitor (selected, about 200-500 pf) to a resistive power divider that feeds 2 sets of bandpass filters. Each set of filters uses 2 gates of the 74c04 The output of the filter drives a half-wave rectifier and smoothing filter and the 2 smoothing filter outputs are summed into another gate that serves as a summing junction. The output of this gate is fed to a last gate that is unbiased and serves as a comparator. The output of the comparator is fed to a sensitive relay from the junque box. This relay picks up at about 100 microamps and probably came out of an old piece of process control equipment. It has 2 dpdt dry contacts. The power supply for this device consists of 4 1n4742 12 volt, 1 watt zeners in series feeding a bridge rectifier whose output is clamped by a 1n4735 6.3 volt, 1 watt zener. A 10 uf capacitor provides sufficient reserve for switch activation and a 100 kohm resistor limits current draw to about 20 microamps. (A long ways from your 3 milliamps, eh Larry?) At the currents involved, the 12 volt zeners drop about 10.3 volts and the 6.3 volt zener drops about 5 volts. Both diodes are characterized in my 1967 edition of the Motorola Semiconductor Handbook. Bridging the zener string and the 100k resistor is one set of the relay contacts. The second set of contacts is used as seal-in contacts once the device is activated. One should note that the entire device could be powered for months from a 4.5 volt mercury battery that would fit inside the network. There would then be ZERO load on the phone line. The design purpose of this arrangement is for the circuit to draw zero current until the applied voltage reaches about 40 volts. This prevents the device from being detected by applying an ohmmeter to the terminals of the phone. It also prevents the device from being activated or detected by the application of 24 volts, a value common to phone test boxes. The relay contact is used to pick up the line when the device activates and to draw loop current. When activated, the device represents about 6 extra volts' of drop across the set. This could possibly be a detection avenue, though not very likely. This design assumes that battery will be at least 48 volts, a safe assumption in the era before solid state switches. Voltage at the facility in question ran nearer to 58 volts most of the time. Not implemented in this mockup but necessary for a real device is a block to prevent the simultaneous application of the 2 tones or white noise from activating the device. This could be implemented with a couple of mosfet transistors or another cmos gate. One should probably budget another 10 microamps for this part of the circuit. The tone activator for this circuit consists of an old touch-tone pad incorporating a Motorola MC1440 T-T encoder (1976 Mot. CMOS data book). The 1209 hz tone is generated by grounding the C1 lead of the chip. The 3266 tone is the 2nd harmonic of the 1633 hz tone generated by grounding the C4 lead of the MC1440. The tones are alternated by connecting 2n2222 transistors between the leads and ground and driving them with the input and output of a 74C04 inverter. The inverter is driven with a 7 hz squarewave from a GC electronics bench function generator. The frequencies were chosen because: a) They are easy to generate for this test. b) They are not harmonically related. c) There is little speech energy in the 3266 hz range. d) There is little repetitive energy in speech in the 7 hz range. The time constants of the filters and rectifiers are chosen so that the comparator triggers when both filters detect energy in their respective bandpasses. As mentioned before, white noise or simultaneous application of both frequencies would also cause activation absent the interlock circuitry. The remainder of the test setup consisted of 2 Western Electric Model SD-81824-01 key system power units connected in series and powered through a variac. Each power supply produces 24 vdc. The Keithley 614 picoammeter was placed in series with the ground return to measure the current draw. All component values were optimized using decade boxes and substitution boxes to minimize quiescent current draw. A standard carbon microphone was wired in series with the loop to allow testing for voice falsing. The test tones were introduced with a 600 ohm 1:1 transformer in series with the loop. The power supplies and picoammeter were bypassed with 0.1 uF caps. The vital statistics are: 1) Quiescent current draw - 22 microamps. 2) No current draw until the applied voltage reached 38 volts. 3) Reliable activation with no voice-falsing occurred with about 600 mv of tone. Summary I have proven that with about 6 hours of work and using components from the junk box, a proof-of-concept Infinity transmitter can be built that is substantially in conformance with the one I described in my first article and which would be practically undetectable with ordinary means. It would certainly resist LL's VOM assault. There is one (or 2) chip(s) involved and a handful of discrete components. All would comfortably fit in a network housing. Missing from this design are stabilizing components, the hook interlock, spike protection and the like. Perhaps this could be added with another 6 hours' work. A bit more work would result perhaps halving the power consumption, making the device even harder to detect. One should note that the entire device could be powered for months from a 4.5 volt mercury battery that would fit inside the network. In terms of physical concealment, the whole works could be potted in the network housing. Potting is not atypical. If one were worried about X-Ray detection, a cadmium-copper-lead foil sandwich around the inside of the box would stop all X-Rays in the range of about 30 to 80 kev and would severely attenuate higher energy rays. The opacity could arouse suspicion, of course, but if suspicions have been raised to the point of X-Raying the phone, it is probable that other techniques such as simply monitoring the line have already detected something abnormal. It is true that abnormal busy signals to callers could tip off the target. The solution is simply to use discretion when activating the device. In my case, I had a secretary who would tell me when a certain individual would visit the target. She was also the one who alerted me to the developing problem after she overheard in person a conversation about me. Editorial and Ad Hominem Attack. So here we have a situation where a pompous ass named Larry Lippman has decreed from his throne that a rather detailed description of an infinity transmitter I used years ago was a lie simply because HE had never heard of it. In reply to his accusations, I spent an evening's worth of spare time and designed a device such as according to Larry, could not exist and then built it using parts from the era. I think that part of the problem is that Larry does not approve of my use of the device. If he had stated his case as such, we could have acknowledged a difference of opinion and continued respecting each other. I rather imagine that Larry is being a bit two-faced about this. I'd not be surprised at all to find that Larry has phreaked as much as I have. I used phreaking as an educational tool, never stole a dime's worth of services, and freely admit my activities. I used my knowledge outside of the law exactly once in order to protect my career. At that point in my life, I thought that my government job would literally last me 'til retirement and that I would have to protect it at all costs. So I had a mistaken concept of work life. After all, as Larry has so noted, I WAS young. So Larry, let's get to the point. I've not only demonstrated that an "impossible" device could be built in an evening, I've also described the use of a professionally built unit. Let's see if you are as assertive and aggressive in you apology and retraction as you were in your slanderous assault on my character. And finally to Pat the Moderator: Let's see if you precede this posting with all the fanfare and glee you greeted Larry's with. After all, fair's fair. John De Armond, WD4OQC Radiation Systems , Inc ...!emory!rsiatl!jgd Marietta, GA (404) 578-9547 [Moderator's Note: Thank you for an excellent presentation. I am left speechless at this point. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest Special: DeArmond Response to Lippman ****************************** From telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Tue Apr 17 23:07:08 1990 Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by gaak.LCS.MIT.EDU via TCP with SMTP id AA28944; Tue, 17 Apr 90 23:07:03 EDT Resent-Message-Id: <9004180307.AA28944@gaak.LCS.MIT.EDU> Date: Sun, 15 Apr 90 9:21:06 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #256 Message-Id: <9004150921.aa05709@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> Resent-Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 22:05:13 CDT Resent-From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Resent-To: ptownson@gaak.LCS.MIT.EDU Status: RO TELECOM Digest Sun, 15 Apr 90 09:20:35 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 256 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson MCI Press Release: Telecom*USA Merger [Curtis Abrue] More on Coin Telephone Fraud [Larry Lippman] Ordering Unix From AT&T [David Gast] Central Office Wiring [Ajai Steel] Re: Band Aids (TM) for the "Drug War" Hemorrage [Glen Overby] Re: More Comments From a US Sprint Employee [John Higdon] Re: Problem With Northern Teleco [Patricia O'connor] Re: Us Sprint [Patricia O'connor] Re: Call *Captures* and the Modern-day Detective [Robert Gutierrez] Re: Infinity Transmitters [David Gast] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 14 Apr 90 20:31 EST From: Curtis Abrue / MCI ID: 278-8283 Subject: MCI Press Release: Telecom*USA Merger Here's the press release on TELECOM*USA: CORPORATE NEWS BUREAU IMMEDIATE Kathleen Keegan 1-800-289-0073 TELECOM*USA, INC. Alysia Taylor (404) 250-5881 Mark A. Kaiser (404) 250-5950 MCI COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION TO MERGE WITH TELECOM*USA WASHINGTON, D.C., April 9, 1990 -- MCI Communications Corporation and Telecom*USA, Inc. today announced the signing of a definitive agreement that will merge the two telecommunications companies. Under the agreement, MCI will acquire all outstanding shares of Telecom*USA's common stock for cash at a price of $42 per share, for a total purchase price of approximately $1.25 billion. The two companies' Boards of Directors have approved the transaction, which is also subject to Telecom*USA shareholder approval. "The prospect of merging two dynamic, high-growth companies with similar cultures is very exciting," Bert C. Roberts, Jr., MCI president and chief operating officer, said. "Both organizations have played a major role in advancing technology, developing innovative services, and meeting customer requirements. Combining their strengths will benefit shareholders, customers and employees alike. "We look forward to having Telecom USA management and employees assume roles in the new structure, and welcome the opportunity to serve its customers." O. Gene Gabbard, Telecom*USA chairman of the board and chief executive officer, said, "MCI recognizes that Telecom*USA's creative approach to product development and marketing is invaluable in this marketplace. Both parties stand to gain by teaming employees, facilities and services, and as a unified force, working to further enhance the ability to provide the highest value services in this rapidly growing and demanding industry." Merrill Lynch Capital Markets has acted as financial advisors to MCI in connection with the merger. Goldman, Sachs & Co., acted as financial advisors to the Telecom*USA Board of Directors. The complete terms of the merger will be included in the proxy statement to be mailed to the Telecom*USA shareholders. The transaction is also subject to applicable regulatory approvals and Hart-Scott-Rodino Act clearance. It is expected to be concluded as expeditiously as possible. MCI Communications Corporation, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is the nation's second largest long distance services provider. With approximately 19,500 employees and 1989 revenue of $6.5 billion, MCI serves residential and business customers with a wide array of long distance, voice, data and messaging services, both domestically and internationally. Telecom*USA, the nation's fourth largest long distance company, provides a wide range of telecommunications services to customers throughout the country. Headquartered in Atlanta, GA, the company has 5,000 employees and 1989 revenue of $713 million. # # # # ------------------------------ Subject: More on Coin Telephone Fraud Date: 15 Apr 90 00:40:26 EST (Sun) From: Larry Lippman In article <6325@accuvax.nwu.edu> onymouse@ames.arc.nasa.gov (John Debert) writes: > > >Most coin stations today are DTF (Dial Tone First) and no > > longer resemble a ground-start line. A DTF coin line behaves similar > > to that of a loop-start line (it is actually more complex than that, > > but this will suffice for the purpose of this discussion); i.e., a > > ground on a DTF coin line will not facilitate any fraud. > Grounding is still used on many coin phones to detect the presence of > coins. This in combination with a a sequence of idle tone pulses to ID > each coin dropped is used to validate a call. It is possible to fool > the phone into thinking that enough coins have been dropped through a > very simple procedure using one nickel. It is not trivial to spoof the initial rate test on a DTF coin station, but it is indeed possible. The timing would be really tricky, though. When the initial rate is deposited the totalizer operates a contact which prepares a path from the network "B"-terminal through the totalizer reset relay through the coin control relay through the coin hopper trigger contact through a break contact of the "A"-relay to ground. The "A"-relay is operated by loop current of normal polarity, so the ground is actually lifted during dialing and talking. The CO tests for initial rate by opening the ring lead, which causes the "A"-relay to release, permitting the ground connection IF the initial rate has been deposited. The CO then applies -48 V battery to the tip lead (reverse line polarity) and makes a test for the presence of this ground. It's been a few years, but I seem to recall that during the initial rate deposit test, the CO coin control trunk tests for ground PRIOR to reversing polarity, meaning that it can ascertain if ground is present at some time *other* than when it *expects* ground to be present. If such a foreign ground is detected, then a "stuck coin" alarm may be indicated in the CO and the call may be routed to an operator, or be not further processed. Given an understanding of the above conditions, it is going to be difficult to achieve the timing necessary to spoof the coin control trunk. However, anything is possible when it comes to people bent upon committing fraud. :-) > It is also possible to induce > the appropriate signals onto the line once ground has been > established, as was once demonstrated to me. An experienced operator can usually ascertain if a coin is actually deposited (as opposed to playing a coin tone simulator) since the speech circuit is muted during legitimate totalizer tone readout. The difference is background noise during totalizer readout can usually be recognized by the operator. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp. <> UUCP {boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!acsu.buffalo.edu!kitty!larry <> TEL 716/688-1231 || 716/773-1700 {utzoo|uunet}!/ \uniquex!larry <> FAX 716/741-9635 || 716/773-2488 "Have you hugged your cat today?" ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Apr 90 03:05:13 -0700 From: David Gast Subject: Ordering Unix from AT&T Dave Levenson provided an interesting tale of trying to order Unix from AT&T about two months ago. In 1984 I went with a client to look at AT&T's Unix machines. Forget the fancy room where they showed this vacuous movie (the kind designed to make you feel good about the company without saying anything about the product you want to buy); forget that the salesman crashed the system once perhaps five times during his demo, and I had to show him how to do what he wanted to demo. The most interesting aspect of the entire meeting was that their business cards did not have a phone number on them. Let me repeat: AT&T's business cards did not include the phone number of their office. David Gast gast@cs.ucla.edu {uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!{ucla-cs,cs.ucla.edu}!gast ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Apr 90 18:56:30 PDT From: Ajai Steel Subject: Central Office Wiring In a typical C.O., when T-carrier trunks are MUXed by bays in the switch it self do house cables carry the signal to the transmission equipment in the Carrier room or are their special cables for this task? ------------------------------ From: Glen Overby Subject: Re: Band Aids (TM) for the "Drug War" Hemorrage Date: 14 Apr 90 20:02:26 GMT Reply-To: Glen Overby Organization: North Dakota State University, Fargo In article <6369@accuvax.nwu.edu> csense!bote@uunet.uu.net (John Boteler) writes: [ discussing US West's dial replacement program in the Minneapolis area to thwart drug dealers ] >With the cash these boyz carry around with them, it is trivial to walk >into Radio Shack, plunk down US$20 for a pocket tone dialer, and thumb >their coca-stained noses at US West and the knights in shining badges. They could also easily add notch filters on the DTMF frequencies (even just half of the frequencies should be enough to make it really inconvenient) to prevent their pocket tone dialers from working correctly. Glen Overby uunet!plains!overby (UUCP) overby@plains (Bitnet) ------------------------------ Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: More Comments From a US Sprint Employee Date: 14 Apr 90 18:38:15 PDT (Sat) From: John Higdon An anonymous source within US Sprint writes: > A few months ago, ATT wiped out more than 50% of ITS TOTAL CUSTOMER > BASE, AND THEY COULDN'T MAKE CALLS FOR A PERIOD OF ABOUT 17 HOURS!!!!!! > SPRINT NEVER DID THAT!!!!! A MONTH AFTER THAT, ATT DID THE SAME THING > WITH ONE OF THEIR 800 EXCHANGES! No, Sprint just screws up in minor ways day, after day, after day. It's hard to say where one case of trouble ends and another begins. > Seriously, how quickly they (those who slam everyone but ATT) forget a > major catastrophe like that! No, but it WAS only one (or two), not continuous trouble. There are several places in the country that I consciously avoid calling on Sprint because the chances for screwup is so great. Calls to Sprint repair are taken by bimbos who tell me they'll get right on it and then nothing is ever done. I have yet to talk to anyone at that organization who seems to feel that my calls (as opposed to my money) have any importance to them whatsoever. > The fact remains - right now, we are the > only 100% digital fiberoptic network there is PERIOD. Makes great advertising copy, but when I have been transmitting a large file for an hour and suddenly the connection is broken (and the hour's worth of time and money goes up in smoke), I really couldn't care less whether it's digital, or tin cans and string. > And by the way, the probability of you > getting disconnected on a Sprint call is certainly no greater than > getting disconnected on an ATT call. Oh, yeah? Come use Sprint on my phone sometime. Talk for about an hour and then tell me that again. Have I complained to Sprint? Of course. Have they done anything about it? Hah! > (Note: The signalling system which ATT was deploying which caused the > crash of 50% of their network has already been deployed at US Sprint > for over a year!) Well, then it should just be a matter of time. Then let's see if it's all brought up again within 17 hours, or whether it takes days or weeks. Of course, I probably couldn't tell from here. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Patricia O'connor Subject: Re: Problem With Northern Teleco Date: 14 Apr 90 02:21:14 GMT Organization: FidoNet node 1:161/555 - MacCircles, Pleasanton CA Hi Jesse, What you describe is what happens when you enter your login ID in upper case. However, if you are using a four-digit number ... Patricia O'connor - via FidoNet node 1:125/777 UUCP: ...!sun!hoptoad!fidogate!161!555!Patricia.O'connor INTERNET: Patricia.O'connor@f555.n161.z1.FIDONET.ORG ------------------------------ From: Patricia O'connor Subject: Re: Us Sprint Date: 13 Apr 90 14:47:58 GMT Organization: FidoNet node 1:161/555 - MacCircles, Pleasanton CA Until divestiture, the local companies did the billing for AT&T long distance, so there were no billing mechanisms in place. Since then, AT&T has built some financial centers and intends (last I heard) to begin doing their own billing soon. Meantime, AT&T contracts billing from the local companies. PatiO Patricia O'connor - via FidoNet node 1:125/777 UUCP: ...!sun!hoptoad!fidogate!161!555!Patricia.O'connor INTERNET: Patricia.O'connor@f555.n161.z1.FIDONET.ORG ------------------------------ From: Robert Gutierrez Subject: Re: Call *Captures* and the Modern-day Detective Date: 15 Apr 90 04:57:15 GMT Reply-To: Robert Gutierrez Organization: NASA ARC waldman2%husc8@harvard.harvard.edu (Bruce Waldman) writes: > I have recently been receiving various sorts of threatening calls from > an anonymous person... > New England Telephone registered her line in some sort of "capture" > system.... > As you can see, I am rather naive about the capabilities of the phone > company..... A 'call-record' as recorded on a telephone switch is very informative. When I worked for MCI, I performed call-record 'searches' on our west coast switches. I can basically search by _anything_ that is needed (time, telephone numbers, circuts, type of call, route, etc...). Doing a search on an "easy" switch (DEX-600) can be performed in about 10-15 minutes if you give a 5 minute window (plus or minus 5 minutes of the time of the call) during the day, and 15 minute window on nights/weekends. The following is a possible situation. I receive a call saying that somebody made a call from Oakland, Calif. to Los Angeles. I ask the time and phone numbers ... hmmm, no numbers? Which circut did it come in on (I can search down to the 'port', or individual T-1 channel). No channel number ... well, which C.O.? You'd be surprised on how *few* calls could go with the above variables. Try between 5-10 calls in a 10 minute span. Daytime? Say 20-40 calls. Lessee, CNA's on the line also, well ... here's the closest call to the time you gave ... it belongs to Ivan Boseky??? Well, as they say in Las Vegas ... Jackpot! Did I say that the switch also records any uncompleted calls. You wanted to call somebody, and, you dial their number ... ooops, forgot that tap on the phone and the 40 FBI agents watching your house ... you slam the phone down ... too late, we already got the MF digits from Pac Bell, and now we got your number! Oh, we can also tell which way answer supervision terminated (who slammed the phone down first). Robert Gutierrez/NASA Science Internet Network Operations. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Apr 90 01:07:05 -0700 From: David Gast Subject: Re: Infinity Transmitters If I understand one of the objections to the device described by Larry Lippman correctly, then I don't believe it is a significant problem. > The network is *riveted* to the base, and it would not be that easy to > duplicate the riveting during a clandestine installation. Furthermore, > early 425-type networks had some wires from the hookswitch soldered > directly to them, further complicating a clandestine installation. I don't believe that a clandestine operation at least as commonly thought is really necessary. Here's what did happen: the Agency involved contacts the appropriate teleco; the teleco causes the subject's line to go out of order; the subject calls up the phone company, it sends out a repairman who installs a new, bugged phone, everything is now fine. (At least Briish Intelligence used this ploy according to Peter Wright). David Gast gast@cs.ucla.edu {uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!{ucla-cs,cs.ucla.edu}!gast P.S. It may turn out that Lippman knows the device described by Armond, only Lippman calls it a lexus, not an infinity. :-) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #256 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa28583; 17 Apr 90 3:53 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa29989; 17 Apr 90 2:15 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa18365; 17 Apr 90 1:11 CDT Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 0:30:36 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #257 BCC: Message-ID: <9004170030.ab00797@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Apr 90 00:30:10 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 257 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Loop Start vs Ground Start, a User Intro [Jon Baker] Re: Loop Start vs Ground Start, a User Intro [Julian Macassey] Re: Call *Captures* and the Modern-day Detective [Heath Roberts] Re: More on Coin Telephone Fraud [John Higdon] Re: Sprint's Disconnections [Jeff Carroll] Re: LD Billing Tale [Lang Zerner] Re: Reinstalling Dial-Type Coin Phones [Lang Zerner] Re: US West and the War on Drugs [Tom Neff] Re: Minitel Access Phone Numbers List [Norman R. Kraft] Re: Deutsche Bundespost Breakup [Herman R. Silbiger] Re: The Card [Peter Weiss] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jon Baker Subject: Re: Loop Start vs Ground Start, a User Intro Date: 16 Apr 90 15:28:49 GMT Organization: gte In article <6274@accuvax.nwu.edu>, gtisqr!toddi@nsr.bioeng.washington.edu (Todd Inch) writes: > Whats the difference in the phone sets for ground start vs loop start? > (Does anyone even make a ground-start phone, or do they always get > "converted" to loop by the PBX's?) A ground start instrument will have some manner of button or switch on it which connects tip to ground, signalling an off-hook. The ground source is local, not from the CO. I have not found any manufacturer of ground-start phones. However, GTE supply (at least used to) sells a conversion kit for modifying a typical (loop-start) instrument to ground-start. > For example, how would you use a butt set to connect and place a call > on a loop start line? Do you need an earth-ground connection, or > temporary earth-ground connection? I assume you mean ground-start line. Yes, you need some sort of external ground. > If you were to build a ground-start phone, would it need three wires? Two wires to the CO; one wire to ground. > Also, are ground-start lines available from all CO's? Are they the > same cost (typically) as a "business" POTS/loop-start line? Ground start lines are available on the GTD-5. Don't know about cost. > Are ground-start lines ever used for residential service? Yes. Typically in rural applications, where the distance to the CO is very great. J.Baker. ------------------------------ From: Julian Macassey Subject: Re: Loop Start vs Ground Start, a User Intro Date: 16 Apr 90 22:13:55 GMT Organization: The Hole in the Wall Hollywood California U.S.A. In article <6388@accuvax.nwu.edu>, john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: Mucho stuff deleted > But there is a sad truth. Ground-start is a USA phenomenon. As I'm > sure our non-US readers will confirm, ground-start is not generally > available worldwide. (I'm sure it's available in Canada.) It might be > interesting to find out where, other than North America, a PBX user > can hook up to ground-start circuits. In the UK, Ground start is available. But you have to consider that the Brits call Ground Earth. They call ground start "Earth Calling". It may be available in other Euro countries. I must admit that I have never seen a Ground Start line in the UK. But next time I am over there near a PBX, I will sniff around. Yours, Julian Macassey, n6are julian@bongo.info.com ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian N6ARE@K6IYK (Packet Radio) n6are.ampr.org [44.16.0.81] voice (213) 653-4495 ------------------------------ From: Heath Roberts Subject: Re: Call *Captures* and the Modern-day Detective Reply-To: Heath Roberts Organization: NCSU Computing Center Date: Mon, 16 Apr 90 18:11:08 GMT In article <6362@accuvax.nwu.edu> waldman2%husc8@harvard.harvard.edu (Bruce Waldman) writes: >My friend was told that the length of the call did not matter, this >would all be done automatically. Is this possible, and how? Only in >special exchanges? (Apparently the caller was never identified or >else New England Tel did not choose to communicate this information to >my friend.) In my own case, what are the possibilities? How >difficult would it be for the phone company to identify callers? >Would it make a difference what sort of exchange the call originated >from? Would it make a difference whether the call originated locally >or from a long distance carrier, and would it make a difference which >long distance carrier it was? >As you can see, I am rather naive about the capabilities of the phone >company. In the movies, the police always try to keep the >ransom-demanders on the phone for enough time that they can physically >trace the calls I guess, but is this now unnecessary? I'd be grateful >for relatively non-technical enlightenment. IF the call originates and terminates on the same switch and IF it's a new (read digital) switch, call trace is very simple ... in fact, I can sit down at a terminal, tell the switch to display the status of your line, and tell when you pick up, when you get dial tone, when you're connected to a tone decoder, what you dial, what the disposition of the call is, etc ... (assuming I work for the telco and have access to the switch) all in real time. It's a bit more complicated if the call originates from another switch, but still possible. If both are NT switches and directly connected by fiber, it works basically the same way. (I don't know about ATT switches-probably the 5ESS has a similar capability). If it's another situation, the call may or may not be traceable ... it's possible to go through call completion tapes and find out what trunk the call came in on, then work your way backwards. For a real case to be brought against someone, you need a voice recording in addition to telco records to prove _who_ actually made the call -- the switch only records what line it came in on. Probably what happened when your friend called the 800 number is that a computer recorded that she's called and time-stamped it. Then someone had to look back for a call completed to her number right before the computer record. Generally traces are possible no matter the call duration. The movie thing about keeping the caller on the line comes from step-switches, when someone had to go through the frame with a test set and find each switch that was part of the circuit and note what position it was in. If the call went between CO's, it took longer, because the technician had to call a buddy at the next CO and tell him what trunk it was on, and the process starts all over. Heath Roberts NCSU Computer and Technologies Theme Program heath@shumv1.ncsu.edu ------------------------------ Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: More on Coin Telephone Fraud Date: 16 Apr 90 13:36:46 PDT (Mon) From: John Higdon Larry Lippman writes: > An experienced operator can usually ascertain if a coin is > actually deposited (as opposed to playing a coin tone simulator) since > the speech circuit is muted during legitimate totalizer tone readout. > The difference is background noise during totalizer readout can > usually be recognized by the operator. Ok, but what about money collected by automatic equipment for non-local calls? Virtually all station-to-station intraLATA and AT&T-handled calls are completed without any operator assistance. No one can convince me that the automatic "one dollah please" lady listens to background noise or anything other than the coin deposit beeps. What I would buy is if a ground or other signal is placed on the line at the moment the beeps are transmitted. Is this the case? John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Jeff Carroll Subject: Re: Sprint's Disconnections Date: 16 Apr 90 23:43:49 GMT Reply-To: Jeff Carroll Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle In article <6323@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Higdon writes: >The conclusion I am drawing is that one or more of the following >conditions exist. Sprint has inferior connections (maybe even analog) >to the San Jose area. Pac*Bell has provided Sprint with inferior >interfacing to the POP for San Jose. The incredibly ancient CO >equipment in this area cannot handle the more modern technology used >by Sprint. AT&T has been dealing with this area longer and somehow >makes do better. >Anyone really have knowledge about the inferior Sprint service in San >Jose? >David Robbins of Waltham, MA, >Ranjit Bhatnagar of Pennsylvania, and >Steve Elias apparently of Mass. have written: >To say that they have had great luck with Sprint. Do you notice >anything in common with all of the above? Hint: East Coast. Sprint has >apparently not put such care into its facilities out here, no? With all due respect to the redoubtable Mr. Higdon, I have to report that, having been a Sprint customer since very near the beginning, I have never (to the best of my recollection) been cut off by Sprint in the manner he describes. This includes about seven years of service in Seattle, and one year in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In the early days, before the Fiber Optic Network, Sprint service to Seattle was provided via leased land lines and a Bay Area satellite installation. Then the quality was truly dismal at times. When we switched our dial-1 service to Sprint from AT&T, the audio quality *improved* considerably. Now all my LD calls sound local (just like the TV commercial :')). Since I'm ten miles from downtown Seattle, I assume that I'm pretty close to the USWest/Sprint interface. I don't have any idea what service would be like to outlying areas out here. Jeff Carroll carroll@atc.boeing.com ------------------------------ From: langz@khayyam.EBay.Sun.COM (Lang Zerner) Subject: Re: LD Billing Tale Date: 13 Apr 90 21:16:13 GMT Reply-To: langz@khayyam.EBay.Sun.COM (Lang Zerner) Organization: The Great Escape, Inc. In article <6227@accuvax.nwu.edu> Robert.Savery@p0.f666.n285.z1. fidonet.org writes: >...It would also seem to me, the LD carriers would >want combined billing as a money saving measure. As long as the charge >the teleco wanted to do this was not more than the cost of maintaining >their own billing dept, then their profit margin would be higher. In fact, this is not the case. All those flyers your dad received with his separate mailing generate revenue for the service provider by increasing sales. This is one reason AT&T is so hungry to sign up Universal card holders; when billing through the local telco, they cannot use the bills for direct mail marketing. When Universal card holders receive their bills, they can count on getting ATT-revenue-generating tips and suggestions for making their lives better. Be seeing you. Lang Zerner ------------------------------ From: langz@khayyam.EBay.Sun.COM (Lang Zerner) Subject: Re: Reinstalling Dial-type Coin Phones Date: 13 Apr 90 21:50:17 GMT Reply-To: langz@khayyam.EBay.Sun.COM (Lang Zerner) Organization: The Great Escape, Inc. In article <6247@accuvax.nwu.edu> ames!ames!claris!portal!cup.portal. com! Allyn@uunet.uu.net writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 246, Message 10 of 12 >I heard this on NPR (National Public Radio) this morning... >US West is replacing DTMF coin phones with dial-type coin phones in >certain neighborhoods that have a lot drug-dealing activity. Why? >The dial-type phones prevent the use of paging systems (i.e. can't >punch in the call back phone number). There have been many attempts to curb drug sales by crippling public phone service in areas where the phones are used by dealers or customers. This is another case of policy-makers trying to make it look like they are coming up with solutions to problems in order to hide the fact that they have created no solutions. In parts of New York, ringers on public phones were disabled when neighborhood residents reported that dealers were taking calls on the phones. As a result, in neighborhoods where public telephones are the only incoming phone service that many residents can afford, the service was denied. "But the move will curb drug traffic." Nonsense. The dealers then spent $10 extra a month to get pagers. "Well, then, if we further cripple public phones by removing DTMF, drug users won't be able to page their dealers." Great, so the dealers spend a few dollars extra per month to get voice pagers, or voicemail systems which will automatically notify the pager of a waiting message. What next? "Umm, how about disabling the microphones on public phones so that callers can't send voice messages to their dealers?" The communication tools are not the problem, folks. Be seeing you. Lang Zerner ------------------------------ From: Tom Neff Subject: Re: US West and the War on Drugs Date: 16 Apr 90 03:04:55 GMT Reply-To: Tom Neff Couldn't these rotary payphones also be set to block DTMF tones, like some PBX's? Then pocket DTMF generators wouldn't work either. ------------------------------ From: nkraft@pnet01.cts.com (Norman Kraft) Subject: Re: Minitel Access Phone Numbers List Date: 16 Apr 90 06:18:37 GMT Organization: People-Net [pnet01], El Cajon CA Okay, now that we have the MINITEL phone number lists, what do we do with them? All I get when I call is a # prompt that does nothing. Am I missing something (obviously, since I don't even really know what MINITEL is). Thanks in advance for settling my curiosity. Norman R. Kraft | UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd ucsd nosc}!crash!pnet01!nkraft Kensington Data Systems | ARPA: crash!pnet01!nkraft@nosc.mil P.O. Box 880762 | INET: nkraft@pnet01.cts.com San Diego, CA 92108 | VOICE: (619) 277-4475 ------------------------------ From: hrs1@cbnewsi.ATT.COM (herman.r.silbiger) Subject: Re: Deutsche Bundespost Breakup -- Can Someone Tell the Story? Date: 15 Apr 90 13:27:30 GMT Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In article <6354@accuvax.nwu.edu>, wedel!pirx@apple.uucp (Jan Hinnerk Haul) writes: > The Bundespost used to sue "inofficial" modem owners, subsequently another > court decided that the use of a modem (or other telephone device) > allowed by the P.T.T. of any European Community country is not legal, > but you cannot get punished for doing so :-) It was explained to me in Germany as follows: While it is not illegal to connect to the telephone line, it is also not allowed. I also noticed that a department store had a display of a large variety of telephone sets for sale, with a sign that said: "These items may be used for decorative purposes only." As far as the distinctions between permitted and allowed go, I was told the following story. In Russia (this was before perestroika) nothing is permitted, not even those things which are allowed. In Germany, nothing is permitted, except for those things which are specifically allowed. In France, everything is allowed, except for those things which are not permitted. In Italy, everything is allowed, even those things which are not permitted. Herman Silbiger ------------------------------ Organization: Penn State University Date: Sunday, 15 Apr 1990 12:10:29 EDT From: Peter Weiss Subject: Re: The Card Having recently received _The Card_, I was wondering why they chose to emboss the calling card number (which appears under the name)? Does MasterCard need that info for something (or the sales clerk?)? Inquiring minds want to know. Peter M. Weiss | (this line intentionally left blank) 31 Shields Bldg (the AIS people) | advertize here, reach Mega populi University Park, PA USA 16802 | Disclaimer -* +* applies herein [Moderator's Note: I can't imagine anyone giving an iota what the sales clerk 'requires'. The reason for both numbers being present is that the one is a VISA number; the other is a telephone calling card number. It may be that the VISA number can be used for telephone calls in phones with card readers; I do not know. But the vast majority of phone calls would require the traditional, or standard phone billing number and pin. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #257 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa00249; 17 Apr 90 4:47 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa21463; 17 Apr 90 3:20 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab29989; 17 Apr 90 2:15 CDT Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 1:40:38 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #258 BCC: Message-ID: <9004170140.ab29306@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Apr 90 01:40:10 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 258 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Operator Liability [Mike Riddle] Phone Replacement [Jeffrey Silber] What is a Switch 56 Line? [Dick Busch] Phone Management on Macs [Brian Capouch] IMTS: A Look Back [Larry Rachman] Rates For Cellular Phones [Michael Fetzer] Re: Cellular Phone Reprogramming [Rob Warnock] Re: More Comments From a US Sprint Employee [John Higdon] DeArmond-Lippman Childishness [David Svoboda] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 14 Apr 90 21:09:06 EDT From: Mike Riddle Subject: Operator Liability Reply-to: Mike.Riddle@p0.f27.n285.z1.fidonet.org Organization: Inns Of Court, Papillion, Ne. 402-593-1192 In researching some things recently I ran across leads to the following articles. Considering recent postings in this newsgroup, I thought I'd pass them along. Recommended reading list for sysops: Hernandez, ECPA and Online Computer Privacy, 41 Fed. Comm. L.J. 17 (1989) Comment, An Electronic Soapbox: Computer Bulletin Boards and the First Amendment, 39 Fed. Comm. L.J. 217 (1987) (authored by Eric C. Jensen) Comment, Computer Bulletin Board Operator Liability for User Misuse, 54 Fordham L. Rev. 439 (1985) (authored by Jonathan Gilbert) Soma, Smith & Sprague, Legal Analysis of Electronic Bulletin Board ACtivities, 7 W. New England L. Rev. 571 (1985) I've read the Hernandez, Jensen and GIlbert writings, and found them all to be of value in clarifying the liabilties we face and precautions we could and arguably should take in operating our BBSes. I'm searching for the Soma article, but expect it also to be of benefit. Check your local law library for the above. The journals are copyrighted, most of them aren't available in electronic form, and I don't have a scanner. Take care, y'all. Ybbat (DRBBS) 8.9 v. 3.07 r.1 * Origin: [1:285/27@fidonet] The Inns of Court (402) 593-1192 Through FidoNet gateway node 1:16/390 Mike.Riddle@f27.n285.z1.fidonet.org ------------------------------ From: Jeffrey Silber Subject: Phone Replacement Date: 16 Apr 90 13:48:21 GMT Reply-To: Jeffrey Silber Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY I have been asked to replace my mother's rented phone with a purchased one. I understand the ins-and-outs of typical phone service but this has a wrinkle which confuses me -- she is on a four party line. Are there any do's or don'ts regarding the installation of phones on party lines ... is the wiring the same? Thanks for the advice. Jeffrey A. Silber/silber@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu Business Manager/Cornell Center for Theory & Simulation in Science & Engineering [Moderator's Note: Am I mistaken, or are you not *forbidden* to hook anything onto a party line except a phone provided by the local telco itself? I know answering machines and modems are forbidden on party-line service; what about just a typical Radio Shack phone, for example? Doesn't our reader, under law, have to keep his hands off entirely when it is a party line? PT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 00:20:16 -0400 From: Dick Busch Subject: What is a Switch 56 Line? Reply-To: Dick Busch Organization: E.I.E. I/O Can some one tell me what a switch 56 line is and how does it differ from a four wire leased line (conditioned 3002 line?). From what it sounded like (that can be dangerous) the modem sales rep was saying ... a four wire leased line could act as a switch 56 line if it happens to go through the right brand of central office switches. But thats sounds too far out since I though the conditioned 4 wire leased line is analog and the switch 56 is digital. See I'm confused - please someone explain. Also if you have any idea of the relative price difference between the two services (is one a lot more, about the same - ball park stuff). Thanks in advance, Dick Busch rcb@phx.mcd.mot.com noao!asuvax!mcdphx!biff!rcb ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Apr 90 22:34:53 -0500 (CDT) From: Brian Capouch Subject: Phone Management on Macs I read some time ago (and wish I could remember when) about a PC-based call-management system. I seem to remember that it had some personal-type name, like "Herbert" or somesuch. It handled incoming call traffic, forwarded calls, etc. Am I remembering this correctly? Could anyone out there refresh my memory? I'm starting a small business, and need to find some friendly way to manage traffic on our 2-3 lines, which will have to handle a dynamic mix of voice/data traffic, without spending a lot of $$. We are going to have a Mac, with an Abaton fax modem. Could some smart person out there point me in some starting directions? I know this message is a little vague; I wish I could remember the system I read about here, because it looked like a PC-based version of exactly what I'm after. Thanks. Brian Capouch Networking Specialist Saint Joseph's College brianc@saintjoe.edu ------------------------------ Date: 15 Apr 90 20:58:16 EDT From: Larry Rachman <74066.2004@compuserve.com> Subject: IMTS: A Look Back In a recent issue, Macy Hallock writes: >I'll start a discussion of IMTS if anyone is interested ... I spent >a few years working on these animals. Well, lets encourage him!! I first ran into IMTS when I was in high school, and car phones were still the sign of 'having arrived'. I lusted after one of these for more than a few years, finally finding an old Motorola at a ham flea market. The beast was about 6" by 12" by 20", and consisted of a duplex UHF tranceiver and a so-called sup-pack, a pair of hinged cards containing many dozens of transistors set up as discrete logic. Fortunately, it sat in the trunk, attached to a rotary dial (!) control head that looked sort of like a princess phone with clamps to keep the handset from falling off. I guess that the problem the design engineers had in the '60s was: "We have to design an operator-less mobile telephone system, but microprocessors won't be invented for another 10 years or so ... what do we do??" The answer was fascinating -- data handshaking was done via 10/20 pps rotary-dial style FSK signalling. When idle, your mobile would scan your 'home' channels for the calling channel, marked by a high tone. Incoming calls were signalled by the tone shifting between two frequencies at rotary dial rates, sending the area code plus last four digits of the phone number. If the digits matched the wire jumpers set in the phone, the phone would send a burst of tone back to the base, which the caller would hear, along with a burst of squelch noise, before the phone rang. This was kind of neat, because the caller could tell when you weren't there, before the recording came on. Picking up the handset sent yet another tone (memory fails me as to the particulars) and you could begin talking. When you hung up, the phone would send a burst of tone that rapidly shifted between two frequencies, and which the caller would hear for about half a second before the equipment recognized it and disconnected. The sound was neat way to punctuate the end of your call, and I sometimes think of kluging a simulator onto my cellular phone :-). Outgoing was equally interesting; when you went off hook, your mobile handshook to seize the marked channel (and shake off the other mobiles waiting for incoming), and then transmitted your area code plus last four digits at 20 pps, toggling between high-tone-low-tone and high-tone-no-tone, as a rudimentary form of parity checking for billing security. If the base was satisfied, it returned dial tone, and you could then dial the call. Pulling the dial away from the normal position sent high tone, and the dial-pulsing contacts shifted it to a lower frequency in time with the pulsing. I had great fun with this thing for several years, despite the fact that the control head barely fit in the glove compartment of my Toyota, and the radio took up most of the luggage space. Back then, nearly everyone was impressed by the sound of a real metal telephone bell issuing forth from the glove compartment. I could go on (and on, and on...), but I'll leave the next batch of stories for other writers. Larry Rachman 74066,2004@compuserve.com ...or fax, at 516-427-8705 ------------------------------ From: rider@pnet12.cts.com (Michael Fetzer) Subject: Rates For Cellular Phones Date: 15 Apr 90 06:36:08 GMT Organization: People-Net [pnet12], Del Mar, CA I may be mistaken, but I think I've made the observation that cellular phones are much cheaper to own and operate in the Pacific North West (read: Portland, OR) than in California (read Sandi Eggo). When I was up there (in Portland) a few weeks ago, I saw the basic cellular phone for car installation on sale for less than 130 bucks. Down here, SD, the cheapest I see is over 400. How can this be? Also, I was told that the rates for cellular calls are fairly high in SD, and I'm not sure about the monthly fee. In Portland, on the other hand, the monthly charge is supposed to be under $30 a month, and the per minute charges are supposed to be low. My questions: does anyone have factual information on the rates and costs of phones? Can someone tell me why there is this large difference in cost for the basic phone? The monthly charges? The call charges? Mike UUCP: ucsd!serene!pnet12!rider or ucsd!mfetzer ARPA: crash!pnet12!rider@nosc.mil INET: rider@pnet12.cts.com or mfetzer@ucsd.edu BITNET: fetzerm@sdsc ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Apr 90 09:21:12 GMT From: Rob Warnock Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Reprogramming Reply-To: Rob Warnock Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA In article <6285@accuvax.nwu.edu> nickless@flash.ras.anl.gov writes: | Although the instructions clearly stated "Not to be provided to | end-user" on them, he allowed me to copy down the important | information -- the "magic code" to put the phone into programming | mode. (It's a Nokia Mobira handheld -- the same thing that Radio | Shack sells. But it may not be exactly the same. A Mobira saleperson I ran into said that the Radio-Shack unit is not a standard Nokia/Mobira model, though it's close. They sold R-S the design, and it's being manufactured by a third party in Korea. (Still, I've been happy with mine.) However, as with any of their products, R-S will sell you a service manual, which includes some (or all?) of the programming info (as well as schematics, and lots of interesting details, like the transmit power-limiting stuff). But to do most of the interesting ops, the R-S phone has to be put into a special "local" mode by grounding a pin on the battery pack with a certain resistance, which *cannot* be done (at least, not very easily) with the standard battery installed -- you have to use a special bench power supply that plugs in where the battery goes, and accesses extra pins the battery doesn't pass through to the outside. By the way, the "security code" (that lets you change the "unlock code") comes programmed as "12345", and the "unlock code" (that lets you unlock the phone if you've locked it) comes as "1234". Shades of "login: root, password: root"! And you can't change the "security code" except in "local" mode. (And of course my R-S saleman didn't ask if I wanted to change the "security code".) But at least you can't change the unlock code without the phone being unlocked, and the phone stays locked across power-down/up. So if you change your unlock code to something other than "1234" (which a user *can* do) and leave it locked all the time, there's *some* protection... if you believe 4 digits is "protection". Rob Warnock, MS-9U/510 rpw3@sgi.com rpw3@pei.com Silicon Graphics, Inc. (415)335-1673 Protocol Engines, Inc. 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94039-7311 [Moderator's Note: Actually, in the Radio Shack CT-301, which is the model you are referring to, the 'local mode' is entered through a very simple entry directly on the keypad. This code which you enter on the keypad includes the five digit security code (12345) when it comes from the factory. But the five digit security code itself is one of the parameters you can set while in local mode. And the schematics and other technical data you can get on this unit does not include the programming stuff. The Radio Shack Cellular Tech Support Line is 817-878-6980. PT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: More Comments From a US Sprint Employee Date: 15 Apr 90 11:21:29 PDT (Sun) From: John Higdon Steve Elias writes for an anonymous poster: > Also, the long distance calls you make today cost you on average 40% > less than they did six years ago. Maybe you should ask ATT to give > you the service and higher prices that you had six years ago if that's > what you want. This is the one point that must be conceded. Competitive forces have no doubt improved service overall and caused the decline in long distance rates. No one would disagree with that. But while MCI and Sprint have been fighting their noble fight, AT&T has certainly kept up with the pack. But the lower rates simply cannot compensate for the non-AT&T deficiencies. I just made some test calls to the east coast. All three carriers (at least to NY) are now using digital technology. A month ago, MCI was still analog. AT&T's setup time was consistently 3 times as fast as either MCI or Sprint. One of the Sprint calls never went through. Both MCI and Sprint were somewhat "grungier" than AT&T in audio quality. And from past experience, if I had remained on the line long enough, the Sprint calls would have suffered from "auto-disconnect". This brings up another important consideration: service. When I have had difficulty with data transmission through AT&T, I have received numerous call-backs and and resolution within twenty-four hours. Recently, I discovered that no call placed to 704/648 would go through on Sprint. Do you know what their service department's solution was? Preceed my dialing with "10288"! When I pressed the matter, the answer FROM A SUPERVISOR was, "well, there really isn't a lot of demand to call that area [Canton, NC] so it will be much simpler for you to just use AT&T for those calls." It certainly is reassuring to discover that there are areas of this country that are not important enough to worry about. So while I concede that competition has benefitted the American public, it must also be conceded that the competitors were given an enormous amount of space to build their companies when AT&T was there to handle calls when they really had to go through. Yes, AT&T had a major 17 hour outage. But as I have explained to salestypes, better one outage every 50 or 60 years than just generally mediocre service. Granted, competition has kept AT&T on its toes. And when some other company can demonstrate that it really is better, I will be first in line to sign up. Until then, I'll just settle for the indirect benefits. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Apr 90 11:16:15 CDT From: David Svoboda Subject: DeArmond-Lippman Childishness I berate both of these gentlemen for their very childish attitude. I have great respect for their knowledge of telecommunications, but I feel that the personal attacks in both cases were completely uncalled for. Perceived falsehood deserves correction, not slander, Mr. Lippman, and one bit of slander needs not require another, Mr. DeArmond, only the truth. Your attitudes erode the strength of your arguments, gentlemen. And to the moderator: I read this forum regularly and feel in general that the moderation of this group is superior to any other; but in this case, I am disappointed that you did not save these gentleman their embarrassment. -David Svoboda uunet!motcid!svoboda [Moderator's Note: Mr. Lippman has already responded to the rebuttal by DeArmond with a follow up message 25 *thousand* -- count 'em! -- bytes in length. I'll decide what to do with it soon. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #258 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa19392; 18 Apr 90 3:10 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa02524; 18 Apr 90 1:40 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa15392; 18 Apr 90 0:33 CDT Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 23:52:12 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #259 BCC: Message-ID: <9004172352.ab26632@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Apr 90 23:50:18 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 259 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: The Card [Peter Weiss] Re: The Card [Johnny Zweig] Re: The Card [Brian Kantor] Re: The Card [Matt Simpson] Re: Phone Management on Macs [Martin B. Weiss] Re: Phone Management on Macs [Michael Fetzer] Re: Phone Replacement [William Kucharski] Re: Phone Replacement [John Cowan] Re: More Comments From a US Sprint Employee [Mark Harrison] Re: Cellular Phone Reprogramming [Robert Stratton] Re: Rates For Cellular Phones [John Higdon] Re: Ten New AT&T Direct Dial Countries [Jeff Carroll] Re: Credit Card ID [Jim Gottlieb] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Organization: Penn State University Date: Tuesday, 17 Apr 1990 08:26:43 EDT From: Peter Weiss Subject: Re: The Card In article <6441@accuvax.nwu.edu>, PMW1@psuvm.psu.edu (Peter Weiss) says: >Having recently received _The Card_, I was wondering why they chose to >emboss the calling card number (which appears under the name)? >Does MasterCard need that info for something (or the sales clerk?)? >....that the one is a VISA number; the other is a telephone calling card >number. It may be that the VISA number can be used for telephone calls >in phones with card readers; I do not know. But the vast majority of >phone calls would require the traditional, or standard phone billing >number and pin. PT] Just for the record, _The Card_ does not mention VISA, only MasterCard, and seems to be from the Universal Bank, POB 1977, Columbus, GA 31902. MAC access is thru the Plus System; the operative phrase above is _emboss_. /Pete ------------------------------ From: Johnny Zweig Subject: Re: The Card Reply-To: zweig@cs.uiuc.edu Organization: U of Illinois, CS Dept., Systems Research Group Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 15:21:52 GMT PMW1@psuvm.psu.edu (Peter Weiss) writes: >Having recently received _The Card_, I was wondering why they chose to >emboss the calling card number (which appears under the name)? >Peter M. Weiss | (this line intentionally left blank) >[Moderator's Note: I can't imagine anyone giving an iota what the >sales clerk 'requires'. The reason for both numbers being present is >that the one is a VISA number; the other is a telephone calling card >number. It may be that the VISA number can be used for telephone calls >in phones with card readers; I do not know. But the vast majority of >phone calls would require the traditional, or standard phone billing >number and pin. PT] Yes. The calling card number is different from the VISA account number (they are unrelated and have a different number of digits). It may even be that the VISA number is on a different track from the c-c number so that the Right Thing happens when you stick it into a phone with a swipe reader. BTW, when I called +1 800 423 4343 to have them correct my name and address (who the zark spells Jonathan as "Jonathon", anyway?!) the guy had to ask me three times for the corrections, finally giving up on entering the stuff into the computer and writing it on a piece of paper. He promised me he'd type it in later. AT&T is batting 0 for 1000 as far as software goes lately, in my estimation. Johnny ------------------------------ From: Brian Kantor Subject: Re: The Card Date: 17 Apr 90 16:53:08 GMT Reply-To: Brian Kantor Organization: The Avant-Garde of the Now, Ltd. In article <6441@accuvax.nwu.edu> PMW1@psuvm.psu.edu (Peter Weiss) writes: >Having recently received _The Card_, I was wondering why they chose to >emboss the calling card number (which appears under the name)? I assume you are asking "as opposed to just printing it on the card". That would take another pass through another machine, and then the surface of the card would have to be protected in some way to keep the printing from deteriorating in the harsh environment of the typical wallet or purse. It's much cheaper to just emboss ALL the individualized lettering on the card. Only the "boiler-plate" is laminated into the card at manufacture. That the embossing prints information on credit card slips that isn't really needed there probably isn't their concern. You are certainly able to peen it down so that it doesn't print if you don't want it to. - Brian ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 15:41:27 EDT From: Matt Simpson Subject: Re: The Card I applied for the card immediately after reading about it on the Telecom Digest, I think it was about 3 weeks ago. As I posted earlier, as soon as I gave them my home phone , they already knew all about me, and told me I was pre-approved for a $3000 credit limit. Meanwhile, I have been enviously reading reports from those who have already received The Card, while awaiting my own. Yesterday, it arrived - or so I thought. Eagerly tearing open the envelope, I found a computer-generated letter thanking me for applying, and regretting that I couldn't have a card because "Your credit history does not meet the program requirement" . They generously provided the name and address of the credit bureau they used, in case I wanted to contact them. And they sweetly told me that if I had an AT&T Calling Card, I could of course continue to use it, and that they valued my continued business. So I called AT&T, and asked how I could be rejected after being "pre-approved". The guy mumbled something about "pre-approved" just meant they were looking at me, or something. Then he wanted to know who told me I was pre-approved. Unfortunately, I didn't remember the woman's name. So then I asked him just what "program requirement" my credit history didn't meet. He asked my name again, although I'd given it to him twice, then asked how to spell it. He appeared to be trying to find me in some data base. I heard him mutter something to himself that sounded like "closed". Then he told me that due to overwhelming customer response, he was unable to answer my question, but thought that maybe my credit history just wasn't complete. I asked him how I could give him complete info if he couldn't tell me what was missing. At that, he told me to call back in 7-10 working days. I wrote this guy's name down, in case the next person asks me who I talked to, since that seems to be one of their favorite questions. ------------------------------ From: Martin B Weiss Subject: Re: Phone Management on Macs Date: 17 Apr 90 14:21:40 GMT Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Comp & Info Services I am not specifically familiar with this product, but I do wish to refer you to the April 1990 issue of IEEE Communications. One article in this issue describes a Mac-based system for managing telephones and voice mail. Martin Weiss Telecommunications Program, University of Pittsburgh Internet: mbw@lis.pitt.edu OR mbw@unix.cis.pitt.edu BITNET: mbw@pittvms ------------------------------ From: rider@pnet12.cts.com (Michael Fetzer) Subject: Re: Phone Management on Macs Date: 18 Apr 90 00:36:06 GMT Organization: People-Net [pnet12], Del Mar, CA Let me warn you about the Abaton FAX/modem. It's a great unit, I have one, but if it's turned on (i.e., if it's software tells it it's turned on) it will answer all calls as though they were a fax. The only way to get voice is to pick up the phone before the abaton does, or, if you've hooked your phone through the abaton, after it's annoyed the called with fax noises. What you need, I think, and what I'm looking for, is a device that sits before the fax modem, and makes the decision whether to pass to call to fax or voice. Also not, you can't have your abaton answer both fax and modem calls. Either, or. Mike UUCP: ucsd!serene!pnet12!rider or ucsd!mfetzer ARPA: crash!pnet12!rider@nosc.mil INET: rider@pnet12.cts.com or mfetzer@ucsd.edu BITNET: fetzerm@sdsc ------------------------------ From: William Kucharski Subject: Re: Phone Replacement Organization: Solbourne Computer, Inc., Longmont, CO Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 14:32:45 GMT I believe that installing your own phone is allowed, but modems and answering machines are not for the simple reason that they are incapable of surrendering the line in case an emergency call needs to be made. | ARPA: kucharsk@Solbourne.COM | William Kucharski | | uucp: ...!{boulder,sun,uunet}!stan!kucharsk | Solbourne Computer, Inc. | = The opinions above are mine alone and NOT those of Solbourne Computer, Inc. = ------------------------------ From: John Cowan Subject: Re: Phone Replacement Reply-To: John Cowan Organization: ESCC, New York City Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 19:37:09 GMT Our esteemed Moderator writes: >Am I mistaken, or are you not *forbidden* to hook >anything onto a party line except a phone provided by the local telco >itself? I know answering machines and modems are forbidden on >party-line service; what about just a typical Radio Shack phone, for >example? Doesn't our reader, under law, have to keep his hands off >entirely when it is a party line? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Taconic Telephone 4- and 7-line service, as I have noted before, uses different ringing signals (whether voltages or frequencies, I know not, but I would conjecture frequencies) to ring different parties on the line. A phone cannot be connected unless it is tuned to respond only to the correct ring. Taconic Telephone permits the connection of foreign equipment only if they themselves have checked it out and certify it suitable for their lines; mere FCC certification will not cut it. Furthermore, automatic equipment cannot be used either, as it is unable to yield the line in case of emergency as required by law. ------------------------------ From: Mark Harrison Subject: Re: More Comments From a US Sprint Employee Date: 17 Apr 90 13:37:37 GMT Organization: NEC America Inc. SSD, Irving, TX > [ this is from an anonymous source within US Sprint ] > (Note: The signalling system which ATT was deploying which caused the > crash of 50% of their network has already been deployed at US Sprint > for over a year!) Is this the Good News or the Bad News? (many :->) Mark Harrison harrison@necssd.NEC.COM (214)518-5050 {necntc, cs.utexas.edu}!necssd!harrison standard disclaimers apply... ------------------------------ From: Robert Stratton Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Reprogramming Date: 17 Apr 90 13:32:28 GMT Reply-To: Robert Stratton Organization: Grebyn Timesharing, Vienna, VA, USA In article <6448@accuvax.nwu.edu> Rob Warnock writes: >However, as with any of their products, R-S will sell you a service >manual, which includes some (or all?) of the programming info (as well >as schematics, and lots of interesting details, like the transmit >power-limiting stuff). >[And the schematics and >other technical data you can get on this unit does not include the >programming stuff. The Radio Shack Cellular Tech Support Line is >817-878-6980. PT] At least they will sell you something now ... When I worked for good old Radio Shark, as a management trainee (chuckle), we had memo after memo warning us of nefarious characters who ripped off CMT's, and came in to the Shack for all sorts of technical support. These memos tended toward the histrionic, and in the event that someone came in to get his/her PROM burned, without having bought the phone at the store in question, I recall suggestions to run screaming to the gendarmerie. It's good to find out who's making these phones, as that's half the reason I worked there briefly (to find out who made what in the product line). I would simply caution those seeking tech support, especially those who didn't buy a phone from R.S. - to be aware that there are a bunch of paranoid managers out there, who don't understand the technology and are afraid of those who do. (Why does that sound familiar..?) [Moderator's Note: I note when you call them in Texas the first question they ask is, are you a customer or a store. If you claim to be a store, they want the store ID, etc. PT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Rates For Cellular Phones Date: 17 Apr 90 09:50:24 PDT (Tue) From: John Higdon rider@pnet12.cts.com (Michael Fetzer) writes: > My questions: does anyone have factual information on the rates and > costs of phones? Can someone tell me why there is this large > difference in cost for the basic phone? The monthly charges? The > call charges? Pricing is based on "what the traffic will bear" as presented to the individual state's PUC or eqivalent. The price of equipment is purely "what the traffic will bear". I would imagine that Oregonians are somewhat less eager to have that universal status symbol and hence will not pay the usary rates charged in California. In CA, the "standard" rate is $45.00 per month and $0.45 per minute on peak and $0.20-$0.27 off peak. There are discount plans such as the one that has $25.00 per month, $0.90 on peak, $0.20 off peak; or the sign up for a year plan which has $39.00/month, $0.45 on, $0.20 off, and included all custom calling. These rates are among the highest in the nation for one simple reason: utilities can get away with anything with the California PUC. Why do you think they call it the "Public UTILITY'S Commission"? Why do you think Pac*Bell can get away with its usary rates and its hopelessly outdated plant? Why do think PG&E (Pacific Graft & Extortion) gets away with not only the highest electric rates in the country, but a level of service that makes one envy your average third-world country? (My computer and phone system are powered through a UPS. It's not luxury; it's survival.) Anytime you have a rate or service question (or amazement) in California, just remember that the Golden State has the most incompetent, least public-responsive PUC in the country. We would be better off to submit all matters to the monkey cage at the San Diego Zoo. Whatever the output, people would be served more effectively. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Jeff Carroll Subject: Re: Ten New AT&T Direct Dial Countries Date: 17 Apr 90 06:57:25 GMT Reply-To: Jeff Carroll Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle In article <6367@accuvax.nwu.edu> covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert) writes: >Likewise Mayotte, currently transiting through France, will get direct >operator service in May and then become dialable (269) at some future >time. Mayotte has been dialable via Sprint for some time, but has >only been reachable on direct access lines or in a few places (states >near Minnesota) where the C.O.s put the code in without an order from >AT&T. I'm sorry. I consider myself geographically well informed, but I am completely stumped here. Where the hell is Mayotte? And is there some reason why people in Minnesota want to call there? (Is Mayotte possibly out in the middle of Lake Superior?) Jeff Carroll carroll@atc.boeing.com ------------------------------ From: Jim Gottlieb Subject: Re: Credit Card ID Date: 17 Apr 90 10:23:32 GMT Reply-To: Jim Gottlieb Organization: Info Connections, Tokyo, Japan In article <6351@accuvax.nwu.edu> glaser@starch.enet.dec.com (Steve Glaser) writes: >you can can follow their instructions to the letter and give >them any random phone number you feel like When I'm in the U.S. and am asked to write down my number on a charge slip, I always write "011 81 3 237 5868". Not once has anyone said anything. [Moderator's Note: The way I usually avoid this is to tell them I don't have a phone. There's a pay phone at the cut-rate liquor store on the corner from my house; I go there if I need to make a call, but I don't know what the number is. If they still don't catch on then I become obnoxious and specifically challenge them,"Are you refusing to make the sale?". They always back down, just to get me out of the store. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #259 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa19412; 18 Apr 90 3:11 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab02524; 18 Apr 90 1:43 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab15392; 18 Apr 90 0:34 CDT Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 0:24:18 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #260 BCC: Message-ID: <9004180024.ab14709@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 18 Apr 90 00:23:47 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 260 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: More on Coin Telephone Fraud [Wolf Paul] Re: More on Coin Telephone Fraud [Karl Denninger] More on Coin Station Fraud Using Tone Spoofing [Larry Lippman] Re: Access to the 'BTX' System of West German Telco [Kristian Koehntopp] Re: Ordering Unix from AT&T [Thomas Neudecker] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: wolf paul Subject: Re: More on Coin Telephone Fraud Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 12:08:49 MET DST Organization: IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria This is about coin telephone fraud in Austria, and describes two methods which no longer work. Austria used to have pay phones for local calls which accepted the standard phone coin, a one Schilling piece (currently about $ 0.09). You had to insert a coin in order to get dial tone, and this would also start a pointer moving across a semi-circular window; it would take 3 minutes to move all the way across, and then it would cut you off. There was no way of adding more coins and thus extending the length of the call; your money was held in a special receptacle until you pressed the "pay button" or the three minutes was up, then it would drop into the coin box. Until you pressed the pay button, you could hear dial tone, ringing or busy, or the answering party, but the answering party couldn't hear you; and if you hung up without pressing the pay button before the three minutes was up, your coin would be returned. Among other things, this permitted toll-free access from pay phones to a long list of taped messages, such as weather reports, snow reports (during the ski season), APA-News (Austria Press Agency), etc., and meant also that you didn't pay for no-answer or busy (there never was any credit for wrong number, nor was there ever toll-free access to emergency numbers). As I said, these phones were intended for local use only, but the only way this was enforced was that the one shilling deposit would not last long enough on any long distance call to permit any reasonable conversation. A popular way of defrauding these pay phones consisted in drilling a small hole through the pointer window about halfway across the path of the pointer, and sticking a pin through, which would stop the pointer moving and thus prevent it from cutting you off at the end. Apparently there was no easy way of detecting this, short of inspecting the phone physically. A well-known case involved such a phone at the American International School in Vienna. Postal officials noticed that even though the phone was almost constantly off-hook, hardly any money collected in the coin box. The hole had been drilled so skillfully, with such a fine drill, and a pin inserted, that it was not immediatley visible. Students would take the phone off-hook at the beginning of longer breaks, insert a shilling, and then proceed to make long distance calls, usually to North America (the AIS is sponsored by the American and Canadian embassies). A more recent pay phone permitted the use of different coins, and allowed cumulative insertion, for longer or long distance calls. The coins would increment an electronic counter, and the charge impulses coming over the line from the CO would decrement it. The counter could be manipulated by means of piezo-electric cigarette and gas stove lighters. Of course, the counter circuit was changed as soon as the PTT realized that this was happening. Wolf N. Paul, Int. Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) Schloss Laxenburg, Schlossplatz 1, A - 2361 Laxenburg, Austria, Europe PHONE: +43-2236-71521-465 FAX: +43-2236-71313 UUCP: uunet!iiasa.at!wnp INTERNET: wnp%iiasa.at@uunet.uu.net BITNET: tuvie!iiasa!wnp@awiuni01.BITNET ------------------------------ From: Karl Denninger Subject: Re: More on Coin Telephone Fraud Reply-To: Karl Denninger Organization: Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. - Mundelein, IL Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 14:38:36 GMT In article <6434@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Higdon writes: >X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 257, Message 4 of 11 >Ok, but what about money collected by automatic equipment for >non-local calls? Virtually all station-to-station intraLATA and >AT&T-handled calls are completed without any operator assistance. No >one can convince me that the automatic "one dollah please" lady >listens to background noise or anything other than the coin deposit >beeps. Correct. The automated attendant ("please deposit one dollar and twenty-five cents for the first three minutes") listens only to the tones; it doesn't know whether you >really< inserted coins. The same holds true for the computer voice that tells you insert more money during a long-distance call. It is, however, highly sensitive to the tones being >exactly< correct. If they're not, you get a real live operator who can check that there are really coins in the slot, and/or refund them for you to re-insert the coins. If you get a real live operator then you can't play your tape or device, as the operator can listen for background noise and may also be able to query the totalizer directly. The automated equipment does not do this. I've seen this technique demonstrated with a tape recorder; it worked. It's rather commonly used at colleges and other places where you tend to have a payphone that can't be connected to any particular person. The person demonstrating it said that it does >not< work for local calls on DTF phones -- only long distance "1+" calls, which of course are the calls that most people are going to bother trying fraud with -- why bother getting caught and/or going to jail for a quarter? This entire thing is, needless to say, rather risky unless you're calling payphone-to-payphone; should you get caught doing it they'll undoubtedly have some rather pointed questions for the person you were calling, even if they can't identify the call originator. :-) Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, !ddsw1!karl) Public Access Data Line: [+1 708 566-8911], Voice: [+1 708 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality Solutions at a Fair Price" ------------------------------ Subject: More on Coin Station Fraud Using Tone Spoofing Date: 17 Apr 90 20:59:51 EST (Tue) From: Larry Lippman In article <6434@accuvax.nwu.edu> john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > > An experienced operator can usually ascertain if a coin is > > actually deposited (as opposed to playing a coin tone simulator) since > > the speech circuit is muted during legitimate totalizer tone readout. > > The difference is background noise during totalizer readout can > > usually be recognized by the operator. > Ok, but what about money collected by automatic equipment for > non-local calls? Virtually all station-to-station intraLATA and > AT&T-handled calls are completed without any operator assistance. No > one can convince me that the automatic "one dollah please" lady > listens to background noise or anything other than the coin deposit > beeps. What I would buy is if a ground or other signal is placed on > the line at the moment the beeps are transmitted. Is this the case? While I cannot speak from recent experience, I can speak with familiarity from about 10 - 12 years ago when extensive implementation of ACTS (Automated Coin Telephone Service) and LCOT (Local Coin Overtime) began in many areas of the country. Also, this information has little or no applicability to COCOTS, and to other microprocessor- based coin stations. However, it should still be applicable to most DTF (Dial Tone First) coin stations using WECO and Northern Telecom 1C and 1D type or equivalent coin stations. In the case of ACTS, to which the above poster referred, the coin station is connected to a coin control trunk which is part of the TSPS Coin Station Signaling and Announcement Subsystem. ACTS is a part of TSPS, connects to the TSPS network, and is ultimately controlled by the same No. 1 SPC (Stored Program Controller) which runs TSPS. After ACTS makes the announcement as to the amount of the coin deposit, the coin control trunk places +48 V (*positive* battery) on the ring side of the line, while connecting ground to the tip. This action enables the totalizer for readout, and also operates the "B" relay in the totalizer which *disables* the speech network. The coin control trunk then counts dual-tone pulses from one or more deposited coins until the proper amount is entered. If a preset time is exceeded before the required amount is deposited, the coin control trunk aborts the collection effort and the call, places a recorded announcement on the line, and refunds the coins deposited so far. After the requested amount is deposited, the coin control trunk then applies -48 volt battery to the tip, with the ring open, to check for the presence of a coin. Admittedly the coin control trunk will be satisfied on the latter test if only one coin is present. At this point, while the money is in the coin hopper, it has not been collected. If answer supervision on the call is detected, the money is collected immediately after the call is completed. If no answer supervision on the call is detected, the money is refunded when the handset is replaced. Usually the collect or return function is delayed until the handset is replaced, but it *can* occur with the handset off-hook, and may do so in some CO's. The defense against fraud in the above scenario is that the speech network is disabled by the CO during the coin deposit interval, which precludes use of a tone generator held to the handset transmitter. Furthermore, the CO apparatus will not "listen" for coin pulses until it is ready for them, so an attempt to introduce coin tones through the handset transmitter prematurely will fail. An attempt to introduce coin tones late will also fail because the call has already been aborted following timeout. LCOT is similar to the above, with the exception that LCOT does NOT involve TSPS, but is provided through other CO coin control trunks. In addition, LCOT expects to collect only ONE coin, for which it not only counts tone pulses but explicitly makes a ground test (ring open, -48 V on tip) after each coin. Furthermore, LCOT then *collects* the coin on the spot, while the station is off-hook and the call is in progress. Some early LCOT apparatus did not count coin pulses, but merely tested for the presence of a coin; this was before inflation made the 5-minute LCOT interval more than a nickel in some areas. :-) It is rather difficult to commit fraud under the above conditions, unless one has access to the tip *and* ring of the coin station line - a condition against which precautions are usually taken. Mere access to one wire somewhere in the speech network, as from a pin poked through the transmitter, will not, to the best of my knowledge, facilitate any type of fraud with this coin station. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp. <> UUCP {boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!acsu.buffalo.edu!kitty!larry <> TEL 716/688-1231 || 716/773-1700 {utzoo|uunet}!/ \uniquex!larry <> FAX 716/741-9635 || 716/773-2488 ------------------------------ From: kris@tpki.UUCP (Kristian Koehntopp) Subject: Re: Access to the 'BTX' System of West German Telco Date: 17 Apr 90 16:55:17 GMT Organization: TopPoint/ix Mailbox, Kiel, BRD In article <6204@accuvax.nwu.edu>, covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert) writes: > Remember that BTX, like all European videotex (not to be confused with > teletext or videotext) systems, does not speak normal ASCII. It uses > the European CEPT graphics display language, usually built into > videotex-ready television sets. Trying to talk to it without a > television set or other device containing a CEPT display translator is > doomed to failure. Though it is true that BTX uses the Europaen CEPT Graphics Standard, nearly no one uses TV sets or special BTX equipment for connection to the BTX System. In the last few years BTX-emulation-software for standard computers has been developed and is available by commercial and public-domain distributors. Complete BTX-Solutions are available, among others, for the IBM PC, the Commodore Amiga and the Atari ST. These "intelligent solutions" have many advantages to the "dumb decoder" solution: a modem already at hand can be used (*) and the advanced capabilities of a full-scale computer can be used to automatize the dialogue to the BTX System. BTX-Emulators usually have macro-capabilities, screen save-n-replay, hardcopy and some even have a powerful batch-processing language. Have you ever thought of writing a macro, which sends in 150,000 correct solutions of an "What is the brand name of the spinach with the 'blub'"-quiz? Well, a friend of mine did. The organizing company of this quiz was unable to download the resonses they got to their local machine per X.25 and instead decided to get a tape from German telecom. He got a special prize for "the most correct solutions". Hardware requirements for German BTX are fairly high: BTX offers more than one characterset displayed at once, with parts of some even rdefined and more than 2 colors per character. The color-palette is 16 fixed and 16-out-of-4096 at the same time at an effective resolution of sowewhat about 480 by 280 pixels, so you need either VGA, Amiga or Atari STE to get the full palette. As you can imagine, building up a screen with loads of graphics can be sloooooooooow. Characters can be two or three phase blinking, double height or width, hidden (shown, when "reveal" function-key is pressed), so you obviously you better have some cpu-seconds for decoding. Since BTX is so colorful, it contains 90% ads. The remaining 10% are chatting-lounges (of mostly sexual alignment) and the online phonebook of German telco. Not so much use at all, if you don't want to shop. This is also the reason, why BTX has not so many users as was expected by German telco. The development of BTX user figures was overestimanted by factor 5-10 by German telco. Hope my English is not that bad, this is my first posting in a foreign language, Kristian (*) German telco, the "Bundespost", offers an absolutely Low-Cost-Modem dedicated to communication with BTX. The infamous DBT-03 is a 1200/75 bps Modem with no intelligence at all. When switched on, it dials BTX and sends a hardware identification string, then goes transparent. If you have faster modems at home, which also have the capability of sending *ANY* desired identification instead of a built-in, why bothering with inferior equiptment? Kristian Koehntopp | kris@tpki.UUCP == ...!unido!tpki!kris Harmsstrasse 98 | FRG-2300 Kiel | ZERBERUS: KRIS@KBBS.ZER +49 431 676689 (v) | "There is more to it!" [Moderator's Note: Your command of English is good, and I thank you for writing and sharing with us. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 18:54:20 -0400 (EDT) From: Thomas Neudecker Subject: Re: Ordering Unix from AT&T In a recent posting from David Gast >The most interesting aspect of the entire meeting was that >their business cards did not have a phone number on them. Let me >repeat: AT&T's business cards did not include the phone number of >their office. Several of my friends who are sales reps for hardware and software companies keep two sets of business cards. The cards in the left pocket has the phone number and address and the cards in the right pocket do not. If they get trapped by a pest at a trade show the card from the right pocket is exchanged. If a hot sales lead comes along the cards comes out of the left pocket. Tom Neudecker Carnegie Mellon ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #260 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa23943; 18 Apr 90 5:23 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa23119; 18 Apr 90 3:48 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa20455; 18 Apr 90 2:43 CDT Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 1:37:28 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #261 BCC: Message-ID: <9004180137.ab19948@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 18 Apr 90 01:37:19 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 261 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson File Recovery (was Re: More Comments From a US Sprint Employee) [Tom Neff] Telecom*USA Question [David Svoboda] MCI PrimeTime [SOLOMON@mis.arizona.edu] LD Land Lines [SOLOMON@mis.arizona.edu] AT&T Mail and GEIS QUIK-COMM Forge X.400 Link [psrc@pegasus.att.com] Mike Barnicle Story From the Boston Globe [Skip Morris] Re: Coin Station Fraud Using External Ground [Colin Plumb] Re: Rates For Cellular Phones [Douglas Mason] Information and Equipment Needed [The Blade] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Neff Subject: File Recovery (was Re: More Comments From a US Sprint Employee) Date: 17 Apr 90 03:58:12 GMT Reply-To: Tom Neff In article <6426@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Higdon writes: >Makes great advertising copy, but when I have been transmitting a >large file for an hour and suddenly the connection is broken (and the >hour's worth of time and money goes up in smoke), I really couldn't >care less whether it's digital, or tin cans and string. I just want to point out here, as a practical matter, that if you can arrange to use ZMODEM file transfer, the hour need not be wasted. ZMODEM has partial file recovery: you reestablish the connection and start sending the file again with the -r switch and ZMODEM picks up where it left off (after CRC'ing part or all of the file to make sure it's the same one). You lose only a few minutes that way. ZMODEM file transfer is definitely available for UNIX, VMS and DOS -- maybe for other environments too, I haven't kept up 100%. I am not defending inferior phone service. I'm just suggesting that as a user the best strategy is to be able to cope with outages. Chuck Forsberg (UUCP ...omen!caf or try Internet caf%omen@uunet.uu.net) can answer more authoritatively. I have no affiliation except as a satisfied customer. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 09:35:51 CDT From: David Svoboda Subject: Telecom*USA Question Several years ago I worked in Cedar Rapids, Iowa for the R&D department of a long distance and telemarketing company called Teleconnect. When I started there, the company was privately owned but went public soon after. When I left, they neglected to cancel my corporate long distance account. This continued for about two years, when I received in my bill a note that said that they had CHANGED their name to Telecom*USA. At that point they noticed my account and changed it over to a public account. I dropped them at that point. Now I hear that MCI has (merged/bought-out) Telecom*USA. And that Telecom*USA is based in Atlanta, GA. I seriously doubt that they would move their (big) corporate offices from Cedar Rapids to Atlanta if ownership were unchanged during the "name change". My question is; what is Telecom*USA exactly? Did they buy out Teleconnect back then, or was that actually a corporate name change? Is this a different company completely, or does the old Teleconnect have anything to do with this? -Dave Svoboda uunet!motcid!svoboda ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Apr 1990 11:58:22 MDT From: SOLOMON@mis.arizona.edu Subject: MCI PrimeTime MCI recently changed the hours of their discount PrimeTime plan to compete with AT&T's Reach Out America. The plan now starts at 5:00 pm weekdays instead of 7:00 pm. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Apr 1990 12:21:23 MDT From: SOLOMON@mis.arizona.edu Subject: LD Land Lines A friend wants to make some modem calls from Hawaii to the mainland and wants to use land lines to avoid the satellite delay. Is there any way to ensure that a specific LD call does not travel via satellite? Do any of the LD carriers not use satellites? Thanks. ------------------------------ From: psrc@pegasus.att.com Date: Tue Apr 17 15:26:22 EDT 1990 Subject: AT&T Mail and GEIS QUIK-COMM Forge X.400 Link (The following is the text of a public announcement; the author said I could send it out to the world. It's obviously aimed at AT&T Mail users, but I thought the information was of general interest to the Telecom Digest. Paul) AT&T and GE Information Services (GEIS) have interconnected their electronic mail services, allowing both companies' e-mail customers to exchange messages for the first time. AT&T Mail and GEIS's QUIK-COMM(TM) service have been interconnected using the international X.400 standard for connecting dissimilar e-mail systems. AT&T Mail NOW interconnects with thirteen major e-mail systems. We are the industry leader in providing domestic X.400 connectivity to our customers. For a complete list of commercial X.400 interconnections between AT&T Mail and other public service providers, refer to the AT&T Mail on-line help files and type: help admds. To address electronic mail messages to a GEIS QUIK-COMM(TM) subscriber, you need their X.400 address. The address includes: Country Code = US ADMD Name = Mark400 Personal Name = Recipient's name as registered on GEIS Organization = QUIKCOMM Organization Unit = Recipient's organiztion unit Following are some addressing examples: TO: mhs!mark400/pn=john_smith/o=quikcomm/ou=geis (Mark400 is a "gatename" assigned by AT&T Mail which includes a Country Code and an ADMD Name) OR TO: mhs/c=us/ad=mark400/pn=john_smith/o=quikcomm/ou=geis For more information on addressing GEIS QUIK-COMM(TM) subscribers, please contact the AT&T Customer Assistance Center: In the U.S. call 1-800-624-5672 and outside the U.S. call 201-668-6548. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 17:22:33 PDT From: "Skip" Subject: Mike Barnicle Story From the Boston Globe The following story was in the Boston Globe a while back (I just got a chance to type it in). I am under the impression that making any use of information gained by listening in on a phone call is illegal. And since the Globe is a publishing business the printing of information gained by eavesdropping on crosstalk would seem to fall in this category. However since the Globe interviewed Kevin White about the incident it may be that the Globe could claim that the story is really the result of the interview, not just the listening in on a phone conversation. Anyone care to comment as to whether or not Mike Barnicle and the Globe violated any laws? /Skip Morris ------------------------ From the "Political Journal" on the Editorial Page (a while back). The Loner in Love With His Phone by Brian C. Mooney This story falls into the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction category. Last week, Globe columnist Mike Barnicle was driving his wife's car in the South End when the car phone rang. Barnicle's wife's office was trying to reach her. In the background, Barnicle heard a familiar voice and asked the caller to put him on hold. For the next few minutes, he listened to former Boston mayor Kevin H. White giving advice to Democratic gubernatorial candidate John R. Silber. Among other things, White advised Silber on how to deal with the Globe. He also second-guessed Silber's decision to make Robert (Skinner) Donahue his campaign director. Donahue was a key operative of Joseph Timilty in the bitter 1975 White-Timilty mayoral campaign. "What are the chances of that happening?" said Barnicle of intercepting the call. "Probably pretty good," White said in an interview, confirming Barnicle's story. ------------------- [Moderator's Note: We ran this story earlier, but without the questions you are posing. Anyone have any comments? PT] ------------------------------ From: ccplumb@lion.waterloo.edu (Colin Plumb) Subject: Re: Coin Station Fraud Using External Ground Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 04:29:34 GMT In article <6056@accuvax.nwu.edu> kitty!larry@uunet.uu.net (Larry Lippman) writes: > Most coin stations today are DTF (Dial Tone First) and no >longer resemble a ground-start line. A DTF coin line behaves similar >to that of a loop-start line (it is actually more complex than that, >but this will suffice for the purpose of this discussion); i.e., a >ground on a DTF coin line will not facilitate any fraud. The Moderator refused an earlier submission giving details, but as of the last time I tried it (2.5 years ago), this was not true for the standard DTF, well-maintained, Ma Bell, touch-tone pay telephone in downtown Toronto I used. It may be a different trick, but I grounded something and made a "25 cent" local call using no coins. I learned it from friends of my brother who did it habitually at his high school. (I only did it that once when I was out of change, but the one time I tried it, it worked.) Paul Colley writes: >> I have a friend who can pulse-dial phone numbers by rapidly tapping >> the hang-up button. >> He claims, though I've never seen it, that this works at pay phones >> without having to pay. I didn't believe this, so I just tried it (the pay phone in question is (519) 746-9368, on the third floor of the University of Waterloo math building), and it doesn't seem to work. Calling 885-1211 by tapping it out on the switchhook (the university switchboard; it should give me a recording saying they open in the morning) waits for seven digits and gives me fast busy. So does dialling the same thing using the touch-tone pad. Misdialling the phone next to me (the funny looks from the janitors made me pause in the middle of a digit) gives me an intercept recording. ("The number you have dialled is not in service; please check the number and dial again.") Switching to a spectator-free location, calling from one pay phone (746-9500) to another next to it (746-9309), and again I got fast busy. Just to check, I called 411 and 1-800-555-1212 (the last to make sure I could dial '0' reasonably reliably) and got through fine. So as far as my experimentation can tell, there's no difference in the way tapping and touch-tones are handled. In article <6166@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Higdon writes: >I would like to see him do this at pay phones. For one thing, why >bother? Use the TT pad; it works with or without coins being deposited >in dial tone first phones. The other problem concerns how the hook >switch is implemented in coin phones. To prevent (in the old days >before "real" dial tone first) fraud in the manner you describe, they >started using mercury switches instead of leaf contacts. The mercury >cannot possibly follow the speed required to pulse dial numbers with >the hook switch. Well, you can always come and watch me. The main giveaway is the loud hammering as I pound away on the switchhook very fast. But, despite your experience, the pay phones around here have sufficiently fast switches. (It is not even that difficult. Just tap as fast as you can, get full travel and don't lose count - it works fine.) Just another data point. -Colin ------------------------------ From: Douglas Mason Subject: Re: Rates For Cellular Phones Reply-To: douglas@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Douglas Mason) Organization: ddsw1.MCS.COM Contributor, Mundelein, IL Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 11:37:54 GMT In article <6447@accuvax.nwu.edu> rider@pnet12.cts.com (Michael Fetzer) writes: I may be mistaken, but I think I've made the observation that cellular >phones are much cheaper to own and operate in the Pacific North West >(read: Portland, OR) than in California (read Sandi Eggo). When I was >up there (in Portland) a few weeks ago, I saw the basic cellular phone >for car installation on sale for less than 130 bucks. Down here, SD, >the cheapest I see is over 400. How can this be? Here in Western Michigan you can purchase the newer three-watt GE cellular phones for about $79 from most of the appliance stores. The catch that they and most everyone else uses is "service contracts." Around here and in most places, when you buy the phone you have to sign a contract with a local cellular service provider for anywhere from about 90 days to a year or more. In return, the cellular company kicks back as much as $300 to the appliance store, which uses that to bring the price of a $400 phone down to $100 or less. While a long contract can lock you into a bad deal, the shorter ones (ie: < 90 days) are worth the few hundred you save off the phone. Around here, the two "biggie" providers are Cellular One and Century Cellunet. Their rates are identical and suprisingly haven't changed since I first bought a cellular in 1986. Rates are $7.50 a month for basic service (no detail billing, etc) and $.00.35/minute peak and $0.15/minute off-peak for air-time. When I was in Ohio about a year ago their rates jumped from like $15 a month to like $25 with .45/.18 for airtime. What's it like in the "big cities"? Douglas T. Mason | douglas@ddsw1.UUCP or dtmason@m-net | [Moderator's Note: Our two providers here are Ameritech (telco) and Cellular One (owned by SW Bell). Other than the occassional very sleazy and misleading promotion (virtual giveaway of phone by Fretters with an advance payment of $1000 to Ameritech for service), Ameritech generally is good. The monthly basic fee is $29.95, and the rates are in the 30/35 cent range for peak time, and the 20/23 cent range for off-peak. The 'Ten Cent Plan' costs $19.95 per month and allows off peak calls at 10 cents per minute, with peak minutes costing 65 cents. Cellular One has slightly lower airtime rates; but they nickle-and-dime customers with service charges and other fees. Off-peak time is very skimpy for both: 9 PM to 7 AM plus weekends. PT] ------------------------------ From: The Blade Date: Sun, 15 Apr 90 23:05:08 PDT Subject: Information and Equipment Needed Organization: The Dark Side of the Moon +1 408 245 SPAM I am in great need of the following information for starting a business: I need equipment to do the following -- I need hardware (non-digital), preferably used, that can process calls and bill them accordingly. The switch needs to be able to handle up to 100 calls at once (100 trunks) and it needs ONLY to be able to call INTRA-LATA (within the area code) numbers. I do not need equipment for long distance, only local. The switch also needs to handle billing, being able to print billing also. Here's what I want to happen: Dial the 950 port (as long as Bell allows); Enter subscriber code (i.e. such as 950 0488, 1022, 1033 etc..) After code verify give another dialtone; then subscriber will enter the seven digit (i.e. 234-1000) number. Then the system will complete the call, and start billing accordingly. I would like to do this as inexpensive as possible. People have been telling me that used equipment is the best bet. I would think so also, due to the fact I do not need any digital features (i.e. Feature groups). The equipment will be housed in NJ. Would you know if NJ Bell allows other companies to re-sell intra-lata service? I would think they must, under the provisions of the tarrifs. Do you know of any service that re-sells intra-lata service? [To Moderator: If you can post this, that would be fine also, or maybe you could direct me to someone who works with this type of equipment. I am in the process of setting this thing up, and ANY information is greatly appreciated. This has nothing to do with Hacking or Phreaking. I guess you could say I am using my Telcom experience and using it for good intentions. I can't really say why I'm doing this (you probably could figure it out) but that's why I'm trying to start it up, becuase its a good idea. I have financial backing, and again, any information is GREATLY appricated. Please respond.] Blade darkside.com [Moderator's Note: Are you *sure* this has nothing to do with Hacking or Phreaking? Do you think anyone reading this list would be smart enough to figure it out, or just me? No, I don't think telcos have to allow competition in the local community as of now. Perhaps one or more readers will respond directly to you and help you with your project. Why did you include the hacking/phreaking disclaimer in your message, anyway? If you reside in New Jersey, why do you correspond through a site in northern California? PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #261 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa13161; 19 Apr 90 3:51 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa27599; 19 Apr 90 2:06 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa10551; 19 Apr 90 1:00 CDT Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 0:35:43 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #262 BCC: Message-ID: <9004190035.ab31382@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 19 Apr 90 00:35:12 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 262 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Cellular Service and Rates in Hong Kong [John R. Covert] Review: San Francisco Celluar Service [Robert Michael Gutierrez] Re: Rates For Cellular Phones [Randal Schwartz] Re: Rates For Cellular Phones [John Higdon] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 11:48:57 PDT From: "John R. Covert 18-Apr-1990 1436" Subject: Cellular Service and Rates in Hong Kong Cellular Service in Hong Kong is the most impressive example of how good the technology can be that I have ever seen. People in Hong Kong are in love with the phone, and it shows. Landline phones provide colony-wide unlimited service at an incredibly low price, prompting shops and restaurants to provide banks of phones for their customers to use as part of their service. This addiction to telephones has helped to make cellular service near-perfect in Hong Kong. There are three carriers: Hutchison Telephone: AMPS and TACS CSL (HongKong Telecom): TACS Pacific Link ETACS They provide service to every inch of the colony; while roaming on Hutchison during my week in Hong Kong my no-service light only came on in tunnels or in the subway. The phone worked every time I tried to use it, and there was not a single person who called me who failed to get through on the first try. While walking around the streets of Hong Kong, everywhere I turned I saw people talking on portables. In restaurants, there were always phones on many of the tables, and they were being used. While riding ferries to outlying islands, people (myself included) were making and receiving calls. Hutchison, the only carrier providing AMPS service, can provide roaming service to North American customers. CSL can provide service to UK customers. Details follow. AMPS roaming ------------ North American customers (and other people with AMPS phones) can roam with Hutchison Telephone at the following rates: HK$20 (US$2.56) per day Billing is via HK$2.50 (US$0.32) per minute American Express only. There are no roamer ports; you will be assigned a temporary local number which callers may use to reach you. You can be told your temporary number in advance. Customers of CanTel may make all their arrangements in advance by contacting CanTel customer service; the phone will work upon arrival. All other customers must present their phone at Hutchison Telephone's offices and sign an agreement prior to activation. At the time of my trip, Hutchison and NYNEX were involved in a joint venture, and I was able to make special arrangements. This required me to get NYNEX customer service to send Hutchison a FAX with the details of my phone and AMEX card, and I, too, was activated a few hours prior to my arrival. UK <-> Hong Kong Roaming ------------------------ Racal Vodafone and CSL Hong Kong Telephone have a roaming agreement (of sorts). It works (in both directions) as follows: UK subscribers going to Hong Kong will contact Mr. Foxwell at 0635 55 0000 x5516. He will obtain a Hong Kong number for you. You must take your phone to a service center to have it reprogrammed (unless you know how to do it yourself). This will cost about UKL25 (prices vary). (Apparently TACS switches cannot do number translation the way AMPS switches can -- my phone didn't have to be touched.) CSL will bill you through Racal Vodafone: Each Connection HK$500 (US$64, UKL37.35) Service charge HK$400/month (US$51.20, UKL31.90) prorated for time used. HK$1.50/minute (19", 11p) Hong Kong CSL subscribers going to the UK will contact Hilda Chan on 828-8492. No info on reprogramming charges. Racal Vodafone will bill you through CSL: Normal tariffs: UKL50 for the connection, UKL25/month (prorated), Call charges as normal. Based on a conversation with Cellnet, it appears that Cellnet customers in the U.K. do not have the option of roaming in Hong Kong, nor do Hutchison's TACS customers or Pacific Link's customers in Hong Kong have the option of roaming in the U.K. If this is not the case, an update would be appreciated. Comparison ---------- The AMPS prices from Hutchison can be compared with the TACS prices from CSL. The HK$500 connection charge is what really hurts UK visitors who are there for a short stay. My total bill for eight days was HK$576.54, US$74.53. That includes HK$160 in daily fees, HK$59.04 in IDDD charges, and HK$357.50 in airtime, 143 minutes. A U.K. visitor would have paid HK$500+(HK$400/30*8)+HK$59.04+HK$214.50 or HK$880.21, about US$112.70 or about UKL66.30. For longer visits, it begins to get more economical for a UK visitor; assuming four times the usage in a full month, I'd pay HK$600+HK$236+HK$1430 = HK$2266, compared to the UK visitors HK$500+HK$400+HK$236+HK$858 = HK$1994. Local Subcriber rates --------------------- Hutchison Telephone provides three rate plans for local subscribers: Plan Monthly Charge Free Extra Minutes A HK$100.00 (US$12.80) Nil HK$4.00 (US$0.51) B HK$450.00 (US$57.62) 100 HK$1.25 (US$0.16) C HK$900.00 (US$115.24) 600 HK$1.25 (US$0.16) Call Forwarding/Call Waiting/No Ans Xfr/Three-Way calling are each HK$25/month or HK$75 for all three. There is a HK$500 (US$32) connection fee if you purchase your phone from them (typical price for a portable was around HK$12,000 or US$1536). If you were to bring a phone into the country, you would have to provide proof that you had presented it to customs and would have to pay a HK$3500 (US$448) activation fee. CSL describes two rate plans: A. HK$400 (US$51) per month including three features. First 400 mins at HK$1.50 (19 cents). Additional time is HK$1.20 (15 cents). B. HK$400 with 75 mins of airtime but no system features. First 400 mins after the 75 included are HK$1.50. Additional time is HK$1.20 (15 cents). The initial connection is HK$500 (US$64). Pacific Link's plans and rates are similar to Hutchison's. The first two plans are identical; the heavy use plan is HK$600 with 250 minutes included. ------------------------------ From: Robert Michael Gutierrez Subject: Review: San Francisco Celluar Service Date: 19 Apr 90 03:23:21 GMT Reply-To: Robert Michael Gutierrez Organization: NASA ARC As promised, I said I would review cellular service for GTE Mobilnet in the San Francisco area after I got my first bill. My first bill was $117 and change. This, though, included two months of basic charges because GTE bills in advance. I signed up for the so-called Personal Club, which is a 1 year contract (and the contract specifically states that I am automatically signed up for successive 1 year contracts if I do _not_ send in a notice requesting that I do not want to continue ... you can bet the *registered* letter will be in the mail 2 months before it's up!). The 'Personal Club' knocks off $2/mo off Personal Basic service, and gives the custom calling features free, along with billing detail. Still, the daytime rate is the most expensive in the country (.90 cents/minute, 7am-7pm) except Los Angeles, which is the same. That's @ $23/month. The 'Business Club' rate is $40/mo, .45 cents/min daytime. Both offerings charge .20cents/min at night/weekends. John Higdon went through some of this in a previous posting. The bill itself is a standard telephone bill. I was charged Federal tax, but no state tax. No 911, Deaf Devices or Univeral (cheap service subsidy) taxes. Also, no FCC Access chages, even though I can call long distance. I was charged City tax, but Hayward (California) has no city tax. Forgot to ask about this... The first page shows totals in minutes used and dollars for each for Peak, Off-Peak, and Night ... but GTE has no night rate! Maybe something in the future? I racked up 2 hours off peak and 1/2 hour peak (a lot more than I expected!). The following pages are the billing detail. Times are in 'military' time (24 hour format). If somebody called you, it shows as a call to your cellular number. It shows the time called as MM:SS (minutes and seconds), but GTE bills in 1 minute increments. I assume they're using a standard billing service that other companies also use (some companies bill in 6 second increments). The 'City Called' for my phone shows up as Palo Alto, but Pac Bell shows it in their TOPS operator database as Oakland, and it shows as a toll call (calls to both celluar carriers are considered 'toll-free' from the celluar coverage area, basically all of the San Francisco LATA). The operators will quote a toll rate to you if you ask if it's a toll free call. None of this applies to BOC pay phones, as you're charged the toll rate outright. (John H ... do you have a copy of GTE's tariff or Pac Bell's??? Does it specifically exclude pay phones?) GTE will give you a 1 minute credit for a 'dropped call' if you call the same number back within 3 minutes, and is indicated on the bill with an asterik next to the call. For this to work, though, the called party has to answer on the callback. If you get a busy signal or no answer on the callback, you're charged for the call, then you have to note it and call GTE when you get your bill. This happened to me on this bill. This also works the other way when I called into a radio contest, and made it into the contest lines twice (!) (I didn't win, though). The first call was credited as a dropped call (showed up as MIN-0:00, AMOUNT-.00), and the 2nd once charged like usual. They don't charge for calling attempts to the 'choke' exchanges (415-478-XXXX and 408-575-XXXX in the Bay Area). GTE says they do not charge airtime until the called party answers the phone, but they will start charging if you let it ring more than 1 minute (average 11 rings). Poo-poo! This is probably for calls to places that don't return answer supervision (like 800-555-1212), so they have to charge one way or another, or they fail to get supervision for any other reason. Long distance is another can of worms. Of the 9 L.D. calls I made, 2 are for Directory Assistance (no, GTE does not give any 'free' D.A. calls, you get charges airtime + D.A. charges @ .25/each), 3 regular L.D. calls, and 4 for Mtn. View, California, a local call! Seems that NASA Ames new prefix (415-604-XXXX) is giving fits to everybody (including lots of COCOTS I've run across) including GTE, since it is the first N0X prefix in the Bay Area. They credited me for that. The 3 L.D. calls were to Upland (Rancho Cucomonga), California. 2 calls were made at 9pm & 10pm, on a Friday. The rate they charged was .31/first, and .20/addtl. AT&T's rate is .24/.16!!! Just what I need, a COCOT on my celluar phone! So much for L.D. on my cellular phone. I'll ask tomorrow if they admit to charging more than AT&T's rate. The service itself is only O.K. I use last years Panasonic transportable (the ??-950, the one that takes Matsushita camcorder batteries) and the Radio Shack 3db-gain rubber-duckie. Usually, in my car, I don't hook it up to an outside antenna (though one is mounted). Reception on the Panasonic is poor, though it seems to transmit well, and can get out of some solid concrete areas. The squelch circut is set very high, hence I tend have a lot of cutting out (flutter, or 'picket fencing'), and this sometimes can get annoying. The other called party can hear me fine, though. I seem to meet with the all channels busy tone (a reorder tone generated by the phone itself) when I initally power up or come back 'in service' (from a tunnel or BART [subway tunnels]). If I wait a minute, it's not a problem. I suspect this is because the phone seized the first available paging channel, though it most likely is not the closest, and fails on the handshake to open a channel. Then it re-scans for a stronger paging channel, and it makes it though on the next attempt. The handset of the Panasonic has a signal-strength meter, but I've learned not to trust it, since it's the paging channel it shows for, and not the actual channel you get assigned for the call until the call is set up and voice is cut through. Today, though, when I was calling Customer Service, I was dropped (disconnected). I was talking to the CSR, and then she could not hear me, but I could hear her fine. Then I came back in, but cut back out (for her) 20 seconds later. I then was outright dropped from the call. I didn't hear any base commands to increase power, or hear a termination command either, just complete silence. Do I suspect that I entered a cell that was 'maxed out' (no channels to allocate because of excessive calls)? This may be possible, even though I could hear her fine, the last cell I was being received was losing me, and could not crank up power because of the same channel in use somewhere else, or I just got too far from the cell and it lost me, period? I hope this is not a common occurance. Maybe some new channels need to be added to some exisiting cells sites for GTE. Ja ne. Robert Gutierrez/NASA Science Internet Network Operations. Moffett feild, California. ------------------------------ From: Randal Schwartz Subject: Re: Rates For Cellular Phones Reply-To: Randal Schwartz Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Beaverton, Oregon, USA Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 13:16:37 GMT In article <6509@accuvax.nwu.edu>, douglas@ddsw1 (Douglas Mason) writes: | [Moderator's Note: Our two providers here are Ameritech (telco) and | Cellular One (owned by SW Bell). Other than the occassional very (Chicago area description followed) Portland, Oregon, GTE Mobilnet, 1-year contract at $15.00/month, $0.31/min prime (7am-7pm weekdays), $0.13/min non-prime; includes voice-mail/call-forwarding package; calls are billed for actual talk-time only (no pay for ring time). Cellular One in same coverage area is slightly higher, I'm told, and charges for air time (rings and no-answers), not talk time. Just another addicted cell user (dunno how I got along without it :-), Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========\ | on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III | | merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn | ------------------------------ Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Rates For Cellular Phones Date: 18 Apr 90 12:38:50 PDT (Wed) From: John Higdon Douglas Mason writes: > Around here and in most places, when you buy the phone you have to > sign a contract with a local cellular service provider for anywhere > from about 90 days to a year or more. In return, the cellular company > kicks back as much as $300 to the appliance store, which uses that to > bring the price of a $400 phone down to $100 or less. While a long > contract can lock you into a bad deal, the shorter ones (ie: < 90 > days) are worth the few hundred you save off the phone. The Pretty Useless Comedians in California put an end to that practice as a result of whining from independent service resellers. They claimed that the equipment giveaway deals were stealing all their business, since the ultra-low-appearing phone prices were attracting all the customers away from dealers who couldn't respond in kind. Now, when you go cellular phone shopping, you will see notices to the effect that the price of the phone is not dependent on service activation, but that service is available through [name of provider/affiliate]. This disclaimer is also spoken on all radio advertising for cellular phones. Oddly enough, I do believe the kickbacks are still in place. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #262 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa14931; 19 Apr 90 4:50 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab31136; 19 Apr 90 3:11 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab27599; 19 Apr 90 2:06 CDT Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 1:33:28 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #263 BCC: Message-ID: <9004190133.ab28383@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 19 Apr 90 01:33:12 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 263 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Ordering Unix from AT&T [Julian Macassey] Re: Minitel Access Phone Numbers List [Chris Davies] Re: Telecom*USA Question [David Tamkin] Re: Mike Barnicle Story From the Boston Globe [Evan Eickmeyer] Re: London Area Code Change [Joel B. Levin] Re: London Area Code Change [Carl Moore] Re: More Comments From A US Sprint Employee [Patricia O'connor] Re: Credit Card ID [W.L. Ware] Re: The Card [mperka@netxdev.dhl.com] Re: The Card [Peter Weiss] Re: Call *Captures* and the Modern-day Detective [Kim Long] Re: DTMF and Cindi [Steve Hoffman] Re: Information and Equipment Needed [John Higdon] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Julian Macassey Subject: Re: Ordering Unix from AT&T Date: 18 Apr 90 13:58:19 GMT Organization: The Hole in the Wall Hollywood California U.S.A. In article <6501@accuvax.nwu.edu>, tn07+@andrew.cmu.edu (Thomas Neudecker) writes: > Several of my friends who are sales reps for hardware and software > companies keep two sets of business cards. The cards in the left > pocket has the phone number and address and the cards in the right > pocket do not. If they get trapped by a pest at a trade show the card > from the right pocket is exchanged. If a hot sales lead comes along > the cards comes out of the left pocket. What I would like to know is how these sales bi-peds can tell the difference between a pest and a hot sales lead. It seems to me that most sales dweebs spend much time "qualifying" sales leads. They often get it wrong. In the early sixties a young boy from Kentucky walked into a Jaguar showroom in Manhattan. He was wearing jeans and was polite and rather shy. The salesman decided that he wasn't going to waste his time with this hick and ignored him. In the young man's jeans was all the cash he needed for a new Jaguar E Type. He made the money from making hit records - his name was Phil Everly. He later bought a Cadilac. Julian Macassey, n6are julian@bongo.info.com ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian N6ARE@K6IYK (Packet Radio) n6are.ampr.org [44.16.0.81] voice (213) 653-4495 ------------------------------ From: Chris Davies Subject: Re: Minitel Access Phone Numbers List Date: 18 Apr 90 14:06:20 GMT Reply-To: Chris Davies Organization: VisionWare Ltd., Leeds, UK > MINITEL TELEPHONE DIRECTORY >Location Number >United Kingdom ------------------- > +++ London 01-437-4393 > +++ London 01-439-4055 As from May 6th the 01-437-4393 number will become 081-437-4393. As from May 6th the 01-439-4055 number will become 081-439-4055. This is due to reorganisation of the London numbers, replacing 01 by either 081 or 071. Yes I'm sure (most of) you knew, but I thought I'd better remind you :-) Chris VISIONWARE LTD | UK: chris@vision.uucp JANET: chris%vision.uucp@ukc 57 Cardigan Lane | US: chris@vware.mn.org OTHER: chris@vision.co.uk LEEDS LS4 2LE | BANGNET: ...{backbone}!ukc!vision!chris England | VOICE: +44 532 788858 FAX: +44 532 304676 ------------------------------ From: David Tamkin Subject: Re: Telecom*USA Question Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 12:08:12 CDT David Svoboda asked in TELECOM Digest, Volume 10, Issue 261 | My question is; what is Telecom*USA exactly? Did they buy out Teleconnect | back then, or was that actually a corporate name change? Is this a | different company completely, or does the old Teleconnect have anything to | do with this? Telecom*USA is the name that came out of the merger of Teleconnect and Southern Net in the spring of 1989. I was already a customer of Teleconnect at the time, and all advertising, bills, and correspondence I've received have continued to come from Cedar Rapids. I'd never heard of Atlanta as its headquarters until the announcement about the MCI tender offer appeared in the Digest a few days ago. (I'd heard news items about the offer but they did not say where Telecom*USA was based.) Perhaps there are offices in Cedar Rapids to serve the area Teleconnect handled and in Atlanta for service to Southern Net's area? [I'm not positive of the spelling of Southern Net; there might have been no space or only one n.] David Tamkin PO Box 813 Rosemont IL 60018-0813 708-518-6769 312-693-0591 dattier@chinet.chi.il.us MCIMail:426-1818 GEnie:D.W.TAMKIN CIS:73720,1570 ------------------------------ From: Evan "Biff Henderson" Eickmeyer Subject: Re: Mike Barnicle Story From the Boston Globe Date: 18 Apr 90 19:47:09 GMT Organization: 1990 Rose Bowl Champions (USC), Los Angeles, California The point of this story is that people on here have been saying how interesting it is to hear other conversations sometimes . . . but we have to remember that X people could be listening to our conversation on any given phone call as well! Evan "Biff Henderson" Eickmeyer University of Southern California eickmeye@alcor.usc.edu Los Angeles, California ------------------------------ From: "Joel B. Levin" Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 08:51:21 EDT Subject: Re: London Area Code Change As of a week ago, all three LD carriers I can try from home were correctly putting through calls to 011-44-81-964-xxxx. Sprint and MCI both correctly report errors if you use the invalid 71 city code, informing me that the "1" has been changed to "81" for the number I was calling(*). (Last time I reported Sprint just said invalid city or country code.) Sprint's recording is in its numbered series (85-93) and is spoken with an American accent, but it uses the term "city code". MCI's recording is spoken with a British accent but refers to the "area code". Hmm. AT&T continues to report as its error that "Due to the earthquake in the area you are calling, we are unable to complete your call." I am curious to know if AT&T nationwide is reporting this peculiar condition, or if only we in the northeast are getting hearing about it. /JBL (*)Of course this is not officially true till May. Nets: levin@bbn.com Pots: (617)873-3463 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 20:48:35 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: London Area Code Change (TELECOM readers: the number used here, which has appeared previously in the Digest, is an office which is not answered after hours, and it thus was OK to do the following at a ghastly hour for the UK.) I tried calling the 941-2564 London-area number (U.K.) tonight various ways. Apparently both the old city code 1 and the new code 81 (for outer London) are currently working. (Inner London will become 71, with 1 being discontinued.) My home phone defaults to AT&T. 011-44-1 and 011-44-81 were OK (got ringing signal in UK). 011-44-71 got recording; I got (twice) "Due to circumstances beyond our control, your call cannot be completed. Please try again in 20 minutes; you will not be billed for this call." followed by (twice) "Your call cannot be completed at this time in the country you are calling. Please try your call later." 10222-011-44-1 and 10222-011-44-81 were OK, as above. 10222-011-44-71 also reached the UK, judging from the accent in the recording: "The London area code 1 has been changed to 81 [' eight one '] for the number you have dialed. Please redial, replacing 441 with 4481." An unusual (to me) thing here was that I got this message 2 times; i.e., I started off during the message, then got the message one whole time, then the message cycled back again, and was cut off just a little after I reached my starting point! AT&T seems to be "smart" enough to catch the (in this case) incorrect 71 city code at this end. MCI is sending the call thru to UK. ------------------------------ From: Patricia O'connor Subject: Re: More Comments From A US Sprint Employee Date: 16 Apr 90 19:15:12 GMT Organization: FidoNet node 1:161/555 - MacCircles, Pleasanton CA >Also, long distance calls made today cost you on average 40% less than >they did six years ago. Maybe you should ask AT&T to give you the >service and higher rates that you had six years ago if that's what you >want. Our anonymous angry Sprint employee neglected to mention that AT&T was heavily subsidizing local residence telephone service six years ago, and to lessening degrees for four years thereafter - something Sprint and MCI did not have to build into their rates. It was an integral part of the universal service concept that everyone should be able to afford to have a telephone in their home. Prices were kept low by transferring revenues from AT&T long distance to local companies. Patricia O'connor - via FidoNet node 1:125/777 UUCP: ...!sun!hoptoad!fidogate!161!555!Patricia.O'connor INTERNET: Patricia.O'connor@f555.n161.z1.FIDONET.ORG ------------------------------ From: "W.L. Ware" Subject: Re: Credit Card ID Date: 19 Apr 90 00:29:27 GMT Reply-To: ccicpg!cci632!ritcsh!ultb.rit.edu!wlw2286@uunet.uu.net Organization: Information Systems and Computing @ RIT, Rochester, New York >In article <6351@accuvax.nwu.edu> glaser@starch.enet.dec.com (Steve >Glaser) writes: >>you can can follow their instructions to the letter and give >>them any random phone number you feel like On a similar note, here in Rochester when you buy things at large department stores, with a check, they call DA to verify your phone #. Unfortunatly mine is unlesited, and this inevitably causes a major scene. I usually just tell them I can take my business elsewhere, AND get better service ;) *W.L.Ware LANCEWARE SYSTEMS* *WLW2286%ritvax.cunyvm.cuny.edu Value Added reseller* *WLW2286%ultb.isc.rit.edu Mac and IBM Access. * ------------------------------ From: Subject: Re: The Card Date: 19 Apr 90 00:51:43 GMT Organization: NetExpress Communications, Inc., Vienna, Va. In article <6441@accuvax.nwu.edu> PMW1@psuvm.psu.edu (Peter Weiss) writes: >Having recently received _The Card_, I was wondering why they chose to >emboss the calling card number (which appears under the name)? [Moderator's Note: I can't imagine anyone giving an iota what the sales clerk 'requires'. The reason for both numbers being present is that the one is a VISA number; the other is a telephone calling card number. It may be that the VISA number can be used for telephone calls in phones with card readers; I do not know. But the vast majority of phone calls would require the traditional, or standard phone billing number and pin. PT] I took the question to mean, "Why is the calling card number *embossed*?", not why is the calling card number present on The Card. Since the number is embossed, it is likely to show up on imprints made of The Card, spreading calling card numbers (or their base phone number) that many people would like to keep private. Has anyone griped about this to AT&T? ------------------------------ Organization: Penn State University Date: Wednesday, 18 Apr 1990 07:22:59 EDT From: Peter Weiss Subject: Re: The Card In article <6482@accuvax.nwu.edu>, brian@ucsd.edu (Brian Kantor) says: >I assume you are asking "as opposed to just printing it on the card". >That would take another pass through another machine, and then the >surface of the card would have to be protected in some way to keep the >printing from deteriorating in the harsh environment of the typical >wallet or purse. Yes, that's exactly what I meant, and interestingly enough, on the obverse side, they did EXACTLY that with the International C.C. number! i.e., printed the numbers (though slightly raised, but certainly not embossed). That print does not seemed protected. Pete ------------------------------ From: Kim Long Subject: Re: Call *Captures* and the Modern-day Detective Date: 18 Apr 90 22:43:46 GMT Reply-To: Kim Long Organization: University of Maryland, College Park One evening very late, I received a series of disturbing calls. The next day I talked to the phone company about what I could do. My area recently instutited caller-id and so there were several options I could choose, rather than change my phone number. 1) Buy the Caller ID equipment and install it on my phone. Monthly charge for service and initial outlay for the equipment. 2) Call Trace: Dial a two digit code after the caller hangs up and you will hear a recorded message telling you the call was traced and logged. $1 charge per trace, only charged if you have a "completed" trace. Caller-ID has not been installed in all areas here so I was warned it may not work, yet. 3) Call Block: Enter a four digit code after the call is completed and the number is blocked forever. A $4 charge per month. I don't know if this goes up if you block multiple numbers or not. Also, this wouldn't work if the person originating the call didn't have Caller-ID in their area. klong ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 16:07:56 PDT From: Subject: Re: DTMF and Cindi Peter Holsberg asks, in TCD #244, about using DTMF with a Cindi system. Peter, you might want to contact Cindi's manufacturer, Genesis (aka VCS), at 916-632-3232. Steve Hoffman "hoffman@vox.enet.dec.com" ------------------------------ Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Information and Equipment Needed Date: 18 Apr 90 16:17:27 PDT (Wed) From: John Higdon The Blade writes: > I need hardware (non-digital), preferably used, that can process calls > and bill them accordingly. The switch needs to be able to handle up > to 100 calls at once (100 trunks) and it needs ONLY to be able to call > INTRA-LATA (within the area code) numbers. I do not need equipment > for long distance, only local. The switch also needs to handle > billing, being able to print billing also. Something this size to do what you describe later in your article will probably end up being digital. Other than very small systems, where digital speech is not practical, everything with any capability at all will use digital speech. The only exception that comes to mind would be some old crossbar equipment with major electronic add-ons. Even if you could find such a beast, housing it would be a major concern. None of the analog electronic switches that you might find would have the physical capacity. Of course, you might be able to wait in back of my CO when they toss the 1ESS in the trash :-) Be sure you don't get hit in the head by the crossbar as it comes sailing out as well. > Do you know of any service that re-sells intra-lata service? A company call "Centex" resells intra-LATA service in the Bay Area. As you might imagine from the name, it's done by reselling CENTREX lines and then using the ARS capabilities of CENTREX to provide both intra and inter-LATA long distance service. They use a combination of WATS, FXs, and a host of carriers to accomplish this. This is currently the only way that I am aware of that provides for reselling intra-LATA service legitimately in California. Other states, of course, may vary. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #263 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa16821; 19 Apr 90 5:55 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa31003; 19 Apr 90 4:15 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa31136; 19 Apr 90 3:07 CDT Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 2:03:01 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #264 BCC: Message-ID: <9004190203.ab06178@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 19 Apr 90 02:02:05 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 264 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Recorded Calls With a Return 900 Number [Kee Hinckley] Receiving German Teletext Into a PC [Joseph C. Pistritto] Panasonic Answering Machines and CPC [Joseph C. Pistritto] ==>Appeals Court Orders Seized Computer Returned [Clarinet]<== NOT AVAILABLE Re: Coin Station Fraud Using External Ground [Nigel Allen] (SEE NOTES) Re: What Are All the x11/x00 Numbers For? [Nigel Allen] Cellular Phone Service in Canada [Marcel D. Mongeon] Radio Shack CT-300/301 and Nokia P-30 [John R. Covert] "Mileage" Charge Question [John Parsons] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kee Hinckley Subject: Recorded Calls With a Return 900 Number Organization: asi Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 00:27:15 GMT This weekend I got an automated call from some company offering a list of companies which would give me credit if I had trouble getting same. My policy on those calls is to tell them that I will never do business with any company that uses automated calling. I usually do that either when they ask for info in the call (in which case I'm sure my comments just get ignored) or by calling the number they give and telling them there. This time however, I don't seem to have that option, at least not cheaply. The return number they gave was a 900 number with a $19.95 usage fee. I called the operator and asked her how to get the address associated with a 900 number. She said that I could call 900 information, but that they wouldn't give it to me. I called 900 information and discovered that "they" was a recording of all the 900 numbers (*that's* an information service?). So. How do I go about finding the address associated with a 900 number? The company info, for what it's worth: Family Shoppers Union Credit Card Program 1-900-741-GOLD (4653) $19.95 | Alphalpha Software, Inc. | Voice/Fax: 617/646-7703 | Home: 617/641-3805 | | 148 Scituate St. | Smart fax, dial number. | | | Arlington, MA 02174 | Dumb fax, dial number, | BBS: 617/641-3722 | | nazgul@alphalpha.com | wait for ring, press 3. | 300/1200/2400 baud | ------------------------------ Subject: Receiving German Teletext Into a PC Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 10:16:58 MESZ From: "Joseph C. Pistritto" Does anyone know of an interface device to pick off the Teletext signals that are sent over most European television channels and input them to a PC? I have a decoder in my television, but I thought it would be neat to store the teletext info on my PC for searching, etc. Joseph C. Pistritto (jcp@brl.mil -or- cgch!bpistr@mcsun.eu.net) Ciba Geigy AG, R1241.1.01, Postfach CH4002, Basel, Switzerland Tel: +41 61 697 6155 (work) +41 61 692 1728 (home) GMT+2hrs! ------------------------------ Subject: Panasonic Answering Machines and CPC Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 11:19:23 MESZ From: "Joseph C. Pistritto" My Panasonic do-everything answering machine has four settings for length of message, Fixed (1 minute), VOX, and the two I don't understand, CPC1 and CPC2. When I used this machine on a 5Xbar exchange, I experimented and found that CPC2 gave the best performance for always ending the recording when the caller hung up. CPC1 didn't work at all, and the VOX mode often recorded several seconds of 'if you wish to place a call, please hang up...' before ending the tape. In the manual it says that the CPC settings are for 'Calling Party Disconnect which is provided by some exchanges'. What is this? Reverse battery perhaps? And why are there TWO types of algorithms? Incidentally, now that I live in Europe, neither of the CPC's seems to work reliably ... What kind of Disconnect supervision (if any) is returned by modern exchanges over here (Switzerland). I belive the equipment we use is made by Siemans. Joseph C. Pistritto (jcp@brl.mil -or- cgch!bpistr@mcsun.eu.net) Ciba Geigy AG, R1241.1.01, Postfach CH4002, Basel, Switzerland Tel: +41 61 697 6155 (work) +41 61 692 1728 (home) GMT+2hrs! ------------------------------ (Appeals Court Rules on Computer Seizure) THIS ARTICLE NO LONGER AVAILABLE. IT WAS A COPYRIGHTED ARTICLE SENT TO THE DIGEST BY AN ANONYMOUS PERSON. BRAD TEMPLETON, OWNER OF THE COPYRIGHT COMPLAINED AND ASKED THAT IT BE REMOVED. SEE ISSUE 274 LATER IN THIS FILE FOR SPECIFICS. CLARINET OWNED THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE WHICH APPEARED IN ONE OF THEIR NEWS GROUPS. ------------------------------ From: nigel.allen@f438.n250.z1.fidonet.org Date: Sun, 15 Apr 90 0:48:00 EST Subject: Re: Coin Station Fraud Using External Ground In a message of <11 Apr 90 12:16:49>, williams@cs.umass.edu writes: >Vandalizing phones seems to be a national sport in Holland - but >that's another article. Trying to find a functional phone is a city >can be very difficult. This is why, when I'm feeling conscientious (or obsessive), I write down the number of vandalized or otherwise non-functional pay telephones, and report them to the telephone company's repair service. Someone may need the pay phone in an emergency, and if I don't report the out-of-service pay phone, nobody else will until a telco employee visits a month later to empty the coin box. There are no COCOTs (non-telco pay phones) in Canada yet, so I don't have any horror stories about trying to get in touch with the owners of COCOTs to ask them to fix their phones. As I understand it, COCOTs tend to be located indoors, and hence are probably less likely to be vandalized than ones on streetcorners. Nigel Allen nigel.allen@canremote.uucp 52 Manchester Avenue Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6G 1V3 voice: (416) 535-8916 * Origin: Echo Beach, Toronto, Ont. (1:250/438) Message gatewayed by MaS Network Software and Consulting/HST Internet: nigel.allen@f438.n250.z1.fidonet.org UUCP: ...tmsoft!masnet!f438.n250.z1.fidonet.org!nigel.allen ------------------------------ From: nigel.allen@f438.n250.z1.fidonet.org Date: Sun, 15 Apr 90 3:06:00 EST Subject: Re: What Are All the x11/x00 Numbers For? watcher@darkside.com (the Watcher) writes: > 511 would be an ideal replacement for the "555-1212" used to get > information in another area code (ie, 1-617-511 for eastern MA > information) danji@cdbnewse.att.com (Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM) writes: >Why not 411: 1-617-411 ? At one point, long distance operators used to dial directory assistance calls as (area code) + (city code, sometimes) + 131. Similarly, if the assistance of an operator at the distant end of the phone call (an "inwards operator") was needed to complete the call, it would be dialled as (area code) + (city code, sometimes) + 121. I'm not sure whether 141, 151, etc. were meaningful in this context. In Northwestel's operating territory (the Yukon, the western half of the Northwest Territories, parts of northern British Columbia), 511 was the number you called to send a telegram, and 811 was the company's business office. The three-digit number for the telegraph office requires some explanation. Telecommunications service in Northwestel's operating territory used to be provided by CN Telecommunications, the telecommunications division of the Canadian National Railway Company. CN Telecommunications also provided telegraph and telex service in the rest of Canada. (Subsequently, CN Telecommunications spun off Northwestel to take over its northern Canada operations and Terra Nova Telecommunications to take over its Newfoundland operations. The remaining company was merged with Canadian Pacific's telecommunications division to form CNCP Telecommunications. Northwestel was eventually purchased by BCE Inc., the holding company that owns Bell Canada and half of Northern Telecom Ltd.) * Origin: Echo Beach, Toronto, Ont. (1:250/438) MaS Relayer v1.00.00 Message gatewayed by MaS Network Software and Consulting/HST Internet: nigel.allen@f438.n250.z1.fidonet.org UUCP: ...tmsoft!masnet!f438.n250.z1.fidonet.org!nigel.allen ------------------------------ From: root@joymrmn.UUCP (Marcel D. Mongeon) Subject: Cellular Phone Service in Canada Date: 19 Apr 90 01:13:54 GMT Organization: The Joymarmon Group Inc. Recently, there has been a lot of traffic on the subject of Cellular Phone Rates and the wide variation in service levels between different clellular carriers. I thought that it might be interesting to give this group the view from Canada. Having travelled in the United States with my cellular phone and also in Canada, I have found the service levels to be far superior in Canada (and this isn't just a lot of patriotic nonsense!) Read on.... In Canada there are essentially only two nationwide cellular carriers: The land-line telephone company (approximately 11 across the country although there are a few dominant companies like Bell Canada which provides all service in Ontario and Quebec) and the other cellular company: Cantel. I am a subscriber to the latter and I would like to tell you what my service gets me. Cantel has a nationwide network. Obviously the network doesn't extend into very sparsley settled areas of the country (at least yet!). However, most major cities across the country are now covered and in certain provinces extensive parts of those provinces. For example, in Ontario and Quebec, Cantel provides *continuous* service from Windsor (next door to Detroit) through to Quebec city in the east (about as far away from Detroit as New York city is!). To the north the coverage reaches up to Sudbury (look it up on a map) with continous coverage along all the major highways and pretty good coverage along the lesser travelled areas. WHen I say continuous, I mean that you can start a call in Windsor and you won't have any drop outs in the call all the way to Quebec (barring the usual gremlins). If the area of coverage isn't surprising enough, then the call following feature might grab your attention. If you are on the Cantel system *ANYWHERE* in the country where service is provided, the call to your local number will find you without you having to punch in any follow me codes in the out-of-town city. The technological implication is somewhat staggering - every time a call is made every cell in the country can conceivably put out a page for the phone in question! (Although I haven't verified this with Cantel, I think that they are starting to use the registration system which is part of the cellular protocol.) Phone rates on Cantel are extremely reasonable 50 cents per minute for the first 50 or 100 then 35 then 25 cents (There are actually a number of different plans which include the base monthly rate and packages of minutes so it is difficult to precicisely give details.) And remember these are Canadian cents! Within Canada when in an out-of-town city there are no roaming charges other than the obvious long distance charges if you call back to your home district. There are ROAM numbers all throughout the system but these are little used as the normal number can always get you in the country. Then I go to the United States; (Minneapolis Minnesota) to be exact. I notice from my roaming guide that there is service in both Minneapolis and Rochester. Since the town I am going to is half way between on the major road between them, I figure there should be no problem with service so I take my portable. Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed when 20 miles out of MSP, the phone goes dead... not part of the service area! I figure that this is because Minnesota is a back water. Then I travel from Detroit to Chicago the next month and its tyhe same darn thing. No problem in the major cities, but get too far out of town and BANG -- no service. How do you guys live with it? Of course, the big surprise was waiting for me on my next bills when I get the roaming charges!! Have you thought about complaining to the FCC about what is happening in Cellular service? After all, how could the Canadians be beating you at something as simple as this?? (Lots of :-)'s and ;-)'s ) ||| Marcel D. Mongeon ||| e-mail: ... (uunet, maccs)!joymrmn!root or ||| joymrmn!marcelm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 12:08:12 PDT From: "John R. Covert 18-Apr-1990 1450" Subject: Radio Shack CT-300/301 and Nokia P-30 As an owner of a Nokia P-30 and a former owner of a Radio Shack CT-300 (the 666 channel version of the CT-301), as well as the service manuals for both of them, I can provide facts: >But [the setup code] may not be exactly the same. A Mobira saleperson I >ran into said that the Radio-Shack unit is not a standard Nokia/Mobira >model, though it's close. It's very close. The RS CT-300/301 and the Nokia P-30 are made in the same plant in Korea. And the code for going into setup mode is the same in all three, and involves the original Radio Shack catalog number for the CT-300. >But to do most of the interesting ops, the R-S phone has to be put >into a special "local" mode by grounding a pin on the battery pack >with a certain resistance, Nope. Just has to be shorted, and this can be done with the battery pack installed. >[Moderator's Note: Actually, in the Radio Shack CT-301, which is the >model you are referring to, the 'local mode' is entered through a very >simple entry directly on the keypad. _Actually_, Patrick, local mode does require the ground. The mode you are referring to only allows you to program the phone, not to do other test operations available in local mode, such as taking signal strength readings on specific cells' setup channels (which I often provide to my carrier's engineering department when complaining about service problems). Both the RS and Nokia maintenance manuals are identical except for the cover and the parts list at the end (different parts numbers for the grey vs. black case, the keypads, and the battery pack and charger), and both of them fully document setup and local mode. The RS maintenance manual costs $16, but the Nokia manual costs $30. /john ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 13:07:23 mdt From: John Parsons Subject: "Mileage" Charge Question I'm building a house in a small development 4 miles outside the present city limits, and recently asked US West about initializing phone service. I was told that in addition to the usual one-time connection fees, there would be a one-time "mileage" charge of $200 for the first line (already paid by the developer). I wasn't too surprised, since I know it costs $$$ to run new cable. But when I was told that there would be an additional $450 fee for _each_ additional line, I nearly bruised my jaw on the desktop. I've lived in the city all my life. How do these fees compare to other rural areas? Thanks, John Parsons ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #264 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa01816; 20 Apr 90 2:12 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab17512; 20 Apr 90 0:29 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab29289; 19 Apr 90 23:21 CDT Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 23:21:33 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #266 BCC: Message-ID: <9004192321.ab19890@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 19 Apr 90 23:20:53 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 266 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: London Area Code Change [Jeremy Grodberg] Re: London Area Code Change [John Pope] Another Area Code for New York City? [Stan M. Krieger] Re: Phone Replacement [Daniel Senie] Re: Minitel Access Phone Numbers List [Lang Zerner] Re: Ten New AT&T Direct Dial Countries [Dave Levenson] Re: Coin Station Fraud Using External Ground [John Higdon] Re: More on Coin Station Fraud Using Tone Spoofing [Karl Denninger] Re: Recorded Calls With a Return 900 Number [Skip Morris] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 09:10:02 PDT From: Jeremy Grodberg Subject: Re: London Area Code Change Reply-To: jgro@apldbio.com (Jeremy Grodberg) Concerning dialing U.K. city code 71 via ATT, Joel Levin writes: >AT&T continues to report as its error that "Due to the earthquake in >the area you are calling, we are unable to complete your call." I am >curious to know if AT&T nationwide is reporting this peculiar >condition, or if only we in the northeast are getting hearing about >it. Here San Francisco, dialing 011-44-71-974-0000# gets me the "Due to the earthquake..." message too. Using city code 81 instead of 71 gives me something like "Your international call cannot be completed as dialed...." which is the same message I get if I use city code 1, presumably because 974-0000 is not a valid number. Jeremy Grodberg jgro@apldbio.com ------------------------------ From: john pope Subject: Re: London Area Code Change Date: 19 Apr 90 14:30:40 GMT Reply-To: john pope Organization: British Telecom Research Labs I'll probably be lynched for sticking my head up but here goes: On this side of the pond there's no problem dialing either (0)1-254-xxxx or (0)71-254-xxxx, and similarly (0)1-876-xxxx or (0)81-876-xxxx From the provinces. I recently tried from Morocco and not only could I not get a UK no., I could not get any (correct) number apart from some obscure Moroccon banque - it was much easier to drive the 80km/50miles to confirm the flight! Perhaps the problem is at your end (some numbers, ie. the unallocated new numbers, will be invalid). There is at least one conversion programme I know of which tells you the new number. If you haven't seen it already and I'm permitted to send it, I will be happy to do so. Perhaps then again I shouldn't have opened my news editor (especially considering who I work for). John Pope e-mail jpope@axion.bt.co.uk (...mcvax!ukc!axion!jpope) 'phone UK +44 473 646651 Royal Mail RT3114, BTRL Martlesham Heath, IPSWICH, Suffolk, UK in person Room G24b SSTF ------------------------------ From: S M Krieger Subject: Another Area Code for New York City? Date: 19 Apr 90 12:58:12 GMT Organization: Summit NJ I just heard on the news this morning that New York City will need a third area code in three years (the area code they mentioned was 917, but I thought that was already assigned?). Despite the splitting off of Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens into the 718 area code five years ago, the increase in telephone numbers due to mobile phones and FAX machines is causing what is now 212 (Manhattan and the Bronx) to run out of central office codes. The specifics of the split have not yet been determined. According to the news item, it could be as simple as just moving the Bronx to the new area code, or having both area codes serve the same area, with the new area code assigned to FAX machine and mobile phone numbers. Stan Krieger Summit, NJ ...!att!attunix!smk ------------------------------ From: Daniel Senie Subject: Re: Phone Replacement Date: 17 Apr 90 22:13:16 GMT Reply-To: Daniel Senie Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc. Having the misfortune to have dealt with four party service, I think I can add something to this discussion. You are forbidden from hooking up a phone to the line. BUT: You are allowed to use your own phone. The TELCO will (for a fee, I believe) alter your telephone for four party service. Note that EACH phone on a four party service is wired differently from the other three. We did the wiring ourselves, and had no trouble. Since the phone was rented from AT&T, it went back and that ended that. Since AT&T is no longer connected to the local TELCO, the local folk got no report. If you want additional phones in the house, you can pull the appropriate wires so the bell doesn't ring. A word of caution: DO NOT use electronic based phones. You need to be able to get at the wiring to make the phone behave for the four party service. Failure to do this will result in either no ringing or ringing when any of the parties gets a call. ALSO, never connect an answering machine to a party line. Someone did this on our party line once. A quick call to the telephone company yielded a man with a truck to CLIP THE WIRE to the offending house. Daniel Senie UUCP: uunet!lectroid!dts Stratus Computer, Inc. ARPA: dts@lectroid.sw.stratus.com 55 Fairbanks Blvd. CSRV: 74176,1347 Marlboro, MA 01752 TEL.: 508 - 460 - 2686 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 18:24:32 PDT From: Lang Zerner Subject: Re: Minitel Access Phone Numbers List Organization: The Great Escape, Inc. In article <6439@accuvax.nwu.edu> nkraft@pnet01.cts.com writes: >Okay, now that we have the MINITEL phone number lists, what do we do >with them? All I get when I call is a # prompt that does nothing. Am I >missing something (obviously, since I don't even really know what >MINITEL is). There is a free Minitel front end available for users of IBM PC, AT and compatible machines which I have just obtained from a local BBS. I will tar it and send it off to our moderator unless he requests otherwise. A Macintosh front end may also be available. The only voice contact number I have for Minitel (in the US) is 914/694-6266. I've tried the front end. Minitel is a no-minimum service redistributor. When you first log in, the system gets contact and credit card info from you and gives you a temporary user ID and password (permanent ID and password are mailed to you). There is an index of available services with rates set by the individual providers. You pay only for the services you use. There is no charge for examining the index of services. Naturally, you are responsible for the telco charges for connection to the Minitel system. Like Prodigy, before Minitel will provide your temp ID and password, you are walked through an on-screen agreement which does its best to keep Minitel out of trouble. You must type the word AGREE to get past the last screen of the agreement or you are logged out of the system. Unlike Prodigy, there is no minimum monthly fee; on the other hand, there is no limit to what you can spend. I did not have a chance to browse the service index, so I can't tell you much more. The front-end system is a little bit clumsy to use at first, but it took me only a few minutes to grow accustomed to its little quirks. Be seeing you... Lang Zerner ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Ten New AT&T Direct Dial Countries Date: 20 Apr 90 03:48:16 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article <6495@accuvax.nwu.edu>, bcsaic!carroll@beaver.cs.washington. edu (Jeff Carroll) writes: >And is there some reason why people in Minnesota want to call there? >(Is Mayotte possibly out in the middle of Lake Superior?) It's actually out in the middle of Lake Wobegon, isn't it? Dave Levenson Voice: 201 647 0900 Fax: 201 647 6857 Westmark, Inc. Internet: dave@westmark.uu.net Warren, NJ, USA UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave ------------------------------ Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Coin Station Fraud Using External Ground Date: 19 Apr 90 10:18:36 PDT (Thu) From: John Higdon nigel.allen@f438.n250.z1.fidonet.org writes: > There are no COCOTs (non-telco pay phones) in Canada yet, so I don't > have any horror stories about trying to get in touch with the owners > of COCOTs to ask them to fix their phones. As I understand it, COCOTs > tend to be located indoors, and hence are probably less likely to be > vandalized than ones on streetcorners. Sorry to report that the distribution of COCOTs relating to location is similar to BOC phones. In other words, there are plenty of COCOTs located in outdoor locations. One of the spotting techniques is to look for funky walk-up enclosures. There is, however, a greater percentage of COCOTs vandalized, for reasons that should be obvious. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Karl Denninger Subject: Re: More on Coin Station Fraud Using Tone Spoofing Reply-To: Karl Denninger Organization: Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. - Mundelein, IL Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 16:14:03 GMT In article <6499@accuvax.nwu.edu> kitty!larry@uunet.uu.net (Larry Lippman) writes: Not to argue with Larry, but his description is in conflict with that I have experienced around the country; including Michigan, Illinois, Florida, and elsewhere. > After ACTS makes the announcement as to the amount of the coin >deposit, the coin control trunk places +48 V (*positive* battery) on >the ring side of the line, while connecting ground to the tip. This >action enables the totalizer for readout, and also operates the "B" >relay in the totalizer which *disables* the speech network. The coin >control trunk then counts dual-tone pulses from one or more deposited >coins until the proper amount is entered. This is not in line with my experience. Try it in your area of the country; after the announcement, blow into the mouthpiece. I've always been able to hear sidetone (the echo of your noise), which tells you the voice circuit is quite open! If it wasn't, how would you hear the recorded announcement? Granted, the "mic" side wouldn't have to be open, but it always has been in my experience. The only exceptions, in the last five to seven years, have been in GTE-served places that don't complete the "mic" circuit until you deposit coins. Those are real annoying, as your called party often hangs up before you can finish depositing the local-call money ("Hello.... hello? Click!") and leaves you with a call you paid for but didn't get any utility from. >If a preset time is exceeded before the required amount is deposited, >the coin control trunk aborts the collection effort and the call, >places a recorded announcement on the line, and refunds the coins >deposited so far. This is also not in line with my experience. In my experience (which occurs when I'm short of change!) after a short delay I'll get a recording which says something to the effect of "deposit thirty more cents for the first three minutes please", followed about fifteen seconds later by a (live) operator who will repeat the request. You can then say "I don't got it" and change the billing to credit-card or collect (the operator then refunds the already-collected money you had inserted, presumably by manipulating the ring/tip voltages to tell the phone to give back the cash). >At this point, while the money is in the coin hopper, it has not been >collected. If answer supervision on the call is detected, the money >is collected immediately after the call is completed. If no answer >supervision on the call is detected, the money is refunded when the >handset is replaced. Usually the collect or return function is >delayed until the handset is replaced, but it *can* occur with the >handset off-hook, and may do so in some CO's. It usually is delayed. The only exception I've seen is if you go "overtime", in which case the CO will collect the funds you have already deposited just prior to the (computer) voice coming on the line to ask for more money. > The defense against fraud in the above scenario is that the >speech network is disabled by the CO during the coin deposit interval, >which precludes use of a tone generator held to the handset >transmitter. Again, not in my experience. The speech circuit is muted DURING the deposit of coins, presumably to prevent you from taping the coin sounds locally. But that muting doesn't occur until you actually deposit the coin into the slot, and un-mutes immediately after the tones are sent over the line. You >can< hear them nonetheless, although the level is low enough to be useless for anything other than confirming that the coin didn't get stuck. That doesn't stop someone from calling one pay phone from another and taping from the >second< phone's handset. >Furthermore, the CO apparatus will not "listen" for coin >pulses until it is ready for them, so an attempt to introduce coin >tones through the handset transmitter prematurely will fail. Correct. >An attempt to introduce coin tones late will also fail because the call >has already been aborted following timeout. Actually, you usually are connected to a real live operator at that point, so attempting to introduce coin tones to defraud late will probably bring the blue-and-red lighted cars to your location rather quickly -- and you will then get what you deserve. :-) > It is rather difficult to commit fraud under the above >conditions, unless one has access to the tip *and* ring of the coin >station line - a condition against which precautions are usually >taken. Mere access to one wire somewhere in the speech network, as >from a pin poked through the transmitter, will not, to the best of my >knowledge, facilitate any type of fraud with this coin station. I've never seen one of these coin stations you have described. In my travels, which included Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois, and many other states, all DTF (dial tone first) phones operated by a Bell phone company behaved exactly as I have described above -- both rotary and touch tone units. The only exceptions have been COCOTs and GTE-served units, which are often real strange (and skilled at collecting money and delivering NOTHING to the caller). Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, !ddsw1!karl) Public Access Data Line: [+1 708 566-8911], Voice: [+1 708 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality Solutions at a Fair Price" ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 08:03:30 PDT From: "Skip, @BUO/E54, DTN 249-4704" Subject: Re: Recorded Calls With a Return 900 Number >This weekend I got an automated call from some company offering a list >of companies which would give me credit if I had trouble getting same. >The return number they gave was a 900 number with a $19.95 usage fee. >So. How do I go about finding the address associated with a 900 number? What I would do is to: 1. Call the 900 number, ask to speak to a supervisor, and inform them exactly why you don't intend to do business with them, and additionally you don't intend to pay for this call. (Get the name of the supervisor too.) 2. When the phone bill comes refuse to pay that portion of the bill that contains the charge for the 900 call. The phone company will simply report the payment as "uncollectable" to the 900 service. If the 900 service sends you a bill (since the phone company couldn't collect), refuse to pay it on the grounds you didn't receive or make use of the service. /Skip ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #266 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa02229; 20 Apr 90 2:27 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa17512; 20 Apr 90 0:26 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa29289; 19 Apr 90 23:21 CDT Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 22:47:37 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #265 BCC: Message-ID: <9004192247.ab14450@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 19 Apr 90 22:45:54 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 265 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Sprint Employee's Response to Mr. Higdon's Comments [via Steve Elias] Yet Another Sprint Comment [Joel B. Levin] Local Subsidies For LD Carriers [via Steve Elias] Symposium: Broadband Fiber to the Home and Office [Jane M. Fraser] Special Test Numbers [Joel B. Levin] ATT Billing via Local Telcos [David Barts] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: eli@pws.bull.com Subject: Sprint Employee's Response to Mr. Higdon's Comments Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 08:21:39 -0400 From: Steve Elias [Hhere's a rather long response from our Sprint pal. He uses some terminology below (PDD for one) that I don't understand. eli] ---- begin forwarded (and slightly edited) text --- It certainly would make sense that ATT should keep up with its competition and do what's best for their customer base. Had ATT been proactively attending to these all important customers, making sure that they were correctly suited with the proper products, there really wouldn't have been a need for the largest customer in the country, the Federal Government to even think about rebidding to redesign its antiquated telephone network. (The FTS contract was the largest non-military contract ever awarded by the Federal Government). Honestly, it is absolutely astonishing that this actually happened. I can assure you that Sprint was not chosen because we were the lowest bidder (we weren't). You would not believe the number of banded circuits, a truly outdated product, which still exist out there. I personally consider this to be a serious deficiency in the area of service. In response to your statements concerning your test calls, I cannot speak for MCI, (although I am sure that they are using digital). I can assure you that the entire US Sprint network is entirely digital. I am sure that there are pockets of accessibility where we utilize the facilities of other providers (MCI, AT&T, Lightnet)? Canton, NC may very well be one of those. I know that Charleston, WV is one until we put in our own point of prescence. We are in the phase of fine tuning the domestic network and I admit, during the past five years we have not been able to amass the equivalent amount of route endpoints (central office termination points) that ATT has amassed over the last 100 years. But we're working on it. You [Mr. Higdon] stated that call setup time was consistently three times that of ATT for both MCI and Sprint. I would have conceded this without an argument two or three years ago but at present I have a real hard time accepting it -- unless something is dreadfully wrong. I am sure that we are originating and terminating in all likelihood through a tandemed arrangement with the local telcos at both ends simply because the number of central office specific termination points we have to date is very limited. In other words, you are probably going through anywhere from three to eight central offices in the local networks on both ends during the course of your call. (I know specifically of a circuit in Houston that does in fact go thru eight c.o's at 1.544mbs before getting to the customer). This of course adds to increased call setup time as well as degraded line quality at times. But we're working on these situations and even so, the overall advantage that ATT has over us, nationwide, according to the PDD tests that are run every month, is less than one second for 10333 dialup access. PDD tests that have been run out of my office to over 200 plus responder numbers accross the country found that we did better than those guys by a fraction of a second! Hence, I think something else is probably amiss. I am however glad to find out that you receive good quality service when you call the AT&T boys. Coming from the customer service environment myself originally, I feel that it is very important. I however, usually did not usually achieve as fortunate results when interfacing with AT&T on behalf of my customers. (In fact, in certain instances involving a mutual customer for which AT&T was also the equipment vendor, we uncovered blatant sabotage moves by the r-mats guys, ie: not setting up the Sprint T1 for slip/error detection, maintenance mode etc, while the megacom sitting behind it was.) In general, we are not ashamed to admit when we have a problem. It would be silly to think that any carrier would be problem free. And to that end, it is common practice for our acd customer service as well as our star account customer service groups to recommend using the 10288 carrier code. The philosophy is that the most important thing is that you get your calls through. And quite honestly, we don't have a problem referring you to the competition if that's what needs to be done. When you think about it, it makes good business sense to piss you off as little as possible if you help pay our bills. If I recall correctly, it took ATT approximately twelve hours to come to this conclusion during their crisis. I can't explain the reaction John got from the Sprint supervisor. The supervisor may be a bonehead; there are definitely some in this company, as I'm sure there are in every company. But then again, maybe he just wanted to get off the phone with John because he didn't understand why John was hassling him for recommending to use the competition while he investigated your problem. We are not perfect. But overall, we try damned hard. And all things considered, we still have a lot to do, and a lot of our people still have a lot to learn, but we're eons ahead of where we were just three years ago and we're proud of it. I assure you, we worry about all areas of the country twenty-four hours a day. We were given a lot of leeway to develop. But then again, I don't think you could beat a Harley with your ten-speed either. And to be perfectly honest with you, one of the primary reasons for divestiture was to bring on the information age by pushing the deployment of new technology thru competition (for this reason, Charlie Brown, former chairman of ATT, eventually welcomed it). Had AT&T aggressively deployed the technology they admittedly had a large hand in developing in the first place, there probably never would have been a divestiture. I know I sound like I'm knocking AT&T a lot, but it's obviously a tremendous company. It's just that with $36+ billion in annual revenues, they should have been doing a hell of a lot more a long time ago. Therefore, I just don't think they are *the greatest*. I have a lot of respect for the Esreys and the Hensons and the Smiths [executive dudes] of US Sprint for really taking the tremendous risks that they did by sinking so much money into the "bleeding edge" of technology (as it was referred to here in the early days) before even making a dime. I will leave you with one final note: we don't claim to be the best in everything, but we are working to be. And to that end, if you ever want want a company to demonstrate superiority in video conferencing, give us a call. AT&T's Accunet reserve can't even come close. ------------------------------ From: "Joel B. Levin" Subject: Yet Another Sprint Comment Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 08:52:48 EDT Yet another comment on Sprint's quality of service: I have been using Sprint casually for some years and switched to it as default when they offered $25 of free calls for signing up for their discount plan. In the area of price, I have no basis for judging; I went from no discount plan to an appropriate discount plan which is surely an improvement regardless of which companies were involved. In the area of performance, three things: (a) I have not suffered disconnection (on any LD company). (b) Audio performance is not so much better or worse that it calls itself to my attention; it has been acceptable, neither superb nor terrible, for all the companies since I stopped having to use FG-A(?) access (call a local number, get a tone, dial eighteen digits). (c) Connection time is noticeably longer with Sprint and MCI than with AT&T. I timed calling Arizona from the click that "accepts" the number locally to the sound of distance on the line (you know when you have a trunk) before it starts to ring. True, it's twice as long, but normally I don't care about four seconds instead of two. (Ten instead of five I would probably notice.) Of Mr. Higdon's possible reasons that he is getting such poor performance from Sprint, I think the problem is most likely the interface provided to Sprint by Pac*Bell in his area. As to service, I am sure that AT&T is best equipped and if one thinks one is likely to require service, that is an important consideration. /JBL Nets: levin@bbn.com Pots: (617)873-3463 ------------------------------ Reply-To: eli@pws.bull.com Subject: Local Subsidies for LD Carriers Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 16:27:46 -0400 From: Steve Elias [ from US Sprint employee -- in response to someone who claimed the 'alternative' carriers had some sort of subsidy advantage with regard to local access charges for long distance calls. ] Although it is true that AT&T did heavily subsidize the local telcos before divestiture, it is absolutely incorrect to say that MCI and Sprint did not have to "bake" these subsidies into our rate structures. All LD carriers, including Sprint and MCI are charged by the telcos for the originating and terminating portions of every single long distance call. It has always been this way and remains so today. We pay a tremendous amount for access charges but interestingly enough, it is vastly less expensive today than it was right after divestiture. I am fairly sure that when divestiture first became a reality, the local telcos were not regulated too strictly with regard to the level of access charges they could bill the L.D. carriers simply because there was no way to adequately break down the extremely complicated system of cross-subsidization. The Ma Bell operation itself was not exactly efficient from the business perspective. This is evident from the numerous layoffs that have occurred within these companies in the past several years. It is also interesting to note that in recent months, the federal Justice Department has ordered a number of operating companies, NYNEX being one of them, to rebate a substantial amount of "overbilled" access costs that were passed on to consumers (L.D. carriers are also considered to be consumers). ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 14:32:22 edt From: "Jane M. Fraser" Subject: Symposium: Broadband Fiber to the Home and Office The Center for Advanced Study (CAST) at the Ohio State University announces a one-day symposium ``Broadband Fiber to the Home and Office: Economic, Political and Cultural Implications." The symposium is May 15, 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM on the OSU campus in Columbus. Registration (including lunch) is $20. Send a check made out to CAST/OSU to CAST, 210 Baker Systems, 1971 Neil Avenue, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210-1271. Parking is available at the Ohio Union Garage. A nearby, reasonable hotel is the Holiday Inn on the Lane: 328 West Lane, Columbus, 614-294-4848. For more information, call Jane Fraser at 614-292-4129. Preliminary program: Morning session and lunch at The South Terrace, The Ohio Union, 1739 N. High Street. 8:00 AM - Coffee, juice, muffins. 8:30 AM - Welcome and introduction. 9:00 AM - ``Framing the Broadband Issues -- The Players and the Stakes." Robert Pepper, Acting Chief, Office of Plans and Policy, Federal Communications Commission. 11:00 AM- Top industry spokesperson look at the issues. Speakers include: Barry Nelson, Senior Director of Broadband Technologies, Ameritech Services. Cable industry representative. Chuck Sherman, Senior Vice President, Television NAB. 12:30 PM- Lunch. Afternoon session is at The Wexner Center for the Visual Arts, 30 West 15th Avenue (short distance from the morning session). 1:30 PM - ``Framing the Cultural and Social Issues -- New Technologies in Old Bottles." James Carey, Dean, College of Communication, University of Illinois. 3:00 PM - The Year 2010 -- which future will emerge for broadband fiber to the home and office. Academic, industry and government researchers respond to possible broadband futures. Panelists include: John M. Fraser, Telecommunciations consultant, Bell Labs, Hughes Communication Satellites, retired. Raymond W. Lawton, Associate Director, National Regulatory Research Institute. P.T. Lele, Telecommunications marketing consultant, AT&T, retired. Christopher H. Sterling, George Washington University. ------------------------------ From: "Joel B. Levin" Subject: Special Test Numbers Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 08:55:28 EDT New England Telephone (well, at least eastern Mass. and southern New Hampshire) seems to like area code 200 for this function. Twenty years ago, I think you could get your own number in Cambridge identified by dialing a three digit code (225 sounds right) if you were on an older switch (one that could still have letters in the exchange). About the time Harvard went Centrex the rest of Cambridge modernized to ESS of various types. We somehow discovered that 1-200-NXX-XXXX provided the function; probably the seven digits were irrelevant, but we assumed the NXX had to look legal. As far as I can tell this is still true. When I moved to Dunstable, Mass. (Tyngsborough exchange 617-649, now 508-649) in 1983, the above number didn't work. However, a friendly NET installer putting in my second line told me that while it was supposed to work, the number that did work was 200-2622. As far as I know this is still the case. Now I'm in New Hampshire (603-880), it took me a long time to figure it out (a little bit of "Duhh!" factor, if you know what I mean). Whenever I dialed 1-200-NXX-XXXX I got a recording that said I had to dial a 1 to call beyond the local area! Finally I got wise and dialed 200-NXX-XXXX and got my number back. (1 is required on all L.D. calls.) Ringback is a different proposition. Everywhere I have been in eastern Mass it has been (a) dial 981-XXXX (where XXXX MUST BE THE SAME as the calling phone's last four digits); (b) receive a tone (maybe dial tone) (c) dial a digit or pulse the line (d) hang up and listen to the ringing. In some places, if at (b) you received a standard DTMF dial tone you could dial all the digits on the keypad in a certain order and receive back two pulses in the dial tone to signify correct reception. Here in NH I always receive a standard busy signal when I try 981- plus my last four digits. /JBL Nets: levin@bbn.com Pots: (617)873-3463 63 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 10:00:19 pdt From: David Barts Subject: ATT billing via local telcos Patricia O'connor writes: > Until divestiture, the local companies did the billing for AT&T long > distance, so there were no billing mechanisms in place. Since then, > AT&T has built some financial centers and intends (last I heard) to > begin doing their own billing soon. Meantime, AT&T contracts billing > from the local companies. Well, billing via the local telco is *the main reason* that ATT is my long distance company. Less bother, paperwork, and postage stamps for me to hassle with. If ATT starts doing their own billing, I'll just switch to Metromedia<>ITT or Sprint, thank you. David Barts Pacer Corporation davidb@pacer.uucp ...!uunet!pilchuck!pacer!davidb ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #265 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa03814; 20 Apr 90 3:06 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa10879; 20 Apr 90 1:34 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ac17512; 20 Apr 90 0:29 CDT Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 0:17:40 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #267 BCC: Message-ID: <9004200017.ab12517@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 20 Apr 90 00:17:30 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 267 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Cellular Phone Service in Canada [John Higdon] Re: Cellular Phone Service in Canada [Jeff Wasilko] Why Cellular is Screwed Up in the U.S. [John R. Covert] Re: Rates For Cellular Phones [Jody Kravitz] Re: Cellular Phone Reprogramming [Rob Warnock] Checking the Serial Number on Cellular Phones [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Service in Canada Date: 19 Apr 90 10:30:02 PDT (Thu) From: John Higdon root@joymrmn.UUCP (Marcel D. Mongeon) writes: > Have you thought about complaining to the FCC about what is happening > in Cellular service? After all, how could the Canadians be beating > you at something as simple as this?? (Lots of :-)'s and ;-)'s ) This is one of those cases where we diehard supporters of the free enterprise system have to look the other way. Since the implementation of cellular service has been a project of private enterprize, first to last, the inferior service we have in the US is much to be expected. Considering the capital expenditure to set up cellular systems, you would have to expect that investors want large returns quickly. This means putting efforts in large population centers and more or less ignoring the backwoods. Eventually, this could change as companies see new revenue opportunities from say, traffic on I-15 between LA and Las Vegas. Or if they are forced to respond to heat from subscribers who are tired of the limited use of their phones. The terms "universal service" and "private enterprise" are largely mutually exclusive. Since cellular is regarded as anything but a necessity, one of the last concerns of the FCC would be whether the service is comprehensive or convenient. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Jeff Wasilko Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 17:47:02 EDT Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Service in Canada In his posting to the Digest, Marcel D. Mongeon talked about the large coverage area that Cantel provides. The reason that US coverage isn't as good right now, is that the FCC only sold licenses (or whatever) for the the metro areas. Now that the Rural Service Area (RSA) lottery has been held, I'm sure that the US metro situation will improve. This will be a godsend for the upstate NY area, where there is almost complete coverage from Buffalo to Albany on the Celluar One network. Right now, there is a brief period between cities where calls can't be placed, or are dropped. When the rural sites are up and running, it should be possible to drive from Buffalo to Albany without re-placing the call. Also, as it stands right now, Cellular One customers can have their calls automatically follow them in any of the Empire cities (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse/Rome/Utica*, Albany). If the customer chooses, they can also be paged over the Cantel network. *(While Syracuse/Rome/Utica are a Cellular One affiliate, they are not owned by the same company as Buffalo, Rochester and Albany. Due to this and the fact that they are using Motorola switches instead of those Swedish wonders (-: Ericsson, the paging system is a bit more clunky and troublesome. The interface to Cantel is very clean due to their usage of Ericsson switches. This mini-follow me roaming package costs $9.95/month, and gives discounted roam rates in the Empire area ($.55/min, no per day charge), 50 free minutes of long distance (which almost/does cover the $9.95 cost, depending on usage) and the full Roam America Caller Notification and Transparent Call Forwarding.) Jeff | RIT VAX/VMS Systems: | Jeff Wasilko | RIT Ultrix Systems: | |BITNET: jjw7384@ritvax+----------------------+INET:jjw7384@ultb.isc.rit.edu| |UUCP: {psuvax1, mcvax}!ritvax.bitnet!JJW7384 +___UUCP:jjw7384@ultb.UUCP____+ |INTERNET: jjw7384@isc.rit.edu |'claimer: No one cares. | ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 15:25:41 PDT From: "John R. Covert 19-Apr-1990 1756" Subject: Why Cellular is Screwed Up in the U.S. >Have you thought about complaining to the FCC about what is happening >in Cellular service? Yes. But it will do little good. There are two parts to the problem. The first part is the lack of coverage outside major metropolitan areas. The second part is the lack of interconnection between the systems in different areas. The FCC bears the full responsibility for the first part. Unlike Canada, where the decision was made to grant the cellular licenses for the "B" carrier to the local phone company and a nationwide "A" carrier license to CanTel, the FCC decided to go through either a competitive bidding process or a lottery in each of several hundred metropolitan service areas (MSAs) followed by a lottery in each of several thousand rural service areas (RSAs). The MSAs were all licensed a few years ago, and by now, both carriers are operating in almost all of them. The RSAs were only licensed within the past few months, and construction will not begin for another three or four months, until an appeals period ends. Judge Greene bears most of the responsibility for the second part. One of the restrictions placed on Baby Bell companies as part of the break up of the Bell System is a prohibition on carrying inter-LATA traffic. This means that, except in a few cases where the Justice Department has granted waivers, a cellular company owned by one of the RBOCs is prohibited from networking with adjacent systems outside the LATA. For example: The "A" carriers from Connecticutt to Delaware are fully networked, even though this involves more than five different companies. However, this interconnection ends before reaching Boston or Balto-Wash, because in both of these cities the "A" carrier is Southwestern Bell, doing business under the name Cellular One. On the other hand, the Justice Department _did_ grant a waiver to NYNEX to operate a single system which covers all of two LATAs (Eastern Mass and Rhode Island) and part of another (Rockingham County, NH). But permission has been denied to interconnect with Contel in Hillsborough County, NH. I have written to Judge Greene, to the FCC, and to Senators and Representatives about the problem. The only reply I've received was from Fritz Hollings, who wrote to tell me that cooperation between the carriers would end the problem. I wrote back and pointed out that the carriers were being prohibited from cooperating, and that NYNEX and Contel were simply waiting for an approval from Judge Greene to connect their fully compatible systems together. Fritz again replied that he believed that cooperation would solve the problem. I also called the chief of the mobile services division of the FCC, who was amazed that there was a consumer who understood the problem or even cared, but told me that it was not the FCC's prerogative to override the rulings of a federal judge. There is one more element to the interconnection problem, and it's evident in Canada as well, on the "B" carrier side. Cellular switches from different manufacturers are not yet technically fully compatible. A standard called "IS 41" is being worked on by several switch manufacturers and is in early implementation stages. So far it only addresses hand-off from one system to another, but in another few years it should address call delivery. I don't expect the cellular mess in the U.S. to be straightened out before 1995. /john ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 18:26:34 PDT From: Jody Kravitz Subject: Re: Rates For Cellular Phones rider@pnet12.cts.com (Michael Fetzer) writes: >I may be mistaken, but I think I've made the observation that cellular >phones are much cheaper to own and operate in the Pacific North West >(read: Portland, OR) than in California (read Sandi Eggo). It is my understanding that the California PUC has outlawed kickbacks for "contracts", but U.S. West is still appearantly paying a "commission" for each "new number". The contract we signed when we got our service didn't have a minimum time associated with it. However, the price of the phone would lead be to believe that we didn't provide the dealer with all his profit. Jody Internet: foxtail!kravitz@ucsd.edu uucp: ucsd!foxtail!kravitz ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 03:45:25 GMT From: Rob Warnock Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Reprogramming Reply-To: Rob Warnock Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA In article <6448@accuvax.nwu.edu> Rob Warnock and the Moderator write: | ...But to do most of the interesting ops, the R-S phone has to be put | into a special "local" mode by grounding a pin on the battery pack | with a certain resistance, which *cannot* be done (at least, not very | easily) with the standard battery installed -- you have to use a | special bench power supply that plugs in where the battery goes, and | accesses extra pins the battery doesn't pass through to the outside. | [Moderator's Note: Actually, in the Radio Shack CT-301, which is the | model you are referring to, the 'local mode' is entered through a very | simple entry directly on the keypad. This code which you enter on the | keypad includes the five digit security code (12345) when it comes | from the factory. But the five digit security code itself is one of | the parameters you can set while in local mode. And the schematics and | other technical data you can get on this unit does not include the | programming stuff.... Well, I have the CT-301 Service Manual (catalog number 17-1050/604/602) right here, which I bought quite openly from my local Radio Shack by simply asking them to order it for me, and I have a CT-301 Model 17-1050 in my hand, and the service manual *does* contain the "programming stuff". And to do anything but function 48 (NAM programming), you do in fact have to ground the LOCAL line (and then type a short code given in the book). [If someone knows differently *for sure*, please let me know. There are some read-only things I'd like to get to from the keyboard -- see below.] Maybe the confusion was over what I considered "most of the interesting ops". It is true that the 15-key-sequence-which-includes-your-security-code (call this "key-local" mode?) can be done without grounding LOCAL, and it gets you straight to function 48 (NAM programming), and that lets you examine/change: - home system identification (5 digits) - access method (1 or 0) - local control option (1 or 0) - mobile number (10 digits) a.k.a. "NAM" - home paging channel (3 dig) - overload class (2 dig) - group identification (2 dig) - security code (5 dig) But there are another 32 (documented) functions besides NAM programming, which *do* require the hardware grounding of LOCAL, and do such "interesting" things as: - ROAST: Transmits at maximum power on Channel 1 until you hit "END" - LOAD-SYNTH: Type in a 4-digit channel number to select - SET-ATTN: Select R.F. power level (0-8) [seems to be ~4dB steps up to the max for the unit, which for the CT-301 is step 6 = 480 mW] - DTMF: Type a digit or # or * and get continuous DTMF until "END" - IC test: continuously test RAM, serial number, and NAM memories. - Display the output of an A/D converter on one of: - Battery - Xmt power - Rcv signal - STAT (a wire that external options pull on with various R's) - Display the manufacturer ID and serial number (NIM?) - Turn on&off various things: TX audio path, RX audio path, external speaker, external mike, loudspeaker volume, supervisory audio tone, etc. - Display the locking code - Activate continuous transmission on the data sub-channel of a 48-bit test pattern - Channel flip: set synthsizer alternately to channels 991 and 799 - Display software version & date Obviously, many of these can do anti-social (and/or illegal) things unless your antenna is terminated in a dummy load. But I was just a lttile bit disappointed that harmless things things like "display A/D converter" couldn't be done from the keyboard: I'd really like to be able to know how the battery was doing sooner than the infamous "3-minute warning" chirps you get (when the battery drops below 7.0 volts). And receive carrier level might help one to know whether the weird reception you're getting is from a weak signal or from bad multipath. Etc... Rob Warnock, MS-9U/510 rpw3@sgi.com rpw3@pei.com Silicon Graphics, Inc. (415)335-1673 Protocol Engines, Inc. 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94039-7311 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 23:57:07 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Checking the Serial Number on Cellular Phones Something of interest has been noted about Cellular One service in Chicago, and perhaps someone has an answer. I think I am correct in saying that when you place a call on a cellular unit, both the phone number (easily changeable by experienced users) and the serial number (usually not so easily changeable) are transmitted to the carrier. If the serial number is on a 'hot list', or otherwise does not match up on the carrier's records, then the call is denied. Right so far? Reports have reached me that certain telephone numbers at Cellular One here (and perhaps other carriers?) are set to *not bother checking serial numbers*, but to simply accept the transmission and place the call. Tests showed that when the phone (in this case, a CT-301) was otherwise 'properly' programmed to show Cellular One as the home carrier -- meaning the Home Default was set to 00001 -- and the phone number programmed were certain numbers on prefixes assigned to that carrier, calls both into and out of the phone were processed without question! If someone from a landline dialed the newly programmed number, the cell phone rang. If the cell phone made a call out, it was processed. In many cases, long distance access was restricted, however, for lack of choosing an LD carrier. In the test, the cell phone would then be immediatly programmed to another number in the same exchange, the landline would dial that number, and the same thing would happen. On most Cellular One lines, the serial number obviously was checked, since the cell phone dialing a number would result in a tower picking up the call, followed by perhaps five seconds of air time and then the tower would drop the connection. But that handful of numbers, in both the 312 and 708 areas would always place calls and receive calls, no questions asked, provided the cell phone at least was programmed to give the same phone number. Any ideas why some numbers are apparently exempt from serial number checks? Could it be they are used by employees at Cellular One who want to be able to use several phones at their disposal without having to reprogram the system each time? Could it be the 'free lines' are used for promotional purposes by dealers who would have several phones to demonstrate, each with different serial numbers? What about numbers used for temporary assignment to roamers in the area using something like Ameritech's 'follow me' and 'Fast Track' services? There is no practical way to check serials on those lines either, is there? Of the lines found which are apparently not checking serial numbers, some, but not all, were found to have a subscriber identified with the line. This was noted when a landline dialing the number while the experimental cell phone was turned off reached a voicemail box of someone. Yet, turn the phone on, and subsequent incoming calls came to the falsely programmed phone. Ideas and comments welcome. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #267 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa08657; 20 Apr 90 5:21 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa18525; 20 Apr 90 3:40 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa26812; 20 Apr 90 2:35 CDT Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 1:46:35 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #268 BCC: Message-ID: <9004200146.ab17166@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 20 Apr 90 01:46:03 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 268 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Credit Card ID [John Higdon] Re: Credit Card ID [Steve Wolfson] Re: The Card [Tom Neff] Re: The Card [Jeremy Grodberg] Re: AT&T Universal Card (I Received It!) [John Braden] Re: What Are All the x11/x00 Numbers For? [Carl Moore] Re: LD Billing Tale [Dave Levenson] Re: Coin Station Fraud Using External Ground [David Leibold] Request For Switch Manufacturers [C. David Covington] 716-789 in Steadman, NY [Carl Moore] A Primer on the Nuts and Bolts of Telecom/datacom? [Brad Templeton] WANTED: BBS Near Monroe, Michigan [Jan Steinman] Area Code 917 in New York City [David Tamkin] Specials This Weekend [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Credit Card ID Date: 18 Apr 90 12:26:36 PDT (Wed) From: John Higdon Jim Gottlieb writes: > When I'm in the U.S. and am asked to write down my number on a charge > slip, I always write "011 81 3 237 5868". Not once has anyone said > anything. I don't mean to be argumentative, but over the years I have put my true and correct [listed] phone number on charge slips. Two calls have resulted from this "naive" practice. One was from the merchant who requested that I return to the store *at my convenience* to have my card run through again because the number had been mutilated. When I went back, he showed me the slip and tore it up in my presence and imprinted another slip. Completely legit. The other was from the restaurant that I had patronized. The caller wanted to inform me that I had left my cellular phone in the booth and that it was being held at the podium for me. Have people really had bad experiences in putting phone numbers on charge slips? John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Steve Wolfson Subject: Re: Credit Card ID Date: 19 Apr 90 19:18:40 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL >[Moderator's Note: The way I usually avoid this is to tell them I >don't have a phone. I just write 555-1212 Steve Wolfson uunet!motcid!wolfson [Moderator's Note: Has anyone ever questioned this at all? PT] ------------------------------ From: Tom Neff Subject: Re: The Card Date: 19 Apr 90 02:54:42 GMT Reply-To: Tom Neff I wonder if you could put something like clear nail polish or epoxy on top of the embossed calling card number on THE CARD and thus keep it from appearing on pressure sensitive charge slips. If it's not officially required as part of the transaction, it shouldn't matter. [Moderator's Note: I wonder if you could get in trouble on the federal level for tampering with a credit card to change the manner in which it prints out? I've seen cases where people tried to blitz the part of the imprint which gave the (long since passed) expiration date of the card. I'd be careful about using a credit card I had altered in any way. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 08:05:03 PDT From: Jeremy Grodberg Subject: Re: The Card Reply-To: jgro@apldbio.com (Jeremy Grodberg) In article <6557@accuvax.nwu.edu> mperka@netxdev.dhl.com writes: >Since the number is embossed, it is likely to show up on imprints made >of The Card, spreading calling card numbers (or their base phone >number) that many people would like to keep private. My calling card number is not the same as my phone number, and I can't imagine why I should care if other people get it. The PIN is not printed on the card, and although I haven't received my PIN yet, I expect it will be at least four digits, which, although not perfectly secure, seems like it would be good enough. N'est pas? Jeremy Grodberg jgro@apldbio.com "Beware: free advice is often overpriced!" ------------------------------ From: Subject: Re: AT&T Universal Card (I Received It!) Date: 16 Apr 90 17:48:54 GMT Reply-To: John Braden Organization: Stratus Computer, Hardware Engineering In article <6126@accuvax.nwu.edu> albert@endor.UUCP (David Albert) writes: >I just received my AT&T Universal Card, a week and a day after >applying for it -- what service! It has the AT&T and VISA logos, the ... >The credit agreement seems to be as previously described; 25-day grace >period on merchandise purchases if you always pay in full, 18.9% >initial interest rate if not paid in full (adjustable to 8.9% above >prime), 2% charge for cash advances (yuk!), and all calling- card >charges interest-free (if paid by the due date) even if you carry a >balance on your merchandise purchases. I also received my card, and agree it's a good deal, but there is one item in the small print which made me sit up & take notice. Failure to pay the minimum amount due by the due date results in a "late charge" of $10.00 (in addition to any interest which may be due). This could come as a nasty shock to those of us who occasionally procrastinate a little too long in getting the payment in the mail. You would need a balance of $635.00 to rack up $10.00 in interest (at 18.9%), so get those payments in on time!!! At least I'll now have access to all of those blue AT&T card-only phones which seem to be popping up in convention centers & airports... There are places my MCI card just won't work. John Braden, Stratus Computer, Marlboro, Massachusetts braden@lincoln.hw.stratus.com -or- John_Braden@es.stratus.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 14:11:56 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: What Are All the x11/x00 Numbers For? I believe 511 was used, at least in Philadelphia, for information regarding the Bicentennial in 1976. ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: LD Billing Tale Date: 20 Apr 90 04:01:17 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article <6436@accuvax.nwu.edu>, langz@khayyam.EBay.Sun.COM (Lang Zerner) writes: > .... This is one reason AT&T is so hungry to sign up > Universal card holders; when billing through the local telco, they > cannot use the bills for direct mail marketing. When Universal card > holders receive their bills, they can count on getting > ATT-revenue-generating tips and suggestions for making their lives > better. When we get billed by NJ Bell, they include the MCI inter-lata billing on a separate page. We always get two stuffers: one from NJ Bell, and one from MCI. Are you trying to tell us that NJ Bell is unwilling to stuff for AT&T but they'll stuff for MCI? Dave Levenson Voice: 201 647 0900 Fax: 201 647 6857 Westmark, Inc. Internet: dave@westmark.uu.net Warren, NJ, USA UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave ------------------------------ From: woody Subject: Re: Coin Station Fraud Using External Ground Reply-To: djcl@contact.UUCP (David Leibold) Organization: Contact Public Unix BBS. Toronto, Canada. Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 03:36:39 GMT In article <6508@accuvax.nwu.edu> ccplumb@lion.waterloo.edu (Colin Plumb) writes: >Paul Colley writes: >>> I have a friend who can pulse-dial phone numbers by rapidly tapping >>> the hang-up button. >>> He claims, though I've never seen it, that this works at pay phones >>> without having to pay. >I didn't believe this, so I just tried it (the pay phone in question >is (519) 746-9368, on the third floor of the University of Waterloo >math building), and it doesn't seem to work. Calling 885-1211 by >tapping it out on the switchhook (the university switchboard; it >should give me a recording saying they open in the morning) waits for >seven digits and gives me fast busy. So does dialling the same thing >using the touch-tone pad. It used to be that the Northern Telecom payphones would allow coinless calls to operator, 411, 611, 911 by allowing only the first three digits to be dialed before cutting off the connection. In some areas where 4104 is used for repair, this was four digits. Because of the timing of the switchook used in the payphones, it wasn't terribly possible to pulse out anything other than '1' (ie. attempting to pulse out a '2' resulted in disconnection, or '11', or just a long '1'). Thus, if K-W payphones allowed for four digits, getting to 885.1211 would have been possible. However, Bell Canada cut over the payphones using this method on the 88x exchanges (which were crossbar) onto new digital 746 numbers. This meant that the 411, 611, etc pass-through would be done at the switch and no longer at the payphone. Thus, the fast busys when a local number was attempted (the switch needs to be pacified with coin signals). Areas that used to have digit-absorbing step-by-step systems could be prone to this kind of bypass, depending on how many digits were allowed, and how many 1's in the number. (A side effect is that, if long distance calls were dialable, you would need coin deposit first). Meanwhile, perhaps someone should take the trouble to tell Northern Telecom that the Canadian Mint has just introduced dollar coins. They have only been out for the past two or three years or so, with much advance fanfare. Meanwhile, Bell has been busy fitting many of their Toronto area phones with metal touch tone keypads (perhaps to go along with the changeover requiring the area code to be dialed within 416??). Meanwhile, in Australia, I know someone travelling through there who had stories about payphones that allowed overseas calls to go through without charge or interruption. This situation was apparently fixed up eventually. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 17:06:43 -0400 From: "C. D. Covington" Subject: Request For Switch Manufacturers I would like a list of switch manufacturers with call processing capability. The switch can be either analog or digital. I am particularly interested in low-end machines (read cheap). C. David Covington (WA5TGF) cdc@uafhcx.uark.edu (501) 575-6583 Asst Prof, Elec Eng Univ of Arkansas Fayetteville, AR 72701 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 22:03:20 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: 716-789 in Stedman, NY Does anybody know where Stedman, NY is? I cannot find it in the Buffalo, NY area, and I'm rather limited by distance in my access to phone books for western New York state. I'd ap- preciate receiving mailing addresses for places served by that exchange (it does not necessarily mean that I will call, write, or visit such). ------------------------------ Subject: A Primer on the Nuts and Bolts of Telecom/datacom? Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 2:04:30 EDT From: Brad Templeton Can anybody suggest a good introductory work (if any exists) on the nuts and bolts of telecom and particularly datacom these days? I don't work directly in that industry, so I've had to learn everything hit and miss. Or if there isn't one, perhaps somebody might write a short one for the TELECOM Digest. For example, I know what a T-1 is (1.54 mb/s digital circuit) but just how is it implemented in a physical sense in most places? What sort of modems, if you can call them that at that speed, interface to hard physical wires and send data along at those speeds? How do those modems talk to computers? (Only through special interfaces, I assume, but what are they like?) What about at the lower speeds of 56 kbps and ISDN's 64kbps? I have a 4 wire unconditioned line from my office to my house that I run at 4800 bps using some cheap pseudo-modems. What can you pull out of these 4 wire circuits? Are there modems that give you 56 kbps out of them? If not, how does Bell do it at their overpriced rate? What are the different types of conditioning that go on a line? What kind of equipment multiplexes these faster lines to share them and how does it work? How do smaller networks work that establish "points of presence" in telco switching offices and then lease out lines to customers connected to that office? etc., etc. etc. Too many questions to ask in one posting, which is why I wonder if there's a book of some sort... ------------------------------ From: Jan Steinman Subject: WANTED: BBS Near Monroe, Michigan Date: 18 Apr 90 18:58:08 GMT Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or. I just bought my Dad a Mac XL and modem, and would like a few BBS numbers in southeast Michigan so he can bootstrap into the wonderful world of computer bulletin boards. Although I subscribed to the groups queried, please reply via email, since this is not of general interest. I'll forward what I discover to anyone expressing interest. Thanks! Jan Steinman - N7JDB Tektronix Electronic Systems Laboratory Box 500, MS 50-370, Beaverton, OR 97077 (w)503/627-5881 (h)503/657-7703 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 17:33 CDT From: David Tamkin Subject: Area Code 917 in New York City There have been news reports today that, like Los Angeles's need for area code 310, New York City may require a third area code to accommodate the growing numbers of beeper, fax, modem, and cellular numbers. NYTel apparently has NPA 917 reserved already. There was no mention of which geographic areas or which types of customers would get the new area code. David Tamkin PO Box 813 Rosemont IL 60018-0813 708-518-6769 312-693-0591 dattier@chinet.chi.il.us MCIMail:426-1818 GEnie:D.W.TAMKIN CIS:73720,1570 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 0:27:22 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Specials This Weekend One of the special issues planned for this weekend is the Spring, 1990 issue of [Telesat Report], forwarded to us by Dave Leibold (woody). You will receive your copy sometime Saturday. 'Larry the Lid', as he is now known :) agreed to greatly reduce and edit his response to the rebuttal from Mr. DeArmond. On publication, that will make two each: DeArmond's original article, Lippman's reply, DeArmond's rebuttal, and Lippman's rebuttal. And that will close the topic. This will also be a special issue, to be filed wherever you keep these things. Another topic being closed at this time: 'The Card', and variants. This is not a forum to discuss credit card billing practices, and in the past few days over a dozen messages have had to be declined and returned to the senders because they were at best marginally related to telecom. No offense, folks, but misc.consumers is a better forum for it. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #268 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa10328; 20 Apr 90 6:23 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa02967; 20 Apr 90 4:45 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab18525; 20 Apr 90 3:40 CDT Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 2:35:19 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #269 BCC: Message-ID: <9004200235.ab14697@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 20 Apr 90 02:35:00 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 269 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson FTS 2000 Privacy Issues [Will Martin] Re: Radio Shack CT-300/301 and Nokia P-30 [Rob Warnock] Re: Review: San Francisco Celluar Service [John Higdon] You Asked To Be Reminded [Tom Ace and the Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 13:21:48 CDT From: Will Martin Subject: FTS 2000 Privacy Issues Ran across the following short piece while scanning this several-issues-back periodical prior to disposing of it; thought the list might find this interesting: GOVERNMENT COMPUTER NEWS, March 5, 1990, p. 24: FTS 2000 POSES PRIVACY PROBLEMS By S. A. Masud, GCN Staff The General Accounting Office has recommended the development of a policy to protect the privacy of federal employees because FTS 2000 will track individual long-distance calls closely. Unlike the old Federal Telecommunications System, which the General Services Administration is phasing out, the new one generates call-detail records with much more information about individual employees' telephone calls, a recent GAO report said. The new system's database will record for all calls placed through the system the calling number, the number called, the time, date, and duration of the call and the location of the number called. The availability of the detail records could cause legal conflict, GAO reported. The Freedom of Information Act could cause some call detail records to be made public. At the same time, the Privacy Act could allow agencies to protect such information. GSA, in light of the privacy concerns, has indicated to GAO that the FTS 2000 contractors could omit the last four digits of called numbers from the call detail reorts. However, this would be contrary to federal requirements that agencies maintain enough details of transactions to support their expenditures and permit audits of the transactions, the report pointed out. GSA has established an advisory committee to consider whether the agency should issue guidelines regarding the privacy of call detail records. ***End of article*** As a federal employee, I find this sort of mystifying. All long-distance calls are already supposed to be solely on government business, and we are supposed to log (on paper) and report each month to our supervisor's office any and all LD calls made, including WATS-line calls; these records are then bounced against the telco-provided LD billing and any LD calls billed for but not so reported show up on a list and have to be justified. If it turns out to have been a personal call, not only does the employee have to reimburse the gov't for the cost of the call, but there is also a surcharge ($7 or $15, I forget which) as a penalty and to cover the bookeeping costs. So all the data cited above is already being kept. Actually more, because the calling individual's name is on our reporting now, in addition to all the data listed in the article. Maybe this is because DoD always was more hard-nosed about this than the civil agencies? I suppose the people at HUD who were lining their pockets with embezzled funds didn't stay virtuous about using their phones... :-) And when you get up to upper-level political-appointee managers, I guess the line between what is "official" and what isn't gets pretty fuzzy. Regards, Will wmartin@st-louis-emh2.army.mil OR wmartin@stl-06sima.army.mil ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 05:36:31 GMT From: Rob Warnock Subject: Re: Radio Shack CT-300/301 and Nokia P-30 Reply-To: Rob Warnock Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA In article <6569@accuvax.nwu.edu> covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 18-Apr-1990 1450) writes: | As an owner of a Nokia P-30 and a former owner of a Radio Shack CT-300 You may be interested in the scheme I devised for deep-discharging the batteries to "cure" them of memory problems. Since the phone warns you at 7 volts, and since the really sharp knee in the discharge curve is down below the phone's cutoff voltage of 6.4 [I have seen a badly "memorized" battery hold at 5.7 volts for an hour at ~100ma discharge(!) before it suddenly sagged for real], the batteries can easily develop the classic NiCd "memory" problem, which is a sudden drop of about a volt just as you hit the spot in the curve where you stopped the last several discharge cycles (curve not completely to scale): 7.9 |+ |+ 7.7 | + "true" | + discharge 7.3 | + + + + + + | | + V 6.9 | + + + + + | + 6.5 | A + | | + 6.3 | "memory" + Unfortunately, that one volt drop can often look to the phone like low battery (or even "shut down"), so if you recharge it just as it starts "chirp"ing, it just reinforces the problem. The most noticable symptom is that the batteries "just don't seem to keep a charge like they used to". So every so often, one should discharge the batteries down below the "real" knee. WARNING: Never discharge a multi-cell NiCd battery below about 1.0 * (N - 1) volts, N = #cells (6 for the CT-301 ==> 5.0v), or one of the cells might become reverse-biased, which really *can* damage it permanently. Anyway, I discovered that when the phone (or just the battery by itself) was plugged into the charging stand, two of the pins on the RJ-45 on the back (that normally goes to the "hands free" interface) are connected to the battery (which is convenient, since the actual battery connector is so weird). So I cobbled together a few resistors and LEDs on a piece of perf-board, and put a modular plug on the end. Sort of like this: +V --+-------+-------+-------+-------+ | | | | |"+5" \ \ \ \ \ / 330 / 680 / 1k / 1.5k / 40 ohm 2 watt, made out of \ \ \ \ \ <--- a 16-pin "220/330" terminator <-- to / / / / / resistor pack == 550 / 14 ohms RJ-45 | | | | |"GND" (gets HOT!) +-->|---+-->|---+-->|---+-->|---+--+ Red Red Green Green | LED LED LED LED | | -GND -----------------------------------+ When you plug this into the charging stand -- WITH THE A.C. ADAPTER INPUT CABLE DISCONNECTED -- for a fully charged battery, all four LEDs come on (maybe a little too much). If the phone has started "chirp"ing about low-battery, the leftmost red LED will be out (or nearly). When the battery's down to about 5 volts, both red LEDs will be out, but the greens will still be on. STOP HERE! (DON'T let either of the green LEDs go out.) Then unplug the RJ-45, and plug in the A.C. adapter power cord, and charge normally. This "treatment" will cure a battery, and you'll start getting the full 16 hours of standby time again ... until a few more cycles go by. Then it's time for another treatment. Radio Shack *says* they're coming out with a discharging accessory "real soon now". Theirs will probably have some shut-off protection against discharging too far, which my little kludge doesn't. You have to check on it every 10 minutes or so. (I have forgotten, and in fact have discharged a battery "way down", without apparent ill effects... but I may have been lucky. Don't risk it yourself!) Similar "dischargers", adjusted for battery voltage and drain, can be built for nearly any device that uses NiCd batteries, and can substantially increase the battery's apparent life. Rob Warnock, MS-9U/510 rpw3@sgi.com rpw3@pei.com Silicon Graphics, Inc. (415)335-1673 Protocol Engines, Inc. 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94039-7311 ------------------------------ Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Review: San Francisco Celluar Service Date: 19 Apr 90 02:13:46 PDT (Thu) From: John Higdon Robert Michael Gutierrez writes: > $23/month. The 'Business Club' rate is $40/mo, .45 cents/min daytime. My "Business Club" bill shows the monthly at $39. > The bill itself is a standard telephone bill. I was charged Federal > tax, but no state tax. No 911, Deaf Devices or Univeral (cheap service > subsidy) taxes. Also, no FCC Access chages, even though I can call > long distance. I was charged City tax, but Hayward (California) has no > city tax. Forgot to ask about this... Don't know about the city tax, but since GTE Mobilnet is not a LEC, it is not obligated to collect for 911, Deaf, Lifeline subsidy, or FCC Access charges. Remember, the FCC Access charges have nothing to do with whether you call long distance or not, but rather to subsidize and protect the revenues of local telcos. GTE Mobilnet is not a local telco. > Peak, Off-Peak, and Night ... but GTE has no night rate! Maybe something > in the future? I racked up 2 hours off peak and 1/2 hour peak (a lot > more than I expected!). No one offers a "night rate" in California. The airtime rates, the same for both Bay Area providers, have not changed since day one. BTW, cellular usage racks up quickly, doesn't it? > I assume they're using > a standard billing service that other companies also use (some > companies bill in 6 second increments). GTE does its own billing, as well as the billing for Cellular One, the other provider. > The 'City Called' for my phone shows up as Palo Alto, but Pac Bell > shows it in their TOPS operator database as Oakland, and it shows as a > toll call (calls to both celluar carriers are considered 'toll-free' > from the celluar coverage area, basically all of the San Francisco > LATA). The operators will quote a toll rate to you if you ask if it's > a toll free call. None of this applies to BOC pay phones, as you're > charged the toll rate outright. (John H ... do you have a copy of > GTE's tariff or Pac Bell's??? Does it specifically exclude pay > phones?) This has been a major irritant. I don't have the tariff at hand, but it is the same for both providers and does not exclude pay phones. To the best of my knowledge, calls dialed to any Mobilnet prefix from any Bay Area non-coin phone is treated as Zone 1 (local). BOC pay phones should allow the call as local ($0.20) as well. Remember, Pacific Telesis is the major owner of Cellular One. Conveniently, there has been a "programming error" in most of the Pac*Bell pay phones since the beginning. In fact, you will probably have difficulty even dialing your prefix from pay phones that are physically within Zone 1 of your cellular assignment. This was the case for months here in San Jose. After literally weeks of harrassing repair and others within Pac*Bell, they finally fixed the San Jose pay phones so that one could dial my San Jose Rate Area 2 cellular prefix without having to go through the operator. It was so much trouble getting that fixed that I haven't had the motivation to get all the Bay Area pay phones programmed properly. Besides, since I'm sure the "mistake" is intentional, it would just be spinning my wheels for the most part anyway. > (average 11 rings). Poo-poo! This is probably for calls to places that > don't return answer supervision (like 800-555-1212), so they have to charge Point of order: 800 555-1212 does supervise. > I seem to meet with the all channels busy tone (a reorder tone > generated by the phone itself) when I initally power up or come back > 'in service' (from a tunnel or BART [subway tunnels]). If I wait a > minute, it's not a problem. You might look to your phone on this problem. I carry my GE Mini everywhere, including on BART trains and have never experienced this. In fact, I have had my finger poised on the s(p)end button waiting to come out of the Lake Meritt station and pressed instantly when the 'nosvc' goes away. No problem. > Maybe some new channels need to be > added to some exisiting cells sites for GTE. A friend who works for Mobilnet assures me that they are very sensitive to this. GTE has far fewer subscribers than Cellular One, more cell sites and uses the extra channels as well. With my GE, I rarely get dropped, have one-way calls, or any of the problems that you have described. Also, I use the unit in my truck without any outside antenna and have no complaints about its coverage. Visitors from the LA area who come up here with their handhelds and roam on GTE remark on how much better the coverage is, how much better the audio quality is, and how much faster the setup time is than on PacTel down in LA. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 10:38:23 PDT From: Tom Ace Subject: You Asked to be Reminded Patrick: Back in TELECOM Digest V9 #253 (25 Jul 89), you wrote: In defense of Sprint/MCI et al, I must say that for the first forty years or so of its corporate existence, AT&T was just as bad, or maybe worse in terms of sheer greed. Remind me to post an article sometime on their reaction to the companies which manufactured telephones in the early years of this century after Mother's patent expired. Talk about ruthless! I'd be interested in hearing the story. Tom Ace tom@sje.mentor.com [Moderator's Note: Well, to make a long story short, AT&T representatives went to small towns all across America right after the turn of the century and offered first to buy out the local telephone company. That's fair, I suppose, and they did (at first) offer top dollar. Remember, in those early days, the local 'telephone company' was usually little more than a switchboard sitting in an already established business place. Often times a local pharmacist, insurance agent, or perhaps the telegraph office served as the telco. They bought their equipment wherever they liked, and not always from Mother. Sometimes the switchboard sat in the living room of the owner's house: wife and daughter were the operators, father and son were the repairmen. There was a certain pride in being independent. You see, even by the early years of this century, AT&T had started to get on people's nerves a little, you might say. Even with the top dollar AT&T was offering to buy up the local operation, many of them flatly refused to sell. City Councils voted on resolutions that said "keep the Bell out of town". Needless to say, Ted Vail (chairman of AT&T in those years) was furious. His solution was to set up a competitive telco in town, and if necessary *give the service away free* to drive the competition out of business. And if that didn't work, his orders were to refuse to interconnect. So when his agents were turned down in little towns by a farmer whose life savings were tied up in the telephone equipment he had installed for the community because he had his pride and wanted to stay in business independently, the AT&T guy would say, "Well, see how much good your phone system does you when you can't call anyone outside of your own town ... we won't connect with you." And many a farmer-telephone businessman was driven out of business by such tactics. All the while Ted Vail would sit in his office and say, "One System, and one way of doing things." The advertisements of that era for the Bell System noted that you could call Long Distance on their instruments. And when they set up shop in a town which already had an independent telco, *they* would be the ones to interconnect with other towns on their wires; the local guy suddenly found his switchboard was good for calling locally only. Before long, he was out of business, and AT&T claimed yet another victory in the aquisition of telcos across America. If they couldn't buy you off, they'd run you off! An organization was formed many years ago called "United States Independent Telephone Association", or USITA for short, whose main purpose at the time was to fight Bell and protect the rights of the independent telcos who were threatened by the practices of Mother. Today USITA and Bell are the best of friends. Bell executives frequently are the keynote speakers at USITA conventions, etc. Say Tom, thanks for reminding me! :) PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #269 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa00536; 21 Apr 90 19:00 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa27865; 21 Apr 90 17:02 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa30528; 21 Apr 90 15:54 CDT Date: Sat, 21 Apr 90 15:18:53 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #270 BCC: Message-ID: <9004211518.ab14757@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 21 Apr 90 15:18:07 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 270 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Checking the Serial Number on Cellular Phones [Terri Macko] Re: FTS 2000 Privacy Issues [Dennis G. Rears] Re: You Asked to Be Reminded [David Tamkin] Re: A Primer on the Nuts and Bolts of Telecom/datacom? [Chuck Bennett] Re: Credit Card ID [Mary Culnan] Re: A Primer on the Nuts and Bolts of Telecom/datacom? [Steve R. Levitt] Re: Area Code 917 in New York City [Carl Moore] Re: Panasonic Answering Machines and CPC [Tom Gray] Re: ATT Billing via Local Telcos [John R. Covert] Re: Review: San Francisco Celluar Service [John Higdon] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 18:43:57 CDT From: Terry Mason Subject: Re: Checking the Serial Number on Cellular Phones [Moderator's Note: Unfortunatly, Mr. Mason's address got munged somehow and is unavailable. PT] In comp.dcom.telecom you write: >Reports have reached me that certain telephone numbers at Cellular One >here (and perhaps other carriers?) are set to *not bother checking serial >numbers*, but to simply accept the transmission and place the call. I work for a cellular carrier, so I can only tell you how our system works. If the subscriber's serial number is '00000000' in the database the system doesn't check it against the actual serial number. I don't know if this is a standard or not. We also have a generic flag to turn all serial number checking on and off. Consider a brand new system going online. Historically, all the little shops selling and programming mobiles haven't hired "experienced people" to do this work. I've seen some very irate subscribers, because the shop mixed up the mobile telephone numbers and serial numbers when submitting the order for the subscriber entry into the database. It's easier for the system operators to change the database to zeroes on the serial number, and let the subscriber entry people sort things out with the shop the next day. Possibly you've found some lines that were never given a 'final update'. I have heard of some subscribers who have multiple mobiles, but want the same telephone number for both. Although not an elegant solution, ignoring the serial number will do the trick. Some test mobiles may fall into this category also. I understand that we're finally going to implement a feature called subscriber capture where if the serial number is entered as zeroes into the database, the first call will update the database with the proper serial number. I have no idea if this will be system wide or per subscriber. >Any ideas why some numbers are apparently exempt from serial number >checks? Could it be they are used by employees at Cellular One who >want to be able to use several phones at their disposal without having >to reprogram the system each time? Could it be the 'free lines' are >used for promotional purposes by dealers who would have several phones >to demonstrate, each with different serial numbers? What about >numbers used for temporary assignment to roamers in the area using >something like Ameritech's 'follow me' and 'Fast Track' services? >There is no practical way to check serials on those lines either, is >there? You can bet someone was billed for those calls! We have both a telephone number and serial number database for Roamers and denied service. >Of the lines found which are apparently not checking serial numbers, >some, but not all, were found to have a subscriber identified with the >line. This was noted when a landline dialing the number while the >experimental cell phone was turned off reached a voicemail box of >someone. Yet, turn the phone on, and subsequent incoming calls came to >the falsely programmed phone. Interesting, that you did find a real subscriber. Maybe the CHI system has one of the "features" I covered above. Of course, the falsely programmed phone gets the call when turned on because it answers the page from the cell site. Whereas, when turned off, the system no-answer-transfers to the voice mail. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 15:58:56 EDT From: "Dennis G. Rears (FSAC)" Subject: Re: FTS 2000 Privacy Issues Will: I think the privacy issue here is not to protect the federal employee but the agency. A lot can be determined by what companies are being called by who. I bet some drug dealers would love to have copies fo phone bills by the DEA and FBI. Contractors would like to know who the KO is calling and for how long. Also, I as a federal employee have no right to privacy but what about the person I call. How does John Doe or Acme Car Dealership know I am misusing goverment resources? Thanks to our lawsuit happy citizens, things are no longer as simple as they seem. The main difference between the FTS 2000 system and the current system is that the data is now kept at each phone instead of centrally. Dennis ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 15:45 CDT From: David Tamkin Subject: Re: You Asked to Be Reminded At Tom Ace's reminder, Patrick Townson wrote in Telecom Digest, Volume 10, Issue 269: | All the while Ted Vail would sit in his office and say, "One System, | and one way of doing things." And Bob Allen says, "One world. One card." The more things change... David Tamkin PO Box 813 Rosemont IL 60018-0813 708-518-6769 312-693-0591 dattier@chinet.chi.il.us MCIMail:426-1818 GEnie:D.W.TAMKIN CIS:73720,1570 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 08:01 EST From: "Chuck Bennett (919)966-1134" Subject: Re: A Primer on the Nuts and Bolts of Telecom/datacom? Brad Templeton writes, > Can anybody suggest a good introductory work (if any exists) on the > nuts and bolts of telecom and particularly datacom these days? I > don't work directly in that industry, so I've had to learn everything > hit and miss. I'll let someone else handle that one. > For example, I know what a T-1 is (1.54 mb/s digital circuit) but just > how is it implemented in a physical sense in most places? The T-1 line is not the expensive part the equipment on each end of the line gets to be REAL quick, $$,$$$$ range. > I have a 4 wire unconditioned line from my office to my house that I > run at 4800 bps using some cheap pseudo-modems. What can you pull out > of these 4 wire circuits? Are there modems that give you 56 kbps out Black Box has a CSU/DSU (Customer Service Unit/Data Service Unit) and LDM (Limited Distance Modem) combination that offers 2400 bps to 56 kbps on either the telco DDS (Digital Data Service) network or via a 4-wire unloaded copper circuit to a distance of about 5 miles. It has both a V.35 and a RS-232 interface. The model number is MD790-986 and its cost is approximately $750/each (you need two). We use a pair of these here a UNC (University of North Carolina) in conjunction with a 4-wire line to connect our IBM 3174 Control Unit to the IBM maniframe at the 56 kbps rate, V.35 interface and they function flawlessly. > etc., etc. etc. Too many questions to ask in one posting, which is > why I wonder if there's a book of some sort... Me too ;-). Chuck Bennett Director, Medical CAI UNC, Chapel Hill ------------------------------ Date: 20 Apr 90 08:40:00 EDT From: Subject: Re: Credit Card ID This is in response to the moderator's query about people questioning the request for a phone number when you sign a credit card slip. I have started to question when a merchant does *NOT* ask for the phone number. Responses include, "We don't need it because the charge is pre-approved." I asked the same question in a Tower Records store and received the following replies from the clerk and the people standing in line: 1) It's up to the clerk 2) It's a [new] federal law 3) It's a local law. 4) The store policy changed. I once checked out after a credit card purchaser in a Dansk store -- the credit card person was asked to put her address and phone number on the slip. I paid cash and was then asked if I would fill out a card for their mailing list. In New York state, it is now illegal for a merchant to request a phone number and/or address on pre-approved credit card purchases. In my opinion, we are asked to give our phone numbers purely to update somebody's database. I am always amazed that people who would never give their social security number out will readily give out their phone number which can also serve as a database key if you don't move often. I either give a 555-1212 number or don't write a number at all, The clerks never check. Mary Culnan School of Business Administration Georgetown University Washington, D.C. (MCULNAN @ GUVAX.GEORGETOWN.EDU) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 08:28:38 EDT From: "Steve R. Levitt" Subject: Re: A Primer on the Nuts and Bolts of Telecom/datacom? Brad Templeton was looking for a primer on telecom and datacom. I'm not an engineering type, so I'm not sure if this is exactly what you are looking for...however I've made good use out of two books which cover (I think) what you need. Both are entitled "Business Telecommunications": Stanford H. Rowe II (1988). Published by Science Research Associates, Inc. -- ISBN# 0-574-18690-5 This book covers the basics, voice comms, coding and digitization, data terminals, data transmission and modems, circuits and networks, data link protocols, connections, architectures and standards, and management issues (regulatory influences, staffing, project management, etc.) Jay Misra & Byron Belitsos (1987). Published by Irwin -- ISBN# 0-256-05617-X. This book has chapters on basics, LANS, PBX's, Public networks, ISDN, Micro-mainframe links, e-mail, videotex, teleconferencing. I recommend the Rowe book myself ... keep in mind of course, that niether will cover recent issues such as T1 fractional services. Hope these help. Steve Levitt University of Kentucky Dept. of Telecommunications 218 Grehan Bldg. Lexington, KY 40506-0042 (606) 257-4240 LEVITT@UKCC.UKY.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 10:35:32 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: Area Code 917 in New York City What are your sources for the reports re: 917? For sake of review: All the areacode splits, as far as I know, have been geographical, and no place, at least since 1965, has had its area code changed TWICE due to splits (although 305 has split twice, and 213 will undergo a new split when 310 is formed). New York City is currently split into 212 and 718 along borough/water lines (the only land boundary between boroughs that I know of is Queens/ Brooklyn, both in 718 along with Staten Island). Only Manhattan and Bronx remained in area 212, but I noticed a while back that the present 212 is more crowded than 718. How full are the areas now? (It's a good question as to what geographical areas would go into 917.) New York City message-unit zones are as follows: 1,2 in Manhattan 3 split between Manhattan and Bronx 4,5 in Bronx 6,7 in Brooklyn 8,9,10,11,12,13 in Queens 14,15 in Staten Island ------------------------------ From: Tom Gray Subject: Re: Panasonic Answering Machines and CPC Date: 20 Apr 90 12:27:14 GMT Reply-To: Tom Gray Organization: Mitel. Kanata (Ontario). Canada. Calling party disconnects can be of three types that I know about. Other people will obvioulsy send in many more: 1) reception of dial tone - your machine has a dial tone detector when the calling party hangs up, he will release his trunk and your exchange will provide your line with dial tone. Your machine detects this tone and releases. 2) open circuit on release - when the calling party disconnects, your exchange will momentarily open the tip connection on your loop. Your machine can detect the loss of loop current and release. This is an application of ground start like techniques to loop start lines 3) reversal on answer - the line circuit can be configured to provide a reversal of battery when the calling party releases. I would suppose that your machine is configured for methods 1) and 2). Europeans telcos typically use single frequency dial tone rather than the two frequency tones typical in North America. The dial tone detector in your machine may not be able to detect single frequnces as dial tone. I know that method 2 is used in the UK. You should ask your telco if they tarriff it. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 10:42:18 PDT From: "John R. Covert 20-Apr-1990 1334" Subject: Re: ATT Billing Via Local Telcos David Barts writes: >Well, billing via the local telco is *the main reason* that ATT is my >long distance company. Less bother, paperwork, and postage stamps for >me to hassle with. If ATT starts doing their own billing, I'll just >switch to Metromedia<>ITT or Sprint, thank you. You'll find that Sprint already bills all its own customers directly, and I suspect that ITT does as well. They only use Telco billing for occasional customers. AT&T is my main company, but I have a Sprint account (and they seem to think I'm a Sprint dial 1 customer, though I only was for a short period after they changed my account against my explicit instructions not to). 10333+ calls are billed directly by Sprint. No extra paperwork, though, because the monthly (well, in those months where I have a Sprint charge) Sprint statement is automatically billed to my Amex card. I have this sneaking suspicion that AT&T is going to notify me at some point that AT&T charges generated against my normal phone will be charged to my AT&T One Card account. 10% discount? We'll see. /john ------------------------------ Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Review: San Francisco Celluar Service Date: 20 Apr 90 20:53:22 PDT (Fri) From: John Higdon Robert Michael Gutierrez writes: > None of this applies to BOC pay phones, as you're > charged the toll rate outright. (John H ... do you have a copy of > GTE's tariff or Pac Bell's??? Does it specifically exclude pay > phones?) Update: Today I was able to contact the very same people who worked with me on correcting the programming in the San Jose area pay phones. They have promised to, with tariff in hand, test each and every pay phone exchange, using both GTE and Cellular One prefixes and see that all of the Bay Area BOC pay phones handle the calls properly. To the best of my knowledge, this means that calls to GTE Mobilnet (as well as Cellular One) mobile phones will cost $0.20 from any Pac*Bell pay phone in the Greater Bay Area. Or it means that you will have to pay full toll, but whatever the outcome, both cellular companies will be treated equally. It is interesting to note that I have called GTE Mobilnet on this topic on several occasions. They have been sympathetic but have said that their hands are tied; that a customer such as myself would have to be the one to pressure Pac*Bell into making any changes on their pay phones. They were the ones who told me that the tariffs were identical for both providers, so that what worked for one should work for the other. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #270 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa01988; 21 Apr 90 19:41 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa14042; 21 Apr 90 18:07 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab27865; 21 Apr 90 17:02 CDT Date: Sat, 21 Apr 90 16:00:18 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #271 BCC: Message-ID: <9004211600.ab28491@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 21 Apr 90 16:00:00 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 271 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson NiCad Battery "Memory" on Nokia P-30 [Bill Nickless] GTE Cellular Purchase [Thomas Neudecker] Re: Rates For Cellular Phones [Jeff Carroll] Request For Info on Cellular Phones [Marc Rassbach] A Scanner Fix Wanted [Doug Thackery] Effects of Competition in US Telecom [Macy Hallock] AT&T's Wrong Recordings For Misdialled Calls to London [John R. Covert] International TDD Calls [Ken Harrenstien] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 09:21:20 CDT Subject: NiCad Battery "Memory" on Nokia P-30 From: Bill Nickless In TELECOM Digest, Volume 10, Issue 269, Bob Warnock Subject: GTE Cellular Purchase GTE issued a press release announcing a $710 million purchase of the Providence Journal cellular properties in North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia. The purchase, subject to federal approval will be made in cash and should be complete by the end of the year. ------------------------------ From: Jeff Carroll Subject: Re: Rates For Cellular Phones Date: 20 Apr 90 20:43:40 GMT Reply-To: Jeff Carroll Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle >[Moderator's Note: Our two providers here are Ameritech (telco) and >Cellular One (owned by SW Bell). Other than the occassional very >sleazy and misleading promotion (virtual giveaway of phone by Fretters >with an advance payment of $1000 to Ameritech for service), Ameritech >generally is good. The monthly basic fee is $29.95, and the rates are >in the 30/35 cent range for peak time, and the 20/23 cent range for >off-peak. The 'Ten Cent Plan' costs $19.95 per month and allows off >peak calls at 10 cents per minute, with peak minutes costing 65 cents. >Cellular One has slightly lower airtime rates; but they nickle-and-dime >customers with service charges and other fees. Off-peak time is very >skimpy for both: 9 PM to 7 AM plus weekends. PT] Cellular One (unless there is more than one company using the service mark) is owned and operated by McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc., of Kirkland, Washington. (If they were owned by SW Bell, they wouldn't be a "non-wireline" carrier, would they?) McCaw has gotten quite a bit of financial-market press lately about their heavily-leveraged hostile takeover of LIN Broadcasting of NYC, with the objective of acquiring enough non-wireline franchises accross the country to establish a "nationwide" network, whatever that means. Jeff Carroll carroll@atc.boeing.com [Moderator's Note: 'Cellular One' is a trade-name or service mark used by various cellular services. McCaw uses it in some places; SW Bell uses it here. What other examples are there? It is a common name for cellular companies. SW Bell is of course the wireline carrier in many parts of the southwest where they otherwise provide phone service. PT] ------------------------------ Subject: Request For Info on Cellular Phones Date: Sat Apr 21 00:01:25 1990 From: Marc Rassbach Hello all, I have a need for a 'brief' description of 'all one needs to know' about cellular phones as 'someone who knows nothing'. (I got a call from an associate of mine who's father is going to buy a cellular phone, but has no clue even what to look for. Anything would be helpful.) If what you know is REALLY GOOD, send it to the Digest or just E-Mail it to me at the noted address. Thanks! ------------------------------ From: Doug Thackery Subject: A Scanner Fix Wanted Date: 20 Apr 90 18:23:45 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL I recently bought a handheld scanner from DAK, Regency R 4030 that boasted 800 MHz band reception, however the 825 - 890 MHz portion has been "locked" out. I was wandering if anyone new of a fix for Regency/Bearcat scanners, something along the lines of changing a resistor value or eliminating a jumper or somthing like that that would be like a service mode or something, to get these frequencies back. I'd heard this might be possible but I was afraid maybe these freq's were locked out by firmware control or something. Is there anyone who can help with this problem? doug ------------------------------ From: fmsystm!macy@cwjcc.ins.cwru.edu Date: Fri Apr 20 11:02:14 1990 Subject: Effects of Competition in US Telecom Organization: F M Systems, Inc. Medina, Ohio USA +1 216 723-3000 [The subject was US Sprint vs. AT&T service, but I'm expanding it a bit] In article <6449@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Higdon writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 258, Message 8 of 9 >Steve Elias writes for an anonymous poster: >> Also, the long distance calls you make today cost you on average 40% >> less than they did six years ago. >This is the one point that must be conceded. Competitive forces have >no doubt improved service overall and caused the decline in long >distance rates. >[...text deleted...] >Granted, competition has kept AT&T on its toes. And when some other >company can demonstrate that it really is better, I will be first in >line to sign up. Until then, I'll just settle for the indirect >benefits. OK, he has a choice, and can vote with his checkbook. And we all benefit from this. [Wait a minute while I drag out my soapbox out and climb on....] One of the biggest problems we face is the lack of competition in the local loop and switching, i.e. the local telephone companies. For various reasons, real and unreal, local rates have climbed in the past few years while the IXCs have dropeed their rates. Now, I can write a very lengthy article on this topic, but most of us are at least familiar with some of the basic arguments... When divestiture was upon us, the general feeling was the AT&T was going to benefit greatly and the Baby Bells were to become poor, pennyless orphans. The reality has been nearly the opposite. The LEC's are now thriving and cash rich. AT&T has still not completed a very traumatic adjustment to a competitive environment and has seen a drop in earnings while learning some very expensive lessons. The LECs have learned their lessons well. They spend a great deal of time and money on regulatory, legislative and lobbying efforts. The strategies used by AT&T during the late 60's and 70's to impede competition and increase revenues have not been forgotten by the LEC's. They have used and expanded these strategies with great success. One recent article in the April 1990 issue of _Networking Management_ entitled "Are the RBOCs Padding Their Embedded Base?" discusses some of the questions now being raised concerning this topic. A few of the actions taken by regulatory bodies are also discussed. There may be some hope for change: Ameritech, for one, has asked the question "Can the local loop be deregulated?" While I am not sure deregulation similar to that granted the CATV companies a while back by Congress is desirable, its time to begin looking at the possible deregulation of these monopoly services. There's little question that there will be (and should be) a long and hard debate by _everyone_ involved. There are many vested interests to be examined and, in some cases, protected. The best way to motivate the LECs to allow the process is to restrict their entry into CATV, info services and manufacturing until the questions are addressed. Now, I have my own vested interests here. I am: - A user of regulated LEC services, residentially - A user of regulated LEC services, commercially - A competitor with the LEC's deregulated telephone equipment sales operation (which I feel is cross subsidized by ratepayers without PUC authorization) - A user of deregulated LEC services (Yellow Pages, etc) Now, which is to cross subsidize what? Right now, there is evidence that the LEC accounting methods are poorly controlled, and the PUCs (and FCC) can only make decisions based on what (and how) the LECs show them. The Ohio PUC, for one, does not have the staff to conduct its own audit of any _one_ major utility in the state, much less control all of them. Repeated examples of creative and distorted accounting procedures have cropped up all over the US. It would appear that the regulatory bodies set up to control the LECs simply are over- whelmed by the challenge of combined above the line/below the line LEC operations and only react when public outcry demands action. So, while competition is benefitting us in the long distance services we use, the cost of local service is rising faster than ever, and with little control. The attitude of the voters in this country does not seem to recognize the need for change, yet. Politicians seem to be influenced primarily by: - LEC lobbyists - LEC controlled PAC money donations - consumer advocate groups concerned only with residential rates - lobbyists from large coporate users - lobbyists from large manufacturers - absolutely no one from small business users Where do we go from here? Is this really the best way to deliver local loop services in this country? Does the present system encourage the continued modernization of our local phone services? There's evidence the US is falling behind several other countries in offering ISDN and data switching services at reasonable rates thoughout the country. Will we lose the lead in the telecom industry though inaction, too? Are our legislators capable of dealing with this issue until a crisis occurs? Or will the lobbying efforts of the LECs ultimately dictate our national telecom policies? Note: LEC = Local Exchange Carrier, the regulated monopoly local telcos. IXC = Interexchange Carrier, the deregulated long distance carriers. Disclaimer: I am biased. The questions are just as valid, though. Macy M. Hallock, Jr. macy@ncoast.org uunet!aablue!fmsystm!macy F M Systems, Inc. {uunet|backbone}!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ncoast!fmsystm!macy 150 Highland Drive Voice: +1 216 723-3000 Ext 251 Fax: +1 216 723-3223 Medina, Ohio 44256 USA Cleveland:273-3000 Akron:239-4994 (Dial 251 at tone) (Please note that our system name is "fmsystm" with no "e", .NOT. "fmsystem") ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 06:34:04 PDT From: "John R. Covert 20-Apr-1990 0910" Subject: AT&T's Wrong Recordings For Misdialled Calls to London It's fairly common for AT&T's translation folks to load translations that specify "send this to special message n" and for the folks in the 4Es to forget to change the contents of special message n. I notice the following behaviour: From City Should dial 71 Should dial 81 Boston Congratulations, you have Due to the earthquake successfully reached the in the area you are MultiQuest test line. calling, your call cannot be completed at this time. Please try your call later. NYC Due to the severe weather Due to the earthquake conditions... [rest same ... as earthquake.] Wash., DC Dialling to Denmark has Due to circumstances Minneapolis been changed. Please beyond our control, your check the number and dial call cannot be completed. again, or call your AT&T Please try again in 20 operator for assistance. minutes. You will not be charged for this call. I have reported this to AT&T Long Distance Repair (800 222-3000) and have received ticket number 1b0420520. Troubles reported this way are _always_ fixed. Sprint and MCI afficionados will note that there seems to be no equivalent trouble reporting service, especially not providing a ticket number for future tracking of the trouble report. I have been unable to get Sprint or MCI to fix their problem with failing to complete calls to any German cellular phone (+49 161 nnn nnnn). Yet another reason to use AT&T. /john ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 12:27:58 PDT From: Ken Harrenstien Subject: International TDD Calls A while back, Roy Smith asked about placing international TDD calls, specifically to New Zealand. I don't know the answer to the question, but since apparently no one else does either, I can explain what I know and give a number to try calling for more information. I'd appreciate additional enlightenment, of course. As far as I know there is no "international" TDD standard. Different countries have different systems. The three possible parameters are: (1) Code (ASCII, Baudot, variations thereof) (2) Speed (45.45, 50, 110, 300, ...) (3) Modem (Weitbrecht, Bell 103/202/212, CCITT V.*) In the U.S., the de facto standard evolved around the "American Communications" variant of Baudot at 45.45 baud (US Govt and Bell System 60wpm speed), using the half-duplex 1400/1800 Hz modem developed by Robert Weitbrecht in 1964. Last I heard, the TDD manufacturers were working with the EIA to come out with a definitive official standard, but I haven't seen it. A supposedly "international" version exists, which I gather is based on CCITT Alphabet #2 at 50 baud, but using the same Weitbrecht modem. I don't know how widespread this kludge is. I do know that ten years ago, most European countries appeared to be settling on ASCII (the international subset thereof) at 110 baud, using something like CCITT V.21. In Sweden, Televerket had the "Visual Text Telephone", in Germany the "Schreibtelefon", in Switzerland the "Teleskrit". All were supposed to be compatible under the "European Deaf Telephone Standard". Bear in mind this was a while ago and I haven't looked recently. However, since their approach made much better technical sense than the historical pastiche in the US, I would expect most governments in need of a standard to adopt the European model. To confuse the issue a little further, nothing appears to stop individuals from importing their own TDDs of whatever type they want. So in practice, there is a diffusion of US-type TDDs out into the world simply because in many cases nothing else is available. If a particular country hasn't adopted any official policy regarding deaf telecommunications, and in particular is not providing any assistance whatsoever, then it's up to the individual to find the cheapest TDD possible (typically a US-made Baudot-only frob, I imagine). As long as clusters of friends all get the same models, they can talk to each other regardless of standards. With regard to New Zealand, you'll just have to find out exactly what model of "modem-and-TTY" is involved. For kicks, here is the 800 number of one popular TDD manufacturer, Ultratec in Madison, WI: 800/482-2424. You are unlikely to get anyone with a technical vocabulary, but they are so marketing-oriented that they will probably know whether NZ is one of the places good for dumping cigarettes, uh, I mean Baudot TDDs. Ken ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #271 ****************************** ISSUES 272-273 WERE REVERSED IN TRANSMISSION. ISSUE 272 WILL FOLLOW 273.   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa04171; 21 Apr 90 20:47 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa03458; 21 Apr 90 19:18 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ac14042; 21 Apr 90 18:12 CDT Date: Sat, 21 Apr 90 18:01:25 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #273 BCC: Message-ID: <9004211801.ab06874@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 21 Apr 90 18:00:14 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 273 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Infinity Transmitters [w1gsl@athena.mit.edu] Re: Infinity Transmitters [Vance Shipley] Re: DeArmond-Lippman Childishness [Macy Hallock] Re: Credit Card ID [malcolm@apple.com] Re: Credit Card ID [Eric Black] Re: The Card [Will Martin] Re: Credit Card ID [Herman R. Silbiger] Dayton Hamfest [Macy Hallock] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: w1gsl@athena.mit.edu Subject: Re: Infinity Transmitters Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 18:43:46 EDT In several recent issues of TELECOM Digest John DeArmond and Larry Lippman have shared descriptions of similar telephone room bugging devices with us. In the last Larry calls John's description a fairy tale. I am not sure why I should defend John but... Larry, You are jumping to some poor conclusions if you think John's device was not practical. You have compared a 1963 commercial device made in a garage workshop, with what would have been available in 1972 to a high tech (high budget) government agency. Now I have no specific knowledge of John's sources but, I was building many electronic devices back then... Many advances in low power and complexity of IC's had been made between those dates. CMOS logic was available, which would easily allow lowering the on hook current to a few micro amps, which would be undetectable, and allow a complex enable code. Building it into a network would make the installation much easier. Just swap the dial and plastic cover, any telco tech can do it in about five minutes. There is no need to do a field rivet job and even if the target opened the phone there would be no obvious extra circuits. Now would it work? Your main point is it won't work with a modern CO. The question is would it work with the PBX? Remember it only had to work within the same office. Around 1972 a tremendous number of ancient PBXs were still out there, It didn't really matter what the CO equipment was. Perhaps the reason it was available to be "borrowed" was that it was not universally useful anymore. Also I don't see your point in John turning twenty in 1974, I had my first "high tech" job at sixteen and had worked at several others before I got my BSEE at twenty-one. As for the ethics/legality - what about the action of the boss? Do you really think he would take it to court and risk having the evidence played? However, you are right it was illegal. Be sure to see your lawyer before doing anything ;-). Now the real question ... why was it necessary to use such a device ? The Telephone Company provided a much better way to bug most executive offices, with out ever entering the room, as a stock feature of many instruments of that era. We discovered it quite by accident in 1968 while installing some newly acquired 2564 HK touch tone sets on a previously rotary only, 1A2 key system at my college radio station. A couple of the spare pairs had been used for a custom intercom/signalling system. On plugging in the new sets the intercom and the new phones stopped working. The problem was traced to a continuous connection of the earphone to the vi-sl pair (?? I don't have my old notes here and it has been twenty years) which we had used for signaling! This pair was brought out in any instrument set up for speaker phone operation. It allowed mounting the speaker phone control box in the remote telephone closet. I was never clear as to why it was a necessary connection, however most five line 2564 sets, I have seen, have it connected. Now if it isn't obvious - the earphone makes an excellent dynamic microphone !! A quick test (with a couple of the radio stations drypairs looped back from a remote dorm, and a common balanced input mike amp) demonstrated it would work quite well at least up to a mile away. All someone had to do is bridge a pair across vi-sl and properly terminate the remote end. It would make no noticeable difference in the phones operation and would work even when the phone was in use. Of course we never bugged anyone, we only did some experiments in the station's studios. I do however recall a couple years ago, hearing about some state governor who had caught someone bugging his office, The newspapers were quite specific that no physical access was gained to the office; only to the phone closet in the hallway. I am surprised that more bugging wasn't done this way. I know I was always careful to see that pair was disconnected on any set in my office. Now that 2500 sets are being replaced by new digital sets the problem may be moot ;-). Then again who knows what is on the digital line with the set hung up. The hook switch on the brand new IBX set on my desk doesn't disconnect anything, it only sends a code down the line! Note: 2564's are the common old style (1965 - 1985) 5 line office phones made by ATT and others. Each has a 25 pair cable running to a Key System box which controls hold and common ringing etc. While it is not telco stock, it wouldn't take much to wire the earphone directly out on the unused pair of the currently popular modular jack on a single line 2500 set. :-( 73 Steve F W1GSL [Moderator's Note: Like yourself, I thought Mr. Lippman's reference to DeArmond's age as a likely reason the story was fraudulent was in itself not very valid. My first employer, when I was a junior in high school, age sixteen, was the University of Chicago, where I worked in the old phone exchange, at 5801 South Ellis Avenue. When I was 18-20 years old, I was in charge of the facility overnight, which basically meant I was the overnight campus phone operator. Of course, times were different; it was certainly not 'high-tech' as we think of it today, thirty years later; but it was sophisticated equipment in its era, and a responsible position. PT] ------------------------------ From: Vance Shipley Subject: Re: Infinity Transmitters Reply-To: vances@xenitec.UUCP (Vance Shipley) Organization: SwitchView - Linton Technology Date: Sat, 21 Apr 90 02:36:52 GMT In recent articles infinity transmitters and other methods of monitoring rooms through the telephone were discussed. A number of years ago, when I was younger and had more time to kill, I thought about the legends I had heard and decided to find out for myself how it could be done. What I ended up doing was rewiring a 500 set to connect the second pair of the station wire to the transmitter when the phone was on hook. Usually both sides of the line are disconnected by the hook switch, this is not entirely necesary and it is common practice to rewire the hookswitch to use redundant contacts for other gains. An example is installing a 500 set on a 1A2 key system where the second pair of the station wire should be shorted out when a station is in use. With this scheme I could monitor outside the house (or in) with only a battery and a regular telephone set! It required access to the telephone (and possibly the network access or entrance terminal) but required only a couple minutes and no addition of parts to the phone, only rearrange what is already there. vances (if CLID detects flames call forwarding to /dev/null is in effect :'> ) ------------------------------ From: fmsystm!macy@cwjcc.ins.cwru.edu Date: Fri Apr 20 11:30:07 1990 Subject: Re: DeArmond-Lippman Childishness Organization: F M Systems, Inc. Medina, Ohio USA +1 216 723-3000 The recent exchanges between two valuable contributers to this Digest saddens me. These two gentlemen have both made a great many constructive and useful postings to the Digest over the past two years I have been fortunate enough to receive it. If only both had put nearly as much effort in educating us on the topic rather that berating each other, all the Digest readers would be the better. This flame fest benefits no reader. I have been in the telecommunications industry for twenty years now. While I may not be as learned or experienced as either of these gentlemen, I have learned one thing: No one knows everything in this industry. I have no problem with either gentlemen's knowledge or doubts. I just wish they would spend more time sharing their knowledge and less time denigrating the other. Geez, guys, you ain't Chicage aldermen. Act like the professional engineers we know you are. Macy M. Hallock, Jr. macy@ncoast.org uunet!aablue!fmsystm!macy F M Systems, Inc. {uunet|backbone}!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ncoast!fmsystm!macy 150 Highland Drive Voice: +1 216 723-3000 Ext 251 Fax: +1 216 723-3223 Medina, Ohio 44256 USA Cleveland:273-3000 Akron:239-4994 (Dial 251 at tone) (Please note that our system name is "fmsystm" with no "e", .NOT. "fmsystem") [Moderator's Note: A follow-up reply by Larry will be issued Saturday evening, making a final rebuttal in this series, which has thus far included two articles by Mr. De Armand and one by Mr. Lippman, plus the assortment of miscellaneous articles such as the above. The follow-up will be a special issue. PT] ------------------------------ Subject: Phone Numbers Not Required for Credit Cards Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 14:48:27 -0700 From: malcolm@apple.com In reaction to stores asking for your phone number when using your credit cards the following was published: [Moderator's Note: The way I usually avoid this is to tell them I don't have a phone. [Moderator's Note: Has anyone ever questioned this at all? PT] There is a woman who writes a national home finance column. I don't remember her name but she has lately been making a big deal in her column about how both Visa and Mastercard do not require a phone number for the purchase to be valid. She's been encouraging people to not give out their phone number. A few times, when I have felt ornery, I've told the clerk that I don't have to give them a phone number and they say fine. I've never been hassled about it. I've found an easier solution is to just put down the number for my modem. It is amazing how many times I've found a use for a phone number that is sometimes busy but never answers :-). Cheers. Malcolm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 10:49:46 PDT From: Eric Black Subject: Re: Credit Card ID Nowadays, when I'm asked for my phone number when signing a credit card slip, I've taken to putting down (415) 555-1212. They're free to call that number and ask for me! No amount of explaining/arguing with the person behind the counter is effective; just give them a phone number, and they'll be happy. If the number is, in fact, used as another handwriting sample, as has been suggested, then it still serves that purpose (as long as the other person doesn't write it down for me). If the number is to "protect" the merchant against a bad charge, the authorization number they called in to get serves that purpose, as has been pointed out. If they want my number, they can call Directory Assistance to get it! Eric Black "Garbage in, Gospel out" Atherton Technology, 1333 Bordeaux Dr., Sunnyvale, CA, 94089 Email: ericb@Atherton.COM Voice: +1 408 734 9822 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Apr 90 9:55:42 CDT From: Will Martin Subject: Re: The Card Reply-To: wmartin@st-louis-emh2.army.mil The history of comments from people on this list regarding the AT&T credit card has been interesting. The initial press release referred to it as a card which "will be accepted by VISA and MasterCard merchants"; it did not actually state it would be a "VISA Card" or a "MasterCard". One poster received his card in a week, and stated it bore the VISA logo. Then another just posted that he received his during the past few days (about 2 weeks after the other person) and it bore a MasterCard logo. [Local newspaper ads for The Card show only a MC logo pictured.] I applied during the first week and have not yet received anything from AT&T on this. But I find this difference fascinating. I had sort of expected to get a VISA card; I already have two different MasterCards but only one VISA so wanted to equalize them... :-) Perhaps we can collect some data on this via the list and get some idea as to what determines whether the card issued is VISA or MC -- would it be geographic, or based on some financial level such as the credit limit? Or perhaps it is simply random; maybe AT&T has some agreement with the creditcard people that it will distribute its enlistees amongst them equally or at some percentage to one or the other. Maybe it is time-based; one week they issue VISA, the next MC? Any other possible factors? [I'm also somewhat confused by the whole concept of "VISA" and "MasterCard" as entities in and of themselves. After all, when you get a bank credit card, though it has one of these logos, it comes from a specific bank, and that's who handles your correspondence and who you pay. There must be companies somewhere that own the trademarks of VISA and MC, and license them to the banks, and, I suppose, act as a clearinghouse to route transaction slips sent from the merchants to their own banks to get to the bank where that particular creditcard account resides. Does anyone out there know who and where they are? Are VISA and MC actually separate competing companies, or two halves of the same entity? I'd like to be able to write the HQ offices with suggestions I have for policy changes and improvements...] A side note to the person who reported getting the rejection letter even though he was told he was "pre-approved" -- I think this can be valuable to you. With that rejection, you are entitled to a free copy of your credit-rating report from the credit bureau that was cited on that letter. Without this rejection, you'd have to pay for a copy. If you write and request a copy of the report (enclosing a copy of the letter as evidence) I believe the current federal law on credit requires them to send you a copy and then accept info from you to corect errors or omissions on that report which might have been the cause of the reject. It can be enlightening to see a copy of such a report on yourself; I've never been able to bring myself to pay for a copy, and haven't been rejected so couldn't get a free one, but always wanted to see my credit-report data. I'll report to the net if and when I get my cards, and what form they are. Regards, Will wmartin@st-louis-emh2.army.mil OR wmartin@stl-06sima.army.mil ------------------------------ From: hrs1@cbnewsi.ATT.COM (herman.r.silbiger) Subject: Re: Credit Card ID Date: 21 Apr 90 21:41:12 GMT Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories > I just write 555-1212 > Steve Wolfson > uunet!motcid!wolfson > [Moderator's Note: Has anyone ever questioned this at all? PT] I also have had a call at least once that I left my credit card behind, but in general I don't believe they ever look at what you write. A few times, when the salesperson says: Please put yourname and youraddress on the slip, I write "Yourname Andyouraddress" and nobody notices. Herman Silbiger ------------------------------ From: fmsystm!macy@cwjcc.ins.cwru.edu Subject: Dayton Hamfest Date: Fri Apr 20 12:31:14 1990 The Dayton Hamfest, largest of its kind is April 27-30 this year. I will be there at booth 2409, along with a couple other Digest readers/contributors (who shall remain nameless, wb8foz?) If you're not going, you are missing a unique telecom event. If you are going, stop by and say hello. Macy M. Hallock, Jr. macy@ncoast.org uunet!aablue!fmsystm!macy F M Systems, Inc. {uunet|backbone}!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ncoast!fmsystm!macy 150 Highland Drive Voice: +1 216 723-3000 Ext 251 Fax: +1 216 723-3223 Medina, Ohio 44256 USA Cleveland:273-3000 Akron:239-4994 (Dial 251 at tone) (Please note that our system name is "fmsystm" with no "e", .NOT. "fmsystem") ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #273 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa04880; 21 Apr 90 21:09 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab14042; 21 Apr 90 18:12 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ac27865; 21 Apr 90 17:02 CDT Date: Sat, 21 Apr 90 16:43:36 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #272 BCC: Message-ID: <9004211643.ab10463@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 21 Apr 90 16:42:53 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 272 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: PTT Station Sets; 4-Wire Circuits & "Hoot-n-holler Lines" [M. Hallock] Party Lines (Was Phone Replacement) [Macy Hallock] Re: Phone Replacement [Peter Da Silva] Four Party Service and Your Own Phones [John R. Covert] Modem Problems on Sprint [Jody Kravitz] Re: Sprint Employee's Response to Mr. Higdon's Comments [John Higdon] Sprint's "Deep Throat" [Hector Myerston] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: fmsystm!macy@cwjcc.ins.cwru.edu Date: Thu Apr 19 09:20:14 1990 Subject: Re: PTT Station Sets; 4-Wire Circuits & "Hoot-n-holler Lines" Organization: F M Systems, Inc. Medina, Ohio USA +1 216 723-3000 In article <6383@accuvax.nwu.edu> Larry Lippman writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 254, Message 1 of 7 >In article <6176@accuvax.nwu.edu> Robert.Savery@f666.n285.z1.fidonet.org [ discussion of PTT handsets and FP lines deleted...] >The net result was that every station could be heard on *every* other >station and *every* loudspeaker. > I betcha at least one TELECOM Digest reader has at one time >worked for an interstate trucking company and used a "hoot-n-holler" >line. You bet ... except I got install and fix 'em. Most of the systems I saw were hoot-n-holler circuits for junkyards (auto parts recyclers for those under 30 :-)) used for parts location. We didn't put PTT handsets on those circuits, though ... the users couldn't figure out how to use them. These circuits were also common for FAA sites. When noise cancelling mics became available, we found them to be most useful on these circuits. SS-1's were another thing entirely. Talk about a hack! These things were basically conference circuits with rotary dial/sf-type selective signalling added. Invariably, the customer would want us to connect these circuits to key systems or PBX's. Possible, but ugly, ugly!! Thanks to advances in transmission equipment, conference circuits can now be designed with conventional two wire station equipment at the station ends. My interconnect co. still works with these from time to time, and they do serve a purpose. We even tied one of these systems to a two radio system a while back, so the junkyard owner could use it while he was wandering around the premises! [I would like to thank Larry for his frequent and informative postings to the Digest. He's one of the reasons I read and contribute.] Macy M. Hallock, Jr. macy@ncoast.org uunet!aablue!fmsystm!macy F M Systems, Inc. {uunet|backbone}!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ncoast!fmsystm!macy 150 Highland Drive Voice: +1 216 723-3000 Ext 251 Fax: +1 216 723-3223 Medina, Ohio 44256 USA Cleveland:273-3000 Akron:239-4994 (Dial 251 at tone) (Please note that our system name is "fmsystm" with no "e", .NOT. "fmsystem") ------------------------------ From: fmsystm!macy@cwjcc.ins.cwru.edu Date: Fri Apr 20 09:17:44 1990 Subject: Party Lines (Was: Phone Replacement) Organization: F M Systems, Inc. Medina, Ohio USA +1 216 723-3000 In article <6443@accuvax.nwu.edu> our esteemed Moderator writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 258, Message 2 of 9 >[Moderator's Note: Am I mistaken, or are you not *forbidden* to hook >anything onto a party line except a phone provided by the local telco >itself? IT is my understanding that only telco provided phones are allowed on party lines, per Part 68. GTE Ohio rents and sells phones for party lines here, and allows customer (plug-in) installation. I used to believe customer owned sets were not allowed at all. GTE told me they interpret the rules to say telco provided, not telco owned. Answering machines, alarm jacks, and anything other than telco provided telephone sets and extension ringers are not permitted. GTE no longer uses harmonic ringing for party lines (this is frequency selctive ringing as previouly discussed). The GTD-5 electronic CO's now only seem to support conventional split party ringing requiring a ground. This is the same scheme Ohio Bell has been using for years. (I always found it hard to believe that Automatic Electric designed a CO without harmonic ringing ... it was almost a "trademark" of their CO's ..) GTE used to offer up to eight party rural party line service, but several years ago a PUC mandate to reduce all party lines to four party maximum was passed. At present, most party lines are two party max, though four party is still tarriffed, but soon to be eliminated. This is part of a PUC statewide program to reduce party line service. The recent low income phone line discount bill passed by the legislature appears to be intended for single party service. Anyone familiar with the billing and identification problems associated with party lines will not be surprised to hear that GTE has had fits with enhanced 911 service and party lines. Also, 1+ carrier selection is not available for party line users, you have to take GTE's assignment. I have not tried 10XXX dialing on GTE or Ohio Bell party lines. And a decimonic ring to all of you, too... Macy M. Hallock, Jr. macy@ncoast.org uunet!aablue!fmsystm!macy F M Systems, Inc. {uunet|backbone}!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ncoast!fmsystm!macy 150 Highland Drive Voice: +1 216 723-3000 Ext 251 Fax: +1 216 723-3223 Medina, Ohio 44256 USA Cleveland:273-3000 Akron:239-4994 (Dial 251 at tone) (Please note that our system name is "fmsystm" with no "e", .NOT. "fmsystem") ------------------------------ From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) Subject: Re: Phone Replacement Reply-To: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 21:52:29 GMT What I don't understand... Why would anyone be using a party line service in 1990? Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180 Disclaimer: People have opinions, organizations have policy. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 10:49:32 PDT From: "John R. Covert 20-Apr-1990 1346" Subject: Four Party Service and Your Own Phones If your central office supports automatic identification of outgoing long distance calls (i.e. you don't get a "What number are you calling from" operator on every outgoing long distance call) you _must_not_ ever make a long distance call from a phone not supplied by the telco. Doing so is likely to charge the call to one of the other parties on your line. /john ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 00:53:28 PDT From: Jody Kravitz Subject: Modem Problems on Sprint A few weeks ago I had an interesting problem using Sprint to make Telebit Trailblazer modem calls. I learned later that this problem affects fax modems as well. Thursday, at 1:30 AM, I queued E-mail to my company's mail hub in Florida. I did not force a poll, since I knew that between then and the morning there would be two polls, one outgoing and one incoming. To my surprise the next morning, the mail was still queued. I tried several times to force the poll, and each time UUCP reported that the call failed at some point after the modems had connected and trained. I checked with the mail administrator at our hub machine and found that they were apparently having no problems, so I proceeded with some additional tests. I set my Trailblazer Plus's S registers to leave the speaker on during the entire connection and tried polling our mail hub again. It became immediately obvious that the modem was retraining over and over again, sometimes only getting a few bytes through between retrains. I tried calling several Trailblazers in San Diego county (local calls) and had no problems. This seemed to indicate that my modem and the "local loop" to the Central Office was OK. I normally dial Sprint vial 1-800-877-8000 and use my FON card number. I next tried 1+ dialing, routed through Sprint. No improvement. I then routed through AT&T and everything worked fine. Now I was pretty sure there was no "local loop" or modem problem at either end. I called the mail administrator at our mail hub and found out how to report the problem to our telecommunications department. The telecommunications department said they would call Sprint and get back to me. Meanwhile, I called Telebit, thinking that I better have something intelligent to say to Sprint. After all, the voice quality was very good. Telebit called me back and I talked to them at some length. They said that they had seen a lot of trouble with micro-packets on Sprint, as they said they were having trouble keeping Sprint's echo cancelers turned off. They suspected my problem was due to echo cancelers as well. I don't use micro-packets (my firmware is too old), so they suggested I change a magic, undocumented, S register. This S register changes the length of the guard-tone at the beginning of each regular packet. We determined that setting this value to 4 at both ends seemed to compensate for whatever had changed on Sprint, although at some cost of bandwidth and especially interactive response time. They said that they preferred I didn't quote them when I talked to Sprint. Our telecommunications department called back and said "we are a Sprint national account and Sprint will call you right away to get more information". Sprint did call right away. They took down the symptoms and said someone from the switch would call me back. They also gave me a magic 800 number I could call 24 hours a day to get someone who would know about this problem. It turned out that having this number made it extremely easy to get hold of the right people without going through a lot of layers of hierarchy. The switch-woman called me back and took more information about the symptoms, type of modems, etc. She seemed to understand my explanation of the Trailblazer's PEP mode. She offered that they had been upgrading the echo cancelers and asked if "echo canceler problems" could be my problem. I said "it wouldn't surprise me", not wanting to quote Telebit. She went on to say that the new echo cancelers were coming strapped differently from the factory than the old ones and they weren't sure if the new strapping was appropriate. She said that they had been having problems with other half-duplex modems as well (faxes, specifically). She decided that she wanted to search the call records to see if my calls had gone on the new equipment. I gave her the phone numbers involved calls and she said she would call me back. She called me back while I was at a dinner party, but she left a message on my answering machine. When I got home, I called the 800 number. It was now night shift, and my call went directly to the Rialto switch (near LA). The night crew was expecting my call. The switch-man had me explain to him about PEP mode on the Trailblazer. He seemed to understand, and expressed strong suspicions about the new echo cancelers. He said said they had been unable to find the call records. We figured out right away that they had searched for 1+ calls instead of FON card calls. Had they known, they would have been able to find the records. We talked about it for a few more minutes and decided that since the problem was easy to duplicate, he would just have me "demonstrate the problem". While I was setting up the first call, he volunteered that they had been installing a new "rev" of Tellabs echo cancelers, and that the latest batch had been configured differently from the factory. He went on to say that they had been having trouble with other half-duplex modems (specifically, faxes) and they were very interested in my problem. By this time it was after 11pm, and the traffic to the Orlando switch was quite modest, so he busied out all but one bank of channels to Orlando and had me attempt my call again. Same problem. At this point, he started experimenting with different echo canceler options. He even tried installing one of the old cards for a while. He found two ways to make the problem go away. One was by installing the old echo canceler card. The other was by re-strapping the new echo canceler card. The new echo canceler has two relevant options. One is whether the echo canceler should stay off for the duration of the call if it has been turned off at the beginning by a 2100 HZ tone. If not enabled, some audio-dead time will turn the echo canceler back on. The amount of dead time for the new canceler appears to be shorter than the old card. The second option is how long a "sample" to take of the echo before deciding what echo cancellation function to use. I was told that the old cards were strapped to 36ms, and the new ones were strapped to 96ms. I gather that strapping the new cards to 36 ms solved the problem. The switchman was at a loss to explain why setting the echo canceler to the "end of call" mode didn't solve the problem. He set all the echo cancelers to the mode that "works", and all but one of my calls went through on Friday (the next day) without problems. On Friday they officially closed my trouble call, but they opened an "internal" trouble call to continue researching the problem. They gave me the new internal, "ticket number" and invited me to call the magic 800 number at "any time" to get status or report additional problems. The problem has not returned. Jody Internet: foxtail!kravitz@ucsd.edu uucp: ucsd!foxtail!kravitz ------------------------------ Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Sprint Employee's Response to Mr. Higdon's Comments Date: 20 Apr 90 01:00:45 PDT (Fri) From: John Higdon Steve Elias writes (for a Sprint employee): > [a well-reasoned reply to my rantings on Sprint] In all fairness, there is some new information concerning the Sprint vs AT&T long distance service. It appears that all problems may actually be nothing more than my local office. I have friends in the San Jose ALpine office and they have an entirely different point of view. From their perspective (and I have confirmed this by my own experimentation) Sprint is fine and AT&T absolutely stinks. When I tried to make some AT&T calls from a 408/370 number, every single connection was noisey and highly distorted. Attempts to place the call through the AT&T operator resulted in even worse connections. This lousy quality was pointed out to the operator who promised to report it, but I was informed by my friends that this has been going on for some time amist many promises by operators to get the problem repaired. A comparison of setup times revealed that Sprint was actually faster than AT&T(!) from the ALpine office. And an informal check indicates that the disconnection problem is non-existent. The long and the short of it is that Sprint isn't nearly as bad in my CO as AT&T is in the ALpine office. If someone is going to compare long distance companies, an eye must be kept on the terminating office! John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: myerston@cts.sri.com Date: 20 Apr 90 08:57 PDT Subject: Sprint's "Deep Throat" Organization: SRI Intl, Inc., Menlo Park, CA 94025 [(415)326-6200] The anonymous Sprint "spokesman" seems to be a "True Believer" and suffers from too many delusions to address in detail. However the comment about video-conferencing is too much to pass up. Sprint provides on-demand video-conf bandwidth through an outfit called The Meeting Channel in Atlanta. I don't know what the exact relationships are, but I DO know that: o Any question about video-conf is referred to Atlanta. Local Sprint people do not have a clue. o The access link to The Meeting Channel can NOT be shared with any other Sprint service. (ie if the access is T-1 for 384Kbps once a week the circuit idle the rest of the time.) So much for High-Tech! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #272 ****************************** ISSUES 272-273 WERE REVERSED. ISSUE 273 APPEARS BEFORE ISSUE 272.   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa06197; 21 Apr 90 21:50 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa19720; 21 Apr 90 20:24 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab03458; 21 Apr 90 19:18 CDT Date: Sat, 21 Apr 90 18:52:39 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest Special: Infinity Transmitters - II BCC: Message-ID: <9004211852.ab27449@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 21 Apr 90 18:50:13 CDT Infinity Transmitters - II Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson "Infinity Transmitters", John De Armond and the BIG LIE [Larry Lippman] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: "Infinity Transmitters", John De Armond and the BIG LIE Date: 21 Apr 90 14:33:50 EST (Sat) From: Larry Lippman In article <6406@accuvax.nwu.edu> "John G. De Armond" writes: ...and writes and writes and digs himself a deeper hole... Before delving into Mr. De Armond's new morass, I would like to state that TELECOM Digest has to date one of the best signal-to-noise ratios of any group distributed through Usenet or the Internet, and I would not like to see it degenerate through the nonsense started by Mr. De Armond. This will be my last comment on this issue, and it should provide TELECOM Digest readers with sufficient information as to form a belief on the matter. Quoted article sources are keyed as follows: ">" refers to the most recent article from Mr. De Armond; "$D>" refers to Mr. De Armond's original article; and "$L>" refers to my original article. > After this brief history lesson, LL proceeds to extrapolate from the > microscopic particular to the general and claim that the infinity > transmitter I described could have NEVER existed and that I had simply > made up a fairy tale (his words.). My credibility assessment of Mr. De Armond's original story is now strengthed to a virtual certainty based upon the content of his second article. The basis for my belief includes but is not limited to: I - IMPRACTICABLE DEVICE WITH IMPROBABLE CLAIM AS TO ORIGIN The "infinity transmitter" is a largely impracticable device creating an unacceptable risk of detection by the subject. For any dialup connection to the device, there is at *least* a 25% chance that the subject's telephone will emit a full or partial ring, thus raising suspicion. The subject's telephone line will be busy to outside callers during the entire time that "infinity transmitter" is in use; such a false busy condition is likely to be noticed by other callers who may alert the subject to this anomaly. Furthermore, the quiescent current consumption of such a device is readily ascertained using simple test apparatus available to the telephone company or others. $D> I got my infinity transmitter from a friend who worked for a well $D> known government agency whose name begins with a "C" :-). This is not credible since the "government agency" alluded to above would not utilize such a crude device when alternative devices of a superior nature with virtually no risk of of detection are available. Furthermore, Mr. De Armond embellishes his story by not only claiming that the device was built into a telephone network, but by claiming that the device utilized a multi-tone actuation method. The claim of a multi-tone actuation method is akin to building a bank vault with one wall made of plywood. While it is possible to design and build such a device into a network, this would have required a considerable effort, with such design and packaging being improbable for this type of device. II - CONTRADICTORY TIME FRAMES $D> I used one in the early '70s to get the $D> goods on my boss who was, it turns out, planning on having some pot $D> planted in my car in order to have me fired. This is improbable since Mr. De Armond was fifteen years old in 1970, and even if "early 70's extends to 1974, it is still improbable that at 19 years of age Mr. De Armond would hold a "government job" and have connections to a "government agency whose name begins with a 'C'". In his second article Mr. De Armond substantially alters time frames of his alleged experience in a contradictory and inconsistent manner, in an apparent after-the-fact effort to reconcile his story with available technology and the revelation of his age at the time of his original claim. > with the government in the mid 70's. > obviously do not still have the device in question, having left it in > place when I left the government service in 1979. > 4. My device was probably built closer > 1977 or '78 but '75 is conservative. > I modified the functional design a bit from the one I used a decade > ago in the interest of simplicity and perhaps in the interest of added The time frame of Mr. De Armond's story now varies as much as *TEN YEARS* from "the early '70s" to "mid 70's" to "1977 or '78" to "1979" to "a decade ago" [1980]. III - IMPROBABLE COMBINATION OF "INFINITY TRANSMITTER" WITH WIRETAP $D> Oh yeah, about my problem. I confronted my boss behind closed doors $D> with those tapes and tapes from a phone tap I'd installed too and we $D> reached an agreement on a truce until I could transfer to another agency. Now here is an interesting point not raised in my original article. Mr. De Armond claims to have also installed a "phone tap", which implies that he already has access to the tip and ring of the subject's telephone at some remote location. If this were the case, then no one in their right mind would risk detection by using an infinity transmitter since by using just one resistor and one capacitor, the transmitter in the telephone handset could be made live ALL OF THE TIME. All one would need is a high-gain amplifier bridged across the tip and ring of the subject's telephone line to detect the resultant sound. No false rings or unusual line busy conditions to create suspicion. Surely Mr. De Armond's "friend who worked for a well known government agency whose name begins with a 'C'" could have informed him about this simpler, safer and more effective alternative. IV - SERIOUS TECHNICAL INCONSISTENCIES IN MR. De ARMOND'S SECOND ARTICLE > 3) Larry had absolutely no knowledge of the environment under which > the device was used. For example, it was used on the relatively > controlled environment of an old crosspoint PBX and not a Bell > subscriber loop or phone. He did not know this, as evidenced by > his description of a CO switch. Ahh, a "crosspoint PBX"! Perhaps an AE/Leich 40, 80 or 100-series? The AE/Leich crosspoint PABX is a bit unusual in many respects, one of which pertains to PABX station-to-station dialing (which is what I presume Mr. De Armond now claims to have done). I have some truly devastating news for you, Mr. De Armond. Station-to-station dialing on a AE/Leich crosspoint PABX is accomplished through a "link circuit" (H-850289). Unlike any SxS, XY, XBAR or ESS apparatus, the Leich link circuit functions under LAST PARTY CONTROL. This means that while an "infinity transmitter" would have answered, it could NEVER HAVE DISCONNECTED UNDER CONTROL OF THE CALLING PARTY. Not a very wise or useful situation. In fact, depending upon circumstances, it is possible that once activated, the device could not be released by ANY MEANS other than the subject having to physically disconnect their telephone set! Oh well, maybe it wasn't an AE/Leich crosspoint PABX after all. But that doesn't seem very likely since AE/Leich made the only "crosspoint PBX" I can think of which might have been sold to the U.S. government, or to the state of Tennessee, for that matter. Or maybe it was an AE/Leich PABX and Mr. De Armond modified the link circuits for calling party control. That's it! Yeah, that's right, that's the ticket! :-) > One of the central themes of LL's posting was that my device must be a > fairy tale because the technology did not exist to make such a not- > easily-detectable device. After stewing on this for a day or two, I > decided to get proactive and prove that indeed such a device was not > only feasible but easy to make. I'm impressed. Mr. De Armond wasted time in allegedly designing and building a device which will today work on less than 5% of all CO and PABX lines in North America. And he used circuit technology which did not exist for several years following the date when he originally claimed to have used such a device. > The design criteria for my "bug" are as follows: > 1. Be undetectable by DC means. This implies a quiescent current draw > under 100 microamps. I wonder if Mr. De Armond has ever seen any countermeasures apparatus built by F. G. Mason Engineering? I suspect not. But if he did, he would realize that quiescent current drain must be << 100 uA to avoid detection. > 2. Be undetectable by AC means applied to a subscriber loop. This implies > a high AC impedance, preferably over 100kohms. So what? The telephone set is already sitting with a bridged ringer that is going to have an AC impedance of << 1000 ohms. > 3. Be undetectable via emitted or induced EMI. In other words, no > oscillators and no inductors. Mr. De Armond slipped up. Later in his article he talks about a relay in his circuit. Last I knew, relay windings were "inductors". > This device is designed to respond to a pair of tones > alternately applied to the line at a moderate switching rate. Out of > convenience, I used the tones of 1209 hz and 3266 hz alternated at a 7 > hz rate. I'll explain why later. 7 Hz? Poor choice of frequency, Mr. De Armond. I bet I could spoof your alleged device with a 76C Cable Splicer's Test Set. > I have a HUGE "junk box" (actually, about 2500 sq feet of floor space) > and a large library so I have a wide selection of parts to choose from > and a good library that dates back to the late 60s (Yes, Larry, when I > was in my early teens.). I'm turning green with envy. > My active device is my old favorite of the linear devices, the 74C04 > hex inverter. Yes, sportsfans, a digital CMOS part. This device, > when properly biased and fed-back, is an excellent low power audio and > low RF amplifier. I can't imagine why anyone could want to diddle with a 74C04 as an amplifier when manufacturers such as National and GE/Intersil have a wide variety of CMOS and JFET devices which are far superior and have quiescent supply currents of 10 uA or less. > I measured the > consumption at 5 volts with a Keithley Model 614 digital picoammeter. Is Mr. De Armond *sure* that he used a Keithley Model 614? My organization has one, and the last time I saw it the front panel said "ELECTROMETER". Keithley does have other models, though, which are called "picoammeters". I wonder if Mr. De Armond will now want to change the model number? > With inputs grounded, this particular part consumed 0.002 microamp. > With an input tied to an output to bias the device linear, the current > rose to 0.015 microamps. Inputs grounded, eh? Not a very useful measurement condition, Mr. De Armond. How much *noise* do think is going to be present when your alleged device is connected to a real telephone line? Especially when the bandpass filter has to operate in the presence of 80 to 110 volts RMS of 20 Hz AC signal during ringing while still *rejecting* such a huge signal. > The output of the comparator is fed to a sensitive relay > from the junque box. This relay picks up at about 100 microamps and > probably came out of an old piece of process control equipment. It > has 2 dpdt dry contacts. This is interesting. Assuming that Mr. De Armond has 6 volts of DC power as stated below: > The power supply for this device consists of 4 1n4742 12 volt, 1 watt > zeners in series feeding a bridge rectifier whose output is clamped by > a 1n4735 6.3 volt, 1 watt zener. Mr. De Armond's DPDT relay is picking up at 100 uA at 6 VDC for a power consumption .6 mW. That is a truly *AMAZING* relay, Mr. De Armond! I, along with perhaps other TELECOM Digest readers, would sure like to know its manufacturer and model number. You see, Mr. De Armond, here's the problem: A sensitive DPDT subminiature relay, like the Teledyne Centagrid [tm] mil-spec series, rated at 6 volts DC requires at least 30 MILLIamperes of pickup current. Mr. De Armond's alleged relay is at least 300 times MORE SENSITIVE than any DPDT relay that I can think of. And I can think of a *lot* of relays. Now, Mr De Armond did mention above that the relay "probably came out of an old piece of process control equipment". So, perhaps he was referring to a Weston Sensitrol [tm] or Barber-Colman Micropositioner [tm] series relay. These are the most sensitive relays that I can think of offhand which might be found in process equipment. (See, I'm trying to lend credibility to Mr. De Armond's story, nice guy that I am.) Except there are three new problems created with *this* scenario: (1) these relays were never available in a DPDT configuration, being SPDT only; (2) the Sensitrol relay had magnetic latching contacts in the microampere ranges; and (3) even these relays are no where near as sensitive as the one in his claim (6 VDC @ 100 uA). If Mr. De Armond had any knowledge of eavesdropping devices beyond what he was able to glean from my article, he would not even *think* of using a relay (which I mentioned *only* because it was employed in the original Mittelman "infinity transmitter"). He would have instead used what anyone else would have used after 1970 or so - an SCR. > The design purpose of this arrangement is for the circuit to draw zero > current until the applied voltage reaches about 40 volts. This > prevents the device from being detected by applying an ohmmeter to the > terminals of the phone. It also prevents the device from being > activated or detected by the application of 24 volts, a value common > to phone test boxes. Telephone company subscriber line test apparatus does not use less than 48 volts for test purposes. Neither does any electronic countermeasures test apparatus. No reliance on a traditional ohmmeter circuit would ever be made by a knowledgeable person conducting any electronic countermeasures inspection. > When activated, > the device represents about 6 extra volts' of drop across the set. 6 volts drop on say, 50 mA of loop current is 300 mW of power dissipation in your device. Since Mr. De Armond's alleged relay and linear circuit consumes, say 1 mW maximum, what circuit elements dissipate the other 299 mW of power? > 3) Reliable activation with no voice-falsing occurred with about > 600 mv of tone. How about in the presence of 90 volts RMS at 20 Hz? > I have proven that with about 6 hours of work and using components > from the junk box, a proof-of-concept Infinity transmitter can be > built that is substantially in conformance with the one I described in > my first article and which would be practically undetectable with > ordinary means. > It would certainly resist LL's VOM assault. No, it wouldn't. I would start on a 200 mA scale and work down to 200 uA. > There is > one (or two) chip(s) involved and a handful of discrete components. All > would comfortably fit in a network housing. How about the, uh, "micropower" relay? > In terms of physical concealment, the whole works could be potted in > the network housing. Potting is not atypical. Many an eavesdropping device has been potted into a network. Of all the devices which *could* be installed within the confines of a station network, the "infinity transmitter" is unquestionably the least useful and one most prone to inadvertent detection. > So here we have a situation where a pompous ass named Larry Lippman > has decreed from his throne that a rather detailed description of an > infinity transmitter I used years ago was a lie simply because HE had > never heard of it. In reply to his accusations, I spent an evening's > worth of spare time and designed a device such as according to Larry, > could not exist and then built it using parts from the era. Quite frankly, I don't believe that the circuit Mr. De Armond alleges to have designed and built in six hours exists, either. V - MISCELLANEOUS COMMENTS > And yet he makes a slanderous attack on my character. What a guy. ^^^^^^^^^ What "character"?! Mr. De Armond admitted to having committed a *felony* violation of both state and federal law, for which there was no lawful justification. He should have been indicted, convicted and appropriately sentenced. Period. > I used phreaking as an educational tool, never stole > a dime's worth of services, and freely admit my activities. Where have we heard that line before? > So Larry, let's get to the point. I've not only demonstrated that an > "impossible" device could be built in an evening, I've also described > the use of a professionally built unit. Let's see if you are as > assertive and aggressive in you apology and retraction as you were in > your slanderous assault on my character. I am now "assertive and aggressive", but not in the manner which Mr. De Armond naively expects. $L> I'm sorry if I may appear harsh to Mr. De Armond, but there are $L> enough *real* problems in the world involving unlawful eavesdropping, $L> without the need to invent any more myths. I no longer feel sorry about being harsh to Mr. De Armond. Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. "Have you hugged your cat today?" UUCP: {boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!acsu.buffalo.edu!kitty!larry TEL: 716/688-1231 || FAX: 716/741-9635 {utzoo|uunet}!/ \aerion!larry [Moderator's Note: Well readers, YOU be the judge. This concludes the publication in the Digest of the debate between the gentlemen. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest Special: Infinity Transmitters - II ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa28341; 22 Apr 90 10:27 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa28820; 22 Apr 90 8:32 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa09785; 22 Apr 90 7:26 CDT Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 7:02:52 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest Special: Telesat Report - Spring 1990 BCC: Message-ID: <9004220702.ab02899@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 22 Apr 90 07:00:00 CDT Special: Telesat Report Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Telesat Report - Spring 1990 [David Leibold] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Telesat Report - Spring 1990 Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 00:00:00 EDT From: woody [Here is the PR letter from Telesat Canada... latest edition] Telesat Report Vol 5 No 1 Telesat Canada, Satellite Communications Newsletter, Spring 1990 Inside: * Helicopter Giant Links Operations Via Satellite * Telesat Welcomes Government Divestiture * Advanced Television Trial Underway * Telesat Ready for Future With New Control Centre * Radio-Quebec Renews Uplink Agreement -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Helicopter Giant Links Operations Via Satellite By: Darren Kelly, Telesat Vancouver Sales Canadian Helicopters, Canada's largest helicopter company, has joined Telesat's family of Anikom 500 customers with the completion of its voice and data satellite network. During the last quarter of 1989, Canadian Helicopters completed voice and data links between its head office in St John's Newfoundland and its Pacific and international headquarters in Vancouver. An Edmonton link was also part of phase one. February marked the completion of phase two with the additon of Toronto to the network, which provides Canadian Helicopters with a complete dedicated voice and data network. Canadian Helicopters operates 265 aircraft in 60 locations in Canada and 15 centres around the world, making it the largest helicopter company in Canada. "Both financial and value added features led us to make the decision to go with Telesat's Anikom 500 service," says Ian Hogg, Management Information Services Manager, Canadian Helicopters. "We now have the ability to link our offices together at a lower fixed cost and, in the future, we can add services like video conferencing, transportable services, or Business Television." The Canadian Helicopters network includes voice circuits at 24 kbps and 32 kbps. Data circuits are provided at 19.2 kbps and 9.6 kbps. "With the multiplexers on site, we can change the configuration to meet our future requirements" says Hogg. "Initially, we will link our offices via satellite, but one day we want all our aircraft to be linked to head office using satellite technology. We believe we have selected the right technology for our company's current and future operations." This contract is unique for Telesat because while Canadian Helicopters makes use of Telesat services, Telesat also uses the helicopter service. "The helicopter lift for our Vancouver Common User Facility went off like clock work", says Charley Clarke, Telesat Installation Specialist. "A helicopter picked up the antenna at the harbour, and safely deposited it on the roof of the facility in downtown Vancouver five minutes later. Canadian Helicopters did a super job!" -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Telesat Welcomes Government Divestiture Over the past few years, Telesat has been implementing a strategic plan which has quickly established it as Canada's third national telecommunications carrier. Key to the success of this program has been Telesat's increasing independence, which has resulted in greater choice and selection for Canadian businesses in the growing telecommunications markets. The Government of Canada's recent announcement to sell its 50 per cent stake in Telesat is a positive step in this direction. The following is Telesat's corporate position on the divestiture. Commentary By: President Eldon Thompson Telesat welcomes the recent announcement that the Government of Canada intends to sell its shares in Telesat. While the government has expressed its intentions to divest its shares on numerous occasions, the Budget Speech implies a timetable that, we hope, will see Telesat stock publicly traded within the current term of office. Telesat is the third national telecommunications carrier in Canada, providing a portfolio of high quality, competitively priced business communications services. We offer a broad range of services, have a large customer base, a national marketing and service infrastructure, and are seeing ever-increasing acceptance of satellite networks as the answer to many business communications needs. With the fulfilment of all the government's original policy objectives in relation to satellite communications, our successful penetration of the business communications marketplace, and the dynamic growth in the use of satellite networks for many mainstream applications, it is now an appropriate time for the federal government to divest its shares in Telesat. There is no longer any policy reason requiring government to participate in ownership of the company. In his Budget Speech, Finance Minister Michael Wilson stated that "the government's privatisation objective has been to sell investments where government ownership is no longer required and to rely on market forces to spur Canada's competitiveness." Telesat fully supports these views and endorses any divestiture plan, such as a public share offering, that will maintain or increase competition in the telecommunications marketplace, and stimulate the company's will to succeed in that marketplace. In the course of the divestiture, Telesat would like to see the government - and, therefore, the Canadian taxpayer - maximise the return on its long investment in Telesat, and we are prepared to advise the government on the method and timing of its divestiture with that objective in mind. Telesat further welcomes the introduction of a new telecommunications policy that will ensure interconnection to network services throughout Canada, and allow carriers and service resellers to compete on an equal basis. A new policy along these lines, and the legislation which will apply it, will help Telesat remain competitive under private sector ownership. Our experience within Telesat is that efficient telecommunications provides a competitive edge to businesses, cutting decision-making time, significantly improving productivity, and reducing the cost of information transfer. Our goal is to remain a world leader in satellite communications, and to continue to furnish unique solutions to business needs. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Advanced Television Trial Underway By: Mike Bryan, Telesat Public Affairs Telesat's two-year Advanced Television (ATV) trial moved into the limelight with several major events at the close of 1989, including a three-day HDTV (High Definition Television) production seminar at the National Arts Centre (NAC) in Ottawa, and an exclusive closed circuit HDTV broadcast of a middleweight boxing match from Las Vegas. By next month, Telesat's ATV production mobile will be complete, and will be available on a rental basis for commercial productions, as well as for experimentation, demonstrations, and tests. HDTV Seminar To introduce the technology in Canada, some 80 television and film industry directors, producers, technical specialists and executives attended a three-day production seminar at the NAC in Ottawa on November 21-23. Co-sponsored by Telesat and the NAC, the event was telecast to the Banff Centre for The Arts in Alberta via an inaugural Telesat HDTV satellite feed - the first to use the Canadian-developed HDB-MAC compression and scrambling system. The seminar was also the nation's first tele-education event in HDTV. Half the participants were in Ottawa, and half gathered in Banff to participate on a wide-screen display system with their comments and questions flashed back to Ottawa via a return audio link. Seminar participants received hands-on instruction and experience in handling HDTV cameras and hardware, and experimented with lighting and related subjects in theatrical settings. HDTV technical and production experts from across North America were also on hand to present lectures at the session. At an Ottawa press conference on November 23, President Eldon Thompson said Telesat intented to "act as a catalyst" in introducing advanced television in Canada. The company would become Canada's foremost authority in end-to-end ATV transmission, satellite distribution, and applications, and both new and existing customers would benefit. Main Event Telesat's ATV calendar also included the exclusive HDTV exhibition in Canada of the December 7 super middleweight boxing match in Las Vegas between Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard. Telesat displayed the event to an audience of 300 which enjoyed the television of the future on a 25-foot screen at Toronto's Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Another major event on Telesat's ATV calendar is the HDTV colloquium in June. Telesat will be a major participant in this summer's Fourth International Colloquium on advanced television systems, to take place at the Ottawa Congress Centre June 25-29. Telesat President Eldon Thompson will be conference chairman. Mobile Ready To stimulate the emergence of new business ventures exploiting ATV and build applications and technical experience in ATV systems in Canada, Telesat has built a complete, satellite-based closed-circuit ATV network consisting of: a production mobile, a transmission system (The mobile will actually be equipped with two distinct transmission technologies - the "MUSE" system, developed by the Japanese state broadcaster, NHK, and Toronto's Digital Video Systems "HDB-MAC" system.), a satellite uplink truck and a small network of transportable receive-only sites. Most of the hardware is also capable of broadcasting in the conventional NTSC TV standard. Canada's first multi-camera ATV production mobile will be ready to go on the road in April, 1990. For the next two years, the mobile and other equipment will roam the country telecasting special events, concerts, business meetings, and promotions. It's also expected to be involved in a number of regular film and television productions projects. By the time the trial is over, Canada will be positioned in the forefront of nations adopting the new technology. Open Invitation Telesat invites enquiries from current customers concerning potential new business television, broadcasting, and special event applications which might be evaluated during the trial. HDTV is a revolutionary new form of television with pictures larger, wider, and twice as sharp as today's TV, better colour rendition and multi-channel, CD quality, digital sound. Japan, the European community and the United States are all very active in developing ATV technologies. The U.S. is expected to adopt standards for HDTV transmission within two years. The Japanese are already broadcasting in HDTV via satellite every day, and are following Telesat's activities with keen interest. Regardless of when it eventually replaces today's NTSC television sets in the home, Telesat believes some form of ATV is the future of television. The program will promote development of satellite-based ATV applications by giving producers, broadcasters and closed-circuit television programmers working experience with advanced video formats. The company expects early Canadian introduction of ATV systems will be in the area of closed-circuit broadcasts of sports and entertainment special events to large screens in clubs, pubs, small theatres, and similar venues. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Telesat Ready for Future With New Control Centre By: Daryl Lee, Telesat Public Affairs Telesat's new satellite control centre, buried in the circular appendage of the Telesat headquarters, looks appropriately space-age. Banks of monitors stretch across the oval-shaped room while two vertical control consoles sit on either side. Almost lost in the maze of hardware are the two satellite controllers who watch over the five Anik satellites hovering in precise positions some 36 000 km above the earth. The muted lighting of the control centre complements its atmosphere. The room is quiet, not at all like the bustling space centres scripted in Hollywood movies. But behind the scenes are over 100 specialists in satellite operation and control, along with 14 computers and two tracking antennas located across Canada and in Australia. "The old control centre, although adequate for what we were doing in the past, was getting to the point where it was totally inadequate for what we have to do in the future," explains Ron Costanzo, Manager of System Software for Telesat. "The computer system that ran the whole thing was based on a computer that has become obsolete. We reached the limits of that system." So with two Anik Es on their way, plus MSAT scheduled for launch in 1993, and the possibility for controlling RADARSAT - the new remote sensing satellite - it was deemed time to retire the old SCC and build a new one. Design and construction took four years, and the new SCC is a reflection of Telesat's expertise in satellite control systems. The SCC, along with its software and most of the specialised hardware, was designed and built in-house. At present it is controlling three Anik C satellites and two Anik D satellites, with room for the two Anik E satellites or reasons why Telesat needed a new SCC. The old centre simply could not handle the complexity of the new satellites. "We recognise that they're not going to be easy satellites to operate," says Costanzo. "The manoeuvres are much more complex and require an awful lot more processing time. A north-south manoeuvre on an Anik C or D takes at most 10 minutes. On the Anik E the same manoeuvre could take up to an hour and a half." Telesat designers took advantage of the situation to build more flexibility into the new satellite control system. "Now we should be able to whip changes into the system to meet changing requirements far faster than we ever could in the past," says Costanzo. "And the system is a lot more user-friendly." -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Radio-Quebec Renews Uplink Agreement By: Joe Aragona, Telesat Marketing Communications Radio-Quebec, Quebec's French-language, educational and cultural television network has renewed its transmit agreement with Telesat for another three years beginning January 1990. Under the terms of the agreement, Telesat will continue to provide Radio-Quebec with three uplink services at the network's headquarters in Montreal. The first uplink will be used by Radio-Quebec, the second will be leased by Radio-Quebec to Te'le'vision Quatre Saisons, and the third will be used as a standby service and for occasional use. "With our satellite link and our 17 transmitters we can continue to broadcast throughout the province," says Radio-Quebec representative Jean Lajoie, P Eng. "Also, we can continue to transmit to a network of cable operators, and close to 150 000 TVRO (Television Receive Only) owners who receive our signal directly from the satellite. This means that our programming reaches almost 95 per cent of the Quebec population." As Quebec's educational and cultural television network, Radio-Quebec's programming consists of current events and public affairs, social and public service programs, general cultural and instructional television. Lajoie explains that each program is targeted at specific audiences, and adds that the reasons for the network's original decision to switch to satellite in 1985, are still valid today. "Originally it was pure economics," says Lajoie. "We opened our first transmitters in Montreal and Quebec City in 1975, and we were using terrestrial microwave links. But in 1985 the operating costs, and a mandate which required us to broadcast more regional programming, made it too expensive to continue in that way. Satellite became the best way for us to transmit our signal. It was easier, it was cheaper, and it was reliable." The network leased three uplink services, and the intention was to use one for the main broadcast, and the two others for regional transmissions. By 1987, Radio-Quebec decided that its regional broadcasts were becoming too costly, and that the same programming could be broadcast from the main office in Montreal. The changes were implemented at the time that Te'le'vision Quatre Saisons was ready to go to air, and Radio-Quebec began leasing its second uplink service to Quatre Saisons. "Even with the changes in our operating policy it still made sense to stay with satellite, and with Telesat," adds Lajoie. "We originally looked at other suppliers, including Bell and CNCP, but Telesat was the best choice. "We haven't had any major problems, and we just started to broadcast on a quarter Canada coverage. This gives us a great improvement in our signal. With the new Anik E series of satellites which will soon be available for use, our signal should improve even more." -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Telesat Report is published by the Business Planning Division of Telesat. Telesat believes the information contained in this publication to be accurate as of the date of publication. Some information is subject to change without notice. Telesat is not responsible for any inadvertent errors. All correspondence should be addressed to: The Editor, Telesat Report Telesat 1601 Telesat Court Gloucester, Ontario K1B 5P4 Tel. (613) 748.0123 Toll Free: 1-800-267-1870 Fax: (613) 748.8712 ENVOY: ANIK ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest Special: Telesat Report - Spring 1990 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa01666; 22 Apr 90 12:15 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ac02645; 22 Apr 90 10:44 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ac28592; 22 Apr 90 9:32 CDT Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 9:10:25 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #274 BCC: Message-ID: <9004220910.ab21754@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 22 Apr 90 09:09:41 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 274 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Administrivia: My Crime I Must Confess [TELECOM Moderator] AT&T and Internet Gateway [William Degnan] The Many Faces of Cellular One [John R. Covert] Looking for Ordering of New NPA Codes [Dave Leibold] Rumor: COCOTS Getting Coin Lines? [John Higdon] Re: Rates For Cellular Phones [John Higdon] Re: The Card [SOLOMON@mis.arizona.edu] Re: Review: San Francisco Celluar Service [Linc Madison] Re: Area Code 917 in New York City [Dave Leibold] Book Review: Megabit Data Communications [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 7:47:46 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Administrivia: My Crime I Must Confess! In Volume 10, Issue 264 of the Digest, dated Thursday, April 19, 1990, issued at 2:02 AM, Article 4 was an item entitled "Appeals Court Orders Seized Computer Returned". This same item was transmitted to the comp.dcom.telecom newsgroup with identification of 6565@accuvax.nwu.edu. The item was sent to me by (apparently) a daemon which handles Clarinet news items called 'clarinews@clarinet.com'. The item looked interesting to me, and since we have recently had stories in the Digest about site administrators and sysops who have had legal difficulties involving their computer, I decided to include it in the Digest. In several letters in the days which followed, Brad Templeton (brad@looking.on.ca) wrote me to complain that the item was actually a copyrighted article which had been used in Clarinet, and that I should not have published it here; and that by doing so I violated his copyright on the item. He denied that anything was amiss in his software or mailer, and that the item had to have been sent by some actual person who simply diddled up the header and forwarded it to me. He said he would overlook this transgression of his copyright if I would publish an article (conveniently submitted with his complaint) which described Clarinet and the benefits of subscribing to same. What I suggest instead is that the item be removed from circulation. Please put issue 264 in your editor and zap article 4, inserting this note you are reading now in its place. It is not my intent to run articles copyrighted by Clarinet in the Digest, so obviously the item should not have appeared here. Site administrators: Please remove 6565@accuvax.nwu.edu from comp.dcom.telecom at your site if in fact it has not already expired. I stress that folks who keep archives of TELECOM Digest should likewise remove it. Thank you, and my apologies for the inconvenience. Mr. Templeton has also asked to have the person who mailed the article to me to please get in touch with him. If you are that person, please contact him at 'brad@looking.on.ca'. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 13:57:09 CDT From: William Degnan Subject: AT&T and Internet Gateway In correspondence, recently, the Moderator and I discussed the fact that AT&T had blocked traffic, which formerly flowed between AT&TMail and the Internet -- despite of the clear benefit to AT&T. I have sent several inquiries to AT&TMail and have, at last, received a coherent reply. It is quoted here, for your information: Date: Wed Apr 18 11:31:55 EDT 1990 From: Madeline Sorrentino Phone: 201-576-2705 Subject: Internet Gateway To: William S Degnan Cc: Customer Assistance /electronic/cod Cc: Patti Contey Content-Length: 1412 Mr. Degnan AT&T's Research and Development Division currently has UNIX gateways to the Internet. In the past, these gateways were also connected to AT&T Mail. Because Internet is a free messaging network, all messages generated by Internet users to AT&T Mail users thru the use of these UNIX gateways, were automatically charged to the AT&T department that owned the UNIX gateway. AT&T Mail had no way of knowing that these messages were generated by Internet users. Therefore, we had to block these gateways. AT&T Mail is in the process of establishing an AT&T Mail gateway to the Internet, to satisfy customer requirements to communicate with Internet users. We will not charge Internet users to deliver mail to AT&T Mail users. These charges will be rightfully absorbed by AT&T Mail and not charged to AT&T's Research and Development organization who happens to have a number of Internet gateways. The AT&T Mail gateway has already been registered with the Internet network and is currently in system test. We are also reviewing the Internet commercial requirements agreement. Once the Gateway is commercially available, we will announce it to our customers. I expect it to be available within two to three months. Thank you for your interest. If I may be of further assistance, please feel free to e-mail me directly. Madeline Sorrentino AT&T Mail Gateways Manager ----------------------------------------- Disclaimer: Contents do not constitute "advice" unless we are on the clock. William Degnan | wdegnan@mcimail.com Communications Network Solutions | !wdegnan@at&tmail.com -Independent Consultants | William.Degnan@telemail.com in Telecommunications | UUCP: ...!natinst!tqc!39!WDegnan P.O. Drawer 9530 | ARPA: WDegnan@f39.n382.z1.FidoNet.Org Austin, TX 78766-9530 | Voice +1 512 323 9383 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Apr 90 21:13:25 PDT From: "John R. Covert 21-Apr-1990 2305" Subject: The Many Faces of Cellular One It would be nice if people making postings about Cellular One would list the ownership, and not just "Cellular One." Cellular One was a name invented by the first cellular company in the country, the original "A" carrier in Balto-Wash (which was operational under a test and developmental license to field test the first Motorola hardware). The name was licensed to any "A" carrier who wanted to use it for some very low fee, (I've heard $1/year). The name is currently owned by Southwestern Bell (ever since they bought the "A" license in Washington). They, of course, only operate as the "A" carrier and use the Cellular One name outside the Southwestern Bell wireline service area in D.C., Boston, and Chicago. Otherwise they use Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems and operate as the "B" carrier. McCaw uses it at almost all of its licensees (in more than 90 cities), sometimes in direct competition with Southwestern Bell. Vanguard Cellular uses it in about 15 cities in Maine, Pennsylvania, Florida, West Virginia, and New York. Providence Journal Cellular (just bought by GTE Mobilnet, I think) uses it in about nine cities in Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia. United States Cellular uses the name in many cities. Other Cellular Ones are Amarillo Cellular Telephone Company, Bakersfield Cellular One, Cellular One of Beaumont, Billings Cellular Corp., Bauce Communications (Cumberland, Md., Rapid City, SD), Crowley Cellular (FL, TX, IL, NY), Radiofone, Inc. (LA, TX), PacTel Cellular (Cellular One of Detroit, Bay Area Cellular), Palmer Communications (Fort Myers, Fla.), Indianapolis Telephone Company, Richmond Cellular Telephone Co., Cellular One of Jacksonville, NC, Cellular One of the Rio Grande Valley, Roanoke Valley Cellular Telephone Co., Cellular Corp. of Sioux Falls, The Southern Ohio Telephone Company, Syracuse Telephone Company, Buffalo Telephone Company, Genesee Telephone Company (Associated Communications), Midwest Cellular Telephone (Oklahoma City), Portsmouth Cellular Limited Partnership, and many more too numerous to mention and constantly changing ownership. PacTel Cellular is the "A" carrier in Atlanta, Georgia, but doesn't use the name Cellular One in that market. /john ------------------------------ Subject: Looking For Ordering of New NPA Codes Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 23:56:20 EDT From: woody I noticed somewhere that when the existing style of NPAs runs out (ie. the N[0/1]X-type), the initial batch of interchangeable NPAs will be of the form NN0 (like in 220, 650, 990, etc). There was a certain order in which those would be assigned when the time comes; does anyone have this on hand (or in the archives or something)? P.S. ... still time to mail any Telecom magazine to djcl@contact.uucp before a revised list of magazines is sent down the line, perhaps in the next week or so. ------------------------------ Subject: Rumor: COCOTS Getting Coin Lines? Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: 21 Apr 90 22:44:39 PDT (Sat) From: John Higdon Anybody know anything of a rumor that COCOTs will in the forseeable future be issued genuine coin lines? You know, the kind that the telcos use for their own phones. The way I hear it, the COCOT owner makes all the necessary arrangements with the telco, LD carrier, etc. and then collects the cash out of his phone and well as getting a bill by the telco, and a settlement with the LD company. "Smart" phones will no longer be necessary. Think how great this would be. No more (or at least little more) misprogramming, no more gouging, no more "guessing" at supervision, no more blocking of "10XXX", etc. In short, except for actual rates, COCOTs could work as well as telco pay phones. Of course, this could all be like the rumor that Pac*Bell was buying out GTE in Los Gatos. The COCOT thing comes from people who generally know about these things (well, so did the GTE rumor), so my question is: does anyone know for sure? John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Rates For Cellular Phones Date: 21 Apr 90 18:12:35 PDT (Sat) From: John Higdon Jeff Carroll writes: > Cellular One (unless there is more than one company using the service > mark) is owned and operated by McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc., of > Kirkland, Washington. (If they were owned by SW Bell, they wouldn't be > a "non-wireline" carrier, would they?) I had always been told that McCaw owned the Cellular One service mark, but was corrected by another reader "off line" and told that it was actually SW Bell that owned it. In any event your logic as to what does or does not constitute a "non-wireline" carrier breaks down here in the Bay Area. The "non-wireline" carrier major owner is Pacific Telesis (the rest is owned by McCaw). My dial tone comes from Pacific Bell, a fully owned subsidiary of Pacific Telesis. If that isn't "wireline" then what is? John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Apr 1990 21:07:44 MDT From: SOLOMON@mis.arizona.edu Subject: Re: The Card The AT&T Card application specifies that the card will be a MasterCard unless you check a box indicating your preference for a Visa. You can request them to send you an application instead of providing the information to them on the phone. They also offer a free Gold Visa/MasterCard. As of Jan 1, 1990, it is illegal for merchants in NY State to require customers to provide address/phone info if they receive electronic authorization of the purchase. Last year NY State banned credit card transaction forms that have separate carbons. MasterCard and Visa are separate companies and offer different benefits to their card holders. You can call 800 MC ASSIST or 800 VISA 411 to find out about the various benefits/programs offered. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 04:13:30 PST From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: Review: San Francisco Celluar Service Organization: University of California, Berkeley In article <6544@accuvax.nwu.edu> Robert Gutierrez writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 262, Message 2 of 4 >Seems that NASA Ames new prefix (415-604-XXXX) is giving fits to >everybody (including lots of COCOTS I've run across) including GTE, >since it is the first N0X prefix in the Bay Area. They credited me for that. I don't want to seem nitpicky, but it's not the first, only one of the early ones. The very first ones were 302 (Oakland), 502 (San Francisco), and 709 (Pittsburg). Specifically, those three are the only ones shown in the current S.F. directory, publ. date September '89. BTW, I tried to use the Bellcore number posted here to do a comprehensive current listing of N0/1X prefixes in 415, but got a rather curious result: dialing 415-N0/1X -- even for prefixes I know are operational -- gave me dead silence for a location. I ran across 415-604 a couple of months ago in a mis-transcribed phone message. I called Pac*Bell, and was told it was a Mountain View exchange, and was Zone 2 (8-12 miles) from my Berkeley location, some 40 or 50 miles away. Hmmm. Maybe there is some jinx on that exchange. Linc Madison = rmadison@euler.berkeley.edu [Moderator's Note: Interesting that you mention the 'dead silence' when trying to ascertain the location of the prefix. Here in Chicago, no one yet has been able to tell me which CO serves 312-415, a prefix used by Ameritech Mobile. I'd like to know, for example, if it is in my local (from home) calling area, or where it is. Even Ameritech can't tell me. The best they can say is that it is 'in the Washington tandem'. My Illinois Bell service rep doesn't know the answer either. PT] ------------------------------ From: woody Subject: Re: Area Code 917 in New York City Reply-To: djcl@contact.UUCP (woody) Organization: Contact Public Unix BBS. Toronto, Canada. Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 02:27:32 GMT In article <6624@accuvax.nwu.edu> dattier@chinet.chi.il.us (David Tamkin) writes: >numbers. NYTel apparently has NPA 917 reserved already. Does anyone (Bellcore, whoever) know if any other area codes have been reserved recently: like 909, or perhaps even re-issuing Mexico codes 706 or 905? Any further N10 codes (apart from 310 and 510 in California?). ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 8:14:13 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Book Review: Megabit Data Communications "Megabit Data Communications: A Guide For Professionals" Authors: John T. Powers, Jr. / Henry H. Stair II Publisher: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Division of Simon & Schuster Copyright: 1990 ISBN: 0-13-573569-6 An interesting book explaining T-Carrier in some detail has recently been published entitled, "Megabit Data Communications". Subtitled, "A Guide For Professionals", this book describes practical applications of megabit-speed digital transmission technologies, products, products and services. It is directed at managers, engineers, planners and designers who deal directly with digital communications. The authors, Jack Powers and Pete Stair, note that the book results from their reflections on the data communications business and seeing the surprising difficulty which even simple tasks require. When it became apparent to them that information needed to plan, specify, engineer and install high-speed facilities was spread thinly over a variety of sources -- some of which were quite obscure -- they decided to write this book and bring the information together in one place. They do not discuss prices, delivery or vendor performance, simply because such information would be obsolete before the book was published. What they do discuss in detail include -- -- ISDN networks -- T-Carrier services and related hardware -- AT&T's Dataphone digital services -- Telex and TWX -- Voice technologies -- Fiber optic transmission techniques -- Private digital services -- Multivendor integration There are numerous charts, diagrams, drawings and other illustrations to assist in understanding what they have written. You might find this book to be a valuable and useful addition to your telecom library. It certainly will assist in evaluating vendor's claims as to equipment performance and compatibility. It should be available at this time in the technical department of bookstores in your community. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #274 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa12504; 22 Apr 90 17:36 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa04728; 22 Apr 90 15:51 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa07306; 22 Apr 90 14:46 CDT Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 13:56:12 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #275 BCC: Message-ID: <9004221356.ab10252@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 22 Apr 90 13:55:18 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 275 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Rural America Speaks! (Of Telecom, that is...) [Donald E. Kimberlin] Cordless Telephones [Robert D. Greene] Re: The Card [David Tamkin] Re: 716/789 in Stedman, NY [George L. Sicherman] Wiring Standards for RJ-11/RJ-12 [Ken Levitt] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 21 Apr 90 22:31 EST From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: Rural America Speaks! (Of Telecom, that is...) Organization: Telecom Network Architects, Safety Harbor, FL Part I: Party Lines (also Phone Replacement) In several articles, our esteemed Moderator and Contributors seem to have identified another one of America's cans of local Telco worms. Opening, our Moderator raises the commonly-held view: >[Moderator's Note: Am I mistaken, or are you not *forbidden* to hook >anything onto a party line except a phone provided by the local telco >itself? Macy Hallock adds from Ohio: >IT is my understanding that only telco provided phones are allowed on >party lines, per Part 68. GTE Ohio rents and sells phones for party >lines here, and allows customer (plug-in) installation. >I used to believe customer owned sets were not allowed at all. GTE >told me they interpret the rules to say telco provided, not telco >owned. Answering machines, alarm jacks, and anything other than telco >provided telephone sets and extension ringers are not permitted. John Covert adds the classic technical reason...billing problems: >If your central office supports automatic identification of outgoing >long distance calls (i.e. you don't get a "What number are you calling >from" operator on every outgoing long distance call) you _must_not_ >ever make a long distance call from a phone not supplied by the telco. Peter da Silva adds the typical question of a "high-tech" person: >What I don't understand... >Why would anyone be using a party line service in 1990? ..In the truest spirit of the fabled radio reporter, Wally Ballew, Telecom Digest has gone to practically no expense (as educators always do) in search of another viewpoint and further confusion. The Digest found it right here in rural Mississippi, on the edge of Appalachia. ..As we type these words to you, South Central Bell is replacing hundreds of 1950's-generation Community Dial Offices (known in the trade as CDO's) with electronic Digital Remote Switches made by GPT (GEC-Plessey, now also partly Siemens)/Stromberg-Carlson. Reason: SC Bell has still to provide Equal Access to all these localities in Mississippi, and must do it by the end of 1990. ..Answering the last question first, there's still not enough cable along many of these rural roads to provide private line service to everyone. Also, many incomes in areas like this fall well below poverty levels, and discounted party line rates are all that can be charged. ..The result: The state-of-the art digital remotes we are now burning in and testing all over the state are equipped for "superimposed ringing," the Bell style of multiparty ringing. The limit is four parties, however, as Bell party line ringing always was limited to four, simply ringing tip or ring to ground with each possible polarity of ringing signal. (This compared to the several "harmonic, Synchronic, Decimonic" and other varieties of tuned ringers often used in innovative ways by non-Bell companies to pile a reported dozen or so parties on some lines, using as many as five frequencies and then ringing some balanced; some tip to ground and some ring to ground. It seems that at a dozen or so, the whole mess gets too many wrong ringers responding faintly, not to mention unbalancing long loops rather messily, creating hum and noise.) So, "party line ringing" lives on, right along with Call Waiting and the whole packet of new value-added things SC Bell will soon have for sale here. ..to answer the first question last, South Central Bell has some unique marketing problems for station equipment here, in such a sparse marketplace. So, they have established "agents" for the sale and rental of telephone sets. Now, these agents cannot keep "tip" `and "ring" parties straight, so this reporter learned that they use an interface device on party lines that makes the line into a staight balanced loop at the customer premises. thus, _all_ phones, whether party line or not, are regular balanced loop telephone sets. A check of the SCBell directory for Leake County, MS, shows only one sentence regarding providing telephones for _any_ sort of line service, saying (sic), "You must arrange for provision of your telephone." It has no wording about party line telephone sets or provision of telephones by either SC Bell or by Southern Bell Advanced Systems (considered in some quarters to be another oxymoronic term)> ..So, that's the status from here in rural Mississippi. It may be the last place in America still having CDO's, considering telephones were manual here until the mid-1950's...and those chattering switches will go silent this year. Step switch nostalgists may want to fly to New Orleans and rent a car to drive 50 or 150 miles north to this region to see the last of them. ..There is one post-script to the technology of this report: Most localities even have a few ports of T-1 interface to work to SLC-96 lines. However, very few pairs seem likely to be able to support the operation, So, until new cable is placed, it's not likely there will be much use of it. In keeping with that, there are no ISDN BRI cards in the new exchanges. Local residents, asked their opinions about ISDN, universally responded, "What?" Fishing for 40-pound bass and shooting wild turkeys is much better understood here. ...We now return you to Evanston and our Moderator...... Part II: City Boy Meets Country Coin Phones ..If readers can egage some vicarious imagination, they'll enjoy this experience: ..Landing in the tiny town of Walnut Grove, Mississippi after dark and looking for a way to get accommodations on a Sunday evening, I located a pay phone outside the only open business, a country version of a convenience store. It was a current-generation single-slot phone, but there was no dial tone. I entered the store to tell the lcerk her phone was out of order. She expressed surprise, saying someone had used it only a few hours ago ... which is a short time in these parts. She pointed out another payphone inside the store, but I found it provided no dial tone, either. Asking her if there was another, she said there was one more in town, along the town square off the main highway. ..Over in the darkened town square, I found the phone in the moonlight (no lighted booths here, either). It provided no dial tone. I made a note to report every coin phone in Walnut Grove, Mississippi out of order, having dark thoughts about the poor social responsibility of the phone company. ..On Monday, I told the local police chief and a local telco repairman; both seemed puzzled I should have any question, saying they saw people using the phones. ..Finally, on Tuesday, I got my answer: Taking a moment to notice, the instruction card was brown instead of blue, I found it read, "Deposit 25 cents to get a dial tone. If your call is a free call, your money will be returned." ..Sonofagun! The city boy never knew there was such a thing as a single-slot _pre-pay_ coin phone! And he hadn't been in a town with pre-pay coin phones since the era of the old 200-type "three-hole" coin phones! ..So, around these parts you have the _trust_ the phone company for your quarter, even in 1990! (Those of us who have worked in the "Big City" have to make a real leap of faith with our quarters out here!) ..Our Esteemed Moderator often makes his telephonic age known here; I wonder if he is old enough to remember pre-pay public phones.... [Moderator's Note: Yes indeed I do remember three-slot coin phones which remained dead until you made a *five cent* deposit. Furthermore, the return slots did not have trap-doors; the handset cords were uncurled and covered with brown *cloth* (no armored handset like now); and the *wooden* phone booth had a door on the front with a glass window in it, a little seat inside it, and an overhead incadesent light which went on or off when the door was opened or closed, like a refrigerator light. Most payphones were made not by Western Electric, but by the Elisha Gray PayStation Company, which held the patent on this type of phone for years and years. Elisha Gray was the fellow, you may recall, who complained for years that Alex Bell had cheated him out of his patent and got to the Patent Office first. The last time I saw a Gray payphone was in the fifties; but the wooden booths and three slot phones (via Western Electric) remained for another twenty years or so. PT] Part III: Billing and Idenification Problems >Anyone familiar with the billing and identification problems >associated with party lines will not be surprised to hear that GTE has >had fits with enhanced 911 service and party lines. Also, 1+ carrier >selection is not available for party line users, you have to take >GTE's assignment. I have not tried 10XXX dialing on GTE or Ohio Bell >party lines. ..Your point may be of interst in other rural areas, Macy. It caused me to wonder if South Central Bell had an answer to the problem of identifying party line callers. Engaging some country housewife researchers with a couple of local calls here in rural Mississippi, I found that even though ANI has long been added to CDO's, party line subscribers still have only ONI. ..This despite the vaunted ability of our electronic exchanges now in testing to provide E911 service. It simply looks like ONI will be needed on calls to 911, in order for Telco to pass the digits along to the database and PSAP.... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 10:11:50 CDT From: "Robert D. Greene" Subject: Cordless Telephones I have recently purchased a Radio Shack Model ET-421 Cordless Telephone and have a few questions about it and cordless telephones in general. Since purchasing this phone, I have set it up and connected it as the instruction manual suggested. My environment is not the cleanest in the world (I have a bunch of computer equipment on the other side of the room [about 10'] from the base station) and I have noticed that I get really dirty connections even when using the phone within about 6 inches of the base station. Is this normal even at those ranges? Also, my owners manual claims that this phone has "the highest legally allowed transmitting power"; however I have been unable to get the phone to function at more than about 200 feet (I have seen ads for other phones claiming ranges of 1000-1500 feet). The 200 feet range is for the phone going out through a window and then out into an empty yard. For realistic uses, adding a few walls/doors between the handset and the base station nets me about a 20' range. In any event, this prompts me to wonder (a) what exactly is the legal limit on cordless telephone transmitter power and (b) what kind of range does this net and under what conditions? Finally, nimbly sidestepping questions of legality, how difficult would it be to boost the power of the handset and base, and would this sacrifice call clarity for added range? Thanks. Robert D. Greene RGREENEB@RICEVM1.BITNET Sunspots (comp.sys.sun) Moderator RGREENEB@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU ONCS, Rice University ...!psuvax1!rice!ricevm1!rgreeneb Houston, Texas 77253 "Arouse a bee and it will come at you with the force of a dragon..." ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 12:21 CDT From: David Tamkin Subject: Re: The Card Will Martin wrote in TELECOM Digest, Volume 10, Issue 273: | Perhaps we can collect some data on this via the list and get some idea | as to what determines whether the card issued is VISA or MC -- would it | be geographic or based on some financial level such as the credit limit? When I phoned about it, the customer service rep asked me whether I was interested in a MasterCard or a VISA, and after I explained that I was looking for both but that I wanted to read more about them first, she promised to send out one packet with a MasterCard application and one for a VISA. The two that arrived (in separate envelopes) were identical, both bearing the MasterCard logo on the front, each with a small box at the top of the questionnaire reading "Please check here if you would prefer a VISA card rather than a MasterCard card." The applications were both titled "AT&T Universal Card Application -- MasterCard" with the implication that there was an alternate form titled "VISA" with a box to check if you'd rather have a MasterCard, but that I'd been sent two of the same in non-fatal error. | [I'm also somewhat confused by the whole concept of "VISA" and | "MasterCard" as entities in and of themselves. There must be companies | somewhere that own the trademarks of VISA and MC, and license them to | the banks, and, I suppose, act as clearinghouses to route transaction | slips sent from the merchants to their own banks to get to the bank | where that particular credit card account resides. You're pretty much answering your own question, Will. | Are VISA and MC actually separate competing companies, or two halves of | the same entity?] As I understand, they are separate. David Tamkin PO Box 813 Rosemont IL 60018-0813 708-518-6769 312-693-0591 dattier@chinet.chi.il.us MCIMail:426-1818 GEnie:D.W.TAMKIN CIS:73720,1570 ------------------------------ From: George L Sicherman Subject: Re: 716/789 in Stedman, NY Date: 22 Apr 90 14:13:59 GMT Stedman is an unremarkable township on the SW shore of Chautauqua Lake. Its coordinates are 42 09' N, 79 31' W, more or less. As I recall, most of Chautauqua County is served by an independent telephone company, not N. Y. Telephone. [Moderator's Note: I believe Chautauqua Institution (ninety-nine percent of the rationale for the existence of the village of Chautauqua, NY) operates its own telephone system. And sorry to disagree, but the summer programs at Chautauqua are quite remarkable at times. It is the summer home of the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra among other things. The art exhibits, lectures, theatre and recitals make the gate fees worth every nickle. I love visiting Chautauqua. If I visit this summer I will look at the phone setup. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 13:42:32 EDT From: Ken Levitt Subject: Wiring Standards for RJ-11/RJ-12 I am about one month behind in reading Digests, and just came across two requests for information about sending RS-232 data to RJ-11/RJ-12 type connectors. I did some looking into this some time back and found that there is no "official" standard for how this should be wired. In the end, I decided to use the same standard used by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and Emulex. If you assume a six conductor connector, the following set-up will allow you to construct a normal data cable or a null-modem cable just by inverting the connector on the cable. RJ-12 Pin DB-25 Pin EIA Name --------- --------- -------- 1 20 DTR - Data Terminal Ready 2 2 TXD - Transmit Data 3 7 SG - Signal Ground 4 7 SG - Signal Ground 5 3 RXD - Receive Data 6 6 DSR - Data Set Ready The above setup will work for most devices, but one or more of the following modifications may be required: 1. Bridge "Request To Send" (RTS - DB-25 Pin 4) to "Clear To Send" (CTS - DB-25 Pin 5). 2. Bridge "Data Set Ready" (DSR - DB-25 Pin 6) to "Data Carrier Detect" (DCD - DB-25 Pin 8). 3. Bridge "Signal Ground" (SG - DB-25 Pin 7) to "Frame (Protective) Ground" (FG - DB-25 Pin 1). 4. In really weird situations, you may have to connect "Ring Indicator" (RI - DB-25 Pin 22) to something like DCD. Ken Levitt - On FidoNet gateway node 1:16/390 UUCP: zorro9!levitt INTERNET: levitt%zorro9.uucp@talcott.harvard.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #275 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa02128; 23 Apr 90 0:39 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa30675; 22 Apr 90 22:58 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa12917; 22 Apr 90 21:52 CDT Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 21:18:35 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #276 BCC: Message-ID: <9004222118.ab23284@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 22 Apr 90 21:17:50 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 276 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Index to TELECOM Archives [TELECOM Moderator] Re: Review: San Francisco Celluar Service [John Higdon] NYNEX Not Forwarding Calls to ATT Correctly [Seshashayee Murthy] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 12:10:19 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Index to TELECOM Archives Here is the most recent index to the files in the TELECOM Archives. In addition to the articles in the main directory, we have a few sub-directories also: these include minitel.info, with files about that system, and scripts to use when loggin in; a sub-directory of Canadian areacodes, with their prefixes and assigned place names; and a sub-directory called 'oldarc', which contains old files from the Boston University telecom archives which we have been unable to reconstruct in readable format. All users are urged to check with their site administrator before pulling the large files. This is particularly true if you pull them using the mail server instead of ftp. Using FTP: -- ftp lcs.mit.edu -- login anonymous yourname@site.name -- cd telecom archives -- dir -- get (your selections) -- bye Using the Mail Server: Send a letter to one of these addresses (same site, same machine): bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu (Fido, UUCP and non-ftp Internet locations) bitftp@pucc.bitnet (Bitnet sites) The subject does not matter. Put your FTP commands along the left margin one after the other in upper case letters. Leave a blank space, then type the argument. Here is an example: FTP lcs.mit.edu USER anonymous myname@site.place ASCII CD telecom-archives GET index.to.archives (or other file name, as you select them) GET (if more than one file requested, list 'gets' one after another) BYE Mail your letter, and allow a few days for return mail. Large files will be returned in parts. For example, one of the files containing issues of the Digest from the past would come in several separate mailings. In addition, the bitftp mail server itself will confirm the transaction with a letter to you showing how your commands were interpreted by the ftp server at lcs.mit.edu. Here is the current index, to help in making selections. Remember, to get a file from one of the sub-directories (npa.canada or minitel.info) you will need to insert an extra 'CD' command in your letter, because you want to move in one directory further. total 19190 drwxrwxr-x 5 telecom telecom 3584 Apr 22 12:49 ./ drwxrwxr-x 20 root wheel 512 Apr 19 23:04 ../ -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 718 Jan 27 17:33 1981.Intro.to.archives -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 94485 Jan 14 22:32 1981.vol1.iss004-020 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 33063 Jan 20 19:29 1982.vol2.iss001-003 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 382277 Jan 14 22:09 1982.vol2.iss089-141 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 191518 Jan 20 17:59 1983.vol3.iss001-021 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 63880 Jan 14 22:53 1983.vol3.iss083-095 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 16811 Jan 15 01:08 1984.vol4.iss001-002 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 121389 Jan 15 01:04 1984.vol4.iss076-093 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 180604 Jan 20 18:29 1985.vol4.iss155-184 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 658 Jan 27 17:23 1985.vol5.READ-ME-FIRST -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 623292 Jan 27 17:08 1985.vol5.iss001-076 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 861286 Jan 27 18:05 1986.vol5.iss077-161 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 639112 Jan 26 03:07 1987.vol6.most.issues -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 274580 Jan 20 16:09 1987.vol7.complete.set -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 21596 Jan 20 16:06 1987.vol8.iss003-004 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 137265 Jan 20 15:36 1988.vol8.iss070-083 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 724832 Aug 1 1989 1988.vol8.iss140-189 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 227589 Aug 1 1989 1988.vol8.iss190-213 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 577173 Jan 15 00:01 1989.vol9.iss001-049 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 564262 Jan 14 23:28 1989.vol9.iss050-100 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 653097 Jan 14 21:32 1989.vol9.iss101-150 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 637611 Jan 15 00:24 1989.vol9.iss151-200 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 744800 Jan 14 21:33 1989.vol9.iss201-250 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 787166 Jan 14 21:35 1989.vol9.iss251-300 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 805328 Jan 14 21:54 1989.vol9.iss301-350 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 780366 Jan 15 00:08 1989.vol9.iss351-400 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 784366 Jan 15 00:09 1989.vol9.iss401-450 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 758330 Jan 15 00:09 1989.vol9.iss451-500 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 794183 Jan 14 16:44 1989.vol9.iss501-550 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 856691 Jan 14 16:48 1989.vol9.iss551-603 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 861272 Jan 28 18:03 1990.vol10.iss001-050 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 820574 Feb 14 19:40 1990.vol10.iss051-100 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 842877 Mar 8 02:53 1990.vol10.iss101-150 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 855090 Mar 24 23:47 1990.vol10.iss151-200 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 853551 Apr 13 22:57 1990.vol10.iss201-250 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 953 Jan 31 23:56 READ.ME.FIRST -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 21264 Apr 14 16:00 area.code.script.new -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 8147 Aug 1 1989 areacode.program.in.c -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 474 Feb 11 10:49 att.service.outage.1-90 -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 18937 Aug 1 1989 auto.coin.collection -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 15141 Aug 1 1989 cellular.sieve -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 16292 Mar 18 21:48 class.ss7.features -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 13343 Feb 25 23:01 computer.fraud.abuse.act -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 23944 Aug 1 1989 computer.state -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 9150 Jan 31 23:12 country.code.list -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 11370 Feb 9 06:03 country.codes.revised -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 11267 Feb 25 01:46 cpid-ani.developments -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 436 Feb 23 02:50 deaf.communicate.on.tdd -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 39319 Aug 1 1989 docket.87-215 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 3422 Jan 20 19:52 early.digital.ESS -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 62602 Aug 1 1989 ecpa.1986 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 8504 Jan 27 18:47 enterprise-funny-numbers -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 33239 Aug 1 1989 fcc.policy -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 19378 Aug 1 1989 fcc.threat -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 484 Jan 14 17:02 fcc.vrs.aos-ruling -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 9052 Aug 1 1989 find.pair -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 47203 Aug 1 1989 fire.in.chgo.5-88 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 1998 Jan 27 18:25 fire.in.st-louis.1-90 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 377 Jan 27 18:40 fires.elsewhere.in.past -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 1247 Feb 10 22:32 first.issue.cover -rw-rw-r-- 1 map telecom 45459 Feb 5 14:24 glossary.acronyms -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 67113 Jan 14 16:56 glossary.txt -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 32645 Aug 1 1989 guide.to.areacodes -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 68804 Feb 2 00:03 hi.perf.computing.net -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 2337 Jan 27 19:00 history.of.digest -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 32625 Mar 29 20:02 how.numbers.are.assigned -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 0 Apr 22 12:49 index.to.archives -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 30751 Mar 7 20:33 jolnet-attctc.crackers -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 43365 Jan 28 17:59 kevin.poulsen.comp.crimes -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 4816 Aug 1 1989 lauren.song -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 801 Aug 1 1989 ldisc.txt -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 2271 Aug 1 1989 ldnotes.txt -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 13675 Aug 1 1989 ldrates.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 35612 Apr 1 21:30 legion.of.doom -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 12260 Jan 20 00:43 london.ac.script -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 12069 Mar 5 00:02 london.codes.script -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 15604 Aug 1 1989 mass.lines -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 463 Aug 1 1989 measured-service drwxr-xr-x 2 ptownson telecom 512 Apr 22 11:04 minitel.info/ -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 36641 Aug 1 1989 mnp.protocol -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 2450 Jan 20 19:47 modems.and.call-waiting -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 7597 Feb 10 22:30 named.exchanges -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 3014 Jan 27 18:56 newuser.letter -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 32815 Mar 25 20:47 nine.hundred.service drwxr-xr-x 2 ptownson telecom 1024 Apr 14 16:10 npa.exchange.list-canada/ -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 16534 Feb 11 23:44 nsa.original.charter-1952 -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 9886 Jan 23 23:37 occ.10xxx.access.codes -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 8350 Jan 28 10:57 occ.10xxx.notes.updates -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 8504 Jan 27 18:43 old.fashioned.coinphones -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 2756 Jan 27 18:52 old.hello.msg drwxrwxr-x 2 jsol telecom 512 Jan 27 17:50 oldarc/ -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 70153 Aug 1 1989 pc.pursuit -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 5492 Aug 1 1989 pearl.harbor.phones -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 42188 Jan 14 16:58 phrack.acronyms -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 38772 Aug 1 1989 pizza.auto.nmbr.id -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 17950 Jan 14 16:51 rotenberg.privacy.speech -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 9764 Jan 20 19:50 starline.features -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 46738 Jan 18 22:29 starlink.vrs.pcp -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 39610 Apr 22 11:09 under.construction -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 3857 Aug 1 1989 tat-8.fiber.optic -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 27533 Feb 9 05:55 telco.name.list.formatted -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 31487 Jan 28 18:11 telco.name.listing -rw-rw-rw- 1 ptownson telecom 476526 Apr 22 12:15 telecom-recent -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 11752 Aug 1 1989 telstar.txt -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 298 Aug 1 1989 west.german.cellular -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 37947 Aug 1 1989 wire-it-yourself -rw-rw-r-- 1 telecom telecom 4101 Aug 1 1989 wiring.diagram -rw-r--r-- 1 ptownson telecom 24541 Aug 1 1989 zum.debate Enjoy your visit to the Archives! Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Review: San Francisco Celluar Service Date: 22 Apr 90 10:23:12 PDT (Sun) From: John Higdon On Apr 22 at 8:50, TELECOM Moderator writes: > [Moderator's Note: Interesting that you mention the 'dead silence' > when trying to ascertain the location of the prefix. Here in Chicago, > no one yet has been able to tell me which CO serves 312-415, a prefix > used by Ameritech Mobile. I'd like to know, for example, if it is in > my local (from home) calling area, or where it is. Even Ameritech > can't tell me. The best they can say is that it is 'in the Washington > tandem'. My Illinois Bell service rep doesn't know the answer either. PT] Are you rip roaring sure that a CO is involved? Back when GTE Mobilnet began as the first provider in the Bay Area (and of course I immediately signed up) my prefix was 408/234. When you dialed this number from landline, you heard the connection into the terminating office, then another ka-chunk which was the end-of-signaling into the DID trunk. At that point you would hear the tick-tick-tick of the Motorola EMX. I found out, with the greatest of ease that the terminating office for 408/234 was Santa Clara AXminster. Then a strange thing happened. Shortly after the appearance of Cellular One (Bay Area Cellular, J.C.), the "DID sounds" went away. The tick-tick-tick sound appeared immediately out of silence when you dialed 408/234-XXXX. What happened? 408/234 is no longer served out of any switching at Santa Clara AXminster. Both cellular providers have direct tandem connections, as if they were local terminating offices. If you try to determine the CO for a particular cellular exchange now you get the same informational void described by Mr. Townson. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 14:53:39 EDT From: Seshashayee Murthy Reply-To: murthy@ibm.com Subject: NYNEX Not Forwarding Calls to ATT Correctly. We have had problems with international calls ever since we moved into out new house in September 1987. (914-736-xxxx) 1. For a few months, we would get a message saying that we needed a password or that we could not dial international calls from this telephone. (can't exactly remember which) After repeated calls to NYNEX and ATT this problem went away. 2. About a year back, we started having problems with ATT operators saying that they could not give us credit for international calls to India because we were not ATT customers. After a while an operator told us that the way to resolve this was to ask the operator to call us back and give us credit. This was a hassle but it worked. ATT operators have become extremely friendly and courteous in the last year or so, so it was still bearable. 3. After putting up with this for a few months, I called NYNEX. They said that they had checked and everything was fine. Calls were being handed to ATT correctly. After they finished checking, I never had a problem getting credit. However a brand new problem arose. I could not dial a number in Bangalore India, 011-91-812-xxxxxx. I would get a message, "Your call cannot be completed as dialled. Please check the number and dial again. 914-1T" This used to drive me nuts. I knew the number. It was correct. I had to call the ATT operator and explain the problem. The operator would dial for me and of course I would get through. Of course this was a gigantic hassle; yet it was bearable because the ATT operators were always nice and courteous. I finally called the ATT business office, on 4/17. The supervisor, was very nice and called ATT long lines repair. After trying unsuccessfully to fix the problem for two days, they called NYNEX. Of course it was NYNEX's fault. They were not forwarding my calls correctly. They claim to have fixed things now. I would like to know two things: 1. What sort of mixup in forwarding calls could result in such peculiar behavior. I could dial the UK, Hong Kong, and parts of India, but not this number in Bangalore. All calls within the US were handled correctly. 2. I would like to get NYNEX to refund part of my telephone bill. After all they were not providing the services I contracted for. Do I have a case. Should I pursue this with the PUC? Sesh Murthy ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #276 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa17225; 23 Apr 90 8:48 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa25206; 23 Apr 90 7:03 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa10820; 23 Apr 90 6:00 CDT Date: Mon, 23 Apr 90 5:34:50 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #277 BCC: Message-ID: <9004230534.ab00611@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 23 Apr 90 05:33:55 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 277 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Rural America Speaks! (Of Telecom, that is...) [John Higdon] Re: Local Subsidies for LD Carriers [Paul S. R. Chisholm] Re: NYNEX Not Forwarding Calls to ATT Correctly [John Higdon] Re: Credit Card ID [Fubar] Re: Request For Switch Manufacturers [Macy Hallock] Re: Receiving German Teletext Into a PC [Ash Nallawalla] Re: Infinity Transmitters, Larry Lippman and the BIG LIE [Mark Harris] The Great Debate [Mark C. Lowe] Panasonic KXT-3900 Problem [Ken Jongsma] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Rural America Speaks! (Of Telecom, that is...) Date: 22 Apr 90 17:26:05 PDT (Sun) From: John Higdon "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> writes: > ..Answering the last question first, there's still not enough cable > along many of these rural roads to provide private line service to > everyone. Also, many incomes in areas like this fall well below > poverty levels, and discounted party line rates are all that can be > charged. To the northeast of Victorville, CA (southern California's High Desert), is a little widespot in the minimally-maintained two-lane highway called Helendale. This little burg grew from a population of about 10 to many hundreds of people when someone decided to build a retirement community. There is a community center surrounded by many homes. This residential hideaway is located over twenty miles from Victorville, with nothing in between but sand and Joshua trees. In the old days, there were party lines radiating out from Victorville for the surrounding areas, one of which went to Helendale. Now there are so many upstart residential enclaves surrounding Victorville that the party lines have long since been scrapped. Contel solved the problem by installing remote COs as an adjunct to its existing DMS plant in the center of town. In the case of Helendale, there is a small cinderblock building, about the size of a tool shed, that provides private line service to each of Helendale's residents. Prefixes are, of course, Victorville. So, over the same inadequate wire plant that used to (poorly) serve a number of party line subscribers, Contel is serving many, many times the former number of subscribers and is giving each a genuine private line. Ah, the magic of digital technology! On Apr 22 at 13:56, TELECOM Moderator writes: > [Moderator's Note: Yes indeed I do remember three-slot coin phones > [...] > and the *wooden* phone booth [that] had a door on the front with a glass > window in it, a little seat inside it, and an overhead incadesent > light which went on or off when the door was opened or closed, like a > refrigerator light. You forgot about the omni-present exhaust fan which also came on when you closed the door. In addition to making conversation difficult in those selected booths that had an especially noisy one, more than one classic movie had the major crime solved because someone could identify the unique noise of a particular fan located in a particular booth somewhere that was critical to the crime. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: "Paul S. R. Chisholm" Subject: Re: Local Subsidies for LD Carriers Date: 23 Apr 90 04:53:46 GMT Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In article <6590@accuvax.nwu.edu>, eli@pws.bull.com (Steve Elias) writes that he's passing along information from a U.S. Sprint employee. > Although it is true that AT&T did heavily subsidize the local telcos > before divestiture, it is absolutely incorrect to say that MCI and > Sprint did not have to "bake" these subsidies into our rate > structures. All LD carriers, including Sprint and MCI are charged by > the telcos for the originating and terminating portions of every > single long distance call. It has always been this way and remains so > today. True, as far as it goes. Let's go a little further. AT&T's predivesture rates, local (for the regional Bell operating companies) and long distance, were tariffed with the intent that long distance calls would be expensive and local calls would be cheap, relative to the cost of providing the respective services. Consumers would have a low rate for the "necessary" local calls, and a high rate for the "luxury" long distance calls. If you wanted to communicate with someone on the other side of the country, you could phone 'em if you could afford it, and write 'em (with a ten cent stamp; ah, those were the days:-) if you couldn't. For a while after divestiture, AT&T's long distance rates were *not* allowed to fall as quickly as their lowered costs (by not providing local access) would have allowed. Yes, the tariffs had the same built-in access charges that other long distance providers were paying; but they also had some pre-divestiture bias about how high they should be. As a result, AT&T had real problems competing on price. This has changed somewhat in the past few years. Disclaimer: I write e-mail software for AT&T; when it comes to long distance services, I'm only a customer. I'm *not* a spokesperson! Paul S. R. Chisholm, AT&T Bell Laboratories att!pegasus!psrc, psrc@pegasus.att.com, AT&T Mail !psrchisholm (Pat, has any AT&T employee ever had articles distributed anonymously?) [Moderator's Note: I don't think there has ever been a case, during my tenure at the Digest, of an AT&T employee making an anonymous posting here. I have mentioned to Steve Elias that there is really no reason for the Sprint employee to post in this manner, and that it is against our editorial policy for it to occur on a regular basis. He quoted to me the Sprint employee's concern about being identified for some reason. Take that for whatever it is worth. PT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: NYNEX Not Forwarding Calls to ATT Correctly Date: 22 Apr 90 23:14:36 PDT (Sun) From: John Higdon Seshashayee Murthy writes: > 1. What sort of mixup in forwarding calls could result in such > peculiar behavior. I could dial the UK, Hong Kong, and parts of > India, but not this number in Bangalore. All calls within the US were > handled correctly. Since your local (NYNEX) office has to store all the digits you dial and then translate them to meaningful stuff for the carrier (AT&T) opportunities for screwup do exist. Back in the old days, the local CO had to bring up a "sender" (point of exit from the US), wait for tone, then redial your international call removing or adding digits here and there for routing purposes. This may all be different now and is probably much simpler, but the bottom line is that it is entirely possible for NYNEX to have screwed up the calls to a specific area. > 2. I would like to get NYNEX to refund part of my telephone bill. > After all they were not providing the services I contracted for. Do I > have a case. Should I pursue this with the PUC? Don't bother. You got your calls through ultimately, and there is no specific amount of your bill that you pay that allows you to dial international calls directly. The only time you might pursue a refund would be for a total service outage that lasts in excess of twenty-four hours. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Apr 90 02:41:16 -0700 From: Fubar Subject: Re: Credit Card ID malcolm@apple.com said: >I've found an easier solution is to just put down the number for my >modem. It is amazing how many times I've found a use for a phone >number that is sometimes busy but never answers :-). I, too, do this often. I also have another use for the modem line: on those reader information cards in the back of magazines. On occasion they ask for your phone number. After I received a number of calls from salesmen who assumed that since I owned a company I would like to buy 6000 of their product (in reality, I produce shareware, and have never bought anything in quantities over 3... no big sale for them here), I took to putting the modem line down. Now, if when they hear the nice carrier, they decide to call back and connect, they are plenty welcome to leave a message for me on my BBS :-) Sig: ++Christopher(); | Fubar Systems BBS Internet: cambler@polyslo.calpoly.edu | (805) 544-9234 3/12/24 8-N-1 Also: chris@fubarsys.slo.ca.us | finger cambler@polyslo.calpoly.edu Bix: cambler | Home of the 13K .plan (and growing) ------------------------------ From: fmsystm!macy@cwjcc.ins.cwru.edu Date: Sun Apr 22 17:49:15 1990 Subject: Re: Request For Switch Manufacturers Organization: F M Systems, Inc. Medina, Ohio USA +1 216 723-3000 In article <6620@accuvax.nwu.edu> WA5TGF writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 268, Message 9 of 14 >I would like a list of switch manufacturers with call processing >capability. The switch can be either analog or digital. I am >particularly interested in low-end machines (read cheap). I don't know how to answer this questions. By "Call Processing" do you mean the ability to process local calls? I rather suspect you are looking for a specfic feature but have not used industry standard (?) terms and you have failed to give any details of your requirements. This is a good place to a question such as yours, and many will help, but give us some details, please. Boy, these hams...if it doesn't have an antenna, they don't know how to talk about it ;-) (See you in Dayton, guys!) Macy M. Hallock, Jr. macy@ncoast.org uunet!aablue!fmsystm!macy F M Systems, Inc. {uunet|backbone}!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ncoast!fmsystm!macy 150 Highland Drive Voice: +1 216 723-3000 Ext 251 Fax: +1 216 723-3223 Medina, Ohio 44256 USA Cleveland:273-3000 Akron:239-4994 (Dial 251 at tone) (Please note that our system name is "fmsystm" with no "e", .NOT. "fmsystem") ------------------------------ From: ash@mlacus.oz (Ash Nallawalla) Subject: Re: Receiving German Teletext Into a PC Date: 22 Apr 90 09:25:50 GMT Organization: Australian Centre for Unisys Software, Melbourne In article <6563@accuvax.nwu.edu>, jcp@cgch.uucp (Joseph C. Pistritto) writes: > Does anyone know of an interface device to pick off the Teletext > signals that are sent over most European television channels and input > them to a PC? I have a decoder in my television, but I thought it > would be neat to store the teletext info on my PC for searching, etc. I know of two devices but have no personal experience of them: 1. OPT-II teletext card from Optimum Technology Ltd London number 01-446-2223 (That 01 might now be a new prefix - see this newsgroup for that prefix). Cost Pounds Stg 195 +VAT. Reviewed in Connectivity, April 1990 the magazine of the UK IBM PC Users Group. Send mail to alanj@ibmpcug.co.uk or ring UK 081-863-1191 to get a copy of the magazine. 2. Do it yourself approach - Kit costing NZ$400 from New Zealand radio amateur ZL3AAI Gordon Grey. Can dig out address. Circuits and descriptions are being published in a series in the magazine Break-In, and still continuing I think. I suspect that the UK ready-made approach will be cheaper unless you have access to parts and like building your own. The NZ project is strictly roll your own, as I see no offer by the offer to supply a kit in the April 1990 issue, although he must be able to offer the EPROMs. The software is available for Epson QX-10, IBM-PC and Commodore 64. Ash Nallawalla Tel: +61 3 823-1959 Fax: +61 3 820-1434 ZL4LM/VK3CIT Postal: P.O. Box 539, Werribee VIC 3030, Australia. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Infinity Transmitters, Larry Lippman and the BIG LIE From: Mark Harris Date: Mon, 13 Apr 90 00:00:00 EDT Organization: Omhftre BBS telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes about being speechless after reading Mr. DeArmond's rebuttal: Whew! You're not the only one left speechless. Mark Harris ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 05:28 CDT From: MCL9337@tamvenus.bitnet Subject: The Great Debate I hate to say this, but my respect level for Larry dropped several degrees after all this. I believe him to be the senior of the two parties, and I think he could have handled this in a better way than to immediately put the other party on the defensive, thus causing the all-too-familiar flame war that we are all so sick of. After spending several years on BBSs and putting up with this kind of thing, imagine my sorrow when I still have to tolerate such activity on a professional telecom list! Larry, if you have need to doubt someone's story in the future, just ask a few pointed questions of the individual and inform them of the aspects with which you find fault. No name-calling or outright discrediting of the person's claims without really knowing for sure will serve to put you on more credible grounds! I don't think anyone would make up a story like that. What has he to gain from such a thing? I think most people on this list have experimented with "devices" of one sort or another over the years. I doubt that he was trying to impress anyone as most people read the article and forget about it when they read the next one. Also, I think you cloud the issue more than help your point when you name several brands of equipment that he MAY be talking about, because you can't be sure. Why waste the space talking about equipment that probably wasn't involved? Someone mentioned this point before. We know you are familiar with a lot of equipment, and this just looks like bragging on your part when you mention five model numbers every time a class of equipment is mentioned. I am about to graduate from the Engineering Technology Telecommunications program at Texas A&M. I hope to work with someone that knows there stuff like you do. But I hope they will listen with an open and patient mind, too! How about putting this war to rest and sticking to your nice informative articles? Mark C. Lowe Texas A&M University MCL9337@TAMVENUS.BITNET Engineering Technology Dept. Telecommunications specialty Best in the land. ------------------------------ Subject: Panasonic KXT-3900 Problem Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 16:20:31 EDT From: Ken Jongsma Help! Based on the glowing reports about the Panasonic KXT-3900 cordless phone from several Digest readers, I went and purchased one today. I'm having some difficulty with it. When it is set to dial in Tone Mode, the "2" will not break dialtone when dialed from the remote. The base works fine as do all the other digits from the remote. The tones sound ok to me, but I called Sprint Customer Service and asked them to check. The rep had me push all the buttons and said they all registered correctly, though she did hear a slight "beep" just prior to hearing the actual tone. I assume that was the handset talking to the base. A related problem: This is the second unit I've tried. The first unit would not break dialtone from the base with the 2 digit. The current unit did the same *until I unplugged the little answering machine override "y" jack I had on that line.* (The jack prevents the phone from grabbing the line when my modem is on it.) How would that jack be interfering with the audio signal? By the way: All the other TouchTone phones in the house work fine. With or without the "y" jack. My wife is not impressed with my telecom abilities! Any help would be appreciated. Ken ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #277 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa02097; 24 Apr 90 3:53 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa10986; 24 Apr 90 2:14 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa25871; 24 Apr 90 1:08 CDT Date: Tue, 24 Apr 90 0:42:30 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #278 BCC: Message-ID: <9004240042.ab29725@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 24 Apr 90 00:42:16 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 278 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Checking the Serial Number on Cellular Phones [Jeff Wasilko] Re: Checking the Serial Number on Cellular Phones [Kelly Goen] Re: Checking the Serial Number on Cellular Phones [Irving Wolfe] RoamingAmerica Description [Jeff Wasilko] Information on Cellular Phones [Marcel D. Mongeon] Re: Panasonic Answering Machines and CPC [Ken Thompson] Re: Panasonic KXT-3900 Problem [John Higdon] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jeff Wasilko Date: Tue, 24 Apr 90 00:24:19 EDT Subject: Re: Checking the Serial Number on Cellular Phones Patrick mentioned that certain telephone numbers at Cellular One in Chicago are set not to check the ESN. Then Terry Mason added that on their switch, if the expected ESN is '00000000' the system doesn't check it against the actual serial number. I just thought I'd throw in my two cents about our setup here in the Empire Area (Buffalo, Rochester, Albany). If the ESN is not entered when the subscriber is activated (or it is cleared out), the ESN from the next call will be entered into the database, and all future calls will be checked against that ESN. If the ESN's don't match, the call will fail. This is convenient for conversions (when a customer switches from one carrier to another) since the customer usually doesn't know the ESN, and the dealers, well, they're just dealers... (-: I'm trying to get together some information on the PRV (the roamer validation system used by the majority of the non-wireline systems), so I'll try to write up something in the near future. | RIT VAX/VMS Systems: | Jeff Wasilko | RIT Ultrix Systems: | |BITNET: jjw7384@ritvax+----------------------+INET:jjw7384@ultb.isc.rit.edu| |UUCP: {psuvax1, mcvax}!ritvax.bitnet!JJW7384 +___UUCP:jjw7384@ultb.UUCP____+ |INTERNET: jjw7384@isc.rit.edu |'claimer: No one cares. | [Moderator's Note: And in fact, Jeff wrote up his research, and it is included later in this issue. PT] ------------------------------ From: Kelly Goen Subject: Re: Checking the Serial Number on Cellular Phones Date: 23 Apr 90 18:00:56 GMT Reply-To: Kelly Goen Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA OOPS... guess I won't be publishing those sequences Patrick:) ... I didn't realize that they had indeed left so many open holes. Cheers, Kelly [Moderator's Note: As you know, I was never really in favor of publishing the actual sequences anyway; it just seems too risky to me in view of the large number of people who look for ways to make trouble for Usenet these days. We can talk theory without getting too specific. PT] ------------------------------ Date: 21 Apr 90 20:10:17 PDT (Sat) From: Irving Wolfe Subject: Re: Checking the Serial Number on Cellular Phones Organization: SOLID VALUE, the investment letter for Benj. Graham's intelligent investors You obviously guessed the reason, convenience. In a sense, this is quite a security risk but not really, since although the value of a minute on the air may be high, the cost to provide it incrementally is about zero. Thus if a service thief got free time, it was time that not only cost the company nothing, but also would not have been sold otherwise (since the crook would not have made the call without it being free) hence no revenues were lost. Of course, this is only true if the practice remains rare. It is too long since I had a loaner unit for me to remember any of the numbers, so I can't do any testing for you in this region. However, some of the company-owned loaners, I remember, officially belonged to some employee or other and incoming calls would (if not answered) go to that employee's voice mailbox. Irving Wolfe irv@happym.wa.com 206/463-9399 ext.101 Happy Man Corp. 4410 SW Pt. Robinson Road, Vashon Island, WA 98070-7399 SOLID VALUE, the investment letter for Benj. Graham's intelligent investors ------------------------------ From: Jeff Wasilko Date: Tue, 24 Apr 90 00:27:57 EDT Subject: RoamingAmerica Description Here is a description of RoamingAmerica, the nationwide roaming system that is used by the majority of the non-wireline carriers. ................ APPEX Corporation's RoamingAmerica System has been operating successfully in over ten cities for several months. The carriers operating in these markets have been offering RoamingAmerica to their entire subscriber base. More than a dozen markets are scheduled to receive RoamingAmerica service in the next couple of months. {The number of participating cites is much higher now.} RoamingAmerica provides both Transparent Call Forwarding (TCF) and Caller Notification services. Transparent Call Forwarding enables a subscriber to receive incoming calls while roaming in a foreign area by conditionally transferring these calls from the subscriber's home switch to the serving Cellular Geographic Service Area (CGSA). Caller Notification allows a roamer to have the incoming call conditionally transferred to a voice announcement on the home switch. The announcement tells the calling party what city the roamer is in and provides instructions (including long distance phone number for the foreign switch's roamer access port) for calling the roamer on the foreign system. RoamingAmerica provides several methods by which subscribers can activate RoamingAmerica services. Carriers can elect to have their subscribers activate the system by placing a call from a foreign market. Alternatively, carriers can elect to have subscribers explicitly activate and deactivate the system by dialing 'star' codes. It is even possible to combine these methods so that a subscriber is activated by placing a call, and yet can explicitly deactivate or change service by dialing a star code. RoamingAmerica is very flexible in this respect,a dn can be easily customized to fit a carrier's specific needs. The start codes that RoamingAmerica uses are: *31: Activate TCF *310: Deactivate TCF *32: Activate CN *320: Deactivate CN *300: Deactivate All RoamingAmerica Service To implement the above features, RoamingAmerica uses the stream of call set-up data from the PRV port {PRV stands for Positive Roamer Verification, the system that the majority of the non-wireline carriers use for subscriber validation.} on the serving cellular switch to initiate the automatic roamer registration and activate the roamer's call transfer. On switches that provide the dialed digits as part of this information, the star codes can be detected in this manner. For switches that do not provide the dialed digits to the PRV system, APPEX has developed the APPEX Voice Response System (AVRS), which enables explicit activation and deactivation of RoamingAmerica services. The AVRS also provides the voice storage and retrieval system for caller notification. When RoamingAmerica detects that a subscriber is requesting activation of RoamingAmerica service, the system checks the NPA/NXX of the roamer's phone to identify the roamer's home switch. It determines if the home system is a RoamingAmerica participant, and if the home system's subscribers are to receive RoamingAmerica service in this particular foreign market. Last of all, it determines what type of service the subscriber has chosen to receive. In parallel with the above activity, APPEX's PRV system performs a check of the APPEX National Negative file and performs a positive validation check on the subscriber. If the subscriber has not been validated on the switch within 24 hours, an inquiry is performed on the home switch to verify that he is active and has good credit. In addition, PRV performs a MIN/ESN mismatch check to detect fraudulent cellular phones. If any of these validation procedures fail, the subscriber's RoamingAmerica service is immediately aborted and deactivated. Meanwhile, if the subscriber has chosen to activate transparent call forwarding, RoamingAmerica sends a message to the serving switch directing it to assign a temporary number to the roamer and insert this number into the the serving switch's database. The temporary number is assigned from a block of temporary numbers that have been reserved on the switch to serve roamers. When RoamingAmerica receives confirmation that the serving switch has assigned the temporary number to the roamer, it sends a command to the roamer's home switch directing it to deactivate any existing call forwarding and to establish a conditional call forwarding {forward on no-answer/busy} to the temporary number assigned by the foreign switch. If the subscriber has chosen to activate caller notification, RoamingAmerica sends a message to the home switch directing it to conditionally transfer the subscriber to a contrived phone number that consists of two parts: the routing prefix and the switch code identifier. The routing code is common to all numbers used in caller notification, whereas the switch code varies depending on the foreign market in which the subscriber is currently located. When an incoming call is received, it is transferred to this number. The routing prefix directs the switch to route this call to the trunk group that connects the switch to the AVRS, and outpulse the switch code identifier portion of the number. The switch code identifier tells the AVRS which message to play back to the calling party. If a subscriber does not explicitly deactivate the system as described above, RoamingAmerica will deactivate his service X hours after his most recent call was placed form the foreign market. This time span is referred to as the cancellation time, and can be set on a per carrier basis. When a roamer registers successfully on RoamingAmerica in a particular serving system, he stays registered and continues to receive incoming calls that are forwarded to his temporary number until one of the following events occur: 1. The roamer fails to place a call at least once during the cancellation time interval. 2. The RoamingAmerica operations staff manually deactivates the roamer. 3. The roamer dials one of the deactivation codes in any system. Deactivation will only occur from his home system if the home system provides an AVRS system. 4. The roamer goes to another foreign system and places a call, thereby registering in the new foreign system (and terminating his registration in the previous foreign system), or 5. The roamer fails any PRV validation check on any roamer call he places while active on RoamingAmerica. Whenever RoamingAmerica is deactivated, the subscriber's originally call forwarding and call transfer settings are retrieved from the system's internal database, and restored on the home switch. RoamingAmerica consists of application software that runs in a VAX/VMS environment and uses the existing APPEX national network {packet-switched, I believe} for communicating to switches across the country. ........... | RIT VAX/VMS Systems: | Jeff Wasilko | RIT Ultrix Systems: | |BITNET: jjw7384@ritvax+----------------------+INET:jjw7384@ultb.isc.rit.edu| |UUCP: {psuvax1, mcvax}!ritvax.bitnet!JJW7384 +___UUCP:jjw7384@ultb.UUCP____+ |INTERNET: jjw7384@isc.rit.edu |'claimer: No one cares. | ------------------------------ From: root@joymrmn.UUCP (Marcel D. Mongeon) Subject: Information on Cellular Telephones Date: 24 Apr 90 04:42:47 GMT Organization: The Joymarmon Group Inc. Two books relating to Cellular 'phone service that I have found to be most interesting are: "Mobile Cellular Telecommunications Systems" by William C.Y. Lee. McGraw-Hill 1989 ISBN 0-07-037030-3 (Dreadfully expensive > Can$75) This is an excellent book detailing more than you would ever want to know about Cellular Phone Systems. The book, at times, gets heavilly into the engineering details but is very useful if you have an "Inquiring Mind" that want's to know! The only drawback is the book's price. "The Cellular Telephone Directory" Communications Publishing Service (206-232-3464 US$14) ISBN 0-945592-02-7 Although there are plenty of directories that are available that catalogue (or at least attempt to catalogue) all the different cell systems in North America, this one includes maps with coverage areas indicated. Obviously, such information is constantly subject to change, but for a general idea of what's out there, it is a useful addition to one's cellular library. ||| Marcel D. Mongeon ||| e-mail: ... (uunet, maccs)!joymrmn!root or ||| joymrmn!marcelm ------------------------------ From: Ken Thompson Subject: Re: Panasonic Answering Machines and CPC Date: 23 Apr 90 14:46:39 GMT Reply-To: Ken Thompson Organization: NCR Corporation, Wichita, KS Ever since I moved within my exchange neither of the CPC settings works on my Panasonic machine. The phone pair to my house comes from an underground vault that is tied to the CO by fiber. For a year I had problems with noise and hearing other conversations (only at my end). ATT's new technology is not what it used to be. Ken Thompson N0ITL NCR Corp. 3718 N. Rock Road Wichita,Ks. 67226 (316)636-8783 Ken.Thompson@wichita.ncr.com ------------------------------ Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Panasonic KXT-3900 Problem Date: 23 Apr 90 11:13:41 PDT (Mon) From: John Higdon Ken Jongsma writes: > Help! Based on the glowing reports about the Panasonic KXT-3900 > [...] > When it is set to dial in Tone Mode, the "2" will not break dialtone > when dialed from the remote. The base works fine as do all the other > digits from the remote. The tones sound ok to me, but I called Sprint > Customer Service and asked them to check. The rep had me push all the > buttons and said they all registered correctly, though she did hear a > slight "beep" just prior to hearing the actual tone. I assume that was > the handset talking to the base. I own two of those phones, and both have never given me any trouble whatsoever. Except for the time I dropped one and its battery popped out causing it to forget its security code. After reprogramming, it worked fine. Anyway, it has been my experience that a "2" is a troublesome digit and seems to be most suceptible to distortion and something called "twist". Although it is not common, it is possible for a phone line to have anomolies in its frequency response that cause one of the two tones that make up a DTMF digit to appear at the receiver lower than the other. Depending on the amount of the discrepancy, this can cause the receiver to ignore the digit entirely. The KX-T3900 will sound a digit continuously; have you tried holding down the button to break dial tone? BTW, the little beep preceding each digit is normal. The fact that other phones don't have this problem can be due to many factors, such as overall DTMF transmit level, balance, etc. > A related problem: This is the second unit I've tried. The first unit > would not break dialtone from the base with the 2 digit. The current > unit did the same *until I unplugged the little answering machine > override "y" jack I had on that line.* (The jack prevents the phone > from grabbing the line when my modem is on it.) How would that jack be > interfering with the audio signal? By simply causing that frequency response problem that I mentioned above. If you hadn't discovered the problem for yourself, my next suggestion would have been to remove everything else connected to the line, and then add things one at a time until the culprit was located. An extreme measure if all else had failed would have been to contact your telco and have them sweep your line -- even POTS lines have certain standards they have to me