Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa09842; 14 Mar 91 1:55 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa19449; 14 Mar 91 0:28 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab21102; 13 Mar 91 23:24 CST Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 23:13:43 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #201 BCC: Message-ID: <9103132313.ab02044@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 13 Mar 91 23:13:39 CST Volume 11 : Issue 201 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Secret Service Foils Cellular Phone Fraud [New York Newsday via A. Baheti] New Zealand Telecom News [Pat Cain] User's Evaluation of Handheld Cellular: Fujitsu vs. Motorola [B. Berbenich] Still More COCOT Sleaze [Peter G. Capek] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 21:16 CDT From: Arun Baheti Subject: Secret Service Foils Cellular Phone Fraud [Moderator's Note: Mr. Baheti passed along this article which I am presenting as part of the two part series on cellular fraud. The last issue of the Digest (#200) presented a story by Joe Abernathy. PAT] {New York Newsday}, March 7, 1991, By Joshua Quittner The US Secret Service said one of its agents cracked the code of counterfeit computer chips to block a kind of cellular telephone fraud responsible for an estimated $100 million a year in unbillable long-distance calls. During the past two months, the service has quietly distributed a free software "patch" that blocks unauthorized long-distance calls at cellular telephone switches. The patch is being heralded in New York City, where more phone service is stolen than anywhere else in the country. The first day the patch was put into use in Los Angeles, more than 5,000 illegal cellular calls were blocked, a Secret Service spokesman said yesterday. [...] The counterfeit chip used by phone cheats exploits a weakness in the cellular telephone system that allows a caller's first call to be completed before the billing status is verified ... A legitimate mobile phone has a silicon chip that generates an identification number. When a call is made, that number is relayed to the carrier, along with the caller's phone number, and the two numbers are compared to establish billing. However "depending on where you're roaming and how busy the cellular network across the country is, you can make a phone call before that procedure is completed." [Norman Black, Cellular Telephone Industry Association] To exploit that weakness, underground engineers designed a counterfeit chip that generates a different, phoney identification number on each call, tricking [the cellular telephone exchange] into thinking each call is the first. One illegally rigged phone, confiscated by police in New York City last year, was turned over to the Secret Service, which investigates, among other things, telecommunications fraud. Like a hacker -- a phone computer cheat -- the agent broke into the chip, read the microcode, decoded the algorithm at its core, then wrote a program that would help carriers detect its peculiar pattern. Dave Boll, who heads the Secret Service's Fraud Division in Washington, said that cellular telephones equipped with the counterfeit chips "sell for as much as $5,000 each". And he estimated that such phones are used to make $100 million in unbillable calls each year. [The article goes on, to talk about the call-stealing problem being the worst in NYC and how the unbillable calls tied up the network for the paying customers]. ------------------------------ Subject: New Zealand Telecom News From: Pat Cain Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 23:18:28 NZD Organization: Sideways Bulletin Board, Lower Hutt, New Zealand. This file contains various Telecom news, some of it taken from newspapers and the rest from NZ Telecom propoganda. MONOPOLY ON TOLL SERVICE ENDS - Clear Communications puts through first call COMMUNICATIONS Minister Maurice Williamson made the first telephone call recently to break the Post Office/Telecom monopoly in more than 100 years. The call, to Telecommunications Users Association chairman Terry Ballard in Auckland, used the Clear Communications toll network of fibre-optic cable laid by Railways Corporation beside the main trunk line. Clear is a consortium jointly owned by Railways Corp., Television New Zealand, Todd Corporation, Bell Canada International and MCI Communications of the United States. Clear chief executive George Newton said the toll service would be made available to domestic customers in April without a need for subscribers to change present Telecom arrangements or lay new lines. To use the service, customers will simply dial 050, then the area code required, and then the telephone number. Mr. Newton said the company's toll prices would be less than those offered by Telecom but prices would be kept secret till the last minute. Newton also said Clear had the capability to to offer toll service bills charged in steps of one-tenth of a minute. Telecom's minute step means that a one minute one second call is charged as a two minute call. Snags are Telecom's refusal to share names/addresses of customers it inherited from the post office system with the new entrant. In the meantime this means only people who have registered will be able to use the service. Mr. Williamson said that in recent months he had felt like a marriage guidance counsellor talking Telecom and Clear through the delicate and complex interconnection agreements. He said he was pleased the Government had not been obliged to step in and dictate terms to the two companies, which leaves New Zealand in the unique position of having no court or state-imposed terms of interconnection. The NZ Telecom market is worth $1.2 billion, Clear has already conneced Television New Zealand to the network and George Newton says "We are here to stay". Whether Clear will suceed in their aims remains to be seen. [The above is an edited version of report that appeared in {The Dominion}] REPAIR SERVICE MORE EFFICIENT To quote: "In just 12 months we made these improvements in our Repair Service: * We have reduced the number of faults our customer have had to report by 28%. * We have reduced the number of faults which could not be repaired on the day they were reported by 42%. * We have reduced the average time to make a repair by 40%. (It now takes about 4 business hours, on average, from when you report your problem until it is fixed.) Your satisfaction with our service is vitally important to us and we aim to continually improve on the service we give." Incidentally, Telecom NZ is the biggest spending advertiser in New Zealand. Nightly we are subjected to cutesy animal TV adverts (you know the ones, mummy and daddy animal with lots of babies) telling us that toll calls are so much cheaper than they used to be and how wonderful Telecom is. I think that we're getting fed these adverts so often that we're starting to get addicted to them and wonder what will come next. CHEAPER PHONE OPTION FOR ELDERLY PEOPLE Local calls for residential telephone users are free. Recently NZ Telecom introduced a new option for people over 60 years of age. To quote their leaflet: The first option is the existing payment method, that is the standard line rental of $32.84 (GST included and effective from 1 January 1991) and free local calls. This option will suit elderly customers who make a large number of calls and rely heavily on their phone for social contacts. The second option is the newly released Sixties Plus Phone Option which offers a reduced monthly line rental of $19.69 (GST included) and a local call charge of 11.25cents a minute, or part of a minute (GST included). This option will suit those elderly customers who make very few outgoing calls and usually rely on their phone for necessities such as making a doctor's appointment. The new Sixties Plus Phone Option has been introduced as a result of talks between Telecom, consumer and older people's lobby groups. IT is available to any Telecom customer aged 60 years and over whose phone is listed in their own name at their permanent address. I haven't heard any reaction to this offer, but I guess it sounds reasonable for elderly people who don't call out much. I'm sure that bulletin board sysops would quite like it. Telecom NZ has promised to keep free local calls unless it "unreasonably effects our profits". CALLING CARDS INTRODUCED Calling Cards were recently introduced in NZ. Calls made using the Telecom Calling Card may be charged to either a credit card or the phone account. It will be interesting to see if we have any of the fraud problems that have occured in the States. For those that are interested, the PIN number is four digits, and the calling card number is sixteen digits. As far as I can tell the card number is not related to the users phone number in any way. The card also has an "International Calling Card number" on it, and says that users may need to quote this to overseas operators. I wonder if this means that in the future we will be able to use calling cards in any country with any Telco? The other thing that interested me was the magnetic strip on the back of the card. It is in the same place as a standard credit or bank card. Perhaps this is for future expansion as there doesn't seem to be any use for it so far. The charge for using the card is the usual cost of the call plus NZ$2.04 for national, NZ$4.50 for international, or NZ$9.00 for international person to person call. CELLULAR PAY PHONES INSTALLED ON FERRIES. Telecom cardphones (same model as most British cardphones) have been installed on the NZ Railways Ferries that travel between the North and South Islands in NZ (about a 3 1/2 hour journey). Calls can be made anywhere in the country at a charge of NZ$1/minute ($1.20 for first minute). Telecom: "It provides an interface between the public telephone network and the cellular network, allowing calls to be placed from the ferry to anywhere in the country during its journey between the North and South Islands". Customers place a call in the normal way by inserting a Phonecard into the slot and when the other end answers, pusing the star button. Pat Private Box 2060, Wellington, New Zealand ------------------------------ From: bill Subject: User's Evaluation of Handheld Cellular: Fujitsu vs. Motorola Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 13:12:32 EST Reply-To: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu At the outset, let me say that my evaluation is almost purely subjective and is based upon little-to-no evaluation of the engineering details of the respective units. That having been said, I have recently had an opportunity to use both the relatively new Fujitsu Pocket Commander and the somewhat older Motorola Micro-TAC model in daily activities. I'll attempt to convey my impressions of both units. I'll try to stay away from giving engineering specs, because anyone can get those from a dealer or from the manufacturer. Instead, I'll concentrate on my subjective opinion, having juxtaposed both units during the course of approximatly ten days. Please note that both units were used on the 'A' carrier in Atlanta, Pactel Cellular. My thanks to them for letting me evaluate these units. They're hoping I'll buy one, of course! :-) The jury is still out on that aspect. The general pricing of these units is too high for me yet. Here goes: Size: both units are roughly the same size, yet the Fujitsu is smaller. When I looked at each unit separately, I could not notice a size difference. Each unit has two different batteries, a compact and an extended life, which affect the depth. The units are effectively the same size. Weight: each unit causes a noticeable sag in an inside jacket pocket, no matter which battery is attached. I did not have any sense of fatigue when holding each unit to my head during conversation, though. At 12.3 oz., the Motorola is the heavier of the two by .4 oz. My hand and arm could not discern any weight difference between the two when actually in use, however. Range/reception: there was no significant difference in the performance of the units. I used or attempted to use each in similar or identical settings. I phoned from a cell fringe, from an interior room of a metallic building, in the car, on MARTA (rapid rail system) and on the sidewalk in a high-rise downtown area. I called from our computer room and also from my home. The reception was comparable, given the same conditions. The worst coverage for both was at my home. Lots of trees at home to block the coverage. Engineering flash: trees tend to attenuate cellular freqs. Matter o' fact, Atlanta is filled with trees! Cell siting is the key here, though, not so much the phone one would use. Charge life/recharge time: Charge life seemed to be similar here - bear in mind that this is purely subjective in my case. Recharge time? I didn't make a meaningful comparison here. I'd just pop them into the charger at night and pull them out on the way to work. Each got a full workday in, given the applicable mix of talk and standby time. The batteries would have to go into the stand first thing when I got home, though. Features/price: These are individual considerations, each unit has its stregths and trade-offs but they are definitely in the same class. The Pocket Commander seems to have the better price (for the time being), but Motorola has a few models in the DPC line (to which the Micro-TAC has evolved, I presume) which will/do offer competitive pricing with the Fujitsu. Miscellaneous impressions: I liked the buttons and keys of the Motorola much more. The Motorola uses a one-piece sealed keypad which I like a lot. The Fujitsu uses tactile keys ("they click"), but the keys don't seem to be sealed against the elements (they may be sealed under the faceplate - I don't know either way for sure). The microphone for the Motorola is on the fold-out/flip-down piece and seems susceptible to "hissing" when pronouncing the letter 's' sound - just a matter of holding the unit at the proper orientation, I suspect. The mic for the Fujitsi is not on the flip-down piece, but rather it is in the vicinity of the hinge. The sound quality on each is acceptable in my opinion. The Motorola seems more "substantial" to me - very subjective. The Motorola is American-made. I don't know where the Fujitsu is made. Well, that's all that I can think of. Please bear in mind that I have not evaluated these units from an engineering view, but from that of a user. They are very comparable, but my opinions lean toward the Motorola. Bear in mind that the Motorola only allows keyboard programming of the NAM to be done three times before it must be sent to a Motorola service center to be reset - if you use multiple cellular accounts then this is a serious liability. It is a quirk that I'd recommend that Motorola remove. Anyone know why they do this? The Fujitsu did not have such a restriction as far as I could tell. Conclusion? On the basis of my unscientific "tests," I would recommend either unit. It seems to come down to a user's preference for certain features. There is not enough room to delineate the features here, but it's easy enough to call a Motorola or Fujitsu rep and ask them for a sales brochure. If anyone has a specific question about my impressions as a user, please send me e-mail. Engineering questions should be directed toward the respective manufacturers, however. After all, it is their equipment. Hope this has been of use to some of you. Bill Berbenich Georgia Tech, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{backbones}!gatech!eedsp!bill Internet: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 18:28:56 EST From: "Peter G. Capek" Subject: Still More COCOT Sleaze In late January, I was visiting Washington, DC. I was forced to use a COCT in the basement of the hotel at which I was staying, and had an bizarre experience which I had intended to write about here, but never got around to. It is that I was unable to use 10288 to use AT&T, but, when I dialed 0, expecting to get either AOS/COCOT operator, after a LOT of delay and clicking, I got an operator who identified himself as being "AT&T". That seemed strange, but I accepted it. I billed the call to my AT&T card number. I've just gotten the phone bill for that period and discover the call shown as provided by an AOS ($6+ for five minutes, less than fifty miles) and NOT by AT&T. I wish I had written down at the time exactly what happened when I made the call, but the appearance is that of the AOS identifying itself as AT&T. Has anyone else experienced this? Peter Capek ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #201 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa12279; 14 Mar 91 3:58 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa25677; 14 Mar 91 2:33 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa27781; 14 Mar 91 1:29 CST Date: Thu, 14 Mar 91 0:39:13 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #202 BCC: Message-ID: <9103140039.ab19809@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 14 Mar 91 00:39:01 CST Volume 11 : Issue 202 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Voice Recognition Experiment [Tad Cook] How Sophisticated Are Network Design Tools [Thomas P. Capotosto] AT&T Long Distance Problem [Ole J. Jacobsen] Visiting LA From NY With Cell Phone; What to do? [Lance Ware] Domain Phone Number Service (was: Country/City Code Lists) [Jeff Carroll] Information on OMEGAPHONE III System [Steve Warner] 911 Referendum in Norridge, IL [George Horwath] Caller*ID - Mail Order Decoder Box Wanted [Darrell Broughton] PBS Pledge Drive for March, 1991 [Sean Williams] Call From Kuwait [John Temples] NET & T Sponsors User's Group [Barton F. Bruce] Another Example of the 555 Pseudo-Exchange [Roy Smith] Thank You and FYI [jlangri@relay.nswc.navy.mil] Headsets: What's Good? [jlangri@relay.nswc.navy.mil] SLC-96 Request For Information [Alastair Reynolds] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Voice Recognition Experiment From: tad@ssc.UUCP (Tad Cook) Date: 14 Mar 91 00:00:05 GMT The Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology is building a huge database of voices as part of a project to develop voice recognition for US West directory assistance. They want to be able to classify sounds according to regional differences, and they need thousands of samples of speech to do this. Call 800-441-1037 (I assume this is nationwide ... it may not be) and follow the voice prompts. They will ask your last name, where you are calling from, and where you grew up, and then ask you to pronounce several words and recite the alphabet. It takes about two minutes. Tad Cook Seattle, WA Packet: KT7H @ N7ENT.#WWA.WA.USA.NA Phone: 206/527-4089 MCI Mail: 3288544 Telex: 6503288544 MCIUW USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad or, tad@ssc.UUCP [Moderator's Note: The number works from Chicago, and I gave my specimen yesterday. It does take just a couple minutes, and it was fun. I suggest everyone provide a specimen, and be sure to mention on the tape you read about their efforts in TELECOM Digest! PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 10:55:45 EST From: Thomas P Capotosto Subject: How Sophisticated Are Network Design Tools? Organization: Ethel's Place When the internetworking of LANs goes from simple bridging of a few LANs to a much more ambitious effort of inter-working many types of LANs distributed over wide areas, how do network designers (e.g., network planners, router/LAN/etc. vendors, consultants) cope with the complexity? In other words, how sophisticated are the network design tools being used? Are these elaborate networks still designed by back-of-the-envelope, rule-of-thumb or have sophisticated software-based tools evolved to fill this need? Most of the router/brouter vendors and consulting firms are relatively small outfits - do they develop (or purchase) design tools or are they able to base their designs on experience? How much faith should I put into the network design recommendations of router vendors and consultants, for example? Or with how large of a grain of salt should I take their input? Are design tools commercially available? Thanks, Fred delco@esun.att.com att!esun!delco ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 9:20:58 PST From: "Ole J. Jacobsen" Subject: AT&T Long Distance Problem For the last few days I have been in St. Louis at a meeting, trying to call our DID numbers in California (415) 917-xxxx. I can complete the call via ITI, MCI and some other bogus carrier that the hotel uses (AVN I think it is called), but *not* via AT&T. When I call using AT&T, I get a weird distorted ringing sound, but never any answer. It would appear that AT&T is routing the call somewhere else. I have called AT&T Long Distance Repair, and needless to say they don't believe me, and seem uninterested when I explain that the call can be completed on other carriers. What do I do next???!! Ole J Jacobsen, Editor & Publisher ConneXions--The Interoperability Report Interop, Inc., 480 San Antonio Road, Suite 100, Mountain View, CA 94040, USA Phone: (415) 941-3399 FAX: (415) 949-1779 Email: ole@csli.stanford.edu Direct:(415) 917-2215 ------------------------------ From: "W.L. Lance" Subject: Visiting LA From NY w/ Cell Phone; What to do? Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology Date: Thu, 14 Mar 91 01:55:27 GMT This summer I will be working in LA for about a month, and I would like to bring my Cell Phone with me and use it. I do not believe Rochester Tel has any agreements with Pac-Tel or Cellular-One? So I guess I would have to setup an agreement out there. Any suggestions on which company to go for? Can any one give me any ideas on the rates, sign-up fees, etc . . . I will be using the phone during the day and evenings quite a bit, and would be interested in the different packages that are available. Also, on a different note, does anyone know how to program the Mitsubishi 3000 handheld? This is the phone I would be bringing with me, and I would like to be able to program it myself. I will be working near the Palos Verdes Peninsula and San Pedro most of the time. I can program one of my phones myself, but my handheld I cannot. Lance Ware Mac and IBM Reseller Try here first: lance@spud.rit.edu | Then here: wlw2286@ultb.rit.isc.edu Last Resort:wlw2286@ultb.UUCP ------------------------------ From: Jeff Carroll Subject: Domain Phone Number Service (was: Country/City Code Lists) Date: 13 Mar 91 17:54:56 GMT Reply-To: Jeff Carroll Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics In article dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter) writes: > There was a request for Country/City code lists. It would not be > feasable to have such a thing online somewhere. It would be too big. > Consider that the list I have for the Netherlands contains about 1800 > entries. (Yes, there are so many area codes in the Netherlands!) The > German list I have is still much larger. And those are only two > countries. > What might be feasable is a list that given the country code and the > area code returns an approximation of the area where the number points > to. In the Netherlands (as in Germany and many more European > countries) the initial part of an area code gives a rough indication > of the area involved. Well, how about a distributed directory service on Internet? It seems that it would be feasible to tinker with DNS a little bit to make it deal with area codes and place names rather than IP addresses and domain-style names. Eventually something like this will be required for the integrated digital network (as opposed to the Integrated Digital Network) anyway - that is, someday an ISDN connected subscriber will need to do PSTN-number to subscriber-name translation, and presumably anybody still using TCP/IP at that point will need to as well. Or has the CCITT already solved this problem for us? Followups to comp.protocols.misc. Jeff Carroll carroll@ssc-vax.boeing.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 08:26:27 PST From: Steve Warner Subject: Information on OMEGAPHONE III System Recently an old omegaphone III system with fifteen or so phones was donated to a community center for which I do volunteer work. We were given no programming information. The system has no serial port, and the only way I can see to program anything on it is by changing settings on jumper blocks. We would like to install it into our facility but need some docs on it first. Can anyone help here? Thanks. Steve replies: sun!indetech!stables!sw ------------------------------ From: George Horwath Subject: 911 Referendum in Norridge, IL Date: 13 Mar 91 16:23:22 GMT Reply-To: motcid!horwath@uunet.uu.net Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL The village of Norridge (suburb of Chicago) will have a referendum on 4/2/91 to determine if 911 should be implemented in the village to be paid for from general funds. In a letter to residents, the following costs were itemized: Equipment Approx. $100,000 Installation $ 32,000 Maintenance contract Approx. $ 3,000 per year Monthly fee for 8000 phones $1200 x 12 months = $14,400. Also, it will take approximatly eighteen months, after requesting it, for the system to be installed. George Horwath, Motorola C.I.D. Only I could say something that stupid. ...!uunet!motcid!horwath [Moderator's Note: Norridge is an example of the curious nature of area 708. Completely surrounded by the City of Chicago -- yet not part of the city politically -- Norridge uses 708 and is serviced from the Chicago-Newscastle CO which also has numerous 312 exchanges, frequently for places only a few yards (feet?) from the other area code. The area code bounces back and forth, from 312 -> 708 -> 312 as you travel down the street from one intersection to the next. PAT] ------------------------------ From: broughton@sask.usask.ca Subject: Caller*ID - Mail Order Decoder Box Wanted Organization: University of Saskatchewan Date: 13 Mar 91 13:23:34 CST In article , afc-tci!joubert@gatech.edu (Joubert Berger) writes: > I was woundering how much Caller*ID would cost? > [Moderator's Note: $6.50 per month seems typical. Of course you have > to buy your own decoder box as a one-time purchase. The prices seem to > range from $60 - 100 for those, depending on features and quality. PAT] I am interested in purchasing a decoder box for Caller*Id (here in Saskatchewan it is known as Call Display). Does anyone know of a mail order source for such decoders? A Canadian one would be best but American is okay. I am hoping to avoid paying $20 a month rental for the only decoder the local telephone company rents. (They will NOT sell it, either.) Darrell Broughton Saskatoon Saskatchewan Canada ------------------------------ From: seanwilliams@attmail.com Date: Wed Mar 13 20:43:40 EST 1991 Subject: PBS Pledge Drive for March, 1991 As you are all probably well aware, the first PBS membership drive for 1991 is well under way. "So what!" you may say. Well, I'd just like to say that I am a member. I felt compelled to join when my local telco, United Telephone System, volunteered to answer phones at the December, 1990 drive. They were matching viewers' pledges, and offered Northern Telecom phones to new members who pledged $60 or more. (NT seems to be UTS' qvendor-of-choice. we can't forget the lovely rental phones that UTS offers!) Well, now it's back to the March, 1991 drive. This time it's Bell of Pennsylvania's turn to answer the phones. They don't seem to be matching pledges or offering phones though (at least not as I am watching) ... the pledge bonuses are being brought to you by NOVA -- "the USA's only weekly science program." Are other telcos in various states doing this, or is it just a local thing? By the way, I will be heading north on Saturday or Sunday (not sure yet) to answer phones for Scranton's WVIA channel 44. Sean E. Williams | attmail.com!seanwilliams 333 Prospect Avenue / PO Box 227 | seanwilliams@attmail.com Duncannon, PA 17020-0227 USA | voicemail: +1 717 957 8139 [Moderator's Note: Illinois Bell has always been very generous with their corporate profits. They support programming on WTTW Channel 11 here (public television). They support a variety of artistic things and special cultural events as well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John Temples Subject: Call From Kuwait Organization: Private System -- Orlando, FL Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 05:25:04 GMT My best friend from college, a Kuwaiti, called me this evening. This is the first I have heard from him since the Iraqi invasion. He stood in line from 2 AM until 5 AM to place the call on one of the few available phones. It certainly felt good that I was the person who received his first call out of the country. And I'm sure glad I was home after he waited in line all that time! The quality of the connection was very good -- there was no more line noise than a domestic long distance call -- less noise than is typical for calls from Kuwait. Also absent was the short "chirp" I normally hear when picking up the receiver on an overseas call. This combined with the total lack of background noise really made it hard to believe I was really talking to Kuwait. As for how things are over there -- he said it's even worse than what we're seeing on CNN. John W. Temples -- john@jwt.UUCP (uunet!jwt!john) ------------------------------ From: "Barton F. Bruce" Subject: NET & T Sponsors User's Group Date: 14 Mar 91 03:26:23 GMT Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. NET & T (NYNEX) just had their first ever leased line user's group meeting! It took the product manager eight months to get it approved. Times have changed. The old guard would NEVER have done something like that. We have been offered the chance to suggest agenda items for future meetings. THEY offered such a hot topic as CO-LOCATION before any user suggested it! We had a tour of their centralised network command facility, and a nice lunch. A fellow user sitting at lunch works at a VERY BIG name brand company, and he has LOTS of DDS circuits. He learned about DDS-II and its dramatically lower pricing at this meeting. (Too bad he doesn't read this news group.) This just shows telcos traditionally have failed to communicate properly with their users, and that this type of group NEEDS to be encouraged. We may yet have carriers that have some idea about what their customer's want, and customers that have some insight into the real thinking in the telcos! This is not complaint hour at a DPU hearing microphone, but is a serious meeting hosted by them at their facilities, and needs constructive dialog. Eventually they may broaden the scope to cover other areas (there were other questions/suggestions), but for now it is leased line DDS and T1, T3, SONET, Frame Relay, and NRS related issues. Such things as disaster recovery are appropriate, and there was a presentation on it in the first meeting. If you are a Mass. leased lines customer, and think you should be in this group, get your sales person to track down the Product Manager and submit your name. This MAY also extend to all of NYNEX's NE area, ask. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 11:40:49 EST From: Roy Smith Subject: Another Example of the 555 Pseudo-Exchange You know how whenever they need a phone number in an movie or an ad or whatever, they use a 555-xxxx number to avoid using a real one by mistake? Well, I just saw an interesting extension of that. An AT&T rep was here working out the details of an expansion to our System-25 (another 60 extensions, etc) and was giving an example of either making a call or somebody calling us (I forget which). What phone number did she use? Of course, 555-xxxx! roy PS: Nobody else in the group caught it, I don't think. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 15:12:21 est From: jlangri@relay.nswc.navy.mil Subject: Thank You and FYI I'd like to thank those who helped answer the acronym puzzle. The correct answer for WITS seems to be Washington Interagency Telephone System. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 15:19:11 est From: jlangri@relay.nswc.navy.mil Subject: Headsets: What's Good? I'm looking at headsets for use on a help desk. The only ones I'm looking at presently is Plantronics. I don't like VOX (always seems to chop the first syllable). Does anyone have any advice? Are there better manufacturers? ------------------------------ From: Alastair Reynolds Subject: SLC-96 Request For Information Date: 13 Mar 91 15:34:22 GMT Organization: HP, Queensferry Telecomms, Scotland Can the person who submitted the Explanation on SLC-96 please repost the excellent article. This will help me understand the background in a product definition situation. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #202 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa14616; 14 Mar 91 6:03 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa19296; 14 Mar 91 4:38 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab15017; 14 Mar 91 3:34 CST Date: Thu, 14 Mar 91 3:30:14 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #203 BCC: Message-ID: <9103140330.ab08823@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 14 Mar 91 03:30:00 CST Volume 11 : Issue 203 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Usage-Based Pricing Comes to Atlanta [Michael Klein] Help Wanted: Frame Relay / Stratacom Inc. [Juan Manuel Vozmediano Torres] Answer Supervision Information Sought [Barton F. Bruce] CFP - Telecommunications Policy Research Conference [Nigel Allen] Help Needed With NiCads on my Panasonic Cellular [Scott R. Myers] Information Needed to Use Call Manager [Walter M. Amos] Help Needed Locating Voice/Data Modem [Larry Rachman] Did MCI Give me $20? [Barton F. Bruce] Cordless Computing Colloquium, West London [Andrew Findlay] Local Phone Rates (Ripoff!) [uwm!carroll1.cc.edu!acct069] Ring Detection IC Needed [Laird P. Broadfield] Still Another Telephone Scam [lrw!leichter@lrw.com] Cost Information Needed on Phone/Door Entry System [Kevin A. Mitchell] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 09:14:14 EST From: Michael Klein Subject: Usage-Based Pricing Comes to Atlanta Atlanta, home of (one of the) largest local calling areas, now has a new Southern Bell residential pricing option. The current base rate is $15.90 per month, which includes unlimited outgoing local calls. (Of course, no one pays only $15.90. There is also $1.30 for touchtone, $3.50 for access, making $20.60 plus tax.) The new option base rate is $7.95 per month, which includes 24 untimed outgoing calls. Additional calls over the 24-call allowance cost $0.12 each (they are also untimed). Residential customers will thus save money if they make 90 or fewer calls per month. This new option has yet to be widely advertised, but it is available to the public. The customer service person I spoke with said it has been available for "about a month." Michael Klein BellSouth Telephone Operations Atlanta, GA ...!gatech!blsouth!klein ------------------------------ From: Juan Manuel Vozmediano Torres Subject: Help Wanted: Frame Relay / Stratacom Inc. Organization: Dept. Ingenieria de Sistemas Telematicos, UPM, Madrid, Spain. Date: 13 Mar 91 20:07:35 Hi!. I'm very interested on Frame Relay fast packet switching technology. I'm trying to get documments on this topic for educational purposes. Would you anybody recommend me any article/tutorial/draft about this? And, does anybody know Stratacom Inc. (the FR leader) address (or fax no.)? Thanks in advance. (Please e-mail). ------------------------------ From: "Barton F. Bruce" Subject: Answer Supervision Information Sought Date: 13 Mar 91 03:01:56 EST Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. Does anyone know for sure if an AT&T 85 can detect and use for SMDR timing purposes answer supervision from the phone company? First, on ground start trunks, then can they do it on trunks on a T1 (not ISDN, just 24 vanilla trunks)? If not, is it lack of hardware support, s/w support, or both? Is anyone getting answer supervision officially (either tariffed or special assembly) in any NYNEX territory? If so, can you give USOC codes or any special codes that would plainly identify it? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1991 17:08:00 -0500 From: Nigel Allen Subject: CFP - Telecommunications Policy Research Conference Organization: 52 Manchester Avenue, Toronto * Originally posted by KAHIN%HULAW1.BITNET@VM1.NoDak.EDU (BRIAN KAHIN) in newsgroup news.announce.conferences CALL FOR PAPERS The Nineteenth Annual TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY RESEARCH CONFERENCE SEPTEMBER 28-30, 1991 HOLIDAY INN, SOLOMONS, MARYLAND The Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) is an annual forum for dialogue among scholars engaged in publishable research on policy-relevant telecommunications issues and public and private sector decisionmakers engaged in making telecommunications policy. The purpose of the conference is to acquaint policymakers with the best of recent research in telecommunications, and to familiarize researchers with the knowledge needs of policymakers. TPRC is soliciting research papers for presentation at its 19th annual conference. Applications areas include (but are not limited to): 1) Intellectual Property 2) Cable Television and Local Exchange Carriers 3) Children's Television 4) International Communications and Comparative Systems 5) Content Regulation and First Amendment Issues 6) Privacy in Personal Communications 7) Networking Standards 8) Operations Research Models and Data Networks 9) Diversification of the Local Exchange 10) Coordination Science and Research Networks 11) Incentive Regulation 12) Telecommunications and Education Papers should be based on current research on theoretical and/or empirical issues relevant to the making of telecommunications policy. Submissions should consist only of abstracts of the proposed paper, typewritten, double-spaced, and no more than 250 words. Submissions must be received no later than April 1, 1991 Please address all submissions to Conference Coordinator, TPRC, Inc., P.O. Box 19203, Washington, D.C. 20036. ------------------------------ From: "Scott R. Myers" Subject: Help Needed With NiCads on my Panasonic Cellular Date: 13 Mar 91 22:34:01 GMT Organization: Rutgers University I have a Panasonic Transportable phone. I know about the problems associated with NiCads when you try to recharge them before they've been totally depleted. How can I discharge the battery beyond the handset just cutting off. I figured something like a light bulb and some leads to connect to the battery terminals but that seems crude and slow. Any suggestions. Thanks in advance... Scott R. Myers Snail: 26 Stiles Street Phone:(908)352-4162 Apartment 18 Elizabeth, NJ 07208 Arpa: srm@dimacs.rutgers.edu Uucp: ..!dimacs!srm ------------------------------ From: "Walter M. Amos" Subject: Information Needed to Use Call Manager Date: 14 Mar 91 02:48:22 GMT Reply-To: "Walter M. Amos" Organization: The Black Hole Several months ago, my household was using AT&T's Call Manager to keep track of billing for long distance calls. Since moving AND living the nomadic life for a few months, I have forgotten the method of accessing this feature. (Something along the lines of dial 0 + ten digits - + xxyy, where xx was a set number indicating Call Manager and yy was the "account" number.) Can anyone clue me in to the magic number I've forgotten. Alternately (and perhaps more cost effectively), does anyone know of a similar service from alternate LD carriers? ------------------------------ Date: 14 Mar 91 07:01:05 GMT From: Larry Rachman <74066.2004@compuserve.com> Subject: Help Needed Locating Voice/Data Modem Some years ago, I remember reading an ad for a product that provided a low speed data link simultaneously with a telephone voice circuit. Now (of course) I need the info and its nowhere to be found. The product looked like an ordinary modem, and connected between a telephone set and a phone line. When a voice call was established between two of these setups, the modems carved out a chunk of the voice bandpass and used it to pass data, at (as I remember) about 300 baud. At the same time, a voice conversation could allegedly take place, with the missing bandpass not degrading the quality that significantly. Of course, the 'standard' used was completely proprietary; the modems could talk only to each other. Since this was before Hayes compatibility was universal, they probably weren't even compatible in that way. I don't know if that particular company is still around, or if someone else nowadays has a similar product. Does anyone out there know of such a product being sold today?? Larry Rachman, WA2BUX 74066.2004@compuserve.com 516-427-8705 (fax) ------------------------------ From: "Barton F. Bruce" Subject: Did MCI Give me $20? Date: 13 Mar 91 02:53:33 EST Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. I have in front of me a check from MCI for $20. If I were to simply sign it, I would also be signing a permission slip for them to BE my default carrier. I have been told that if someone puts on the back of a check something like "in full payment for denting your fender" that that is NOT part of the check and can be legally CROSSED OUT before signing. There is no wording that I as a layman can find to indicate that the only condition MCI offers the check under is for you to enter into this little contract with them and that you must agree by signing what is printed on the back. I am sure MCI hopes you do it. As far as I can tell, MCI just gave me $20, and I don't need to leave that permission to switch wording intact. Can come legal beagle hazzard a guess as to whether I can simply cross out all that nonsense about switching my service to MCI, and simply cash the check as payment for being hassled again by King Slammer? I am also sure there WOULD be a switch, and then a fight about getting switched back all NOT at my expense, but that will be the fun part. Better yet, who has tried it? [Moderator's Note: Legally, you are on shaky grounds. While the courts have ruled in recent times that 'accord and satisfaction'; i.e. making some sort of restrictive endorsement on a check, won't legally hold up, they were talking about cases where payment of less than the full amount due was tendered as payment in full on an account. I think in your case, MCI could still hold you to the intent of the matter, and claim that you had a contract with them. I doubt they would sue you for the twenty dollars; they might or might not place you with an agency to try and recover the money. I think your suggestion is sort of a chintzy way to try and get something for nothing. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Andrew Findlay Subject: Cordless Computing Colloquium, West London Date: 13 Mar 91 12:19:14 GMT Organization: Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK Cordless Computing ================== IEE Colloquium on Wednesday 10th April At the Lecture Centre, Brunel University, Uxbridge, West London, UK Organised by IEE Professional Group C14 A new class of computing devices is becoming available: computers that communicate by radio, infra-red, and ultrasonics are appearing on the market. A variety of new applications is made possible by these devices, ranging from warehouse management to real-time data collection from remote or mobile equipment. This colloquium will be of interest to anyone who has a communications problem that is difficult to solve with conventional `wired back' equipment. The whole range of devices will be considered, from handheld terminals to static radio dataloggers. Current applications will be described, including warehouse control, mobile point-of-sale, and road traffic monitoring. The state of the relevant European standards (CT2/CAI and DECT) will be reported. Chairman: Dr. Andrew Findlay (Brunel University Computer Centre) 10:00 Registration and Coffee 10:30 Introduction 10:40 An overview of factory-scale communications Ted Maley, General Manager, Microlise Engineering 11:10 Design considerations for factory radio data terminals Speaker from Microlise Engineering 11:40 Radio data terminals in the mail-order business Paul Rudge, Book Club Association 12:10 Roving Point Of Sale terminals Dan Isaaman, Pipistrel Systems 12:40 LUNCH 14:00 The DECT and CT2/CAI European standards Dr David McFarlane, BT Researh Laboratories 14:30 The development and characteristics of PAKNET Dr Malcolm Davie, Racal Research 15:00 Road traffic monitoring using PAKNET David Martell, General Logistics PLC 15:30 TEA 15:45 Panel session 16:15 CLOSE Registration fees: Member of IEE or kindred society 36.33 Non-member 55.33 Student member 6.33 Student non-member 21.33 The fees cover tea, coffee, lunch, admission to the colloquium, and a copy of the colloquium digest. Advance registration is preferred, by calling the IEE Colloquium Office on 071 240 1871. Registration on the day is also possible. Uxbridge is about 10 minutes drive north from the Heathrow junction of the M4 motorway. It can also be reached by Tube. Andrew Findlay at Brunel University, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH, UK Andrew.Findlay@brunel.ac.uk phone: +44 895 74000 x2512 ------------------------------ From: Ron Subject: Local Phone Rates (Ripoff!) Date: 14 Mar 91 01:44:41 GMT Reply-To: Ron Organization: Lightning Systems, Inc. Not wanting to start a big discussion on what your phone company charges for service, but: I'm wondering if $50.00 a month is a little too high for just having a phone in the house? I have unlimited calling within my local area, and since I live in a so called "fringe" area, I have "metro" service which is a one-way calling plan so I can place unlimited called to the greater Milwaukee area. They officially cut over to Equal-Access today, and now they want to increase our bills by 32%-38%. I think it's outrageous and will be attending the PSC hearings to voice my opinions. Ron acct069@carroll1.cc.edu or carroll1!acct069@uwm.edu [Moderator's Note: My bill for local service from IBT is about $100 per month. Of course, I have loads of features on my lines. PAT] ------------------------------ From: lairdb@crash.cts.com (Laird P. Broadfield) Subject: Ring Detection IC Needed Date: 14 Mar 91 03:44:06 GMT Can somebody point me toward a ring-detection IC? I've checked my recent Harris, Dallas, and SS databooks, and I find lots of Call Progress Detectors, but what I want is ring-detection. Preferably for more that one line per package (I'm thinking 10-20 lines into the device, maybe even 25 and hook up directly to a 21X termination.) Thanks! (P.S. Do the ICLID ICs coming out these days have a ring indication line, or do they assume you've got a separate ring-detect circuit?) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 19:09:27 EST From: lrw!leichter@lrw.com Subject: Still Another Telephone Scam The latest in phone scams occurred this week in New York. Employees of a large company with pagers received phone inquiries from 540 numbers, which are billed the same as 900 numbers. When the number is called, the customer is automatically charged $55.00. Employees from other companies around New York have also been hit by this scam. Although the company's phone switches are protected from making outgoing calls on 900 and 540 numbers, the employees may use phones at customer sites in response to a page. The New York office has alerted employees to this scam. We can expect similar activities in other areas in the future. Above provided F.Y.I. Regards, Jerry ------------------------------ From: "Kevin A. Mitchell" Subject: Cost Information Needed on Phone/Door Entry System Organization: Datalogics, Inc. Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 22:05:10 GMT My condo association is planning one of those entry systems that causes the telephone to ring in the tenant's unit. There is great debate about the cost of the phone calls. Does anybody have examples of apartment buildings that use this system, and how much they pay in phone calls? Please reply by mail with the costs and the number of residential and commercial tenants. For reference, our installation would have 178 residential and 14 commercial tenants (mostly doctors, CPAs, etc) receiving visitors. We're concerned about the cost and the possible economies of a more expensive system that patches directly into the phone system. Thanks. Kevin A. Mitchell (312) 266-4485 Datalogics, Inc Internet: kam@dlogics.UUCP 441 W. Huron UUCP: ..!uunet!dlogics!kam Chicago, IL 60610 FAX: (312) 266-4473 [Moderator's Note: An article in the Digest over a year ago discussed two types of front door entry systems which work over standard phone lines. If someone finds it and sends it in I will reprint it; else I will comment on it in detail in a day or two. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #203 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa01901; 15 Mar 91 23:29 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa32292; 15 Mar 91 21:49 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa20853; 15 Mar 91 20:46 CST Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 20:45:10 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #204 BCC: Message-ID: <9103152045.ab21660@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 15 Mar 91 21:45:05 CST Volume 11 : Issue 204 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Need Some 'Dynamic Memory' Help [Alan Sanderson] Re: Alphanumeric Paging [Derek Andrew] Re: 950 Access [Kath Mullholand] Re: Home Telephone Tap Detector [Jeff Carroll] Re: Call Back Modem Needed [Winston Lawrence] Re: The Correct Way to Write Your Phone Number [Robert L. Oliver] Re: Microwave / Optical Links for Audio [Alan Sanderson] Re: Can 50 Conductor Phone Cable be Used For LAN? [Alan Sanderson] Re: UK Deregulation - Big News [John Slater] Re: Phonefiche Directories [Jeff Carroll] Re: Where Do You Live? In a Cave? [Mark A. Emanuele] Re: The Status of 1+703 Dialing [Carl Moore] Re: NXX Count (1-15-91) [Carl Moore] Re: Headsets: What's Good? [Al L. Varney] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Alan Sanderson Subject: Re: Need Some 'Dynamic Memory' Help Date: 15 Mar 91 01:39:02 GMT Organization: HP Pacific Technology Park - Sunnyvale, Ca. Christopher Wolf asks for information regarding dynamic RAM. I have a few suggestions: 1. If you have a choice, and modest memory requirements, use static RAM. It is very simple to use. 2. If you have a large memory requirement, dynamic RAM is much less expensive, but does require some additional interface circuitry. Most newer parts can operate in a mode which provides "automatic refresh" - in which you provide a CAS before RAS sequence, and the part keeps track of its own refresh address. 3. Get the memory data book from the part manufacturer. It will provide timing specifications, sample circuits, and application suggestions. Many parts from different vendors are interchangeable. Possible sources: NEC, Hitachi, Samsung, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Texas Instruments (TI). 4. If you are using a microprocessor, it will normally have a way to generate a refresh signal. Look at its timing diagrams. Check out the schematics of a PC clone or similar piece of equipment. For DRAM, you will have to demultiplex the row and column addresses for the memory at appropriate times. DRAM controllers are available, but are not necessary if you can generate the appropriate signals with a few gates and flip-flops, or a PAL (if you have a method to program it). Have fun with your project. You should learn a lot from the attempt. Alan Sanderson Hewlett-Packard AMSO alans@hpams0a.HP.COM US Snail: 1266 Kifer Rd. MS101S MaBell: 408-746-5714 Sunnyvale, CA 94086 FAX: 408-746-5890 Disclaimer: ------------------------------ From: Derek Andrew Subject: Re: Alphanumeric Paging Organization: University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon Saskatchewan, Canada Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 16:02:04 GMT From article , by covert@covert.enet. dec.com (John R. Covert): >> You need one of the Motorola terminals due to some "special codes" > Well, a friend of mine used to have service which used the Motorola > terminals, and I was able to call into their system on a 300 bps line > at 7E1 with local echo (often inappropriately called half duplex). > After the system answers, a carriage return gets the "id=" prompt, to > which I reply "M" (upper case). The system then prompts for Pager ID, > at which point I enter the seven digit pager number. The system then > prompts for Message, at which point I can enter the message, > correcting with ^H. The system then prompts for "Another page?". You are both correct. The first implementation of alphanumeric paging at our location worked similar to the above method. It was upgraded and now you must enter special codes and compute a checksum for each message. It is too inconvenient to try to compute and enter this checksum from an ascii terminal. Derek Andrew, Manager of Computer Network & Technical Services University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon Saskachewan, Canada, S7N 0W0 Andrew@Sask.USask.CA, +1-306-966-4808, 52 11 23N 106 48 48W ...and they that weave networks, shall be confounded. - Isaiah 19:9 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1991 10:08:32 EST From: KATH MULLHOLAND Subject: Re: 950 Access I don't know where University of Nebraska is located, or what kind of switch their CO has, but here at UNH, admittedly in the wilds of NH, Durham's #5 crossbar does not route 950 numbers. Apparently it doesn't understand them. (The CO only went equal access a few months ago -- in a perhaps related manner, it does not do direct-dial for international calls, either.) Since we have our own PBX, we solved the problem by routing 950-numbers over various FX lines to more advanced switches. It costs us a minimal amount of money -- probably two or three cents per minute in lost revenue for a toll call that can't use the FX line while the 950 call is on, but the volume of such calls is low, and we feel it's a good service to offer. Since we have T-1, we also offer IDDD, which confuses some of the Durham residents who live on campus!. Kath Mullholand UNH, Durham NH ------------------------------ From: Jeff Carroll Subject: Re: Home Telephone Tap Detector Date: 15 Mar 91 00:01:23 GMT Reply-To: Jeff Carroll Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics In article Kevin Boyd <8156boydk@vmsd. csd.mu.edu writes: > HOME TELEPHONE TAP DETECTOR: Used by law enforcement agencies around > the world, this home telephone tap detector detects and defeats > virtually all tap systems. It employs four individual detection > systems to detect low and high impedance taps, wireless bugs, off-hook > extensions and automatic tape recorders. Mode one scans the line for > any low impedance taps or off-hook extensions and, if any are found, > an indicator light goes out and your phone conversation is > automatically muted. Mode two scans the radio spectrum for any > operating wireless taps within or in the vicinity of your telephone, > then automatically switches to mode three which actually deactivates > any taps or tape recorders. Mode four nullifies any transmission > bugs. Metal unit is RJ-11 compatible and can be connected in seconds. Mode one is cake to anyone familiar with Ohm's Law. Mode two sounds like the "sing-around" method of detecting wireless bugs, which I remember reading about some time ago somewhere (if I can remember where, I'll post - Gordon Liddy's "Will", maybe?) Modes three and four sound like either b___sh__ or a method of defeating particular well-known bug designs. I can't imagine any general way to provide the functionality described. Opinions? Well, IMHO, you could probably duplicate the functionality of modes one and two for $25 worth of parts and an afternoon at the library. As for modes three and four, I'd ask for a demonstration... Jeff Carroll carroll@ssc-vax.boeing.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Call Back Modem Needed From: Winston Lawrence Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 13:10:01 EST Organization: The Dorsai Diplomatic Mission From smh@hrmso.att.com (Steven M Harclerode): > I am searching for a modem that will call back a pre-assigned phone > number when it is called. I am looking for it in regards to trying to > make a dial link more secure by having the local end call a modem. The > modem answers, then hangs up and calls the preprogramed number to run > the communication over. There is a unit called the secure access multiport (SAM) manufactured by a company named LEEMAH we have two of these units at work that have never been used primarily because of a) the need for someone to actively manage the device (check reports, change numbers e.t.c) b) The need for users to switch their modem from originate to answer to use the device, and c) A number of users need access from a wide variety of locations. Also, with any device that does this type of thing you would want the incoming and outgoing lines separate otherwise the caller might hold the line (by not hanging up) and the device is then fooled into thinking it called a new number when in fact the line has never been released. My 1984 technical manual for the SAM does not list a phone number or address for LEEMAH or I would include that information here. ------------------------------ From: "Robert L. Oliver" Subject: Re: The Correct Way to Write Your Phone Number Organization: Rabbit Software Corp. Date: 15 Mar 91 00:12:25 GMT Thought I'd add some interesting information: all of the literature which I receive regarding my AT&T Universal Card uses the following phone number formats: For standard phone numbers, they use (NPA) NXX-XXXX For their 800 numbers, they use 800 XXX-XXXX. Interesting. I suppose what they're trying to indicate is that the area code is optional if you're WITHIN the NPA, while the 800 is always required, and thus a non-optional part of the number. Robert Oliver Rabbit Software Corp. 215 993-1152 7 Great Valley Parkway East robert@hutch.Rabbit.COM Malvern, PA 19355 ...!uunet!cbmvax!hutch!robert ------------------------------ From: Alan_Sanderson Subject: Re: Microwave / Optical Links for Audio Date: 15 Mar 91 21:30:12 GMT Organization: HP Pacific Technology Park - Sunnyvale, Ca. Coastcom is a manufacturer of T1 networking equipment which specializes in high fidelity audio transmission. Coastcom 2312 Stanwell Drive P.O. Box 27068 Concord, CA 94527 415-825-7500 Alan Sanderson HP AMSO Sunnyvale,CA ------------------------------ From: Alan_Sanderson Subject: Re: Can 50 Conductor Phone Cable be Used For LAN? Date: 15 Mar 91 02:14:44 GMT Organization: HP Pacific Technology Park - Sunnyvale, Ca. Re use of 50 conductor telephone cable for LAN- Starlan-10 (10base-t) was designed specifically for this type of cabling, in order to use existing telephone wiring for data communication. As its name implies, the connections are in a star configuration, with a repeater at the center of the star. It expects to see approx. 100 ohm impedance on the cable, and does not normally interfere with voice traffic because of the frequency difference (5-10 MHz vs. 3 kHz). ------------------------------ From: John Slater Subject: Re: UK Deregulation - Big News Date: 15 Mar 91 18:00:45 GMT Reply-To: John.Slater@uk.sun.com Organization: Sun Microsystems UK In article , tuvie!iiasa.local!wnp@ relay.eu.net (Wolf PAUL) writes: |> In article John.Slater@uk.sun.com (John |> Slater) writes: |> ) Good news on the whole, I feel. |> Your last sentence above does not sound so good to me. Why not? More competition should bring LD charges down further. And BT's last big monopoly, dialtone, is ripe for being opened up. |> And what is the |> good of allowing the P.O. to provide phone service once again -- why |> then was BT split off from the P.O. in the first place? Simple: in the Bad Old Days the P.O. was a monopoly provider of telecoms service. Now they'll be one of many LD providers, and the government would like to introduce competition in the mail sector too. |> On a different note: what exactly are "lifetime telephone numbers"? The idea is that you are given (or, for more money, you choose) a phone number which you carry with you for the rest of your life, wherever you go in the country. Nice idea, but a nightmare to administer, I fear. And the days of looking at the STD code to determine where a number is located are numbered. It's going to be hard to work out what the charge will be for a given number. John Slater Sun Microsystems UK, Gatwick Office ------------------------------ From: Jeff Carroll Subject: Re: Phonefiche Directories Date: 15 Mar 91 03:35:59 GMT Reply-To: Jeff Carroll Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics In article djcl@contact.uucp (woody) writes: > The company that puts out the Phonefiche is UMI, reachable at 300 > North Zeeb Rd, Ann Arbor MI 48106; tel (800) 521.0600 or (313) > 761.4700. My understanding is that Southwestern Bell and possibly one or two other LECs have refused to release this information to UMI, or indeed to anyone else. The obvious implication is that Phonefiche is not a universal solution. My personal experience is that Phonefiche is in general not as good a solution to the problem as the roomful of phone books. My problems with Phonefiche fall into three general categories: 1) Knowing which fiche to look at for a phone number located in an obscure suburb or outlying area. (Yes, Phonefiche comes with a little cross-reference index booklet, but those easily get lost at your typical public library.) 2) Needing a phone number in a small, isolated rural community. (The roomful of phonebooks was usually more complete in this regard; in my experience, about 70% of cases I was interested in were covered. With Phonefiche the percentage is considerably lower.) 3) Needing a number in one of Phonefiche's geographical "holes", mentioned above. In summary, if I need a phone number in a remote community, I try to wait until I'm at the Seattle Public Library, which still has a large collection of paper phone books. Jeff Carroll carroll@ssc-vax.boeing.com ------------------------------ From: emanuele@overlf.UUCP (Mark A. Emanuele) Subject: Re: Where Do You Live? In a Cave? Date: 15 Mar 91 19:15:11 GMT Organization: Overleaf Systems, Inc. In article , gast@cs.ucla.edu (David Gast) writes: > Also, when a person dials 411, a message announcing the new area codes > could be played instead of the current one. That is JUST what NJB is doing for the 201/908 changeover. After a while it gets to be a pain in the a**, but I SURE wwill NOT forget the new AC. Mark A. Emanuele V.P. Engineering Overleaf, Inc. 218 Summit Ave Fords, NJ 08863 (908) 738-8486 emanuele@overlf.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 13:31:07 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: The Status of 1+703 Dialing Responding to article by Greg Monti (forwarded by John Covert): It is noted that Leesburg (Va.), which is in the Culpeper LATA, is being added to extended-area calling to/from Va. suburbs (Washington DC area). Notice that Herndon-Leesburg calling was already local. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 17:32:05 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: NXX Count (1-15-91) Arnold Robbins writes: > I was in college in NYC in 1978 when it was just being introduced > there... In reference to 1+NPA+7D for out-of-area calls, right? That was done in late 1980 when NYC (then only in area 212) had to prepare for N0X/N1X prefixes. (Did John Lennon ever hear of this before his death?) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Mar 91 13:53:14 CST From: Al L Varney Subject: Re: Headsets: What's Good? Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In article jlangri@relay.nswc.navy.mil writes: > I'm looking at headsets for use on a help desk. The only ones I'm > looking at presently is Plantronics. > I don't like VOX (always seems to chop the first syllable). Does > anyone have any advice? Are there better manufacturers? Well, better is in the mind of the user ... but I've been happy with the UNEX (not UNIX(tm)) Ventel headset. They are at: UNEX (A DYNATECH COMPANY) 27 Industrial Ave. Chelmsford, MA 01824 (508) 256-8222 <- their format, not mine :-) Headsets available: Ventel I Over-the-ear eartip unit Ventel II Over-the-ear foam earbud Ventel III One ear muff Ventel IV Two ear muffs Ventel V One or 2 ultralight ear muff (Walkman(tm) style) (I have 2 ears, so I use the 2-ear version) Microphones are noise-cancelling, left or right side. Headsets connect to: Operator/Supervisor Amplifier -- "traditional" 2-prong or modular plug Desk Amplifier -- connects phone to headset and handset, allows switching between them during a call. Electronic Telephone Headset Amp. -- compatible with a range of non-carbon handset phones, such as AT&T Merlin, 7303, etc. and other vendors of telephones. Al Varney, AT&T Network Systems, Lisle, IL ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #204 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa03948; 16 Mar 91 1:24 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa04065; 15 Mar 91 23:53 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa13555; 15 Mar 91 22:50 CST Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 22:05:31 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #205 BCC: Message-ID: <9103152205.ab16803@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 15 Mar 91 22:05:20 CST Volume 11 : Issue 205 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Northern Telecom in General [Julian Macassey] Re: 800/950 vs 10xxx [Blake Farenthold] Re: 800/950 vs 10xxx [Jack Dominey] Re: Rotary Dial w/o Wire Connection [Joseph Tucker] Re: How do I Set-up Caller*ID? [Eric Skinner] Re: Maestro Phones From Northern Telecom [Eric Skinner] Re: Cellular Telephones on a Bicycle [Nicholas J. Simicich] Re: Rotary Dial w/o Wire Connection [John Higdon] Re: Information Wanted on Combination DID/DOD Trunk [Barton F. Bruce] Re: Calling an Out-of-Area 800 Number [Charles Bryant] Re: Alphanumeric Pagers [Laird P. Broadfield] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Julian Macassey Subject: Re: Northern Telecom in General Date: 15 Mar 91 15:07:58 GMT Reply-To: Julian Macassey Organization: Invisible Tatoos Inc Hollywood California U.S.A. In article sbrack@hpuxa.ircc. ohio-state.edu (Steven S. Brack) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 197, Message 7 of 7 > As I sit at this terminal, I'm loooking at a NT Touch*Tone desk > phone. In outward appearance it is much like the Western Electric > models I grew up with. ... > What strikes me most is how much this telephone resembles Western > Electric equipment. Did NT buy WE tooling or parts at some point? Northern Telecom (NT) at one time was called Canadian Bell; their R & D division was and still is as I recall called Bell Northern Research (BNR). This accounts for the similarities between US and Canadian Telco equipment and practices. Many companies make clones of Western Electric (AT&T) 500 and 2500 sets. 500 sets are rotary desk phones and yes, 2500 sets are the Touch Tone model. I am not sure if Western Electric ever receieved royalties on their phone designs. I know they get royalties on the modular plugs - or used to when I was buying them. The following companies make 500 and 2500 set clones: ITT, Comdial (Stromberg Carlson), Northern Telecom. Then there are the Korean clones usually imported by Vodavi, these are often labelled Premier. Julian Macassey, n6are julian@bongo.info.com ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian 742 1/2 North Hayworth Avenue Hollywood CA 90046-7142 voice (213) 653-4495 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 22:54:21 CST From: Blake Farenthold Subject: Re: 800/950 vs 10xxx Barton.Bruce@camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) in discussing 10xxx access points out with respect to call agrigators: > If one flavor of screening simply disallowed ANYTHING on 10xxx access > except 10xxx0+ bill elsewhere traffic, a hotel could allow 10xxx > traffic without further understanding it because any attempt to bill > to them, even 10xxx1+ would be blocked. What about 10xxx011 ? This is the problem with a "simple" scheme to allow 10xxx0 access, you can make international calls and the accounting software and blocking software in cocots and hotels gags. As I understand it some companies have been burned by this and this is one of the arguments delaying universal 10xxx0 access. They have to keep checking digits after the zero and a lot of older hardware just doesn't do it. I make no comment abuyt the potential to take out revenge on your favorite COCOT by trying this. UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!blake Internet: blake@pro-party.cts.com Blake Farenthold | Voice: 800/880-1890 | MCI: BFARENTHOLD 1200 MBank North | Fax: 512/889-8686 | CIS: 70070,521 Corpus Christi, TX 78471 | BBS: 512/882-1899 | GEnie: BLAKE ------------------------------ From: jdominey@bsga05.attmail.com Date: Fri Mar 15 09:01:10 EST 1991 Subject: 800/950 vs 10xxx In TELECOM Digest V11 #199, Ralph W. Hyre writes: > 950 and 800 (feature group B) access give me greater control over > billing than 10XXX implementations, since I can enter an account # > to bill the call to. This is called "making a virtue of necessity." Using 10xxx makes billing to another account *optional*; 950/800 access *requires* the user to input an account of some kind - even if it's the account that belongs to the phone in use. > Additionally, one of my 950-based carriers doesn't have the $.75 > surcharge for using the card - I just pay the per/minute rate. This, on the other hand, is a real advantage - albeit not one that's inherent in using 950/800 access. Remember too that there are some circumstances where you can avoid card surcharges from larger carriers. AT&T's Reach Out billing plan includes this as an option. Jack Dominey AT&T Commercial Marketing, Tucker GA v:404-496-6925 AT&T Mail: !dominey ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 09:40 CST From: JTUCKER@vax2.cstp.umkc.edu Subject: Re: Rotary Dial w/o Wire Connection Is it possible to take a phone that only has pulse dialing and convert it to tone dialing? Joseph Tucker [Moderator's Note: Well, sure it is. You would open the phone, disconect the dial and associated wires, yank it out and insert a touch tone pad there instead. Of course, the shell would not fit correctly since the cut out on the rotary dial phone is round, and the cut out you'll be needing is square. Why bother, given the inexpensive and high quality touchtone phones on the market? I could walk from home to the Radio Shack, buy a phone and bring it back quicker than I could modify an old dial phone. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 10:50:16 EST From: Eric Skinner <443114@acadvm1.uottawa.ca> Subject: Re: How do I Set-up Caller*ID? In TELECOM Digest V11 #198, TK0JUT1@niu.bitnet writes: > Threatening phone calls are a potential felony. Rather than worry > about Caller ID, call the police. There is nothing you could legally > do even if you had access to the source phone, and any action you took > could subject you, not him, to police enforcement. In most cities, > threatening calls are considered very serious, and generally the > culprits can be tracked very quickly if not using a public phone. Interestingly, I had a friend in Montreal who was receiving a large number of *harassment* calls, and Montreal police refused to do anything about it. Bell Canada refused to do anything, saying it was completely the police's responsibility. The police's line was that since they were "too busy," they did nothing about harassment calls unless "physical harm" was "explicitly threatened." The solution was to switch phone numbers ($27.00) and get an unlisted number ($4.00/month or so). We were not impressed. Eric Skinner 443114@acadvm1.uottawa.ca University of Ottawa +1 613 230 0261 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 11:04:44 EST From: Eric Skinner <443114@acadvm1.uottawa.ca> Subject: Re: Maestro Phones From Northern Telecom In TELECOM Digest Volume 11, Issue 199, Andrew Farmer writes: > Bell Canada returns the string "Long Distance" for all LD calls and > "Unknown Number" for calls from local/non-displayable numbers. The > Maestro phone, however, doesn't store the "Long Distance" string -- it > just stores them as "Unknown". Just the other day I received a collect call from a local payphone. I would have expected it to display "Unknown" as the call was placed through the operator, but instead, the display was "Long Distance." Go figure. About a week ago I spoke with someone at Bell Canada customer service about the fact that Caller*ID (here, at least) displays the actual originating phone number, instead of the billing phone number (ie. it might display any of a company's actual trunk numbers). She recorded my complaint, and indicated that "changes" to Caller*ID's implementation were forthcoming in June, but would not give me any further details. Eric Skinner 443114@acadvm1.uottawa.ca University of Ottawa +1 613 230 0261 [Moderator's Note: Probably the reason it said 'long distance' was because the payphone was a COCOT, and the Alternate Operater Disservice involved in handling the collect call was not really an Operator, and they splashed the call via DDD from some other location. Your telco saw it coming in from another LATA as just a regular call. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 11:29:15 EST From: "Nicholas J. Simicich" Subject: Re: Cellular Telephones on a Bicycle Reply-To: Nick Simicich I mentioned this in email to the originator, but for the route they want to travel, cellular phones are a really bad idea. There will be lots of dead spots where people will be cut off. They would be better off renting VHF radios or using CB's, as Rick Zellich suggested. Besides, do they really want to dial a bunch of numbers and pay two airtime fees every time the bike at the front of the pack wants to call the bike at the back of the pack? They won't have any broadcast capability, either, so if the manager wants to broadcast to all of the workers, it will mean a bunch of separate calls. I think that they just want to key a mike and say who they are talking to, and then talk. Having cellular phones in the cars to call EMS or the police would be a good idea. But to use them for primary communication sounds really bad. Nick Simicich (NJS at WATSON, njs@ibm.com) ---SSI AOWI #3958, HSA #318 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 11:20 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Rotary Dial w/o Wire Connection "Ronald T. Crocker" writes: > Not being an expert on the subject, I seem to recall that MTS or IMTS > phones were rotary dial, and that they did, in fact, use some kind of > pulse dialing scheme. Yes, they did. All number transmission was "rotary" based on IMTS. When you would come "off hook" on your mobile unit, it would look for an idle channel that was in operation. With IMTS, there were not many. When the mobile found a channel with idle tone, it would key up and identify itself by "dialing" its assigned phone number for the base system. Dialing consisted of a tone that was frequency shifted once for each pulse. It sounded like a series of "tweedles". If your mobile number was valid, the system would return dial tone. Your call was placed using the rotary dial provided. However, instead of using hard wire to send DC pulses, it used that frequency shifted tone. The dial would come off home and the tone would begin. As the dial returned, each pulse would be represented by a shift in the tone's frequency. A person monitoring the line could easily determine the dialed number. For the record, there was another way calls could be rotary dialed without hard wire. Many LD tandems used to respond to pulses of 2600 Hz and would complete calls based on numbers "dialed" in this manner. Hence, 2600 Hz would serve as both supervisory and signaling carrier. It was called "SF" (single frequency). John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: bruce@camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) Subject: Re: Information Wanted on Combination DID/DOD Trunk Date: 15 Mar 91 09:35:09 EST Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. >> I am now attempting to get a combination inbound DID trunk with >> outbound dialling. I don't really care about passing the PBX extension In many places DID trunks are ONLY incoming. They have to let the CO outpulse or tone the last N digits of the dialed number so the PBX knows which station to ring. Priced the way they are here, to protect the really over priced Centrex service, you certainly don't want to waste any of these for out going traffic. The first ten or so cost $80 each. All beyond that are $40. A normal two-way ground start trunk is $20. BUT there is now a way to get two-way DID trunks at somewhat better pricing depending on your mileage from the CO: If they are ordered as a package delivered on T1, you get two-way service. TT is in there too. If you only want 15, tough, you still pay the same as for 24. There is a fixed component, and a mileage component. Now that CO-LOCATION is happening, and nice folks like Met Fiber charge a flat $425 to ferry a T1 ANYWHERE they cover in Metro Boston, there is a mileage insensitive option. Of course as soon as Teleport provides an alternate source of dialtone, we may even get answer supervision and ALL other reasonable requests simply by asking - eventually even from the RBOCs. If your switch can do T1, and the CO is ESS, ask about two-way DID trunks! ------------------------------ From: ch@dce.ie (Charles Bryant) Subject: Re: Calling an Out-of-Area 800 Number Organization: Datacode Communications Ltd, Dublin, Ireland Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 16:25:06 GMT It's a bit late now for such a major change, but it seems to me that one solution would be to make 1-800 a prefix to a normal number. If you leave off the 1-800 you get through to the same line but the caller is charged. That would also allow callers from outside the US to get through. I assume it is not possible to dial a free number outside of one's own country. BTW Ireland also uses 1-800 to introduce free calls, but this is relatively recent. The previous procedure was to call 10 and ask for `Freefone FooBar'. Note that 10 is just the normal operator number. And while I'm here, I dislike the +353 1 XXXXXX notation for my phone number. It should be possible to put in optional spaces for legibility: +353-1-XXX XXX and they should not be the same as the character separating the area code from the country code and local number to avoid confusion and to allow for two-level area codes or some such thing. Charles Bryant (ch@dce.ie) ------------------------------ From: lairdb@crash.cts.com (Laird P. Broadfield) Subject: Re: Alphanumeric Pagers Date: 15 Mar 91 04:05:02 GMT In 0002293637@mcimail.com (Krislyn Companies) writes: > David Dodell writes ... >> My local paging company has started to offer Alphanumeric paging >> using the newer style Motorola pagers (similiar in size to a large >> Bravo digital pager) ... they want to rent me a Motorola terminal for >> $10/month, but they did disclose the access number locally. > I have an alpha pager with Metromedia Paging in the Boston area, and > they willingly gave me the technical instructions to create messages > via their system. (I've gotten all the way to the end but am still > having a problem figuring out how to format their checksum ...) > They also told me there are several commercial programs (around $25) > which can be run on a PC to dial in and send an alpha message. > Problem is, I don't know that the broadcast system the Metromedia has > here is the same as the one you have there. So there's no guarantee > that my three to five pages of instructions would work on your > vendor's system. There *is* a semi-standard for this, usually referred to as the "iXO" protocol. It apparently originated at, or in conjunction with, a company called iXO Inc. in Manhattan Beach, CA. The document I have is a faded copy, dated 1986, purporting to be from Motorola's Paging Division to iXO, discussing final changes to the "Automatic Paging Protocol". I got my copy from one paging vendor (now defunct) and have had at least two others (including Pathetic*Bell Paging) tell me that they support it. Unfortunately, both of the above outfits only support the protocol for loading messages for ALPHAnumeric pagers (due apparently solely to a mental block) so you can't computer-send even numeric-only messages to numeric-only pagers. (I saw another message go by in which the writer mentioned typing "M" and entering an interactive mode. This is explained in the iXO document as the way to enter "manual operation", so it appears he was seeing an iXO protocol as well.) Also worth noting is that SkyPager *does* have computer entry of pages, but *not* anything that would be easy to write an automated-entry program for. Also, you have to ask about 30 different people at SkyPager before any of them will admit to this capability. Laird P. Broadfield INET: lairdb@crash.cts.com UUCP: {akgua, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!lairdb ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #205 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa05166; 16 Mar 91 2:33 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa17476; 16 Mar 91 0:57 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab04065; 15 Mar 91 23:53 CST Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 23:27:26 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #206 BCC: Message-ID: <9103152327.ab27742@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 15 Mar 91 23:27:03 CST Volume 11 : Issue 206 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Did MCI Give me $20? [Ed Greenberg] Re: Did MCI Give me $20? [Richard Lerner] Re: Did MCI Give me $20? [Gary W. Sanders] Re: Did MCI Give me $20? [Tim Irvin] Re: Did MCI Give me $20? [Henry Mensch] Re: Can You Disable Call-Waiting AFTER the Call Starts? [Dave Levenson] Re: Debit Phone Cards in NZ [Charlie Lear] Re: Voice Recognition Experiment [Frederick Roeber] Re: Voice Recognition Experiment [Marion Hakanson] Re: Information Needed to Use Call Manager [Ravinder Bhumbla] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ed_Greenberg@3mail.3com.com Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 11:26 PST Subject: Re: Did MCI Give me $20? > I think your suggestion is sort of a chintzy way to try and get > something for nothing. PAT] Of course it is, but the real question is whether such sales techniques are deceptive. It's been done before. Usually the conditions are in fine-print grey tones on the back of the check. The offering company is counting on your greed, stupidity, and that you'll deposit the check without realizing what the conditions are. Frankly, I think that they should lose the $20 times the number of checks they sent out. I sure wish I'd get one of those for the line that I use for incoming only. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1991 18:15-EST From: Richard.Lerner@lerner.avalon.cs.cmu.edu Reply-To: ral+@cs.cmu.edu Subject: Re: Did MCI Give me $20? Barton.Bruce@camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) argues that he can cash the $20 check from MCI without giving them permission to change his Dial-1 service. Lets be reasonable here! MCI makes its intent clear. It wants to give you $20 "cash" to change to MCI, rather than giving rebates on some future bill. Why do you want to pervert this promotion on some legal technicality? Do you really think that wasting peoples' time fighting to have your Dial-1 restored "all NOT at [your] expense" is reasonable? It is arguments like these that make the US one of the most litigious countries. You would rather have MCI spend its money on promotion lawyers, and have your local phone company waste its resources on your "fun", than on improving the phone system. > I am also sure there WOULD be a switch, and then a fight about > getting switched back all NOT at my expense, but that will be the > fun part. Yuck! I happen to be a Sprint customer and do not approve of MCI's alleged slamming. Rick Lerner (ral+@cs.cmu.edu) Carnegie Mellon University ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Mar 91 08:26:52 EST From: Gary W Sanders Subject: Re: Did MCI Give me $20? Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In article Barton.Bruce@camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) writes: > I have in front of me a check from MCI for $20. If I were to simply > sign it, I would also be signing a permission slip for them to BE my > default carrier. I think everyone in the world is getting the MCI checks ... the check says if you sign you agree to the switch plus any local telco charges. What happens if you don't sign and cash the check? I very seldom sign checks that I deposit via an ATM. I wonder if I get my $20? I'll bet MCI would still try to switch me. Being an AT&T employee I don't want that now, do I ... Gary Sanders (N8EMR) AT&T Bell Labs, Columbus Ohio gws@cblph.att.com 614-860-5965 ------------------------------ From: Tim Irvin Reply-To: irvin@northstar.dartmouth.edu Subject: Re: Did MCI Give me $20? Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 10:12:07 -0500 In TELECOM Digest V11 #203, Barton F. Bruce writes: > I have in front of me a check from MCI for $20. If I were to simply > sign it, I would also be signing a permission slip for them to BE my > default carrier. I always understood that the law was that if anyone sends you something through the mail unsolicited, you are free to keep it as a gift with no strings attached no matter what might be implied in the mailing. I used this to my advantage a few years ago when a credit card protection company sent me numerous $5 checks. I was to write my credit card number on the back of the check, sign it, and cash it. I would then be signed up for their protection. I simply wrote "NO THANK YOU" on the line for the credit card number and cashed them. (After eight or nine of these - I'm on a lot of mailing lists - it was a rather nice gift.) Each time they would mail the cashed check back to me with the checking account number on the bottom cut out (so it couldn't be re-cashed I assume), and remind me that I had forgotten to give them my credit card number. I would just throw these away and I never heard back from them again. Someone who has experience with the law might want to let us know what the legal issues of this may be. But for now anything that comes in my mail unsolicited I will be more than happy to take. I hope MCI gets the same mailing lists that the credit card protection service got. I'd love eight or nine free $20 checks :). Unfortunately, I am already signed up with MCI as a 10XXX carrier on both my lines, and they probably are removing current customers from this promotion (would be kind of pointless). Tim Irvin [Moderator's Note: The legal issue is, very simply that they did NOT -- contrary to your assertion -- send you 'something of value unsolicited in the mail which you are free to keep'. Unsolicited, yes. They sent you a contract; asked you to sign it; and offered to pay you on the spot if you would sign it. By tampering with the negotiable instrument enclosed, you commited fraud. The Credit Card Protection people -- likewise a scam perpetrated on innocent consumers -- can sue you to recover their money if they like. They probably won't, but in any event, you are now listed as a mail order deadbeat with at least a few companies. I hope you got something nice with the $40 you made in the process. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 06:30:34 -0500 From: Henry Mensch Subject: Re: Did MCI Give me $20? Reply-To: henry@mit.edu Barton F. Bruce writes: > I have been told that if someone puts on the back of a check something > like "in full payment for denting your fender" that that is NOT part > of the check and can be legally CROSSED OUT before signing. If you find a bank that will accept a check modified like this then you are in good shape. These banks just don't exist (you see, they're not in a position to verify that the modification is approved by the drawer of the check ... moreover, they're not interested, since there's more money to be made by accepting check deposits which do not carry qualified or conditional endorsements). > [Moderator's Note: ... I think your suggestion is sort > of a chintzy way to try and get something for nothing. PAT] Basically, this is true, IMHO. Fighting sleaze with slime is a tactic of dubious utility. If you really *must* have the twenty dollars, you could deposit the check and then close down the phone service they would switch to MCI. of course, not everyone is in a position to do this. # Henry Mensch / / E40-379 MIT, Cambridge, MA # / / # via X.400: S=mensch; OU=informatik; P=tu-muenchen; A=dbp; C=de ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Can You Disable Call-Waiting AFTER the Call Starts? Date: 14 Mar 91 13:59:02 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article , mcmahan@netcom.com (Dave Mc Mahan) writes: > My question is, "Is there any way to disable Call-Waiting AFTER a call > has been placed and a voice connection exists?". I'm looking for an > answer of "No way", or "Yes, and this is how you do it.". In New Jersey, the subscriber must subscribe to the feature that allows disabling of call-waiting for this to work. This is a feature that may be ordered and priced separately from call waiting. If disable call waiting is purchased, then the subscriber may disable call waiting on an established call by flashing the switchhook, and dialing *70, and may then expect to be reconnected with the call that was in progress. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 [Moderator's Note: Illinois Bell gives *70 for free. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Debit Phone Cards in NZ Organization: The Cave MegaBBS, Public Access Usenet, Wellington, NZ Date: 14 Mar 91 23:16:09 NZD (Thu) From: clear@cavebbs.gen.nz In article Richard Stephen asserts: (quoting Ben Kinchant) >> Toll calls from card phones are more expensive that from a home phone. >> ... but Telecom says that maintainance costs of the >> public telephones are much higher, which are reflected in the rates >> for card phones. > In my opinion the above comments are incomplete, partially inaccurate > and slightly emotive. Au contraire. They are complete, accurate and impartial. In my opinion. > The facts as I understand them are that national toll calls made from > a public card phone are charged at the FULL RATE irrespective of the > time of day or day. The full rate charge is identical to the charge > applied to a call made from any other phone (eg domestic). There is no > additional charge levied just because it is a card-phone. That, Sir, is absolute garbage. I find it absolutely appalling that someone concerned with corporate strategy within NZ Telecom would even think of posting that without making a token effort to verify "the facts" (as you understand them). You see, I happen to be one of the users of the NZ Telecom network. And having blown my last $5.00 cash on a phone card to make an emergency call from Auckland to Wellington (since there were no old-fashioned coin phones anywhere) I can tell you that I was not amused at being cut off three minutes and forty seconds into my call. I just took the liberty of phoning the toll operator, who being a most helpful and obliging sort, found the rates immediately. Wellington-Auckland full rate: 76c/minute " " coin phone: 90c/minute " " card phone: $1.60/first minute, $1.20/min thereafter "There is no additional charge levied just because it is a card-phone." > At the time, there was considerable public anguish about being levied > the full rate. There is, Richard. At over 210% the nominal full rate (a staggering 701% of the night rate) you bet there is considerable anguish. Especially among those who can't afford a private phone and are dependent on callboxes to keep in touch. Just how many million is Telecom spending in its current "cute-animals-on-TV" advertising campaign again? Perhaps if Telecom spent more on what people want and less on propaganda we might all be a little happier with NZ Telecom's service. Charlie Lear clear@cavebbs.gen.nz ------------------------------ From: Frederick Roeber Subject: Re: Voice Recognition Experiment Date: 15 Mar 91 06:35:46 PST In article , tad@ssc.UUCP (Tad Cook) writes: > The Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology is building a > huge database of voices as part of a project to develop voice > recognition for US West directory assistance. > They want to be able to classify sounds according to regional > differences, and they need thousands of samples of speech to do this. > Call 800-441-1037 (I assume this is nationwide ... it may not be) and > follow the voice prompts. They will ask your last name, where you are > calling from, and where you grew up, and then ask you to pronounce > several words and recite the alphabet. How available will this information be? Gee, I can think of lots of *really* *neat* *uses* for a database of people's voices connected with their names, current cities, and cities of birth. (Re: current cities: I think most people will call from home or work.) Maybe I'm too paranoid, but were I able to call, I think I'd leave out my name. Frederick G. M. Roeber | CERN -- European Center for Nuclear Research e-mail: roeber@caltech.edu or roeber@cern.ch | work: +41 22 767 31 80 r-mail: CERN/PPE, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland | home: +33 50 42 19 44 ------------------------------ From: hakanson@ogicse.ogi.edu (Marion Hakanson) Subject: Re: Voice Recognition Experiment Date: 15 Mar 91 20:14:59 GMT Organization: Oregon Graduate Institute (formerly OGC), Beaverton, OR In article tad@ssc.UUCP (Tad Cook) writes: > The Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology is building a > huge database of voices as part of a project to develop voice > recognition for US West directory assistance. Hey, neat, the speech guys here will be glad to know folks all over are calling in. I thought I'd contribute a little second-hand info on the (telephone) technology involved. First, I hear it was a, um, challenge to get a USWest 800-number into our location (GTE territory). I'm not sure how that was resolved. > [Moderator's Note: The number works from Chicago, and I gave my > specimen yesterday. It does take just a couple minutes, and it was > fun. I suggest everyone provide a specimen, and be sure to mention on > the tape you read about their efforts in TELECOM Digest! PAT] Uh, it's not a tape. They first had a scheme which used a modified answering machine wired up to a DSP board in a workstation. This didn't work too well, but along came an off-the-shelf magic box (I think they have two now) which has a phone connector on one "side" and a SCSI connector on the other. I hear there's a PC inside of it, and some DSP magic (16-bit sampling?), and it's made by a company called Gradient Technologies. If you want more details, I'll have to track down the folks in the know and let them type at you. About the only thing I have to add is that they sure do fill up a lot of disks with their speech samples. They also use up a lot of Exabyte tapes for backups, and they soak up plenty of SPARC cycles, as well. Marion Hakanson Domain: hakanson@cse.ogi.edu UUCP : {hp-pcd,tektronix}!ogicse!hakanson ------------------------------ From: Ravinder Bhumbla Subject: Re: Information Needed to Use Call Manager Date: 15 Mar 91 00:49:20 GMT Reply-To: Ravinder Bhumbla Organization: University of California, San Diego "Walter M. Amos" writes: > Several months ago, my household was using AT&T's Call Manager to keep > track of billing for long distance calls. Since moving AND living the > nomadic life for a few months, I have forgotten the method of > accessing this feature. (Something along the lines of dial 0 + ten > digits - + xxyy, where xx was a set number indicating Call > Manager and yy was the "account" number.) Can anyone clue me in to the > magic number I've forgotten. Ok. Here is how it works on AT&T (I don't know about other long-distance companies). 1. Each roommate selects an individual two-digit code (any number between 00 and 99). If the roommates are born in different years, the year of birth is a convenient code 2. For U.S. AT&T long-distance calls, a) dial: 0 + area code + number (for example 0-619-555-1212) b) on receiving the dial: 15nn (where nn is the individual 2 digit code) So the entire sequence for the example U.S. long-distance call is: 0-619-555-1212 15nn 3. For international calls, a) dial: 01 + country code + city code + number (for example 01-91-11-670619) b) on receiving the dial: 15nn (where nn is the individual 2 digit code) So the entire sequence for the example international call is: 01-91-11-670619 15nn In your phone bills, the long-distance calls will be sorted by the two-digit code Ravinder Bhumbla rbhumbla@ucsd.edu U. of California, San Diego [Moderator's Note: Does one have to specifically sign-up to use the Call Manager feature? The reason I ask is I just now made a zero plus call and and after the gong, entered 15xx, followed by the # to terminate dialing and speed the process. It was accepted no questions asked. I wonder what it will look like when billed. Incidentally, I see that 10732 is still accepting cals from non-subscribers also. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #206 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa06455; 16 Mar 91 3:27 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa15352; 16 Mar 91 2:01 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab17476; 16 Mar 91 0:57 CST Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 0:51:32 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #207 BCC: Message-ID: <9103160051.ad22396@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 16 Mar 91 00:51:23 CST Volume 11 : Issue 207 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Why Telco Should be Permitted to Maintain Monopoly [Louis Linneweh] Re: Why Telco Should be Permitted to Maintain Monopoly [Bryan Richardson] Re: Update on Rochester; and Telco Monopoly [Wm. Randolph Franklin] Re: Still Another Telephone Scam [S. M. Krieger] Re: Wanted: Stories of Corporate Toll Fraud [F. E. Carey] Re: Help Needed With NiCads on my Panasonic Cellular [Dave Platt] Re: Visiting LA From NY w/ Cell Phone [John R. Covert] Re: Debit Phone Cards in NZ [stephen@corp.telecom.co.nz] Re: New Telephone Numbers for Amsterdam (The Netherlands) [Rop Gonggrijp] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Louis Linneweh Subject: Re: Why Telco Should be Permitted to Maintain Monopoly Date: 15 Mar 91 19:45:20 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL sbrack@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Steven S. Brack) writes: > While I concur with Pat's reasoning, his conclusion that it would be > better to see the monopoly continue is puzzling. What demonstrable > benefit is there in a regulated monopoly, vs. the open market? In a word: standards. De facto, perhaps; obsolete, quite often; archaic occasionally; but usable standards none the less. For the public and even for telephony equipment suppliers. They just couldn't change the system fast enough toget a marketing advantage. Hmmmm. I used to know how to place a long distance call from a pay phone virtually anywhere in the country. I used to feel confident my kids could call me from those same phones. That is simply no longer true today. Sure, a lot of committees could set standards and a lot of laws could enforce them. But they don't and they are not effective. So far the basic telephones have remained compatible. At least I haven't called anyone I wasn't able to talk to and hear in return. But I worry about ISDN, Open Network Architecture, and the burgeoning features available. Will I always be able to talk to the person I called? OK, I'm exagerating, I suppose. None the less, I don't always know how to make a call from a pay phone anymore. That's a terrible step backward! That's my reason for supporting the regulated monopoly of the phone company. ------------------------------ From: Bryan Richardson Subject: Re: Why Telco Should be Permitted to Maintain Monopoly Date: 15 Mar 91 14:31:01 GMT Reply-To: Bryan Richardson Organization: Purdue University In article John Higdon writes: > rhc@agate.berkeley.edu writes: >> With all facilities under one manangment, reconfiguration to >> compensate for malfunction, disaster, or traffic overload could be >> swifter/easier. > But as was to sharply demonstrated in the Bay Area 'quake of 89, > diverse facilities is a plus, not a minus. Calls on AT&T were a joke; > the facilities were completely unavailable. This could have been due > to intentional blockage, but the fact is that I was able to > communicate with my clients while out of the area thanks to several > cheaptone OCCs that had no problem whatever completing my calls. At the risk of sounding like another one of "those AT&T employees," I thought I'd give a little background on the earthquake and the network management techniques AT&T used. Actually, after the earthquake, AT&T facilities were operating properly, albeit under an extremely heavy load. The day after the quake was the busiest day in the AT&T network ever (at that time). Most residents of Northern California had problems completing calls because they couldn't get to the AT&T network because of failures in the local network. As regards to intentional blockage, the philosophy is to permit as many calls as possible OUT of the affected area, while severely limiting the number of calls INTO the affected area. Thus, intentional blockage was used around the rest of the country (to the tune of 90% of attempts were not allowed to try to complete), while all calls reaching the AT&T network from the bay area were allowed through the network. Bryan Richardson richarbm@mentor.cc.purdue.edu AT&T Bell Laboratories and, for 1991, Purdue University Disclaimer: Neither AT&T nor Purdue are responsible for my opinions. ------------------------------ From: Wm Randolph Franklin Subject: Re: Update on Rochester; and Telco Monopoly Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY Date: 15 Mar 91 20:00:41 GMT In article CER2520@ritvax.isc.rit.edu (Curtis E. Reid) writes: > Front page headline: > "RG&E admits it erred" >Subheadline: "Utility underestimated ice's toll" Funny, that's the same thing that Niagara Mohawk said when Albany NY was hit by an ice storm on Oct 4 a few years ago. We had no power for 56 hours, which was about average; some had none for a week. It took the power company several days to realize what had hit them. The Rochester situation sounds much worse than ours though. By the way, you can't trust the power company spokesman about when the power has been restored. A NiMo spokesman once told our local newspaper that another blackout had been fixed by such-and-such a time. Funny, my lights were still off then. After the {Albany Times Union} published my letter of complaint (August 3, 1989) the spokesman sent me a full page letter saying that when he had talked to the paper the blackout had been in principle almost completely as good as fixed, so he had said that it was fixed. Sounded like PooBah in the Mikado explaining that when the Mikado ordered something done, it was as good as done, and so they said that they had done it, though they hadn't. Please note that these incompetent power companies are all monopolies. The only way to express dissatisfaction is to buy a generator, which many people have done, or go to cogeneration if you're big, which RPI is considering. If monopoly status would give the phone company better disaster recovery capabilities, why doesn't this apply to power companies? An RPI prof has patented a natural gas powered heater and cogenerator designed for homes with gas but no power. It's the obvious solution, and is thermodynamically efficient, but I don't know its commercial status. Wm. Randolph Franklin Internet: wrf@ecse.rpi.edu (or @cs.rpi.edu) Bitnet: Wrfrankl@Rpitsmts Telephone: (518) 276-6077; Telex: 6716050 RPI TROU; Fax: (518) 276-6261 Paper: ECSE Dept., 6026 JEC, Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst, Troy NY, 12180 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 12:43:54 EST From: S M Krieger Subject: Re: Still Another Telephone Scam Organization: Summit NJ > The latest in phone scams occurred this week in New York. Employees > of a large company with pagers received phone inquiries from 540 > numbers, which are billed the same as 900 numbers. When the number is > called, the customer is automatically charged $55.00. Employees from > other companies around New York have also been hit by this scam. This is another example of needing a college education, and then some, to use a telephone nowadays. Things were really easy when the cost of a call was based on only time of day, time of the call, and mileage. Anyway, what makes this more confusing (I have seen the ads for 540 numbers, since most of the TV stations serving 201/908 land are in NY City) is that they appear to be a NY Telephone invention. In 201, 540 is a central office code assigned to Morristown, NJ (about 30 air miles west of NY), so how is someone in 212, 516, 718, or 914 supposed to know that a seven-digit number, that in some places in this country is a "normal" phone number, is going to be a high priced call instead of just a few message units? Stan Krieger All opinions, advice, or suggestions, AT&T Unix System Laboratories even if related to my employment, are Summit, NJ are my own and do not represent any att!attunix!smk public or private policies of my employer. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 02:43:15 EST From: F E Carey Subject: Re: Wanted: Stories of Corporate Toll Fraud Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories KEITH MAYDAK wrote (on the Telecom Library BBS): > Subj: TOLL-FRAUD > OUR FIRM IS INTERESTED IN TALKING TO COMPANIES THAT WERE VICTIMIZED BY > TOLL-FRAUD. WE ARE DOING A RESEARCH REPORT FOR SEVERAL FORTUNE 500 > FIRMS. YOUR HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED - COMPLETELY CONFIDENTIAL!!! > 800-969-1CSA ... call anytime ask for "KIRK" CALL US RIGHT NOW TO > DISCUSS WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU. Good luck. Most companies are extremely reluctant to disclose such losses. This is one reason that loss estimates range so wildly - from under a million per year to over a billion a year. I'd suggest you start with the Communications Fraud Control Association Rami Aburhamdeh, Executive Director, 7921 Jones Branch Drive, Suite 300, McLean, VA 22102 (703/848-9768. Recent court cases are another source of loss info and these should be public records. For a recent case see the Leslie Doucette case. She was sentenced last summer to 27 months in prison. She was running some kind of voice mail fraud scheme. Sorry I can't give a case number but it was heard in U.S. District Court in Chicago. I would expect the victims to be identified in court records. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 10:38:36 PST From: Dave Platt Subject: Re: Help Needed With NiCads on my Panasonic Cellular Organization: New Technologies Group, Inc. Palo Alto CA In article Scott Meyers writes: > I have a Panasonic Transportable phone. I know about the problems > associated with NiCads when you try to recharge them before they've > been totally depleted. How can I discharge the battery beyond the > handset just cutting off. I figured something like a light bulb and > some leads to connect to the battery terminals but that seems crude > and slow. Any suggestions. Thanks in advance... What you've suggested is crude and slow ... and, if you're talking about a typical NiCd battery pack, it can damage the cells. The _only_ safe ways to discharge NiCd cells are either [a] one at a time, or [b] with the cells connected in parallel. In either case, a light bulb or a resistor does a fine job. This is easy to do if you have single 1.2-volt cells (e.g. AA or C or D size); you can home-brew up a discharging fixture with a battery holder, light, and resistor from Radio Shack. Discharging NiCd cells that are connected in series (e.g. when they are wired up in a battery pack) is a BAD idea. The reason is that it's quite common for one cell in the pack to have slightly less capacity than another (manufacturing differences, etc.). If you try to discharge the battery all the way to zero, the weakest cell will reach zero volts while the other cells are still "live". As the remaining cells continue to discharge, the current will be flowing through the dead cell ... in effect, trying to "charge" it in reverse (as if you'd put the cell into a charger backwards). This will damage the cell ... it may lose some of its ability to store electricity, and/or develop an internal short. Because the cell has been weakened, it will run down even sooner the next time you use it ... and if you then attempt to drain the whole battery, you'll damage the weakened cell even sooner. Eventually the cell may short itself completely, and your battery pack's output will be 1.2 volts below what it should be ... your phone will probably reject it. It's true that some NiCd cells have been shown to exhibit a "memory" effect, if you repeatedly discharge them to an identical point and then recharge them. I've heard that modern NiCd batteries have pretty much eliminated the memory effect. In real-world use, the memory effect is likely to do much less damage to the cells in your battery than over-discharging them will. NiCd cells have a very flat voltage output ... they deliver very close to 1.2 volts until they've almost completely discharged, at which point the voltage drops off very rapidly. This is unlike the behavior of lead-acid, carbon-zinc, and alkaline batteries, whose output voltages drop off more gradually and smoothly as they discharge. Well-designed NiCd-powered equipment will detect the voltage dropoff, and will shut down immediately to avoid over-discharging the cells and damaging the battery pack. So, your best bet is probably to keep a spare well-charged NiCd battery with your phone. When the phone reports "Low battery" and shuts down, it means that the battery you've been using has only about 5% of its capacity left and should _not_ be discharged further. You can then swap in the new battery, and recharge the old one without worrying about the memory effect. Dave Platt VOICE: (415) 813-8917 UUCP: ...apple!ntg!dplatt USNAIL: New Technologies Group Inc. 2468 Embarcardero Way, Palo Alto CA 94303 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 12:38:32 PST From: "John R. Covert 15-Mar-1991 1524" Subject: Re: Visiting LA From NY w/ Cell Phone > I do not believe Rochester Tel has any agreements with PacTel or > Cellular One. According to the Cellular Telephone Directory published by Communications Publishing Service in Seattle (orders taken at 800 366-6731), Rochester Telephone Mobile Communications has a roaming agreement with PacTel Cellular. There is no "Cellular One" in L.A.; the "A" carrier is "Los Angeles Cellular Telephone", which has one of the shortest lists of roaming agreements of any cellular carrier in the book. PacTel's roaming rates are not bad, but the last time I was out there they were one of the lousy companies I'll never make LD calls on, because I won't DTMF my calling card number over the air. Both L.A. carriers charge 1/2 minute of airtime for all incomplete calls. In fact, in California, the PUC has determined that rates will be identical for both carriers in L.A. These rates are $50 signup (the PacTel Rep I spoke to on 800 851-9815 was somewhat uncertain about that) and $45/month with .45 peak and .27 off-peak. Peak is 7a-7p. There's also an off-peak plan for $25/month with peak at .90 and off-peak at .20. If you're going to use the phone mostly off-peak and don't care about the no-long-distance calls except by credit card problem, roaming rates are no daily fee, peak .70 and off-peak .27. john ------------------------------ From: Subject: Re: Debit Phone Cards in NZ Reply-To: Organization: Telecom Corporation of New Zealand Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1991 22:59:21 GMT Charlie Lear (clear@cavebbs.gen.nz) writes in response to my article: > That, Sir, is absolute garbage. I find it absolutely appalling that > someone concerned with corporate strategy within NZ Telecom would even > think of posting that without making a token effort to verify > "the facts" (as you understand them). > "There is no additional charge levied just because it is a card-phone." Agreed. Mea Culpa ! Its been a long time since I used a public phone, simply because I haven't needed to. Yes, I too could have phoned the operator to check first. Thankyou for the information. richard. These are my opinions entirely, and do not represent my employer in any way whatsoever. ------------------------------ From: Rop Gonggrijp Subject: Re: New Telephone Numbers for Amsterdam (The Netherlands) Date: 15 Mar 91 14:01:44 GMT Organization: Hack-Tic dolf@idca.tds.philips.nl (Dolf Grunbauer) writes: > Last weekend (on Sunday morning 3 March 1991), Amsterdam (in The > Netherlands) has had their six digit numbers changed into seven digit > numbers by prefixing the old number with a 6. Well, not really. The 74XXXX exchange can still be called with and without the 6. I would say it is at least a remarkable coincedence that the PTT happens to have a lot of their lines on there (and KLM rents 747 747). Rop Gonggrijp (ropg@ooc.uva.nl) Editor of Hack-Tic (hack/phreak mag.) Postbus 22953 (in DUTCH) 1100 DL AMSTERDAM tel: +31 20 6001480 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #207 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa11500; 16 Mar 91 6:43 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa10035; 16 Mar 91 5:06 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa06474; 16 Mar 91 4:02 CST Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 3:29:18 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #208 BCC: Message-ID: <9103160329.ab17527@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 16 Mar 91 03:29:08 CST Volume 11 : Issue 208 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Houston Chronicle Cellular Fraud Story [Floyd Davidson] Re: Houston Chronicle Cellular Fraud Story [Norman Yarvin] Cellular Air Time Charges Around the World - Who Pays? [David E A Wilson] Re: 10xxx vs. 950-xxxx Variances With Calling Card [Steven Schwartz] Re: New Zealand Telecom News [Henry Mensch] Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? [Tad Cook] Re: Still More COCOT Sleaze [Roy M. Silvernail] Re: Did MCI Give me $20? [Marc T. Kaufman] Re: V.32bis and V.17 Adopted by CCITT [Colin Plumb] Box Needed to use Single Line Phone on 1A2 [Charles Jay Pilzer] Beware of Hotel Telephone Services [Ralph Moonen] AT&T Problem Solved [Ole J. Jacobsen] Caller-Identification Tool [Brian Holmes] Source Wanted For Telephony Magazines in Spanish [Teodoro G. Alonzo] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: floyd@ims.alaska.edu (Floyd Davidson) Subject: Re: Houston Chronicle Cellular Fraud Story Organization: University of Alaska, Institute of Marine Science Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1991 04:45:28 GMT > We just had a case where some people came to town and set up > three-way conference calling between Houston, Iraq and Kuwait,'' said > the chief financial officer of one cellular service provider. That > fraud can total up to $30,000 in 24 hours.'' Hmmmm. 1440 minutes in 24 hours, so the combined cost of calling Iraq and Kuwait is about, ahhh, $22 a minute, or $11 to either one alone per minute. That is fairly sensational. It should have been written up in the {National Enquirer}. Floyd L. Davidson | floyd@ims.alaska.edu | Alascom, Inc. pays me Salcha, AK 99714 | Univ. of Alaska | but not for opinions. [Moderator's Note: It does seem a bit steep, doesn't it! Even if you took an entire weekend -- 48 hours -- you'd be looking at $5.50 per place/minute, which is still too high, considering international phone charges are $2-3 per minute maximum. What does the cell phone cost per minute? And is the connection left open all the time; never closed once in 24 hours? Someone gave Joe some bum information, I'm afraid. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Norman Yarvin Subject: Re: Houston Chronicle Cellular Fraud Story Date: 15 Mar 91 04:42:13 GMT edtjda@magic322.chron.com (Joe Abernathy) writes: > The industry is fighting back as if for its life. Yet the response > is scattershot, with some entrepreneurial cellular companies leaving > security lax for the sake of quick profits. The above paragraph contradicts itself blatantly. Abernathy presumably has access to Usenet, and is possibly computer-literate. Why then doesn't he include the critical fact that the insecurity of cellular phone systems which his article mentions can be completely eliminated by the simplest of security arrangements? (i.e. not just blindly accepting new ESNs) There are of course more sophisticated attacks. Once cellular companies turn off the automatic enabling of new ESNs, thieves may take to stealing ESNs off the air. Even this can be prevented, but only by adding encryption, which would obsolete existing phones. Media accounts that I have seen uniformly fail to properly represent the ephemeral nature of the structures that are violated in phone/computer crime. These are not physical systems, whose structure -- and whose security -- is severely limited by costs of materials. If they do not include watertight security, that is because they were designed or are operated in violation of some very simple principles. Having real security is a minor nuisance to all involved, but both the picking up pieces after fraud and the blocking of calls where fraud is rampant are major nuisances. The sooner these basic aspects of computer security become a part of our society's common knowledge, the better. ------------------------------ From: David E A Wilson Subject: Cellular Air time Charges Around the World - Who Pays? Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Wollongong University Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 02:16:02 GMT I know from reading this Digest that in the USA the cellular phone user pays air-time charges for calls received as well as those originated. Here in Australia the originator of the call pays (but the air time charges do not add to the cost of all calls - just those over distances of less than 165km. Over 165km cellular calls and land-line calls cost the same per minute). What methods of charging do other countries use for their cellular systems? David Wilson Dept Comp Sci, Uni of Wollongong david@cs.uow.edu.au ------------------------------ From: Steven Schwartz Subject: Re: 10xxx vs. 950-xxxx Variances With Calling Card Reply-To: Steven Schwartz Organization: Expert Systems Lab., NYNEX Sci. and Tech., White Plains NY Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 20:37:46 GMT I had a similar situation in Brookline (Boston) MA. When I moved in two years ago, I selected MCI as my primary carrier, then called MCI to request a calling card. The card number comprised my home phone, ending with the "passcode" "1234". Some time later, I called the MCI/AAdvantage number to associate my MCI account with my American Airlines AAdvantage account. I then received a second calling card, with the AAdvantage logo; this card's number was my home phone plus "5678". One of the numbers was only valid on 950-1022; the other worked only on 10222+. Calls using "1234" showed up on my New England Telephone bill as an MCI attachment. Calls using "5678" showed up on my separate MCI bill, which included 1+ calls from my home phone. I believe -- I'm not certain -- that "1234" worked on 10222+. S. H. Schwartz schwartz@nynexst.com Expert Systems Laboratory 914-683-2960 NYNEX Science and Technology Center White Plains NY 10604 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 06:37:00 -0500 From: Henry Mensch Subject: Re: New Zealand Telecom News Reply-To: henry@mit.edu Pat Cain writes: > Telecom cardphones (same model as most British cardphones) have been > installed on the NZ Railways Ferries that travel between the North and > South Islands in NZ (about a 3 1/2 hour journey). > minute). Similar facilities exist on the Star Ferry which runs between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon ... although i don't recall (off-hand) whether the star ferry phones accept the telecom phonecards ... # Henry Mensch / / E40-379 MIT, Cambridge, MA # / / # via X.400: S=mensch; OU=informatik; P=tu-muenchen; A=dbp; C=de ------------------------------ From: hpubvwa!ssc!Tad.Cook@cs.washington.edu Subject: Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 1:09:55 PST In article , ROCKY@cup.portal.com writes: > Just a couple of quick notes on this topic. First of all, due to the > kind contribution of someone whose name I unfortunately cannot > remember, I am now holding a catalog from Proctor. Their 46220 > 'Telephone Hot Line Automatic Ringing Private Line` includes its own > power supply and ringing generator system. > Once more, to contact them: > Proctor & Associates > 15050 Northeast 36th > Redmond, Washington 98052 > 1-800-824-9719 The 46220 sells for $179. They are also stocked by GTE Supply and North Supply. Proctor can also be reached at: phone: 206-881-7000 Fax: 206-885-3282 internet: 3991080@mcimail.com Tad Cook Seattle, WA Packet: KT7H @ N7ENT.#WWA.WA.USA.NA Phone: 206/527-4089 MCI Mail: 3288544 Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad or, tad@ssc.UUCP ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Still More COCOT Sleaze From: "Roy M. Silvernail" Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 22:39:06 CST Organization: Villa CyberSpace, Minneapolis, MN CAPEK%YKTVMT.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (Peter G. Capek) writes: > when I dialed 0, expecting to get either AOS/COCOT operator, after a > LOT of delay and clicking, I got an operator who identified himself as > being "AT&T". That seemed strange, but I accepted it. I billed the > call to my AT&T card number. I'd bet that, if you pressed the operator, you'd find that s/he was saying "ATNT" instead of 'AT&T'. I steer clear of COCOTs for long distance. Here in Minneapolis, a fair number of AT&T COCOTs are appearing, and I've used them for local calls. It's surprising, at first, since they hand you dial tone, accept the number, and after a brief pause you hear another dial tone and the number you dialled being pulsed out. When the second blast of dial tone comes on, it sounds strange by comparison. (The locally generated DT you get at first isn't quite a match for DT from the CO.) I haven't checked the keypad to see if it remains active. (I'll do that next time I see one of these phones.) Roy M. Silvernail |+| roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu ------------------------------ From: "Marc T. Kaufman" Subject: Re: Did MCI Give me $20? Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Ca , USA Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1991 07:14:16 GMT In article irvin@northstar.dartmouth. edu writes: > In TELECOM Digest V11 #203, Barton F. Bruce writes: -> I have in front of me a check from MCI for $20. If I were to simply -> sign it, I would also be signing a permission slip for them to BE my -> default carrier. > [Moderator's Note: The legal issue is, very simply that they did NOT > -- contrary to your assertion -- send you 'something of value > unsolicited in the mail which you are free to keep'. Unsolicited, yes. ... > you to recover their money if they like. They probably won't, but in > any event, you are now listed as a mail order deadbeat with at least a > few companies. I hope you got something nice with the $40 you made in > the process. PAT] If being listed as a mail order deadbeat means I get a lot less mail from mall order companies ... then send me those checks! (And I thought it would cost ME money to get off the lists)! I'll take my chances on being sued for fraud. In most states, $5 or $10 is well below the limit at which you can be sued in Superior court, and it costs more than that to file for Small Claims court. Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Neon.stanford.edu) ------------------------------ From: ccplumb@rose.uwaterloo.ca (Colin Plumb) Subject: Re: V.32bis and V.17 Adopted by CCITT Organization: University of Waterloo Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1991 10:31:51 GMT peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) wrote: > hayes!tnixon@uunet.uu.net (Toby Nixon) writes: >> V.17 is the new modulation scheme that provides 12000 and 14400 bps >> trellis-coded modulation for Group 3 facsimile. > Any relation to Telebit's proprietary "PEP" protocol? Not the slightest. V.17 looks a lot like V.32bis, which looks nothing like PEP. The resemblance is as close as Latin is to Japanese. Colin ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 0:07:57 EST From: Charles Jay Pilzer Subject: Box Needed to use Single Line Phone on 1A2 Organization: URSA Consultants, Chevy Chase, MD. I have an old phone system in my home that came from my office. I think it is 1A2 equipment. It has ten button phones with transparent square buttons and uses A-A1 lines to signal the busy lights. I want to use some modern single line phones on the system. I got a box from TT Systems Corporation in NJ called a "key system adapter" which has a sandwich plug in the 50 pair line and buttons with busy leds for the first five lines. They don't make it any more. The new box they have is a TA-50. But when I use it it causes the bells on all other extentions to fail when that line is selected on the box. The phone connected to the box rings. I would like to use these boxes but can not solve the problem. I also have a box that was made by Northern Telecom which sort of matches the phones that also has six lighted square buttons, that I use to switch a single line phone. This box does not have a circuit like the T-10 to make the A-A1 connection, but I have solved that with a small relay that senses talk current. The questions I have are what is this box called and where can I buy some? Thanks for any reply. Charles Jay Pilzer cjp@ursaco.beartrack.com URSA Consultants !uunet!beartrk!ursaco!cjp Chevy Chase, MD Compuserve 73777,2216 ------------------------------ From: rmoonen@hvlpa.att.com Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 13:35 MET Subject: Beware of Hotel Telephone Services When I was in the States a while ago, I learned to be careful of telephone calls from hotels. I was staying at a Hotel in Naperville, just near the AT&T plant there, and decided to give a friend who lives in Washington DC a call. I dialed a 0 for an external line, and dialed 1 NPA SN and the phone went on the other side, however, nobody answered the phone after about eight times ringing. I tried it again the next day, also to no avail. Finally I got through. I also placed a call to a friend in The Netherlands (where I live) and got through, and arranged for him to call me collect at work the next day. When I left, I got my hotel bill, and on the bill where _all_ the calls I made, including the ones that were never answered. This amounted to $7.00 of charges for calls that didn't succeed. When I asked them how this was possible, they told me that 'due to the equipment not being able to detect a call being answered, it starts billing automatically after 15 seconds.' I told them that the call had never gone through, and they instantly deleted the charges from my phone bill. The weird thing however was that the call to the Netherlands never even showed up on my bill. As if the billing equipment wasn't capable of detecting international calls.... Well, I will check my hotel bill every time now, to check for bogus telephone charges. Also I would like to know if a setup like this is legal. I mean, can they charge for a service not delivered? Ralph Moonen rmoonen@hvlpa.att.com (+31)2155-24356 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 8:28:09 PST From: "Ole J. Jacobsen" Subject: AT&T Problem Solved Finally, late Wednesday the long distance problem I described was solved to by AT&T Long Distance Repair. The tech apparently had great difficulties convincing her supervisors that it was possible to make the call via other carriers, but *not* via AT&T. If you did, the result would be endless ringing at a bogus number which never answered, and according to the tech, "we don't test ring-no-answers..." The problem turned out to be an incorrect routing entry in the San Jose office, new prefixes are indeed entered manually which can lead to these kinds of problems. I wonder if I would have been able to get this fixed if there hadn't been other carriers ....? Ole J Jacobsen, Editor & Publisher ConneXions--The Interoperability Report Interop, Inc., 480 San Antonio Road, Suite 100, Mountain View, CA 94040, USA Phone: (415) 941-3399 FAX: (415) 949-1779 Email: ole@csli.stanford.edu Direct:(415) 917-2215 ------------------------------ From: Brian Holmes Subject: Caller-Identification Tool Organization: Wayne State University, Detroit Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 01:44:10 GMT There is an application for the Mac where it can register incoming phone-numbers before you even pick up the line using the caller-identification feature available in some CO's. Is anyone aware of such program and hardware which would make this possible on a Sun? PHONE: (313) 577-3750 FAX=577-5626 Wayne State University BITNET: bholmes@waynest1.bitnet 5925 Woodward INTERNET: bri@jake.cc.wayne.edu Detroit, MI 48202 U.S.A ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 16:24:18 EST From: Teodoro G Alonso Subject: Source Wanted For Telephony Magazines in Spanish Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Hi, Does anybody know of telephony magazines published in Spanish? I you do please send me email with the following information: NAME: PUBLISHER: ADDRESS: PHONE: ISSN (OR EQUIVALENT): If there interest, I'll post a summary to the net. MUCHAS GRACIAS Ted Alonso juracan@ihlpl.att.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #208 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa25129; 16 Mar 91 20:39 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa17071; 16 Mar 91 19:12 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa22407; 16 Mar 91 18:07 CST Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 17:39:19 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #209 BCC: Message-ID: <9103161739.ab08881@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 16 Mar 91 17:38:59 CST Volume 11 : Issue 209 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson American Information Technologies Corp. Seeks Name Change [Richard Wurth] Telecommunications Emergency in El Salvador [Jym Dyer] The FCC and 900 Numbers [Brian Kantor] LEC Anti-Competitive Practices [John Higdon] I Want to Buy a COCOT [Steve Ligett] Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity Laws [John Kennedy] Update on Rochester, NY (3/16) [Curtis E. Reid] Re: Maestro Phones from Northern Telecom [John R. Covert] Re: Maestro Phones From Northern Telecom [Eric Skinner] Re: Why Telco Should be Permitted to Maintain Monopoly [John Higdon] Re: Rotary Dial w/o Wire Connection [Brian Gordon] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 09:46:00 EST From: Richard T Wurth Subject: American Information Technologies Corp. Seeks Name Change Organization: AT&T Bell Labs/Lincroft, NJ According to a proxy statement dated March 1, 1991, American Information Technologies Corporation is seeking shareholder approval of a "Proposal to Amend the Certificate of Incorporation to Change the Corporate Name" to Ameritech Corporation. In recommending shareholder approval, the Board of Directors cites the contrast between the widespread recognition of its informal trade name Ameritech, a contraction of its formal, and the lesser degree of recognition for its longer, formal name, American Information Technologies. (Speaking solely for himself, this shareholder concurs with the proposal.) R. T. Wurth / LZ 1H-303 / AT&T-Bell Labs mtfmd!rtw or rtw@mtfmd.ATT.COM (Mail to cbnewsj!rtw may get lost.) 307 Middletown-Lincroft Rd. / Lincroft, NJ 07738 / 908 576 6332 ------------------------------ From: Jym Dyer Subject: Telecommunications Emergency in El Salvador Date: 16 Mar 91 11:57:14 GMT Reply-To: JASKE@bat.bates.edu Organization: Berserkeley [From ACTIV-L] > From: JASKE@bat.bates.edu > Subject: Emergency Situation in El Salvador EMERGENCY SITUATION IN EL SALVADOR!!! On Monday March 11 Salvadorean Telecommunications and Treasury Ministry workers went on strike. They are represented by the two following unions (respectively) ASTEL and AGHEMA. As of today, Tuesday March 12, all the work places have been occupied by Treasury Police, well known as the the brutal political police of El Salvador. A most urgent situation is taking place in La Delera where 75 police have surrounded a work site which has 25-30 striking workers inside. At the moment this is all the information available. More concrete information will be posted as it arrives. WHAT YOU CAN DO: Call or telex the following numbers demanding: (1) The demilitarization of the workplace (2) Respect for the right of workers to strike US Ambassador Walker: 011-503-267100 (voice) 011-503-20657 (telex) National Police: 011-503-714422 (voice) 011-503-20459 (telex) THANKS!! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 01:07:21 From: Brian Kantor Subject: The FCC and 900 Numbers In the news today there was mention that the FCC is proposing a rule that 900 numbers must announce the cost of the call at the beginning of the connection and allow the caller to disconnect then without being billed. I think that's a wonderful idea, and would suggest that the ruling be such that the TELEPHONE COMPANY handling the 900 call should provide that automatically - they can do it, since they already have the voice intercept equipment, and since they're doing the billing, they also know what the charges would be. By having the telco do the announcement, there'd be no chance for a sleazeball 900 service operator to collect money without the announcement in disregard of the law. Brian ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 00:54 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: LEC Anti-Competitive Practices In light of recent discussions concerning the relaxation of restrictions preventing LECs from entering the enhanced services marketplace, it might be of interest to know that hearings on this very topic are going on right now in California. Behind closed doors, testimony is being given concerning competitive abuses by Pac*Bell. Some examples of this abuse: Pac*Bell offers voicemail and more recently "The Message Center". This is in direct competition to voicemail bureaus. But Pac*Bell has an advantage. Besides being able to subsidize its voicemail business with regulated revenues and offering a very low (artificial) price that VM bureaus cannot touch, it can integrate the service with the CO switch. If a customer has messages waiting, telco can provide stutter dial tone to the customer so that he knows to check the voicemail. Through its Pacific Telesis subsidiaries, Pac*Bell is wooing customers to Centrex by offering extended area paging and other services that cross LATA (and even state) boundaries without having to bother the customer with nasty old IEC arrangements. Sort of the return to "one stop shopping" as it were. The temptation here is to say, "If the customer gets a good product at a reasonable price, what harm is there?" The problem is that if Pac*Bell and telcos in general are allowed to stomp out the competition by unfairly taking advantage of their position as utility network providers, ultimately there will be a return to the old days of no choice and take it or leave it pricing. Pac*Bell would like to see things both ways, in its favor of course. On the one hand, it wants no competition in the handling of standard local service. On the other, it wants to compete with it customers in the marketing of enhanced services such as Centrex, voicemail, audiotex, and in the future, terminal equipment. This just cannot be allowed to happen, unless we are prepared for a return to the old days of Ma Bell, only this time with many mini-tyrants rather than one national behemoth. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Steve Ligett Subject: I Want to Buy a COCOT Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1991 17:08:23 GMT I'm gathering information for our school board. We would like to have a pay phone in our school. It would be primarily for local calls made during times that the school building is open, but the office is not. For example during town meetings, school board meetings, sports events, etc. It would not be used during the school day, and could be hooked up to use one of the existing lines. Neither the phone company nor the local COCOT company are interested since it won't bring them much revenue. I know that COCOTs are not popular in this group, but this seems like a reasonable use for one. We'd label it to make sure that folks weren't fooled into thinking it's a normal pay phone, including a note like "Go to the Lyme Store or Nichol's Hardware for cheaper calls." What do you think? Is this a good idea? Where/how do I buy such a phone? How much do they cost? Is there another way to do this? Please reply by mail or post as you see fit. I used to read the telecom group regularly, but I don't any more. I'll keep an eye on it for a while now (and I did check that this isn't answered in current articles). Thanks! steve.ligett@dartmouth.edu or ...!dartvax!steve.ligett ------------------------------ From: John Kennedy Subject: Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity Laws Date: 16 Mar 91 14:49:05 GMT Reply-To: John Kennedy Organization: Second Source, Inc., Annapolis, MD Does anyone know of localities where the cable TV companies are required to provide signal to a demark rather than pretending to know where the cable is routed within the house? Around here, the cable companies want to account for and charge the subscriber for each piece of equipment connected to the cable. It seems that cable legislation is a few years behind that for the telephone industry. Have there been any cases involving a subscriber who has, say, an entire house wired for watching the output of a VCR, yet the incoming cable is attached to only that one device, the VCR? Is there legislation afoot anywhere that is attempting to modernize this? John Kennedy johnk@opel.COM Second Source, Inc. Annapolis, MD ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 12:14 EST From: "Curtis E. Reid" Subject: Update on Rochester, NY (3/16) A quick brief update: * Power is still out among 1,000 RG&E customers. * Phone services is still out among 10,000 RTC customers -- progress was slowed until RGE finishes their work which then significant progress will be made. (Telephone wires share the same poles as electrical wires.) * Estimated damge including insurance claims totals $374 million! (Reported to be the largest -- larger than the damage in North Carolina when Hurriane Hugo struck.) * I don't believe there are any outage of cable subscribers. * Wood chips and wood mulch are estimated to produce about 11,000 cubic yards a day! I heard that the county already has 500,000 cubic yards piled up at many places! Curtis E. Reid CER2520@RITVAX.Bitnet (Bitnet) CER2520@RITVAX.isc.rit.edu (Internet) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 02:20:35 PST From: "John R. Covert 16-Mar-1991 0520" Subject: Re: Maestro Phones from Northern Telecom > Just the other day I received a collect call from a local payphone. I > would have expected it to display "Unknown" as the call was placed > through the operator, but instead, the display was "Long Distance." > Go figure. > [Moderator's Note: Probably the reason it said 'long distance' was > because the payphone was a COCOT, and the Alternate Operater > Disservice involved in handling the collect call was not really an > Operator, and they splashed the call via DDD from some other location. Remember, though, that this happened in Canada, where they do not yet have COCOTs, AOSs, or LATAs. It's really very simple. The Bell Canada Operator Services System is connected to the network via the toll switch, even when handling local calls. john [Moderator's Note: You're correct. Canada remains relatively unpolluted where telecom is concerned as of yet. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 12:17:31 EST From: Eric Skinner <443114@acadvm1.uottawa.ca> Subject: Re: Maestro Phones From Northern Telecom (Collect call from payphone caused erroneous message on Call*ID box.) > [Moderator's Note: Probably the reason it said 'long distance' was > because the payphone was a COCOT, and the Alternate Operater > Disservice involved in handling the collect call was not really an > Operator, and they splashed the call via DDD from some other location. > Your telco saw it coming in from another LATA as just a regular call. PAT] Impossible. No COCOTs in Bell Canada territory (yet -- knock wood.) Interestingly, operators here still identify themselves as "Bell Operator." Eric Skinner 443114@acadvm1.uottawa.ca University of Ottawa Ottawa, Canada ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 03:33 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Why Telco Should be Permitted to Maintain Monopoly Louis Linneweh writes: > In a word: standards. De facto, perhaps; obsolete, quite often; > archaic occasionally; but usable standards none the less. For the > public and even for telephony equipment suppliers. They just couldn't > change the system fast enough toget a marketing advantage. Hmmmm. Standards are as firm as ever since the breakup. Bellcore, the God of telephone standards and blessings is as healthy as ever. In fact, of necessity, the standards are now fully documented and available to all instead of being secretly tucked away with the attitude that "only the phone company and its employees need to know about such things". > I used to know how to place a long distance call from a pay phone > virtually anywhere in the country. I used to feel confident my kids > could call me from those same phones. Is that so? I remember many years before anyone had ever heard of Judge Greene. Traveling around the country, I found some phones could direct dial long distance and some could not. Of those that could not, sometimes it was necessary to dial "0"; from others "110"; from still others "112". Of those that could dial long distance direct, some required a "1"; some required a "110"; some a "circle digit"; some requested the calling number while others did not. Oh, and by the way, almost none of the payphones would allow the customer to dial his own long distance call (at least before TSPS). > OK, I'm exagerating, I suppose. None the less, I don't > always know how to make a call from a pay phone anymore. Yes, you are. And being very short sighted at that. You have focused on the one major aberration of divestiture, COCOTs. The problem here is that no one is enforcing regulations already in place. And I am very curious: what is so hard about placing a call on a COCOT? All of the complaints that I have heard center around the cost and deception regarding the long distance carrier, not that it requires any special effort or knowledge to place the call. > That's my reason for supporting the regulated monopoly of the phone > company. It is a pretty weak one. Besides the seven RBOCs in this country there are hundreds of independent telcos providing LEC services. They were there before divestiture as well. Did you feel that your precious standards were being violated by all of these different companies then? If hundreds of telephone companies around the country can maintain standards, then two or three LECs can maintain them in a particular community. Claiming that monopoly is necessary to preserve the ease and convenience of telephony is a wheezing old argument that even the telcos are beginning to put to rest. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Brian Gordon Subject: Re: Rotary Dial w/o Wire Connection Date: 16 Mar 91 17:37:01 GMT Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca. In article JTUCKER@vax2.cstp.umkc.edu writes: > Is it possible to take a phone that only has pulse dialing and convert > it to tone dialing? > [Moderator's Note: Well, sure it is. You would open the phone, > disconect the dial and associated wires, yank it out and insert a > touch tone pad there instead. Of course, the shell would not fit > correctly since the cut out on the rotary dial phone is round, and the > cut out you'll be needing is square. Why bother, given the inexpensive > and high quality touchtone phones on the market? I could walk from > home to the Radio Shack, buy a phone and bring it back quicker than I > could modify an old dial phone. PAT] Gee, I'm less imaginative. I'd just replace the mouthpiece with one of those "touch tone mouthpiece" devices and just ignore the original dial. Brian G. Gordon briang@Sun.COM (if you trust exotic mailers) ...!sun!briangordon (if you route it yourself) [Moderator's Note: What I particularly dislike about those tone pad in the mouthpiece devices is how easily they seem to get the buttons stuck and gummed up. If you hold the receiver on your shoulder with your head cocked to one side it is easy to get saliva sprayed on the pad as you are talking. If you rely more on what you hear in your ear rather than what you see your fingers doing when dialing (to insure you have dialed corectly) then you have a more difficult time. Maybe some of those things are well built and sturdy, but I have yet to see one in use after a couple months that was not nasty from the close proximity to the mouths of everyone who had eaten/smoked cigarettes while talking on the phone, plus having buttons that were starting to get stuck. I'd not think of those things as a real conversion. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #209 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa11040; 17 Mar 91 12:44 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa07573; 17 Mar 91 11:22 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa10924; 17 Mar 91 10:17 CST Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 9:46:59 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #210 BCC: Message-ID: <9103170947.ab17577@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 17 Mar 91 09:46:49 CST Volume 11 : Issue 210 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson GTE / California Helps Prevent Slamming [Ken Jongsma] California PUC Schedules CLASS Hearings [Ken Jongsma] COCOT Phones in Colorado [Andy Rabagliati] The Order of Repair [John Higdon] AT&T's Dream-On Ad Campaign [John Higdon] Gathering Bits of Info From Bellcore [David Leibold] Telecom Articles Worth Reading in IEEE 'Proceedings' [malcolm@apple.com] FCC Proposed Regs on Public Access Phones [Blake Farenthold] Re: I Want to Buy a COCOT [Barton F. Bruce] Re: Cellular Telephones on a Bicycle [Allyn Lai] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: GTE / California Helps Prevent Slamming Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 12:45:45 EST From: Ken Jongsma According to an bill insert, GTE California is now offering an authorization form to prevent "slamming" by other long distance carriers. There is no charge for this form. Returning it to GTE will allow your account to be coded such that your written permission is required for a carrier change. Ken Jongsma ken@wybbs.mi.org Smiths Industries ken%wybbs@sharkey.umich.edu Grand Rapids, Michigan ..sharkey.cc.umich.edu!wybbs!ken ------------------------------ Subject: California PUC Schedules CLASS Hearings Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 12:58:37 EST From: Ken Jongsma According to a GTE Bill Insert, the California Public Utilities Commission will be holding hearings on the following CLASS (GTE calls them SmartCall) features: Calling Number Delivery Display (Caller ID) Automatic Call Return (Returns call to last caller) Automatic Busy Redial (Checks for free line for 30 minutes) Special Call Forwarding (Allows up to 12 numbers to be designated for call forwarding) Call Blocking (Allows up to 12 numbers to be routed to a recording) Special Call Waiting (allows a destinctive call waiting beep to be assigned to 12 numbers) Special Call Acceptance (allows up to 12 numbers to ring. All others get a recording.) VIP Alert (Distinctive ring for up to 12 numbers) Customer Originated Trace (Records Caller Number at Telco) The public hearings will be held: Mar 27 - San Francisco Mar 28 - Sacremento Apr 1 - Anaheim Apr 2 - Victorville Apr 3 - San Diego Apr 4 - Norwalk Jun 24 - San Francisco (Formal Evidentiary Hearing) In 1989, California passed a law requiring that callers be allowed to block Caller ID on an individual basis. GTE proposes to allow per call blocking at no charge, but not per line blocking. They note that even with per call blocking, all other features would still be able to use the caller's number. The CPUC will also accept written comments. 90 minute workshops on how to present evidence at formal hearings are also available. Ken Jongsma ken@wybbs.mi.org Smiths Industries ken%wybbs@sharkey.umich.edu Grand Rapids, Michigan ..sharkey.cc.umich.edu!wybbs!ken ------------------------------ From: Andy Rabagliati Subject: COCOT Phones in Colorado Organization: SGS-Thomson/Inmos Division Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 04:00:45 GMT Having got burned again on a COCOT in Colorado Springs, (it took my 50 cents for 411 then returned busy), I decided to call the PUC in Denver to find out the state regulations regarding COCOTs. I found that COCOTs were specifically exempted from PUC regulation. They suggested there might be an FCC docket that covered COCOTs, since the state had nothing to say. I called the FCC [long phone chase deleted] and eventually got a very helpful lady who said yes, there were some FCC regulations regarding alternative operator services, but things like 411, 911 were local issues, and FCC did not concern themselves with these. She would mail me what they had. I called Denver again, and asked - what about 911? Hmm ... let me conference you in with our legal counsel. No rules at all. I pressed them on this, and they suggested that I call Colorado Springs city council to see if they had local regulations. I have not called them yet - but I very much doubt that they cover issues like the name, address or phone number of the service provider, 411, etc. Having followed the discussion here on California laws, I was very surprised to find that Colorado COCOTs are exempt from PUC regulation. Is this common? Any suggestions for a course of action? (I am not a voter - as I am a UK citizen). Cheers, Andy ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 20:00 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: The Order of Repair This talk about the problems in Rochester reminds me of a telling situation that happened right here in my neighborhood a couple of years ago. Almost simultaneously the cable, ALL of my phone lines, and the electricity went dead. A short time later, fire engines were screaming down the street. It seems that some trees had caught fire in the next block and had taken out all the services on the poles nearby. In my inimitable fashion, I went to a payphone to report all three. I realized the cause, but wanted to have a trouble report on file so that if there were any screwups later, I would be able to refer to my initial complaint, not to mention get credit for lengthy service interruptions. By the way, always report an outage (particularly telephone) even if you know the cause and know it is being handled so that you can get that credit later. What is interesting is the order in which the services were restored. Within a very short time after the fire was extinguished the cable was restored. I have some battery operated TVs and was able to observe this for myself. An hour or so after that, the electricity came back on. The next morning I discovered that phone service was still missing, but at 9AM a Pac*Bell supervisor knocked on my door to tell me that the entire block was without phone service (I knew that) and he came by my place because I was the only one who called in trouble. He explained that the reason it was taking so long was that there was shock hazard from the PG&E restoration work. As it turned out, telephone service was restored by late afternoon, about twenty-four hours after the outage began. Not very impressive. So it breaks down like this: The cable company had its act together. Its service restoral (while hardly essential) was first rate. PG&E took three hours to restore service. PG&E is probably the worst electric utility on the planet so for them it was probably miraculous. Never mind that the fire was originally started by primary wires arcing in the trees because PG&E felt it unnecessary to do any trimming. But wiping up the rear was Pac*Bell, who was too wimpy to even begin work on its cable until the next day. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 00:38 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: AT&T's Dream-On Ad Campaign AT&T's current TV ad compaign is probably the biggest waste of money Madison Avenue has ever experienced. It is the one that says, "To be sure you get AT&T, dial 10-ATT-0 and then your number." What is wrong with this? It does not work. There is not (to my knowledge) a COCOT on the planet that will allow a call of the form '10288+0+10D' and actually route the call through AT&T. So what is all of this advertising buying the company? A lot of ill will from confused and frustrated customers who discover that there is no way to do what the ads say, is what. If AT&T will not accept the real world of COCOTs and provide something other than 10288 access, then it should at least save its advertising money for a better campaign, no? John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: woody Subject: Gathering Bits of Info From Bellcore Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 00:53:16 EST I recently called up Bellcore to see if a few bits of information could be gleaned out. The starting point was one of the Bellcore main numbers, (201) 829.2000. I phoned there, asked for the Numbering/ Dialing Planning Group (as mentioned in their Notes on the ... publication). The operator who answered mentioned (201) 829.3071 as the number. I asked to be transferred (assuming it was within the same PBX), the receptionist said something that sounded like "Sure!" and a few moments later, the carrier whine was gone, replaced by the eerie silence of local DC current (ie. disconnection). So ... over to Numbering/Dialing I go ... someone over there was able to tell me that July, 1995 was still the target date for introducing the "interchangeable" NPA codes (that is, expanding the number of area codes when the current batch of codes with '0' or '1' in the middle run out). However, another person, Bob McEleese (sp?) at (201) 740.4592 was more responsible for things like NPA assignments. Away I go over to that number, encountering a voice mail along the way which mentioned that 800/900/CIC (10xxx codes?) matters could be discussed with someone else (whose name I forgot) at (201) 740.4593. Anyway, a message was left. The next day, I got a call back from Bellcore. They wouldn't give out what the new 416 code was going to be, but did say there were no other Canadian area codes facing a split at this time. Anyway, that's the basic idea ... thanks are extended to Bellcore for the info gleaned above. ------------------------------ Subject: Telecom Articles Worth Reading in IEEE 'Proceedings' Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 07:58:16 -0800 From: malcolm@apple.com The Proceedings of the IEEE had a couple of issues with some good Telecom related stories. The January, 1991 issue had an article on the intelligent network that makes 800 more flexible and stuff. The February, 1991 issue has nothing but ISDN articles! These should be on interest to everybody that doesn't live in John Higdon's exchange :-). Malcolm P.S. A reader complained that the Oregon Graduate Institute speech collection effort was an invasion of privacy. If that's what you believe then lie. All they want is speech samples. It is a lot easier to ask for specific information then it is to ask people to make up the information. (Call 800-441-1037) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 00:57:33 CST From: sun!pro-party.cts.com!blake (Blake Farenthold) Subject: FCC Proposed Regs on Public Access Phones Patrick- I'm sending (as a seperate letter) the Notice od proposed rulemaking from the FCC on choosing your own carrier from public phones. You might want to include them in the Archives. Interesting that the proposed rules deal with 1-800 and 950- access but are not as strict with 10xxx calls. Looks like AT&T may need an 800 number for network access yet. UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!blake Internet: blake@pro-party.cts.com Blake Farenthold | Voice: 800/880-1890 | MCI: BFARENTHOLD 1200 MBank North | Fax: 512/889-8686 | CIS: 70070,521 Corpus Christi, TX 78471 | BBS: 512/882-1899 | GEnie: BLAKE [Moderator's Note: Your lengthy file has been placed in the Telecom Archives with the other AOS related files, and I thank you. Interested readers can access the Telecom Archives using standard ftp commands from an Internet site: ftp lcs.mit.edu ... then login anonymous and give your name@site.domain for the password. Once on line at MIT, then 'cd telecom-archives'. Non-Internet readers (i.e. Bitnet, Fido, UUCP) can use various archives mail servers to reach the archives, such as the service available from bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 00:54:13 EST From: Bill Huttig Subject: MCI Stuff: Family and Friends, PrimeTime 800 Reply-To: Bill Huttig Organization: Florida Institute of Technology, ACS, Melbourne, FL I just got off the phone with Carla ... Family and Friends is where you give MCI twelve numbers and you get a 20% discount on calling to those twelve numbers. (She said it works with Primetime.) Signup starts March 18. However, the 20% discount is only valid if the designated number is also a MCI customer... Also, PrimeTime 800 has been cancelled as of March 1. It was only a promotional product and they still have the regular 800 service. Bill ------------------------------ From: "Barton F. Bruce" Subject: Re: I Want to Buy a COCOT Date: 17 Mar 91 02:43:31 EST Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. In article , stevel@eleazar.dartmouth. edu (Steve Ligett) writes: > I'm gathering information for our school board. We would like to have > a pay phone in our school. It would be primarily for local calls made Here in MA, NET & T will put in a phone in other than truely public places, BUT someone pays a monthly charge to have it there. I think that after the volume reaches some level consistantly, it can be reclassed and is free. If you have UNLIMITED local calling (no per call and no message units) available, and you have some trunks that are screened (no 0+ type LD billable to you will work, but 0+ billed elsewhere [CC, Collect, or 3rd party] will and 1+ will), set your switch to route that station to screened trunks for local or 0+ calls, and to disallow 1+. GIVE the call away - it costs you nothing. Possibly have a vanilla time clock that cuts the line except in the off hours it is really needed. If the access time is only school committee meetings and other selected evenings, and the total hours of availability are SO few, it may well just make sense to GIVE local calls away if you can otherwise prevent any toll abuse. The cost of a coin phone might NEVER be recovered, and the hassle and expense of keeping it working is simply not worth it. Have the building's PBX handle keeping them local. Have the SMDR output keep track of expenses and simply try it for a while. If you have no PBX, there are relatively inexpensive toll diverters that can be wired between this phone and some office line you use. Or add an honor box for dimes or quarters. Have a sign that means it that says significant loss will result in removal, and excess over cost will be contributed to the scholarship fund. Publicly report how much gets so contributed, and all the nosey town folk will gossip about cheapskates that don't contribute. You are not in Boston or NYC. If you DON'T have unlimited local calling, you can get a limited functionality DUMB-DUMB COCOT phone that blocks ANY LD service, and simply connects the mike and eats the coin when the customer pushes the CLEARLY LABELED button that indicates the caller wants to pay and talk. Better get one that allows 911, and check if any FCC rules are being violated by blocking all LD. Get the cheapest that blocks fraud and collects some money. If you miss a little, tough. This is not supposed to be a major money maker, just a reasonable convenience for town folk. Try GTE Supply. There was a mag called "PAYPHONE" that I think changed its name. Some COCOT reader can probably supply it. There were plenty of ads in it. ------------------------------ From: portal!cup.portal.com!Allyn@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: Cellular Telephones on a Bicycle Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 10:30:28 PST This is in repsonse to the person who was thinking of using cellular telephones for communications at a bike race. I'm surprised nobody has mentioned ham radio yet. There are amateur radio clubs that specialize in providing communications for public events such as bike races. Using radios, as opposed to cellular telephones, has the advantage that all stations situated on the bike route can hear each other. This isn't practical on a cellular phone. Of course cellular phones have the advantage of being able to make a direct phone call without having to go through an "autopatch". Probably the ideal would be to get a local ham club to provide primary communications and then have a few cellular phones situated at strategic places along the route. Allyn Lai kb6odf allyn@cup.portal.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #210 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa13394; 17 Mar 91 14:53 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa04652; 17 Mar 91 13:27 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab16622; 17 Mar 91 12:22 CST Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 11:35:57 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #211 BCC: Message-ID: <9103171135.ab12407@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 17 Mar 91 11:35:45 CST Volume 11 : Issue 211 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Information Needed to Use Call Manager [Ravinder Bhumbla] Re: Information Needed to Use Call Manager [Curtis E. Reid] Re: 800/950 vs 10xxx And 800 vs Call Me Card [Barton F. Bruce] Re: Cellular Air time Charges Around the World - Who Pays? [Alan Laird] Re: Houston Chronicle Cellular Fraud Story [Joe Abernathy] Re: The FCC and 900 Numbers [John Higdon] Re: Voice Mail, Fax Card [David Ptasnik] Re: Telephone Makers of Old [Jim E. Dunne] Administrivia: comp.dcom.telecom Distribution [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ravinder Bhumbla Subject: Re: Information Needed to Use Call Manager Date: 16 Mar 91 21:01:26 GMT Reply-To: Ravinder Bhumbla Organization: University of California, San Diego In article I explained AT&T's Call Manager plan and the Moderator asked: > [Moderator's Note: Does one have to specifically sign-up to use the > Call Manager feature? The reason I ask is I just now made a zero plus > call and and after the gong, entered 15xx, followed by the # to > terminate dialing and speed the process. It was accepted no questions > asked. I wonder what it will look like when billed. No, you do not have to sign up for this plan. You just go ahead and start using it. By the way (this may be my imagination), it seems to me that even when I do not use a #, the call gets completed quite fast. You would expect that, as this process is similar to a Calling Card call, there would be delay while the process waited for the remaining ten digits of the calling card. Probably the 15 signals that this is a Call Manager call. As for the question about your bill. It will come with the call listed under a section entitled - Account Code 00xx. I have been using this for about an year now and it is really useful when at the end of the month you need to figure out the bill for three roommates. And, by the way, this DOES NOT cost anything more that a regular 1+ call. I have received mail from a lot of readers wondering that as the process is similar to that for a Calling Card call, it would cost more. Ravinder Bhumbla rbhumbla@ucsd.edu U. of California, San Diego [Moderator's Note: I wonder if Calling Cards automatically do NOT use PINS in the 15xx series to avoid billing conflicts. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 12:18 EST From: "Curtis E. Reid" Subject: Re: Information Needed to Use Call Manager I just tried to call a zero plus number then pressed 15nn after the bong. The system reported the card is invalid and asks me to reenter a valid number. So, it does not work here. (I use AT&T.) Curtis E. Reid CER2520@RITVAX.Bitnet (Bitnet) CER2520@RITVAX.isc.rit.edu (Internet) ------------------------------ From: bruce@camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) Subject: Re: 800/950 vs 10xxx And 800 vs Call Me Card Date: 17 Mar 91 04:25:14 EST Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. In article , "Ralph W. Hyre" writes: > As a CONSUMER of LD services, my only concern is getting good service > at a fair price. The screening mechanisms you mentioned, which try to > force my traffic onto the establishment's chosen provider, are at odds > with this goal. Sorry, I must not have made myself clear. I think 10xxx should always work, and should be free as long as the call is being billed elsewhere. I also think 950 should quietly die, but don't really care all that much. What I was suggesting was for one purpose. The purpose was to have the telcos make life easy for the Hotels that are trying to protect themselves from toll fraud and from expensive equipment purchases. THEIR lobby groups were at the front of the battle trying to KILL 10xxx universal access. 950 they probably are handling 'ok'. 10xxx presented problems. I was simply suggesting that the TELCOs could have made the hotel's life easier (for a small and affordable charge - ha!) and then just maybe the lodging industry wouldn't have done battle with 10xxx. I simply want the hotel to be able to safely let you use 10xxx access without vast expense on their part, and NO risk to them of toll fraud. The only 10xxx traffic the telco could allow on such a screened trunk would be bill elsewhere type. If the hotel wanted dual use trunks, telco could allow 1+ (and yes optionally 011+ for the nit-pickers) of bill to the BTN traffic where the hotel's call accounting box could handle it. All this latter type traffic could ONLY be to the default carrier. > This influences my selection of businesses to patronize. As well it should! And DO let them know why wou will not be back. Better yet ASK EXPLICIT questions before you make hotel reservations. You then get to tell them why you are not booking with them. There is a sleazoid mall north of here in Woburn MA. Though I do like a few of the stores in it, I use their other branches and tell them why. That mall has sunken to COCOT level. A local supermarket's landlord had installed COCOTs. I told the supermarket's central management that it made them look bad especially when the (BIGGER + BETTER) market just down the street has better parking, a free (rather than 50 cents) bank machine, and 10 cent NYNEX coin phones. He was clearly already sensitive to all issues, could do nothing about the parking acreage, or the cash machine service charge, but he quickly did fix the COCOTs. Both phones are now NYNEX 10 cent ones. And it was HIS remote CA base mega-pig absentee landlord that had done it. Do complain loud and long. If they think it hurts their business they may well change it. ------------------------------ From: Alan Laird Subject: Re: Cellular Air Time Charges Around the World - Who Pays? Date: 16 Mar 91 20:10:00 GMT Organization: Comp. Sci. Dept., Strathclyde Univ., Scotland. > Here in Australia the originator of the call pays (but the air time > charges do not add to the cost of all calls - just those over > distances of less than 165km. Over 165km cellular calls and land-line > calls cost the same per minute). > What methods of charging do other countries use for their cellular > systems? In the UK the originator also pays for the call, but the charges are rather unbalanced. Placing a call from a cell phone to any other cell phone or to any fixed phone in the country costs 25p/min peak (33p in greater London) or 10p/min off peak, where off-peak starts at 9.30pm. Making a call from a British Telecom phone to a cell phone will cost 44p/min peak and 33p/min off-peak where off-peak starts at 6.00pm Also BT start charging almost immediately (presumably as soon as they connect to the cellular system) so you get full charges for failed calls (engaged, cell phone unreachable etc). Does anyone know what Mercury charges for calls to cell phones? As regards the recent reports of cellular fraud in the states, I was recently given a credit limit on my cellular account of 100 pounds per month. I wonder if there is any connection between these two. Anyone know what cellular fraud is like in the UK or Europe. In the UK at least, we don't have roaming (both cellular carriers cover the whole country, well a large part of it) so I imagine fraud could be considerably lower. Alan I M Laird, Department of Computer Science, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G1 1XH, UK. aiml@uk.ac.strath.cs, 041 552 4400 x3081, 0836 320786 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 19:30:38 CST From: Joe Abernathy Subject: Re: Houston Chronicle Cellular Fraud Story floyd@ims.alaska.edu (Floyd Davidson) writes: >> We just had a case where some people came to town and set up >> three-way conference calling between Houston, Iraq and Kuwait,'' said >> the chief financial officer of one cellular service provider. That >> fraud can total up to $30,000 in 24 hours.'' > Hmmmm. 1440 minutes in 24 hours, so the combined cost of calling Iraq > and Kuwait is about, ahhh, $22 a minute, or $11 to either one alone > per minute. [Moderator's Note: Actually, its $20.83 per minute, but go on ... PAT] You overlooked one thing, however. It's three-way conference calling, so the cellular company is paying for both those lines in both directions across the ocean. Norman Yarvin writes: > Abernathy presumably has access to Usenet, and is possibly > computer-literate. Still haven't found an alternate source for your alt.sex feed, eh, Norman? > Why then doesn't he include the critical fact that > the insecurity of cellular phone systems which his article mentions > can be completely eliminated by the simplest of security arrangements? Pointless hostility aside, I disagree that a simple solution is possible to the problem. At the inception of the industry, yes, the problem would have been more simple. But at this stage, what is required is fast, precall account validation at the switch, made possible by a central repository of valid ESNs and PINs. GTE just completed a field test in Los Angeles of such a system, which validated calls in two or three seconds. The problem is that nobody will be buying it until the current stuff wears out. Your other question/flame suggested that it is not possible for the industry to offer a coherent response to the problem while still having individuals service providers contributing to the problem. That suggests to me primarily that you aren't a cellular telephone user, or at least that you didn't purchase your phone in a competitive market. In Houston, for instance, we have two providers, and one is much more of a staid, traditional company, while the other is fiercely entrprenuerial. I don't mean to link them to problems within the industry because at this stage neither of them is running a particularly lax ship. But this sort of situation amply illustrates how the industry can both be solving a problem and making it worse at the same time. Regards, Joe Abernathy (800) 735-3820 [Moderator's Note: Addressing only the first part of your response let me ask what do you mean 'paying for both lines in both directions' ?? There is ONE charge per call. There are TWO calls in progress at the same time, admittedly both international. At the highest rate possible for either call, the cellular company is paying maybe $3 per call/minute. on the international link. *Maybe*. So we have $6 per minute plus the cellular phone charges. Are these thirty or forty cents per minute each? If you can squeak $7 per minute out on this, that would be a very generous estimate. Charging for everything you can think of, how do you begin to approach $10.42 per call/minute, or $20.83 per minute overall? And that $20.83 per minute -- using your $30,000 per day estimate -- means the connection is left up continuously, otherwise the rate per minute of use must of necessity be even higher. Sorry, Joe, I really think you got a bum steer. If the source lied to you about the losses involved, what other information might have been incorrect? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 20:55 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: The FCC and 900 Numbers Brian Kantor writes: > In the news today there was mention that the FCC is proposing a rule > that 900 numbers must announce the cost of the call at the beginning > of the connection and allow the caller to disconnect then without > being billed. I think that's a wonderful idea, and would suggest that > the ruling be such that the TELEPHONE COMPANY handling the 900 call > should provide that automatically - they can do it, since they already > have the voice intercept equipment, and since they're doing the > billing, they also know what the charges would be. Guess what? This is exactly how it is done in Japan. The charge announcement and grace period is handled by NTT before the IP ever gets the call. Unfortunately, it is a little more complicated here since there is a plethora of carriers and it is they, not the local telco that "knows" the rate. Each and every LEC that could possibly handle a 900 call would have to have the current rate database from each and every carrier that has 900 service. Just because an LEC does the billing does not mean that it has the billing information. It simply passes on billing data to the customer that is provided by the IEC. But if this could be accomplished, we might be able to curb some of the deception now going on such as: * "Call our super sleaze lines for FREE. That's right, for FREE. [Rate: free first minute, $15 thereafter.] * "Only $2.00 per minute". [Rate: $2.00/min--20 minute minimum] It is stuff like this that brings about calls for regulations. > By having the > telco do the announcement, there'd be no chance for a sleazeball 900 > service operator to collect money without the announcement in > disregard of the law. This would also be applicable in the COCOT industry. Just think if all payphones, COCOTs and utility coin phones, were operated from utility coin COS lines. The coins would only be collected if the call was indeed completed, the rate would be quoted by the telco, and there would be a one-stop shop for complaints. But there will always be complainers. People would much rather moan and groan about the evils of 900 slime rather than simply call the telco and have it blocked individually from their phones. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: David Ptasnik Subject: Re: Voice Mail, Fax Card Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 14:30:35 PDT About a week ago someone requested info on a combined voice mail, fax, answering machine PC board. It is available in the DAK catalog for under $500.00. They have a free 800 number that lets you test drive the voice mail application. I don't have the numbers here at work, but this should get you on the right track. davep@u.washington.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 13:12:52 CST From: "Jim E. Dunne" Subject: Re: Telephone Makers of Old I've got an old telephone, acquired from a GTE service area in far Northern IL. Embossed on the bottom is "THE NORTH ELECTRIC MFG. CO, GALION, OHIO", and stamped on the bottom is "50 CYCLE RINGER". Its housing is Bakelite, and it has the brown cloth-covered cord that PAT described on his Western Electric "Model Z". I had it hooked up in the early 80's, and it worked fine except for a low volume characteristic (might be due to the cheesy speaker wire connection I made for it!). It didn't ring when it was hooked up; I'm guessing because of the 50 Hz ringer vs. the 20 Hz ringer of today that I have read about in the Digest. My question is, who were the phone manufacturers of old? I'm sure that Western Electric made the phones for the Bell system, but who made the phones for the "other" companies? And how/when did these other service providers, and their hardware makers, come on the scene? Finally, let me state that I very much enjoy reading the TELECOM Digest and derive a special pleasure from the Chicago-based bent that Mr. Townson offers. As well as the sarcastic wit of John Higdon et al.! Jim Dunne Motorola Cellular ...uunet!motcid!dunne ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 11:16:22 CST From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Administrivia: comp.dcom.telecom Distribution This is just a note to advise readers of comp.dcom.telecom that distribution of TELECOM Digest is now handled a little differently than in the past. Previously, each issue of the Digest was being gatewayed to accuvax (or casbah).acns.nwu.edu for posting. The procedure now is that the articles are sent direct to a few well-connected nntp servers using 'nntpxmit', and transmitted directly into the news stream, bypassing inews and other preliminaries here completely. Early results have been encouraging. Many of you will see different path lines -- often considerably shorter -- than in the past. Naturally I can only use nntpxmit with sites which have authorized me to do so (or allow anyone to do so by default). The three or four sites I am using now are working quite nicely. Let me know if you see anything wrong or encounter problems. PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #211 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa22832; 17 Mar 91 23:56 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa24662; 17 Mar 91 22:34 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa31438; 17 Mar 91 21:29 CST Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 21:16:36 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #212 BCC: Message-ID: <9103172116.ab05611@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 17 Mar 91 21:16:24 CST Volume 11 : Issue 212 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity Laws [Barton F. Bruce] Re: Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity Laws [Jack Powers] Re: Rotary Dial w/o Wire Connection [Barton F. Bruce] Re: Can You Disable Call-Waiting AFTER the Call Starts? [Stan Brown] Re: Call Forwarding Around the Nation [Andy Jacobson] Re: Northern Telecom in General [John McHarry] Re: Rotary Dial w/o Wire Connection [Ken Dykes] Re: AT&T's Dream-On Ad Campaign [Daniel M. Rosenberg] Re: The Order of Repair [Marc T. Kaufman] Re: Ring Detection IC Needed [Dave Mc Mahan] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bruce@camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) Subject: Re: Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity Laws Date: 17 Mar 91 02:57:09 EST Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. In article , johnk@opel.com (John Kennedy) writes: > Have there been any cases involving a subscriber who has, say, an > entire house wired for watching the output of a VCR, yet the incoming > cable is attached to only that one device, the VCR? Lots of folks have those 'RABBIT' boxes that ferry the output of the cable box to remote rooms, and relay the infa-red control signals back to switch channels. That must be legal considering the 'nice' stores that sell it. Locally here they encode and charge for the regular channels - even WGBH channel 2, the educational one. But they will give you a healthy hunk of wire to fish where you wish because they only do crude installs. They generally assume they will get to crunch the F fittings on later, but many just do their own. It is time for competition in the cable industry to force the issue of letting all those 'cable ready' TVs be usable without boxes. Maybe when the telco wants to provide TV or the cable folks want to do phone service everyone should write and show up for DPU hearings. Fat chance it will do any good, but just sometimes it may. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 17:04:53 PST From: POWERS@ibm.com Subject: Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity Laws I have heard (but not verified) that the city of Las Vegas, NV has cable service to a demarc and inside wiring is the customer's responsibility. Charging is supposed to be on a "per premises" basis. One of the reasons cable companies give for hanging on to inside wiring (besides the obvious one) is that the FCC holds them responsible for RF radiation from their systems, and they shouldn't be held responsible for something they don't own and control. I think their ability to cut off the service from outside gives them all the control they need. Please post any news on this subject. I am on the local Cable Commission in my home town and would like to see a demarc arrangement part of our next franchise agreement. Jack Powers powers@ibm.com fax 408/927-4001 Usual Disclaimer: Opinions, if any, are mine, if anyone's. ------------------------------ From: bruce@camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) Subject: Re: Rotary Dial w/o Wire Connection Date: 17 Mar 91 03:26:00 EST Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. In article JTUCKER@vax2.cstp.umkc.edu writes: > Is it possible to take a phone that only has pulse dialing and convert > it to tone dialing? Sure, but hardly worth it. When TT was still young, and most phones were rotary 500 sets, there were kits that would do it. They came in two flavors. One had a round plastic insert that was punched for the TT buttons that would fill the old rotary dial whole, and the other would have a whole new housing. You got to reuse most everything else. Later there were versions that were even notched for the modular jacks you were likely to want add with the new housing. Back then places like North Supply often stocked phones less ringers because whatever tuned party line ringer that was needed would be added in the field. Also back then it was still illegal use your own phones. Not having a ringer meant the test desk couldn't count it. A ringerless 500 set was $11, and a TT 2500 was $28. The versions with a straight line ringer were about $4 more. A replacement TT pad by itself was $23. The kit to convert a 500 to a 2500 was only peanuts less than the whole 2500 set. The dial brackets for a rotary dial go straight up inside, while for a TT pad they offset in towards the center a bit as the TT pad is narrower. The rebuild kits included little spacers to allow the TT pad to mount in a rotary dial phone. They also included an auxiliary terminal strip for the extra connections the earlier transmission networks wouldn't have screws for. Eventually electronic TT pads got down to maybe $10, and got static proofed so they were reliable. Kits would then have been cheaper, but so were complete phones. An imported 2500 set with an extra jack for hotel guests to plug their modem into and a message waiting light in ever pleasing ASH color, and by the case of eight may cost between $20 and $25 each during the regular 'specials'. You can even find much cheaper ones, but you may wish you hadn't. As you leave a NY subway, you may be able to buy one for less than $5, but you definitely get what you pay for. ------------------------------ From: Stan Brown Subject: Re: Can You Disable Call-Waiting AFTER the Call Starts? Date: 17 Mar 91 15:46:04 GMT Organization: Dixie Communications Services In article , mcmahan@netcom.com (Dave Mc Mahan) writes: > My question is, "Is there any way to disable Call-Waiting AFTER a call > has been placed and a voice connection exists?". I'm looking for an > answer of "No way", or "Yes, and this is how you do it.". In reference to this question, has anyone been sucessful in making this work for outgoing calls placed by a Hayes compatible modem? What I don't know how to do here is get the modem to flash the switchook. Stan Brown P. c. Design 404-363-2303 Atlanta GA (emory|gatech|uunet) rsiatl!sdba!stan [Moderator's Note: On my US Robotics Courier 2400 modem, you use '!' to force the modem to flash the hook. But on outgoing calls, why wouldn't you just insert *70 on the front of the dialing string instead, as in ATDT *70-123-4567? If you want to flash the hook after the modem is already on the line, I guess you would get the modem's attention, with three plusses or whatever, followed by ATDT !*70 O, where the final letter 'O' means for the modem to go back on line. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 22:37 PST From: Andy Jacobson Subject: Re: Call Fowarding Around the Nation In V11, #171, scott@huntsai.boeing.com (Scott Hinckley) writes: > This may be a completely mute pont anyway. At least in Atlanta (in > 1988) you could not re-call-forward a call-forwarded call. The > call-forwarded call to a call-forwarded number would result in a > normal ring, rather than a re-forward. This may be to stop such plans. > Moderator's Note: We used to have some prefixes like that here. A > call forwarded to a number would ring on that number regardless of > where the call-forwardee was forwarded to. But now the only time that > happens is if there is a loop: A forwards to B and B forwards to A. > The incoming call enters the loop at either end and stops after the > first hop. Otherwise, chain forwarding works okay here, but the first > time it hits a loop, or number already in the chain, that is it. PAT] The evolving finer points of call fowarding ... I have had both experiences, but it seems the circumstances were different. With CF on 1AESS, I have found that: Intra-switch: CF from A to B will end at B regardless of whether B is forwarded as well. Inter-switch: CF from A will go to wherever B is fowarded to, etc. I have not tried loops though. So I wonder if I am correct ... is this universal, or dependent on the generic the switch is running? How do other switches deal with this? And finally, does anyone know exactly if one switch will pass information to the next on whether the call is CF'ed or normal, or what was the CF'ed number, etc? (We know that with CLID it is the originating number that is passed along, right?). Does the implementation of SS7 allow the receiving switch to get more information, or treat the call differently? Andy Jacobson or ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Northern Telecom in General Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford MA Date: 17 Mar 91 21:58:58 GMT Actually, Northern Telecom used to be Northern Electric. It was originally owned by AT&T. As a result of an earlier consent decree (1954?) AT&T was required to divest itself of its foreign subsidieries. It transferred Northern Electric to Bell Canada, which was also started by the Bell family, but was never, so far as I know, part of AT&T. Originally Northern Electric was sort of a parallel to Western Electric. It built things to the same drawings supplied by Bell Labs. I met a guy who worked in their engineering department when his job was to white out the WE logo on the drawings and substitute NE. I know they built identical 500 sets, and, I think, 2500s. They also built #5 Crossbar. As part of the sale to Bell Canada the licensing of new designs was phased out gradually. I think it ended for good about 1974. A result of that was the creation of Northern Electric Laboratories, which became Bell-Northern Research. It is Bell-Northern because part of it is directly owned by Bell Canada. Bell Canada holds about 51% of Northern Telecom. The rest is publicly traded. Northern Telecom Limited owns all of Northern Telecom Incorporated, the US subsidiery. Actually there is now a holding company called Bell Canada Enterprises at the top of the pyramid. It was set up to get the parent corporation out from under some regulations. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 07:53:11 EST From: Ken Dykes Subject: Rotary Dial w/o Wire Connections Organization: Thinkage Ltd. In article JTUCKER@vax2.cstp.umkc.edu writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 205, Message 4 of 11 > Is it possible to take a phone that only has pulse dialing and convert > it to tone dialing? > [Moderator's Note: Well, sure it is. You would open the phone, > disconect the dial and associated wires, yank it out and insert a > touch tone pad there instead. Of course, the shell would not fit... Unless of course he is not allowed to actually replace the phone unit or otherwise not "in control" of it. Perhaps, maybe, who knows, he wasn't asking quite the right question, but rather wants to know if its possible to send tones out of a dial-only set to access a voice-mail system. He could get a $12 beeper from a "radio shack generic". More expensive versions have memory for several numbers You hold it to the mouthpiece to enter the tones. - Ken Dykes, Thinkage Ltd., Kitchener, Ontario, Canada [43.47N 80.52W] kgdykes@watmath.waterloo.edu [129.97.128.1] watmath!kgdykes [Moderator's Note: You mean one of those things the newspaper story said 'all the drug dealers use' to call pagers from rotary dial phones after the stupid city council made telco remove all the TT phones? :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: "Daniel M. Rosenberg" Subject: Re: AT&T's Dream-On Ad Campaign Date: 17 Mar 91 20:49:48 GMT Organization: World Otherness Ministries In john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > AT&T's current TV ad compaign is probably the biggest waste of money > Madison Avenue has ever experienced. It is the one that says, "To be > sure you get AT&T, dial 10-ATT-0 and then your number." > What is wrong with this? It does not work. There is not (to my > knowledge) a COCOT on the planet that will allow a call of the form > '10288+0+10D' and actually route the call through AT&T. So what is all I'd venture to say that it does not *always* work. John may have already noticed that many Genuine Local Bell Operating Company phones don't always use AT&T as the default carrier, but someone else clearly marked on the instruction card. (The phones at the Palo Alto Veterans Administration Hospital, genuine Pac Bell, for example, use NTI or somesuch, and 10288 works fine.) And there are a few reputable COCOT's I've encountered in airports and hotels (okay, not many) where 10288 works. Moreover, imagine if a lot of people run into phones where 10288 does *not* work. It should, right? Which could very well help to focus attention on dishonest COCOT service providers. Daniel M. Rosenberg Stanford Univ CSLI Opinions here are my own dmr@csli.stanford.edu {apple,ucbvax}!labrea!csli!dmr BIT:dmr%csli@stanford [Moderator's Note: I think AT&T's strategy may well be to keep promoting 10288, getting everyone primed up for it, then start suing on a case by case basis those COCOT operators who refuse to allow it. AT&T will of course have the full authority of the FCC behind them in any such suits they choose to bring. PAT] ------------------------------ From: "Marc T. Kaufman" Subject: Re: The Order of Repair Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Ca , USA Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1991 16:25:10 GMT In article John Higdon writes: > So it breaks down like this: > The cable company had its act together. Its service restoral (while > hardly essential) was first rate. PG&E took three hours to restore > service. PG&E is probably the worst electric utility on the planet so > for them it was probably miraculous. Never mind that the fire was > originally started by primary wires arcing in the trees because PG&E > felt it unnecessary to do any trimming. But wiping up the rear was > Pac*Bell, who was too wimpy to even begin work on its cable until the > next day. Let's see ... the cable company had one "pair" to restore, and was probably lowest on the pole, having been established last. PG&E also had one pair to restore, well maybe four if the pole had the maximum number of house drops. Power is life-critical in that your forced- air furnace won't work unless the fan can be powered and the medicine in your refrigerater will get warm. I don't blame the phone company for not wanting to work while PG&E is on the pole stringing 12KV wires. And how easy is it to put up a new splice box (or two) in the rain with only the truck's spotlight for illumination? Marc Kaufman (kaufman@neon.stanford.edu) ------------------------------ From: Dave Mc Mahan Subject: Re: Ring Detection IC Needed Organization: Dave McMahan @ NetCom Services Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1991 22:57:38 GMT In a previous article, lairdb@crash.cts.com (Laird P. Broadfield) writes: > Can somebody point me toward a ring-detection IC? I've checked my > recent Harris, Dallas, and SS databooks, and I find lots of Call > Progress Detectors, but what I want is ring-detection. Preferably for > more that one line per package (I'm thinking 10-20 lines into the > device, maybe even 25 and hook up directly to a 21X termination.) Most of the ring detectors I have seen implement this function with an opto-isolated circuit. Basically, there is a large resistor in series with the LED side of the optoisolator placed across the phone line. The resistor is chosen to bleed minimal current from the line during normal on-hook operation and while a voice is connected. The value I recall seeing is on the order of 40K or 50K ohms, but check with me and I'll verify that. I also seem to recall a DC blocking capacitor somewhere in there, but it has been a while (actually two days, but it's been a TOUGH weekend!! :-) since I looked at these things. I have a couple of data books that contain example circuits with these shown. The output of the opto-isolator is fed into a CPU that get interrupted on every ring pulse and sets a flag saying that a ring is occuring. When it stops receiving the pulses after it gets them, it clears the flag. You could do the same thing in pure hardware using a retriggerable one- shot. If you want more info on various sources of example circuits, e-mail me and I'll send you names of data books. Dave McMahan mcmahan@netcom.com {apple,amdahl,claris}!netcom!mcmahan ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #212 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa01919; 18 Mar 91 9:07 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa16635; 18 Mar 91 7:40 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa16788; 18 Mar 91 6:35 CST Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 5:53:09 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #213 BCC: Message-ID: <9103180553.ab05581@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 18 Mar 91 05:53:01 CST Volume 11 : Issue 213 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Help Needed With NiCads on my Panasonic Cellular [Barton F. Bruce] Re: Did MCI Give me $20? [Peter da Silva] Re: Maestro Phones From Northern Telecom [Andrew Farmer] Re: Telephone Makers of Old [haynes@ucscc.ucsc.edu] Re: The Order of Repair [John Higdon] Some Realities About Repair of Damaged Aerial Telephone Cables [L. Lippman] Anyone Remember the "Tele-Trainer"? [Larry Lippman] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bruce@camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) Subject: Re: Help Needed With NiCads on my Panasonic Cellular Date: 17 Mar 91 01:45:23 EST Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. In article , ntg!dplatt@apple.com (Dave Platt) writes: > In article Scott Meyers writes: >> handset just cutting off. I figured something like a light bulb and >> some leads to connect to the battery terminals but that seems crude >> and slow. Any suggestions. Thanks in advance... > What you've suggested is crude and slow ... and, if you're talking > about a typical NiCd battery pack, it can damage the cells. Somewhere I ran into a reference to a special charging circuit that obviates the need for full discharge to prevent shallow discharge memory. This charger also recharged VERY fast from whatever state the battery was in and there was something about high current short pulses and blowing away whiskers. A custom module was needed for each battery size to 'tune' the charger's action properly. It sounded like a wonderful device, but was several hunderd dollars. Some HAM, maybe Pennsylvania area??, was making them. Does anyone know if this sort of charger really works, and if there is a more affordable universal one with built in ability to do any size battery? Perhaps one is now mass produced, and 'hand built' prices can be avoided. ------------------------------ From: Peter da Silva Subject: Re: Did MCI Give me $20? Organization: A corner of our bedroom Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1991 03:37:45 GMT I've gotten similar checks (for $5) for "insuring" my credit cards (!). I've always just deposited them and left the credit card part blank. I can certainly use the money. About three weeks later I get a letter reminding me that I haven't given them a credit card number, which I ignored. If someone send you something unsolicited in the mail, it's yours. peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Maestro Phones From Northern Telecom From: Andrew Farmer Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 22:55:53 EST Organization: AFI Communications - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada 443114@acadvm1.uottawa.ca (Eric Skinner) writes: > [Moderator's Note: Probably the reason it said 'long distance' was > because the payphone was a COCOT Bell Canada still maintains a monopoly on phone service in Ontario and Quebec, thus we don't have COCOTs up here. My guess is that any 'collect' call will trigger the "Long Distance" display (since most of them would be). Andrew Farmer | AFI Communications Internet: adf@aficom.ocunix.on.ca | P.O.Box 11087, Stn H UUCP: ...!latour!aficom!adf | Nepean, Ontario FidoNet: Andrew Farmer on 1:163/115 | K2H 7T8 Canada ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 20:45:07 -0800 From: 99700000 Subject: Re: Telephone Makers of Old I suppose way back in ancient times there were lots and lots of them. Anyway, the ones I can think of, aside from North (which is still in business) were Stromberg-Carlson, and Kellogg (Switchboard and Supply, not the breakfast cereal outfit), and Automatic Electric, and Leich. Then someone mentioned Gray telephone pay stations, and I distinctly remember seeing once in a non-Bell town a pay phone with a name something like "The Gray Telephone Pay Station Company" on it - other than that and the Automatic Electric dial it looked just like a Western Electric phone. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 23:01 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: The Order of Repair "Marc T. Kaufman" writes: > Let's see ... the cable company had one "pair" to restore, and was > probably lowest on the pole, having been established last. It is a dual cable system. Have you ever worked with the type of coax that is used in cable systems? It is semi-rigid and a bear to manipulate. Also, it is installed ABOVE the telco cable (as are most that I have seen around the country). So the cable people had to work around the damaged telco cable to fix the TV feed. The fact that PG&E was working on the 12KV lines did not seem to bother them much. > PG&E also had one pair to restore, well maybe four if the pole had > the maximum number of house drops. PG&E had house drops, three 12KV primary wires and a transformer to replace. Maybe since it was that company's negligence which caused the fire a decision was made to hustle it. > I don't blame the phone company for not wanting to work while PG&E is > on the pole stringing 12KV wires. And how easy is it to put up a new > splice box (or two) in the rain with only the truck's spotlight for > illumination? That is a good excuse for after the sun went down (at 9PM), but what were they doing for the previous seven hours? When electricity came back, there were still three or four hours of daylight left. Actually, this is a common story with Pac*Bell. When the trouble people come out and determine that the job will require cable splicers, then you can be assured that it will be a "next day" job. Besides, what would one need a phone for anyway? To report a fire? :-) John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Subject: Some Realities About Repair of Damaged Aerial Telephone Cables Date: 17 Mar 91 23:40:50 EST (Sun) From: Larry Lippman In article john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > This talk about the problems in Rochester reminds me of a telling > situation that happened right here in my neighborhood a couple of > years ago. > Almost simultaneously the cable, ALL of my phone lines, and the > electricity went dead. A short time later, fire engines were screaming > down the street. It seems that some trees had caught fire in the next > block and had taken out all the services on the poles nearby. > [details deleted] > What is interesting is the order in which the services were restored. I don't see anything surprising here, as I will point out in detail. > Within a very short time after the fire was extinguished the cable was > restored. I have some battery operated TVs and was able to observe > this for myself. There are one, or perhaps two aluminum-sheathed coaxial cables involved. The necessary splices for two coaxial cables can be made in less than ten minutes, with the greatest amount of time being that required to get the ladder in position. Lashing say, twenty feet of new of coaxial cable would probably not require more than half an hour. > An hour or so after that, the electricity came back on. No big deal, either. My guess is twenty minutes per individual primary or secondary conductor per pole span, and/or sixty minutes per pole span for new triplex with one or two service drops. > As it turned out, telephone service was restored by late afternoon, > about twenty-four hours after the outage began. Not very impressive. I suspect you may be rather harsh on the local telephone company. Since you have not described the type of cable or estimated a pair count (which I suspect you probably could do), I can't give a really specific response. However, I'll address a few general issues. First, in the case of damage to a telephone cable, it is necessary to cut out an entire defective section, and replace it with a new section of cable which must be spliced at *both* ends. If you had a 100 pair cable, one would have to splice 100 pairs at one end of the section, and 100 pairs at the other, for a total of 200 pairs or 400 individual wire connections. If it were a major feeder cable, the pair count could be 200, 400, 600 or more pairs - multipled by two for the number of splices. While much cable splicing is performed using multiple splices that splice 25 pairs at one time (like 3M MS2, WECo 710, etc.), instead of the traditional one-wire B-connector or 3M UG connector, such splicing still takes time. The last thing that any cable splicer wants is to go back and open up a splice because of a split or transposed pair. The worse possible scenario is that the damaged cable was lead-covered pulp insulation. Ever see the color coding on a 101 pair pulp cable? You have fifty pairs of white/green, fifty pairs of white/red plus a red/blue tracer pair. Repair of such a cable requires identification of EACH pair from BOTH the CO end and the subscriber end. Consider how much labor is required if say, you had a 404-pair or higher pair-count pulp cable. The cable in question may well be pressurized; it certainly will be if it is a pulp cable. Repair of damaged pressurized cable usually involves building a "pressure" dam at each end using epoxy cement, along with creating a pneumatic connection to temporarily purge the cable with dry nitrogen. Pneumatic continuity is later restored when the splices are complete. Sheath preparation of aerial cable requires care in order to maintain a low-impedance grounding path, in addition to any sealing requirements if the cable is pressurized. Following a cable break, the first thing that a telephone company will usually do is check their outside plant records to see of any emergency services or special service lines are affected. If *justified*, "restoral boards" may be set up at both ends of the damaged cable section to effect temporary continuity for critical pairs. Using a restoral board approach, critical pairs could be temporarily restored in a few hours; the longest delay is searching plant records and getting pair identification data to the field. Placing restoral boards crowds the damage site and significantly prolongs the repair and splicing process. Ain't no way that restoral boards will be used for POTS pairs. If many pairs are affected, a craftsperson in the CO may pull the protectors to open the circuits and clear any potential permanent signal alarms. Following the cable repair, the protectors are then replaced to restore service. All of the above takes *time*. My guess is that a two-person crew can replace a 100 pair cable section in about six hours if the cable is PIC and unpressurized. A four-person crew can reduce that time by about one third. A longer time is required if more than 100 pairs are involved, but it is not a linear relationship since certain common work must be performed regardless of the number of pairs (i.e., a 200-pair cable may require only 20% more time than a 100-pair). If the cable is pulp, all bets are off. A well-utilized 101 pair pulp cable may well require fifty or more labor-hours to repair due to all of the necessary identification procedures. > The cable company had its act together. Its service restoral (while > hardly essential) was first rate. Give me a break. Their repair effort was absolutely trivial by any reasonable comparison! > PG&E took three hours to restore service. PG&E is probably the worst > electric utility on the planet so for them it was probably miraculous. Sounds about right for one pole span. No big deal here; one visually matches a few wires. Not even any color codes to match. :-) No checking of plant records is even required (except to identify any life-support locations). > But wiping up the rear was Pac*Bell, who was too wimpy to even > begin work on its cable until the next day. First of all, unless there is some dire crisis (sorry, but POTS service does not qualify), a telephone company will generally not work on aerial cables while the electric power utility is still working on the same poles. This is just standard safety practice in the telephone industry; I'm sorry if you think it's "wimpy". The fact that the CATV company completed their repair before the electric power utility does surprise me, however. Replacing aerial cable during nighttime hours (which I assume we have here) is a very undesirable situation due to the difficulty in obtaining good site illumination. Yes, I know there are such things as flood lights, but the attention to detail necessary for telephone cable repair work is orders of magnitude greater than for electric power lines. If solely POTS subscribers were affected, and if the damage occurred at night, in my opinion a reasonable "value judgment" on the part of telephone company outside plant supervision would be to wait until morning. So, let's say damage occurred at 7:00 PM, the electric utility completed its work by 10:00 PM, the telephone company elected to repair on the day shift, and one shift was required to effect repairs, the overall time to restore service may well be 24 hours. While you may not be very happy about the situation, this is just a fact of life. Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. "Have you hugged your cat today?" VOICE: 716/688-1231 {boulder, rutgers, watmath}!ub!kitty!larry FAX: 716/741-9635 [note: ub=acsu.buffalo.edu] uunet!/ \aerion!larry ------------------------------ Subject: Anyone Remember the "Tele-Trainer"? Date: 17 Mar 91 23:43:23 EST (Sun) From: Larry Lippman In article <74347@bu.edu.bu.edu> hansen@pegasus.att.com (Tony L Hansen) writes: > A group I'm associated with is putting on a play and a phone will be > used on the set. How would I hook up the phone so that I can cause it > to ring on demand? Preferably, I'd like to have some sort of switch or > push button which I can push and have the phone ring. With all of the responses on this topic, and with there being a not insignificant number of old-timers reading Telecom Digest, I am surprised that no one mentioned the "traditional" solution to this problem: borrow a "Teletrainer". The Teletrainer was a Bell System device which would connect two telephones so that they could ring and talk to each other. One feature of the Teletrainer was interrupted ringing which exactly simulated that of a real telephone call. There was also a provision for an audience to listen to the conversation on a loudspeaker. The Teletrainer, which came in a few different models (the WECO KS-16605 was probably the most common) was about the size of a small bread box. The Teletrainer had four-pin jacks for use with two 500-type telephones. The Teletrainer and associated telephones came in a custom carrying case. It was primarily intended for training presentations on telephone etiquette and sales techniques put on by [former] Bell System operating companies. There was once a time when any school or little theater group could simply call their local Bell System business office and ask to borrow a Teletrainer for the duration of a theater production. There was, of course, no charge, and this was obviously a public relations gesture on the part of local telephone company. I suspect those days are long gone, but it won't hurt to call the telephone company and ask. They might say "yes", they might say "no", or they might say "go ask Judge Green". :-) Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. "Have you hugged your cat today?" VOICE: 716/688-1231 {boulder, rutgers, watmath}!ub!kitty!larry FAX: 716/741-9635 [note: ub=acsu.buffalo.edu] uunet!/ \aerion!larry ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #213 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa03836; 18 Mar 91 11:22 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa09639; 18 Mar 91 9:46 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab06937; 18 Mar 91 8:41 CST Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 7:52:00 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #214 BCC: Message-ID: <9103180752.ab29169@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 18 Mar 91 07:51:44 CST Volume 11 : Issue 214 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Front Door to Apartment Phone Service [TELECOM Moderator] Dial "0" for Mickey Mouse [Paul Coen] New Online Service? [Jeff Sicherman] Re: AT&T's Dream-On Ad Campaign [Peter da Silva] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 7:31:25 CST From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Front Door to Apartment Phone Service Several days ago, an inquiry was made here about Front Door to Apartment phone service, sometimes known as Enterphone or Interphone Service. A message appeared in the Digest some time ago about this, and I will try to recap that earlier message for those who missed it. Prior to divestiture, Illinois Bell (and perhaps other telcos) offered a type of hybrid central office service which allowed for calls between the front (or security) door in an apartment building lobby and the individual apartments, using a three digit code. The call would ring in on the actual phone line in the specified apartment. The service was called 'Enterphone', and involved dedicated pairs between the apartment building and the telco central office. A person in the lobby would use the phone -- typically a well secured wall phone with an armored cable to the handset -- to dial a three digit code for the tenant desired. These codes were listed in a directory by the phone, and did not give actual apartment numbers or phone numbers, but merely the three digit code. The central office would get this information, and translate it to a specific wire pair going to the apartment. They did NOT translate it to a phone number and then redial that phone. By translating to the wire pair, the idea was the door code would always work with the specified apartment, regardless of the phone number actually in service there. When a visitor dialed the desired three digit code, the central office would go on the associated pair and test for busy. If not busy, it would seize the pair, and send a special ring (a very short double ring of the format ding! ding! ... ding! ding!). This told the apartment tenant that the call was coming from the front door rather than elsewhere, giving them the opportunity to avoid answering if desired. If the pair was busy, then the central office sent a call waiting tone instead. The tenant would answer the phone (or flash, if on a call), and be connected with the door. If on a call, then the central office call would be put on hold while the tenant was connected to the door. All calls from the door had a one minute (combined ringing and talking) time out. The idea was, this was intended as a front door intercom; not an actual phone line. After identifying the party at the door, the tenant could dial '4' to unlatch the door for a pre-detirmined period of time -- usually five or ten seconds. Or, they could simply hang up and refuse entry to the person in the lobby. If they were on a call waiting, dialing '6' would deny entrance, disconnect the door call and return them to the call on hold. If a central office call came in while the tenant was talking to someone at the front door, then that call also sent a call waiting signal. One special 'control' pair from the central office was used to send a small amount of current to a relay in the apartment building which in turn controlled the electric door striker. The amount of time it would hold open was set in the central office by pre-arrangement with the management of the building. Usually there were a few extra administrative extensions tied into the Enterphone system, such as a phone for the on-premises management office or caretaker. When tenants were out (or the management office closed) then calls via Enterphone could be picked up by an answering machine if the tenant otherwise had one on the line. Calls could NOT however be forwarded elsewhere. Even if the tenant had their phone call forwarded to some other location, the Enterphone would 'ring through', since it was not really dialing the phone number, but simply grabbing the specified pair temporarily. One disadvantage to this system was that the pairs coming to the building had to be expressly dedicated to that building ... no pair swapping on the poles to meet the needs of the neighborhood otherwise, since this would cause the front door line for the apartment in particular to go out unless a corresponding change was made in the central office, which was rarely the case. In the central office itself, there were jumpers between the Enterphone device and the frames, and these had to be tagged with warnings not to swap them out, etc. Another disadvantage was that if something went wrong en-route to the building; i.e. a cable out due to fire or flood, etc, then this caused the apartment building front door to go out of service as far as intercom service / electronic opening was concerned, although of course it could still be opened with a key. In the normal course of business, the Enterphone system usually carried a guarenteed two hour repair turn-around, 24 hours per day, seven days per week. Obviously it was a critical application. If an apartment was vacant or occupied but without regular phone service (tenant on a credit disconnect, etc) then the phone in the apartment would still work for Enterphone purposes only. Usually the caretaker of the building had two or three plain black rotary dial phones which belonged to telco that he was allowed to give new tenants on a temporary basis until they got their own phone installed. This allowed them to use the front door intercom from the time they first moved in, even if their own phone was not installed for a couple days. And as noted above, it did not matter what the tenant did with their own phone, or whether they had an unlisted number, changed their number, etc. Enterphone was independent of the actual service in the apartment. The cost of the service was billed to the apartment building, and the rates (as of about 1980, prior to divestiture) were as follows: $1.10 per month per apartment. $5.00 per month for the phone from the lobby to the CO. $5.00 per month for the circuit from the CO to the door-opening relay. $50.00 per month for the common equipment in the CO. The lobby phone was touch-tone if desired for an extra dollar or so per month. It could likewise be a speaker phone mounted in the wall without an actual receiver attached (the first button pushed on the touch tone pad would open the circuit -- usually those models used a dummy digit such as '1' as first-digit-filler for that purpose) for a couple dollars extra per month. An 'extension' of the lobby phone could make a line appearance on a (for example) six-button, five-line phone in the manager's office, allowing the manager to call any individual apartment via the Enterphone for a couple dollars extra per month. So, a fifty unit apartment building would pay about $115 - $120 per month for the service. It was a very reliable service, and offered great security to tenants, since a visitor who did not know what apartment was desired had to ask the person on the phone while they were at the door. The tenant was free to answer or not, and admit them or not. The special ring tipped off the tenant as to the nature of the call. Then came divestiture, and in His Wisdom, the Judge ruled that Enterphone was just the sort of service telcos should NOT be allowed to offer. Was Enterphone to be considered Customer Premises Equipment, or Central Office / Centrex equipment? Well, the decision was telcos could no longer offer it, but to avoid a great deal of inconvenience to existing customers, they were permitted to 'grandfather' the service and continue making it available only to existing customers for (I think) another ten years. About the time of divestiture, the same service became available as purely CPE, or Customer Premises Equiment. All that really happened was the 'common-equipment' which had previously been located in the central office, renting for $50 per month started showing up in the basement of apartment buildings, where it was typically mounted in or near the main terminal box for the building. Instead of being rented, it was offered for sale, at somewhere around $2000. Pairs coming into the building are tied down on one side of the common equipment -- which also had been given a new name -- nterphone -- with an 'I' instead of an 'E' in the process. The house pairs go out the other side of the unit and off to the apartments as always. Under this arrangement, although keeping the house pairs properly lined up remains critical to the functioning of the Interphone, telco is free to do as they wish with pairs to <-> from the central office, as long as they tie them down correctly on 'their side' of the Interphone, of course. The service functions the same as the old Enterphone, with distinctive ringing, call waiting and three digit codes from the door to each apartment. Of course there is no longer a charge for each apartment line. Nor is there a charge for the lobby phone or the circuit and relay to open the front door, since these things now belong to the apartment building itself. When it breaks down, you get it fixed wherever you like, at your convenience :) ... but the companies which sell Interphone (it is manufactured by GTE of Canada) will also sell you a maintainence contract with prompt repair service. Of the two units I am familiar with, one was Enterphone; the other was Interphone. They were virtually identical, except the Interphone unit has a speakerphone in the lobby with sturdy metal touchtone buttons built into the same metal panel in the wall ... nothing there for vandals to tamper with. In that 96-unit apartment building, the digit '1' activated the speakerphone, and the two digits following called the apartments and caretaker's office. The common equipment was about the size of an Apple computer, operated on a 110 volt AC power supply, weighed about ten pounds and hung on the wall next to telco's inside terminal box in the basement. Various CPE suppliers sell/service Interphone. You can inquire at any large telecommunications equipment company. I can't honestly say what the price would be now-days. This sort of system is much superior to the arrangement where you dial a code (or punch a speed-dial button) on a phone and have it translated into a seven-digit number it dials on a regular phone line. The reason is, those systems are useless if the apartment phone is busy (and does not have call waiting) or if there is no working line in the apartment. Likewise, if the person is gone and has call forwarding, they probably do not want a visitor at the front door to have their call forwarded to wherever. Finally, the apartment complex has to pay for calls over a regular line using speed dialing techniques, and there is the risk someone will place unauthorized calls over the front door phone as well unless it is controlled carefully. Admittedly, the speed dial / abbreviated dialing to a seven-digit number scheme is a less expensive way to go if you want front door to apartment intercom service over regular phone lines. But a system like Interphone, while more expensive to install, costs less in the long run with no phone charges, no risk of unauthorized long distance calls, and no concern about the apartment phone being busy or out of service. And quite obviuously, the caretaker does not have to reprogram Interphone every time a new tenant moves in or an existing tenant changes their phone number, as is the case with the units which merely outdial on a regular phone line using speed dial codes. I hope this gives the original writer a few ideas to work with. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 20:41 EDT From: Paul Coen Subject: Dial "0" for Mickey Mouse Well, myself and eight friends just came back from a spring break camping trip -- we spent four days at Walt Disney World. One of the things that we played with was the payphones, naturally. They seem to be ITT units, very similar to the "standard" Bell payphones, with the addition of a credit card slot located on the mounting plastic for the keypad (under the keys). They are clearly marked as belonging to "Vista Telephone" or something to that effect; based on the "Vista" in the name, as well as the picture of Mickey Mouse (which did NOT inspire confidence -- I was expecting to get an operator with a Mickey voice) on the information card. The 1+ and 0+ service defaults to AT&T. I never had an occasion to make a local call, so I couldn't say. 10xxx codes work (and they did with the four or so other COCOT companies whose phones I used during the trip). By the way, there are two AT&T public phones at EPCOT (one of the theme parks). They are both located in the AT&T-sponsored part of the "Communicore East" building, along with the games that allow you to pretend to be a network coordinator on AT&T's network. One phone is one of those fancy AT&T do-dads with the credit card slot, a green LCD-type screen, and the "Next call" button, which allows you to make another call on the same credit card without having to re-enter it. The other is in a booth, on the opposite side of the exit door from the "fancy" phone. It's in a large, fairly soundproof booth, and has a speakerphone that allows families to call relatives at home. I have no idea about the local calling capacity of these two beasties. I just thought it was interesting that these two phones exist in the middle of Mickey Mouse's COCOT territory. By the way, the Spaceship Earth ride sponsored by AT&T has a bunch of mistakes in it. One gave credit to Europeans for first inventing the printing press, which isn't correct. The second was spotted by an art historian friend of mine who pointed out that they show Michaelangelo painting some figures on the Sistene Chapel -- including clothes. The clothes were added by a later artist. Much more sinister was the VERY subtle propaganda thrown in by AT&T and the other corporate sponsors (GM was the worst), under the guise of education. Walt must be spinning in his grave. The preceeding may not even be my opinions, never mind Drew U.'s Paul Coen Academic Computer Center Drew University ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 14:34:51 -0800 From: Jeff Sicherman Subject: New Online Service? Organization: Cal State Long Beach The latest issue of BYTE (March 1991) has a stiff card with an ad offering free time on a new online service in return for some feedback on the service. Does not mention how long the free time will last or how much use will be allowed. Also no mention of access means or costs. The card has questions on hardware configuration so they can send the proper software. Also inquires about other online services that you use. The front of the card is addressed to Telecommunications Clearinghouse in Vienna VA. Is this a front address for the actual company and does anyone know anything more about it? Jeff Sicherman ------------------------------ From: Peter da Silva Subject: Re: AT&T's Dream-On Ad Campaign Organization: A corner of our bedroom Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1991 13:04:22 GMT TELECOM Moderator Notes: > [Moderator's Note: I think AT&T's strategy may well be to keep > promoting 10288, getting everyone primed up for it, then start suing > on a case by case basis those COCOT operators who refuse to allow it. > AT&T will of course have the full authority of the FCC behind them in > any such suits they choose to bring. PAT] In the meantime they're continuing to lose money from the many consumers, like me, who carry around a FONcard (or MCI card or whatever) because AT&T refuses to sell us a service we need. Classic AT&T marketing. If it wasn't the fact that they *owned* the phone service to begin with, it would have gone the way of their computer systems division by now. peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #214 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa17517; 18 Mar 91 23:34 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa06694; 18 Mar 91 21:55 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa11945; 18 Mar 91 20:51 CST Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 20:43:29 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #215 BCC: Message-ID: <9103182043.ab30113@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 18 Mar 91 20:43:18 CST Volume 11 : Issue 215 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: New Online Service? [Jack Dominey] Re: GTE / California Helps Prevent Slamming [Randal L. Schwartz] Re: Telecommunications Emergency in El Salvador [Dennis G. Rears] Re: Alphanumeric Paging [Daryl Jones] Re: Voice Mail, Fax Card [Peter da Silva] Re: UK Deregulation - Big News [Steve Hamley] Re: Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity Laws [Chuck Forsberg] Re: Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity Laws [Martin McCormick] Re: FCC Proposed Regs on Public Access Phones [Andy Behrens] Re: Disabling Call Waiting [Steve Kass] Re: Calling an Out-of-Area 800 Number [David Lesher] Re: Dial "0" for Mickey Mouse [Fred R. Goldstein] Re: Dial "0" for Mickey Mouse [R. Kevin Oberman] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jdominey@bsga05.attmail.com Date: Mon Mar 18 11:36:42 EST 1991 Subject: Re: New Online Service? In V11#214, Jeff Sicherman writes: > The latest issue of BYTE (March 1991) has a stiff card with an ad > offering free time on a new online service in return for some feedback > on the service. Does not mention how long the free time will last or > how much use will be allowed. Also no mention of access means or > costs. The card has questions on hardware configuration so they can > send the proper software. Also inquires about other online services > that you use. Sounds like the ad in {PC Magazine} that I answered a couple of months ago. It turns out to be Online America. The actual offer is, IMHO, pretty cheesy, and I don't intend to use it. To log in, you must provide a Visa/Mastercard number. You then get three "free" hours of online time to evaluate the service. If you stay online any longer, normal rates ($8 peak / $4 offpeak) apply. A monthly charge of $9.95 will also be levied, but this covers your first three hours per month. The only way to avoid charges altogether is to drop the service after those first three hours. In other words, this "free time for feedback" is just a deceptive way to lure us 'techies' into what is really just a waiver of the first month's service charge. Whoopee. Jack Dominey, AT&T Commercial Marketing, Tucker GA v: (404) 496-6925 AT&TMail: !dominey ------------------------------ From: "Randal L. Schwartz" Subject: Re: GTE / California Helps Prevent Slamming Reply-To: "Randal L. Schwartz" Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Beaverton, Oregon, USA Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 17:04:29 GMT In article , wybbs!ken@sharkey (Ken Jongsma) writes: | According to an bill insert, GTE California is now offering an | authorization form to prevent "slamming" by other long distance | carriers. There is no charge for this form. Returning it to GTE will | allow your account to be coded such that your written permission is | required for a carrier change. I just got this in my GTE Northwest bill. Maybe its a national policy. (And a good one at that...) Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 on contract to Intel's Warp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 13:04:03 EST From: Dennis G. Rears" Subject: Re: Telecommunications Emergency in El Salvador Jim Dywer writes: > EMERGENCY SITUATION IN EL SALVADOR!!! > On Monday March 11 Salvadorean Telecommunications and Treasury > Ministry workers went on strike. They are represented by the two > following unions (respectively) ASTEL and AGHEMA. > As of today, Tuesday March 12, all the work places have been occupied > by Treasury Police, well known as the the brutal political police of Well known by whom? > El Salvador. > WHAT YOU CAN DO: > Call or telex the following numbers demanding: > (1) The demilitarization of the workplace > (2) Respect for the right of workers to strike > > followed by a list of numbers Why should we? What business is it of ours (U.S.A)? I presume the Salvadorean Telecommunications and Treasury Ministry workers are government employees. Does the Salvadorean law give government workers the right to strike? American government workers areen't allowed to strike. If not they are breaking the law and should be treated as such. Telephone service is a necessity and if the workers are striking they potentialy could cause harm to the national security. I am not advocating physical or illegal harm to the strikers, but give us some more information. Have the police actually done anything? Is the strike legal? What are the issues? Blindly calling for actions without full knowledge of the situation is unconscionable. It is so typical of Americans to rush in and "save" people while only superficially knowing why there are doing it in the first place. Dennis [Moderator's Note: When I ran the original message Monday morning, I considered adding a disclaimer saying I was presenting it for the telecom news involved; i.e. possible disruption of service, etc; but decided to let it pass as submitted. This forum is of course not a good one for discussion of US intervention in the affairs of other nations, so maybe we should let the matter die gracefully. Thanks. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Alphanumeric Paging Date: Sun, 17 Mar 91 20:51:07 PST From: Daryl Jones Most modern common carriers which provide alphanumeric paging service offer at least three modes of access: 1. IXO Protocol. This is a simple protocol frequently used for low-volume dial-up access to the paging terminal. 1200,7,e,1 is usually used. A simple checksum must be sent at the end of the message. 2. TAS Protocol. TAS stands for Telephone Answering Service. This is a real simple technique intended for users who access the paging terminal with a dumb terminal. The user is prompted for pager phone number and the alphanumberic message. 3. TNPP Protocol. This is the protocol that is most suited for interfacing a paging terminal with a customer's computer. A checksum calculation is required. The protocol provides for destination addressing, so that the paging terminal which receives a TNPP transaction from a customer may pass the transaction off to another paging terminal, possible at a faw-away location. TNPP stands for Telocator Network Protocol. Telocator is the name of a trade association for radio common carriers. At least a few Internet and uucp sites have mail addresses that will forward to alphanumeric paging systems. This is a good technique for automatically notifying a system administrator of critical problems etc. It also provides a convenient method for easily generating an alphanumeric page. Telecommunications Engineering Associates Daryl Jones, KA6VEP 409 Wildwood Drive So. San Francisco, CA 94080 {decwrl,pacbell}!tcomeng!daryl Phone: (415) 871-4200 ------------------------------ From: Peter da Silva Subject: Re: Voice Mail, Fax Card Organization: A corner of our bedroom Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1991 13:07:44 GMT davep@u.washington.edu (David Ptasnik) writes: > About a week ago someone requested info on a combined voice mail, fax, > answering machine PC board. It is available in the DAK catalog for > under $500.00. If it's available in the DAK catalog, there *is* something wrong with it. I've wasted enough money over the years learning that ... no point in anyone else getting burned. peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com ------------------------------ From: Steve Hamley Subject: Re: UK Deregulation - Big News Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 14:20:44 GMT In article , johns@scroff.uk (John Slater) writes: >> On a different note: what exactly are "lifetime telephone numbers"? > The idea is that you are given (or, for more money, you choose) a > phone number which you carry with you for the rest of your life, > wherever you go in the country. Nice idea, but a nightmare to > administer, I fear. And the days of looking at the STD code to > determine where a number is located are numbered. It's going to be > hard to work out what the charge will be for a given number. The announcement about 'lifetime telephone numbers' also mentioned the fact that Oftel (the regulatory body for UK telecoms) wanted to include an extra digit at the front of numbers. As I understand it from a colleague who works at BT, this is the key to how customers know how much they will be paying. The proposal is that the country is split into zones, with this prefix digit specifying the zone in which the rest of the number is currently resident. Personally, ten zones would seem to imply that the areas are going to have to be fairly large, especially if there are zones for mobile phones, toll free, premium services and international. If there are to be a number of competing telcos then it would surely also limit their charging flexibility? As for the technical feasibility, both the BT and Mercury digital networks are already capable of assigning a logical telephone number or block of numbers to any physical location. The lumbering giants will no doubt take years to decide on the marketing and how much to charge though. ------------------------------ From: caf@omen.UUCP (Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX) Subject: Re: Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity Laws Date: 18 Mar 91 07:28:36 GMT Organization: Omen Technology INC In article John Kennedy writes: > subscriber for each piece of equipment connected to the cable. It > seems that cable legislation is a few years behind that for the > telephone industry. > Is there legislation afoot anywhere that is attempting to modernize > this? Yes, Senate Bill 12 for 1991. Ask your senator to mail you a copy, then bug him to support it if you agree with it. Hearings were held on S.12 last week, but the issues were not covered by CNN. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 11:21:45 CST From: uccxmgm@unx2.ucc.okstate.edu Subject: Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity Laws I would really cheer the day when cable TV systems adopt the same philosophy regarding a D-mark and inturnal wiring. Every time we have had trouble outside, and they want to come check it out, I have to scuttle like a rat under the house and put their drop back on their single outlet so that the splitter won't show up. When they leave, I duck back under and fix things like they were. Martin McCormick WB5AGZ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 18:30:24 EST From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Regs on Public Access Phones What is missing here? > Moderator's Note: Your lengthy file has been placed in the Telecom > Archives with the other AOS related files, and I thank you. Interested > readers can access the Telecom Archives using standard ftp commands > from an Internet site: ftp lcs.mit.edu ... then login anonymous and > give your name@site.domain for the password. Once on line at MIT, then > 'cd telecom-archives'. The *name* of the file! I forgot to mention it. When you go to the Telecom Archives, look for 'aos-new.fcc.proposals'. There are various files beginning with 'aos' ... you might want to review them all. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 15:44 EDT From: SKASS@drew.bitnet Subject: Re: Disabling Call Waiting In issue #206, Dave Levenson writes: > In New Jersey, the subscriber must subscribe to the feature that > allows disabling of call-waiting for this to work. This is a feature > that may be ordered and priced separately from call waiting. > If disable call waiting is purchased, then the subscriber may disable > call waiting on an established call by flashing the switchhook, and > dialing *70, and may then expect to be reconnected with the call that > was in progress. > [Moderator's Note: Illinois Bell gives *70 for free. PAT] NJ Bell gives *70 for free, too, at least if you DON'T have call waiting to begin with. I've been annoyed for several months now by not being able to hang up my phone with a quick flash. Instead, I get a new dial tone, and the call goes on hold. The only thing that I can dial through the new dial tone without getting a reorder is *70, after dialing which I am returned to the call in progress. Calls to the business office and 611 get me nowhere. I really don't have call waiting, but I have every symptom of having cancel call waiting [and don't want it]. Weird. Steve Kass/ Math&CS/ Drew U/ Madison NJ 07940 2015141187/ skass@drew.edu ------------------------------ From: David Lesher Subject: Re: Calling an Out-of-Area 800 Number Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 17:36:01 EST Reply-To: David Lesher Organization: NRK Clinic for habitual NetNews abusers Knowledgable sources in El Salvador last week told me that using USA Direct; they can pay a $6.00 fee and get calls completed to various 800 numbers. wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (305) 255-RTFM pob 570-335 33257-0335 ------------------------------ From: "Fred R. Goldstein" Subject: Re: Dial "0" for Mickey Mouse Date: 18 Mar 91 19:50:35 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton MA USA In article , PCOEN@drew.bitnet (Paul Coen) writes: > They are clearly marked as belonging to "Vista Telephone" or something > to that effect; based on the "Vista" in the name, as well as the > picture of Mickey Mouse (which did NOT inspire confidence -- I was > expecting to get an operator with a Mickey voice) on the information > card. > The 1+ and 0+ service defaults to AT&T. ... > I just thought it was interesting that these two phones exist in the > middle of Mickey Mouse's COCOT territory. So where's the COCOT? The local telephone operating company in Lake Buena Vista, Florida is Vista-United Telephone, a joint venture of Walt Disney Co. and United Telecom, the same folks who own Sprint and a bunch of local telcos in various outbacks. The Mickey Mouse payphones are plain old local telco units, NOT COCOTS! Y'see, back when WDW was being created, the swamps west of Kissimee were unpopulated and no telco served them. So Disney created a telephone company subsidiary and got certificated to serve the area, which they named after, I think, a place in Anaheim (LBV). They sold half to United, which no doubt added some expertise. It's a fully modern operation with two COs, optical fiber, etc. And given the growth in the area, it has quite a few phones in its territory. (Smart move!) Fred R. Goldstein Digital Equipment Corp. Littleton MA goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com voice: +1 508 486 7388 Do you think anyone else on the planet would share my opinions, let alone a multi-billion dollar corporation? ------------------------------ From: oberman@ptavv.llnl.gov Subject: Re: Dial "0" for Mickey Mouse Date: 18 Mar 91 22:34:56 GMT In article , PCOEN@drew.bitnet (Paul Coen) writes: > Much more sinister was the VERY subtle propaganda thrown in by AT&T > and the other corporate sponsors (GM was the worst), under the guise > of education. Walt must be spinning in his grave. First, Vista Telephone is the LEC for Disney world, so the phones are NOT COCOTs. Disney World is a politically independent entity in Florida and not responsible to the county or any other political sub-division of the state. Like many communities, they have a private phone company. Second, I doubt Walt would ber too concerned. He had no problem with the idea of turning a profit and Disneyland had similar corporate sponsorship setups long before he died. I remeber the Monsanto Chemical and AT&T setups in Tomorrowland back in 1962 quite well. R. Kevin Oberman Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Internet: oberman@icdc.llnl.gov (415) 422-6955 Disclaimer: Don't take this too seriously. I just like to improve my typing and probably don't really know anything useful about anything. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #215 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa19339; 19 Mar 91 1:30 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa23794; 19 Mar 91 0:01 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa07508; 18 Mar 91 22:56 CST Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 21:53:40 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #216 BCC: Message-ID: <9103182153.ab21965@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 18 Mar 91 21:53:26 CST Volume 11 : Issue 216 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: The Order of Repair [Mike Lukacs] Re: The Order of Repair [wegeng@arisia.xerox.com] Re: Some Realities About Repair of Damaged Aerial Phone Cables [D. Lesher] Re: I Want to Buy a COCOT [Scott Hinckley] Re: I Want to Buy a COCOT [Ed Greenberg] Re: Did MCI Give me $20? [Jeff Sicherman] Re: Help Needed With NiCads on my Panasonic Cellular [John G. DeArmond] Re: User's Evaluation of Handheld Cellular: Fujitsu / Motorola [C Ibbotson] Re: AT&T's Dream-On Ad Campaign [R. Kevin Oberman] Re: AT&T's Dream-On Ad Campaign [Tom Coradeschi] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Lukacs 21341 Subject: Re: The Order of Repair Reply-To: mike@nyquist.bellcore.com Organization: Bellcore - Digital Video Research Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 22:17:10 GMT In article , john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: |> This talk about the problems in Rochester reminds me of a telling |> situation that happened right here in my neighborhood a couple of |> years ago. |> So it breaks down like this: |> The cable company had its act together. Its service restoral (while |> hardly essential) was first rate. PG&E took three hours to restore |> Pac*Bell, who was too wimpy to even begin work on its cable until the |> next day. I had a similar situation in my neighborhood ten years ago; a hurricane took down some trees and all the phone and power lines in several places. Power was restored in 24 Hrs., Phones took three days. However! Consider the magnitude of the various restoration processes! Cable television is a low voltage tree structured service. The cable company needed to get one man with a lift truck or a ladder to splice ONE coaxial cable in two places to bypass the damaged section. The power company had to first make the area safe by removing all wire remnants and cutting back tree limbs that came too close etc. They then had to rehang in a well insulated manner, and reconnect TWO to SIX high voltage wires. The telephone company had to sort out, "buzz out", unscramble, install and connect several hundred or several thousand (!!) subscriber lines. Naturally this takes considerably longer to do. In the case of my neighborhood, the power company responded and had men on the scene in four hours. (Ours was not the only problem they had that day.) The local phone company had people investigating the damage at about the same time, but could not begin repairs until the power electricians were finished. Power is considered to be a more essential service, and since all are on the same poles, the phone repairers are REQUIRED to stand back and not interfere with the power work, both for the safety of all involved, and to promote a speedier repair of the power lines. I suspect that in your case, the cable company was able to bypass the affected section via a noninterfering route, else they too would have had to wait. DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed | M. E. Lukacs NVC-3X-330 in the above are my own, and not | Bell Communications Research (BELLCORE) those of Bell Communications Research.| 331 Newman Springs Road By Law, | Red Bank, New Jersey, USA 07701-7040 | (201) or (908) 758-2876 FAX: 758-0889 mike@nyquist.bellcore.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1991 07:03:41 PST From: wegeng@arisia.xerox.com Subject: Re: The Order of Repair For what it's worth, the repair pattern here in Rochester seems to be: 1. A Rochester Gas & Electric crew (or a crew on loan from another electric company) restores power (by restringing lines, removing fallen branches from the lines, etc.). 2. A Rochester Telephone crew (or a crew on loan from another telephone company) follows the electric company crews, and restores telephone service. 3. Greater Rochester Cablevision restores cable TV. This order kinda makes sense to me. The electric company people are the experts in working with high voltage lines, so let them do their thing before everybody else shows up. It also makes sense to make restoration of electric service the highest priority, so the other crews stay out the way until that's been accomplished. Personally, I've been pleased with the repair service. I was one of the lucky people who never lost electric or telephone service, but the lines for both were knocked down. The electric line was replaced without disconnecting my existing service (so I didn't have to reset any of my digital clocks). The telephone crew showed up a day later. The electric crew also cut the fallen tree limbs into fireplace size logs, which they didn't have to do (it certainly made my clean up task a bit easier). Now, if only my cable TV service were restored. (It's been out for over two weeks). Don ------------------------------ From: David Lesher Subject: Re: Some Realities About Repair of Damaged Aerial Telephone Cables Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 18:34:59 EST Reply-To: David Lesher Organization: NRK Clinic for habitual NetNews abusers {John and Larry discuss a fire damaged cable repair} I have to side with Larry on this one. Pre-breakup, I was in charge of 35+ leased pairs of various types into a facility. While outages on one or two was a regular daily occurance, one night at midnight I got a frantic call from the shift operator. He was on the last of four POTS lines, and the ground on one side of the pair was VERY obvious ... he reported that he had a board full of failures, and both (60 ma. loop) ASR-28's were "running open," too. I quickly (before the last pair died - a few minutes later) reminded him to use the 156 mhz radio as needed, and had him drive down the cable route to find the problem. He called me on the air to report a tool shed on fire under the trunk. Through some miracle, I got the 611-droid to wake up the Cable foreman for the area. After several attempts, I got the one for the correct district ;-}. (The others went back to sleep.) [If you REALLY want to know - it was the 28 cable in the Shadyside CO] I went out too, and Ma *did* start on the repairs after the power utility got the 13.2 kv and 230 v stuff fixed. It was a real mess. The fire had been at a corner pole, and had wiped out a splice cap, too. A four man crew, or maybe more, worked until late that afternoon. It was a little easier, I recall, because my repeated harpings on failures had at least forced Cable to keep the records up to date;-} What you REALLY want to do, John, is just get a SLC-96 installed in your basement ;^]. Then, next fire, all they would have to do is run some new fibers. wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (305) 255-RTFM ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 08:48:57 CST From: Scott Hinckley Subject: Re: I Want to Buy a COCOT Miscellaneous text about buying COCOT for school deleted. > I know that COCOTs are not popular in this group, but this seems like > a reasonable use for one. We'd label it to make sure that folks > weren't fooled into thinking it's a normal pay phone, including a note > like "Go to the Lyme Store or Nichol's Hardware for cheaper calls." Well, I see one potential proplem here (remebering my high-school days). You have a captive audience during lunch&breaks which will probably be forced to use this phone. "No, you can't use the office phone, there is a pay phone in the hall". Those students will be the ones having to subsidize the COCOT. I would try to dig a little deeper at your local Bell to try and get them to install the phone, put the superintendants position behind the request and see if it doesn't produce some responses. (This assumes you are on a closed-campus style school, if they can go anywhere they want for lunch it is a different question.) Scott Hinckley Internet:scott@hsvaic.boeing.com +1 205 461 2073 UUCP:...!uunet!uw-beaver!bcsaic!hsvaic!scott BTN:461-2073 DISCLAIMER: All contained herein are my opinions, they do not represent the opinions or feelings of Boeing or its management. ------------------------------ From: Ed_Greenberg@3mail.3com.com Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 09:49 PST Subject: Re: I Want to Buy a COCOT Steve Ligett writes about needing a pay phone where there isn't enough traffic for the telco (or the local COCOT people) to put on in. He wants to buy a COCOT. Most telco's offer something called a "Semi-public phone." This is the pay phone in the office of the gas station. Sometimes it even has incoming-only extensions. (There have been stories here in Telecom Digest about enterprising youngsters who devised a method to create outgoing extensions :-) It's also entitled to a directory entry. You pay something to have the phone there, and perhaps get a kickback on the usage. Check the tariffs in your state regarding coin service and semi-public coin service. edg [Moderator's Note: Who? Me?? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 10:27:12 -0800 From: Jeff Sicherman Subject: Re: Did MCI Give me $20? Organization: Cal State Long Beach In article peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: > I've gotten similar checks (for $5) for "insuring" my credit cards (!). > I've always just deposited them and left the credit card part blank. > I can certainly use the money. About three weeks later I get a letter > reminding me that I haven't given them a credit card number, which I > ignored. If someone send you something unsolicited in the mail, it's > yours. I'm aware of that law (postal regulation?) but I'm not sure whether it would also apply literally to negotiable instruments (i.e. forms of money). However, what MCI is sending could also be classed as a contractual offer which you are free to accept (by affixing your signature) or reject (by ignoring) just like like magazine subscription offers or many other types of solicitations that are sent by mail. Since the banks have better things to do than administer and enforce someone elses contracts and these days may accept checks for deposit without endorsement (ATM's) they consider the contractual aspects the problem of the issuer; they are only interested in the negotiability. In contractual law you can be deemed to have agreed to a contract if you accept the benefits afforded by the contract whether or not you formally sign anything. Often, this may be the measure of a verbal contract's enforceability. It seems to me that by depositing these checks you are *implicitly* agreeing to the terms of the associated contract since the act of deposit affords you the benefits of it. I expect that the companies doing this have obtained legal guidance on this that exceeds the legal expertise commenting on this (present company included) and know the thing to be enforcable. It's just not worthwhile for a few breakers. ------------------------------ From: "John G. DeArmond" Subject: Re: Help Needed With NiCads on my Panasonic Cellular Date: 18 Mar 91 22:18:09 GMT Organization: Dixie Communications Services > handset just cutting off. I figured something like a light bulb and > some leads to connect to the battery terminals but that seems crude > and slow. Any suggestions. Thanks in advance... I missed the first part of this thread but since it is apparent by the title that we're discussing Panasonic portable batteries, a slight misconception needs to be corrected. The battery in the the old style Panasonic portable (and I believe in the new style also) is NOT a NiCad battery. It is a Gell-cell-type lead-acid battery, as is the same battery used in the Panasonic Cam-corders. Using a Ni-cad-style charge cycle and/or deep discharging these batteries will RUIN them, as I found out by experience. I smoked my first battery in a few weeks; the second has lasted several years. The way to make these batteries last is exactly the same technique you use to preserve ordinary car batteries. Store them charged, maintain a trickle charge whenever possible and never deep discharge. There IS a reason why the Panasonic phone dumps you so fast when the battery is going down. John De Armond, WD4OQC Rapid Deployment System, Inc. Marietta, Ga {emory,uunet}!rsiatl!jgd ------------------------------ From: Craig Ibbotson Subject: Re: User's Evaluation of Handheld Cellular: Fujitsu vs Motorola Date: 18 Mar 91 19:42:11 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL Call me a blind patriot (and possibly a blind Motorola employee) but if the two of these portables come up even (as was suggested), I would have to think people in the U.S. would opt for the phone that is made in America by American workers for an American company. The factory where they make the MicroTac is next door to my building, and I think it is fantastic to see such high-quality products coming out of a U.S. factory with American factory workers. These people are average Joe's like you and me, but they are competing tooth and nail with the Japanese. Finally, a U.S. manufacturer who can do it right. Go for the Motorola phone. ------------------------------ From: oberman@ptavv.llnl.gov Subject: Re: AT&T's Dream-On Ad Campaign Date: 18 Mar 91 22:21:31 GMT In article , john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > AT&T's current TV ad compaign is probably the biggest waste of money > Madison Avenue has ever experienced. It is the one that says, "To be > sure you get AT&T, dial 10-ATT-0 and then your number." I have seen several COCOTs that do accept 10xxx dialling, but I think that AT&T is mostly still unaware that COCOTs exist and that they blithly ignore the FCC regulations on this in many (most) cases. The real point is for REAL COTs that have MCI or Sprint or some such as default carrier. And, for those, it works! R. Kevin Oberman Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Internet: oberman@icdc.llnl.gov (415) 422-6955 Disclaimer: Don't take this too seriously. I just like to improve my typing and probably don't really know anything useful about anything. [Moderator's Note: Quite honestly, I think AT&T knows *quite well* about the large number of COCOTS infesting the cities of America. And I think they are going to begin pushing the matter very soon, suing the owners of these devices for lost revenue, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 10:49:56 EST From: Tom Coradeschi Subject: Re: AT&T's Dream-On Ad Campaign Organization: Electric Armaments Div, US Army Armament RDE Center John Higdon writes: > AT&T's current TV ad compaign is probably the biggest waste of money > Madison Avenue has ever experienced. It is the one that says, "To be [...] > If AT&T will not accept the real world of COCOTs and provide something > other than 10288 access, then it should at least save its advertising > money for a better campaign, no? Well, John, you certainly have a valid point there, but I think you're missing what I (and I suspect AT&T) see as the more likely scenario. Joe LD Caller walks up to COCOT. Dials 10288+0+xxx and bombs out. Tries again. Bombs again. Gets really pissed off. At who? NOT AT&T. At the COCOT. After all, 10288+ worked just fine at the (name your favorite telco) payphone at work, just yesterday. Rips COCOT off the wall (well, probably not). At least calls the COCOT's information number and gives them hell. Lots of folks do that, and (this is the improbable part) COCOT allows equal access, just to keep from hearing all them nasty cuss words. Just my opinion... tom coradeschi <+> tcora@pica.army.mil <+> tcora@dacth01.bitnet [Moderator's Note: I really think you are correct. I think AT&T's strategy will include keeping the public inflamed at the COCOT people; while employing legal tactics of their own to keep pressure on the COCOT owners; and hope that before long the situation will change as the private owners eventually cave in from the pressure. I really doubt they will let them off by getting an 800/950 number. That would be too easy on the private owners, who everyone loves to hate anyway. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #216 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa20401; 19 Mar 91 2:32 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa07616; 19 Mar 91 1:07 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab23794; 19 Mar 91 0:01 CST Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 23:24:51 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #217 BCC: Message-ID: <9103182324.ab10233@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 18 Mar 91 23:24:42 CST Volume 11 : Issue 217 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson The Press and Numbers (was: Houston Chronicle Cellular Fraud) [Doug Davis] Re: Houston Chronicle Fraud Story [Joe Abernathy] Re: Why Telco Should be Permitted to Maintain Monopoly [Louis Linneweh] Re: Voice Recognition Experiment [Vance Shipley] Re: Call Manager [Mark Van Buskirk] Re: Call Manager [Randy Borow] Calling Card Numbers and PINs (was: Call Manager) [A. Alan Toscano] Harrassing Calls (was: How do I Set-up Caller*ID?) [Darrell Broughton] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Doug Davis Subject: The Press and Numbers (was: Houston Chronicle Cellular Fraud) Organization: Logic Process Unix Engineering, Dallas Office Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1991 21:34:22 GMT Okay, I guess to be a reporter takes flunking basic math. Note, enclosed is a handy dandy reality check cheat sheet that you can cut out and take with you. :-) Let's see, the most expensive long distance calling area I can find is $ 3.00 per minute. So, two international calls to the place via three way calling would be $ 6.00 (2 * 3 = 6 for you reporters out there.) Now, there are 1440 minutes in a day ... call it $7 to included air time. One phone left up constantly 24 hours a day costs $10,080. Three phones would obviously meet and exceed Joe's numbers. However by that time I would hope someone would notice. Anyway, in a more realistic perspective: ------------ Cut here for your very own reality check sheet ------- Goal == $ 30,000.00 per day @ $ 7.00 per minute. Number of phones: 3000 = 10 minutes each, average per day of fraudlent usage. 1000 = 30 minutes each, average per day of fraudlent usage. 500 = 1 hour each, average per day of fraudlent usage. 100 = 5 hours each, average per day of fraudlent usage. 50 = 10 hours each, average per day of fraudlent usage. 25 = 20 hours each, average per day of fraudlent usage. Now then, even as a city as big as Houston, don't you have real trouble with the idea of more than 100 fraudlent phones (or is that phraudlent fones?) running around? Even then, that would be the kind of "Big significant number" that would cause the industry to DO something. Not just complain about it to the press. One more reality check: 30000 * (52 * 5) = 7,800,000.00 30000 * (52 * 7) = 10,920,000.00 7.8 MILLION per year of loss in Houston alone, just on the weekdays mind you. Including the weekends it is almost 11 MILLION dollars. -------- Cut here for your very own reality check sheet ------- I'm going to refrain from making snide comments about Joe's past articles, but this one can be debunked by any second grade math student. It's pretty obvious, either Joe and or his sources are making things up as they go along. Take home question: Who else makes up numbers as they go along? (Hint: 911 documentation) Doug Davis/4409 Sarazen/Mesquite Texas, 75150/214-270-9226 {texsun|lawnet|smu}!letni!doug doug@letni.lonestar.org [Moderator's Note: har har har har har! And have you heard the quote from Saddam Hussein? Saddam said, "Compared to tanks, journalists are cheap -- and you get more for your money." :) My thanks to someone who sent that in their .signature earlier today. Sorry, I forget who. Mr. Abernathy will now respond. Although he specifically addressed my comments, which were similar to yours, his reply will serve you equally well. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 13:45:42 CST From: Joe Abernathy Subject: Re: Houston Chronicle Cellular Fraud Story Patrick writes: > So we have $6 per minute plus the cellular phone charges. Are these > thirty or forty cents per minute each? If you can squeak $7 per minute > out on this, that would be a very generous estimate. Charging for > everything you can think of, how do you begin to approach $10.42 per > call/minute, or $20.83 per minute overall? And that $20.83 per minute > -- using your $30,000 per day estimate -- means the connection is left > up continuously, otherwise the rate per minute of use must of necessity > be even higher. Well, let me stress that it wasn't my estimate, it was that of a company's chief financial officer, who requested anonymity for obvious reasons. I'm not checked out on the tariff structures for international cellular calls, which weren't the focus of my story, but on rechecking my notes I see that he did say clearly that he had to pay double charges on each line. Assuming he was misguided on this point, the only other thing I might offer is that the foreign carriers sometimes add reprehensible charges to a call -- the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been tacking 75 cents a minute onto soldiers' AT&T calls. We have no way of knowing what sort of special fees might be incurred in the actual war zone, whose infrastructure was bombed into the past 100 years by some reports. One wire report said just the rental of a cellular handheld was $5,000 a month right now. One might further assume that it would take some serious combat pay to convince a crew to do maintenance on a cell site -- a not insignificant structure -- in the midst of the world's most intense saturation bombing. Having offered a defense of the man, let me now offer the untold negative side of the story, and then perhaps we can be done. The way that you get federal police agencies -- particularly the U.S. Attorney's office and FBI -- interested in financial crimes is to convince them that a serious financial loss was sustained. And it sometimes turns out that the estimate of loss was higher than the actual proveable loss. We saw this graphically depicted in the case of one Craig Neidorf, and I suspect that it's at work in every case of financial fraud. Best regards to all, Joe Abernathy [Moderator's Note: While you are correct that you must convince the authorities that a crime of some substance has been committed, there is such a thing as crying wolf once too often. Overstating your case can backfire at times. But even ten thousand dollars per day of cellular fraud is pretty outrageous, and overall your story was good. I thank you for sharing with us, and hope you will bring more articles over from the {Chronicle} from time to time. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Louis Linneweh Subject: Re: Why Telco Should be Permitted to Maintain Monopoly Date: 18 Mar 91 17:56:46 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > Standards are as firm as ever since the breakup. Bellcore, the God of > telephone standards and blessings is as healthy as ever. In fact, of > necessity, the standards are now fully documented and available to all I'm very familiar with Bellcore standards, and you are quite right. The documantation of inter-system standards is a very healthy developement (but one that was well underway before Judge Greene.) I was thinking more of the user interface, which you seem to feel was never very good. Perhaps I'm not as well traveled as you are. But I was very frustrated in the waiting room of a metropolitan airport (Atlanta? Dallas?) which had payphones with special buttons for all the ICs but AT&T. AT&T had their own CRT credit card reading phones, which I couldn't figure out how to use (after 15 minutes, including calling the "assistance" number listed "What kind of phone?"), I discovered that the phone was just broken, and the one next to it worked fine! (It was so unfamiliar and "complex" I didn't realize the phone was not working! I thought I was doing something wrong!) > ... And being very short sighted at that. Sorry, I do tend to be overly satisfied with things that I think are working well, and don't see as much need to progress as other, more agressive business people. > You have focused > on the one major aberration of divestiture, COCOTs. The problem here > is that no one is enforcing regulations already in place. And I am > very curious: what is so hard about placing a call on a COCOT? I guess I addressed this. Funny how it was AT&T itself that caused my grief, but it was the result of the MFJ. I've had other, similar problems trying to use my AT&T card from the random phone (and my kids from their college dorm room phones, where experimentation was the only way to learn, and that has changed at least once this year.) > All of the complaints that I have heard center around the cost and > deception regarding the long distance carrier, not that it requires > any special effort or knowledge to place the call. Probably because most people who complain attribute to malice that which I write off as discourtesy. Complaining about inconvenievce is not as important as exposing an attempt to defraud. But I do feel, in the larger sense, that the door was opened by the MFJ for providers, out to make a buck, to abuse the public. Telecom buyer beware is the order of the day. Maybe a small price for progress, but a price that could continue to grow since the general population has no organized voice to compete with the special intrests of businesses. > It is a pretty weak one. Besides the seven RBOCs in this country there > are hundreds of independent telcos providing LEC services. They were > there before divestiture as well. Did you feel that your precious > standards were being violated by all of these different companies > then? If hundreds of telephone companies around the country can > maintain standards, then two or three LECs can maintain them in a > particular community. Claiming that monopoly is necessary to preserve > the ease and convenience of telephony is a wheezing old argument that > even the telcos are beginning to put to rest. It is an old argument, and a good one. The hundreds of independent phone companies HAD to follow the de facto standards when there was only one carrier. But now, each carrier is trying to inovate to "capture" more of the market. Progress. The RBOCS must now join the general rush to "retain and recapture" market. More progress. Not the end of the world, just the end of an era ... that had some advantages. By the way, I have come to believe that, since we already have IC competition, there would be little more to lose by letting the other shoe drop. I think it is time for LEC competition. Surprised? Cellular has survived - some would say flourished - in a competitive environment. I would like to be able to say: "I don't like the service I'm getting, connect my drop to the other LEC please." And in my simple view of things that would leave a wire-line monopoly from my house to the mainframe, where I could be cross connected to one of several LECs. But the cable companies would like to even broaden that, I'm sure. OK. Let it rip. But my job involves thinking about phone calls. I do it all day. I'd like to think one of the results of all that work is the ability to actually MAKE a call WITHOUT having to think. I'm just one of many people designing telecom systems though, so how do we preserve simplicity and still provide the progress everyone wants? ------------------------------ From: vances@xenitec.on.ca (Vance Shipley) Subject: Re: Voice Recognition Experiment Organization: SwitchView Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 23:49:20 GMT In article , tad@ssc.UUCP (Tad Cook) writes: > The Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology is building a > huge database of voices as part of a project to develop voice > recognition for US West directory assistance. > Call 800-441-1037 (I assume this is nationwide ... it may not be) and I just tried it and it works from here! (Ontario, Canada) Vance Shipley ------------------------------ From: mvanbusk@bcm1a05.attmail.com Date: Mon Mar 18 09:27:50 CST 1991 Subject: Re: Call Manager Organization:AT&T Pat, FYI AT&T does not issue calling card PIN's that begin with "1". Mark Van Buskirk Rolling Meadows Il ------------------------------ From: rborow@bcm1a09.attmail.com Date: Mon Mar 18 14:33:35 CST 1991 Subject: Re: Call Manager Pat, To answer two of your questions: Although you DO have to have Call Manager as a feature, dialing the 15nn after the 0+ # will still get you through as if you had dialed it via normal DDD. You don't think we here at AT&T would let you use one of our special services for nothin', now, do you? :-) The 10732 is the access code for AT&T's Software Defined Network (SDN), as you probably know. If you do not have SDN service, using the 10732 will make no difference in placing OR rating/billing the call. Furthermore, because this access code is more or less restricted, you will find -- as I have found -- that eventually, you will be unable to use the code. Try it, Pat. After a couple months, your attempts to use 10732 will not go through. :-) :-) Randy Borow Rolling Meadows, IL. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 18:09 GMT From: "A. Alan Toscano" <0003382352@mcimail.com> Subject: Calling Card Numbers and PINs Recently, our Moderator wondered... > [Moderator's Note: I wonder if Calling Cards automatically do > NOT use PINS in the 15xx series to avoid billing conflicts. PAT] Well, I've been meaning to mention this, so ... thanks Pat, for jarring my memory! Bellcore compliant Calling Card PINs are of the NXXX format. An initial zero isn't used because an initial dialed digit of zero following the prompt tone, directs your call to an operator without timeout. Thus, abbreviated dialing (where you just dial the PIN when calling home), wouldn't work for PINs beginning with zero. An initial digit of one, indicates some time of billing other that Calling Card. Here in Southwestern Bell land, 11- indicates automated collect calling (intra-LATA calls only, of course). Current MCI- and US Sprint-issued fourteen digit calling cards are *not* Bellcore compliant and may have PINs which begin with zero or one. Many US carriers plan to issue this summer, to all of their customers, new cards which will have new-style international card numbers. Under the new CCITT plan, international numbers will have the digits "89" followed by a country code, a carrier code (in countries where applicable, such as the US), and finally a distinguishing customer number. Some carriers may choose to use the 891 format for domestic calling on their own networks as well. "89" is supposed to distinguish telco cards from other major credit/debit cards. On yet another related subject, there have been mentions here of AT&T issuing "random numbered" card numbers on its Universal, Corporate and Non-subscriber cards. Actually, they're not entirely random. The cards' six digit prefixes have been assigned to them by Bellcore. IXC prefixes have an initial digit in the two to five range (to distinguish them from LEC-RAO prefixes) and a fourth digit of zero or one. A carrier may be assigned several such prefixes. To my knowledge only AT&T issues such cards at present (and only for accounts which it bills directly, rather than through LECs), but I wouldn't be surprized to see other carriers use these numbers as well (for domestic calling) on the new cards they issue this summer. A. Alan Toscano Voice: +1 713 236 6616 MCI Mail: ATOSCANO <0003382352@mcimail.com> Telex: 6975956AAT UW CIS: 73300,217 [Moderator's Note: We use 11 for collect calling, and 12 for billing to a credit card or third number here in IBT-land. PAT] ------------------------------ From: broughton@sask.usask.ca Subject: Harrassing Calls (was: How do I Set-up Caller*ID?) Organization: University of Saskatchewan Date: 18 Mar 91 13:03:34 CST In article , 443114@acadvm1.uottawa.ca (Eric Skinner) writes: > Interestingly, I had a friend in Montreal who was receiving a large > number of *harassment* calls, and Montreal police refused to do > anything about it. Bell Canada refused to do anything, saying it was > completely the police's responsibility. > The solution was to switch phone numbers ($27.00) and get an unlisted > number ($4.00/month or so). We were not impressed. Our local telco (SaskTel) will at least change your phone number for FREE if you are getting harrassing calls. I assume that the unlisted number will still cost a per month fee. Darrell Broughton [Moderator's Note: IBT also gives one free change of number if you blame it on receiving obscene calls. Not two, just one. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #217 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa23006; 19 Mar 91 4:40 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa25924; 19 Mar 91 3:13 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id af17780; 19 Mar 91 2:08 CST Date: Tue, 19 Mar 91 1:02:22 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #218 BCC: Message-ID: <9103190102.ab23071@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 19 Mar 91 01:02:00 CST Volume 11 : Issue 218 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Telecom News From Delaware [Ken Weaverling] United Telephone of Pennsylvania [Steve Gaarder] Punch Down (or Something Similar) Needed at Home [Jim Ray] Residential Wiring Suggestions Wanted [Stephen Fleming] Caller*ID Hits Toronto [Eric Skinner] Phone Hookup for American PC in Scotland [jlangri@relay.nswc.navy.mil] Phone Line Simulator Needed to Test Modems [Joseph Chan] Remote Call Forwarding / Transfer Device Needed [Joseph Chan] IBT Requires TouchTone Charge [Jim E. Dunne] Please Define COCOT [uccxmgm@unx2.ucc.okstate.edu] Telecom Fights Crime [Tom Coradeschi] The Joys of Being a Deadbeat [Matt Simpson] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ken Weaverling Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1991 10:21:47 EST Subject: Telecom News From Delaware *** Caller ID Arrives April 1st *** Diamond State (of Bell Atlantic) will introduce Caller*ID to most of its customers on April 1st for a charge of $6.50/month. Per-use call blocking is also available for all customers at no charge, as mandated by the Public Utilities Commission. *** Exchange (302) 653 May Get Unlimited State Wide Calling *** At the beginning of this year, Diamond State expanded unlimited local calling areas to be county-wide. (Delaware has three counties.) Unfortunately, the telephone companies idea of a county line differs from the physical county lines. Exchange 653 is Smyrna, part of Kent County. A few thousand residents of far southern New Castle County have 653 phone numbers. Many of these residents commute to Wilmington (Delaware's largest city) and were led to believe that they could now call toll free to this area. Residents of this area have complained to the PUC. A hearing has been scheduled. Some of the possible compromises suggested include allowing 653 to call toll free to New Castle County but calls FROM New Castle to 653 would be toll calls. Another solution is to allow 653 customers to obtain state-wide unlimited calling for $3.00/month. The latter plan would be viewed as an experiment. The PUC has been pushing Diamond State to offer toll-free calling state-wide anyway. *** Wilmington Pay Phones Cause Controversy *** Up until last year, the city of Wilmington had emergency call boxes on almost every corner. The city, citing high costs, decided to have all of the call boxes replaced with Public Telephones, each with prominent signs indicating that 911 calls are free. This seemed like a sound idea at the time since the public would have additional pay phones, the public could still reach the police for free, and the city would eliminate a large expense. The plan was implemented and now Wilmington has pay phones on almost every city street corner. Some residents, however, are not pleased at all. They claim that the phones attract drug dealers who conduct their deals over the phones. They are petitioning the city to remove the phones, citing that most residents have their own private phones and therefore, pay phones are not required in residential areas. The good news is that all of the phones are genuine Bell Atlantic phones, and all seem to have LD service designated to AT&T. Also, the incidence of vandalism on these phones is very low. (Perhaps since the dealers don't want to damage the tools of their business :-) *** Local Paper Supports Proposed 900 Legislation -- Almost *** Delaware's largest newspaper, the {News-Journal}, spoke out in favor of proposed 900 legislation in their editorial of 18 March 1991, with one exception. The paper noted that there are legitimate services and reasons for 900, including the few 900 numbers that the paper themselves offer, but they also mentioned the phone-sex industry where "callers must go through 900 number 'teaser' calls followed by a pitch for a live conversation with the tart of your dreams charged to your credit card." The paper supports an announcement of charges, warnings to minors, a chance to hang up after the announcement with no charge, and free 900 blocking to private phones. They do NOT support the provision that would prohibit phone companies for disconnecting service for non-payment of 900 charges. They cite that there are "too many avenues for abuse" if this occurs. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 21:17:22 EST From: Steve Gaarder Subject: United Telephone of Pennsylvania Sean Williams writes: > ...my local telco, United Telephone System, volunteered to answer > phones at the Dec., 1990 [PBS pledge] drive. They were matching > viewers' pledges, and offered Northern Telecom phones to new members > who pledged $60 or more. I remember UTS. I went to college in Carlisle, Pa., not far from where Sean lives. Unlike any other phone company I've known, they actually acted like they gave a darn about the community. They actually gave public tours of their central office and their maintenance facility. They also had some bizarre equipment. When I moved there, Carlisle (717-243, -245, -249) was served by a Kellog K-60 crossbar switch. That was an unusual beast. Even though it was a crossbar, you had to dial 112 plus a party ID digit ( 1 for single-party lines) to call long distance. 113 got you directory assistance, 114 repair, and 116 ... well, that was weird. At first, it was some sort of dial speed test, responding with a dial tone and accepting one digit. One day, though, the dial tone stopped happening. The switch would accept quite a number of digits, then I'd get recordings from other places. It finally dawned on me that it was acting just like 112 - making a long distance call! So I went and tried it from a pay phone - bingo! I even got my dime back. Only catch was that only one person in town could use it at a time. So, when word got around about this, the circuit was constantly busy. Finally, it stopped working, and I heard through the grapevine that someone had been ordered off the circuit by a rather gruff craftsman. To this day, I have no idea why that circuit was ever set up. Perhaps it was a mistake. If you think that switch was strange, wait 'till I tell you about its replacement! Steve Gaarder gaarder@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu [Moderator's Note: Please do tell us about it! PAT] ------------------------------ From: jdr@sloth.mlb.semi.harris.com (Jim Ray) Subject: Punch Down (or Something Similar) for Home Organization: Harris Semiconductor, Melbourne FL Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1991 04:42:17 GMT This has probably been addressed before (but I looked through most of the Telecom Archives and didn't find exactly what I was looking for). I must add four or five new phone connections in my house and was thinking that it would be much easier to use home-run wiring, ie. run from where the phone line comes in to each phone location, rather than a closed loop setup. I was wondering if there is any sort of mini-block punch down or equivalent, that would allow me more flexability since I will be running some six pair wire I picked up really cheap. I am already using two pair on two separate phone lines and if I used a punch-down setup I could later on add an intercom etc. Is this a reasonable thought? Does such equipement exist (relatively cheaply) ? Jim Ray Harris Semiconductor Internet: jdr@semi.harris.com PO Box 883 MS 62B-022 Phone: (407) 729-5059 Melbourne, FL 32901 ------------------------------ From: portal!cup.portal.com!fleming@uunet.uu.net Subject: Residential Wiring Suggestions Wanted Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 05:58:09 PST I'm buying a new house. The interior walls aren't up yet, so now's the time to do any custom wiring I might want in the next ten years (assuming I don't get transferred or something...) I've already asked the builder to run 6-pair cable to every room (one voice line, one data/FAX line, an AppleTalk LAN, an intercom, and two pair for things I haven't thought of yet). Are there any special instructions I should give him? Serial as opposed to parallel? Is it worth asking for a punchdown block in the basement? (Given my job and my affiliation, I expect to buy residential ISDN as soon as it's made available.) I'd appreciate any suggestions. Thanks! Stephen Fleming Internet: fleming@cup.portal.com Director, Technology Mktg. CI$: 76354,3176 AOL: SFleming Northern Telecom BIX: srfleming X.500: ??? 7900 Westpark Drive, A220 McLean, Virginia 22102 Opinions expressed do not (703) 847-8186 represent Northern Telecom. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 13:36:47 EST From: Eric Skinner <443114@acadvm1.uottawa.ca> Subject: Caller*ID Hits Toronto According to an otherwise-clueless Bell Canada representative, Caller*ID, or "Call Management Services" as it is known here, will be available in Toronto effective April 22nd. Eric Skinner 443114@acadvm1.uottawa.ca University of Ottawa +1 613 230 0261 [Moderator's Note: Be careful you don't violate anyone's 'rights'! Tomorrow in the Digest, an intriguing story of a woman whose Caller*ID service got *her* in trouble. Fact or fiction? Read it, then you decide. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 15:09:18 est From: jlangri@relay.nswc.navy.mil Subject: Phone Hookup for American PC in Scotland A friend of mine will be heading for Scotland next month and wants to take a laptop pc w/modem. I'm sure he can use a voltage adapter to charge the battery (I'm not real sure he would want to use the pc directly off the adapter), but what type of hookup will he need to connect his modem to the phone system there? ------------------------------ From: Joseph Chan Subject: Phone Line Simulator Needed to Test Modems Date: 19 Mar 91 00:54:29 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle We got several V32 9600baud modems. I have not got them to talk at 9600 baud rate. They work at 2400 baud. I suspect that the phone line (we had) may have trouble to connect at 9600 baud. To determine this, I would need a simple phone line simulator, such that I can connect two modems together with go through the local phone line. Could anyone show me how to make a simple phone line simulator? Thank you. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Chan Subject: Remote Call Forwarding / Transfer Device Needed Date: 19 Mar 91 00:54:29 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle I can make a local phone call from my office to point A, B, or C. It would be a toll call from my home to A, B or C. But it is toll free from my home to my office. The phone in my office can transfer an incoming call to A, B or C, but it would require a human interaction (I can transfer any incoming call by push a special button on the phone and dial A, B or C. After connection, I would hang up the phone). Is there a simple device would make such transfer automatically? Joseph Chan joseph@milton.u.washington.edu University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195 [Moderator's Note: If you have two lines in your office, you could use an inexpensive call-extender to do what you want. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 18:56:50 CST From: "Jim E. Dunne" Subject: IBT Requires TouchTone Charge [Moderator's Note: Illinois Bell gives *70 for free. PAT] (regarding Call Waiting disabling) Well, as of this month, Illinois Bell is asking me to pay for the TouchTone service I had been getting for free. I got one of those carbon-paper envelopes saying 'we'll disconnect the following services unless you agree to the charges listed', and the only applicable one for me was tone. Oh well, $0.73/month (plus taxes of course!) isn't too bad for the ability to dial with my computer and the like. At least they included a "Business Reply Mail" envelope... Jim Dunne Motorola Cellular ...uunet!motcid!dunne [Moderator's Note: So the auditor's office out in Harvey, IL finally caught up with you, eh? With the ESS echanges, they are smart that way, and very little gets past them now. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 11:20:35 CST From: uccxmgm@unx2.ucc.okstate.edu Subject: Please Define COCOT While I've been reading this news group, I've seen lots of references to "cocots" They are obviously independently owned payphones, but what does the acronym "cocot" actually stand for? Enquiring minds want to know. I read this news group through a speech synthesizer and the acronym comes through sounding much like a popular Spanish obscenity. From the horror stories about these monuments to human avarice, the similarity is quite amusing. [Moderator's Note: Its that old standby question again, folks! I answer this in mail a couple times a week at least, but now and then put one in the Digest for folks who would like to know but don't write: ustomer wned oin perated elephone. The first two words are frequently interchanged with the third and fourth word, as in Coin Operated Customer Owned Telephone. Is there an 'official' way to say it? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 10:39:53 EST From: Tom Coradeschi Subject: Telecom Fights Crime Organization: Electric Armaments Div, US Army Armament RDE Center Reported on radio station WZZ0, 95.1 FM, Bethlehem-Allentown, PA, this morning. A woman reported her car stolen, advised the police that it was equipped with a cell phone, and gave them the phone number for it. Police officer called the car, and lo and behold the thief answered. Cop says "I hear you've got a car you want to get rid of..." Thief and cop haggle on price, etc. for a while. Finally cop tells thief he'd really like to see the car. A meeting place is established, and when the cops show up, there's the thief, leaning against the fender, arms crossed, waiting for his "buyer". Good Guys 1, Bad Guys 0. tom coradeschi <+> tcora@pica.army.mil <+> tcora@dacth01.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 91 13:55:24 EST From: Matt Simpson Subject: The Joys of Being a Deadbeat In the discussion of the legality/ethics of cashing MCI's $20 checks without using their service, the Moderator points out that such antics are likely to result in the perpetrator being listed as a "mail-order deadbeat." Another reader suggests (presumably with tongue planted firmly in cheek) that this might be an effective way to reduce the volume of junk mail in one's mailbox. Actually, this will probably not reduce your mail volume. I doubt that many junk mailers do credit checks before sending out advertising. In fact, it could have the opposite effect. For several years, I have been receiving advertisements from credit organizations offering me "instant credit" on "ez terms." While none of the ads actually called me a deadbeat, the tone of the ads, along with the rates of interest, seemed to imply that I might be a person who would have problems receiving credit from more reputable organizations. I put two and two together when my application for an AT&T Universal Card was originally rejected because my "credit history did not meet program requirements." An investigation of my credit bureau file revealed that I was a deadbeat because a garbage collection agency claimed I owed them $40 for picking up garbage at a hose where I no longer lived. Apparently this was enough to get me on a "deadbeat list" which was sold to loan sharks as easy bait. So being a deadbeat may actually increase your volume of junk mail. As an aside, I finally did get my AT&T card. Apparently, the initial screening is done by software which kicks out anything which might be negative. When I called AT&T and asked about it, I could hear the rep paging through my record on her terminal. Finally, she said "This all looks good to me," and approved the application. Apparently she had as much difficulty wading through that stuff as I did. I also went through the process of protesting to the credit bureau. Apparently, the collection agency which bought the "unpaid" bill from the garbage company didn't accept my explanation. When I received my updated record from the bureau, it still listed the deadbeat entry, along with a verbatim copy of my explanation. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #218 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa29746; 20 Mar 91 11:05 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa25852; 20 Mar 91 9:25 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa02326; 20 Mar 91 8:21 CST Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 7:52:12 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #219 BCC: Message-ID: <9103200752.ab25666@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 20 Mar 91 07:52:06 CST Volume 11 : Issue 219 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Threatening Phone Calls in Canada [Nigel Allen] My First Month of Caller ID in Atlanta [bill] Urban Legend? -- Caller IDentified Sues, and Wins! [Nancy J. Airey] Armstrong Biographical References [Bert Cowlan] The Baby Bells Misbehave [Business Week, via Peter Marshall] Public Telephone Users Be Aware [NY Telco, via Jerry B. Altzman] Mobile Phones Taxed in UK Budget [Adam Gorman] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 01:25 EST From: Nigel Allen Subject: Threatening Phone Calls in Canada Organization: 52 Manchester Avenue Eight years ago, I received a series of harassing phone calls: one more or less explicit threat, "You're dead, Nigel!", and subsequently, over the next several weeks, a series of calls where the caller would simply not say anything. (I had worked with the person who decided to make my life unpleasant; if anyone wishes further details of his motives, they can e-mail me.) The one good thing about the whole episode is that it taught me how the Canadian criminal justice system deals with harassing phone calls. In TELECOM Digest V11 #205, Eric Skinner (443114@acadvm1.uottawa.ca) writes: > Interestingly, I had a friend in Montreal who was receiving a large > number of *harassment* calls, and Montreal police refused to do > anything about it. Bell Canada refused to do anything, saying it was > completely the police's responsibility. The police's line was that > since they were "too busy," they did nothing about harassment calls > unless "physical harm" was "explicitly threatened." Hardly a surprise. There are some serious problems with the criminal justice system in Canada, and particularly in Quebec. The Montreal police and the Quebec provincial police can be extremely unpleasant. However, the Canadian criminal justice system does allow someone who has received threats to ask a judge to order the alleged harasser to post a "peace bond" (in effect, to promise to keep the peace). This procedure, something like an injunction, means that a judge can order the alleged harasser to stay away from the complainant. Being ordered to post a peace bond does not count as a criminal conviction, but breaking a peace bond is considered a criminal offence. This is most often used to protect a woman from an abusive ex-husband or boyfriend. As well, Eric Skinner's friend might have considered swearing out a charge privately. At that point, the police might have been somewhat more interested in dealing with the matter. U.S. readers may encounter similar obstructionism from the police if they receive harassing calls. In that case, they may want to consult their state justice department or local legal clinic about what their options are, including swearing out a complaint or filing charges themselves. However, in some areas (such as Peel Region, just west of Toronto), the criminal court system is severly congested, and it can be several months before a case goes to trial. The emotional investment in being a complainant in a trial is significant, particularly if the alleged harasser has a competent lawyer. Of course courtrooms across North America are filled with trials for things a lot worse than harassing phone calls, but knowing that doesn't make things much easier. > The solution was to switch phone numbers ($27.00) and get an > unlisted number ($4.00/month or so). We were not impressed. When I was receiving harassing phone calls, Bell Canada waived the service charge for a new number. I suspect that if you ask for a number change, Bell wants its service charge; if you wait for Bell to suggest a number change, you get it free. Nigel Allen ndallen@contact.uucp ------------------------------ From: bill Subject: My First Month of Caller ID in Atlanta Date: Tue, 19 Mar 91 14:00:32 EST Reply-To: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu Well, the first month of my Caller ID service has passed and I felt that I should pass on my observations on the matter. It has pretty much been as I expected. I'll explain what has taken place. I've noticed a fair share of what is apparently telemarketing droids who usually call close to dinner time. If I get an "Out-of-area" call at dinner time, I usually let the machine pick it up. It has usually been the telemarketers who will call at this most inopportune time - they generally show up as out-of-area because I'd guess they use out-WATS to call their suckers (I mean prospects). Some telemarketers call locally - Sears Vinyl Siding called the other night, for example. I told them the usual "not interested." A fax machine tried to call me the other night, starting at 11:00 P.M. I let it call twice before I blocked the number. I don't have a fax machine - apparently someone misdialed my number into their fax machine. Calls from either the "A" or "B" cellular systems in Atlanta show up as "Out-of-area." I have found that this is because neither is hooked up to SS-7 as yet. Calls from the centrex here at Georgia Tech show up as their respective numbers, 894- or 853-XXXX. Calls that are Call Forwarded to me show the originating, not the intermediary, phone number (unless they are forwarded via cellular). Calls via Southern Bell calling card show up as "Out-of-area." Calls placed via SB operator show up as "Out-of-area." Calls from PBXs show up as what I'd guess is a trunk on the PBX or as the main number - there seems to be no consistency on PBX numbers displayed. An interesting note: Caller ID went out on me for a day. I called repair (of course) to resolve the matter. After they got me going again, the QA person called to ask if I was okay again. I asked her what caused the problem and she said that "a translator had gone out" or some such. Apparently, translations are kept in a database and they are the telco's record of the services which correspond to a particular POTS line. Now I know something new. My translation should have had "Caller ID" in it, among other things. During this first month, I have called numerous businesses for various reasons. I've called to order pizza, to ask the local Radio Shack for a price or two, to ask the local Circuit City and Hi Fi Buys for prices, you name it. As yet, I have not been sujected to any of the alleged horrors which some naysayers had predicted with the advent of caller ID. I have not been awakened at 2 A.M. to ask "Now that you know how much the XVY color TV is, why don't you come in to get one?" No one from Radio Shack has called me to ask why I never came by to buy that TV antenna on sale, you know, the one you called in to ask the price on? The pizza place still asks me for my phone number. And even if a telemarketer does call, I just tell them "not interested," then hang up (unless the answering machine gets it first). No invasion of privacy here. But then I have never been one to say that what, at worst, is a minor inconvenience is actually AN INVASION OF MY PRIVACY, because that's not the case by any stretch of the imagination. So, in it's first month on my line, it seems to me that Caller ID is not "technology for its own sake," but is actually a handy tool. My privacy has not been invaded. I've managed to surprise most of my friends and such who call me by answering "Hello there, Joe Blow!," to the point that they don't wonder how I know who's calling any more. It's nice to know a little more about who's calling me. Obviously, "they" know my number when they call me. Now I know theirs. I like that option. If anyone has any questions for me, please reply via e-mail and I'll do my best to answer. I'm no Caller ID expert, just a consumer who has come to like the service. Bill Berbenich Georgia Tech, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{backbones}!gatech!eedsp!bill Internet: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 00:01:18 EST From: Nancy J Airey Subject: Urban Legend? -- Caller IDentified Sues and Wins! Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In a recent class I had two students relate a story to me which I suspect may be an "Urban Legend." The story goes that a woman in Florida with "caller ID" on her phone was receiving obscene phone calls. She reported the phone number to the police and the caller was charged. The caller sued her for invasion of privacy and won. Is this "Urban legend" or fact? Can anyone *document* date/time/place/*court record*? (I put the "UL" flag on it because I felt that a definite court case would have been frequently cited by those arguing on both sides of the ICLID issue.) att!hrcca!jean [Moderator's Note: This wouldn't surprise me at all, given the climate in the criminal justice system in America today. But maybe some researchers among us have more details. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 08:47:08 PST From: cdp!pssc@labrea.stanford.edu Subject: Armstrong Biographical References Since I still seem to have troubles reaching addresses other than directly on IGC or EcoNet, and several people asked for information which I have attempted to send directly, I thought I'd try to post this reply to the Digest. I'd rather be redundant than non-responsive and am seeking additional information, as well. The book on which I promised further information was a biography (I am reasonably certain there has never been an autobiography) of Major Armstrong. The title: "Man of High Fidelity." Author: Lawrence Lessing. Publisher, J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1956. Library of Congress Number: 56-11677. Anyone interested in this subject might also want to take a look at "The Golden Web," by Erik Barnouw, the middle volume of a three-volume set on this history of broadcasting in the U.S. Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1968. Library of Congress Number: 66-22258. It covers some of the same ground, but not as detailed as in the Lessing book. Any good University department of communications would have it in the library; the Lessing book may prove harder to find. Some questions had been raised in the Digest about who was where and when. According to both books, but I took most of this literally from Barnouw, Armstrong went on the air with a regular schedule and the experimental license W2XMR (I was wrong in my first posting), with a full 50kw, from Alpine, New Jersey, in 1939. Two Yankee Network stations picked the programs up and re-transmitted them at 2kW. In March, 1934 he went on the air (power not known to me) from the Empire State Building, but the receiver population was confined to one, a set operated by a friend of his in Long Island. This transmitter was removed (by request of RCA) in 1935. While AT & T was guilty of some shenanigans in regard to Armstrong, the main villain, as I'd previously noted, was RCA and the "General." If anyone looks into this further, I am curious about when WNYE-FM, a station owned and operated by the Board of Education of the City of New York and at which I worked as a high school kid in the early 40s, went on the air. I had thought it was 1939 and that Chicago had gone on the air with a similar one even two years earlier, but can find no trace of this in either of the two books. It may have been, but the educator who founded it has been deceased for about ten years now, that the educational broadcasts originally were aired on WNYC-AM, the City's Municipal Station and later shifted to FM. I know they were FM in 1941 because I was then a freshman in high school and did station breaks along with other chores. The station was located at Brooklyn Technical High School but swept in students from high schools all over the city. We did programs under the rubric: "The All City High School Radio Workshop." Some of us acted, some directed, some produced, some did sound effects or ran the console, some used a broom to good effect. Great training and many of us went on to careers in radio broadcasting; some have even become famous. By that time, or shortly thereafter, all New York City schools were equipped with the necessary "special receivers." This may be more than any respondent wants to know, but I'd be appreciative of anything other than the above you learn. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 15:52:11 -0800 From: Peter Marshall Subject: The Baby Bells Misbehave From {BUSINESS WEEK}, 3/4/91, p.23: A skilled spin doctor can put almost anything in a good light--even a $10 million fine. When US West, Inc. was penalized that amount on Feb.15 for violating the Bell System breakup consent decree, lobbyists for the Baby Bells argued that the rules were fuzzy, the infractions were minor, and that, in any case, the antitrust decree that US West violated ought to be drastically curtailed. Indeed, John J. Connarn, vice-president for regulatory affairs at rival Baby Bell Ameritech, even argued that the fine could belp US West -- by calling attention to what he sees as the pettiness of the restrictions.... But the past year has brought a rash of fines, settlements, and allegations against the Baby Bells, many of them for violations that are all too easy for the general public to understand.... increasing aggressiveness on the part of the Bells, which believe they're being treated by regulators a staid utilities even as they lay out strategies to be 21st century, information technology giants. Yet be pressing too hard, they risk a regulatory backlash and even more restrictions.... As long as [their status as local monopolies] remains the case, the Baby Bells will be subject to extra-heavy scrutiny -- no matter what the spin doctors say. ------------------------------ From: "Jerry B. Altzman" Subject: Public Telephone Users Be Aware Reply-To: jbaltz@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu Organization: mailer daemons association Date: Tue, 19 Mar 91 21:07:56 GMT This appeared in this month's "Hello", the little flyer that comes with my NYTEL bill. It appears verbatim. Public Telephone Users Be Aware... ... not all public phones are alike. Every public telphone you use may not be a New York Telephone Public Phone. New York Telephone wants you to know what to look for when you are using a public phone. You can easily spot a New York Telephone Public Phone. Here's what to look for: o Blue New York Telephone logo at the top left hand corner of the phone. o Upper dial instruction card with a picture of the New York Telephone Calling Card and "We're all connected." [NYTEL's wonderful new slogan JBA] o A lower dial instruction card with easy to read directions on how to make local, long distance, collect, and calling card calls. There are many reasons for using a New York Telephone Public Phone. New York Telephone offers you: o reasonable usage rates for local calls that are regulated and have no hidden charges o no charge to call our operator or for directory assistance within New York State o no charge for 911 emergency calls (where available) o no charge to call 611 repair service o make collect calls, calling card, and emergency calls without inserting a coin o reliable service Don't forget, when you need a public phone, look for a *real* New York Telephone Public Phone. We're all connected. DISCLAIMER: This isn't Columbia. This is me. Columbia is them. jerry b. altzman +1 212 854 8058 jbaltz@columbia.edu jauus@cuvmb (bitnet) NEVIS::jbaltz (HEPNET) ...!rutgers!columbia!jbaltz (bang!) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 02:01:42 CST From: adg%ukfca1.uk.ate.slb.com@sj.ate.slb.com Subject: Mobile Phones Taxed in UK Budget The British Chancellor Norman Lamont announced yesterday that he was taxing what he called the "Scurge of modern society, the mobile telephone." From 6th April company mobile telephones will be considered to be a fringe benefit and will be assessed at a rate of 200 pounds sterling, resulting in a personal tax charge of 50 pounds sterling per year for the user. The chancellor concluded that this will make restaurants quite again and the roads safer. The initial reactions from users consider this to be a joke tax from a Government in disarray. Non-business users, or more specifically non-VAT registered, users will be hit by the increase in VAT from 15% to 17.5%. Adam Gorman Mobile 0836 731395 Solstice Systems Ltd, Trowbridge, Wiltshire, BA14 9AZ 0225 755740 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #219 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa23271; 21 Mar 91 9:44 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa30139; 21 Mar 91 1:34 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa17898; 21 Mar 91 0:30 CST Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 0:29:04 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #220 BCC: Message-ID: <9103210029.ab05220@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 21 Mar 91 00:28:58 CST Volume 11 : Issue 220 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: User's Evaluation of Handheld Cellular: Fujitsu / Motorola [C Olling] Re: User's Evaluation of Handheld Cellular: Fujitsu / Motorola [J DeArmond] Re: User's Evaluation of Handheld Cellular: Fujitsu / Motorola [J Higdon] Re: Front Door to Apartment Phone Service [Steven King] Re: Can You Disable Call-Waiting AFTER the Call Starts? [Ralph Sims] Re: Can You Disable Call-Waiting AFTER the Call Starts? [Toby Nixon] Re: The Correct Way to Write Your Phone Number [Mark Brader] Re: Some Realities About Repair of Damaged Aerial Phone Cables [J Higdon] Re: Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity [Ken Jongsma] Re: Voice Recognition Experiment [wegeng@arisia.xerox.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cliff Olling Subject: Re: User's Evaluation of Handheld Cellular: Fujitsu vs Motorola Date: 20 Mar 91 06:49:40 GMT Reply-To: Cliff Olling Organization: Japan National Oil Corporation, Chiba City, Japan In article (Craig Ibbotson) writes: > The factory where they make the MicroTac is next door to my building, > and I think it is fantastic to see such high-quality products coming > out of a U.S. factory with American factory workers. These people are > average Joe's like you and me, but they are competing tooth and nail > with the Japanese. Finally, a U.S. manufacturer who can do it right. When I was coming back to Tokyo after skiing on Monday, I noticed the (Japanese) guy next to me on the the Shinkansen had a MicroTac. In fact he dropped it on the floor a time or two :-). I asked him why he didn't buy a Japanese-made phone. He said that the NTT competition was too expensive, and that most people don't care that the MicroTac's not made by a Japanese company. Sorry this is so brief, but my Japanese isn't yet up to an in-depth market analysis survey :-). Clifford Olling Japan National Oil Corporation $@@PL}8xCD(J Technology Research Center $@@PL}3+H/5;=Q(J Chiba City, Japan olling@jnoc.go.jp $@KkD%K\6?1X(J 24hrs/day=>81+472-73-5831 ------------------------------ From: "John G. DeArmond" Subject: Re: User's Evaluation of Handheld Cellular: Fujitsu vs Motorola Date: 20 Mar 91 09:06:21 GMT Organization: Dixie Communications Services motcid!ibbotson@uunet.uu.net (Craig Ibbotson) writes: > Call me a blind patriot (and possibly a blind Motorola employee) but > if the two of these portables come up even (as was suggested), I would > have to think people in the U.S. would opt for the phone that is made > in America by American workers for an American company. > Go for the Motorola phone. As long as non-technical criteria are being used to judge the merit of one vendor vs another, let me add another fact for consideration. I'll ask Pat's and the group's indulgence for a moment. Motorola sits at the top of the civil rights Tower of Shame by having the most egregiously offensive arbitrary drug testing program in America. For those not aware, I maintain a list, called the Piss List, of companies that violate employees' rights in various ways such as pee-in-the-bottle tests, psychological profiling, lie detectors (yes, they are still around), and other offensive thing so that people can vote against these practices with their feet and with their pocketbooks. This list is available from piss@dixie.com. Mail a message with the word "send" in the SUBJECT line. I can also provide a copy of Motorola's policy, a document that will strike fear in the hearts of even the most conservative spectator. Write to piss@dixie.com and ask for it. I also maintain a list of good companies that maintain an afirmative position regarding employees' rights to privacy and freedom on their own time. As of this writing, Fujitsu is not on the bad list. That should be enough of a tie-breaker. Beyond that, my impression of the Motorola luggable (a mobile radio with a nylon bag wrapped around it) after side by side comparison to my three year old Panasonic Portable and after some bench testing is that I'm not at all impressed. It is much more prone to intermod in the RF-hostile downtown Atlanta area and the receiver is less sensitive. The radio itself appears to be a mobile unit to which some stamped sheet metal brackets and some Molex plugs have been added. Bare wires are apparent under this sheetmetal bracket. Looks like something I might have jerry-rigged up as a prototype but certainly not as a production item. On the plus side, the phone uses Panasonic batteries and charges them when on mobile power. I suppose at the discounted price of under $200 dollars, the phone is not a bad deal if you can bide your conscience enough to buy from a company with people policies as bad as Motorola's. John De Armond, WD4OQC Rapid Deployment System, Inc. Marietta, Ga {emory,uunet}!rsiatl!jgd ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 23:43 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: User's Evaluation of Handheld Cellular: Fujitsu vs Motorola Craig Ibbotson writes: > Call me a blind patriot (and possibly a blind Motorola employee) but > if the two of these portables come up even (as was suggested), I would > have to think people in the U.S. would opt for the phone that is made > in America by American workers for an American company. For openers, let me say that both of my cellular phones are Motorola: a MicroTac and an old in-car unit (I forget what). They are most satisfactory. That said, I must disagree most strenuously with the apparent statement in the quoted paragraph. Being made in America is NOT a reason to buy anything. One should buy on the basis of need and fulfillment. If one's needs are fulfilled by a product and the price is right, it should be purchased. To buy product just because it is "American" possibly rewards a company for building inferior wares. (Definitely not the case with Motorola.) > The factory where they make the MicroTac is next door to my building, > and I think it is fantastic to see such high-quality products coming > out of a U.S. factory with American factory workers. Look at the above comment. Is it not a sad commentary that one considers it "fantastic" that a US factory with American workers would build high-quality products? Does this mean that the norm is over-priced, shoddy, worthless junk? Would that there come a time, once again, that we all could consider American products to be routinely of high workmanship and value and not be amazed by it when it occurs. > Finally, a U.S. manufacturer who can do it right. So let us reward those American businesses that do it right by patronizing their goods and avoid the others until they, too, can "do it right". > Go for the Motorola phone. I am certainly happy with mine. But buy it because it is good, not because it is "American". John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Steven King Subject: Re: Front Door to Apartment Phone Service Date: 20 Mar 91 20:55:53 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc. - Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL Pat, you forgot to mention the downside of the {E,I}nterphone. (Warning: Anecdote Alert!) A friend of mine had been sent overseas on business for a month or so. After he got back I was going to stop over to say "hi" to him one Saturday morning. I got there, and buzzed his apartment. Well, unbeknownst to me at the time the intercom was an Interphone arrangement, the type that doesn't interrupt calls in progress. He had a data call up you see, catching up on a month's worth of email and news ... all I got was a busy tone! Luckily his second-floor apartment had a window that was literally a stone's throw from the ground. The call-interruption flavor wouldn't have helped much either. Call waiting would have kicked in and knocked him off the modem (assuming that it can't be cancelled with *70 or something, in which case he would have cancelled it). The modem would have put the line back on-hook. Would the phone ring in such a situation? If so, no problem. Otherwise my friend would have cursed the demon-spawn named Line Noise and simply redialed before I could try again! No, give me an honest-to-god dedicated intercom any day. Better yet, give me a dwelling place free of these !#$%^# modern "conveniences"! Steven King, Motorola Cellular (...uunet!motcid!king) [Moderator's Note: By definition, I/Enterphone WILL interrupt a call in progress. That is the way it is built. Any other unit which does not actually seize the pair (relying on dialing in) is an imposter if it is called I/Enterphone. And no, *70 will not block call-waiting in the case of a front door call, since again the unit does not look to see what the CO is doing other than if the line (or rather, the pair) is engaged then it submits its own call-waiting tone. Yes, a person on a modem would get cut off. That is one reason I have two lines here; one for mostly modem use, with no call-waiting on the line, period. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Can You Disable Call Waiting AFTER the Call Starts? From: Ralph Sims Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 22:10:00 PST Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service SKASS@drew.bitnet writes: > waiting to begin with. I've been annoyed for several months now by > not being able to hang up my phone with a quick flash. Instead, I get > a new dial tone, and the call goes on hold. The only thing that I can > dial through the new dial tone without getting a reorder is *70, after > dialing which I am returned to the call in progress. Calls to the That sounds suspiciously like three-party-conferencing, which seems to be a requirement here to get the ability to cancel call-waiting (area code 206/USWest). ------------------------------ From: Toby Nixon Subject: Re: Can You Disable Call-Waiting AFTER the Call Starts? Date: 19 Mar 91 13:03:36 GMT Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA In article , the Moderator noted: > [Moderator's Note: On my US Robotics Courier 2400 modem, you use '!' > to force the modem to flash the hook. But on outgoing calls, why > wouldn't you just insert *70 on the front of the dialing string > instead, as in ATDT *70-123-4567? If you want to flash the hook after > the modem is already on the line, I guess you would get the modem's > attention, with three plusses or whatever, followed by ATDT !*70 O, > where the final letter 'O' means for the modem to go back on line. PAT] The "!" dial modifier also works with Hayes modems. You're right about prepending "*70," to the phone number, rather than trying to do it after the call is established. In fact, you CAN'T do it after the call is established, for two reasons: first, Hayes modems will give you an ERROR result code if you try to do an "A" or "D" command when you're already connected; second, if you DID hook-flash, you'd split the connection, which the other modem would see as a carrier loss which would cause it to hang up. The question has come up previously as to how to disable call waiting on INCOMING modem calls. I may have mentioned this here before, but it can be done fairly simply. You can't use Auto Answer (S0 > 0); your software must look for RING messages (or the RI lead to go high). Rather than issuing just an "ATA" command string to answer, use the string "ATH1D,!,*70,!;A". You might want to set S8=1, so the commas only cause a one second delay instead of the default of two seconds. Toby Nixon, Principal Engineer | Voice +1-404-840-9200 Telex 151243420 Hayes Microcomputer Products Inc. | Fax +1-404-447-0178 CIS 70271,404 P.O. Box 105203 | UUCP uunet!hayes!tnixon AT&T !tnixon Atlanta, Georgia 30348 USA | Internet hayes!tnixon@uunet.uu.net ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1991 01:04:00 -0500 From: Mark Brader Subject: Re: The Correct Way to Write Your Phone Number Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada People have pointed out that in Sweden and the UK and other places... > > ... phone numbers are written as: > > 08-736 91 27 ... > > The hyphen works as a separator, spaces do not, ... > I always had trouble following that logic. I mean, according to that > algorithm, people with hyphenated last names are doing it all wrong. > ... But then, national tastes vary, and what looks obvious and > natural in one place may look exactly the opposite in another! I make no comment about Swedish or other languages, but I certainly agree that in English a hyphen should bind more tightly than a space, and therefore it cannot be the proper separator in this context. I point out, however, that the precedence is correct if the "-" character is taken to be an ASCII (or ISO 646, or typewriter) transliteration of a *dash*. In *typeset* matter in the UK, if the phone number is written in the fashion of the Swedish example above (rather than in international + format or with parentheses), is a dash sometimes seen rather than a hyphen? Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 23:52 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Some Realities About Repair of Damaged Aerial Telephone Cables David Lesher writes: > What you REALLY want to do, John, is just get a SLC-96 installed in > your basement ;^]. Then, next fire, all they would have to do is run > some new fibers. Well, I tried to get T1, but even when it becomes available, Pac*Bell wants to charge me extra to save them money. Right now, my ten lines come in on individual drops, reminiscent of an alleyway in some slum. My friends all have managed to get Pac*Bell to at least install cable drops to THEIR houses. When a repair type comes to the house, he has to pull the covers off of every type of protector block available over the past thirty years to find the line in question. I would love to get it cleaned up, but it is on Pac*Bell's side of the demarc and you can bet there is no interest whatever in cleaning anything up. Especially at MY house :-) John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 8:50:12 EST From: Ken Jongsma The local United Artists Cable (owned by TCI) got very nervous last year when Congress was threatening to reregulate cable rates. They quickly raised "basic" service by $2 a month and used the excuse that you were now allowed to have as many hookups as you wanted. They also charge for use of the converter box if you need it. Needless to say, my outdoor antenna works fine and I'm looking forward to the introduction of Skypix direct broadcast this summer. Ken Jongsma ken@wybbs.mi.org Smiths Industries ken%wybbs@sharkey.umich.edu Grand Rapids, Michigan ..sharkey.cc.umich.edu!wybbs!ken ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1991 06:13:22 PST From: wegeng@arisia.xerox.com Subject: Re: Voice Recognition Experiment > The Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology is building a > huge database of voices as part of a project to develop voice > recognition for US West directory assistance. Before I donate my voice to this project, I'm curious about one thing. Is information that is obtained by having such a large database of voices going to be kept private, or instead made available to the public? I think that good voice recognition systems would benefit the public, and would be happy to donate my voice to a project that was working on an "open" system. However, if the Oregon project is strictly for the use of US West, then I'm reluctant to participate. While I'm more or less a nice guy, I'm not so nice that I would donate my services to a for profit company such as US West. Of course, I would quickly reconsider if US West were to offer to compensate me for my participation. :-) What's the background behind this project? Don ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #220 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa23336; 21 Mar 91 9:48 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa28439; 21 Mar 91 3:41 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa29464; 21 Mar 91 2:35 CST Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 1:34:42 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #221 BCC: Message-ID: <9103210134.ab04181@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 21 Mar 91 01:34:30 CST Volume 11 : Issue 221 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Why Telco Should be Permitted to Maintain Monopoly [John Higdon] Re: The Order of Repair [Jerry K. Wagner] Re: The Order of Repair [David Barts] Re: The Press and Numbers [Sandy Kyrish] Re: Houston Chronicle Cellular Fraud Story [Norman Soley] Re: Answer Supervision Information Sought [Bill Cerny] Re: Information Needed to Use Call Manager [Steve Forrette] Re: I Want to Buy a COCOT [Robert L. Oliver] Re: AT&T's Dream-On Ad Campaign [Peter da Silva] Re: New Online Service? [Nigel Allen] Re: New Online Service? [Richard Casto] I Take Issue With Moderator Buying Radio Shack Phones [Randy Borow] Re: Information Needed to Use Call Manager [Tim Irvin] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 01:22 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Why Telco Should be Permitted to Maintain Monopoly Louis Linneweh writes: > But I was very frustrated in the waiting room of a metropolitan airport > (Atlanta? Dallas?) which had payphones with special buttons for all > the ICs but AT&T. AT&T had their own CRT credit card reading phones, > which I couldn't figure out how to use (after 15 minutes, including > calling the "assistance" number listed "What kind of phone?"), I > discovered that the phone was just broken, and the one next to it > worked fine! (It was so unfamiliar and "complex" I didn't realize the > phone was not working! I thought I was doing something wrong!) In the case of either AT&T or utility whoopie-whizzo phones that have all those carrier buttons and card readers, ad nauseum, one simple fact still remains: you can usually place an ordinary calling card call by dialing 0+10D or if necessary, 10288+0+10D. You do not have to actually use all of that 'stuff'. All of the phones similar to what you describe seem to be able to be used in a most conventional manner. So if you want tradition -- you got it! On the other hand, you CAN use other carriers, other billing arrangements -- things that were not possible a few years ago. Can you imagine trying to use a "BankAmeriCard" in the '70s to make a phone call from a payphone? Not bloody possible. And what better place than airports to have phones that are capable of many billing arrangements, considering all the moaning in this forum about how foreign visitors have such a tough time making calls with out stored-value cards and the like. A credit card is a credit card. They work just fine in any country, no? (I have a Visa bill from my trip to Japan to prove it!) So while you may seem to be inconvenienced, there are others who are delighted with the panoply of choices. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 09:37:45 Reply-To: jkw@kodak.com From: "Jerry K. Wagner Internet: jkw@kodak.com" Subject: Re: The Order of Repair > In TELECOM Digest V11 #210, John Higdon writes: > What is interesting is the order in which the services were restored... > As it turned out, telephone service was restored by late afternoon, > about twenty-four hours after the outage began. Not very impressive. If you lived in Rochester Tel land, you would most likely consider 24 hours to be impressive. Since I moved to my current address, I have had at least two unexplained service interruptions (not-storm or disaster related) and it took at least two days for each one to be fixed. During the recent ice storm, I lost service on March 4. I called Rochester Tel that afternoon and was told my phone would be fixed by 9 PM on March 6. I certainly didn't believe that! On March 12, I called again. The phone company would not give me any idea when the repair people would be in my neighborhood. (Meanwhile, Rochester Gas and Electric was being told by the county government to at least give people an estimate.) I called Rochester Tel again on March 16 and I was told the repair people were going street by street and no estimate was given. Later that day, we found New York Telephone people down the street who were going house-to-house to repair services. These repair people hadn't even been given a list of people who didn't have service, so we gave them my address and asked them to be sure to stop at our house. > So it breaks down like this: > The cable company had its act together. Its service restoral (while > hardly essential) was first rate. PG&E took three hours to restore > service. PG&E is probably the worst electric utility on the planet so > for them it was probably miraculous. Never mind that the fire was > originally started by primary wires arcing in the trees because PG&E > felt it unnecessary to do any trimming. But wiping up the rear was > Pac*Bell, who was too wimpy to even begin work on its cable until the > next day. I disagree with the use of the term "wimpy." PG&E personnel are trained and equipped to work with high voltage equipment and the phone company is not. If the trees were arcing, there could have been other damage to the equipment, such as broken insulators and broken high-voltage wires. I can't blame the phone company personnel for not wanting to be exposed to foreign voltages on their equipment until PG&E got their problems solved. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 10:17:09 pst From: David Barts Subject: Re: The Order of Repair John Higdon writes of a situation where he lost three utilities and cable TV was the first to be restored. I certainly envy his cable TV service. My experience with cable TV in three communities (Los Alamos, NM; Logan, UT; Prosser, WA) has been that: a) if an event causes only one utility to fail, it's cable; b) if multiple utilities fail, cable goes out first and gets restored last. The cable companies also seem to be much less eager for my business than other utilities. When I request electric, phone, water, and cable TV service at a new residence, three calls end up with "Very well, sir, your service will be automatically turned on by on .", and one call ends up "Please pick a day where you can be at home within a four hour window next week and wait for our serviceman." Guess which one is the cable TV service rep. (Yes, this is for a residence that is already wired for cable.) I know of only one utility where the lines from the power pole are casually draped across the yard like a carelessly-tossed extension cord and left that way for years waiting to be buried or properly installed. Guess which one. Only one utility has answered the phone with a recording saying "Leave your name, phone number, and address, and service will be restored the next business day." when I had to report an outage over a weekend. Guess which one. And then the CATV companies talk about providing local dial tone. From what I've seen in the quality of CATV service, the LEC's don't have much to worry about from these prospective competitors. (John Higdon's case seems to be an exception.) In case you're wondering: No, I haven't bothered to sign up for cable at my current residence. And I don't intend to. [Moderator's Note: Likewise, at my house, we do not have cable. The service in Chicago stinks, and anyway, with 12 over the air channels why should I bother paying for more grief? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 15:21 GMT From: Sandy Kyrish <0003209613@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: The Press and Numbers If Doug Davis is going to be so snide about journalists' inability to multiply numbers correctly, perhaps he should be a bit more careful not to misspell "fraudulently" seven times in a single document. After all, if he is better than a journalist, then he should be in complete mastery of all journalistic skills. What I'm really complaining about is the number of Digest readers who seem to live for the opportunity to find fault with other people's statements. Every time we laugh at "outsiders" for making technological mistakes, we are proving that we see technology as a special priesthood that only the scrupulously worthy can join. The fact is, technology exists in society, and plain old people are periodically going to make technical mistakes about it. Personally, I don't find poking fun at them an ego trip. Sandy Kyrish 320-9613@mcimail.com ------------------------------ From: Norman Soley Subject: Re: Houston Chronicle Cellular Fraud Story Reply-To: Norman Soley Organization: Oracle Corporation, Belmont, CA Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 16:11:48 GMT In article floyd@ims.alaska.edu (Floyd Davidson) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 208, Message 1 of 14 >> We just had a case where some people came to town and set up >> three-way conference calling between Houston, Iraq and Kuwait,'' said >> the chief financial officer of one cellular service provider. That >> fraud can total up to $30,000 in 24 hours.'' > Hmmmm. 1440 minutes in 24 hours, so the combined cost of calling Iraq > and Kuwait is about, ahhh, $22 a minute, or $11 to either one alone > per minute. And if both of them are inmarsat phones then these are completely reasonable estimates. The rate card in the front of my white pages says C $12.00/min. Norman Soley - Systems Administrator - Oracle Corporation Canada 155 University Ave. Suite 400 Toronto, Ontario (416)-362-7953 X646 nsoley@cnseq1.oracle.com uunet!torsqnt!cnseq1!nsoley "These opinions are mine, not the company's" ------------------------------ From: "Bill Cerny,Baja JarTel" Subject: Re: Answer Supervision Information Sought Date: 20 Mar 91 17:08:06 GMT Reply-To: "Bill Cerny,Baja JarTel" Organization: Jartel, San Diego, CA In article Barton F. Bruce writes: > First, on ground start trunks, then can they do it on trunks on a T1 > (not ISDN, just 24 vanilla trunks)? We've got Megacom WATS here (delivered over a T-1, E&M signalling). Here's what the A&B bits do during a call: Terminal Network -------- ------- Channel idle (on-hook) 00 00 Off-hook, no supervision yet 11 00 Answer supervision 11 11 Far end hangs up 11 00 Near end hangs up (on-hook) 00 00 I tried to get ground-start, dial tone trunks on the T-1 to the AT&T 4ESS, but I found out that the 4ESS only supports E&M signalling. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 00:58:25 -0800 From: Steve Forrette Subject: Re: Information Needed to Use AT&T Call Manager > [Moderator's Note: Does one have to specifically sign-up to use the > Call Manager feature? The reason I ask is I just now made a zero plus > call and and after the gong, entered 15xx, followed by the # to > terminate dialing and speed the process. It was accepted no questions > asked. I wonder what it will look like when billed. Incidentally, I > see that 10732 is still accepting cals from non-subscribers also. PAT] Just for grins, I just tried this for an AT&T call from a Pacific Bell payphone. The response was: "We're sorry. The service you have requested is not available. " It didn't even give me a chance to try a second time, as it would have if I had entered an invalid PIN (of the proper format). They think of everything! Steve Forrette, forrette@cory.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ From: "Robert L. Oliver" Subject: Re: I Want to Buy a COCOT Organization: Rabbit Software Corp. Date: 20 Mar 91 01:03:40 GMT stevel@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Steve Ligett) writes: > I'm gathering information for our school board. We would like to have > a pay phone in our school. It would be primarily for local calls made > during times that the school building is open, but the office is not. > For example during town meetings, school board meetings, sports > events, etc. It would not be used during the school day, and could be > hooked up to use one of the existing lines. > Neither the phone company nor the local COCOT company are interested > since it won't bring them much revenue. Actually, in my Junior High / High School in Philadelphia (J. R. Masterman), we had a payphone right outside the school office. This was quite pre-COCOT, so I don't know if Bell would make the same decision today. But I would bet that money was to be made. Students during lunch hour, teacher personal calls, etc. Note that the various Department Offices had school phones with no dials, but not "outside" phones, though I believe the operator could patch things through. Robert Oliver Rabbit Software Corp. 215-993-1152 7 Great Valley Parkway East robert@hutch.Rabbit.COM Malvern, PA 19355 ...!uunet!cbmvax!hutch!robert ------------------------------ From: Peter da Silva Subject: Re: AT&T's Dream-On Ad Campaign Organization: A corner of our bedroom Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1991 01:37:01 GMT Even if AT&T gets rid of every COCOT in the country, I will need to retain my FONcard for calls from private FONs. I really think they're cutting off their nose to spite their face. These are the people who killed the AT&T 7300, a computer so good it still has a cult following years after being orphaned twice over. If they had one competant marketer in any sort of controlling position, they would *still* own long distance lock, stock, and AOS. peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 16:45 EST From: Nigel Allen Subject: Re: New Online Service? Organization: 52 Manchester Avenue In Volume 11, Issue 214, Message 3 of 4, Jeff Sicherman asks about an unidentified "new online service". I believe the company in question is America Online, originally aimed at Macintosh and Apple II users, and now going after the MS-DOS market. I tried the Mac version of its service, and found the message areas relatively empty, but this was a year ago. I stopped using it because the company imposes a fairly high communications surcharge for Canadian users. Nigel Allen ndallen@contact.uucp ------------------------------ From: Richard Casto Subject: Re: New Online Service? Date: 20 Mar 91 04:11:59 GMT Reply-To: Richard Casto Organization: Bell Communications Research, NJ I sent in that card, ommitting my phone number and using my P.O. Box - I will see what response I get, and then post! ------------------------------ From: rborow@bcm1a09.attmail.com Date: Wed Mar 20 12:03:50 CST 1991 Subject: I Take Issue With Moderator Buying Radio Shack Phones Pat, Walk to Radio Shack and pick up a Touch-tone phone? I've never been satisfied w/ anything less than a genuine Bell-made or AT&T-made Touch-tone phone. I've had nothing but bad luck with those Radio Shack, QT&T, etc. phones. Give me a REAL Touch-tone phone, with those familiar beeps and boops, anyday. Who'd you think invented "Touch-tone" anyway? Of course, it has fallen into everyday use, like other corporate trademarks: xerox, etc. And I'll take the old mechanical bell ringers, too! Randy Borow Rolling Meadows, Il. ------------------------------ From: Tim Irvin Reply-To: irvin@northstar.dartmouth.edu Subject: Re: Information Needed to Use Call Manager Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 17:36:20 In a message of Sat, 16 Mar 91 12:18 EST , Curtis E. Reid wrote: > I just tried to call a zero plus number then pressed 15nn after the > bong. The system reported the card is invalid and asks me to reenter > a valid number. So, it does not work here. (I use AT&T.) I just tried it using 10288-0-NPA-7D (bong) 15nn. I got an intercept that said "We're sorry the service you have requested is not available." Tim Irvin ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #221 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa23462; 21 Mar 91 9:53 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa02856; 21 Mar 91 4:49 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab28439; 21 Mar 91 3:41 CST Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 2:37:19 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #222 BCC: Message-ID: <9103210237.ab31527@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 21 Mar 91 02:36:53 CST Volume 11 : Issue 222 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Home Telephone Tap Detector [Larry Lippman] Re: Why Telco Should be Permitted to Maintain Monopoly [Jim Budler] Re: Cellular Air Time Charges Around the World - Who Pays? [Adam Gorman] Re: Help Needed With NiCads on my Panasonic Cellular [Marty Brenneis] Re: Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity Laws [W. H. Sohl] Re: Can You Disable Call-Waiting AFTER Call Starts? [scott@hsvaic.boeing] Re: Please Define COCOT [John Higdon] Re: COCOTs Charging for 800 Calls [Steve Forrette] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Home Telephone Tap Detector Date: 20 Mar 91 23:08:23 EST (Wed) From: Larry Lippman In article 8156boydk@vmsd.csd.mu.edu (Kevin Boyd) writes: > In my latest issue of the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog, there is a > device called the "Home Telephone Tap Detector". It's description > really sounds too good to be true, but Hammacher Schlemmer is a very > old (founded in 1848) and reputable company. Don't forget the old saying that if it sounds too good to be true, it *is* too good to be true. > HOME TELEPHONE TAP DETECTOR: Used by law enforcement agencies around > the world, this home telephone tap detector detects and defeats > virtually all tap systems. "Law enforcement agencies around the world", eh? I wonder if these are agencies which enforce Barnum's Law ("There's a sucker born every minute."). > It employs four individual detection systems to detect low and > high impedance taps, wireless bugs, off-hook extensions and > automatic tape recorders. What, no capability to detect "medium impedance" taps? > Mode one scans the line for > any low impedance taps or off-hook extensions and, if any are found, > an indicator light goes out and your phone conversation is > automatically muted. Mode two scans the radio spectrum for any > operating wireless taps within or in the vicinity of your telephone, > then automatically switches to mode three which actually deactivates > any taps or tape recorders. Mode four nullifies any transmission > bugs. Metal unit is RJ-11 compatible and can be connected in seconds. > Comes with an impact resistant carrying case, line jack cord and one > 9-volt battery. 7/8"H x 3"W x 5 1/2"L.(.6lb.) 35664X..... $199.95 "Mode one" is reminiscent of the screw-in handset transmitter replacements sold under such tradenames as "Eavesdropper Stopper". A voltage comparator senses any off-hook voltage below an adjustable threshhold and assumes that such a reduction is the result of parallel DC resistance from an off-hook extension telephone. Unlike the handset device, it would appear that this gadget operates a relay to mute the associated telephone set. "Mode two" sounds like a broadband RF detector using a simple diode feeding a high-gain amplifier and comparator circuit. Detection of RF above such a threshhold probably operates the same muting relay used for "mode one". I'd bet money that this gadget doesn't have the sensitivity to detect a one watt VHF transmitter just 100 feet away. Does anyone think that a perpetrator actually planting an RF transmitter is going to be dumb enough to place it right next to the telephone set? "Mode three" sounds like the condition when "mode two" operates the muting relay. "Mode four" sounds like "mode three". Well, I guess four "modes" sounds better than two "modes". "Nullifies any transmission bugs", indeed! I wonder if the humongous amount of energy available from the nine-volt battery is used to generate high power RF pulses that will destroy the offending transmitter? I'm also truly impressed with the advanced technology that has permitted this sophisticated unit to be built in a case the size of a 3x5 card and less than one inch thick. The nine volt battery and two RJ-11 jacks will occupy 1/4 of that volume alone! Moi, sarcastic? Why, perish the thought! :-) Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. "Have you hugged your cat today?" VOICE: 716/688-1231 {boulder, rutgers, watmath}!ub!kitty!larry FAX: 716/741-9635 [note: ub=acsu.buffalo.edu] uunet!/ \aerion!larry ------------------------------ From: Jim Budler Subject: Re: Why Telco Should be Permitted to Maintain Monopoly Organization: Silvar-Lisco, Inc. Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1991 07:00:45 GMT In article motcid!linneweh@uunet.uu.net (Louis Linneweh) writes: > sbrack@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Steven S. Brack) writes: >> While I concur with Pat's reasoning, his conclusion that it would be >> better to see the monopoly continue is puzzling. What demonstrable >> benefit is there in a regulated monopoly, vs. the open market? > In a word: standards. De facto, perhaps; obsolete, quite often; > archaic occasionally; but usable standards none the less. For the > public and even for telephony equipment suppliers. They just couldn't > change the system fast enough toget a marketing advantage. Hmmmm. Hmmm. They just wouldn't change the system. They didn't need a marketing advantage. They owned the market. > I used to know how to place a long distance call from a pay phone > virtually anywhere in the country. I used to feel confident my kids > could call me from those same phones. That is simply no longer true > today. Sure, a lot of committees could set standards and a lot of > laws could enforce them. But they don't and they are not effective. I happen to disagree with Pat concerning the need for the breakup of the Monopoly. However, I happen to agree with him that the results were terrible. The breakup was orchestrated with sledgehammer and a dull chisel, instead of a microscope and micromanipulators. COCOTs are one result. Public telephones are a Public Service, as well as a Consumer Service. The Mother Forgot Judgement *ignored* the Public Service aspect and treated public telephones completely as a consumer convenience item. > So far the basic telephones have remained compatible. At least I > haven't called anyone I wasn't able to talk to and hear in return. > But I worry about ISDN, Open Network Architecture, and the burgeoning > features available. Will I always be able to talk to the person I > called? OK, I'm exagerating, I suppose. None the less, I don't > always know how to make a call from a pay phone anymore. That's a > terrible step backward! I honestly hope and believe you'll never have to worry about any of that except the pay phones. Uh, well maybe you'll pick the wrong long distance carrier and hear a new intercept: "Sorry, that long distance carrier is no longer in service, please call your business office." > That's my reason for supporting the regulated monopoly of the phone > company. They're my reasons for wishing it hadn't happened THEN, with THAT JUDGE. But ATT was too monopolistic, the only changes, even on low levels were happening due to court action. Remember, without court intervention you probably would still have 1200 baud modems only supplied by ATT. Jim Budler jimb@silvlis.com Silvar-Lisco, Inc. +1.408.991.6115 703 E. Evelyn Ave. Sunnyvale, Ca. 94086 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 01:50:57 CST From: adg%ukfca1.uk.ate.slb.com@sj.ate.slb.com Subject: Re: Cellular Air Time Charges Around the World - Who Pays? aiml@cs.strath.ac.uk (Alan Laird) writes: > Making a call from a British Telecom phone to a cell phone will cost > 44p/min peak and 33p/min off-peak where off-peak starts at 6.00pm Also > BT start charging almost immediately (presumably as soon as they > connect to the cellular system) so you get full charges for failed > calls (engaged, cell phone unreachable etc). > Does anyone know what Mercury charges for calls to cell phones? According to Mercury Carphone (the droid on the Mercury 2300 help desk said "We don't deal with carphones", "but......" I said) anyway, Merc Carphone, formerly the Carphone group, said it was ABOUT 33p per minute and then slammed the phone down as I was saying "That's peak rate ?". They are on 0800 373729 if you want to have a bash. What is better is that Mercury charge by the second which is what saves us the real money by using the 2300 service. I've no credit limit on my Vodac account yet. Adam Gorman Mobile 0836 731395 Solstice Systems Ltd, Trowbridge, Wiltshire, BA14 9AZ 0225 755740 ------------------------------ From: Marty Brenneis Subject: Re: Help Needed With NiCads on my Panasonic Cellular Date: 20 Mar 91 02:55:17 GMT bruce@camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) writes: > Somewhere I ran into a reference to a special charging circuit that > obviates the need for full discharge to prevent shallow discharge > memory. > This charger also recharged VERY fast from whatever state the battery > was in and there was something about high current short pulses and > blowing away whiskers. A custom module was needed for each battery > size to 'tune' the charger's action properly. This sounds like a "Negative Delta V" charger from Alexander Battery Company. They make a line of rapid chargers that monitors the battery voltage while charging it. It is not as harsh as a timed charge or a simple voltage sensitive charger. For more details see below. They can be aquired from Alexander Battery in San Diego, CA. Tha phone number is 800-327-0814 in CA and 800-421-1108 elsewhere. I always talk to Pat Huberty there, he is a cool guy. Tell him Marty from ILM sent you. Here is how it works for you technoids: The charger pushes a high current into the battery at the start. It does this for a minute or so. It then switches in a small load and measures the voltage. It keeps pushing hard and stopping to measure the progress until it gets to the proper terminal voltage for that cell size. It then switches to a trickle mode to maintain that. The trick here is the charger is measuring the battery condition rather than charging until it heats up to 41 degrees C like most rapid chargers. It won't overheat the cells and cook the chemicals. This translates into more charge/discharge cycles. The drawback is the battery must be directly connected to the charger, you can't use the regular charge contacts. They have holders that take the battery and charge thru the output contacts. The cost of these is around $125 for a single unit charger. Have fun! Marty the Droid Industrial Magician ------------------------------ From: "24460-W. H. Sohl(L145" Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 14:48:21 GMT Subject: Re: Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity Laws Reply-To: "24460-W. H. Sohl" Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ In article caf@omen.UUCP (Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX) writes: > In article John Kennedy com> writes: >> subscriber for each piece of equipment connected to the cable. It >> seems that cable legislation is a few years behind that for the >> telephone industry. >> Is there legislation afoot anywhere that is attempting to modernize >> this? > Yes, Senate Bill 12 for 1991. Ask your senator to mail you a copy, > then bug him to support it if you agree with it. Hearings were held > on S.12 last week, but the issues were not covered by CNN. Is this federal legislation or is it legislation within one state? I have always found it ironic that here in New Jersey, most (possibly all) cable tariffs allow the addition of an "inline" VCR at no cost while still requiring an indivisual extra charge for each additional TV added. The irony of that is, of course, that I can video tape another channel while watching something else and then play it back on a separate TV and VCR not connected at all to the cable. I once spoke to a Board of Public Utilities (NJ) "expert" about why should extra TVs be charged for. His position (and presumably that of the cable companies) is that multiple TV's mean you are getting greater value from the cable at any point in time, since you can be watching channel X on one TV while another family member is watching channel Y in another room on another set. I gave him the point about no charge for a VCR and he claimed it really wasn't the same thing. My view is that the cable "service" should be provided to a single point within any home at a standard signal level and then any further distribution within the home should be left to the homeowner. Fears of bad inside wiring being detrimental to other cable subscribers can be alleviated by using some type of unidirectional broadband isolation device as a standard cable interface (terminating module) for each home. Bill Sohl K2UNK || email Bellcore, Morristown, NJ || UUCP bcr!taichi!whs70 (Bell Communications Research) || or 201-829-2879 Weekdays || Internet whs70@taichi.cc.bellcore.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1991 10:23:35 -0600 From: scott@hsvaic.boeing.com Subject: Re: Can You Disable Call-Waiting AFTER the Call Starts? In article , mcmahan@netcom.com (Dave Mc >Mahan) writes: >> My question is, "Is there any way to disable Call-Waiting AFTER a call >> has been placed and a voice connection exists?". I'm looking for an > In reference to this question, has anyone been sucessful in making > this work for outgoing calls placed by a Hayes compatible modem? > [Moderator's Note: On my US Robotics Courier 2400 modem, you use '!' > to force the modem to flash the hook. .. > I guess you would get the modem's attention, with three plusses or > whatever, followed by ATDT !*70 O, where the final letter 'O' means > for the modem to go back on line. PAT] Unfortunately as soon as you switch the line over the modem on the other end would drop the connection. Modems need to be in continuous contact else they give up. That is why a call-waiting beep will usually knock you off line. Internet: scott@hsvaic.boeing.com UUCP:...!uunet!uw-beaver!bcsaic!hsvaic!scot [Moderator's Note: And also, even if you did keep your modem on line, when the phone line clicked out for a minute to allow your *70 input, the distant end would think carrier had been lost. You really can't win on this unless all modems everywhere were similarly adjusted. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 22:39 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Please Define COCOT On Mar 19 at 1:02, TELECOM Moderator writes: > Is there an 'official' way to say it? PAT] There are plenty of unofficial ways to say it but this is a family program. You might be interested to know that in California, when these things first sprouted, we called them COPTs (Customer Owned Pay Telephones). This is how they are still referenced in PUC documents. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: To assist our visually handicapped reader who first raised this question this time around, that is C O P T (hopefully your vox said the letters rather than trying to pronounce them as a word). And yes, there are indeed many names for those foul, unnatural devices. :) A mild epithet might be 'payphones from hell'. :) PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 01:04:29 From: Steve Forrette Subject: Re: COCOTs Charging for 800 Calls Someone writes: > I was placing a call from a pay phone the other day and noticed that > it had no identifying phone number. It also charged $0.50 for 1-800 > calls. > So I called up the operator (I think from Payline communications) and > complained to her. She told me that it was legal for privately owned > pay phones to charge for 1-800 calls. Was she right? > [Moderator's Note: If such charges are legal, they should be billed to > the recipient of the 800 call. That person has, after all, agreed to > pay the charges associated with connecting the caller to him. I > really do not think they are legal however, but I'm not sure. PAT] Until last August, it was legal in California for COCOTs to charge at most 10 cents for a call to an 800 number. Interestingly, not many COCOTs charged this, but there were some. It was definately a cash deposit made by the caller. Steve Forrette, forrette@cory.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #222 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa28795; 21 Mar 91 13:44 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa25516; 21 Mar 91 11:56 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa20403; 21 Mar 91 10:50 CST Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 10:44:41 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #223 BCC: Message-ID: <9103211044.ab09606@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 21 Mar 91 10:44:28 CST Volume 11 : Issue 223 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Dial "0" for Mickey Mouse [Louis Linneweh] Re: My First Month of Caller*ID in Atlanta [Robert Jacobson] Re: Urban Legend? -- Caller IDentified Sues and Wins! [Mike Riddle] Re: Urban Legend? -- Caller IDentified Sues and Wins! [Neil Rickert] Re: Still Another Telephone Scam [Carl Moore] Re: IBT Requires TouchTone Charge [Robert L. Oliver] Re: Microwave / Optical Links for Audio [Tim Pozar] Re: AT&T's Dream-On Ad Campaign [Bob Yazz] Higdon an Expert on 2600 Hz? [Steve Forrette] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Louis Linneweh Subject: Re: Dial "0" for Mickey Mouse Date: 20 Mar 91 19:31:17 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein) writes: > Y'see, back when WDW was being created, the swamps west of Kissimee > were unpopulated and no telco served them. So Disney created a > telephone company subsidiary and got certificated to serve the area, > which they named after, I think, a place in Anaheim (LBV). They sold > half to United, which no doubt added some expertise. It's a fully > modern operation with two COs, optical fiber, etc. And given the > growth in the area, it has quite a few phones in its territory. > (Smart move!) It is my understanding, via some traveling telepony salesman stories from a co-worker, that a small independent telco was licensed to serve the area that was to become Walt Disney World. WDW gave them a staggering list of requirements which would have resulted in the independent growing by several orders of magnitude, and the capital required was not forthcoming. WDW was more tham happy to buy them out to insure first class telephone service, and formed the joint venture with United. I believe the former owner (a one family operation?) got a good dollar, but not a goldmine business! Does anyone out there know the whole story? ------------------------------ From: Robert Jacobson Subject: Re: My First Month of Caller ID in Atlanta Date: 21 Mar 91 05:11:55 GMT Organization: Human Interface Technology Lab, Univ. of Wash., Seattle The "alleged horrors" which Bill Berbenich has not yet experienced as a result of one month of Caller ID have to do with duration and penetration. The telcos commonly pass off one month tests of small service populations as scientific surveys and are always relieved for their customers when alleged horrors do not occur. The point is to wait a couple years when a few tens of millions of more people are forced into Caller ID and the files have started being built up. Then let's see if the horrors happen, Bill. Bob Jacobson [Moderator's Note: What about in places like New Jersey, where Caller*ID has been a reality now for about a year? Maybe one or more of the 'veterans' of Caller*ID will write on the topic of abuses -- if there are any -- now that this new technology has had a chance to get established. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 10:57:56 PDT From: Mike Riddle Subject: Urban Legend -- Caller IDentified Sues and Wins! Patrick: A recent article asked about a potentially new urban legend. The story was that a person used Caller*ID to locate a harassing caller and was successfully sued for invasion of privacy. A quick search on a legal database revealed no appellate litigation other than the Pennsylvania case which has been discussed at length previously. I did uncover the following story which suggests that, at a minimum, the case did not arise in Florida, if anywhere. You will note that the Flordia PSC was not scheduled to reach a decision on Caller*ID until February 19th. That makes it unlikely that any case has come to trial in Florida, and in my opinion that renders the entire story suspect. Not that it might not be a winner -- in Pennsylvania, at least, or in another state with a strong state consititutional or statutory privacy right. I believe that one story from a three-month old paper is sufficiently covered by fair use, particularly when posting to Usenet, so here is the Florida Caller*ID saga as of December 31, 1990. South Florida Business Journal; Copyright South Florida Business Journal, Inc. 1990; Business Dateline; Copyright (c) 1990 UMI/Data Courier December 31, 1990 SECTION: Vol 11; No 19; Sec 1; pg 10 LENGTH: 865 words HEADLINE: Regulatory Issues on the Telecomm Front Burner BYLINE: David Sedore DATELINE: FL; US BODY: Telecommunications executives may remember 1991, fondly or otherwise, as the year of the regulator. Among the issues that will be discussed, reviewed, legislated and regulated before the Florida Public Service Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, Congress and the courts during the upcoming year: * Caller ID; * alternative access companies; * rates for ISDN services; * cable television transmission, manufacturing and research. Of all the issues that will receive action next year, introduc- tion of Caller ID without question has received the most atten- tion. Its approval or rejection by the PSC won't have that much impact on the overall industry, but it certainly will be among the most watched decisions. Southern Bell filed to introduce the service, which identifies the originating telephone number of incoming calls, on Sept. 29, 1989. It was little noticed at the time and seemed destined for quick approval. The service exploded into a controversy last winter as some perceived it as a threat to law enforcement and others a threat to privacy. Southern Bell maintains the service will deter obscene and harassing phone calls. The PSC is due Feb. 19 to resolve whether or not the service should be introduced, whether or not Southern Bell should offer customers the ability to block it, and how to handle police and social service agencies. All sides are to issue briefs by Jan. 11; PSC staff is to write recommendations by Feb. 12. "This is going to be it, keep your fingers crossed," said Mark Long, communications specialist with the PSC. Of greater impact will be the issue of intraLATA access for long distance companies. LATAs are lines that demark different regions for telephone services. The court ruling that broke up the monopoly of American Telephone and Telegraph established these lines and gave local telephone companies such as Southern Bell virtual local and long distance monopolies within them. Long said the PSC will be looking at the issue of granting long distance companies such as U.S Sprint and MCI the same kind of access to intraLATA long distance business as it does to interLATA business. "With present technology, they say we're unable to do that now, but that won't last forever," Long said. "That will be a key issue, and just the fact that the PSC is considering is a good indication," said Steven Raville, chief executive officer of ATC-Microtel. The matter is especially important locally because the LATA that covers the South Florida market is the largest in the country and the LATAs within the state generally are larger than in other states. That means lots of traffic and a big new market to tap. Bob Sells, a spokesman for Southern Bell, said a decision to open up intraLATA traffic to the long distance companies would have an impact on the local company. If it happens, then Southern Bell will have to live with the decision and compete. Southern Bell already has reduced its long distance rates substantially in hopes of getting more volume. Sells said a three- minute call from West Palm Beach to Miami used to cost 97 cents. Now it costs 60 cents. Other issues to be before the commission includes the treatment of alternative access companies, which operate their own telephone cable networks and provide direct access to long distance carriers. Long said the PSC will review whether to certify them. The PSC will look at rate structures for private lines, looking at whether the rates charged are based on cost. It will also look at the resale of the lines. Information services, such as voice mail and 1-900 and 976 numbers could be before the PSC as well. One issue likely not to see action is the deregulation on the federal level of AT&T. Because of its historically strong position in the market, dating back to its days as a telephone monopoly, the FCC has maintained jurisdiction over rates AT&T charges for certain services. Its competitors are not regulated. One issue that might receive support is action either through the courts or through Congress to allow the Bells to move into manufacturing. Federal court Judge Harold Greene, when he broke up AT&T's monopoly and created the seven regional Bells, including Bell South, prohibited them from engaging in any kind of manufac- turing, along with a host of other businesses. A panel of telecommunications law experts who met in Boca Raton earlier this year said that the restriction on manufacturing was the most likely to be lifted in the near term. Legislation could see the Bells getting into cable television. Some see the companies, with their already established wire networks, as natural competitors to local cable companies. Sells said any cable operation would be set up as a separate business and would not be cross-subsidized with revenue from monopoly operations. New products expected to be introduced and spread widely include video conferencing and store and forward faxing, Raville said. "Telecommunications is going to be one of the few businesses in the country that will not be as adversely affected by recession," Raville said. "We're really countercyclical. We see telecommunications taking place of travel." ------------------------------ From: Neil Rickert Subject: Re: Urban Legend? -- Caller IDentified Sues and Wins! Organization: Northern Illinois University Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1991 15:08:01 GMT In article jean@hrcca.att.com (Nancy J Airey) writes: > The story goes that a woman in Florida with "caller ID" on her phone > was receiving obscene phone calls. She reported the phone number to > the police and the caller was charged. > The caller sued her for invasion of privacy and won. Are there any jurisdictions where the time between filing a suit and having it heard is shorter than the time caller ID has been in effect? Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science Northern Illinois Univ. DeKalb, IL 60115 +1-815-753-6940 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 17:41:34 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: Still Another Telephone Scam The ads (obviously reaching NJ and not just NY) for 540-xxxx numbers include a note listing areas 212, 718, 516, 914 and stating that the service is not available in New Jersey. (Yes, I already know of 201-540 in Morristown, and that some people might forget the special meaning of 540-xxxx in those NY areas.) Has anyone on 201-540 gotten calls intended for 540 exchange in NY? ------------------------------ From: "Robert L. Oliver" Subject: Re: IBT Requires TouchTone Charge Organization: Rabbit Software Corp. Date: 20 Mar 91 23:54:56 GMT motcid!void!dunne@uunet.uu.net (Jim E. Dunne) writes: > [Moderator's Note: Illinois Bell gives *70 for free. PAT] (regarding Call Waiting disabling) > Well, as of this month, Illinois Bell is asking me to pay for the > TouchTone service I had been getting for free. > [text deleted] > Oh well, $0.73/month (plus taxes of course!) isn't > too bad for the ability to dial with my computer and the like. At > least they included a "Business Reply Mail" envelope... I think most Hayes compatible modems will support pulse dialing. And can even switch to tone later for entering calling card numbers. I do this all the time. I don't pay for TouchTone service, but my modem pulse dials the number then tone dials the calling card number. And my phones are either tone/pulse switchable or BOTH tone and pulse (I have a 2500 deskset I modified with a rotary dial sitting next to it and wires running into the case; looks like something out of the movie Brazil!). Robert Oliver Rabbit Software Corp. 215 993-1152 7 Great Valley Parkway East Malvern, PA 19355 robert@hutch.Rabbit.COM ...!uunet!cbmvax!hutch!robert ------------------------------ From: Tim Pozar Subject: Re: Microwave / Optical Links for Audio Date: 20 Mar 91 18:16:03 GMT Organization: Late Night Software (San Francisco) In article Kauto.Huopio@lut.fi (Kauto Huopio OH5LFM) writes: >> I need to run a stereo audio signal from our studio to a cable >> company's head-end about two miles away. A four-wire non-directional >> phone line is $55/mo + 760 to set up, and will certainly require some >> serious EQ (loading coils are probably present). I'm wondering if > Well, I think all you need is a good ol' four-wire. For two miles I > think that you can send the composite stereo trhough one single pair > without too much hassle. The only thing you'll propably need is two > 300 ohm balancing transformers (?) and a good parametric EQ. This will not work, unless you can get a all-pass filter to correct for the phase distortion that the parametric EQ will introduce into the path. I also haven't found a parametric EQ that will pass the 75KHz or so needed for composite stereo. Perhaps the orginal poster should consider an STL at 950MHz? Tim pozar@lns.com Fido: 1:125/555 PaBell: 415-788-3904 USNail: KKSF-FM / 77 Maiden Lane / San Francisco CA 94108 ------------------------------ From: Bob Yazz Subject: Re: AT&T's Dream-On Ad Campaign Date: 21 Mar 91 09:20:42 GMT One other point about AT&T's 10288 campaign and potential lawsuits: I've heard a lot more than one AT&T person say that the company doesn't have a history of doing all that well when it goes to court. Why? Public opinion. (The judiciary isn't even Supposed to be immune to it.) Well before the divesta-chewer, Everything that the public could possibly hate about phones would weigh against "the phone company". Maybe now the courts will see fit to insert the cyanoacrylate of public outrage into the insatiable coin slots of COCOTery. Permanently. My latest COCOT experience was Very atypical: the COCOT claimed AT&T as the carrier and lo and behold, AT&T WAS the carrier! The phone still wanted $1.05 for an 800 number tho. BUT, the Pacific Bell operator said that that was one of the few things she could actually do something about -- she could place the 800 call for me. Alas, when I hit the first touchtone button to beep my answering machine the entire phone hung up. As a public service to those in California I'm adding Pac Bell's Own COCOT Complaint 800 number to my .signature file. I only wish their Business Office Reps and Operators knew about it -- they always Love it when I tell them there's somewhere in Pac Bell itself that they can direct angry callers to. Payphone ripoff problems in California? Call 800/352-2201 M-F, 8-5 Bob Yazz -- yazz@lccsd.sd.locus.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 01:00:16 From: Steve Forrette Subject: Hidgon an Expert on 2600 Hz? John Higdon writes: > For the record, there was another way calls could be rotary dialed > without hard wire. Many LD tandems used to respond to pulses of 2600 > Hz and would complete calls based on numbers "dialed" in this manner. > Hence, 2600 Hz would serve as both supervisory and signaling carrier. > It was called "SF" (single frequency). You seem to know an awful lot about what 2600Hz can be used for! :-) Steve Forrette, forrette@cory.berkeley.edu [Moderator's Note: And what about you Steve? Are you familiar with the process also? Do you use it a lot at your place? :) For those not in on the joke, 2600 hz was long used as a fraud tool by phreaks to override the billing equipment and make calls for free. If you want to know *how*, write each other -- NOT me! I have enough problems this century, and I won't answer nor will I print any letters on the subject. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #223 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa18195; 22 Mar 91 3:36 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa20147; 22 Mar 91 2:05 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa17851; 22 Mar 91 1:00 CST Date: Fri, 22 Mar 91 0:52:57 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #224 BCC: Message-ID: <9103220052.ab16926@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 22 Mar 91 00:52:45 CST Volume 11 : Issue 224 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: User's Evaluation of Handheld Cellular: Fujitsu / Motorola [C Sanford] Re: User's Evaluation of Handheld Cellular: Fujitsu / Motorola [P Flaherty] Re: I Take Issue With Moderator Buying Radio Shack Phones [Kevin Oberman] Re: I Take Issue With Moderator Buying Radio Shack Phones [Joel B. Levin] Re: I Take Issue With Moderator Buying Radio Shack Phones [Chris Petrilli] Re: I Take Issue With Moderator Buying Radio Shack Phones [John R. Levine] Re: The Press and Numbers [John Higdon] Re: The Press and Numbers [Sandy Kyrish] Re: The Press and Numbers [Doug Davis] Re: New Online Service? [Scott Coleman] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Curtis Sanford Subject: Re: User's Evaluation of Handheld Cellular: Fujitsu vs Motorola Date: 21 Mar 91 16:16:11 GMT Organization: Ascend Communications -- San Francisco I do believe you need to be aware of the origins of the products you patronize. Motorola introduced the Micro-TAC several years ago, at a time when it was by far the most advanced technology in the world. At that time, the Japanese government prevented their selling that phone in the Tokyo metropolitan area, which is the largest market in Japan. Only with the assistance of the US Government, to the point of nearly starting a trade war, did the Japanese government back down and allow Motorola to bid for a contract to supply phones to the Tokyo area. At that time, NTT (the government owned telephone monopoly) issued a public apology that they had failed to develop the smallest phone, and that they would embark on a crash program to fund the Japanese manufacturers to duplicate the Motorola technology. That Fujitsu phone was developed with Japanese government money, targeted to destroy the Micro-TAC and Motorola. Please understand that Japanese view competition as warfare, and that they (like George Bush) do not settle for less than total victory. Motorola must develop new products out of revenues from sales of existing products, like all American companies. You may choose to ignore these facts when you make your choice of products. But you may wish to ponder the impact thousands of decisions like yours will have on the future of America, and your job. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 09:19:09 -0800 From: "Paul A. Flaherty" Subject: Re: User's Evaluation of Handheld Cellular: Fujitsu vs Motorola Organization: The Three Packeteers Cliff Olling writes: > When I was coming back to Tokyo after skiing on Monday, I noticed the > (Japanese) guy next to me on the the Shinkansen had a MicroTac. In > fact he dropped it on the floor a time or two :-). I asked him why he > didn't buy a Japanese-made phone. He said that the NTT competition > was too expensive, and that most people don't care that the MicroTac's > not made by a Japanese company. Sorry this is so brief, but my > Japanese isn't yet up to an in-depth market analysis survey :-). When I was in Japan this summer, the only American product I saw anywhere (well, aside from a classic Caddy) was a proliferation of Motorola UHF HTs on nearly every police officer I saw. Despite some nasty things that I might have to say about Motorola's industry practices, they still put out a radio you can pound nails with. Paul Flaherty, N9FZX paulf@shasta.Stanford.EDU ------------------------------ From: oberman@rogue.llnl.gov Subject: Re: I Take Issue With Moderator Buying Radio Shack Phones Date: 21 Mar 91 20:22:30 GMT In article , rborow@bcm1a09.attmail.com writes: > Walk to Radio Shack and pick up a Touch-tone phone? I've never > been satisfied w/ anything less than a genuine Bell-made or AT&T-made > Touch-tone phone. I've had nothing but bad luck with those Radio > Shack, QT&T, etc. phones. Give me a REAL Touch-tone phone, with those > familiar beeps and boops, anyday. Who'd you think invented > "Touch-tone" anyway? Of course, it has fallen into everyday use, like > other corporate trademarks: xerox, etc. While Western Electric made very good equipment, some of the worst JUNK now on the market has "Genuine Bell" stamped all over it! So what is a REAL Touch-tone (sic) phone, anyway. The term Touch-Tone is now in the public domain, or so I've seen posted here. While I can't comment on Radio Shack phones, my favorites are GE phones. They feel good in the hand with no irritating edges, have a good keypad. Everything I want in a phone. I'd much rather have one of these than one of those things with the Bell logo on them! R. Kevin Oberman Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Internet: oberman@icdc.llnl.gov (415) 422-6955 Disclaimer: Don't take this too seriously. I just like to improve my typing and probably don't really know anything useful about anything. ------------------------------ From: "Joel B. Levin" Subject: Re: I Take Issue With Moderator Buying Radio Shack Phones Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 16:28:10 EST From: rborow@bcm1a09.attmail.com > Walk to Radio Shack and pick up a Touch-tone phone? I've never >been satisfied w/ anything less than a genuine Bell-made or AT&T-made >Touch-tone phone. . . Give me a REAL Touch-tone phone, . . . I don't know if it's changed, but I've seen some cheap lightweight junk under AT&T's label (not to mention under the label of some of the BOCs -- Bell South or Southwestern Bell comes to mind. nets: levin@bbn.com | BBN Communications or: ...!bbn!levin | M/S 20/7A POTS: +1 617 873 3463 | 150 Cambridge Park Drive FAX: +1 617 873 8202 | Cambridge, MA 02140 ------------------------------ From: Chris Petrilli Subject: Re: I Take Issue With Moderator Buying Radio Shack Phones Date: 21 Mar 91 21:41:58 GMT Organization: Free Software Foundation Randy Borow writes about his preference for genuine Bell phones. [Moderator's Note: Reference text eliminated. See above messages. PAT] I take it you know everything about phones? It may be Pat's perogative that he peronally prefers Radio-Shack telehone equipment to AT&T or Bell equipment, and that is his choice. Some of us are unsatisfied with some of the AT&T made equipment, both price wise and in teh area of features. Do you also propose that nobody should purchase a UNIX machine or UNIX implementation from anyone but AT&T simply because they invented it, does not mean that they produce the best there is. I am using an HP machine at the moment, and am 10x as satisfied with is as I was with a 3b2 system from AT&T. Please take personal attacks elsewhere, they do not belong in this forum. Chris Petrilli Internet: petrilli@gnu.ai.mit.edu [Moderator's Note: Really, I think you are being a bit harsh. I didn't regard his comment as a personal attack, and truth be told, I do like AT&T phones also ... but Radio Shack is two blocks away, and the nearest phone center store is on Devon and California Avenue, about six blocks west. Since I don't own a car, and don't know how to drive, I either walk, take a cab, or the Devon #155 bus. Given my 'druthers, I walk to Radio Shack, and stop at Dunkin Donuts on the way home. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: I Take Issue With Moderator Buying Radio Shack Phones Organization: I.E.C.C. Date: 21 Mar 91 17:47:03 EST (Thu) From: "John R. Levine" I guess you haven't looked at a genuine AT&T Touch-tone phone lately. The model 100s, the current basic wall and desk sets, are now lightweight electronic sets made in Asia that neither look nor feel very much like the 500 sets we all know and love. The Rat-Shack phones these days are a lot closer to the feel of the old WECO instruments. "Genuine Bell" now encompasses any piece of junk resold by any of the baby Bells, including such items as shoe-shaped phones and piano-shaped phones where the piano keyboard is the dial. Genuine, my eye. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 10:18 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: The Press and Numbers Sandy Kyrish <0003209613@mcimail.com> writes: > Every time we laugh at "outsiders" for making technological mistakes, > we are proving that we see technology as a special priesthood that > only the scrupulously worthy can join. The fact is, technology exists > in society, and plain old people are periodically going to make > technical mistakes about it. Personally, I don't find poking fun at > them an ego trip. I did not hear any laughing. I did see gross errors and one of the most serious problems in our society today is the rampant spread of misinformation about matters technical. It is misinformation that is fueling the "crackdown on hackers", and activity that is wasting our resources and ruining lives. It is misinformation that is causing confusion and waste in (among other things) the telecom marketplace. It may seem harmless to you that dilatants such as Joe Abernathy use their positions (and lack of knowledge) to arouse and enflame the masses, but there are some of us who see first-hand the harm and destruction that results. If "plain old people", particularly those who have access to the media, make technical mistakes it is the sworn duty of those who know better to correct them. And do it publicly if possible. I am sorry if accuracy offends you, but if "outsiders" are going to pontificate to the world using false doctrine, you had better turn aside while the priesthood of technology performs its exorcism. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 23:39 GMT From: Sandy Kyrish <0003209613@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: The Press and Numbers As soon as I posted my last message, I knew I'd catch it from somebody, but I honestly didn't expect it to be Higdon -- whom I had heretofore thought of as a "voice of reason" type. Instead, I feel real disappointed that he hastily and angrily misinterpreted what I was saying. Yes, John, technical/technological errors need to be corrected. What doesn't need to happen is for technologists to deride, snicker, and snort at the non-technologists who make the errors. We don't help our cause one bit by appearing arrogant or snide. Yes, John, misinterpretation and bad knowledge about telecommunications wreaks havoc. But *technologists* are the only people who can correctly disseminate information about technology. If we cut ourselves off from "the great unwashed" and prefer instead to hang out in our technically literate groups, we will not properly transfer information about what's right and what's not. And I do not shun accuracy. I pursue it rigorously as a doctoral student and professional researcher. My area, John, is teaching non-technical people about technology, and helping people choose appropriate technologies. So I like to think I'm doing my part to spread the accurate news. ------------------------------ From: Doug Davis Subject: Re: The Press and Numbers Organization: Logic Process Unix Engineering, Dallas Office Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1991 16:16:46 GMT In article 0003209613@mcimail.com (Sandy Kyrish) writes: > If Doug Davis is going to be so snide about journalists' inability to > multiply numbers correctly, perhaps he should be a bit more careful > not to misspell "fraudulently" seven times in a single document. > After all, if he is better than a journalist, then he should be in > complete mastery of all journalistic skills. Actually I never claimed to be "better than a journalist", at most, I just claimed to be paying attention during the second grade. I also claimed *I* knew how to do a reality check when looking at something easily checked, like minor multiplication. Oh yeah, I also provided those of more, uh, journalistic skills, a handy quick reference for performing reality checks of their own. > Every time we laugh at "outsiders" for making technological mistakes, > we are proving that we see technology as a special priesthood that > only the scrupulously worthy can join. The fact is, technology exists > in society, and plain old people are periodically going to make > technical mistakes about it. YOU have clearly missed the entire point. Did you even read the entire message? I was not being flip about anything of a technical nature of the cellular fraud article. That article came with an unnamed source quoting $30,000.00 loss *PER DAY* due to fraudulent LD charges. It seems a few of us were clever enough to divide this out, and what did we find? The 30,000.00 NUMBER was totally absurd. Making fun of it is just my way of debunking it. Nothing technological about it. Unless you consider the multiplication table technical? Most of the "technical" mistakes that get flamed here are by people calling themselves technical or whose job description implys an amount of literacy concerning technology. Tell me what do you expect will happen when you, knowing a little rudementary knowledge of farming, go to a convention of farmers, call yourself an expert, and start telling them how they should be doing their farming? Theres no magic priesthood of farmers, but they will all just as quickly turn on you for your blatent lack of experience in farming. > Personally, I don't find poking fun at them an ego trip. Obviously then, you find poking fun at people's spelling your prefered ego trip. Otherwise you would have refrained from even commenting on it. Oh, well, enough pointless flaming, if you don't like what I said and want to get personal, take it up with me in email. Doug Davis/4409 Sarazen/Mesquite Texas, 75150/214-270-9226 {texsun|lawnet|smu}!letni!doug doug@letni.lonestar.org ------------------------------ From: Scott Coleman Subject: Re: New Online Service? Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Date: 17 Mar 91 22:34:51 GMT In article sichermn@beach.csulb.edu (Jeff Sicherman) writes: > The latest issue of BYTE (March 1991) has a stiff card with an ad > offering free time on a new online service in return for some feedback > on the service. Does not mention how long the free time will last or > how much use will be allowed. The service is called "America OnLine." I sent in one of those cards and received their startup kit. I have not signed on as yet, however. The following is all from memory, so my apologies if I muff some of the details. The service appears to be very Prodigy-like. It runs under GEOS, that windowed operating environment we've all heard so much about. The software itself comes in a small cardboard box, almost identical in form to the box Prodigy comes in. Inside are the software diskettes and instructions. If I recall correctly, they allow three free hours of connect time (the normal charge is $4/hour for connect time) if you fill out their online survey form. They're also offering a "charter subscription discount" which promises that you will always pay a lower rate than the standard connect charge, no matter how much rates may rise in the future. In order to sign on initially, you have to provide them with billing information. If you decide to cancel before your 3 free hours are used up, they promise not to charge your credit card. Your first logon is to an 800-number which allows you to find the local access number for your area, which you will use from then on. I don't remember too many other details, except for the hourly connect charge (unlike Prodigy), and the fact that the system has files which you can download (unlike Prodigy). I think it also allows unlimited use of email without surcharges (unlike Prodigy). Although the offer might sound like some sort of beta-test deal, it's really just a gimmick to get lots of people to sign up for the new service right away. The fact that you have to give them billing information right away, BEFORE you've even seen the service or tell them whether or not you like it, indicates that it is not a beta-test but simply a marketing move. JMHO. > Also no mention of access means I think it's via either Tymnet or Telenet. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #224 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa20438; 22 Mar 91 5:47 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa07642; 22 Mar 91 4:11 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa06915; 22 Mar 91 3:06 CST Date: Fri, 22 Mar 91 2:49:29 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #225 BCC: Message-ID: <9103220249.ab26253@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 22 Mar 91 02:49:20 CST Volume 11 : Issue 225 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity Laws [Jeff Sicherman] Re: Maestro Phones From Northern Telecom [Tom Gray] Re: Can You Disable Call-Waiting AFTER the Call Starts? [Ralph Sims] Re: My First Month of Caller ID in Atlanta [Jeff Sicherman] Re: Ziggy Cartoon Mocks 900 Number "Easy Credit" [Carl Moore] Re: AT&T's Dream-On Ad Campaign [R. Kevin Oberman] Re: Information Needed to Use Call Manager [Joel B. Levin] Re: Microwave / Optical Links for Audio [John Higdon] Re: Dial "0" for Mickey Mouse [Louis Linneweh] Re: PBS Pledge Drive for March, 1991 [Lars Poulsen] Re: Did MCI Give me $20? [Tim Irvin] Re: Telecom News From Delaware [Steve Baumgarten] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 11:35:31 -0800 From: Jeff Sicherman Subject: Re: Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity Laws Organization: Cal State Long Beach In article "24460-W. H. Sohl" writes: > My view is that the cable "service" should be provided to a single > point within any home at a standard signal level and then any further > distribution within the home should be left to the homeowner. Fears > of bad inside wiring being detrimental to other cable subscribers can > be alleviated by using some type of unidirectional broadband isolation > device as a standard cable interface (terminating module) for each > home. Maybe you would also like to be charged for only the electrical or water connections to your home without regard to the volumes consumed. Or perhaps a rooming house should pay the same as a single-family home. I know that the issues are not _exactly_ the same since the programs are not consumables but there are acquistion costs that do relate to the level of usage that affect profitability of a particular type of programming versus alternative ones. That's why some shows are pay-per-view, so the average watcher won't end up subsidizing some high-cost showings. I don't mean that cable companies aren't greedy and self-righteous, but let's not ignore the economic realities from their side completely. [Moderator's Note: Here in Chicago, both Commonwealth Edison and People's Gas charge a monthly 'service fee' for the presence of the meter on your premises and the services of the person who comes to read it every month (or two months in the case of gas). This fee has no bearing on the amount energy you consume. The fee is constant. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tom Gray Subject: Re: Maestro Phones From Northern Telecom Date: 21 Mar 91 14:57:33 GMT Organization: Mitel. Kanata (Ontario). Canada. In TELECOM Digest Volume 11, Issue 199, Andrew Farmer writes: > Bell Canada returns the string "Long Distance" for all LD calls and > "Unknown Number" for calls from local/non-displayable numbers. The > Maestro phone, however, doesn't store the "Long Distance" string -- it > just stores them as "Unknown". This isn't universal yet. I receive long distance calls with both the Long Distance and Unknown displays. The dispaly seem to be consistent for the city calling. I agree with the people who complain that calls from companies display the actual trunk number instead of the billing number. This prevents Call Blocking from defeating telemarketers. I have come home and seen a call from an obvious telemarketer I blocked the number but that evening received a call from a telemarketer with an adjacent number to the one I blocked. Call Blocking is marvelous. I just wish it could be improved by using only one number for a company. Tom Gray - forests are made up of trees [Moderator's Note: My experience here in Chicago has been that by blocking the listed number of a PBX you also block all the back lines as well provided all are billed together. Likewise, blocking the main listed number of a centrex system *usually* seems to block the various extensions associated. It does not work that way everytime. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Can You Disable Call-Waiting AFTER the Call Starts? From: Ralph Sims Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 08:42:33 PST Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service scott@hsvaic.boeing.com writes: >> [Moderator's Note: On my US Robotics Courier 2400 modem, you use '!' >> to force the modem to flash the hook. >> I guess you would get the modem's attention, with three plusses or >> whatever, followed by ATDT !*70 O, where the final letter 'O' means >> for the modem to go back on line. PAT] > Unfortunately as soon as you switch the line over the modem on the > other end would drop the connection. Modems need to be in continuous > contact else they give up. That is why a call-waiting beep will > usually knock you off line. > [Moderator's Note: And also, even if you did keep your modem on line, > when the phone line clicked out for a minute to allow your *70 input, > the distant end would think carrier had been lost. You really can't > win on this unless all modems everywhere were similarly adjusted. PAT] Right! S9=20 and S10=20 should keep the modems online even with a two-second drop in carrier. NOTE: the caveat is that BOTH modems need to be set up in this manner! Dragging the settings out a bit might be necessary to do the three +'s, etc. to get the modem back to command status. Ghads! This stuff can be a Black Art! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 11:45:28 -0800 From: Jeff Sicherman Subject: Re: My First Month of Caller ID in Atlanta Organization: Cal State Long Beach In article Robert Jacobson writes: > The "alleged horrors" which Bill Berbenich has not yet experienced as > a result of one month of Caller ID have to do with duration and > penetration. The telcos commonly pass off one month tests of small > service populations as scientific surveys and are always relieved for > their customers when alleged horrors do not occur. The point is to > wait a couple years when a few tens of millions of more people are > forced into Caller ID and the files have started being built up. Then > let's see if the horrors happen, Bill. > [Moderator's Note: What about in places like New Jersey, where > Caller*ID has been a reality now for about a year? Maybe one or more > of the 'veterans' of Caller*ID will write on the topic of abuses -- if > there are any -- now that this new technology has had a chance to get > established. PAT] Well, that might not be enough either. There may have to be a critical mass of users for some effects to manifest themselves. The uses and abuses of the service might not occur until there are enough of the devices around to be statisitically significant and this might depend upon a price that won't happen until the market is large enough on a national basis. Also, some of the commercial applications might be delayed by the fact that many potential users are parts of national chains that might hold off until the service is more uniformly available. They also might be sensitive to offending their customers over such privacy concerns for what would be a minor marketing advantage. They are _very_ PR sensitive. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 15:10:38 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: Ziggy Cartoon Mocks 900 Number "Easy Credit" I don't know if anyone else noticed, but the 900-SUCKER number in the cartoon doesn't have enough digits. ------------------------------ From: oberman@rogue.llnl.gov Subject: Re: AT&T's Dream-On Ad Campaign Date: 21 Mar 91 20:15:34 GMT In article , peter@taronga.hackercorp. com (Peter da Silva) writes: > Even if AT&T gets rid of every COCOT in the country, I will need to > retain my FONcard for calls from private FONs. I really think they're > cutting off their nose to spite their face. Excuse me, but I don't get the point. I can use 10Nnnn dialing either with a "0" for credit card calls or a "1" for billed calls from private phones. In fact, I've never known it to fail since private phones never block anything (except 900 and such). Is there something special about FON cards that I don't know about? R. Kevin Oberman Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Internet: oberman@icdc.llnl.gov (415) 422-6955 ------------------------------ From: "Joel B. Levin" Subject: Re: Information Needed to Use Call Manager Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 16:25:00 EST Steve Forrette writes: > Just for grins, I just tried this for an AT&T call from a Pacific Bell > payphone. The response was: > "We're sorry. The service you have requested is not available. " Tim Irvin writes: > I just tried it using 10288-0-NPA-7D (bong) 15nn. I got an intercept > that said "We're sorry the service you have requested is not > available." In New England Tel., Nashua NH, I tried the same thing. I don't have AT&T as the default; I had to use 10288 also. It worked; 1511# immediately got me the "Thank you" message. I tried two values of nn. Now to see what the bill looks like. :-) JBL nets: levin@bbn.com | BBN Communications or: ...!bbn!levin | M/S 20/7A POTS: +1 617 873 3463 | 150 Cambridge Park Drive FAX: +1 617 873 8202 | Cambridge, MA 02140 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 13:08 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Microwave / Optical Links for Audio Tim Pozar writes: > Perhaps the orginal poster should consider an STL at 950MHz? Tim, shame on you. As you know, the rules are very specific about the uses to which a 950MHz channel can be put. It is ONLY for BROADCAST stations, and the primary purpose must be the transmission of main channel program. The band is so overcrowded now that legitimate broadcasters must use every trick in the book to keep one system from trompling another. Unless you have an AM or FM broadcast license, don't even THINK of applying for a frequency in the 950MHz STL band. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Louis Linneweh Subject: Re: Dial "0" for Mickey Mouse Date: 20 Mar 91 19:31:17 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL In TELECOM Digest Volume 11, Issue 223, Message 1 of 9 (Fred R. Goldstein) writes: > Y'see, back when WDW was being created, the swamps west of Kissimee > were unpopulated and no telco served them. So Disney created a > telephone company subsidiary and got certificated to serve the area, > which they named after, I think, a place in Anaheim (LBV). They sold > half to United, which no doubt added some expertise. It's a fully > modern operation with two COs, optical fiber, etc. And given the > growth in the area, it has quite a few phones in its territory. > (Smart move!) It is my understanding, via some traveling telephony salesman stories from a co-worker, that a small independent telco was licensed to serve the area that was to become Walt Disney World. WDW gave them a staggering list of requirements which would have resulted in the independent growing by several orders of magnitude, and the capital required was not forthcoming. WDW was more tham happy to buy them out to insure first class telephone service, and formed the joint venture with United. I believe the former owner (a one family operation?) got a good dollar, but not a goldmine business! Does anyone out there know the whole story? ------------------------------ From: Lars Poulsen Subject: Re: PBS Pledge Drive for March, 1991 Organization: Rockwell CMC Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 04:55:33 GMT > [Moderator's Note: Illinois Bell has always been very generous with > their corporate profits. They support programming on WTTW Channel 11 > here (public television). They support a variety of artistic things > and special cultural events as well. PAT] Isn't this financially considered advertising, and isn't advertising a legitimate rate base expense? If the answer is yes and yes, then this is not at all generous, but a backdoor way to BOOST profits. I really don't know much about utility regulation, but I am very suspicious of corporate generosity. Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer CMC Rockwell lars@CMC.COM [Moderator's Note: I am not suspicious of 'corporate generosity' at all. In IBT's case, they do specific advertising in the print media as well as television and radio, but they also engage in a variety of philanthropic acts with little or no mention. During the 1960's when Martin Luther King visited Chicago on several occassions, I noted that when he would speak at the Chicago Temple Auditorium the program given out would always contain a single line note that "Dr. King's expenses during his visit in Chicago have been met with a gift from Illinois Bell Telephone Company." They give money now to an AIDS hospice here, and a variety of other civic endeavors. For a couple years, they sponsored the noon-time seminars / lectures produced by TRUST (To Restore Urban Systems Together), a think-tank here working on getting Chicago together once again. The only public mention would be a note in the program material saying the lecture was being given on the Illinois Bell charitable trust to benefit the community. I think you are holding a cynical viewpoint. Corporations can be and frequently are good citizens in their community. Have you any idea how many millions of dollars AT&T has given away to the performing arts and small neighborhood social service organizations? ... Millions. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tim Irvin Reply-To: irvin@northstar.dartmouth.edu Subject: Re: Did MCI Give me $20? Date: Thu, 21 Mar 91 16:49:14 TELECOM Moderator writes: > [1] The Credit Card Protection > people -- likewise a scam perpetrated on innocent consumers -- can sue > you to recover their money if they like. [2] They probably won't, but in > any event, you are now listed as a mail order deadbeat with at least a > few companies. [3] I hope you got something nice with the $40 you made in > the process. PAT 1. I hope they can find me, I've moved three times since then. 2. Is being listed as a "mail order deadbeat" supposed to be a bad thing??? Anything that will keep the staedy stream of junk-mail outta my house would be great, and it may save a few trees in the process. Actually, I don't think this ever happened, since my steady stream of junk mail never let up. 3. Since I was in college at the time, probably a few meals, or maybe I used it to pay my phone bill. Tim Irvin [Moderator's Note: Some people *like* getting advertising offers through the mail. They find it less pressuring to read the message at their leisure instead of listening to a sales pitch on the phone. And there are mail order houses which ship on open account credit, believe it or not ... no requirement for advance credit card billing or check with order. Of course, not if you're listed with one of the clearing houses they use as a person who engages in petty ripoffs through the mail. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu Mar 21 20:35:22 1991 From: Steve Baumgarten Reply-To: baumgart@esquire.dpw.com Organization: Davis Polk & Wardwell Subject: Re: Telecom News From Delaware Ken Weaverling (weave@chopin.udel.edu) writes: > The good news is that all of the phones are genuine Bell Atlantic > phones, and all seem to have LD service designated to AT&T. Also, the > incidence of vandalism on these phones is very low. (Perhaps since the > dealers don't want to damage the tools of their business :-) You're not kidding. During the New York Telephone strike last year, finding a working pay phone in lower Manhattan was more difficult than finding a shred of logic in your phone bill. But in my neighborhood, on a certain street corner, were not one but TWO working pay phones. Pay phones that worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Zero downtime. Phones that, to my knowledge, have NEVER BEEN OUT OF ORDER. Mere chance, you say? No, just good ole' American capitalism at work. Steve Baumgarten Davis Polk & Wardwell, New York, NY ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #225 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa20346; 23 Mar 91 10:16 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa11258; 23 Mar 91 8:59 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa28422; 23 Mar 91 4:49 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa16940; 23 Mar 91 1:15 CST Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 0:47:24 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #226 BCC: Message-ID: <9103230047.ab29358@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 23 Mar 91 00:47:09 CST Volume 11 : Issue 226 Very Special Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson The Early Days of Telephony [Donald E. Kimberlin] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: The Early Days of Telephony Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 In article , Jim E. Dunne describes an old North Electric branded telephone he has questions about. Probably one of the more "fun" antiques any of us in this forum has is some very old telephone, mainly because most of them can be made into a working antique. I've even met people who managed to get the answering service version of a 555 PBX and hooked up a line or two, placing the thing in their living room, because the wood cabinet was made of such fine lumber that it could be refinished and made to look very nice; having its drops operate and its dial work added an element of fun to it. Jim, however, has a problem making the ringer operate on a Bell-style 20 Hertz straight-ringing line, saying the ringer is marked "50 Cycles." That frequency would be one from a non-Bell company that used the party-line ringing method called "decimonic" ringing, where the frequencies used were multiples of 10 Hertz, rather than the multiples of 16-2/3 Hertz used in the more common "harmonic" party-line ringing of independent Telcos. Decimonic ringing was most commonly used in the private telephone systems operated by railways along their tracks. However, in general, the basic ringer of all those old phones is electrically much the same. The item that made the difference was the value of the capacitor connected in series with the ringer in most. The ringer capacitor should be readily visible as a replaceable item once one opens the phone up, and a capacitance of the order of three times that found in the 50 cycle ringer ought to tune it much closer to 20 Hertz. The North Electric Company long ago shifted its product specialty to telephone power equipment, but it can still be found in Galion, Ohio. So long as the accountants have yet taken over completely, and all the "old-timers" haven't been fired, you can probably find a soul there who's interested in communicating with you about that phone. Jim then asks: > My question is, who were the phone manufacturers of old? I'm > sure that Western Electric made the phones for the Bell system, but > who made the phones for the "other" companies? And how/when did these > other service providers, and their hardware makers, come on the scene? There's just a whole raft of stories and even intrigues relating to who made the phones and how it got that way in the early days of telephony in the U.S. In fact, Bell's original patent claims were sufficiently disputed by several parties. The most notable of these was the caveat filed the same day by one Elisha Gray [of Chicago, for our proud Moderator to take note]. Gray didn't press his telephone to a working model for some years until it appeared that Bell's backers would make a success of the business. Most interesting is that Gray's financial backer was the Western Union Telegraph Company, which called its venture the American Speaking Telephone Company. Among other curious happenings was that Western Union was reputed to have paid Gray some $50,000 to $100,000 for his patent claims, have bought out several others, and refused an offer from Bell interests to buy the Bell patent for $100,000. Of course, in 1878, $100,000 was a considerable sum of money, and the Bell interests sued Western Union as owners of American Speaking Telephone for patent infringment, a suit that dragged on for some years ... with the interesting settlement result that in return for Bell paying WUTCo 20 percent of telephone rentals for seventeen years and buying out WTUCo's American Speaking Telephone, the two agreed to stay out of each other's business. It's doubtful the U.S. Federal government would have permitted such an agreement in later eras. One drawback that both the Bell and Gray patent plans suffered was that they both used a variation on the fabled cup of acid that Bell spilled on his trousers. What Gray had done (with WUTCo backing) was to use Thomas Edison's contribution of the carbon-granule-filled transmitter, making telephones at his firm called Gray & Barton, selling the manufacture to WUTCo's American Speaking Telephone. In 1882, after settling with WUTCo, American Bell purchased Gray & Barton, changing its name to Western Electric. In the period through about 1888, Bell vigorously fought off several conflicting patents of others, and set about on a rather Hitler-like campaign of object lessons. Printed history reveals that in numerous cases, the Bell people obtained judgments in local courts, then proceeded to enforce them by raiding non-Bell exchanges, ripping out the equipment, and then burning it on public display. Nevertheless, non-Bell telephone companies popped up in many markets too small to be of interest to Bell. Some number of these had equipment purchased from American Speaking Telephone in the Gray & Barton years. One other source in this period was the Baxter Company in Utica, New York. March, 1893 was when Bell lost their patent protection on the telephone transmitter, while January, 1894 was the expiration of Bell's receiver patent. In the interim, Bell had bought every "telephone" patent in sight, many of which had no utlimate use or value. But among these was one for a transmitter filed by Emile Berliner in 1877. The Berliner patent wasn't granted until 1891, and Bell had hoped to ride on that one, but it had already drawn the interest of the U.S. Attorney General, who filed suit on behalf of the public, saying the Patent Office had delayed its issuance for the monopoly convenience of the Bell interests. Betting that the Attorney General would win, a number of non-Bell "independent" telephone manufacturers popped up. Among the earliest of these was reported to be the American Electric Telephone Company of Kokomo, Indiana. American Electric was actually the reincarnation of what had been the Missouri Telephone Manufacturing Company of St. Louis that had been forced out of business by Bell's vigorous patent prosecution. American Electric moved its factory to Chicago, then dissolved itself into two successor firms: Keystone Electric of Pittsburgh and Northwestern Telephone Manufacturing of Milwaukee. But names we now know began to appear, and at least one researcher names an Ohio firm, Drumheller & North of Ohio, that first got into business by repairing Bell telephones for the Cleveland (Bell) Telephone company in 1884. Within a few years, this expanded into the North Electric Company, making equipment for the Erie Telephone & Telegraph Company, which was a Bell licensee. At the time, North could not manufacture transmitters of receivers, and Erie Telephone rented these from Bell for use in the North manufacture. North provided at least two notable innovations to the telephone industry. First, North made the first Private Automatic Exchange for the Galion, Ohio High School in 1920. Its name, PAX, is the source of this term in the non-Bell telephone industry. In 1922, North followed the PAX with the first Automatic Toll Switchboard built for the Northern Ohio Telephone Company. Later, in 1938, F.R. McBerry of North Electric was credited as inventor of the Wire-Spring relay, using a reed armature. Anyone who worked on American relay-vintage telephone equipment knows how basic the Wire-Spring relay became to telephony in the U.S. Along the way, one H.W. Boswau of North Electric was credited with having built a push-button dialing switching system in 1931, but it never reached manfacture. From this, one can see how North Electric provided advances wanted not only by telephone companies but also the railways they sold so much to. And you, Jim, can see how much history resides in the telephone you now own. The way it likely wound up in the hands of a GTE company is that GTE went on a binge of buying small non-Bell companies in the 1950's and 1960's. The one you found that phone in was probably one supplied by North Electric. North went through several wide financial swings over the years, and was owned for a time by L.M. Ericsson when LME wanted to manufacture and sell its crossbar switches in the U.S. (not offering the technology to Stromberg-Carlson), and this resulted in the North NX-1 and NX-2 crossbar exchanges that enjoyed some popularity. Finally, LME sold North out to United Utilities, which made a third-league copy of Western Electric of North, with its most visible entity today being the North Supply Company (not a bad place to buy telephone equipment if you want to, by the way). But, what of the others? My source material does not state the beginnings of the Kellogg Switchboard and Supply Company of Chicago, but it was one of the most innovative of developers in the late 1800's, and by 1901 its founder, Milo G. Kellogg, had to leave a successful company in Chicago in 1901 for his health, moving to California. He left his company in the hands of his brother-in-law, who promptly sold out to the Bell interests. Behind this lies a story in which many claim Bell proceeded on a route of killing Kellogg, to fill the non-Bell companies with poor product, and simultaneously sue Kellogg over a variety of patent issues, then control a weak defense. This story also seems to bear truth, in that Kellogg employees who held some minority shares first wrote a letter of appeal to the President of AT&T, and getting no reply, filed a lawsuit and won an injunction that required AT&T to give up its ownership in Kellogg and enjoined Bell interests from interfering with the management or control of the Kellogg company in perpetuity. From that point, in 1906, Kellogg grew to be one of the major names supplying telephone equipment to non-Bell companies. Kellogg, in fact, had many innovations to its credit before Bell did, among these the "Grabaphone," a hand-held transmitter-receiver some years before Western Electric's first one in 1926 ... and the Kellogg phone was truly superior by 1933. Kellogg remained a power in the non-Bell industry until ITT bought it in 1952, and Kellogg, as many others, lost market when GTE began buying companies and feeding business to its own manufacturing subsidiary, Automatic Electric. GTE simply decided in the 1950's to copy things that Bell had so successfully clamped controls on a half-century earlier. If you were around then, you could have bought all the non - Automatic Electric telephones you could carry for 50 cents each from any newly-acquired GTE company. Many of us did, and hooked them up at home to become "criminals" in GTE's eyes. There wasn't much love lost between the public and GTE, either. Automatic Electric, which GTE gained control of as part of its 1950's plans, had roots reaching clear back to the 1891 invention of Almon B. Strowger, and through several incarnations at Chicago, then Baltimore, then back to Chicago, Its name over these changes were variations on the name, "Automatic." The last one was Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange Company, replaced finally by the name Automatic Electric Company in 1901. It finally became the Automatic Electric Company (Illinois) based on Van Buren Street in Chicago [Chicago once again!] until GTE flooded it with so many orders in the 1950's that AECo had to move to suburban Northlake, Illinois, until GTE killed it in the 1980's, moving its remains to Phoenix. Throughout its history, Automatic Electric pioneered some significant improvements to dial telephony, not the least of which was what many telephone men regarded as the smoothest rotary dial ever seen. In that proud heyday of Automatic Electric, the name of Strowger was memorialized in the Strowger Automatic Toll Ticketing system, patented in 1925, but unsellable beause AT&T had by then monopolized the long distance business. A few SATTs were sold in Europe, but when GTE needed an automatic toll ticketing system in the 1950's for its part of DDD, they pulled the original SATT drawings out and spread what was by then a really unreliable asset though GTE companies across the U.S. Old Almon B. probably rolled several times in the grave he'd been sleeping in since 1906. Alfred Stromberg and Androv Carlson joined in business making switchboards in Chicago [Chicago again!] in 1894. Stromberg and Carlson had been employees of Chicago Bell and knew how to make a sound-powered transmitter that Bell could not assail in patent suits, so they managed a peaceable, prosperous existence out of reach of the Bell wolves that killed most of the others. Among things that Stromberg and Carlson contributed to the industry was the first real telephone set that was complete on a desktop on its own, including magneto and ringer, instead of mounting on the wall. But, one of their best clients, Rochester Home Telephone Company purchased control and moved Stromberg-Carlson to Rochester, NY to protect their source of supply from Bell predators. Stromberg prospered in early days by filling contracts for Kellogg clients until Kellogg recoverd from the damage done by Bell, about 1909. The obvious Scandinavian bias of Stromberg's founders led them to license manufacture of L.M. Ericsson mechanical telephone switching technology known in the U.S. as the "Stromberg X-Y" switching machine. X-Y was enormously popular in the non-Bell telephone companies just after World War II. One more historic name one might run across is the Leich Electric Company at Genoa, Illinois [close to Chicago!], based upon buying the rights of North Electric's manual telephone equipment in one of North's low points while North was getting into automatic switches. Curiously, what made Leich famous was its devlopment of its own form of automatic switch, designed by a German who had worked at North Electric, went to Germany to fight for the Kaiser, and came back to the U.S. after the war. Leich's relay-switch most closely resembled a crossbar switch for some decades before the term was coined, and its unique style was quite suited to PBXs and very small telephone exchanges. Leich enjoyed considerable popularity in this arena, and supplied telephone sets that bore the Leich name. While there were a number of other long-dead suppliers. one more deserves mention, because it is credited as being the source of practical frequency-selective ringing that Bell nver really used. That firm is Dean Electric Company of Elyria, Ohio. W.W.Dean, its founder, had worked at Kellogg, where he learned that although Western Electric had tried frequency-selective ringing in the early 1900's, they had failed at developing a stable source of the several frequencies needed. Dean managed to make the system of multiple ringing frequencies practical, and the non-Bell companies adopted variants of Dean's development widely. Thus, we see one of the leading differentiators between Bell and non-Bell telephones. This may have been a long and (hopefully not too) labored response to a short question, but I hope it affords a rather full picture of the several names of antique apparatus would-be antique collectors might encounter. In writing it, I relied heavily upon a book I would recommend to anyone who really wants to understand the mindset of various factions in the United States telecom industry, for many of the attitudes of a century of history remain to this very day. In that book, one can see how those attitudes were generated and how they prevail ... as well as how much of today's operating methods really replicate inventions of generations ago. The book to read is: "The Spirit of Independent Telephony," by Charles A. Pleasance ISBN 0-9622205-0-7 Published by Independent Telephone Books P.O Box 321, Johnson City, TN 37601 Last priced at $29.50 plus $3.00 (domestic) or $6.00 (international) shipping. Visa or Mastercard orders accepted at (615) 926-0302 (And, once again, our Moderator can rightfully pride himself on his home town's intimate involvement with telecomm history.) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #226 ******************************  ISSUES 227 - 228 REVERSE IN TRANSMISSION. 227 FOLLOWS AFTER 228.  Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa24458; 23 Mar 91 16:05 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa25431; 23 Mar 91 14:11 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab05078; 23 Mar 91 13:01 CST Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 12:05:33 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #228 BCC: Message-ID: <9103231205.ab13632@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 23 Mar 91 12:05:20 CST Volume 11 : Issue 228 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Court Voids Satellite Telephone License [AP Wire, via Bill Berbenich] More About Early Pay Telephones [Larry Lippman] Early Pay Telephone Exhibit at Richmond Airport [Robert M. Hamer] Phun Phones [Mark Matthewson] 201-200 Prefix Now Exists [Carl Moore] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bill Subject: Court Voids Satellite Telephone License Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 00:02:07 EST Reply-To: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu By LAURIE ASSEO Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court Tuesday voided a government license for a proposed satellite system that aims to provide nationwide mobile telephone service. The Federal Communications Commission did not justify its decision to give the license to a consortium of companies instead of following the usual practice of holding hearings on competing proposals, said the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The court ordered the FCC to reconsider the license. "We regret that our present decision has the effect of delaying the provision of a valuable and innovative communications service to the public," the three-member panel of judges said. Currently, mobile telephone service is available in areas with land-based stations to relay the signal, generally urban areas. The planned mobile satellite system, proposed in 1982 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, would relay signals by satellite. That would allow communication in rural areas not now served. NASA's original petition said the mobile satellite system would enhance emergency communications in rural areas and also help truckers, oil companies and others with operations outside existing mobile systems. The commission awarded the mobile satellite license in August 1989 to the American Mobile Satellite Corp., a consortium of companies. The commission decided that hearings to compare various offers would be too time-consuming and would delay the service, the court said. The license was challenged by Global Land Mobile Satellite Inc., Globesat Express and Mobile Satellite Service Inc. Those companies had applied for the license but dropped out after refusing to pay a $5 million cash deposit that was required of all companies that sought to join the consortium. The commission's decision to approve a consortium denied the other applicants a chance to try to prove they had a better plan, the court said. The commission must have "truly compelling grounds" to abandon its regular procedure of holding hearings on competing applications, the judges said. In ordering the commission to reconsider the license, the court said it could issue a license to a consorium only if it could demonstrate grounds for doing so. The court also voided the requirement for a $5 million deposit, saying it appeared to be "nothing more than an arbitrary device by which the commission was able to winnow the applicant field." Commission attorney Gregory M. Christopher said it was too early to say whether the commission would appeal the ruling or ask the court to reconsider it. But he said he expected negotiations toward a possible settlement. The ruling "deals a setback to our plan to have this service initiated as quickly and as cheaply as possible," Christopher said. "We gave everyone an equal opportunity to participate." The consortium estimates the system will cost about $300 million, Christopher said. Attornies for the consortium did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment. The Court of Appeals also rejected a challenge to the license by another applicant, Aeronautical Radio Inc. That company's application was rejected because it did not comply with FCC standards, the court said. --------- Bill Berbenich Georgia Tech, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{backbones}!gatech!eedsp!bill Internet: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu ------------------------------ Subject: More About Early Pay Telephones Date: 23 Mar 91 00:49:45 EST (Sat) From: Larry Lippman In article 0004133373@mcimail.com (Donald E. Kimberlin) writes: > > From L. M. Boyd's March 1 column: > > "William Gray wanted to call his sick wife, but his foreman wouldn't > > let him use the company phone. That's why Gray invented the pay phone > > in 1889." I have heard the same story. > This sounds like one of those colorful bits of early telecom > history. However, I carry the notion that the Gray Paystation was > simply a product line name of the Automatic Electric Company, which > became the repository of Gray's and Strowger's patents. Gray's work pre-dates the Automatic Electric Company, which was not formed until 1901, and its antecedent, the Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange Company, formed in 1891. Gray was independent of any other company until at least 1905, when he started a patent infringement suit against the Baird Manufacturing Company. > I have some authoritative history of non-Bell telephone > interests, which are quick to claim any telephonic invention _not_ > made by Bell, and I don't recall the paystation being among their > claims of a non-Bell invention. > Anybody out there have more on this? If one considers a public telephone using an attendant to collect the money, then the honor of being first apparently goes to Thomas B. Doolittle of the Social Telegraph Association in Bridgeport, CT. The year was 1878. By 1880, other attended pay stations were available from the Connecticut Telephone Company and the American District Telegraph Co. in New York City. Obviously, ADT once provided a service that they no longer offer today. :-) The first pay station that collected money by itself was the subject of U.S. Patent 327,073 issued to H. Edmunds and C. Howard on September 29, 1885. While this was a very workable design (as opposed to many other patents that were impracticable), it seems to have never been manufactured in any quantity. The Edmunds and Howard device apparently pre-dates work of William Gray, who did not receive his first patent until 1889. However, Gray took on a partner, George A. Long, and began the manufacture of pay stations in 1889 under the name of the Gray Telephone Pay Station Company. The first Gray device was installed in Hartford, CT in 1889. In 1890, New York Telephone installed ten pay stations which they bought from J. H. Bunnell and Company, with such devices being the subject of a patent issued to H. Root. For Western Electric fans, the first pay station was implemented by connecting a standard telephone to the No. 1A Coin Collector, which was the subject of a patent issued on October 1, 1895. Gray continued with much further development in the area of pay stations. He is credited with inventing the concept of a coin gong around 1890, later expanded to a multi-coin arrangement that was patented in 1892. Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. "Have you hugged your cat today?" VOICE: 716/688-1231 {boulder, rutgers, watmath}!ub!kitty!larry FAX: 716/741-9635 [note: ub=acsu.buffalo.edu] uunet!/ \aerion!larry ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 03:13 EDT From: "Robert M. Hamer" Subject: Early Pay Telephone Exhibit at Richmond Airport AT&T has set up a telephone exhibit in the lobby area of the Richmond (VA) airport, just at the base of the elevator going up to the gate area. I thought I'd describe it, although I wish I could post photographs because (a) part of the impact is visual, and (b) I was too lazy to copy, word for word, all the identification plates, commentary, etc. The display subtly (not quite so subtle) promotes the role of AT&T in the development of the pay telephone. So it's a pay telephone oriented exhibit. It consists of four exhibits, each about four feet (wide) by eight feet (high), each with a display on both sides, making about eight displays. I will discuss them in chronological order. In the center were some poster units with a bunch of AT&T propaganda which I didn't read. The first phone was labelled "1889," and the commentary said that telephones were 13 years old, that 200,000 phones were in use, including one pay phone in a bank in Hartford, CT. Phone service consisted primarily of local service, with about 7,000 toll calls made daily. The longest stretch of phone wire was the New York to Boston run, and ten minutes on that stretch cost $4.00. Local phone service was $23.00 per month (expensive considering how much people made...). The telephone on that display was a Gray Model 5 Coin Collector telephone. It consisted of a wooden box, about perhaps one foot deep by two feet wide, by one foot in height, and mounted on top of that wooden box was a smaller wooden box, perhaps one foot high by six inches deep by six inches wide. The smaller box had two bells as a ringer on high on the front, a mouthpiece/mike at the end of a projection in the middle, and an earphone in a rack on the side at the end of a brown cloth-covered wire. The large wooden box at the bottom had five slots on the top surface, each with a large metal button next to it, which said, in turn, "One Dollar," "Half Dollar," "One Quarter," "One Dime," "One Nickel" On the left front was a brass plate containing instructions in all caps (no punctuation but divided up into lines that sort of broke it logically. A slash in my quote indicates a line.): "DIRECTIONS / CALL CENTRAL IN THE USUAL MANNER / WHEN TOLD BY OPERATOR / DROP COIN IN PROPER CHANNEL AND / PUSH PLUNGER DOWN" On the left front was another brass plate that said, "No 5 / William Gray / 1889" (again, slashes indicate a new line). The commentary said in part that William Gray had conceived the first automatic coin telephone in 1889 when he was frustrated in trying to find a telephone to call a doctor for his sick wife. It said that he was an inventor, and the invention for which he was best known prior to the coin telephone was the inflatable chest protector for baseball. The next exhibit was labelled 1908 and had two phones: on the left, a modified 1317 standard wall phone, and on the right a modified desk set. The accompanying text explained that in those days AT&T often combined a standard AT&T phone with a separate coin collector made by the Gray Telephone Pay Station Company. The wall phone was a wooden box on which the phone itself was hung; there were three slots at the top (looking like the familiar slots on the wall phones I knew when I grew up rather than just holes in the surface of a wooden box as on the 1889 model) for the quarter, dime, and nickel, and the mouthpiece stuck out of the front of the phone. The earpiece rested on a rack attached to the left side of the wooden box. A brass plate on the phone stated, "Directions / Call the central office in the usual manner. Do not deposit money until told by the operator. / Gray Tel. Pay. Sta. Co., H'F'D, C.T., Patd. Feb 8, '98" (Anyone know what H'F'D is? Could I just have read it wrong and it was M'F'D for "Manufactured"?) The desk phone consisted of a standard desk set (You know, looked like a candlestick with the mouthpiece at the top, and the earpiece racked on the side) that was attached via an arm around its center to a box containing three coin slots at the top with a brass plate that said, "Do not deposit money until operator asks for it." The next exhibit was labelled 1914 and looked familiar: the phone and coin box were all black metal and one piece; it was no longer a phone stuck on a coin collector. The earpiece wire was still covered with brown cloth and the mouthpiece still stuck out the front. In the description that follows I'm using the @ sign for the cent sign (you remember, a c with a slash through it) because my keyboard doesn't have one. The paper/cardboard plate on the front said, "Telephone number is KL5-099 / 1. Please deposit @ 5 / 2. Dial number / For directory assistance, call operator" There was one thing funny: THERE WAS NO DIAL ON THE PHONE. An error on the part of the AT&T person constructing the exhibit, putting a dial-oriented instruction card with a phone with no dial. Anyway, This was the first phone in which money could be deposited before you talked to the operator because she could return it if she needed to. The text said it was a 50A Coin Telephone designed by Gray Telephone. The text also said that coast- to-coast phone service was available for $66.90 for 10 minutes. Boston-NY was still $4.00 for 10 minutes, and local service had declined to $10.00 / month. The next exhibit was dated 1927, and used the same basic box as above. It did have a dial, with letters and numbers, no Q or Z, but the words "operator" on the zero digit on the dial. New York to London service was available at $75.00 for 3 minutes. The instruction card was above the dial. The earpiece wire was covered with black rubber, not brown cloth. The next exhibit (1945) was a REAL PHONE BOOTH, containing essentially the same phone as the same black box as the 1927 exhibit, but the mouthpiece and earpiece were integrated into a handset, which hung on a switchhook. The remainder of the exhibits (1978, and two 1989) were uninteresting modern phones. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 05:14:08 From: Mark Subject: Phun Phones Sean Williams writes: > It finally dawned on me that it was acting just like 112 - making a > long distance call! So I went and tried it from a pay phone - bingo! I > even got my dime back. Only catch was that only one person in town > could use it at a time. So, when word got around about this, the > circuit was constantly busy. Finally, it stopped working, and I heard > through the grapevine that someone had been ordered off the circuit by > a rather gruff craftsman. To this day, I have no idea why that > circuit was ever set up. Perhaps it was a mistake. > If you think that switch was strange, wait 'till I tell you about its > replacement! > [Moderator's Note: Please do tell us about it! PAT] If it is related dumb Telecom stories then I have one I guess. Recently I had cause to make a call from a phone box in my area. Problem was there was a queue of about three people. They all dialed an international number several times and eventually connected. No money as well. Further investigation revealed that the phone had been out of order for about *TWO* years and I haven't seen it unused in the two/three weeks I knew about it. Apparently they had tried to fix it every now and then (last time was a month ago) and apparently felt it was working. Then one day (while ten people were queued for it :) along comes a Telecom guy who proceeds to test the coin sorter again and again and eventually gives up as it works every time. He turned the phone off and its been off since. The reasons behind such a long period are vague and I don't pretend to know of them. The exchange is a pulse only crossbar type, very *dumb* and old. (They had to modify to allow international). I'm not sure about that exchange but normal Telecom proceedure to the best of my knowledge is to check the coinage and meters collate on pay phones to ensure abuses are caught. How this one got by I have *NO* idea. At Aust$1.19 or Aust$1.60 a minute for international calls that meter must have been red hot. Somewhere in that payphone is a dead piece of equipment that once every ten or so attempts ignored meter pulses. I have the SN of the cabinet so if it is moved... :) Please note everyone at trl.oz.au (Telecom Reseach Labs in Aussie) I made local calls and paid for it :) Mark Matthewson Markt891368@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au mark@gnu.ai.mit.edu P.O. Box 487 Essendon Australia 3040 ------------------------------ Date: Sat 23 Mar 91 00:37:24 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: 201-200 Prefix Now Exists 201-200 appears in a new call guide as Jersey City, NJ. (This is written in response to an old note which wondered if any prefixes of N00 form existed, and I had pointed out some in what is now 213/818 in Los Angeles area.) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #228 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa25668; 23 Mar 91 17:41 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa27746; 23 Mar 91 16:38 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa05078; 23 Mar 91 13:01 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa08433; 23 Mar 91 11:50 CST Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 11:08:58 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #227 BCC: Message-ID: <9103231108.ab00434@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 23 Mar 91 11:08:39 CST Volume 11 : Issue 227 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson The Evolution of Hacker ==> Criminal is Complete [Bob Izenberg] Request For Cellular Phone Service Manuals [Brandon S. Allbery] A Reference to the Fire Brigade [Steve Forrette] 25 Cent Surcharge For Card Calls From Payphones [Steve Forrette] Would That COCOTs Had This [Kevin A. Mitchell] Need Help Finding Voice Advisor Software [Tom Napoletano] Database of Dialing Conventions / Rules Needed [Jeff Wilkinson] Some Callers and Answering Machines [Bill Berbenich] Line Simulator Sought [Ray Berry] Centrex Outage in 415 [Daryl Jones] Invasion of the Phone Snatchers (COCOTs Strike Again!) [Mark Anacker] How Does REPEAT CALL Work? [Brian Jay Gould] Two Line Answering Machines [Dennis G. Rears] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bob Izenberg Subject: The Evolution of Hacker ==> Criminal is Complete Date: 23 Mar 91 07:41:14 GMT SABAHE@macalstr.edu (Arun Baheti) quotes a {New York Newsday} article: > {New York Newsday}, March 7, 1991, By Joshua Quittner > Like a hacker -- a phone computer cheat I guess that Mr. Quittner isn't up on his Ted Nelson. The evolution of the word "hacker" from "a person curious about the workings of systems or machines" to "criminal" is complete. I don't want to bring the whole semantic issue to Pat's doorstep, but there are people who call themselves "hackers" who cannot be characterized by the malapropism "phone computer cheat". If you object to this admittedly tiny part of the article, don't write Messrs. Townson or Baheti, write {Newsday}. Bob Izenberg cs.utexas.edu!dogface!bei 512 346 7019 ------------------------------ From: "Brandon S. Allbery KB8JRR" Subject: Request For Cellular Phone Service Manuals Organization: North Coast Public Access *NIX, Cleveland, OH Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1991 04:43:56 GMT Can anyone tell me where I can get service manuals for various models of cellular phones? (Preferably some kind of bookstore, etc., although I suspect I'll have to go directly to the manufacturers. In that case, addresses/phone numbers would be appreciated, as well as pricing.) I need these for my own nefarious purposes. :-) Actually, not so nefarious -- I want to see which, if any, of the cellular phones on the market can easily be modified for the 902-928 MHz amateur band. (PROM burners count as "easily" -- I don't expect that any of them come with repeater offsets. :-) Reply by mail, please; if interest warrants, I'll summarize the responses later. Thanks in advance, Me: Brandon S. Allbery Ham: KB8JRR on 2m, 220, 440, 1200 Internet: allbery@NCoast.ORG (QRT on HF until local problems fixed) America OnLine: KB8JRR // Delphi: ALLBERY AMPR: kb8jrr.AmPR.ORG [44.70.4.88] uunet!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ncoast!allbery KB8JRR @ WA8BXN.OH ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 01:14:42 From: Steve Forrette Subject: A Reference to the Fire Brigade David Wilson writes: > Looking at the 1990 Melbourne White Pages (Area Code 03) I find that > the emergency services now have individual numbers in addition to the > standard 000 (US 911) "ask operator for service required" number. The > numbers listed are: > Fire Brigade 11441 > Police 11444 > Ambulance 11440 A couple of years ago my mom had the occasion to call 911. Her new neighbors were from Australia, and had somehow started a small electrical fire in the breaker box. When the dispatcher answered and asked what the problem was, my mom responded: "I don't know, really; my neighbor keeps yelling for the Fire Bridage!" The dispatcher reportedly laughed slightly, apparently having heard this occasionally before. Steve Forrette, forrette@cory.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 01:19:58 From: Steve Forrette Subject: 25 Cent Surcharge For Card Calls From Payphones Linc Madison writes: > I wrote recently about a situation in which I felt I was overcharged > for some calling-card calls from Pacific*Bell payphones here in the > San Francisco LATA. After speaking to two service reps, an operator, > two supervisors, and a manager, I found out the following: > (2) An additonal 0.25 surcharge applies on calling-card calls from coin > phones, EVEN IF THEY'RE PAC*BELL PAYPHONES. With the new COCOT regulations that went into effect in California last August, there is now a 25 cent surcharge for intra-LATA calling card calls from COCOTs handled by Pacific Bell. The COCOT owner gets credits on his/her bill for these calls. This was to satisfy the old argument "Why shouldn't I get compensated for the wear and tear on my phones from calling card calls." This only affects intra-LATA Pacific Bell-carried calls, as far as I know. I didn't know they added the extra 25 cents from their own payphones as well. Steve Forrette, forrette@cory.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ From: kam@dlogics.com (Kevin A. Mitchell) Subject: Would That COCOTs Had This Organization: Datalogics, Inc. Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 03:17:21 GMT I made a call from a pay phone outside the Harlem and Lake EL station in Forest Park (Chicago suburb) today. The Illinois Bell phone had new instruction cards that had the following on them: o Names of local and long distance carriers (IBT and AT&T) with address and 800 number for complaints. o A statement stating that you could use an access code to get your own long distance carrier. o The address of the appropriate folks at the FCC to send complaints of regulatory violations to, in red type no less! I bet a lot of folks see this, and remember it the next time they get stuck with a COCOT. I don't expect many complaints to the FCC about a Bell payphone, but basically, they've told the public where to complain about everybody else's! Kevin A. Mitchell (312) 266-4485 Datalogics, Inc Internet: kam@dlogics.UUCP 441 W. Huron UUCP: ..!uunet!dlogics!kam Chicago, IL 60610 FAX: (312) 266-4473 [Moderator's Note: The payphones in our office had these new cards installed on them a couple weeks ago. They are really sharp looking, and explain very clearly how to make complaints, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 00:45:19 EST From: Tom Napoletano Subject: Need Help Finding Voice Advisor Software I am looking for a voice advisor type system that is PC based. (voice advisor or teletext type, ie. IRS tax information via touch tone phone). I do not want a voice mail system, however I would like some of the options that voice mail utilizes (hookflash transfer and DTMF generator). I have a voice mail system in operation and can add this option for about $4500, but with the tight budget it is not possible at this time. I do have access to an under-utilized PC and would like to take advantage of this machine to help prove the worth of the advisor options. (One or two month's lease of the upgrade will probably cost as much as the PC software.) Please email information on product names, vendors, and ballpark costs (if known) to tsn@neoucom.edu. AdvanTHANKSce Tom Napoletano N.E.O.U.C.O.M. ------------------------------ From: Jeff Wilkinson Subject: Database of Dialing Conventions / Rules Needed Date: 23 Mar 91 01:12:06 GMT I'm trying to categorize all the ways that phone numbers can be structured for a mostly-automatic dialing system. We are going to be providing a product where the operator retrieves the number of a patient to be dialed from a database and sends it to the computer. The computer's job is then to dial the number. Sounds trivial, huh? Well, it would be, but we are trying to be as kind to the operator as possible. The Right Way (TM) to do this would have the operator enter the number into the database in the way that it appears in the phone book, adding the area code for numbers that need it (entering the area code is optional for numbers within the local area code). The computer would then take care of all the extra details like: - not doing anything extra for numbers within the PBX. - adding a network access to get outside dial tone, if this is a PBX. - stripping the local area code, if present. - adding a 1, or a WATS access code (in-state and out-state properly differentiated) if this is a toll call. Non-toll calls to different area codes, and intra-area code toll calls need to be considered, also (providing the ability to bypass the default long distance carrier to some areas might be fun, but not crtical). - adding the operator's PBX billing ID number, if required. - accounting for any other foibles introduced by the phone system which I don't know about. I recall that there was a discussion of phone number conventions awhile back in comp.dcom.telecom, but this might have only involved the proper format for international calls. (?). Is there anyone that has experience in this area? Is this a big problem (i.e., I need a large database of area code/exchange vs. area code/exchange tuples) or little? Any ideas? Do PBX's with carrier selection do this? To simplify matters somewhat, the assumption can be made that the device will be calling from North America. International destinations are a possibility, but if this complicates things significantly we'll just tell the operator to do those manually. Unfortunately, we have lost our newsfeed here for the past few months, so replies need to be sent to me directly. If I get some response I'll summarize it at a later date. Jeff Wilkinson jeff.wilkinson@medtronic.com Medtronic, Inc. 7000 Central Ave NE Voice +1-612-574-3770 Minneapolis, MN 5543 FAX +1-612-574-4951 My opinions are my own. Isn't that obvous by now? ------------------------------ From: bill Subject: Some Callers and Answering Machines Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 00:19:31 EST Reply-To: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu Ever since I got Caller ID, I've noticed that some callers will call, Call -- CALL, and will never leave a message. I can understand why telemarketing creatures would not leave a message - they don't want to take any more time on a call in order that they may cover as many phones as possible within a given amount of time. Besides, a machine can't slip up and inadvertently commit to a sale. But why won't some people leave a message? Don't they realize that most people have other things to do besides sit by the phone waiting for it to ring? Most of us take showers, use the restroom, putter about in the yard, go over to the local basketball court, eat dinner, wash the dog, wash our clothes (in that order), and shop. Maybe these people who don't leave messages are just gamblers at heart and they want to take their chances catching their callee at a free moment. Maybe they don't realize that if they leave a message they might (probably will) get a call back, but if they don't leave a message they definitely WILL NOT get a call back - unless I get real curious and call a strange number back. I'll be posting a "First Month of Caller ID" note here next. Bill Berbenich Georgia Tech, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{backbones}!gatech!eedsp!bill Internet: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu ------------------------------ From: Ray Berry Subject: Line Simulator Sought Date: 23 Mar 91 02:07:11 GMT Organization: Seattle Silicon Corp., Bellevue, WA. I'd like to locate a line simulator that: (a) reflects the actual impedance of a typical subscriber loop. (b) can generate clean sine-wave rings (20 Hz ok) of programmable amplitude and duration (or which could be keyed from an external gating signal). (c) offers a programmable DC loop voltage, 24-105 volts. (d) a dial-tone and offhook detector would be handy, but not absolutely required. Other bells and whistles might be nice, but the above reflects my present need. I don't know if anyone makes this kind of equipment, or how to find it if they do, hence this posting. Pointers would be appreciated. Thanks. Ray Berry kb7ht uucp: ...sumax!ole!ray CIS: 73407,3152 /* "inquire within" */ ------------------------------ Subject: Centrex Outage in 415 Date: Fri, 22 Mar 91 20:36:45 PST From: Daryl Jones Tuesday at about 2 pm, several Centrex systems in the 415 area were out of service for about 45 minutes. I received a call back from a Pacific Bell trouble reporting center in North Hollywood after the problem had been corrected. I was told that an error had been made when installing a new translation table in several 5ESS machines. The erroneous change caused all local traffic to be routed to AT&T, instead of handled locally. During the outage, I was able to successfully dial a nearby office. The call sounded very noisy, as if it were going through a very long path. Dial tone was instantaneous. Most calls encountered a weak and distant reorder tone. Are translation table changes implemented in several 5ESS machines all at the same time? I can see how such an error would cause one CO to fail, but would it cause multiple CO's to fail at the same time? Telecommunications Engineering Associates Daryl Jones, KA6VEP 409 Wildwood Drive So. San Francisco, CA 94080 Phone: (415) 871-4200 {decwrl,pacbell}!tcomeng!daryl ------------------------------ From: Mark Anacker Subject: Invasion of the Phone Snatchers (COCOTs Strike Again!) Date: 23 Mar 91 00:27:19 GMT Organization: Digital Systems Intl., Inc. Hi, Last weekend my wife and I stopped in a touristy little town here in Washington called Leavenworth. We needed to call some friends in town, so we pulled up at one of the many, *OFFICIAL-LOOKING* pay phones. It wasn't until it refused to complete her call, and ate her quarter, that I went over and found it was one of those infernal coin disposal machines disguised as a phone. We looked around a bit, and it appears as if THE ENTIRE TOWN has been converted to these things! They're everywhere - like some plague of sales-locusts descended on the town one day. If I hadn't been in the town before, and knew of the only alternative, we'd have been stuck. Attached to the wall of the GTE CO in town, like a shining beacon of hope, was a real GTE pay phone. Apparently the only one in town. My guess is that this is what the locals use, and leave the new phones to the sucke ... er, tourists. Mark Anacker ...{!dsinet,!toybox}!marka Digital Systems International, Inc. Redmond, WA USA (206) 881-7544 ------------------------------ From: Brian Jay Gould Subject: How Does REPEAT CALL Work? Date: 23 Mar 91 03:32:27 GMT Organization: NJ InterCampus Network, New Brunswick, N.J. I understand why (but don't agree with the FCC limit) I can't get Caller*ID on inter-lata calls. But NJ Bell (well, one rep ...) says that the Repeat Call feature (where the system would continue to attempt the call until it is no longer busy) will work for any number in the country where the destination number's CO also has the feature available. I can't see how this is right. Either they don't rely on SS7 and simply repeat the attempt every xx seconds, or they use SS7 and both numbers have to be in the same lata. I couldn't get the rep to change her story. She read her "features document" over the phone and it did indeed indicate that it works as stated in paragraph one above. Can anyone explain this? Any disclaimers made for me, by me, or about me - may or may not accurately reflect my failure to be reflecting the opinions of myself or anyone else. Brian Jay Gould - Professional Brain-stormer ------------------------------ From: Dennis G Rears Subject: Two Line Answering Machines Organization: U.S. Army ARDEC, Dover NJ Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 01:36:33 GMT Does anyone know where I can get a quality two line answering machine? I now it sounds simple but they are not available here. Is there any way I can convert a one line phone to handle both lines? dennis ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #227 ******************************  ISSUES 227 - 228 REVERSE IN TRANSMISSION. 228 CAME BEFORE 227.  Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa27096; 23 Mar 91 18:52 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ac01206; 23 Mar 91 17:24 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa19327; 23 Mar 91 16:18 CST Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 16:11:12 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #229 BCC: Message-ID: <9103231611.ab12600@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 23 Mar 91 16:10:51 CST Volume 11 : Issue 229 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Len Rose Pleads Guilty! [AP Wire, via Bill Berbenich] NYNEX/Boston FMR Charges, Answer [Douglas Scott Reuben] Caller ID Draws Opposition in Illinois [Bill Berbenich] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bill Subject: Len Rose Pleads Guilty! Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 14:29:14 EST Reply-To: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu BALTIMORE (AP) -- A computer hacker pleaded guilty Friday to stealing information from American Telephone & Telegraph and its subsidiary Bell Laboratories. Under an agreement with prosecutors, Leonard Rose pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to one count of sending AT&T source codes via computer to Richard Andrews, an Illinois hacker, and a similar wire fraud charge involving a Chicago hacker. Prosecutors said they will ask that Rose be sentenced to two concurrent one-year terms. Rose is expected to be sentenced in May. Neither Rose nor his attorney could be immediately reached for comment late Friday. "Other computer hackers who choose to use their talents to interfere with the security and privacy of computer systems can expect to be prosecuted and to face similar penalties," said U.S. Attorney Breckinridge L. Willcox. "The sentence contemplated in the plea agreement reflects the serious nature of this new form of theft," Willcox said. Rose, 32, was charged in May 1990 in a five-count indictment following an investigation by the Secret Service and the U.S. Attorney's offices in Baltimore and Chicago. He also had been charged with distributing "trojan horse" programs, designed to gain unauthorized access to computer systems, to other hackers. Prosecutors said Rose and other hackers entered into a scheme to steal computer source codes from AT&T's UNIX computer system. The plea agreement stipulates that after he serves his sentence, Rose must disclose his past conduct to potential employers that have computers with similar source codes. Bill Berbenich Georgia Tech, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{backbones}!gatech!eedsp!bill Internet: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu ------------------------------ Date: 23-MAR-1991 03:01:14.92 From: Douglas Scott Reuben Subject: NYNEX/Boston FMR Charges, Answer In early February, I posted a copy of a letter which I sent to GTE Mobilnet's headquarters in Houston, dealing with NYNEX/Boston's charging for FMR activations. The problem was, and still is, that NYNEX/Boston charges airtime and a daily roam charge of $3 for every FMR activation or deactivation which takes place in its New England Service Area. This means that if I hit *18 to activate Follow Me Roaming, yet do not receive or make any further calls in that system, I will be billed $3.75. ($3 for the daily charge, and $.75 for the one minute of "airtime", which is basically two seconds of confirmation tone.). What's worse, let's say I was in Connecticut and had FMR activated to CT. If I were to roam into Boston, and decided to turn FMR off (so that callers could get my GTE/San Francisco Voice Mail), I would also be billed $3.75 for pressing *19! I've never been a fan any sort of "daily roam charge", and I think that the cellular companies could make a lot more money on roaming if they worked out less costly system where the companies can share in the roaming profits, and thus customers would be more inclined to use thier phones in other service areas. Nevertheless, I am willing to pay the $3 charge at times, but NEVER to simply activate or deactivate FMR. Moreover, when I signed up for GTE/SF for service, I was told that there were no such charges, which is why I was very surprised when the first bill came. I then called GTE/SF, who removed the charges month after month each time I had been in Boston. (There were some months when there was a whole page of "*18 FMR ACTIVATION $.75 1MIN" on my bill, mainly becuase FMR sometimes takes SO long to activate that I hit *18 multiple times.) In December, when I made my monthly call to get the charges removed, the person who handled my call, Rudy Kadett, who was the roam coordinator for GTE/SF, told me that GTE would no longer remove the charges on my bill, and that I should write to Ilene Sandrafield in Houston if I had any further questions. (This later turned out to be incorrect, all inquiries SHOULD be handled at GTE/SF.) I just got off the phone with Ilene, and after an hour-long conversation to Houston, I can once again say that I made the right choice in choosing GTE Mobilnet for cellular service. Ilene manages all roaming agreements for GTE Cellular systems, and seemed quite knowledgeable and interested in explaining the problem with NYNEX's FMR and what they intended to do about it. Ilene had contacted the SF office, explained that there was nothing that GTE could do to prevent NYNEX for charging these activation charges, but said that GTE/SF would continue to take these calls off my bill, and that Mr. Kadett was wrong in saying that GTE/SF would no longer do so. Basically, what this means, is that I will have to call GTE/SF each time I got to Boston and use FMR. They will deduct the airtime charges for *18/*19 calls, and if there were no other calls that day, the $3 roam charge as well. They were even willing to give me a number at GTE/SF that I can call directly, without having to wait for the Customer Service people to pick up. (GTE/SF has QUITE long waits at times to talk to Customer Service.) In my conversation with Ilene, I was told that the problem was that NYNEX/Boston has decided to charge for FMR calls, and that every company that deals with NYNEX is forced to bill their customers for this. She noted that GTE as well as other companies had tried to get NYNEX to stop this practice, but that NYNEX flatly refused. One company, Bell Atlantic Mobile Systems, is even considering charging NYNEX/Boston roamers the same FMR charge, as one of their customers made a fuss about these charges as well. (I'd sign up with BAMS if they did this ... just to make a (small) point to NYNEX! :) ) Overall, she felt, as I do, that this practice is very unfair, and that in the long run it hurts the industry by creating a great deal of annoyance and confusion to all "B" system customers, and that NYNEX was taking advantage of the present state of the industry which allowed it to levy such charges and get away with it. GTE can not charge NYNEX/Boston customers for FMR activations unless they charge everyone for this, and thus GTE can not "retaliate" without annoying the vast majority of roamers who do not need to use the NYNEX/Boston system. When I asked how Bell Atlantic can do this, she responded that they are able (or will be able) to target individual outfits like NYNEX/Boston, but that GTE as of yet can not, or that the process of doing so is too cumbersome to enact throughout the GTE Mobilnet system. We also discussed cellular fraud. In my letter, I noted that the $3 per day daily roaming charge was, in my opinion, way too much to charge for ESN validation. She responded that the $3 per day charge was also designed to recover costs due to fraud, and then got into a rather long discussion about how cellular *roaming* fraud takes place, and what GTE was planning for the near future to reduce these losses. (Much along the lines of the posting from March 14th from the {Houston Chronicle}, although we discussed a few specifics about what was being done, such as "IS-41", which is a "new" (?) ESN-validation system which will not be subject to the delays which the present one is. I believe that IS-41 is in place between GTE and Pac*Tel in CA and Texas, but we didn't get in to many specifics as to where this new system will be used. A good bet is in the high-fraud areas of NY and LA.) Although I do appreciate that the Cellular Industry is plagued by fraud, I'm not sure if the best way to prevent it is to charge roamers $3 per day, especially when the roam rates are so high as it is. The {Houston Chronicle} article mentioned that perhaps 20% of roam revenue is lost due to fraud, yet I wonder if the $3 per day charge and the high airtime rates do not go way beyond this 20% figure. That is to say, does roaming actually COST the cellular companies money -- are they LOSING any money which the $3 per day compensates them for? -- or are they using the 20% "uncollectable" figure as a justification for these charges, and ultimately end up making even more money? I didn't press her on this issue, since that was not really what my letter was about, but I got the impression that in actuality what was happening was that the cellular industry was under immense pressure to raise a good deal of money very quickly (so each company can expand to fill its designated territory, as I believe the FCC requires after a certain period of time), and thus, when someone says "Hey, we need to get more money, we have lot's of bill to pay this month (including some due to fraud, no doubt), and we need some extra revenue ..." the end result is that roamers get soaked, as they are the easiest targets and the ones who have the least ability to effectively alter company policy. (ie, if GTE/SF were to raise its rates, I could go to Cell One/SF; yet a roamer in GTE/SF's area is stuck using them, and if s/he comes from some small Cell Co. where s/he is the only one who roams in GTE/SF, there is little incentive for GTE/SF to take his/ her concerns into consideration.) Overall, though, a very interesting conversation, and an hour well spent! GTE has repeatedly demonstrated that they ARE concerned with their customers needs, and in many cases will bend over backwards to retain their customers, including taking a loss of $3 or more per month (which they have to pay NYNEX in Boston regardless of whether I have to pay the charge or not) to cover for an irresponsible and downright greedy cellular company which GTE has no control over. This incident, as well as their receptiveness to my FMR activation delay complaints and the speed at which they reinstated international calling after it had been blocked for all GTE/SF customers, tells me that THIS is the company I should be giving my cellular business to. As a comparison to how bad things can be, let me mention my "favorite" mobile company on the "other" coast, Metro High-Bill in Connecticut. Of the two letters and fifteen phone calls I have made to them regarding their most recent charge, that of charging customers airtime charges for call forwarding (of course without letting us know about this before the change was made), I received the following: 1. A letter from some office manager saying that the reasoning behind Metro Mobile's charging airtime for call-forwarding was because it was "allowed by law..." to do so, yet failing to mention why no one was notified, especially customers such as myself who had relied on statements as well as prior practice by Metro Mobile which clearly indicated that there were no such charges. 2. A call (via cellphone? Heard static, so it was probably Metro..! :) ) by "Mr. Linderman", and 4:55PM, to my voicemail. I call back Metro the next day, no one has heard of Mr. Linderman. Turns out this guy in the chairman of Metro Mobile, so I call him, and he's not in. 3. After fifteen calls to his office to try to get Mr. Linderman when he IS in, I get: "He's out of the country...", "He is sick today", "He is at his doctor's office", "He is at lunch", "He has left for the day" (at 11:30 am ?), etc. Maybe they think I am with "60 Minutes"? Something to hide, eh, Mr. Linderman?? :) 4. I sent a letter to Mr. Linderman requesting that if he is not able to respond to me at this time, to please have someone else provide me with an explanation of the charges. This was BEFORE I sent my letter to GTE in Houston. It was a FOLLOWUP on my first letter from October. And, of course, I have heard nothing from them. So although many of you may think that GTE's response to my NYNEX/Boston complaint is perhaps insufficient, and that GTE should be able to correct the problem without my having to call for a credit each time I use FMR in Boston, consider for a moment that I have grown used to Metro's standard tactics (above) for over two and a half years, and any minor improvement, or a more substantial one as in the present case with GTE, is one which I will enthusiastically welcome. Time now to write to NYNEX/Boston telling them what a bunch of rip-off artists they are ... I *still* don't think *I* should be the one who has to take time to do all this...! :/ Doug dreuben@eagle.wesleyan.edu // dreuben@wesleyan.bitnet ------------------------------ From: bill Subject: Caller ID Draws Opposition in Illinois Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 03:33:29 EST Reply-To: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu Caller ID plan draws opposition from rape counseling centers By DAN SHOMON Jr. SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (UPI) -- Several representatives of rape and domestic violence counseling centers spoke out Tuesday against a proposed telephone feature that allows people to see the phone number of who is calling them. The plan, which has been dubbed Caller ID, has already been implemented in New Jersey and other states. The Illinois Commerce Commission is expected to make a decision whether to allow Illinois Bell and Centel to begin the service to its phone customers in Illinois. Beth Savage-Martin, coordinator of hotline volunteers at Springfield's Rape Information and Counseling Service, told a special public hearing that the plan would keep rape victims from calling for help because they would fear someone would get their number. "This could be the last straw that breaks the camel's back," Savage-Martin said. "Anything that deters the victims from calling us is not a positive thing." Caller ID has been touted as a way to protect people because it would display the phone number of an abusive caller but Savage-Martin said she thinks criminals would probably use pay-phones and take away any advantage of the device. More opposition came from Mary Pat Browne, who oversees sexual assault counseling services at the YWCA in Sterling. "Caller ID will jeopardize our efforts to provide confidential, safe services for victims," Browne said. Both Brown and Savage-Martin said they would probably lose volunteers when Caller ID goes into effect because those people would be worried about their phone numbers getting out to victims and perpetrators. However, Illinois Bell said it would avoid such problems by giving out telephone calling cards to rape hotline and crisis counseling employees. Besides helping the at least 65,000 people in the state who received harassing calls in 1990, Bell spokesman Laura Littel said Caller ID could also reduce the growing number of false fire alarms and bomb threats. At the hearing, two forms of the Caller ID program were discussed. Bell's plan would not allow someone to "block" someone else from seeing their own telephone number, even though that is something that rape counseling services would support. However, Des Plaines-based Central Telephone Company of Illinois wants to implement a Caller ID program that includes "blocking." The company would provide blocking for all of its residential and single- line business customers at no charge. Even though there were several groups in opposition, at least two women testified that Caller ID would help end harassment they have faced. Linda Butler of Springfield said she had a serious problem with phone harassment in 1987 and was forced to pay the phone company more than $300 to trace calls and also spent more than $300 on a phone answering device in an attempt to catch the culprit. The Caller ID program would probably cost most people less than $10 per month and Butler said she favored it because "many consumers are not in the same position as I am that I can spend that kind of money to have my calls traced." Freda Schrenk of Riverton echoed Butler's concerns. "The people that make these calls don't care who they're spouting their filth at," Schrenk said. -------- Bill Berbenich Georgia Tech, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{backbones}!gatech!eedsp!bill Internet: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu [Moderator's Note: Follow-ups to this article should be sent to the telecom privacy list, 'telecom-priv@pica.army.mil' for publication. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #229 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa28712; 23 Mar 91 21:05 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa18008; 23 Mar 91 19:30 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab20090; 23 Mar 91 18:24 CST Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 18:01:35 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #230 BCC: Message-ID: <9103231801.ab07663@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 23 Mar 91 18:01:20 CST Volume 11 : Issue 230 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Questions About AT&T Credit Card Calls [Ron Newman] NJ and PA Payphone Instruction Cards [Carl Moore] Telephone Monopoly in Delaware Ends [Ken Weaverling] Automated Telephone Information Systems [Ernie Froemel] Sources For Tariff Information [Paul Wilczynski] Bob Allen Live Speech FREE on 900 Number [Mark A. Emanuele] Questions About New Service Being Installed [Dennis G. Rears] RS 485 Information Wanted: URGENT [Markus Fischer] Looking For New Replacement Modems [Dale Bryan] Taking Exams by Phone [Jim Huggins in RISKS, via Nigel Allen] Local Competition Article in {Business Week} [Jerry Leichter] Happy Birthday! [David Lesher] The Ultimate in 900 Marketing [Jonathan White] Reminder: Voice Recognition Project Needs Your Help! [Carl Moore] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Newman Subject: Questions About AT&T Credit Card Calls Date: 23 Mar 91 01:22:10 GMT Reply-To: rnewman@bbn.com Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc. 1. If I use an AT&T Universal Card to make an intra-LATA call (e.g. between 617 and 508), how does this get billed? Is the call carried by AT&T or by the local Bell operating company (in this case, New England Telephone)? How does the BOC know that it should accept an AT&T-issued card? (Note: an AT&T Universal card number does not begin with a "real" phone number.) 2. Can I use an AT&T Universal Card to make an intra-LATA call between a Bell and a non-Bell area? 3. For the above two questions, does it matter whether I dialed 10288 (10ATT) or not? 4. What happens if I try to use an AT&T Universal Card on for a non-AT&T inter-LATA call, because either - (a) the "Dial 1" selection was not AT&T, or (b) I used a carrier code such as 10222, 10333, etc. ? Ron Newman rnewman@bbn.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 12:58:58 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: NJ and PA Payphone Instruction Cards I am just back from New Jersey, and would like to report two stops at places with pay phones: Admiral Halsey service area on NJ Turnpike (northbound, at exit 13-A): Pay phones are on 908-289; however, as noted in my earlier trip to Phillipsburg, some phones still have 201 noted on them. 289 is an Elizabeth exchange, and it is local to Newark, NJ, remaining in area 201. Now get this: instruction card on the pay phone says that local calls outside area code require the area code, but the phone book's call guide says it does not! Same instruction card as above appeared in PA along southbound I-95 (using Yardley prefix 215-493), and this is possible because 215 is dropping the leading 1 for long distance within it. The "OUT OF CHANGE?" message at bottom, however, says 0 + number when it should be or become 0 + areacode + number. ------------------------------ From: Ken Weaverling Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1991 10:03:56 EST Subject: Telephone Monopoly in Delaware Ends The {News-Journal}, Delaware's largest local paper, had the following headline March 20: "Telephone monopoly in Del. ends" Below are some excerpts, comments, and a few questions... "The Public Service Commission ended Diamond State Telephone Co's monopoly on long-distance calling within the state Tuesday. ... The commission's action follows a national trend by regulators to break up local Baby Bell phone monopolies ... It will be at least July 1 before new carriers can join in the competition for intrastate business." I have been a regular reader of the Digest for about a year now, though I don't read every single article. I don't recall reading about similar action in other areas, except on some business lines. *Is* this a trend across the country? Also, no mention was made of whether calls to (215) would be open to competition. Area Code 215 (Philadelphia) is within our same LATA. This doesn't make any sense to me, since Delaware has been moving towards unlimited local state-wide calling. If I can call downstate for free, what is MCI, Sprint, and AT&T going to offer me? This expanded local calling area seems to contradict trends across the country to measured unit local calling. Is this why I wonder. My speculation is somewhat confirmed in this same newspaper article... "We are generally pleased by the ruling," Diamond State spokesman Ells Edwards said after the ruling. "Factors on the local company's side as competition opens up include markedly lower rates, expanded calling areas enacted by the commission on January 1 and proposed statewide toll-free calling now being studied by Diamond State." ------------------------------ From: Ernie Froemel Subject: Automated Telephone Information Systems Organization: University of Chicago Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 09:21:10 GMT Does anyone know of microcomputer-based applications that control automated telephone information systems? I'm looking for something that: 1. answers incoming calls, 2. plays a recorded set of instructions, 3. switches the caller to other instructions or to other phones based on touch-tones, 4. transfers to another phone in the absence of touch-tone input. Any guidance as to vendors or experiences with such software would be appreciated. Ernie Froemel ecfx@midway.uchicago.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 01:22 GMT From: Paul Wilczynski <0002003441@mcimail.com> Subject: Sources For Tariff Information The March 18, 1991 issue of {Network World} reports the following sources for tariff information (all telephone numbers listed as published): TeleResource Service Bell Communications Research Bellcore Customer Service 60 New England Ave. Piscataway, NJ 08854 (201) 600-2000 The Center for Communications Management Information 11300 Rockville Pike Rockville, MD 20852 (301) 816-8950 Downtown Copy Center 1114 21st St N.W. Washington, DC 20036 (202) 452-1422 Fair Press Services Division of Washington Information Group, Ltd. PO Box 19352 20th Street Station Washington, DC 20036 (202) 463-7323 International Transcript Services, Inc. 2100 M St N.W. Washington, DC 20037 (202) 857-3800 Lynx Technologies, Inc. P.O. Box 368 Little Falls, NJ 07424 (201) 256-7200 Telecommunications Information Services, Inc. 9 LaCrue St. Concordville, PA 19331 (215) 558-1770 Tele-Tech Services A division of Telecommunication Systems Technology, Inc. P.O. Box 757 McAfee, NJ 07428 (201) 827-4421 Valucom, Inc. 501 Church St N.E. Suite 303 Vienna, VA 22180 (703) 255-0700 ------------------------------ From: emanuele@overlf.UUCP (Mark A. Emanuele) Subject: Bob Allen Live Speech FREE on 900 Number Date: 23 Mar 91 08:46:34 GMT Organization: Overleaf Systems, Inc. I just got a letter in the mail from AT&T that Bob Allen's live speech at the AT&T shareholders meeting will be available to the general public on 1-900-200-2700 at 9:45 to 10:15 am Central time on April 17, 1990. They say that the call is TOLL FREE. I wonder why they are using a 900 number instead of an 800 number? They also say that A recorded version will be available until 8:00 pm that evening. Mark A. Emanuele V.P. Engineering Overleaf, Inc. 218 Summit Ave Fords, NJ 08863 (908) 738-8486 emanuele@overlf.UUCP [Moderator's Note: Callers during the thirty minute period noted above will be connected to live audio from the location of the shareholder's meeting. For the remainder of the day, the program will be repeated on tape. You may of course dial in at any time, and my understanding is you will hear Mr. Allen's address from the beginning, rather than 'barging in' in the middle somewhere. The reason for using a 900 number is because of the huge volume of traffic which can be accomodated at any one time, versus more limited accomodations on an 800 line. If someone will transcribe the highlights, I'll publish it in the Digest as well. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 07:00:20 EST From: "Dennis G. Rears (FSAC)" Subject: Questions About New Service Being Installed I am moving and got some questions about my new telephone service. I will be getting two lines with circular hunting (circular just in case I get more lines installed). They are letting me have one line with touch tone and the other line without. Am I correct in assuming that touch tone only applies to dialing and not the sending of the tones after the connection is made? All of may phones are switchable to either touch tone and pulse. I found out my new service will be serviced by a 1ESS switch. Can anybody explain the difference between that and a 5ESS switch? I would really appreciate it if somebody could detail what each switch capability is. I agreed to have it billed on one number. The installation is $42 & $16 for the second line, for a total of $58. If I wanted two billing numbers it would have cost $42 and $42. That seems unreasonable to me. ($42 seems unreasonable to me for one line when you consider it is a $15 hookup charge for electric and $14 for gas). Dennis ------------------------------ From: Markus Fischer Subject: RS 485 Information Wanted: URGENT Date: 23 Mar 91 03:18:49 Organization: University of Geneva, Switzerland I need information about the RS 485 communication norm. Specifically, I need cabling schematics, signal IDs and signal levels. I would prefer the answers in e-mail, and I promise I'll post the information to the net. Fred fisher@sc2a.unige.ch or fisher@CGEUGE52.BITNET or markus@scsun.unige.ch ------------------------------ From: Dale Bryan Subject: Looking For New Replacement Modems Date: 23 Mar 91 00:08:22 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego I am currently working on a project that utilizes modems in an underwater acoustic data communications system. I am new to the project and don't know much about modems. Part of my tasking is to investigate what's new in the world of modems and to see if there are off-the-shelf units that are more capable than the ones that are being used now. The modems being used are 1981 vintage Rockwell R24 synchronous DPSK 2400 bps with fallback to 1200 bps. They are printed circuit board modules that require a host controller. They use V.26B and V.27bis formats. I am looking for replacement modems that may offer 2400 bps or higher at SNR-BER performance that is as good or better than 9dB for .00001 BER. I am particularly interested in anything using adaptive equalization and adaptive echo cancellation for long time delays as the acoustic channel can be very dispersive. Any help or insight into what's on the markets these days will be greatly appreciated. Dale Bryan (619)-553-1902 email: bryan@marlin.nosc.mil ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 09:23 EST From: Nigel Allen Subject: Taking Exams by Phone (From comp.risks) Organization: 52 Manchester Avenue From: James K. Huggins With the recent discussion on voting-by-phone in RISKS, I thought the following (excerpted) article, taken from "U.: The National College Newspaper" might be of interest to readers. "Test Taking Goes Touch-Tone": Seema Desai, _The_Daily_Pennsylvanian_ (student newspaper of the University of Pennsylvania) At Governors State U., a wrong number can cost students more than a quarter. It can cost them their grade point averages. The small university near Chicago recently adopted a telephone system that lets students take multiple-choice exams over a touch-tone telephone. Donald Fricker, a management professor who spent about two years developing the application, said students call a special number and respond to recorded multiple choice questions by pressing digits on their phones. The system, named Big Mouth, has been in operation since this fall, and four professor currently use it to administer exams. Fricker said more than 100 students in classes ranging from psychology to management have taken exams on the system, adding that most students have responded positively to the new technology. [student and faculty testimonial deleted] Some students and faculty have raised concerns about abuse of the system. Currently, students have to enter their social security number to access the system. Students are on their honor not to cheat, Fricker said. And because students have only five seconds to answer, Scherzinger said cheating is difficult. [quote deleted] In the near future, Big Mouth will have the ability to repeat questions and accept short essay answers. Fricker said he also plans to add more security measures to the system, including offering multiple versions of exams and giving each student a special security code. [...] Despite some of the system's drawbacks, Scherzinger said he thinks it will gain wide acceptance in the academic community. "I personally believe that the system will come to every college within the next 10 years." The RISKS here are abundant: students hiring other students to take their exams for them (a risk that is somewhat minimized by an in-person exam) using their identification number, students deliberately using someone else's Social Security number to flunk the exam for them, and students recording the exam as it is being given in order to distribute copies to their friends. I hope Big Mouth never comes to Michigan. Jim Huggins, Univ. of Michigan (huggins@zip.eecs.umich.edu) [This is getting to be an old-hat topic. But it will recur. PGN] [Moderator's Note: Governors State University is a school here in the Chicago south suburban area. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 10:32:54 EDT From: Jerry Leichter Subject: Local Competition Article in {Business Week} Readers with an interest in dial-tone competition may find an article in a recent {Business Week} of interest. "The Baby Bells Learn a Nasty New Word: Competition. (Breaking up local phone monopolies - via new technologies - looks to be the 'issue of the 1990s'.)" Business Week, 25 Mar 1991. You may have to search around a bit - it's in the "Information Processing" section, which seems to be one of the sections that BW uses only in some editions. The same issue also has a brief article titled "Future phone? The PCN is a wireless to watch." -- Jerry ------------------------------ From: David Lesher Subject: Happy Birthday! Date: Wed, 20 Mar 91 20:04:10 EST Reply-To: David Lesher Organization: NRK Clinic for habitual NetNews abusers click, click, click...bzzzzzp, kerchunk. Yep, 10 Mar 1991 was a birthday for our close friend and vigilant helper - the Strowger Switch. It's been a while since that undertaker got annoyed. Would c.d.t. readers care to guess how many candles Mr. Switch gets? I suggest we don't let John Hignon enter - he could cheat by checking the manufacturing codes on those in his CO ;-} wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (305) 255-RTFM ------------------------------ From: jonathan white Subject: The Ultimate in 900 Marketing Date: 23 Mar 91 14:41:03 GMT Organization: New York University NYNEX just sent me my copy of the new Yellow Pages for Manhattan. In the front is the FYI Pages "Your guide to useful and entertaining 1-900, 976, and 540 numbers...". The ultimate though is on page 7 - a 1-900 number to call to "Find out about the industry that's revolutionizing telecommunications with 540 and 900 numbers" I've always thought that one way to tell when a market was saturated was when ads start appearing for consultants wanting to advise others on how to get into that market. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Mar 91 10:31:44 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Reminder: Voice Recognition Project Needs Your Help! I called the voice recognition project (suggest you call it if you have not done so already). The number is 800-441-1037, where 800-441 PREVIOUSLY was the prefix for toll free to Delaware from other states. (However, 800-441-1037 did work from Delaware.) [Moderator's Note: The project takes voice samples, and requires no obligation on your part other than a couple minutes of your time. Please help them out. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #230 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa00106; 24 Mar 91 0:50 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa15332; 23 Mar 91 21:36 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab08425; 23 Mar 91 20:31 CST Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 20:00:30 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #231 BCC: Message-ID: <9103232000.ab22217@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 23 Mar 91 20:00:00 CST Volume 11 : Issue 231 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Pac*Bell References to Area Code Splits [Ted Marshall] Analog Fiber Optic Systems [Jeff Brown] Sprint Says NO to Increased Account Security [Lauren Weinstein] Payphones in Public Schools [Sean Williams] Questions on SONET [Ming Yin] 120 VAC-Powered Ringers [Irving Wolfe] Senate Committee Action on Bill [Peter Marshall] Little Noticed Rate Increase in Massachusetts [John R. Levine] PacBell Blocks 950-xxxx [Galen Wolf] MCI Around-Town Disappearing [David Lesher] Followup: Caller*ID Program for Macintosh [Brian Holmes] Pay Phone 10xxx-0- Access [David Lesher] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 08:13:20 PST From: Ted Marshall Subject: Pac*Bell References to Area Code Splits Here in San Jose, Ca (408), the new phone books just came out. With all of the recent talk here about people not finding out in advance about area code splits, I wanted to see what Pac*Bell would have on the upcoming 415/510 split. As expected, there was a page in Customer Guide section outlining both the 415/510 split and the 213/310 split down in L A. In addition, in the main white-pages section, the banner at the top of each odd numbered page reads "415/510 Area Code Split 9-2-91". (The banner on the even numbered pages lists the cities covered, as usual.) It would have been nice if the new banners were more different (grey instead of black, for example) to help catch the eye, but hopefully, this will catch a few people's attention. As a side note, this phone book also has white-page listings for Los Gates, which is serviced by GTE. These listings are in a separate section of the Pac*Bell book. The split warning was not put in the banner in this section, even though it was clearly type-set by the same folks. Ted Marshall ted@airplane.sharebase.com ShareBase Corp., 14600 Winchester Blvd, Los Gatos, Ca 95030 (408)378-7000 The opinions expressed above are those of the poster and not his employer. ------------------------------ From: Jeff Brown Subject: Analog Fiber Optic Systems Reply-To: edjcb@mars.lerc.nasa.gov Organization: NASA Lewis Research Center Date: 23 MAR 91 13:45:44 I need an Analog to Fiber Optic to Analog transmission system. Basically a one-way analog to fiber modem. I'd like zero to five VDC on each end with any type fiber in between. DC supply power and EMF hardening would be helpful. A 10 mhz analog bandwidth and AC coupling are musts. Any sources you might suggest would be helpful. Thanks. Jeff Brown (216) 433-3888 edjcb@scivax.lerc.nasa.gov ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 13:15:41 PST From: Lauren Weinstein Subject: Sprint Says NO to Increased Account Security Greetings. There have been reports in various forums recently of various concerns regarding U.S. Sprint's new policy of allowing access to almost all (1+ long distance dialing) customer account balances based only on ten-digit phone numbers (previously, account numbers had been needed to obtain such information). Account balances for all phone numbers with 1+ service selected to Sprint, except for those customers connected to Sprint by high volume leased line facilities (e.g. T1) are apparently accessible via the system. Concerns have been expressed about misuse of this data by outside organizations, competitors, or even other carriers looking to target the "big" customers. Certainly most people have been assuming that the amount of their long distance bills was not "public" information. I have been following this rather closely, and over the last several weeks have had a complaint working its way up the chain in Sprint. As a user of Sprint (as well as other carriers) I personally feel that account balance information should be private between the carrier and the customer. If reasonable protections cannot be provided for that information in automated systems, customers should at least have some method for "opting out" of the automated account system itself. Sprint has been very good about staying in touch about this issue. The "end of the line", so to speak, has been Ms. Rochelle Richter at the Sprint Executive Offices. She's an "Executive Analyst" in the offices of the President of Sprint (Mr. LeMay) and the Sprint CEO (Mr. Esrey). She tells me that they have been informed of the concerns I expressed over this system. The number for the Sprint Executive Offices where Ms. Richter (or the other persons mentioned above) can be reached is (800) 347-8988. Ms. Richter also discussed the issue with th