Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa12230; 25 May 93 22:14 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA16537 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Tue, 25 May 1993 20:07:53 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA05749 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Tue, 25 May 1993 20:07:11 -0500 Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 20:07:11 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305260107.AA05749@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #351 TELECOM Digest Tue, 25 May 93 20:06:30 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 351 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Federal Judge Rejects Ban on Recorded Phone Solicitation (Ben Delisle) Re: New York Telephone "Coin Replacement" Card (David J. Greenberger) Re: New York Telephone "Coin Replacement" Card (Robert J. Woodhead) Re: New York Telephone "Coin Replacement" Card (Richard Osterberg) Re: New York Telephone "Coin Replacement" Card (Frederick Roeber) Re: New York Telephone "Coin Replacement" Card (Peter Rukavina) Re: Hinsdale Disaster (Harold Hallikainen) Re: Hinsdale Disaster (Pat Turner) Re: AT&T Getting Desperate? (David E. Bernholdt) Re: AT&T Getting Desperate? (John Rice) Re: AT&T's Calling Card (A. Alan Toscano) Re: AT&T's Calling Card (Dave Niebuhr) Re: AT&T and Spectrum Technologies (trif@meade.u.washington.edu) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 12:37:49 -0700 From: delisle@eskimo.com (Ben Delisle) Subject: Federal Judge Rejects Ban on Recorded Phone Solicitation Organization: Eskimo North (206 367-3837) Public Access Internet. (eskimo.com) **>> The Seattle Times / Seattle Post-Intelligencer <<** **>> Sunday, May 23, 1993. Page A-9 <<** o Times News Service Federal Judge rejects ban on recorded phone solicitation. Portland Ore. - A federal judge, ruling in a lawsuit brought by a chimney sweep, has stuck down a federal privacy law that would have banned telephone messages with recorded messages. "We are extremely happy," Ron Moser, who operates the A-A-A-1 Lucky Leprechaun chimney-maintainence service, said yesterday after learning of the decision. "It's been a long fight." U.S. District Judge James Redden granted a permanent injuction Friday in a lawsuit brought by Moser and his wife, Kathryn, who have used an automated telephone calling system for seven years to solicit customers with a prerecorded message. On a typical day, Moser said the computer driven system will make 500 phone calls, producibg three to four customers. The Telephone Protection Act of 1991 was scheduled to go into effect effect Dec. 20 1992 but was enjoined Dec. 18 by Redden pending the outcome of the lawsuit. The judge found the law unconstitutional because it was aimed at a small portion of the telemarketing industry. He said evidence presented to the court showed that recorded messages make up than three percent of the marketing calls received by Americans. "Congress is attempting to ban totally a form of commercial speech for the sake of reducing only slightly the number of telephone solicitations," Ridden wrote. He also noted that the law banned recorded solicitations for commercial purposed while still allowing the same type of calls for nonprofit purposes. ---------------- delisle@eskimo.com ------------------------------ From: djg2@crux4.cit.cornell.edu (David J. Greenberger) Subject: Re: New York Telephone "Coin Replacement" Card Reply-To: djg2@cornell.edu Organization: Young Israel of Cornell Date: 25 May 93 23:30:41 GMT Our Moderator notes: > [Moderator's Note: All the pre-pay 'debit card' style phone cards wind > up letting the telco (or other issuer) 'hold your money' for some period > of time. The same thing happens when you buy a money order at your bank > or from American Express to send someone: the bank or Amex gets the use > of your money for some period of time until the negotiable instrument > gets redeemed. In the case of Amex money orders, the float is several > million dollars per day that Amex uses interest free. We who sell those > cards prefer to emphasize the other side -- that the cards can be very > convenient for people who may not have the change when they want to make > a call and don't wish to be punished by the surcharge most calling cards > tack on to calls. Different strokes for different folks. PAT] Although I haven't seen the cards or the phones that accept them, I agree, such cards can be useful. However, there are two problems I see with the system in use. First, very few phones have these card receptacles. Second, the charge per call is still the same. (This is important because it's *very* easy to accidentally walk away from the phone without your card, to which you might have just added $50. There has to be something to balance that out.) Here at Cornell, the vast majority of on-campus publicly available copy machines (in fact, I only know of one exception out of a few hundred), as well as the microfilm and microfiche printers in the libraries, have so-called VendaCard receptacles. (On the other hand, only about a quarter of the machines, if that many, have coin receptacles.) Unlike the New York Telephone card, these VendaCards cost 56 cents, but copies cost 8 cents instead of 10 (microform printouts are the same 10 cents). These cards are definitely worth it, because they can be used *anywhere* on campus, they're very convenient, and the user saves 20% on copies. David J. Greenberger BBS: (212) 496-8324 HST DS Internet: djg2@cornell.edu RIME: Common, ->48 ------------------------------ From: trebor@foretune.co.jp (Robert J Woodhead) Subject: Re: New York Telephone "Coin Replacement" Card Organization: Foretune Co., Ltd. Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 00:32:33 GMT schuster@Panix.Com (Michael Schuster) writes: > Yes. So New York Telephone wants you to loan them $5, at 5% simple > interest compounded once, redeemable ONLY as telephone line useage. No > thanks. These cards are common in Japan, and most public phones take them. Actually, the 5% interest is quite good; given the rate on T-Bills these days, if you use up the card in less than a year, you are ahead of the game. The real money made in phone-cards isn't from holding your money while you use the card. As NTT over here in Japan quickly found out, the real money is in convincing people NOT to use them at all. They did this by 1) ensuring that using a card defaces it (little holes are punched in them; at least one of the guys who goes around emptying confetti out of phones has become an artist, using them to make murals) and 2) making them collectible. Here in Japan, cards are used as promotional items for all sorts of products, and there are many collectors of the things -- sort of like stamp collectors, except that while stamp collectors want USED stamps, card collectors want unused ones. NTT will even make custom cards in small numbers to be used as gifts for weddings, etc. Of course, they charge a premium to make the custom cards, up to twice face value ... I'm told that the escrow account for cards issued but not redeemed is up into the multi-billions range now. Oh yeah, some telecom news. NTT plans to triple the rate for local calls from 10yen/3 minutes to 10yen/minute over the next year. Ouch! Robert J. Woodhead, Biar Games / AnimEigo, Incs. trebor@forEtune.co.jp AnimEigo US Office Email (for general questions): 72447.37@compuserve.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: New York Telephone "Coin Replacement" Card From: osterber@husc8.harvard.edu (Richard Osterberg) Date: 25 May 93 18:48:50 GMT > Yes. So New York Telephone wants you to loan them $5, at 5% simple > interest compounded once, redeemable ONLY as telephone line useage. No > thanks. Moderator responded: > cards prefer to emphasize the other side -- that the cards can be very > convenient for people who may not have the change when they want to make > a call and don't wish to be punished by the surcharge most calling cards > tack on to calls. Different strokes for different folks. PAT] Plus ... there's also a large number of people who will simply lose their cards ... if you lose your calling card, you don't lose money ... if you lose that anonymous little debit card, there's $2.75 (or whatever) down the drain ... or rather ... in their pockets. Rick Osterberg osterber@husc.harvard.edu 617-493-7784 617-493-3892 2032 Harvard Yard Mail Center Cambridge, MA 02138-7510 USA [Moderator's Note: *Except* in the case of the now infamous Talk Tickets which you know who peddles to pay his rent. Since my cards do not swipe, and since the intelligence is all in the network rather than in the phone, the serial number can! be! blacklisted! Yes ... With the $2 Talk Tickets you always have 'change for the phone'; if you lose the card there is little loss but it can be suspended if you know the serial number and promptly report it (don't misquote me on this; they are not eager to spend the time putting a stop on a lost $2 card but will do so on larger denominations). You don't have to waste time looking for a card reader phone, and if you have a good memory you don't even need to carry the card around. Lost cards reported to my office are promptly replaced *IF* you can provide a valid serial number for the lost card. You see, I get to diddle the computer a little differently than you ... I get to call the computer and void a lost card and validate a 'special issue'; that is, if your lost card had two units left, I void that serial and issue a new serial with two units for you to use. PAT] ------------------------------ From: roeber@vxcrna.cern.ch (Frederick Roeber) Subject: Re: New York Telephone "Coin Replacement" Card Reply-To: roeber@cern.ch Organization: CERN -- European Organization for Nuclear Research Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 08:56:29 GMT In article , schuster@Panix.Com (Michael Schuster) writes: > In article jeffj%jiji@uunet.UU.NET > (Jeffrey Jonas) writes: >> At both sides of the Staten Island Ferry (New York), there are yellow >> New York Telephone pay phones that take only a card. The vending >> machine that dispenses the cards says that the cards cost $5, and are >> worth $5.25. > Yes. So New York Telephone wants you to loan them $5, at 5% simple > interest compounded once, redeemable ONLY as telephone line useage. No > thanks. These are rather common in Europe. I have a nearly identical one for the Swiss PTT (except it's 0% interest -- don't expect the Swiss to give anything away!), for two reasons: 1) it is often hard to find phones that accept coins, and 2) depending on where you're calling, it can be difficult to feed coins in fast enough. I'm probably going to have to buy a French one, too, because the only public phones I've seen here that take coins are private ones that add a new dimension to the phrase, 'COCOT sleaze'. I think the main reason for going to these is that it avoids having phones vandalized for the coin box. The interest they get is just gravy. The Swiss use a simple magnetic system like what is described in the quoted article. You can imagine how secure they are. The much less law-abiding French have more of a "smartcard" approach, with a little circuit imbedded in the card. Frederick G. M. Roeber | CERN -- European Center for Nuclear Research e-mail: roeber@cern.ch or roeber@caltech.edu | work: +41 22 767 31 80 r-mail: CERN/PPE, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland | home: +33 50 20 82 99 [Moderator's Note: We have so few 'card reader' phones in the USA (compared to the straight coin slot style) it made better sense here to let the network handle it and have the users punch in the digits. By now, everyone should surely have their package of Talk Tickets who ordered them in the past month. Anyone who wants more can have them. I now have a stock of them available for immediate delivery. $15 for ten tickets with two dollars in calling time on each ticket. If you want a single ticket just to try it out, send $2. Order from my office with check or money order payable to TELECOM Digest. Telecom Digest / 2241 West Howard Street #208 / Chicago, IL 60645 Thanks. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 May 93 18:02:35 -0300 From: caprukav@atlas.cs.upei.ca (Peter Rukavina) Subject: Re: New York Telephone "Coin Replacement" Card Organization: Prince Edward Island Crafts Council > At both sides of the Staten Island Ferry (New York), there are yellow > New York Telephone pay phones that take only a card... > ...(800) 545-EASY for more information (but I'm not sure the number is > valid out of NY). The number is good (for some strange reason) from here on Prince Edward Island, Canada ... roughly 1,300 km from the nearest New York telephone. ------------------------------ From: hhallika@tuba.calpoly.edu (Harold Hallikainen) Subject: Re: Hinsdale Disaster Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 22:42:03 GMT In article Cliff Sharp writes: > From listening to the ham radio operators who had taken over > emergency services for places like Hinsdale Hospital (by special > dispensation of the local FCC Chief Engineer), it was my impression > that this was done by the use of a mobile unit/truck outside the > building. I may be wrong, but my (sometimes faulty) memory tells me > that "inside" phone service was not restored until two to three weeks > after the disaster. The "trucks" also were mentioned on the local > news services as being made available to people who were otherwise > unable to access "normal" telephone service, and very long lines of > people were reported. It does seem like telephone companies would have trucks with switches and satellite terminals in them. Just drive the truck up, plug it in and you have a few thousand lines back in service. All calls that could not be switched locally would go to the satellite. Harold Hallikainen ap621@Cleveland.Freenet.edu Hallikainen & Friends, Inc. hhallika@oboe.calpoly.edu 141 Suburban Road, Bldg E4 phone 805 541 0200 fax 544 6715 San Luis Obispo, CA 93401-7590 telex 4932775 HFI UI ------------------------------ From: turner@Dixie.Com Date: Tue, 25 May 93 16:13 EDT From: rsiatl!turner@rsiatl.UUCP Subject: Re: Hinsdale Disaster Todd Inch writes: > I would hope the critical systems (air traffic control, 911) would > have some limited microwave or radio backup? Probably not. 911, I can't discuss except to say that for many small towns the computer center may be hundreds of miles away. Usually a backup site is used. As far as CO's are concerned, if the dedicated trunks go out, there can be POTS backups. The FAA does have an extensive system of microwave links. Most towers don't have microwave to them, but are connected to the links for some of their services. The Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ATRCC's or centers) are the most vulnerable as they may cover many states. Atlanta center as an example has four microwave links coming into it. The towers themselves could make do with the radios in the building is most cases to contact the planes. In the event of a major telecom failure, cutting both the telco and telco/FAA microwave, there are HF and VHF FM radios that can be used to communicate with the centers. I would also imagine that the facilities could use their aero band transcevers to talk to the centers' frequency agile BUEC (Backup Emergency Communication) sites, sometimes (not always, lest the microwave fail) colocated with the microwave sites. As funding is available, low density microwave is being used to connect the control towers to the microwave backbone. As we speak, the FAA's leased lines are being cut over to MCI LINCS contract. The contract establishes multiple diverse trunks between the more critical facilities (centers, large TRACONS, large towers and automated flight service stations) and MCI's network hubs. There is actually more to it than just what I have mentioned, but this should give you an idea of how seriously the five thumbed people at the FAA take their communications. Not the opinion of the FAA... Pat Turner KB4GRZ FAA Telecommunications turner@dixie.com ------------------------------ Date: 26 May 1993 00:44:36 GMT From: de_bernholdt@fermi.pnl.gov Subject: Re: AT&T Getting Desperate? Organization: Battelle Pacific Northwest Labs, Richland, WA In article , co057@cleveland.Freenet. Edu (Steven H. Lichter) writes: > All of the L/D carriers are trying to get as much business as they > can. I can attest to that. I recently moved to Washington and signed with MCI for long distance. I remembered seeing a commercial that said they were offering $30 free LD for new accounts. I asked about it and was told that I could have my choice of $30 free domestic LD or $100 (!!!) free international LD. Since my wife has a job in Canada at the moment, you can guess which one I picked. I also got a certificate for $10 off. None of it cash, like AT&T appears to be doing, but just as useful to me! David E. Bernholdt, MSIN K1-90 | Email: de_bernholdt@fermi.pnl.gov Molecular Science Research Center | Phone: 509 375 4387 Pacific Northwest Laboratory, P.O.B. 999 | Fax: 509 375 6631 Richland, WA 99352 | I speak only for myself! ------------------------------ From: rice@ttd.teradyne.com Subject: Re: AT&T Getting Desperate? Organization: Teradyne Inc., Telecommunications Division Date: Wed, 26 May 93 00:45:20 GMT In article , padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com (A. Padgett Peterson) writes: > In the "busy" circuit, I suspect that it might work a tad better if > the base and collector in Q1 were "slammed". I suspect that you're either 'confused' or that you know something that I didn't learn in school (since it worked when I built it). Could you explain this comment? John Rice K9IJ rice@ttd.teradyne.com ------------------------------ From: atoscano@speedway.net (A Alan Toscano) Subject: Re: AT&T's Calling Card Date: 25 May 1993 12:16:48 -0700 Organization: Speedway Free Access -- Dial 10288-1-503-520-2222 In article wah@zach.fit.edu (Bill Huttig) writes: > I just received a replacement card (my old one was peeling). AT&T has > stopped embossing the cards (MCI stopped on some of it's cards a long > time ago). But they are still printing the PIN. They even label it PIN > on the card now. AT&T will omit the PIN if you ask them to. This feature has been available for a few years now, but they don't publicize it for some reason! I learned of this only because my employer issued me an AT&T Corporate Calling Card with the PIN omitted, and so I called AT&T to ask if I could omit it from my residential card as well. A Alan Toscano -- P O Box 741982 -- Houston, TX 77274 -- 713 216-6616 atoscano@speedway.net ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 May 93 17:45:39 EDT From: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) Subject: Re: AT&T's Calling Card wah@zach.fit.edu (Bill Huttig) writes: > I just received a replacement card (my old one was peeling). AT&T has > stoped embossing the cards (MCI stopped on some of it's cards a long > time ago). But they are still printing the PIN. They even label it PIN > on the card now. My AT&T card doesn't show my PIN but my NYtel card does. In the case of the latter, my phone number isn't shown. Dave Niebuhr Internet: niebuhr@bnl.gov / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, LI, NY 11973 (516)-282-3093 Senior Technical Specialist: Scientific Computer Facility ------------------------------ From: trif@mead.u.washington.edu (Trif) Subject: Re: AT&T and Spectrum Technologies Hanky Panky Date: 25 May 1993 07:42:13 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle In article dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) writes: > Yesterday's and today's {Newsday} (5/21 and 5/22) had articles > concerning a join venture by AT&T and Spectrum Information > Technologies, Inc. about sending computer data via cellular service. > No big deal, you say. > Well, it seems that the stock of Spectrum took off and all of a sudden > it peaked well beyond what it was worth and then the decline occurred > fairly quickly. Hmm, says me; a little hanky panky going on. What happened is that Spectrum held a news conference announcing the deal with AT&T and described it as "worth hundreds of millions of dollars". So the stock took off, as it should have if this news were true. Then someone got the bright idea of asking AT&T for their opinion on the deal, and AT&T said that it was "worth a few million". So the stock dropped like a rock. > Sure enough, today's issue noted that the President of Spectrum has > been contacted by at least nine attorneys who are looking into what > went on because the stock skyrocketed and then dropped in price in > less than a week. Even the analysts are wondering what went on. If a company gives out "substantially misleading" information and the stock price suffers as a result, it is grounds for a shareholder lawsuit. > Unfortunately, there isn't that much information floating around about > this in the paper. I haven't looked at the {Wall Street Journal} or > the {New York Times} so I can't say what those papers reported. Try reading misc.invest. :) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #351 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa15556; 25 May 93 23:56 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA00831 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Tue, 25 May 1993 21:27:44 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA13662 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Tue, 25 May 1993 21:27:02 -0500 Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 21:27:02 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305260227.AA13662@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #352 TELECOM Digest Tue, 25 May 93 21:27:00 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 352 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: New ScanFone Features (Smart Call Waiting?) (Pat Turner) Re: New ScanFone Features (Smart Call Waiting?) (Steve Forrette) Re: Why CO's Have No Windows (Mark Evans) Re: Why CO's Have No Windows (Fred R. Goldstein) Re: MCI Doesn't Know Czechoslovakia Has Split (Richard Budd) Re: MCI -- 10222 vs Dial 1? (Fritz Whittington) Re: MCI -- 10222 vs Dial 1? (Charles Mattair) Re: Cellular Charging? (Paul Robinson) Re: Cellular Charging? (Steve Forrette) Re: Cellular Charging? (John N. Dreystadt) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: turner@Dixie.Com Date: Tue, 25 May 93 16:13 EDT From: rsiatl!turner@rsiatl.UUCP Subject: Re: New ScanFone Features (Smart Call Waiting?) Ken Mandelberg writes: > What really caught my eye was a note in the article that the phone > could display "who's trying to reach you if you`re already using the > phone. The latter service likely would cost extra.". > What I really would like to see is a modem that could reliably detect > a call waiting signal (while running V32BIS/V42BIS). Caller-ID info > would be a bonus. I'd be happy to just be able to tell the modem to > drop the data call and switch to voice if it detects call waiting. No > modem maker seems to be interested or perhaps able to do this with the > current "in band" call waiting beeps. Perhaps the new service would > be easier to handle. There was an article in the April {IEEE Communication Magazine} on this service. Basically the article, written by a Bellcore staff member, said that features have become too numerous and complicated for most people to be able to use them effectively. The article also discussed CLID/CW interaction, saying Caller ID would be most useful if the information could be presented along with CW beep. As a solution to this problem, the article proposed sending the CLID FSK info after the CW beep. The CW beep would serve to wake up the modem. Using >1200 bps was mentioned, but dismissed due to cost of upgrading the network and increased CPE costs. There was no mention of any out of band/channel signaling methods. The bulk of the article was concerned with the use of a softkey display telephone, and it's interface with the PSTN. This interface, called Analog Display Services Interface (ADSI), also uses the Bell 202 1200 bps protocal. Not the opinions of the FAA... Pat Turner KB4GRZ FAA Telecommunications turner@dixie.com ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: New ScanFone Features (Smart Call Waiting?) Date: 26 May 1993 01:55:22 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article km@mathcs.emory.edu writes: > What I really would like to see is a modem that could reliably detect > a call waiting signal (while running V32BIS/V42BIS). Caller-ID info > would be a bonus. I'd be happy to just be able to tell the modem to > drop the data call and switch to voice if it detects call waiting. This one's easy. Almost all current modems support this last "feature." One of the "S" registers in a Hayes-compatible modem determines the maximum amount of time the modem will allow the carrier from the other end to disappear before deciding that the call is to be dropped. Simply set this value to a duration less that the length of the call waiting tone, and the modem will hang up when the call waiting "beep" occurs, since during the beep the other end of the call is not heard. When the telco switch sees that the original call was hung up on (by the modem), it will start to send ringing current, and then you can answer with your regular phone. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: evansmp@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mark Evans) Subject: Re: Why CO's Have No Windows Organization: Aston University Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 12:31:27 GMT Martin Harriss (bdsgate!martin@uunet.UU.NET) wrote: > Anyway, this switch was installed in a house. Not a structure built > to look like a house, but an actual house bought for the purpose of > installing the switch. It has a nice front lawn and fence and a gate; > if you look beyond through the bay windows you can see the equipment > racks complete with the blinking lights. It must have been a large house a 10,000 line Stowger plus batteries plus PSU is not a very small piece of kit. > I heard two stories of why this came to be. On was that there was > some kind of foul-up in the design of the building, making it too > small to house the equipment. With a planned cut over date, the PO > had no option but to purchase an existing building, to wit a house. They would have had to make quite a few modifications, like solid concrete floor. > The STD code for Mogador was 0737 83 (Redhill 83.) By now it's > probably an electronic switch of some kind with 6-digit numbers, > linked numbering with Redhill. Or simply replace the original with a concentrator unit, no need to reroute most of the wiring. Mark Evans evansmp@uhura.aston.ac.uk +(44) 21 429 9199 (Home) evansmp@cs.aston.ac.uk +(44) 21 359 6531 x4039 (Office) ------------------------------ From: goldstein@isdnip.lkg.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein) Subject: Re: Why CO's Have No Windows Reply-To: goldstein@carafe.tay2.dec.com Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 03:49:17 GMT The exception proves the rule. Back in the 1930s, office buildings had no central air conditioning, just huge windows in their stone walls. The Rutherford, NJ central office is built in that style. Sitting on a streetcorner a block off the town center, the building has huge glass windows right along the street. You can stand there and look in at the eleven-foot high wire frames that sit on the first floor. [Moderator's Note: Tell me about it! Even until the late 1950's and early 1960's, air conditioning in office buildings was not all that common with windows that actually opened to let in air and overhead ceiling fans the norm. If it started to rain, everyone was expected to go to one of the windows and close it, then open it again after the rain stopped. When I worked at the University of Chicago telephone room in those years we had no air conditioning -- just six or seven overhead ceiling fans which spun very slowly and windows we opened in the summer. If the temperature was in the nineties all day and the eighties all night, you suffered. Night workers could not sleep during the day because of the heat, and things cooled off just enough over- night to make it hard to stay awake. Two blocks down the street from my switchboard room was the Kenwood central office. It was an old building with windows everywhere. In the late evening, when things were very quiet out on the street -- not like today with gun fire and gang wars the norm on Chicago streets -- anywhere within a block you could hear the 'Kenwood Bell' chattering and clacking away. Five seconds of silence without a relay or two or three 'talking' to its neighbors and them answering back was unusual. You could tell how busy the central exchange was at any time by listening to the relays as you walked past on the sidewalk outside. Sometimes it was so busy there was never a single second of silence, but a constant clack-clack, rat-tat-tat all evening. And when thunder was heard, a minute or two later a woman wearing an operator's headset would appear in a second floor window, stick her head out and look up, then test with her hand out the window. Feeling rain, she'd walk to every window and pull it down. A switchman downstairs would be going around closing all those windows also. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 May 93 17:34:54 EDT From: Richard Budd Subject: Re: MCI Doesn't Know Czechoslovakia Has Split Organization: CSAV UTIA David Leibold writes in TELECOM Digest V13 #342: > While the continued presence of one country code for both the Czech > Republic and Slovakia is confusing to MCI, there is at least a way to > find out the republic based on the area code. (Details about area codes omitted) > I have not heard of any plans to set up separate country codes yet. I heard something that the Czech Republic would retain 42 and Slovakia would get 37X, a country code similar to what the Baltics and the other newly independent nations are receiving. However, it appears the Slovaks want the new country codes for both countries to be of a format 42X. All rumors from different forums. Considering the number of newly independent nations in Europe, I think the Slovak idea of three digit country codes is the better one. For anyone who's been in E. Europe, urgent doesn't mean "Had to be done yesterday", but more like "We'll get around to it the beginning of next month'. The zip codes have not changed yet either. The zip codes in Prague are 1XXXX, with other Czech Republic zip codes beginning with 2-7. Bratislava's zip code is 8XXXX with other Slovak Republic zip codes beginning with either 9 or 0. (See my signature for an example). There are no new zip codes for either country on the horizon. What with the complaints about reunited Germany's new zip code system, I can under- stand why no one wants to fool around with the zip codes anytime soon. in March, the programmers began splitting the Internet into a .CZ domain for a new CZEARN based in Prague and an .SQ domain for SQEARN based in Bratislava. It has been a slow process and the network rerouters are not all together pleased about tearing up the network. The result is three domains (.CS, .CZ, .SQ) and some fancy addressing to communicate with Palacky University in Olomouc last month on my part. And georg@lise.physik.tu-berlin.de (Georg Schwarz) writes in TELECOM Digest V13 #349: > I'm just curious: do they still list EAST and WEST Germany? No. It's just Germany with a single country code (49). The former East Germany's country code (37) is being given out with an extra digit to all the new nations in Europe becoming independent: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Ukraine, etc. Richard Budd USA 139 S. Hamilton St. klub@maristb.bitnet Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 CZ Kolackova 8/1905 budd@cspgas11.bitnet 18 200 Praha 8 budd@vmtcp.utia.cas.cs SQ ul. L. Kossutha 69 07 701 Kral' Chlmec [Moderator's Note: The former 'West Germans' were very kind and generous to their greatly expanded 'family', weren't they? The consolidation was a real bummer financially for the western government. There was a tremendous cost involved in absorbing the eastern part in, converting the money, assuming all the obligations they did, etc. And how long did it take to upgrade the phone network in the east, and at what cost? Has that been completed yet? Maybe a German reader can update us on the status of east <=> west German telecommunications. For quite some time after the consolidation, east <=> west telecom was virtually non- existent. I know the upgrade must have been a financial killer. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 May 93 13:37:29 CDT From: fritz@mirage.hc.ti.com (Fritz Whittington) Subject: Re: MCI -- 10222 vs Dial 1? In comp.dcom.telecom varney@ihlpl.att.com writes: > Dallas is one of those places where I think SWB has a "Railroad > Commission" (whatever their PUC is) directive to allow intra-LATA IXC > calls in LATAs where the Intra-LATA TOLL rates do not subsidize > Residential phone rates. (Such subsidies are the usual reason that > PUCs mention for prohibiting IXC intra-LATA calls; in effect, the PUC > is taxing intra-LATA Toll users via the TELCo to keep local monthly > rates lower.) Just to set the record straight, the Texas Railroad Commission does *not* set telephone rates or regulate the telephone industry. That would be pretty stupid. The Texas Railroad Commission has the task of regulating how much oil and gas can be pumped from various wells in the state. As far as I know, they don't have any regulatory power over the railroads. And before you ask, I don't know why! Fritz Whittington Texas Instruments, P.O. Box 655474, MS 446 Dallas, TX 75265 Shipping address: 13510 North Central Expressway, MS 446 Dallas, TX 75243 fritz@ti.com Office: +1 214 995 0397 FAX: +1 214 995 6194 Since I am not an official TI spokesperson, these opinions contain no spokes. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 May 93 12:41:38 CDT From: mattair@synercom.hounix.org (Charles Mattair) Subject: Re: MCI -- 10222 vs Dial 1? Organization: Synercom Technology, Inc., Houston, TX In article deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) writes: > Alas, Pat has again fallen victim to the common practice of > extrapolating the behavior of one LEC in one state to that of all LECs > in the entire US. > Some states permit IXCs to carry intraLATA traffic if the customer > enters a carrier access code. Some states don't. It appears that > Texas does, and Illinois doesn't. If the state permits IXCs to carry > intraLATA traffic, the LEC is obligated to deliver a call dialed with > 10XXX prepended to the selected IXC, regardless of the dialed digits; Be careful of extrapolations. Agreed, Texas permits IXC's to carry intraLATA traffic if dialed with a PIC. However, it apparently does not mandate it. SWB in Houston, and in Dallas/Fort Worth as someone reported, will pass an intraLATA call to an IXC if the call is dialed with an access code. However, GTE (call them a telephone company for sake of argument) in the Clear Lake/League City area (halfway between Houston and the coast) will not. Dialing 102880 + 7D or 102880 + 10D gets you " GTE" for an intraLATA call; 1028800 gets you an AT&T operator. Obtopic: is there any rational explanation for the wide disparity between SWBs rates and IXC rates for the same intraLATA calls? Charles Mattair (work) mattair@synercom.hounix.org (home) cgm@elmat.synercom.hounix.org [Moderator's Note: In Texas, when AT&T gets a call dumped on them which 'rightfully' belongs to GTE or SWB, do they handle the call 'as agent for GTE/SWB' like they do here? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 20:27:15 -0400 (EDT) From: Paul Robinson Reply-To: Paul Robinson Subject: Re: Cellular Charging? Laurence Chiu wrote: > I just began to investigate getting cellular service in the > Bay Area and was rather surprised to find that one gets charged > not only when making calls, but when receiving them also. > Presumably this is old hat to Americans but as someone who > arrived from New Zealand it was a surprise. This is generally the way charging is done here. The companies that provide service are the local telephone company and a separate company. As such, the companies generally are selling to an "affluent" or "business" crowd and as such, are charging what they think they can get away with. Wireline telephone service has many more customers who are more insistent about complaing to the local PUC about the cost of service; until cellular customers do this, the rates will be higher than wired telephony. (I am assuming that the cost of providing service for cellular customers is not higher than telephone companies running wire all over the place.) > Why should I have to foot the bill for someone calling me? I > don't in my domestic phone service, why in cellular? Was there > some technical reason it was implemented this way? Is this the > same throughout the US? Some carriers, as they see the possibility of more customers, have gone to offering nights and weekends with no airtime charge. But this is the way things are done because they can do this. > In New Zealand one only pays for outgoing calls, callers pay > to call you. Granted we are not a big country, New Zealand has about 3.1 million people in a group of small islands almost exactly equal to the land area of Colorado. As it is much more heavily Socialist than the United States, the number of wealthy people are bound to be a smaller number in absolute and relative terms than say a U.S. metro area of about that size (City of Los Angeles, Chicago, DC, Atlanta). As such, the funds probably aren't there to charge the higher rates that U.S. companies do. > but all cellular phones are assigned a specific area code(s). Had the U.S. had a single (government owned) company running all the telephone service here, that could have been done, such as assigning certain prefixes in each area code for cellular phones, or in very heavy traffic areas, assign single area codes only to cellular phones, such as Southern California; New York/New Jersey/Connecticut; Gary Ind/Chicago/Milwaukee. But we don't so it wasn't. Also if it had, we would have Post Office levels of phone service, i.e. worse than GTE. > It is the same rate to call anywhere in NZ from a cell phone > though this is not a technical restriction, more a policy. > It is clear from the number that you are calling that > it is a cellular phone and you know up front what the charges > will be (around US$0.40/minute anytime of the day). We had the same thing when area code 900 numbers were all 50c a call. > Telecom NZ recognizing that some people might be reluctant to > call you to seek your services because of that cost, also > offer local numbers which actually ring on your cell phone. > The caller pays no charges if calling local, you pay a monthly > charge for the number and some charge per minute for the calls. > The caller has no idea that he or she is calling a cell phone. We have this with 1-800 numbers or call-forwarded local numbers. You can route a 1-800 number to a cellular phone, if you wanted to do so, or get one of those numbers that can be re-routed on request. ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: Cellular Charging? Date: 25 May 1993 02:27:46 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article LCHIU@HOLONET.NET writes: > I just began to investigate getting cellular service in the Bay Area > and was rather surprised to find that one gets charged not only when > making calls, but when receiving them also. Presumably this is old hat > to Americans but as someone who arrived from New Zealand it was a > surprise. > Why should I have to foot the bill for someone calling me? I don't in > my domestic phone service, why in cellular? Was there some technical > reason it was implemented this way? Is this the same throughout the > US? The problem is how to implement the billing. The situation in the US is much more complicated than in just about any other country. The cellular carriers are independant of the local carriers and the long distance carriers (although they are sometimes owned by a local or long distance company). How would collection of the airtime revenue work since the caller could be calling from any of several hundred local telephone companies, and possibly also over any of several hundred long distance companies? The procedures for collecting charges for regular long distnace calls is well-established, but I just don't think it is feasable to try to do this with cellular in the US. There are a couple of cellular companies that have experminted with "caller pays" as an option, but there are limitations. I believe those that have done so are only able to collect the extra revenue if the caller is in the same LATA and using the LEC to place the call. The cellular carrier can then either block all other calls (making the cellular phone uncallable from anywhere outside of the LATA - not very good), make the cellular subscriber pay airtime anyway for inbound calls from outside of the LATA (this would be silly - why would someone sign up for caller-pays service if many times they would have to pay anyway, and not know at the time of the call if they were paying for it), or just eat the airtime charges for inbound inter-LATA calls (which the cellular carrier is not likely to want to do). Also, considering how high the cellular rates can be, it would be likely that they would be blocked from many company/hotel PBX's. Then there's the case of COCOTs -- how would billing work from them? Again, I just don't think this is feasable in the US. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: dreystadt@LAA.COM (john n. dreystadt) Subject: Re: Cellular Charging? Date: 25 May 1993 17:44:50 GMT Organization: Lynn-Arthur Associates, Ann Arbor, MI Reply-To: dreystadt@LAA.COM The reasons have much to do with how cellular in the U.S. came to pass. Our cellular carriers often have little to do with the land line carriers. This makes billing the land line phone an extra charge for calling a cellular phone very difficult. We could have set up a system where the caller pays if both parties are cellular but then you have to try to explain this exception to the users. Who pays what charges for cellular service depend on the local customs mostly. It can be argued that the U.S. system is fairest in that the receiver of the call is still tying up one channel in a cell. Who pays for an international call made to a cellular phone in New Zealand? The international rates are set by mutual agreement between the national carriers. I am not aware of special rates to call New Zealand cellular phones. I am interested in how other countries do the billing. I know that Mexico does something similar to the U.S. system. The exception is roamers. If a roamer comes into your current region and your carrier recognizes this and directs the call to the roamer without going out of region, the call is local. In the U.S., normally all billing to the originating party is based on the number dialed and not on the location of the terminating party. I believe that Norway uses the same scheme that New Zealand does. Anyone know the rules in other countries? John N. Dreystadt Lynn-Arthur Associates dreystadt@laa.com Home:313-878-9719 Work:313-995-5590 These are personal opinions not corporate opinions. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #352 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa02162; 26 May 93 7:31 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA15406 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Wed, 26 May 1993 05:15:45 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA14833 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Wed, 26 May 1993 05:15:05 -0500 Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 05:15:05 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305261015.AA14833@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #353 TELECOM Digest Wed, 26 May 93 05:15:00 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 353 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Autodialer Plaguing Indianapolis (J. Eric Townsend) Re: Autodialer Plaguing Indianapolis (Steven J. Tucker) Re: Singapore Airlines Begins In-Flight Fax Service (Mark Evans) Re: Pacific Bell Offering Computer Disk Billing (Justin Leavens) Re: Pacific Bell Offering Computer Disk Billing (Christopher Sims) Re: Want a Good Phone (Stan Hall) Re: Strange Prefix (Carl Oppedahl) Re: Help Needed Getting Internet Connection (Carl Oppedahl) Re: Tip/Ring, Red/Green, etc. (Harold Hallikainen) Re: Oops, You Didn't Hear That (David H. Close) Re: Telecom History (John A. Shriver) Re: Opinions Wanted: Future of Healthcare Telecom (Harold Hallikainen) Re: Message Length on Display Pagers (Rich Greenberg) Re: Stocks VIA Internet (Steve Forrette) Re: Auto-Callback Offered, Without Caller-ID! (Arthur Rubin) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jet@nas.nasa.gov (J. Eric Townsend) Subject: Re: Autodialer Plaguing Indianapolis Organization: NASA Ames Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 17:56:11 GMT William.K.Kessler writes: > It appears that Indianapolis is being plagued by an automated > telephone dialer (possibly a trolling FAX machine or > cracker). > I received a call to my home number on April 24th at 3:31 AM. > The call was some type of machine that beeped at about one > second intervals. The call was from 317-471-XXXY. Quite probably a fax. Suggestion from a friend (when I had a similar problem): beg/borrow a fax machine and set it up overnight. Find out who the faxer is. Have them removed from the face of the planet. J. Eric Townsend jet@nas.nasa.gov 415.604.4311 NASA Ames Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation | play: jet@well.sf.ca.us Parallel Systems Support, CM-5 POC | '92 R100R / DoD# 0378 PGP2.1 public key available upon request or finger jet@simeon.nas.nasa.gov ------------------------------ From: dh395@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steven J Tucker) Subject: Re: Autodialer Plaguing Indianapolis Date: 25 May 1993 20:45:29 GMT Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA) Reply-To: dh395@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steven J Tucker) In a previous article, William.K.Kessler@att.com says: > I hung up and then received a second call about one minute later. The > second call also was a beeping sound. > The pest has been active for about a month. I complained to Indiana > Bell and the Sheriff's department two weeks ago. I received a > follow-up call asking what crime was committed. It's not clear what > laws if any have been violated. > I just received a another call to my home number so it appears that > the pest is making a second pass through the CO. > This time I complained to the Utility Regulatory Commission. The > consumer affairs representative said that they would talk to Indiana > Bell. What you got was probably a telemarketing-fax machine, many companies use them to try and find every fax machine they can and send their crap through it (you've probably gotten weird faxes at work, ads, etc). If it was a cracker/hacker, scanning for dialtones (PBX) or for carriers (computer), you would have heard nothing since the modem would have been in dial mode, not originate mode. All fax machines emit a shot BEEP at regular intervals if they dont get a carrier right way, modems don't. Steven J Tucker dh395@cleveland.Freenet.edu P.O.Box 33475 North Royalton Ohio 44133-0475 [Moderator's Note: I hope you agree with the assessment of both Eric Townsend and myself however that the company -- or whoever owns the fax -- needs to be put out of business when they are located. PAT] ------------------------------ From: evansmp@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mark Evans) Subject: Re: Singapore Airlines Begins In-Flight Fax Service Organization: Aston University Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 12:38:00 GMT > [Moderator's Note: I would think those fax machines would work the > same way as the airfones and have outgoing service only. Of course Looks like the film "Die hard 2" got it wrong then. or maybe its possible for the service company or the airline only to make incoming calls to the phones. > someone on board could send a fax to the nearest airport saying the > plane had been taken over in a hostage situation or something. > Wouldn't that be cute, watching them try to figure out who sent the > fax later on, particularly if it can accept cash money as payment. PAT] Or were using a stolen credit card. Mark Evans |evansmp@uhura.aston.ac.uk +(44) 21 429 9199 (Home) evansmp@cs.aston.ac.uk +(44) 21 359 6531 x4039 (Office) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 10:42:39 -0800 From: leavens@bmf.usc.edu (Justin Leavens) Subject: Re: Pacific Bell Offering Computer Disk Billing Although the message did not specifically mention the data format, it did mention that you could use your spreadsheet to analyze the data. Also, it doesn't mention any type of "viewer" software or startup kit, so I can only assume you get a PC disk with an ASCII file from PacBell. Justin Leavens : Microcomputer Specialist : University of Southern California leavens@bmf.usc.edu My opinion is that my opinions are my opinions ------------------------------ Date: 25 May 1993 19:25:16 +1000 From: Christopher.Sims@cswamp.apana.org.au (Christopher Sims) Subject: Re: Pacific Bell Offering Computer Disk Billing Reply-To: Christopher.Sims@cswamp.apana.org.au Organization: Camelot Swamp bulletin board, Hawthorndene Sth Australia >> An note on my latest phone bill from Pacific Bell announced that >> Pacific Bell will now provide billing to customers by IBM compatible 3 >> 1/2" computer disk (which can be read by Macintosh computers with the >> proper software) for a $15 monthly fee. For a short time, they will be >> waiving the $100 start-up fee. > I am surprised that none of these companies have offered to fax the > phone bills rather than mail them out. When Sprint sends me my phone > bill it costs them about $0.45 in postage, in addition to the printing I am supprised that it has taken companies so long to think of such an idea. Better still why don't they give you an id and have custemers who want to be billed through their modems call a special number loggon and then look at their bill that way. I would say that such a system could symply be linked in with the existing public access systems that telecom would already have in place. Catch you later. Voice +618-3772082 Email address chris@cleese.apana.org.au Origin: Camelot Swamp, Hawthorndene, South Australia (8:7000/8) Camelot Swamp bbs, data: +61-8-370-2133 reply to user@cswamp.apana.org.au ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Want a Good Phone From: kilgore@wuntvor.pillar.com (Stan Hall) Date: Tue, 25 May 93 15:52:44 CDT Organization: The Eternal Apprentice BBS, Oklahoma City, Ok Terry Kennedy writes: > It wasn't uncommon to get a phone in the late 70's and even the > early 80's which used a base, switchhook, and network from the 50's. > Of course, the plastic and cords were changed to accomodate Touch-Tone > dialing, and (later) modular cords. You could easily tell these phones > as the underside was paint- ed black and had a red date code (with an > R for refurbished). You could get a general idea as to the age of the > original unit by looking to see if the feet were round, triangular, or > square, or you could stare at the paint to see if you could make out > the old date. For those of us who really wanted to tempt Ma Bell 8-), > we'd open the top and look at the dates on the ringer and network. Now its time for me to talk about my favorite phone in the house. Of course it is black rotary W/E. This is a classy phone, with its black metal dial wheel and its leather feet, very nice. I just went to check the date on it and underneath the sticker with "C/D 500 11/72" I found the original stamp of "C/D 500 6/54". Best of all I paid about $5 at a thrift store for a 39 year old antique. What it could use is a little bit of buffing up. It surface it covered in light scratches that looks like someone took some steel wool after it. Does anyone what would be the best thing to buff the scratches out with? kilgore@wuntvor.pillar.com (Stan Hall) The Eternal Apprentice BBS, Oklahoma City, OK -- +1 405 942 8794 [Moderator's Note: You do have a wonderful old phone, but 39 years is not an antique in the phone business. Try 50 years or more. since a 40 year life-span is not at all unusual for the old Western Electric units that the Bell System distributed for a century. A couple years ago I found a 'French-style' WE phone with the manufacturing date of May, 1931 stamped on the inside. These were the phones with the round, fat base, the stubby little neck and the four fingers which formed the resting place for the receiver. These phones had no bell in the base, and required a 'side-ringer' in the box on the wall if you recall them, which is also where the 'network' (or the majority of the phone's innards) were located. The phone itself just had a couple relays in it and a faceplate where the dial would go. Brown uncurled, cloth cord connected the receiver to the base, and the same brown cloth cord went from the phone to the wall box where the ringer was located. The phone was *still in service* through a manual PBX cordboard when I found it in an obscure location -- the elevator 'penthouse' (rooftop elevator machinery room) -- of a northside residential hotel. Of course I graciously offered to replace it with a 500 set I happened to have with me, and the building manager was happy to make the trade. PAT] ------------------------------ From: oppedahl@Panix.Com (Carl Oppedahl) Subject: Re: Strange Prefix Date: 25 May 1993 17:34:00 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC In cantor@mv.com (David A. Cantor) writes: > I stayed overnight in Mystic, Connecticut, and was perusing the local > telephone directory. It is SNET territory. There were several > references to prefixes (office codes?) 111 and 112. 111 was listed as > Ledyard, CT, and I don't remember where 112 was. 111 was identified > as a Ledyard prefix in the section on what exchanges you can dial from > where, and in the numerical list of prefixes for the state. 112 was > also in the numerical list. > Pity I couldn't find any 111 listings. I would have tried to dial one > from home if I had found any. > Does anyone have a clue how such a prefix can exist? Can anyone > confirm or deny the actual existence of 111-xxxx numbers? > [Moderator's Note: I rather suspect it was a misprint. PAT] Or, one of those "spikes" that publishers put in to catch people who copy the data ... Carl Oppedahl AA2KW (intellectual property lawyer) 30 Rockefeller Plaza New York, NY 10112-0228 voice 212-408-2578 fax 212-765-2519 [Moderator's Note: Illinois Bell does that sort of thing but in a more realistic way. They put 'ringers' in the book which look like legitimate people and numbers. Then they sue the copy-cats who grab the listings for their own directories, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: oppedahl@Panix.Com (Carl Oppedahl) Subject: Re: Help Needed Getting Internet Connection Date: 25 May 1993 17:45:53 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC In mcginnis@bu.edu (Kelly McGinnis) writes: > I was just wondering where (other than universities), I can gain > access to the e-mail system the schools use. > [Moderator's Note: By 'email system the schools use' I assume you are > referring to the Internet and its affiliated networks -- what you are > connected to and reading now. There are many 'public access unix > sites' you can subscribe to. I suggest checking out the 'nixpub' file; > you may also wish to investigate the Free Net sites; Portal > Communications in San Jose, CA (they have a PC Pursuit/Sprintnet > link); or Chinet in Chicago (chinet.chi.il.us) operated by Randy Suess. > Another good public access site here is 'Gagme' (gagme.chi.il.us) oper- > rated by Greg Gulick. There are plenty of places where you can sign > up for modest fees. PAT] There is a newsgroup which you might not know about, called alt.internet.access.wanted. It is perfect for your query. (I realize you may not have access to that group, in which case that would be why you did not post to it.) Anyway, if you can I suggest you post to that group. If you are not able to post to that group directly, you may wish to consider using one of the services that lets you post via email. For example, you could post to: alt.internet.access.wanted.usenet@decwrl.dec.com and state in your posting that you would like to get responses via email. Best of luck. Carl Oppedahl AA2KW (intellectual property lawyer) 30 Rockefeller Plaza New York, NY 10112-0228 voice 212-408-2578 fax 212-765-2519 ------------------------------ From: hhallika@tuba.calpoly.edu (Harold Hallikainen) Subject: Re: Tip/Ring, Red/Green, etc. Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 22:32:44 GMT In article John_David_Galt@cup.portal. com writes: > 1. If you hold up the plugs at BOTH ends of a standard modular cable, > in the same orientation, you will find that the correspondence between > wire colors and plug pins is reversed; that is, if red is pin three on > one plug, it will be pin four on the other. > This is not a wiring mistake. All modular cables intended for phone > use are "reversed" in this way. Likewise, any gadget that plugs into > the line between telephone and wall should be "reversed" if-and-only-if > its two connectors are the same gender. Which reminds me, why don't we have an RS232 serial connector standard for modular connectors? I'd suggest something symmetrical, probably using the two center pins for ground. Then, all equipment would be wired exactly the same. We'd use reversing cables to connect anything to anything (no more DTE DCE problems!). Of course, not all wires have a symmetrical opposite ... for example TxD and RxD would generally be swapped, RTS and CTS, DTR and DSR, but what do you do with DCD and RI? Anyway, it seems I'm forever making custom serial data cables. A standard would be nice! Harold Hallikainen ap621@Cleveland.Freenet.edu Hallikainen & Friends, Inc. hhallika@oboe.calpoly.edu 141 Suburban Road, Bldg E4 phone 805 541 0200 fax 544 6715 San Luis Obispo, CA 93401-7590 telex 4932775 HFI UI ------------------------------ From: dhclose@cco.caltech.edu (David H. Close) Subject: Re: Oops, You Didn't Hear That Date: 26 May 1993 04:27:51 GMT Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena I don't recall anyone reporting here the long article in the {Los Angeles Times} about one or two months ago in which: An oil tanker captain sent a confidential report on some safety problems to his head office by fax. For some reason, the fax was misdirected and delivered to the US Coast Guard instead. When the ship arrived in LA, the captain was charged with violations after an inspection. The company is protesting on grounds that the report was intended for internal, confidential use. (Hope I don't have my memory too screwed up!) If this hasn't been previous discussed, I'll try to dig out the original article and send more details. Dave Close, BS'66 Ec dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu dave@compata.attmail.com [Moderator's Note: Yes, please send it along, we have not seen it yet here that I can recall. The company will lose however; as long as the government did not use false pretenses to get the fax, or seize it without a warrant, etc, they are entitled to read it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 May 93 00:53:47 EDT From: jas@proteon.com (John A. Shriver) Subject: Re: Telecom History The dial telephones in Chicago in the teens are related to a most interesting story. They were not the "Bell" telephone supplier in Chicago, but a competitor. They are the folks who dug the (now mostly abandoned) tunnels under Chicago that flooded last year. Their original charter was to build a dial telephone system, but they exceeded the charter and made the tunnels large enough for a two foot guage freight railroad. The system was also advertised as "secret", since there was no operator to know who you were calling, nor to spy on your call. After several recieverships (the freight business barely made money, the phones never did), the phone system became part of the "Bell" telephone company. First thing they did was rip out all the Automatic Electric Strowger switches and put in switchboards and operators. The freight railroad finally shut down in 1957. Their last business was hauling out ashes from furnace basements. The city had owned the tunnels since the 1930's, and their failure in the 1990's to maintain the ones that crossed the river led to the floods. For details, see the book "Forty Feet Below". There was a new seventh printing last year. ------------------------------ From: hhallika@tuba.calpoly.edu (Harold Hallikainen) Subject: Re: Opinions Wanted: Future of Healthcare Telecom Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 21:56:47 GMT I have limited contact with the health care industry, so my perceptions may be way off. However, it appears that doctors seem to work very independently. It seems that they would benefit from newsgroups (like this) where one can say "I've got a patient with these symptoms, any comment?" My supervisor (where I teach part time) did a lot of computer research on what was ailing his wife. It took a week or so before the local doctors could figure out what the problem was. The community we have thru Usenet is really great! Doctors otta use it! Harold Hallikainen ap621@Cleveland.Freenet.edu Hallikainen & Friends, Inc. hhallika@oboe.calpoly.edu 141 Suburban Road, Bldg E4 phone 805 541 0200 fax 544 6715 San Luis Obispo, CA 93401-7590 telex 4932775 HFI UI ------------------------------ From: richgr@netcom.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: Message Length on Display Pagers Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Date: Tue, 25 May 1993 23:17:25 GMT In article Steven Warner writes: > Bonnie J Johnson writes: > Steve wanted to know if the bravo could handle longer than 20 > character message [thru programming...?] I am almost certain that my > old bravo plus could to 24 characters, but I cannot confirm this. I just got a new Bravo Plus, and actually read the directions. It has a 160 character memory, shared between up to 16 messages, with no message being longer than 20 digits. Rich Greenberg Work: rmg50@juts.ccc.amdahl.com 310-417-8999 N6LRT Play: richgr@netcom.com 310-649-0238 What? Me speak for Amdahl? Surely you jest.... ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: Stocks VIA Internet Date: 24 May 1993 01:50:10 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article mperlman@nyx.cs.du.edu (Marshal Perlman) writes: > Anyone know of any stock purchasing companies that are computer linked > to the internet ... where I could buy and sell stocks with my > computer? > I 'm sure it would be a tad cheaper then using my broker who just > punches what I say to him into a computer and charges me $50 for 'his > help'. I don't know about you, but I sure wouldn't want to send my trading instructions over the Internet for every site in the path to see (and perhaps generate their own under my name!). If you are interested in computer trading, Charles Schwab has a program whereby you can do your trades via computer and modem. You get special software from them, enter all of your trades offline, then ask it to dial in and execute your batch of trades. They take 10% off their standard commission rates when you use the computer instead of talking to a person. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Auto-Callback Offered, Without Caller-ID! From: a_rubin%dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin) Date: 25 May 93 17:45:02 GMT Reply-To: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin) In carlp@rainbow.mentorg.com (Carl Page @ DAD) writes: > California allows Last Call return but not Caller ID? Amazing. > Oregon made the opposite decision! And for good reasons. > Last call return (or Auto-callback) is NOT offered in Oregon, even > though Caller ID is being offered! > Moderator's Note: Every telco seems to have their own philosophy on > this. IBT offers both Caller-ID and Auto-callback, or Return Last > Call. They could care less that numbers otherwise blocked on the ID > display are still returnable via *69. PAT] I haven't requested it yet, but PacBell (at least in Southern California) says that the last (two or four -- I don't remember) digits will be X'd out on the phone bill for a "Call Return"'d call. Arthur L. Rubin: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (work) Beckman Instruments/Brea 216-5888@mcimail.com 70707.453@compuserve.com arthur@pnet01.cts.com (personal) My opinions are my own, and do not represent those of my employer. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #353 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa26990; 26 May 93 19:12 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA02526 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Wed, 26 May 1993 16:56:26 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA25558 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Wed, 26 May 1993 16:55:35 -0500 Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 16:55:35 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305262155.AA25558@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #354 TELECOM Digest Wed, 26 May 93 16:55:00 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 354 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Cellular Telephone Privacy (Philip Mulivor) Re: MCI -- 10222 vs Dial 1? (James R. Saker Jr.) Re: MCI Doesn't Know Czechoslovakia Has Split (James R. Saker Jr.) Re: New York Telephone "Coin Replacement" Card (Sergio Gelato) Winnipeg BBSes Seized (Nigel Allen) Re: Prodigy Digicom 96/14.4 (Ed Ravin) Re: Scalable Coherent Interface (Fritz Whittington) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 02:14:46 -0400 From: mulivor@orion.crc.monroecc.edu Subject: Cellular Telephone Privacy This article first appeared in the {Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle}, Sunday, April 22, 1990, pg. 1F, circulation 255,000. Copyright 1990 Philip Mulivor. This work may be freely copied and distributed. Kindly include author's name and e-mail address: Philip Mulivor Internet: MULIVOR@ORION.CRC.MONROECC.EDU CompuServe: 71762,2440 WHAT'S HAPPENING TO PHONE PRIVACY? `IT'S A VOYEUR'S PARADISE' FOR SNOOPERS OF CELLULAR CALLS, FAXES By Philip Mulivor Some of Rochester's newest on-air personalities don't realize how popular they've become. In fact, they don't even know they've been on the air. If you use a cellular telephone, you might be one of them. Cellular eavesdropping has become a thriving hobby, complete with its own how-to books, according to Tom Kneitel, editor of {Popular Communications} magazine. "It's a voyeur's paradise," said Kneitel. "Television is just so much hokum compared to what really happens in people's lives over cellular telephones." Kneitel thinks listeners tune in cellular calls for one reason: "Americans are great snoops." "It's a real fascination," said Paul Kolacki, who monitors local cellular conversations from his home in Rochester. Kolacki said he's just naturally curious about other people's lives. Local listeners who scan Rochester's estimated 10,000 cellular telephones report hearing everything from drug deals to stock market tips and medical diagnoses. "You hear some revealing business conversations during the day," Kolacki said. "At night, it's married guys calling their girlfriends." Martin Pittinger of Greece has been monitoring cellular conversations for several years. "I can feel the intensity of someone's lifestyle just by listening," he said. "People who use cellular telephones have to come to grips with the fact that their conversations are entertainment for other people. "We haven't progressed too far beyond the old telephone operator with all the cables plugged in -- at least as far as privacy is concerned." Cellular telephones send calls over public radio frequencies which many newer scanners are designed to receive. Scanners are radios that have been popular for monitoring police and fire services since the early 1970s. A few keystrokes on a modern scanner's control panel will command the unit to search radio channels in the cellular telephone band (located just above the UHF television band). When the scanner detects a conversation on a cellular channel, it stops and makes that conversation audible to the listener. Another keystroke lets the search continue for the next interesting conversation. But listening to an entire cellular conversation is not always easy. A single call can hop among any of the 832 radio channels in the cellular band. A scanner listener tuned to one cellular channel might hear only a fragment of conversation before the call jumps to another channel. Channel-switching isn't done to discourage eavesdroppers; it happens as the cellular company's computer constantly tries to find the clearest channel for the moving phone. On command from the computer, the cellular phone switches channels without the user's knowledge. Some listeners own receivers able to scan hundreds of channels per minute. For them, channel-hopping is easier to follow because their radios perform a high-speed search to relocate conversations. But this isn't always necessary. Many calls come from parked cars, where conversations also get parked -- on a single channel. It may sound fun, but listening to cellular telephone calls is illegal. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), a federal law passed in 1986, outlaws monitoring cellular calls. However, it does not bar scanner manufacturers from including cellular channels in their products. Both Rochester Telephone Corp. and Genesee Telephone Co., the area's cellular service providers, sometimes discuss the ECPA with customers who ask about cellular privacy. But {Popular Communications} magazine has said this law is unenforceable, serving only as a sales gimmick for cellular services. "I don't think the intent of this law is to prosecute the hobbyist," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian McCarthy, a federal prosecutor in Rochester. "Someone listening in for grins doesn't have to worry about the authorities knocking at his door." And Senior FBI Agent Dale Anderson said his Rochester office "has not been involved in any enforcement action for cellular phone listening so far." Curiously, the Federal Communications Commission has nothing to do with the ECPA. "It's not an FCC regulation, and we have no jurisdic- tion one way or the other," said FCC engineer Ed Kelly from Buffalo. Some cellular users said it's easy to forget about privacy risks because their phones look and operate like ordinary telephones. It's often difficult for someone receiving a call at home or in the office to know if that call is from a cellular phone. Scanner listeners hear both parties. The California Public Utilities Commission recently asked cellular users to advise people they call that the conversation might not be private. And Pacific Bell, a large cellular provider in California, has mailed a special notice to warn customers that their calls might be scanned by third parties. In Rochester, several cellular customers have taken precautions. "We tell all our cellular users to be careful," said Paul Allen, a spokesman for Eastman Kodak Co. "No one should be discussing confidential information on a cellular phone or any two-way radio." But neither the Monroe County Bar Association or Medical Society has sent advice to members about cellular privacy. Spokesmen for those groups said the problem is left to members to recognize and solve. "I got a call from a doctor who said he was on a cellular phone," said Edna Venturo, a nurse at Rochester General Hospital. He was calling about a particular patient and went into details about that patient." Cellular snoops admit their listening days are numbered. Cellular providers eventually will convert to digital radio signals, rendering cellular conversations unintelligible through scanners. But eavesdroppers anticipate several more years of provocative listening -- and viewing. Cellular fax machines are beginning to pop up, and aggressive listeners are already equipped for document interceptions. All they need is a scanner and a fax machine. "Fax transmissions sent over cellular phones are just as vulnerable as conversations," said Jim Stefano, police officer and radio communications specialist for the Fairport Police Department. "Cellular users have no privacy, and none can be expected." END OF STORY ------------------------------ From: jsaker@cwis.unomaha.edu (James R. Saker Jr.) Subject: Re: MCI -- 10222 vs Dial 1? Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 04:55:24 GMT deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) writes: > Some states permit IXCs to carry intraLATA traffic if the customer > enters a carrier access code. Some states don't. It appears that > Texas does, and Illinois doesn't. [more deleted] David's comment is right on target -- as a former costing analyst for an IXC, there were many markets which allowed our customers to 10xxx (pronounced "ten-triple-x") to us, effectively bypassing their LEC -- such as Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, and possibly Florida (I'm not 100% sure on that one). However, our customers in California are blocked from 10xxx. Why would you want to 10xxx and bypass your LEC (if your intrastate general exchange tariff allows for it)? Instead of paying the steep LEC intra rates (often ranging between $.18 and $.35 per minute standard residential), you can utilize the cheaper $.10 to $.18 per minute standard IXC rates. Additionally, if you have volume discounts applicable with your IXC, all of your intrastate volume usually applies. What can you do if you live in a state which doesn't allow for 10xxx bypass? Call up your IXC and ask for feature group B access -- also frequently called 950 access. Since it costs your IXC less than a 1+ call (in most instances), they're usually quite receptive (unless they happen to be one of the big three, which means they will charge you their much more expensive 800-access rates simply because they don't wish to maintain two seperate products). For example, I lived in a FGB (feature group B) only area 30 miles north of Omaha for two years. They wanted $.28/min daytime where I could get $.14/min daytime through my IXC. By dialing 950-xxxx to access my IXC and entering the usual auth code and number, I cut my LD in half. Fortunately, you can obtain FGB access in most states which don't allow for 10xxx bypass (such as California). Interesting sidenote: Has anyone been following US West's recent FCC tariff submissions regarding 10xxx blocking? They've introduced 10xxx blocking as a "service" for subscribers in states including North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa -- with the Iowa submission resulting in a suit filed by MCI opposing the introduction. According to the tariff, US West will offer a new subscriber the ability to block 10xxx calls from their line in the same manner they can block 900 calls -- and presumably offered at the same time in their sales pitch. Has anyone ordered service in any of these states and been offered this service? (I believe Wyoming may have just been added to the list two weeks ago as well). It appears US West may have found a way around unreceptive public utilities commissions (or in Nebraska's case, practically-nonexistant PUCs;-) ). Jamie Saker jsaker@cwis.unomaha.edu Systems Engineer Business/MIS Major Telenational Communications Univ. Nebraska at Omaha voice: (402) 392-7548 fax: (402) 391-7283 ------------------------------ From: jsaker@cwis.unomaha.edu (James R. Saker Jr.) Subject: Re: MCI Doesn't Know Czechoslovakia Has Split Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 05:17:27 GMT Richard Budd writes: > David Leibold writes in TELECOM Digest V13 #342: > I heard something that the Czech Republic would retain 42 and Slovakia > would get 37X, a country code similar to what the Baltics and the > other newly independent nations are receiving. However, it appears > the Slovaks want the new country codes for both countries to be of a > format 42X. All rumors from different forums. Speaking of rumors ... has anyone heard if any of the former Soviet republics (Latvia, Kyrg., etc.) are direct dialable yet? According to Sprint, AT&T and Worldcom's tariffs, they're listed independently to allow for billing breakouts, but are still accessed by country-code 7. Last I heard, Moscow was the only direct-dialable part of the former USSR. Jamie Saker jsaker@cwis.unomaha.edu Systems Engineer Business/MIS Major Telenational Communications Univ. Nebraska at Omaha (402) 392-7548 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 93 01:13:20 EDT From: gelato@astrosun.TN.CORNELL.EDU (Sergio Gelato) Subject: Re: New York Telephone "Coin Replacement" Card > [Moderator's Note: *Except* in the case of the now infamous Talk > Tickets which you know who peddles to pay his rent. Since my cards do > not swipe, and since the intelligence is all in the network rather > than in the phone, the serial number can! be! blacklisted! Yes ... > With the $2 Talk Tickets you always have 'change for the phone'; if > you lose the card there is little loss but it can be suspended if you > know the serial number and promptly report it (don't misquote me on > this; they are not eager to spend the time putting a stop on a lost $2 > card but will do so on larger denominations). You don't have to waste > time looking for a card reader phone, and if you have a good memory > you don't even need to carry the card around. Lost cards reported to > my office are promptly replaced *IF* you can provide a valid serial > number for the lost card. You see, I get to diddle the computer a > little differently than you ... I get to call the computer and void a > lost card and validate a 'special issue'; that is, if your lost card > had two units left, I void that serial and issue a new serial with two > units for you to use. PAT] What happens if the person who finds the card calls you before the one who lost it, and requests the "special issue" for him/herself? Or is it necessary to report the loss to the point of sale where the card was bought in the first place? If the latter, what if I bought the card from a random newsstand at the other end of the country? The Federal Reserve would never issue a refund for a lost $100 bill, even if one calls in with a valid serial number. Travelers cheques, on the other hand, are refundable under certain conditions (a proof of purchase must be presented, an ID must be shown). Even this is only possible because the cheques are "fingerprinted" with their owner's signature. There is no signature on your Talk Tickets (the serial number does not count, since anyone who sees it can reproduce it perfectly, unlike a real signature). Blocking is easier, of course, but cannot take effect retroactively: if someone else uses the ticket before the loss is reported, there can be no refund (unless the issuer is willing to pay for a large number of fraudulent loss claims). About the only way left to verify the legitimity of a claim is to keep track of the identity of the original purchaser. Or at the very least of the claimant. And I thought anonymity was one of the tickets' main advantages over calling cards ... Don't misread me: I do think there is a real need for these tickets. What I find vain is this idea of offering refunds. I am quite happy to treat prepaid debit cards as cash ("never carry more than you need"), and would rather see the phone company lower its rates than spend money on processing loss claims. Sergio Gelato gelato@astrosun.tn.cornell.edu [Moderator's Note: You can't have it both ways. If you want anonymous sales, fine, I can handle that also. Cash or money orders are accepted to fill orders. If you want to register the order when you buy it, that is, give me a valid name and record of the serial numbers, then in the even someone calls and comes up with the same name and serial numbers as my records show, if they state the card is lost then I will call the computer, poll the computer for the value remaining, cancel the old serial and issue a new one for the remaining value. What more do you want, for me to set up a branch office in London in the event you happen to be there when you want to buy a ticket or lose one? For two dollars? I go further with customer service on this plan than any other vendor of similar tickets. What more should I do? You tell me. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 May 93 23:58:27 EDT From: ae446@freenet.carleton.ca (Nigel Allen) Subject: Winnipeg BBSes Seized Reply-To: ae446@freenet.carleton.ca Originally posted in the can.general newsgroup by derek.hay@mwcsinc.muug.mb.ca (Derek Hay). Contact Mr. Hay directly if you would like more information. Winnipeg Free Press Saturday, May 22, 1993 Police seized $100,000.00 of computer equipment from eight computer bulletin boards systems (BBS) operators who where distributing obscene material to their members along with legitimate educational programming. It is the first such seizure in Canada. ..... Some of the material police accessed in their sting included scenes of bondage and bestiality. It is illegal to possess obscene material if it is intended for distribution. Winnipeg Police were first alerted to the distribution of computer pornography last fall after a 12 year old girl was discovered watching it on a personal computer. The Manitoba Telephone System was alerted by the parents, which in turn contacted the police. Police estimate that three-quarters of the 400 BBS's in Winnipeg offer some degree of pornographic material. Nigel Allen, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ae446@freenet.carleton.ca ------------------------------ From: elr%trintex@uunet.UU.NET (Ed Ravin) Subject: Re: Prodigy Digicom 96/14.4 Organization: Prodigy Services Company Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 01:54:34 GMT In article gt7610c@prism.gatech.edu (TEAGUE, John Edward) writes: > Ok, I've seen the deal on Prodigy, but now I was wondering if this can > be had by anyone. Ie someone who does not have Prodigy service (like > me) eligible? And PAT inserts his $.02: > Moderator's Note: That deal is intended as an inducement to get > people to join Prodigy. It is much like the book club deals where you > get a bunch of free books if you join the club and promise to buy more > at the standard rate. My understanding is that Prodigy is only offering the modems to people who are already users of their service -- the intention is to help people upgrade from slow modems to fast ones, with the hope that the newly upgraded users will have a more enjoyable time using Prodigy (the Prodigy software is fairly sluggish until you run it at 9600 bps or faster). J.E. Teague also writes: > And most importantly, are these modems any good? Has anyone tried > them? Impressions, feelings, (dis)likes, etc. The modem is almost the same as a Digicom Scout+, (slightly different ROM chips, the modems' default setup is configured for running the Prodigy software), which is available (ask around on comp.dcom.modems) for almost as good a price as what Prodigy sells their version for. It's a perfectly decent modem, though if you're heavy on receiving faxes I would steer away from it, since I've heard that some users have trouble doing so (the fax software supplied with it is Winfax Lite, and you get customer support from Digicom). disclaimer: I work for Prodigy as a telecommunications programmer, but I'm noway nohow any kind of spokescritter for them. Ed Ravin Prodigy Services Co. White Plains, NY 10601 +1-914-993-4737 elr@trintex.uucp or elr%trintex@uunet.uu.net ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 93 12:53:18 CDT From: fritz@mirage.hc.ti.com (Fritz Whittington) Subject: Re: Scalable Coherent Interface In comp.dcom.telecom is written: > Does anyone have any information regarding a high-speed, data > communications system known as "Scalable Coherent Interface?" Or can > anyone point me in the right direction to sources of information > regarding SCI? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. It's an IEEE standard, 1596-1992, approved in March 1992 by the IEEE and by ANSI as a national standard last October. Should be available from where you normally order such standards. There are some other WGs for related standards, such as 1596.1 (VME/SCI bridge), 1596.2 (Cache Optimizations), and others. There is a mail reflector, and some on-line documents available via ftp, however, you might have to join the WG in order to get access to these. For further information, contact the 1596 Chair, Dave Gustavson, at dbg@slac.stanford.edu. Fritz Whittington Texas Instruments, P.O. Box 655474, MS 446 Dallas, TX 75265 Shipping address: 13510 North Central Expressway, MS 446 Dallas, TX 75243 fritz@ti.com Office: +1 214 995 0397 FAX: +1 214 995 6194 Since I am not an official TI spokesperson, these opinions contain no spokes. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #354 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa10978; 27 May 93 3:13 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA01587 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Thu, 27 May 1993 00:50:39 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA09080 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Thu, 27 May 1993 00:49:45 -0500 Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 00:49:45 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305270549.AA09080@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #354 TELECOM Digest Wed, 26 May 93 16:55:00 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 354 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Cellular Telephone Privacy (Philip Mulivor) Re: MCI -- 10222 vs Dial 1? (James R. Saker Jr.) Re: MCI Doesn't Know Czechoslovakia Has Split (James R. Saker Jr.) Re: New York Telephone "Coin Replacement" Card (Sergio Gelato) Winnipeg BBSes Seized (Nigel Allen) Re: Prodigy Digicom 96/14.4 (Ed Ravin) Re: Scalable Coherent Interface (Fritz Whittington) READ THIS IMPORTANT NOTICE: This issue (#354) was inadvertently sent out as #352 several hours ago. That means you should have two copies of #352 -- one from Tuesday and one from today (which is really #354). Destroy the second version of #352 sent Wednesday afternoon which has the same contents as the one you are now reading. PAT] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 02:14:46 -0400 From: mulivor@orion.crc.monroecc.edu Subject: Cellular Telephone Privacy This article first appeared in the {Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle}, Sunday, April 22, 1990, pg. 1F, circulation 255,000. Copyright 1990 Philip Mulivor. This work may be freely copied and distributed. Kindly include author's name and e-mail address: Philip Mulivor Internet: MULIVOR@ORION.CRC.MONROECC.EDU CompuServe: 71762,2440 WHAT'S HAPPENING TO PHONE PRIVACY? `IT'S A VOYEUR'S PARADISE' FOR SNOOPERS OF CELLULAR CALLS, FAXES By Philip Mulivor Some of Rochester's newest on-air personalities don't realize how popular they've become. In fact, they don't even know they've been on the air. If you use a cellular telephone, you might be one of them. Cellular eavesdropping has become a thriving hobby, complete with its own how-to books, according to Tom Kneitel, editor of {Popular Communications} magazine. "It's a voyeur's paradise," said Kneitel. "Television is just so much hokum compared to what really happens in people's lives over cellular telephones." Kneitel thinks listeners tune in cellular calls for one reason: "Americans are great snoops." "It's a real fascination," said Paul Kolacki, who monitors local cellular conversations from his home in Rochester. Kolacki said he's just naturally curious about other people's lives. Local listeners who scan Rochester's estimated 10,000 cellular telephones report hearing everything from drug deals to stock market tips and medical diagnoses. "You hear some revealing business conversations during the day," Kolacki said. "At night, it's married guys calling their girlfriends." Martin Pittinger of Greece has been monitoring cellular conversations for several years. "I can feel the intensity of someone's lifestyle just by listening," he said. "People who use cellular telephones have to come to grips with the fact that their conversations are entertainment for other people. "We haven't progressed too far beyond the old telephone operator with all the cables plugged in -- at least as far as privacy is concerned." Cellular telephones send calls over public radio frequencies which many newer scanners are designed to receive. Scanners are radios that have been popular for monitoring police and fire services since the early 1970s. A few keystrokes on a modern scanner's control panel will command the unit to search radio channels in the cellular telephone band (located just above the UHF television band). When the scanner detects a conversation on a cellular channel, it stops and makes that conversation audible to the listener. Another keystroke lets the search continue for the next interesting conversation. But listening to an entire cellular conversation is not always easy. A single call can hop among any of the 832 radio channels in the cellular band. A scanner listener tuned to one cellular channel might hear only a fragment of conversation before the call jumps to another channel. Channel-switching isn't done to discourage eavesdroppers; it happens as the cellular company's computer constantly tries to find the clearest channel for the moving phone. On command from the computer, the cellular phone switches channels without the user's knowledge. Some listeners own receivers able to scan hundreds of channels per minute. For them, channel-hopping is easier to follow because their radios perform a high-speed search to relocate conversations. But this isn't always necessary. Many calls come from parked cars, where conversations also get parked -- on a single channel. It may sound fun, but listening to cellular telephone calls is illegal. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), a federal law passed in 1986, outlaws monitoring cellular calls. However, it does not bar scanner manufacturers from including cellular channels in their products. Both Rochester Telephone Corp. and Genesee Telephone Co., the area's cellular service providers, sometimes discuss the ECPA with customers who ask about cellular privacy. But {Popular Communications} magazine has said this law is unenforceable, serving only as a sales gimmick for cellular services. "I don't think the intent of this law is to prosecute the hobbyist," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian McCarthy, a federal prosecutor in Rochester. "Someone listening in for grins doesn't have to worry about the authorities knocking at his door." And Senior FBI Agent Dale Anderson said his Rochester office "has not been involved in any enforcement action for cellular phone listening so far." Curiously, the Federal Communications Commission has nothing to do with the ECPA. "It's not an FCC regulation, and we have no jurisdic- tion one way or the other," said FCC engineer Ed Kelly from Buffalo. Some cellular users said it's easy to forget about privacy risks because their phones look and operate like ordinary telephones. It's often difficult for someone receiving a call at home or in the office to know if that call is from a cellular phone. Scanner listeners hear both parties. The California Public Utilities Commission recently asked cellular users to advise people they call that the conversation might not be private. And Pacific Bell, a large cellular provider in California, has mailed a special notice to warn customers that their calls might be scanned by third parties. In Rochester, several cellular customers have taken precautions. "We tell all our cellular users to be careful," said Paul Allen, a spokesman for Eastman Kodak Co. "No one should be discussing confidential information on a cellular phone or any two-way radio." But neither the Monroe County Bar Association or Medical Society has sent advice to members about cellular privacy. Spokesmen for those groups said the problem is left to members to recognize and solve. "I got a call from a doctor who said he was on a cellular phone," said Edna Venturo, a nurse at Rochester General Hospital. He was calling about a particular patient and went into details about that patient." Cellular snoops admit their listening days are numbered. Cellular providers eventually will convert to digital radio signals, rendering cellular conversations unintelligible through scanners. But eavesdroppers anticipate several more years of provocative listening -- and viewing. Cellular fax machines are beginning to pop up, and aggressive listeners are already equipped for document interceptions. All they need is a scanner and a fax machine. "Fax transmissions sent over cellular phones are just as vulnerable as conversations," said Jim Stefano, police officer and radio communications specialist for the Fairport Police Department. "Cellular users have no privacy, and none can be expected." END OF STORY ------------------------------ From: jsaker@cwis.unomaha.edu (James R. Saker Jr.) Subject: Re: MCI -- 10222 vs Dial 1? Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 04:55:24 GMT deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) writes: > Some states permit IXCs to carry intraLATA traffic if the customer > enters a carrier access code. Some states don't. It appears that > Texas does, and Illinois doesn't. [more deleted] David's comment is right on target -- as a former costing analyst for an IXC, there were many markets which allowed our customers to 10xxx (pronounced "ten-triple-x") to us, effectively bypassing their LEC -- such as Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, and possibly Florida (I'm not 100% sure on that one). However, our customers in California are blocked from 10xxx. Why would you want to 10xxx and bypass your LEC (if your intrastate general exchange tariff allows for it)? Instead of paying the steep LEC intra rates (often ranging between $.18 and $.35 per minute standard residential), you can utilize the cheaper $.10 to $.18 per minute standard IXC rates. Additionally, if you have volume discounts applicable with your IXC, all of your intrastate volume usually applies. What can you do if you live in a state which doesn't allow for 10xxx bypass? Call up your IXC and ask for feature group B access -- also frequently called 950 access. Since it costs your IXC less than a 1+ call (in most instances), they're usually quite receptive (unless they happen to be one of the big three, which means they will charge you their much more expensive 800-access rates simply because they don't wish to maintain two seperate products). For example, I lived in a FGB (feature group B) only area 30 miles north of Omaha for two years. They wanted $.28/min daytime where I could get $.14/min daytime through my IXC. By dialing 950-xxxx to access my IXC and entering the usual auth code and number, I cut my LD in half. Fortunately, you can obtain FGB access in most states which don't allow for 10xxx bypass (such as California). Interesting sidenote: Has anyone been following US West's recent FCC tariff submissions regarding 10xxx blocking? They've introduced 10xxx blocking as a "service" for subscribers in states including North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa -- with the Iowa submission resulting in a suit filed by MCI opposing the introduction. According to the tariff, US West will offer a new subscriber the ability to block 10xxx calls from their line in the same manner they can block 900 calls -- and presumably offered at the same time in their sales pitch. Has anyone ordered service in any of these states and been offered this service? (I believe Wyoming may have just been added to the list two weeks ago as well). It appears US West may have found a way around unreceptive public utilities commissions (or in Nebraska's case, practically-nonexistant PUCs;-) ). Jamie Saker jsaker@cwis.unomaha.edu Systems Engineer Business/MIS Major Telenational Communications Univ. Nebraska at Omaha voice: (402) 392-7548 fax: (402) 391-7283 ------------------------------ From: jsaker@cwis.unomaha.edu (James R. Saker Jr.) Subject: Re: MCI Doesn't Know Czechoslovakia Has Split Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 05:17:27 GMT Richard Budd writes: > David Leibold writes in TELECOM Digest V13 #342: > I heard something that the Czech Republic would retain 42 and Slovakia > would get 37X, a country code similar to what the Baltics and the > other newly independent nations are receiving. However, it appears > the Slovaks want the new country codes for both countries to be of a > format 42X. All rumors from different forums. Speaking of rumors ... has anyone heard if any of the former Soviet republics (Latvia, Kyrg., etc.) are direct dialable yet? According to Sprint, AT&T and Worldcom's tariffs, they're listed independently to allow for billing breakouts, but are still accessed by country-code 7. Last I heard, Moscow was the only direct-dialable part of the former USSR. Jamie Saker jsaker@cwis.unomaha.edu Systems Engineer Business/MIS Major Telenational Communications Univ. Nebraska at Omaha (402) 392-7548 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 93 01:13:20 EDT From: gelato@astrosun.TN.CORNELL.EDU (Sergio Gelato) Subject: Re: New York Telephone "Coin Replacement" Card > [Moderator's Note: *Except* in the case of the now infamous Talk > Tickets which you know who peddles to pay his rent. Since my cards do > not swipe, and since the intelligence is all in the network rather > than in the phone, the serial number can! be! blacklisted! Yes ... > With the $2 Talk Tickets you always have 'change for the phone'; if > you lose the card there is little loss but it can be suspended if you > know the serial number and promptly report it (don't misquote me on > this; they are not eager to spend the time putting a stop on a lost $2 > card but will do so on larger denominations). You don't have to waste > time looking for a card reader phone, and if you have a good memory > you don't even need to carry the card around. Lost cards reported to > my office are promptly replaced *IF* you can provide a valid serial > number for the lost card. You see, I get to diddle the computer a > little differently than you ... I get to call the computer and void a > lost card and validate a 'special issue'; that is, if your lost card > had two units left, I void that serial and issue a new serial with two > units for you to use. PAT] What happens if the person who finds the card calls you before the one who lost it, and requests the "special issue" for him/herself? Or is it necessary to report the loss to the point of sale where the card was bought in the first place? If the latter, what if I bought the card from a random newsstand at the other end of the country? The Federal Reserve would never issue a refund for a lost $100 bill, even if one calls in with a valid serial number. Travelers cheques, on the other hand, are refundable under certain conditions (a proof of purchase must be presented, an ID must be shown). Even this is only possible because the cheques are "fingerprinted" with their owner's signature. There is no signature on your Talk Tickets (the serial number does not count, since anyone who sees it can reproduce it perfectly, unlike a real signature). Blocking is easier, of course, but cannot take effect retroactively: if someone else uses the ticket before the loss is reported, there can be no refund (unless the issuer is willing to pay for a large number of fraudulent loss claims). About the only way left to verify the legitimity of a claim is to keep track of the identity of the original purchaser. Or at the very least of the claimant. And I thought anonymity was one of the tickets' main advantages over calling cards ... Don't misread me: I do think there is a real need for these tickets. What I find vain is this idea of offering refunds. I am quite happy to treat prepaid debit cards as cash ("never carry more than you need"), and would rather see the phone company lower its rates than spend money on processing loss claims. Sergio Gelato gelato@astrosun.tn.cornell.edu [Moderator's Note: You can't have it both ways. If you want anonymous sales, fine, I can handle that also. Cash or money orders are accepted to fill orders. If you want to register the order when you buy it, that is, give me a valid name and record of the serial numbers, then in the even someone calls and comes up with the same name and serial numbers as my records show, if they state the card is lost then I will call the computer, poll the computer for the value remaining, cancel the old serial and issue a new one for the remaining value. What more do you want, for me to set up a branch office in London in the event you happen to be there when you want to buy a ticket or lose one? For two dollars? I go further with customer service on this plan than any other vendor of similar tickets. What more should I do? You tell me. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 May 93 23:58:27 EDT From: ae446@freenet.carleton.ca (Nigel Allen) Subject: Winnipeg BBSes Seized Reply-To: ae446@freenet.carleton.ca Originally posted in the can.general newsgroup by derek.hay@mwcsinc.muug.mb.ca (Derek Hay). Contact Mr. Hay directly if you would like more information. Winnipeg Free Press Saturday, May 22, 1993 Police seized $100,000.00 of computer equipment from eight computer bulletin boards systems (BBS) operators who where distributing obscene material to their members along with legitimate educational programming. It is the first such seizure in Canada. ..... Some of the material police accessed in their sting included scenes of bondage and bestiality. It is illegal to possess obscene material if it is intended for distribution. Winnipeg Police were first alerted to the distribution of computer pornography last fall after a 12 year old girl was discovered watching it on a personal computer. The Manitoba Telephone System was alerted by the parents, which in turn contacted the police. Police estimate that three-quarters of the 400 BBS's in Winnipeg offer some degree of pornographic material. Nigel Allen, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ae446@freenet.carleton.ca ------------------------------ From: elr%trintex@uunet.UU.NET (Ed Ravin) Subject: Re: Prodigy Digicom 96/14.4 Organization: Prodigy Services Company Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 01:54:34 GMT In article gt7610c@prism.gatech.edu (TEAGUE, John Edward) writes: > Ok, I've seen the deal on Prodigy, but now I was wondering if this can > be had by anyone. Ie someone who does not have Prodigy service (like > me) eligible? And PAT inserts his $.02: > Moderator's Note: That deal is intended as an inducement to get > people to join Prodigy. It is much like the book club deals where you > get a bunch of free books if you join the club and promise to buy more > at the standard rate. My understanding is that Prodigy is only offering the modems to people who are already users of their service -- the intention is to help people upgrade from slow modems to fast ones, with the hope that the newly upgraded users will have a more enjoyable time using Prodigy (the Prodigy software is fairly sluggish until you run it at 9600 bps or faster). J.E. Teague also writes: > And most importantly, are these modems any good? Has anyone tried > them? Impressions, feelings, (dis)likes, etc. The modem is almost the same as a Digicom Scout+, (slightly different ROM chips, the modems' default setup is configured for running the Prodigy software), which is available (ask around on comp.dcom.modems) for almost as good a price as what Prodigy sells their version for. It's a perfectly decent modem, though if you're heavy on receiving faxes I would steer away from it, since I've heard that some users have trouble doing so (the fax software supplied with it is Winfax Lite, and you get customer support from Digicom). disclaimer: I work for Prodigy as a telecommunications programmer, but I'm noway nohow any kind of spokescritter for them. Ed Ravin Prodigy Services Co. White Plains, NY 10601 +1-914-993-4737 elr@trintex.uucp or elr%trintex@uunet.uu.net ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 93 12:53:18 CDT From: fritz@mirage.hc.ti.com (Fritz Whittington) Subject: Re: Scalable Coherent Interface In comp.dcom.telecom is written: > Does anyone have any information regarding a high-speed, data > communications system known as "Scalable Coherent Interface?" Or can > anyone point me in the right direction to sources of information > regarding SCI? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. It's an IEEE standard, 1596-1992, approved in March 1992 by the IEEE and by ANSI as a national standard last October. Should be available from where you normally order such standards. There are some other WGs for related standards, such as 1596.1 (VME/SCI bridge), 1596.2 (Cache Optimizations), and others. There is a mail reflector, and some on-line documents available via ftp, however, you might have to join the WG in order to get access to these. For further information, contact the 1596 Chair, Dave Gustavson, at dbg@slac.stanford.edu. Fritz Whittington Texas Instruments, P.O. Box 655474, MS 446 Dallas, TX 75265 Shipping address: 13510 North Central Expressway, MS 446 Dallas, TX 75243 fritz@ti.com Office: +1 214 995 0397 FAX: +1 214 995 6194 Since I am not an official TI spokesperson, these opinions contain no spokes. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #354 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa14307; 27 May 93 5:01 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA29507 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Thu, 27 May 1993 02:36:37 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA03566 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Thu, 27 May 1993 02:35:52 -0500 Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 02:35:52 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305270735.AA03566@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #355 TELECOM Digest Thu, 27 May 93 02:35:50 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 355 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Public Phone 2000 - Not Yet (Robert Eden) Can I Sue AT&T Over Slamming? (Jim Smithson) The Elusive LATA Line (David W. Tamkin) Privacy vs. Caller-ID (Mike Coyne) T1 to the Desktop Over Voice Grade Copper Pairs (Mark Alan Kuczynski) Alarm Point Telemetry Equipment (Ken Stone) 50 Miles Range Cordless Phone (Minghong Tang) Anyone Know of Greenline in Taiwan? (Harold Hallikainen) Unknown Carrier Access Code (Marcus Blankenship) Real Phones (Western Electric 500 Sets) and Bakelite (Jim Rees) Compuserve and Applelink User Wanted (Eugene B. Kotlyar) WAN From North to South America (Mr. Steve Kutzer) Modem and Phone Jacks in Amsterdam (Andrew Malis) Looking for NRZ-to-Conditioned Diphase Converter (Roy Stehle) Net Costing (Mr. John W. Shaver) Latitude/Longitude -> Distance (Raj Sanmugam) Data Over Voice/Using Phone and Modem Simulataneously (Gary Beason) Help Needed on Procom Setup (yagh@cunyvm.bitnet) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Eden Subject: AT&T Public Phone 2000 - Not Yet Date: 26 May 93 10:00:36 CST Organization: Texas Utilities, Glen Rose TX I was in a Marriot Hotel in Arlington, TX (near DFW) yesterday and saw an AT&T Public Phone 2000 with keyboard. Last I read here was that keyboards were being removed until AT&T receives permission to sell this service. Well, since the keyboard wasn't removed, I decided to try it. When you select the terminal option it says "This feature is not permitted at this time" Guess we'll have to wait a bit longer. Robert Eden 817-897-0491 Glen Rose, TX Comanche Peak Steam Electric Station robert@cpvax.cpses.tu.com ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ politicese for a nuke plant ------------------------------ From: Jim Smithson Subject: Can I Sue AT&T Over Slamming? Date: Wed, 26 May 93 15:11:05 EDT I was slammed by AT&T in early April. No member of my family spoke with an AT&T sales rep, I never got a mailing telling me I was switched from MCI to AT&T. I found out by chance when I called MCI in late April to inquire about some rate information. The next day I called my local telco. The telco agreed to waive the switch fees and put me back on MCI. AT&T agreed to credit me for the difference between their rates and MCIs. Out of the $118.73 AT&T charges they gave me a credit of $23.36 for the rate difference. I'm not quite happy with that. I had to spend some time (~1 hour) with my telco, PUC, MCI and AT&T straightening this mess out. I feel entitled to a further credit for my time and trouble. Unfortunately the Florida PUC rules only require the carrier to credit the difference between the rate structures. There is no provision for "time and trouble" nor punitive damages. I'd like to sue AT&T in small claims court for my time and court costs. Has anyone else done this successfully? How about punitive damages? Maybe then they'll have some incentive to tighten up their procedures. Seems to me they have very little incentive to do that now. James Smithson [Moderator's Note: And you honestly think your small claims suit will change things? First of all, they owe you nothing for whatever time you spent with the PUC; you chose to contact the PUC, I suspect, without waiting to see if the telcos involved would resolve things in a timely way in accordance with tariff, which it appears they did. As long as AT&T followed the tariff, the tariff will serve as their successful defense. You can sue whoever you like, but you won't win anything based on 'your time spent' when your sole action needed to be calling the customer service representatives of the two companies in- volved (your local telco to be switched back) and AT&T (to ask about an adjustment in the prices to MCI's rates. No punitive damages will be awarded because neither AT&T nor your telco acted wilfully, or in bad faith. For all you know, AT&T may have had nothing to do with it; your telco got an order to change the 1+ default for some customer and a clerk at your local telco got the digits transposed tossing your account to AT&T instead. Your telco waiving the switch fees was the extra payment you are seeking. Don't take whatever real or imagined grudge you have against AT&T out on them due to a clerical error made by persons unknown at the carrier or your local telco. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dattier@genesis.mcs.com (David W. Tamkin) Subject: The Elusive LATA Line Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 15:03:21 -0500 (CDT) I had a simple desire: I wanted to know whether an area on the edge of my LATA was inside it or outside it so that I'd know which carrier to ask for the cost of the call before I dialed there. Logically, I thought, I dialed 0 for an Illinois Bell operator. The operator heard my question and wasted no time in asking me to hold and connecting me to AT&T (though AT&T is not the primary carrier for the number I was calling from and though divestiture supposedly occurred on January 1, 1984). The person who picked up for AT&T kept trying to tell me that if the number is in a different area code, the long-distance carrier handles the call. I explained that that isn't the case here because the LATA contains two entire area codes plus parts of three others, and he said he'd transfer me to another department; after five minutes of unanswered ringing I gave up. So I called Sprint's customer service department. The representative there told me that her records indicated that Sprint could carry the call, but she couldn't find out whether it was inter-LATA or permitted intra-LATA traffic, so her suggestion (of course) was to dial 10333 and make sure it would go via Sprint. Then I tried Illinois Bell's customer service department. The rep there said that her records showed it as an inter-LATA call from mine, period. Thank you. Centel's local directory for their service area near here, however, lists that prefix as inside the Chicago LATA. Maybe I should thank them instead. Either way, I still don't know. Maybe I can try it with 10288 and hope no rings precede reorder tone so that I have a chance to find out (assuming AT&T won't carry intra- LATA calls) but hang up on any ringing before the call is answered. AT&T's computers know a lot more than its employees. David W. Tamkin Box 59297 Northtown Station, Illinois 60659-0297 dattier@genesis.mcs.com CompuServe: 73720,1570 MCI Mail: 426-1818 ------------------------------ Subject: Privacy vs. Caller-ID Date: Wed, 26 May 93 15:29:12 -0600 From: Mike Coyne The proposition that a phone subscriber is entitled to know who is calling seems quite reasonable. That my phone number is none of your business is also quite reasonable. There are compelling arguments for both sides. There is, however, no compelling requirement for Caller-ID to deliver an actual dialable number. It seems to me that both requirements are satisfied if Caller-ID delivers some unique number for each origin. if a caller wants a dialable number delivered, fine. If not, it is sufficient to deliver something that no other phone will deliver. A unique number is sufficient to do customer record searching, fraud tracing, call rejection, priority ringing, call routing, or even just say "hi Joe." Telcos cannot possibly be surprised that there were privacy objections to Caller-ID. They have been offering unlisted numbers, dealing with crank calls, and the like for some time. It probably requires some additional switch programming, maybe even a lot of programming, but there is no reason why Caller-ID, call blocking, call return, and the like cannot meet both objectives. A friend lives in SW Bell territory where call blocking was test marketed. He called and requested blocking a particular neighbor. The whole thing ground to an impass because the neighbor's phone was unlisted and the friend could not supply the number to be blocked. As it happens, the neighbor is now blocked by crossbars of a sort not suited for telephone switching. ------------------------------ From: mak@pairgain.com (Mark Alan Kuczynski) Subject: T1 to the Desktop Over Voice Grade Copper Pairs Organization: PairGain Technologies, Inc Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 22:41:01 GMT In response to fanty@cse.ogi.edu (Mark Fanty) inquiring about bringing T1 to the desktop: A possible solution would be to integrate hardware that provides High bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line (HDSL) services. HDSL is a transmission standard developed by Bellcore and the T1E1.4 standards committee for the delivery of T1 data service over unconditioned copper pairs. HDSL provides standard ISDN 2B1Q line coding for T1 (1.544 Mbps) digital transmission over copper pairs for extended distances. This digital signal is generated at 10 to the minus 10 Bit Error Rate (BER) which is comparable to the transmission quality of fiber optic cable. Standard copper transmission systems will provide a signal in the range of 10 to the minus 7 BER. Therefore, with HDSL an error takes place only every six days or so, versus a bit error every six seconds or so with conventional copper transmission systems. This will provide the quality of transmission that is required for your application at T1 speeds. Another important variable to consider is the physical impact of the service to your desktop in terms of distance. Normal copper transmission systems have a wide range of parameters to consider before implementing. Generally, outside of a three to four thousand foot range for point to point or switched connections, a repeater of some sort must be engineered into the circuit. This repeater will regenerate the signal to varying degrees depending upon the hardware selected. This must be utilized with standard copper transmission systems to achieve the desired circuit loop distance between physical interfaces. With HDSL distances of five miles can be achieved without repeaters depending upon the wire gauge. As an example, the local T1 service carrier will provide services to a central demarcation point. T1 services that are to be extended to a remote or campus location from that demarcation point will require the engineering of any number of repeaters onto that circuit depending upon the actual distance. Once installed, this repeatered circuit, at best, will provide T1 at 10 to the minus 7 BER to the end user. There are other engineering costs associated with a standard copper transmission system which may include wire pair separation and binder group separation. With HDSL the transmission frequency allows for the provision of multiple T1s within the same binder group, say a cable of 50 pairs, without separation or engineering. So overall, the cost of engineering alone can in many cases justify the deployment of HDSL. Pairgain Technologies provides an HDSL product that utilizes a unique 250 MIP VLSI digital signal processor called the Campus T1. It eliminates all of the engineering mentioned above, at distances up to five miles, integration between copper and fiber with the fiber performance and a variety of interchangeable interfaces for seamless, private network friendly integration (V.35, RS449/422, DSX-1, and Mil 188/144) with CSU/DSU functionality built-in. If you need more information, feel free to send me e-mail or calling our product information line 800-638-0031 ext. 694. Mark Kuczynski mak@pairgain.com ------------------------------ Subject: Alarm Point Telemetry Equipment Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 14:35:02 -0700 From: Ken Stone I'm interested in what's available to monitor/gather alarm points (dry contact closures mostly) and bring them back to a central location and a central device that can interrogated by a UNIX based computer. We have lots of equipment in various places like microwave systems, muxes, battery backup systems, CSU's, DSU's, whatever that just present major/minor alarms. What I would like to do is gather them up and be able to tie them into existing monitoring/paging systems we have now. Any pointers on catalogs, suppliers, etc appreciated. Ken Stone ------------------------------ From: MINGHONG.TANG@gte.sprint.com Date: 26 May 93 22:05:58-0400 Subject: 50 Miles Range Cordless Phone Hi, there, My friend heard that there's a kind of cordless phones that claim to cover a 50 miles range. The base uses 72MHz and the handset uses 46MHz. There're ten digit dip switch that configure the channels for both the base and the handset. Do you know if there's such phone existing? How does it work? Is it legal to use in the States? Seems like Japan made these. Thanks a lot, ming I don't have access to usenet. Please sent to my .com account. Thanks a million! ------------------------------ From: hhallika@tuba.calpoly.edu (Harold Hallikainen) Subject: Anyone Know of Greenline in Taiwan? Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 21:12:18 GMT Can anyone tell me about the international telecommunications services provided by Greenline (in Taiwan)? Thanks! Harold Hallikainen ap621@Cleveland.Freenet.edu Hallikainen & Friends, Inc. hhallika@oboe.calpoly.edu 141 Suburban Road, Bldg E4 phone 805 541 0200 fax 544 6715 San Luis Obispo, CA 93401-7590 telex 4932775 HFI UI ------------------------------ From: cse@santafe.edu (Marcus Blankenship) Subject: Unknown Carrier Access Code Date: 26 May 1993 17:54:20 GMT Organization: The Santa Fe Institute Could someone please answer a question (I know you can) ... Which long distance carrier uses the code 10732 ? And why does it differ from normal access codes? What is it used for? Thank you, Marcus Blankenship Payphone Tech, Alpha Telcom Inc. (I do not represent my companies views/beliefs/questions) [Moderator's Note: 10732 is used by AT&T for their Software Defined Network. It is quite similar to 10288 (AT&T's main access code) but includes the additional features of the SDN which include blocking by NPA, NPA-XXX, and NPA-XXX-XXXX. It can also be configured to require authorization codes based on time of day or area code being called. It can block international and/or 809 as desired. There are numerous other features built into it including very comprehensive monthly reports which allows the subscriber complete control over the way his long distance service is used by employees, etc. One of the services I offer here is AT&T-SDN, via an aggregator/re- seller of AT&T. If your long distance bills are at least $300-400 per month, then AT&T-SDN is a very good deal, with rates much lower than what the 'public' generally pays for long distance. Naturally an 800 number can be tossed in if desired, at rates of 9-12 cents per minute nights/weekends. Anyone interested should contact me. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jim.Rees@umich.edu Subject: Real Phones (Western Electric 500 sets) and bakelite Date: 26 May 1993 18:48:40 GMT Organization: University of Michigan CITI Was the 500 set ever produced entirely in bakelite? I've got some sets from 1956 with the G-1 (bakelite) handset, but with the ABS body shell. By 1958 they were using the G-3 ABS handset. If they had ABS in 1958, why were they still using bakelite for the handsets? [Moderator's Note: Generally they were. You may have a 'mix and match' set or two; for a period of time in that era existing supplies of the old were used up. I've seen a couple phones like that: newer style bodies but older handsets. I guess they had a large inventory of the older handsets they wanted to use up even though there had been some changes to the innards requiring a slightly different shaped housing for the phone itself; thus a logical reason to change materials since they were changing the phone covering anyway. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ebk@tezey.munic.msk.su (Eugene B. Kotlyar) Subject: Compuserve and Applelink Users Wanted Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 12:30:57 GMT Reply-To: Ebk@tezey.munic.msk.su Organization: Information Technologies Center of The Moscow City Any AppleLink or Compuserve users please reply direct to me! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 02:00:00 CDT Subject: WAN From North to South America From: Mr. Steve Kutzer Question: I am working at the PanAmerican Health Organization, a regional office of the World Health Organization. We are responsible for information management systems here in Washington, D.C. as well as our field offices throughout Latin America. Our connections to Latin America are currently quite primitive: we asynchronously modem connect (at 2400 bps yet) to exchange mail messages several times a day. I am looking for alternatives to develop a Wide Area Network between D.C. and at least some of the larger field offices (say Buenos Aries, Sao Paolo Brazil, Mexico City and Guatemala). We are a 95% Novell NetWare 3.11 shop with the odd Unix box starting to pop up here and there. I am looking for on-demand Netware FileServer connections to allow remote administration, file transfer/sharing, cc:Mail access, as well as a way to share our soon-to-be D.C. based Internet connection. Do you have any suggestions as to how best achieve these goals in Latin America, where phone companies are a little different than here in the States :-) ?? Is SprintNet, Tymnet, or some other X.25 provider going to be able to satisfy my needs cost effectively? Are dedicated circuits from D.C. to Mexico, Mexico to Brazil, etc. too expensive or difficult to get? Thanks for your help. The international aspects of this are brand new to me. Steve Kutzer ------------------------------ Date: 26 May 1993 14:43:54 -0400 (EDT) From: Malis_A Subject: Modem and Phone Jacks in Amsterdam This summer I am going to be spending a week in Amsterdam (Netherlands) with my Powerbook. I have two questions: 1. Will my Powerbook's internal modem (Powerport/Silver V.32) be compatible with the local phone system? 2. Can I use the standard RJ11 connector, or will I need some other connector? Thanks, Andrew G. Malis malis_a@timeplex.com Ph: +1 508 266-4522 Ascom Timeplex 289 Great Rd., Acton MA 01720 USA FAX:+1 508 264-4999 ------------------------------ Subject: Looking For NRZ-to-Conditioned Diphase Converter Date: Wed, 26 May 93 14:49:34 -0700 From: stehle@erg.sri.com I am looking for suppliers of an interface box that converts NRZ data (at RS-449, RS-422 levels) into Conditioned Diphase Signals; the inverse operation is also required. Data rate is 128 kbps. Thanks, in advance, Roy Stehle, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA -- stehle@erg.sri.com ------------------------------ Date: 26 May 93 14:34:20 MST From: Mr John W Shaver Subject: Net Costing Is there a procedure for deriving a least cost network given a wide ranging network with a variety of paths and related costs? Is this a discipline which has a lot of material? The particular network which we are looking at has Bandwidth on Demand features and will have some reliability constraints which require backup links to operate quickly. The network will capability up to multiple T3 connections between some major nodes. John W. Shaver 602 538 7622 // DSN 879 7622 // FTS 658 7622 FAX 538 0656 // DSN 879 0656_// FTS 658 0656 ------------------------------ From: lmcrajy@noah.ericsson.se (Raj Sanmugam) Subject: Latitude/Longitude -> Distance Reply-To: lmcrajy@noah.ericsson.se Organization: Ericsson Communication Inc. Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 19:32:29 GMT I read a couple of items discussing V&H coordinates and latitudes and longitudes. I am currently working on a project that requires the estimation of the actual distance between two point represented by the geographical coordinates (lats and longs). This prompted me to ask the following dumb questions: What is the accepted North American (or international) representation of latitude/longitude (ie deg/min/sec etc.) How can the coordinates be acurately converted to the distance? Is there any standards for this? I would also like to receive the V&H coordinate description. Raj/// ------------------------------ From: bubba@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Gary Beason) Subject: Data Over Voice/Using Phone and Modem Simulataneously Organization: Purdue University Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 04:02:24 GMT I'm trying to find a way to use my modem while allowing use of the phone. What sort of data over voice would I look for? Can anyone suggest sources or information. Gary Beason Purdue University bubba@mace.cc.purdue.edu ------------------------------ Organization: City University of New York Date: Wednesday, 26 May 1993 00:28:17 EDT From: YAGHC@CUNYVM.BITNET Subject: Help Needed on Procom Setup Hi, I am using Procom V2.0 for my modem. I always have problems with my left cursor key. When I use the key to move the cursor to the left, it always deletes the character on the screen. I checked the menu and keymapping file; it seems OK The keymap on that key has a code ^[[OD which seems the default. Has anyone had the same experience and do you know the solution? I really appreciate any help. Thanks. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #355 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa15604; 27 May 93 5:56 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA21102 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Thu, 27 May 1993 03:40:22 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA16200 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Thu, 27 May 1993 03:39:33 -0500 Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 03:39:33 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305270839.AA16200@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #356 TELECOM Digest Thu, 27 May 93 03:39:30 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 356 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Australian Defence IT Standards Newsletter (Tom Worthington) Movable Switches (was Re: Hinsdale) (David G. Lewis) Dos-Based Paging Software Wanted? (Greg Isett) Propaganda From Ameritech: Advanced Communications Services (Nigel Allen) French Phreaking on Northern Telecom PBX (Jean-Bernard Condat) Starting a VoiceMail Service: HELP! (TJR122@psuvm.psu.edu) What Was That Publication Number Again? (Marshall Rose) Public Accomodations and 10xxx Billing (Hierophant) Will Moscow Soon Surpass USA in Quality of Phone Service? (Keith Smith) Switchless Resellers of Long Distance Service (K.B. Houser) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: tomw@ccadfa.cc.adfa.oz.au (Tom Worthington) Subject: Australian Defence IT Standards Newsletter Organization: Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, Australia Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 04:25:58 GMT Defence Information Technology policy identifies Open System standards, principally those ratified by the International Standards Organisation (ISO), as its strategic direction. Accordingly, Defence participates in the development and specification of standards through participation in Standards Australia (SA) standards committees. CIS Branch, HQADF is the coordinator of Departmental representation to those committees. Through ITS NEWS it is intended to identify the representatives, and the committees that they are members of, so that they may be a corporate reference source. It is also intended to provide reports and articles, from the representatives, on the standards that are under development. As Email expands, and more people can be connected, it is intended that the Defence representative will provide briefs on the committee current activities and issues to those people who register interest or a need to know. Excerpts from articles in the first ITs NEWS: BROADBAND ISDN - FROM DR MIKE LAI - ERL - DSTO - SALISBURY SA: Traditionally, Information Technology has been divided into Computing and Communication Technologies. As the beginning of a new century is getting nearer, network users, administrators and operators are on the brink of a new era in Information Technology services and equipments because of the merging of computing and communications, which is actually happening today. The technological investigation of B-ISDN is a part of the on- going study of CCITT SG XVIII. THE DORIC PROGRAM - FROM MR BRIAN ANDREWS - RESEARCH LEADER, MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS, DSTO Nobel prize winner A. Penzia made the following visionary observations to help in setting the direction of the world beyond digital. "In the future, if we are to make advanced integrated communications universally available, we must provide a means of combining signalling and network control traffic with digital voice, wide and narrowband video, graphics and all the other kinds of data that must be moved, switched, multiplexed, etc., in an integrated system, which is more economically attractive than a series of individually optimised solutions." Following the above challenge, public and private network planners all over the world, including those of the military, are actively planning to rebuild their respective networks. At the heart of the DORIC program is the Telecom/DSTOResearch ATM Network, which is a world class facility jointly designed and developed by Telecom Research Laboratories and the Communications Division of the DSTO. For further information, or queries on ITs News, contact: R.J. Mandy. CRAMER DDISPS, B-3-25, Russell Offices, Canberra, Australia Ext (06) 265 3722, International Ph +61 6 2653722 Fax: (06) 265 3601, International fax +61 6 2653601 X.400:C=AU;A=TELEMEMO;P=AUSGOVDEFENCENET;O=HQADF;OU=CIS.BRANCH;S=CRAMER;G= MANDY;I=RJM Internet: "/G=MANDY/S=CRAMER/OU=CIS.BRANCH/"@HQADF.ausgovdefencenet.telememo.au NOTE: A text-only copy of the full ITs News is available electronically, from the archive at archie.au in the /ACS/ directory, file "ItsNews-1993-1" via ftp and netfetch. ------------------------------ From: deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) Subject: Movable Switches (was Re: Hinsdale) Organization: AT&T Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 14:01:18 GMT In article hhallika@tuba.calpoly.edu (Harold Hallikainen) writes: > In article Cliff Sharp chi.il.us> writes: >> From listening to the ham radio operators who had taken over >> emergency services for places like Hinsdale Hospital (by special >> dispensation of the local FCC Chief Engineer), it was my impression >> that this was done by the use of a mobile unit/truck outside the >> building. > It does seem like telephone companies would have trucks with > switches and satellite terminals in them. Just drive the truck up, > plug it in and you have a few thousand lines back in service. All > calls that could not be switched locally would go to the satellite. AT&T has one or two of these trucks; latest use which got a lot of national attention was in Homestead, FL, after Hurricane Andrew. I don't believe they necessarily have satellite terminals -- if you have to splice into a few thousand copper pairs to get out to the loops, splicing into a few dozen more fibers or coax cables to get trunk-side connectivity doesn't take much more time. They're used for traveling roadshows when they're not in use somewhere for emergency response. David G Lewis AT&T Bell Laboratories david.g.lewis@att.com or !att!goofy!deej Switching & ISDN Implementation ------------------------------ From: gwi@icf.hrb.com (Gregory W. Isett) Subject: Dos-Based Paging Software Wanted Date: 26 May 93 10:42:42 EST Organization: HRB Systems, Inc. Does anyone know where I can obtain DOS-based software to accept a page from a user, connect to an alphanumeric pager switch (via ixo protocol?) and download the page? Greg Isett Internet: gwi@icf.hrb.com HRB Systems FAX : (814)234-7720 300 Science Park Road Voice : (814)238-4311 State College, Pa. USA 16804-0060 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 93 05:12:51 EDT From: ae446@freenet.carleton.ca (Nigel Allen) Subject: Propaganda From Ameritech: Advanced Communications Services Info Organization: Echo Beach Reply-To: ae446@freenet.carleton.ca Someone from Ameritech Services has posted a message in several newsgroups inviting people to request "a free, full-color issue brief" about advanced telecommunications technology. I called 1-800-786-LINK on the weekend to request the literature, and was pleasantly surprised that the number was good from Canada. Many U.S. 800 numbers are not. I haven't seen the "issue brief" yet, but I suspect that it's more an argument in favor of ending line-of-business restrictions on Bell holding and operating companies and eliminating rate-of-return regulation than it is a demonstration of what telecom technology can do. Telephone company propaganda is often interesting to read, even if you don't agree with the political agenda of the particular telephone company. Nigel Allen, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ae446@freenet.carleton.ca ------------------------------ From: jbcondat@attmail.com Date: 27 May 93 03:59:59 GMT Subject: French Phreaking on Northern Telecom PBX In France, I note that Northern Telecom continues an uncredible progression in the number of PBXs installed. NT will be present on the MATRA logo since some months. Some people have asked me how to prevent a phreaking process that will be described: (1) Go to a public phone in the street; never use your own private phone; (2) Dial a "numero vert" (equivalent of the 800 phone number) that go on a NT' PBX and wait for the vocal message of the Meridian Mail system. You can found this "numero vert" on all ads in newspaper for the greatest PBX: SNCF (train), VITTEL (water), Canal+ (TV), BARCLAYS (bank), EuroDisney (games), Microsoft (softwares), etc. Note that this phone call will be gratis! (3) As soon as you have the vocal message, dial "0" then "*" for having the automatic dial service; (4) Dial "0" and your asked phone number ended by "#"... some seconds after you have your communication! How can I suppress this un-credible fonction of Meridian Mail? Jean-Bernard Condat General Secretary Chaos Computer Club France, B.P. 155, 93404 St-Ouen Cedex, France Private Address: P.O. 8005, 69351 Lyon Cedex 08, France Phone: +33 1 40101764, Fax: +33 1 47877070 InterNet: jbcondat@attmail.com or cccf@altern.com [Moderator's Note: The answer probably lies in the voicemail part of the connection rather than the PBX itself. Somewhere in the mailbox system is a box whose disposition is to connect to an outside line. You need to disable that box, or at least get it disassociated from the '0*' access, which so many people seem to know about. PAT] ------------------------------ Organization: Penn State University Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 21:07:07 EDT From: TJR122@psuvm.psu.edu Subject: Starting a VoiceMail Service: HELP! I am considering starting a voicemail service in my area. I would like to offer more than just voicemail to the users, but am working with moderately limited funds. I would appreciate it if you could all just bombard me with Company/Product names/phone numbers as to where I can get a phone-answering card for my PC. I have considered Watson and VBX from Natural MicroSystems, (they are the best I've found so far), but want to make sure there isn't something twice as good for half the price that I haven't found yet. The Watson card is more in my price range for right now (around $450), but the VBX (around $2100 for four lines including software) is certainly a candidate for an upgrade. I've heard alot of bad things about Watson's "card file" programming language, but I'll live with it, because I just don't have the extra $1500 available right now for startup costs. I don't want to have to buy a $15,000 package deal (you know, the kind that includes a PC, 6 video tapes, 12 audio tapes, 8 manuals, etc.), I really just want a card. It seems that the $140 to $210 cards are little more than fancy answering machines ... whereas I need something that I can program menus, define touchtones to do certain commands, etc.) If anyone out there currently runs/uses a similar system, please E-Mail me and tell me what kinds of services are provided and what kinds of rates are charged. I know this is a tall order, but I'd really appreciate it if you could just drop me a short message with your ideas or info. Thanks in advance! Tom Rusnock, tjr122@psuvm.psu.edu [Moderator's Note: A very honest, small family-owned business I've recently located has what you are seeking. Although Computer Business Services is a full-scale 'bells and whistles' company with the 486, the tapes and etc that you said you did not want, they will also sell just the voicemail software itself if you already have the hardware. If you have a Dialogic card for example, you can buy just the soft- ware plus print-ready material to help begin advertising your service from them for about $3000, and to a limited extent they will finance some of that purchase. They are located in Sheridan, Indiana, a small town of a couple thousand people in the central part of the state. They have been in business eleven years. First I suggest you put in a call to the Postmaster at Sheridan and also the Town Clerk to get references on this firm; they are well known (and hire many of the people in town to work for them). Then call CBSI (Computer Business Services, Inc.) and speak with the owner George Douglass, his son Andrew Douglass (the president) or Mrs. Douglass. Ask for the package of information they send out on their products and services. I was very impressed with them and their honesty in business dealings. You can mention you read about them in the Digest. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: What Was That Publication Number Again Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 08:48:17 -0700 From: Marshall Rose I seem to recall a recent posting on AT&T publication dealing with International prefixes (IDDD), etc. Does anyone recall how to order it? Sorry for the bother, mtr [Moderator's Note: The AT&T Consumer Information Center in Indianapolis, IN has the book you are seeking. You can get the same book from the AT&T International Operations Center in Pittsburgh, PA. Ask your AT&T operator to connect you to the Pittsburgh IOC, and ask the service reps there to send you a copy. The book mostly has country codes with prices, and a few city codes. For a much more detailed listing of city codes around the world visit our own Telecom Archives using anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu. Login anonymous, use name@site as password, then 'cd telecom-archives/country.codes'. Have a BIG buffer ready to start capturing the data. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 93 16:08:51 -0500 From: Hierophant Subject: Public Accomodations and 10xxx Billing In TELECOM Digest Volume 13, Issue 345, Message 1 of 16, PAT notes: > Final note: The law says a 'place of public accomodation' (i.e. dorm > at a university, hotel/motel, etc -- I am not sure if a long term > psychiatric facility or prison would be included) cannot block or deny > passage of calls via 10xxx. Where can I find the official legal mumbo-jumbo that makes this so? This university still won't allow ANY 10xxx access, dorm room or no. [Moderator's Note: Someone? Anyone? What is the legalese on this and the reference numbers, etc. Thanks. PAT] ------------------------------ From: keith@ksmith.com (Keith Smith) Subject: Will Moscow Soon Surpass the USA in Quality of Phone Service? Organization: Keith's Computer, Hope Mills, NC Date: Thu, 27 May 93 01:46:04 GMT [Moderator's Note: Original article was not in the Digest. PAT] In article <1993May16.155028.18378@hq.demos.su> dvv@hq.demos.su (Dima Volodin) writes: > In <1993May10.050944.23466@ksmith.com> keith@ksmith.com (Keith > Smith) writes: >> The PEP modulation has a place, and that place is shrinking true, but >> there is still a lot of crummy phone lines in the US, not to mention >> other places like Poland, or Moscow, or whatever. > Cannot say anything about Poland, but Moscow is moving speedily out > of this category. E.g. I'm reading news and just hanging around our > host for more, than four hours now with ZyXEL at 16800. No single > retrain yet. And it's all across old dusty Moscow. Funny you should mention this. Actually you guys over in the former communist bloc are probably going to do with your Telecom what Europe did with their TV's. You will probably have much BETTER telecom in 5 years than the US simply because most of your old stuff is total junk, and you will _have_ to run new, and of course when you do you will run the current state of the art, while we will have to live with the stuff we ran five years ago, eight years ago, ten years ago, forty years ago ... It's the old baggage syndrome again. "ISDN? What's that?" - Carolina Telephone business customer assistance number. Keith Smith keith@ksmith.com 5719 Archer Rd. Digital Designs BBS 1-919-423-4216 Hope Mills, NC 28348-2201 ------------------------------ From: AlterNet@cup.portal.com Subject: Switchless Resellers of Long Distance Service Date: Wed, 26 May 93 22:39:22 PDT Long Distance at Short Rates AlterNET Marketing, agents for switchless resellers of telecommunication services can offer you substantial savings on your phone bills. (In 1990 the FCC authorized third party selling of long distance and other services. We are an alternative marketing channel for MCI, Sprint, and AT&T. Through large volume agreements, you save money and still get reliable connections through the large carriers you know already.) We offer you the following discounted services: o Travel Card up to 50% off o Dial 1 Business and Residential Long Distance Interstate up to 40% off Intra-LATA up to 30% off (where bypass is allowed) o International Calling up to 10% off Affinity Fund Travel Card The Affinity Fund travel card has a smaller surcharge than most, only $.25 for the first call, successive calls can be made by hitting the # key. Day rates are $.152 - .213 per minute, evenings, nights, and weekends are a flat $.149 per minute. Six second billing is standard. You get an 800 number for toll free access from hotels or pay phones. Three-way conference calls, a misdial feature, intra-LATA and international calling are included. You need to switch at least one line to the Affinity Fund (which is MCI). Affinity Fund Dial 1 By switching your primary carrier to the Affinity Fund you will receive the reliability of MCI at discounted rates. Dial 1 Interstate Average Rate Comparisons: AT&T MCI Sprint Affinity Fund ---- --- ------ ------------- $.26 per min $.25 per min $.24 per min $.17 per min The Affinity Fund is different from other long distance carriers: o Billing is in six second increments so you are charged closer to your actual usage, not to the next minute. (There is an 18 second minimum for the first minute.) o Day Rates (0800-1700 M-F) $.164 - .214 per minute; o Eve. Rates (1700-2300 M-F) $.1275 - .1580 per minute; o N/W Rates (2300-0800 M-F, all day Sat & Sun) $.098 - .135 per minute; o Calls are carried by MCI; o Service is guaranteed. You will be switched back for free if you are dissatisfied in the first 90 days. o By Dialing 10-222 before a number within your LATA, you can save on local long distance calls if bypass is allowed in your state. AlterNET We can analyze your phone bill to give you a personal estimate based on calls you actually made. If you are interested in these services, or would like information on 800 numbers, Hertz Tariff 12, AT&T DNS, or other telecom services please contact us. Contact us also if you would like to participate as a marketing agent for these services receiving residual commissions on sales. Please send E-mail to us at AlterNet@cup.portal.com for more information on these services. FAQ's Q: What are switchless resellers of long distance telecommunications services? A: Switchless resellers of long distance services are similar to the other carriers of long distance services, except that they do not own any facilities (i.e. call switching equipment or transmission lines). Instead, they buy long distance services from facilities-based carriers, making volume commitments on the purchase of long distance services in exchange for discounts they can pass on to businesses and residences to which they resell those long distance services; on average of 20-40% less. Q: Why haven't I heard much about this type of competitive long distance provider? A: Switchless resellers are a relatively new entrant into the competitive long distance market, emerging in 1990. Q: Why would the major long distance carriers allow their services to be resold? A: Most carriers view switchless resellers as an alternate distribution channel for their long distance services. In addition, the resale of long distance services is encouraged by FCC policy to bring about the benefits of competition in the long distance industry. Q: Why haven't I heard about this opportunity from the major long distance carrier I subscribe to now? A: While the major carriers support switchless resellers as large customers, they also view switchless resellers as competitors to their own sales force and, therefore, may not mention the availability of their services. Q: What is the quality of the long distance services offered by switchless resellers? A: Because switchless resellers typically buy long distance services from major carriers, the resold long distance services are the same quality and reliability these carriers offer all their customers. Q: If I am already receiving discounts from AT&T, MCI, or Sprint, can a switchless reseller save me more? A: Yes! The tremendous volumes of long distance purchased by a switchless reseller can ensure greater volume discounts for all but the very largest customers. Q: Who will bill me for the services I use? A: In most cases you will be billed by the switchless reseller directly. Q: What happens if the switchless reseller I subscribe to is no longer able to provide services? A: If your switchless reseller is no longer able to provide your long distance telecommunications, your service will continue uninterrupted on the network of the underlying carrier. Q: Who is AlterNET Marketing? A: AlterNET Marketing is a marketing company for switchless resellers, it is headquartered in Allentown PA. Individual sales associates, like me (K.B.Houser), provide the legwork and receive residual commissions starting at 4% of monthly telecom billings. It is a network marketing organization, associates earn overrides of 1% for their first level recruits and only after personally achieving $1000 in monthly sales. Second level overrides of 1% are earned after personally selling $10,000 per month. It is a young company, and there are presently over 200 sales associates. K.B.Houser AlterNET@cup.portal.com AlterNET Marketing FAX: 408-765-0513 5589 Winfield Blvd. #200 Voice: 408-363-3889 San Jose, CA 95123-1219 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #356 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa14221; 27 May 93 19:28 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA21535 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Thu, 27 May 1993 16:25:37 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA29317 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Thu, 27 May 1993 16:24:36 -0500 Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 16:24:36 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305272124.AA29317@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #357 TELECOM Digest Thu, 27 May 93 16:24:30 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 357 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson GSM Frequency Range and Experiences (Juha Veijalainen) CCITT G.712 Line Interfaces (Thomas Tornblom) Sliding Window Protocols (Norbert Vohn) Ex-Soviet Republic Dialing (was Czechoslovakia Has Split) (Paul Robinson) Coded Information in Telephone Books (Paul Robinson) Hierophant's 10xxx Question (Bonnie J. Johnson) Fake TV Phone Numbers (Monty Solomon) Tariffing by Distance (Richard Cox) Gay Employee Group at AT&T Holds Conference (Tom Tilkey) Re: New Rockwell V.32bis Chip Set (Mike Oswald) Re: The Telex Machine in Popular Music (Jim Rees) Re: Great Wrong Number (was Misdialed Numbers) (Todd Inch) Re: Ugh! Call-Forwarding Cancels Hunting! (Marty Brenneis) ---------------------- TELECOM Digest is an e-journal devoted mostly -- but not exclusively -- to discussions on voice telephony. The Digest is a not-for-profit public service published frequently by Patrick Townson Associates. PTA markets a no-surcharge telephone calling card and a no monthly fee 800 service. In addition, we are resellers of AT&T's Software Defined Network. For a detailed discussion of our services, write and ask for the file 'products'. The Digest is delivered at no charge by email to qualified subscribers on any electronic mail service connected to the Internet. To join the mail- ing list, write and tell us how you qualify: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu. Before submitting articles for publication, please read a copy of our file 'writing.to.telecom'. All article submissions MUST be sent to our email address: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu -- NOT as replies to comp.dcom.telecom. Back issues and numerous other telephone-related files of interest are available from the Telecom Archives, using anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu. Login anonymous, then 'cd telecom-archives'. At the present time, the Digest is also ported to Usenet at the request of many readers there, where it is known as 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Use of the Digest does not require the use of our products and services. The two are separate. All articles are the responsibility of the individual authors. Organi- zations listed, if any, are for identification purposes only. The Digest is compilation-copyrighted, 1993. **DO NOT** cross-post articles between the Digest and other Usenet or alt newsgroups. Do not compile mailing lists from the net-addresses appearing herein. Send tithes and love offerings to PO Box 1570, Chicago, IL 60690. :) Phone: 312-465-2700. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FNAHA!JVE@TRENGA.tredydev.unisys.com Date: 27 MAY 93 06:27 Subject: GSM Frequency Range and Experiences I've recently invested in a small handheld GSM mobile phone. No one has been able to tell me what frequency range it uses. Does someone out there know? Judging from the antenna size, frequency might be around 900 MHz or 1800 MHz. Otherwise I'm quite happy with the service. Local service (in Helsinki,Finland) is quite good for a handheld phone. Sound quality is certainly better than on analog NMT 900 phones. Battery capacity is about 15h (ready time) with normal battery, that's only about half from older NMT phones (I've been told GSM does not have energy saving functions yet). I have not yet been able to try my phone abroad, but I've checked pricing information for various countries. I was quite surprised. I've always thought finnish prices were high, but on GSM they are about lowest in Europe. Daytime charge is about 0.35 US Dollars/min in Finland (lower rate after 17:00 about 0.19 USD). For example in United Kingdom prices are about 1.25 USD/minute -- no lower rates available. Also, in most European countries lowest charge unit is a second, but in UK they (Vodaphone) charge by full minutes. I guess UK companies are either more profit conscious or have much larger operating costs. Juha Veijalainen 4ge system analyst, tel. +358 0 4528 426 Unisys Finland Internet: JVE%FNAHA@trenga.tredydev.unisys.com >> Mielipiteet omiani ** Opinions are PERSONAL, facts are suspect << ------------------------------ From: Thomas.Tornblom@Nexus.Comm.SE (Thomas Tornblom) Subject: CCITT G.712 Line Interfaces Organization: Communicator Nexus AB Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 12:32:12 GMT A colleague of mine asked me to check whether anyone on the net knows what line interfaces there are available that meets CCITT G.712 specifications. Is this RS-422 or V.11 in disguise? I have a terse paper describing the interface they are supposed to support. It only states G.712 and 600 +/- 20% ohms impedance and a picture showing two balanced pairs. So, if anyone can tell if the interface is compatible with RS-422 or V.11 drivers/receivers, or better still, recommend suitable line interfaces (manufacturer, part number) I'd be grateful. Real life: Thomas To:rnblom Email: Thomas.Tornblom@Nexus.Comm.SE Snail mail: Communicator Nexus AB Phone: +46 18 171814 Box 857 Fax: +46 18 696516 S - 751 08 Uppsala, Sweden ------------------------------ From: norbert@dfv.rwth-aachen.de (Norbert Vohn) Subject: Sliding Window Protocols Organization: Communication Networks Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 11:27:11 GMT Hello there! I'm a student of electrical engineering and just doing my masters thesis. In the scope of this I need to implement a sliding window protocol (with selective repeat) for usage in an simulation tool. (see Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Computer Networks). Maybe there exist some implementations in C++ or C? Is there anyone who knows something about it, or even knows how to implement the protocol quickly by myself? So, I would wonder if someone of you could help me! Norbert Vohn Communication Networks, Technical University of Aachen Phone: +49-241-807925 Fax: +49-241-84964 Email: norbert@dfv.rwth-aachen.de ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 11:33:12 -0400 (EDT) From: Tansin A. Darcos & Company <0005066432@mcimail.com> Reply-To: Tansin A. Darcos & Company <0005066432@mcimail.com> Subject: Ex-Soviet Republic Dialing (was Czechoslovakia Has Split) Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA > Speaking of rumors ... has anyone heard if any of the former Soviet > republics (Latvia, Kyrg., etc.) are direct dialable yet? Last night at my other office we got a call in from Kiev in the Ukraine. It took the caller a day and a half to make a connection. If I had wanted to call him, I would have dialed 9-011-7-044 and the seven-digit local nunber. In some cases I use 9-011-10222-7 or 9-011-10333-7 if AT&T has trouble getting through. Since most people are unaware that Sprint and MCI has connections into the Ex-Soviet Union/Former Iron Curtain (XSU/FIC), I can sometimes make calls there that *cannot* go through on AT&T because it doesn't have enough trunks. I was telling one of our people who does regular correspondence with Moscow Center and other places in the XSU/FIC, that an article in the {Washington Times} stated that there were plans to install two new switches (One in Kiev, and the other in St. Petersburg), of 15,000 trunks each. The article also noted that Moscow only has 1500 international trunks. Not just a mere 1500 trunks for that city (which would be a bit cramped, at that), but 1500 trunks for the WHOLE +7 AREA CODE, all 200+ million people! Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 12:07:16 -0400 (EDT) From: Tansin A. Darcos & Company <0005066432@mcimail.com> Reply-To: Tansin A. Darcos & Company <0005066432@mcimail.com> Subject: Coded Information in Telephone Books Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA Recently, in a Moderator's Note, Pat mentioned that Illinois Bell Telephone would put coded listings in its telephone book to catch people who duplicated it. (I guess to threaten to sue them if they did not pay a licensing fee or something.) The question is whether they still bother to do this. About a year or more ago, it was reported in an article prominently mentioned in the Business or Money section of one of the local papers, a major decision of the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that telephone books, (or at least the listings of subscribers, I think), fail to contain the 'minimum creativity' necessary to be capable of having copyright protection, and thus telephone books are not copyrightable because they lack that 'bare minimum'. I may in part see the court's reasoning, since all that is done in generating a telephone white pages is the collection of names out of the company's database, then sorting that database (which is done automatically by the computer), thus it is all done automatically; there is no 'creativity' involved. Whether this is a threat to those who produce computerized databases or rent mailing lists is another issue. (It might not if the information is based on unique values and had some selection criteria, e.g. someone took some thought into the information collected and disseminated. Also, if mailing lists are rented under contractual agreement, they may constitute a 'trade secret' and thus are a separate matter.) This is a major landmark since it overturns over seventy years of established precedent, going back to the precise case back in 1913 or so, in {Pacific Telephone v. Leon} (I remember the exact case citing) it was ruled that someone could not copy a telephone book to make one's own listing of people even if the phone company wasn't making one because telephone books were copyrightable and required permission to reproduce them. A later case ruled that independent creation of the identical information created a separate copyrightable work. Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM [Moderator's Note: A compilation copyright is still possible for phone directories to recognize the labor by the people involved in putting it all together. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 93 11:50:36 EDT From: Bonnie J Johnson Subject: Hierophant's 10xxx Question FCC ruling 92-275 issued June 23, 1992 sets the dates and intervals for aggregators (of which Universities are a part). Although there are a couple loop holes for the most part your school is/could be in violation of blocking. *The deadline passed last year.* bj [Moderator's Note: So H, advise the warden at your institution that FCC ruling 92-275 is being violated. Maybe you should get a copy of it to show him. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 04:39:24 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Fake TV Phone Numbers On tonight's LA Law they have the number 1 600 555 FONE on an infomercial. Monty Solomon / PO Box 2486 / Framingham, MA 01701-0405 monty%roscom@think.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 93 11:04 GMT0BST-1 From: Richard Cox Subject: Tariffing by Distance Reply-To: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk I would appreciate some help with my research. For calls outside your LATA, (where 10XXX routing provides competition) just how prevalent is distance-dependant tariffing now? What are the ratios between the charges for calls to destinations at the maximum and minimum distances from the caller (within mainland USA, of course) made at the same time of day and charged on the same tariff? Does this vary much between IECs, calling plans, etc? How are calls charged when they cross the US-Canada border, even though the actual distance is very small indeed (say, from one side of Niagara to the other)? All help gratefully received. Richard D G Cox Mandarin Technology, Cardiff Business Park, Llanishen, CARDIFF, Wales Voice: +44 222 747111 Fax: +44 222 711111 VoiceMail: +44 399 870101 E-mail: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk - PGP2.2 public key available. ------------------------------ From: ttilkey@attmail.com Date: 27 May 93 21:44:24 GMT Subject: Gay Employee Group at AT&T Hold Conference Having just returned from DC and attending the LEAGUE (Lesbian, Bisexual and Gay United Employees at AT&T) Professional Development Conference Wednesday through Saturday (May 19-22), I would like to share my personal experience with you. Powerful, enlightening, exciting and proud are a few of the words that come to mind when I reflect back on last week, similar to the euphoric feelings many shared upon returning from the March on Washington. I didn't realize that LEAGUE was so organized, well respected and the size of it's membership (more than 600). We heard this repeatedly from both external and internal AT&T speakers. The conference, in my opinion, was a total success. I believe we are making progress with AT&T. Other companies are beginning to ask LEAGUE and AT&T for advice on gay issues in the workplace and how to start Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual organizations. First, let me share a sad moment from last week, on Wednesday evening we were informed that our first guest speaker, the Chairman of the City Council in the District of Columbia, John Wilson had taken his life earlier in the day. His wife explained on the news that he had been suffering from depression for many years. John will be dearly missed by all who knew him. He was a strong advocate and ally of the gay community. John was scheduled to personally welcome LEAGUE to Washington, DC. We were elated when Congressman Gerry Studds and his lover showed up during our reception and banquet. He said he will write a letter to our CEO to commend him for the support of LEAGUE. Our Emcee read us a letter sent by Congresswoman Pat Schroeder of Colorado welcoming us and wishing us the best. During the three days we attended a variety of workshops and plenary sessions. Of the ones that I attended, I vividly remember Mandy Carter from the Human Rights Campaign Fund (HRCF). She told us about some of the tactics that our adversaries are using to oppress gay, lesbian and bisexual people. Her eloquent yet moving speech stressed how critical it is for LEAGUE to get more politically active to help influence our leaders and politicians. LEAGUE is growing with new people coming out and chapters forming. Mandy felt that we could help impact and influence the gay movement by aggressively supporting the letter writing, phone/fax in campaigns and political activities nationwide. Linda Villarosa, Senior Editor of {Essence Magazine}, shared a touching story about the "Coming Out" article she co-wrote with her mother that resulted in many awards and received more positive letters than any other article in the 23 year history of the magazine. Lotus Development Corporation sent Polly Laurelchild-Hertig who shared her exciting story about the 2 1/2 year struggle to include Domestic Partnership Benefits for gay/lesbian employees (and finally winning). Polly reflected on the triumphs and defeats, the supporters and opposition and what LEAGUE should and should not do to help escalate and institute the process at AT&T. An AT&T vice-president and his wife attended the entire conference. Also, Bob Kavner an AT&T senior executive spoke about supporting us in our quest for equal rights (Mr. Kavner was a candidate for the CEO position at IBM). We made it very clear that we need his help on the Domestic Partnership issue(s). I feel we have gained a powerful supporter. I've heard Brian McNaught speak on many occasions. It never ceases to amaze me of his ability to turn enemies into allies with his "Homophobia in the Workplace" workshop. Brian also debuted his new video called "Gay Issues in the Workplace" The 23 minute video is an excellent educational tool for all companies and organizations that are struggling with bias, bigotry and discrimination against gays and lesbians in the workplace. The video was partially filmed during LEAGUE's 1st conference in Orlando last year. During the open microphone sessions, people shared touching stories of coming out, HIV and reflected on the AIDS quilt panel that LEAGUE members made for the many AT&T employees we've lost to the deadly virus. We learned that this particular panel was one chosen to participate in the Clinton inauguration parade. John, a LEAGUE member in our marketing department thanked everyone for helping to distribute the LEAGUE brochures. He explained that of the 40,000-60,000+ that were distributed, we've received over 2,000 responses (an unusually high rate of return). This has caused AT&T marketing executives to officially form a group to specifically look at the gay market (YEA!). LEAGUE members read aloud some of the written comments from the returned brochures. After reading about 20, many attendees cheered and some wept with pride. The overwhelming majority of the comments talked about supporting and switching back to AT&T Long Distance because of it's support of LEAGUE. Some were negative as well, (e.g., the Rovira case, Planned Parenthood), but AT&T needs to hear these to so we can improve and change. On Wednesday evening, 191 of us boarded a boat in Georgetown for dinner, dancing and lots of laughs while cruising the Potomac River. The boat will never be the same. Thursday evening the banquet entertainment included the funny and talented Lynn Lavner singing, playing the piano and tell us her Cybil Sheppard story from the March on Washington. LESS MISERABLE, a gay comedy trio from Dallas kept us laughing as well. Both shows were entertaining and fun. Our 1st Conference in Orlando (1992) had 120 people in attendance, with the majority of the participants gay white males. This year's conference of over 200 attendees still had a high percentage of GWM's, but noticeable more women, people of color, hetersexual allies and many more significant others. Planning has begun for the 1994 Conference in Boston. We anticipate many more LEAGUE members, supporters, spouses, politicians, and possible our CEO to participate. I have not covered everything that happened at the conference, however, I wanted to share with you some of the activities LEAGUE is doing and possibly help your organizations influence support from management. We are hoping that the conference press release gets more coverage this time. Thanks for listening. Tom Tilkey LEAGUE & AT&T internet!ttilkey@att.com [Moderator's Note: And thank you very much for sharing. PAT] ------------------------------ From: moswald@cwis.unomaha.edu (Mike Oswald) Subject: Re: New Rockwell V.32bis Chip Set Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha Date: Thu, 26 May 1993 15:25:42 GMT alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us writes: > ..."additional bonus of optional 16550 UART with FIFO..." > About bleedin' time. It's not rocket science, but having just a teeny > few characters worth of buffering under Windows will sure as heck help > on total through put. Where would I need to make changes in Windows if I have 9600 v.32/v.42 external modem and I was wondering about how to help my COMM programs performance? Mike ------------------------------ From: Jim.Rees@umich.edu Subject: Re: The Telex Machine in Popular Music Date: 27 May 1993 19:01:46 GMT Organization: University of Michigan CITI In article , ae446@freenet.carleton.ca (Nigel Allen) writes: > So can anyone else think of any telex-related songs? How about "Western Union?" I forget who recorded it, but it was a hit in the 60s. The original 45 was transparent red. ------------------------------ From: toddi@mav.com (Todd Inch) Subject: Re: Great Wrong Number (was Misdialed Numbers) Organization: Maverick International Inc. Date: Thu, 27 May 93 19:27:09 GMT Before cellular phones, when I was living at home, I received a call: "Hi, this is Dad. Tell mom to get you all in the car and I'll meet you at xxxx (Dad's favorite buffet restaurant) in an hour." Me: "Okay, great. See ya." Minutes later, my (actual) dad drove up and asked what was for dinner. I felt sorry for that guy waiting for his family at the restaurant. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 93 10:27:38 PDT From: droid@kerner.com (Marty the Droid) Subject: Re: Ugh! Call-Forwarding Cancels Hunting! Organization: The Kerner Company I just did a little test with the call forwarding from my home to my office. The setup: My prime home number is one of two lines that hunt off of a #5ESS. When I go to work I do a regular call forward (72#258-XXXX) to my office line. The office line is a T1 full of DIDs into a PBX with a voice monster on it. When I called my home number from four lines at once, all four of them made it to the voicemonster together. (I mean on four different ports. :-) I haven't the time now to find what the limit is on how many I can forward at once. (I'd probably run out of DID ports first.) I think there is something hinky with the software in the switch at toad's telco. Marty 'The Droid' Brenneis ...!uupsi!kerner!droid Industrial Magician droid@kerner.com (415)258-2105 ~~~ KAE7616 - 462.700 - 162.2 ~~~ KC6YYP ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #357 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa14547; 27 May 93 19:35 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA13374 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Thu, 27 May 1993 17:07:08 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA12331 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Thu, 27 May 1993 17:06:01 -0500 Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 17:06:01 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305272206.AA12331@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #358 TELECOM Digest Thu, 27 May 93 17:06:00 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 358 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Alarm Point Telemetry Equipment (Bruce Sullivan) Re: Alarm Point Telemetry Equipment (Jon Gauthier) Re: Alarm Point Telemetry Equipment (Dale Farmer) Re: Movable Switches (was Re: Hinsdale) (John Nagle) Re: Movable Switches (was Re: Hinsdale) (Al Varney) Re: Author Queries: Phone Mysteries (Andy Sherman) Re: Misdialed Numbers (Joe Markovic) Re: Ring-Detector Circuit (Joe Markovic) 800 Services Directories: Where? (Peter Rukavina) More Questions From a Newcomer (Marcus Blankenship) Multiple Voice Processing Systems (Dick Bednar) ---------------------- TELECOM Digest is an e-journal devoted mostly -- but not exclusively -- to discussions on voice telephony. The Digest is a not-for-profit public service published frequently by Patrick Townson Associates. PTA markets a no-surcharge telephone calling card and a no monthly fee 800 service. In addition, we are resellers of AT&T's Software Defined Network. For a detailed discussion of our services, write and ask for the file 'products'. The Digest is delivered at no charge by email to qualified subscribers on any electronic mail service connected to the Internet. To join the mail- ing list, write and tell us how you qualify: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu. Before submitting articles for publication, please read a copy of our file 'writing.to.telecom'. All article submissions MUST be sent to our email address: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu -- NOT as replies to comp.dcom.telecom. Back issues and numerous other telephone-related files of interest are available from the Telecom Archives, using anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu. Login anonymous, then 'cd telecom-archives'. At the present time, the Digest is also ported to Usenet at the request of many readers there, where it is known as 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Use of the Digest does not require the use of our products and services. The two are separate. All articles are the responsibility of the individual authors. Organi- zations listed, if any, are for identification purposes only. The Digest is compilation-copyrighted, 1993. **DO NOT** cross-post articles between the Digest and other Usenet or alt newsgroups. Do not compile mailing lists from the net-addresses appearing herein. Send tithes and love offerings to PO Box 1570, Chicago, IL 60690. :) Phone: 312-465-2700. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 27 May 93 17:35 GMT From: Bruce Sullivan Subject: Re: Alarm Point Telemetry Equipment Ken Stone writes: > I'm interested in what's available to monitor/gather alarm points (dry > contact closures mostly) and bring them back to a central location and > a central device that can interrogated by a UNIX based computer. What you're looking for is typically referred to as an 'Enterprise Management System'. Though there have been several vendors in the market in the past, I'm not sure what's going on there today. I saw AT&T's 'Accumaster Integrator' (now defunct, methinks) about three years ago, for which they wanted the tidy sum of about $400k, as I recall. The problem is that you're trying to tie together a bunch of different, often proprietary alarms. Typically, this means that the manufacturer has to either publish his alarm specs (so the EMS vendor, if they find it to be desireable, will intercept them) *or* write their alarms to some standard, such as SNMP. That said, some vendors these days (I apologize for my vagueness here) are creating SNMP alerts or traps. I know that we've looked at UPS systems that will do that, as well as CSU/DSUs. Even this isn't seemless, however: We found that, while the CSUs were *marketed* as being SNMP compliant, you really needed a PC to intercept them and send them back to your SNMP management system. While we bought the CSUs, we opted not to make the add'l expense of dedicating a PC to it. Bruce Sullivan 4544760@mcimail.com 72747.2737@compuserve.com ------------------------------ From: exujlg@exu.ericsson.se (Jon Gauthier) Subject: Re: Alarm Point Telemetry Equipment Reply-To: exujlg@exu.ericsson.se Organization: Ericsson Network Systems, Inc. Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 13:49:32 GMT In article 6@eecs.nwu.edu, ken@sdd.hp.com (Ken Stone) writes: > I'm interested in what's available to monitor/gather alarm points (dry > contact closures mostly) and bring them back to a central location and > a central device that can interrogated by a UNIX based computer. > We have lots of equipment in various places like microwave systems, > muxes, battery backup systems, CSU's, DSU's, whatever that just > present major/minor alarms. What I would like to do is gather them up > and be able to tie them into existing monitoring/paging systems we > have now. > Any pointers on catalogs, suppliers, etc appreciated. About six months ago I saw an ad in Network Management magazine for a smart telco alarm panel with an SNMP agent and ethernet port. Stupid me - I forget about it and toss the mag. Now I could really use that type of equipment so that I can monitor our voice/data multiplexers, CSU/DSU's along with our network servers, hubs and the like. The best SNMP management package can't tell you that your T1 to Los Angeles is down because your CSU is dead. Instead it tells you that you can't see a single node over there. Oh boy! Where do I begin looking for the cause? Yes -- I'd give an arm and a leg for what Ken is asking for. Does the ad for the smart alarm panel ring a bell (pun intended)? If anyone remembers, please e-mail me with the company name. Regards, Jon L. Gauthier Ericsson Network Systems, Inc EXU/IS/N Systems Programmer P.O. Box 833875 +1 214 997-0157 Richardson, TX 75083-3875 exujlg@exu.ericsson.se or exu.exujlg@memo.ericsson.se ------------------------------ From: dale@access.digex.net (Dale Farmer) Subject: Re: Alarm Point Telemetry Equipment Date: 27 May 1993 16:11:04 GMT Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA Ken Stone (ken@sdd.hp.com) wrote: > I'm interested in what's available to monitor/gather alarm points (dry > contact closures mostly) and bring them back to a central location and > a central device that can interrogated by a UNIX based computer. Sounds like you want to take a look at SNMP. Read Marshall Rose's book "The Simple Way" and call SNMP research for some literature. I think that they are in CA, but I'm not sure. Dale Farmer ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: Movable Switches (was Re: Hinsdale) Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 16:39:33 GMT deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) writes: >> It does seem like telephone companies would have trucks with >> switches and satellite terminals in them. > AT&T has one or two of these trucks; latest use which got a lot of > national attention was in Homestead, FL, after Hurricane Andrew. > They're used for traveling roadshows when they're not in use some- > where for emergency response. Yes, they've appeared at PacTel's telecom show at Moscone Center. It's basically a 5ESS in a van. John Nagle ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 93 14:24:29 CDT From: varney@ihlpl.att.com Subject: Re: Movable Switches (was Re: Hinsdale) Organization: AT&T Network Systems, Lisle, IL In article deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) writes: > In article hhallika@tuba.calpoly.edu > (Harold Hallikainen) writes: [In response to Hinsdale, IL outage...] >> It does seem like telephone companies would have trucks with >> switches and satellite terminals in them. Just drive the truck up, >> plug it in and you have a few thousand lines back in service. All >> calls that could not be switched locally would go to the satellite. > AT&T has one or two of these trucks; latest use which got a lot of > national attention was in Homestead, FL, after Hurricane Andrew. I > don't believe they necessarily have satellite terminals -- if you > have to splice into a few thousand copper pairs to get out to the > loops, splicing into a few dozen more fibers or coax cables to get > trunk-side connectivity doesn't take much more time. They're used > for traveling roadshows when they're not in use somewhere for emerg- > ency response.^^^^^^^^^ (???????) Actually, the emergency 5ESS(tm) switch-on-a-trailer is used as a training lab (attached to a building) when not in use elsewhere. This lab has the advantage (over "mothballed" ones) of being in continuous use, with hardware/software upgrades installed, etc. The number of such emergencies vs. the cost of maintaining such a backup facility would put it out of any TELCo budget. You can't just park a switch somewhere (powered down) and expect it to work 15-20 years later when you need it. For one thing, the hardware would probably be discontinued (so you have to stock spares too!), no "fixes" would have been applied and support software (for quickly building the local line data base, etc.) would probably be hard to come by. For complex systems, the "backup from the vendor" method usually yields a faster, more stable replacement. This has certainly been the method used by the old Bell System, and seems to have worked out pretty well in the few emergencies that have followed the 1984 break-up. Other vendors are probably expected to provide similar methods of emergency support. I agree that "satellite" connectivity (today, anyway) is not that useful for LEC switch emergencies. The LECs (at least before U.S.West joined a cable TV corp.) do not use satellites in normal trunking, so any emergency system would add costs of other dishes and reserved transponders (and delays in conversations, echo canceller problems, etc.). On the other hand, a few trunk-mounted microwave towers with built-in power, etc. could be useful -- but costly. Al Varney - just my opinion, of course ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 May 93 14:55:26 EDT Subject: Re: Author Queries: Phone Mysteries From: andys@internet.sbi.com (Andy Sherman) PAT sermonized: > [Moderator's Note: Well, if you 'cannot imagine what a machine could > not monitor just as well' then you must have a poor imagination. The > Hinsdale CO burned down. The building was totally gutted. The fire > began on a Sunday afternoon in May, Mother's Day, 1988. The fire began > about 3 PM and burned unnoticed for *over an hour* before the person > monitoring the place from two hundred miles away decided to call up > to Chicago and tell someone ... and did he call the Fire Department? > Oh no ... he called a supervisor at home some miles away and asked > them to 'go over to Hinsdale and see what is going on, and shut the > alarm off if it is still malfunctioning.' So the supervisor finishes > lunch, gets in their car for a fifteen minute drive, finds the office > in flames, tries to call the Fire Department only to find the lines > all over town have already been dead for probably thirty minutes ... On 13 May 93 21:27:42 GMT, king@rtsg.mot.com (Steven King, Software Archaeologist) repiled: > Let's be fair, Pat. This doesn't show that automated warning devices > are inherently inferior to humans on-site 24 hours a day. It looks to > me like the faults lie in ... > A poorly designed alarm system that didn't differentiate > between something simple like "a trunk is down" and > something major like "the building is in flames"; and, > A human who ignored an alarm for an hour. > Both of these factors contributed to the untimely demise of Hinsdale. I seem to recall that SCCS correctly notified the monitoring center in Springfield that a fire alarm had gone off in Hinsdale. The assholes in Springfield chose to assume that it was a malfunction. AT&T folks can correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't imagine that SCCS does not distinguish between different types of alarms. Too many staff years went into developing that system for it to just say "Duh, someting happened." Now, by the time Springfield decided to deal with the alarm, I'll bet that SCCS was showing dead trunk groups in Hinsdale, since they were being burnt up by the fire. But that's not the same thing as the reckless statement that the surveillance system in use could not distinguish between a fire alarm and a trunk failure. There is nothing wrong in principle with the idea of SCCS's night folddown feature. Given an alert operator at the regional center, it is probably *more* effective than Pat's mythical $5.00/hour guard. The regional operator gets alarms from every sensor in the buildings being montiored. If the guard is moving around the building, s/he will only be aware of a limited area at any given moment, unless s/he too is watching something like a SCCS display. The lesson from Hinsdale is not that remote monitoring is bad. There are two lessons from Hinsdale: a) don't create a single point of failure in the area (i.e. don't make Hinsdale an unreplicated hub for everything in sight); b) if you use remote monitoring, you cannot afford to ignore a single alarm. All must be investigated. Andy Sherman Salomon Inc - Unix Systems Support - Rutherford, NJ (201) 896-7018 - andys@sbi.com or asherman@sbi.com "These opinions are mine, all *MINE*. My employer can't have them." ------------------------------ From: Joe Markovic Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 02:00:00 -0400 Subject: Re: Misdialed Numbers > The other day I took a wrong number on one of my inside company lines. > After anwering the line with my company name the woman caller said, > "Sorry, wrong number." > I asked the caller who she was looking for. She said that she was > calling her house. I replied, "You DO have nice furniture ...". > Wanna bet that she made a beeline home? I was having problems with one particularly stupid caller, she kept phoning my number every couple of weeks. She'd ask "is Pete there?", and would promptly hang-up whenever I told "sorry, but you've got the wrong number". It finally got to the point where she'd hang-up the moment she recognized my voice. I fooled her a couple of times by mimicing someone else, but the novelty of the situation rapidly wore thin. Since she would often make a second call within a minute or two of the first call, I decided to say something that would really throw her off track. What I did was tell her "that Pete is in bed with Sylvia", and then hung up the phone. This solution appears to have worked, as I haven't had a call from her since then. ciao, Joe CRS Online - Toronto, Ontario 416-213-6002/213-6003 ------------------------------ From: Joe Markovic Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 02:00:00 -0400 Subject: Re: Ring-Detector Circuit In article king@rtsg.mot.com writes: > I thought of making a circuit to take the phone off-hook periodically > to check for stutter tone, but decided that there was too great a > chance of someone calling in during that couple of seconds. Murphy's > Law says that I'd miss calls (well, they'd be routed to voicemail!) > when the circuit picked up to check for voicemail. Have you considered how call-waiting would help in that situation, since it would eliminate the necessity of adding the dectection circuit to every phone on the line. ciao, Joe CRS Online - Toronto, Ontario 416-213-6002/213-6003 [Moderator's Note: Call waiting would not help under those circumstances at all since a phone off hook (but having yet not dialed anything or been connected anywhere) would return a busy signal to the caller. Call waiting only works once the called number has actually gotten past the dial tone and connected to someone (or at least out of its own CO en-route to another CO). I guess it would help in the sense that the caller would not go to voicemail either during those couple seconds but would just get a busy signal. There has to be a 'true busy' -- that is, a conversation going on -- and not just a busy signal generated on account of some transaction -- off hook, dialing, etc -- going on in order for voicemail to pick up or call waiting to work. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 14:47:24 -0300 (ADT) From: Peter Rukavina Subject: 800 Services Directories: Where? I am creating a database of suppliers to crafts producers which involves a lot of phoning of suppliers for catalogue requests etc. across North America from Prince Edward Island, Canada. AT&T publishes a directory of 1-800 numbers that are reachable from Canada (phone 1-800-426-8686, cost is CDN$7.19); I assume that this directory will cover only AT&T numbers -- are readers aware of similar products (or, better yet, a "union" catalog thereof) from other US long distance companies? Stentor Canada (former Telecom Canada, consortium of Canada's old-line carriers) published its last "800 Service Directory" in 1990 -- the operator there claimed that it was going out of date too quickly to be relevant. PETER RUKAVINA * Information Manager * Prince Edward Island Crafts Council Creating a worldwide database of craft suppliers and equipment sources caprukav@upei.ca -or- prukavina@trentu.ca -or- pruk@well.sf.ca.us ------------------------------ From: cse@santafe.edu (Marcus Blankenship) Subject: More Help Needed by Newcomer Date: 27 May 1993 18:26:56 GMT Organization: The Santa Fe Institute I am very new to the world of telephony, and have a few (more) questions: A) What different types of test codes are used by the phone company? -ANAC,Ringback,Watchlines,Busy-out, ??? B) Is there a good text-file/book/magazine that covers the basic's of the language? It seem quite cryptic if you don't understand all the anacronyms ... C) What are some industry journals/ where can I subscribe to them ... D) What are some equipment catalogs that offer telephone test/lineman's equipment? I have a limited amount from my company, but not much ... I have just taken a job as a COCOT repairman, and the company is very young still ... I have to take ALL the initiave about learning/equipment. Any help would be appreciated. Marcus Blankenship Alpha Telcom Inc. blankenm@seq.oit.osshe.edu Grants Pass, OR cse@santafe.edu The questions and opionions presented here are my own.... [Moderator's Note: You might begin by purusing the Telecom Archives. We have several Glossary files which define telecom terms in great detail. Use anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu to reach the archives, then pull all the files which begin with the word 'glossary'. There are three or four of them. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 27 May 1993 11:31:47 -0800 From: Dick Bednar Subject: Multiple Voice Processing Systems We need to install two voice processing systems behind Pac Bell Centrex and have ordered one SMSI link w/3002 data circuit and two multi-line hunt groups (one for each machine) which will report over the single SMSI link. The problem is how to wire up our end. One machine is a Rolm PhoneMail, which will do all the voice mail activity and some call processing. It is supposed to be able to recognize which UCD pilot applies to the Rolm node. It will control message waiting indicator on the Centrex lines through the SMSI link. The other system is PC-based and will be used only for call processing and announcements. It has no need to send messages to Centrex; it only needs to see the SMSI messages to pick off which ones apply to its UCD group so that it knows which port to answer with which greeting. My first inclination is to simply tap Receive Data and Signal Ground between the modem and the PhoneMail. This would be simolar to installing a line monitor (data scope) to watch the data. My memory is that the RS-232 driver chips usually have enough "oomph" to drive two receivers over short distances. By not hooking up Transmit Data, I should not interfere with the Rolm's use of SMSI back to Centrex. The questions are (1) will this work? (2) should I include any diode or other stuff? and (3) what distance can I pull off between the modem-Rolm and the other system? My second thought was to tap the 3002 data circuit with another modem that would listen only to the Centrex transmissions and ignore the PhoneMail transmissions. My sense is that this is simply impossible. There are a lot of reasons WHY I need to do this. I would appreciate some advice before wiring connectors. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #358 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa10815; 28 May 93 9:20 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA01550 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Fri, 28 May 1993 06:56:46 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA23229 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Fri, 28 May 1993 06:56:09 -0500 Date: Fri, 28 May 1993 06:56:09 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305281156.AA23229@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #359 TELECOM Digest Fri, 28 May 93 06:56:00 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 359 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Pac Bell Says "Not Possible" (Jeff Garber) Hospitalized U.S. Veterans Get Bedside Telephones (Nigel Allen) Modem Cannot Seize Line (J. Philip Miller) RS-232 on RJ Plugs (was Re: Tip/Ring, Red/Green, etc.) (Lars Poulsen) GTE Strikes! or Can't Deliver Phone Books (Ben Delisle) French DTMF - Is it the Same as Everywhere Else? (Guy Montgomery) Re: GSM Frequency Range and Experiences (Richard Cox) Library of Congress Over Cable TV (John Pescatore) Internet in the News (Les Reeves) Non Sequitur or What? (Randy Gellens) ---------------------- TELECOM Digest is an e-journal devoted mostly -- but not exclusively -- to discussions on voice telephony. The Digest is a not-for-profit public service published frequently by Patrick Townson Associates. PTA markets a no-surcharge telephone calling card and a no monthly fee 800 service. In addition, we are resellers of AT&T's Software Defined Network. For a detailed discussion of our services, write and ask for the file 'products'. The Digest is delivered at no charge by email to qualified subscribers on any electronic mail service connected to the Internet. To join the mail- ing list, write and tell us how you qualify: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu. Before submitting articles for publication, please read a copy of our file 'writing.to.telecom'. All article submissions MUST be sent to our email address: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu -- NOT as replies to comp.dcom.telecom. Back issues and numerous other telephone-related files of interest are available from the Telecom Archives, using anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu. Login anonymous, then 'cd telecom-archives'. At the present time, the Digest is also ported to Usenet at the request of many readers there, where it is known as 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Use of the Digest does not require the use of our products and services. The two are separate. All articles are the responsibility of the individual authors. Organi- zations listed, if any, are for identification purposes only. The Digest is compilation-copyrighted, 1993. **DO NOT** cross-post articles between the Digest and other Usenet or alt newsgroups. Do not compile mailing lists from the net-addresses appearing herein. Send tithes and love offerings to PO Box 1570, Chicago, IL 60690. :) Phone: 312-465-2700. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 28 May 93 01:31 GMT From: Jeff Garber <0005075968@mcimail.com> Subject: Pac Bell Says "Not Possible" I just placed a request with Pathetic Bell and they told me it could not be done. I'm wondering what the consensus here is. The situation is that I have two phone lines in a hunt group (on a 1AESS). I use line two as an incoming line only for certain people (or when line one is busy). Normally, I want my calls to come in on line one so that is the number I give out. I make all my outgoing calls from line two because I only have an answering machine on line one. That way, if I don't want to answer an incoming call while I am on an outgoing call, I can just let the machine get it. So far, this has all been working great. Enter SS7. If I call someone (from line two) and they "Call Return" me (this is CA, so I don't have to worry about my second number being displayed), it rings line two. Since I would like all my incoming calls to ring on line one regardless of which line I used to dial the call, I called Pac Bell and asked if I could have the number that gets sent through SS7 on line two changed to line one's number, as this would solve my problem. The first person I spoke with had no idea what I was talking about (not surprising). The second person couldn't help me because she was not "trained in hunting" (I explained that my request was actually about SS7 parameters, not hunting). She had someone call me back. I explained the problem to the woman who called me back. She told me that changing the number that gets sent through SS7 could not be done. I told her that this is a default that can be changed at the CO (I'm not sure this is correct, but I thought I'd try it. I think I read here in the Digest that this is the case). When she realized that I wasn't a typical "Aunt Martha", she said she had talked to a specialist and they said it was not possible. I mentioned that they do it all the time on 1AESS switches in U.S. West and Ameritech territories (another thing I *think* I read here). She said it all depends on how the software is configured. So rather than continue to argue with her, I just told her that I would be placing all of my calls through bypass via 950 with a carrier who is not SS7 connected, and Pac Bell will be losing the revenue from my toll calls. (I wasn't asking her but) she agreed that this would solve the problem. She also mentioned that SS7 data does not get passed between Pac Bell and GTE, which I already knew. Who's right? Can the number sent out through SS7 be changed at the CO or is it "not possible", as Pac Bell insists? "Jeff Garber " ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 93 21:59:34 EDT From: ae446@freenet.carleton.ca (Nigel Allen) Subject: Hospitalized U.S. Veterans Get Bedside Telephones Organization: Echo Beach, Toronto Reply-To: ae446@freenet.carleton.ca I downloaded the following White House press release from the PR Online BBS (Pikesville, MD) at 410-363-0834. President Clinton and Vice President Gore will Place First Call to Newly Installed Veterans Bedside Phones Contact: Dave Anderson of the White House Office of Media Affairs, 202-456-7150 News Advisory: President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore will place the first call to a newly-installed bedside phone system for hospitalized veterans in Bronx, N.Y.; Albany, N.Y. and Philadelphia. Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs Hershel Gober will also participate in the call. The call will take place at 8:30 a.m. Friday, May 28. Phones have been installed in the hospitals as part of a volunteer effort called PT Phone Home. The project, begun by Frank Dosio, a Vietnam veteran and the commander of a Veterans of Foreign Wars post was recently awarded the President's Volunteer Action Award, the most prestigious award of its kind. News outlets wishing to listen to or record the call should dial the following press-only number for listen-only audio: 202-296-3132. City-specific information: Bronx -- Open press Bronx Veterans Administration Medical Center/Nursing Care Unit 130 West Knightsbridge Road Participant: Eugene Young, a Vietnam veteran who is a quadriplegic from an accident at his home. Married, three sons. Philadelphia -- Open press Philadelphia VAMC/Main Entrance University and Woodland Avenues Participant: Vincent Maurio. World War II veteran who became seriously ill in 1989; entered hospital in 1991. Albany -- Open press Stratton VAMC/Third floor auditorium 113 Holland Avenue Participant: Kenneth Patenaude (Pat-uh-node), World War II veteran. A former American Legion Post commander. Nigel Allen, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ae446@freenet.carleton.ca ------------------------------ From: phil@wubios.wustl.edu (J. Philip Miller) Subject: Modem Cannot Seize Line Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 22:24:11 -0500 (CDT) I am puzzled by a modem problem. I have a second home that I have gotten to only a couple of times in the last month. The first time when I plugged into my regular phone jack, the modem would not seize the line, i.e. when I did an ATDTnnnnnnn command, the dial tone never appeared. i gave it up as a fluke but when I went down last weekend I came a little more prepared and tried several modems with the same result. Plugging a phone into the jack worked fine. Plugging the modem into another jack worked ok. I have been using the jack in question for modem connections many times over the last five years or so with no problems. I did notice that they recently appeared to be working on the trunk lines, I assume adding more pairs so there have been some changes between me and the CO. The CO is perhaps 10-15 miles from the house. What should I be looking at? Is it possible that tip & ring are reversed on that plug, but not others? If so why did it all of a sudden stop working? Is there something I should ask the phone company about? Any ideas would be appreciated since I installed the the jack in my preferred place to read telecom digest and if I have to to elsewhere in the house I get upset :-) J. Philip Miller, Professor, Division of Biostatistics, Box 8067 Washington University Medical School, St. Louis MO 63110 phil@wubios.WUstl.edu - (314) 362-3617 [362-2693(FAX)] ------------------------------ From: lars@spectrum.CMC.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: RS-232 on RJ Plugs (was Re: Tip/Ring, Red/Green, etc.) Organization: CMC Network Systems (Rockwell DCD), Santa Barbara, CA, USA Date: Fri, 28 May 93 05:59:42 GMT In article hhallika@tuba.calpoly. edu (Harold Hallikainen) writes: > Which reminds me, why don't we have an RS232 serial connector > standard for modular connectors? I'd suggest something symmetrical, > probably using the two center pins for ground. Then, all equipment > would be wired exactly the same. We'd use reversing cables to connect > anything to anything (no more DTE DCE problems!). Of course, not all > wires have a symmetrical opposite ... for example TxD and RxD would > generally be swapped, RTS and CTS, DTR and DSR, but what do you do > with DCD and RI? There are several topics about computers and terminals that I have researched in excruciating depth. One of them was terminal keyboards for word processing applications. (The best I ever found was the ANSI bit-pairing arrangement on a 42-key IBM Selectric layout. It was ergonomical and easy to convert for foreign alphabet variations.) The other is cables and connectors for RS-232 and related interfaces. The company that I work for, has a TCP/IP terminal server product, and for a while I was the lead engineer for that device while we were discussing possible options for cable connectors. RJ-connectors look like they should be wonderful for asynchronous terminals, and there are in fact several standards (all incompatible, of course) on how to do it. Since I am at home, without my reference library, you will forgive me for speaking in generalities. One of the nice things about modular connectors, is that they are everywhere and they are cheap. But the real cheap stuff is all four-wire satin cord. This makes a nice system for locally attached terminals if you connect RX, TX, GND and DTR. Modems need a few more signals to process the answering handshake, and printers needs flowcontrol. ATT worked on premises distribution systems, and came up with four different pinouts for use with six-wire and eight-wire RJ-45 type connectors, and they supply fairly inexpensive RJ-45S to DB25P adapters, that work well with standard harmonics and 25-pair cables. A company called MOD-TAP has also done a lot of nice accessories for this type of system. In our company, we found that talking people through selecting the right one out of four identical-looking adapters was a loser. To do it all on one pinout, however, we needed ten wires. While you can get ten-pin RJ-connectors, five pair cable is a specialty, and our cables turned out to be rather expensive. Plus our wiring is unlike anyone elses. Most recently, the MacIntosh chose an 8-pin circular connector for its serial ports, and predictably, this became an issue when modems began to need flow control. Ask any Mac owner with a highspeed modem, and you will hear about hardware flow control cables. The problem is that once you wire the cable to support RTS/CTS, you give up DTR/DSR and can't hang up the modem unless you can recall modem command mode. In short, there does not seem to be any way around those custom cables. Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer Internet E-mail: lars@CMC.COM CMC Network Products / Rockwell Int'l Telephone: +1-805-968-4262 Santa Barbara, CA 93117-3083 TeleFAX: +1-805-968-8256 ------------------------------ From: delisle@eskimo.com (Ben Delisle) Subject: GTE Strikes! or Can't Deliver Phone Books Organization: -> ESKIMO NORTH (206) For-Ever <- Date: Fri, 28 May 1993 00:40:52 GMT ++ The fillowing is a copy of a letter I am sending to ++ GTE customer service, it explaines an event that makes me ++ unhappy. (photo not included in this post. 25-May-1993 GTE Customer Relations Director of Customer Service. RE: GTE Telephone book distribution. Bad Service. Dear Sir, I am writing you in complaint of the delivery of GTE telephone books to my house. Inclosed is a picture of what I saw when I opened my gate today. Look at the picture. Why were these four GTE telephone books haphazardly tossed over my fence? It is hardly nice or neat, very poor job. Furthermore, Yesterday I received a GTE telephone book in my mail box. Not wanting them I tried to send them back by putting the flag up on the box. I thought they were delivered by the postoffice. I called them because of today, and learned that the phone book delivery person had put it there instead. The postmaster told me that the delivery people were told to remove the remaining books from any mail box along the street, and place them elsewhere such as next to the box or at the house itself. (Our area uses boxes that are on the road, often in clusters of 3 to or more.) What I believe happened is that the book deliverer was too lazy to take the books to each house and wanted to rid themselves of some books quickly so the dumped some over my front gate that were not taken by the people whose mail boxes they were placed in yesterday. There are seven houses with boxes on driveway off the main road. Also, as I drove along the road to home today I saw several GTE phone books on, next to, or below, several mailboxes, but they seemd to be slopply placed. I don't even know why our area is getting GTE phone books, we are not in it's service area. When I received phone books from U.S. West they were neatly paced on my front door step and put in a bag as not to be ruined by the rain. I expect a reply. Benjamin deLisle ------------------------------ From: gmontgomery@sdesys1.hns.com (Guy Montgomery) Subject: French DTMF - Is it the Same as everwhere Else? Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 19:11:33 GMT Organization: Hughes Network Systems Inc. I am trying to find out whether the Frech PSTN uses "standard" DTMF for tone handsets and PBX DID connections. The feedback I am getting is that the answer is no; therefore you cannot use US phones to access French tone based services (i.e. answering machines) and vice versa, and equipment that can dial in to a US PABX may not be able to dial into a French PABX. Does anyone know if France is indeed different, if so is there a well known (e.g. CCITT) standard that describes the tone set? Is there a comprehensive listing anywhere of countries versus the handset tone system they use ? Thanks, Guy Montgomery Hughes Network Systems (HNS),Germantown, MD 20876 Tel: (301) 428-2981 Internet: gmontgomery@hns.com FAX: (301) 428-1868 Opinions are mine, and not necessarily HNS's ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 May 93 11:46 GMT0BST-1 From: Richard Cox Subject: Re: GSM Frequency Range and Experiences Reply-To: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk FNAHA!JVE@TRENGA.tredydev.unis (Juha Veijalainen) said: >> For example in United Kingdom prices are about 1.25 USD/minute >> no lower rates available. UK GSM charges are 30-35 UK pence per minute, nothing like 1.25 USD/minute ! >> in UK they (Vodaphone) charge by full minutes. In the UK Vodafone (note spelling) charge by the half minute. However the minimum charge is for one minute. >> I guess UK companies are either more profit conscious >> or have much larger operating costs. We'd plump for the first of those !!! [Vodafone made a very large profit last year.] Richard D G Cox Mandarin Technology, Cardiff Business Park, Llanishen, CARDIFF, Wales CF4 5WF Voice: +44 222 747111 Fax: +44 222 711111 VoiceMail: +44 399 870101 E-mail: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk - PGP2.2 public key available on request ------------------------------ From: jtp1@gte.com (John Pescatore) Subject: Library of Congress Over Cable TV Date: 28 May 93 11:27:12 GMT Organization: GTE Laboratories, Waltham MA I attended the press conference posted here a week or so ago, where Jones Intercable of Denver, CO and the Library of Congress announce a pilot program where certian LoC holdings would be available over cable TV. Essentially, Jones is installing CD ROM and laser disc players at its cable head-end. The Library of Congress is providing discs from its American Memory project, which is digitizing text, graphics, audio, and video from various areas of interest in American history. A high school outside of Denver that is wired for cable will connect a Macintosh running some Jones- developed hypercard software that can search a database to locate the American memory stuff. Text and graphics are sent over the cable to the PC at the school, and audio as well. Video can go to the PC if it has a video card, or to a standard cable-ready TV. The only interesting part of this is the use of the existing coaxial cable plant to carry data from the PC at the school back upstream to the cable head-end. Since addressabe systems are becoming fairly widespread, this is not rocket science but it amazed most of the people in attendance. Several of us tried to pin Glenn Jones (the Jones CEO) down on pricing, but he kept falling back to double-speak about only doing this for education, and bettering our society. Gee, I'm getting cynical in my old age. To whomever posted the original notice of the conference: do youget these announcements on-line? If so, how?? John Pescatore GTE Government Systems 301-294-8486 PESCATORE_JT@NCSD.GTE.COM ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 18:26:00 -0400 (EDT) From: LESREEVES@delphi.com Subject: Internet in the News * Internet, a global computer network, transmitted its first movie, making history. Engineers played it on a VCR, fed it into a computer that converted it to digital form and fed it into the Internet. Although spotty at times and the soundtrack halting, the engineers felt the premier was a success. The road to interactive pictures transmitted via fiber-optics superhighways is becoming a major race between companies such as AT&T, Time Warner and Tele-Communications. ({New York Times}, "Cult film is a first on Internet," 5/24/93, p. C3) ------------------------------ From: RANDY@MPA15AB.mv-oc.Unisys.COM Date: 27 MAY 93 12:34 Subject: Non Sequitur or What? Pat, these were posted on an internal news group, and I thought people might appreciate them. I've replaced the names and the phone number with "x"s. -- Randy Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 10:09 pm PDT (Thu, 27 May 93 05:09:08 UT) From: Paul Xxxx Subject: non sequitur or what? Had a phone call this evening, conversation was ... "Hello?" "Is this Paul?" "Yes" "Sorry, wrong number." A non sequitur if I ever heard one (read "say what?"). Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 11:14 am PDT (18:14:29 UT) From: Neeraj Xxxx Subject: Re: non sequitur or what? This reminds me of the telephonic conversations I have been so used to. "Hello?" "Is this xxx-xxxx?" "Yes" A sigh of relief followed by, "Can I speak to so-and-so? [Person who is not at that number]" Some of the things I miss [in this country] are the joys of dialing a number and not knowing where I will end up, the mysteries of getting caught in a three way connection and making deals I would otherwise never dream of making, the suspense and the thrill on finding out my telephone is not (yet) dead after a wrong connection. ------- |Randy Gellens randy@mpa15ab.mv-oc.unisys.com or |A Series System Software randy%mpa15ab@trenga.tredydev.unisys.com |Unisys Corporation if mail bounces, forward to |Mission Viejo, CA rgellens@mcimail.com |Opinions are personal; facts are suspect; I speak only for myself ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #359 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa27453; 30 May 93 12:13 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA01231 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 30 May 1993 09:50:51 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA15680 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 30 May 1993 09:50:11 -0500 Date: Sun, 30 May 1993 09:50:11 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305301450.AA15680@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #360 TELECOM Digest Sun, 30 May 93 09:50:00 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 360 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson 16550AFN Chip (A. Padgett Peterson) Re: What Was That Publication Number Again? (Al Varney) What is a 'Trunk'? (Paul Robinson) Call-Forwarding Versus Hunting: Solved (Tony Shepps) New Rockwell V.32bis (Laurence Chiu) "Stuffing" the CLASS (John Warne) I Recomend Reading Snow Crash (Andrew Robson) ---------------------- TELECOM Digest is an e-journal devoted mostly -- but not exclusively -- to discussions on voice telephony. The Digest is a not-for-profit public service published frequently by Patrick Townson Associates. PTA markets a no-surcharge telephone calling card and a no monthly fee 800 service. In addition, we are resellers of AT&T's Software Defined Network. For a detailed discussion of our services, write and ask for the file 'products'. The Digest is delivered at no charge by email to qualified subscribers on any electronic mail service connected to the Internet. To join the mail- ing list, write and tell us how you qualify: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu. Before submitting articles for publication, please read a copy of our file 'writing.to.telecom'. All article submissions MUST be sent to our email address: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu -- NOT as replies to comp.dcom.telecom. Back issues and numerous other telephone-related files of interest are available from the Telecom Archives, using anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu. Login anonymous, then 'cd telecom-archives'. At the present time, the Digest is also ported to Usenet at the request of many readers there, where it is known as 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Use of the Digest does not require the use of our products and services. The two are separate. All articles are the responsibility of the individual authors. Organi- zations listed, if any, are for identification purposes only. The Digest is compilation-copyrighted, 1993. **DO NOT** cross-post articles between the Digest and other Usenet or alt newsgroups. Do not compile mailing lists from the net-addresses appearing herein. Send tithes and love offerings to PO Box 1570, Chicago, IL 60690. :) Phone: 312-465-2700. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 30 May 93 07:53:39 -0400 From: padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com (A. Padgett Peterson) Subject: 16550AFN Chip 16550AFN - More than you ever wanted to know and possibly even accurate. Once upon a time, long, long ago when the IBM-PC was in design, modem communications were either at 300 baud (expensive) or "High Speed" - 1200 baud (very expensive). My first IBM-type PC, a Columbia VP-1600 came with a program called PC-Talk that could be run as interpretive BASIC and was quick enough for the Racal-Vadic 9451 modem (from memory so no guarentees). At the time, PCs were strictly single tasking and 4.77 Mhz (keep in mind that the multiple redundant digital flight controls we were designing for the F-16 ran at 4 Mhz then so the PC was "faster") was "enough". Intel had considered the need for a serial port and this task was handled by an 8450 "UART". Since the PC could process information faster than any modem at the time, no buffering was needed other than the PC's RAM. Flow control was mostly the XON/XOFF type handled by software when anyone bothered. When the sixteen bit AT came out (1985) a faster UART was needed & the 16450 made its introduction. Faster and able to support at least 19,200 kb but any buffering was still the responsibility of the PC. As 2400 baud took hold as a modem standard (c.a. 1988) a new problem began to arise, occasional dropouts. Oddly enough I only noticed a problem when typing interactively. File transfers were, in the main, troublefree but on stream ASCII received characters occasionally would be missed. Quite often these would be the character in an ANSI sequence. Nearly as often it would be a charactor in the last half of a line of text. Then we received a double whammy: Windows and v32/v32bis modems with compression. On my 386DX-25 the dropout rate increased dramatically. No difficulty with the gozouta since the mainframe on the other end had no problem, but my reception suffered. Curiously, file transfer using Kermit or Zmodem did not seem to have any trouble other than occasional line noise that was about the same as before. The problem was that with multi-tasking, the processor could not always get around to servicing the serial port before another character came in. When this happened, the first character would be lost. Much creative use of time-slices and priority setting took care of some of it but this was a kludge. Enter the 16550 chip. Eseentially this is nothing more than a 16450 with a FIFO buffer. If a second character came in before the PC was able to service the first, no problem the buffer would hold both or several. Problem was cured (almost). The first glitch arose with the initial release of the 16550. Seems the buffer did not work properly. Characters were still lost. This led to the 16550A which did work (am told the current revision is 16550AFN). Next we discovered that the buffer in the 16550 had to be told to turn on else it acted just like a 16450 8*(. Next was the revelation that the stock serial driver for Windows might not turn the buffer on either. So for reliable operation you not only had to have a 16550A but your software had to know how to use it (have only seen one package that claims to support the 16550A). Now this is a $15.00 retail chip but most board manufacturers seem to think it is made of gold. Until I came across my board at a large swap meet, I had not seen an I/O board for under $100.00 with it so when this one surfaced for half that, I grabbed it. On installation I found that the dropout problem with Procomm plus had disappeared so it appeared to be working properly. Long uuencoded files had no problem coming in and IS16550 said I was in luck. Happiness and light 8*). The next step was Windows which seemed to still have a problem. Brousing on the Supra BBS I came across WINCOMM.ZIP, billed as a 16550 "aware" com driver for Windows. I installed this driver according to the instructions (changes to SYSTEM.INI were well explained) and no problems since. IMHO the 16450 should have been put to rest at least a year ago but is aparently still being used by some PC manufacturers. Caveat y'all. Warmly, Padgett ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 93 00:27:06 CDT From: varney@ihlpl.att.com Subject: Re: What Was That Publication Number Again? Organization: AT&T Network Systems, Lisle, IL In article Marshall Rose writes: > I seem to recall a recent posting on AT&T publication dealing with > International prefixes (IDDD), etc. Does anyone recall how to order > it? > [Moderator's Note: The AT&T Consumer Information Center in Indianapolis, > IN has the book you are seeking. You can get the same book from the > AT&T International Operations Center in Pittsburgh, PA. Ask your AT&T > operator to connect you to the Pittsburgh IOC, and ask the service > reps there to send you a copy. The book mostly has country codes with > prices, and a few city codes. For a much more detailed listing of city > codes around the world visit our own Telecom Archives using anonymous > ftp lcs.mit.edu. Login anonymous, use name@site as password, then > 'cd telecom-archives/country.codes'. Have a BIG buffer ready to start > capturing the data. PAT] My internal information documents show a source that's preferred over IOC or CIC. As part of AT&T's International Information Service, we publish a document called the "International Dialing Guide". You can get one by calling 1-800-874-4000 and asking for it. (PLEASE don't order unless you intend to make use of it. :-) ). The number is also intended for questions regarding International rates, dialing information, city codes, time differences, etc. This is NOT the number for International Directory Assistance (use "00" for that) or Operator assisted International calls such as Collect, Person-to-Person, etc. (use "01"). Canada and Caribbean Directory Assistance can be reached via 1 + NPA + 555-1212. Contents: 1) For each of about 250 countries, the Country Code (or area 809), popular City Codes, time zone offset from non-DST USA zones, discount and economy hours and indicators of whether or not collect calls either to/from the USA are possible, and whether AT&T Calling Card calls are possible either to/from the USA. 2) International dialing instructions FROM the USA, and a list of International prefix codes ("access codes") from many countries. 3) A list of the handful of non-dial countries (from AT&T's point of view), such as Easter Island (they allow Calling Card calls to and from the island) and Sudan (no Collect calling either way). 4) A list of other-country calling cards accepted for calls TO those countries FROM the USA via AT&T. (Operator calls only.) 5) A list of AT&T USADirect(rg) Service dial access codes for over 110 countries, and the areas supporting USADirect designated telephones (no dial code needed). This service also supports calls between 46 countries charged to your AT&T Calling Card. (the latter is called AT&T World Connect(sm) Service) 6) A wallet card with the USADirect access codes, plus contact numbers for other AT&T services: AT&T Language Line(rg) - 140+ languages AT&T CLASSIC(sm) Teleconference service AT&T Message Service AT&T Enhanced FAX 7) Other information on other AT&T services that would be useful to businesses involved in international telecom, including a FAX hotline service (via AT&T and others) on export/trade regulations, shipping information, key foreign contacts, etc. Note that other IXCs have different agreements with a different set of countries, and thus may or may not support various forms of international calling -- you'll have to ask for their "Guide" if you want that information. By the way, the Guide is a copyrighted document ... Al Varney - just my opinion ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 May 1993 11:51:11 -0400 (EDT) From: Tansin A. Darcos & Company <0005066432@mcimail.com> Reply-To: Tansin A. Darcos & Company <0005066432@mcimail.com> Subject: What is a 'Trunk'? Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA A user sent me a private message in response to an article I wrote in TELECOM Digest, so let me attempt to answer him and pass my response s on to everyone else (who can then correct me if I'm wrong.) The user asked the question, "What is a trunk?" This is probably in response to a statement of mine about the fact there are only about 1500 international trunks in Moscow. Here's my definition: A "trunk" is an actual, physical path and/or circuit available for the transmission of information in a telephone system. For example, a pair of telephone wire represents one "trunk". A fiber-optic cable, because it can multiplex many simultaneous connections, may have 10,000 "trunks" in it. What is the reason for making the distinction? Okay, I live just outside of Washington, DC. In the five counties (if I consider the city of Washington to be a county) of this area, there are perhaps 3.5 million people. According to a Guiness Book of World Records, this area has the largest penetration of telephones in the world, with 1065 telephones per 1000 people. Based on that figure, there are probably four million telephone lines running from the telephone company switches to individual houses, apartments and office buildings. Some of these "lines" are fiber optic carrying hundreds or thousands of simultaneous connections, but at the end point of someone's office or house the phone itself requires a pair of wires per line. To servce all these people would imply the phone company would have to have four million circuits available. Not so! For one thing, the cost would be too high. Second, not everyone uses the phone all of the time. Check any public area with banks of pay telephones and watch for a few minutes. Out of an area that might have ten phones, perhaps two or three are in use at any one time except for sporadic incidents when many of the phones are in use. So the phone company can use the same idea. In an area of four million telephone lines, perhaps 25% of these lines will be in use simultaneously (the actual number is probably more like 10%, but I want to make this simple), so for the four million telephone lines, there are perhaps only one million actual "circuits" or "trunks". The actual, physical means by which a connection can be made is called a "trunk". Another example: I decide to start a service where people can send a signal and a message to someone, e.g. a radiopaging service where someone calls a telephone number, waits for the beep and sends the telephone number to which the party being paged should call back. Let's say I figure I can sell 10,000 people service and assign each one of them a specific individual telephone number with which to page them. But I don't need 10,000 calling circuits; not everyone is going to be paged simultaneously; and besides that, I couldn't afford it. So instead, let's say I figure that I might receive 100 simultaneous pages. I tell the telephone company to supply me with 100 incoming "trunk" lines, and with "DID" service where they assign me a whole block of numbers, and when someone calls one of the numbers they have assigned me, the phone company will send me the four-digit number that was dialed on one of the trunks that are in use. As long as no more than 100 people try to page one of my customers, all of the pages will get through. So while to someone outside, they would see that I have 10,000 telephone "numbers", I am only using 100 "trunks". The same thing applies in an office: Let's say there are 300 people working in a medium sized company. The company can purchase 300 (or more) telephone "numbers" but only install 40 actual physical telephone "trunks" for incoming or outgoing calls. Each phone has a line running to the wire cabinet, and can make calls inside the office by dialing a three digit number. Only 40 people, however, could make (or receive) calls from outside of the office. You have "300 phone lines" inside the building, but only "40 trunks" coming from the outside. And that's the main difference between a "line" and a "trunk". Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM ------------------------------ Subject: Call-Forwarding Versus Hunting: Solved From: toad@cellar.org Date: Sat, 29 May 93 23:34:22 EDT Organization: The Cellar BBS and public access system Exactly a week ago I posted a frantic note to comp.dcom.telecom through PAT asking for help in getting my public access system lines forwarded without losing its necessary hunting capabilities. I'm happy to say that the problem has now been solved, thanks in part to a c.d.t reader who had similar problems. After my first posting, PAT suggested that I try putting call forward, busy-no answer on the first set of lines, and removing the hunting from the lines. His explanation made sense, but it didn't work, due to a hitch. There's apparently a register at the switch (5ESS) called "group size" that regulates how many paths can happen out of one particular number. For me, that register was set to 1. Several people on c.d.t as well as two people who live in my area pointed out that they have had multiple calls forward through one number. It appears that the default group size is different in different places. As the story goes, when I told my telco to try putting call forward on busy + no answer on the line, they mis-programmed my first line, and sent all my callers to "answer call"! BBS callers found themselves bounced into a voice-mail system. And my rep then took a day off, and repair decided they couldn't make the change ... it was a terrible few days. By then the sympathetic reader had informed me about group size. My telco rep KNEW about group size, and knew that it would fix the problem. However, he explained that group size was not a tariff item in our state, and he wasn't sure whether he was even allowed to make the change for me. I pointed out that if we couldn't get something to work, I would be forced to disconnect my seven lines and move the system back to its original location, and that telco had sent an estimated 300 modem callers into voice-mail-land over the last few days. The rep had a pow-wow with the powers that be, and decided to make the change for me anyway! Now everything works perfectly, and I can even disconnect all but the first line at the original location. So: many thanks to PAT and to c.d.t for all your help! This is a wonderful newsgroup and I hope I can return it a favor sometime over the coming years. Tony Shepps toad@cellar.org The Cellar: Public access and thoughtful conversation: STILL at 215 539 3043 {Moderator's Note: I am glad readers here were able to be of help! PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: New Rockwell V.32bis From: uttsbbs!laurence.chiu@PacBell.COM (Laurence Chiu) Date: 29 May 93 18:49:00 GMT Organization: The Transfer Station BBS, Danville, CA - 510-837-4610/837-5591 Reply-To: uttsbbs!laurence.chiu@PacBell.COM (Laurence Chiu) In a article, Mike Oswald had the following to say about New Rockwell V.32bis: > alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us writes: > > ..."additional bonus of optional 16550 UART with FIFO..." > > About bleedin' time. It's not rocket science, but having just a teeny > > few characters worth of buffering under Windows will sure as heck help > > on total through put. >Where would I need to make changes in Windows if I have 9600 v.32/v.42 >external modem and I was wondering about how to help my COMM programs >performance? Just change the settings on your comm program and perhaps, make changes in the Port settings in control panel. Windows usually will recognize a 16550A UART and so you don't need to do anything special. There is a setting in system.ini COMxFIFO (I think) = 1 or 0 (check your manuals) but I am sure you don't need to set if usually since the default is on. Laurence Chiu Walnut Creek,CA The Transfer Station BBS (510) 837-4610 & 837-5591 (V.32bis both lines) Danville, California, USA. 400+ MB Files & FREE public Internet Access ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 May 93 11:13:53 EST From: Warne, John <19064001%SBAC@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu> Organization: School Board of Alachua County, FL. Subject: "Stuffing" the CLASS In the TELECOM Digest Volume 13 : Issue 359, Jeff Garber <0005075968@mcimail.com> said, in part: > ... asked if I could have the number that gets sent through SS7 on > line two changed to line one's number, as this would solve my > problem. I face a similar problem with Southern Bell. Our school system has a number of "private" lines assigned to Board Members, the Superintendent, and Principals at school sites. All the individuals have published numbers, and my request to the SB team is to "stuff" the published number into the Caller ID information, thereby protecting the private number while still allowing called individuals to use all the CLASS services. The answer so far from the local SB group is "not on a DMS-100." I will be raising the issue at a DMS-100 Centrex Users Group meeting in July. Perhaps somebody else "out there" has had better results. John Warne Voice: 904-336-3522 FAX: 904-336-3744 Telecommunications Manager I-Net: 19064001%sbac@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu School Board of Alachua County CIS: 76424,2220 Fred C. Sivia, Jr. Support Center 3700-B NE 53RD Avenue Gainesville, Florida 32609 ------------------------------ From: arobson@uswnvg.com (Andrew Robson) Subject: I Recommend Reading Snow Crash Date: 29 May 93 20:49:56 GMT Organization: U S WEST NewVector Group, Inc. I just finished reading _Snow Crash_, a current bestselling paperback science fiction novel. It has a lot in it that I think will be of interest to the readers of comp.dcom.telecom. The novel is written in the cyberpunk genre, but with a humorous twist. The book follows the action science fiction idiom with fight scenes, super weapons, and a villan attempting world conquest. I noticed a lot of insider jokes for the communications industry. The villan bears a remarkable resemblance to Craig McCaw. The architecture of the world wide communications network used as the setting for much of the story is remarkably realistic. The services range from seamless cellular coverage (with the lack of coverage in deep ocean significant to the plot) to a data network with a virtual reality access metaphor that might be worth implementing. Because the hero (Hiro Protagonist) was one of the implementors, the author gets a chance to describe a lot of the technical detail that supports the setting. The background holds together remarkably well for science fiction story technology. I was reminded of DelRay's story "Nerves" from the 1940's which got him some static from the Feds. I also wondered whether some future patent applications might not go the way of the waterbed. Definitly recommended reading! Andy (N6VRP) arobson@uswnvg.com | Contents are personal opinion only ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #360 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa24651; 31 May 93 1:11 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA27976 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 30 May 1993 22:45:14 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA06414 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 30 May 1993 22:44:32 -0500 Date: Sun, 30 May 1993 22:44:32 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305310344.AA06414@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #361 TELECOM Digest Sun, 30 May 93 22:44:30 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 361 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Prices in Hong Kong (Brad Collins) Another Tibetian Report (The Tibetian Traveller) International Cell Roaming (Laurence Chiu) Glazit Telephone Refinisher (Vantz Morgan) Orange Card Opinions Wanted! (Morgoth the Mad) Telecottage'93 International Symposium - Australia (Kathy Kothmann) Dialing Change in Minnesota (John Sullivan) Friend Needs Advice on Harrassing Caller (Juan Osuna) CPSR Seeks Clipper Docs (Dave Banisar) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: brad@mach.attmail.com Date: 30 May 93 12:54:35 GMT Subject: Prices in Hong Kong > I am interested in how other countries do the billing. I know that > Mexico does something similar to the U.S. system. The exception is > roamers. If a roamer comes into your current region and your carrier > recognizes this and directs the call to the roamer without going out > of region, the call is local. In the U.S., normally all billing to > the originating party is based on the number dialed and not on the > location of the terminating party. I believe that Norway uses the > same scheme that New Zealand does. Anyone know the rules in other > countries? In Hong Kong -- everything is a local "free" call. However, mobile phones are different -- charges are by the minute, both for sending and recieving. I own a Nokia Handyman 100 (which I can't afford to use at the moment) which I would usually use when not in the office. I would forward the calls from my office to the Nokia for which I was charged. Then, if I was home or at someone's flat, I would then forward the call to the phone there and there was no charge to my account. For six months we had a secretary who worked out of her home most of the time because she couldn't leave her children. The phone from the office would be forwarded to my mobile telephone and then I would forward it to her flat. Then if she had to step out, she would page me and I would turn off the forwarding. One time, we had the phone forwarded from the office to my mobile, then to my partner's office who forwarded the call to her mobile and then forwarded it to her home! There are only two companies that offer mobile phone services in Hong Kong, the biggest being Hutchinson. They offer three plans: Plan A US$25.5/month then 64 cents a minute Plan B US$$73.70/month for the first 100 minutes then 25 cents a minute Plan B US$185.80/month for the first 600 minutes then 25 cents a minute Prices have gone up almost a third in the last year and a half. Prices are the same for both companies, along with the paging companies -- controlled by the Hong Kong Paging Association -- who meet twice a year to set prices and punish members who do not comply with the group. I have worked for a company who tried to offer a lower price for a promotion. The Association noticed the newspaper ad and demanded that they comply less than six hours after the ad hit the streets. Note: mobile phones (along with Rolex watches) are the ultimate status symbol in Hong Kong. With the pricey Motorola models having the highest status and everything else falls below. I remember being taken to a Karaoke bar about two years ago which was controlled by Hong Kong Triads (Chinese Mafia). A man, who I later learned was the head of a major crime syndicate came up to me and asked me about my phone, commenting on how small and attractive it was. He then pointed to his table where an enormous old Motorola model was standing like a book end, saying "I have a mobile, but it's a big one ..." Brad Collins brad@mach.attmail.com Hong Kong ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 1993 01:38 EST From: The Tibetian Traveller Subject: Another Tibetian report Tibetian Telecom Tabloid Dateline: Changdu May 2, 1993 I still do not have a modem yet. However, since I do have a laptop, I thought I would type up another report from Tibet to keep from going crazy from the boredom. First topic is Chinese phone books. I managed to get a close look at one in Changchun. The length and width are about the same size as a US phone book. It had about 500 pages that were divided into three columns with about 15 names in each column. For those of you who are bad at math, that comes to 22,500 listings for a city with a population of over 1.5 million people. In addition to the listings, there were about 20 pages of colored advertisements on glossy paper. Since I can not read Chinese, I can not tell you what the advertisements were for. I finally managed to get an answer to a question that has been puzzling me since I first arrived in China. Sine the Chinese use complicated system of ideograms instead of an alphabet, I had wondered what order the names were listed and how someone found the listing they wanted. The Changchun phone book does not contain residential listings. If you want to call someone's home, they must give you their phone number. (That's one solution for those of you who hate telemarketing calls. However, it does have some obvious drawbacks.) All the listings in the Changchun phone book were businesses or government agencies. In the front of the phone book was a one page index that divided the city into areas. The section for each area had ten to twenty pages. Each section was further broken down into types of businesses or agencies (similar to our yellow pages). Each of these sections had anywere from ten to fifty listings. The process for looking up a number is as follows: First, you find the section for the area of the city that the business is located. What you do if you do not know this information is beyond me.) Then you turn to the beginning of that section and start to leaf through the section till you find the business catagory that is the same as the company you are looking for. Then you start to scan through the listings till you find the particular company that you want to call. (Does anyone know how Hong Kong, Japan, and other Asian countries have solved the listing problem?) I also got to see the "phone book" for Changdu, population 20,000 to 30,000. It looked like the little instruction book that came with my ansering machine back in the States. It was 2" X 3 1/2" and had about 27 pages. Each page was divided into two columns with ten names in each column. There also appeared to be subdivisions in this phone book although there were no advertisements or index in the front. (With only 27 pages, who needs an index?) Another interesting fact about this phone book was that my hotel room was listed in it. (Room 205's phone number is 21205). Not every room in this hotel has a phone in it. Only the Deluxe rooms come equipped with phones. (BTW, the room costs $8 a night for Chinese citizens, everyone else has to pay $16.) The hotel does not have its own switchboard. All calls are directly routed through the city's switchboard. And, of course, there is no DDD or IDD access. So theoretically, someone can directly call my room. I said theoret- ically because I had also found out that there is a problem with the local cabling and calls will not get through to my phone. I never saw a "phone book" for Mangkang. However, judging from the operator board that I described in my last posting, I would guess that it would fit on an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of paper. Next on the agenda is a description of the Changdu operator boards. In the operator's room, there were two operator's consoles. Each console is about eight feet across with positions for two operators. Each operator position has eight pairs of plugs with cords. The front plug is red while the back plug is black. Associated with each plug pair are two switchs. A white, two-position switch and a larger black three-position switch. In the center of the board, located between the two positions are LEDs for a digital display. There are two lights, red and yellow, assosicated with each plug pair. Also located to the left of each operator position is the normal 12 position keypad. To the right of the plugs are six more black switches. The white switch is supposed to time the call and display the length of the call on the digital display. They did not have this feature enabled so I can not describe the operation. The black switch associated with each plug pair had three positions: one was for the operator to talk to the connected party, one was for the operator to listen to the conversation on her headset, and the third was the neutral position. The red light blinks when a call is terminated. I do not know what the function of the yellow one is. Of the other six switches: one controlled whether the operator was connected to the front or back plug (this also controlled which plug the dialed digits were sent to), another sent an on-hook signal down the line (again two positions for the front plug or back plug), another sent a ringing signal down the line (again, forward or backward), and I forgot the function of the other three switches. Situated above the switches was an array of jacks (most of them unused and unlabled). On the far right, were five labled "113", which is the special number that you dial anywhere in China to get a long distance operator. Above them were two jacks labled "174". I do not know the significance of this number, but I do know that they were connected to our equipment which was located at an earth station three km away. To the the right of these were six rows of jacks. Some were labled 1 thru 20, while others were labled 1 thru 15. One row is the local lines which the operator uses to call local phones. Another row was the trunk lines to Lhasa (I think this ran over some old PCM equipment.) I do not know where the other trunks went to. And to the right of these jackfield was another jackfield that is labled "114", which is the special number for local information. As I had previously said, there are two consoles. And each console has two operator postions. However, only one was functional. The second console has no modules in it and all the jack fields are unlabled. On the other, the jackfields that I described stretch across both operator postitions. During the day, both positions are manned and the operators will have their plugs strecthed across the entire board and entwinned with each other. Fortunately, I never saw more than five calls in progess at the same time. Although I did see an operator once pull the wrong plug. Apperently, that did not cause any major concern since the people here are used to bad connections and if a call goes dead, they just call back. While I was watching the board in operation, I got to ask another question that has been troubling me. China's signalling protocal does not support ANI. As a matter of fact, all the equipment in Tibet is configured for dial pulse only, and the operator console does not identify the calling number. How do they handle billing? When a person wants to make a long distance call, they dial 113 which lights a little light above the jack. And if the ringing circuit is enabled, sets of a ring generator that is so loud that it will wake the dead, which is a good thing. The night operator pulls a 16 hour shift and has a bed next to the console where she can sleep during the late hours when nobody is using the the phone system.) The operator puts the plug into the lighted jack, flips the switch to connect it to the headset, and asks for all the necessary information: where they are calling, the number they want to call, and the number they are calling from. She writes this information on a slip of paper. She then hangs up the call, and calls the operator in the desired city, and gives her the information. The operator in the distant city than connects to the called party. When the distant connection is made, the local operator takes the second plug and connects it into a jack for the local line and calls back the original party. At this point, she disconnects the call from her headset and records the time from the clock on the wall on the same slip of paper. When the call is terminated, the red light blinks and she again records the time on the slip of paper. Then she calls back the calling party and verifies the length of the call. (Obviously, you should also time the call since you could end up paying for a longer call than you actually made if the operator isn't paying attention to her board.) And, best of all, I got to operate the board. I obviously did not talk to any subscribers because I do not speak Chinese or Tibetian. (BTW all the operators speak both languages.) The only way for me to call the States from this city was to use our equipment to connect to a switch in Beijing and dial the number as if I was dialing it from Beijing. Because it required an unorthodox numbering scheme, it was easier for me to make the call myself than try to explain to a non-English speaking operator what I wanted. For those interested, here is a list of the special three digit numbers used in China: 110-police, 119-fire, 112-used to report telephone problems, 113-LD operator, 114-local information, 116-LD information. Garnet email: gharris@lando.hns.com ------------------------------ Subject: International Cell Roaming From: uttsbbs!laurence.chiu@PacBell.COM (Laurence Chiu) Date: 30 May 93 18:49:00 GMT Organization: The Transfer Station BBS, Danville, CA - 510-837-4610/837-5591 Reply-To: uttsbbs!laurence.chiu@PacBell.COM (Laurence Chiu) I just signed up for cellular service in the Bay Area with GTE Mobilnet. Also bought one their phones which was highly recommended by a friend who sells phones, a Nokia 121. Anyway I made inquiries about international roaming and discovered that they have a number of agreements in place with countries who have compatible systems. I was interested in New Zealand since I come from there and would likely visit regulularly. I can arrange to have roaming setup in 5 days with my local GTE Mobilnet office. The rates are not too bad considering. I will be assigned a temporary local number and it will cost me US$1.56 roaming charge and US$1.04 (approx) per minute outgoing call charge in New Zealand. However this is useful, there is no charge for receiving calls from anywhere. Since one of the points of roaming is to be able to be contactable from anywhere, the $1.56 roaming charge is very good value. Laurence Chiu Walnut Creek, CA The Transfer Station BBS (510) 837-4610 & 837-5591 (V.32bis both lines) Danville, California, USA. 400+ MB Files & FREE public Internet Access ------------------------------ From: vmorgan@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: Glazit Telephone Refinisher Date: Sun, 30 May 1993 02:58:00 -0500 (EDT) Stan Hall writes: > Now its time for me to talk about my favorite phone in the house. Of > course it is black rotary W/E. > What it could use is a little bit of buffing up. It surface it > covered in light scratches that looks like someone took some steel > wool after it. Does anyone what would be the best thing to buff the > scratches out with? Arrow-Magnolia offers a product called "Glazit Telephone Refinisher" for cleaning and renewing the appearance of plastic telephone housings. As listed on the side of the aerosol can, "Glazit" contains: ligroine, propane, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, butane, and c8-c9 isoparaffin. Arrow-Magnolia Intl. "Glazit Telephone Refinisher" 2646 Rodney Ln. [re-order code# M-115] Dallas, TX 75229 (800) 527-2101 (214) 247-7111 Hope this helps, vantz ------------------------------ From: nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu (Morgoth the Mad) Subject: Orange Card Opinions Wanted! Organization: University of Alaska Fairbanks Date: Sun, 30 May 1993 08:42:43 GMT I am looking for info on the 'Orange Card'. I got the information from the company; I am just looking for people who have experience with it and its good and bad sides. Quyanna for any information. [Moderator's Note: The Orange Card is one of several programs here which support this Digest financially. The Orange Card is a no-surcharge, 25 cent-per-minute calling card which is particulary useful when calling from hotel rooms or payphones where a surcharge would normally be levied by the calling card provider. Although there are savings at other times, the biggest savings come from short duration (two or three minute) calls made weekdays during business hours. It is a new program which began in January, 1993. Billing is done in six second increments after the initial thirty second period. You use it like any calling card, by dialing an 800 number, then inserting the card number, the number you are calling, and the PIN. One reader has pointed out the Orange Card switch does not handle data calls very well. There is a one time $12.00 fee to establish your account. If you did not previously receive an application (or card) when I first mentioned this product back in February, please write me for your application and brochure today. Include a mailing address where it can be sent: ptownson@eecs.nwu.edu. Experiences from users are wanted here for further discussion. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 1993 10:00:22 -0500 From: Kathy Kothmann Subject: Telecottage '93 International Symposium - Australia ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: 21 May 93 06:49:09 EDT From: MACKENZIE INFORMATION <100032.1076@compuserve.com> Subject: TELECOTTAGE'93 INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM - AUSTRALIA 20 May 193 TO: All Interested People FROM: Roger MacKenzie Internet 100032.1076@Compuserve.com ADVANCE CONFERENCE NOTICE TELECOTTAGE '93 (29 November -- 1 December 1993) International Symposium "Telecottages, Teleworking, Telelearning: Road to Rural Revival" Telecottage '93 will be the first Telecottage symposium to be held in Australia and will be a land mark event. World leaders in telecottages. Teleworking and telelearning will present their latest findings on the potential benefits for rural communities in developed and developing nations. Telecottages are multipurpose work and learning centres established by rural and remote communities to provide: *Distance working opportunities *Services to the local community *Access to distance education *Aid to rural revitalization *Local training *Reduced social isolation KEY NOTE SPEAKERS (other speakers to be confirmed) Gil Gordon - U.S.A. - Telecommuting Authority . Wendy Spinks - Japan - Telecommuting Authority . Lars Engvall - International Telecottage Authority . - President International Association of Community Tele-Service Centres (CTSC). Lars Qvortrup - Denmark - Telecottage Authority. WHEN: 29 November -- 1 December 1993 WHERE: Pan Pacific Hotel, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia (Summer, beautiful beaches) SPONSORS: Telecom Australia. Telecentre Program, Department of Primary Industries and Energy, Canberra Australia. The Office of Rural Communities, Administrative Services Department, Queensland Australia. IN CONJUNCTION WITH: International Association of Community Tele-Service Centres (CTSC) CONTACT: Conference Administrator: Winkler Marketing Services Pty Ltd, P.O. Box 889, Kenmore, Queensland, 4069, Australia. Telephone + 61-7-878-3358 Fax + 61-7-878-2689 ATTENDING: I am planning to attend and look forward to meeting you at the symposium. Information supplied by: Roger MacKenzie P.O. Box 46 Warkworth New Zealand Internet 100032.1076@Compuserve.com Fax: 64-9-425-8517 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 93 13:46:31 CDT From: sullivan@geom.umn.edu Subject: Dialing Change in Minnesota Right now, Minnesota has three area codes (split into five calling areas). Toll calls within an area code (whether intra- or inter-LATA) are dialled with 1-nxx-xxxx. (Since the Twin Cities have a very large local calling area, I'm not sure I've ever made such a call in my three years here, but that's how I'd have to do it.) Since 612 (the area code for the Twin Cities) is getting crowded, so they've just proposed switching to 1-NPA-nxx-xxxx dialing for all toll calls within Minnesota, so that n1x and n0x exchanges could be created in 612. This change will probably happen in late 1994. There is also discussion of shrinking the boundaries of 612. John Sullivan@geom.umn.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 93 10:56:38 -0400 From: josuna@cs.UMD.EDU (Juan Osuna) Subject: Friend Needs Advice on Harrassing Caller I have a friend who is getting spooked by someone who calls her everyday at the same time, saying nothing and then just hanging up. This has happened over 20 times. What does the law say about just calling and hanging up? Is that harassment? Also, what are the telco's obligations for tracing calls? Assuming the call is long distance or that Caller-ID or Call-Trace has been blocked, how does one go about getting a trace for legal purposes? Juan [Moderator's Note: I assume your friend has a Caller-ID box and know for a fact the ID is being blocked? If not, try Caller-ID and see what you get. Another good tool is 'return last call', sometimes known as 'auto callback'. This will frequently work even though the ID is being blocked. Whenever your friend receives a call, she could promptly return the call in the same manner; wait until the caller answers then hang up. A time or two of this might spook the caller out and get the annoyance stopped. Telco has the obligation to see to it your friend enjoys unhindered use of the phone; something that is not possible when calls from the slimeball have to be answered all the time. Most telcos require that the subscriber notify the police, file a police report -- an official complaint -- before they will act, but they will cooperate with the police at that point in trapping the caller so your friend can prosecute. PAT] ------------------------------ Organization: CPSR Civil Liberties and Computing Project From: Dave Banisar Date: Sun, 30 May 1993 14:30:44 EST Subject: CPSR Seeks Clipper Docs PRESS RELEASE May 28, 1993 CPSR Seeks Clipper Documents - Brings Suit Against NSA and National Security Council Washington, DC -- Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility filed suit today in federal district court seeking information about the government's controversial new cryptography proposal. The "Clipper" proposal, announced by the White House at an April 16 press conference, is based on a technology developed by the National Security Agency that would allow the government to intercept computer encoded information. Law enforcement agencies say that capability this is necessary to protect court ordered wire surveill- ance. But industry groups and civil liberties organizations have raised questions about the proposal. They cite the risk of abuse, the potential loss in security and privacy, costs to US firms and consumers, and the difficulties enforcing the policy. Marc Rotenberg, CPSR Washington office director, said "The Clipper plan was developed behind a veil of secrecy. It is not enough for the White House to hold a few press conferences. We need to know why the standard was developed, what alternatives were considered, and what the impact will be on privacy." "As the proposal currently stands, Clipper looks a lot like 'desktop surveillance,'" added Rotenberg. David Sobel, CPSR Legal Counsel, said "CPSR is continuing its oversight of federal cryptography policy. These decisions are too important to made in secret, without public review by all interested parties." In previous FOIA suits, CPSR obtained records from the General Services Administration questioning the FBI's digital telephony plan, a legislative proposal to require that communications companies design wiretap capability. More recently, CPSR obtained records through the FOIA revealing the involvement of the National Security Agency in the development of unclassified technical standards in violation of federal law. CPSR is a national membership organization, based in Palo Alto, CA. Membership is open to the public. For more information about CPSR, contact CPSR, P.O. Box 717, Palo Alto, CA 9403, 415/322-3778 (tel), 415/322-3798 (fax), cpsr@cpsr.org ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #361 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa29456; 31 May 93 11:29 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA00964 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 31 May 1993 09:08:08 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA22315 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 31 May 1993 09:07:35 -0500 Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 09:07:35 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305311407.AA22315@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #362 TELECOM Digest Mon, 31 May 93 09:07:30 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 362 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson 900MHZ Digital Cordless Phone Summary (jgy@hrojr.att.com) U.S. National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (Nigel Allen) Modest PBX Wanted, New or Used (Jeff Miller) Call Alert (Stutter Tone Detector) - Discontinued (Michael D. Sullivan) ANti-Solicitor Pointer (Stephen Tihor) Remote Monitoring Information Wanted (Delavar K. Khomarlou) Bell Canada Adopts International Card Numbering (David Leibold) Bell Canada and Directory Assistance Charging Plans (David Leibold) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 30 May 93 13:58:29 EDT From: jgy@hrojr.att.com Subject: 900MHZ Digital Cordless Phone Summary Organization: AT&T On May 10th I posted a request for info on 900Mhz digital cordless phones. First of all thanks to everyone who responded. If you did respond with information and you don't see it below it's because I didn't receive it! I've left out comments directed at the Panasonic KXT-9000 which is 900mhz but is not digital. I'm including my post (with leading #'s)since it had some starting info. For each phone I'm including the relevant responses: # Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom # Subject: 900Mhz Cordless Phones # Message-ID: # Organization: AT&T # X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 13, Issue 316, Message 13 of 15 # I'd like to put together a summary of 900Mhz cordless phones unless # someone already has one! If people could email me everything they # know about any 900Mhz model, I'll put it together and post it back # here. Lets stick to models which are digital base <-> handset, this # eliminates the Panasonic which seems to be failing anyway (It's # already at Damark.) Here's what I know already (most comments are # based on previous c.d.t readings): # AT&T 9530: # Supposed to be available late spring, local phone store says # they should have it soon. Claims four times the range of regular # cordless phones. Also claims "virtually interference-free # conversations with consistent sound quality up to one mile # from the base" are these statements consistent with each other?? # Spread spectrum and auto frequency-hopping for clarity and # security. # List price $449. jgy> Went to a AT&T phone store today they now say October. 800-222- jgy> 3111 still has "late spring" in their notes. # Cincinnati Microwave: # Last August announced a 900Mhz phone, with "spread spectrum" # technology. Said it would be available in October for about $300. # A call to Cincinnati Microwave says it not out yet.. "later this # month" (sound like it was canned to me!). Reported list ~$300 > From att!attmail!lesreeves Tue May 11 18:39:51 GMT 1993 > Cincinnati Microwave, Inc. has announced the Escort 9000, a cordless > phone with a range of up to half a mile that will be available in June 93. > The phone will be sold direct for $399 from Cincinnati Microwave, > 800 543 1608 jgy> They are now taking orders for this phone, they are expecting jgy> stock at the end of June but have no literature on the product. # Cobra Intenna 900: # Heard of it for the first time in Jeff Freemans post the other # day, he reports it uses "spread spectrum" technology. jgy> Had ZERO feedback on this phone (Jeff??). # Vtech (Tropez) 900DX # This is, I think, their first 900Mhz model. Keypad on base as # well as handset. Comments I read were: "good range", "some holes # in coverage", "handset audio volume on the low side". Overall # seemed pretty good. ~$269 mail order. jgy> Had the bulk of responses: > From: Everett Fred Basham > Date: Wed, 12 May 93 12:27:15 PDT > I've had 2 v-tech 900's - one of the first, and a more recent production > model. > The first ones definitely had a problem with handset volume. You would > crank it all the way up, and still have to strain to hear the landine > party. Also - if you didn't speek directly into the mike - people would > have trouble hearing you. > The new ones have "corrected" the problem - only thing is now you hear > the noise. I guess that's why the volume was so low before - you wouldn't > hear any noise on the line. > Also - the voice quality is significantly lower than a landline phone or > the AT&T 46/49 cordless units. Range is great, however. > Lastly - the Tropez can be modified (unknown legal ramifications of doing > so) to use an external antenna. Diamond makes a 900MHz HAM antenna which > happens to work fine on the tropez. Range is easily quadrupled over factory > antenna. (the diamond is 8' long -- 8 feet - not 8 inches!) The modifi- > cation involves removing the factory "stubby" antenna and installing > a SMA feedthrough in the hole formerly occupied by the antenna. This is > then fed to the outdoor diamond antenna with 1/2" heliax for low loss. > Let me know if you hear anything more about the AT&T 900 cordless! I'm in > need of the following: > Cordless Phone - must have: > 1) 900 MHz > 2) 1 Mile range > 3) At least 2 lines - pref. 5 > 4) Digital transmission > 5) Encryption > 6) A reasonable battery life (Tropez is about 24 hours) > 7) Remote charging stand for handset --------------------------------- > From: obrien@aero.org > My experience with this phone was not good. The audio from the handset > to the base was too highly compressed - had too low a bandwidth. All the > highs and lows were cut off, leading to a somewhat "muffled" sound. My > girlfriend, who has a slight hearing deficit, had problems understanding > me when I used this phone, though she had no problems when I used my > regular "wireline" phone. Two Tropez units showed the exact same problem. > One poster, who sells phones on the side, said he was shocked at how cheap > the microphone was that this unit uses in the handset, and that as a result > he no longer sells it except by special order. Another poster claimed the > problem was due to the narrow bandwidth of the radio signal used, though > this does not explain why the received audio in the handset remains good. > I returned both phones. Though the Panasonic isn't digital, it does > have excellent audio - much better than the Tropez. My girlfriend had > no trouble understanding me on that one, either. -------------------- jgy> Dave sent me this post he'd made from ONE YEAR ago: > From: dlr@daver.bungi.com (Dave Rand) > Date: Sat, 9 May 1992 08:37:39 PDT > Subject: Tropez 900DX 900 Mhz Phone Review > Well, I've had my phone for several days now, so here is an update > on it. > The 900DX is one of the first of the new breed of 900 Mhz cordless > telephones. It uses 20 channels from 925.5 to 927.4 Mhz (handset to > base), and 20 channels from 905.6 to 907.5 Mhz (base to handset). > They do not list a power level, but simply state that it uses the > "maximum power allowed by FCC". The signal path is fully digital from > base to handset, and handset to base. This prevents casual > evesdropping from people with scanners, but will not provide high > security. The signal, when tuned in on a scanner, sounds like a dead > carrier, with the occasional 'pop' or two. Nothing even resembling > voice is present. The weight of the handset is 335 grams, and is 19.5 > cm x 5.8 cm x 3.5 cm, excluding the short antenna. > Range is extrordinary. They claim 2600 feet, on level ground. I was > able to use the phone for almost a 1.5 block radius around my house, > in a typical suburban environment. Because the signal is digital, > there appears to be a go/no go type of response. When you are on the > edge of the coverage area, there is a slight 'popping' sound, as the > signal comes in and out, but no static at all. When you have moved out > of range, the handset is silent, except for a 10-30 second 'beep' tone > to let you know that you are out of range. Noise is non-existant, even > in the harmonic-rich environment of my computer room, where my 46/49 > Mhz Sony unit is almost unusable. > The base unit comes with a hands-free option, and a separate keypad so > that it may be used even if the handset is not present. An intercom > facility is provided, and works well. > Now, for the bad news. The audio quality is best described as > 'acceptable'. True, there is no additional noise. The level of the > received audio is low, even with the four position digital volume > control at maximum. The level of the transmitted audio, however, is > even worse. On international calls, callers were often unable to hear > me, and I was forced to change to either the Sony or a regular wired > phone. There are several artifacts audible to the user, and to the > called party when using the phone, especially when high audio levels > (like ring signals, SIT tones, and touch-tones) are present. I suspect > that it is using an 8-bit A/D, D/A convertor, with (perhaps) some form > of delta compression. Even on local calls, the most often heard phase > when using this phone is "pardon me?". I started to get in the habit > of shouting when using the 900DX! > So far, I have tried three of the 900DX phones. The first one was > significantly worse on the RX audio, but all were not really good > enough. Calls to the 800 number for tech support (800-624-5688) > yielded a good response, but they are not able to adjust the outbound > volume level. Bottom line: The phone is going back to Macy's. > > I really like the idea of a fully digital phone, but the Tropez unit > is just not quite there yet. I'll try the Panasonic unit next -- I've > had good luck with their cellular phones, and answering/fax machines. -------------------- > From: Wayne Sung > One more comment on the Tropez 900DX. If I let the battery run all the way > down in the handset before starting to recharge, the handset will not be able > to reach the base the first time after charging. I think the base must send > the security code only once each time the handset is cradled, and a no-power > handset obviously won't see the code. > I thought the Panasonic had better sound than the Tropez, but it also had > much less range and was more expensive. On continuous signals (e.g. ringing > or whistling) you can head the Tropez click. > I just wish there was a digital connection on the Tropez, i.e. use the > intercom function as a digital wireless modem. # Vtech (Tropez) 900DL # A newer model, I don't think this has the keypad/speakerphone on # the base unit. About $40 cheaper than the DX. Jeff Freeman, the # other day, claimed digital encryption between handset and base. # # # Thanks in advance! jgy> Nothing on this either (Jeff??)! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 93 20:19:42 EDT From: ae446@freenet.carleton.ca (Nigel Allen) Subject: U.S. National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee Organization: Echo Beach Reply-To: ae446@freenet.carleton.ca Here is a press release from the White House. I downloaded it from the PR On-Line BBS (Pikesville, MD) at 410-363-0834. I haven't heard of the committee before, but I guess the fact that the White House issued a press release about the appointments indicates that the committee is of some importance. President Clinton Appoints Norman Augustine To Chair National Security Telecommunications Advisory Commission Contact: White House Press Office, 202-456-2100 WASHINGTON, May 27 -- The President announced today that he has appointed Norman R. Augustine as Chair and William T. Esrey as Vice Chair of the President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC). Augustine is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Martin Marietta Corporation and has previously served as Vice Chair of NSTAC. Esry is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sprint Corporation. Also named to the NSTAC today were Joseph T. Gorman, the Chairman and CEO of TRW Inc., and Albert F. Zettlemoyer, the President of Paramax Systems Corporation and a Senior Vice President of Unisys Corporation. The President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee is a Federal Advisory Committee designed to provide information and advice to the President regarding telecommunications planning. It is composed of up to 30 telecommunications industry executives. Nigel Allen, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ae446@freenet.carleton.ca ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 93 19:18:36 -0700 From: cornhead@netcom.com (Jeff Miller) Subject: Modest PBX Wanted, New or Used My housemate has a Panasonic KXT616 PBX he bought here on the net a couple years ago for $250. As I understand it, calls coming in can be routed to any of the outs according to a cofiguration table, or re-routed "after the fact" by a flash/extension sequence. Further, calls can be placed from any of the outs to any other out without passing through the phone company proper. It's tempting to hack together a system like this for my modest needs but this PBX is nice as it has all the proper off-hook recognition, touch-tone stuff, and ring generator stuff. Unfortunately he deosn't want to sell it. So I am looking for an inexpesive PBX or similar cut-rate gizmo with most of the same functionality. As I see it, it must monitor all lines (in and out) for off-hook and flash and for touch-tones, and have a ring generator. His has a NVRAM table for routing info, I don't see that as strictly necessary: hard-coded behavior and touch-tone values is probably fine. I think a 2/4 line set up would cover anything I could think of, and 1/4 or even 1/2 might be fine. So if you have an old PBX or know a manufacturer and model of a modest new one let me know via e-mail as cornhead@netcom.com. It would be nice to get one for around $250, but I could probably get used to the idea of having to pay 2-4X more for something that would fill my needs given some sticker-shock recovery time. cornhead ------------------------------ From: avogadro@well.sf.ca.us (Michael D. Sullivan) Subject: Call Alert (Stutter Tone Detector) - Discontinued Organization: The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA Date: Sun, 30 May 1993 19:55:51 -0700 A few weeks ago there was a post about a device called the "Call Alert", which is a light that indicates pending voice mail, which could otherwise be detected only by picking up the handset and hearing "stutter tone" -- interrupted dial tone. I called Hello Direct as suggested in the posting, but they said the item had been discontinued. Is there an alternative available? It would be great to have a light that indicates voice mail. I assume this device would have to sample dial tone periodically when the circuit is on-hook; shouldn't be too complex. Any pointers? Michael D. Sullivan <74160.1134@compuserve.com> mikesullivan@bix.com> ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 1993 13:10:55 -0500 (EST) From: Stephen Tihor Subject: ANti-Solicitor Pointer Since the anti-soliciter information is not a Faq item at the moment could someone drop me the info to pass to a friends abnout the D*MA and the group Private/Public Citizen (?) which is involved in the '$100 for bothering me' small claims deal. Thanks. {A friend getting hit bad and the answers have rolled out of my archives.} ------------------------------ From: Delavar.K.Khomarlou@hydro.on.ca (Delavar K. Khomarlou) Subject: Remote Monitoring Information Wanted Reply-To: Delavar.K.Khomarlou@hydro.on.ca Organization: Ontario Hydro Date: Sun, 30 May 1993 14:08:54 -0400 Our company has been thinking about monitoring activities at sites using existing security cameras (freeze frame) and voice grad phone lines by remotely dialing the camera and getting frames from it and perhaps remotely moving it about its three axis. Dose anyone know of a product which would allow us to use existing technoloy (equipment) for this purpose. I don't monitor this group often , so an email would be best. Thanks in advance. D ------------------------------ Subject: Bell Canada Adopts International Card Numbering From: woody Date: Sun, 30 May 1993 20:40:57 -0400 [from Bell News, 31 May 1993] Our Calling Cards have a new international number. Bell Canada Calling Cards will have a new set of numbers for customers to use when making calls from overseas destinations beginning tomorrow, June 1. A modification to the world-wide numbering standard is being put into place which requires changes to the "1M" number (the smaller number at the bottom of the calling card.) This number will be replaced by the "89" international number. This change will only affect those customers using Bell Calling Cards from overseas destinations. Customers using their Calling Cards in North America will be unaffected. Over the remainder of 1993, Bell will replace the cards of all business customers, as well as those residence customers who have used their cards overseas in the last year. In addition, cards will be replaced for those residence customers who have identified the need for the new card. In addition, effective June 14, a positive manual validation procedure will be introduced on all Bell Calling Cards when they are used to make calls from overseas. Once the number has been manually validated, the international operator will process the call. Because this is a manual validation, customers may experience a short wait. Charges for the call will not begin until the call is connected. The international operator should accept both the current im number as well as the new 89 number until January 1, 1994. At that time only the 89 number will be accepted. {Notes: Calling to overseas from Bell Canada territory can no longer be done through Calling Cards. What is referred to here would have to be calls placed at overseas locations, but billed to cards, assuming Bell doesn't soon decide that this is no longer possible, either. It's also unclear as to whether the international operators refer to their home direct service (ie. call a Bell Canada operator from overseas, rather than use the domestic operator). Of course, some residence customers who go overseas later without the new number may be in for a surprise (recall that the new number will only be issued to those residence customers who used the cards overseas in the last year).} David Leibold djcl@zooid.guild.org dleibold1@attmail.com dleibold@vm1.yorku.ca ------------------------------ Subject: Bell Canada and Directory Assistance Charging Plans From: woody Date: Sun, 30 May 1993 20:44:04 -0400 [from Bell News, 31 May 1993] Directory Assistance decision on the horizon. With more than 200 comments and questions on file, and still more to come, the regulatory proceeding on Bell's plan to charge for local and long distance directory assistance is finally drawing to a close. The last round of public comment will conclude today [31 May], with comments from Bell due June 10, 1993. In a nutshell, Bell proposes to reduce the current charge for numbers listed in the local telephone directory from 60 cents to 50 cents per number. The company also proposes a charge of 50 cents for most types of local and long distance directory assistance, including requests for new or changed numbers. Bell filed the plan because it is losing about $88 million a year providing directory assistance. And this situation is growing worse due to the activities of list-makers and others who request numbers for purposes other than making long distance phone calls. To add to the problem, competition from resellers, and from AT&T/Unitel means callers are using Bell's directory assistance to find a telephone number, then placing the call over another company's facilities. As a result, Bell does not receive any long distance revenue to offset the cost of providing the service. Other telcos on the same path. In this new, competitive environment, Bell is not the only telephone company that wants to revamp its charges for money-losing directory assistance. In fact, six other Stentor owner companies have filed similar plans. Manitoba Telephone System got the go-ahead on portions of its plan -- on an interim basis -- from its provincial regulator on May 3. B.C. Tel, AGT, SaskTel, Manitoba Telephone System, MT&T and Island Tel have all asked for permission to charge for some or most calls to local and long distance directory assistance. While AGT and SaskTel propose a per call charge of 50 cents, the other four telcos have asked for higher charges on certain calls. While all of these companies, including Bell, have requested similar exemptions -- for example, no charge for requests for emergency numbers and calls to DA from payphones and hospitals. However each company does have slightly different proposals for the disabled. Special Needs customers. In its September 11 filing, Bell had asked that customers who were disabled, illiterate, or 65 years and over, receive a free call allowance of 25 calls per month. However, in response to concerns raised by special needs customers, many of whom rely heavily on directory assistance, Bell filed a revision to the plan which would provide them with unlimited free calling to local directory assistance. Calls to long distance directory assistance would cost 50 cents each, as they would for all other customers. A decision from the CRTC on Bell's application is expected sometime this year. If approved, the new charges would reduce the shortfall in directory assistance to $28 million. ---------------- David Leibold djcl@zooid.guild.org dleibold1@attmail.com dleibold@vm1.yorku.ca [Moderator's Note: The reason phone users in the USA began getting charged for calls to long distance directory assistance (typically 60-80 cents per call) was for the same reason: MCI and Sprint, rather than go to the expense of building their own database or partici- oating in the existing one were telling people to call AC-555-1212 for information, then hang up and place their calls over MCI/Sprint. So AT&T -- the old Bell System -- was paying for directory while the new companies were getting the profits from actual calls. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #362 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa07285; 31 May 93 13:42 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA24884 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 31 May 1993 11:23:37 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA16929 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 31 May 1993 11:23:01 -0500 Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 11:23:01 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305311623.AA16929@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #363 TELECOM Digest Mon, 31 May 93 11:23:00 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 363 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Direct-Dialing Ex-Soviet Republics (Vladimir Menkov) Pager "Codebooks" - Any Nice Ones Out There? (Richard A. Fowell) GSM Frequency Summary (Juha Veijalainen) 5ESS Changes In Our Exchange (David G. Cantor) Request For Help: North American Dialing Plan (Bob Natale) More "Features" For AT&T's 1-800 Service (Bill Bogstad) Frame Relay Documentation Wanted (Tim McSweeney) Cellular Phone Connection to a Notebook Modem (Kenneth White) Transportable Switch Documentation (Paul J. Drongowski) Where Does One Find Used Cell Phones? (J. Eric Townsend) Re: Cellular Charging? (Steven H. Lichter) Re: Cellular Charging? (spenceg@pro-cynosure.cts.com) Re: Amazing $13 Billion Fiber Conversion by US West (Matt McConnell) Re: Amazing $13 Billion Fiber Conversion by US West (Ken Thompson) Re: Talk Tickets - New Debit Cards From AT&T/US Fibercom (Christopher Sims) Re: Voice Mail - DID Trunk? (Steven J. Tucker) Re: 1-800 Owners, What Do They Know? (Rainer Leberle) Re: Caller-ID to Computer RS-232 (Christopher Zguris) Re: Caller-ID Mistakes (Lauren Weinstein) Re: Caller-ID Mistakes (Carl Oppedahl) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 30 May 1993 20:45:52 -0500 From: Vladimir Menkov Subject: Direct-Dialing Ex-Soviet Republics Organization: Indiana University Computer Science, Bloomington In article jsaker@cwis.unomaha.edu (James R. Saker Jr.) writes: > Speaking of rumors ... has anyone heard if any of the former Soviet > republics (Latvia, Kyrg., etc.) are direct dialable yet? According to > Sprint, AT&T and Worldcom's tariffs, they're listed independently to > allow for billing breakouts, but are still accessed by country-code 7. > Last I heard, Moscow was the only direct-dialable part of the former > USSR. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is not the case. One can direct-dial telephone numbers in a number of cities in Russia with AT&T or Sprint, including most provincial capitals, such as Cheboksary or Murmansk. I don't have personal experience with other ex-Soviet states, but I suppose that many republics are accessible through 7. AT&T international operators know codes for some cities, and more complete city code listings are available by anon FTP from moose.cs.indiana.edu, directory /pub/phonedir. (Although this doesn't mean that all or even most of cities listed are direct-dialable from the USA or even from within Russia :). Vladimir ------------------------------ From: fowell@netcom.com (Richard A. Fowell) Subject: Pager "Codebooks" - Any Nice Ones Out There? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 05:03:03 GMT Since most pagers can display more digits (e.g. 20) than a phone number requires, people tend to come up with coding schemes to make use of the additional bandwidth. I'd like to have a nice "codebook" scheme that our folks at work could use to make their pager use more useful. My thought is that, by analyzing what pagers are used for, and what proplems users are faced with, a useful, flexible, general coding scheme could be used to take advantage of that bandwidth. Since hundreds of thousands of pager users are faced with this issue, there are undoubtedly some good solutions already out there. What have you folks seen? (Email to me and I'll summarize and repost soon.) fowell@netcom.com (Richard A. Fowell) ------------------------------ From: FNAHA!JVE@TRENGA.tredydev.unisys.com Date: 31 MAY 93 09:17 Subject: GSM Frequency Summary Thank you for all who responded to my question. In summary: GSM uses 890 - 915 MHz range for mobile to station communication and 935 - 960 MHz for station to mobile. Channel spacing is 200 kHz. Also, I quoted British Vodafone rates at 1.25 USD / minute. I got that figure when I converted the rate first to Finnish marks and then to US Dollars. It might be clearer to quote prices in British pounds: Vodafone charges 0.75 GBP / min. in the London Metropolitan area and 0.70 GBP / min. outside (information from my local GSM operator). Juha Veijalainen 4ge system analyst, tel. +358 0 4528 426 Unisys Finland Internet: JVE%FNAHA@trenga.tredydev.unisys.com >> Mielipiteet omiani ** Opinions are PERSONAL, facts are suspect << ------------------------------ Subject: 5ESS Changes in my Exchange Reply-To: dgc@math.ucla.edu Date: Mon, 31 May 93 09:08:46 -0700 From: David G. Cantor Pacific Bell sent me a letter to tell me that they are installing a 5ESS in my exchange and stating that "This is a change from electronic to digital equipment". They state that it might "affect some of your telephone equipment". What are the changes to the telephone interface that are visible to the user? David G. Cantor University of California Mathematics Department Los Angeles, CA 90024-1555 Internet: dgc@math.ucla.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 1993 13:44:07 -0400 From: natale@acec.com (Bob Natale) Subject: Request For Help: North American Dialing Plan Can you please tell me how to locate info re the revisions to the North American Dialing Plan scheduled for January, 1995? I took a quick look on "telecom-archives", but could not see an obvious pointer. Thanks for your help. Bob Natale American Computer 301-258-9850 [tel] Director 209 Perry Pkwy 301-921-0434 [fax] Network Mgmt Products Gaithersburg MD 20877 natale@acec.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 93 15:59:18 EDT From: bogstad@blaze.cs.jhu.edu (Bill Bogstad) Subject: More "Features" For AT&T's 1-800 Service In the May 24th {Information Week} on pg. 20 there is an article discussing new features that AT&T is planning for its 1-800 network. In particular, a call recognition routing feature will allow network managers to automatically route calls based on their ten digit phone number. One of the suggested uses for this system is to automatically route calls from customers who are delinquent in their bill to your collections office. Given the result when American Express used ANI to answer calls with the callers name, I can just imagine what customer reactions to this "feature" will be. Bill Bogstad Computer Science Dept bogstad@cs.jhu.edu Johns Hopkins University [Moderator's Note: This is just a variation on a frequently used application in the AT&T Software Defined Network which allows outgoing calls to be blocked/restricted by passcode, etc as set up by the local administrator. PAT] ------------------------------ From: mcsweene@acs.bu.edu Subject: Frame Relay Documentation Wanted Date: 30 May 93 19:16:55 GMT Organization: Boston University, Boston, MA, USA I'm looking for some technical documentation on frame relay. Can anyone help? Thanks, tim ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 93 14:21:56 PDT From: Kenneth White Subject: Cellular Phone Connection to a Notebook Modem Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada Has anyone successfully accomplished this? I read about in the press but would actually like to see it done. I have seen ads from Spectrum. Anyway, I have an Audiovox with a connector on the bottom that allows you to connect to their car mounting kit with an RJ11, but I dont want to use a car kit. Audiovox told me that was the way they do it. What exactly does it take to connect a cellphone to a 2400 baud modem in a notebook? No acoustic couplers please. ------------------------------ From: pjd@scr.siemens.com (dr. funk) Subject: Transportable Switch Documentation Organization: Siemens Corporate Research, Princeton (Plainsboro), NJ, USA Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 13:20:07 GMT For more information on transportable switches, etc., please see "National Transportable Telecommunications Capability," K.B. Bohein and A.D. Dayton, MILCOM '91, IEEE and AFCEA, November 1991, Volume 3, pg. 934-37. "The NTTC is a transportable package consisting of a cellular switch and a base station in a shelter, a microwave radio system, a small telephone switch, and a mobile satellite terminal. This package will operate over a Ku-band domestic satellite back into a gateway station and into the packet switching network." Brought to you by the National Communications System (NCS.) paul j. drongowski N2OQT siemens corporate research inc pjd@scr.siemens.com princeton, new jersey 08540 (609) 734-6547 ------------------------------ From: jet@nas.nasa.gov (J. Eric Townsend) Subject: Where Does One Find Used Cell Phones? Organization: NASA Ames Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation Date: Sun, 30 May 1993 22:43:18 GMT I've decided to possibly take the plunge (and bite from my pocketbook :-) and get a cell phone. Not wanting to get trapped in one of these "to get this price you have to sign with company X" scams, I figured: hey, I'll buy a used phone. There aren't any, best I can tell. So, do people hang on to them? Do they have such a short lifespan after warranty that they become disposable? (Hey, give 'em to me. :-) Do they depreciate so fast that nobody wants to sell theirs? In particular, I'm looking for Oki 8xx or higher series phones -- maybe they're so good that nobody will sell theirs? J. Eric Townsend jet@nas.nasa.gov 415.604.4311 NASA Ames Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation | play: jet@well.sf.ca.us Parallel Systems Support, CM-5 POC | '92 R100R / DoD# 0378 PGP2.1 public key available upon request or finger jet@simeon.nas.nasa.gov [Moderator's Note: I dunno ... the {Chicago Tribune} classifieds have ads from people wanting to sell them all the time. You get what you pay for of course (just like this Digest, people tell me some of the articles are worth every nickle they paid! :)), and if someone is getting rid of a cell phone, they must not like it for some reason. And depending on where you are at -- what city -- whether or not you can get the phone activated without the help of a dealer to whom you will need to pay $$ is questionable. Here in Chicago, neither carrier will turn the phone on just by talking to you. 'Take it to a dealer', is the answer I've always gotten. I know some places this is not true; the carriers are very helpful and friendly. Overall, it still might be a good deal. $30-50 for a used, working phone and another $20-30 to the dealer for his time is not much money, but still, the $50-100 spent in this scenario would have gotten you a very good *new, under warranty* cell phone. Also, with most carriers, you can get minimum service contracts which don't amount to much more than what you would spend 'free lancing' with a used phone you turned on yourself anyway. Check out the ads in the 'electronics' or 'telephone equipment' section of the classified ads in your own Sunday paper. There are some good deals on used cellphones if you read carefully. PAT] ------------------------------ From: co057@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steven H. Lichter) Subject: Re: Cellular Charging? Date: 31 May 1993 05:24:29 GMT Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA) Another surprise you will find in California is you will get charged for non-completed calls also. I have asked about that and the standard answer is that it costs the same to operate even if the call is not completed and you have a large local calling area where you are only charged air time. I know in Southern California you can cover over a 1/3 of the state without incuring L/D charges, or at least it seems like it. San Diego to Santa Barbara I believe. Steven Lichter GTECalif COEI ------------------------------ From: spenceg@pro-cynosure.cts.com Subject: Re: Cellular Charging? Organization: ProLine [pro-cynosure] Date: Mon, 31 May 93 08:46:05 EDT Current cellular charges in the US are currently a balancing act to provide good service at resonable cost to subscribers. The phone prices are so low right now that the on air charges are the only thing controlling the growth of cellular systems. Most metropolitan area cell companies are building their networks as fast as they can just to stay one step ahead of the subscriber base. If rates were suddenly dropped and everybody signed up the current systems couldn't handle the traffic. You'd get a fast busy signal most of the time when you tried to call. ProLine: spenceg@pro-cynosure Internet: spenceg@pro-cynosure.cts.com UUCP: crash!pro-cynosure!spenceg ------------------------------ From: mccomatt@ba.isu.edu (Matt McConnell) Subject: Re: Amazing $13 Billion Fiber Conversion by US West Date: 30 May 1993 16:09:40 -0600 Organization: Idaho State University, Pocatello In article eeitecs@eeiuc.ericsson.se writes: > probably be rotting in a worm before I could see that here. > Does anyone have more info on this? All I can tell you is that both ATT and US West are installing fiber in SE Idaho ... and US West is upgrading it's switches to handle more digital services in this area. I don't think potato farmers need ISDN but who really can say :). Matt McConnell (v1.12) T6C4L2(s(c)) h(hc) d a++!v w- c y e+ g t(++)(1-10) k++ s-(++) q- [Moderator's Note: Don't make mock of dirt farmers. Unlike my great- great-grandparents who lived near Tulsa, Indian Territory in the last years of the 19th century and could neither read or write with the exception of their names -- which they could not spell very well either, since they told the Federal Magistrate of Indian Territory who married them their last name was spelled with 'son' on the end rather than the more conventional 'send' -- many modern farmers use highly sophisticated computers to handle much of the day to day routine on their farms. For the curious: they had to get married in a hurry, you see ... she was 17, he was 20; her parents hated him; she was pregnant. So in the middle of the night she climbed out her bed- room window on a ladder he put there. They eloped; ran off to Tulsa and got married the next day by the magistrate. The 'son' stuck on all the paperwork since. Today's large farming operations have a lot of paperwork; I could see ISDN being useful. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ken thompson Subject: Re: Amazing $13 Billion Fiber Conversion by US West Date: 31 May 93 14:00:49 GMT Organization: NCR Corporation Wichita, KS eeitecs@eeiuc.ericsson.se (Terence Cross) writes: > network being created by US West. It said that in Feb. a decision had > been made to connect all 13 million subscribers of US West to fiber; > that it would take 26 years, and that cost would be $13 billion. > If not, maybe I should consider moving to US West's turf. I'll I am not paying $1000 to get hooked to US West. Ken Thompson N0ITL Disk Array Hardware Development Peripheral Products Division NCR Corp. an AT&T company 3718 N. Rock Road Wichita,Ks 67226 (316) 636-8783 Ken.Thompson@wichitaks.ncr.com ------------------------------ Date: 30 May 1993 19:18:04 +1000 From: Christopher.Sims@cswamp.apana.org.au (Christopher Sims) Subject: Re: Talk Tickets - New Debit Cards From AT&T/US Fibercom Reply-To: Christopher.Sims@cswamp.apana.org.au Organization: Camelot Swamp bulletin board, Hawthorndene Sth Australia > an international magazine for phone card collectors! Is this the same as the telecom automatic telecard service that is offered in Australia? I'm simply interested as it sounds awfully similiar. Catch you later. Christopher Origin: Camelot Swamp, Hawthorndene, South Australia (8:7000/8) Camelot Swamp BBS, data: +61-8-370-2133 reply to user@cswamp.apana.org.au [Moderator's Note: The prepaid calling cards here in the USA do not swipe in phones; you punch in the serial number plus the number you are calling. The Talk Tickets allow $2 in calls on each ticket for a purchase price of $1.50 each when purchased in lots of ten tickets ($15). For card collecting purposes (as opposed to use) I suggest getting cards that have been used up. Maybe a few USA readers who have bought them from me will send you the remains. To purchase Talk Tickets, send cash/check/money order for $15 to my office with a LONG self- addressed, stamped envelope. Order will be filled immediatly. If you prefer, include an email address instead; I will notify you of the serial number(s) to use and full instructions. PAT] Telecom Digest, 2241 West Howard Street #208, Chicago, IL 60645. ------------------------------ From: dh395@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steven J Tucker) Subject: Re: Voice Mail - DID Trunk? Date: 31 May 1993 04:26:41 GMT Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA) Reply-To: dh395@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steven J Tucker) In a previous article, rothen+@pitt.edu (Seth B Rothenberg) says: > I am thinking of creating a small Voicemail system on a PC, but I > would like to be able to have different phone numbers for different > mailboxes. I know that a PBX gets the number dialed from the C.O. > somehow, so that the customer does not need a trunk for each DID > number. Is there anything that can be done with ordinary phone lines? I worked in TAS for about five years w/ a base of about 700 DID's, but we actually only had 25 incoming lines, what happens, when a person calls one of your DID's the CO will set one of your lines high and then signal the DID number by pulse. That way you can have any number of DIDs on one line, but you do have to subscribe for the number itself. Steven J Tucker dh395@cleveland.Freenet.edu P.O.Box 33475 North Royalton, Ohio 44133-0475 North Royalton Cleveland Free-Net ------------------------------ From: rleberle@sparc2.cstp.umkc.edu (Rainer Leberle) Subject: Re: 1-800 Owners, What Do They Know? Date: 31 May 1993 05:16:27 GMT Organization: University of Missouri Kansas City In article hamid@tmt.uni-hannover.de (Reinhard Hamid) writes: > In Germany we have many toll-free numbers (0130 8x xx xx) which belong > to companys in the US. Just for fun I was dialing some of them, and > the operators of some companies told me that they didn't know they can > be reached from here by toll-free. They only knew about their 1-800 > number, and they said that they have no German custumers. BTW, I've been told that it's possible to call a US 800 number from Germany using a MCI phone card. It should be simply calling 0130 00120 to get a MCI operator. Rates are $1.76 for the first and $1.09 for each additional. At least everyone with a major credit card should be able to get a phone card. It's neither direct dial nor free, but if you really need to reach that number ... Rainer Leberle rleberle@sparc2.cstp.umkc.edu University of Kansas City, MO ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 93 07:13 GMT From: Christopher Zguris <0004854540@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Caller-ID to Computer RS-232 A while ago there was a message asking for help in getting Caller-ID information into a computer. On page 50-60 of the current (July '93) issue of _ELECTRONICS NOW_ magazine there is an ad for a device called a Caller I.D.-Computer Interface. It comes with a TSR "pop up window" software that display the date, time area code and phone number of th caller. The device comes assembled ($59) or in kit form ($42) and the source code for the software is available. The name of the company offering it is International MicroPower, Corp. (Camarillo, CA) telephone (805) 482-2870. I've never purchased anything from them and I have no affiliation with them, so I can't vouch for anything, but I have seen their ad's before so the product has been around. Hope this help's whoever it was that had the problem! Christopher Zguris 0004854540@MCIMail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 93 19:08 PDT From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Re: Caller-ID Mistakes A reader asks about CNID errors. The number delivery protocol used for sending the number to the subscriber display units does include an 8 bit checksum. Exactly what any particular box *does* when it seems a checksum error would be implementation specific. However this does not eliminate the problems of people who simply don't read the displays properly or write down the wrong numbers (this is incredibly common), or who dial back the wrong number and scream at the wrong person, or the possibility of other errors in the system. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ From: oppedahl@Panix.Com (Carl Oppedahl) Subject: Re: Caller-ID Mistakes Date: 30 May 1993 20:16:00 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC In 0005066432@mcimail.com (Tansin A. Darcos & Company) writes: [a writer reports ...] > The other evening, I received a number from an upset woman. It > appears that her Caller-ID box told her she had just received a call > from my number. The only call I had made that evening yielded me a > pizza, and the number did not resemble hers. I did not ask her to > described the call, because she seemed upset. But I gather I would > not have wanted to be accused of making it. > Anybody know whether this happens often? Does the Caller-ID report > include an error check? Are all boxes required to verify the check? Suppose a n'er-do-well was atop a nearby telephone pole, using your dial tone to make the call. Or, in an apartment building, suppose someone was elsewhere on your riser, borrowing your dial tone. I have seen bridged pairs in some neighborhoods making one person's dial tone available at places one would not expect. Or, suppose your cordless phone is a crummy kind that lets others borrow your dial tone. In all these cases, your phone number would show up on the distant caller ID box, yet you would not have dialed the call. Carl Oppedahl AA2KW (intellectual property lawyer) 30 Rockefeller Plaza New York, NY 10112-0228 voice 212-408-2578 fax 212-765-2519 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #363 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa12936; 31 May 93 16:20 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA07091 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 31 May 1993 13:58:05 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA09463 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 31 May 1993 13:57:30 -0500 Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 13:57:30 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305311857.AA09463@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #364 TELECOM Digest Mon, 31 May 93 13:57:30 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 364 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Autodialer Plaguing Indianapolis (Ian Darwin) Re: Autodialer Plaguing Indianapolis (Justin Leavens) Re: Cellular Phone Support (Carl Moore) Re: Calling Card Scam (James J. Menth) Re: New York Telephone "Coin Replacement" Card (Jim Rees) Re: MCI -- 10222 vs Dial 1? (Charles Mattair) Re: Telesharketers (was Re: Blocking) (William R. Hester) Re: Hinsdale Disaster (Michael J. Graven) Re: 800-COLLECT (Jeffrey Jonas) Re: Strange Prefix (David A. Cantor) Re: Tip/Ring, Red/Green, etc. (Dale Miller) Re: Want a Good Phone (Herman Silbiger) Re: Singapore Airlines Begins In-Flight Fax Service (Joel Upchurch) Re: Telecom History (Jack Winslade) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ian@sq.com (Ian Darwin) Subject: Re: Autodialer Plaguing Indianapolis Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada Date: Mon, 31 May 93 14:46:47 GMT >> It appears that Indianapolis is being plagued by an automated >> telephone dialer (possibly a trolling FAX machine or >> cracker)... > Quite probably a fax. > Suggestion from a friend (when I had a similar problem): beg/borrow a > fax machine and set it up overnight. Find out who the faxer is. Have > them removed from the face of the planet. We've been getting junk faxes from some sleazebag organization selling "lucky lottery numbers" hiding behind a 976 (pay per call number), and have not been able to find out the number. Their fax dialer self-identifies as "9" (I determined this by watching the ID LCD window when one of the faxes was rolling in) to foil automated callback, and we don't yet have caller-id on our FAX line. Sigh. So "find out who the faxer is:" yes, but it is not always easy to get the facts from the FAX. ian@sq.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 03:06:18 -0800 From: leavens@bmf.usc.edu (Justin Leavens) Subject: Re: Autodialer Plaguing Indianapolis William.K.Kessler writes: >> It appears that Indianapolis is being plagued by an automated >> telephone dialer (possibly a trolling FAX machine or >> cracker). >> I received a call to my home number on April 24th at 3:31 AM. >> The call was some type of machine that beeped at about one >> second intervals. The call was from 317-471-XXXY. J. Eric Townsend (jet@nas.nasa.gov) responded: > Quite probably a fax. > Suggestion from a friend (when I had a similar problem): beg/borrow a > fax machine and set it up overnight. Find out who the faxer is. Have > them removed from the face of the planet. But is this illegal? It's annoying as hell, I know that. We had one trolling campus numbers here for awhile, and I'd get four or five of these calls in a row, and then they would disappear, only to reappear a few days later. I reported it to our telecom office and they confirmed that it was happening all over campus. The problem with your solution is that I would guess that they were only trolling for answering fax machines, not actually trying to send anything. I say this only because nothing ever came out of our fax machine during this period. They were probably looking for numbers to sell lists. From the original message, though, it looks like the poster had caller-ID and had the number available. With that, it seems like they should have been able to do something with that (even if only setting an autodialer to block up *their* number ...) Justin Leavens : Microcomputer Specialist University of Southern California leavens@bmf.usc.edu My opinion is that my opinions are my opinions [Moderator's Note: It is illegal to call another telephone number 'just to see who or what answers on the other end'. Check out the tariffs dealing with annoyance and nuisance calls, and calls intended to harass or frighten people. Check out the part about 'causing the bell on the telephone to ring for no other purpose than ...' etc. Of course, phreaks will never be dissuaded from this behavior; their defenders (like one described in this month's Compuserve subscriber magazine) would say we who object are chilling or stunting the young phreakling's intellectual growth by objecting to his screwing around). Companies who troll like this all night long are just scum also. One solution -- self-help style, or gorilla warfare (not guerilla, silly!) if you can afford the toll charge and know the calling fax number -- is to feed a black sheet of paper with both ends taped together into your fax machine. Send this endless loop of black paper through your machine, looping around and around for about one hour, or until the other end stalls from lack of paper. Do it at night, while they are asleep so the next day they find 99 feet or more of paper all over the floor in their office. Be sure to remove the answer-back phone number on your machine before dialing theirs. Alternative: on the endless loop of paper, write the message, 'No more trolling for fax numbers!' You might also add a note pointing out that if you have to counsel them personally you will bring a hammer and smash their fax machine into little pieces. :) The security department in one large corporation *is* responding in a similar way to hackerphreaks they catch on their site: If they capture the calling number, they wait a few days and call back. If a computer answers, they proceed to format the hard drive, and leave a single line textfile message saying "You have been visited by someone who knows a lot more about hacking than you will ever know!" ... self-help! .... don't get mad; get even. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 93 9:20:13 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Support Three of the listings have prefixes which moved from 213 to 310. (Less likely is that these are new prefixes, duplicating ones which went into 310.) HITACHI 213-537-8383 PIONEER 213-835-6177 OR 800-228-7721 SHINTOM 213-328-7200 OR 800-333-1098 213 before the 213/310 split included: 328 Torrance, 835 San Pedro, 537 Compton ------------------------------ From: jjm@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (james.j.menth) Subject: Re: Calling Card Scam Organization: AT&T Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 13:54:18 GMT In article Dave Ptasnik writes: > Phone bill arives from US West with $1,000 in calling card charges. > Mostly from Italy, mostly to New Jersey (insert appropriate ethnic > humor). > Some Phine Phellow has called the Phone Company from Italy, told US > West that he desperately needed to use a calling card right away, > gives the name and address of the Alzheimer's victim. The obliging US > West rep gives the calling card number (phone number plus four digit > pin) to the miscreant, who then goes on about his business. > Resolution: > Card gets cancelled, US West and AT&T eat the charges. Just got a bill from SWBell for $1550 on a line I use only for local modem and incoming calls. I did not even know that a calling card had been issued. Calls were from Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany. SWBell's fraud detection software cancelled the card after three days. With only a four digit security code it would not be a big deal to take any valid phone number and try codes to see if the PIN could be guessed. The non-phone number linked cards offer many more digits of security against casual attacks. The calls were all from another country and calling 800 numbers in this country. My guess is that someone locally phreaked the number using a dialer program then sold the numbers to a syndicate for distribution. The many different calling locations with little time spread indicates more than one person was involved. SWBell was very helpful, cancelled the card permanently (at my request) and removed the charges. Jim in Little Rock jjm@lru3b.lr.att.com ------------------------------ From: Jim.Rees@umich.edu Subject: Re: New York Telephone "Coin Replacement" Card Date: 31 May 1993 16:20:55 GMT Organization: University of Michigan CITI In article , roeber@vxcrna.cern.ch (Frederick Roeber) writes: > [Moderator's Note: We have so few 'card reader' phones in the USA > (compared to the straight coin slot style) it made better sense here > to let the network handle it and have the users punch in the digits. Better sense to you, perhaps. But it's still an inferior system, because you have to pre-arrange for the cards, and the debit kind (as opposed to the credit kind) are very rare. [Moderator's Note: But the prepaid cards *were* developed with the credit type in mind. The dialing procedure is almost identical; the only difference is whether you paid the bill before you used the card or afterward. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 93 10:28:09 CDT From: mattair@synercom.hounix.org (Charles Mattair) Subject: Re: MCI -- 10222 vs Dial 1? Organization: Synercom Technology, Inc., Houston, TX In article our Esteemed Moderator asks: > [Moderator's Note: In Texas, when AT&T gets a call dumped on them > which 'rightfully' belongs to GTE or SWB, do they handle the call > 'as agent for GTE/SWB' like they do here? PAT] I'm not exactly sure what you mean by 'as an agent for GTE/SWB'. The calls appear in the AT&T section of my bill and are charged at AT&T's tariffed rates. This latter part is easy to tell as SWB charges are nominally 50% higher than AT&T's. I don't think I've had a SWB LD charge on my bill for the last 15 months. Interestingly enough, if you call AT&T and ask them about this, they claim it doesn't work - _all_ intraLATA calls _must_ be carried by the IXC. Charles Mattair (work) mattair@synercom.hounix.org (home) cgm@elmat.synercom.hounix.org [Moderator's Note: Well here, they don't say anything about it 'not working' -- and in fact EasyReach 700 pointedly says you can forward calls locally. But when you do, the call gets handled (apparently) over IBT equipment, with AT&T in charge of the call, on behalf of, or 'as agent for' IBT. Got all that straight? :) Isn't inter-carrier billing, separations and settlements a fun thing? :) You take that fifteen cents for the call, divide it among two or three telcos, deduct your company's fee for collection; add the other company(ies) fee for handling the call; take a couple pennies out to be divided among a dozen different taxing agencies; do it several hundred thousand times each day. I can't sell *my* services in your territory but I can resell *your* services in your territory for the convenience of *my* customers who on any other transaction are *your* customers except that this time the customer-in-common is using a piece of plastic with *my* name and account number on it. Normally I pay you to use certain equipment in common which is located in *your* office to service *my* customers unless it is really *your* customer and *I* am handling the call for *you* in which case *you* pay *me* a fee for handling the call after deducting the collection fee, and pay- ing off the civil servants (or do you pronounce it serpents?) of course. Imagine prior to automation, fifty years ago: the old AT&T 'Separations and Settlements' Department had hundreds of clerks who essentially handed scraps of paper back and forth to each other day in and day out as they processed all the Bell System, GTE, and independent telco charges and credits between the companies. Lovely. PAT] ------------------------------ From: whester@nyx.cs.du.edu (William R. Hester) Subject: Re: Telesharketers (was Re: Blocking ..) Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept. Date: Mon, 31 May 93 18:01:16 GMT In my most perfect of all worlds, telemarketing would be set up so that ANY calles from telemarketers that I accepted after seeing their unique telemarketer's area ID code on my display, would credit my telephone account $1 each time I answered. In addition, I would receive a credit of $0.50 per min. for as long as I held the connection. If they are going to intrude on my time, then they can damn well pay for it! I did not have a phone installed, and pay monthly phone bills to give telemarketing scum a free ride into my home. I fully support the idea that all telemarketing calls should have a unique ID code that identifies these type calls as a group. Now, if we could just come up with a similar idea for the tons of waste paper we get through the mail system each year ... all going into the landfills. Bill Hester, Ham Radio N0LAJ, Denver CO., USA - N0LAJ@W0LJF.#NECO.CO.USA.NOAM Please route replies to: whester@nyx.cs.du.edu or uunet!nyx!whester Public Access Unix @ University of Denver, Denver Colorado USA (no official affiliation with the above university) [Moderator's Note: So get an unlisted number for friends and a published 900 number for everyone else to call. PAT] ------------------------------ From: mjg@nwu.edu (Michael J Graven) Subject: Re: Hinsdale Disaster Date: 31 May 93 11:05:22 GMT Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston, IL USA Reply-To: mjg@nwu.edu (Michael J Graven) Harold Hallikainen (hhallika@tuba.calpoly.edu) writes: > It does seem like telephone companies would have trucks with > switches and satellite terminals in them. Just drive the truck up, > plug it in and you have a few thousand lines back in service. AT&T has such a truck: it's a 5E in a semi-trailer with a pretty big patch panel. They trucked it down to the Andrew disaster last year, and the PR people are (rightfully) pretty proud of it. Michael mjg@nwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 93 07:30:25 EDT From: jeffj%jiji@uunet.UU.NET (Jeffrey Jonas) Subject: Re: 800-COLLECT I'm about to post a reference to this thread in the USENET newsgroup misc.consumers, but I think this added bit is of interest to TELECOM readers: I think it's just another part of the deceptive advertising that ALL the phone companies are using these days. I think it odd that the ads for 800-COLLECT - 1) don't mention that it's a service of MCI; 2) fail to mention the surcharges, or that of any other phone company, yet they say it's the cheapest collect service. Well, wasn't it MCI that used to advertise "GET IT IN WRITING"? (or was that AT&T, who never put it in writing anyway). Jeffrey Jonas jeffj@panix.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 07:25:55 -0400 (EDT) From: David A. Cantor Subject: Re: Strange Prefix In article oppedahl@Panix.Com (Carl Oppedahl) writes: > In cantor@mv.com (David A. Cantor) > writes: >> I stayed overnight in Mystic, Connecticut, and was perusing the local >> telephone directory. It is SNET territory. There were several >> references to prefixes (office codes?) 111 and 112. 111 was listed as >> Ledyard, CT, and I don't remember where 112 was. 111 was identified >> as a Ledyard prefix in the section on what exchanges you can dial from >> where, and in the numerical list of prefixes for the state. 112 was >> also in the numerical list. >> Pity I couldn't find any 111 listings. I would have tried to dial one >> from home if I had found any. >> Does anyone have a clue how such a prefix can exist? Can anyone >> confirm or deny the actual existence of 111-xxxx numbers? >> [Moderator's Note: I rather suspect it was a misprint. PAT] > Or, one of those "spikes" that publishers put in to catch people who > copy the data ... > [Moderator's Note: Illinois Bell does that sort of thing but in a > more realistic way. They put 'ringers' in the book which look like > legitimate people and numbers. Then they sue the copy-cats who grab > the listings for their own directories, etc. PAT] It's unlikely that it was either a misprint or a "spike". The 111 exchange was indicated at least five times in print: once in the numerical list of exchanges for the state, once each on three different renditions of a local map showing the relationship of exchanges to each other, and once in a table showing what exchanges could call what other exchanges. In my original post, I indicated two occurrences, but I didn't say they were the only ones. David A. Cantor 603-888-8133 131 D.W. Highway, #505 VMS techie, ex-DECcie, between jobs... Nashua, NH 03060 Got one for me? ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Tip/Ring, Red/Green, etc. From: domiller@ualr.edu Date: 31 May 93 11:39:12 CST Organization: University of Arkansas at Little Rock In article , hhallika@tuba.calpoly.edu (Harold Hallikainen) writes: > Which reminds me, why don't we have an RS232 serial connector > standard for modular connectors? > Anyway, it seems I'm forever making custom serial data cables. > A standard would be nice! Okay, how about RS423. Digital has been using their varient of RS423 for several years now. Most terminal server vendors offer it now. The only difference between Digital's and the standard is their plug has an offset key. Note RS423 is a balanced line, but compatible with RS232 levels. Typical wiring is: Male DEC423 MMJ 6-pin MMJ 25-pin D-sub Signal -------- ------------ ------ 1 1 1 1 1 6,8 DTR 123456 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 2 3 TxD ______ _____________________________ 3 7 TxCom | | \ . . . . . . . . . . . . . / 4 7 RxCom |____ | \ . . . . . . . . . . . . / 5 2 RxD |__| `-----------------------' 6 20 DSR 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 The pins of the MMJ are numbered from left to right as you look into the opening of the jack with the cut-out for the tab at the bottom. For the 25-pin, they are numbered as shown here looking into the end of the male connector. Dale O. Miller - Systems Programmer University of Arkansas at Little Rock 2801 S. University Little Rock, AR 72204-1099 USA (501)569-8714 DOMILLER@UALR.EDU Disclaimer: This does not 92-20-28 W,34-43-30 N.ICBMNET say what I say it doesn't say. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 93 09:06:06 EDT From: hsilbiger@attmail.att.com Subject: Re: Want a Good Phone Organization: AT&T In article , kilgore@wuntvor.pillar.com (Stan Hall) writes: > Terry Kennedy writes: >> Now its time for me to talk about my favorite phone in the house. Of >> course it is black rotary W/E. > This is a classy phone, with its black metal dial wheel and its > leather feet, very nice. I just went to check the date on it and > underneath the sticker with "C/D 500 11/72" I found the original stamp > of "C/D 500 6/54". Best of all I paid about $5 at a thrift store for > a 39 year old antique. > What it could use is a little bit of buffing up. It surface it > covered in light scratches that looks like someone took some steel The 500-type phone came out in 1949. For a while the demand for these "modern phones" was so great that WE took the guts of the previous model, the 302, and put them in a modified 500-type case. You can identify these externally. A normal 500-type extends about two inches behind the switchhook. The fake 500 is bobbed behind the switchhook, and thus is much shorter. > [Moderator's Note: Old phones often lasted 30-40 years without > replacement. As late as the 1960's there were still lots of > 'candlestick' models in service from the early years of this century. > Western Electric products did NOT break down or quit working. Those > phones can still be used on the modern network. PAT A famous story about the quality of old WE products was of a meeting in the Pentagon where a General was complaining about the poor reliability of defense contractor supplied products. The defense contractor asked what the general meant by reliability. The general picked up his 500 set, threw it against the wall full force, picked it up and used it. He turned to the contractor an said: That's what I mean by reliability. Herman Silbiger ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Singapore Airlines Begins In-Flight Fax Service From: upchrch!joel@peora.sdc.ccur.com (Joel Upchurch) Date: Mon, 31 May 93 15:07:21 EDT Organization: Upchurch Computer Consulting, Orlando FL evansmp@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mark Evans) writes: >> [Moderator's Note: I would think those fax machines would work the >> same way as the airfones and have outgoing service only. Of course > Looks like the film "Die Hard 2" got it wrong then. Does anybody remember anything they got RIGHT in "Die Hard 2"? The telecom references were silly, the firearms references were silly and the airplane and air traffic control references were silly. The orginal "Die Hard" was silly also, but at least it was fairly entertaining in places. (If your mail bounces use the address below.) Joel Upchurch/Upchurch Computer Consulting/718 Galsworthy/Orlando, FL 32809 joel@peora.ccur.com {uiucuxc,hoptoad,petsd,ucf-cs}!peora!joel (407) 859-0982 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 May 93 23:56:52 CST From: Jack.Winslade@axolotl.omahug.org (Jack Winslade) Subject: Re: Telecom History Reply-To: jack.winslade%drbbs@axolotl.omahug.org Organization: DRBBS Technical BBS, Omaha In a message dated 19-MAY-93, David Ohsie writes: > In article kennykb@dssv01.crd.ge.com > writes: >> One of the worst cases of that I saw was in Far Rockaway, New York, >> where the same CO served FAr Rockaway-4 and FAr Rockaway-7 (now >> 718-324 and 718-327) and FRanklin-1 and FRanklin-4 (now 516-371 and >> 516-374). Yes, the area codes are different, too. Lots of people got >> FRanlkin-4 when they wanted FAr Rockaway-4, and the exchanges were in >> the same CO. > In the interest of accuracy :-), there is not currently a 324 exchange > in Far Rockaway (or in any part of Queens according to my phone book), > althought there is a 327. I know the office that served the 718-343 (nee 212-343) prefix out in Glen Oaks area also served at least one prefix in the 516 area as well. I believe Long Island Jewish was served by this office. Speaking of NYC geography, (I think I asked this once here but got no response) there is a small area (Sputen Duyvil) that is geographically on the Bronx side of the river, but politically in the borough of Manhattan. I'm curious to know how this area made out with the Bronx cutover to AC 718. Anyone know for sure? Good day! JSW Ybbat (DRBBS) 8.9 v. 3.14 r.1 (1:285/666.0) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #364 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa14568; 31 May 93 17:03 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA18052 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 31 May 1993 14:40:33 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA08782 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 31 May 1993 14:40:01 -0500 Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 14:40:01 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305311940.AA08782@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #365 TELECOM Digest Mon, 31 May 93 16:40:00 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 365 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Why CO's Have No Windows (Anthony Scott Clifton) Re: New ScanFone Features (Smart Call Waiting?) (jimmy_t@verifone.com) Re: Starting a VoiceMail Service: HELP! (Bob Natale) Re: Latitude/Longitude -> Distance (Christopher Owens) Re: Blocking an Unlisted Number (Jeffrey Jonas) Re: AT&T's Calling Card (Steffen Gelessus) Re: Cellular Scanner Set Up Codes? (Phydeaux) Re: MCI -- 10222 vs Dial 1? (Steve Forrette) Re: The Elusive LATA Line (Steve Forrette) Re: Will Moscow Soon Surpass USA in Quality of Phone Service? (S. Forrette) Re: WAN From North to South America (Jonathan Welch) Re: Dos-Based Paging Software Wanted (Don R. James) ---------------------- TELECOM Digest is an e-journal devoted mostly -- but not exclusively -- to discussions on voice telephony. The Digest is a not-for-profit public service published frequently by Patrick Townson Associates. PTA markets a no-surcharge telephone calling card and a no monthly fee 800 service. In addition, we are resellers of AT&T's Software Defined Network. For a detailed discussion of our services, write and ask for the file 'products'. The Digest is delivered at no charge by email to qualified subscribers on any electronic mail service connected to the Internet. To join the mail- ing list, write and tell us how you qualify: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu. Before submitting articles for publication, please read a copy of our file 'writing.to.telecom'. All article submissions MUST be sent to our email address: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu -- NOT as replies to comp.dcom.telecom. Back issues and numerous other telephone-related files of interest are available from the Telecom Archives, using anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu. Login anonymous, then 'cd telecom-archives'. At the present time, the Digest is also ported to Usenet at the request of many readers there, where it is known as 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Use of the Digest does not require the use of our products and services. The two are separate. All articles are the responsibility of the individual authors. Organi- zations listed, if any, are for identification purposes only. The Digest is compilation-copyrighted, 1993. **DO NOT** cross-post articles between the Digest and other Usenet or alt newsgroups. Do not compile mailing lists from the net-addresses appearing herein. Send tithes and love offerings to PO Box 1570, Chicago, IL 60690. :) Phone: 312-465-2700. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: blakwood@grayhawk.rent.com (Anthony Scott Clifton) Subject: Re: Why CO's Have No Windows Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 04:34:21 GMT Organization: Grayhawk - Des Moines Public Access Unix - 515/277-6753 In article evansmp@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mark Evans) writes: > Martin Harriss (bdsgate!martin@uunet.UU.NET) wrote: >> Anyway, this switch was installed in a house. Not a structure built >> to look like a house, but an actual house bought for the purpose of >> installing the switch. It has a nice front lawn and fence and a gate; >> if you look beyond through the bay windows you can see the equipment >> racks complete with the blinking lights. > It must have been a large house a 10,000 line Stowger plus batteries > plus PSU is not a very small piece of kit. In an older neighborhood in our city (Des Moines Iowa) ... the kind with picturesque brick houses and streets lined with big trees ... there's a CO like this. I'd been driving past it for years, wondering what it was. It's this structure that looks just like a really big two story brick house with lots of windows. It has a white railing around the top in sort of a victorian (?) style. I always thought it was maybe a small retirement home or small offices for some sort of non-profit organization. One day I made a wrong turn and had to turn around in the parking lot, when I noticed US West trucks and a dumpster marked "ESS Only" ... and when I slowed down (I HAD to check this out) and looked up into the windows from my car I could see the frames. At night, if I drive by the other side of the building ... and look very carefully ... I can see the pretty blinky lights inside. =D I'd give alot to still be a boy scout and be able to walk up the (apparently locked and unused) front door and knock, trying to sell some pancake supper tickets! ;-D Anthony Clifton ------------------------------ From: James H. Thompson" Subject: Re: New ScanFone Features (Smart Call Waiting?) Date: 26 May 93 21:35:39 -1000 Organization: VeriFone Inc., Honolulu HI In article , km@mathcs.emory.edu (Ken Mandelberg) writes: > What really caught my eye was a note in the article that the phone > could display "who's trying to reach you if you`re already using the > phone. The latter service likely would cost extra.". > This sounds like some merger of Call Waiting and Caller-ID. I'm not > much interested in the Scanfone, but am interested in the this new > phone service. Does it have a name? How does it work? I would guess that it uses the ADSI protocol. This is a new protocol being promoted by Bell-Northern and the US Bells to support phones with an LCD display. It uses a variant of the Bell 202 modem protocol, and a special tone to tell the phone to flip from voice to data mode. James H. Thompson jimmy_t@verifone.com (Internet) VeriFone Inc. uunet!verifone!jimmy_t (UUCP) 100 Kahelu Avenue 808-623-2911 (Phone) Mililani, HI 96789 808-625-3201 (FAX) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 10:19:05 -0400 From: natale@acec.com (Bob Natale) Subject: Re: Starting a VoiceMail Service: HELP! TJR122@psuvm.psu.edu (Tom Rusnock) asked about starting a voicemail service. My experience dealing with Dialogic has been excellent. While I use their hardware and software drivers/APIs for UNIX directly, they are VAR-oriented and will gladly listen to and assess your needs and then refer you to one or more qualified VARs who can meet your specific needs. I recommend calling 1-800-755-4444 and asking for Bob Kelly. Good luck! Bob Natale American Computer 301-258-9850 [tel] Director 209 Perry Pkwy 301-921-0434 [fax] Network Mgmt Products Gaithersburg MD 20877 natale@acec.com ------------------------------ From: owens@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (Christopher Owens) Subject: Re: Latitude/Longitude -> Distance Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 15:34:10 GMT In lmcrajy@noah.ericsson.se (Raj Sanmugam) writes: > What is the accepted North American (or international) representation > of latitude/longitude (ie deg/min/sec etc.) There are two alternatives here. Degrees/minutes/seconds, and decimal degrees. Annoyingly enough, the user interface on some navigation equipment displays d/m/s in a format that looks a lot like decimal degrees, so you don't know if "84.0755" is supposed to mean 84.0755 degrees or 84d,7m,55s. To get the great circle distance between two points on the earth's surface: first convert latitude, longitude to x,y,z coordinates, then find the straight-line distance between the two, and then find the length of the subtending arc. x = cos(lat)*cos(lon) y = cos(lat)*sin(lon) z = sin(lat) Straight-line distance between points is dist=sqrt((x1-x2)^2+(y1-y2)^2+(z1-z2)^2) Length of subtending arc is D * asin(dist/2) where D = the earth's diameter, 12765 km ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 93 11:54:44 EDT From: jeffj%jiji@uunet.UU.NET (Jeffrey Jonas) Subject: Re: Blocking an Unlisted Number In reply to Mike Coyne (Volume 13, Issue 355, Message 4 of 18) > There is, however, no compelling requirement for Caller-ID to deliver > an actual dialable number. I quite agree, and that's why some areas are now delivering the caller's name (or whatever the phone listing is). Had the phone company done this in the first place, I think they'd have a lot less opposition. Delivering the name WITHOUT the number give clear identification, but does not reveal your number. If I use call return, why can't the bill report "you called Mike Coyne at 11:32 for 32 minutes to Cheyenne, WI". Isn't that clear and itemized enough, and still not reveal his number? If I get a call identified as "Mike Coyne", then I know what to expect, as opposed to getting a call identified as "212 555 1212". I think the Digest has already discussed the issue of identifying the caller vs identifying the line that originated the call. I'd like to have my name delivered as the ID of my calls whether I'm at home, at a payphone, or at a hotel. Heck -- using a calling card could insert that automatically since my name is known to the account (ah yes, but the pre-paid calling cards would remain anonymous. Orange Card users would appear as "yet another TELECOM supporter" or "I'm a Pat Townson groupie" :-) After all, what's the first thing I do with the Caller-ID number I get? Look it up and get the matching name! I guess this extra step is considered "value added" by the phone company. I'd love to have the ability to send my own name when placing a call, so phone lines that are shared can identify the caller. I suppose that PBXs using trunks can send some hint as to how to identify the call, but what of the POTS user like me? I'd like to have the name show the family member placing the call, not just the name that appears on the phone bill. If I get distinctive ringing (several numbers that map to the same phone line but ring differently), I'd like to have the fax machine, modem and voice calls all give different, unique identification when originationg calls even though they're all on the same outgoing line. I dislike the asymmetry: incoming calls can be differentiated, but not outgoing calls. > A friend lives in SW Bell territory where call blocking was test > marketed. He called and requested blocking a particular neighbor. > The whole thing ground to an impass because the neighbor's phone was > unlisted and the friend could not supply the number to be blocked. Ummm, this raised two questions in my mind: 1) Call block has a feature to "block last call received, even if it's unlisted". I understand that when you review the list of blocked numbers, the number is NOT given out. If your friend never receives a call from the neighbor, then why block it? I think it's reasonable to assert that you should not block numbers until the privilege has been abused, particularly since the list is only about ten numbers. 2) There ought to be a way to have the operator add unlisted numbers to the list -- sort of a directory assistance option (and probably with the 30 cent or whatever surcharge). You call DA and identify the person you want to block by name and address, and the operator then adds the unlisted number to your call block list. Since the number's still flagged as PRIVATE, it's never revealed to you. This is analogous to the way hotels no longer give you a person's room number anymore -- you must ask for the quest by name and they'll connect you to the extension. It's up to the person you're calling to reveal the room number (which invariably is the same as the extension). Jeffrey Jonas jeffj@panix.com ------------------------------ From: gelessus@inf.enst.fr (Steffen Gelessus) Subject: Re: AT&T's Calling Card Date: 31 May 93 16:17:28 GMT Organization: Telecom Paris (ENST), France In article , atoscano@speedway.net (A Alan Toscano) writes: > AT&T will omit the PIN if you ask them to. This feature has been > available for a few years now, but they don't publicize it for some > reason! I learned of this only because my employer issued me an AT&T > Corporate Calling Card with the PIN omitted, and so I called AT&T to > ask if I could omit it from my residential card as well. I have an international AT&T card and I just called the AT&T people to have the PIN omitted on my next card. I learned that they offer this option only for cards of US residents. Steffen Gelessus gelessus@res.enst.fr ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 93 09:29:51 PDT From: reb@ingres.com (Phydeaux) Subject: Re: Cellular Scanner Set Up Codes? > On a flip phone (MicroTek light), on the back where the battery goes, > connect the middle pin to '-' (ground). Then power the phone up. Using > a car adapter when doing this helps a bit. The phone comes up in test > mode. To *TEST* the reciever press '#' then '08#' to unmute the Does anyone have similar information on an OKI 910 / AT&T 3730 phone? reb ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: MCI -- 10222 vs Dial 1? Date: 31 May 1993 10:45:18 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article jsaker@cwis.unomaha.edu (James R. Saker Jr.) writes: > Interesting sidenote: Has anyone been following US West's recent > FCC tariff submissions regarding 10xxx blocking? They've introduced > 10xxx blocking as a "service" for subscribers in states including > North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa -- with the Iowa submission > resulting in a suit filed by MCI opposing the introduction. This sounds like a great idea! The availability of this offering will finally allow the person who pays for the phone service to have control over it, if they want. This will be especially helpful in cases where there are several people that use the phone (such as roommates), or some that are not allowed to place long distance calls (such as children). US Sprint, and possibly others, offer an "authorization code" option for 1+ calls. You can either have it prompt you for any code of a length you specify (used to separate calls for your own accounting purposes), or prompt for a code and only accept calls that supply a correct code. For example, in a roommate situation, each roommate could be issed a separate five-digit code by the owner of the phone service, then there would be no question at the end of the month as to whose calls are whose. Or children in the house could not be given the code at all. This service has been available for awhile now, but of course with 10XXX, there's no real enforcement, as if the caller chooses another carrier, the call will complete without any codes entered. So, this one feature would allow the customer to use whatever security measures they purchase from their IXC without the LEC having to implement it themselves. Customers generally have to wait for a time approaching forever for the non-competitive LEC to implement billing security services such as this (especially for inter-LATA calls), but by providing this single feature (10xxx blocking), this allows the competitive marketplace that the IXC's operate in to provide what the customer wants. The only disadvantage to this that I can see is in cases where the default IXC has facilities troubles. I guess in this case, you could maintain a calling card with another carrier that's accessible via an 800 number, so that you could still place important calls if your default IXC is unable to. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: The Elusive LATA Line Date: 31 May 1993 11:08:04 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article dattier@genesis.mcs.com (avid W. Tamkin) writes: > I had a simple desire: I wanted to know whether an area on the edge of > my LATA was inside it or outside it so that I'd know which carrier to > ask for the cost of the call before I dialed there. [story of usual operator run-around deleted] Your mistake was trying to explain the details of the situation to the operator. This tends to only confuse them, especially if it is something that was not specifically part of their training. There are exceptions, but I've found that most operators cannot handle situations that require independent judgment on their part. The thing to do in this specific case is to tell the LEC operator that you are having problems dialing your call directly, and can she possibly try the number for you. This is a routine function for the operator, and she will just key in the number you read her into the computer. If it is an inter-LATA call, then her computer will tell her it is an invalid number. If the call goes through, then it is intra-LATA. You get the information you want, and the operator has not been required to think. Perhaps an easier way to tell is to 0+ the call, and see whose "bong" you get. But then you would not have the challenge of getting the information from the operator :-). I hate to come down so hard on the operators, but I've had too many experiences in the past of problems that could have been solved quickly if the operator had just used a small amount of common sense with the situation. A lot of it probably has to do with the training that they are given (or not given). They usually do the job that they are trained for very well. For example, I wanted to know if you called an 800 number through the operator, and the 800 customer had ANI, if they would get your true ANI, some bogus ANI from the operator system, or an "ANI unavailable" indication. I knew up front that I would be in big trouble if I asked this question directly, so I just called the AT&T operator and told her I was having problems in completing my call. She put the call through, and when I got my 800 bill and located the test call in the call detail, I had my answer. BTW, the real ANI does appear for operator-assisted 800 calls, at least for AT&T. (The answer is academic for any other carrier, as none of them can provide any operator call completion assistance for their 800 numbers.) In placing my test call, the operator conducted herself in a most professional and friendly manner. She asked what the 800 number went to, I told her it was my ReadyLine number, and explained that it rang through to my voicemail. She said she had never heard of such a service. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: Will Moscow Soon Surpass the USA in Quality of Phone Service? Date: 31 May 1993 11:15:55 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article keith@ksmith.com (Keith Smith) writes: > Funny you should mention this. Actually you guys over in the former > communist bloc are probably going to do with your Telecom what Europe > did with their TV's. You will probably have much BETTER telecom in 5 > years than the US simply because most of your old stuff is total junk, > and you will _have_ to run new, and of course when you do you will run > the current state of the art, while we will have to live with the > stuff we ran five years ago, eight years ago, ten years ago, forty > years ago ... This reminds me of an old joke: Q. How did God manage to create the world in only six days? A. He didn't have an installed user base. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: Jonathan_Welch Subject: Re: WAN From North to South America Date: 31 May 93 17:23:07 GMT In article , Mr. Steve Kutzer writes: > I am looking for alternatives to develop a Wide Area Network between > D.C. and at least some of the larger field offices (say Buenos Aries, > Sao Paolo Brazil, Mexico City and Guatemala). I just fired up my local internet Gopher client to look at it's list of worldwide gopher server sites and came across several entries, of which the following were somewhat promising: University of Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil - ccsun.unicamp.br Guadalajara (is this some kind of database name?) - udgserv.cencar.udg.mx [No name listed] - academ01.mty.itesm.mx Perhaps a message to the postmaster at these sites would get you a contact. You could perhaps arrange to have them hand off mail to the people you would like to be in contact with. Jonathan Welch VAX Systems Manager Umass/Amherst JHWELCH@ecs.umass.edu ------------------------------ From: donj@sugar.neosoft.com (Don R. James) Subject: Re: Dos-Based Paging Software Wanted Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900 Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 13:41:15 GMT In article gwi@icf.hrb.com (Gregory W. Isett) writes: > Does anyone know where I can obtain DOS-based software to accept a > page from a user, connect to an alphanumeric pager switch (via ixo > protocol?) and download the page? Try Bill Hayes at MTEL (SKYTEL) at 1-800-647-5252. They may have this package already in operation. I did the original Nationwide Paging technical info for the FCC filing back in the late 1980's. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #365 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa16367; 31 May 93 18:00 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA18905 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 31 May 1993 15:41:40 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA00112 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 31 May 1993 15:41:05 -0500 Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 15:41:05 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305312041.AA00112@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #366 TELECOM Digest Mon, 31 May 93 15:41:00 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 366 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Misdialed Numbers (gilligan@ecst.csuchico.edu) Re: Stocks via Internet (Lars Poulsen) Re: Stocks via Internet (Alain Arnaud) Re: Stocks via Internet (gilligan@ecst.csuchico.edu) Re: Alarm Point Telemetry Equipment (David G. Lewis) Re: Alarm Point Telemetry Equipment (Steve Moulton) Re: The Telex Machine in Popular Music (John R. Grout) Re: The Telex Machine in Popular Music (Lazlo Nibble) Re: Coded Information in Telephone Books (Fritz Whittington) Re: New Rockwell V.32bis Chip Set (Steve Forrette) Re: Fake TV Phone Numbers (J. Philip Miller) Re: Cellular Telephone Privacy (Tom Holodnik) Re: Non Sequitur or What? (Richard Cox) Re: Ex-Soviet Republic Dialing (Juha Veijalainen) ---------------------- TELECOM Digest is an e-journal devoted mostly -- but not exclusively -- to discussions on voice telephony. The Digest is a not-for-profit public service published frequently by Patrick Townson Associates. PTA markets a no-surcharge telephone calling card and a no monthly fee 800 service. In addition, we are resellers of AT&T's Software Defined Network. For a detailed discussion of our services, write and ask for the file 'products'. The Digest is delivered at no charge by email to qualified subscribers on any electronic mail service connected to the Internet. To join the mail- ing list, write and tell us how you qualify: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu. Before submitting articles for publication, please read a copy of our file 'writing.to.telecom'. All article submissions MUST be sent to our email address: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu -- NOT as replies to comp.dcom.telecom. Back issues and numerous other telephone-related files of interest are available from the Telecom Archives, using anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu. Login anonymous, then 'cd telecom-archives'. At the present time, the Digest is also ported to Usenet at the request of many readers there, where it is known as 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Use of the Digest does not require the use of our products and services. The two are separate. All articles are the responsibility of the individual authors. Organi- zations listed, if any, are for identification purposes only. The Digest is compilation-copyrighted, 1993. **DO NOT** cross-post articles between the Digest and other Usenet or alt newsgroups. Do not compile mailing lists from the net-addresses appearing herein. Send tithes and love offerings to PO Box 1570, Chicago, IL 60690. :) Phone: 312-465-2700. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: gilligan@ecst.csuchico.edu (Tuka {KD6CUC}) Subject: Re: Misdialed Numbers Date: 31 May 1993 05:05:50 GMT Organization: California State University, Chico Being in college, getting misdialed numbers is very common ... especially at 3:00 am on a Friday night or Saturday night. Watch the movie "Ruthless People" with Danny Diveto. Listen for the wrong number line ... ------------------------------ From: lars@spectrum.CMC.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: Stocks via Internet Organization: CMC Network Systems (Rockwell DCD), Santa Barbara, CA, USA Date: Mon, 31 May 93 06:37:34 GMT In article mperlman@nyx.cs.du.edu (Marshal Perlman) writes: >> Anyone know of any stock purchasing companies that are computer linked >> to the internet ... where I could buy and sell stocks with my >> computer? >> I'm sure it would be a tad cheaper then using my broker who just >> punches what I say to him into a computer and charges me $50 for 'his >> help'. Since many people would prefer to avoid the go-between on the grounds that one less go-between is one less idiot to screw things up, it can be argued that such a service is more valuable and should cost more than talking to the broker. This seems to be the reasoning behind the pricing of other financial services (such as CheckFree payment service). In article stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) writes: > I don't know about you, but I sure wouldn't want to send my trading > instructions over the Internet for every site in the path to see (and > perhaps generate their own under my name!). (1) You seem to be confusing the Internet with USENET. In the Internet, your data does not hop via anyone else's disks. Normally, the path is from - your computer, to - your company's boundary router, to - your service provider's boundary router, to - service provider's boundary on the other side, to - your correspondent's boundary router, to - your correspondent's computer. Just like you don't expect the phone company to record and disclose your phone calls, you should not expect your internet carrier to intercept your traffic. (2) Nevertheless the issues of privacy and authenticity are the two great concerns in electronic transactions. The answer to both is encryption. The simplest solution to both involves public key encryption. No matter what you do, yopu have to trust somebody. Good authentication mechanisms allow you to not have to trust very many parties. (3) In a public-key encryption universe, you need to be assured that you can reach "the maker of good keys", and you need to trust him. By demonstrating your identity to the maker of keys, he issues you a pair of keys (one public, one private) and a certificate with roughly the following information: Name of User: John Q User Email address: JQU@site.domain.something Affiliation: Principal Engineer at Big Famous Company, Inc Public Key: (many hex digits) Valid until: future date Issued by: James Fuddpucker Email address: Fuddpucker@big.com Affiliation: Maker-of-keys at Big-Famous-Company, Inc Issue-date: some date Signed: (many hex digits) When you want to send a transaction to the stockbroker, you will compose the message as usual, then attach the certificate and sign it with you private key. If you want it to be confidential, you then additionally encrypt it with the broker's public key. When the broker receives the message, he will decrypt it with his private key. On seeing that it is from you, he will get your public key from the directory. If he can decode the signature with you public key, he knows that it was sent by you (or at least by someone who has your key). The signature also assures him that it was not modified since you sent it. By getting the public key for the maker of keys, and checking the signature on the key certificate, he sees that the well-known key maker vouches for your identity. The extensions to the email system (any email system) to support this style of transaction authentication is available today, called PEM for Privacy Enhanced Mail. The component that is lagging, is the establishment of a network of directory databases for key certificates. Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer Internet E-mail: lars@CMC.COM CMC Network Products / Rockwell Int'l Telephone: +1-805-968-4262 Santa Barbara, CA 93117-3083 TeleFAX: +1-805-968-8256 ------------------------------ From: arnaud@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (alain.arnaud) Subject: Re: Stocks via Internet Organization: AT&T Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 13:53:47 GMT > In article mperlman@nyx.cs.du.edu > (Marshal Perlman) writes: >> Anyone know of any stock purchasing companies that are computer linked >> to the internet ... where I could buy and sell stocks with my >> computer? >> I 'm sure it would be a tad cheaper then using my broker who just >> punches what I say to him into a computer and charges me $50 for 'his >> help'. > I don't know about you, but I sure wouldn't want to send my trading > instructions over the Internet for every site in the path to see (and > perhaps generate their own under my name!). Fidelity Brokerage offers PC software called Fox that allows investment tracking and trading, with a 10% discount on trades. You can also execute trades and check on your account over the phone, with the same 10% discount. ------------------------------ From: gilligan@ecst.csuchico.edu (Tuka {KD6CUC}) Subject: Re: Stocks via Internet Date: 28 May 1993 04:20:08 GMT Organization: California State University, Chico My cousin has a mac sitting there hooked up to a receiving modem ... it is connected to the television cable and receives the current stocks constantly! Check it out! I'll get more info ... tuka [Moderator's Note: Please do get more information on this and pass it along to the group. This sounds like an interesting project one might build. PAT] ------------------------------ From: deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) Subject: Re: Alarm Point Telemetry Equipment Organization: AT&T Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 13:39:58 GMT In article 6@eecs.nwu.edu, ken@sdd.hp.com (Ken Stone) writes: > I'm interested in what's available to monitor/gather alarm points (dry > contact closures mostly) and bring them back to a central location and > a central device that can interrogated by a UNIX based computer. Check out a company called Dantel. Unfortunately, I don't have their address or phone number handy, but if you can track down a couple of back issues of Telephony or TE&M, you should be able to find some ads. Disclaimer: AT&T isn't endorsing anyone here, so don't go out buying Dantel stock and pushing their price through the roof ;-) David G Lewis AT&T Bell Laboratories david.g.lewis@att.com or !att!goofy!deej Switching & ISDN Implementation ------------------------------ From: moulton@cs.utk.edu (Steve Moulton) Subject: Re: Alarm Point Telemetry Equipment Date: 31 May 1993 15:06:52 GMT Organization: University of Tennessee, Knoxville - CS Department In article dale@access.digex.net (Dale Farmer) writes: > Ken Stone (ken@sdd.hp.com) wrote: >> I'm interested in what's available to monitor/gather alarm points (dry >> contact closures mostly) and bring them back to a central location and >> a central device that can interrogated by a UNIX based computer. > Sounds like you want to take a look at SNMP. Read Marshall > Rose's book "The Simple Way" and call SNMP research for some literature. > I think that they are in CA, but I'm not sure. I sent a copy of this to a friend at SNMP Research, and got the following response: > CA? THAT MEANS WE HAD AN EARTHQUAKE YESTERDAY AND I MISSED IT!!!! They are located in Seymour, Tennessee (on the outskirts of Knoxville), as the firm's founder is a faculty member here. Their phone is (615) 573-1434, and they are also reachable at sales@snmp.com. ------------------------------ From: grout@sp96.csrd.uiuc.edu (John R. Grout) Subject: Re: The Telex Machine in Popular Music Reply-To: j-grout@uiuc.edu Organization: UIUC Center for Supercomputing Research and Development Date: Mon, 31 May 93 16:21:17 GMT Jim.Rees@umich.edu writes: > In article , ae446@freenet.carleton.ca > (Nigel Allen) writes: >> So can anyone else think of any telex-related songs? > How about "Western Union?" I forget who recorded it, but it was a hit > in the 60s. The original 45 was transparent red. The original Wall Street Week theme, "TWX in Twelve Bars", doesn't mention such machines (it's an instrumental), but it does use a TWX printer for percussion. John R. Grout INTERNET: j-grout@uiuc.edu ------------------------------ From: lazlo@triton.unm.edu (Lazlo Nibble) Subject: Re: The Telex Machine in Popular Music Date: 31 May 1993 18:45:25 GMT Organization: Vroom Socko International Fear Club ae446@freenet.carleton.ca writes: > So can anyone else think of any telex-related songs? John Williams' (the guitarist, not the Boston Pops conductor) old band Sky did a nice instrumental track called "Telex From Peru" on their Cadmium album. There's also a Belgian technopop band called Telex who have four or five albums out. Lazlo (lazlo@triton.unm.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 93 09:31:55 CDT From: fritz@mirage.hc.ti.com (Fritz Whittington) Subject: Re: Coded Information in Telephone Books In comp.dcom.telecom 0005066432@mcimail.com writes: > The Supreme Court ruled that telephone books, (or at least the > listings of subscribers, I think), fail to contain the 'minimum > creativity' necessary to be capable of having copyright protection, > and thus telephone books are not copyrightable because they lack that > 'bare minimum'. > I may in part see the court's reasoning, since all that is done in > generating a telephone white pages is the collection of names out of > the company's database, then sorting that database (which is done > automatically by the computer), thus it is all done automatically; > there is no 'creativity' involved. Not quite so! I've always been extremely annoyed at the 'creative' way that the Telco manages to munge the sorting algorithm. For instance, someone with the surname 'St. James' gets sorted as if it were the string 'Saintjames' and stuck in a place that I'm not looking for it. Likewise, all the Irish O-apostrophe names should come before any names that start O[a-z], instead of being co-mingled. Most of the time, they ignore case, *except* for radio and TV stations, which seem to sort to the top, as they should. The Dallas White Pages list the major portion (SWB) sorted together, but all the suburbs that are GTE are sorted in separate little pieces for each city. If you don't know *exactly* where someone lives to start with, and don't find them in the SWB listing, you get to look again, and again, and again ... I'd be more than happy to take the phone book in CD-ROM form, with an appropriate search program, as opposed to a (nearly) foot-high stack of paper. Now, that would be *truly* creative! Fritz Whittington Texas Instruments, P.O. Box 655474, MS 446 Dallas, TX 75265 Shipping address: 13510 North Central Expressway, MS 446 Dallas, TX 75243 fritz@ti.com Office: +1 214 995 0397 FAX: +1 214 995 6194 Since I am not an official TI spokesperson, these opinions contain no spokes. ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: New Rockwell V.32bis Chip Set Date: 31 May 1993 00:50:40 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article moswald@cwis.unomaha.edu (Mike Oswald) writes: > alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us writes: >> ..."additional bonus of optional 16550 UART with FIFO..." >> About bleedin' time. It's not rocket science, but having just a teeny >> few characters worth of buffering under Windows will sure as heck help >> on total through put. > Where would I need to make changes in Windows if I have 9600 v.32/v.42 > external modem and I was wondering about how to help my COMM programs > performance? The 16550 UART is designed as a direct replacement for the standard 8250 UART. The 16550 has a 16-byte FIFO buffer, whereas the 8250 has only a one-byte buffer. With the 8250, when a character arrives over the serial port, an interrupt is generated. Whatever program is reading from the serial port (usually the application program itself if it's a DOS program, or the Windows serial driver if you'r running Windows 3.1), has to service the interrupt and read the character out of the UART's buffer. If the next character comes over the line before the first one is read, then the UART has to throw away a character, since there's only room for it to store one. This situation is called a "receiver overrun." Many factors contribute to this problem, such as machine speed, datacomm speed, and any other software running on the machine which may be disabling interrupts for a period of time (such as Windows or a LAN client driver). The 16550 works the same way as the 8250, except it has a 16 byte buffer. When it receives the first character, it generates an interrupt, but can buffer up to 15 additional characters before the interrupt is serviced and not lose any data. If your UART is an 8250 and is socketed, then you can just buy a 16550 chip and replace the 8250, and solve the receiver overrun problem. Note that your software has to specifically support the 16550, since it operates just like the 8250 by default, and must be specifically told to go into 16-byte buffer mode. If you use DOS software, then the application program must have 16550 support in it. If you are using Windows 3.1 and your datacomm application uses the standard Windows serial driver, then you're all set, since the standard Windows serial driver has support for the 16550. If you don't have a socketed 8250 (such as when you have serial support directly on the motherboard), you have to buy a serial port card that has a 16550, and disable your current serial port. At WRQ, we have many customers that experience "receiver overruns" with our terminal emulation software (especially under Windows), and the 16550 almost always solves the problem. It is an especially attractive alternative to buying a new machine, as the chips can be had for around $15, and a replacement serial port board with 16550 starts at $50. It solves almost all of our customers' receiver overrun problems. The telecom aspect to this is that this used to not be much of a problem over dialup, as when modems operated at 2400bps and below, the CPU was able to keep up. Now, when you can get 56,000+ bps with a V.42bis modem, this can be quite a problem over dialup as well as direct connect. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: phil@wubios.wustl.edu (J. Philip Miller) Subject: Re: Fake TV Phone Numbers Date: Sun, 30 May 1993 22:39:36 -0500 (CDT) Monty Solomon writes: > On tonight's LA Law they have the number 1 600 555 FONE on an > infomercial. Not only that, but they talked about getting lots of calls on the "600 number". J. Philip Miller, Professor, Division of Biostatistics, Box 8067 Washington University Medical School, St. Louis MO 63110 phil@wubios.WUstl.edu - (314) 362-3617 [362-2693(FAX)] ------------------------------ From: Tom Holodnik Subject: Re: Cellular Telephone Privacy Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 00:32:35 -0400 Organization: Data Communications, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA As a matter of fact, AT&T has announced that they will be shipping a cellular phone with the Clipper Chip tecnology sometime in the 4Q93. This means: - mere mortals will not be able to snoop on your cellular conversations; - you have to be a Heavyweight Cellular Champ with a Heavyweight Champ; Wallet (capable of paying $1.5K for a cellular phone). - if you're naughty, the government can snoop on you. tom ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 93 10:10 GMT0BST-1 From: Richard Cox Subject: Re: Non Sequitur or What? Reply-To: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk RANDY@MPA15AB.mv-oc.Unisys.COM (Randy Gellens) said: > Some of the things I miss [in this country] are the joys of dialing a > number and not knowing where I will end up, the mysteries of getting > caught in a three way connection and making deals I would otherwise > never dream of making, the suspense and the thrill on finding out my > telephone is not (yet) dead after a wrong connection. This reminds me of the early sixties, when we started to get distance dialing in the UK. It was not a reliable system. "With the new Post Office Trunk Dialling system, subscribers can now be connected directly to almost anywhere in the country without the assistance of an operator ..." ... And just by dialling a number in Birmingham ..... Richard D G Cox Mandarin Technology, Cardiff Business Park, Llanishen, CARDIFF, Wales CF4 5WF Voice: +44 222 747111 Fax: +44 222 711111 VoiceMail: +44 399 870101 E-mail: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk - PGP2.2 public key available on request ------------------------------ From: FNAHA!JVE@TRENGA.tredydev.unisys.com Date: 31 MAY 93 08:52 Subject: Re: Ex-Soviet Republic Dialing Paul Robinson <0005066432@mcimail.com> wrote: > {Washington Times} stated that there were plans to install two new > switches (One in Kiev, and the other in St. Petersburg), of 15,000 > trunks each. The article also noted that Moscow only has 1500 > international trunks. Not just a mere 1500 trunks for that city > (which would be a bit cramped, at that), but 1500 trunks for the WHOLE > +7 AREA CODE, all 200+ million people! New fiber optic cable has been built to connect Finland and St. Petersburg. New cable also connects Finland and Estonia. Some news articles told that number of international calls from third countries to Russia is increasing rapidly. To prepare for increased traffic, a new fiber optic cable connecting Finland and Sweden was completed a couple of weeks ago. Fiber optic means tens of thousands of connections. I still remember the time (my first summer job) when all we had were manual lines to Soviet Union: about five to Leningrad (St.Petersburg), about five to Tallinn (Estonia) and three or so to Moscow. That was around 1978. Juha Veijalainen 4ge system analyst, tel. +358 0 4528 426 Unisys Finland Internet: JVE%FNAHA@trenga.tredydev.unisys.com >> Mielipiteet omiani ** Opinions are PERSONAL, facts are suspect << ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #366 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa18559; 1 Jun 93 10:06 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA06105 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 31 May 1993 17:52:45 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA26155 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 31 May 1993 17:52:04 -0500 Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 17:52:04 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305312252.AA26155@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #367 TELECOM Digest Mon, 31 May 93 17:52:00 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 367 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Coded Information in Telephone Books (John R. Levine) Re: Coded Information in Telephone Books (Bryan J. Abshier) Re: Friend Needs Advice on Harrassing Caller (Elana Beach) Re: Friend Needs Advice on Harrassing Caller (John R. Levine) Re: GSM Frequency Summary (Richard Cox) Re: GSM Frequency Range and Experiences (Serdar Boztas) Re: GSM Frequency Range (Ketil Albertsen) Re: GTE Strikes! or Can't Deliver Phone Books (John R. Levine) Re: GTE Strikes! or Can't Deliver Phone Books (Jon Kimbrough) Re: Macs Answering Phones (gilligan@ecst.csuchico.edu) Re: Switchless Resellers of Long Distance Services (K.B. Houser) Re: Cellular Charging? (gilligan@ecst.csuchico.edu) Re: Sliding Window Protocols (Paul Robinson) Re: Modem Cannot Seize Line (Bob Frankston) Re: Latitude/Longitude -> Distance (Guy J. Sherr) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Coded Information in Telephone Books Organization: I.E.C.C. Date: 31 May 93 14:52:27 EDT (Mon) From: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) > [Moderator's Note: A compilation copyright is still possible for phone > directories to recognize the labor by the people involved in putting > it all together. PAT] The court decision specifically rejected the traditional "sweat of the brow" rule for copyrightability when it said that white pages are no longer copyrighted. It's considered irrelevant how much work went into it. To many of us, this seems like a strange ruling that flies in the face of literally centuries of precedent and perverts the intent of the law. But barring either a ruling from the Supreme Court or a modified copyright law, that's currently how the law stands. I ran into this issue personally when registering the "Comp.compilers 1990 Annual" which consists of most of the articles from the comp.compilers newsgroup arranged in a useful order and with some indices. Someone from the copyright office called me and said that they wouldn't accept a copyright on the author, title, or KWIC indices because they were generated more or less mechanically from the articles. The keyword index was OK because I assigned the keywords myself, providing the required creative element. The compilation, i.e., selection and arrangement of the articles was also OK. The main effect this seems to have on phone books is that independently produced phone books instead of having incredibly obsolete and incorrect white pages will have only fairly obsolete and incorrect white pages. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl [Moderator's Note: Indeed, is that what the honorable court said, that the amount of work involved means nothing? Then here is my gesture to the court: there are two names on my mailing list from the honorable court. As of today they are off this list, and will never again receive a copy of any publication I work on. Let them start their own mailing list and spend an entire holiday weekend working on getting out a huge backlog of submissions, etc. Who does the court think developed the software and the database to begin with and the hardware -- the stuff we call the 'compilation' -- to make it all work, the cheesy little outfit now ripping off telco? What you're saying the court ruled (and I am certain you are correct) would equally apply to this Digest: you wrote the articles, all I did was 'merely' compile it all for distribution. My revisions to the software I use, my compilation, editing and distribution techniques mean nothing rules the court in its wisdom. So fine, they'll be getting nothing from me in the future. Thank you for sharing. PAT] ------------------------------ From: babshier@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Bryan J Abshier) Subject: Re: Coded Information in Telephone Books Date: 31 May 1993 12:21:43 GMT Organization: The Ohio State University In article Tansin A. Darcos & Company <0005066432@mcimail.com> writes: > Recently, in a Moderator's Note, Pat mentioned that Illinois Bell > Telephone would put coded listings in its telephone book to catch > people who duplicated it. (I guess to threaten to sue them if they > did not pay a licensing fee or something.) > The question is whether they still bother to do this. About a year or > more ago, it was reported in an article prominently mentioned in the > Business or Money section of one of the local papers, a major decision > of the United States Supreme Court. > The Supreme Court ruled that telephone books, (or at least the > listings of subscribers, I think), fail to contain the 'minimum > creativity' necessary to be capable of having copyright protection, > and thus telephone books are not copyrightable because they lack that > 'bare minimum'. > This is a major landmark since it overturns over seventy years of > established precedent, going back to the precise case back in 1913 or > so, in {Pacific Telephone v. Leon} (I remember the exact case citing) > it was ruled that someone could not copy a telephone book to make > one's own listing of people even if the phone company wasn't making > one because telephone books were copyrightable and required permission > to reproduce them. A later case ruled that independent creation of > the identical information created a separate copyrightable work. > [Moderator's Note: A compilation copyright is still possible for phone > directories to recognize the labor by the people involved in putting > it all together. PAT] To be afforded the protection of a copyright, a work must original to the author. The recognition of copyright protection for compilations based on the labor involved in putting it together is commonly known as the "sweat of the brow" doctrine. This doctrine was based on interpretation of the Copyright Act of 1909 by Federal District Courts. To my knowledge the Supreme Court has never supported the "sweat of the brow" doctrine. In Feist v. Rural Telephone (111 S.Ct. 1282 (1991)) the Supreme Court expressly rejected the "sweat of the brow" doctrine. "A factual compilation is eligible for copyright if it features an original selection or arrangement of facts, but the copyright is limited to the particular selection or arrangement. In no event may copyright extend to the facts themselves." The court also said that an alphabetical listing of phone numbers lacked sufficient originality to be afforded copyright protection. You can't copyright a phone book. Even if you could come up with an arrangement of listings which is sufficiently original, other people could still use the listings in their own arrangements. I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. Bryan J. Abshier Abshier@osu.edu [Moderator's Note: I'm not a lawyer either, but my answer to the court is expressed in the message before this one. If I cannot copyright the effort which goes into the compilation of my publication(s), then I refuse to give the court, the copyright office or the Library of Congress any of my work, period. I've got names from each of those places on my mailing lists -- all will be removed today. PAT] ------------------------------ From: elana@netcom.com (Elana Beach) Subject: Re: Friend Needs Advice on Harrassing Caller Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 05:15:13 GMT josuna@cs.UMD.EDU (Juan Osuna) writes: > I have a friend who is getting spooked by someone who calls her > everyday at the same time, saying nothing and then just hanging up. > This has happened over 20 times. (esteemed Moderator's great suggestions about using caller-ID as a solution regretfully deleted for space.) Hmmmmm ... if Pat's suggestions don't work ... don't get mad, get creative! You can freak out any repeated phone harrasser (and have fun at the same time) by call-forwarding it to your local Dial-A-Prayer number. I have learned to keep that number handy just for such occasions. I have three-way calling, so the last time I got a harrasser on the phone, I connected him and his attempt at dirty talk to the local Dial-A-Prayer. As luck would have it, the topic for the day was a recorded sermon on how to overcome desire. I have not been harrassed since. Next time, I'm getting "Cousin Guido" on the line! That should be even MORE fun, especially since Caller-ID can help me and "Guido" find out where the harasser lives. Keep smilin'! Elana ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Friend Needs Advice on Harrassing Caller Organization: I.E.C.C. Date: 31 May 93 15:18:29 EDT (Mon) From: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) In article is written: > I have a friend who is getting spooked by someone who calls her > everyday at the same time, saying nothing and then just hanging up. > [Moderator's Note: [various suggestions about Caller-ID, etc.] Hey, wait. Can your friend hear breathing, or just silence? If it's the latter, she is most likely the victim of an accidentally misprog- rammed modem, not a deranged sex maniac. If your local telco offers Call Trace, she can dial *57 after the call to try to log the origin of the call. (This is unaffected by CLID blocking.) In the absence of Call Trace, she should call the local telco and tell them to trace it themselves, which should be pretty easy if the calls reliably arrive at the same time each day. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 93 20:01 GMT0BST-1 From: Richard Cox Subject: Re: GSM Frequency Summary Reply-To: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk FNAHA!JVE@TRENGA.tredydev.unis (Juha Veijalainen) said: > Also, I quoted British Vodafone rates at 1.25 USD / minute. I got > that figure when I converted the rate first to Finnish marks and then > to US Dollars. It might be clearer to quote prices in British pounds: > Vodafone charges 0.75 GBP / min. in the London Metropolitan area and > 0.70 GBP / min. outside (information from my local GSM operator). Sorry, but these figures are completely bogus. As I posted earlier: > UK GSM charges are 30-35 UK pence per minute, nothing like 1.25 > USD/minute! That's 0.30 UKP / min in the London Metropolitan area (inside the M25 ring) and 0.30 UKP / min outside. Your local GSM operator may want to check ... Of course the figures quoted might be valid for *roamed* calls -- roaming seems now to have become a license for cellular operators to print their own money ! Richard D G Cox Mandarin Technology, Cardiff Business Park, Llanishen, CARDIFF, Wales CF4 5WF Voice: +44 222 747111 Fax: +44 222 711111 VoiceMail: +44 399 870101 E-mail: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk - PGP2.2 public key available on request ------------------------------ From: serdar@fawlty8.eng.monash.edu.au (Serdar Boztas) Subject: Re: GSM Frequency Range and Experiences Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia. Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 01:11:31 GMT FNAHA!JVE@TRENGA.tredydev.unisys.com writes: > I've recently invested in a small handheld GSM mobile phone. No one > has been able to tell me what frequency range it uses. Does someone > out there know? Judging from the antenna size, frequency might be > around 900 MHz or 1800 MHz. CEPT (Committee of European Posts and Telecoms) has made available two bands to be used by GSM: Uplink (mobile to base): 890 - 915 MHz Downlink : 935 - 960 MHz The carriers are spaced by 200 kHz, and using time division multiple access. Eight channels occupy each carrier, giving an effective 25kHz band for operation. The physical channels have a throughput of 24.7 kbit/sec. The mappings between logical and physical channels are quite complex. serdar boztas serdar@fawlty8.eng.monash.edu.au ------------------------------ From: ketil@edb.tih.no (Ketil Albertsen,TIH) Subject: Re: GSM Frequency Range Reply-To: ketil@edb.tih.no Organization: T I H / T I S I P Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 18:47:56 GMT In article , FNAHA!JVE@TRENGA.tredydev. unisys.com writes: > I've recently invested in a small handheld GSM mobile phone. No one > has been able to tell me what frequency range it uses. Does someone > out there know? Judging from the antenna size, frequency might be > around 900 MHz or 1800 MHz. According to my notes from a presentation of GSM, upstream channels are located from 905 to 914 MHz, downstream channels from 950 to 959 MHz. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: GTE Strikes! or Can't Deliver Phone Books Organization: I.E.C.C. Date: 31 May 93 15:02:35 EDT (Mon) From: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) At least you get phone books. In over ten years at my current address, I have never, ever gotten a phone book delivered except by calling up and specicially ordering them. This neighborhood has a lot of buildings that are part of Harvard University, including a few of the houses which are used as overflow student housing. The phone book delivery people long ago decided that the entire block is Harvard, so all they need to do is dump a few shrink-wrapped blocks of books in the lobbies of the larger buildings and they're done. I've called many times to complain, but the delivery is actually done by independent contractors with very low-paid help, so there's no real accountability. NET will send you all of the in-state directories you want for free, so the practical effect is that once a year when I call to order out-of-town directories, I order the local ones as well. But it's annoying nonetheless. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 93 12:34:25 EDT From: jkimbro@hercii.lasc.lockheed.com (Jon Kimbrough) Subject: Re: GTE Strikes! or Can't Deliver Phone Books GTE isn't the only one who does a poor job delivering phone books! We live in a split level house and the front door is essentially one story up. The woman who delivered the phone books in our neighborhood complained to our next door neighbor about our house as she delivered her phone books, "Boy I sure don't want to climb all the way up there. It looks awfully high!" And then proceeded not to deliver our phone books. That's right, she didn't even bother to leave them at the foot of the stairs, under the stairs, or with the neighbor! I think you'll find that just like Southern Bell, GTE uses an outside service to deliver their phone books. The one Southern Bell uses apparently hires local people to deliver phone books and probably pays them on a per book basis. Looks like anyone with a pickup truck or station wagon is qualified! A call to Southern Bell service rep went something like this: Me: All my neighbors received their phone books but I didn't. Her: Okay, that's handled by another company. Let me give you a number to call. Me: Okay. Her: Well, I can't find it right now. I know it's here somewhere. Oh well, I will just go ahead and order you one myself. Me: One? I'm supposed to get three books, right. Her: Well, let's see. You are entitled to the Woodstock combined listings and Atlanta residential white pages. Me: I don't know the titles of all the books, but I know that all my neighbors got three phone books. I think the third book is the Atlanta business white pages. Her: Sir, there is a charge for the business directory. Me: I'm pretty sure that's what my neighbors got. Her: Well, I think there running a free trial on the business directory. Call this toll-free number and they can help you. Pretty poor. I think I'll call back again later and hopefully talk to someone who can either find the number of the delivery company or knows how to get me ALL the books I'm entitled to. I've also since verified that titles of all three books with a neighbor, and I was correct. Jon Kimbrough - jkimbro@lasc.lockheed.com Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Company ------------------------------ From: gilligan@ecst.csuchico.edu (Tuka) Subject: Re: Macs Answering Phones Date: 31 May 1993 04:12:43 GMT Organization: California State University, Chico In article leavens@bmf.usc.edu (Justin Leavens) writes: > There are two products that I know of on the market that interface > a Macintosh computer with a phone line, and allow for programming the > Mac to use it. They are both single-line solutions, meaning that you > have to purchase on copy for every line that you want it to answer, > and they both pretty well tie up an entire Mac (and I wouldn't suggest > using them on anything less than a Classic II, no matter what they > say). I have the PowerUser (modem 2400/9600 s-r fax/voicemail) and it cost only $299. You can call MacWarehouse (I don't like the company ... I've had problems with them), but lower cost. It does fine for me personally at home. Tuka :) ------------------------------ From: AlterNet@cup.portal.com Subject: Re: Switchless Resellers of Long Distance Services Date: Mon, 31 May 93 13:52:18 PDT I have been informed by UUNET Technologies that they are the owners of the trademark "AlterNet". I have referred the matter to AlterNet Marketing Ltd. of Allentown. PA. As an independent agent, I am under no obligation to use any specific name while doing business. I will no longer use name AlterNET as part of my business, however my user name on Portal is alternet for now. (Do user names fall under trademark protection? It seems like a grey area for the courts.) Anyway, I do not wish to participate in legal battles of a name that means a lot more to a company that has been in business a lot longer than I have. My position on thloLogoIDid is that it is not protected under trademark law, just as I could name my kid Pepsi if I wanted to. K.B.Houser AlterNET@cup.portal.com 5589 Winfield Blvd. #200 FAX: 408-765-0513 San Jose, CA 95123-1219 Voice: 408-363-3889 "Long Distance Service for Less" ------------------------------ From: gilligan@ecst.csuchico.edu (Tuka) Subject: Re: Cellular Charging? Date: 31 May 1993 04:17:04 GMT Organization: California State University, Chico You're paying for the service of being not tied down at home ... the freedom to go where you want and still be in touch ... My .02 cents. tuka ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 13:30:17 -0400 (EDT) From: Tansin A. Darcos & Company <0005066432@mcimail.com> Reply-To: Tansin A. Darcos & Company <0005066432@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Sliding Window Protocols Norbert Vohn , writes: > I'm a student of electrical engineering and just doing my masters > thesis. > In the scope of this I need to implement a sliding window protocol > (with selective repeat) for usage in an simulation tool. (see > Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Computer Networks). > Maybe there exist some implementations in C++ or C? C-Kermit. The source is available from Columbia University. But I can't remember the site name; it's a pun on the use of the word "sun" something like "clarksun.columbia.edu" because the server is a Sun Unix machine. Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM ------------------------------ From: Bob_Frankston@frankston.com Subject: Re: Modem Cannot Seize Line Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 14:02 -0400 You've probably heard these two answers already : 1. Try ATDP (pulse dialing). 2. Try reversing polarity on the wall jack. [Moderator's Note: I understood his message to mean he was unable to get the modem to go off hook, not that it went off hook, got dial tone but was unable to break dial. Did I read it wrong? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 93 11:04 GMT From: Guy J. Sherr <0004322955@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Latitude/Longitude -> Distance (V13.355) Latitude: parallel to the equator, a line describing distance between the equator and the "pole" in the hemishpere indicated, either North or South. Longitude: meridien lines which intersect both poles, running from north to south, desciribing a distance between the Prime Meridien and the International Date Line, either East or West. Degree: 1/360th of Circumference or Arc Minute: 1/60th of a degree, also "great-circle" minute. Second: 1/60th of a minute, also "great-circle." "Great-Circle" is the considered distance between two points lying on the surface of a sphere. 6 minutes: .1*(60) = 6 nautical miles 1 minute: .0167*(60) = 1nm 1 second: .0167*.0167*60 = 101.67 nautical feet Therefore, since 3600 seconds should equal 60 nautical miles, there should be 364560 feet when multiplying 101.67 by 3600 (in fact, the number is slightly larger). ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #367 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa19923; 1 Jun 93 10:43 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA03587 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 31 May 1993 18:39:33 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA07917 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 31 May 1993 18:38:59 -0500 Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 18:38:59 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199305312338.AA07917@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #368 TELECOM Digest Mon, 31 May 93 18:39:00 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 368 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: The Elusive LATA Line (David W. Tamkin) Re: The Elusive LATA Line (John R. Levine) Re: Telesharketers (was Re: Blocking ..) (Dave Levenson) Re: Telesharketers (was Re: Blocking ..) (Tarl Neustaedter) Re: New Rockwell v.32bis Chipset (Todd A. Scalzott) Re: Author Queries: Phone Mysteries (Joel Upchurch) Re: Great Wrong Number (was Re: Misdialed Numbers) (Darrin West) Re: WAN From North to South America (Harold Hallikainen) Re: Caller ID Mistakes (Mike Pollock) Re: Want a Good Phone (Gregory J. Nelson) Re: French DTMF - Is it the Same as Everwhere Else? (John Cagnol) Re: How to Evaluate Software (Andrew Grillet) Re: Is AT&T Getting Desperate? (Richard Nash) Re: Glazit Telephone Refinisher (Julian Macassey) ---------------------- TELECOM Digest is an e-journal devoted mostly -- but not exclusively -- to discussions on voice telephony. The Digest is a not-for-profit public service published frequently by Patrick Townson Associates. PTA markets a no-surcharge telephone calling card and a no monthly fee 800 service. In addition, we are resellers of AT&T's Software Defined Network. For a detailed discussion of our services, write and ask for the file 'products'. The Digest is delivered at no charge by email to qualified subscribers on any electronic mail service connected to the Internet. To join the mail- ing list, write and tell us how you qualify: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu. Before submitting articles for publication, please read a copy of our file 'writing.to.telecom'. All article submissions MUST be sent to our email address: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu -- NOT as replies to comp.dcom.telecom. Back issues and numerous other telephone-related files of interest are available from the Telecom Archives, using anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu. Login anonymous, then 'cd telecom-archives'. At the present time, the Digest is also ported to Usenet at the request of many readers there, where it is known as 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Use of the Digest does not require the use of our products and services. The two are separate. All articles are the responsibility of the individual authors. Organi- zations listed, if any, are for identification purposes only. The Digest is compilation-copyrighted, 1993. **DO NOT** cross-post articles between the Digest and other Usenet or alt newsgroups. Do not compile mailing lists from the net-addresses appearing herein. Send tithes and love offerings to PO Box 1570, Chicago, IL 60690. :) Phone: 312-465-2700. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 31 May 93 17:24 CDT From: dattier@genesis.mcs.com (David W. Tamkin) Subject: Re: The Elusive LATA Line Reply-To: dattier@genesis.mcs.com (DWT) Organization: Contributor Account at MCS, Chicago, Illinois 60657 Steve Forrette wrote in in comp.dcom.telecom: > The thing to do in this specific case is to tell the LEC operator > that you are having problems dialing your call directly, and can she > possibly try the number for you. This is a routine function for the > operator, and she will just key in the number you read her into the > computer. If it is an inter-LATA call, then her computer will tell > her it is an invalid number. If the call goes through, then it is > intra-LATA. You get the information you want, and the operator has > not been required to think. If it is intra-LATA then I am charged for the call at the LEC's rate plus an operator assistance surcharge! That method simply is not acceptable. > ... I just called the AT&T operator and told her I was having > problems in completing my call. She put the call through, and when I > got my 800 bill and located the test call in the call detail, I had my > answer. You also had a charge for the call at the testing carrier's rates. Probably, when the bill comes, I could argue customer service out of the surcharge, but I'd still be charged for the call at a time when I did not want to place it and by a company through whom I might not want to place it. Remember that my goal was to find out who would carry the call _before_ I made it so that I could get the rates and know in advance what it would cost. Since my goal was to find out the rates, it seemed logical for me to ask Customer Service, but as Steve points out logic has nothing to do with it (especially with Mother and her ex-children). > Perhaps an easier way to tell is to 0+ the call, and see whose > "bong" you get. John Levine emailed me the same suggestion. It's the best so far. I can say "oops" if a live operator answers, hang up, and pay nothing. At this point I'm still waiting for the last four digits of the phone number, so I haven't done anything yet. David W. Tamkin Box 59297 Northtown Station, Illinois 60659-0297 dattier@genesis.mcs.com CompuServe: 73720,1570 MCI Mail: 426-1818 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: The Elusive LATA Line Organization: I.E.C.C. Date: 31 May 93 15:23:50 EDT (Mon) From: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) > I had a simple desire: I wanted to know whether an area on the edge of > my LATA was inside it or outside it so that I'd know which carrier to > ask for the cost of the call before I dialed there. I usually dial 0 + number, find out whose bong, tinkle, etc. I get, and hang up. If it's intra-LATA, you'll get the local telco, interlata you'll get your IXC. This works in RBOC and GTE areas, not always in independent areas since on the one hand they're allowed to provide their own LD service, but they usually contract with a nearby RBOC or AT&T for operator services. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: Telesharketers (was Re: Blocking ..) Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 18:04:57 GMT In article , Jack.Winslade@axolotl. omahug.org (Jack Winslade) writes: > What percentage of residential subscribers would go out of their way > (even if it was as simple as dialing a code or telling the service rep > to enable it) to voluntarily receive sales calls. > How close to ZERO would this percentage be ?? I think it would be very close to zero. But a related question should be posed: If blocking of unsolicited telemarketing calls were the default condition, how much would a subscriber accept in payment from the telemarketer to allow the calls in? Would you accept a $2.00/month credit on your telephone bill? A $10.00/month credit? If they insist on taking my time presenting me with unsolicited advertising, why should they not pay me for the privilege? Just a thought! Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ From: tarl@persian.sw.stratus.com (Tarl Neustaedter) Subject: Re: Telesharketers (was Re: Blocking ..) Date: 31 May 1993 20:30:38 GMT Organization: Stratus Computer, Software Engineering In article whester@nyx.cs.du.edu (William R. Hester) writes: > In my most perfect of all worlds [...telemarketers...] would credit my > telephone account $1 each time I answered. In addition, I would > receive a credit of $0.50 per min. for as long as I held the > connection. A side issue: That's only $30/hour. I don't know about the rest of you, but when I do consulting on something thoroughly unpleasant (such as listening to a telemarketer :-), I charge considerably more than $30/hour. Consider that when contemplating what a telemarketer costs you. A better set of rates: $10/call ($1000 surcharge if I was asleep) $2/minute additional charge. That brings the hourly rate up to $120/hour, about what I paid a lawyer recently. And lawyers will do anything -- that sounds about right. While we're fantasizing, I'd waive the surcharge if the telemarketer stands 1000 yards down-range while I take a pot-shot at him. I'm a poor enough shot at that distance that the danger is minimal, but the satisfaction would be fantastic. (Can you detect the words of someone who has once too often been dragged out of a sound sleep by a telemarketer?) tarl ------------------------------ From: todd@friend.kastle.com (Todd A. Scalzott) Reply-To: todd@friend.kastle.com Subject: Re: New Rockwell V.32bis Chip Set Organization: Kastle Development Associates, Arlington, VA, USA Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 06:52:46 GMT moswald@cwis.unomaha.edu (Mike Oswald) writes: > alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us writes: >> ..."additional bonus of optional 16550 UART with FIFO..." >> About bleedin' time. It's not rocket science, but having just a teeny >> few characters worth of buffering under Windows will sure as heck help >> on total through put. > Where would I need to make changes in Windows if I have 9600 v.32/v.42 > external modem and I was wondering about how to help my COMM programs > performance? Get to the Program Manager, hit Alt-F4 and select OK. Problem solved. :-) (Sorry, I couldn't resist that one.) In all seriousness, though, insure that you have a 16550 UART on board. Most UARTs these days are socketted, so you can pull the old (16450 or 8250) and pop in a 16550. Also available are improved COM drivers for Windows its self, such as TurboComm. These are all commercial apps, though. [try comp.os.ms-windows.misc or comp.dcom.modems] Todd Scalzott, Systems Programmer todd@kastle.com Kastle Development Associates ...!uunet!friend!todd ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Author Queries: Phone Mysteries From: upchrch!joel@peora.sdc.ccur.com (Joel Upchurch) Date: Mon, 31 May 93 12:37:09 EDT Organization: Upchurch Computer Consulting, Orlando FL andys@internet.sbi.com (Andy Sherman) writes: > I seem to recall that SCCS correctly notified the monitoring center in > Springfield that a fire alarm had gone off in Hinsdale. The assholes > in Springfield chose to assume that it was a malfunction. (Text Deleted) > The lesson from Hinsdale is not that remote monitoring is bad. There > are two lessons from Hinsdale: a) don't create a single point of > failure in the area (i.e. don't make Hinsdale an unreplicated hub for > everything in sight); b) if you use remote monitoring, you cannot > afford to ignore a single alarm. All must be investigated. It seems to me a lot depends on how reliable the alarm indicators are. If it turns out that 99 times out 100 the fire alarm goes off there is no fire, then it isn't very surprising that the monitors treated it like a sensor problem rather than a real fire. If the system is prone to generating false alarms and is set up so that it's difficult for the monitor to verify that there is a real problem, then it isn't surprising that things like this can happen. It seems to me that with the current technology, that allows us to send video signals over phone lines and even better signals over ISDN lines, it would be good to have some way for the monitors to visually verify the problem. You could scatter a bunch of cheap fixed mount B&W CCD cameras around the building. When a alarm occurs the monitor could activate the video system for the building and check the camera for the effected area. You might also set it up so that video information is constantly sent to the monitoring center, cycling through the various cameras, so the monitor would have a chance to pick up problems that other sensors would miss. (If your mail bounces use the address below.) Joel Upchurch/Upchurch Computer Consulting/718 Galsworthy/Orlando, FL 32809 joel@peora.ccur.com {uiucuxc,hoptoad,petsd,ucf-cs}!peora!joel (407) 859-0982 ------------------------------ From: Darrin West Subject: Re: Great Wrong Number (was Misdialed Numbers) Organization: Jade Simulations International, Inc., Calgary, AB, Canada Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 23:37:13 GMT As long as people are interested in hearing this stuff: The best wrong number I ever had wasnt a result of how witty I was. I got a call from what seemed a *very* drunk young lady. After few incomprehensible sentences, she finally said "Cngratilehshuns, yer a faather." I realized that this must be the famous call from the hospital that all fathers wait so patiently for. Boy they must have used a lot a drugs on that poor kid. Anyway, I tried to carefully explain that she had dialed the wrong number, but she kept insiting that I was a daddy! I said "no, I don't think so", and she hung up. I wonder if she ever tried the call again, or if she figured that the father was trying to back out some how. I would pity the poor guy if she ever got hold of him with that impression! And he wouldn't even know what hit him or why. "I *called* you and *you* said..." Snicker. Hope it worked out. Darrin West, MSc. Jade Simulations International Corporation. west@jade.ab.ca ------------------------------ From: hhallika@tuba.calpoly.edu (Harold Hallikainen) Subject: Re: WAN From North to South America Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 23:34:50 GMT You might look at VSAT networks. A friend is in the business of setting up domestic VSAT networks, but he may be able to help in international stuff as well. The rates I've heard have been real reasonable. Try calling Bill Sepmeier at National Supervisory Network, phone 800 345 8728, email bill.sepmeier@f325.n104.z1.fidonet.org. Harold ------------------------------ From: Mike.Pollock@p19.f228.n2613.z1.fidonet.org (Mike Pollock) Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 12:00:25 -0500 Subject: Re: Caller ID Mistakes Paul Robinson wrote: > Anybody know whether this happens often? Does the Caller-ID report > include an error check? Are all boxes required to verify the check? Paul, It's my understanding that most Call ID boxes *do not* have error correction, however error checking is available in the data string. Call ID units from Phone Labs are among the few boxes which do feature Check Sum error correction. My CIDCO unit is constantly showing the Code #1 error message, indicating some undefined data reception error. I don't know if I have ever received a wrong number, since I've never tried to check, but it might be possible. Mike [Moderator's Note: Remember, the batteries need to be replaced in Caller-ID boxes also, maybe every 15-18 months or so. They say you can wait until the display grows dim or disappears; I do not think you should wait that long. PAT] ------------------------------ From: gnelson@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Gregory J. Nelson) Subject: Re: Want a Good Phone Date: 31 May 93 14:40:24 GMT Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. kilgore@wuntvor.pillar.com (Stan Hall) writes: > Now its time for me to talk about my favorite phone in the house. Of > course it is black rotary W/E. I just bought four of these phones _new_ for $15 apiece. When I ordered them, I was fully expecting to get reconditioned equipment. They arrived sealed in the origial boxes and cloth bags (with silica gel). Complete with schematics. They are mil-spec (don't know if this was true of all WE phones) and the date of manufacture was in 1968. Pretty good deal IMHO. Gregory J. Nelson (gnelson@gandalf.rutgers.edu) [Moderator's Note: I want to apologize to Terry Kennedy and Herman Silbiger for an error which occurred in issue 364 earlier today on this thread. Herman quoted both Stan Hall and Terry Kennedy; the quoted text from Terry got dropped but his name remained ('in issue 353 Terry Kennedy said ...'), and part of Stan Hall's message got double quoted '>>' making it appear it came from Terry. Those things will happen with the volume of stuff originating here, but it was a problem for Terry, and I am sorry it got past me incorrect. PAT] ------------------------------ From: cagnol@taloa.unice.fr (John Cagnol) Subject: Re: French DTMF - Is it the Same as Everwhere Else? Date: 31 May 1993 10:31:23 +0200 Organization: University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France In article gmontgomery@sdesys1.hns.com (Guy Montgomery) writes: > I am trying to find out whether the Frech PSTN uses "standard" DTMF > for tone handsets and PBX DID connections. The feedback I am getting > is that the answer is no; therefore you cannot use US phones to access > French tone based services (i.e. answering machines) and vice versa, > and equipment that can dial in to a US PABX may not be able to dial > into a French PABX. > Does anyone know if France is indeed different, if so is there a well > known (e.g. CCITT) standard that describes the tone set? Is there a > comprehensive listing anywhere of countries versus the handset tone > system they use ? I use an American telephone (Panasonic KX-T2365) and an AT&T answering machine (model 1306) on the French network and I've no problem. Morever I use AT&T USA direct service with the touch tone system from other phone than mine, and it works fine. Therefore I think France Telecom (the French telephone company) uses the standard CCITT DTMF. John Cagnol ------------------------------ From: ANdrew.Grillet@p611.f102.n257.z2.fidonet.org (ANdrew Grillet) Subject: Re: How to Evaluate Software Organization: FidoNet node 2:257/102.611 - The Embassy, Broxbourne Herts Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 09:06:00 +0000 On (22 May 93) e28bgid2 wrote: > I am working on an applied research project on software quality, and I > ask the cooperation of the Net. > My field of interest is measuring the quality of applications. That > means answering to some questions, such as "are there any goto's?", > rating the answers, hashing results with some queer software and > saying "good usability, bad maintainability" and so forth. > What I need are the questions. There are some lists in literature, but > they are not specific for a technologic area. I recommend the questions: 1 Can the SW recover if you accidentally drop the manual on the keyboard? (Ie I regard anything with hot-keys as unsafe for general use.) 2 Can a complete novice (Ie someone who does not have any prior contact with the package) shut it down cleanly if he finds it running, and needs to use the PC for somthing else (Bin that copy of Wordperfect now.) 3 Are ALL prompts intelligable to NON-USERS (I have had plenty of "Please Mister, my keyboard hasn't got an 'any' key, what do I do?" If any nore of my staff answers press CTRL-ALT-DEL I think we'll all be sacked.) In general, in an office environment, machines are often shared, and many man hours are wasted because no one knows how to shut down apps they do not use. Regards, Andrew Gated @ the Embassy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 07:10:45 -0600 From: rickie@trickie.ualberta.ca Subject: Re: AT&T Getting Desperate? Reply-To: rickie@trickie.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca In article , co057@cleveland.Freenet. Edu (Steven H. Lichter) writes: >> All of the L/D carriers are trying to get as much business as they >> can. > I can attest to that. I recently moved to Washington and signed with > MCI for long distance. I remembered seeing a commercial that said > they were offering $30 free LD for new accounts. I asked about it and > was told that I could have my choice of $30 free domestic LD or $100 > (!!!) free international LD. Since my wife has a job in Canada at the > moment, you can guess which one I picked. |-------------------------------| Let me guess, he picked the international LD offer? But, but I don't think Canada is considered international, cause you don't dial the international access code (01 or 011)? Richard Nash Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6K 0E8 UUCP: rickie@trickie.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca Amateur Radio: ve6bon.ampr.ab.ca [192.75.200.15] ------------------------------ From: julian@bongo.tele.com (Julian Macassey) Subject: Re: Glazit Telephone Refinisher Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 13:48:53 GMT Stan Hall writes: > Now its time for me to talk about my favorite phone in the house. Of > course it is black rotary W/E. > What it could use is a little bit of buffing up. It surface it > covered in light scratches that looks like someone took some steel > wool after it. Does anyone what would be the best thing to buff the > scratches out with? What the professional phone refurbishers use is a calico buff and some Tripoli paste. What I use at home that does the same job with more labour is Brasso. Disassemble the phone and using a rag, rub the plastic (ABS) shell with Brasso. Let dry and polish. Cracks can be repaired with MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone) which you can buy in paint stores. You can also use "ABS cement" which plumbing stores carry. In the good old days, when you rented your 500 sets, between customers they went back for tarting up. This was called "R&R" Repair and Refurbishment. You may notice that some phones that have been "R&Red" have been painted. Yes, you can paint phones -- any colour you want. Julian Macassey, N6ARE julian@bongo.tele.com Voice: (213) 653-4495 Paper Mail: 742 1/2 North Hayworth Avenue, Hollywood, California 90046-7142 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #368 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa00444; 2 Jun 93 19:32 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA17408 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Wed, 2 Jun 1993 16:56:35 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA17501 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Wed, 2 Jun 1993 16:55:29 -0500 Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 16:55:29 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199306022155.AA17501@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #370 TELECOM Digest Wed, 2 Jun 93 16:55:30 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 370 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Call Trace Costs (Will Martin) Useful Out-of-Order Numbers Slowly Vanishing? (Laird Broadfield) BT Freeway HELP!! (Tariq N. Ahmad) Will a Modem (and Fax) From the US Work in Italy? (Jonathan Lieberman) JM8 Modular Connector (Bruce J. Miller) White House Gets a Real Internet Address (Nigel Allen) Stutter Dial Tone Device (Mike Pollock) Avoiding Calls From Long-Distance Phone Companies (Elana Beach) Direct-Dialing Ex-Soviet Republics (Richard Budd) Princess Ringer Help (Peter A. Morenus) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 11:11:41 CDT From: Will Martin Subject: Call Trace Costs There have been some messages in the Digest over recent months discussing Call Trace and citing the costs for each call traced, as outlined in new service offers from various telcos. One thing that has struck me has been how consistently these charges have appeared to be too high. I speculate that they are priced excessively high for several reasons: 1) Because it is likely to be used as an alternative to Caller-ID subscription, the telco is pricing Call Trace so high so that anyone using it to any extent will find it cheaper to start getting Caller-ID instead. 2) If Call Trace is actually used to prosecute or in some other way act against a harassing caller, the telco will end up investing quite a bit of man-hours in the case, and even if they charge extra for a "case-preparation fee" or other added-on charges for their doing the job they should be required to do anyway, they probably will expend more on that specific case than they collected in fees for those specific calls, so they'd want to collect more from all the not-followed-up-on calls to cover the whole cost of the department. [The "everything has to be a profit center" syndrome ...] 3) They want to discourage people from using this unless the person is REALLY feeling annoyed or harassed. To me, the seemingly-universal telco attitude to this is directly contrary to principles of good public service and being supportive of the great majority of the consumers who support the telco with their monthly payments. But what can you expect from an industry which has actively encouraged the development of the "telphone boiler room" telemarketing method and the subsquent plethora of scams and impositions that telemarketers have imposed on the public? The telcos' "holier-than- thou" attitude about such abuses has always been clearly hypocritical -- they know perfectly well when and where boiler rooms are set up, and could easily nip such operations in the bud, except that they really support them for the revenue they generate. Anyway, to get back to Call Trace; the only way those high charges could be justified would be if Call Trace would operate in this fashion: When the consumer does a Call Trace, it automatically generates a printed report on a postcard, which is put into the next day's mail to the billing address for the line that originated the Call Trace. This card would actually show the number that was traced, plus the billing name and address for that number. it doesn't matter if it is an unlisted number or an out-of-area number or any other "unusual" situation. if someone is annoyed enough by a phone call to do a "Call Trace" on it, they are OWED this information! The data on these telco-generated cards are also kept in a database for future reference in case of legal action. The telco cards themselves can be used as evidence in legal proceedings. (In the vast majority of cases, the fact that the callee can discover the caller's identity, or at least the phone's location, will stop future harrassment calls after the callee gets the card and confronts the caller or phone owner. It won't help all that much for payphone-originated calls, but it will kill off the 90% done by kids from their home phones.) I would consider that an accumulation of Call Trace records for a given calling line should be considered as grounds for discontinuing telephone service to that location or individual. It can't be automatic or strict, since such discontinuance-of-service-for-cause would have to be done on a case-by-case basis, but I would hope that a history of making annoyance calls could be somehow tied to an individual as easily and as tightly as a bad credit history is. Sure there are ways around it, but it is at least something. And it would be yet another way for "computer error" to falsely label an innocent individual. So that would have to be done carefully. Now, there are objections that come immediately to mind -- one is that a non-harrassing call from an unlisted phone can be Call-Traced and thus the "non-published" aspect of the calling phone line is lost. As someone who doesn't have an unlisted number, but is in the phone book along with the rest of the real people in this country, I really don't have much sympathy with those who feel they are so high and mighty they need unlisted phone service. But that's my personal opinion. If there is some way to get around this but still give really usable Call Trace results to the consumer for the first and single harrassing call, I'd like to learn it. I'd consider making Call Trace available only to residential lines, for example, though that could easily be worked-around by a company collecting non-published number data this way. Another possibility is to limit the Call Trace to a small number per line per month, but then the really harassed person is punished. In what other ways should the existing Call Trace procedure be changed so as to really benefit the consumer -- the ordinary person who does not use the phone to annoy people, but just relies on it as a tool to get thru daily life? Maybe if we can get a list together of needed changes, we can each use them when contacting our local PUCs or equivalents when the local telco presents rate-increase requests. Will ------------------------------ From: lairdb@crash.cts.com Subject: Useful Out-of-Order Numbers Slowly Vanishing? Date: 2 Jun 93 13:30:24 GMT Well, I'm a little disappointed to see some that at least one of the perpetually out of order numbers I've used for years for testing has died entirely, and a couple of others have become less interesting. +49 30 123456 seems to have gone entirely. This was the first relly intersting OO I got; I've been using it for at least 12 years. It would answer with SIT, then an announcement in German. More interesting yet, when Germany "unified", the announcement changed to SIT and a different (and much grumpier) voice with a different announcement. Now it's just a fast busy (generated I know not where.) +81 3 5275 0000 I got this one from the Digest a couple of years back. Until lately it gave a *great* SIT/voice announcement, terrific quality, with music in the background, first in Japanese, then in English, to the effect that you had reached the "telephone office of KDD Japan ..." Now it has no SIT, and says something in Japanese followed by reading a string of digits (which I'm not patient enough to figure out, but I don't think it matches the number I dialed.) +1 819 793 1234 used to give SIT, then what someone claimed was an Eskimo OO announcement, now there's not SIT, but there's a (language?) announcement, followed by an English announcement. According to the quickie NANP table I've got, that's Quebec&NWT. +1 809 755 9950 Actually, I can't remember if this used to have SIT or not, but it doesn't any more. I don't think it used to have Spanish then English, either (same voice). (I think it's Spanish -- it doesn't sound quite round enough for Portugese.) My table shows this a the Carribean. Anybody got any other interesting OOs, or get any different results calling these? Laird P. Broadfield lairdb@crash.cts.com ...{ucsd, nosc}!crash!lairdb Hi! I'm a shareware signature! Send $5 if you use me, send $10 for manual! [Moderator's Note: Does anyone recall what 809 number it is/was that when dialed was intercepted with a recording which said "The number you have dialed is restricted from international calling; please hang up and try your call again. This is a Cable and Wireless recording." Hang up and try the call again? What for? If the number is restricted now it will be when I redial in a few seconds also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ahmadt@project4.computer-science.manchester.ac.uk (Tariq N Ahmad) Subject: BT Freeway HELP!! Date: 2 Jun 93 14:34:22 GMT Hi Y'All, I recently got hold of a BT Freeway (yes I know they're old) cordless phone. I can hear people on the other end clearly but they complain of not being able to hear me. The phone has few toggles and things, but I haven't a clue as to what they're for. Does anyone have a manual or any other advice?? Please mail me directly if at all possible. Thanks. ahmadt@cs.man.ac.uk ------------------------------ From: lie6@midway.uchicago.edu (Jonathan Lieberman) Subject: Will a Modem (and Fax) From the US Work in Italy? Reply-To: lie6@midway.uchicago.edu Organization: The University of Chicago Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 14:37:39 GMT My boss is going to Italy for the summer, and wants to know whether the phone system there is compatible with the American modem in his pc and an American fax machine. I know that the electricity is 220v but you can get an adapted fo that. Thanks. Jonathan Lieberman lie6@midway.uchicago.edu The University of Chicago ------------------------------ From: miller@VFL.Paramax.COM (Bruce J. Miller) Subject: JM8 Modular Connector Organization: Paramax Systems Corp, Valley Forge Labs, Paoli, PA Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 18:44:49 GMT We are going to be using a number of Codex 3600 modems designed for analog leased line used. Codex says in their manual that the proper plug to use is a USOC JM8. The cables supplied with the modem have these wide modular plugs with only the outer pairs of pins used for the four wire line - the center four contacts are unused. The following note is also contained in the manual: Note: The RJ series of jacks should not be used to connect data equipment to non-switched private line networks. There is a substantial difference in transmit levels permitted in the private line service and those permitted in the public switched network. 8-pin USOC JM8 modular jacks should be used for connection to non-switched private line networks. [end of manual note] Several questions I hope someone in the know can answer: Is a JM8 mechanically interchageable with an RJ45? If this is true, can we use RJ45's to connect two modems back to back if their xmit levels are set down to -15 dbm (instead of the 0 dbm used for leased lines)? (Codex says back-to-back operation at -15 dbm is permissible.) Again, if the two plugs are mechanically compatible, what bad things will happen if an RJ45 is used at 0 dbm in a leased line connection? (Crosstalk, smoke, fire?!!) Enquiring minds want to know ... Any enlightenment would be appreciated, email preferred, but post if you think this is of general interest. miller@gvls1.vfl.paramax.com (Bruce J. Miller) (or 72247.202@compuserve.com) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 00:02:42 EDT From: ae446@freenet.carleton.ca (Nigel Allen) Subject: White House Gets a Real Internet Address Organization: Echo Beach Reply-To: ae446@freenet.carleton.ca Here is a press release from the White House. I downloaded the press release from the PR On-Line BBS in Maryland at 410-363-0834. Letter from President Clinton, Vice President Gore Announcing White House Electronic Mail Access Contact: White House Office of Media Affairs, 202-456-7150 WASHINGTON, June 1 -- Following is a letter from President Clinton and Vice President Gore announcing White House electronic mail access: Dear Friends: Part of our commitment to change is to keep the White House in step with today's changing technology. As we move ahead into the twenty-first century, we must have a government that can show the way and lead by example. Today, we are pleased to announce that for the first time in history, the White House will be connected to you via electronic mail. Electronic mail will bring the Presidency and this Administration closer and make it more accessible to the people. The White House will be connected to the Internet as well as several on-line commercial vendors, thus making us more accessible and more in touch with people across this country. We will not be alone in this venture. Congress is also getting involved, and an exciting announcement regarding electronic mail is expected to come from the House of Representatives tomorrow. Various government agencies also will be taking part in the near future. Americans Communicating Electronically is a project developed by several government agencies to coordinate and improve access to the nation's educational and information assets and resources. This will be done through interactive communications such as electronic mail, and brought to people who do not have ready access to a computer. However, we must be realistic about the limitations and expectations of the White House electronic mail system. This experiment is the first-ever e-mail project done on such a large scale. As we work to reinvent government and streamline our processes, the e-mail project can help to put us on the leading edge of progress. Initially, your e-mail message will be read and receipt immediately acknowledged. A careful count will be taken on the number received as well as the subject of each message. However, the White House is not yet capable of sending back a tailored response via electronic mail. We are hoping this will happen by the end of the year. A number of response-based programs which allow technology to help us read your message more effectively, and, eventually respond to you electronically in a timely fashion will be tried out as well. These programs will change periodically as we experiment with the best way to handle electronic mail from the public. Since this has never been tried before, it is important to allow for some flexibility in the system in these first stages. We welcome your suggestions. This is an historic moment in the White House and we look forward to your participation and enthusiasm for this milestone event. We eagerly anticipate the day when electronic mail from the public is an integral and normal part of the White House communications system. President Clinton Vice President Gore PRESIDENT@WHITEHOUSE.GOV VICE.PRESIDENT@WHITEHOUSE.GOV ----------------- Nigel Allen, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ae446@freenet.carleton.ca ------------------------------ From: Mike.Pollock@p19.f228.n2613.z1.fidonet.org (Mike Pollock) Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1993 00:18:25 -0500 Subject: Stutter Dial Tone Device > A few weeks ago there was a post about a device called the "Call > Alert", which is a light that indicates pending voice mail, which > could otherwise be detected only by picking up the handset and > hearing "stutter tone" -- interrupted dial tone. I called Hello Direct > as suggested in the posting, but they said the item had been > discontinued. > Is there an alternative available? Try the: PHONE LABS STUTTER DIAL DETECTION UNIT MODEL STD1 BASIC FEATURES o Voice Messaging Stutter Dial Detection o Message Waiting Light Indicator o Automatic Message Light Off o Manual Message Light Off Button o Wall, Desk or Phone Mount o A/C Adapter Included o Test Mode o Includes Modular Telephone Cord o Two-Year Limited Warranty. To find a local dealer: PhoneLabs 757 Third Avenue New York, NY 10017 212 752-9300 212 755-2709 Fax Mike ------------------------------ From: elana@netcom.com (Elana Beach) Subject: Avoiding Calls From Long-Distance Phone Companies Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 04:50:11 GMT Lately I have started to notice a veeeeeery interesting pattern on my incoming calls ... there have been times when I answered the phone with my usual "Hello, this is Elana" and the line seemed to be dead ... no noise of any kind. Puzzled me, wondering what was going on, would keep repeating "hello" like anyone. Then something would come alive on the other end, an operator would say: "Hello is this Elana ______?" as if they hadn't heard my usual greeting. I soon got wise, and learned to recognize a call from my now-former LD carrier as soon as I heard (or rather didn't hear) no sound on the line after I answered. This was quite handy because I had a bit of a bill dispute with them awhile back. Being able to recognizTXTze an incoming call from them helped to me to avoid I them when I needed to. (Fortunately the bill situation is now being resolved and I have switched to MCI from Sprint.) Today I used this knowledge to very humorous advantage against AT&T. Phone rang, I answered with usual default greeting and the line again seemed to be dead. I just waited, thinking that Sprint had no reason to call me now. Then the line came alive with an AT&T sales-pitch-er on the line, asking for me by full name. AH-HA!!! Time for some fun. I said, "Sorry, she's not here." Woman asked when I'd be back. Said I, "Not for several months. Elana's out of the country until then." The sales woman asked if *I* could make a long-distance carrier decision for this number she was calling. Said I: "I don't think so. Elana would KILL me!" The nice AT&T saleslady concluded that it probably would not be worth trying to call for awhile in that case, and then politely hung up. Didn't even ask when that Elana character was due to come back home to the States! Nice way to avoid any sales pitches from AT&T for awhile! In the meanwhile ... Could someone tell me what kind of mechanism is happening here? Why does it sound like a dead line IN THE FIRST PLACE right after I answer the phone??? Keep smilin'! :) Elana [Moderator's Note: What you have here are companies (various, not just telcos; the bill collectors use these a lot also) whose time is so valuable to them -- they could care less ahout *your* time -- that they have a type of computer which dials ahead of the solicitors (clerks, collectors) and gets the next call recipient on the line ready to listen to the pitch. Once the machine, which is programmed to recognize some speech hears 'hello', it immediatly signals a person at the other end to pick up a phone and start the conversation, usually by switching the call through something similar to an automatic call distributor to the first available agent/clerk position. That person then automatically gets a display on their tube showing what number they are talking to, what the call is to be about (will you sign up with us, pay your bills, whatever) and commences the conversation. Where things go awry sometimes is the 'dialer' -- as the machine is called -- gets too far ahead of the clerks behind it. It has been programmed for about how long a call will last, and when that time is up it places the next call. The clerks get backlogged, the 'dialer' has detected a 'hello' (or some speech pattern from the place it called) but it has no one available to give the call to ... it is supposed to remain silent after hearing an answer and simply give the call to someone -- anyone free to place another call -- at the company. That is why after a few seconds of silence, you heard someone come on the line and ask 'is this so and so?'; most people do not respond with their name as part of the answer-phrase, at least not from their home phone. Had there been more than a few seconds delay, the machine would have started talking to you itself: a recorded voice would have said something about 'I have a very urgent call for you, and am trying to connect you now. Please hold the line.' Given another five or ten seconds, it would have repeated itself, or said said something like, 'please continue to hold, I'm trying to connect your call'. (Translation: you sit there and cool your heels. Wait until we get around to you.) They call those devices 'dialers'. Is this the height of arrogance, or am I dreaming? You see, *your* time -- you the person who was called to the phone -- is worth diddly. The minimum wage clerks behind the 'dialer' are far too busy to actually dial the number themselves when they are in a position to place a call and actually speak. The companies which make these awful devices claim the savings in time to the clerks -- the ten seconds or so they would spend manually dialing and listening to ringing before you answered -- is tremendous when totalled over a full day among all the clerks. You can do the math and figure out the total hours saved in a large phone room operation each day. Whenever I get a call from one of those machines, I *immediatly* hang up the phone unless the person behind the dial begins speaking within about three seconds of my lifting the receiver. At the first mention of 'please hold the line for an urgent call' or more than about three seconds of silence, I hang up. You should do the same. For extra points, try using *69 automatic return last call to the machine. It will just ring forever, or maybe it will answer and sit there in silence, but either way, a port on the machine has been tied up and kept from being a nuisance to other people like yourself. :) PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Jun 93 19:27:45 EDT From: Richard Budd Subject: Direct-Dialing Ex-Soviet Republics Organization: CSAV UTIA jsaker@cwis.unomaha.edu (James R. Saker Jr.) writes in TELECOM Digest V13 #354: > Speaking of rumors ... has anyone heard if any of the former Soviet > republics (Latvia, Kyrg., etc.) are direct dialable yet? According to > Sprint, AT&T and Worldcom's tariffs, they're listed independently to > allow for billing breakouts, but are still accessed by country-code 7. > Last I heard, Moscow was the only direct-dialable part of the former > USSR. All areas of the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) are direct dialable thanks to fiber optic cables strung to them from Sweden and Finland. Direct international dialing was a top priority of the newly democratic governments of all three of the Baltic states. They wanted communication from the outside world routed directly into their country and not through Moscow, as telephone and post were in the days of the USSR. Direct dialing was also the reason Estonia, Lativa, and Lithuania wanted their own Country Codes and network domain codes very quickly. The domain codes are .EE for Estonia, .LV for Latvia, .LT for Lithuania. I can't speak for Lithuania, but Estonia and Latvia also established new zip codes quickly too. I just read today that Latvia will introduce its new currency, the LAT, on June 28. Estonia introduced their currency, the KROON in September, 1992. And Vladimir Menkov wrote in TELECOM Digest V13 #363: > This is not the case. One can direct-dial telephone numbers in a > number of cities in Russia with AT&T or Sprint, including most > provincial capitals, such as Cheboksary or Murmansk. I don't have > personal experience with other ex-Soviet states, but I suppose that > many republics are accessible through 7. Most cities in Ukraine are also direct dialable. I may be in Ukraine the latter half of the year. I'll try calling the US if someone sends me some bucks. Otherwise, you'll have to settle for calls to Slovakia. Richard Budd USA-klub@maristb.bitnet CZ-budd@cspgas11.bitnet SQ-to.be.announced ------------------------------ From: Peter.A.Morenus@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu, Jr. Subject: Princess Ringer Help Date: 2 Jun 1993 19:21:32 GMT Organization: Cornell University Photography Hey, It's little, it's pretty, it lights, but it doesn't ring! Anyone know the wiring for the ringer on my Princess phone. The manufacture date is 10/63. If I remember correctly the network is a 4010. Thanks, Peter Morenus pam2@cornell.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #370 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa16013; 3 Jun 93 18:44 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA19560 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Thu, 3 Jun 1993 15:57:48 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA11112 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Thu, 3 Jun 1993 15:57:09 -0500 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 15:57:09 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199306032057.AA11112@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #371 TELECOM Digest Thu, 3 Jun 93 15:57:00 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 371 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Retaliatory Crimes (Paul Robinson) Advantages of Pre-pay Phone Cards (Henry E. Schaffer) Replacement Antenna For Cellular "Bagphone"? (Jim Kresse) U.S. GAO Report: Telephone Interruptions (Jim M. Bowden) Voice/Fax Line Sharing (Reid Goldsborough) States of Phone Line/Detecting Offhook From Another Room (Randall Smith) Modem Waiting for the BONG (Edwin Slonim) Network Service Provider Information Wanted (Eelco H. Essenberg) Motorola Tel-Locate Alpha Protocol (Bob Jaques) Videophone Information Wanted (Henry C. Schmitt) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu 3 Jun 1993 00:48:56 -0400 (EDT) From: Tansin A. Darcos & Company <0005066432@mcimail.com> Reply-To: Tansin A. Darcos & Company <0005066432@mcimail.com> Subject: Retaliatory Crimes From: Paul Robinson The Moderator of Telecom Digest, Pat Townson wrote on that mailing list (also known as the Usenet news group comp.dcom.telecom), some responses about some person or organization whose fax machine was seeking out fax numbers of other people by essentially trying every number in the Indianapolis area. He then discusses a response to a similar action: a cracker who, after 'trolling' for numbers to try, then using numbers that give what he wants, breaking into some company's system, presumably their computer system, their PBX, or both and a response by whoever the victim was. Feel free to edit this message to fit. I wanted to talk about the ethics (morality) of retaliatory responses in kind or the possibility of such actions being possible. For the IBM-PC lists, consider if someone could do this to you, i.e. call into your desktop computer and trash it. For the mainframe, ethics and objectivism lists I've sent this to, what is your opinion of the ethics of retaliatory responses, e.g. you break into my computer system, I break into yours and erase your files? For the readers of TELECOM Digest I wonder what your opinons are: Original Title: Re: Autodialer Plaguing Indianapolis PT> [Moderator's Note: [material relating to suggested responses to use on a 'trolling fax machine' deleted.] PT> The security department in one large corporation *is* responding PT> in a similar way to hackerphreaks they catch on their site: If PT> they capture the calling number, they wait a few days and call PT> back. [Item indicating caller then is able to access the called-party's machine directly and run a formatting program to damage their computer. The actual text appears below in another comment.] This assumes the called-party has a program running that would allow access to his computer's DOS from the telephone. I have seen reports about at least two programs that are used to hack phone numbers for making unauthorized calls. They are, in both of the cases I've seen, outbound dialing programs, and do not accept incoming calls. For some outside party to get access to my computer, the program that provides access would have to accept commands to be submitted to DOS, or allow me to shell to DOS. Just because a computer answers doesn't mean you can even get a response, let alone run a program or access the DOS prompt. The modem answers the phone. The computer can simply wait for an appropriate request string and if it doesn't get it, ignore further messages or even disconnect the call. One of the reports I read in Phrack [an on-line magazine devoted to cracking computers and telephone systems] stated that in one case, a BBS that people posted hacking material on answered the phone and left silence waiting for the CALLER to switch to answer mode. In some cases they might use a WATSON [a combined modem, touch-tone decoder and voice-mail box that allows the called computer to receive touch-tone responses] or similar device to require the caller to enter a touch-tone sequence. In short, some of these intruders have better incoming call security on THEIR online systems than the commercial sites they broke into! [This was Pat Townson's remarks about retaliation by companies that had been hit by crackers; 'they' probably refers to the corporate security people:] PT> If a computer answers, they proceed to format the hard PT> drive, and leave a single line textfile message saying "You PT> have been visited by someone who knows a lot more about PT> hacking than you will ever know!" ... self-help! .... don't PT> get mad; get even. PAT] Assuming this is true or that it happened, this is not a good idea. While the person in question (who was called back) is doing something wrong, the executives and security people who run their system risk that the person in question can turn around and file charges against them for the same thing. Further, since this is being done by the security department of a corporate entity, there is the possibility of the defendant (who might be looking at a trial anyway) whose lawyer will then file civil AND criminal charges of Conspiracy and Racketeering! There is also the doctrine of 'unclean hands'. It's going to be hard for them to claim damages against the cracker or criminal activity on his part when they are doing worse; (especially if what the incoming caller did essentially amounted to stealing computer time or phone service. In his case, it constitutes mere 'embezzlement', 'unauthorized access' or 'toll fraud'. In their case, it's 'malicious destruction of a computer system'. If someone runs unauthorized charges on my credit cards, let's say I'm stuck for the $50 fraud maximum on all of them, this will not give me permission to set fire to their car, forge documents and raid their bank account, or steal their property to make up the difference, or to break into their house and paint the inside walls black. (I've been told this is one of the worst things that can be done to someone's property is to paint their inside walls black.) Also, using retaliatory activity against someone who is alleged to commit a criminal act may *fatally damage* an attempt to prosecute them. Because if the plaintiff is doing the same thing, i.e. invading the defendant's computer system, this could be used to show that this is common practice, i.e. that the defendant didn't do anything wrong since *trained professionals* are doing the same thing, or worse. In short, unless and until a company is willing to declare the law to be nonexistent, e.g. that the government has essentially ceased to function or has become morally bankrupt, using self help is not a good idea. If you don't intend to prosecute and don't think the so-called 'victim' will, then you might get away with it. On the other hand, if it got out that the professional computer security people of a major company were involved in *intentional criminal activity*, the resulting bad publicity might be much worse. Honest professionals are not supposed to engage in 'tit-for-tat' tantrums, or 'steal from me, I burn down your house' mafia style activity. Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM ------------------------------ From: hes@ncsu.edu (Henry E. Schaffer) Subject: Advantages of Pre-pay Phone Cards Organization: North Carolina State University Date: Thu, 03 Jun 1993 17:04:19 GMT On a trip to Japan I bought one of their phone cards and was very pleased with the freedom from the hassle of carrying many coins, and the cost savings in practice. Since I was a traveler I made a number of long distance phone calls from pay phones which take either coins or cards. However they don't make change for coins - e.g. if you put in two 100 yen coins and the call charge amounts to 110 yen it keeps both coins. The card only costs you the 110 yen amount. However the major reason why I would use pre-pay cards is the ability to minimize risk. If I give a child a $5 (or whatever amount) card to call home with -- my risk is limited to the face value. If the card is lost there is no required hassle of contacting anyone or of worrying about risks. Also this situation, plus the limitation of the card to telephone calls, makes it relatively unattractive to a would-be thief. I consider these advantages to be worth much more than the minor amount of interest lost on the pre-pay deposit. Some features of the Japanese cards which are very nice, but unlikely to show up here without massive conversion of our payphones, relate to showing the user how much money is left. When the Japanese card is put into the phone slot, the digital display immediately shows the balance, and it is decremented as the phone call proceeds. After the call, the phone punches a very small hole in the card if the balance has fallen below certain intervals. This allows the user to get a rough idea of the balance by just looking at the card. henry schaffer [Moderator's Note: Your point about minimizing the risks for children is a good one, and very timely considering something which happened here yesterday. My neighbor has a seven year old child; our little one will soon be four years old, and they play together. For the older one's birthday, I got him a wallet. I used the computer to print out a very 'official-looking' ID card with his name, address, phone number and picture. Normally it is *not* wise at all to allow children in Chicago to play outside simply because of the large amount of gun fire, gang activity, molestors and other creeps who hang around on the side- walks that the police cannot get rid of without 'violating their rights' as the court would say. But a little area in back of our building is a place they can go to play ball; things like that. So he was pleased as punch about this wallet and ID card; I gave him a $2 'Talk Ticket' as well. Sure enough, outside for thirty minutes at most; two older kids came by, knocked him off his bike, stole the bike we bought him last Christmas, and stole his new wallet as well, apparently for the dollar or so in change he had in the coin part. The two of them came running in crying about the bike, the wallet, etc. The Talk Ticket was the least valuable thing of all (the little folks were not hurt other than their stuff getting stolen). It is nice that under this program, if the Talk Ticket is *registered* with the seller when you buy it, (as to your name, etc), it can be cancelled out if stolen and a replacement serial number issued by the seller. So you have 'good as cash' anomynity if desired or at least some protection on larger denomination cards if that is your preference. We (the producers and I) are thinking about a style of Talk Ticket which will be limited to 'one number calling' as well; something children could have to call home, or which could be given to children away at college to call parents, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jim@atvl.panasonic.com (Jim Kresse) Subject: Replacement Antenna For Cellular "Bagphone"? Reply-To: jim@atvl.panasonic.com Organization: Panasonic ATVL Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 14:11:58 GMT I'm looking for an antenna to replace my current "suction cup" version. Any ideas besides Radio Shack or Hello Direct? Thanks! Jim Kresse jim@atvl.panasonic.com Standard disclaimers apply ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 10:34:38 -0400 From: at507@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jim M. Bowden) Subject: U.S. GAO Report: Telephone Interruptions Reply-To: at507@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jim M. Bowden) First Copy of General Accounting Office report - free. U.S. General Accounting Office P.O. Box 6015 Gaithersburg, MD 20884-6015 Telecommunications: Interruption of Telephone Service. GAO/RCED-93-79FS, Mar. 5 (35 pages). In the fall of 1991, a long-distance carrier suffered a massive outage that cut off most long-distance communications to and from New York City. Particularly disturbing was a disruption in the region's air traffic control system, which depends on telephone lines for voice and data transmission. GAO found that more than 1,000 such outages occurred during 1990 and 1991, affecting upwards of 69 million customers. Discounting an ice storm that lasted two weeks, the average duration of the outages was 3.3 hours; about half of the outages occurred between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Local telephone companies experienced about 80 percent of these outages; they said that hardware problems, such as computer failure, and software problems, such as programming errors, were the main culprits. Long-distance companies said that cable cuts were the main reason for their disruptions. ------------------------------ From: reidg@pacs.pha.pa.us (Reid Goldsborough) Subject: Voice/Fax Line Sharing Date: 3 Jun 93 18:42:54 GMT Organization: Philadelphia Area Computer Society Help needed. I need to find a better way to share voice and fax on one phone line. I have a Practical Peripherals V.32bis fax modem, Bell of Pennsylvania's Answer Call voice mail service, ProComm Plus for Windows, and WinFax Pro. This has worked fine until now, since I wasn't getting more than an average of three faxes a week. When I was BBSing and someone called, Answer Call would kick in and the person could leave a message for me. If someone wanted to send me a fax, I asked them to call first to let me enable WinFax's automatic reception. The problem arises when I get a voice call while I'm waiting for the fax. The person making the voice call will hear the fax sounds, since WinFax will have kicked in, thinking it's receiving a fax. I've tried using WinFax's manual reception option by waiting for the phone to ring, picking up the receiver myself, and telling WinFax to receive the fax if I hear the fax sounds. But either I'm not fast enough or I disconnect the calling fax somehow. Is there a technique or trick here I'm missing? What's more, I've been getting more faxes lately -- some days as many as five faxes -- so these problems have been happening more frequently. Yet I don't think I could cost-justify adding an additional phone line at this point. Apart from the installation charges, a phone line would cost me a minimum of $7.70 a month (dial tone line plus federal line cost charge). Then there's the $1 per month touchtone charge (how necessary?). Since I do a lot of BBSing and call all over (which I'd continue to do with this dedicated modem/fax line), it might pay to subscribe to a local calling plan. But metro service costs an additional $25 a month. On the other hand, electing not to subscribe to a local calling plan would mean that I'd be charged for every local call. Anybody know how the phone company charges you for these calls? One solution might be to stay with one phone line and buy one of these line managers that are designed to let you share one line with different devices. There are different kinds of line managers, though. One kind somehow switches between voice and fax, but I've heard they're not always reliable. True? Another kind you use in conjunction with a distinction ring service like Bell of Pennsylvania's Identa Ring service. This service lets you use two phone numbers with one phone line, each of which rings with its own distinctive ringing pattern. The line manager/ring detecter detects the ringing pattern and directs the call to the appropriate device. Anybody have experience with these? Or maybe the solution is to buy a modem like the Intel Satisfaction that has built-in line management capabilities? But can it switch among modem, fax, and voice? Do you use it with the phone company's distinctive ring service? Another solution might be completely software based. I've seen some shareware programs designed to make it easier to share one phone line, but they all seem to be DOS based and pretty primitive. Anybody have experience with these, or the other things mentioned above? Thanks in advance. Reid Goldsborough reidg@pacs.pha.pa.us ------------------------------ From: randys@Think.COM (Randall Smith) Subject: States of Phone Line/Detecting Offhook From Another Room Date: 3 Jun 93 18:15:56 Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA This strikes me as an FAQ kind of question, but I couldn't find this group's FAQ on ftp.uu.net. So my zeroth question is: does this group have an FAQ and where can I find it? The real question: I am interested in building a little box that can be inserted inline between a jack and a phone/computer which will have a light on it indicating whether or not that phone line is offhook anywhere else in the house. I think I know enough basic electronics to do the job, but I need to know: 1) What states can a computer line be in and how can you identify them electronically? I count three: on-hook, off-hook (talking), and ringing. However, I don't know what these look line on the phone line. 2) What's the maximum load I can place on an incoming line without messing up the phones on that line or the phone companies circuits? Thanks much for any assistance! Randall Smith randys@think.com [Moderator's Note: The Telecom FAQ is free for the asking; I post it in the comp.dcom.telecon newsgroup about once a month more or less. It goes out to new subscribers to the mailing list, and it can be obtained using anonymous ftp from the Telecom Archives at lcs.mit.edu. Also, I believe the schematic you are seeking is filed in the Archives. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 05:39:40 PST From: Edwin Slonim Subject: Modem Waiting for the BONG Is there an AT command or other way of waiting for the BONG when dialing with a credit card? I call from many different locations and phone systems, sometimes via 10xxx access, and even from overseas using USA Direct. The delay until the bong varies enormously from about six seconds to more than 25. If I set my modem to wait 25 seconds after dialing, the "operator" times out, and my modem has a fruitless monologue with a real person operator. Are other tones recognizable too, like the tone from MCI 950 access? Edwin Slonim, Portable Partner Program Intel Israel, PO Box 1659, Haifa, 31072 Israel voicemail (916)356-2005, eslonim@inside.intel.com phone (011)+972-435-5910, fax (011)-972-435-5674 ------------------------------ From: essenber@dutiws.TWI.TUDelft.NL (Eelco H. Essenberg) Subject: Network Service Provider Info Wanted Organization: Delft University of Technology Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 11:28:40 GMT Hello everyone! I wonder if anyone can help with the following: I am a computer science student at Delft University of Technology, specialising in datacommunications. For my graduation research project, I am designing a datacommunications network for a company that has headquarters in Amsterdam (NL) and works with partners in ten other countries including Brazil, South Africa, US, Australia and several western European countries. At the moment, I am gathering information from the local telecom providers (PTT's, Baby Bells) to see what services are available, and what they cost. Things I'm looking into include ISDN and X25-based networks. I suspect other network service providers might also be worth looking into. I'm thinking of companies like BT Tymnet, etc. Can anybody provide me with addresses where I might contact these companies? Also, someone told me companies like IBM have their own nets and rent spare capacity to outsiders. Is this true? If so, whom should I talk to? I really hope anybody can answer these questions. Any information will be greatly appreciated. Answers here or by e-mail. Greetings from the Netherlands, and thanks in advance, Eelco ------------------------------ From: jaques@alantec.com (Bob Jaques) Subject: Motorola Tel-Locate Alpha Protocol Date: 3 Jun 93 15:04:11 GMT Organization: Alantec Is there an online copy of the communication protocol for Motorola alpha-numeric pagers? I think it is called Tel-Locate alpha protocol. Also are there any programs around that allow e-mail interface to these pagers? thanks, bob ------------------------------ From: hcs+@cs.cmu.edu (Henry C Schmitt) Subject: Videophone Information Wanted Reply-To: hcs@yoruba.slip.cs.cmu.edu Organization: Engineering Design Research Center, Carnegie Mellon Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 15:15:33 GMT I checked the FAQs and the archive on lcs.mit.edu, but I didn't see anything on this (maybe I just didn't look hard enough). Anyway, having just been given an AT&T Videophone 2500 (Grandad wants to see his new grandson) I'm interested in how it works. Could anyone point me to information on the protocol it uses? Online Info. would be preferred (obviously), but any pointers will do. Thanks a bunch! Henry C. Schmitt Engineering Design Research Center - Carnegie Mellon Home: 2863 Beechwood Blvd.,Pittsburgh, PA 15217-3114 (412) 421-8482 Work: 2212 Hamburg Hall,5000 Forbes Ave,Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (412) 268-2257 E-Mail: InterNet: hcs@cmu.edu CIS: 72275,1456 AppleLink, AOL, GEnie: H.Schmitt ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #371 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa17595; 3 Jun 93 19:36 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA10913 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Thu, 3 Jun 1993 17:01:31 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA12384 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Thu, 3 Jun 1993 17:00:04 -0500 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 17:00:04 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199306032200.AA12384@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #372 TELECOM Digest Thu, 3 Jun 93 17:00:00 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 372 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson BT to Buy MCI for $4.3 Billion (Paul Robinson) BT Buys Chunk of MCI (Tyson MacAulay) TAPI v Novell/AT&T CTI(CIT) Specs (Nigel Roles) House of Representatives On-Line (Mark Boolootian) FreeNet Communities (Laine Ruus) Clinton Goes Online with E-Mail (Paul Robinson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: Paul Robinson Date: Thu, 03 Jun 1993 17:02:54 EDT Subject: BT to Buy MCI for $4.3 Billion Summary (From Combined Dispatches) [This article was the front-page story in the {Financial Times of London}, the {International Herald Tribune}, the {Washington Post} and the {Washington Times}. Special interest here since MCI is a Washington, DC based company.] British Telecom is planning to spend US $4.3 billion to purchase 20% of MCI Telecommunications Corp of Washington, DC. The two will also form a US $1 billion joint venture as yet unnamed, to be owned 25% by BT and 75% by MCI. The joint venture will be based either in London or in Washington, will initially employ 1,000 people and could expand to as many as 3,000 employees. The announcement comes after last week's announcement by AT&T that it is entering into partnerships with Singapore Telephone and Japan's Kokusai Denshin Denwa Co. According to comments made, MCI "serves 498 or 499 of the 500 largest companies in the U.S. in some fashion." BT will purchase several hundred million shares of Treasury stock that MCI will issue for the purchase. The stock will include options to obtain an additional 5% of MCI's stock, bringing the eventual total to 25%, the maximum foreign ownership permitted of a U.S. Telephone company. BT will obtain most of the cash for the deal from the (earlier reported) sale of its ownership in McCaw Cellular to AT&T. The purchase price means that BT is paying about $64 a share for the MCI stock it is getting. Current stock price for MCI is reported at $52 a share. BT apparently wants to obtain more penetration into the American telecommunications market and was dissatisfied with the performance it was(n't) getting from McCaw. This action by BT may make it easier for AT&T to ask the British Government to allow entry into telephone service in the U.K. Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM ------------------------------ From: tmacaula@ccs.carleton.ca (Tyson MacAulay) Subject: BT Buys Chunk of MCI Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 11:09:27 EDT From the {Financial Post} (Canada), June 3, 1993 * Dialing into a new international order: Behind the British Telecom-MCI link up* By Andrew Adonis and Nikki Tait British Telecommunications PLC has been dating MCI Communications Corp. for almost three years, so news that they are going up the aisle does not come out of the blue. Yet BT's purchase of a 20% stake in MCI for US$4.3 billion marks a significant departure in international telecommunications. A telling tribute came from the new partnership's arch-competitor: American Telephone & Telegraph Corp., the largest U.S. carrier. "We're pro competition and there's a good competitor shaping up out there," said John Foster, AT&T's European communications services director. The partnership comprises two interrelated deals: the establishment of a US$1-billion joint venture company, 75% owned by BT, to pioneer global services and pool technical and marketing resources; and the purchase of 20% of MCI by BT, slightly offset by the acquisition of BT's fledgling North American business for US$125 million. For BT, the joint venture marks a further stage in the privatized British carrier's battle with AT&T to become the leading supplier of international voice and data services to the world's 2,500 multinationals. The stake in MCI creates a safe -- and, it hopes, profitable -- haven for a fair part of BT's growing cash mountain, putting it beyond the grasp of British regulators and shareholders calling for larger dividends. MCI gains international clout from the alliance-much needed in its own battle with AT&T. BT's US$4.3-billion cash injection also gives it investment opportunities. Bert Roberts, MCI's chief executive, refused to say what they might be, but noted the increased competition in the U.S. local telecommunications market with the expansion of cable services. How does the British investment community view the alliance? With the last kanche of BT shares about to reach the market, analysts suggested yesterday that it would be likely to strengthen the company's appeal to overseas investors, but could weaken it at home. BT is not getting its chunk of MCI cheap. In the past 18 months, MCI's share price has risen to US$52 from US$30, and BT is offering US$64. "There is a feeling that the stake is nothing more than a massive portfolio investment," said one London analyst. "MCI's share performance since early 1992 is incredible. BT could be paying over the odds; on the other hand, it can't any longer be accused of lacking an international strategy." Much depends upon the viability of BT's global strategy. Targeting the "outsourcing" needs of multinationals is the fashion of the day and could yield large dividends as demand for high-technology international value-added services grows. But the number of multinationals is small and servicing them can only be one part of an international strategy. Furthermore, BT's investment record in North America is not unblemished. Last year it sold its stake in Canada's Mitel Corp. at a loss, it has made little money out of McCaw Cellular Communications Inc., the U.S. mobile phone group, which it is about to sell to AT&T and Syncordia, its U.S.-based global out sourcing subsidiary, has still to make an impact. BT chairman Iain Vallance brushed such qualms aside yesterday, pointing to MCI's proven record in capturing market share in the U.S. The BT alliance is a staging post in MCI's remarkable ascent. Starting life in the 1960s as Microwave Communications (filing licences to build a network of microwave towers that connected 17 U.S. cities), in the 1980s it became David taking on the AT&T Goliath. Led by the late Bill McGowan, the upstart turned to the courts, using legal manoeuvers to pry away at the AT&T monopoly. Its opportunity came in 1984 -- coincidentally the year of BT's privatization -- when "Ma Bell" was broken up, leaving AT&T to run the long-distance phone service and the seven "Baby Bells" to handle local phone services. MCI quickly seized about 10% of the long-distance market. The going was tough. At the beginning of the decade, AT&T regained part of its lost market share and in 1990 MCI's shares plunged from a peak of US$45 to US$18. But MCI retaliated with a highly successful "Friends and Family" campaign, offering 20% discounts to groups of customers calling each other frequently, and regained its edge. The alliance comes a week after AT&T launched Worldsource, its strongest bid yet for global telecoms leadership. Although their goals are the same, AT&T and BT/MCI are adopting different approaches. The BT/MCI venture is an exclusive club. "We are not seeking a European partner for this deal at the moment," Vallance said. By contrast, AT&T is working through non-exclusive partnerships and is anxiously seeking a European partner for its Worldsaurce launch on the Continent next year. While BT has been courting American partners, Cable & Wireless PLC, BT's British competitor, has concentrated its energies on less glamoraus ventures, notably on taking stakes and fulfilling franchise contracts in countries with underdeveloped telecommunications systems. It remains to be seen which strategy yields the larger return. But there can be no doubt, as Vallance put it that the BT/MCI venture "sets a new pattern to global telecommunications." -------------- My Comment: This is very interesting because of the relationship that was recently established between MCI and Stentor (the consortium of regional telephone companies in Canada), will this draw Stentor into the global networking relationship do you think? One of the objects of the MCI-Stentor relationship was the provision of seamless corporate networks across North America, could it be that this relation will now include BT? If so this could be boon to Stentor in its battle to remain competitive in a freshly deregulated Canadian LD market. Tyson Macaulay Directorate of Technology and Policy Planning Communications Canada 7th floor, Journal Tower North 300 Slater street Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1A 0C8 (613) 991 4903 e-mail: tmacaula@ccs.carleton.ca tyson@debra.dgbt.doc.ca ...the usual disclaimer about not speaking for my employer...blah, blah. ------------------------------ From: nigel@cotswold.demon.co.uk (Nigel Roles) Subject: TAPI v Novell/AT&T CTI(CIT) Specs Reply-To: nigel@cotswold.demon.co.uk Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 07:26:51 +0000 Does anyone have any comments on the competing Microsoft and Novell/AT&T computer integrated telephony specs., w.r.t. their likely adoption? Here are my thoughts ... It seems that Microsoft TAPI is well published and, how shall I say, comprehensive. The Novell/AT&T spec. is not available yet, and it's parentage suggests a 'not quite so open' intention. However, being server based, it would allow access by not just PCs, but everything else as well. This would include Macs, and (ducking for cover) Mac users love total integration and toys, and (at least in the UK anyway) have money to burn so might be pioneer CTI (or is it CIT) sites. My feeling is that the relative ease of availability of the Microsoft spec., and the fact that Microsoft have a GUI, will make developers go with TAPI; this does restrict the customer base to the PC world, but that's not exactly a small market. ------------------------------ From: booloo@framsparc.ocf.llnl.gov (Mark Boolootian) Subject: House of Representatives On-Line Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 14:24:55 -0700 (PDT) Date: 03 Jun 93 15:41:15 -0500 Subject: press release TEXT OF PRESS RELEASE FROM COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DATED JUNE 3,1993 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For further information please contact: Lance Koonce (202) 225-7922 HOUSE ANNOUNCES PUBLIC ELECTRONIC MAIL SERVICE Chairman Charlie Rose and Ranking Minority Member Bill Thomas of the Committee on House Administration announced today the pilot program of the Constituent Electronic Mail System. This ground-breaking new service will allow citizens to communicate directly with their Member of Congress by electronic mail. The House of Representatives has established an electronic gateway to the Internet, the vast computer network that is used currently by over twelve million people worldwide. Participating Members of the House have been assigned public mailboxes which may be accessed by their constituents from their home computers. In addition, many libraries, schools and other public institutions now provide, or soon will provide, public access to the Internet. The Members of the House of Representatives who have agreed to participate in this pilot program are: Rep. Jay Dickey (AR-07), Rep. Sam Gejdenson (CT-02), Rep. Newt Gingrich (GA-06), Rep. George Miller (CA-07), Rep. Charlie Rose (NC-07), Rep. Fortney (Pete) Stark (CA-l3), and Rep. Melvin Watt (NC-12). These Members will be making announcements in their congressional districts within the next few weeks to make their constituents aware of the new service. The Constituent Electronic Mail System represents a significant effort by the House of Representatives to expand communication with constituents. With the tremendous growth of electronic mail over the past several years, and the increasingly inter-connected nature of computer networks, the new service is a natural addition to the current methods of communication available to constituents. At the present time, House Members involved in the pilot program will largely respond to electronic mail messages from their constituents by postal mail, to ensure confidentiality. Constituents of House Members participating in the pilot program who wish to communicate with those Members will be asked to send a letter or postcard stating their interest to the Member's office. The request will include the constituent's Internet "address," as well as that constituent's name and postal address. This process will allow Members to identify an electronic mail user as his or her constituent. The pilot e-mail program will continue until sufficient feedback from participating offices has been collected to allow improvements and modifications to the system. When House Information Systems and the Committee on House Administration are satisfied that the system is sufficiently error-free, other Members of the House will be allowed to add this new service as technical, budgetary and staffing concerns allow. For more information,Internet users are encouraged to contact the House of Representative's new on-line information service. Please send a request for information to CONGRESS@HR.HOUSE.GOV (1) (1) Please be advised that the commercial "at" symbol is not recognized by some computer systems when transmitted electronically. The "at" symbol is an important part of the electronic mail address for the U.S. House information service, and should be inserted in place of the question mark in the following example: "CONGRESS?HR.HOUSE.GOV" ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 11:05:04 -0400 Reply-To: freenet-admin@nptn.org From: Laine Ruus Subject: FreeNet Communities This is a list of the various places where FreeNet is running, or is in the works ... Laine G.M. Ruus Bitnet : laine@utorvm Data Library Service Internet : laine@vm.utcc.utoronto.ca University of Toronto NATIONAL PUBLIC TELECOMPUTING NETWORK Affiliates and Organizing Committees (May 1993) COMMUNITY COMPUTER SYSTEMS Big Sky Telegraph - Dillon, Montana Modem: 406-683-7680 Internet: 192.231.192.1 Visitor login: bbs Buffalo Free-Net - Buffalo, New York Modem: 716-645-6128 Internet: freenet.buffalo.edu Visitor login: freeport Cleveland Free-Net - Cleveland, Ohio Modem: 216-368-3888 Internet: freenet-in-a.cwru.edu Visitor login: Select #2 at first menu Columbia Online Information Network (COIN) - Columbia, Missouri Modem: 314-884-7000 Internet: bigcat.missouri.edu Visitor login: guest Denver Free-Net - Denver, Colorado Modem: 303-270-4865 Internet: freenet.hsc.colorado.edu Visitor login: guest Heartland Free-Net - Peoria, Illinois Modem: 309-674-1100 Internet: heartland.bradley.edu Visitor login: bbguest Lorain County Free-Net - Elyria, Ohio Modem: 216-366-9721 Internet: freenet.lorain.oberlin.edu Visitor login: guest Medina County Free-Net - Medina, Ohio Modem: 216-723-6732 Internet: National Capital Free-Net - Ottawa, Canada Modem: 613-780-3733 Internet: freenet.carleton.ca Visitor login: guest Tallahassee Free-Net - Tallahassee, Florida Modem: 904-488-5056 Internet: freenet.fsu.edu Visitor login: visitor Tristate Online - Cincinnati, Ohio Modem: 513-579-1990 Internet: cbos.uc.edu Visitor login sequence: cbos, visitor, 9999, Victoria Free-Net - Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Modem: 604-595-2300 Internet: freenet.victoria.bc.ca Visitor login: guest Wellington Citynet - Wellington, New Zealand Modem: +64-4-801-3060 Internet: kosmos.wcc.govt.nz Visitor login: Youngstown Free-Net - Youngstown, Ohio Modem: 216-742-3072 Internet: yfn.ysu.edu Visitor login: visitor STATEWIDE EDUCATIONAL NETWORK AFFILIATES California Online Resources for Education (CORE) - Seal Beach, CA Virginia Public Education Network (VaPEN) - Richmond, Virginia SENDIT - Fargo, North Dakota NPTN/AMERITECH LEARNING VILLAGES (Proposed sites for September 1993 openings) Learning Village Milwaukee - Milwaukee, Wisconsin Home Learning Link - Chicago, Illinois Home Learning Link - Indianapolis, Indiana Home Learning Link - Detroit, Michigan Learning Village Cleveland - Cleveland, Ohio NPTN FORMAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEES Abilene, TX Honolulu, HI Akron, OH Huntsville, AL Anchorage, AK Los Angeles (Central), CA Ann Arbor, MI Los Angeles (Valley), CA Battle Creek, MI New Orleans, LA Bayreuth, Germany Oklahoma City, OK Bremerton, WA Orange County, CA Carbondale, IL Palm Beach, FL Champaign-Urbana, IL Providence, RI Chapel Hill, NC San Luis Obispo, CA Charlotte, NC Santa Barbara, CA Dallas, TX Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Dayton, OH South Bend, Indiana Detroit, MI Seattle, WA Eau Claire, WI Tampa, FL Edmonton, Alberta Tempe, AZ Elliot Lake, Ontario Toronto, Ontario Erlangen, Germany Trail, British Columbia Gainesville, FL Traverse City, MI Granger, IN Tuscaloosa, AL Grass Valley, CA Vancouver, British Colum. Helsinki, Finland Washington, DC For More Information on NPTN Contact: National Public Telecomputing Network P.O. Box 1987 Cleveland, Ohio 44106 Voice: 216-247-5800 FAX: 216-247-3328 e.mail: info@nptn.org Or visit our anonymous ftp site at: nptn.org (cd into: /pub/info.nptn) Tom Grundner President, National Public Telecomputing Network e.Mail: tmg@nptn.org Voice: 216-247-5800 FAX: 216-247-3328 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 00:59:24 -0400 (EDT) From: Tansin A. Darcos & Company <0005066432@mcimail.com> Reply-To: Tansin A. Darcos & Company <0005066432@mcimail.com> Subject: Clinton Goes Online with E-Mail Just reported today (6/2) on page F3 of {The Washington Post}: "Move over 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Bill Clinton has a second address: president@whitehouse.gov". Several paragraphs later, it reports: "People who send complaints or praise by E-Mail won't reach the president directly or jump the queue in getting attention. The messages will be read by the White House correspondence staff, with the same priority as paper letters. A sampling will be show to the president and Vice President Al Gore, who made White House E-Mail a personal priority. (His address: vice.president@whitehouse.gov)." "The White House already had addresses with three commercial E-Mail services. Through them, it was receiving as many as 5,000 messages a week." The article later points out that the messages were sent using sneakernet, i.e. copied to diskette and carried by mail or courier. In the article, it kept printing the E-Mail addresses such that the line breaks kept making the system divide the messages as "president@whi-tehouse.gov" or also, in the second place, the address "vice.president@white-house.gov". So I decided to see if it really was on line, or if the Post had made a mistake; I telnetted to rs.internic.net and did a lookup: Whois: whois whitehouse.gov Executive Office of the President USA (WHITEHOUSE-HST) 198.137.240.100 WHITEHOUSE.GOV Whitehouse Public Access (WHITEHOUSE-DOM) Whois: whitehouse-dom Whitehouse Public Access (WHITEHOUSE-DOM) Executive Office of the President USA Office of Administration Room NEOB 4208 725 17th Street NW Washington, D.C. 20503 Domain Name: WHITEHOUSE.GOV Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Fox, Jack S. (JSF) fox_j@EOP.GOV (202) 395-7323 Record last updated on 26-May-93. Domain servers in listed order: WHITEHOUSE.GOV 198.137.240.100 NS.UU.NET 137.39.1.3 whois: The article mentions that selected items will be shown to the President and the Vice President directly. So here's your chance to send positive comments directly as E-Mail, or, if desired, to vent your spleen without delay! Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #372 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa03814; 4 Jun 93 5:17 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA03852 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Fri, 4 Jun 1993 02:32:41 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA03191 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Fri, 4 Jun 1993 02:32:01 -0500 Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 02:32:01 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199306040732.AA03191@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #373 TELECOM Digest Fri, 4 Jun 93 02:29:30 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 373 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Opinions Wanted: Future of Healthcare Telecom (Bob Ackley) French Phone Electronic Directory in Italian Language (Jean-Bernard Condat) Pager/Beeper in Boston and NYC (Julia Young) Zoom Modem Fuse Problem (Bob Natale) Calling Cards Based on Phone Number (Ole J. Jacobsen) MCI Enters $200M Data Agreement (Paul Robinson) Spuyten Duyvil and Similar Areas (Carl Moore) Denial of Service Attacks (Jeffrey Jonas) MCI Sends Erroneous Bill - Refuses To Send Corrected Bill (Sandip Dasgupta) Anonymous FTP Sites For GSM Information (Sirbjit Birdi) "ZEnith" Prefix? (Justin Leavens) Questions About a 1A2 System (Ken Reinert) Telecom Trip Report: Deaver, WY (Lou Fernandez) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 04 Jun 93 04:02:05 GMT From: Bob.Ackley@axolotl.omahug.org (Bob Ackley) Subject: Opinions Wanted: Future of Healthcare Telecom Reply-To: bob.ackley@axolotl.omahug.org In a message of <25 May 93 21:56:47>, Harold Hallikainen (11:30102/2) writes: > I have limited contact with the health care industry, so my > perceptions may be way off. However, it appears that doctors seem to > work very independently. It seems that they would benefit from > newsgroups (like this) where one can say "I've got a patient with > these symptoms, any comment?" My supervisor (where I teach part time) > did a lot of computer research on what was ailing his wife. It took a > week or so before the local doctors could figure out what the problem > was. The community we have thru Usenet is really great! Doctors otta > use it! While doctors work independently, for a multitude of reasons they are becoming more closely tied to hospitals. And they are definitely 'wired in' to various on-line systems such as the diagnostic you note above. I've read about at least one dial-up AI diagnostic system which has a vast library of common and obscure ailments, physician dials in and works directly with the computer to narrow down the diagnosis. Several doctors are also BBS SYSOPs (where do they find the time?), but I don't know how successful they've been in that endeavor -- remote symptom diagnosis and advice is risky at least from the liability standpoint. Of course, there's Dean Edell on talk radio but I've only heard him advise people to see their doctor quickly if he perceives a problem -- I don't think he's actively treating patients anyway. In any case, many doctors' offices are now hooked up to hospital mainframe systems and can retrieve lab and xray results for their patients, among other things. I don't know if they can enter doctors' orders for treatment, tests or prescriptions directly into the hospital computer systems - yet (it's a matter of being allowed to, the technology is already in place). It DOES reduce the necessity for many trips from the doctor's office to the hospital. AT&T has a remote system that allows a rural hospital to have xrays read by a radiologist over a phone link (VERY few rural hospitals have a radiologist anywhere near, let alone on the medical staff). I looked *VERY* closely at the B&W monitor at a demo some years ago and I could not discern any dots or scan lines, just the xray image. The rep said that the image was 1K x 1K bytes, giving 2^8 shades of gray. I think that this particular area of telecommunications can only expand. Bob's Soapbox, Plattsmouth (1:285/1.7) ------------------------------ From: jbcondat@attmail.com Date: 03 Jun 93 23:59:59 GMT Subject: French Phone Electronic Directory in Italian Language Since the beginning of February, the French "Annuaire Electronique" is available in italian language. You can access it, from France, by dialing 3614 code RAE, and from other countries, by MinitelNet or by a telephone line: +33 36 43 14 14 code RAE (Ricerca Annuario Elettronico). +----------------------------------------+ | *R*icerca | | *A*nnuario | | *E*lettronico | | | | 1 Ricerca di un abbonato | | | | 2 LA POSTA : codice di | | avviamento postale | | | | 3 Sapere tutto sull'elenco | | elettronico | | | | 4 Sapere tutto sul minitel | | | | 5 L'elenco elettronico | | e teletel dall'estero | | | |----------------------------------------| | N! scelto: ... poi Invio | | (C) France Telecom 1992 | +----------------------------------------+ For all versions, all diagnostics, instructions and list of professionnals are translate into the appropriate language. Five different options are available: "Search for a subscriber", "The Post Office: Postal Code", "All you need to know about the Electronic Directory", "All you need to know about the Minitel", "Electronic Directory and Teletel from abroad". Called the "11" in France, this service is already available in: * English: 3614 code ED [Electronic Directory]; * Spanish: 3614 code GTE [Guidia Telefonica Electronia]; * German : 3614 code ETB [Elektronisches Telefonbuch]. Jean-Bernard Condat General Secretary Chaos Computer Club France, B.P. 155, 93404 St-Ouen Cedex, France Private Address: P.O. 8005, 69351 Lyon Cedex 08, France Phone: +33 1 40101764, Fax: +33 1 47877070 InterNet: jbcondat@attmail.com or cccf@altern.com ------------------------------ From: juyoung@kiwi.ucs.indiana.edu Subject: Pager/Beeper in Boston and NYC Organization: Computer Science, Indiana University Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 17:17:58 -0500 I would like to know more info about getting a pager in New England. I am about to graduate and plan to look for a job in either Boston or NYC, so I may be travel a lot between both places. However, I don't want to miss any call that my potential employer may make. Will a pager be the best means in this situation? I am also considering have an answering machine, or a 800 number, but it would be quite expensive if I always need to make LD call to check my message and the 800 number isn't that cheap. Will I have only one number with the pager, no matter where I am in NYNEX region, and how much it would cost me? Julia ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 19:09:56 -0400 From: natale@acec.com (Bob Natale) Subject: Zoom Modem Fuse Problem Has anyone else been having problems with Zoom modems blowing fuses? We are experiencing about a 50% blow out rate within a day or two of bringing these modems on line. I don't know the actual count, but we are certainly talking about dozens of units that have failed within the past month or so. Unfortunately, we have been shipping these to our customers without unpacking and burining them in here ... which we will start doing soon if we don't get an answer. (It does *seem* that they either fail quickly, or don't fail ever!) We are using the V.32bis/external Zoom modems. We have called Zoom Telephonics, but they don't have any ideas. Any help from anyone (facts, advice, good guesses) will be appreciated. Thanks. Bob Natale American Computer 301-258-9850 [tel] Director 209 Perry Pkwy 301-921-0434 [fax] Network Mgmt Products Gaithersburg MD 20877 natale@acec.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 19:40:22 PDT From: Ole J. Jacobsen Subject: Calling Cards Based on Phone Number As you probably all know, the "old-style" callings cards are being pushed by carriers such as Sprint and MCI as well as several local operators such as Pacific Bell. The argument is that a card number based on your phone numer + PIN is "so much easier to remember." Now, let's say your phone number is 415-555-7890, Pac*Bell might give you 1234 as your PIN, MCI might give you 4321, and Sprint might give you 9876. Sprint in fact will give you a new four digit PIN for every new card you request! I don't know about MCI. So, now all of a sudden, there are several valid combinations of a four digit PIN that will work with your phone number to generate a valid card number. In other words, guessing a valid card number is becoming easier and easier as more carriers jump on this ridiculous bandwagon. Comments? Ole J Jacobsen, Editor & Publisher ConneXions--The Interoperability Report Interop Company, 480 San Antonio Road, Suite 100, Mountain View, CA 94040, Phone: (415) 962-2515 FAX: (415) 949-1779 Email: ole@interop.com [Moderator's Note: The thing is, all those different pins do not work on the same switch; thus a phreak would have the extra job of checking to see which pin worked where. The local telco's pin and AT&T's pin might both work on 1+ dialing, but the last I heard, Sprint's pins would only work when dialing via 800-877-8000. Right or wrong? Ditto the pins from MCI regards their switch. So even though you do have lots of pins which will work with some number, that does not mean they will all work on the same call dialed exactly the same way. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 21:22:28 -0400 (EDT) From: Tansin A. Darcos & Company <0005066432@mcimail.com> Reply-To: Tansin A. Darcos & Company <0005066432@mcimail.com> Subject: MCI Enters $200M Data Agreement From: Paul Robinson From the {Washington Post}, Digest, Page F2, 6/2: "MCI entered into a five-year agreement worth more than $200 million with CoREN, a recently formed organization of eight regional data networking service providers. MCI wiull provide CoREN users with access to a variety of services to transmit and receive information over the MCI network and allow CoREN users to connect to the global Internet computer network." Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 10:17:44 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Spuyten Duyvil and Similar Areas Spuyten Duyvil has been referred to as being on the Bronx side of the Harlem River but politically in the borough of Manhattan, New York City. I checked a Rand-McNally atlas and notice such an area (no name provided) on the New York City area map, and it is certainly not a remote area, which includes Broadway (U.S. Route 9) just after it crosses over from Manhattan. Assuming this is indeed the area in question, what phone exchanges would serve it, and how does it stand with reference to Bronx being moved from 212 to 718? I was just in New York City, and wish I had spotted this by then (instead, I made a quick stop in the Bronx to look for area code 718 on a pay phone). Encyclopedia Americana has a note about the Manhattan-Bronx boundary quirk: The Harlem River formerly did not connect to the Hudson except via the small Spuyten Duyvil creek. Then in 1905, the Harlem River was extended in a manmade channel to reach the Hudson, and that part of the creek not lying on the new channel was filled in. But the Manhattan- Bronx boundary stayed put, so that (part of?) the Marble Hill area ended up on the "wrong" side of the Harlem River. Other areas I can think of: 1. Carter Lake, Iowa, was or is reachable in areas 712 and 402. It's next door to Omaha, Nebraska, and ended up west of the Missouri River when the river changed course. 2. Station Square area in Pittsburgh is on the south side of the Monongahela River, but is in zipcode 15219 and gets mail and phone service from downtown (across that river). I'm not aware of any shift in that river, and there is no area code boundary there (it's all within 412). 3. Rikers Island is part of Bronx, but the Rand-McNally atlas shows it being reached via Hazen Street from Flushing, Queens, zipcode 11370. 11370 also has Rikers Island Street. Does anyone know what is on Rikers Island (is there a prison there?) and what phone exchange(s) would serve it? Bronx and Queens ended up in different area codes (212 and 718 respectively) when 718 was formed, but now Bronx has also moved to 718. 4. Roosevelt Island has its own zipcode, 10044. It's in the same set of phone exchanges as are found in nearest part of Manhattan island. To get there, either take a tramway from Manhattan or a vehicular bridge from Queens, with the latter now crossing 212/718 border. Highest house numbers on Broadway in Manhattan are 4760 thru 5170, in zipcode 10034. Lowest house numbers on Broadway in Bronx are 5171 thru 5970, in zipcode 10463, which also includes Marble Hill Avenue. Broadway 5971-out is in zipcode 10471. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 11:16:36 EDT From: jeffj%jiji@uunet.UU.NET (Jeffrey Jonas) Subject: Denial of Service Attacks In a recent article, Pat suggested using call return to tie up a telemarketer's phone line. What can I, a mere subscriber do, should somebody set their daemon dialer to my number and repeatedly dial me? I'd use call trace a few times, but I really lose all control of the phone. If I leave it on hook, it'll ring. Turning off the ringers is just ignoring the problem. Go off hook and I'm accepting the call. If I get to a dial tone, I've got to place a call or I'll get the "please hang up" and the siren since dial tone is extended only for about half a minute. (If I could hold the dial tone for a while, I'd just stay off hook for hours at a time and then dial my call when I'm ready. I know that's terribly antisocial, but if I'm on deadline, I want to call OUT and not let anybody call IN). I guess what I'm asking is "is there a way I can set my phone to deny ALL incoming calls." Yes -- temporarily block ALL incoming calls. (hmmm -- I don't subscribe to such services, but I suppose I could forward all incoming calls to another number, and still place outgoing phone calls. I wonder if the voice mail systems allow a vacation or night setting where ALL calls go to the answering system without even ringing. I guess I should have specified that I want a way to do this as a casual user, on demand, without subscribing to the service and paying monthly charges whether or not it's used). Yes, I understand that to deny me use of my phone, the prankster is tying up his phone line as well. But perhaps the prankster has all day, and use of somebody else's line. (As a curiousity -- do ISDN phones allow you to drop calls without answering? That would allow call block with on premesis equipment) Jeffrey Jonas jeffj@panix.com [Moderator's Note: If someone 'has set their Demon Dialer to ring you over and over' you have an *excellent* case for taking that person to court in a criminal action. Why don't you get two lines, and have one of them wired from telco for outgoing service only and the other wired for incoming service only. The one wired for incoming service only goes to an answering machine (or voicemail) and has a bell you can easily turn off and on at will. That is one way of solving it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 11:26:32 -0700 From: News Admin Subject: MCI Sends Erroneous Bill - Refuses to Send Corrected Bill Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 18:26:28 GMT Yesterday, I received my phone bill from Pacific Bell, which also contained long distance charges from MCI. The amounts of the bill looked rather high (for the MCI portions of the bill) and so I began checking out the figures and guess what I found! All the calls to INDIA had been billed at an arbitary rate! So, I called the MCI customer service line and she told me the following: a) They were aware of a billing error for the months of April and May. b) They would issue me a credit for the amount in error. c) When I asked for a revised bill, they refused. When I asked for the supervisor, she too refused! She claimed that it was MCI's policy not to send a revised invoice. d) I was told that this error had happened for ALL calls made to INDIA. However, they would issue credits ONLY to customers who called their customer service. Others would still be billed for higher amounts. When I asked that they publicly issue an advertisement/or broadcast a message indicating the billing error, they said it was not their policy to do so. I was rather surprised that a phone company could send an erroneous bill and then get away without sending a revised bill. Would they have done the same if they had undercharged me, instead of overcharging me ? Also, is their some goverment regulatory agency to which I could complain about the "MCI policy"? Any specific department in FCC? Should I be complaining to the PUC? Any information will be greatly appreciated. Sandip Dasgupta Hewlett-Packard ------------------------------ From: Sirbjit Birdi Subject: Anonymous FTP Sites For GSM Information Organization: Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 19:47:11 GMT I'm currently doing abit of research on GSM standards. Can anyone tell me (email) if there is an anonymous FTP site on the INTERNET, which has a archive of material on GSM (ie. any information such as standards, news, or even product/services offered.) Thanks, Sirbjit Birdi (alias Serge) DC92SSB@brunel.ac.uk [Moderator's Note: What you do is tell them it is your policy not to pay bills without an invoice to pay from, and that the invoice has to match the amount of the check being written. Tell them your accountant insists on it. Then, just refuse to pay until a correct invoice shows up. It happens all the time. You will eventually get the invoice that way. No matter what anyone says, just keep asking for a correct invoice to be tendered. Don't bother calling the PUC or asking for a supervisor; just keep asking for an invoice. Chances are you won't get one until the point it goes into collection -- but then when the collector makes demand for payment you repeat yourself again: 'send me an invoice'. If you withhold payment you may find however they *do* put the credit through with the end result being the charges *will* show up in the correct amount, but 'past due' on the next bill. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 16:01:24 -0800 From: leavens@bmf.usc.edu (Justin Leavens) Subject: "ZEnith" Prefix I bought a California roadmap this weekend to see if I could find a way around holiday traffic for my return trip (and the answer is *no*). But I was interested to see on the map instructions for reaching the California Highway Patrol from a regular phone (not a call-box) in the event you needed to. The directions were to dial '0' for the operator, and to ask the operator to connect you to "ZEnith 1-2000". This was a fairly recently published map, and I was kinda curious if anyone knew anything about what exactly this was? Obviously some kind o' internal thing. Justin Leavens : Microcomputer Specialist : University of Southern California leavens@bmf.usc.edu My opinion is that my opinions are my opinions [Moderator's Note: 'Zenith' plus four digits (I never saw it expressed as 'ZEnith-1' before) was the name some telcos used for automatic rev- erse charge service prior to the implementation of 800 service nearly thirty years ago. Most telcos called it 'Enterprise' (plus four digits) while others had 'Zenith numbers'. In any event, they were (and from what you say, *are*) nothing more or less than the ancestors to 800 service as we know it today. Long before long distance calls could be dialed direct, it was common for business places to have an Enterprise number so their customers could reach them at no charge, just like now. In those days (I think they quit issuing Enterprise/Zenith num- bers in the late 1970's, and grandfathered what subscribers still had the service) one asked the long distance operator to connect with Enterprise 5941 if you wanted to call the University of Chicago on their nickle. The long distance operator had a flip chart at hand with many notes in it; if the translation to the Enterprise/Zenith number was not listed, she called 'Rate and Route' in Morris, IL (815 + 181 for you who remember the old routines) and that bureau would look it up like any long distance point and tell the long distance operator how to get there. The operator would then connect to the translated number and make it a collect call without bothering to ask the called party if they would accept charges. Basically, just what an 800 number does today. Like 800's, Enterprise/Zenith numbers could either be national, international, or very limited in their service area. They could be be intrastate only, interstate only to nearby states, etc. They followed more or less the 'service bands' that WATS and IN-WATS (official name for 800 service) used until the cost for long distance calls dropped to the point several years ago where it was no longer practical to have limited coverage areas just to save a penny here or a half-penny there on calls. (Does *anyone* buy -- does any carrier sell -- 'banded WATS' any longer?) ... I seem to remember that the Bell System tended to use 'Enterprise' while GTE and other independent telcos tended to refer to the same service as 'Zenith'. See the file in the Telecom Archives 'enterprise.funny.numbers' for a history on this. As 800 service became universal and widely accepted in the late 1960's, Enterprise/Zenith began fading away. And you say there is still one in California! My, my! PAT] ------------------------------ From: reinert@cs.odu.edu (Ken Reinert) Subject: Questions About a 1A2 System Date: 3 Jun 1993 15:44:21 GMT Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Va Here are a few (hopefully simple) questions that the 1A2 gurus can answer :) These involve a small 1A2 system, three lines coming in and an intercom between stations (eight or nine phones throughout the office). 1. One incoming line has DTMF, the other two are strictly pulse dial. Am I correct in assuming that this can be changed at the CO, and is not a function of the 1A2? 2. All the phones are rotary dial types. If I hang a Touch-Tone (tm) phone on the system, I can dial out (on the DTMF line only, natch) but the intercom doesn't quite work. I can dial another station, and their phone will light up, but _no buzzer_. Likewise, they can dial me, and I get a light but no noise. Can this be fixed up easily, at the KSU, say with a jumper or board, or will the entire KSU have to be replaced? (Pardon my ignorance here, as I haven't tinkered with these things much. I'm trying to find an alternative to a completely new system that the powers that be want to pawn over to the tune of ~$5000.) Thanks, Ken P.S. Please email if possible; I'm disappearing for a week on a mucho-needed vacation, and I don't want to lose replies to the bit-bucket. I'll post a summary after I return. ------------------------------ From: lff@sequent.com (Lou Fernandez) Subject: Telecom Trip Report: Deaver, WY Organization: Sequent Computer Systems Inc. Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 22:03:50 GMT I spent the Memorial Day weekend visiting my great aunt in Deaver, WY and found some interesting wrinkles in their telephone service. Deaver is a small town in northern Wyoming near the Montana border. It's in a basin between the Bighorn mountains and those that form Yellowstone Park. The phone book covers a dozen or so towns using about 20 exchanges. The land area covered is a few thousand square miles. The Deaver/Franney exchange is 307-664. Phone service appears to be provided by U.S. West although I wasn't positive. The first surprise about the phone service is that they can make intra-exchange calls by dialing only the last four digits of the phone number. I think this capability is fairly rare now although I know it used to be more common. Does anyone know of other U.S. locations where this is still possible? Also, the calling instructions in the phone book tell you that ALL inter-exchange calls are long distance; that is, all local calling areas consist of exactly one exchange. You must dial 1+number for intra-state long distance. I don't think they are likely to run out of exchanges in 307 any time soon. BTW, if you are ever in that area, Devil's Canyon, Shell Creek Canyon and the Medicine Wheel monument are spectacular and beautiful places. Louis F. Fernandez Sequent Computer Systems lfernandez@sequent.com Beaverton, OR 97006-6063 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #373 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa27476; 4 Jun 93 18:55 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA07231 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Fri, 4 Jun 1993 16:24:47 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA03538 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Fri, 4 Jun 1993 16:23:25 -0500 Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 16:23:25 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199306042123.AA03538@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #369 TELECOM Digest Tue, 1 Jun 93 20:58:00 CDT Volume 13 : Issue 369 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: 16550AFN Chip (Terry Kennedy) Windows and the 16550AFN Chip (A. Padgett Peterson) Re: French Phreaking on Northern Telecom PBX (Vance Shipley) Re: Another Tibetian Report (Josh N. Pritikin) Re: Orange Card Opinions Wanted! (Brian T. Vita) Re: Orange Card Opinions Wanted! (Charlie Mingo) I-LOVE-NY, U-DIAL-PA (David Leibold) New House, New Telecom Stuff (Russell Kroll) AT&T's Two Conference Services (John R. Levine) ---------------------- There were many complaints that issue 369 was not received, so it is being sent again at this time. ---------------------- TELECOM Digest is an e-journal devoted mostly -- but not exclusively -- to discussions on voice telephony. The Digest is a not-for-profit public service published frequently by Patrick Townson Associates. PTA markets a no-surcharge telephone calling card and a no monthly fee 800 service. In addition, we are resellers of AT&T's Software Defined Network. For a detailed discussion of our services, write and ask for the file 'products'. The Digest is delivered at no charge by email to qualified subscribers on any electronic mail service connected to the Internet. To join the mail- ing list, write and tell us how you qualify: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu. Before submitting articles for publication, please read a copy of our file 'writing.to.telecom'. All article submissions MUST be sent to our email address: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu -- NOT as replies to comp.dcom.telecom. Back issues and numerous other telephone-related files of interest are available from the Telecom Archives, using anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu. Login anonymous, then 'cd telecom-archives'. At the present time, the Digest is also ported to Usenet at the request of many readers there, where it is known as 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Use of the Digest does not require the use of our products and services. The two are separate. All articles are the responsibility of the individual authors. Organi- zations listed, if any, are for identification purposes only. The Digest is compilation-copyrighted, 1993. **DO NOT** cross-post articles between the Digest and other Usenet or alt newsgroups. Do not compile mailing lists from the net-addresses appearing herein. Send tithes and love offerings to PO Box 1570, Chicago, IL 60690. :) Phone: 312-465-2700. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: terry@spcvxb.spc.edu (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.) Subject: Re: 16550AFN Chip Date: 31 May 93 16:45:10 EDT Organization: St. Peter's College, US In article , padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com (A. Padgett Peterson) writes: > Intel had considered the need for a serial port and this task was > handled by an 8450 "UART". Since the PC could process information > faster than any modem at the time, no buffering was needed other than > the PC's RAM. Flow control was mostly the XON/XOFF type handled by > software when anyone bothered. Intel had nothing to do with the 8250 (it's 8250, not 8450, btw). The Intel offering was the 8251 (no relation, despite the similarity of the number). The 8250 was a Western Digital design, to update their 1602 UART to include baud rate generation and other things. The competing part (and the one many felt to be the best) was the Signetics 2661, which was a mostly-compatible superset of the 2651. Via a cross-manufacturing agreement with National Semiconductor, who was cross-licensed with Western Digital for the 8250, a number of parts (built by NS) became available with the designation "INS8250". I believe this is where the Intel confusion comes in. > When the sixteen bit AT came out (1985) a faster UART was needed & the > 16450 made its introduction. Faster and able to support at least > 19,200 kb but any buffering was still the responsibility of the PC. No, it wasn't needed, at least not in properly-designed boards. The AT took the PC bus from 4.77Mhz to 6 (and later 8) Mhz. This was too fast for the required setup times for the 8250. Rather than simply introducing a wait state whenever the port was selected, vendors who wanted to recycle existing designs for the AT asked for a chip with faster setup times. Hence the 16450. > The problem was that with multi-tasking, the processor could not > always get around to servicing the serial port before