From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Apr 19 20:57:39 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id UAA24272; Mon, 19 Apr 1999 20:57:39 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 20:57:39 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199904200057.UAA24272@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #51 TELECOM Digest Mon, 19 Apr 99 20:57:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 51 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Discontinues Easy Reach 500 Number Service (Jeffrey J. Carpenter) Re: 500 Update ... Bad News (Matt Cline) Re: 500 Update ... Bad News (William Hammack) Telecom Update (Canada) #179, April 19, 1999 (Angus TeleManagement) The Story of Antonio Meucci (Paul Wills) Re: Who Invented the Telephone? (Andrew Emmerson) Re: Who Invented the Telephone? (Sanjay Parekh) NPR "Quest for Sound" (Will Roberts) Another Privacy Hole in IE 5.0? (Monty Solomon) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 18:11:12 -0400 From: Jeffrey J. Carpenter Subject: AT&T Discontinues Easy Reach 500 Number Service AT&T has discontinued its Easy Reach 500 number service. This service allowed you to obtain a non-geographic phone number in the 500 area code that served as a virtual phone number. The FCC has classified 500 service as "PCS" (another overloaded use of that term). A number of different service plans were available from simply forwarding calls made to your 500 number to the number you want your calls to go to (remotely programmable) to call sequencing (allowing calls to your 500 number to cycle through a list of phone numbers to ring to try to find you, such as ringing home, then office, then cellular). There were also provisions to allow you to give a PIN to callers, allowing you to pick up the cost of the call rather than the callers. Other carriers offer similar services such as MCI: http://www.mci.com/aboutus/products/glossary/home/textp500.shtml The number of customers of AT&T's Easy Reach 500 service has declined and they have decided that the cost to run the service exceeds the revenues. Existing customers are currently grandfathered and no new customers are being accepted. AT&T really did not promote this service very well, and did not integrate the service with their other products, as is evidenced by the fact that AT&T wireless phones have never been able to direct dial AT&T Easy Reach 500 numbers (they claimed 5 years ago that they were working on that problem, however repeated phone calls have yielded no solution to this problem). The original announcement of the AT&T Easy Reach 500 service sent to me in 1994 had the following Q&A: Q: If I ever change my home number, will I have to change my 500 number, too? A: No. Your 500 number will stay the same no matter how many times you move. I was advised that if you move now, you will not be able to transfer your 500 numbers to your new location. This obviously breaks AT&T's original promise and defeats one of the largest attractions of this service: you can use one phone number regardless how how often you move or are affected by area code splits. Existing customers are being advised by AT&T to examine alternatives including wireless phones and toll-free numbers. None of the alternatives offer all the advantages of the 500 service. The service might be completely phased out as early as the end of the year. Jeffrey J. Carpenter Phone: +1 500 488-4800 (while it lasts!) Fax: +1 500 488-4802 Email: jjc@pobox.com Web: http://pobox.com/~jjc/ ------------------------------ From: Matt Cline Subject: Re: 500 Update ... Bad News Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 09:02:30 -0400 Gang - I called MCI, out of curiosity about their services, and guess what: MCI has cancelled their service as well. When I asked for details the rep told me: "those numbers were routed through an facility in Sacramento. We don't even have an office there anymore. The service was grandfathered for existing clients." So much for competition working to our advantage. Matt ------------------------------ From: William Hammack Reply-To: hammack@netbox.com Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 11:14:15 -0500 (CDT) Subject: RE: 500 update...bad news I'm not sure competition was the problem. Speaking as the former owner of THREE 500 numbers the problem was that they didn't work too well. It was not possible (this is two years ago) for someone from a University to dial a 500 number - this was also true certain instutions and many companies. (The only reason CMU people are able to dial them is that I called CMU telecommunications and asked them to change the software to all 500 numbers!) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 12:00:42 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #179, April 19, 1999 ************************************************************ * * * TELECOM UPDATE * * Angus TeleManagement's Weekly Telecom Newsbulletin * * http://www.angustel.ca * * Number 179: April 19, 1999 * * * * Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by * * generous financial support from: * * * * AT&T Canada ............... http://www.attcanada.com/ * * Bell Canada ............... http://www.bell.ca/ * * Lucent Technologies ....... http://www.lucent.ca/ * * MetroNet Communications ... http://www.metronet.ca/ * * Sprint Canada ............. http://www.sprintcanada.ca/ * * Telus Communications....... http://www.telus.com/ * * TigerTel Services ......... http://www.citydial.com/ * * * ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Microcell Signs Third Wholesale Agreement ** Optel to Launch as CLEC ** Nortel, Cisco, Ericsson Announce Acquisitions Nortel Cisco Ericsson ** New CEO at Rogers Cable ... Again ** Fido Offers Two-Way E-Mail ** Clearnet, Microcell Announce Subscriber Results Clearnet Microcell ** Netcom Lowers LD, Bundled Internet Rates ** CRTC Denies Bell Fiber Swap ** Shaw@Home Reaches 100,000-Subscriber Mark ** Next Stage in Ledcor-Vancouver Dispute ** WIC Buys Out RegionalVision Minority Shareholders ** Profits Up at JDS Fitel ** CRTC Opens Regina Office ** MT&T Late Payment Charge Denied ** Bell Nexxia, Teleglobe Win Embassy Contract ** Acadia U Wins Smithsonian Award ** AirIQ Provides Fleet Inventory ** CWTA Plans Wireless Safety Web Site ** MT&T to Provide NS Public Safety Net ** Telecom Seminars ============================================================ MICROCELL SIGNS THIRD WHOLESALE AGREEMENT: Microcell Connexions, which operates the wireless network used for Fido service, has signed a wholesale agreement with Navitar Communications Inc. (See Telecom Update #139, 140) ** Navitar, a registered Competitive Local Exchange Carrier, says it will roll out a full suite of telecommunications services in major metropolitan areas across Canada later this year. OPTEL TO LAUNCH AS CLEC: Optel Communications, which has been a Centrex and long distance reseller since 1995, says it will begin operations as a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier in Toronto in June, and in Montreal by the end of the summer, using Nortel DMS-500 switches. The company recently raised $30 Million in new equity investment. NORTEL, CISCO, ERICSSON ANNOUNCE ACQUISITIONS: ** Nortel Networks is paying up to US$340 Million for California-based Shasta Networks, which is developing subscriber management systems for IP networks. ** Cisco Systems will buy Massachusetts-based GeoTel Communications, which makes software for distributed call centers, for US$2 Billion. ** Ericsson is buying Torrent Networking Technologies, which makes routers, and TouchWave Inc., which makes IP-based PBXs, for a total of about US$500 Million. NEW CEO AT ROGERS CABLE ... AGAIN: Rogers Cablesystems has a new President and CEO: John Tory, previously President and CEO of Rogers Media and Maclean Hunter. He succeeds Trey Smith, who was appointed last October. (See Telecom Update #156) FIDO OFFERS TWO-WAY E-MAIL: Microcell Solutions has introduced Fido E-Mail, a two-way e-mail service; and Performance Voice Messaging, which sends a reply at the touch of a single key. The new features are packaged along with Call Display and Text Messaging in FidoPro at $8/month. CLEARNET, MICROCELL ANNOUNCE SUBSCRIBER RESULTS: ** Clearnet Communications recorded 38,457 net additions in the first quarter (46,920 last year), bringing its digital subscriber total to 346,930. Additions to Mike business service rose 28% over last year; additions to PCS service declined 35%. ** Microcell Solutions added 62,169 subscribers in this period (compared to 31,500 last year), bringing its subscriber base to 344,343. Among new subscribers, 72% are on the prepaid plan. NETCOM LOWERS LD, BUNDLED INTERNET RATES: Customers of Netcom Canada's Internet service who also use it for long distance will now receive Internet access for $21.95/month (regular rate, $26.95). Netcom has also reduced its U.S. and overseas rates. (See Telecom Update #175) CRTC DENIES BELL FIBER SWAP: In Telecom Order 99-346, the CRTC rejects an agreement under which Bell Canada and Bell Mobility would swap optical cable facilities in parts of Ontario. The commission says Bell must charge tariffed rates for its fiber. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/internet/1999/8045/04/o99-0346.htm SHAW@HOME REACHES 100,000-SUBSCRIBER MARK: Shaw Cablesystems says it now has 100,000 subscribers for its Shaw@Home high-speed Internet service. ** Shaw reports net income of $30.7 Million for the quarter ended February 28, compared to a loss of $2.4 Million last year. Revenues rose 19% to $216 Million NEXT STAGE IN LEDCOR-VANCOUVER DISPUTE: The CRTC says it will deal concurrently with applications by Ledcor and the City of Vancouver to resolve their right-of-way dispute (see Telecom Update #176, 177). The City is to file its reply to Ledcor, as well as its own application, by May 18. The Commission will issue a Public Notice on these questions later on. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/proc_rep/telecom/1999/8690/L8-01.htm WIC BUYS OUT REGIONALVISION MINORITY SHAREHOLDERS: WIC Western International Communications has bought the 49% stake of minority shareholders in RegionalVision, a licensed LMCS provider. The other 51% is owned by Cancom, a WIC affiliate. WIC, which also owns LMCS licensee WIC Connexus, says the minority shareholders were influenced by delays in LMCS equipment availability. PROFITS UP AT JDS FITEL: JDS Fitel has announced profits for the quarter ended February 28 of $26.8 Million, up 25% over the previous quarter and 119% over last year. Revenues of $123 Million were 25% higher than the previous quarter. CRTC OPENS REGINA OFFICE: The CRTC has opened a new documentation center in Regina at 2125 11th Avenue, Suite 103. Call 306-780-3422. MT&T LATE PAYMENT CHANGE DENIED: CRTC Telecom Order 99-353 denies as excessive an MT&T request to increase the late-payment charge on accounts exceeding $25 from $1.25 to $2.50. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/internet/1999/8045/04/o99-0353.htm BELL NEXXIA, TELEGLOBE WIN EMBASSY CONTRACT: Bell Nexxia and Teleglobe have won a three-year, $40-Million contract for a global network linking Canada's 144 diplomatic missions. ACADIA U WINS SMITHSONIAN AWARD: Acadia University in Wolfville NS, has won a Smithsonian Institute award for IT innovation for its student computer access program. AIRIQ PROVIDES FLEET INVENTORY: AirIQ, a Pickering, Ontario, provider of vehicle tracking systems, now offers Automated Fleet Inventory, which enables managers to automatically locate and count their vehicles. CWTA PLANS WIRELESS SAFETY WEB SITE: The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association plans this summer to create an Internet site, the Wireless Information Resource Centre, to take up wireless-related health and safety issues. MT&T TO PROVIDE NS PUBLIC SAFETY NET: MT&T has a contract to supply the Nova Scotia government with a 68-site wireless network for public safety and government organizations, using Motorola equipment. TELECOM SEMINARS: Participants have lauded Angus Dortmans' private seminars as "enlightening," "meaningful," "well- organized," and "fun." Workshops are available on many topics of telecom management, including: ** Fundamentals of Successful End-User Telecom Management ** Recent Telecom Regulatory Decisions and Key Industry Trends ** How to Develop and Present Telecom Business Cases to Senior Management ** Getting More for Less: How to Improve Telecom Supplier Relations ** Cutting Costs Without Cutting Service For further information on Angus Dortmans seminars, go to http://www.angustel.ca/angdort/adseminar.html. To discuss your workshop needs, call Henry Dortmans at 1-800-263-4415, ext 300. ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 =========================================================== HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web on the first business day of the week at http://www.angustel.ca/update/up.html 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to majordomo@angustel.ca. The text of the message should contain only the two words: subscribe update To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to majordomo@angustel.ca. The text of the message should say only: unsubscribe update [Your e-mail address] =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER: All contents copyright 1999 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail rosita@angustel.ca or phone 905-686-5050 ext 225. The information and data included has been obtained from sources which we believe to be reliable, but Angus TeleManagement makes no warranties or representations whatsoever regarding accuracy, completeness, or adequacy. Opinions expressed are based on interpretation of available information, and are subject to change. If expert advice on the subject matter is required, the services of a competent professional should be obtained. ============================================================ ------------------------------ From: Paul Wills Subject: The Story of Antonio Meucci Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 12:08:59 -0400 Paul Pacini wrote: > I read once that a man by te name of Antonio Meucci, who was born in > Florence, Italy and moved to the USA had invented a telephone in > 1857. Do you know anything about this claim? A brief summary of Antonio Meucci (1808-1889): The problem with any invention is that, although one person usually gets the credit for it, and usually quite deservingly, there usually others who are also close to the idea but either never got it to work or just didn't have the right "promoter." Phillip Reis (1834-1874) a German certainly was one of the first people to come "close" to inventing the telephone. His mistake was trying to reduce the sound wave form to a series of "make and break" signals that would carry pitch but not sound quality. (Actually, there are those who say that he may, indeed, have developed a variable resistance point contact "microphone" by intent as Berliner did many years later but I guess we'll never know.) Elisha Gray (1835-1901) was very close to exploiting the undulating currents of telephonic speech but his work on the more commercially desirable harmonic telegraph kept him from developing a telephone instrument. (Bell, was also working on a harmonic telegraph but fortuitiously got side tracked by the telephone.) Ironically, Gray and Enos Barton were the founders of the firm of Gray and Barton which was eventually renamed Western Electric. He didn't do too badly for himself, telephone or not, and went on to earn huge sums of money for his patents including the harmonic telegraph and teleautograph. (When Western Electric spun off it's non-telephone electrical products division in 1927 they combined the names of the founders to form the name "Graybar" which is still around today.) One of the problems with the early telephone business is that if you were not associated with the Bell interests, there was no way that you could legally build and sell any device that used any of the principles that Bell had patented. This did not stop people from trying to bypass the Bell patents and get into the telephone business. Of course, Bell would then take the infringers to court. The defence used by these "infringers" was to attempt to prove that someone else had developed a working electric telephone before Bell had patented it. In other words, if you wanted to break into the telephone business without contracting with "Ma Bell" - who was probably just a maiden then - you would look for someone who had claimed that they had already developed a telephone, hire them, and go to court. Two of the more well known persons were Daniel Drawbaugh (1827-1911) from Eberly's Mills, Pennsylvania. Drawbaugh was certainly an accomplished mechanic and had a fair number of patents to his name. He had claimed to have developed a variable resistance carbon transmitter in 1867. Unfortunately for him, he had few records and no written proof that he had done it. The court case was quite involved and even required a railroad ticket agent to dig through his records to see when they had received a pump that was installed about the time that Drawbaugh was showing off his "talking machine" to some locals... you get the idea. Antonio Meucci was another person who had claimed to transmit speech electrically. He attended the School of Mechanics and Drawing of Florence and worked in the mechanical departments of theatres in different cities in Italy. He eventually moved to Havana, Cuba and then to New York in 1850. He tinkered with electroplating and, thus, was familiar with electricity. (He roomed with Giuseppe Garibaldi on Statin Island and ran a candle factory as a way of employing Italian refugees.) Meucci claimed to have developed a working telephone around 1870. His drawings show that it probably worked electro-magnetically as compared to Drawbaughs variable resistance type. He actually went as far as filing a caveat in 1871 but never persued a patent. Unfortunately, in the Summer of 1871, Meucci suffered near fatal injury due to a boiler explosion on the Staten Island Ferry. Confined to bed with little hope for his recovery, his wife sold all of his equipment for scrap and, thus, any proof of his invention was lost forever. Does any of this downplay what Bell had done? IMHO, I think not. Even if everyone runs a good race there is usually only one winner. Perhaps Bell's credit is as dependent on the people who he had around him as his own skill. Certainly, were it not for Gardner Hubbard, Bell probably would have lost the rights to his invention and gone back to teaching the deaf. (The lesson to be learned is to always seek out a good father-in-law!) Interesting stuff! To quote Elisha Gray, "The history of the telephone will never be fully written. It is partly hidden away in 20 or 30 thousand pages of testimony and partly lying on the hearts oand consciences of a few whose lips are Sealed, - Some in death and others by a golden clasp whose grip is even tighter." Several Books on the Subject: Schiavo, Giovanni E., "Antonio Meucci, Inventor of the Telephone," New York, The Vigo Press, 1958 Harder, Warren J., "Daniel Drawbaugh, The Edison of the Cumberland Valley," Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1960 Thompson, Silvanus P. "Phillipp Reis: Inventor of the Telephone," London, E. &F. N. Spon, 1883 Current Books: Coe, Lewis. "The Telephone and its Several Inventors," Jefferson, NC, McFarland & Company, 1995 Adams, Stephen B. and Butler, Orville R. "Manufacturing the Future - A History of Western Electric," Cambridge, The Cambridge University Press, 1999 (A nice tribute to Elisha Gray) ------------------------------ From: midshires@cix.co.uk (Andrew Emmerson) Subject: Re: Who Invented the Telephone? Date: 18 Apr 1999 09:46:59 GMT Organization: CIX - Compulink Information eXchange Reply-To: midshires@cix.co.uk A good book to examine is WHO INVENTED THE TELEPHONE? by William Aitken (Blackie & Son, 1939), which in nearly 200 closely printed pages details the exploits of several dozen people who independently 'invented' the telephone. Meucci, it says, started his work in 1849 and the drawings given show a telephone functionally very similar to what we would recognise today. But as you read the book and examine the diagrams, you will see that many, many people came up with the basic principle of the electromagnetic receiver (and hence transmitter). To cite Bell as the sole inventor of the telephone is as stupid as crediting Elvis Presley with inventing rock and roll, or Marconi for radio, or Baird for television. We know that the basic principles of the transistor were published in the late 1920s, then independently rediscovered in the 1940s, and so it goes with so many other 'inventions'. All credit to Meucci -- and to Reiss, Bourseuil, Gray and all the other inventors of the telephone! Andy Emmerson ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 13:16:06 -0400 From: Sanjay Parekh Subject: Re: Who Invented the Telephone? > I somehow remember the name 'Meucci' as a person who did make some > improvements in *telegraphy* around the late-middle of the 19th > century. Any reader comments? PAT] And as a random side note ... Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) received the Antonio Meucci award from the American Italian something-or-other group in Godfather III. Michael also asks who Meucci was in the movie. Thats how I knew who he was. I know, I know. It's sad that I've learned things like this from the movies. Oh well ... =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | Sanjay Parekh | | .@arris-i.com | | Systems Engineer | | Acceleration Services | | Arris Interactive | | Atlanta, GA | =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 11:24:56 -0400 From: Will Roberts Subject: NPR "Quest for Sound" Pat: Yesterday afternoon (4/16) I heard National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" broadcast its latest "Quest for Sound" feature which consisted of many fascinating broadcast clips from the AT&T corporate archivist: corporate image advertising of the 1930s and 1940s which portrayed the AT&T monopoly in mythic proportions and was instrumental in maintaining favorable public and legislative sentiment toward "Ma Bell." ("Quest for Sound" is a project of National Public Radio to get its listeners to send in their home recordings or other "lost" archival material of the last one hundred years to be shaped into stories that capture the rituals and sounds of everyday life.) When I checked this morning, the AT&T program was not yet available on the NPR web site, but it should be there shortly for those who may be interested: http://www.npr.org/programs/lnfsound/onair Among the "Quest for Sound" features which are currently available on the site is: March 19, 1999 - Mr. Watson, Come Here, I Want You! --------------------------------------------------- In this week's feature "Lost and Found Sound" we'll hear the voice of Thomas A. Watson, Alexander Graham Bell's assistant, who received the first telephone call. This sound came to us from our quest for sound line, from the grandson of Watson in Alabama. We hear in Watson's own words, the events surrounding that first phone call. I suspect that many Telecom Digest readers will find these recordings as fascinating as I do. Also there is a program which is "an exploration of the origin of the use of the word 'Hello' as a telephone greeting): http://www.npr.org/programs/lnfsound/onair/archive.html Here is the description of the AT&T program: Remember the tender warm embrace of Ma Bell? Up until the American Telephone and Telegraph's sanctioned monopoly was shattered in 1984, there was really only one Telephone Company in the United States. It's remnants include a grand archive in Warren, New Jersey: the AT&T Archives. NPR's Art Silverman, the Lost & Found Sound coordinating producer, visited the site and came away with dozens of soundtracks to the company's in-house and public movies and radio shows. His host was archivist Sheldon Hochheiser, who helped shed light on what motivated Ma Bell to pat herself on the back so often and so well. Regards, Will Roberts The Old Bear ------------------------------ Reply-To: Monty Solomon From: Monty Solomon Subject: Another Privacy Hole in IE 5.0? Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 14:37:58 -0400 by Chris Oakes 3:00 a.m. 16.Apr.99.PDT An obscure feature in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 5.0 Web browser informs Web sites when users bookmark their pages. The feature was discovered during an audit of Wired Digital server logs by software development manager Kevin Cooke and confirmed Thursday by Wired News. A Microsoft spokesperson said that the company is investigating the issue. http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/19160.html ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #51 ***************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Apr 20 04:06:26 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id EAA08962; Tue, 20 Apr 1999 04:06:26 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 04:06:26 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199904200806.EAA08962@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #52 TELECOM Digest Tue, 20 Apr 99 04:06:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 52 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Should MIT Unplug Faceless Emailer? (Monty Solomon) Good Phone System For Answering Service Business (mft) UCLA Summer Short Courses in Communications Engineering (Bill Goodin) New Service Providers (Joseph Podemski) Book Review: Digital Capitalism, Schiller (Jud Wolfskill) Local Calls Being Billed as Intra-LATA Through IXC (Bill Levant) Re: Now Free Computers From an ISP! (John Mayson) European-Wide Country Code of +388: How Implemented, if so (K Steinbrenner) Re: Telephone Pairs and Lines (Richard Taylor) Re: Telephone Pairs and Lines (Philip Decker) Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' (Brett Frankenberger) Re: Hyprocisy - Telecommunications During Wars (Justa Lurker) Re: Hyprocisy - Telecommunications During Wars (Tom Betz) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 22:06:33 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Should MIT Unplug Faceless Emailer? By Margaret Kane, ZDNN April 13, 1999 4:50 PM PT CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- It's called the "re-mailer," a computer server that allows you to send anonymous e-mail messages. And the big question on Tuesday was whether the Massachusetts Institute of Technology should pull the plug on it. The question: Will its faceless missives allow even amateur crooks to plot, steal and hide? Or would they serve to protect whistle-blowers and human rights workers? And so it was along that divide that re-mailer became the focus of a spirited debate among government and technology experts participating in a panel as part of the 35th anniversary celebration of the school's pioneering Computer Science Lab. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2241595,00.html [TELECOM Digest Editor: Last week did mark the 35th anniversary of what we call lcs.mit.edu, and heartiest congratulations are due the members of the staff there, especially those who have worked with me over the years in providing the resources for this Digest and the archives. The archives has always been at MIT except for a short stay at Boston University in the middle 1980's, even though the Digest itself was produced at various locations over the years including Boston University, Northwestern University, and, I believe for a while at Stanford in the early 1980's. I've been back at lcs.mit.edu since around 1994 or so, and in a sense sorry I did not just stay here all along. The connectivity is superb, the technical assistance is great, although I try not to bother the staff at LCS any more than absolutely necessary. In some correspondence with Mary Ann Ladd, a sysadmin at LCS regarding the 35th anniversary, I asked her if she ever wondered what things would have been like if back in 1964 we had known then what we know today regards networking, the internet, etc. Wow! I know how much I have always wished there were such things as computers when I was in high school ... what a blast we would have had. And considering what the past 35 years have brought us, what are we to expect in the next 35 years? Imagine life with computers even in 2010, let alone 2034. It took years to develop computers that could be used on a telephone line at a speed of 110 or 300 baud. My first BBS ran at 110/300. Then someone developed a hardware mod for the Apple modem card which allowed it to 'race along' at 450 baud. After a couple years, 1200 baud modems were available but quite expensive. Then 2400, 9600 ... and today we have a closet full of old 9600 baud modems we cannot give away. The jump from 300 to 9600 was only a few years, and now in the past four or five years 28K and 56K are 'acceptable'. I will bet you that by 2034 everyone -- and I mean everyone, 95 percent of the population or more -- will be connected via cable or LAN or something like that. Speeds of 115K will be the norm. Most people will simply talk to the computer and listen to it; there will be little typing. People today with massive amounts of technical knowledge regards computers will maybe know ten percent of what there is to know in total. That's how I am with telecom now; years ago I *knew* the phone company inside and out. Today I can barely keep up with it and know very little about whole segments of the industry. Perhaps I am better off having grown up as a child with no such thing as a computer. Now I can really see and comprehend what it was that I missed and appreciate it even more, not just taking it for granted. And for the telecom object lesson out of all this, someone said to me the other day, "NOW, can you appreciate the thrill that must have surged through the souls of people like Alex Bell, Ted Vail and others at the 35th anniversary celebration of AT&T back in the early years of this century we are now departing? When *they* stopped to ponder the question of where things were leading ... " Yeah ... The Telephone Pioneers began around 1900 when a couple dozen of the people who had been with AT&T since Day One decided they should have a club for themselves. In later years as all the old people died, the rule was changed to say that members had to have at least twenty years of employment with Bell. I wonder if the time has come for an 'Internet Pioneers' organization? If enough people send me some sort of valid evidence that they were active on the net at least 15-20 years ago and express an interest in an association among themselves and a web page or mailing list, perhaps I will start such a thing. It might be purely social, or perhaps a mix of social and service to the net and the newcomers who are arriving -- not quite at the rate people are fleeing from Kosovo -- but pretty darn fast, to the net community daily. I got 'started in computers' -- in a personal way at home, having used them since 1968 where I was employed -- in 1979, when Daniel Kritchevsky brought me an Ohio Scientific C-1-P and then sat there patiently with me day after day as I learned how to use it; how to find where the 'any' key I was supposed to press was located. The first night I had it, he taught me how to program a simple print statement "I am a computer programmer". And he said, having made the computer print that statement out over and over on the screen, I *was* a programmer now, " .. and don't you forget it .." Then someone else told me about Usenet and Jon Solomon taught me how internet mailing lists operate. Before that, I knew zilch about it. Shortly after that I got Bill Pfieffer started; he knew less about computers when he started than I did a few years before that. And in the time this Digest has been around, several mailing lists and newsgroups have started as offshoots from here including Computer Underground Digest, Computer Privacy Digest, alt.dcom.telecom and comp.dcom.telecom.tech. Daniel Kritchevsky, if you are somewhere reading this, thank you! A good way to show your gratitude for work that has been done at places like MIT is getting a neighbor or friend or family member 'started in computers'. Make a web page for someone; teach them how to use an online service; sell or give them an older unused but still workable computer. Share with people the *good news* of what's happened with computers in the past 35 years; how we have no earthly idea where things will be at 35 years from now, but that *you* want *them* to be in on it. You never know when your efforts might result in a new mailing list or newsgroup twenty years from now; or maybe the person will discover and develop a new technology to benefit the net. Don't worry if you do not have a computer science degree; most of us don't. To LCS/MIT I say thanks for all you have accomplished. To the rest of you I ask, who have you gotten started in computers recently? Thanks for reading! PAT] ------------------------------ From: mft Subject: Good Phone System For Answering Service Business Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 19:34:40 -0400 Organization: Posted via RemarQ Communities, Inc. I am looking for starting up a business as "Answering Service". I need a good phone system that support following features. (1) 2 DID trunk lines (I will order 200 telephone number w/ the 2 DID lines from B.A.) (2) An operator PC colsole w/ POPUP screen features that will show the (a) the phone number that the caller dialed (not caller ID number) (b) an associated TEXT message that will show below the dialed number , so the operator can read back the text message to the caller. Example: if caller dialed "777-1234" the operator will read back "Thank you for calling Sunrise Export". If caller dialed "888-1234" operator will read back "Thank you for calling WinWin Telcom". Please do not hesitate to advise this poor guy. Thanks, Meng tsaim@mft.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Good luck with your new business. With all the technological advances in telecom over the past twenty years or so, manual answering services are almost entirely gone. They used to be all over the place years ago, and there is still a limited need for personalized handling by a human being of certain types of calls such as to physicians, counselors, attornies, etc. But I remember very well the owner of Annex Telephone Answering Service in Chicago, where I had an account for several years in the 1960's complaining to me one day that 'those new things on the market now, the automatic machines which answer the phone and tape record the message are just about to put me out of business.' Indeed, I quit his service myself when I bought my first answering machine, a big clunky thing with an acoustic coupler for the reciever in 1967. And people would complain about how much they hated calling someone and 'getting their answering machine', the way people complain about voicemail now. Now you wish you could get an answering machine for a change instead of a demand to press one key after another. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bill Goodin Subject: UCLA Summer Short Courses in Communications Engineering Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 18:12:11 -0700 This summer, UCLA Extension will present the following communications engineering short courses on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. July 7-9, 1999, "Wavelength-Division Multiplexed Systems and Technologies". The instructor is Alan E. Willner, PhD, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California, $1195. July 12-15, 1999, "Kalman Filtering". The instructor is Joseph L. LeMay, PhD, President, St. Joseph Sciences, $1495. July 12-16, 1999, "Digital Signal Processing: Theory, Algorithms, and Implementation". The instructor is Robert W. Stewart, PhD, Faculty Member, Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom, $1695. July 21-23, 1999, "Satellite Communications Design and Engineering". The instructors are Bruce R. Elbert, MSEE, MBA, Senior Vice President, Business Development, Hughes Space and Communications International; and Robert C. Perpall, MSEE, Satellite Engineer, Society Europenne des Satellites (SES), Luxembourg, $1195. August 11-13, 1999, "Embedded and Real-time Systems". The instructors are Miodrag Potkonjak, PhD, Associate Professor, Computer Science Department, UCLA; and Mani Srivastava, PhD, Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering Department, UCLA, $1195. September 21-24, 1999, "Automatic Speech Recognition: Fundamentals and Applications". The instructors are Abeer Alwan, PhD, Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering Department, UCLA; and Ananth Sankar, PhD, Senior Research Engineer, Speech Technology and Research (STAR) Laboratory, SRI International, $1495. September 22-24, 1999, "Advanced Digital Communications: The Search for Efficient Signaling Methods". The instructor is Bernard Sklar, PhD, President, Communications Engineering Services, $1195. September 29-October 1, 1999, "Digital Signal Processing Applications in Wireless Communications". The instructors are Zoran I. Kostic, PhD, Member of Technical Staff, AT&T Bell Laboratories; and Babak Daneshrad, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, UCLA, $1195. For additional information and complete course descriptions, please visit our web page, http://www.unex.ucla.edu/shortcourses/, or contact Marcus Hennessy at: (310) 825-1047 (310) 206-2815 fax mhenness@unex.ucla.edu All of these courses may also be presented on-site at company locations. ------------------------------ From: Joseph Podemski Subject: New Service Providers Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 16:32:04 +0300 Organization: IMCS To whom it may concern, Please direct me to a site or where I can find a survey of new service providers.- Contact managers- Telephone & Fax Numbers & e-mail related to billing issues. Thank You. I remain, Joseph Podemski International Sales Manager IMCS-International Management & Control Systems Tel: 972-3-624-0737 Fax: 972-3-624-0739 Cell: 972-50-408-921 E-mail: Josephp@imcs.co.il Additional Information at: WWW.IMCS.Co.il ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 17:34:13 -0400 From: Jud Wolfskill Subject: Book Review: Digital Capitalism, Dan Schiller The following is a book which readers of this list might find of interest. For more information please visit http://mitpress.mit.edu/promotions/books/SCHBHS99 Digital Capitalism Networking the Global Market System Dan Schiller Cyberspace not only exemplifies but spearheads the greater political economy of which it has become such a critical part. The networks that comprise cyberspace were originally created at the behest of government agencies, military contractors, and allied educational institutions. However, over the past generation or so, a growing number of these networks began to serve primarily corporate users. Under the sway of an expansionary market logic, the Internet began a political-economic transition toward what Dan Schiller calls "digital capitalism." Schiller traces these metamorphoses through three critically important and interlinked realms. Parts I and II deal with the overwhelmingly "neoliberal" or market-driven policies that influence and govern the telecommunications system and their empowerment of transnational corporations while at the same time exacerbating exisiting social inequalities. Part III shows how cyberspace offers uniquely supple instruments with which to cultivate and deepen consumerism on a transnational scale, especially among privileged groups. Finally, Part IV shows how digital capitalism has already overtaken education, placing it at the mercy of a proprietary market logic. Dan Schiller is Professor of Communication at the University of California, San Diego. 6 x 9, 320 pp., cloth ISBN 0-262-19417-1 Jud Wolfskill Associate Publicist Phone: (617) 253-2079 MIT Press Fax: (617) 253-1709 Five Cambridge Center E-mail: wolfskil@mit.edu Cambridge, MA 02142-1493 http://mitpress.mit.edu ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 22:19:52 EDT Subject: Local Calls Being Billed as Intra-LATA Through IXC Reply-To: Wlevant@aol.com Calls from my home (610)275-xxxx to AOL's new local numbers (610)234-0528 and (610)233-0511 are now being billed on my IXC's invoice as INTRA-LATA calls ! (610)275 and (610)233 have the same "name-place", and are therefore presumptively local calls; (610)234 is one town over, in a name-place that is ALSO local from here. (610)233 and (610)234 are provided by CLEC's. I assume that someone at Bell screwed up the routing tables in the (610)275 CO switch. Again. Interestingly, it only seems to happen if I dial as 10 digits (which will be REQUIRED here in about three months). Anyone else having this problem lately? When I called WorldCom to have the calls taken off the bill, they talked to me like I was nutz. Bill ------------------------------ From: John Mayson Subject: Re: Now Free Computers From an ISP! Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 15:56:31 -0500 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises On Thu, 1 Apr 1999 jkdejanews@my-dejanews.com wrote: > Hi all there, > I came across something really interesting after I read a news item in > one of the mailing lists. I visited www.gobi.com. These people offer > free computer systems for subscribing their Internet services. An > interesting marketing strategy. Comments? My company is partnered with Gobi and I have of course heard a lot about this service. They offer a fully blown multi-media PC, but it runs a 300 MHz low-end Pentium (I forget the name of it ... Celestron?). You have to sign up for 36 months of service which is around $30/month if I remember correctly. On the surface it looks like a good deal, especially to a first time computer buyer. John Mayson ------------------------------ From: Kent K. Steinbrenner Subject: European-Wide Country Code of +388: How Implemented, if So? Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 02:28:42 GMT Organization: @Home Network A few days ago on the U.S. Metric Assn.'s listserv, a list member asked the following: > "While, looking up some information on telephone systems worldwide, I came > across a website on country codes. I know that each country has its own > telephone code for calls originating outside to reach inside. What was > interesting, was that the website noted that Europe was (is) suppose to get > a region wide code beginning in 1999. The code number is +388." He then wanted to know more about this code. A few European members of the listserv didn't know about the code, either, and wanted to know more. I recalled seeing something on this newsgroup last year or the year before about +388, but don't recall when it was (otherwise I'd have gone searching through the archives). Has anyone heard more about +388? Would usage of it require national renumbering of number plans (of course, Italy, France and Spain have been doing that recently, if memory serves me correctly)? Someone else on that listserv wondered why the EU would get a three-digit number; after all, they reasoned, it ought to get a one-digit number like the other "important" areas of the world (+1 for NANPA, +7 for ex-Soviet Union, etc.) Good point! :) Kent K. Steinbrenner Irvine Typographers Irvine, CA 949.262.9667 office ------------------------------ From: Richard Taylor Subject: Re: Telephone Pairs and Lines Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 07:57:35 +0100 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Reply-To: rstaylor@mindspring.com Norman L. Kleinberg wrote: > I've got the contractor home-running CAT-5 lines to a patch panel in the > basement. For phones he's running CAT-3 4-pair, daisy-chained in each > room but in separate runs, meeting in the garage where the TELCO can get > to it. The CAT-5 and phone lines are sharing a wall outlet. . If you haven't finished the wiring yet, consider options. Run CAT 5 for everything. Even though CAT-3 is okay for phones now, the CAT-5 wire has less cross talk and will carry you far into the futhre. Don't run the cables you have designated for phone use to the garage. Put everything on a punch block or patch panel in the basement. That way you have more flexibility. Run 4 4-pairs from the basement patch panel, cross connect area to the place where your OUTSIDE NID (Network Interface Device, also called ONI (outside network interface and SNI (Standard Network Interface) will be. This will give you capability for 16 Telco lines. If you can, put these wires in 3/4 conduit, so you can re-pull them if necessary. Run a #10 THHN solid copper green wire from the electrical ground in the electrical panel box to the NID location. This will be much neater than typical Telco ground on the outside of the wall. Have the Telco plow-in at least two or three 5 or 6 pair Underground drop cables. This will give you the capacity of 10 to 18 Telco lines. Run two quad-shield RG-6 cables from the outside to the basement for cable TV. Do the cable ground the same as Telco. Consider using the Leviton Snap-Jack plates (available from Lowes or wiring wholesaler). They use 2,3,4 or 6 jacks. You can put EVERYTHING (up to 6 devices), including TV, in one plate and they match electrical, which many wiring plates do not.) The daisy-chaining per room is a good idea for phone wires, but you might want to separately home run any room that may be used as an office, and also maybe, the living room. Email me directly if you need more advice. I've been doing custom low-voltage wiring for almost 30 years and I know all the tricks. Good luck. Richard Taylor Carrboro, NC ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 19:15:51 -0400 From: Philip Decker Reply-To: pandc.decker@netsrq.com Subject: Re: Telephone Pairs and Lines Norman, Assuming you're in the US, the telco's lines terminate at the demarcation point ("demarc") which is a plastic box mounted on the side of your house or garage. Depending on how many lines you request, they'll install a bigger demarc or multiple demarcs. You own the wires from there on through the house. How you map their lines into your pairs is only your business. If it's not too late, I would recommend: - Wire everyting with Cat5 - Home run the "phone jacks" to the basement also - Install 110 blocks and/or patch-panels in the basement to terminate all your Cat5 wiring. - Run a 25 pair or multiple 4 pair Cat5s from the basement to the demarc area. Now you can bring in as many telco lines as you want (analog, ISDN-BRI, T1, ISDN-PRI, DSL, etc.). They all go to the basement. Since all your wall jacks are star wired to the basement they can be assigned voice, data or whatever, based only on how you cross-connect the 110 blocks and what ModJack you use. If you want to install a miniPBX (a la Panasonic keyswitch), an ISDN NT-2 (Siemens OfficePoint?), or an ISDN NT-1, you stick it in the basement. If you do the latter don't forget a UPS, since the telco won't be powering your phones. Philip Decker ------------------------------ From: brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) Subject: Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' Organization: Netcom Online Services, Inc. Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 01:25:13 GMT [ Pat wrote in a Moderator's Note ] > Now let's get on with Mr. Haylock's problem. AT&T has been illegally > redlining inner city neighborhoods for years. The only difference is, > they teach their operators and supervisors to *lie about it* and make > up some other excuse instead. If what you say is true, AT&T has not only been flouting the law for years, they have been doing it in a manner that is trivial to detect, trivial to prove, and with respect to a politically hot issue. I simply don't think that none of the various minority-rights groups have ever bothered to get two people to place simultaneous calling-card calls to the same place from two different phones, one in a "good" neighborhood and one in a "bad" neighborhood. Repeat this expperiment once a week for a month or two, and do it in several cities. If AT&T is behaving as you suggest, they should have a pretty airtight case pretty quickly. And the financial resources needed to do this test are minimal. (In fact, wouldn't at least one of the Chicago area TV stations be interested in performing this test with you and airing the results?) I simply don't think it would be this flagrant, this sensitive, and this easy to detect, for so long. > AT&T's approach is rather brilliant though, and works quite well con- > sidering how little most people know about telco's inner workings. > AT&T assumes most people will not argue with them -- after all, they > are the telephone company -- and for those few who do want to argue, > one of these excuses is given out: > 1) The computer which processes AT&T calling cards is down right now. > We do not know when it will be back in service. Why, it might be days. > 2) The computer which processes VISA/MC cards is down right now. We > do not know when it will be back in service. It might be a couple weeks. > 3) (This one said with an astounded, almost embarassed tone of voice): > The country where you are calling does not accept the AT&T calling > card as a method of payment. Sure, these all get around unsophisticated end-users. But these all fall flat on their face in a controlled test. So how about it. Any Chicago area readers willing to team up with Pat on this and go try two phones simultaneously to the same place, with similar calling cards? - Brett (brettf@netcom.com) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not live in the Chicago area any longer or I would help on this. But you need to remember that the large telcos are all major advertisers on television and in the papers. Even a hint to CBS by AT&T or MCI that they were going to drop their advertising if a story like that ran would be enough for CBS corporate to order Channel 2 in Chicago to kill the story. Plus, you have to remember that toll fraud is a serious problem. While I am not saying that should be sufficient reason for the redlining to go on, I will suggest that the telcos could spin a good enough yarn out of it to cloud the issue considerably. I am not certain it would achieve the righteous indignation out of the public that other types of redlining have caused in the past. And in telco's defense, they insist it is not discrimination *based on any certain race or nationality of person*, it is discrimination based on geographic areas. Thus far, geographic areas are not a protected category as is someone's race. Telco says, "we don't care if John Rockefeller or Bill Gates wanted to make a credit card call to an international point from a pay phone in Chicago-Kedzie (the central office on Kedzie Avenue sometimes known as 'Kedzie Bell' in a very poor, very minority, very third-world neighborhood on the west side of Chicago) ... we would not honor their calling card either." Telco insists anyone can get a calling card; anyone at all with a reasonable credit history and a telephone in their name. Therefore, no discrimination based on the *person*. Its just that no calling card can be used for international calls when placed from a pay phone in certain areas of high fraud where telco has no recourse to the caller. Go to a private dwelling place or a store right next to the same pay phone and use the phone there, even charging it to the same calling card which had been denied service from the payphone outside directly in front on the street if desired. Telco says anyone can bill a call however they wish, no questions asked, as long as there exists a physical pair of wires leading to someone who can be held responsible for the uses made of their instruments, as per tariff. Telco says bill the call however you wish, if you are happy we are happy, but if the toll ticket later 'falls out in billing'; i.e. because of no such number and goes into suspense or the toll ticket is later charged back to us as a dispute with the disputing customer being credited and the suspense ledger being charged with yet one more item for the investigators to deal with prior to their occassional general write-off of what is left in suspense uncleared, who would you like us to talk to to get our money? If, said the spokesperson I chatted with, we can use our technological abilities and yank on a pair of wires leading to your premises and legally hold you responsible and prove it to the Court's satisfaction so that a bill collector can whisper sweet nothings in your ear while he rummages around through your purse or your checking account or garnishes your wages, then fine. You tell us how you want your call billed. Who is the investigator supposed to talk to at a ringing pay phone? Some drunk walking past who picks it up and answers? Telco absolutely insists it is *places* not *people*. Everyone can call however they want in Winnetka or Skokie, no one can make an international call from a payphone with a calling card in Chicago- Kedzie. I asked why, with these technological advances that you flout, that allow you to have recourse without question to a private phone, you can't use technological advances to improve still again on the calling card numbering scheme, like you had to do back in the seventies when phreaks, anti-war protestors in their misguided way, assorted other anarchists and dissidents, and outright con artists ripped you for how many ever millions of dollars? Why not more card reader phones where the physical card has to be actually inserted in the phone the entire time the connection is up and the caller has to punch in a pin number besides? I did not devise the system said the spokesperson; I just deal with it now. I did not make up the system and no one here tells the oper- ators to lie. And therein lies the problem. No one seems to know who is quite responsible for 'the system' or why it is many of the operators make up stories that are only thinly veiled in BS ... Maybe it is time for Judge Harold ("I hate AT&T") Greene to come out of retirement and do something useful for a change. Said the spokes- person, "maybe he could authorize the write off I was faced with last year; a couple million dollars in the third quarter is a bit more than the customer service reps are allowed to write off on their own. It had to go way above my manager's head before it could be posted." So who do you sympathize with? I think with some pressure, telcos could do something about it. Pressure? ... hello ... Judge Greene, are you reading this? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 00:36:19 -0500 From: Justa Lurker Subject: Re: Hyprocisy - Telecommunications During Wars Spiro Dreamer wrote: > All telephony links within and outside of Yugoslavia are working > perfectly. ... > Further, the number of international lines to Yugoslavia has > increased over the last two weeks, due to a ten-fold increase in > the traffic. It was never so easy to get a connection. ... > The public telco system is more likely to be used by the military (for > non-secure military communications) than the TV. Television is more likely to be used by the military for 'propaganda', for example the shooting down of the F-117 and the capture of the three American troups. Plus television can be used as a rallying point for the people. Show hundreds of people on a bridge having a rock concert - show a Yugo factory where workers were being human shields - show fellow Yugoslavians wearing the "TARGET" sign. All of this public show of support for Yugoslavia can be translated into support of the government and the military by *television*. > So, why has the TV been targeted whilst the telephone system is > working so well, and even better????? It is harder for the military/government to call every Yugoslavian in the middle of the night and tell them which buildings no longer exist, and which bombs did not hit their targets. *Television* can be on the scene and showing everything *LIVE* as it happens to anyone who cares to tune in. (Including the international community watching Serbian TV via CNN International.) As long as the Serbians can continue to show that they are the weaker party in this battle - through television - then strike out and show that they are not powerless and that NATO is not invunerable - through television - then show that NATO cannot guarantee 0% collateral damage - through television - television remains a target. The turning point in the Gulf War was the video of the 'Baby Milk Plant' that was destroyed. The world began to see what colateral damage was. A second turning point was the caputure and torture of "UN" troups in that battle. The turning point in Vietnam was the television coverage of American deaths and the televised 'murder of civilians' that showed how bad war always was. As long as the war is occuring in Yugoslavia and not in our parlours NATO is happy. THAT is why television is a much greater enemy than the telephone system. Besides with every family contact that is made by telephone people in the west know that their relatives are fine and that NATO has not killed them. If the phone system went out then relatives in the west would not know if the people of Yugoslavia were safe and would assume the worst. I support the troops. My family has spent too many years in the military not to support the troops. But this battle is not one that I support. We are on a dangerous footing already, and there seems to be no way out except to quit before Vietnam *is* repeated. "Justa Lurker" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Justa, I think I agree with you, and this once I'll let an anonymous message go though, but please provide at least a reasonable sounding name in the future, okay? PAT] ------------------------------ From: tbetz@panix.com (Tom Betz) Subject: Re: Hyprocisy - Telecommunications During Wars Date: 19 Apr 1999 14:52:16 -0400 Organization: Society for the Elimination of Junk Unsolicited Bulk Email Reply-To: tbetz@pobox.com Quoth Spiro Dreamer in : > NATO is currently destroying TV transmitters in Yugoslavia under the > excuse that they are used for military purposes. No, they aren't. And the officer who floated the idea (surprising his superiors) during a press briefing was summarily transferred to less public duties. |We have tried ignorance | Tom Betz, Generalist | |for a very long time, and | Want to send me email? FIRST, READ THIS PAGE: | |it's time we tried education.| | || YO! MY EMAIL ADDRESS IS HEAVILY SPAM-ARMORED! | ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #52 ***************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Apr 24 13:56:26 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id NAA06308; Sat, 24 Apr 1999 13:56:26 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 13:56:26 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199904241756.NAA06308@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #53 TELECOM Digest Sat, 24 Apr 99 13:46:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 53 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Q & A About Archives Changes (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: 500 Update ... Bad News (Linc Madison) Re: European-Wide Country Code of +388: How Implemented? (Linc Madison) Re: Should MIT Unplug Faceless Emailer? (John Eichler) New Billing Charge: Local Number Portability (Matthew Black) Suffolk County, Long Island, NY (Keith - Add the M in Com ) Mark II Phone System Question (Dan Obrien) Court Ruling Could Prohibit Stealth Sites (Monty Solomon) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 10:56:44 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Q & A About Archives Changes I have received various comments from users of the Telecom Archives web site since I finished some of the renovation and solicited comments. A few of these are included below. Question: What about continuing to use it with a Lynx browser now that it has javascripting in it? That's fine. The only things the Lynx user will not see are those things he could not see before anyway, such as the icons. He will not be able to see the audio-visual presentation, nor use the chat room area. But I doubt a Lynx user would generally be interested in the chat feature anyway. He will not be able to see the new Y-2-K countdown clock. But he will see all he was able to see before. Ditto with Mosaic. What you saw before is mostly what you will see now. But IE and Netscape users need to have java turned on in their own browser, or they will not see all the changes either. Question: Speaking of the Y-2-K clock display, the results differ based on the type of browser used. IE-4 and IE-5 browsers see a small table or form near the top of the screen with a constantly changing display of numbers which are, I feel certain, accurate. Some browsers see a display that has one hour *too many* in the answer. That's because of daylight savings time. Come the last Sunday in October and that extra hour will go away. With Netscape browsers, the display is different, or I should say the display is similar but the results are different. With a new Netscape such as 4.5, the display is mostly correct, but a bug in the browser causes a situation of zero hours (such as after 11 pm) or zero minutes (such as into the 59th minute of an hour) to display as 'NaN' only until the remaining minutes in the zeroeth hour or the remaining seconds in the zeroeth minute reach a single digit number. I have no idea why. For a good laugh, try a Netscape 4.05 browser, where the display shows NEGATIVE numbers in the answer and the display counts upward! The solution to this, we figured out, was instead of basing the countdown on 1/1/2000 00:00:00 to base it on one second less, starting with 12/31/99 11:59:59 and then adding one second at the very end just before the display is given. Question: Is there a bug in the front page display of the time/date and last visit date? Yep. For a new visitor (or one whose cookies have all been cleaned out or never turned on to start with) it does say you have been to the site zero times before, and 'your last visit was December 31, 6:00 PM' .. If you are in the central time zone that is; if you are in London or otherwise have your clock set to GMT I think it will say your last visit was January 1, 00:00. Both IE-4 and IE-5 as well as Netscape 4.5 handle it that way; I do not yet have a report on that 'feature' regards Netscape 4.05 Question: Is http://telecom-digest.org Year 2K compliant? Well, grin, it all depends on your browser ... all flavors and styles of Netscape and IE presently think the year is '99'. So I have a line in the script which says when you display the year, make it the year + 1900. Great, now we get a display of '1999'. But IE-5 did something internally that fixes things on its own and it *will* consider next year to be '2000'. What they seem to have done in their code for the browser is say that after December 31, magically add 1900 years to the date. So they do not need my 1900 years any longer. But Netscape says that after 99 comes 100, and they will continue to need the 1900 I added in order to display the correct year. Remember, the browsers do not display anything about their internals that you do not ask for, so it would be a moot point if a javascript did not ask for 'browserTime'. The math works out fine either way internally. So by my adding 1900, next year according to IE will be the year 3900, while Netscape says it will be 2000. If I do not use my 'add 1900 to the year' then next year IE will say the year is 2000 but Netscape will say the year is 100 when a call is made for browser.Time to be displayed on the user's screen. What I finally wound up saying in the script was that if the year is greater than 98 and the year is less than 2000 then add 1900 to the year. This year both browsers say it is '99' which is greater than 98; next year IE will say it is 2000 which is not less than 2000, and Netscape will say it is 100, which is indeed less than 2000. So next year, IE which does not need the 1900 won't get it, but Netscape which does need the 1900 will get it. I think that would work for any situation where the current year is either (99 or 1999) and next year will be either (100 or 2000) and a display is expected. For those browsers that think next year will be zero -- if there are any out there that feel that way -- then *after* the line of code saying to add (or not) 1900, you would say that if year is less than 99, which would be false this year but true next year, then add 2000. Or you could insert a version=navigator.appVersion test and if (version.indexOf("MSIE")) != 1 -- which means testing for the browser type to Internet Explorer returned false -- you are dealing with a Netscape browser and you would add 1900 to the year regardless, otherwise quit doing it when the year was no longer less than 100. Is that all clear as mud? Good. Thank you. Question: What if I do not want the music or the background? Reload the page. The background and the music changes every time. Question: What if I do not want music at all? Tell the popup as the page is loading that you want to Cancel the music. Or just ignore the popup and close out of it. The music will not play unless the popup returns true to the script, meaning you punch OK. The script says that music = (confirm(user response)) and if music != 1 then bgsound is null. Lynx users and Netscape users will not even be asked about it, the page will just load in silence. For the time being, only IE browsers will even see this popup. Netscape users will not see it, and this was a deliberate choice on my part since I cannot send music to Netscape browsers anyway, at least not from lcs.mit.edu at present. Question: If the music is playing and I hate it, then what? Reload the page, and ignore or Cancel the popup. Question: I would like music. You said I cannot have it with a Netscape browser. Is that true? That is correct at the present time. While IE is not picky at all about what it does, and happily renders whatever you give it, Netscape insists on following a standard which calls for MIME types to be given to it with 'embedded files'. Right now it is my belief that the MIME types are misconfigured at lcs.mit.edu since attempts to play music using Netscape's 'embed src' command result in Netscape squalling and screaming about "Danger! I found an embedded file! I am going to call notepad.exe and have him open this file so we can see what it is about. Never! Never! open an embedded file, why, you could get in big trouble and maybe even cause the imminent death of Usenet." Or something like that. And when you say yeah, let's open it and see what it is, you get a little broken icon on the screen and a few squibbles of nonsense text. I tried forcing Netscape to see things my way by adding to the 'embed src' command such additional stuff as type=audio/midi and type=audio/x-mid saying to it get your plugins and do as I say. But no dice ... Netscape would not believe what I told it. *This only happens when the file is served from lcs.mit.edu*. The same files play fine on Netscape locally on my computer, and from other sites. I have asked a sysadmin at LCS to see what can be done. In the meantime, no music for Netscape. As 'they' say -- and I am extremely reluctant to say it myself -- 'this page is best viewed using IE'. My thinking is 'this page is best viewed if you come to my office and look at my monitor' .. and John Higdon noted, isn't that the truth these days with web sites. It seems the more we push HTML to its limits, the less likely we are to get the same view for everyone who calls the page. I tried as nearly as possible to make the pages look the same on Netscape and IE. I spent much time deciding on fonts and sizes, etc. I do not want to dictate your browser type, I want to serve you with the choices you have made. In the meantime, come to my office and view my monitor if you want to see a beautiful web page. During testing as I wrote the pages, I had three browsers open at all times, or sometimes four. I would correct or change some item, then go to each browser and check the results. My browsers are IE-4, IE-5, Netscape 4.5, Opera 3 and Lynx. The pages come *very close* to identical on IE, Netscape and Opera. Question: Why are those two popups with the moderator's idea of humor in there before I go look at the movie? Well you see, the page with the movie takes a thousand ages of computer time to load. If I put you right in there you would look at a blank background and silence for twenty or thirty seconds before the movie started playing. By giving you a couple of popups you have to read and punch out of, I stall for time while the movie page is loading. After you have spent twenty seconds or so reading and (hopefully) laughing at the popups and clicked out of them, the movie, which is on autostart will have loaded, and a little black box in the center of the page will have appeared and be waiting for your popup click so that it can autostart itself with no delay. It will not start until you have have closed the popups. It should time out about right. If this proves to work pretty well after some testing, I will give some thought to a reader's suggestion that there be a regular 'telecom internet TV show', meaning a once a week or so live, via the web audio-visual or multimedia presentation with guest speakers and that sort of thing. Question: The main page and the movie page do not just appear on the screen like other sites. The other site I was viewing starts to crumble up and fade away as the telecom site moves in, or sometimes a large circle closes in on it and the telecom page starts filling in around the edges. Sometimes it looks like a checkerboard; other times the telecom page starts pushing the other page I was viewing off to the side diagonally before starting. Yep. To make your pages do the same thing, add this code after HEAD and before /HEAD: META http-equiv = "Page-Enter" content = "RevealTrans (Duration=4, Transition=23)" Put the whole thing in the usual < and > and it only works with IE 5, not Netscape. Transitions are from 0 to 22 with 23 being a random one from the others. You can choose between boxes in/out, circles in/out, wipe up/down, checkerboard, vertical/horizontal blinds, random blurring of screen, etc. Dura- tion is how long you want the effect to last in seconds. My personal favorite is when the telecom pages arrive, they start pushing whatever you had been viewing off the screen to the right, a few pixels at a time, until telecom has moved in totally and shoved the other site out of the way entirely. Trashy, isn't it? ---------------------------- And that's it for now. More questions, just ask. Remember, I love Lynx users. You still get everything you always did get before if not the newest changes, which I like to call improvements. Opera tends to follow IE browsers, and in fact identifies itself as part of the 'Mozilla' group. If you do have IE, please use it on the pages. Anyone who wants the code to play around with on their own pages is welcome to take it. Just dump the raw page to your end. I would especially appreciate hearing from persons with several browsers who try them all and report back the (hopefully only) minor differences they experience. You can also now read the latest issue of the Digest directly from the top web page; you do not need to look in the back issues files. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 03:34:23 -0700 From: Telecom@LincMad.com.NOSPAM (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: 500 Update ... Bad News Organization: LincMad Consulting In article , Matt Cline wrote: > Gang - > I called MCI, out of curiosity about their services, and guess what: > MCI has cancelled their service as well. When I asked for details the > rep told me: "those numbers were routed through an facility in Sacramento. > We don't even have an office there anymore. The service was grandfathered > for existing clients." So much for competition working to our advantage. There are two reasons that 500 service never really caught on. First and foremost, the greed of the telesleaze industry. They saw yet another code that hadn't been sullied in the public mind and jumped on it. Second and more importantly, the stupidity and culpable negligence of the industry folks who created 500 service in the first place. The fundamental problem is that you can (at least with some providers) forward a 500 number outside the U.S., in which case the caller will pay the additional charge for the international call. There is a recorded message that advises you that the call will be billed at a higher rate, but that doesn't help the owner of a PBX or a payphone. Therefore, you cannot dial a 500 number from any PBX or payphone with a sensible owner, since there is no way to predict what the charge will be for the call. Of course, the other major question in all of this is, why on earth was 533 opened up as an expansion of 500? There are plenty of unused prefixes in 500 and no great demand for them, so the decision to open up 533 was clearly improper. On the other hand, I've seen no evidence of any assignments in 533, so it's a bit of a moot point. ** Do not send me unsolicited commercial e-mail spam of any kind ** Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * Telecom@LincMad-com URL:< http://www.lincmad.com > * North American Area Codes & Splits >> NOTE: if you autoreply, you must delete the "NOSPAM" << ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 04:10:00 -0700 From: Telecom@LincMad.com.NOSPAM (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: European-Wide Country Code of +388: How Implemented, if So? Organization: LincMad Consulting In article , Kent K. Steinbrenner wrote: > A few days ago on the U.S. Metric Assn.'s listserv, a list member > asked the following: >> "While, looking up some information on telephone systems worldwide, I came >> across a website on country codes. I know that each country has its own >> telephone code for calls originating outside to reach inside. What was >> interesting, was that the website noted that Europe was (is) suppose to get >> a region wide code beginning in 1999. The code number is +388." > He then wanted to know more about this code. A few European members of > the listserv didn't know about the code, either, and wanted to know > more. I recalled seeing something on this newsgroup last year or the > year before about +388, but don't recall when it was (otherwise I'd > have gone searching through the archives). > Has anyone heard more about +388? Would usage of it require national > renumbering of number plans (of course, Italy, France and Spain have > been doing that recently, if memory serves me correctly)? +388 was part of a doomed plan to renumber all of Europe under the single country code +3. All the three-digit codes in the EU are +3xx; in fact, the only +4xx codes are +420, +421, and +423 for the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Liechtenstein, respectively; all very recent assignments. The plan called for all two-digit +3x and +4x codes to migrate to +33x and +34x. It would ultimately have been possible to dial from any point in the +3 zone to any other point by dialing 1 + the last two digits of the country code + national number. For instance, London numbers would be +344 20 nxxx.xxxx, so you could dial 1-44-20-nxxx.xxxx. To call Dublin, you would dial 1-53-1-nxx.xxxx. Pan-European toll-free numbers would be 1-888-nxx.xxx[x][x]. Premium numbers would be on 1-900. Pan-European carrier code assignments would be made for prefix codes. All very American looking; rather surprising given the anti-American bent of most telecomms Eurocrats. > Someone else on that listserv wondered why the EU would get a > three-digit number; after all, they reasoned, it ought to get a > one-digit number like the other "important" areas of the world (+1 for > NANPA, +7 for ex-Soviet Union, etc.) Good point! :) With the possible exception of +3 (which was envisioned to replace all +3 and +4 codes), no more one- or two-digit codes will be allocated. The Ukraine is certainly big enough that it would have deserved a two-digit code (unlike +45 Denmark, +64 New Zealand, +65 Singapore, and other existing assignments). Unfortunately, the Ukraine's +380 stands right in the way of the obvious choice of 1-800 for the pan-European freephone, but the plan is most likely utterly dead anyway. Of course, the biggest problem was the timetable on which they were planning to implement this scheme. In order to do it properly, you would need to have a couple of years of permissive dialing (parallel running) for each of the following steps: (1) Migrate all numbers in +33 3 to some other range in +33. (2) Route all calls to +33 3 to a recording informing you of the new number. (3) Migrate all numbers in +33 to the new +333. (4) Route all calls to +33X (other than +333) to a recording. (5) Migrate all numbers in +34 to the new +334. (6) Route all calls to +34 to a recording. (7) Migrate all numbers in +3X and +4X to the new +33X and +34X. (8) Figure out what to do with the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Liechtenstein. (9) Only now, allow 1-XX instead of +3XX dialing. I would propose two years as a sensible minimum schedule for each of those steps, following in strict sequence with no overlap (except maybe step #8). The original proposal from the EU was to do this whole process in about a year and a half. There was (and may still be) some information on the EU's web site, giving all the gory details of their plan. The vision was sweeping, and the end result would be a much more unified European telephony infrastructure, but the people who created the plan didn't adequately think through the transition required to get there. Perhaps Europe could become +0 when that range opens up for assignment in the not-too-distant future ... according to the ITU, at least. You could assign all existing +3X and +4X codes to +03X and +04X, and all existing +3XX and +42X codes to +0XX -- there are still no conflicts in that transition scheme, as long as all the three-digit codes remain in +35X, +37X, +38X, and +42X. You could have full permissive dialing (parallel running) of the old and new codes in a single step, both for calls within Europe and for calls from outside Europe. Any countries in +3/+4 that didn't opt in at the start could keep the option to do so later. ** Do not send me unsolicited commercial e-mail spam of any kind ** Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * Telecom@LincMad-com URL:< http://www.lincmad.com > * North American Area Codes & Splits >> NOTE: if you autoreply, you must delete the "NOSPAM" << ------------------------------ From: jeichl - John Eichler Subject: Re: Should MIT Unplug Faceless Emailer? Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 07:13:37 -0500 Pat, You wrote ... > ... and today we have a closet full of old 9600 baud modems we cannot > give away. The jump from 300 to 9600 was only a few years, and now in > the past four or five years 28K and 56K are 'acceptable'. I will bet > you that by 2034 everyone -- and I mean everyone, 95 percent of the > population or more -- will be connected via cable or LAN or something > like that. Speeds of 115K will be the norm." ROFLMAO ... Heck Pat, by 2034 I should think that fiber connections for most people where ever they are will be more like 115 meg or more. 115K will seem old fashion by then except to us old men who will be sitting around in our rockers discussing the leap from 300 to 1200.. John Eichler ------------------------------ From: black@csulb.NOSMAP.edu (Matthew Black) Subject: New Billing Charge: Local Number Portability Date: 24 Apr 1999 14:16:42 GMT GTE California has started billing this residential customer $0.38 for local number portability. I never requested any such service and am curious if this is some new universal fee. [if you want to send me e-mail, remove an item from my address] -------------------------------(c) 1999 Matthew Black, all rights reserved-- matthew black | Opinions expressed herein belong to me and network & systems specialist | may not reflect those of my employer california state university | network services SSA-180E | e-mail: black at csulb dot edu 1250 bellflower boulevard | PGP fingerprint: 6D 14 36 ED 5F 34 C4 B3 long beach, ca 90840 | E9 1E F3 CB E7 65 EE BC [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Sprint Local Service is adding the charge on starting this month. They are charging 48 cents. Sprint also on local service adds on something called 'Minimum Billing Charge' which is about six dollars per month. It seems they got an okay to bill the customer for the expense involved in sending out the bills each month. PAT] ------------------------------ From: keith@knip.co (Keith - Add the M in Com ) Subject: Suffolk County, Long Island, NY Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 15:07:32 GMT Organization: I-2000 Inc., Internet Services Does anyone know what the NEW " AREA CODE " will be ? I suggest " 783 " for SUF ------------------------------ From: Dan Obrien Reply-To: obconsultants@home.com Organization: @Home Network Subject: Mark II Phone System Question Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 15:59:05 GMT I have a Mark II phone system. I have connected ananloq telephones to the SLI card, they work but I was wondering how can I get them to ring with the CO Line that they are setup for? Thanks, Dan ------------------------------ Reply-To: Monty Solomon From: "Monty Solomon" Subject: Court Ruling Could Prohibit Stealth Sites Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 18:33:56 -0400 InternetNews.com Court Ruling Could Prohibit Stealth Sites April 16, 1999 Brian McWilliams, InternetNews.com Correspondent Business News Archives It may be one of the cheapest ways to buy a little traffic to a Web site, but now it's also on very shaky legal ground. The practice of registering "stealth sites," or Internet addresses that are variations on popular corporate names, was blasted by a Virginia federal court this week. A judge has ordered Network Solutions Inc. to freeze a Web site with the address www.wwwpainewebber.com. The district court ruled that owner of the site, a Miami, Florida man who was using the address to feed traffic to a pornography site, was diluting the famous investment firm's trademark. http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article/0,1087,3_100051,00.html ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #53 ***************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Apr 24 15:25:30 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA09464; Sat, 24 Apr 1999 15:25:30 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 15:25:30 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199904241925.PAA09464@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #54 TELECOM Digest Sat, 24 Apr 99 15:25:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 54 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Tops Comcast Bid for Media One (Monty Solomon) G&M: Dial 911, We're Running Out of Area Codes (Kent K. Steinbrenner) Historic Role of Government in Internet Development (Ronda Hauben) E-zine Review: "This is True", Randy Cassingham (Rob Slade) Dialtone in Different Countries (Lucio Maggioli) Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' (Ed Kummel) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: Monty Solomon From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T Tops Comcast Bid for Media One Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 07:09:59 -0400 By Jessica Hall NEW YORK (Reuters) - AT&T Corp. (NYSE:T - news), the No. 1 long-distance telephone company, launched another major foray into cable TV Thursday by offering to buy MediaOne Group Inc. for $58 billion in cash and stock, in an attempt to break up MediaOne's proposed merger with Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq:CMCSA - news) AT&T, which recently acquired Tele-Communications Inc. (Nasdaq:TCOMP - news) for $55 billion, said its offer represents a premium of 17 percent, or $8.6 billion, over the current value of Comcast's offer and 26 percent over MediaOne's current trading price. AT&T has been searching for a way to bypass the regional phone companies networks to find its own connection directly to customers' homes and businesses. "Together, AT&T and MediaOne will bring broadband video, voice and data services to more communities, more quickly than we could separately or, in MediaOne's case, with any other company," AT&T Chairman C. Michael Armstrong said in a prepared statement. The AT&T offer came on the heels of a record $81 billion merger agreement between Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE:DT - news), Europe's biggest telecom group, and Telecom Italia SpA (NYSE:TI - news) announced earlier Thursday, and prompted speculation of more telecommunications mergers to come. MediaOne in March agreed to be acquired by Comcast, the No. 4 cable systems operator, in a deal currently valued at $44 billion, based on Comcast's closing stock price Thursday. Comcast is the majority owner of QVC and E! Entertainment cable channels, and owns the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team and Philadelphia 76ers basketball team. Comcast and MediaOne, which was formerly part of Baby Bell U S West Inc., could not be immediately reached for comment. AT&T's proposed purchase of MediaOne, in addition to its recent acquisition of TCI and its joint venture with Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX - news), would allow AT&T to provide phone and Internet services directly to customers over the cable companies' networks. MediaOne's stock soared in after-hours trading after AT&T's offer was announced. MediaOne traded at $82 in the post-session, up $12.50 from the regular close. AT&T traded at $57 on the Instinet broker system, in line with the regular close. "It's a huge, huge deal. It's all about bandwidth, it's all about Internet access, (and) MediaOne certainly is the front-runner in realizing bandwidth is important," said Arthur Hogan, chief market analyst at Jefferies & Co. Hogan predicted the bid would accelerate consolidation in the industry and predicted other stocks would get a bounce, including Cox Communications Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp. and Jones Intercable . "These things tend to feed on themselves," Hogan said. The offer for MediaOne is AT&T's second unsolicited takeover deal in recent years, following its acquisition of computer company NCR Corp., which it has since spun-off. The offer follows a wave of hostile or unsolicited offers in several industries in recent weeks. AT&T plans to divest non-strategic MediaOne assets currently valued at about $18 billion to $20 billion. AT&T also plans to continue its aggressive efforts to reduce its operating expenses by an additional $2 billion by the end of the 2000. The majority of the expense reductions will apply to network costs, general, and administrative expenses, lower access fees paid to local exchange companies for handling long-distance calls, and more streamlined operations and systems. Additional savings in the range of at least $175 to $200 million will result from saving in combining the former TCI and MediaOne cable operations. AT&T expects the deal to damp profits by about 30 cents in the first full year of combined operation, resulting from additional shares outstanding and the cost of financing. After the purchase of MediaOne, cash earnings -- or net income per share plus acquisition goodwill -- will decline by less than 10 cents per share. AT&T said the acquisition over time would accelerate earnings, cash flow and revenue growth. It also will reduce the percentage of AT&T's revenues that come from slower growth businesses such as consumer long-distance service. AT&T said it believed the deal could be completed by the end of 1999. AT&T said it anticipated no difficulty in arranging financing for the cash portion of its offer and expected to have $30 billion of financing in place by April 30. Chase Manhattan Bank and Goldman Sachs Credit Partners L.P. already have each committed to provide $5 billion of the financing. ------------------------------ From: Kent K. Steinbrenner Subject: G&M: Dial 911, We're Running Out of Area Codes Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 02:14:32 -0700 Thursday, April 22, 1999 | The Globe and Mail | Canada's National Newspaper (well, one of them, anyway ) Dial 911, we're running out of area codes Explosion of extra phone and data lines to blame TYLER HAMILTON Technology Reporter, The Globe and Mail Internet lines, fax machines, wireless phones and increased competition in the telephone industry are causing North America's pool of area codes to dry up 23 years earlier than first anticipated. Industry experts say the last of those three-digit numbers will be used up some time in the next decade and that fixing the problem will be a monumental task equivalent to the billions of dollars and hours put into fixing the year 2000 computer bug. "Clearly it's analogous [to the year 2000 problem]. It may even be bigger because of the amount of systems that depend upon telephone numbers," said Thomas McGarry, technical industry liaison at Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp., which operates the North American Numbering Plan Administration (NANPA) in Washington. NANPA is responsible for issuing area codes in Canada, the United States and the Caribbean. Currently, all numbers in North America include a three-digit area code and a seven-digit phone number. When area codes run out, the industry will need to move to either a four-digit area code or eight-digit phone number, requiring all terminal equipment, network switches, data bases, and call centre software to be reprogrammed to accept at least 11 digits. Many of these area codes are being used up by U.S. states such as California, New York and Florida, densely populated regions with a high level of business activity. The number of area codes in California, for example, has doubled since 1990 to 28. There are 792 area codes in existence, with each able to accommodate 7.2 million numbers. In Canada, metropolitan areas such as Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Edmonton have all had to deal this decade with the addition of new area codes. Toronto's 416 area code lasted 46 years before 905 was introduced in 1993. Another code, 647, will likely be necessary by 2001, observers say. "The use of phone numbers is increasing much more rapidly than anyone had anticipated, driven by things like fax machines, second phone lines and data lines," said Ian Angus, telephone industry consultant and president of Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. of Ajax, Ont. Mr. Angus said predictions vary as to when these area codes will run out, adding that the earliest depletion estimate he's come across is 2002. A committee of NANPA has spent months poring through data to confirm its "very preliminary" prediction that the last area code will be used up as early as 2007, compared with original estimates of 2030. The committee will present a report today to the North American Numbering Council (NANC), a division of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. Alan Hasselwander, chairman of NANC, said the industry lacks sufficient "microdata" to come up with an accurate date, but added that the matter is serious and that the telecommunications industry needs to act fast to delay what will ultimately become a major undertaking. "We're trying to get the industry to agree to a range that seems rational based on the best information we can get," said Mr. Hasselwander, adding that NANPA and NANC are exploring ways to extend the life of existing area codes. "I believe that if we take some of these measures, this exhaust can be delayed significantly." he said. "For decades if we try." One measure that will likely be taken is to reduce how many numbers a telephone company can be assigned at one time. Today, phone companies can get numbers in blocks of 10,000 or more, regardless of the size of the company or if the requirement is much less. Mr. Angus said more of these 10,000 blocks have been issued within the past few years because deregulation of the telephone industry has created more competitors. The problem, he said, is many of these companies have numbers they aren't prepared to use. Mr. Hasselwander said figuring out a way to free up those numbers and extend the life of the current 10-digit system should be a priority. "We have to think about these solutions very seriously," he said. "I think we have to think about them now." ------------------------------ From: rh120@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Ronda Hauben) Subject: Historic Role of Government in Internet Development Date: 24 Apr 1999 16:57:56 GMT Organization: Columbia University Reply-To: rh120@watsun.cc.columbia.edu Following is proposal for a paper I am planning to work on. I welcome comments, suggestions of sources to consult, etc. Ronda --------------- The Role of Government in the Development of the Internet Paper Proposal by Ronda Hauben rh120@columbia.edu There are many myths about the role that government has played in the history of the development of the Internet. The most prevalent myth is that government has played no role, beyond funding the early research to build the Internet. This is a serious misrepresentation of the actual history and development. This misrepresentation also has important political consequences. There is a need to determine how to solve a number of problems for the continued development of the Internet and if the proper role for government is not determined, then the problems become very difficult or impossible to solve. Also, the U.S. government is currently making an effort to change its role in how it relates to Internet development. However, if there is a lack of knowledge of what the role of government has been, then there are serious consequences that can result from the U.S. government changing that role without taking into account the problems that will develop. The Internet has basically developed under government and university support and activity. However, the form of government and university support is often not obvious nor well documented. In 1945, Vannebar Bush, an MIT scholar, was invited to advise the President of the United States on how to apply the lessons that had been learned about wartime scientific research to solve the social and technological problems for peacetime conditions. His work set a basis for an important form of government structure that would nourish scientific and technological development. In my research, I plan to explore the influence of Bush's work on the later creation and development of the Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO) of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). This office was created in 1962 and existed until 1987. During this period the work done by those working for this office made it possible to create and develop the Internet. The Internet was developed between 1972 and 1987 under the support and actions of people, often working under conditions created by or more directly working for the IPTO. After 1987, ARPA and the National Science Foundation continued to play an important role in the development of the Internet. So I plan to also touch on the role played after 1987, but will focus my paper on the role of government between 1972 and 1987. ARPA was created as a civilian agency in the U.S. Department of Defense. Those who were part of ARPA worked hard to provide a supportative environment that made it possible for the initial research creating the Internet to be done and also provided support for the actual development of the Internet. I want to study how this was done, and how various pressures that would have interferred with research and development were constrained. Also I plan to examine how Usenet was helpful in the development of the Internet during the 1981-83 period and to explore if there are lessons to be learned from the linking up of Usenet and the ARPANET during that period which can be helpful in solving the problems that the Internet is facing now. The process of building the Internet involved a number of procedures that made it possible for the grassroots to participate in the design and development of important aspects of the Internet. However, this was possible because there was a line of responsibility and accounta- bility provided by the government processes involved in building the Internet. Once this line of responsibility and accountability has been taken away by the U.S. government, as in the privatization of the domain name system (DNS) and other essential functions of the Internet, it has become similarly impossible for there to be any grassroots processes available to those online. Instead, those who are most powerful are active trying to seize control of the public functions and powers so that they will control the Internet. In 1996 the U.S. government announced that it was planning to privatize certain key functions of the Internet. This announcement was made at a meeting of the Federal Networking Council Advisory Committee. Then in 1997-1998 there was a Report of the Office of the Inspector General of the National Science Foundation (OIG of the NSF) which opposed the privatization of the DNS. And there were hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives about the plans to carry out the privatization of these key functions. The Office of the Inspector General Report did focus on determining what would be an appropriate government role in the continued development of the Internet. The hearings in Congress, however, in general did not raise or examine this key question. In the 1970's there were conferences and books about the need to prepare to deal with the developing computer network as a public utility. These articles and books stressed the need for a social focus for the developing network. And they described how the U.S. government would be unprepared to deal with the needed social problems that the developing network would create if such issues were not treated seriously by government support for needed research and study. Also one of the writers pointed out that the power struggle that would go on behind the scenes would be very fierce, but that those who hoped for a democratic development of the communications network might be blinded by that hope from recognizing and properly dealing with the fierce power battle. And most recently a similar concern was raised by a political scientist from the Kennedy School of Government about the need to have a government regulatory structure rather than a private nonprofit corporation as a model for the operation and protection of the essential and controlling functions of the Internet. She also pointed out that there were procedures in government like doing an FBI check on someone being appointed to a regulatory commission position and holding them responsible for honest activity or else subjecting them to criminal charges. These kinds of structures were created to protect those whose economic livelihood is dependent upon the regulators who have great power. Thus she noted that the kind of situation being created with regard to the Internet will give great power to those who have no means of oversight to stop their abuse of such power. The kind of private nonprofit corporation now being created to regulate the Names and Numbers functions of the Internet (ICANN) will make it possible for certain individuals to exercise great economic power over people around the world while there are none of the historically developed protections that governments have been created to provide. The research I am proposing will be to examine the role played by government (especially the U.S. government, but if possible other governments as well) in the development of the Internet. And there will be an effort to identify the role needed to continue that development. Also I will try to examine the kind of political forces at play which are either trying to determine the proper government role or to thwart these efforts. Other draft papers about the development of the Net and of UNIX are online at http://www.umcc.ais.edu/~ronda For NSF Office of Inspector General Report, see: http://www.bna.com/e-law/docs/nsfnsi.html Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/ and in print edition ISBN # 0-8186-7706-6 ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 08:29:17 -0800 Subject: E-zine Review: "This is True", Randy Cassingham Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca MLTRUE.RVW 990314 "This is True", Randy Cassingham, 1999, , %A Randy Cassingham arcie@thisistrue.com %C PO Box 17326, Boulder CO 80308-0326 %D 1999 %I Freelance Communications %O TrueInfo@thisistrue.com http://www.thisistrue.com %P ~5 stories weekly %T "This is True" As with "News of the Weird" (cf. MLNOTW.RVW) and "Maddog News" (cf. MLMADDOG.RVW), "This is True" relies on real news stories that touch on the bizarre. Like NOTW, True is syndicated, and available for use as a column by newspapers. The free version of True runs weekly, and is a slightly reduced version of the full weekly column available by email as a paid subscription mailing list. The free version carries references to stories in the other edition. The free edition of True carries one ad per issue, and it must get pretty good coverage. At the top of every column is listed a rough count of the subscriber base, and an exact count of the number of countries. As of February, 1999, that was 150,000 subscribers in 164 countries. Another of Cassingham's trademarks is a one line editorial comment on the story, generally facetious. Each item is about a paragraph long, and contains a reference to the source. These items generally come from wire services. A lengthy report on Cassingham's life and doings, as well as responses to reader mail, accompanies each issue. These are well written and amusing, and it is almost possible to forget that they are basically ads for the "premium" version of the mailing list, and the various books Cassingham has written. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1999 MLTRUE.RVW 990314 ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@sprint.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca p1@canada.com And then we have P. D. Eastman's great tragic classic, `Are You My Mother?' Our protagonist struggles greatly with the issues of his own identity, and the identity of those around him. Abandoned before birth, alone in a hostile world, his first independent action almost fatal, he searches desperately, receiving no help from anyone he encounters. Eventually his relationships become completely mechanical. At the end of the tale he has accomplished nothing, having returned to precisely the point at which he started. And yet there is something poignant, and, perhaps, even noble, in the dogged determination captured in the one famous line of the book, `And the baby bird went *on*.' http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade ------------------------------ From: lucio1974@my-dejanews.com (Lucio Maggioli) Subject: Dialtone in Different Countries Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 10:54:06 GMT Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion Hello, in Italy the dialtone isn't a continuous tone, like the one you're likely to hear in the United States. Actually we have a "stuttering" dialtone. In Italy, you get a continuous dialtone only when you have the call forwarding service turned on, or when you dial the code to place an anonymous call (so the person you're calling won't be shown your phone number). I was wondering what kind of dialtone (continuous or stuttering) is used in different countries of the world. Does anyone have information about this subject? Thanks, Lucio Maggioli nyork@tin.it ------------------------------ From: Ed Kummel Subject: Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 01:59:14 -0100 I think that this lawsuit is a load of CRAP! It's just another way for lawyers to buy that new yacht they always wanted! Look at it from the carriers perspective. You have 100 lines in a rural ho-hum town. and you have 100 lines in Anacostia Washington DC (a really bad part of town) you notice that there is fraud in both areas, but the fraud in the "bad" town is usually to internation areas like Saudi Arabia, Turkestan, Russia and the like. So what do you do? you restrict calling patterns based on the amount of fraud you receive! Nothing wrong with that! Hey, if you feel that you are wrongly restricted becaus of a fraud restriction, then talk with the carrier, they will usually take a $1000 bond from you as guarantee that the phone you are using will not be used for fraud! (cellular or landline) And if YOU can't guarantee that you will be responsible for all fraud that occurs on your phone (yeah cell phone users, you want to be responsible for fraud? Someone clones your phone, stands on a street corner and starts selling international calls at $.50/minute to anyone who wants. You calling card users, you think you're safe? There are people in airports with binoculars looking at you while you dial your "secret" number and PIN. They get you. There are all kinds of tricks out there). So yes, tell the carrier that you will be responsible for all calls from your phone and then see what happens (they will send you a release form that requires that you sign it and send it back!) I side with the carrier, sorry! ed ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #54 ***************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Apr 24 17:00:05 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA13327; Sat, 24 Apr 1999 17:00:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 17:00:05 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199904242100.RAA13327@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #55 TELECOM Digest Sat, 24 Apr 99 17:00:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 55 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Says NANPA (Eric Morson) Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Says NANPA (Jeffrey J. Carpenter) Re: Last Laugh! Not a Thing For the House of God (Ed Kummel) Graybar Electric (Mike O'Dorney) Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' (Alan Boritz) Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' (Walter Dnes) Re: Who Invented the Telephone? (Adam H. Kerman) Re: Local Calls Being Billed by IXC - Update (Bill Levant) Re: Local Calls Being Billed as Intra-LATA Through IXC (Stanley Cline) Re: AT&T Discontinues Easy Reach 500 Number Service (J.R. Light) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Eric@AreaCode-Info.com (Eric B. Morson) Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 18:50:03 -0400 Subject: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Says NANPA Looks like the first REAL steps have been taken to evaluate just how SOON the NANP will be in SERIOUS jeopardy as a whole. The NANP Exhaust Study has been published.... http://www.nanpa.com/pdf/NANP_Exhaust_Study.pdf VERY informative ... they now project total exhaustion between 2006 and 2012, with their best guess being 2007... 8 1/2 years to go! NO FCC action recommended regarding 10-D or 11-D dialing yet. No timetable for expansion yet. No FCC mandate for implementing expanding dialing patterns from 3+7 to 4+8 with a deadline for launch. How about deciding IF 4+8 will be the solution? When the projected total exhaustion of the NANP was 2025-2030, it was reasonable to think that yet-uninvented technologies that would reduce the amount of phone numbers needed would save us before we ran out of NPA-NXX resources. Now it seems much less likely, with an ever shrinking 8 1/2 years to go, that technology will save the NANP from disaster. How can planning wait any longer, considering how much hardware, software, education, politics, and regulation needs to be completed, and only 8.5 years to go? Not to mention, it's not JUST the United States! It's not just an American problem! Add international relations, tariffs, and politics to the mix when you include Canada and the Caribbean nations. (That's my diatribe for the day) Eric B. Morson Co-Webmaster AreaCode-Info.com (203) 348-3258 mailto:Eric@AreaCode-Info.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But a very good diatribe it was, and one that should give us all something to think about. Aren't things starting to get a little ridiculous here? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 19:43:40 -0400 From: Jeffrey J. Carpenter Subject: Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Says NANPA Eric@areacode-info.com wrote: > Looks like the first REAL steps have been taken to evaluate just how > SOON the NANP will be in SERIOUS jeopardy as a whole. > The NANP Exhaust Study has been published ... This is obviously going to generate a lot of discussion in the industry. The CTIA has already submitted a letter to the NANC questioning the methodology the NANPA used. Their submission is available at: http://www.wow-com.com/lawpol/filing/pdf/ctialtr042299.pdf Jeffrey J. Carpenter P.O. Box 471 Glenshaw, PA 15116-0471 Phone: +1 500 488-4800 Fax: +1 500 488-4802 Email: jjc@pobox.com Web: http://pobox.com/~jjc/ ------------------------------ From: Ed Kummel Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Not a Thing For the House of God Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 01:32:23 -0100 An Israel company has developed a small device that sets up a small area (about 500 square feet) that will block all radio signals in the 800-1000 and the 1900 MHz bands. There is talk of these devices making it into the US and being used in places like movie houses, churches and being deployed at golf tournaments. A cell phone, even if it is not on a call, periodically polls the system to see what power output it will need to make a call (the phone will vary the power output up to .6 watts on handhelds and upto 3 watts on transportables). Most analog phones will try and "contact" a nearby system once every 5 to 15 minutes depending on the last contact. If it cannot make a connection, it ups the power and tries again (to prove this, keep your phone on and check how long the battery lasts. Then shield the phone (usually by placing it in a microwave ... no don't cook it, just leave it there) and the battery will last 2-3 times longer) Because of this stepped power increase, the chance of freq harmonics, triple beats and third harmonics *MAY* potentially create a frequency (by interacting with other neighboring frequencies, a third different freq can occur) that may interfere with navigation systems (which usually operate in the 2GHz and 1 GHz range. So, yes, it is a possibility. > We've been through discussion about such devices on airplanes, > regarding possible interference with the aircraft communication > system. Even with such devices turned off, do the wireless signals > (for *incoming* pages and cellular calls) still make it into the > aircraft? A turned-on cellu- lar phone can make outgoing calls and I > can understand concern about unfamiliar devices causing said > interference, but if *incoming* signals make it into the aircraft, is > any interference caused by connection to said devices? (I'm thinking > it might be seen as harder to enforce "incoming allowed but no > outgoing", and the atmosphere for such an inquiry might be poisoned by Remember the law of squares. The power disapates proportional to the distance. So a .6 watt phone next to a wall can penetrate it easier than a 6 watt signal can at several miles away! > recent incidents like those people trapped in airplanes on the tarmac > for several hours in Detroit?) You do see phones being available on > some aircraft, and presumably they have been cleared of any > interference (does the airline make money on such calls?). > (I remembered seeing something -- not in the Digest? -- long ago about > the President of the U.S. being able to respond, from 30,000 feet up, > to a breaking development. And we just heard of the plane carrying > the Russian premier turning around in flight.) The phone system on a plane is completly different than the wireless systems we use here on the ground. The call coming into the airplane is transmitted to the specific aircraft based on it's transponder. An array of antennas are specifially installed to collect these phone calls and then send them to the individual seats on the airplane using what is basically a standard PBX type system! Also, it is possible that using the new Iridium satellite phone (near a window of course) you could make a phone call while on a flying aircraft, and two way paging is possible with their new satellite (truely satellite, no ground stations involved!... like with regular pagers) pagers. >A pager, on an airplane or anywhere else, cannot send outgoing signals. Uh ... hate to shatter this myth, I have my Skytel 2way pager with me right now. At work I use a RIM two way. Check out the RIM 950. An awsome pager with a keyboard that is barely larger than a standard text pager. www.goamerica.com. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not know if the Chicago Symphony > Orchestra has ever addressed the question of 'vibrator mode' on > pagers. I am sure they would be reasonable about it. Their main > problem for a long time was cell phones which rang and pagers which > beeped throughout concerts. They rightfully put a stop to that with > their insistence to either turn the device off or leave it behind. It comes down to, show a little restraint and respect for others. I mean, if someone's phone goes off, refrain from flaming that individual. (Who knows, they may be packing.) And also, remember that if you are going to be in a "quiet" area (you know where they are) then put your phone on vibrate mode (if your phone doesn't have a vibrate mode, you can get vibrating batteries for most model phones. I've even seen a vibrating pen that clips in your shirt pocket and will vibrate silently whenever your phone should ring!) Ed [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Some disruptions cannot be helped, and are even a little humorous. Back in the 1960's, long before cellular phones were invented, and pagers were relatively rare, I was at Symphony one evening when such a thing happened. The conductor at the time was a fellow named Fritz Reiner. Fritz was a very stern-looking, no-nonsense sort of fellow. He had just finished greeting the audience, and turned his back facing the orchestra to begin the performance. The audience was silent, he raised his baton, but in the instant before the music began, someone in the audience sneezed. Not just a quiet, dainty little sneeze mind you, but a huge, very loud, snorting noise, the kind that invariably wrenches your neck out of shape and sometimes sprains your back if you are not careful. The kind that reverberates all over an acoustically well built auditorium, bouncing off the walls and back at you, etc. Poor Dr. Reiner ... he lowered his baton, and turned around and faced the audience once again, and after looking around the hall, he said, "you know, those things usually come in twos or threes; should I wait a minute or so longer for the rest of it?" He continued, "I am looking now at the person who did it; he is appropriatly mortified and I will not identify him. I know it could not be helped." At which point he broke his usual stern look and tried to keep from laughing but he could not help it. "Now be quiet for the next 37 minutes, would you please?" ... and he turned once again to the orchestra and started the performance. The next day's {Chicago Tribune} reviewed the program as usual, and mentioned the incident. Years later, when the 'no cell phones or pagers' rule was implemented, the sneezing incident was recalled in the little printed notice given out to the audience as part of the evening's program: "The Trustees of the Orchestral Association realize that bodily functions such as sneezing and coughing cannot be easily controlled. However a cellular phone or pager left in operating mode is inexcusable, and a reason that a patron with same would be asked to excuse others present as they remained in his absence to enjoy the presentation. Please turn off such devices before you enter the Hall to avoid a possible con- frontation with Staff and the resulting embarassment to yourself and others present." Makes sense to me! :) PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 24 Apr 1999 04:21:16 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com From: modorney@aol.com (Mike O'Dorney) Subject: Graybar Electric > Ironically, Gray and Enos Barton were the founders of the firm of > Gray and Barton which was eventually renamed Western Electric. He > didn't do too badly for himself, telephone or not, and went on to earn > huge sums of money for his patents including the harmonic telegraph > and teleautograph. (When Western Electric spun off it's non-telephone > electrical products division in 1927 they combined the names of the > founders to form the name "Graybar" which is still around today.) I seem to remember a Barr being a financier of Gray's efforts, but I lack any details. The Barr family was an old-line finance family of the day and were involved in many tecnology endeavors. Mike O'Dorney ------------------------------ From: aboritz@CYBERNEX.NET (Alan Boritz) Subject: Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 11:08:12 -0400 In article by brettf@netcom.com: (TELECOM Digest Editor noted) >> Now let's get on with Mr. Haylock's problem. AT&T has been illegally >> redlining inner city neighborhoods for years. The only difference is, >> they teach their operators and supervisors to *lie about it* and make >> up some other excuse instead. > If what you say is true, AT&T has not only been flouting the law for > years, they have been doing it in a manner that is trivial to detect, > trivial to prove, and with respect to a politically hot issue. No, it's arrogant and snotty, and I wrote about it in this digest when AT&T did it to me in an urban Detroit neighborhood, a few years ago. > I simply don't think that none of the various minority-rights groups > have ever bothered to get two people to place simultaneous > calling-card calls to the same place from two different phones, one in > a "good" neighborhood and one in a "bad" neighborhood. Repeat this > expperiment once a week for a month or two, and do it in several > cities. If AT&T is behaving as you suggest, they should have a pretty > airtight case pretty quickly. And the financial resources needed to do > this test are minimal. (In fact, wouldn't at least one of the Chicago > area TV stations be interested in performing this test with you and > airing the results?) You'd be surprised how little modern broadcast journalists can comprehend on the subject of consumer fraud if they can't experience it in the context of an AOL chat room. The carriers who are redlining neighborhoods assume that you're probably not going to file a complaint, and hoping that (in the event you actually do file one) a regulatory agency may find the issue too trivial to pursue. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Journalists do not understand telco inner workings any better than any other member of the public. For example, in the May, 1988 fire at the Illinois Bell central office in Hinsdale, the next day's (Monday) {Chicago Tribune} and {Sun-Times} devoted a paragraph or two each to the story, a sort of 'oh, by the way, there was a fire yesterday at the phone company office in Hinsdale' ... they had no idea -- no understanding at all -- of the magnitude and seriousness of the situation. It was only after none of *their* cellular phones and *their* pagers would operate that day as a result that they caught on that a fire in a telco central office is not quite the same as a fire in an old shack on the side of town somewhere. In the Tuesday papers, they were screaming about it when the realization finally sank in that a terrible, terrible thing had happened. Lots of luck getting them to understand telco billing practices. They still have not figured out the internet very well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: waltdnes@interlog.com (Walter Dnes) Subject: Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 05:46:30 GMT On Tue, 20 Apr 1999 01:25:13 GMT, in comp.dcom.telecom TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > Maybe it is time for Judge Harold ("I hate AT&T") Greene to > come out of retirement and do something useful for a change. > Said the spokes-person, "maybe he could authorize the write > off I was faced with last year; a couple million dollars in > the third quarter is a bit more than the customer service > reps are allowed to write off on their own. It had to > go way above my manager's head before it could be posted." > So who do you sympathize with? I think with some pressure, > telcos could do something about it. Pressure? ... hello ... > Judge Greene, are you reading this? PAT] The politically easy response is "make the big bad telco pay". But the "big bad telco" simply racks up an expense on its balance sheet and raises its rates correspondingly, to stay at the top of its allowed profit margin range. Forcing cards to be accepted from all districts is effectively a tax on all telephone users. Even if you still believe it's fair, it shouldn't be ordered by a bunch of political appointees in a public utilities commission. It rightfully belongs in a tax bill. At least be upfront and honest about it. You're advocating a tax on all telephone users to pay for higher write-offs. Fine, let's see a bunch of politicians vote for that tax. Walter Dnes procmail spamfilter http://www.interlog.com/~waltdnes/spamdunk/spamdunk.htm ------------------------------ From: Adam H. Kerman Subject: Re: Who Invented the Telephone? Organization: Chinet - Public Access since 1982 Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 19:27:41 GMT In article , Andrew Emmerson wrote: > All credit to Meucci -- and to Reiss, Bourseuil, Gray and all the other > inventors of the telephone! Thank goodness for intellectual property law to help keep history straight. ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 11:50:07 EDT Subject: Re : Local Calls Being Billed by IXC - Update Reply-To: Wlevant@aol.com Thanks to all who wrote about this one. I had a fascinating conversation with a customer service rep at Bell Atlantic a few days ago. She thought I was hallucinating the entire thing until (a) she looked up the calls and found out that they are ABSOLUTELY supposed to be rated local, (b) I told her, in explicit detail -- thanks, TELECOM Digest -- what they had done wrong in the switch, why that caused this particular problem, and what needed to be done to fix it, and (c) when she put me on hold to talk to "toll investigations", she found out that someone else had just called to report the EXACT same problem. I would have been first to report it, but I was stuck in traffic, and didn't get to make the call until about 8:30 AM. :( The upshot -- to date -- is that someone who can actually fix the problem is supposed to call me tomorrow morning. If the *right* person calls me, it should be a five-minute fix. Allegedly, BA will eat the charges for the mis-routed calls, though I may have to pay MCI/Worldcom (whose fault it *isn't*) and get credit back from BA (my IXC calls are not billed on my BA bill). And, yes, until I started tossing around terms like "CO trunk routing", they tried to blame my modem. Interestingly, though, during this chat, I came to understand why telco people blame modems for misrouting/misbilling problems, even though -- as the BA rep finally conceded -- the CO switch can't tell the difference between me dialing and my modem dialing. It's actually kinda obvious, once you think about it : -- Once you program a modem to dial 10 digits, it will do so EVERY time; -- Until 10-digit dialing is mandatory, people generally don't dial 10 digits; -- ISP's and other incoming-data-call customers tend to be served by CLEC's, because of how the reimbursements work; -- Presumably, Bell forgets to update its translations more often for CLEC-served central office codes than for their own; -- If a problem exists ONLY when dialing 10 digits, and ONLY when calling a CLEC-served number, it will appear MOST FREQUENTLY on modem-dialed calls, since(manually) dialing up a modem from the bedroom phone just to listen to the tones is NOT how most people have fun. Q.E.D. More on this later. Bill ------------------------------ From: roamer1@pobox.com (Stanley Cline) Subject: Re: Local Calls Being Billed as Intra-LATA Through IXC Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 02:18:06 GMT Organization: how, with all the spam? Reply-To: roamer1@pobox.com On Mon, 19 Apr 1999 22:19:52 EDT, Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) wrote: > Calls from my home (610)275-xxxx to AOL's new local numbers > (610)234-0528 and (610)233-0511 are now being billed on my IXC's > invoice as INTRA-LATA calls ! > (610)275 and (610)233 have the same "name-place", and are therefore > presumptively local calls; (610)234 is one town over, in a name-place > that is ALSO local from here. > (610)233 and (610)234 are provided by CLEC's. > I assume that someone at Bell screwed up the routing tables in the > (610)275 CO switch. This seems to be happening quite a bit lately -- with more and more CLECs coming into the market, intraLATA PIC, NPA splits, etc. Example #1: Tennessee recently ordered BellSouth to provide intraLATA PIC. Right after intraLATA PIC went into effect, my parents (who are physically in Georgia, but are so close to Chattanooga that they are covered by the Tennessee tariff under a long-standing agreement between GA and TN) chose Qwest as their intraLATA carrier (they were already using them for interLATA) and on the next phone bill, there were a large number of of calls to their Powertel PCS phone -- whose number is a local call from their house (706-866 home, 423-314 Powertel) -- in the Qwest section of the bill. I did some testing and it appeared there were only three prefixes affected: two of Powertel's three Chattanooga prefixes, and Sprint PCS's one. (Curiously, ChaseTel/Cricket Communications and AT&T/TCG prefixes were *not* affected.) Since then Bell appears to have fixed the local/1+ translations but still has the 0+ ones wrong (0+ calls to the three prefixes go to Qwest instead of BellSouth as all other local calls do.) Example #2: I work for a major ISP; we regularly receive reports from customers who were billed toll to call our POPs, most of which are served by CLECs. Sometimes this is the customer's fault: * customer dials a number that is not truly local * customer forgets to reconfigure dialer after traveling * etc. Other times it is a telco's fault: * bad translations (most often, call routed over a LD trunk group when the call should be routed over a local trunk group; in other cases, problems caused by recent NPA splits, intraLATA PIC, etc.) * lack of interconnection agreement between independent LECs and our CLECs, such that calls to ILEC and wireless numbers in local rate centers are local but calls to a CLEC number in the same rate center are not (this seems to be especially common in the Carolinas for some odd reason) * etc. Our customer support folks *always* advise customers to check with their LEC to make sure the call is in fact local, but some appear to be getting bad or no information from ILEC operators, business office, phone books, etc. We do license a database of local calling areas, but it is far from perfect (many independents do not show up at all, Chicago/NYC metro/Boston/etc. local calling areas are not represented correctly, etc.) SC ("long time no post to c.d.t") ------------------------------ From: jlt@ihgp4.ih.lucent.com (-Light,J.R.) Subject: Re: AT&T Discontinues Easy Reach 500 Number Service Date: 24 Apr 1999 00:51:28 GMT Organization: Lucent Technologies R.I.P. 500 Service. It is a shame that this service is ending. I had found the service to be great in the beginning, certainly since I had picked my own seven digit home number to be my 500 number, my family never had to remember anything more than the 500 prefix. Calls were forwarded to anywhere I travelled and rerouted promptly. Last year it became obvious that AT&T did not want to keep the service. The fees and rates went skyward so ... I reduced my service to the basic plan, waited to see what AT&T planned and finally dropped it completely last month. The rates are no longer reasonable, 50 cents a minute from payphones vs 25 cents on the one rate calling card plan. International rates are NONSENSE. Guess it is true, price it right and people will come, price it wrong and people will leave. (Unless thats what you want). ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #55 ***************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Apr 24 20:45:11 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id UAA23665; Sat, 24 Apr 1999 20:45:11 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 20:45:11 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199904250045.UAA23665@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #56 TELECOM Digest Sat, 24 Apr 99 20:45:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 56 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Local Calls Being Billed as Intra-LATA Through IXC (rugeeky2) Re: Local Calls Being Billed as Intra-LATA Through IXC (Eli Mantel) Re: Local Calls Being Billed as Intra-LATA Through IXC (Thor L. Simon) Re: Who Invented the Telephone? (Marone Giuseppe) Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Says NANPA (Jeffrey J. Carpenter) Broadband Access Conference (Bob Larribeau) Re: Sprint PCS Loses Too ... (Ed Kummel) Re: Cell Phones Not to be Used in Moving Vehicles in Brooklyn,OH (E Kummel) Re: European-Wide Country Code of +388: How Implemented, if So? (D McMahon) Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' (John David Galt) Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' (Lisa Hancock) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "rugeeky2?" Subject: Re: Local Calls Being Billed as Intra-LATA Through IXC Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 17:21:34 -0400 Organization: up.net The Michigan Public Service Commission just recently fined Century Telephone for what would appear to be a similar problem. Customer was dialing an ISP in an exchange that was supposedly (I say that because I don't know the details) a local call per tariff. Century charged Intralata toll rates. Customer filed complaint, Century ordered to pay fine. You might want to check the particulars on the MPSC web site. I'm pretty sure the order's posted in the Communications division, and easily found with a web search. Cheers! Joe ------------------------------ From: Eli Mantel Subject: Re: Local Calls Being Billed as Intra-LATA Through IXC Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 07:21:56 GMT Bill Levant wrote: > Anyone else having this problem lately? When I called WorldCom > to have the calls taken off the bill, they talked to me like I > was nutz. It does sound like you're nutz, but Worldcom has encountered this problem before. Your situation appears to be identical to the one I've posted on my web page at http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/5395/pacbell2.html In short, you are right that the problem is caused by some erroneous tables. But getting your bill fixed is another issue. I would suggest telling your local phone company that you're disputing the Worldcom portion of the bill and notifying Worldcom in writing that, although you made the calls in question, your computer was not set up to dial the Worldcom carrier access code and you were not PIC'd to Worldcom for intralata calls, that their charges are invalid, and that you demand that they credit your account for the amount in dispute. Perhaps someone else has a better suggestion. Eli Mantel ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Local Calls Being Billed as Intra-LATA Through IXC Date: 24 Apr 1999 16:38:08 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Bill Levant wrote: > Calls from my home (610)275-xxxx to AOL's new local numbers > (610)234-0528 and (610)233-0511 are now being billed on my IXC's > invoice as INTRA-LATA calls ! > (610)275 and (610)233 have the same "name-place", and are therefore > presumptively local calls; (610)234 is one town over, in a name-place > that is ALSO local from here. > (610)233 and (610)234 are provided by CLEC's. > I assume that someone at Bell screwed up the routing tables in the > (610)275 CO switch. > Again. > Interestingly, it only seems to happen if I dial as 10 digits (which > will be REQUIRED here in about three months). > Anyone else having this problem lately? When I called WorldCom to > have the calls taken off the bill, they talked to me like I was nutz. It's not their fault, it's your LEC ("Bell")'s fault. Worldcom can't even tell that there's anything wrong. One time I was billed for thousands of hours of such calls first as LEC intra-LATA and then as AT&T intra-LATA. In AT&T's case, they weren't even selling intra-LATA in that LATA, so I got a bill but when I tried to dispute it they couldn't find the records -- it was a multi-thousand-dollar "lost toll" headache for me and them and pretty much everyone involved. Ultimately, it took a formal complaint to the Illinois Commerce Commission to get everything resolved -- though a quick phone call and an informal complaint did break the logjam and at least get the LEC intra-LATA toll problem fixed, and the money I'd overpaid refunded. The formal complaint was required to get Ameritech to admit responsibility to AT&T so they'd refund me the money _they_ had overbilled ... Ameritech's routing mistake, Ameritech's problem. Not mine. Be sure to write _everything_ down when you interact with your LEC on this issue, particularly refusal to fix the problem or commit to a date by which the problem will be fixed. Then be sure to read or fax your notes to the local regulatory authiry when you contact them to have the matter resolved. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?" ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 11:45:41 +0200 From: Marone Giuseppe Subject: Re: Who Invented the Telephone? I could add one further name to the growing list of telephone inventors: Innocenzo Manzetti(Aosta, Italy, 1826-1877). Innocenzo Manzetti was an ingenuous character whose interests ranged from astronomy to hydraulics. He is particularly renowned for his robots playing musical instruments. Reportedly, he started his experiments with the "speaking telegraph" at the age of 18 and the first working prototype of a telephone dates back to ~1850. Although his activity was considered with interest by Meucci himself and it seems that A. G. Bell had payed a visit to his lab, Manzetti didn't patent his invention partly because he lacked financial means and partly because of his shy and humble character. You can find (little!) more at: http://space.tin.it/scienza/macanigg/index.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 17:48:29 -0400 From: Jeffrey J. Carpenter Subject: Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to go Says NANPA > VERY informative.. they now project total exhaustion between 2006 and > 2012, with their best guess being 2007..... 8 1/2 years to go! NO FCC > action recommended regarding 10-D or 11-D dialing yet. No timetable for > expansion yet. No FCC mandate for implementing expanding dialing > patterns from 3+7 to 4+8 with a deadline for launch. How about deciding > IF 4+8 will be the solution? I read the full report this morning. I think the most important point to be taken from it is that number pooling has to be implemented, and it should be implemented as soon as possible. As many carriers as possible must participate including donating blocks from their existing pools of numbers. The FCC needs to step this up and quit letting this issue continue to drag on. The longer this is delayed, the more likely of exhaust at an early date. If it is not implemented, and we exhaust in 2007, we are looking at a problem that could be worse than Y2K in terms of effort needed to convert phone number sizes. Jeffrey J. Carpenter P.O. Box 471 Glenshaw, PA 15116-0471 Phone: +1 500 488-4800 Fax: +1 500 488-4802 Email: jjc@pobox.com Web: http://pobox.com/~jjc/ ------------------------------ From: Bob Larribeau Subject: Broadband Access Conference Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 12:57:11 -0700 Organization: InterNex Information Services 1-800-595-3333 CalBUG, the California Broadband Users' Group, formerly the California ISDN Users' Group, is holding a conference on Broadband Access Technologies that will cover ISDN, DSL, cable modems, and broadband wireless. Keynote speaker will be Reggie Best, VP of Business Products at 3Com. Tuesday June 15 will have 8 tutorials on these 4 technologies, PPP, L2TP, and IPSec. Wednesday June 16 will have the keynote sessions an 6 other sessions on these technologies, Internet options, voice over broadband, and VPNs. The price is $250 for both days or $150 for one day. Audio tapes will be available. Go to http://www.ciug.org or call (800)823-9402 for more information and a registration form. Bob Larribeau Chairman ------------------------------ From: Ed Kummel Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Loses Too ... Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 01:07:37 -0100 Personally, having experience in European GSM (900MHz), US GSM (also known as PCS, 1900MHZ) US digital, both TDMA (AT&T) and CDMA (LEC) and analog, I personally prefer the voice quality of the analog system. The advantage is that it is FULLY deployed throughout the USA (I mean even in remote areas, and the US government has just opened up territories inside national parks for cellular coverage). My main problem with US PCS digital services is the familiar "robot" voice as you leave coverage. Also, the absolute lack of data on some networks (western wireless anyone?) and their incompatibility (Ericsson switches as opposed to Nortel switches) between systems (try roaming with your Nokia 9000! What works in Atlanta, won't work in Oshkosh). It seems that the digital networks that are prevalent (Powertel, Sprint, AT&T, Pactel, Western Wireless) is looking more and more like the way the analog cellular system was 5-8 years ago. (no roaming between carriers, and if so, no calls could be received...we still have the problem of no international dialing on analog systems). But all in all, give me a good ol' analog phone with a modem connection and my Newton 2000 and I'll connect at 14.4 every time (all GSM systems restrict data to 9600...that's if they even offer it! ... ) Well, just my RANT! Ed ------------------------------ From: Ed Kummel Subject: Re: Cell Phones Not to be Used in Moving Vehicles in Brooklyn, Ohio Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 01:48:42 -0100 A simple phrase. Speed dial and hands free! Come on! I want to call a friend, he/she's in the speed dial. Hit the "abc" button and the first letter of their name, then the up/down till I get their name then send. There's a mic near my visor that I talk into. So is a police officer going to pull me over because he sees me talking? How is he to know that I'm on a phone call or just singing to my radio! And while he's looking at me trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing, how's he driving? He certainly isn't looking where HE's going, he's looking at me! Ed ------------------------------ From: denis@pickaxe.demon.co.uk (Denis McMahon) Subject: Re: European-Wide Country Code of +388: How Implemented, if So? Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 01:02:20 GMT Organization: E-Menu Ltd Reply-To: denis@pickaxe.demon.co.uk On Tue, 20 Apr 1999 02:28:42 GMT, Kent K. Steinbrenner wrote: > A few days ago on the U.S. Metric Assn.'s listserv, a list member > asked the following: >> "While, looking up some information on telephone systems worldwide, I came >> across a website on country codes. I know that each country has its own >> telephone code for calls originating outside to reach inside. What was >> interesting, was that the website noted that Europe was (is) suppose to get >> a region wide code beginning in 1999. The code number is +388." There's some info about this at: http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/8818/wtng-reg.html#Europewide Rgds, Denis McMahon denis@pickaxe.demon.co.uk | All mail from some domains is Mob+44 802 468949 Tel/Fax+44 1705 698221 | deleted due to high UCE levels AXE-10 Engineer / Switch Tech? Join the AXE-10 Technical Mailing List. mailto:denis@pickaxe.demon.co.uk for invite. No Agencies / Advertising. ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Reply-To: jdg@but-i-dont-like-spam.boxmail.com Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Subject: Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 18:06:41 GMT TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > Telco insists anyone can get a calling card; anyone at all with a > reasonable credit history and a telephone in their name. Therefore, no > discrimination based on the *person*. Its just that no calling card > can be used for international calls when placed from a pay phone in > certain areas of high fraud where telco has no recourse to the caller. > Go to a private dwelling place or a store right next to the same pay > phone and use the phone there, even charging it to the same calling > card which had been denied service from the payphone outside directly > in front on the street if desired. Telco says anyone can bill a call > however they wish, no questions asked, as long as there exists a > physical pair of wires leading to someone who can be held responsible > for the uses made of their instruments, as per tariff. So what's the problem? Someone owns that pay phone. Bill them, and I bet they become more careful where they put pay phones, or simply ban the calling cards themselves. If there's a law that keeps telco from billing them, then that law is the problem. > Maybe it is time for Judge Harold ("I hate AT&T") Greene to come out > of retirement and do something useful for a change. Said the spokes- > person, "maybe he could authorize the write off I was faced with last > year; a couple million dollars in the third quarter is a bit more than > the customer service reps are allowed to write off on their own. > It had to go way above my manager's head before it could be posted." > So who do you sympathize with? I think with some pressure, telcos > could do something about it. Pressure? ... hello ... Judge Greene, are > you reading this? PAT] I would be very surprised if "redlining" wasn't common WAY before the breakup of the Bell System on 1/1/84. John David Galt [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have two responses to make here. Despite the large number of private pay phones -- COCOTS -- seen everywhere these days, the majority of payphones located in totally public places such as street corners, parks, the beach, etc are still 'owned' by telco itself. That is, the 'subscriber' to the service at that location is telco, and the commissions payable go back to telco. Should telco have to sue itself to get its money transferred from one account to another? :) If a payphone is located in a place of business, or a lodging house or similar, it may be 'public' meaning telco does not charge to have it there and in fact pays commissions for it being there (assuming the location is a very good one in telco's opinion) or it may be 'semi-public' meaning the owner of the premises pays a smaller than usual fee for service, with telco collecting and keeping the coins in the box. With 'semi-public' or 'public' telephones, there is no tariff I am aware of which allows telco to hold the entity or person on whose premises the phone is located responsible for abuse. If the phone is a COCOT, then the COCOT owner can be held responsible however any smart person in that business would have his phones set up in the telco central office switch as 'coin service', and he would have an AOS -- alternate operator service -- responding to zero-plus calls, to screen as much fraud as possible. So John, there is not always an 'owner' to be held responsible. My second point regards the history of redlining, and did it exist prior to Judge Greene's reign of terror. Probably it was going on at least a few years, starting in the middle or late seventies. The kindly judge certainly did not create the social conditions in the USA of the past twenty years which caused redlining to be so prevalent. My thinking is it started about the same time that AT&T had its overall general crackdown on toll fraud during that era. Recall please that through the 1950-60 era, some of the most dismal places to be *now* were absolute heavens back then. The west side of Chicago in the Chicago-Kedzie service area was a wonderful place to live. All the major department stores in Chicago including Fields, Carsons, and others had branches on the west side. There were banks, movie theatres, restaurants, grocery stores, hospitals; anything you could want along with very well kept homes and apartments, etc. There was a large Jewish community on the west side of Chicago with several synagogues. Then in the 1960's in rapid succession we had the assasination of President Kennedy, followed by a very rapid escalation of the war in Kosovo -- err, excuse me, Vietnam -- the assasination of M.L. King and three days of hideous rioting all over Chicago with most of the west side totally burned down, more riots in August at the Democratic convention with those west side merchants who had not taken the hint and closed their shops for good the prior April finally deciding to split the scene, and more. Today the west side of Chicago consists of cut-rate liquor stores, '7/Eleven type' convenience food stores with very high prices, and currency exchanges. Of course there is a payphone or two in the parking lot of every cut-rate liquor store, how else would the drug dealers be able transact business? No, Greene did not cause the redlining ... not at all. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' Date: 24 Apr 1999 20:21:40 GMT Organization: Net Access BBS TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > And in telco's defense, they insist it is not discrimination *based on > any certain race or nationality of person*, it is discrimination based > on geographic areas. Thus far, geographic areas are not a protected > category as is someone's race. Many court decisions have indeed held that geographic areas ARE a protected category in terms of racial discrimination. Many racial discrimination lawsuits have been successfully won on implied evidence, not actual evidence. Thus, if someone could prove AT&T discriminated against a certain urban neighborhood, and that neighborhood happened to be all black, then AT&T is guilty of racial discrimination. It's irrelevent whether it was crime, lousy business, high costs of doing business, whatever. I sure don't agree with this, but over the years this is what the courts have been deciding. I don't like racial discrimination and want it stopped, but I don't want legitimate forms of business to be curtailed as a result either. In more recent years, the courts have been a little more demanding of actual direct proof of racial discrimination, not just implied proof. (However, look at the recent NBA ruling and the SATs -- they claimed the SATs were racially discriminatory and thus not allowed to be used as a factor in recruitment eligibility.) In Philadelphia, realtors are greatly restricted in the kinds of questions they may answer prospective buyers lest there'd be any inference of racism or racial "steering" in the answer. Actually, when it comes to toll fraud, I don't think the neighborhood is as much of an issue as where the phone happens to be located. Phones in busy locations, unsupervised locations, or places like an airport could be more vulnerable. I would think with today's computers, it'd be easy to identify narrow pockets of fraud vulnerability. For example, if a certain phone in a candy store is often used for fraud attempts, kill service to that phone and phones near it. Easy enough to do. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know why card reader type phones never really caught on? I think that type of phone would be most useful in combatting fraud. If the caller had to insert the actual pastic card in the phone -- as one does at a cash machine -- and then punch in a pin as well, that would defeat the people with the binoculars completely wouldn't it, as well as the eavesdroppers. No physical plastic, no call. If you have the plastic, you stil have to know the pin, and three or four random attempts to find out the pin by trial and error would result in the card being cancelled. Look at cash machines: if the machine finds you to be a disagreeable person or suspects you are a charlatan, it just swallows your card and won't give it back at all, telling you to go see your customer service rep at the bank instead if you have something to complain about. You see lots of cash machines in busy public places like airports, and I would think the prospect of walking away with a handful of cash since the smallest denomination given out is usually $5 or $10 and worth more than some lousy phone call to PrimativeTown, ThirdWorld. Why aren't cash machines in those areas victimized by more fraud? PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #56 ***************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun Apr 25 01:27:34 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA05182; Sun, 25 Apr 1999 01:27:34 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 01:27:34 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199904250527.BAA05182@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #57 TELECOM Digest Sun, 25 Apr 99 01:27:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 57 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Use of Cellular Phones in Schools (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: Last Laugh! Not a Thing for the House of God (Arthur Ross) Re: Local Calls Being Billed as Intra-LATA Through IXC (Fred R. Goldstein) Re: Local Calls Being Billed as Intra-LATA Through IXC (Joshua Thompson) Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' (L. Winsom) Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Says NANPA (John R. Levine) Re: Sprint PCS Loses Too ... (Ryan Tucker) Re: Local Calls Billed by IXC -- FIXED, it Seems ! (Bill Levant) Hearing on Viruses Becomes Debate on Privacy (Monty Solomon) CA Legislative Info Wanted (Rich Andrews) Please, Help (Derek Sekala) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 00:12:43 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Use of Cellular Phones in Schools After the horrible incident this past week at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO, many school administrators are now rethinking the ban in place in many schools on the possession of cell phones on school grounds. It appears that at the the height of the incident at Columbine, while much of the shooting was going on, local police received numerous calls from students at the school to report the incident. Police say that part of the reason for their early response at the scene were the numerous calls to 911 which 'piled in on top of each other' in a matter of a minute or two not only from landline phones in the building but also from students using cell phones who actually had the killers in their sight and were able to describe them and narrate their actions to police as the massacre was going on. In an emergency conference call between administrators of large school districts in the United States on Wednesday, in the aftermath of the Columbine affair, the question came up, 'would the situation have been worse than it was -- if that is conceivable -- if the students who aided police by using their cellular phones inside the school to talk to police officers who were gathering outside the school had been unable to do so.' No consensus was reached, however one point that brought agreement between several of the conferees was that while cellular phones are certainly no substitute for school safety and security, a student who is able to report an incident immediatly rather than have to go to a teacher or the school office to use the phone -- with a few minutes wasted in the process -- should be encouraged to do so. I think I would agree. ===================================== Some personal thoughts -- this being Sunday, my sermon for this week: How much worse are things going to become in the USA? We have a president who tells parents they have to be careful about keeping their children from seeing a lot of violent images; meanwhile he continues throwing bombs with abandon at Yugoslavia. Does he not understand that children see that also? Maybe the Yugoslavians and their friends the Russians will get enough of it one of these days and start throwing some bombs in our direction. My oh my, wouldn't Dollar Bill be the righteous and offended one. "Of all the nerve," he would probably say. This past week the press reports that there have been dozens of arrests all over the United States of teenagers who not only made mock of the events in Littleton, which they are free to do I guess under the First Amendment no matter how much it hurts others, but in addition were making plans to act out the same scenario in their own school. Now suddenly this past week, wearing a black trench coat has become fashionable. What *is* going on in our society? Will someone please tell me and help me to understand? We used to have years between major tragedies that shook our concious- ness; then at least a few months; now in the past couple years it seems we are bombarded with one ugly incident after another, never a break in stride, never a pause. An incident similar to Littleton occurred a couple years ago in Scotland; in the little town where the man went in the school and shot at all the children. But like prisons in the United States these days, where the crowds waiting to get in the front door force the early release of those waiting at the exit door, we will have forgotten about Littleton by next week because of some new, still more shocking, still more hideous event ... just as none of the commentators this past week made any mention of Scotland in their reports. I suppose they have all forgotten about it. In the past year we have had several church arsons, abortion clinic bombings, an innocent young man in Wyoming viciously beaten to death because he was different than the other guys, and now this latest thing. What *is* happening in America? Saturday morning the Jehovah Witness people came around. I refuse to be rude to them. I stood there talking to them for awhile. I think they mean well, but are very misguided. So they stood there witnessing to me, while I witnessed to them. I asked them why, according to their understanding of the Scriptures, are we are getting the almost constant emotional pounding we have been taking the past couple years. One said it was because we are living in 'the End Times' ... I had to excuse myself to get ready to go to the library, but I told the man, don't let the why-too-kay millenium bug bite you on the ass on your way to heaven or wherever. And a good time was had by all. ================================= So, now after the massacre at Columbine, school administrators are thinking cell phones in school are not such a bad thing after all. Thanks for reading this! Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 19:39:00 -0700 From: Arthur Ross Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Not a Thing for the House of God Ed Kummel wrote: (a couple hundred lines deleted) Pat - I agree with the "turn off your phone in the theater/symphony" view, based on simple etiquette. But much of the remainder of what this guy says is utter nonsense. Cellular phones DO wake up and transmit occasionally for the purpose of making their presence known so calls can be delivered to the right geographical neighborhood (paging). This is called registration. It has nothing whatsoever to do with controlling the transmitter power. That IS done, but only when you're talking, or, to be more precise, when the phone is "on a traffic channel." The business about the battery lasting longer if you put the phone in a microwave might be true, but not because of transmitting but rather RECEIVING. There is no point to trying to monitor a paging channel if there is no system signal to listen to. Receiving costs battery power too! The seatback phone systems are specifically designed and, I would hope, tested for mutual non-interference with A/C systems. They are indeed completely different than the cellular and PCS service (and, I have always observed, exhorbitantly expensive!). As to "stepped power increase" causing harmonic distortion products, that too is nonsense. Intermodulation and nonlinear distortion products ARE the potential hazard in A/C, but the power control steps are largely unrelated to it. I have no idea what might be behind the statement "The power disapates [sic] proportional to the distance. So a .6 watt phone next to a wall can penetrate it easier than a 6 watt signal can at several miles away!" Maxwell's equations are linear. Given a particular impinging field pattern, the amount penetrating is proportional to the incident flux level. Where the "easier" notion comes from is a mystery to me. And, BTW, the wavelengths of the cellular and PCS services are short enough, i.e. smaller than the size of the windows, that they penetrate the interior of A/C very well. If you ingore the rote orders of the crew about not using your phone and go ahead and do it anyway (on the ground, that is), you will find, as a general rule, that it works fine, assuming the local carrier has adequate coverage of the neighborhood of the airport. Cellular runs in the band 824-894 MHz, making the wavelength about 35 cm. PCS runs in the band 1850-1990 MHz, making the wavelength about 15 cm. EM radiation will penetrate conducting structures well if the openings are larger than the wavelength, as a general rule. Everyday example: FM broadcast signals can often be heard through tunnels, while AM cannot. The wavelength of the former is about 3 meters, while the latter is about 100 times greater or 0.3 km. The short wavelength propagates freely, more or less, in the tunnel, while the longer wavelength sees it as a waveguide below cutoff. I have had conversations about this with some pilots. There seems to be a belief that there is some potential for non-obvious problems, like interference with braking systems when taxiing. I'm inclined to not believe that, as the transmit power from the hand-held portable phones is limited to about 1/4 Watt, which is pretty small. But given the general level of concern about passenger safety under all circumstances, I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt on that one. Using them in the air is a) NOT a good idea, for precisely the reasons that the airline worry about -- interference with radio aides to navigation and communication, and b) in most cases would not work because of very high Doppler shifts, for which the equipment is not designed, and c) the altitude will make, generally, a very large number of cells "visible," causing untold levels of confusion among the devices attempting to talk to one another. Although most people probably don't realize it, cellular DOES NOT WORK in a true free space propagation environment due to excessive interference levels. It is the ugly, non-free-space propagation that prevails in the ground clutter that makes it viable, believe it or not. Putting one of the stations at very high altitude puts you into the free space regime, pretty much, getting back to the "seeing too many cells" situation. Getting back to the original topic, you might be interested to know that the Euros are considering a modification of the GSM air interface standard that will prevent, via messaging, the phones from operating in certain areas such as theaters and concert halls because of just this problem. Doing this by overt jamming is most definitely unwise, to say nothing of flat-out illegal, if that is what this purported product does. Federal regulations govern what can be transmitted in what spectral bands, and at what power level. Deliberate jamming of an otherwise permitted service has NEVER, to my knowledge, been permitted, at least not in the United States. Best regards, Dr. Arthur Ross 2325 East Orangewood Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85020-4730 Phone: 602-371-9708 Fax : 602-336-7074 ------------------------------ From: fgoldstein@wn.DOnotSPAM.net (Fred R. Goldstein) Subject: Re: Local Calls Being Billed as Intra-LATA Through IXC Date: 25 Apr 1999 01:51:36 GMT Organization: CENTnet In article , Wlevant@aol.com says: > Calls from my home (610)275-xxxx to AOL's new local numbers >(610)234-0528 and (610)233-0511 are now being billed on my IXC's > invoice as INTRA-LATA calls ! > (610)275 and (610)233 have the same "name-place", and are therefore > presumptively local calls; (610)234 is one town over, in a name-place > that is ALSO local from here. > (610)233 and (610)234 are provided by CLEC's. > I assume that someone at Bell screwed up the routing tables in the > (610)275 CO switch. > Again. I double checked myself -- the prefix code updates are available from trainfo.com -- and indeed, those prefix codes are in PHSZ 30 and 31, while 275 is in 30. The CLEC is Worldcom (ex-MFS). It's worth checking, though, because AOL and other ISPs sometimes get the place names wrong. Worldcom's UUNET provides rent-a-modem service to lots of ISPs, including AOL, and they have a bunch of errors. The caller is responsible, and it's not easy to find out what's really where -- ILEC phone books often don't list CLEC prefix codes, and they proliferate too fast for phone books anyway. But in this case, Bell just mistakenly treated the new local code as toll and misbilled. Not the first time, not the last. Fred R. Goldstein k1io fgoldstein"at" wn.net These are my own opinions. You expect anyone else to agree? ------------------------------ From: Joshua M. Thompson Subject: Re: Local Calls Being Billed as Intra-LATA Through IXC Date: 25 Apr 1999 01:47:29 GMT Organization: Posted via RemarQ, http://www.remarq.com rugeeky2? wrote: > The Michigan Public Service Commission just recently fined Century > Telephone for what would appear to be a similar problem. Customer was > dialing an ISP in an exchange that was supposedly (I say that because > I don't know the details) a local call per tariff. Century charged > Intralata toll rates. Customer filed complaint, Century ordered to > pay fine. At least one of our customers was involved in that lawsuit. I'm a bit hazy on the details too but I believe that the end result was the MPSC ruling that CLECs could not bill toll or long distance rates to NPA-NXXs owned by other LECs if both the source and destination NPA-NXX are in the same rate center. (Century was arguing that it did not have local calling agreements with the other LEC in the area and thus was not going to make the calls local.) Century has a history of pulling stunts like this, I seem to recall that in another area of Michigan thehy started changing the tariffs (ie, making what used to be local calls into long distance) without telling customers. The customers basically found out when they got their bill. We got lots of tech support calls from that one too. Network Administrator | FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC. mich.com, Inc. | -- The motto of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch 248-442-1000 x212 | (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!) ------------------------------ From: lwinson@bbs.cpcn.com (L. Winson) Subject: Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' Date: 25 Apr 1999 02:06:56 GMT Organization: The PACSIBM SIG BBS > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know why card reader type > phones never really caught on? [good points snipped] Damn good question. I myself would rather have the security of inserting a card and entering just my pin number rather than entering (and remembering) a whole series of numbers. Plus, it would seem to me that a card reader public phone is a lot cheaper to build than the traditional coin acceptor with the associated armor plate and mechanisms (and the need for someone to pick up the coins). Do they even have non-coin public phones anymore in airports and train stations? I don't recall seeing any lately. And after all, one needs a bank card to get cash or a transit card to ride the bus or train. > Why aren't cash machines in those areas victimized by more fraud? There are some fraud attempts, bank naturally try to keep those things quiet. Some thieves have gone to very great lengths to _physically_ steal an entire cash machine from a bank or convenience store using heavy equipment (like a fork-lift truck or backhoe.) Holdups of users while at or just after using a cash machine are a problem. There was one interesting fraud case. Thieves set up a phony cash machine in a public location (a mall IIRC). It had a working mag card reader. When customers put in their card for a withdrawal, the transaction was rejected, but the phony machine recorded what was on the card and the customers' PIN. A few days later the thieves removed the fake cash machine. They then took the information gathered and made withdrawals from the accounts. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Apr 1999 23:24:44 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Says NANPA Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > The NANP Exhaust Study has been published ... > http://www.nanpa.com/pdf/NANP_Exhaust_Study.pdf > VERY informative ... they now project total exhaustion between 2006 > and 2012, with their best guess being 2007... 8 1/2 years to go! NO > FCC action recommended regarding 10-D or 11-D dialing yet. No timetable > for expansion yet. No FCC mandate for implementing expanding dialing > patterns from 3+7 to 4+8 with a deadline for launch. How about > deciding IF 4+8 will be the solution? Of course it won't be the solution. There are plenty of unused ten digit phone numbers. Unfortunately, insane amounts of them are locked up in 10,000 number blocks that CLECs have reserved so every CLEC has a prefix in every rate center in which they might ever offer service. (I don't blame the CLECs for this, the way the system is set up, a CLEC puts itself at a significant disadvantage if it doesn't hoard numbers like this.) The solution is number pooling and accelerated local number portability. Once you have true LNP, you no longer need a prefix per carrier, and the CLECs can give back all those hoarded prefixes. Indeed, the faster LNP arrives, the better since it's easier to give back a prefix that's completely unused than one where they've started to issue numbers in it. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: rtucker+from+199904@katan.ttgcitn.com (Ryan Tucker) Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Loses Too ... Date: 25 Apr 1999 03:30:42 GMT Organization: TTGCITN Communications, Des Moines IA and Rochester NY Reply-To: rtucker+replyto+199904@katan.ttgcitn.com In , Ed Kummel spewed: > My main problem with US PCS digital services is the familiar "robot" > voice as you leave coverage. Also, the absolute lack of data on some > networks (western wireless anyone?) and their incompatibility Obviously, you're not talking about VoiceStream (which is owned by WW) ... data is alive and well. Slightly pricey for casual users (at $30, flat rate), but it works. IS-95 (aka CDMA) is the only other digital wireless system commonly deployed in North America that supports data. However, try asking Sprint PCS (the major IS-95 carrier) ... However, on May 5, Frontier (B-side 800MHz carrier in Rochester NY) will be launching data (as well as the Nokia 6185). We'll see. > It seems that the digital networks that are prevalent > (Powertel, Sprint, AT&T, Pactel, Western Wireless) is looking more and > more like the way the analog cellular system was 5-8 years ago. (no > roaming between carriers, and if so, no calls could be received...we > still have the problem of no international dialing on analog systems). Bah, GSM roaming beats anything AMPS any day. Data is still rather fragmented within North America, but for voice calls and incoming/outgoing SMS, it's fine. 'course, then there's the big coverage holes (namely, Rochester NY). Chicago shouldn't be a problem much longer, and that's the only other one that annoys me (being between Des Moines [home] and Rochester [where I live]). And, of course, by the time this post hits the Digest, the entire industry may be completely changed. Such is the wireless industry. :-) Ryan Tucker http://www.ttgcitn.com/~rtucker/ President, TTGCITN Communications Box 92425, Rochester NY 14692-0425 Please keep public threads public -- e-mail responses will be ignored. ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 20:20:15 EDT Subject: Re: Local Calls Billed by IXC -- FIXED, it Seems ! Reply-To: Wlevant@aol.com Well, here's the latest. BA did indeed call me back today. Not an engineer, but a somewhat higher-level customer-service person. Said " ... it could be a translations problem ... HEY, how do you know about translations ?" She then called translations, and called me back. Sez it's fixed, and gave me a $20.00 credit for my trouble, since BA can't charge back calls to an IXC unless they bill through BA (and Worldcom, at least in my case, doesn't). That should fairly well offset the toll charges in question. I can't verify the fix, but I *can* now reach my cell phone with 10 digits; that didn't used to work, either, until I told them about it this morning. All in all, BA gets 10 out of a possible 10 on this one. Unless the problem persists. Bill ------------------------------ Reply-To: Monty Solomon From: Monty Solomon Subject: Hearing on Viruses Becomes Debate on Privacy Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 13:54:57 -0400 By JERI CLAUSING WASHINGTON - A congressional hearing called to explore potential solutions to computer viruses like the fast-spreading Melissa strain on Thursday turned into a debate about online privacy and the investigative methods used to track the computer programmer accused of writing it. "While I am a little bit concerned about the pernicious effect of viruses, I am more than a little bit disquieted about the way this investigation was pursued," Representative Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat, said during the two-hour hearing of the House Science Committee's technology subcommittee. http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/04/cyber/articles/16virus.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 07:41:35 -0700 From: Rich Andrews Subject: CA Legislation Info Wanted Hello, Can you point me to California legislation on Unbundled Services/CLECs? Thank-you, Rich Andrews 650-604-6519 ------------------------------ From: Derek Sekala Subject: Please, Help Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 20:47:41 +0200 Hello Patrick. How are you? My name is Derek Sekala and I'm Polish. I'm student and I write my diploma of my Bachelor Degree. I was serfing in internet and looking for informations to my diploma so I found your WWW. I need informations about telecomunication especially phone banking (history of home banking ) Do you know any web sides where I can find information about this? It's very important for me. I'll become your slave ( smile ) if you'll help me. This is my e-mail: dsekala@polbox.com See Ya P.S. Sorry for my mistakes I don't know English fluently. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone need a new slave? I do not need one presently. Perhaps someone with familiarity on the subject of phone banking can help Derek. I have no need to go to the bank that often the bank ... hmmm ... ... well, let's see ... I had the sermon earlier in this issue, so now it is time to pass the offering plate. Readers: if you have not yet made your annual contribution to the Digest for this year, would you please consider doing so at this time. Your financial support is very helpful in keeping the Digest and web site alive. The suggested donation is twenty dollars per reader/year, but you are the person to best decide what is appropriate. Your smallest gifts really do help a lot. To those of you who have already responded for this year, I extend my grateful thanks. Patrick Townson, PO Box 765, Junction City, KS 66441-0765 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #57 ***************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Apr 26 15:41:09 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA28725; Mon, 26 Apr 1999 15:41:09 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 15:41:09 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199904261941.PAA28725@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #58 TELECOM Digest Mon, 26 Apr 99 15:41:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 58 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Update (Canada) #180, April 26, 1999 (Angus TeleManagement) Book Review: "Communications Standard Dictionary", Martin Weik (Rob Slade) Re: Cell Phones Not to be Used in Moving Vehicles (Randal L. Schwartz) Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't they? (Ralph Hyre) Re: Suffolk County, Long Island, NY (W.D.A. Geary) Local Access Alert (Tara D. Mahon) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 10:31:07 -0400 From: Angus TeleManagement Subject: Telecom Update (Canada) #180, April 26, 1999 ************************************************************ * * * TELECOM UPDATE * * Angus TeleManagement's Weekly Telecom Newsbulletin * * http://www.angustel.ca * * Number 180: April 26, 1999 * * * * Publication of Telecom Update is made possible by * * generous financial support from: * * * * AT&T Canada ............... http://www.attcanada.com/ * * Bell Canada ............... http://www.bell.ca/ * * Lucent Technologies ....... http://www.lucent.ca/ * * MetroNet Communications ... http://www.metronet.ca/ * * Sprint Canada ............. http://www.sprintcanada.ca/ * * Telus Communications....... http://www.telus.com/ * * TigerTel Services ......... http://www.citydial.com/ * * * ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE: ** Area Code Crisis in 2007? ** Ontario Independents Must Raise Local Rates ** Europeans Plan Biggest Telecom Merger ** Cableco Allows Third-Party Internet Access ** Canadian Companies to Register Domain Names ** BCT.Telus Buys Ontario Phone Book Publisher ** Rogers Communications in the Black ** Call-Net Revenue Up, Earnings Down ** Entourage Workers Laid Off ** Strikers Will Attend BCE Meeting ** Cantel Grows by 62,700 ** NBTel to Expand VideoActive Network ** Bell Satellite Gets Relay, Pay-TV Licenses ** Iridium CEO Quits ** Sprint Cuts Overseas Rates ** Cogeco Net Up 17% ** MT&T Drops Ampersand ** Call Center Seminars in Your Office ============================================================ AREA CODE CRISIS IN 2007? North America will run out of three-digit area codes between 2006 and 2012 -- most likely in 2007. The exact date depends on demand and on conservation measures. The North American Numbering Plan Administration reaches that conclusion in a report released April 22. ** The U.S. Cellular Telephone Industry Association has challenged the report's assumptions. They believe the exhaust date will be up to 10 years later. http://www.nanpa.com/pdf/NANP_Exhaust_Study.pdf http://www.wow-com.com/lawpol/filing/pdf/ctialtr042299.pdf ONTARIO INDEPENDENTS MUST RAISE LOCAL RATES: CRTC Decision 99-5 orders 35 independent telcos in Ontario and Quebec to raise residential rates to $19.85 and business rates to $45.45, effective July 1. The change will reduce the amount of subsidy required from long distance. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/internet/1999/8045/02/d99-05.htm EUROPEANS PLAN BIGGEST TELECOM MERGER: Deutsche Telekom and Telecom Italia are in final negotiations for the largest telecom merger yet. The deal, designed to thwart Olivetti's bid to acquire Telecom Italia, will create the world's second-largest telecom company. CABLECO ALLOWS THIRD-PARTY INTERNET ACCESS: Regional Cablesystems in Timmins, Ontario, has become the first cable company in North America to provide high-speed access to independent Internet Service Providers. Two ISPs now offer service on the cableco's facilities. CANADIAN COMPANIES TO REGISTER DOMAIN NAMES: Three Canadian companies will be allowed to register Internet domain names and addresses when the Network Solutions Inc. monopoly ends later this year. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has approved 34 applications to compete with NSI, including: Domain Direct, a division of Tucows Interactive Ltd. of Toronto; Internet Domain Registrars, a division of Internet Gateway Corp. of Vancouver; and A Technology Co. of Toronto. BCT.TELUS BUYS ONTARIO PHONE BOOK PUBLISHER: BCT.Telus has acquired the Ontario assets of Locator Group Inc, an Orangeville-based phone book publisher that went into receivership in March. BCT.Telus says it plans to publish 20 to 30 directories in Southern Ontario. ROGERS COMMUNICATIONS IN THE BLACK: Rogers Communications had net revenues of $46.9 Million in the first quarter of 1999, compared with a loss of $18.9 Million last year. The improvement resulted from Rogers' sale of shares in @Home and Bid.Com: if those items are omitted, Rogers lost $69.2 Million in the quarter. ** Speaking at the company's annual meeting, CEO Ted Rogers said the company hopes to conclude at least one strategic alliance in cable or wireless by May 2000. CALL-NET REVENUE UP, EARNINGS DOWN: Call-Net revenues for the first quarter of 1999 were $341 Million, up 32% over last year. EBITDA was $10 Million, down from $23 Million. ** Moody's Investor Services has downgraded Call-Net senior notes, citing intense price competition in long distance and higher-than-expected capital costs in the local telephone market. ENTOURAGE WORKERS LAID OFF: Entourage Technology Solutions, which subcontracts most of Bell Canada's outside and inside cabling, has laid off 350 full-time and 750 part-time workers as a result of a strike by Bell operators and technicians. (See Telecom Update #178) STRIKERS WILL ATTEND BCE MEETING: Striking Bell Canada workers say they will be "out in force" at BCE's annual meeting in Hull, Quebec, this Wednesday. Union leaders say they will hold BCE officers responsible for forcing the strike. CANTEL GROWS BY 62,700: Rogers Cantel added 147,700 new subscribers in the first quarter of 1999; net growth was 62,700. Although total subscribers grew by 13.5% over last year, average revenue per user fell 11.7%, reflecting reduced rates and the impact of prepaid cellular plans. NBTEL TO EXPAND VIDEOACTIVE NETWORK: NBTel will spend $4.5 Million to expand its VideoActive network to seven additional communities in 1999, and eight more by the spring of 2000, using ADSL technology. The network supports NBTel's Vibe multimedia residential service and Advantage Business Extreme-Speed Internet. BELL SATELLITE GETS RELAY, PAY-TV LICENSES: CRTC Broadcasting Decision 98-87 grants Bell Satellite Services Inc. a license to offer a satellite relay service, competing with Star Choice and Cancom. Broadcasting Decision 98-88 approves a plan by BSSI's Bell ExpressVu to introduce a direct-to-home pay-per-view service with 22 channels in English and eight in French. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/bcasting/decision/1999/d9987_0.txt http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/bcasting/decision/1999/d9987_0.txt IRIDIUM CEO QUITS: Satellite phone company Iridium LLC says its CEO, Edward Staiano, resigned last week over disagreements on strategy with the Board. Iridium's Chief Financial Officer resigned earlier this month. (See Telecom Update #177.) SPRINT CUTS OVERSEAS RATES: Sprint Canada says its new The Most International Savings Plan offers reduced residential calling rates to more than 240 countries. The plan includes a $4.95/month subscription fee. COGECO NET UP 17%: Excluding unusual gains from issuing shares and selling two cable TV systems, Cogeco Inc. had net income of $2.7 Million in the first quarter of 1999, up 17% from 1998. MT&T DROPS AMPERSAND: Nova Scotia's telephone company has changed its name and logo from MT&T to MTT. CALL CENTER SEMINARS IN YOUR OFFICE: Need to get your team up to date on tested techniques in call center management? Experts from Angus Dortmans Associates will bring their top-rated seminars to your site. Topics available include: ** Essential Skills and Knowledge for Effective Incoming Call Center Management ** What Senior Managers Must Know About Incoming Call Centers ** What Agents and Team Leaders Must Know About Incoming Call Centers ** What Suppliers Must Know About Incoming Call Centers ** Planning a New Call Center: Tips Before You Start For further information go to the Angus Dortmans seminars Web page. To discuss your specific education needs, contact Henry Dortmans at 1-800-263-4415 ext. 300 or at dortmans@angustel.ca. http://www.angustel.ca/angdort/adseminar.html ============================================================ HOW TO SUBMIT ITEMS FOR TELECOM UPDATE E-MAIL: editors@angustel.ca FAX: 905-686-2655 MAIL: TELECOM UPDATE Angus TeleManagement Group 8 Old Kingston Road Ajax, Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 =========================================================== HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR UNSUBSCRIBE) TELECOM UPDATE is provided in electronic form only. There are two formats available: 1. The fully-formatted edition is posted on the World Wide Web on the first business day of the week at http://www.angustel.ca/update/up.html 2. The e-mail edition is distributed free of charge. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to majordomo@angustel.ca. The text of the message should contain only the two words: subscribe update To stop receiving the e-mail edition, send an e-mail message to majordomo@angustel.ca. The text of the message should say only: unsubscribe update [Your e-mail address] =========================================================== COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER: All contents copyright 1999 Angus TeleManagement Group Inc. All rights reserved. For further information, including permission to reprint or reproduce, please e-mail rosita@angustel.ca or phone 905-686-5050 ext 225. The information and data included has been obtained from sources which we believe to be reliable, but Angus TeleManagement makes no warranties or representations whatsoever regarding accuracy, completeness, or adequacy. Opinions expressed are based on interpretation of available information, and are subject to change. If expert advice on the subject matter is required, the services of a competent professional should be obtained. ============================================================ ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 08:46:59 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "Communications Standard Dictionary", Martin H. Weik Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca BKCMSTDC.RVW 990317 "Communications Standard Dictionary", Martin H. Weik, 1996, 0-412-08391-4, U$152.00/UK#85.95/NLG311.00 %A Martin H. Weik %C 115 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003 %D 1996 %G 0-412-08391-4 %I Chapman & Hall %O U$152.00/UK#85.95/NLG311.00 606-525-6600 800-842-3636 %O fax: 606-525-7778 +1-212-254-9499 order@chaphall.com %P 1192 p. %T "Communications Standard Dictionary" Neither the preface nor the introduction give much definition about the specific fields of communications being defined. Video, television, commercial broadcast, movie, telephony, and Internet terms do not get much coverage. (The lavaliere microphone, ubiquitous due to its inclusion in IBM dictionaries, is absent.) Military and engineering vocabulary predominates. Spaces are ignored in ordering definitions, which may create some slight confusion for those more familiar with library ordering. For example, "C language" is not listed with "c" (the designation for light speed), but follows "clamping circuit." Cross references are extensive. Prepositional phrases, such as "index of refraction," are reduced to modified nouns, in this case "refractive index." Thus, the definition may not be immediately found under the more commonly used phrase, but, again, the one is cross referenced to the other. Even given the enormous size, the work is not exhaustive. Public and private key encryption systems are defined (and rather well) but the more accurate symmetric and asymmetric terms for the two systems are not mentioned. I would have been very interested to see what the derivation of BNC (as in "BNC connector) was, except that it isn't included. The more mundane aspects of networks don't get much ink: neither sniffer nor the more formal network protocol analyzer were mentioned. On the other hand, five variant abbreviations for "bits per second" were defined in the table of acronyms. The range of topics included does focus on communications, but not exclusively. Much material covers physics, where related to communications technologies, and electronics. Fiber optics provides a great deal of the material for the book: in fact, "time domain reflectometry" is defined merely as a synonym for "optical time domain reflectometry," disregarding the use in coaxial and other non-optical cable systems. Fiber optics coverage is extensive, including a number of relatively little known technologies such as "air-supported optical fiber." Digital electronics, including a number of gate level figures and diagrams (I was a little sorry that flip-flops didn't make it), gets fairly significant coverage. Some items have a very tenuous connection to technical communication, such as physiological elements like the "accommodation" of the human eye. The entries are fairly heavily weighted towards terms used by official standards bodies. (I found it amusing that a note was included to the effect that neither in the technical literature nor in standards and protocols was there any consistency in the use of communication versus communications, or telecommunication versus telecommunications. Weik is absolutely correct on this point.) Some details, and also the general tone, reflect the author's background with the military. The Internet, for example, is defined in correct, but very formal terms, with no discussion of the social or cultural aspects. (I wondered if the book was getting a bit Dick Tracy-esque for a second before I realized what was meant by a "radio watch.") While data communications now play a major role in communications overall, they are not, by any means, the only components. Radio technology is well represented in this volume. (The material is generally formal and even turgid, but is there any subversive humour? I am not sure what to make of an illustration that shows a "fiber optic cable that outshines a copper cable." Another such item is the definition for "spacecraft," and the discussion of satellite.) A number of the definitions included relate solely to computer use. For example, "absolute cell addressing" is defined only in terms of personal computer spreadsheet software. (Though less common, spreadsheet software is also found on larger systems.) On the other hand, while "access control" is included and defined, access control list is not and ACL doesn't make the acronym list. Personal computers have heavily influenced these entries, as is evidenced by the fact that "backspace" refers only to the destructive backspace which is the commonly understood meaning of the term in that environment. Others are simply odd, such as the assertion that on a "computer standard keyboard" the symbol for British currency (pounds) moves the "pointer" left by one screen or page. (Note the trouble I had even specifying the character: to the best of my recollection it has appeared on only "genuine" VT 100 keyboards among those I have worked with, and I'm quite certain it did not have any cursor movement function.) Occasionally it would be nice to have some kind of citation for obscure usages, such as "rigid diskette." Slang terms are not prevalent, but are not excluded, either. There are entries for both "cracker" and "hacker" (the latter unfortunately defined for the dark side only), as well as "cybercop." (There is no listing for forensic computing and "free net" refers to radio networks while there is no listing for Free-Net.) "Worm" is poorly defined as a type of computer virus, which is not defined at all. Errors are very hard to find, and then tend to be subject to interpretation, such as the difference in definition between "cartridge" and "cassette" or the rather non-technical explanation for "gel." ("Refractive index matching gel" does a lot better.) In specialized realms there are more questionable entries. A "firewall," for example, is said to provide "trusted network security for a distributed computing and communications environment" where most experts would say that it provides limited security for a confined network. In addition, the firewall entry seems to relate only to selective routing and doesn't mention proxy service. "Internet Assistant" is not written in HyperText Markup Language, but helps to produce a file properly encoded with it. (The definition for "HyperText Markup Language" is also a bit odd.) And I hesitate to contradict Dr. Weik, but everything I have ever read seems to indicate that the 53 byte cell size for Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is fixed. In those areas it does cover extensively, the work is generally both authoritative and helpful. As the author implies, at times it functions more like an encyclopedia than a glossary, with extensive discussions rather than simple definitions. For the average user or manager, however, the areas of specialization are pretty esoteric, and the gaps in common topics may be frustrating. For the engineer, particularly if dealing with the military, the text could be very useful indeed. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1999 BKCMSTDC.RVW 990317 ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@sprint.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca p1@canada.com On the other hand, you have different fingers. http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Cell Phones Not to be Used in Moving Vehicles in Brooklyn, Ohio From: merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) Organization: Stonehenge Consulting Services; Portland, Oregon, USA Date: 26 Apr 1999 07:33:03 -0700 Gail M Hall writes: > We are told here that Brooklyn is the first city in the US to pass > such a law. Many people hope it will not be the last. I think the > law says that if they do use a cell phone in a moving vehicle, they > must have both hands on the steering wheel. This is class envy. If you outlaw cell phones, please also outlaw: drive through restaurants babies on board children in the back seat ("Don't make me pull over!") doing makeup in the rearview mirror reading a book using a map etc etc. Some people drive inattentively, and the cell phone makes that worse. But let's be fair here. Let's outlaw EVERYTHING that could be a distraction to the driver. Name: Randal L. Schwartz / Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 Keywords: Perl training, UNIX[tm] consulting, video production, skiing, flying Email: Snail: (Call) PGP-Key: (finger merlyn@teleport.com) Web: My Home Page! Quote: "I'm telling you, if I could have five lines in my .sig, I would!" -- me ------------------------------ From: rhyre@medplus.com (Ralph Hyre) Subject: Portable Local Numbers: Why aren't they? Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 11:03:47 -0400 What's the real issue with Local Number portability? 800 Number portability was achieved years ago (1993?), and the technology and operational issues are basically the same, with some minor scaling issues. The originating LEC has to do a database lookup to find the carrier handling the 800 call, so the appropriate call setup messages can be exchanged with the proper parties, and a voice circuit from the caller's LEC (A) to the destination LEC B (via carrier C) can be established. Why can't the same process be adopted for local calls? In Ohio, I'm already being assessed a 'Local Number Portability charge' to make this happen. Presumably this pays for administration of the as-yet-nonexistent database. Why was LEC competition permitted before Local Numbers were mandated to be portable? Did the FCC fall asleep here? ------------------------------ From: wdag@my-dejanews.com (W.D.A. Geary) Subject: Re: Suffolk County, Long Island, NY Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 17:42:46 GMT Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion In article , keith@knip.co (Keith - Add the M in Com ) wrote: > Does anyone know what the NEW " AREA CODE " will be ? > I suggest " 783 " for SUF Pace to 1-800-FLOWERS, codes that actually had alphabetical meaning went out with hula hoops. I think the new Suffolk area code will be 680, based on: 1) Reserved exchange codes reserved in 516 area (i.e. "nxx" _immediately_ responded to with " ... please dial 1 first... ", without waiting for more digits) 2) Existing area codes 3) Published lists of "reserved (by-state)" area codes I also think that we will _soon_ have to go to either 8-digit local numbers or _variable length_ numbers (terminating dialing sequence with # key, just like SEND on cellphone). This would certainly simplify telephone-number entries in address books and business cards/ advertisements, and allow something like: 1-680-555-1212# (base number for Wardenclyffe Microtechnology; voice phone) 1-680-555-1212-1# (fax machine) 1-680-555-1212-2# (pager) 1-680-555-1212-3# (cellphone) 1-680-555-1212-41# (data line 1) 1-680-555-1212-42# (data line 2) ISDN already supports a "subaddress" that could be used for this. As far as "how do you dial # on a rotary phone", give a $50 bounty for every "rotary" phone turned in, regardless of condition; it will be cheaper than trying to accomodate it in a modern phone system. The Norwegians got rid of all such "pulse dialers", why can't we? W.D.A.Geary Wardenclyffe Microtechnology Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana. -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 11:52:51 -0400 From: Tara D. Mahon Reply-To: tara@insight-corp.com Organization: The Insight Research Corporation Subject: Local Access Alert Pat, A new service that may interest DIGEST readers. Please note there is a free subscription offer available. Regards, Tara D. Mahon Local Access Information Finds a Home A new continuous information service focusing on local access issues premiered last week by Insight Research, a leading provider of telecommunications market research reports. The service, Local Access Alert, features weekly news analysis, monthly analyst papers, an annual report, and telephone inquiry support, designed to provide telecom professionals with the strategic intelligence crucial to success in the local access market. In addition to performing in-depth examinations of major industry announcements, Local Access Alert will also go behind the news to probe these key industry issues: - What is the consumer and business demand for broadband access? What applications (e.g., telemedicine, distance learning, streaming video) are most likely to be used? - How and where will Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) deploy flavors of digital subscriber lines (xDSL)? Will they be able to do it fast enough to compete with the CATV companies, who are rapidly chalking up cable modem subscribers? - Will the lines finally begin to blur between Internet Service Providers (ISPs), voice CLECs, and data CLECs, or will they each retain their separate functions? - What will be the response of the incumbent carriers (regional Bells, independent LECs) to all this action? Will they innovate and stay ahead of the curve, or will they become lumbering dinosaurs, one step shy of extinction? Philip C. Richards, Vice President of Insight and 30-year telecom industry veteran heads the innovative new service. Local Access Alert is offered annually at $11,900 for up to five registered subscribers. Complete service details and a free subscription offer are online at: http://www.insight-corp.com/local.html. For further information, please contact: Tara D. Mahon tara@insight-corp.com The Insight Research Corporation 973/605-1400 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Eleven-thousand-nine-hundred dollars, and presumably zero cents for a one year subscription. But you graciously allow up to five people to read it at no additional cost. What happens when a sixth person comes along? Does he have to buy his own subscription for another eleven-thousand-nine-hundred dollars and presumably zero cents for one year? It seems to me your service may be a bit expensive, but perhaps the telcos will subscribe and then offset it by simply adding still another line item in the 'Other Charges and Credits' portion of the monthly bill, let's say 38 cents per month from now until 2010 to pay for newsletter subscriptions for their executives. One thing we have in common though, is that I offer free subscriptions also. You can read about my free subscription offer by going to the URL http://telecom-digest.org where, alas, there are no Make Spam Fast proposals, no nude teens, no warez, no double-crossing webmasters with their double-clicks, no advertising windows that keep re-opening no matter how many time you click them shut; none of the traditional Internet fare: just all you ever wanted to know about telephones and telecommunications in soon to be eighteen years' worth of archived back issues of this journal you are reading now, and numerous links (with more to come soon) to other people who know a lot about phones and telecommunications. No doubt Mr. Richards will have a lot more to offer readers, which is why he can charge a little more than I do. I am sure readers who are excited about your new service will be in touch soon to provide you with their credit card or checking account information. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #58 ***************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Apr 26 16:53:16 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id QAA04246; Mon, 26 Apr 1999 16:53:16 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 16:53:16 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199904262053.QAA04246@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #59 TELECOM Digest Mon, 26 Apr 99 16:53:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 59 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Adaptive Echo Canceler (Electronics) (Bruce Henderson) Re: New Billing Charge: Local Number Portability (Will Roberts) Re: Last Laugh! Not a Thing For the House of God (Chris Gettings) 4+8? (was Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go) (John David Galt) Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Says NANPA (Craig Macbride) Re: European-Wide Country Code of +388: How Implemented (Peter Corlett) Re: European-Wide Country Code of +388: How Implemented (Richard D G Cox) Rate Rationalization, was: Re: NANP Has 8+ Years to Go (Danny Burstein) Spammer's 800 Number Has Fake SIT Tones? (Ray Normandeau) Pac Bell Plan For National 41l Calls OKd (Monty Solomon) Re: Dialtone in Different Countries (Craig Macbride) ADC/MIND CTI Press Release (Andrea Dray) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bruce Henderson Subject: Adaptive Echo Canceler (Electronics) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 07:43:01 -0700 Organization: BH & Assoc CTE [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am not certain if the diagram below came out exactly as the author intended or not. Email delivery does strange things now and then. I also added the 'pre' and '/pre' commands for the benefit of those people who get the Digest in HTML format, such as at http://telecom-digest.org/TELECOM_Digest_Online PAT] 
Hi,

I am experimenting with the following telecommunications circuit:

Symbols:
-[[]]- <- resistor       ---o--- connection

  /|+---
(  |  <- op amp
  \| - --

Echo canceller circuit - Ampliflies input, Mixes output, attenuates output
feedback "Echo" (used in electronic analog telephone sets):

                      -------------------[[]]-------------
                     |                100K                   |
                     |                        1k                |
                     |        /|+---------[[]]------------o--------------
Input  --------o-----( |            Inp Gain                          |
(-Output)               \|- ------------o-------                        |
                      OP1                    |         |    51K            |
                                         51K  |         ----[[]] ----
o -------  Output + Input (Tel co)
                                     ----[[]]---                         |
|
               600              |  Echo                          \/        |
Output --[[]] --- -|\        |
|       900K

             | )----o---[[]]-------------------------------o-----[[]]-------
                    ---+|/           Source Z
load ZL   |
                   |                   600
\/
                  \/    OP2

Could someone e-mail me the circuit that maintains the Echo attenuation
while the load impedence (ZL) is independantly varied?

Thanks,

exnoop@msn.com
------------------------------ From: oldbear@arctos.com (Will Roberts) Subject: Re: New Billing Charge: Local Number Portability Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 00:15:23 -0500 Organization: The Arctos Group - http://www.arctos.com/arctos black@csulb.NOSMAP.edu (Matthew Black) writes: > GTE California has started billing this residential customer $0.38 for > local number portability. I never requested any such service and am > curious if this is some new universal fee. Local Number Portability (LNP) is the FCC-mandated ability to keep your same telephone number even if you switch Local Exchange Carriers. The idea is that no one would leave the incumbent RBOC if they had to change to a new phone number. I'd guess that this charge is a result of GTE attempting to recover the cost of providing LNP. I'd be curious if this is an across-the-board charge on all customers or something related to your having taken your phone number to a different local telco. If it's an assessment to keep your phone number when changing carriers, it sure seems like a dis-incentive to make a change unless your new phone company charges that much less. What is also nasty about what you describe is that making an LNP change is really a one time cost of reprogramming the database and not something that should result in a monthly charge forever and ever. Regards, Will Roberts The Old Bear ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 00:04:39 -0400 From: Chris Gettings Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Not a Thing for the House of God I am a pilot and have used a cell phone in light aircraft and I can assure readers that they are a serious safety hazard. I can't understand how they could interfere with brakes which are hydraulic, except perhaps if they were computer controlled anti-lock brakes -- common on bigger planes -- and even these are designed such that if the computer fails, they revert to normal brake actuation. In flight, however, even while just powered on and not transmitting, I watched a handheld analog cell phone cause erroneous indications on the directional gyro of greater than 90 degrees. I learned this while attempting to land in instrument conditions, the worst possible time to conduct these experiments. I wondered why the radio and vacuum driven flight and navigation instruments did not agree and found my cell phone on in my pocket. Switching it off caused the gyro to return to the proper indication. The hair on the back of my neck is *still* standing up ... Chris ------------------------------ From: John David Galt Organization: Diogenes the Cynic Hot-Tubbing Society Subject: 4+8? (was The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 02:05:54 GMT Quoth John R. Levine: >> http://www.nanpa.com/pdf/NANP_Exhaust_Study.pdf >> VERY informative ... they now project total exhaustion between 2006 >> and 2012, with their best guess being 2007... 8 1/2 years to go! NO >> FCC action recommended regarding 10-D or 11-D dialing yet. No timetable >> for expansion yet. No FCC mandate for implementing expanding dialing >> patterns from 3+7 to 4+8 with a deadline for launch. How about >> deciding IF 4+8 will be the solution? > Of course it won't be the solution. There are plenty of unused ten > digit phone numbers. I like the idea of a 12 digit total length, but it seems to me it would make sense to make each of the parts variable-length. If we allow (for example) either 2+10, 3+9, or 4+8, then major cities can go 2+10, allowing everyone to keep their existing 10-digit numbers (while still having all _kinds_ of room for expansion). Here is one way the process could go (all at once, no waiting needed). 1) Assign area code 99 as a "helper code." Dialing 1 + 99 + an old 10-digit number would get you instructions on the new way to call that number. (This could also be used as the temporary area code for areas which haven't yet been updated to the new system, but if such areas exist it will be for political reasons.) 2) Assign 29, 39, ..., 89 to the seven biggest cities going 2+10. (If 37x, 52x, and 96x aren't used by then, we can use those codes this way also.) Each of these new codes would include an entire metro area, except possibly across state/national lines (that's a political decision). 3) Areas going 3+9 would simply suffix two digits onto all existing numbers (I suggest 00). 4) Areas going 4+8 would simply append a zero onto the old area code and another onto the number. Similarly, areas going 5+7 would append 00 onto the area code. 5) 800 and 900 services would change to 80 and 90 + ten digits. In these cases I would convert all existing numbers as if they were going 3+9 (keeping the zero in third position!), but allow holders of vanity numbers to choose the two digits that get added at the end. The same goes for 500 and 700 numbers if they still exist. We could expand 888, 877, 866, etc. the same way, but I think it would be cleaner to make those subscribers move into the "80 + ten digits" space, perhaps as 80 + the old 10-digit number. 6) Once the cutover is made, dialing a number by any of the old methods (7 digits, 10 digits, 1+10 digits, or 0+10 digits) CANNOT go through to the wrong place. It will do the following: You dialed (and The area you are dialing changed over to: it was correct 2+10 3+9 4+8 5+7 before the cut): 7 digits dead [1] dead [1] dead [1] success! 10 digits success! intercept intercept intercept [2] [2] [2] 1 + 10 digits dead [1] dead [1] dead [1] dead [1] or 0 + 10 digits [1] Switch will expect more digits. [2] I assume the old area code wasn't assigned as a prefix within itself. If it was, it should be changed before cutover. John David Galt ------------------------------ From: craig@rmit.EDU.AU (Craig Macbride) Subject: Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Says NANPA Date: 26 Apr 1999 13:35:31 GMT Organization: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. Eric@AreaCode-Info.com (Eric B. Morson) writes: > No FCC mandate for implementing expanding dialing > patterns from 3+7 to 4+8 with a deadline for launch. How about > deciding IF 4+8 will be the solution? How about cutting loose the non-US members (possibly not Canada, but at least the Caribbean countries) of the NANP at the same time, thus giving more numbering space to the US and stopping all the fraud schemes based on confusing people into calling numbers they believe are in the US which are in fact in other countries? (For any legitimate businesses in these countries, a 4+8 NANP number will be about as long as international-prefix + country-code + local-code number and require hardware changes at their end that would be unnecessary if they kept their current local numbers and just moved to having their own country code.) > How can planning wait any longer, considering how much hardware, > software, education, politics, and regulation needs to be completed, and > only 8.5 years to go? The system here is far less messy in its structure, due to much greater regulation and far fewer competitors for domestic calls, but the changeover to 8 digit numbers took the better part of 2 years. All of the planning and most of the hardware needs to be in place at least a couple of years before the deadline. The education, politics and regulation part needs to be completed even sooner. Craig Macbride URL: http://www.bf.rmit.edu.au/~craigm "It's a sense of humour like mine, Carla, that makes me proud to be ashamed of myself." - Captain Kremmen ------------------------------ From: abuse@verrine.demon.co.uk (Peter Corlett) Subject: Re: European-Wide Country Code of +388: How Implemented, if So? Date: 26 Apr 1999 13:28:35 GMT Organization: B13 C*b*l Linc Madison wrote: > For instance, London numbers would be +344 20 nxxx.xxxx, so you could dial > 1-44-20-nxxx.xxxx. To call Dublin, you would dial 1-53-1-nxx.xxxx. > Pan-European toll-free numbers would be 1-888-nxx.xxx[x][x]. Premium > numbers would be on 1-900. This would take some doing. The UK uses 1xx and 1xxx codes for a lot of things. They're commonly used for Indirect Access (carrier selection like 10xxx) codes, as well as being contact numbers for the operator, directory enquiries and emergency services. Where would these numbers go to? Your example codes are already partly used: 144 is for BT Chargecard. 153 is International Directory Enquiries. 1888 is currently free, but is clearly reserved for Indirect Access (it's surrounded by others that are allocated) and 190 is used for the Telemessage service. I fail to see what is wrong with +800 for EU-wide freephone anyway, since it's already used for this purpose. [...] > Perhaps Europe could become +0 when that range opens up for assignment > in the not-too-distant future "000" is used as a special code by BT to show an agreement to the higher charge than for a standard (but not guaranteed 64k end-to-end) "00" call. http://www.verrine.demon.co.uk/ B13 Cabal Member Cuius rei demonstrationem mirabilem sane detexi hanc marginis exiguitas non caperet ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 13:31:00 BST From: Richard@office.mandarin.com (Richard D G Cox) Subject: Re: European-Wide Country Code of +388 Reply-To: Richard@office.mandarin.com In Telecom Digest V19, #53 <199904241756.NAA06308@massis.lcs.mit.edu> Linc Madison said: > +388 was part of a doomed plan to renumber all of Europe under the > single country code +3. It may have been that at one time, but the current proposals are quite different. +388 is now intended to be an overlay, which would provide users with "European" phone numbers instead of numbers based out of the country where the user is actually located. Some might think of +388 as being more a form of "politically-correct" number! +388 would include Pan-European numbers for response to TV advertising, as well as for a European 900 service. The original plan to use +3 800 was indeed squashed by the allocation by ITU-T of country code +380 to the Ukraine, and I recall there was heated correspondence at the time between the various parties involved over that allocation. The present view seems to be that +800 is much easier to "sell" as a Freefone concept than +3 800 or +388 800, so it seems there will be no European Freefone. > All very American looking; rather surprising given the anti-American > bent of most telecomms Eurocrats. Not really; there were no proposals to change to 011 for international! > The Ukraine is certainly big enough that it would have deserved a > two-digit code (unlike +45 Denmark, +64 New Zealand, +65 Singapore, ITU-T policy is that all new country code assignments will be three-digit. > but the people who created the plan didn't adequately think through the > transition required to get there. More that they didn't realise the level of opposition there would be from the "member states" to being required to change their phone numbers just to please Brussels. Ironically, most of those "member states" have gone through (at least) one major renumbering since then of their own volition. Their plan wasn't particularly sound, partly because the balance of the numbering density/utilisation through Europe would have become even worse than it was before, and partly because it failed to look to the future of how each country wanted to develop its own numbering scheme. But it was *their* plan, and that was why it went forward. Suggestions of how the plan might be improved, both to make it more politically acceptable - and also to make it more sound from a numbering standpoint - were rejected with the standard error cause code of "NIH" - "Not Invented Here". > Perhaps Europe could become +0 when that range opens up for assignment That could certainly be attractive, and providing it was implemented in an organised way should return two decades (+3 and +4) to the ITU-T for reassignment -- in other words giving them a "two for one" deal. However it would not be enough to just migrate the existing codes in the way you described; there would have to be some additional restructuring as well taking into account all the numbering developments within each country. Also, since the political borders of "Europe" are changing all the time, a decision would have to be taken about countries which have "come out" of "+7" - as Latvia has - or might do so in the (un)foreseeable future. But I do still doubt whether the "member states" would accept any plan imposed by the Commission, unless they were effectively forced to so do. Richard D G Cox Mandarin Technology PO Box 111 PENARTH CF64 3YG, UK: Tel: +44 29 2031 1131 Senders of genuine e-mail should omit the word "office" from our address. ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein) Subject: Rate Rationalization, was: Re: NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Date: 26 Apr 1999 11:22:14 -0400 In johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) writes: > NANP Exhaust Study..published www.nanpa.com/pdf/NANP_Exhaust_Study.pdf > Of course it won't be the solution. There are plenty of unused ten > digit phone numbers. Unfortunately, insane amounts of them are locked > up in 10,000 number blocks that CLECs have reserved so every CLEC has > a prefix in every rate center in which they might ever offer service. > (I don't blame the CLECs for this, the way the system is set up, a > CLEC puts itself at a significant disadvantage if it doesn't hoard > numbers like this.) Which brings up the simpler solution, but one, alas, which the ILECS won't like, namely a rationalization, and _reduction_, of the rate structures. (Has anyone else noticed that while long distance phone rates are significantly lower than 15 years ago, there hasn't been any similar drop in the local ones?) Take the NYC area, for example. While the city itself is kind of sensibly arranged (all calls within the five boroughs - very roughly 4 million numbers) are considered 'local' [1], that's not the case in the suburbs. [1] In this part of the world, local means that residential calls are charged a nominal 10 cents/call, but that they are otherwise untimed. Calls outside your local area are charged per minute, with the exact amount determined by distance. Business customers all pay roughly 1.5 cents/minute. And isdn, err... In the eastern suburbs of Nassau and Suffolk Counties (currently area code 516), there are three separate rate zones. So anyone wishing to set up a 'local' number for customers must get at least three separate exchanges. Additionally, the ILEC has set up a kind-of 'unlimited' (no charge/call) offering for very, very, local calls (although, to no one's surprise, not in NYC itself). These districts are much smaller than the main ones I mentioned in the above paragraph, so if your ILEC wanted to set up 'local' numbers for all _these_ people, you'd be talking something like two dozen separate exchanges. If the ILECS would get rid of this mindset and expand 'local' calling to include the entire district, then a _huge_ amount of the pressure for additional exchanges would disappear overnight. (I'm hoping that this will happen without them ... I suspect we're well on the way. Thanks to two-way cable modems, *dsl connectivity, and simple plug-in voice-over-ip 'phones', I'm hoping that within a year we'll see [in effect] unlimited 'on-net' calls, anywhere in the nation, for $50/month or so, completely bypassing the ILEC local loop. You heard it here first ... "you give us $50/month, we give you the nation") Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ From: Ray Normandeau Subject: Spammer's 800 Number Has Fake SIT Tones? Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 17:04:30 GMT Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion Benchmark Print Supply, a big time spammer previously had an 800 number in his ads. This can be ascertained by searching the Dejanews archives of OLD messages. Search for: "800-391-4677" His current spam has 770 area codes. An attempt to call his 800-391-4677 number for removal from his list produces a very interesting response. 800-391-4677 is answered by what appears to be an answering machine giving SIT tones and telling the caller to try again. Could this be to discourage callers from pay phones? Any opinions? Is it really an answering machine? -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 04:08:15 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Pac Bell Plan For National 41l Calls OKd Deborah Solomon, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, April 23, 1999 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/04/23/BU64726.DTL ------------------------------ From: craig@rmit.EDU.AU (Craig Macbride) Subject: Re: Dialtone in Different Countries Date: 26 Apr 1999 13:14:24 GMT Organization: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. lucio1974@my-dejanews.com (Lucio Maggioli) writes: > I was wondering what kind of dialtone (continuous or stuttering) is > used in different countries of the world. Does anyone have information > about this subject? The telephone books here list the different dial and busy tones for each country along with their country codes and area codes. Surely this list is available elsewhere too? (One would hope phone books would generally list this, as the tones vary a great deal from place to place.) Craig Macbride URL: http://www.bf.rmit.edu.au/~craigm "It's a sense of humour like mine, Carla, that makes me proud to be ashamed of myself." - Captain Kremmen ------------------------------ From: Andrea Dray Subject: ADC/MIND CTI Press Release Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 10:19:24 +0300 ADC Telecommunications and MIND CTI Join to Provide Operations Support Systems (OSS) for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Solutions April 26, 1999 Minneapolis, MN and Yoqneam, Israel - ADC Telecommunications, Inc., (NASDAQ: ADCT; www.adc.com) and MIND CTI Ltd., Yoqneam, Israel, have signed an agreement by which ADC will offer operational support system (OSS) for voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) solutions for telephony providers and enterprises. ADC will supply MIND-iPhonEX* IP telephony billing & customer care and associated professional services which will complement ADC's ability to deliver full VoIP solutions to the marketplace. To remain competitive, it is critical that telecommunications providers are able to migrate to and offer VoIP to their customers. "This agreement is yet another positive step in the growing relationship between ADC and MIND," said Lior Salansky, vice president of business development for MIND CTI. "MIND is enthusiastic about working with ADC on VoIP Billing. We are convinced that our position in the US market will be strengthened by this relationship and that our customers will benefit from the enhanced installation and integrated services ADC will supply nationwide." Jay Swearingen, president of ADC's Complex Solutions division within the Integrated Solutions Group, said "As a premier supplier of OSS solutions to telecommunications service providers, ADC is excited to add billing & customer care solutions built with the MIND-iPhonEX product to the ADC OSS offerings. Until now, a process to bill customers for making internet calls was not available. This solution will generate greater revenues for our customers through its ability to bill and keep records. By supplying solutions including the MIND-iPhonEX product we enable our customers to quickly enter the VoIP market." MIND-iPhonEX is a carrier grade, real time billing & customer care system for the emerging VoIP industry. With one of the largest installed bases worldwide, MIND-iPhonEX has rapidly become the billing and customer care system of choice for leading telecommunications companies like Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Telia Light of Sweden, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Internet Telephony Service Providers (ITSPs). MIND-iPhonEX is integrated and installed with leading gateway/gatekeeper vendors such as Ascend, Cisco, Lucent, Netspeak, Nokia, VocalTec, and others. The award winning MIND-iPhonEX (1998 Product of the Year in Computer Telephony, CTI and Internet Telepony magazines) provides a fully redundant solution including a fail-over mechanism, database replication and no single point of failure to insure highly reliable service to millions of customers. The system handles both prepaid and post-paid billing, creation and management of prepaid calling cards, real-time cut-off of calls, individualized customer rate tables, and flexible fax charge options. MIND-iPhonEX support systems provide call management reports, traffic analysis (monitoring the load on each gateway and line) and keeping track of excessive use, including fraud alarms. Web-based customer care and subscriber verification of real-time balance and call details are also available. ADC Telecommunications, Inc. is a leading global supplier of voice, video and data systems for telephone, cable television, Internet, broadcast, wireless and private communications networks. ADC's systems enable local access and high-speed transmission of communications services from providers to consumers and businesses over fiber-optic, copper, coaxial and wireless media. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, ADC has approximately 8,900 employees around the world and annual sales of $1.5 billion. For additional information, visit the company web site at www.adc.com. MIND CTI Ltd., is a private company registered in Israel with an office in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Owned by key MIND personnel, founders and ADC Telecommunications Inc., MIND supplies the telecom industry with software for billing and management. MIND's call management and billing products are installed in 20 countries. For more information on MIND and its products, visit the company web site at www.mindcti.com. Contact: Lynne High-Marketing Communications ADC Telecommunications (612) 946-3136 Lynne_High@adc.com Steve Gordon-Marketing Director ADC Telecommunications (410) 872-3749 Steve_Gordon@adc.com Barbara Frank - IP Telephony Billing Marketing Manager MIND CTI (201) 569-6967 or 972-4-993-6632 Barbara@mindcti.com Best regards, Andrea Dray Sales Secretary MIND C.T.I. Ltd. Computer Telephony Software POB 144, Yokneam Illit 20692, ISRAEL Tel: +972-4-993-6688 Fax: +972-4-993-7776 Mail To: sales@mindcti.com Visit our site: http://www.mindcti.com ============================ Keep us in mind! ============================ ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #59 ***************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Apr 26 21:58:24 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA21004; Mon, 26 Apr 1999 21:58:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 21:58:24 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199904270158.VAA21004@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #60 TELECOM Digest Mon, 26 Apr 99 21:58:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 60 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Use of Cellular Phones in Schools (Ryan Tucker) Columbine and Cell Phones (was Re: Cell Phones in Schools) (Jeremy Beal) Re: Use of Cellular Phones in Schools (Andy McFadden) Seeking Name/Place Database (Jim Weiss) Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? (Thor Lancelot Simon) Telcomine: Who's Who of Cost Saving Billing Systems (Seema Dhawan) Re: Who or What is Bell America? (William Brownlow) VOIP Switchboard Applications? (Anders) "Internet Pioneers" (David B. Horvath, CCP) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: rtucker+from+199904@katan.ttgcitn.com (Ryan Tucker) Subject: Re: Use of Cellular Phones in Schools Date: 26 Apr 1999 06:39:00 GMT Organization: TTGCITN Communications, Des Moines IA and Rochester NY Reply-To: rtucker+replyto+199904@katan.ttgcitn.com In , TELECOM Digest Editor spewed: > In an emergency conference call between administrators of large school > districts in the United States on Wednesday, in the aftermath of the > Columbine affair, the question came up, 'would the situation have > been worse than it was -- if that is conceivable -- if the students > who aided police by using their cellular phones inside the school to > talk to police officers who were gathering outside the school had > been unable to do so.' Do we need knee-jerk reactions? Suddenly changing laws without thinking them completely through, especially at times of high emotion like this, is dangerous. While adjusting cellular phone policy may not be that bad, there's some things which will most definately be proposed: - Metal detectors, locker searches, etc; - Increased gun control; - Restrictions on letting children buy certain music/see certain movies, etc; While I really don't want to drift too far off topic by explaining my views on the situation, I remind all of you -- there's lessons to be learned here, but they may not be the ones that are obvious right now. Furthermore, trying to do band-aid fixes in the name of "protecting the children" has been historically bad. It's not music's fault. It's not Hollywood's fault. It's not the Internet's fault. Those are merely information sources -- what one does with that information is where the fault lies. We'll never truely know exactly what they were thinking, but certainly, the fault lies there. Ryan Tucker http://www.ttgcitn.com/~rtucker/ President, TTGCITN Communications Box 92425, Rochester NY 14692-0425 Please keep public threads public -- e-mail responses will be ignored. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There probably should be restrictions on allowing children to watch or listen to President Clinton. After all, they may get the impression that it is okay to throw bombs when you do not agree with the way things are happening somewhere. I thought it was amazing that last week Wednesday in the aftermath of Columbine he was on television with a grim face telling parents to keep their children from seeing violent images. Uh, excuse me while I go throw another bomb at Yugoslavia, then I will be back and finish my speech. Police in Colorado now say that they found a large amount of explosives in the school and that after interviews with hundreds of students, many of whom said yeah, they had heard about 'some sort of plan by those guys', that apparently the intention was to kill at least 500 people. A spokesperson for the police said, 'quite of few of the kids knew what those guys had planned ... the adults sure did not know.' Wasn't it a few years ago the papers reported a study by some research institute saying that 'over the next decade, there will be a huge increase in *violent, and senseless* crime by very young children (at that time) as they went through their teenage years' (a few years later, meaning about now) ... I wish I could remember the source of that. In the past, crimes, although wrong, were 'reasonable' in the sense that there was some object in it. Someone was cheated, someone had a grudge, a romantic encounter which failed; you needed money very desparately and pointed a gun at the 7/Eleven cashier, or whatever. But, said the report, watch the next decade. Mass killings with no rhyme nor reason; extremly destructive vandalism (and we have seen that already; one elementary school in Chicago got a million dollars in damage over a weekend from two twelve year old vandals); other stuff. Each one planning to do 'better' than the ones before. Police in Colorado say that interviews with students have told them that the fellows involved laughed and made mock of other school violence in the USA over the past couple years, saying 'what a waste of time that was, we could surely do better.' Well, I guess they did do 'better'. In a particularly sad aftermath to Columbine, last Wednesday a fourteen year old boy used a hatchet to severely damage a neighbor's car. When the neighbor came out to stop him, the lad used his hatchet to chop off the head of a cat the neighbor was holding. Then it occurred to him to take the same hatchet and use it on his mother, but about that time the police arrived and restrained him. Says the kid, "when me and my friends get older, we are gonna do the same thing they did out there in Colorado." Good to know, isn't it ... NO, we do not need any more gun laws; NO we do not need any knee-jerk reactions as hard as they may be to control; NO, we do not need any more filters for internet web sites; NO, we do not need at least sixteen more supermax prisons in every state. But something, some evil that has been slowly gaining ground in the USA for a number of years has begun to accelerate. Translate 'evil' according to your own philosophical or religious beliefs. Things are going to get worse before they get better; much worse. In a few years we will view Columbine as a senior class prank in the last month of school. Thanks for reading! PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jeremy Beal Subject: Columbine and Cell Phones (was Re: Cell Phones in Schools) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 17:20:00 -0600 I live in Denver and feel deeply affected by the tragedy at Columbine. One note regarding the issue of cell phones in dangerous situations. I think generally that having the ability to communicate information quickly has the potential to save lives with quick thought and action. However, it might have potentially hurt the situation in this case. At one point fairly early in the situation, a local NBC television affiliate which was broadcasting the events from near the school gave out a telephone number for anybody trapped inside to call. A student called, and the station proceeded to place the caller on the air while talking with them. The student gave the television station information regarding where they were hiding and where they thought the attackers were located. The television station put it all on the air. It was only about 10 minutes later that they realized that there were televisions located in every classroom, and that there was a very good chance that the attackers had heard the information from the phone call. The station promptly asked anybody trapped to call 911 rather than the station. An unintended consequence to the rapid sharing of information ... Take care, Jeremy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 14:08:13 PDT From: Andy McFadden Subject: Re: Use of Cellular Phones in Schools Organization: Lipless Rattling Crankbait In article you write: > This past week the press reports that there have been dozens of > arrests all over the United States of teenagers who not only made mock > of the events in Littleton, which they are free to do I guess under > the First Amendment no matter how much it hurts others, but in > addition were making plans to act out the same scenario in their own > school. Now suddenly this past week, wearing a black trench coat has > become fashionable. What *is* going on in our society? Will someone > please tell me and help me to understand? Ever read Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar? One of the major themes is the effect of increasing population pressure on society. Brunner suggests that violent outbreaks are a natural outcome of the future society he envisions. "Muckers" (from "amok") attack crowds at random, and at one point a major character inadvertently starts a riot by wandering into the wrong neighborhood. The book, written in 1968, is part cyberpunk fantasy and part frightening reality; at times I find it impossible to believe that it was written 30 years ago. Much of it hits too close to home. (Heck, just this morning CNN was talking about a joint venture for hydrogen fuel-cell cars... based on the book's setting, we're right on schedule.) You probably won't find yourself disagreeing with his views on war, either. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345347870/ Andy Send mail to fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden) CD-Recordable FAQ - http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/ (a/k/a www.spies.com/~fadden) Fight Internet Spam - http://spam.abuse.net/spam/ & news.admin.net-abuse.email [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I did not read that book. In high school we read Orwell's book '1984' (published in the 1940's ?) and thought it was a very frightening scenario. For us old Geezers, I think we sort of expect each act in the play called 'Life' is going to be a little more bitter and cruel than the act before it. I feel sorry for the young guys; the ones still in school who had a little bit more of their childhood ripped away from them last week. The ones whose own emotional maturity hasn't developed enough to prevent the event at Columbine from influencing their decision to act out in the same way, to our chagrin, and perhaps their own bitter disappointment in them- selves years from now. Anyhow, let's get on with telecom topics! PAT] ------------------------------ From: NBJimWeiss@aol.com (Jim Weiss) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 16:10:19 EDT Subject: Seeking Name/Place Database Reply-To: NBJimWeiss@aol.com Do you know of a database whereby I can enter an NPA/NXX and have it respond with the local service provider? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The best, most accurate source is to dial double-zero on the phone (assuming you are PIC'ed to AT&T) and ask the operator for 'name/place for NPA/NXX'. That will get you a correct answer about ninety percent of the time. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? Date: 26 Apr 1999 16:25:29 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Ralph Hyre wrote: > What's the real issue with Local Number portability? > 800 Number portability was achieved years ago (1993?), and the > technology and operational issues are basically the same, with some > minor scaling issues. That's just plain false. To begin with, LNP involves changes to the ISUP protocol itself, not just additional TCAP queries. And even if there were any real similarity aside from both processes involving TCAP queries, the scaling issues are not "minor". How many telephone calls are made per day? How many 800 calls are made per day? There's the magnitude of your scaling problem, and a small hint is that it's so large as to call for a completely different solution for that reason alone. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?" ------------------------------ From: Seema Dhawan Subject: Telcomine: Who's Who of Cost Saving Billing Systems Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 10:29:54 +0530 Hi Patrick, I would like to bring to the notice of the readers of this group, a most updated report by the 'Billing World' magazine detailing the top 40 telecom billing systems worlwide. Readers might find it useful as it has been designed to help telecom executives shorten the time necessary to evaluate a system. A full feature on this has been included in Telcomine - Infozech's newsletter on Telecom and Technology. The newsletter is 'free' and it goes out monthly to a select group of around 5000+ telecom professionals worldwide. Please allow me to include a brief extract of what the April'99 issue contains. The full issue is available at http://www.infozech.com/telcomine.html *****TELCOMINE************ Wealth of Information about Telecommunications Volume 2,No 4, April 1999 IN THIS ISSUE 1. INTERNET AS MASTER SPY IN WAR IN YUGOSLAVIA For the first time in history Internet proves to be a powerful, if surreptitious, war weapon to both sides in the NATO-Yugoslav War. 2. LANDMARK REPORT FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS :WHO'S WHO OF COST SAVING BILLING SYSTEMS In a most updated survey of Telecom billing systems which help service providers and other bulk users of telephone lines save huge amounts, Billing World comes out with the "1999 Telecom Billing System Functionality Report" detailing the top 40 billing systems worldwide. 3. INFOZECH AMONG CHOSEN 40 Infozech is among the companies covered in the prestigious "1999 Telecom Billing System Functionality Report". 4. COMPUTERIZED VOICES EXPRESS EMOTIONS A unique computerized voice synthesizer package called 'GALE' developed by a research student at University of Florida injects emotion into robotic sounding computer voices and makes them speak in four moods - sad, happy, fearful and angry. 5. COMPUTERS READ THOUGHTS TO HELP PARALYTICS TRANSMIT MESSAGES In a breakthrough discovery some German Scientists have developed a computer system which enables completely paralyzed people to communicate by "reading" their brainwaves. 6. INTERNET TECHNOLOGY TO MONITOR PATIENTS FROM AFAR A new Internet technology that allows doctors to keep track of chronically ill patients, 24 hour a day, from anywhere, is promising to fundamentally change the way long-term patients are treated and monitored in the next century. 7. UK COURT PUNISHES ISP FOR TRANSMITTING LIBELLOUS MESSAGE Demon Internet, Britain's largest dial-up Internet Service Provider has been hauled up by a British High Court for transmitting defamatory messages posted on its electronic bulletin board even after warnings from the victim. 8. EUROPEAN MOBILE USERS OVERCHARGED 300% ON PHONE BILLS: STUDY A new study on Roaming by the European branch of the International Telecommunications Group (INTUG) has revealed that mobile business users in Europe are being overcharged 300% on their mobile phone bills. 9. FREE INTERNET ACCESS SERVICE SIGNS HALF A MILLION SUBSCRIBERS Netzero- A Free Internet Access Service launched only last October is already claiming to have passed the half a million subscriber mark and estimates that it will have a full million by mid-year. 10. OUR MAILBOX See How Telcomine Saved a reader 45% in Phone Costs Best Regards, Seema Dhawan Infozech -- Software for Telecom Service Providers D-30 Press Enclave, Saket, New Delhi, India Fax: 91-11- 6287117, Tel: 91-11-6234664, 91-11-6283113 in US Contact: 408-490-2840, 2090 Hillsdale Circle, Boulder, CO-80303 Microsoft Certified Solution Provider Visit us at http://www.infozech.com Telcomine: A Telecom & Technology Newsletter http://www.infozech.com/telcomine.html Anything Telecom" discussion forum : http://www.infozech.com/forum.html Your answer to any telecom queries ------------------------------ From: wbrownlo@my-dejanews.com (William Brownlow) Subject: Re: Who or What is Bell America? Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 13:07:14 GMT Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion In article , Greg Stahl wrote: > Recently, radio ads for "Bell America" started playing up here in > northern NY. They are advertising Local and LD service. Has anyone > heard of them? My understanding is that "Bell America" is not a real company - as of yet. According to my sources it is to be the name of the company resulting from the merger of Bell-Atlantic and GTE. Now if someone named Bell has started a new little CLEC ... William "Bill" Brownlow "While my employer has their opinions, I have mine. Occasionally they converge" "Wise men are not wise at all time." Emerson, The Conduct of Life, 1860 ------------------------------ From: hurtigh@ancestor.se (Anders) Subject: VOIP Switchboard Applications? Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 16:45:57 GMT Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion Hi, Our company's telephone switchboard must be replaced due to y2k-problems. Now, we're interested in running a LAN-based VOIP switchboard, using our client PC's as phone terminals with headsets or similar and a CISCO gateway to the public telephone network. Problem is, of course, that there doesn't seem to be any good software available yet. Anybody out there who knows about such applications or anything to be released soon? Regards, Anders ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 18:30:16 EDT From: dhorvath@cobs.com (David B. Horvath, CCP) Subject: "Internet Pioneers" > The Telephone Pioneers began around 1900 when a couple dozen of the > people who had been with AT&T since Day One decided they should have a > club for themselves. In later years as all the old people died, the > rule was changed to say that members had to have at least twenty years > of employment with Bell. I wonder if the time has come for an 'Internet > Pioneers' organization? If enough people send me some sort of valid > evidence that they were active on the net at least 15-20 years ago and > express an interest in an association among themselves and a web page > or mailing list, perhaps I will start such a thing. It might be purely > social, or perhaps a mix of social and service to the net and the > newcomers who are arriving -- not quite at the rate people are fleeing > from Kosovo -- but pretty darn fast, to the net community daily. I'm interested and qualify ... I had (and used :-) ) free userid's on MIT's AI, Dynamic Modeling, and Macsyma (MIT-AI, MIT-DM, and MIT-MC) systems starting in September or October of 1980... That's back when we were all buddies and fellow students/researchers -- before the "unwashed masses" got on. I remember one day dialing into the TIP somewhere long-distance from Philadelphia (Washington DC? Cambridge Mass? Southern California?) and printing the Macsyma reference manual on a DEC LA-36. 300 baud, about 8 hours, a nice stack of paper (nice, not high). I won't admit how the phone call was paid for since the University toll-blocked the dial-out lines in the terminal room. I miss ITS (Incompatible Time Share - the MIT operating systems running on the DEC System/10's (KL-10 CPU if I remember correctly)). ARPAnet and domain names with only one level (no .com's, .edu's, .jp's, etc). David B. Horvath, CCP dhorvath@cobs.com Consultant, Author, International Lecturer, Adjunct Professor (also: dhorvath@arcnow.com, dhorvath@dca.net, davidh@decus.ca, and many other places) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, so far, you are the only person who responded to that item. I guess no one is interested. Of course one problem may be that I did not really play by all the rules around here in the old days (I still usually don't), and a lot of the old, old, old clique is still annoyed with me because of it. Yes, I remember the one-level addresses. Do you remember when instead of using the '@' sign we said 'at', as in 'username at mit' or 'username at berkeley' instead of ptownson@lcs.mit.edu like we do now? I have a shell on a machine at Berkeley that I have had for years; it has gone through more name changes and re-locations than I can begin to keep track of. I use it mostly for recreational purposes, for my own private chats, etc. Remember how so many of us used to be 'shell collectors', or Unix account collectors? I still have about six or seven shells on various boxes all over the USA from the old days. Now-days, you sign up with an ISP and ask him for a shell account and you get the strangest look from him, almost a sort of 'what are you trying to pull, anyway' attitude. Most will flatly refuse to give a shell account. One even said to me once, in a sort of joking way, "Why, I would not not even give a shell to my own grandmother if she asked for one, let alone some itinerant hacker like you who would probably wreck my network." Of course I thanked him for his courtesy, and offered to take employ- ment from him staffing his help desk, to buffer him from how many ever dozen calls he got each day from users trying to locate the 'any' key they had been told to press. I got a couple of shell accounts in the old days by pointing out to the sysadmin some potentially dangerous situation they had overlooked. One place, I found /etc/passwords had been left sitting in the open because the admin had forgotten to chmod it properly. I told him, and he said so what, it is an encrypted file. I said yes, but I do not need to know what root's password is, I *know* what my password is, have you never heard of cut-and-paste? The 'others read and write' permissions were gone on that file two minutes later when I went to check. Such innocent, naive times, weren't they? Perhaps you also recall the old 'bang address' style where we said something like 'ucbvax!username@mit' ... with those you read the address from the @ sign to the left. On the telecom mailing list, I used to have lots and lots of addresses ending in .ARPA, and quite a few of the bang style addresses which still mostly work, but I convert them now whenever I still see one on the list, which is very rare anymore. And remember the email to FTP gateways? Long before the web, when a file transfer meant FTP'ing to a site -- if you could get through the congestion, and if you were allowed to use FTP at your location -- many people were unable to obtain the files they wanted. This was especially true when the earliest BBS's started networking with us through Fidonet gateways. So we had scripts that would accept incoming mail and parse it looking for the requested files, gather up the files and send them back by email. It was a workaround when FTP was not available between networks, etc. The person got the requested files a couple days later, but that was better than not getting them at all. The Telecom Archives Email to FTP script used to get a hundred calls a day right after I put it up several years ago, now it gets maybe one or two inquiries weekly while the web site got two thousand hits today. You were the only one to respond David. That tells me where the inter- est is in that idea of mine. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #60 ***************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Apr 27 14:39:08 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA29260; Tue, 27 Apr 1999 14:39:08 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 14:39:08 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199904271839.OAA29260@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #61 TELECOM Digest Tue, 27 Apr 99 14:39:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 61 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: "Internet Pioneers" (Nigel Roberts) Re: "Internet Pioneers" (Colin Sutton) Re: "Internet Pioneers" (Craig Partridge) Re: "Internet Pioneers" (James Wyatt) Re: "Internet Pioneers" (Fred Atkinson) Re: "Internet Pioneers" (Bill Newkirk) Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Says NANPA (Walter Dnes) Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Says NANPA (Bob Goudreau) Re: Rate Rationalization, was Re: NANP Has 8+ Years to Go (John R. Levine) Re: European-Wide Country Code of +388 (Linc Madison) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. 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Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nigel Roberts Subject: Re: "Internet Pioneers" Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 17:15:04 +0100 Organization: Island Networks I too would be interested in such an organisation, having had 'tourist' accounts on MIT-AI and MIT-DM (70 and 134 IIRC) when I was at university in SE England in the late 70s. In fact there was only one ARPAnet node in the whole of the UK at the time (UCL), but since a few dozen other Universities and research establishments were connected together by the Post Offices Experimental Packet Switching Service (which later became standardised as X.25) we could reach UCL from Essex using EPSS, and then connect to the USA from UCL. MIT-DM was the home of 'Zork' of course. And that's where we spent a lot of time. And following a late night coffee session in my flat in late 1978 after being ejected from the University's computer centre when in closed at 10 o'clock between myself, Roy Trubshaw, Richard Bartle and Keith Rautenbach, someone came up with the idea 'what if you could use the DEC-10's shareable # high-segment to run a Zork type world with more than one player in the dungeon at the same time ...' Regards, Nigel Roberts nigel@nic.gg http://www.nic.gg TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > The Telephone Pioneers began around 1900 when a couple dozen of the > people who had been with AT&T since Day One decided they should have a > club for themselves. In later years as all the old people died, the > rule was changed to say that members had to have at least twenty years > of employment with Bell. I wonder if the time has come for an 'Internet > Pioneers' organization? If enough people send me some sort of valid > evidence that they were active on the net at least 15-20 years ago and > express an interest in an association among themselves and a web page > or mailing list, perhaps I will start such a thing. It might be purely > social, or perhaps a mix of social and service to the net and the > newcomers who are arriving -- not quite at the rate people are fleeing > from Kosovo -- but pretty darn fast, to the net community daily. ------------------------------ Reply-To: Colin Sutton From: Colin Sutton Subject: Re: "Internet Pioneers" Organization: Siemens Building Technologies Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 23:51:00 +1000 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, so far, you are the only person > who responded to that item. I guess no one is interested. Not that we're not interested, just too busy, or still looking to the future, not the past. One of these days I'll look through those 132 column teletype printouts of jokes I downloaded via my decus account that my wife keeps telling me to chuck out - there was no disk space for them on my PDP-11 :-( Not to mention the decus backup tapes, the Sinclair spectrum audio cassette backups from 1980, the Game and Watches from 1981,... > Of course one problem may be that I did not really play by all the > rules around here in the old days (I still usually don't), and a lot > of the old, old, old clique is still annoyed with me because of it. Surely you've been forgiven the errors of youth :-) Colin Sutton - AARNET "pioneer" - well, one of the first commercial users of the Australian Academic Research Network, anyway. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You could drop out the word 'been' from your last sentence and that would be true also. I hope that does not sound too arrogant. Some of the things which seemed so important at the time have long since taken a backseat to more pressing issues. Do you remember the numerous battles over the years regarding newsgroup creation, whether or not some newsgroup should be moderated or open, what the exact topic should be, etc? I do not persnally remember when there were only six or eight newsgroups in total, but I remember when there were only a couple hundred, instead of the fourteen thousand plus listed now, although admittedly many recieve little or no traffic. I remember when there were only groups beginning with the name 'comp' and it was extremely hard to get a new group started. There had to be a proposal submitted, thirty days of discussion, and a vote taken. If the vote passed, then one of only two or three people were authorized (in the sense that anarchists respected the right of anyone to author- ize anything) to do a 'newgroup' control message. The common agreement was that all sites honored a newgroup request. Then 'alt' came along, as in 'alternate' and anyone could create their own newsgroup without going through the formalities (and possible defeat), but the catch was many or most sites did not carry the alt groups. It was up to the person(s) who started an alt group to convince individual sysadmins to install it on their news spool, unlike 'comp' where you had to go to a lot more effort (and have a clearly defined group of supporters) to gain 'legitimate' status but once you did, it automatically went on sites all over the world, no questions asked. Remember how when we got to the point there were a couple hundred newsgroups in total, AT&T and several other large corporations said they did not have room for that many, so they were going to drop all the 'alt' groups and not carry them any longer? There was another consideration of course: some of the 'alt' newsgroups tended to be a bit rowdy at times, not always maintaining the kind of decorum and image that many companies wanted their employees to see, at least on company time. PAT] ------------------------------ From: craigp@world.std.com (Craig Partridge) Subject: Re: "Internet Pioneers" Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 14:17:15 GMT Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die > You were the only one to respond David. That tells me where the inter- > est is in that idea of mine. PAT] I was intrigued by the idea but wasn't sure what the organization would achieve, short of stuffing feathers in the caps of the folks who had email back then Craig Partridge {ihnp4,kremvax,seismo}!harvard!partridge [c. 1982] craig@bbn.arpa [1983] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As I think about it now, one achievement might be to permanently capture the memories people have of those days so that they will be preserved. I am reminded of a great little book called 'Reminisences of the Day of the Chicago Fire' published in 1901 by the Chicago Historical Society. Someone got an idea back then which basically went like this: 'you know, it has now been thirty years since the terrible fire (in 1871), and before long all the people who actually were around that day are going to be dead and there will not be anyone left who actually witnessed it. All we will have are third- party accounts from historians, etc. What we need to do is round up as many of those people as we can, and have them tell in their own words what they remember from that day, what they did to save their homes and families, etc and what they remember of the street scenes during the fire.' And they did just that, putting together a book of a couple dozen short -- between two and a dozen pages -- accounts given by people. One of the best was a fellow who was only eighteen years old at the time who talked about sitting with a group of people about 5:00 AM that Monday morning on the west bank of the Chicago River as the sun came up watching the blazing inferno on the other side of the river. I see that as a role for such a group as I propose. We have plenty of third-party accounts of the Internet, and some are rather good. For instance Michael and Ronda Hauben (Ronda is a regular here) have published their 'Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet'. All good material, and there are other books like it. But we need to have the 'peoples history' written down as well. If I may paraphrase, 'it has been about twenty years since this thing got started. Before too many or all of the old people die or get scattered out of contact we need to make them write a few paragraphs about how things were on the net in the seventies and early eighties.' I propose a web site which would include such capsules from the 'old people' as well as provide pointers to the works of 'professional historians', the people who have written extensively about the history of the net. But the 'peoples history' would be the key part of it. There are plenty of web sites around devoted to teaching people how to make web sites. There are plenty that serve as search engines or starting points for other web sites. Why not one which would serve to let others know where we came from, and how the net got to where it is today? I think I have changed my mind. I do not think 'Internet Pioneers' is the best choice. Maybe 'Internet Historical Society' is a better choice. Or maybe both. PAT] ------------------------------ From: James Wyatt Subject: Re: "Internet Pioneers" Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 09:25:29 -0500 Organization: Fastlane Communications (using Airnews.net!) > old days. Now-days, you sign up with an ISP and ask him for a shell > account and you get the strangest look from him, almost a sort of > 'what are you trying to pull, anyway' attitude. Most will flatly FastLane Communications in DFW, Texas doesn't usually mention it, but they offer free shell accounts. You can do CGI and 'bots if you don't get too obnoxious(sp?) and it is *well* connected. Just ask when you sign up ... You can visit online at www.fastlane.net if you wish. > Perhaps you also recall the old 'bang address' style where we said > something like 'ucbvax!username@mit' ... with those you read the > address from the @ sign to the left. On the telecom mailing list, I I still have UUCP-connected customers, but they have their own domains and we use MX records now. I have *no* idea how OutLook handles bang addresses, but many SMTP-to-proprietary-mail gateways get confused. We used to get our internet mail from texsun.sun.com until Morris' folly caused Sun to drop *all* guest accounts. When texsun died, the University of Texas at Arlington (thanks David!) then helped us until some jerk at Tandy complained that tandy.com's mail should go direct. We used to feed numerous UUCP sites for free in exchange for our MX feed and just about saturated our Telebits with newsfeeds. This meant that Sun/Dallas and UTA only had one or two systems calling, but helped dozens of systems and hundreds of people. It also meant that rwsys.lonestar.org has had the same email address for about a decade. (but we prefer rwsystems.net now!) > And remember the email to FTP gateways? Long before the web, when a > file transfer meant FTP'ing to a site -- if you could get through the > congestion, and if you were allowed to use FTP at your location -- > many people were unable to obtain the files they wanted. This was I used to try them once in a while (usually used shell account at Sun and UUCPd it home). I *really* learned about them when Godron Burditt (an occasional c.d.t poster) used to haul the latest FreeBSD distribution and source trees to GNUware via our UUCP mail link! Good thing he had a TeleBit modem too ... I also had a port on 1200b AX.25 and TCPIP on 145MHz and 440MHz for amateurs to pull mail and use the internet in the early 90s. (Anyone else here remember KA9Q and JNOS?) I have been slowly gathering stiff to put it back up, but at 9600b some day. I kinda went from ham RTTY (teletype) and BBS to UUCP to internet over the years with transient exchursions between the interests. It was interesting to see UseNet posts that mentioned the 'rwsys' UUCP name from various systems around here. It was obvious who you were connected to in those days (esp. ihnp4, ucbvax, decvax, etc) whereas it's hidden in MX records and traceroutes now. Less geeky I suppose, but less 'scenic' in retrospect. Jy@ (jwyatt@rwsystems.net KA5VJL) ------------------------------ From: Fred Atkinson Subject: Re: "Internet Pioneers" Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 11:29:05 -0400 Pat, Regarding the 'Internet Pioneers'. I think it would be a great idea. The ranks of ham radio have long had an organization called the 'Quarter Century Wireless Association', the requirement is that you were first licensed as a ham radio operator twenty five years before you may join. You can check their Web site at: 'http://www.qcwa.org'. I will become eligible for membership next year. However, how long has the Internet been with us? I don't think they could require twenty-five years as I don't think the 'Internet' has been around for that long. For now, they'd have to settle on a lower number of years. Fred [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think 15-20 years would be a good starting point, maybe dropping it to 10 years for people who made some substantial contributions during the late 1980's. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bill Newkirk Subject: Re: "Internet Pioneers" Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 23:37:50 -0400 Organization: Posted via RemarQ, http://www.remarq.com Maybe it just needs time to percolate around a bit ... However, people don't seem to want to join clubs/organizations today. ------------------------------ From: waltdnes@interlog.com (Walter Dnes) Subject: Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Says NANPA Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 10:53:21 GMT Organization: Interlog Internet Services On 26 Apr 1999 13:35:31 GMT, craig@rmit.EDU.AU (Craig Macbride) wrote: > Eric@AreaCode-Info.com (Eric B. Morson) writes: >> No FCC mandate for implementing expanding dialing patterns >> from 3+7 to 4+8 with a deadline for launch. How about >> deciding IF 4+8 will be the solution? > How about cutting loose the non-US members (possibly not Canada, Nothing personal against the US, but I think that Canada should also be split off into its own country code. Right now we have approx 20 area codes, and will continue to expand. It would be nice to have all sorts of internal area code number-space. And the US will probably need our codes for its own use in the future anyways. > but at least the Caribbean countries) of the NANP at the same > time, thus giving more numbering space to the US and stopping > all the fraud schemes based on confusing people into calling > numbers they believe are in the US which are in fact in other > countries? Excellent idea. What is the rationale behind separate area codes for a bunch of overgrown sandbars, many of which barely justify a whole exchange, let alone an area code? And how many of their phone numbers will disappear once people have to dial 0+ instead of 1-809+ or 1-664+, and telesleaze won't be able to pull that stunt on the unsuspecting public. Walter Dnes ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 11:24:58 -0400 From: goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) Subject: Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Says NANPA craig@rmit.EDU.AU (Craig Macbride) wrote: > How about cutting loose the non-US members (possibly not Canada, but > at least the Caribbean countries) of the NANP at the same time, thus > giving more numbering space to the US and stopping all the fraud > schemes based on confusing people into calling numbers they believe > are in the US which are in fact in other countries? Leaving aside the rate confusion issue, the answer to this question is that it simply won't help matters much. According to the "NANP Exhaust Study" (http://www.nanpa.com/pdf/NANP_Exhaust_Study.pdf) there are currently 410 assignable spare NPAs in the NANP. Even if you kicked *all* non-US countries (including Canada) out into separate contry codes, it would only free up 41 NPAs -- an increase of a mere 10 percent for the pool of spares. Not that big a help, especially considering the costs associated with switching those other countries to new country codes. And actually getting the ITU to allocate some of its numbering space for over a dozen new country codes is another can of worms altogether. (Is it time to rerun that old thread on the mechanics of how to break up the NANP while still allowing graceful permissive dialing periods? :-) Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ Date: 26 Apr 1999 19:43:42 -0400 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: Rate Rationalization, was: Re: NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA >> NANP Exhaust Study..published www.nanpa.com/pdf/NANP_Exhaust_Study.pdf > Which brings up the simpler solution, but one, alas, which the ILECS > won't like, namely a rationalization, and _reduction_, of the rate > structures. I believe this happened in the Denver area to delay the introduction of new area codes. They combined several small rate centers into a smaller number of large ones. Since Denver is surrounded by mountains on one side and cornfields on the other, and the only other nearby city of any size, Boulder, was already a local call, and I believe that local calls were already unmetered, this probably didn't turn many toll calls into local ones, so US West didn't object (much). I agree that the current rate center setup is a complete anachronism, and you need only compare maps of rate centers to maps of where the switches and wires really are to confirm that. For example, my cell phone is in 607-279 which is in the Ithaca NY rate center which is local to me in Trumansburg, but the switch is in Syracuse, an hour and a half away. The cell company used to have a switch in Ithaca, but they got rid of it a few years ago and consolidated all their switching in Syracuse. The Syracuse rate center is a toll call from both Ithaca and Trumansburg, of course. Or, even worse, I'm in T'burg, Ithaca is south of here, and Interlaken is north of here. Calls between T'burg and Ithaca are local. Calls between Interlaken and Ithaca are local. But calls between T'burg and Interlaken are toll, even though Interlaken calls are physically handled in the T'burg switch! The phone company has admitted to me that this is due to historical quirks, is now stupid, but there's not enough traffic between Interlaken and T'burg to be worth the grief of going to Albany and filing for a rate change. But if this NPA started to fill up, it's screamingly obvious that Ithaca, Tburg, and Interlaken should all be combined into a single rate center, along with a couple of other small towns on the other side of Ithaca. Or for that matter, to reflect wire and switch reality, everything from here to Syracuse and 20 miles north of there should be one rate center. This would go a long way to fixing the prefix crunch, since the number of CLEC reserved prefixes could easily drop by a factor of five or ten. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 16:39:14 -0700 From: Telecom@LincMad.com.NOSPAM (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: European-Wide Country Code of +388 Organization: LincMad Consulting In article , Richard@office.mandarin.com wrote: > It may have been that at one time, but the current proposals are quite > different. +388 is now intended to be an overlay, which would provide > users with "European" phone numbers instead of numbers based out of the > country where the user is actually located. Some might think of +388 > as being more a form of "politically-correct" number! Hadn't heard about this proposal. How will the calls be billed?? Will it depend on the originating and/or terminating country? Will they be dialable from outside the non-EU European countries? Outside Europe entirely? [quoting me (Linc Madison) from a previous article:] >> The Ukraine is certainly big enough that it would have deserved a >> two-digit code (unlike +45 Denmark, +64 New Zealand, +65 Singapore, > ITU-T policy is that all new country code assignments will be three-digit. Yes, that would be why I said, directly above the bit you quoted: >> With the possible exception of +3 (which was envisioned to replace all >> +3 and +4 codes), no more one- or two-digit codes will be allocated. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I think your clarification was unnecessary, particularly since it gives the false appearance that I was not aware of the ITU-T policy. >> but the people who created the plan didn't adequately think through the >> transition required to get there. > More that they didn't realise the level of opposition there would be > from the "member states" to being required to change their phone > numbers just to please Brussels. Ironically, most of those "member > states" have gone through (at least) one major renumbering since then > of their own volition. Well, I'd say it's both, really. The plan was poorly conceived from a political standpoint, ignoring the needs and desires of the member states, but it was also poorly conceived from a technical standpoint, ignoring the convoluted transition that would be required. The scheme provided an inadequate transition plan to a goal that the countries involved hadn't agreed to. If by some chance the EU does pursue the idea of making Europe +0 when that range becomes assignable in a couple of years, they will have to work out the political issues as well as the technical. ** Do not send me unsolicited commercial e-mail spam of any kind ** Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * Telecom@LincMad-com URL:< http://www.lincmad.com > * North American Area Codes & Splits >> NOTE: if you autoreply, you must delete the "NOSPAM" << ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #61 ***************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Tue Apr 27 17:16:19 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id RAA09189; Tue, 27 Apr 1999 17:16:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 17:16:19 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199904272116.RAA09189@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #62 TELECOM Digest Tue, 27 Apr 99 17:16:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 62 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Australian RF Emission Standards Effect Cellular Telephones (John Stahl) Bizarre Cellular Cross-Talk (Linc Madison) MTP Level 2 Error Correction Question (Kyung Jun, Cho) MCI Weekend Rate Available Through 1010 Code? (Benjamin D. Lukoff) Good Conference Phone? (Fr Faure) The Complete PC's ->> Complete Communicator VoiceMail Card (Etop Udoh) GTE/PacBell 2001 Circuits (Chris Johnston) N11 Code For TT Relay (Linc Madison) Requesting Information on European Telecom Operators Market (A. Basquin) Seeking Name/Place Database (BV124@aol.com) Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? (Gideon Stocek) Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? (suhrig@bright.net) Re: Suffolk County, Long Island, NY (Bob Goudreau) Re: Suffolk County, Long Island, NY (Walter Dnes) Re: New Billing Charge: Local Number Portability (Seymour Dupa) Re: Cell Phones Not to be Used in Moving Vehicles in Brooklyn, OH (R Bean) Re: Cell Phones, blah blah blah (John Saxe) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 09:50:08 From: John Stahl Subject: Australian RF Emission Standards Effect Cellular Telephones Here in the US there have been a few reports lately with regards to some potentially negative results from testing cellular phone RF transmissions on human beings. Additionally some groups have come out against putting transmitting towers (cellular, PCS, radio and TV) nearby populated areas with the idea that the large amounts of RF energy near these antennae are a major concern for the well-being of the human and animal population. While the US government continues it's studies of this matter, some of the other major world governments have taken on making new rules and regulations regarding maximum RF power output levels. Recently it was reported in various news media that the Australian Government released standards for RF power emission from any and all transmitting devices including cellular (would effect both analog and digital types) telephones. (Official government Press Release URL detailing this new Australian Standard is: http://www.aca.gov.au/media/01-99.htm) This new standard called "The Australian Standard for Limits of Exposure to Radio frequency Fields" will soon be the "law" in Australia. Called out in it is the Australian standard AS 2772.2 (Radio frequency Radiation: Principles and Methods of Measurement - 300 kHz to 100 GHz) and Standard ASNZS 2772.1 (Int):1998, (The Australian Standard For Limits of Exposure to Radio frequency Fields). These two 'standards' contain all of the pertinent data supporting new Australian limits on maximum power allowances for any and all transmitting devices. Incidentally, in these standards is reference to US based standards groups such as the IEEE. These documents contain a definition of this maximum transmitting power in terms of SAR (Specific Absorption Rate). The new Australian maximum SAR for general public exposure to any transmitter is 0.08 W/kg. The standard AS 2772.1 details how this pertains to human beings. The internet site where additional info on this potentially 'controversial' subject can be found is: http://www.aca.gov.au/index/default.htm. There is also a site where the Australian Standards group is located for availability of these standards documents: http://www.standards.com.au I have contacted several of the ACA people and have been supplied with some additional background information regarding the potential health issues they have found in their studies. If anyone is interested in some further reading materials, please contact me and I will be happy to forward to you. It could be just a matter of time before the US government 'feels' the pressure from all of the standards group's for it to impose limitations on RF energy output! John Stahl Aljon Enterprises Telecom and Data Systems' Consultants Endwell, NY USA email: aljon@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 21:42:32 -0700 From: Telecom@LincMad.com.NOSPAM (Linc Madison) Subject: Bizarre cellular cross-talk Organization: LincMad Consulting I was talking on my landline POTS phone today, to a friend who was calling from some variety of cellphone or PCS phone. Suddenly, as clear as day, I heard someone else's conversation, something along the lines of "Dad, can you hear me now?" I hadn't realized that my friend was on a wireless phone, so I thought perhaps someone was monkeying with the demarc on one end or the other. The cut-in was only for about 20 or 30 seconds, before the other party/parties went away. Kinda makes you wonder ... ** Do not send me unsolicited commercial e-mail spam of any kind ** Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * Telecom@LincMad-com URL:< http://www.lincmad.com > * North American Area Codes & Splits >> NOTE: if you autoreply, you must delete the "NOSPAM" << ------------------------------ From: Kyung Jun, Cho Organization: DACOM Corp. Subject: MTP Level 2 Error Correction Question Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 04:56:06 GMT There are two Error Correction Method Basic and PCR(Preventive Cyclic retransmission) in ITU-T Q703. We use the basic error correction method in domestic area, and I know most international carrier use PCR method in Internationa SS7 span. I would like to know if there is any problem when we interconnect between national exchange(BASIC error correction method) and International exchange(PCR method) via ss7 signaling link. ------------------------------ From: Benjamin D. Lukoff Subject: MCI Weekend Rate Available Through 1010 Code? Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 18:51:15 GMT Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion Hello all, I just read an article on saving money on long distance calls at http://moneycentral.msn.com/articles/smartbuy/deals/3172.asp ; it reads in part, "Know the 1010 codes. If you know how to use the 1010 system, there are hundreds of unadvertised specials each week. For instance, I use the MCI weekend program of 5 cents a minute, even though AT&T is my main carrier during the week. That way, I cut the cost of my weekend calls in half, and I still have a very good rate the rest of the time." I wasn't aware that MCI's "5 cent Sundays" rate, and in fact, any special rates, were available by dialing 1010xxx codes before the number. I seem to remember being charged more using Sprint's 10xxx code a few years ago than I would have had I been a subscriber. Has anyone else had experience with this, and is there a good place, preferably on the Internet, where one can find a list of companies with their 1010xxx codes? I was looking for a list about four years ago and only managed to get one by contacting the FCC through Fedworld. They would have charged me for it had I not been an undergraduate at the time, and it was rather confusing. Thanks, Benjamin Lukoff bd087 (at) scn.org "It's the sale of the century and we all know that everything must go" --Andy Partridge ------------------------------ From: ffaure@bigSPAMGAZETTAIDAMEfoot.com (F. Faure) Subject: Good Conference Phone? Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 09:21:47 GMT Organization: What me, organized? Reply-To: ffaure@bigSPAMGAZETTAIDAMEfoot.com All, I need to buy a new conference telephone, as everyone complains that the Panasonic KX-TS700FR-B we bought a couple of months ago is terrible. Should have done my homework instead of trusting that salesman ... Could someone recommend other brands? I found infos on 3Com/USR's site, and also www.phonezone.com: 3Com ConferenceLink CS1000 Speakerphone ConferenceLink CS1050 Speakerphone ConferenceLink CS1055 Speakerphone ConferenceLink CS1070-1 Speakerphone ConferenceLink CS1075-N Speakerphone ConferenceLink CS1075-S Speakerphone ConferenceLink CS850 Speakerphone ConferenceLink CS870-N Speakerphone ConferenceLink CS870-S Speakerphone PhoneZone Hello Direct ConferencePro Polycom SoundPoint Pro Polycom SoundPoint for AT&T Polycom SoundStation EX Polycom SoundStation Polycom SoundStation Premier with Satellite Other? Thanks for any tip, FF ------------------------------ From: Etop Udoh Subject: The Complete PC's ->> Complete Communicator VoiceMail Card Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 22:02:12 -0700 Organization: ....FILE SERVER FROM HELL.... Is anyone familiar with the company "The Complete PC" which came out with the "Complete Communicator" voice mail card and some accessories for them ... I have several of their cards including my latest one, the Window's Version of the card. I have the Window's Software, but I'm missing the DOS software which installs itself in a directory called "CCDOS" ?? I believe there are several versions of this software, and the last version which came off of their bbs, or ftp site (now BOCA) is not quite 100% compatible ... so I need one that is a little older than that one. Etop Udoh | Southern Polytechnic State University [89-##] P.O. Box 4234 | Http://s_druid.home.mindspring.com Marietta, Ga 30061 | s_druid@mindspring.com "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most" ------------------------------ From: Chris Johnston Subject: GTE/PacBell 2001 Circuits Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 16:01:17 -0700 Organization: Netus Internetworking, Southern California, USA Hi. Working on wiring two offices together. I can get a 2001 circuit from GTE and my PacBell rep is waffling. My problem is that no DSL router manufacturer has been able to tell me if their product would support such an arrangement. Flowpoint and Adtran have two desireable products good for truly SDSL access. 768K or 1100K access is ideal for this application. Anyone have thoughts? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 17:11:29 -0700 From: Telecom@LincMad.com.NOSPAM (Linc Madison) Subject: N11 Code For TT Relay Organization: LincMad Consulting There has been some discussion of assigning a national N11 code for voice calls to Text Telephones (TT's, formerly known as TDD's, Telephone Devices for the Deaf, or TTY's, TeleTYpewriters). I've seen some proposals to assign a pair of N11's, one for voice-to-TT and the other for TT-to-voice. It seems to me that it should be reasonable to assign only one N11 code for both directions. On each call, the relay operator is dealing with a TT on one end and a voice call on the other, so the issue of origination should be inconsequential. TT callers are already told to press the space bar when dialing 911; the same instruction would apply for the new N11 service. Personally, I think that this is an idea that should go forward. Is it percolating through any official bodies at the moment? ** Do not send me unsolicited commercial e-mail spam of any kind ** Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * Telecom@LincMad-com URL:< http://www.lincmad.com > * North American Area Codes & Splits >> NOTE: if you autoreply, you must delete the "NOSPAM" << ------------------------------ From: Anthony Basquin Subject: Requesting Information on European Telecom Operators Market Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 18:45:53 +0200 Organization: UUNet Help me in defining the environment around telecom operators in Europe. MY QUESTION ARE : - How many Telecom operators and ISP's are offering E-business services or products or plan to do so, in Europe? Who are they? - What are the most important operators acting in Europe in terms of annual turn-over, geographic coverage, and complementary of services? Any expert or non-expert feedback will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Anthony Basquin ------------------------------ From: BV124@aol.com Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 14:15:29 EDT Subject: Re: Seeking Name/Place Database Reply-To: BV124@aol.com The following identifes the source of a nifty WINDOWS application that does what you ask for and more! To order by US-mail: Robert Ricketts The PC Consultant PO Box 42086 Houston, TX 77242-2086 To order by e-mail: Internet e-mail: robert@pcconsultant.com To order by phone: 888/456-7950 Toll Free I am away from the office occasionally. My voice-mail system will answer if I am away. You can leave your name and number to call back (I'm alerted when a message is received) or go ahead and place your order. The latter is faster! To get the latest version, connect to our web site: www.pcconsultant.com If this URL breaks for some reason, please send e-mail to the above address asking for the current URL. ------------------------------ From: Gideon Stocek Subject: Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 10:05:30 -0700 Organization: Octel Communications Corp. Can someone provide a good reference for changes required to ISUP and/or TCAP application requirements for LNP? I'm curious as to how this is all supposed to work. Thanks, Gideon Stocek ------------------------------ From: suhrig@bright.net Subject: Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 22:11:28 GMT Organization: bright.net Ohio On Mon, 26 Apr 1999 11:03:47 -0400, rhyre@medplus.com (Ralph Hyre) wrote: > What's the real issue with Local Number portability? SNIP > Why can't the same process be adopted for local calls? In Ohio, I'm > already being assessed a 'Local Number Portability charge' to make this > happen. Presumably this pays for administration of the as-yet-nonexistent > database. Local number porting is in use in Ohio. For now it is only porting between the ILEC and CLECS in the same exchange. As I understand it the FCC has not yet allowed porting outside the original exchange until they see how many problems are generated. We have had problems with several ported numbers in the Lancaster Ohio exchange. ------------------------------ From: goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 10:32 EDT Subject: Re: Suffolk County, Long Island, NY wdag@my-dejanews.com (W.D.A. Geary) wrote: >> Does anyone know what the NEW " AREA CODE " will be ? >> I suggest " 783 " for SUF > Pace to 1-800-FLOWERS, codes that actually had alphabetical meaning > went out with hula hoops. Certainly not. In fact, until four years ago, mnemonic values for *area* codes (as opposed to local exchange prefixes) were not possible at all, since no letters are assigned to the "0" or "1" keys, which made up the middle digit on all area codes created before 1995. Since the opening up of the NNX numbering space for NPA assignment, there have been numerous examples of new codes that were chosen with specific mnemonic values in mind. For example, Canada's three territories (Yukon, Nunavut and NWT) are at the TOP (= 867) of the world. Just last week, Tennesseans were publicizing the fact that their state's next NPA will be VOLunteer (865). And the breakup of NPA 809 over the past four years has lead to quite a few Caribbean islands getting their own mnemonic codes: Anguilla 264 (ANG) Antigua 268 (ANT) Bahamas 242 (BHA) British Virgin Islands 284 (BVI) Grenada 473 (GRE) Montserrat 664 (MOI) Puerto Rico 787 (PUR or PTR) St. Lucia 758 (SLU) St. Vincent & the Grenadines 784 (SVG) Trinidad & Tobago 868 (TnT) Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The northern suburbs of Chicago have 847, which was intended as VIP for Very Important People. PAT] ------------------------------ From: waltdnes@interlog.com (Walter Dnes) Subject: Re: Suffolk County, Long Island, NY Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 10:53:26 GMT Organization: Interlog Internet Services On Mon, 26 Apr 1999 17:42:46 GMT, in comp.dcom.telecom wdag@my-dejanews.com (W.D.A. Geary)wrote: > I also think that we will _soon_ have to go to either 8-digit > local numbers or _variable length_ numbers (terminating dialing > sequence with # key, just like SEND on cellphone). This would > certainly simplify telephone-number entries in address books and > business cards/advertisements, and allow something like: > 1-680-555-1212# (base number for Wardenclyffe Microtechnology; voice phone) > 1-680-555-1212-1# (fax machine) > 1-680-555-1212-2# (pager) > 1-680-555-1212-3# (cellphone) > 1-680-555-1212-41# (data line 1) > 1-680-555-1212-42# (data line 2) > ISDN already supports a "subaddress" that could be used for this. This raises a question about extensions at a PBX. Does the telco have to assign real phone numbers for extensions? Using the above example, could Wardenclyffe Microtechnology have a base number of 1-680-555-1212 followed by a 4-digit extension? If so, the one phone number could provide a virtual numberspace of 10^n numbers where n is the number of digits in the extension. Let's take a real-life example. I have a *PULSE* phone line, not tone-dialing. My fax+answering machine, once it answers, accepts *TONE* sequences for retreiving messages, etc. I've also set a passcode that is required to accept faxes. If I want to "take" some paper document home to work-from-home, I can fax myself the document. People I give the passcode to can also fax me. Only the junk-faxers lose. If there's any worse waste than mostly-unused exchanges for separate carriers, it's the city bus info lines with one phone number for each stop. One phone number plus an extension could accomplish the same task. Does every desk at a large office building need to have a "real" 7-digit phone number, or could an extension also provide a huge virtual numberspace? And while we're at it, does every desktop computer at a big office building *REALLY* need its own "real" IP address, or would a reserved-for-internal-use 10.X.X.X IP not serve the purpose? This waste is part of why IPv4 is facing the same exhaust problem as NANPA. The company could reserve 1/10th of its current usage of "real" IP addresses, and dole them out via DHCP and/or VPN when someone wants to go outside the LAN. It would probably do great wonders for... a) security; because the real internal addresses would be non- routable, except for the firewall/gateway/mailserver/etc. b) productivity; employees would know that any non-work usage of their internet connections would be very closely monitored and likely noticed. Walter Dnes ------------------------------ From: Seymour Dupa Subject: Re: New Billing Charge: Local Number Portability Organization: Exchange Network Services, Inc. Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 22:39:00 GMT Is *no* other Local Exchange Carrier available to go to even if we wanted to? John Will Roberts wrote: > Local Number Portability (LNP) is the FCC-mandated ability to keep your > same telephone number even if you switch Local Exchange Carriers. --- If You Always Do the Things You've Done, You'll Always Have the Things You Got. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Cell Phones Not to be Used in Moving Vehicles in Brooklyn, Ohio Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 20:00:37 CDT From: Ron Bean merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) writes: > This is class envy. Considering how cheap cellphones are now, I'm not sure who is being envious of whom. I see nothing wrong with requiring a hands-free phone while the vehicle is moving. For the same reason, I think we should require that radios be built into the dashboard, and make it illegal to hold a portable radio up to your ear while driving. If you can't afford a built-in radio, too bad. > If you outlaw cell phones, please also outlaw: > drive through restaurants I think you're supposed to *stop* before you place your order. In any case these are on private property, so traffic laws don't apply. > babies on board They're supposed to be strapped in. Maybe we should outlaw breastfeeding while driving? > children in the back seat ("Don't make me pull over!") Better to pull over than to make empty threats to your kids while driving (they catch on real fast). > doing makeup in the rearview mirror > reading a book I don't think anyone would argue with these. > using a map This is dangerous, and I refuse to do it. I either find a place to stop, or keep driving around until I'm hopelessly lost and *then* find a place to stop. > But let's be fair here. Let's outlaw EVERYTHING that could be a > distraction to the driver. Many people would like to do exactly that. The simplest solution might be to pass a law that says that if you're in an accident while talking on a cellphone, you're assumed to be 100% at fault. Then let people decide whether it's worth the risk. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: While it is not illegal to operate a television set (portable of course) in an automobile, I believe in many places it is illegal to have one in the front seat, where it is presumed the driver would be watching it instead of the road. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 09:25:17 -0400 From: John Saxe Subject: Re: Cell Phones, blah blah blah Randal L. Schwartz wrote: >>This is class envy. I don't know about Portland, but here in "greater" New York City (And that includes Brooklyn and--unfortunately--Northern New Jersey where I live) cell phones seem to be passed out to anyone who can make a fist without instructions. There doesn't seem to be any "class" distinctions except for the lack of it shown by people who display them as accessories, and use them in public with that loud tone of voice that is designed to draw attention to themselves. The brilliant Max Cannon sums up the issue of DWCP (driving with cell phone) in one of his Red Meat cartoons at: http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/comics/rm_407.htmlx. Oh, by the way, I have one -- a Nextel as big as a brick, which I keep in my case for ballast and occasional calls when off site. John Saxe, Technical Support Dept. (212)423-3576 "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." --Edward Abbey ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #62 ***************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Wed Apr 28 14:10:05 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id OAA28035; Wed, 28 Apr 1999 14:10:05 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 14:10:05 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199904281810.OAA28035@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #63 TELECOM Digest Wed, 28 Apr 99 14:09:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 63 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: "Internet Pioneers" (Bill Ranck) Re: "Internet Pioneers" (Matt Ackeret) Re: MTP Level 2 Error Correction Question (Thor Lancelot Simon) CPUC Files Waiver Requests With FCC For Numbering Relief (Linc Madison) Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? (Art Kamlet) Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? (John R. Levine) Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Says NANPA (John R. Levine) Re: Bizarre Cellular Cross-Talk (Arthur Ross) Re: Use of Cellular Phones in Schools (Matt Ackeret) Buy a Cable Modem and Go to Jail (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Eric Ranck Subject: Re: "Internet Pioneers" Date: 27 Apr 1999 19:36:41 GMT Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA I saw things from the BITNET world though. I remember when ARPAnet/Internet had specific gateways into BITNET. You had to know the gateway and route mail to it with a bang address on the left side of the address. It was something like joeuser!somevax.arpa@gateway At the gateway the address would get stripped of the BITNET stuff and the bang got replaced with an '@' and then off it went. JANET, in the UK had bang separated addresses that were 'backward' to the ARPAnet addresses. You couldn't just hit 'reply' in those days. I worked in the User Services department at my university, and I had managed to acquire enough lore on how to address things for various gateways that e-mail questions frequently came to me. One day, shortly after lunch, a professor came in and said he wanted to correspond with a colleague in Isreal. I knew that BITNET was supposed to have a trans-Atlantic link hooked up "any day now," and the e-mail address he wanted to try was at one of the EARN (European version of BITNET) nodes so really there was no big trick. I showed him how to send e-mail, and said that I wasn't sure if the new link was up just yet, but I would send a test note just to show him how it worked. As we talked, the fellow in Isreal responded! Not only was the new link in place, but the fellow on the other end was logged in and answering. It is hard to describe how I felt. Sending that note and getting a response took less time than making a phone call would have. I was practically giddy. That was the point at which I realized what a fantastic tool networking could become. The whole potential just seemed so unbeleivably vast. I'd say it was a turning point for me, and I have lived through the following 15 or so years enjoying the ride and anxious to see how things turn out. ***************************************************************************** * Bill Ranck +1-540-231-3951 ranck@vt.edu * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Computing Center * ***************************************************************************** [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You forgot to mention what the letters in BITNET stood for: ecause t's ime ... I had about five or six hundred names on the Digest list at .bitnet sites and although I could have kept them all on the same master mailing list and let the stuff for .bitnet just go through the gateway, it turned out that the gateway was very sluggish and kept breaking down, which eventually the admins at the time detirmined was due to the size of my mailing list. So what they had me do was grep out all the .bitnet names on the list and make a separate list for them. Then they gave me an account on the gateway machine at Northwestern University to pump those out. It was called 'accuvax.bitnet' or 'accuvax.eecs.nwu.edu' depending on who was asking for it. Same machine .. it sat in the same room just a few feet from where my work station was, but that gateway would choke every time it got my load. So I had to put all the .bitnet names over there on accuvax, and a .forward file which pointed to a script that would start moving the mailing list over there. Then as an issue of the Digest would go out, one address on the main mailing list was actually just an 'exploder' which pointed at accuvax. So *one* copy only of the Digest went to accuvax which used it like a trigger to start the .bitnet list moving. That would have been in 1989 and 1990. It seems to me both Northwestern and MIT had things set up so that people sending email to BITNET just used the .bitnet suffix the way we do with .edu or .com now, and that told sendmail do not bother trying to parse anything here, just hand it to the gateway. When we sent mail to those tiny little private BBS's which were part of Fidonet the entire address line had to be of the form username!z1.f3.n2@name.of.gateway, meaning Fidonet Zone 1, net 3, node 2 I believe, and when it got that far it would look to the left of the bang and find out who was username on that local BBS. But mail coming back had to be different. The entire To: line was something like 'Internet:username!sitename@the.local.fido.hubsite' and if they wanted it to go to a Bitnet place they still had to say 'Internet' first as in "Internet:username!sitename!bitnet@whatever". But I will tell you one thing: we did not have any spam! :) Regards that 'giddy feeling', I saw someone with an Apple 2 computer, with 48K one day in 1978 or 79 and a 110 baud modem. He was having a terminal- to-terminal conversation with someone a few blocks away, and I watched him doing that and felt the same kind of emotions you describe. I never of course imagined myself ever doing anything like that, and then a year later more or less I was running a BBS on my own Apple ][+ and then a couple months later two BBSs at the same time, my own and the one we started as a volunteer thing for the Chicago Public Library. I always used Applesoft BASIC (Beginners All purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) for my BBS programs and stuff. Really it was Microsoft BASIC but Apple had a license to use it in their machines under the name 'Applesoft'. For the library BBS I used Bill Blue's 'Peoples Message System' a popular software program at the time. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 28 Apr 1999 01:41:31 -0000 From: Matt Ackeret Subject: Re: "Internet Pioneers" Organization: Area Systems in Mountain View, CA - http://www.area.com In article you write: > And remember the email to FTP gateways? Long before the web, when a > file transfer meant FTP'ing to a site -- if you could get through the Umm, a lot of the file downloading from web sites _is_ via ftp. I realize you are referring to using ftp directly, but ftp:// is one of the types of URL. mattack@area.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think I heard that mentioned once before Matt. In fact, I think the guy who set up the Telecom Archives web site fixed things so you could go to an archives file, right-click and download the file to your computer. Just imagine: years and years of Editor's Notes available with a mere right-click on the requested file. Makes you sort of nauseous, doesn't it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: MTP Level 2 Error Correction Question Date: 27 Apr 1999 20:10:58 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Kyung Jun, Cho wrote: > There are two Error Correction Method Basic and PCR(Preventive Cyclic > retransmission) in ITU-T Q703. > We use the basic error correction method in domestic area, and I know > most international carrier use PCR method in Internationa SS7 span. Actually, the PCR (or "aggressive") mode, where data is constantly retransmitted until it's acknowledged, is usually used only on links with high latency, such as satellite links. AFAIK it's not commonly used on undersea cables (but then again, I'm hardly an expert on international SS7, so I could be wrong). > I would like to know if there is any problem when we interconnect > between national exchange(BASIC error correction method) and > International exchange(PCR method) via ss7 signaling link. So long as your software is conformant to the protocol specs, I think it will just work. All PCR "error correction" does is mindlessly retransmit already-sent packets until they're acknowledged by the other end. This is perfectly legal to do on any MTP link, so long as the forward and backward sequence numbers and indicator ("parity") bits are handled correctly. I suppose it's concievable that on a link with Really High latency (multiple satellite hops?) using "basic" mode you might get into a condition where you couldn't actually recover from an error, because the sequence number had wrapped around, but you're talking about latencies on the order of a second, assuming MSU sizes of 60 octets or so. If you're implementing the software, you should probably just write the code to do PCR mode; it's very simple. If you aren't, and your vendor doesn't support it, you should make them do so -- again, it's very easy. If you're hoping to just run signaling links from an exchange or STP speaking a national variant of SS7 to the far end of some international carrier's undersea or satellite network, I think you're going to have worse problems -- you really need exchanges and STPs in international gateway configurations to handle the necessary interworking, SS7 is *far* from the same in international and most national variants. Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 18:37:59 -0700 From: Telecom@LincMad.com.NOSPAM (Linc Madison) Subject: CPUC Files Waiver Requests With FCC For Numbering Relief Organization: LincMad Consulting The California Public Utilities Commission issued a press release: Contact: Armando Rendn, 415-703-1366 April 26, 1999 CPUC-018 CPUC Asks FCC For Waiver On Number Allocations To Help Check Area Code Proliferation The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to waive key federal rules that would provide the CPUC with the additional tools it needs to try to bring under control the "number crisis" facing the state. The waivers, if granted, would enable the CPUC to oversee the allocation of phone numbers to companies more efficiently and to consider assigning area codes to specific technologies, such as pagers, fax machines, and modems. In just the past three years, the number of area codes has doubled in California. CPUC President Richard A. Bilas was meeting in Washington, D.C., today with FCC Commissioners and staff in a personal effort to obtain for the state more flexibility in allocating phone numbers. In two companion filings, the CPUC asked for the following actions: A waiver of 47 C.F.R. 52.19 (c)(3) which prohibits the assignment of an area code to a specific technology or service The grant to the CPUC of additional authority to: 1. implement a mandatory number pooling trial 2. order efficient number use practices within existing prefixes 3. handle requests for code assignments outside the present rationing process 4. order carriers to return to the Code Administrator unused prefixes 5. order carriers to return unused or under-utilized portions of prefixes to the pooling administrator, when one is selected. California will open its 26th area code later this year. To meet the demand for numbers, without implementing any conservation measures, will require 15 more area codes by the end of 2002, bringing the total number of area codes in this state to 41. California has 190 competitive local phone companies and 56 wireless firms, all of which need to assign numbers to their customers. Numbers are assigned in blocks of 10,000 per rate center; there are 800 rate centers in the state. According to the way phone numbers are now allocated, a carrier seeking to provide service statewide in California would need 8,000,000 numbers to begin offering service. The petitions seek FCC authority without which the Commission cannot act. Once granted, the CPUC would investigate and determine the worth of any conservation methods, before ordering action. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- LincMad Commentary: The CPUC was very disappointed that both Pacific Bell and GTE declined to participate in a voluntary trial of number pooling, and current FCC regulations do not allow the CPUC to make the trial mandatory. The timing of this request, right on the heels of the NANPA report on the impending exhaust of the entire 10-digit numbering system for North America, is excellent. If every one of the CLECs had just one prefix in each rate center, that would give California over 200 area codes, before you even count the numbers assigned to Pacific Bell, GTE, and the various wireless carriers. Clearly such a situation is unacceptable. Even with thousands-block pooling, the CLECs would require 20 area codes. The bottom line is that only full pooling of *ALL* unused numbers in each rate center, plus some reasonable consolidation of rate centers, perhaps with an expansion of the local calling zone beyond its current 12-mile radius. ** Do not send me unsolicited commercial e-mail spam of any kind ** Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * Telecom@LincMad-com URL:< http://www.lincmad.com > * North American Area Codes & Splits >> NOTE: if you autoreply, you must delete the "NOSPAM" << ------------------------------ From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? Date: 27 Apr 1999 17:43:09 -0400 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com In article , Gideon Stocek wrote: > Can someone provide a good reference for changes required to ISUP > and/or TCAP application requirements for LNP? I'm curious as to how > this is all supposed to work. You are posting from a Lucent addrress yet ask about LNP? My advice is to check with the lucent LNP standards folks. Try the ActiView folks in Holdmel, for example, for an LNP person. Basically there will be a few additional applications transactions which will have to query the LNP SCPs or SCP-databases (the SCP can manage the SS7 queries to SCDs which act just like databases.) There are proposed standards which have local routing numbers and dialed numbers turned around in transit, and without a picture in front of me, I hesitate to try to describe these. Your use of TCAP does reflect a certain, um, bias, right? Those are the proprietary defined application messages, am I right? But are not restricted to SS7 by any means. As to why it tales so long to implement LNP? First, because they allowed Interimim LNP to be put in, and now it seems there might be heel dragging to move to real LNP, and second, because those SCPs cost big bucks. The Ameritech charge for LNP is collecting money to eventually buy SCPs. If Ameritech placed high priority to do LNP it wouldn't put this as a charge on costomer's bills. It doesn't put the costs of services it wants to offer on bills, only those it is pushed into. When was the last time you saw a phone company list a charge for, say, repeat dialing when busy, on your bill unless you used it? They added the software and hardware for it, but never showed it on the bills because they want to do that. Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? Date: 27 Apr 1999 22:56:53 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > As I understand it the FCC has not yet allowed porting outside the > original exchange until they see how many problems are generated. I was under the impression that the sticking point was who would pay for the call. Even if the old and new exchanges are local to each other, distance-rated long distance calls might charge different amounts to the two exchanges. (Inter-lata is almost all flat rate, but intra-lata is still often distance sensitive.) John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Says NANPA Date: 27 Apr 1999 23:04:25 -0400 Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > Nothing personal against the US, but I think that Canada should also > be split off into its own country code. I suspect that many Canadians wouldn't like that idea. Having a common dialing plan with the US is very helpful to the large number of Canadians and Canadian businesses with strong ties to the US. I suppose it's an advantage to US residents and businesses with ties to Canada, but I still get the impression that most Americans have only the vaguest idea where Canada is and, if they think of Canada at all, think that Toronto is built on a glacier. > [ re breaking 809 into separate NPAs ] > Excellent idea. What is the rationale behind separate area codes for > a bunch of overgrown sandbars, many of which barely justify a whole > exchange, let alone an area code? Now, now, they all have at least two prefixes. But there's a simple reason: routing and billing. The CCITT says that you have to be able to route and price an international call on the first six digits. In the US and Canada, it's easy, you can tell from the first four, 1-NPA, which country it is. For a long time there were few enough Caribbean prefixes that they could assign them so that in 1-809-NNX, all of NN0 through NN9 were in the same country, so you could tell from the first 6 where it was. They started needing enough prefixes so they couldn't do that any more, so each country or territory got its own NPA. As someone else noted, Canada and the Caribbean togehter are only 10% of the total NPAs, so recovering them for the US wouldn't stave off number exhaustion very long. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner, http://iecc.com/johnl, Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 21:39:27 -0700 From: Arthur Ross Subject: Bizarre Cellular Cross-Talk Telecom@LincMad.com.NOSPAM (Linc Madison) wrote: > I was talking on my landline POTS phone today, to a friend who was > calling from some variety of cellphone or PCS phone. Suddenly, as > clear as day, I heard someone else's conversation, something along > the lines of "Dad, can you hear me now?" I hadn't realized that my > friend was on a wireless phone, so I thought perhaps someone was > monkeying with the demarc on one end or the other. The cut-in was > only for about 20 or 30 seconds, before the other party/parties > went away. This sort of thing actually occurs fairly often in analog cellular systems. It is almost undoubtedly a color code failure. Analog cellular has a bit over 400 channels (frequencies) available to each operator in a market. The transmission is analog FM, with the channels apportioned to the cells in such a way as to try to maximize the distance between re-uses of the same frequency. The unfortunate reality, however, is that occasionally some undesired, remote station may, for a short time, be stronger than the correct station due to the vagaries of electromagnetic propagation in the land mobile environment. The old AMPS standard tries to cope with this through the use of the so-called Supervisory Auditory Tones. These are tones, added to the downlink, around 6000 Hz. They are filtered out of what is delivered to the customer's ear, but the phone compares the received tone to the tone that is being transmitted by the right station, which is made known as part of the call setup and handoff messaging. There are only three possible tones available. A few seconds thought shows that, assuming the interfering signals are randomly selected from a large population of inappropriate cells using the same channel (one in 21, typically), that there is a one in three chance of the color code test passing, even though the wrong cell is being received. Ergo, the kind of "crosstalk" observed. This kind of thing occurs fairly often in analog systems, and, IMHO, is a design deficiency of the old standard. It probably made sense when the expected user population was small, but it is clearly inadequate now. The new digital systems do a FAR better job of this. While there is still some probability of hearing an inappropriate station, the probability of the equivalent subscriber-unique digital "cover" failing is something like one in 2^42 (about one in four trillion) rather than one in three, besides the need for the spreading code phase to match, which is something like one in 512 on top of the digital cover. Big improvement. This sort of accidental cross-connect doesn't happen, as a practical matter. Best regards, Dr. Arthur Ross 2325 East Orangewood Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85020-4730 Phone: 602-371-9708 Fax : 602-336-7074 ------------------------------ Date: 28 Apr 1999 01:36:48 -0000 From: Matt Ackeret Subject: Re: Use of Cellular Phones in Schools Organization: Area Systems in Mountain View, CA - http://www.area.com In article TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > NO, we do not need any more gun laws; NO we do not need any knee-jerk If they did not have access to guns, it would have been much more difficult to kill so many people. mattack@area.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's the same thing which was said at the time of the last mass killing spree. There have been so many of them I cannot remember the exact order in which they occurred. And after the last mass killing spree, and the one one before that and the one before that, new laws were enacted about guns. Each new law prevented more killings, didn't it? Either you use a weapon in a re- sponsible way, or you do not use one in a responsible way. If, as 'they' say, the only purpose of a gun is to kill someone, then we should not allow police officers to carry one either, but we know that in fact the mere display of a gun in a responsible way helps to maintain some modicum of civilization. We obey the laws in this country if for no other reason than our understanding that in the background somewhere, there is always that gun which can be used to force us to obey. Perhaps we obey because we want to, or maybe it is very inconvenient not to obey, but if it comes to that point, a gun is back there somewhere which can and will be used. You are asking about my personal possession of such a thing? Guns frighten me to death. I would never allow a gun in my home, however humble my home. I could not bring myself to touch one or pick it up; I'd rather you just kill me than force me to kill you. Looking at one makes me emotionally upset when I think about the ways in which guns have been abused. Would I ever want to take away your freedom to use a gun in a *responsible* way? Never. You run your house and life as you please; I will run my house and life as I please. You mind your business and I will attend to mine. Guns have no part in my life, or home or business. Let them be part of yours if you wish. I have no ethical or moral right to restrict you. We have enough gun laws to go around six times over. None of them have worked. More laws now are futile. Anyway, in Colorado their plan was to kill 'at least 500 people', in large part with the explosives (other than gun powder!) they carried in. They 'only' wound up killing a dozen or two. Whose fault was that, that the results fell far short of their stated goal? Maybe you saw the little blurb yesterday in the 'slashdot' report: a ten year old boy wrote in to say, "I came home from school today and found that my parents had gotten rid of my computer. They said they could not be certain about the kinds of things I would see on the Internet. I am at a friend's house writing this email to you. Please try and help my parents understand the Internet is not at fault for what happened ...". Well kid, neither are guns. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 00:35:51 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Buy a Cable Modem and Go to Jail On Tuesday evening I sent out a special mailing to the list with the fascinating account by Judy Sammel of her experience with Comcast, a cable television company and one of their subsidiaries called comcast@home. It tells of the ineptitude of the company, the very awful humiliation she endured as a result, and the way she was shoved around from one person to another at the company before any kind of results could be obtained. Everyone should have a copy by now, and if you have not read it, I hope you will take a few minutes today to do so. It is also posted as a special feature at http://telecom-digest.org PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #63 ***************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Thu Apr 29 21:45:34 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA07111; Thu, 29 Apr 1999 21:45:34 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 21:45:34 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199904300145.VAA07111@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #64 TELECOM Digest Thu, 29 Apr 99 21:45:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 64 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson An Apology and Clarification (TELECOM Digest Editor) Job Opening: Disaster Telecomms Specialist (Chris Lowe) V-SPAN and 'Bring Your Child to Work Day' (Josh Cartagenova) User Commands For Supplementary Services on Analog Line (am354@torfee.net) NANP Running Out of Numbers in 8+ Years (Tom Lager) Legislation Passed to Tranform Satellite TV (Monty Solomon) Definition of Traffic Terms Wanted (wica@asiaonline.net) Bosch 718 GSM Phone and Serial Ports and PC (Kevin Schaffer) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 19:46:01 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: An Apology and Clarification A couple days ago in an issue of the Digest, a note from Tara Mahon discussed a new service being offered by Insight Research Corporation, the company where she has been employed for quite some time. Their new product, Local Access Alert, is intended to provide rather detailed analytical and forecasting services to their clients. The price for the service was given as about twelve thousand dollars per year, and I ridiculed this as being in my opinion, a bit pricey for an information service. Tara wrote me to explain the service in a bit more detail, and I feel perhaps I owe her an apology for the cynical remarks I made as an Editor's note. Here is some of what Tara said in her reply to me, which overall was not for publication, but I do not think she will mind if I use her own words as part of the description of the service. > Yes, I understand that you feel the price is high for the service, but > let me emphasize that we are not simply taking the news and cutting > and pasting into a newsletter. Yes, anyone out there can get that > from a variety of online sources, which is why some on line news > services are struggling right now. > Our product is not simply reference material, nor something that > another company has online for free. In addition to our market > forecasts, our products have strategic and competitive analysis from > primary interviews with a variety of companies, analysis behind the > deals and mergers, and user case studies. > Let me explain it this way ... Yes, a full-time analyst at one of the > carriers could spend their days doing the research, collecting primary > data and secondary data from a variety of sources, formulating > forecast algorithms, and determining their five-year market potential > for private line services. In fact, some do do that. Others purchase > research and spend their time on actually acting upon the results and > recommendations of the research. And then, all companies have to do > their due diligence and get alternate opinions from independent > sources. They also have to conduct research into their competitors > which they themselves cannot often do. Also, they may want to get > case studies regarding customers who have already used specific > services ... this is also difficult for the carrier to get an > independent opinion. This is why they rely on Insight Research. > And when you're talking about a multi-million- or billion-dollar > market, a few thousand dollars is a relatively small price to pay for > market intelligence and analysis. > Pat, what you produce and what we produce are two very different > products. What's similar is that they have enormous value to the > right audience. > Thank you, > Tara Tara has a good point. And she has been a reader and participant here in this Digest for a number of years. I have to admit that my commentary was at least partly a 'sour grapes' kind of thing. I've never had any illusions about Making Money Fast on the Internet or otherwise, but maintaining a 'not for profit' mailing list and archives does get to be old and tiresome after awhile. But Tara certainly is not a charlatan nor does she operate some sort of 'we started on the net yesterday' company. Her new product, Local Access Alert is worth at least a look, and each viewer can decide on a personal basis about its worth in their own organization. Here are some excerpts from the original announcement, which appeared in issue 58: Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 11:52:51 -0400 From: Tara D. Mahon Reply-To: tara@insight-corp.com Organization: The Insight Research Corporation Subject: Local Access Alert Local Access Information Finds a Home A new continuous information service focusing on local access issues premiered last week by Insight Research, a leading provider of telecommunications market research reports. The service, Local Access Alert, features weekly news analysis, monthly analyst papers, an annual report, and telephone inquiry support, designed to provide telecom professionals with the strategic intelligence crucial to success in the local access market. In addition to performing in-depth examinations of major industry announcements, Local Access Alert will also go behind the news to probe these key industry issues: - What is the consumer and business demand for broadband access? What applications (e.g., telemedicine, distance learning, streaming video) are most likely to be used? - How and where will Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) deploy flavors of digital subscriber lines (xDSL)? Will they be able to do it fast enough to compete with the CATV companies, who are rapidly chalking up cable modem subscribers? - Will the lines finally begin to blur between Internet Service Providers (ISPs), voice CLECs, and data CLECs, or will they each retain their separate functions? - What will be the response of the incumbent carriers (regional Bells, independent LECs) to all this action? Will they innovate and stay ahead of the curve, or will they become lumbering dinosaurs, one step shy of extinction? Philip C. Richards, Vice President of Insight and 30-year telecom industry veteran heads the innovative new service. Local Access Alert is offered annually at $11,900 for up to five registered subscribers. Complete service details and a free subscription offer are online at: http://www.insight-corp.com/local.html. For further information, please contact: Tara D. Mahon tara@insight-corp.com The Insight Research Corporation 973/605-1400 ----------------------------- Anyway Tara, readers, sorry about the sour grapes addendum to the item last Monday. Now let's continue with this issue of the Digest. PAT ------------------------------ From: Chris Lowe Subject: Employment Opportunity: Disaster Telecomms Specialist Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 14:31:34 -0700 Organization: CAIS Internet Telecommunications Specialist Washington, DC, USA DESCRIPTION Natural or man-made disasters occur around the world, and when they occur, disaster relief (humanitarian assistance) teams are needed to respond to these disasters. Often these teams respond to areas that are isolated or the disaster has destroyed the normal communications system. As a Disaster Relief Telecommunications Specialist, your job would be to assist team members with set up of the necessary communications systems for reporting disaster relief requirements back to the Headquarters as well as communications for coordinating the response on-scene. Responsibilities Effect voice/data communications via terrestrial or satellite based systems, between home base and isolated/remote (often cutoff) parts of the world. Will be responsible for set-up, training and operations, inventory control and minor repair to computers, radios (HF/VHF/UHF,) portable satellite phones and various other communications equipment used while deployed worldwide to disaster or humanitarian relief scenes for 30-45 days at a time. Junior and senior positions available. The uniqueness of our requirements, requires a special person with broad experiences, exceptional personalities and willingness to get along with, learn from and train others. Positions include: Paid Medical/Dental Insurance plan, paid vacation, 401K retirement plan. REQUIREMENTS: Desired Requirements *Military tele-communications background preferred or other electronics training *Valid Security Clearance *Knowledge of VSAT, Windows NT, Unix, networks, laptops, desktops, etc *Experience with Computer Networks, Video Teleconferencing, HF/VHF/UHF radio networks *All around general Electronics Technician *Ham radio *Bi-lingual Spanish/English or French/English, pluses *Excellent personal skills *Ability to communicate effectively, both written and verbally (English, primarily) *Previous experience with the UN, USAID, ARC, ICRC or other NGO valuable Minimum Requirements *US Citizenship/valid passport *Willingness to travel worldwide on minimal notice for up to 45 days at a time *Radio or computer technical background *Proficient in Internet, email, word processing, spreadsheets, etc *Open minded to all cultures *Valid drivers license. (Good driving record) *Must be in excellent health *Must have an exceptional ability to work with personalities of all types *Willingness to learn and do fast *Eligibility for a security clearance *High School diploma with some college or technical school mailto:lowe@darlington.com (Chris Lowe) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 09:57:49 -0400 From: Josh Cartagenova Subject: V-SPAN and 'Bring Your Child to Work Day' Contact: V-SPAN Joshua Cartagenova Marketing Manager 610-382-4056 Email: joshc@vspan.com V-SPAN TAKES A VIRTUAL APPROACH TO "BRING YOUR CHILD TO WORK DAY" V-SPAN holds the 3rd annual "Bring your Child to Work Day" via Videoconference King of Prussia, PA --April 29, 1999 With over 400 excited children from around the world, V-SPAN, the largest privately held teleconferencing and gateway services provider, held the 3rd annual "Bring Your Child to Work Day" via a videoconference. The two sessions included 20 global clients and 400 children that took part in the "Virtual V-SPAN Jeopardy Game". "This year's virtual 'Bring your Child to Work Day' was the largest and most successful to date. It is always a pleasure to watch the children as they participate in their first videoconference. They become increasingly excited when they realize that other children from around the globe can hear and see them in real time", states Ken Hayward, president of V-SPAN. The "Virtual V-SPAN Jeopardy Game", which was hosted by, V-SPAN's co-founder and Director of Managed Conference Services, Neil Suhre, involved Mr. Suhre posing a variety of questions about children's television shows to the participants. The children's correct answer resulted in team points. At the conclusion of the 45-minute game sessions, the winning teams were congratulated and prizes were sent to all participants. "With hundreds of children participating at more than 20 different locations around the world, the popularity of this special event is unquestionable. It was exciting to introduce videoconferencing to this group. It is this technology, specifically, that impacts their lives by allowing parents to spend more time at home instead of 'on the road'", said Neil Suhre, Director of V-SPAN's Managed Conference Services Group. About V-SPAN: V-SPAN is a worldwide leader in gateway and teleconferencing services, specializing in the management of large, multipoint videoconferences. V-SPAN is primarily engaged in providing videoconferencing connectivity and gateway services to the interactive visual communications marketplace. The organization has become recognized as a global market leader in the delivery of "virtual meeting services" to corporations, government, and educational institutions. V-SPAN services include: gateway connectivity, videoconference network management, award-winning Managed Conference Services Group, multipoint bridging services, Internet streaming, Web-Enhanced Teleconferencing, worldwide scheduling & reservations and help desk services. V-SPAN Corporate headquarters is located in the Philadelphia, PA area with offices nationwide. For additional information about V-SPAN services and unrivaled customer dedication, please contact 1-888-44V-SPAN or visit our Web site at www.vspan.com. Joshua Cartagenova Marketing Manager V-SPAN Virtual Connectivity...Anyplace @ Anytime 1100 First Ave, Ste 400 - King of Prussia, PA 19406 Ph: 610-382-4056 Fx: 610-382-1099 E: joshc@vspan.com ------------------------------ From: am354@torfree.net Subject: User Commands For Supplementary Services on Analog Lines Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 14:30:45 GMT Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion Supplementary services like: Call Waiting, Call Hold, Call Conference/ Transfer are available on variety of equipment: switches, PBX-es, key systems, ISDN TAs and access routers. I noticed that the user interface implemented on analog phone lines in order to support them (hook flash, double hook flash, various star/pound prefixed/postfixed numbers) is largely equipment dependent. Is there any kind of standard in this area? Is it a unique set of user commands in the case of an analog line connected to a 5ESS or a DMS100 switch or, to some degree, the command set is configurable by the switch operator? Thanks, Adrian ------------------------------ From: pteng@ptd.net (Tom Lager) Subject: NANP Running Out of Numbers in 8+ Years Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 08:34:01 -0400 Pat, I have been reading some of the comments on the newsgroups concerning the fact that we only have a little over 8 years before North America runs out of telephone numbers. I have a solution, that is so simple probably no one in authority will want to hear it. It doesn't involve any complex schemes such as adding digits and making numbers longer. There are no special characters involved. We should simply do what has worked so well since the beginning of all number dialing and that is a split. All we need to do is to split world zone 1 into two zones. This would effectively double the available numbers. I think the number and complexity of translation changes necessary would be minimal when compared to those needed to make switches accept an entirely different format for telephone numbers. Think about it. Tom Lager General Manager Palmerton Telephone Company Serving the Beautiful Blue Mountain Valley Since 1900 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I suggested this at one point a few years ago, before the present scheme was started which no longer requires 0/1 as the second digit of the area code. My suggestion was like this: divide the USA in two parts, possibly along the Mississippi River like the radio station division between 'W' and 'K' stations. Divide the present country code 1 into two parts, or perhaps three parts if Canada is to be included, known as 12, 13, and 14. Anyone calling within their own 'country code' would continue to dial seven, ten or eleven digits as they do now. To call the other side of the USA, 'international' dialing procedures would be used, as we do now with '011'. 011 would continue to be 'international, anywhere else' while 012 was one part of the USA, 013 was another. People in other countries calling here would instead dialing country code 1 start dialing country code 12, 13, etc, plus the ten digit number. They would *not* be referred to as 'country codes' where the USA was concerned, but perhaps as 'zone codes'. This would require very little programming, and I doubt very many hardware changes. Each central office would have to be programmed for which (existing) area codes were in its 'zone'and which ones required the 01x addition. A permissive dialing period could go on for a couple years, perhaps with a short recorded message inserted when a call to an area code no longer in the same 'zone' was dialed, saying something like, 'remember, beginning Saturday, (date), calls to this point must be dialed 01x, and then the area code and number. Calls *within* your zone are dialed as you have done in the past. Begin using this new procedure now please.' During the permissive period, neither 'side' would assign an area code currently used by the 'other side', instead, drawing from the available reserve. Even after the permissive period ended, I think it would be wise to go as long as possible without either side replicating an existing area code from the other side, at least until most people had forgotten about the old style numbering scheme. This way, there is no need for extensive modifications enabling the switch to deal with eight digits locally. The switches can already deal with quite a few digits following '011' and it should be simple enough to teach the switch a new definition for 'international'. Perhaps my suggested point for the division would not be best; telcos are not radio stations after all, and there are enough people along the Mississipi River on either side who would be inconvenienced by having their neighbor be an 'international point' (gee, we thought having to dial ten digits to reach the person across town was bad enough). Maybe the division would be so that there were an equal number of existing area codes on each side of it, or maybe the division would be in some less populated area like western Kansas or Nebraska. I think it makes better sense that way than spending how-many-ever billions of dollars modifying all the switches and everyone having to dial eight digits all the time instead of people having to dial three extra digits some of the time. PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: Monty Solomon From: Monty Solomon Subject: Legislation Passed to Tranform Satellite TV Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 13:15:00 -0400 http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/04/biztech/articles/28satellite.html By STEPHEN LABATON WASHINGTON -- The House approved broad legislation Tuesday that rewrites the rules for the satellite television industry, permitting companies to broadcast local television programs and long-distance signals that have until recently been either restricted or more costly. The legislation passed 422 to 1, with the lone dissenting vote cast by Representative Robert Brady, Democrat of Pennsylvania. It imposes a new "must carry" requirement backed by cable companies that mandates that satellite companies like Echostar Communications and Direct TV that decide to offer any local signals must also offer all local programming in those markets by 2002. Supporters of the bill said it was intended to resolve long-running disputes between the satellite and broadcasting industries, while also helping the satellite companies compete with cable television, which many analysts say holds a monopoly in many markets. "This will level the playing field between cable versus satellite," said Representative Howard Coble, Republican of North Carolina, the chief sponsor of the legislation. "With this new competition will come better services at lower prices." Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, the senior Democrat on the House telecommunications subcommittee, said, "I can't imagine in this video revolution that we're facing a bigger moment than today." The House action comes nearly one month after the cable industry was deregulated from most price controls set by the Government under a three-year-old law that had assumed greater competition between operators of cable television and satellites. Although subscriptions to satellite television have grown significantly in recent months, consumer groups have said that the high cost of satellite dishes and other equipment necessary to receive signals combined with the lack of local programming has discouraged true competition to the cable companies. The legislation also follows recent court decisions that had threatened to reduce the attractiveness of satellite television to consumers by restricting its ability to broadcast signals of the major networks. Current law permits satellite companies to beam network signals if those customers cannot receive local stations using rooftop antennas. Consumer advocates said the legislation would be helpful to viewers, but was only a modest beginning. "It's a small step in the right direction," said Gene Kimmelman, the co-director of the Washington office of Consumers Union and a leading opponent of the deregulation of the cable industry. Lobbyists and executives from the satellite television industry generally praised the legislation. The legislation permits satellite companies to carry the same local-broadcast affiliates that are provided by cable rivals. Current law restricts consumers from receiving satellite retransmission of network programming if local channels can be received by an antenna. It reduces the copyright fees on satellite companies for carrying superstation and distant network stations. And it eliminates a provision in the current law that requires consumers of cable television to wait for three months after they cancel their cable service before receiving satellite service. Similar legislation has already been adopted by two Senate committees and could be debated on the floor of that chamber next month, aides said today. Lobbyists and executives from the satellite television industry generally praised the legislation. "We're pleased with the bill," said Andrew R. Paul, a senior vice president of the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association. Still, Mr. Paul and others from the industry said legislative battles remain ahead over several of its provisions. Bob Marsocci, a spokesman for Direct TV, said that although the legislation was "a step in the right direction," it contained some provisions that the company would continue to lobby against. For instance, satellite companies oppose a provision that would require them to provide roof antennas to subscribers who lose distant network signals. Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 15:41:14 +0800 From: wica@asiaonline.net Subject: Definition of Traffic Terms Wanted Do you have the "OFFICIAL" definition of 1) incoming traffic 2) refile traffic, 3) transit traffic Thanks, Ron B ------------------------------ From: Kevin Schaffer Subject: Bosch 718 GSM Phone and Serial Ports and PC Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 14:59:21 -0400 Organization: Ford Motor Company Does anyone know if the Bosch 718 GSM phone can be controlled by the serial port? I have used the serial port in the past to control an Ascom Axento GSM phone using the GSM Hayes AT-style commands to place voice (not data) calls. This is, for example, ATDT 5551212; where the semicolon forces it to make a voice rather than data call. The computer becomes a $2,000.00 12-button keypad for placing voice calls. I am having extreme difficulties drilling through the Omnipoint technical support, even though they assured me as I was buying two of these that it could be done. I have their PC-Editor software, which reads and writes address book entries, no doubt using the GSM AT command subset that handles this, so I know my cables (supplied with the software) and phone are OK. It's just that in Hyperterminal, none of the usual suspects work: 9600, 19200, N81, E72, etc. I get no response at all, neither garbage or otherwise, in Hyperterminal. Has anybody actually done this with a Bosch phone? More info: I am NOT trying to make a data call (est. 7-10 minutes to get a phone technician to understand this). I do not need the $600.00 data modem to sit between the phone and the PC. I am NOT trying to pipe the voice signal (analog audio, whatever) through the PC to a PC speaker, nor use the PC microphone as the mic. (est. 3 more minutes to get a phone technician to understand this). My 30 day no-questions return policy is up in a week or so, so I'm naturally starting to lose hair over this. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #64 ***************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Apr 30 01:57:08 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA15285; Fri, 30 Apr 1999 01:57:08 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 01:57:08 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199904300557.BAA15285@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #65 TELECOM Digest Fri, 30 Apr 99 01:57:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 65 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Telephone Pairs and Lines (Curt V) Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? (Patrick Hollowell) Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why aren't they? (Allen Mcintosh) Re: Good Conference Phone? (Carl Navarro) Re: Use of Cellular Phones in Schools (Thomas Peter Carr) Re: Columbine and Cell Phones (was Re: Cell Phones in Schools) (B Ackerman) Re: Sprint PCS Loses Too ... (Brad Ackerman) Re: Dealing With Comcast? Buy a Cable Modem and Go to Jail (Bill Levant) Re: Dealing With Comcast? Buy a Cable Modem and Go to Jail (Max Buten) Archives Renovation Update (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Curt V Subject: Re: Telephone Pairs and Lines Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 15:22:24 -0500 Organization: Posted via RemarQ Communities, Inc. Hey, as long as you are talking about lines to a house, I have been trying to find one of the old devices that Bell used to use which allows two POTS lines to be muxed together over one pair of wires so that they could actually be used at the same time. I have an application that doesn't allow me to use a digital line (e.g., ISDN BRI) and I can't pull another pair of wires into the location. Anyone have any idea where I can find one of those? Thanks, Curt V Highland Park, IL ------------------------------ From: patrick@hollowell.net (Patrick Hollowell) Subject: Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? Organization: Network Management Associates, Inc. Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 22:30:26 GMT Aside from that, 800 calls are routed to an IXC for transport. LNP calls are not. Patrick Hollowell Network Management Associates, Inc. Charlotte, NC patrick@hollowell.net ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? Date: 28 Apr 1999 23:11:14 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Art Kamlet wrote: > In article , Gideon Stocek > wrote: >> Can someone provide a good reference for changes required to ISUP >> and/or TCAP application requirements for LNP? I'm curious as to how >> this is all supposed to work. > You are posting from a Lucent addrress yet ask about LNP? My advice > is to check with the lucent LNP standards folks. Try the ActiView > folks in Holdmel, for example, for an LNP person. > Basically there will be a few additional applications transactions > which will have to query the LNP SCPs or SCP-databases (the SCP can > manage the SS7 queries to SCDs which act just like databases.) "Not exactly". There's one key change to ISUP, the addition of the TCNI ("tick-knee") bit to the Initial Address Message, which indicates that LNP database lookup has already been done and that the called party address is an LRN. (Wow, I hope I got that right, I've avoided LNP work like the very plague, though I was trained on this stuff mostly by accident.) Unlike predecessor technologies, in LNP the magic is *not* all in the "databases" (which is a pretty silly thing to call remote-procedure- call servers that remote-control switching hardware, but whatever ...). There are a number of bits of major new functionality required to support LNP (at least in widespread deployment -- yes, this has been kludged together various ways in the absence of even SS7 itself): * 10-digit Global Title Translation in STP's (SS7 routers) * Changes to ISUP itself (the addition of the TCNI bit) * Elimination of F-links between switches (which were mostly gone anyway, but...) because you could get into a situation where you could route the *call* but not the *lookup* that would tell you you were misrouting the call * Distributed database update mechanisms * AIN 0.2 (the SDS instead of the "3/6/10" trigger, formalization of trigger priorities, and explicit error handling procedures) * Huge improvements to switch and SCP transaction performance. In one very common implementation, the LNP query is actually handled by a fixed-function "SCP" that's actually embedded in the Tekelec Eagle STP itself. However you do it, LNP means your SCP performance probably has to get a hundred times better than it was before. Switches have had to learn to handle a LOT more outstanding transactions, as well. SS7 networks have had to be built-out for vastly more traffic per call. The load on the SS7 network is substantial enough that some companies do rather unusual things just to save a few bytes here or there: about a year ago I spoke to one ILEC and SCP vendor who were working together to do the actual LNP queries as ITU CS-1 IN queries instead of Bellcore AIN queries, because a difference in encoding some field saved them 10 bytes per message. Not a big deal until you realize that's probably 5-10% of the total bytes it took to set up the call *completely* before, if not more ... Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?" ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? Organization: Telcordia From: mcintosh@bellcore.com (Allen Mcintosh) Date: 28 Apr 1999 12:08:55 -0500 In article , Ralph Hyre wrote: > What's the real issue with Local Number portability? > 800 Number portability was achieved years ago (1993?), and the > technology and operational issues are basically the same, with some > minor scaling issues. Let me outline a few of the "minor" issues: Let's say that local carrier "A" has been assigned NPA-NXX 999-999 under the old scheme. You move your number, 999-999-1212, to local carrier "B". Someone from local carrier "C" calls 999-999-1212 using IXC "X". 1) When should that database dip happen? Should "C" forward the call through "X" to "A", and only do a database dip if "A" says your number has been moved? (Called query-on-release.) This is disadvantageous to "B", since calls to numbers serviced by "B" take a fraction of a second longer. For this reason, query-on-release was not allowed. The alternative is a database dip for each call to an NPA-NXX that has been marked "ported". If you assume LNP has been implemented everywhere, this means a database dip for every inter-switch call. 2) Who should do the database dip? "C" or "X"? These are political issues, so sorting them out took time. 3) At the time of 1-800 portability there were switches that could not do the IN SS7 signaling for a database dip. (For all I know, there may still be switches out there that can't do IN/AIN.) Since 1-800 traffic is only a fraction of all calls, it was reasonable to forward all such calls to a tandem and let it do the work. If ALL calls (or just most of them) require a database dip then this solution is no longer feasible. Upgrading switches takes time and $$. 4) SS7 signaling for an average POTS call takes on the order of 80 bytes. Signaling for the average database dip takes roughly 150 bytes. Suppose every POTS call requires a database dip. What would this do to the originating carriers' SS7 networks? 5) Databases used for 1-800 are too rich (and too slow) for local number portability. 6) Suppose "A"'s database says that 999-999-1212 has moved to "B", but "B"'s database says "A" still owns the number. What will happen when "C" or "X" tries to figure out where to route the call? How do you maintain consistency in the absence of a central database (as for 1-800)? 7) Routing for ISUP call setup in SS7 is based on the NPA-NXX of the called number. This won't work if numbers are portable. The solution was to use a bogus called number and "hide" the real one. (This wasn't an issue with 1-800.) I don't mean to imply that these are all hard problems, just that there were legitimate technical issues here that required some thought. ------------------------------ From: cnavarro@wcnet.org (Carl Navarro) Subject: Re: Good Conference Phone? Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 13:28:01 GMT Organization: Airnews.net! at Internet America On Tue, 27 Apr 1999 09:21:47 GMT, ffaure@bigSPAMGAZETTAIDAMEfoot.com (F. Faure) wrote: > I need to buy a new conference telephone, as everyone complains that > the Panasonic KX-TS700FR-B we bought a couple of months ago is > terrible. Should have done my homework instead of trusting that > salesman ... Evidently everyone else hated the Panasonic system too. My distributor tells me they are MD'd, but Alltel still has some stock. > Could someone recommend other brands? I found infos on 3Com/USR's > site, and also www.phonezone.com: They tell me the 3C/USR 1000's are MD'd too :-(. I have really good luck with those. That makes POLYCOM the winner by default! I have not used them, they're pricey. At 5X the price of a Panasonic, it's not an item you bring into inventory for a demo :-). Carl Navarro ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Use of Cellular Phones in Schools From: carr@falcon.si.com (Thomas Peter Carr) Date: 29 Apr 1999 09:03:09 -0500 Organization: Smiths Industries Matt Ackeret writes: > In article TELECOM Digest Editor > noted: >> NO, we do not need any more gun laws; NO we do not need any knee-jerk > If they did not have access to guns, it would have been much more > difficult to kill so many people. Why is it that everyone has forgotten that this is NOT the worst killing of school children. The worst was 38 students at Bath, Michigan on 18 May 1927. http://detnews.com/1999/nation/9904/22/04220188.htm Without guns, people who want to kill will find a way. Thomas Peter Carr | I have a dream, ... carr_tom@si.com (Internet) | M L King Jr 08/28/63 616-241-8846 / 616-241-7533 FAX (Telephone) | Smiths Industries, MS 3D1; 3290 Patterson Ave SE; Grand Rapids, MI 49512-1991 ------------------------------ From: bsa3@cornell.edu (Brad Ackerman) Subject: Re: Columbine and Cell Phones (was Re: Cell Phones in Schools) Date: 28 Apr 1999 23:19:05 -0400 Organization: NERV GeoFront, Tokyo III Jeremy Beal writes: > It was only about 10 minutes later that they realized that there were > televisions located in every classroom, and that there was a very good > chance that the attackers had heard the information from the phone > call. The station promptly asked anybody trapped to call 911 rather > than the station. An unintended consequence to the rapid sharing of > information ... Another problem -- if you're dealing with only slightly more sophisiticated opponents, you need to worry about said opponents eavesdropping on the phone call. Strangely enough, analogue telephones are still being sold in the US, and only GSM phones have any encryption worth mentioning. With analogue phones, listening in is as simple as turning on a scanner, keying in 870.000 MHz, and pressing start. Brad Ackerman N1MNB "...faced with the men and women who bring home bsa3@cornell.edu the pork, voters almost always re-elect them." http://skaro.pair.com/ -- _The Economist_, 31 Oct 1998 ------------------------------ From: bsa3@cornell.edu (Brad Ackerman) Subject: Re: Sprint PCS Loses Too ... Date: 29 Apr 1999 00:10:27 -0400 Organization: NERV GeoFront, Tokyo III Ed Kummel writes: > Personally, having experience in European GSM (900MHz), US GSM (also > known as PCS, 1900MHZ) US digital, both TDMA (AT&T) and CDMA (LEC) and > analog, I personally prefer the voice quality of the analog > system. Oro? I've used every American air interface, and GSM is by far the best in this regard. CDMA comes close with good equipment (Sony phones have good audio quality; Samsung phones are quite pathetic.), and analog -- ouch! Mabye analog provides acceptable quality if the cell is coming in at full quieting, but that just doesn't happen where I am. My GSM 1900 handset (Siemens g1050) has audio quality which, if not equal to a landline, is good enough so that nobody can tell the difference, and it does that even if the signal strength is only S4 or S5. Also, I mentioned the security aspects of analog phones in another Digest thread -- in short, it's so easy to eavesdrop that you have to assume someone is doing so. The NSA could very well have equipment to crack A5 encryption, but I'm not an employee of a foreign company with a product ripe for Fort Meade-aided industrial espionage, and I doubt that they're interested in credit card fraud. > It seems that the digital networks that are prevalent (Powertel, > Sprint, AT&T, Pactel, Western Wireless) is looking more and more > like the way the analog cellular system was 5-8 years ago. (no > roaming between carriers, and if so, no calls could be received...we > still have the problem of no international dialing on analog > systems). As with Ryan, I've had no problems roaming on any GSM network, and I've done it on Fido, Aerial, Deutsche Telekom, Mannesmann Mobilfunk, and the Netherlands' PTT's 900 MHz network (I forget what they call it; I was only there for an hour.) Have you ever tried roaming outside of North America on a non-GSM phone? You can't -- unless you count AT&T's "option" of paying $50/year and $2.50/minute for a SIM card. Considering that my recent trip to Germany cost me $1/minute on my Omnipoint SIM, and you could do better than AT&T's price by buying either a prepaid or a two-year contract (the latter if you do more than a few hours of roaming/yr), I wouldn't call that much of an option. BTW, back when I was a Frontier customer, $1/minute was what I used to pay to roam in Toronto, NYC, or Boston, minus Frontier's $3/day roaming charge. Now, Boston and New York City, along with every other Omnipoint market, are in my home area, and in Germany, roaming would have cost even less if I had paid more attention to whether I was on Deutsche Telekom or Mannesmann. Finally, if you really think that the analog networks are fully deployed, myself and John Levine can give you a rather enlightening test drive through upstate New York. There are plenty of coverage nodes around here, and I expect that Omnipoint will provide considerably superior signal when they initiate full deployment. (Last I heard, that was scheduled for 2Q, of which two months remain.) Brad Ackerman N1MNB "...faced with the men and women who bring home bsa3@cornell.edu the pork, voters almost always re-elect them." http://skaro.pair.com/ -- _The Economist_, 31 Oct 1998 ------------------------------ From: Wlevant@aol.com (Bill Levant) Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 21:11:30 EDT Subject: Re: Dealing With Comcast? Buy a Cable Modem and Go to Jail Reply-To: Wlevant@aol.com Geez, Comcast got lucky. It's a damned good thing that Ms. Sammel is so good-natured. *Criminal* charges ?? Expungement of a criminal record ?? I would have sued the f**k out of 'em. Bill [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think they were very lucky. The worst that has happened to them or is likely happen is they have been seeing a loss of customers as a result of the bad publicity on this. It has been all over the internet now, in several newsgroups and mailing lists as well as this Digest. It has been covered on television in a couple places as well as on the radio. Since I put the story out here a couple days ago, I've gotten email from people in Comcast service territory using 56 K who were considering changing to cable modem who now say they are going to think about it a bit longer, at least until/if/when a viable alternative to Comcast and @home is available in their area. Like yourself Bill, my conclusion is Ms. Sammel must be awfully good- natured to have allowed this to pass as she did. She is obviously under the erroneous impression that the only way her 'record could be expunged' was by releasing Comcast from any liability in the matter, and that is a complete lie. She does not need their cooperation or approval on that matter at all. There are laws in her state like every other state that a person who has no previous criminal record (let alone be found not guilty) who gets in no other trouble for some period of time can apply for expungement. In any event, I would have held off on applying for expungement in order to not have to give Comcast any waivers. First, like yourself, I would give them a good suing. Not, as she suggested, on the basis of malicious prosecution or falsely lodging charges against her, both of which require pretty strict qualifications. I would sue them for harassment and fraud; ie they took her money with the understanding that she was their customer, then made claims that she was not their customer (instead, someone stealing from them). I would sue them because they damaged my reputation. I would sue them for interupption of my service on the occassions the wires were removed by the latest imbecile they sent out without my approval and because later the two traps on the line caused the signal to be worthless. I would sue them for making me wait 45 minutes on hold, and for breaking appointments without notice to do installs, maintainence, etc. I most definitly would try and start a class action, representing other subscribers of Comcast who were or had been similarly situated. I would sue them for every broken promise and worthless claim they had made. The only thing I would NOT do is I would NOT gvie them a waiver on malicious prosecution in order to obtain an expungement. That can be done independently (regardless of whatever baloney the Comcast attorney gave Sammel) and would not force me to release them from liability. In other words, if I have not been perfectly clear, I would happily fix things so that their attornies were tripping over their own feet coming and going up and down the steps of the courthouse to respond for their client. And don't say it cannot be done. In 1974 I sued the First National Bank of Chicago for fraud, and theft of money through the US Mail. I only did it when the United States Postal Inspection Service said they could not force the bank to comply with postal laws, and when the bank said to me they had no intention of complying with postal laws. Oh no? Let's check it out. I won that case, and about the same time my efforts via the FCC forced MCI to change its advertising. I've told of that incident here in the Digest; if anyone wants to see it again, let me know. Cableco -- large parts of the industry -- are more sleazy than telco ever thought about being in Ma Bell's heyday. There are a few exceptions. By the way, Ms. Sammel, not only do you NOT need Comcast's approval to have your record expunged, they would really love it if you begin attending the public meetings of the cable commission in your community and you frequently filed formal complaints their attorney had to answer prior to franchise renewal time each year or two. PAT] ------------------------------ From: maxbuten@home.com (Max Buten) Subject: Re: Dealing With Comcast? Buy a Cable Modem and Go to Jail! Organization: Ampers and Sons Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 01:21:56 GMT In article <99.04.27.00013@telecom-digest.org>, editor@telecom-digest.org says... > If there are any readers of TELECOM Digest or the c.d.t. newsgroup who > still remain unconvinced about whether Comcast and Comcast@home are > If this does not scare you folks on the east coast away from doing > business with them, I do not know what would. Are you suggesting that I give up my cable connection with Comcast@home and go back to 56k modem? Nooooooooo Waaaaaaaaaaay! Or maybe I should pay 4 times as much to Bell for slower service? Noooooooooo Waaaaaay! Max Buten maxbuten@home.com http://members.home.net/maxbuten/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am only suggesting one thing, Max. You might want to find out if your local county jail has jacks where you can plug your computer in to the internet so you can stay in touch with everyone here while you wait for a Comcast employee who 'stepped away from her desk' or 'been in a meeting all day' or 'been in training class all week' or wants to tell you to call some other division of the company so they can put you on hold for 45 minutes before giving you a run-around to return your call. Even though they told Ms. Sammel they were going to implement procedures, etc .. a little birdie today told me they had done nothing of the sort, and that when the 'Sammel incident' -- as it is now known was brought up at an industry meeting recently, some people from Comcast who were present were 'dumbfounded and speechless' as my correspondent put it. They had never even heard of the incident. That's how well Comcast and @home corrected the problem. They made sure most of their employees did not even find out about it. Apparently @home was making a presentation to some cableco executives and telling them how well they communicated and worked together. Someone brought up the 'Sammel incident' and said if you and Comcast don't speak to each other or sychronize your work together, why should we believe you when you say you will talk to us and work with us? And that, said the little birdie to me, was when the room became silent, a few jaws dropped open, and none of the presenters at the meeting knew quite what to say or how to respond. Their employer had kept them in the dark on it. Obviously, cable modem is the way to go these days if you have access to it. I am only suggesting Max, that if your connection is with @home, through arrangements with Comcast, you'd better be careful. If there are alternative connection methods which are similar, I would select one of them instead. A lot of cablecos are going to be doing their own thing. Consider that when it becomes available. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 23:16:23 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Archives Renovation Update As of Wednesday, music is now available to Netscape users of the archives as well as the Internet Explorer visitors. The problem was that the Netscape Server at lcs.mit.edu did not have the MIME type 'audio/midi' correctly defined. That has now been corrected, and I thank Mary Ann Ladd for taking a couple minutes to work on it for me -- for all of us really. So feeling energetic and knowing for sure it would only take me 30-45 minutes or so, I decided to make what small changes would be required to synch the pages so that Opera browsers would be included. 30-45 minutes! hahahahahaha! Since Opera tends to go along with most HTML commands that Internet Explorer will accept, it should be easy enough to go to wherever a browser test is done and where looking for navigator.appName to be 'Internet Explorer' simply change it to say 'Internet Explorer || Opera' meaning one or the other. Then I found that Opera uses the appName string 'Netscape' ... meaning, it wants people to think that it is part of that group. That, even though it uses Explorer's 'bgsound src' to play music rather than Netscape's 'embed src'. I could not very well do any browser tests with a situation of 'be either IE or Netscape' so using Opera's app.Name was out. The so-called 'navigator.appCodeName' on all browsers these days seems to be 'Mozilla', a name that Netscape was using from the beginning, then in the early days when they were way ahead of Microsoft with browser features, Microsoft stole 'Mozilla' to put in their browser name so that web sites would accept them on an equal basis. Now Opera calls itself 'Mozilla' also. So much for that. The User_Agent string was a long, unweildy thing in every case which I never was able to type in correctly. But appVersion at least was unique, allowing the very simple '3.' as a way to say this is an Opera browser instead of an appVersion 'MSIE' guess-who browser. So after some logic exercises, I was able to write it up so that everything was assigned, then it if was not 'MSIE' *and* not '3.' therefore let's assume it is Netscape-for-real and make the needed reassignments to Netscape's way of doing things. Now let's go look things over with the Opera browser ... A choice of music or not appears, and the music plays as requested. Good! But something is not quite right ... it appears that Opera sticks in unwanted line breaks after a command that has nothing to do with the text; a background color instruction for example, or a background music command ... bingo, the rest of the text gets dropped a line. Opera has a hard time dealing with indenting the text to go around images the way you want it, and although it will do it, you have to say it totally different than the way you say it to Netscape or IE. Then is when I discover it really comes much closer to being in the Netscape 'family' than in the Explorer style. Throughout the opening page of the Archives using Opera I would find that (having assigned it to go along with IE) there were all these lines showing up centered that should not be, and lines that would not start next to a .gif where I wanted them, etc. But the worst was yet to come! On IE and Netscape browsers, using a 'target=new' instruction as part of an anchor allows for a smaller window as part of a new instantiation of the browser to open inside the large main window. This is good for footnotes or other incidental items you want people to see without taking them away from the main page at your site. IE actually starts a new browser with a small window, carries over the 'history' to the new browser, and allows the user to click it shut and once again view a full screen from the main browser. Netscape simply opens a new browser with full screen, forcing the user to narrow it down somewhat as desired, but at least the history is carried over, along with commands to close the window and go back where you started automatically, etc. Opera has no idea what 'target=new' means as part of an anchor. It closes the browser that was running and opens a new one, shutting down everything on the old browser instance ****except the music*** but it forgets all the history (thus no backward/forward arrows) and on closing that window you are out of it totally. If you choose as an alternative to use the address bar, you can keep the browser alive alright, and go wherever you want, but with the music **from the first browser** never going away, just playing and repeating itself endlessly. While 'bgsound' stays open with a target=new but shuts off when the main window is either (a) minimized to the task bar or (b) the page is reloaded from cache or the server, 'embed src' will stay open on being minimized to the task bar as well as with target=new. And if you do target=new while Opera is handling bgsound, it goes totally buggy: the music will never shut off, period except when the browser is totally terminated. Opera has no way that I can tell to force a page to be reloaded from the server rather than from cache, although I am sure there must be some way of doing it; I just have not figured it out. After '45 minutes' I looked at my clock and saw that it was 5:10 AM ... so I quit to go to bed. What I may do in the next day or two is write a different index.html page; identical in their links and comments, etc, but with Opera's idea of a good time where the HTML is concerned. Then when I see them coming, I will redirect them to the other page. Seriously, I would rather be the contortionist here rather than force users to get the browsers I want them to use. In the meantime, as I always did say, "this page is best viewed if you stop by my office and look at my monitor" ... I also corrected a small bug that occassionally gave the caller no choice of music at all and a totally blank background. It would be too incredibly boring to try and explain how that bug came about. For now, cheerio! http://telecom-digest.org "Sorry, no Make Spam Fast, no Nude Teens, no warez, none of the very traditional internet fare: just all you ever wanted to know about telephones and telecommunications." PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #65 ***************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Fri Apr 30 21:41:07 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id VAA27645; Fri, 30 Apr 1999 21:41:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 21:41:07 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199905010141.VAA27645@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #66 TELECOM Digest Fri, 30 Apr 99 21:41:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 66 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Imminent Exhaustion of the NANP Should be a Wake-up Call! (Arthur Ross) Book Review: "A Guide to Virtual Private Networks", Murhamm (Rob Slade) A New SPAM Problem (Ben Bass) Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' (Patrick Burke) Re: Card Reader Type Public Phones (Stephen Geis) Re: Columbine and Cell Phones (was Re: Cell Phones in Schools) (Thor Simon) Re: Good Conference Phone? (Frederic Faure) Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? (Jan Ceuleers) Re: Use of Cellular Phones in Schools (Matt Ackeret) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 12:11:49 -0700 From: Arthur Ross Subject: Imminent Exhaustion of the NANP Should be a Wake-up Call! (Moderator's Note describing a method of using 'international' codes for various sections of the USA deleted). Pat - If I'm not mistaken, this is quite similar to the way France works now. Local calls are 8 digits, first nonzero. Leading zero indicates "not local". Country is divided into zones (6, I think). To get another zone internally is "0N"(zone) + eight digits. Outgoing international is something like "00"+country code+local number. Incoming international is your own international access code+33(France)+N(zone)+eight digits. BTW - I have been writing memos to some of my acquaintances at Lucent for some time now to the effect that "It is time to re-think network addressing," the general theme being that numeric, geography-based addressing in this age of 300 MHz processors and multi-gigabyte hard drives on every desktop, is an anachronism. While these memos are probably winding up in the circular "nut" file, I still believe it. There are, of course, a few small problems .... It is an interesting exercise to figure out, back-of-the-envelope, how much stuff would be needed for an electronic database ("white pages") for every human being on earth. My estimate puts it at about half a residential-sized closet of the dense disk drives that are now available on every street corner. What we do now is to associate the end of a pair, possibly a "virtual" pair, meaning a specific handset in wireless systems, with a 7-digit, 8-digit, 10-digit, or whatever, "phone number," with extensions for international delivery. The numbering is geography-based. It is that way because, historically, the network used such addresses internally. It was for the convenience of the network, not the customer. The equivalent of a database translation (name-to-address) was done by the end user. Problem is that the REAL destination, most often a person, is NOT stationary. Also, often the desired destination is NOT a particular person, but a FUNCTION, e.g. next customer service rep, maintenance supervisor, the office of such-and-such, etc. The traditional telephony solutions for this are a) call forwarding, b) voice mail, c) automatic call distributors, d) pagers, e) wireless roaming call delivery, etc. And the database translations often must be extended by the end user (and often considered, by him/her as a terrible nuisance) via the interminable "for this press one, for that press two" DTMF menus. My premise is that the network should locate, not the end of a 26 AWG copper pair, but the person, or more precisely some kind of electronic "proxy" for the person, e.g. something like a GSM SIM (subscriber identity module). This identity gizmo would fit into ANY telecom device and the network would do some kind of distributed database wizardry with it, that would result in calls, e-mail, whatever, going to whatever this device was plugged into, be it landline, wireless, mobile, or whatever. After some number of decades of evolution, every telecom device would have one of these standardized interfaces, maybe kindof like a mag stripe credit card reader. The physical implementation of some SIM cards is like that. Locating an endpoint would entail a distributed database query. The target might be a person, a function, a place (sometimes you DO want a geography-based delivery, after all). IP addressing is kindof partway there. While the internal addresses are these 32-bit, hardware-based things (to become far-longer in the next iteration of IP, I understand), there is a translation mechanism for alphanumeric mnemonic identities to the numeric: the DNS system. Right general idea. The logic of the addressing is geography-independent. Convergence (whatever that means!) of the voice network(s) with the IP-based networks is another aspect of all this, of course. The biggest problems: 1. Data entry. There are what, maybe a billion or more 12-button desksets out there in the world? If the database lookups are to be based on alphanumeric strings, where does the data come from? Laptops are not going to replace handsets any time soon. We used to have a good solution for this: Mabel the operator, who just listened to you and did the database lookup in her head. Not practical for the whole planet. I don't think PDAs are it either. They have a sortof techno-cult following, but would your grandma use one? Automatic voice recognition on a grand scale? It is getting to the point where it is close to useful. 2. Privacy and civil rights. This has serious implications for civil liberties, privacy, etc. Given that the "Personal Identity Module" would, mostly, be associated with an individual, this system would amount to a big-brother-ish thing that could locate anyone who used the system, at any time. Also, given that caller ID has been basically ruined as a useful service by the civil libertarians who have convinced a whole lot of state legislatures/PUCs that giving out identity of a callER to the callED party is somehow an invasion of the privacy of the callER, it would probably be a hard sell in that regard. And then there are those stories of a certain country's secret service who are supposed to have tried to assassinate someone by planting a bomb in his cellular phone .... In principle, you have the potential for abuse now with wireless roaming call delivery. The HLR/VLR combination knows, or is supposed to know, where each subscriber is at any given time (within a few cells). I have heard via the grapevine, that certain law enforcement & intelligence services DO, justifiably, try to take advantage of that to find the Godfather, drug kingpin, etc. 3. How does the schema for this giant distributed database, i.e. the contents of the PIM, get defined? And what is in it? What is forbidden? 4. Authentication? Authentication REALLY is the process of making sure that someone is going to pay the bill for the services being used. In my more exotic moments I imagine some gizmo that you stick your finger into that reads your DNA .... I know, this seems outrageous. So did using DNA for criminal identification, which is now recognized by many states, to the point where it need not be justified before use as an argument in court. I also note that someone now offers as a commercial product, a fingerprint-reading gizmo for security access. 5. Business/regulatory model? This is perhaps the biggest problem of all - a quagmire.... Who sells what? How do they make money at it? How is it regulated? IS it regulated? Would it be any surprise that management sends my memos to the "Nut" file? But this imminent exhaustion of the NANP should be a wake-up call, to say nothing of a golden opportunity! -- Best -- Arthur PS: Sorry ... got carried away - this just started out as a little note about the French numbering plan ... ! PPS: There is, I understand, a guy on the MIT faculty who has been preaching something similar to this for quite a while now. Name is not at my fingertips though. PPPS: An acquaintance of mine may be taking some concrete steps in this regard: Professor Leonard Kleinrock of UCLA. His company is called Nomadix, Inc, I think. He has been advertised by UCLA, with only a little hyperbole, as "the father of the internet." (My son, a recent graduate of UCLA, tells me "Didn't you know that UCLA invented the Internet? They have the Tee-shirts to prove it!" They actually have a lot more ...) -- Dr. Arthur Ross 2325 East Orangewood Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85020-4730 Phone: 602-371-9708 Fax : 602-336-7074 [Moderator's Note: Sorry to disappoint you, but your son is wrong. UCLA did not invent the internet ... *I* did. I remember distinctly how it happened. I was waiting on hold for a customer service rep at cableco to be available to come on the line and sass me personally. I always had thought it would be a good idea if people had a way to rapidly communicate their ideas on how to Make Spam Fast and how great it would be if all the people who liked having sex with chickens had a way to leave anonymous messages for each other. I would call my new concept a 'newsgroup'. So I thought up a scheme to hook computers together and a protocol for transferring data regards a user's preference for dark meat or white meat; and their default values for either passing along the spam they received to a million other users or generating a new scheme of their own. I wrote it all down in a notebook while I was waiting for the cableco rep to come on the line. Well somehow my notebook was stolen, with all my plans, no doubt by people at UCLA or possibly by my competitors at the {New York Times} or the {Washington Post} when they realized my new invention would would cut into their profits when the publishers were no longer able to appease the largest advertisers by controlling the kinds of scurrilous things the users would circulate widely about them in print. Then too, I have always wondered if Colonel Sanders might have stolen all my notes, having taken umbrage at the consequences of my idea that lovers of fine chicken would no longer have to be isolated in society. Or it might have been a Frightened Mother; I've lived next door to a few of those in my lifetime also. Well, you can imagine my horror to discover ten years later (I had been waiting at home all that time for the cable installer to show up) to find that all my ideas had been developed into something called the Internet and Usenet. So from now on, I want you to refer to me as the Father of the Internet. And you can be its Big Brother. Is that okay with you? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 08:20:06 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "A Guide to Virtual Private Networks", Martin Murhamm Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca BKAGTVPN.RVW 990321 "A Guide to Virtual Private Networks", Martin W. Murhammer et al, 1998, 0-13-083964-7 %A Martin W. Murhammer %A Tim A. Bourne %A Tamas Gaidosch %A Charles Kunzinger %A Laura Rademacher %A Andreas Weinfurter %C One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 %D 1998 %G 0-13-083964-7 %I Prentice Hall %O 800-576-3800 416-293-3621 fax: 201-236-7131 %P 174 p. %T "A Guide to Virtual Private Networks" You don't have to look very far to figure out that this book is by IBM, of IBM, and probably for IBM. All of the authors (even those that don't rate the front cover) work for IBM, and ... well, lookee here! IBM just happens to make products that relate to virtual private networks (VPNs)! Chapter one is a reasonable overview of the basic concepts behind VPNs. However, the level of the writing is inconsistent, some parts of the explanation are a bit confused (they tend to use the term "tunnel" a lot, even where "circuit" might be more fitting), and overall one gets the feeling that this should be presented on a big screen in a dark auditorium, with a suit droning on and on. There is a tendency to illustrate (with not very illuminating figures) rather than explain, when it comes to the technical bits. Either that, or just start to list off protocols. Encryption is explained fairly well in chapter two. There is some detail as to the actual operation of some algorithms. (I notice that DES [Data Encryption Standard] is not among them, and that it is claimed fully, and not just derivatively, for IBM.) The discussion of key and algorithm strength is weak, however, and there is no discussion of the basic problems or concerns of key management. Chapter three provides format details of the IPsec (Internet Protocol security) AH (Authentication Header) and ESP (Encapsulating Security Payload) protocols. References for the appropriate draft documents are given at the end of the chapter. The Internet Key Exchange (IKE) (also known as Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol [ISAKMP]) is discussed in chapter four. Chapters five to seven look at scenarios for branch offices, business partners, and remote access, respectively. There is little new content, and most of the material could be inferred from the text of earlier chapters. Showing admirable forbearance, most of the detail of IBM products is held for the appendices. While not all parts are particularly readable, the book does, at least, have the advantage of being short. The fundamental concepts of VPNs are given, enough so that a technical manager could get a basic grasp of what was required. Possible attacks, and the complexities of implementation, are not dealt with very well. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1999 BKAGTVPN.RVW 990321 ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@sprint.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca p1@canada.com GOVERNMENT.SYS corrupted, reboot Ottawa? (Y/N) http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 10:18:58 EDT From: Ben Bass Subject: A New SPAM Problem Pat, A head up to your readers ... My employer received a number of unsolicited, junk faxes this morning. One was for a collection agency, another for a scheme to get on the Internet and the third was a solicitation for "1 Million + fax numbers! All area codes! That's right, one million fax numbers for the incredibly low price of $299. For details, call (800) 609-8221. Calls to that number get an auto attendent and an option to leave a message in a "full" mailbox. The number in the fax header is 407-201-9283. I called 877-259-3390 number on the one from the collection agency and informed them to remove us from their list and I also advised them we would never do business with any company who sends unsolicited faxes or e-mail. Efforts to reach the web page people, www.prosperitypromo.com (does that sound like a spamhaus?) at 800-741-1308, also reached a "full" mailbox. Ben Bass, N2YDM ben@broadcast.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A full mailbox? I wonder if a bunch of those nuts that use the internet all the time for news and email were calling in to lodge complaints? I would say just keep trying until you get through to someone there at the company. You have some important questions to ask them about their service. Now don't overdo it by calling six or eight times and allowing the phone to stay off hook until the voicemail times out and drops the connection. I mean, if everyone did that it would bankrupt the company when their next phone bill showed up; same as happened to little Jeffie Slaton a few years ago when Southwestern Bell delivered his hundred-thousand dollar phone bill in a cardboard box via Parcel Post a couple months in a row. I would not wait around at home either; use payphones, and do not forget to hang up the receiver when you walk away. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Patrick Burke Subject: Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 09:52:16 +0200 Organization: Ascom Switzerland, Bern, Switzerland L. Winson schrieb in im Newsbeitrag: telecom19.57.5@telecom-digest.org... >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know why card reader type >> phones never really caught on? [good points snipped] > Damn good question. I myself would rather have the security of > inserting a card and entering just my pin number rather than entering > (and remembering) a whole series of numbers. <...snip...> In Switzerland and Holland, at least, card phones are standard. In fact, it's sometimes impossible to find a coin phone. Cards can be purchased at many locations and I've never had a problem finding one. They come in various denominations between about $3 and $15 (local equivalent). For my usage a card lasts a couple of weeks, and then I buy a new one. In these schemes there is no PIN and the cards are transferable; i.e. anyone can use your card. I have never heard that theft is an issue. When I first arrived I was frequently annoyed to walk up to a phone with change in my pocket and find it only accepted cards. Eventually I grew accustom to prepurchasing phone time and keeping a card in my wallet, and now I prefer this approach. ------------------------------ From: Stephan Geis Subject: Re: Card Reader Type Public Phones Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 10:04:45 +0200 Pat's comment on the 24 Apr 1999 20:21:40 GMT posting Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines': > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know why card reader type > phones never really caught on? I think that type of phone would be > most useful in combatting fraud. If the caller had to insert the > actual pastic card in the phone -- as one does at a cash machine -- > and then punch in a pin as well, that would defeat the people with the > binoculars completely wouldn't it, as well as the eavesdroppers. No > physical plastic, no call. If you have the plastic, you still have to > know the pin, and three or four random attempts to find out the pin by > trial and error would result in the card being cancelled. Look at cash > machines: if the machine finds you to be a disagreeable person or > suspects you are a charlatan, it just swallows your card and won't > give it back at all, telling you to go see your customer service rep > at the bank instead if you have something to complain about. FYI in Europe (at least in Switzerland and France) card readers are standard on public telephones. In Switzerland the readers can now handle both magnetic stripe cards and the chip-bearing "smartcards" which are widely used not only for prepaid cards for phones, but for bank cards and electronic purses. The readers on phones (unlike those on ATMs here) are not able to swallow miscreant cards, however. Stephen Geis Geneva, Switzerland ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Columbine and Cell Phones (was Re: Cell Phones in Schools) Date: 30 Apr 1999 14:39:53 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Brad Ackerman wrote: > Jeremy Beal writes: >> It was only about 10 minutes later that they realized that there were >> televisions located in every classroom, and that there was a very good >> chance that the attackers had heard the information from the phone >> call. The station promptly asked anybody trapped to call 911 rather >> than the station. An unintended consequence to the rapid sharing of >> information ... > Another problem -- if you're dealing with only slightly more > sophisiticated opponents, you need to worry about said opponents > eavesdropping on the phone call. Strangely enough, analogue > telephones are still being sold in the US, and only GSM phones have > any encryption worth mentioning. With analogue phones, listening in Oh, and to continue along our recent line of "a little bird told me" stories: a little bird told me that _that_ (and, mind you, GSM encryption itself isn't so hot) is because when Qualcomm was in the final stages of software development for the CDMA phones used in most non-GSM digital systems here in the US, the government dropped by and let them know that if their _phones_ did any kind of meaningful encryption in the USA, they would never get an export license for their base stations, whether the version they wanted to export had encryption or not. Nice, huh? Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your public serpents (err, I mean servants) can go off on a tangent like that sometimes and it ain't funny when they do. Back in CB Radio days, Motorola radios used a programmable chip called '02A' for frequency selection. Everyone knew how to program it, and all the guys would open up their radio, cut just a single very small little bit of the (solder) trace, add a tiny double-pole, double- throw switch on the side of the radio (part available from Radio Shack at the time for 89 cents) and bingo, their 40 channel *legal* radio became a 120 channel unit, with 40 channels above licensed CB and 40 channels below licensed CB, or 360 'channels' if you counted the upper and lower side of each frequency plus the center itself. Some of the crafty guys would peak their radio so they could get it to oscillate all the way up in ten meters. Some were even brazen enough to talk about it on the radio itself, and teach the other guys what to do. No matter how many times the FCC 'field auditors' would hit the streets around midnight on a hot summer night in Chicago, driving their van around, attempting to triangulate someone's signal, it was rare they would ever catch a guy using his radio like that. So instead, the FCC went to Motorola and told *them* to can the beans. Motorola said it was not their fault people misused their product and the government's res- ponse was then suppose we fix it so you are not in a position to sell any products at all? The government's next stop was in DFW, Texas, where Tandy/Radio Shack and their Chicago affilate Allied Radio were doing a land office business, a lot like ISPs do now, because in those days Citizens Band Radio was where things were at. Clerks in Radio Shack stores everywhere were eager to sell as many radios as they could, so many of them on their own prepared a little 'cheat sheet' with the technical instruc- tions for making the illegal modifications; and of course the couple dollars in parts needed were there in the store for sale also. Then when a customer bought a radio, the clerks would ask, 'do you plan on doing the mods yourself or do you want one of us guys in the store to help you for a couple dollars extra.' Just as brazen as could be. The corporate office never saw any of those 'couple dollars extra' and tried to defend itself by saying so, but the government told Tandy/ Radio Shack that they had also better shape up and fly right, or, 'there might be trouble getting those radios that you sell imported in here from the factory in Korea to start with. Then what would you do?' Radio Shack understood perfectly well what was being said, and within a week or so every store had a notice posted in the back room where only the clerks could see it saying that ANY discussion of 'mods' or or the distribution of unauthorized literature in their store which taught customers how to 'do the mods' would result in termination of employment. Radio Shack also had to pay a fine, but Motorola got out of paying the fine since they did not actually sell radios direct and it could never be proven they encouraged customers to 'do the mods', 'the way those brazen fools at Radio Shack were doing' said one VP of Motorola at the time. And of course Frightened Mothers everywhere would never allow their children to use the CB radio because, 'you just cannot be sure of who they are going to talk with or what they they are going to talk about; just last week some man tried to lure my son into meeting him at the corner of Oak and Polk at midnight.' As some prophet once said, 'there is nothing new under the sun, not a damn thing.' PAT] ------------------------------ From: ffaure@bigSPAMGAZETTAIDAMEfoot.com (Frederic Faure) Subject: Re: Good Conference Phone? Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 18:58:36 GMT Organization: What me, organized? Reply-To: ffaure@bigSPAMGAZETTAIDAMEfoot.com On Wed, 28 Apr 1999 13:28:01 GMT, cnavarro@wcnet.org (Carl Navarro) wrote: > They tell me the 3C/USR 1000's are MD'd too :-(. I have really good > luck with those. That makes POLYCOM the winner by default! > I have not used them, they're pricey. At 5X the price of a Panasonic, > it's not an item you bring into inventory for a demo :-). I already found the Panasonic kinda pricey for just an analog phone (close to FF2800/$500 sales tax included), so I'll try the cheaper models of Polycom. (What does MD stand for?) Thanks for the tip, FF. The system required Windows 95 or better, so I installed Linux! ------------------------------ From: Jan Ceuleers Subject: Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 20:53:19 +0200 Organization: the Experimenter Board Reply-To: jan.ceuleers@computer.org Ralph Hyre wrote: > What's the real issue with Local Number portability? > 800 Number portability was achieved years ago (1993?), and the > technology and operational issues are basically the same, with some > minor scaling issues. These scaling issues are not minor. They are the difference between triggering the IN platform (and global title translation etc.) on only a percentage of calls (i.e. freephone calls), and triggering the IN for essentially _all_ calls. This has major repercussions on the dimensioning of the IN, the CCS7 network, and indeed on the dimensioning of the voice switching network itself. Expanding on this latter point: all calls would have to be routed to the nearest SSP (service switching point), an IN-enabled switch. Routing would therefore not be optimal at all. For example: lots of tromboning would take place. (The fact that each local switch knows its own subscribers only partly addresses this issue: the other part requires each local exchange to be directly connected to an SSP; that is: without intermediate transit nodes). Even if all switches were already upgraded to SSP functionality (which would first require all switches to be digital, second for all switches to be CCS7-enabled and -connected, and third for their SSP capabilities to be enabled), the cost impact might still be high, as an IN call requires more processing resources than an 'ordinary' call. Moreover, the call setup delays on IN calls are longer than on non-IN calls. If all calls suddenly become IN calls, the average call setup delay may become too large for the network to remain compliant with ITU-T requirements. (This is however pure conjecture on my part). Jan Ceuleers, Antwerp, Belgium To reply via e-mail, please insert a dot between jan and ceuleers ------------------------------ Date: 30 Apr 1999 01:33:04 -0000 From: Matt Ackeret Subject: Re: Use of Cellular Phones in Schools Organization: Area Systems in Mountain View, CA - http://www.area.com In article TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > How much worse are things going to become in the USA? We have a > president who tells parents they have to be careful about keeping > their children from seeing a lot of violent images; meanwhile he > continues throwing bombs with abandon at Yugoslavia. Does he not I think the US shouldn't be the "policeman to the world". Even in World War II, we did not get involved until our territory was directly attacked. However, "throwing bombs with abandon" is a silly way of describing it. Milosivec has been killing a particular group of people in his country (and don't come back with "would it be better if it were indiscriminate"!). This is completely unrelated to two insane kids with access to guns who go to school on a rampage. mattack@area.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But many historians believe that Franklin Roosevelt was just itching to get started. He could barely wait for his turn. The same people believe that not everyone was all that surprised by the attack on us; after all, the daily newspaper in Honolulu on Saturday, 12-6-41 -- the day *before* the Sunday morning attack -- did have a front page story saying 'Air Raids considered likely over weekend'. If Milosivec is the bogey-man here, Adolf Hitler re-incarnated and all that (or to paraphrase from 'Nightmare on Main Street' and Jason) ... Adolf is back, and this time he is really on a rampage ... then why not just go assasinate him, overthrow his government and start over. All that is really happening now is NATO is serving to validate Clinton's wishes. Yes, the same Clinton who tricked all the nerds into voting for him by visiting their hives in Seattle and California and telling all the wonderful things he would support for computers and the net; and the same Clinton who tricked all the gay guys into voting for him by giving them lies about his plans to change the way the military does things. Clinton no more controls the military than I do. And as for 'wonderful things for the net and computers', well you see how quickly he comes to our defense in things like the encryption battle and privacy rights. Enough about him and Mr. Adolf Milosivec. Goodnight. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #66 ***************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat May 1 20:56:07 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id UAA07595; Sat, 1 May 1999 20:56:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 1 May 1999 20:56:07 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199905020056.UAA07595@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #67 TELECOM Digest Sat, 1 May 99 20:56:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 67 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Digest Business Directory! 800 Spam List (Babu Mengelepouti) Cell Phones in Airplanes: Costa Rica (AES) 5 cents/minute US-UK Sundays. Which Company? (ValH.) Re: MCI Weekend Rate Available Through 1010 Code? (Eli Mantel) Re: BNC, was Book Review (Andrew Emmerson) Re: Bizarre Cellular Cross-Talk (Simon Hewison) Re: The Complete PC's ->> Complete Communicator VoiceMail (Carl Navarro) Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Says NANPA (Rob McMillin) Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? (Thor Lancelot Simon) Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' (Brian F. G. Bidulock) Re: Imminent Exhaustion of the NANP Should be a Wake-up Call! (Art Kamlet) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. Contact information: Patrick Townson/TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 765 Junction City, KS 66441-0765 Phone: 415-520-9905 Email: editor@telecom-digest.org Subscribe/unsubscribe: subscriptions@telecom-digest.org This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and published continuously since then. Our archives are available for your review/research. URL information: http://telecom-digest.org Anonymous FTP: hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) Email <==> FTP: telecom-archives@telecom-digest.org Send a simple, one line note to that automated address for a help file on how to use the automatic retrieval system for archives files. You can get desired files in email. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 14:54:25 -0700 From: Babu Mengelepouti Reply-To: dialtone@vcn.bc.ca Organization: US Secret Service Subject: Digest Business Directory! 800 Spam List [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I thought what we needed to have here was a business directory; a place where Digest readers could easily locate the phone number of folks who want to do business with you. Naturally, anyone who wants our business will make it easy for us to be in touch with them on the telephone, which these folks listed below have done. You know what needs to be done. PAT] ------------------------------ People often ask me what to do with these spammer's phone numbers. Please know that every call to an 800# cost someone money. Since it is a free call to you.. guess who pays? There ya go. So.. if posted to a mail list of 1000 people, and even 100 call, the spammer gets to pay. So listen to the entire message when you call. Call from payphones, courtesy phones, etc. One call to each number from each phone you have access to. Any more than that is potential harassment and WE are law abiding citizens. Of course, some of these ask you to leave your name or number and they will get back to you. 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From: pbhy@msn.com 1-800-593-3645 From: loqaswe@pvtnet.cz 1-800-320-9895 Ext 7040 From: amscott@hamkk.fi 1-800-320-9895 Ext 7040 From: Call now (800)811-2141 800.226.0633 (second number) From: JVERDUCE@aol.com 1-800-350-9692 From: y2kreport@altavista.net 1-888-248-1529 From: hotbusiness@tu.koszalin.pl 1-800-322-6169 Ext. 1882 From: blueink8@hotpop.com 1-800-810-4330. unknown spam 800.929.3576 From: DOBBIE2ME@aol.com Call some of the following toll-free numbers and listen to what other people say about this business: *1-888-703-5389 (Gay Dietch almost didn't join) *1-888-269-7961 (Brenda Cook quit her job in 1 month) *1-888-446-6951 (Big Mac made $10,000 his first month) *1-888-731-3457 (Jeff Gardner makes $1,000/week) *1-888-256-4767 (Tim Nelson made $3500 his 1st week) *1-888-438-4005 (Paul & Deb made $2000 1st two weeks) *1-888-715-0642 (Steven F. made $50,000 in 12 months) Call the Top Secrets Information Hotline: *If you live in the US or Canada: *Call 1-800-811-2141 Code# 63128 ------------------------------ From: siegman@ee.stanford.edu (A.E.Siegman) Subject: Cell Phones in Airplanes: Costa Rica Date: Sat, 01 May 1999 16:36:34 -0700 Organization: Stanford University I've read numerous earlier msgs in this and other groups about the illegality/immorality/technical catastrophes associated with using a cell phone in flight. Just as a data point, I was on a scheduled commercial (Sansa) flight from Tamarindo (dusty cow-pasture landing strip in NW Costa Rica) to San Jose, Costa Rica, earlier this week. Single-engined 18-passenger plane, no bulkhead between pilots and passengers; I was sitting in front row. Flight elevation 9600 feet above sea level, maybe 6000 feet above ground level. As soon as we reached cruising altitude the pilot (a Tom Cruise look-alike) took off his headphones, pulled out a very ordinary looking folding cell phone, dialed his girl friend (or someone amiable), and proceeded to yak it up (in Spanish) for a large portion of the 45 minute flight. At one point the co-pilot's cell phone also rang; he pulled it out of his hip pocket, answered, and chatted for a while also. Costa Rica has a population of 3.5 million, and just one area code (or whatever it is) for the whole country. ------------------------------ From: vhealeyS@qwestinternet.net (Val Healy) Subject: 5 Cents/Minute US-UK Sundays. Which Company? Date: 01 May 1999 16:41:46 PDT Hi All, A few days ago I caught a fleeting glimpse of a TV commercial that announced 5 cents/minute from the US to the UK, Germany, etc on Sundays. Unfortunately I had a distraction during the message and didn't find out which company it was. Anyone know? If so, a telephone number would be a huge help. TIA, valh. ------------------------------ From: Eli Mantel Subject: Re: MCI Weekend Rate Available Through 1010 Code? Date: Sat, 01 May 1999 07:54:12 GMT Benjamin D. Lukoff (bd087@scn.org) wrote: > I wasn't aware that MCI's "5 cent Sundays" rate, and in fact, any > special rates, were available by dialing 1010xxx codes before the > number. I seem to remember being charged more using Sprint's 10xxx > code a few years ago than I would have had I been a subscriber. You recall right. After several years during which people could use different carriers for each call, the major carriers all began discriminating against non-subscribers using their services by implementing a "casual-caller" surcharge, that ran a dollar or two on every call, over and above the highest rate they charge their customers. However, although you can be PIC'd to only a single carrier for your interlata calls, there's no rule that says you can't set up accounts with multiple carriers, if they'll let you. The problem with this, though, is that most carriers insist that you give them an authorization to change your PIC. When your local phone company processes the PIC change, they will also notify your current carrier, who will no longer consider you a subscriber. I think you can workaround this by getting a PIC freeze, which should then cause your local phone company to ignore the PIC change request. Got all that? Good. But aside from the nuisance of remembering which carrier access code to dial which day of the week, there are some other drawbacks. First, MCI will charge you $1.07 each month for the PIC-C fee (even if you're not actually PIC'd to them). Second, MCI has a $5 monthly minimum on most of its plans, so your savings plan could backfire if you don't use enough time. Third, there are phone companies at least as reliable as MCI, and certainly more ethical than MCI, that charge residential customers 7.9 cents a minute 24 hours a day with no monthly fee (except for the $0.53 PIC fee), minimum, or other committment, with 6 second billing increments and 6 second minimum time per call ... and these are NOT voice over IP services (at least as far as I can tell). So while it's true that you can save money using MCI on Sundays and some other carrier the rest of the week, the incentive to do so is pretty limited if you get yourself set up on the right calling plan to begin with. ------------------------------ From: midshires@cix.co.uk (Andrew Emmerson) Subject: Re: BNC, was Book Review Date: 01 May 1999 09:28:13 GMT Organization: CIX - Compulink Information eXchange Reply-To: midshires@cix.co.uk In article , rslade@sprint.ca (Rob Slade) wrote: > I would have been very interested to see what the derivation of BNC > (as in "BNC connector) was, except that it isn't included. That's easy. Here is the answer along with some other well-known connectors. There is a lot of misinformation going around but I guarantee these derivations are correct. BNC = Baby (or Bayonet) Neill Concelman. A baby-size combination of the designs of Neill and Concelman. C = Concelman. Developed by Carl Concelman of Amphenol. DIN = Deutsche Industrienormen Ausschuss (German standards-making authority) EIAJ = Electronics Industry Association of Japan. MUSA = Multiple Unit Steerable Array. Developed in the 1930s by the British Post Office. It is very similar to the American Western Electric video jack. N = Neill or Navy type. Originated in 1942 by Paul Neill of Bell Labs and standardised on a Navy Bureau of Ships drawing. RCA = Radio Corporation of America. UHF = Ultra High Frequency. Developed in 1940 by E.C. Quackenbush of the American Phenolic Corporation (later Amphenol). At the time this connector was designed, UHF meant what we call VHF today. Andrew Emmerson. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 01 May 1999 11:09:31 +0100 From: Simon Hewison Reply-To: Simon Hewison Subject: Re: Bizarre Cellular Cross-Talk Organization: Demon Internet In article , Linc Madison writes > I was talking on my landline POTS phone today, to a friend who was > calling from some variety of cellphone or PCS phone. Suddenly, as > clear as day, I heard someone else's conversation, something along > the lines of "Dad, can you hear me now?" I hadn't realized that my > friend was on a wireless phone, so I thought perhaps someone was > monkeying with the demarc on one end or the other. The cut-in was > only for about 20 or 30 seconds, before the other party/parties > went away. > Kinda makes you wonder ... If it's any form of standard analog FM based cell phone, it's incredibly easy for someone with an illegal or broken FM transmitter to break through, even on harmonics. (In a similar way to being able to listen to analog cellular phones on a half decent scanner from Radio Shack.) Most digital cellular protocols such as GSM variants, and Qualcomm under similar circumstances would either attempt to channel hop to an interference free channel, or just drop the call altogether. Simon Hewison ------------------------------ From: cnavarro@wcnet.org (Carl Navarro) Subject: Re: The Complete PC's ->> Complete Communicator VoiceMail Card Date: Sat, 01 May 1999 13:21:19 GMT Organization: Airnews.net! at Internet America On Mon, 26 Apr 1999 22:02:12 -0700, Etop Udoh wrote: > Is anyone familiar with the company "The Complete PC" which came out > with the "Complete Communicator" voice mail card and some accessories > for them ... > I have several of their cards including my latest one, the Window's > Version of the card. I have the Window's Software, but I'm missing > the DOS software which installs itself in a directory called "CCDOS" ?? > I believe there are several versions of this software, and the last > version which came off of their bbs, or ftp site (now BOCA) is not > quite 100% compatible ... so I need one that is a little older than > that one. I have 2.62 running on my PS-2 model 30 and it's pretty stable. I can't find the original 5 1/4 inch disks (all packed away while my office is being constructed!), but I can zip up my working cc subdirectory and ship it to you if you like. Does the WINDOZE version handle multiple cards better and allow sharing of the database? Carl Navarro ------------------------------ From: Rob McMillin Subject: Re: The NANP Has 8+ Years to Go Says NANPA Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 18:50:07 -0700 Organization: A poorly-installed InterNetNews site "Eric B. Morson" wrote: > Looks like the first REAL steps have been taken to evaluate just how > SOON the NANP will be in SERIOUS jeopardy as a whole. > The NANP Exhaust Study has been published.... > http://www.nanpa.com/pdf/NANP_Exhaust_Study.pdf > VERY informative ... they now project total exhaustion between 2006 > and 2012, with their best guess being 2007... 8 1/2 years to go! NO > FCC action recommended regarding 10-D or 11-D dialing yet. No timetable > for expansion yet. No FCC mandate for implementing expanding dialing > patterns from 3+7 to 4+8 with a deadline for launch. How about > deciding IF 4+8 will be the solution? What he didn't mention was that the report says this is ONLY if number allocation continues in blocks of 10,000. If, as has been proposed, NPA blocks start being allocated in blocks of 1,000 (NPA-NXX-Xxxx), the estimated exhaust date is more like 2094... but then, they don't really give a basis is for that statement. Robert L. McMillin | Not the voice of Syseca, Inc. | rlm@syseca-us.com Personal: rlm@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Subject: Re: Portable Local Numbers: Why Aren't They? Date: 1 May 1999 00:12:24 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com In article , Jan Ceuleers wrote: > Ralph Hyre wrote: >> What's the real issue with Local Number portability? >> 800 Number portability was achieved years ago (1993?), and the >> technology and operational issues are basically the same, with some >> minor scaling issues. > These scaling issues are not minor. They are the difference between > triggering the IN platform (and global title translation etc.) on only > a percentage of calls (i.e. freephone calls), and triggering the IN > for essentially _all_ calls. Well, it's not quite that bad initially. You can avoid that by setting Specific Digit String triggers only on codes that have had numbers ported in them, and it'll be a while until that's every NPA-NXX. Quite a while. Of course, since it's now the SDS trigger instead of the 3/6/10 trigger, you can even avoid querying with finer resolution than NPA-NXX; for example, if you wanted to build the tables out to a sufficient depth, you could trigger on 847-830-1XXX but not on 847-830-2XXX. The other big issue is that, very much *unlike* 800 number service, here both the dialed and "routing" numbers are real telephone numbers. This is the source of much of the complexity. When you make an 800 call, the database dip is done, yielding a carrier and a routing number -- these days, usually just another 800 number; then that carrier gets the call, probably dips to its own 800 number database, and comes up with a *real* telephone number, an NPA-NXX-XXXX number where the NPA-NXX identifies a real office to router the call to, and proceeds to route the call accordingly. In that scheme, it's easy to tell the difference between the "fake" and "real" numbers, because there are no offices in NPA 800; 800-NXX can never be mistaken for a real office to route the call to, so you always know whether the database dip has been done or not. With LNP, there's no such guarantee. Both the dialed number and the number returned by the database dip (The "LRN" or Location Routing Number for the office the number's been ported to) are "real" telephone numbers -- they both have NPA-NXX for which real offices exist, to which you could route the call. Were the queries done just like 800 database queries, there would be no simple way to tell whether or not the lookup had been done already, introducing a number of very ugly corner cases, things like routing loops, query storms, etc. To avoid this, the ISUP IAM was modified to include the TCNI bit, which indicates that the query has already been done. This, of course, involves changing every implementation of ISUP in the network... every switch, and then some other miscellaneous hardware. It's really the only available solution that met all the constraints, but it's not hard to see why it's taking so long! Thor Lancelot Simon tls@rek.tjls.com "And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?" ------------------------------ From: Brian F. G. Bidulock Subject: Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 21:48:23 -0500 Organization: Brian F. G. Bidulock, P. Eng. "L. Winson" wrote: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know why card reader type >> phones never really caught on? [good points snipped] > Damn good question. I myself would rather have the security of > inserting a card and entering just my pin number rather than entering > (and remembering) a whole series of numbers. [snip] Regulation, de-regulation, liberalization. If you accept your own card in a card reader payphone you are forced to accept everybody else's. Countries with little to no payhone competition with the monopoly carrier always have card readers on payphones. Then the competition complains to the regulator that their cards should be accepted by the incumbent's phone, otherwise it is a barrier to entry. Bye-bye card readers: result, increased fraud. Fraud detection mechanisms, on the other hand are getting more sophisticated. Some systems track velocity of usage, others track the speed of movement of the user of the number or the number of pseudo-simultaneous sessions which the card number exhibits. Most mechanisms act to limit the rate and volume of fraudulent use which can be perpetrated against a single card number. This is all for the "protection" of the user, however, it reduces to a question of cost and liability, like most things. Brian F. G. Bidulock, P. Eng. bidulock@dallas.net ------------------------------ From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Re: Imminent Exhaustion of the NANP Should be a Wake-up Call! Date: 30 Apr 1999 23:03:00 -0400 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com In article , Arthur Ross wrote: > BTW - I have been writing memos to some of my acquaintances at Lucent > for some time now to the effect that "It is time to re-think network > addressing," the general theme being that numeric, geography-based > addressing in this age of 300 MHz processors and multi-gigabyte hard > drives on every desktop, is an anachronism. While these memos are > probably winding up in the circular "nut" file, I still believe > it. There are, of course, a few small problems .... As you say below, IP addressing, to be expanded from 32 bits (absolutely essential of course, but there's lots of hardware and firmware from a zillion companies that becomes obsolete quickly) will eventually replace the NANP -- but not all that quickly. My note, however, is about Lucent's role in network addressing. The NANP itself is probably included in Judge Greene's 1982 decision which split apart AT&T and the RBOCs in the Jan 1 1984 divestiture, and is still humorously :-( referred to in some circles as the Second Modification of Final Judgement. (The 1956 decree issued in Newark NJ against Western Electric in which, among other things, they agred to make communications patents available to all, was the earlier judgment, the one being modified by the Justice Department lawsuit.) The MFJ created BellCore and mandates Bellcore to be responsible for all coordination of national issues, national security etc. I believe that makes BellCore, under agreement signed by the Justice Dept and AT&T (from which Bellcore and Lucent sprung forth, and which has not been superseded by later legislation) responsible for the NANP, and Lucent is but one of many interested parties, but not the one responsible for the NANP. Perhaps you should be asking your friends at BellCore (Lockheed/ Telcore?) rather than Lucent? Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V19 #67 ***************************** From editor@telecom-digest.org Sun May 2 01:56:19 1999 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id BAA16281; Sun, 2 May 1999 01:56:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 2 May 1999 01:56:19 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199905020556.BAA16281@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V19 #68 TELECOM Digest Sun, 2 May 99 01:56:00 EDT Volume 19 : Issue 68 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Forcing MCI to Change Advertising (TELECOM Digest Editor) Final CFP: MONET Issue on Energy-Conserving Protocols for Wireless (J Redi) Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' (Ed Leslie) Re: NANP Running Out of Numbers in 8+ Years (Louis Raphael) Re: Imminent Exhaustion of the NANP Should be a Wake-up Call! (Dave Stott) Comcast @home (Jim Willis) Re: Card Reader Type Public Phones (Louis Raphael) Legislation Passed to Tranform Satellite TV (Ed Ellers) Cordless Phone Help Wanted (dlore@iname.com) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copywrited. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occassional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 1 May 1999 23:09:15 EDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Forcing MCI to Change Advertising Someone asked me to repeat this, so here it is. I originally wrote about this in {Telephony Magazine}, the journal which was very popular among telco employees until at least sometime in the early eighties. I do not hear much about them these days. Anyway, MCI, which means (M)icrowave (C)ommunications, (I)nc. first went business in the 1960's, under a different name. It was a small, storefront operation in Joliet, IL in the business of selling and repairing microwave communications gear. Then Bill McGowan got into the business, and partnered with the fellow who owned the little shop in Joliet, and the whole nature of their business changed in the next few years. A lot of you already know that part of their history. Their first venture in handling actual traffic came in 1968 when they petitioned the Illinois Commerce Commission for permission to operate a microwave circuit between Chicago and St. Louis, for, as they said at the time, a 'limited number of customers in a special class'. As to be expected, Illinois Bell fought the petition and tried to keep them from operating the circuit, but MCI prevailed in the proceedings before the Illinois Commerce Commission, and was allowed to open the service. Some have suggested that first petition they filed asking to operate a communications network was fraudulent in the way it misrepresented their planned or perceived customer base. That is a story for another time. None the less, MCI as a telecommunications carrier of long distance traffic was now in business. Remember, this was before any of the rules about equal access had been started; there were no such things as PIC codes. Ma Bell, also known as AT&T ruled with an iron fist. Over the next few years, MCI was able to expand its territory to include not only Chicago to St. Louis, but Chicago to New York, Chicago to Los Angeles, etc. By the middle 1970's MCI was serving about a dozen major cities through a service called 'Execunet', a phone service for 'executives'. In order to access their network, one used any telephone and dialed the local seven digit number designated. For example, in Chicago, the number 312-871-0001 resulted in the caller hearing a new dial tone from the MCI switch, against which he would dial his account code, and the desired ten digit number, assuming it was in one of the cities that MCI served. MCI then went to the city in question, took a regular line in that place, and out-dialed the seven digits desired. They did no checking of any sort regards the number dialed; in other words if the caller in Chicago dialed into the MCI switch, entered his access code and then dialed something like 212-911, when the call jumped off of MCI's network in New York, a local line there literally dialled 911. We tested it a few times back then with things like 411 for directory, as well as 950 and 976 numbers, which carried premium charges. You could even do something like 212-1-312-876-0001 and get the outgoing line in New York to make a call back to Chicago, whereupon you would once again hear the MCI dial tone. I think once we had a loop like that up about six or seven times around before the transmission got so bad we gave it up. Basically then, 212 just said 'get a line in New York and dial the number given'; 415 meant 'get a line in San Francisco and dial the number given' ... ... you could even dial 900 numbers against the other end (grin) to psychic hotlines or whatever, dialing 212-1-900-whatever. The early days were all very crude and unsophisticated. Finally one day, an attempt to call a premium charge number returned a recording from the switch in Chicago saying, 'at the present time, MCI does not complete calls to 976 numbers ... 'Gradually MCI closed in on the bugs in their system, and became much more sophisticated. By the middle 1980's when they had equal access and were serving every single town in the USA, they had closed most all of the loopholes from earlier years. MCI rates between those limited points -- all major cities -- which they served in the 1970's were about 80 percent of what AT&T was charging, and MCI was fond of pointing that out in their advertising. In those days they generally directed all their efforts to only very large or medium sized companies. Their advertisements would say that their rates were *automatically* 20 percent less than what AT&T charged; would you rather pay their price or pay ours? And when their sales reps would pay visits to large companies to try and sell them on their service, if the telecom guy at the company said they would rather stick with AT&T, the MCI sales rep's attitude and demeanor would become very quizzical: 'but why would you want to pay 20 percent more?' And still another company would move over to MCI. What they were NOT telling people was that the obligatory call to their seven digit local access number was *supervised*, meaning charged, by Illinois Bell. And while MCI did not charge you if the distant end was busy or did not answer (they had no supervisory techniques so in fact they did not charge for any connection less than thirty seconds and for all connections greater than thirty seconds, ring/no answer, busy, whatever). So if you had to make five calls to get through to a number somewhere, yes, MCI charged you only once (assuming you hung up within thirty seconds of hearing the busy signal) **but you still got charged a message unit from IBT each time around**. The difference, as we all know, was that in those days, the local telco gave you the essence of a 'free ride' to the toll switch in your town, or wherever it was. MCI got no such free ride for their customers to their switch. While it would have been true in small communities where the local telco gives unmeasured local service that there would be that twenty percent savings using MCI, in larger places -- and that is all that MCI served in its early days -- where local calls were billed as 'message units' or similar, at maybe five cents each, much if not all of the 'savings by using MCI' were eaten up by additional local message charges from Illinois Bell. And there were many cases in which the bottom line was *more* than it would have been with AT&T since MCI had many large customers in distant suburbs from Chicago who had to pay 2,3 or even 4 message units to Bell everytime they called the MCI switch! A month or two into their 'saving twenty percent using MCI' experience, many corporate telecom managers would review the phone bill and see a definite decrease in long distance charges from AT&T, and it was MCI's hope they would *not* see the humongous increase in 'message units' for local calls. And frankly, most of them did not see it. A large corporation might go through a million or more 'local message units' every month, and then one month it is a hundred thousand more local message units than usual. If they happened to be talking to the MCI sales rep, he would say, 'well it must be that your employees are making a lot more personal calls', and many is the telecom manager who bought that line and sent out a memo to all employees telling them to stay off the phone with personal calls and use the payphone in the lunchroom instead for that purpose. But then next month, the bill would be just as high on local calls, or maybe higher, as obedient employees would remember to make their long distance calls by dialing 876-0001 then the area code and number, just as they had been told to do. Line is busy? Hang up and immediatly redial; do it again, and again. In those days, MCI structured their advertising on the theory that very few people if any knew exactly what they were paying 'the phone company' for anyway, and if you told them a way to 'get one over on Ma Bell' (not using those words of course) a lot of people would be glad to use 'this new way to save money on phone calls'. MCI's good luck came in the fact that most people would only look at their total bill and those portions (like long distance calls) which were specif- ically coin-rated instead of a bunch of message units lumped together. So they could rightfully point out that if you looked at AT&T's portion of your bill 'from the phone company' and then compared it with the bill that MCI sent you in the mail each month, you would see that what they said was true; you were paying less to MCI than you would have paid for the same thing to AT&T. At the time, the chairman of AT&T was a fellow named Charles Brown. Mr. Brown had formerly been the president of Illinois Bell, and when he had been president of IBT he was a neighbor of mine in Rogers Park, a neighborhood in Chicago. I wrote him a note and said why don't you people, umm, clarify things just a bit? AT&T was getting increasingly annoyed by MCI's advertising tactics ('when you can pay us twenty percent less, why would you want to pay them a hundred percent') and a press release came out from Mr. Brown saying in effect that they could run a cut-rate, wholesale long distance business also if 'all we did was skim the cream from the highly profitable east coast corridor and the major cities. If AT&T did not bother to serve every tiny rural community all over the USA, taking a loss on many of them which was subsidized by long distance, I suspect we could undercut MCI and sell ours for fifty percent of what it is now.' And the press release continued, 'When is the last time MCI went out to fix someone's phone when it was broken? When is the last time a couple of their employees were out in the mountains of Wyoming on a January day in a temperature of five below zero for the sole purpose of restoring service to a community of thirty people when a blizzard knocked their community telephone cable down from a pole and put them out of service? Five below zero, winds about thirty miles an hour, and several inches of snow and ice on the side of a mountain. One employee slipped and fell to his death; his partner/co-worker went to his rescue and wound up severely injured in the process. I guess that is why they can give cut rate prices on long distance calls and I cannot.' A couple months later, MCI instituted a new charge, called 'call termin- ation fee', and this, they said, was what telco was charging them for those phone lines in the places where calls went. So now the telephone consumer was paying (1) MCI for the call, (2) MCI for the distant termination charge and (3) Illinois Bell for the requisite message units to get on MCI's switch in the first place. Yet they still continued with their claim of 'twenty percent less, why would you want to pay them a hundred percent?' I began noticing that from about 1 AM each night until roughly 3 AM the MCI access number would not answer at all. When I asked them why it was impossible to 'save twenty percent on my calls' between 1 and 3 AM when they apparently took no business, they said to me they had to have time to 'do the billing'; that they needed to 'shut down the computer in order to run the billing tapes' ... and my response was, that seems rather odd, I wonder how AT&T manages to run their billing tapes, staying up 24 hours per day as they do. They also begin advertising deliberatly telling people that, when you need directory assistance, dial the area code and 555-1212, it is a free call; once you get the number then hang up and place the call via our switch. Employees at companies were told that when they had to call 555-1212 they were NOT to place that call via MCI (for which they would be billed at the rate for other calls to that community) but instead to place the call via AT&T; then to place the actual call itself via MCI in the earlier requested way. ** That, friends, is the main reason areacode-555-1212 is no longer a free call, and has not been for many years. AT&T gave totally free directory service everywhere, but of course you placed the call with them 'at rates that are twenty percent higher'. ** I filed a formal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission asking that MCI be forced to reveal the true cost of phone calls in their advertising, and that they either be forced to remain on line 24 hours per day or include in their advertising that their service was not available during certain overnight hours. The end result was that the FCC ordered them to include in their advertising a statement saying, "additional charges may be imposed by your local telephone company to access our service, and these additional charges may in fact offset the savings described above." They had to include that in their advertising in cities like Chicago or anywhere the local telco used 'message units' to bill for local calls. Of course that was long before the days of equal access; long before PIC codes and one plus dialing defaults. But I always did feel that MCI from its earliest days onward was less than totally honest with the public; that their stock in trade was using the ignorance of the general public about how telephones work as a way to rip off, or 'skim the cream' as it was called, the profits in the long distance business. I hope if you did not previously know that MCI got its start in a small storefront in Joliet, Illinois in the middle 1960's as a radio sales and repair business that you found that part of my article interesting at least. How SPRINT (S)outhern (P)acific (R)ailroad (I)nternal (N)etwork (T)elecom got its start is an interesting story also for another time. It literally consisted of three or four people who maintained the telecom department of the railroad back in the late 1960's, and a modernization of the phone network which left a lot of excess capacity the railroad decided to sell to other large businesses. Sprint got started about three or four years after MCI was established. I talked once to an MCI attorney; it might have been about 1975 and said something about 'sleaze' ... and I remember his response well. He said, "Ha! listen to this 'shill for AT&T' talk about how sleazy our company is! Are you trying to say that back in 1903 or thereabouts AT&T was going around with clean hands that they washed in Holy Water?" No, I was not ... sadly, they all have a history that is less than honorable in their early days. That's it from me for today! PAT ------------------------------ From: Jason Redi Subject: Final CFP: MONET Issue on Energy-Conserving Protocols for Wireless Organization: BBN Technologies Date: Sat, 01 May 1999 20:42:24 GMT ************************* CALL FOR PAPERS ************************* Baltzer Science Publishers in cooperation with ACM announce a Special Issue of the Journal on Special Topics in Mobile Networking and Applications (MONET) on ENERGY-CONSERVING PROTOCOLS IN WIRELESS NETWORKS With Guest Editors: Dr. Chiara Petrioli Politecnico di Milano Chiara.Petrioli@elet.polimi.it Prof. Ramesh Rao University of California, San Diego rrao@ucsd.edu Dr. Jason Redi BBN Technologies redi@bbn.com OVERVIEW: The most important factors which will determine the success of wireless mobile communications are the utility and convenience of the end user devices. Paramount to both of these areas is the amount of energy that is required by the mobile devices. As most current battery research does not predict a substantial change in the available energy in a consumer battery, it is important that wireless devices be designed for energy-constraint. There has been substantial research in the hardware aspects of mobile communications energy-efficiency, such as low power electronics, processor sleep-time, and energy-efficient modulation. However, due to fundamental physical limitations, progress towards further energy-efficiency will become mostly a software-level issue. Recent work has shown that substantial reductions in the energy used by a mobile communications protocol are achievable without dramatically affecting its performance. Legacy communications protocols, quality of service, overhead and protocol complexity are just a few areas that are beginning to be re-evaluated in the context of energy-usage. SCOPE: This special issue will concentrate on software, protocols and algorithms at the MAC-layer and above which are designed to reduce the amount of energy used by the wireless transceiver. We encourage approaches which are physical-layer independent. The following topics are examples of areas which may be considered: - energy-conserving access protocols - ARQ variants for the reduction of energy - effects of energy-conservation on the higher-level protocols - APIs for evaluating energy requirements in applications - scheduling and resource reservation which include energy as a primary constraint - QoS guarantees for energy-conservation - energy-conserving routing techniques - re-evaluation of classical techniques under energy constraints - characterization and modeling of energy-saving methods PUBLICATION SCHEDULE: Manuscript Due: May 30, 1999 Acceptance Notification: August 30, 1999 Final Manuscript Due: October 30, 1999 SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Authors should email an electronic Postscript copy of their paper to redi@bbn.com by May 30, 1999. Submissions should be limited to 20 double space pages excluding figures, graphs and illustrations. If email submission is impossible then six (6) copies of the paper (double-sided if possible) should be sent by the due date to: Dr. Jason Redi Mobile Network Systems Group BBN Technologies M/S 6/2a, 10 Moulton St. Cambridge, MA, 02138 redi@bbn.com ------------------------------ From: EdLeslie@EDU.YorkU.CA (Ed Leslie) Subject: Re: Lawsuit Says MCI 'Redlines' Date: Sat, 01 May 1999 05:57:29 GMT Organization: @Home Network Canada On Fri, 30 Apr 1999 09:52:16 +0200, Patrick Burke wrote: > L. Winson schrieb in im Newsbeitrag: > telecom19.57.5@telecom-digest.org... >>> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know why card reader type >>> phones never really caught on? [good points snipped] >> Damn good question. I myself would rather have the security of >> inserting a card and entering just my pin number rather than entering >> (and remembering) a whole series of numbers. ><...snip...> > In Switzerland and Holland, at least, card phones are standard. In > fact, it's sometimes impossible to find a coin phone. Cards can be > purchased at many locations and I've never had a problem finding > one. Here in Bell Canada territory, we are "well served". :-) Properly done, benevolent dictatorship *can* be a "Good Thing". :-)) All of a sudden, a "few" years ago, *every* payphone was replaced with the new "Millenium Phone" model, which includes a card reader which not only will read/accept prepaid "phonecards", but which will also accept the "generally more expensive (i.e. *very* more expensive)" credit cards. While this was probably oveall a "good thing", I have to try to ignore the fact that it probably was all done under the auspices of the "Canadian Regulated TeleCommunications regulated system" (i.e. there was a horrrendous capital cost in replacing each and every payphone in Ontario and Quebec, which simply became part of the "sanctioned" part of the costs of providing telephone services in the government-regulated area). I now carry a pre-paid phone-card, as do my children, for use in payphones -- and the payphones actually were software upgraded to "beep" at you if you did not remove your card after use -- I gather the major frustration was that a user would forget to remove their card after making a call (they obviously are not as "Scottish" as am I). :-)) EdLeslie@TorFree.NET ------------------------------ From: Louis Raphael Subject: Re: NANP Running Out of Numbers in 8+ Years Organization: Societe pour la promotion du petoncle vert Date: Sat, 01 May 1999 21:19:04 GMT Tom Lager wrote and PAT commented: > Divide the present country code 1 into two parts, or perhaps three > parts if Canada is to be included, known as 12, 13, and 14. Anyone > calling within their own 'country code' would continue to dial seven, > ten or eleven digits as they do now. To call the other side of the > USA, 'international' dialing procedures would be used, as we do now > with '011'. 011 would continue to be 'international, anywhere else' > while 012 was one part of the USA, 013 was another. People in other > countries calling here would instead dialing country code 1 start > dialing country code 12, 13, etc, plus the ten digit number. I'm not sure how the ITU would react to the idea of adding another country code, but with your scheme, I suppose that it wouldn't even be necessary to involve them, as all would still be under +1. Canada and those parts of the Caribbean in the NANP could also split off, which would probably relax the problem for many years more. On this side (Canada), it would also make it possible to continue the old-style conventions about area codes and prefixes, and to keep situations like Ottawa-Hull 7-digit dialing (still in use, I think), even though the two are in different area codes. If this were to be done, however, something would have to be done about cross-border 1-800 numbers. Also, I suspect that it might not be very good for Canadian businesses that deal a lot in the US, as many Americans would probably be "confused" by having to dial an obviously international call. Maybe it would be possible to set aside one or two area codes in each of the countries for businesses that want "national" phone numbers. Of course, that would just be starting another problem :-(. Louis [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: 800 numbers would continue to be sorted as they are now. Either they would go one place or they would to another place. The only people who would have to worry about it are the carriers who assign them in the first place. For some percentage of their existing database they would need to make changes over a period of a couple years. Maybe 800-xxx-xxxx which now really goes to 415-xxx-xxxx would have to be set to go to 012-415-xxx-xxxx. Regards the ITU, we would still basically be one code, namely '1'; I guess it could be explained in other countries saying that when calling the USA, you still dial '1' but then for the eastern side you dial a '2' plus the number, and for the western side you dial '3' and the number. That would give us all the way up to '19' for still more divisions, etc as years went along. I think the reason my plan is more workable is because it does not involve trying to make all the switches deal with 8 digits. Most calls would still be 7 digits; we are just changing our definition of what constitutes an 'international call', something the switches are able to deal with now easily anyway. Regards the business people who would be annoyed with the 'international call' aspect of the whole thing, I remember when my grandmother many, many years ago was so disgusted with the conversion from manual service to dial as, she claimed, were all the 'old people', because their eye- sight was not that good and they had to squint to see the dial. Somehow we survived, as the world rushes on. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 01 May 1999 07:12:16 -0700 From: Dave Stott Subject: Re: Imminent Exhaustion of the NANP Should be a Wake-up Call! Our esteemed moderator wrote: >[Moderator's Note: Sorry to disappoint you, but your son is >wrong. UCLA did not invent the internet ... *I* did. Sure you did Pat! We all know Al Gore invented the Internet -- he told us so (and politicians in the Clinton Administration aren't allowed to lie because it's the most ethical administration in history!). Next you'll probably be telling us that dropping bombs on a country and blockading harbors in Europe is no different than doing the same thing in SE Asia and it's not _really_ war and so on, and so on, and so on. Phone: (480) 831-7355 Fax: (480) 831-1176 Free: (888) 43-2HELP [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yep, that's what I am telling you about the European 'police action' going on and its similarities to the 'police action' in Vietnam which *finally* ended twenty-some years ago, after going on for a dozen years. Remember the day back in the middle seventies sometime when the newspapers glumly announced that, 'until yesterday, the longest lasting war involving the United States was the Revolutionary War, which went on for eleven plus years .. as of yesterday, the war in Vietnam became the longest lasting war, and there are no signs right now that it will end any time soon ... ' Of course we had no internet back then and quick communication among people was very difficult. Regretably (in one sense) Vietnam was 'so long ago' that about half of our population in the USA was either not yet born or too young to now remember much about it. Unless you are at least in your late thirties or older, you have no real idea of the horrors *in this country* as a result; the almost daily protest demonstrations by huge numbers of people, the riots, the endless propoganda from both sides and all directions, etc. I was interviewed on National Public Radio one night in 1968 when we were having the worst of the riots -- that year! -- in Chicago. The National Guard was out in force, throwing tear gas bombs at people who were throwing rotten eggs at them, etc. There were three of those great big military conveyences, the things that run on tread- mills like a tractor, with a large cannon on the front and a place for soldiers to hide inside -- what do you call them? -- in the parking lot of the Museum of Science and Industry, about a half block from where I lived. And everywhere you went, one or two National Guardsmen standing on the corner. I went downtown one day with my roomate; we were standing on the platform waiting for the commuter train to arrive. A National Guard guy was standing a bit away down the platform. I just glared at the guy ... my roomate said 'what are you thinking about?' I said, 'I am thinking that what I would like to do is when the train starts pulling in, walk down there and shove him off the platform right in front of it.' Of course I did no such thing and my roomate counseled me, don't have ugly thoughts ... but that was the nature of Vietnam; before it was over, everyone was having ugly thoughts all day and bad dreams all night. If the office building you worked in or the school you went to was not evacuated at least once a week because someone pulled the fire alarm switch or there had been a telephone bomb threat, you were lucky. If you were able to go a month at a time without walking down the street and finding yourself in the middle of a group of war protestors who were getting clubbed on the head by police with tear gas cannisters going off all around you then you were fortunate. If by 1972 or so you did not know personally at least one or two guys who were killed in Vietnam, you were extremely lucky. And if you wanted to check your luck that day, you could always call a phone number in Washington DC where the cheerful public servant answered the phone 'Vietnam Death Registry' and would put you on hold while she checked the lastest paperwork. Thi