TELECOM Digest     Thu, 8 Feb 2007 00:20:00 EST    Volume 26 : Issue 40

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    YouTube Founders Split $650 Million Payday from Google (Eric Auchard)
    Child Porn Rings Hard to Track (Brian Bergstein, AP Technology)
    Bloggers May Make Money, But Most Keep Their Day Jobs (Ben Arnoldy, CSM)
    Google Executives Pay Themselves 1.5 Million in Bonuses (Reuters News Wire)
    Cell Phone Taxes Subsidize Land Lines, Enrich Telecoms (Mike)    
    Cisco Posts Profit, Forecasts Better Sales (USTelecom DailyLead)
    What About Areas Where Alphabet Not Like Ours? (Joe Tibiletti)
    Telephone Area Codes and Prefixes (Joe Tibiletti)
    Re: Private Line History (Charles Gray)

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

Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2007 21:12:02 -0600
From: Eric Auchard, Reuters <reuters@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: YouTube Founders Split $650 Million Payday from Google


By Eric Auchard

Two of YouTube's founders stand to divide shares of stock now valued
at around $650 million, Web search leader Google Inc. said in a
regulatory filing on Wednesday detailing the payout from its $1.65
billion acquisition.

Chad Hurley, chief executive of the online video sharing phenomenon
YouTube, received 694,087 of Google common stock worth around $326
million, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
filing.

Co-founder Steve Chen received Google common stock valued at a similar
amount, including 625,366 shares directly owned and another 68,721
shares held in a trust.

Sequoia Capital, the sole venture capital backer of YouTube, stands to
receive around $442 million in Google shares based on the $470.01
closing price of the Web search leader on Wednesday.

At least two dozen YouTube employees received lesser share
amounts. For example, Julie Supan, YouTube's principal spokeswoman,
received 10,308 shares worth around $4.8 million.

Most of the remaining shares were divided up among dozens of limited
partner investors in Sequoia Capital.

ELITE BACKERS

These include a who's who of the endowments of Harvard, Yale, Brown,
Columbia, Oxford and other elite colleges, and the investment vehicles
of the families behind the Getty, Hewlett-Packard and Intel fortunes,
among other beneficiaries.

The third co-founder, Jawed Karim, received stock valued at around
$64.6 million. After starting the company in early 2005, he backed out
and returned to Stanford University to work on a graduate degree in
computer science.

The three co-founders had met while working together at online
payments company PayPal, which was later acquired by Web auction
company eBay Inc..

Google, of Mountain View, California, acquired YouTube, which is now
located in Brisbane, near San Francisco, in November of last year.

YouTube enjoyed explosive growth during 2006 among viewers eager to
watch short-form comic sketches created by other users. But its also
has faced mounting legal threats from big media companies angry that
the site has become a popular means of pirating their television
shows.

Google had said at the time of the deal's closing three months ago
that one-eighth of the equity, or around $200 million, would be held
in escrow as security on unspecified indemnification obligations.

Last week, Viacom Inc., owner of MTV Networks and several popular
comedy programs often pirated by YouTube fans, demanded that the
Google unit take down some 100,000 video clips of Viacom programming.

Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. 

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
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------------------------------

Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2007 21:14:37 -0600
From: Brian Bergstein, AP Technology <ap@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Child Porn Rings Hard to Track


By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology Writer

The numbers behind an international child pornography bust Wednesday
were themselves disturbing: Nearly 2,400 suspects from 77 countries
allegedly paid to view videos depicting sexual abuse of children
online. But the nature of Internet traffic makes it sadly unsurprising
that people would figure they could hide so much hideous material.

Finding and stamping out such content "is needle-in-a-haystack work," 
said Carole Theriault, a security consultant with Sophos PLC in London.

Austrian authorities said an employee of a Vienna-based Internet
file-hosting service approached his national Interior Ministry last
July with word that he had noticed the pornographic material during a
routine scan.

The videos showed "the worst kind of child sexual abuse," said
Austrian Interior Minister Guenther Platter, citing the rape and
sexual abuse of girls and boys younger than 14. At times the children
could be heard screaming.

Lead investigator Harald Gremel said the videos were online for at
most a day before they were discovered. The Austrian Internet service
employee blocked access to the videos while recording the computer
addresses of people who tried to download the material, and gave the
details to authorities.

Within 24 hours, investigators recorded more than 8,000 hits from
2,361 computer addresses in 77 countries around the world, including
the United States, according to Gremel.

In another sign of the ring's international tentacles, Gremel said
investigators believe the videos were shot in Eastern Europe and
uploaded to the Web from Britain. A link to the videos was posted on a
Russian Web site, which is no longer in operation, and hosted on a
server in Austria. Some of the material was free, but the Russian site
charged $89 for access for a "members only" section, Gremel said.

Why did finding this take what would seem a lucky break by network
administrator? Because everything traversing the borderless Internet
looks the same while in transit. Whether it's a mundane e-mail or
videos as insidious as this, all traffic gets splintered into packets
of data that don't identify what they contain.

Consequently, unless a nefarious Web site advertises itself with spam
e-mails or shuttles an inordinate amount of traffic, several factors
can conspire to keep it in the shadows.

For example, Theriault noted that the perpetrators could send footage
over peer-to-peer networks or computers that had been surreptitiously
co-opted by Internet worms.

"You could have this stuff on innocent machines and the owner wouldn't
even know it," Theriault said. "It can get ugly and complicated,
absolutely. In fact, this is quite common."

Search engines and other analytical programs regularly "crawl" the Web
to capture what lurks out there, but generally they are in search of
text. One cloaking mechanism often seen in spam is for a site to put
salacious keywords inside images, out of the reach of text-based
scans.

Even the fact that viewers had to pay $89 for some material would not
necessarily increase the chances of detection.

While the major credit card carriers have programs to verify the
validity of merchants in their networks, dozens of Internet payment
processors use other methods to discreetly ferry money around, said
Mike Petitti, senior vice president of marketing at AmbironTrustWave
Inc., a data-security company. One way involves automated check-
clearing services that route money from checking accounts and avoid
the credit card networks, he said.

"There are a number of payment processors out there that have a `Don't
look and don't ask' policy," Petitti said.

Because cases like this are not uncommon, in 2003, German investigators 
said they broke up child-porn rings that involved 26,500 suspect 
Internet users around the world; industry and governments have proposed 
prevention methods.

In fact, on Wednesday, a bipartisan group of senators and congressmen
introduced revised legislation that would require Internet companies
to do more to report child pornography discovered on their networks.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has chided the industry for not
being more aggressive on the subject, and last year called on Internet
companies to lengthen the time they hold onto logs of their customers'
Internet use.

Those comments churned up civil liberties concerns. But five top
Internet companies did announce last June that they would be compiling
a database of child-porn images and developing other tools making it
easier for network managers and law enforcement to detect such
material.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

For more news and headlines, please go to:
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http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/technews.html

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

Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2007 21:17:03 -0600
From: Ben Arnoldy, Christian Science Monitor <csm@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Bloggers May Make Money, But Most Keep Their Day Jobs


By Ben Arnoldy, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

A penny for your thoughts? Kevin Vahey has done a good deal better,
turning a personal gripe into $1,000 a year of supplemental income.

Mr. Vahey started a blog called "Charlie on the MBTA" that has become
a sounding board for Bostonians frustrated with the city's
public-transit system.

After two months, he's gained 1,200 readers a day, the attention of 
officials, and -- like thousands of others putting their interests online 
 -- a small revenue stream from advertising. "Yesterday I got the check 
from [Google], and I said, 'Hmm, that's cool.' I don't feel like I did 
anything," he says. He's not quitting his day job, but now he commutes 
to it free of charge: "[The blog] pays my monthly pass."

Through systems like Google's AdSense, advertising now can be added
with the click of a mouse to the smallest of websites. The model will
soon be expanded to online videos with the announcement last month
that YouTube will share ad revenue with content creators.

The rise of what's known as contextual advertising has created a
21st-century version of royalties that's reaching deep into the ranks
of amateurs and hobbyists. It points to a future where many people
will moonlight online as small-time creators for a little extra
income, with a few finding fame and fortune along the way.

"A lot of people say it's sort of like a little investment. They write
something every night before they go to bed, and another page on their
website gets added. And the more pages they've got, the more chance
they've got of earning a little bit of money," says Darren Rowse, the
webmaster of http://problogger.net, a site that helps bloggers improve
their income.

He says he makes six figures a year blogging, when factoring in all
his sites and the consulting gigs they generate. "You put something
out there," he adds, "and it has the potential to earn money
forever. And in that way it sort of is like a royalty."

A little more than $1 billion, or one-fourth of all advertising
online, went to Google's AdSense program in the third quarter of
2006. Of that, Google shared $780 million with those running
AdSense. Approximately 3 million blogs now use AdSense, according to
the blog-tracking site Technorati.

What isn't known is how that $780 million was distributed over those
roughly 3 million blogs. But anecdotal evidence suggests that there's
a majority making nothing, a sizable minority bringing in at least
$100 a month, and a few making serious money.

This past November, a survey by problogger.net of 732 self-selected
respondents found that of the 625 bloggers using AdSense, 45 percent
were making at least $100 a month. Another survey of 104 bloggers at a
blogger summit last week in New York found roughly a third making that
money, not necessarily with AdSense.

Nearly one-sixth in both surveys made at least $1,000 a month. These
samples, of course, skew heavily toward the more committed and
successful bloggers.

"The vast majority of people are being read by the writer and his
mother, or in some cases not even by his mother," quips Sree
Sreenivasan, who runs the new-media program at Columbia University.But
for some, he says, new opportunities are emerging that are different
from the original Web bubble.

The anecdotal numbers suggest an economic shift based on what Don
Tapscott, co-author of "Wikinomics," calls the democratization of the
creation of content.

"People can participate in the economy in ways that were once
unimaginable. Not just moonlighting, but serious money," says Mr.
Tapscott. In the past, writers, musicians, and videomakers needed to
prove themselves as "home-run hitters" in order to get distributed and
earn significant money. "Now, bunters and single-hitters have a chance
to make a living," he says.

The AdSense system allows advertisers to bid on how much they'll pay --
in cents per click -- to appear on sites with certain keywords. In the
case of "Charlie on the MBTA," Vahey has seen ads show up from bus
companies - not surprising since he mentions buses frequently. He
makes money each time someone clicks on the ads.

With the cost of publishing online close to zero, even small ad money
can buoy creative output.

"The definition of 'big enough' has changed. In the old days, [an
endeavor] ... had to get an audience of billions to pay for that
scarce airtime," says Jeff Jarvis, a new-media expert who makes about
$1,000 a month from blogging. "Now, the definition of big enough can
be that it covered my costs, [or] it bought me a camera."

He notes with amusement that his son now makes more money from AdSense
than from his allowance.

Yet many bloggers and video bloggers are not driven by a desire to get
rich. Vahey did not start his blog to make money. And Steve Garfield,
one of Boston's earliest video bloggers, doesn't see a YouTube ad
model working for him, since he's more interested in forming personal
connections.

"I've gotten so much from giving and sharing my videos for free," says
Mr. Garfield, whose vblog is at SteveGarfield.com. "I've made so many
friends from all over the world."

Still, his approach has yielded some financial benefits, such as free
computer equipment, and freelance and consulting work.

It's not uncommon for successful bloggers to parlay their success into
consulting. And the top Web entrepreneurs often move away from AdSense
to direct relationships with advertisers, says Jeremy Shoemaker, who
has a photo of himself holding a check for more than $130,000 from
Google.  He runs a number of sites, including a ringtones sharing
site.

AdSense, which he describes as "a great product," does have its
limitations. The revenue can be unpredictable, the system encourages
visitors to leave a site, and owners do not have enough control over
ad content, he says.

Several highly successful bloggers also caution that there's no free
lunch. "I worked anything from eight- to 16-hour days over the last
three or four years just trying to do this," says Mr. Rowse. "And a
lot of people don't see that."

Copyright 2007 The Christian Science Monitor

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

Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2007 21:19:05 -0600
From: Reuters News Wire <reuters@telecom-digest.org>
Subject: Google Executives Pay Themselves 1.5 Million in Bonuses


Google Inc. said on Friday its board of directors had agreed to pay
executive officers a bonus of up to $1.5 million total for 2006, but
it was not clear if the plan applied to the billionaires who started
the Web search leader.

Co-founders and Presidents Sergey Brin and Larry Page and Chief
Executive Eric Schmidt received salaries of $1 each in 2005 and were
not included in a separate 2006 plan for executive bonuses of up to $3
million each filed with federal regulators in October.

The company said on Friday in a regulatory filing that a committee
would determine how to allocate the bonus, which are in addition to
payments in the plan from October.

In 2005, four Google senior vice presidents received bonuses ranging
from about $636,000 to nearly $838,000, according to a recent proxy
statement.

Schmidt and Page received bonuses of $1,630 while Brin earned a bonus
of $1,723, and all three received further compensation, chiefly tied
to use of chartered aircraft in 2005.

During 2006, Google stock gained about 11 percent, slightly ahead of a
10 percent rise in the Nasdaq exchange.

Earlier this week, Google said quarterly profit nearly tripled, helped
by a lower tax rate and expense controls, and that revenue jumped 67
percent to $3.21 billion.

Revenue growth is closely watched as investors gauge Google's ability
to capitalize on Web advertising against rivals such as Yahoo Inc.
and Microsoft Corp. 


Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. 

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new
articles daily. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at
http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or)
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For more news and headlines, please go to:
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------------------------------

From: Mike <yard22192@yahoo.com>
Subject: Cell-Phone Taxes Subsidize Land Lines, Enrich Telecoms
Date: 7 Feb 2007 19:44:25 -0800


By Bob Porterfield
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Cellular subscribers are paying hundreds of millions of dollars each
year to subsidize land-line telephone service, enriching big
telecommunications companies while providing little or no benefit to
cell-phone users.

    The subsidies are intended to reimburse the companies for
providing traditional phone service in rough terrain and rural areas
where stringing lines can be costly. But rampant development has
transformed some of these backwaters into booming subdivisions, with
no real adjustment to the distribution formula; others, such as the
oceanfront celebrity playground of Malibu, are receiving subsidies
simply because of their difficult topography.

    Outdated formulas for tabulating the surcharges -- coupled with
feeble government oversight -- have meant a windfall for phone
companies, which are fighting to preserve them.

    "It's egregious," said Kimberly Kuo, executive director of
MyWireless.org, a national nonprofit advocacy group for cellular
users. "By nature, these fees are highly discriminatory because cell
users pay in far more than they get out of it."

    Nineteen states charge customers a fee to defray the costs to
phone companies of providing service in high-cost areas. Of these, 12
do not exempt cell phones -- Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California,
Colorado, Kansas, Maine, Nebraska, Nevada, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.

    Since 2003, these states together have collected more than $4
billion, an Associated Press investigation found. The burden is shared
by cellular and regular phone customers alike. In some states, cell
users appear to be footing more than half the bill.

    "There's an enormous inequity with wireless contributions," said
Joe Farren of CTIA-The Wireless Association, a trade group
representing the nation's cellular providers and wireless equipment
manufacturers. "We think these funds should be no larger than
necessary and not favor one technology over another. It's a major
issue for us."

    Phone companies also pay into a separate federal Universal Service
Fund that has raised nearly $20 billion since 2003. Some of that money
subsidizes land-line service in hard-to-reach areas of every state.
The Federal Communications Commission doesn't require
telecommunications companies to pass these costs along to their
customers, but many do. Cell-phone users pay into the federal fund,
but it's difficult to determine how much of it they contribute.

    Industry officials say these subsidies -- known as high-cost
universal service funds -- are what make it worthwhile to do business
in rural areas. If they were abolished, some other incentive would be
needed.

    "These are tough issues," said Phil Cleverly, director of
regulatory affairs for Verizon California. If surcharge subsidies
aren't continued, policy-makers "will have to decide how it is local
rates in rural areas should be supported in the future," he said.

    Poor oversight

    Most consumers overlook the small surcharges on their telephone
bills. Usually no more than a few dollars per month, these charges
support a variety of programs, including those that ensure affordable
telephone service for low-income and disabled customers. But the high-
cost subsidies are the most expensive and possibly the least
regulated.

    In California, for example, the two biggest phone companies, AT&T
Inc. and Verizon California, received $1.2 billion in subsidies over
the past three years as compensation for serving more than 7,600
designated high-cost areas. That list has remained static for years
and is based on the 1990 census.

    The state's 25 million cellular subscribers contributed 60 percent
of those payments, a proportion that is likely to increase given the
growing number of consumers relying exclusively on wireless
communication. California's full universal service program includes
five funds and has received $2.8 billion since 2003 -- 57 percent of
that going to the high-cost fund.

    "We believe the core principle is that everyone, including cell-
phone callers, benefits from being able to call people in the high-
cost areas," AT&T spokesman Gordon Diamond said. "If wireless
customers didn't contribute, the surcharge on wire-line customers
would have to be higher."

    In other states, the financial reporting on phone-bill surcharges
is less detailed, so it's harder to break out the proportion
shouldered by cellular customers, or how much of it is going directly
to the telecommunications companies. Some states' subsidy programs are
managed by private companies that receive little oversight from
regulators.

    In Texas, which contracts with a private administrator, the
state's 15.6 million cell-phone users were substantial contributors to
the $1.9 billion collected for universal services since 2003, of which
$1.3 billion was distributed in high-cost subsidies. Although carriers
aren't required to pass along the costs to customers, they almost
always do. Last year, nearly 80 percent of these subsidies were paid
to AT&T, Verizon and two smaller carriers.

    "The fund keeps growing in a way that's disturbing because it
takes more and more consumer funding," says Roger Stewart, a
telecommunications lawyer for the Texas Office of Public Utility
Counsel. "There should be a detailed accounting of how the money is
being used. There's no reporting by companies as to how they are using
the pots of money."

    Kansas collects about $60 million annually from wireless
providers who are given the option of passing it along to customers,
and many do. Consumer advocates believe the program is necessary, but
they keep a close eye on the money.

   "We certainly don't think the fund should be abolished," said
Steve Rarrick, a lawyer with the Citizens Utility Ratepayer Board in
Kansas whose office reviews subsidy reports annually. "Our overall
concern is the amount of subsidies, whether the amounts are
reasonable."

    Colorado, another state with wide-open spaces, distributed about
$55 million in subsidies last year from a fund currently being
reviewed by regulators.

    "We think the fund is too large. We're not saying it's mismanaged
 -- just too large," said Jim Greenwood, director of the Colorado
Office of Consumer Counsel. "The high-cost support mechanism should be
changed."
    
    Arizona contracts with a private administrator that collects
surcharges from the state's 3.8 million cellular customers and turns
all the money over to Citizens Telephone, the only provider in semi-
remote areas of northwestern Arizona and the only company to qualify
under state law for high-cost reimbursement.

    Cloak of secrecy

    In most of the states, where the money goes and how it's divvied
up among phone companies is often shrouded in secrecy because
government-sanctioned reporting procedures cloak the information from
public view.

    "We're mostly concerned that high-cost universal service funding
has been used predominantly to subsidize inefficient wire-line
carriers," said Miss Kuo of MyWireless.org. "[But] we also have seen
significant waste in how that funding is distributed."

    In California, much of it disappears into corporate treasuries to
be used at the companies' discretion; some sits in the bank, and some
has even vanished into the state's general fund. During the 2002-2003
fiscal year, the legislature "borrowed" more than $278 million from
the state's high-cost surcharge funds to help balance the budget. That
money has never been repaid.

    "It's Verizon's position that special-purpose funds should only be
used for their intended purpose," Verizon spokesman Jon Davies said in
an e-mailed statement. The high-cost subsidy "should never be tapped
to balance the budget."

    Each state calculates the high-cost subsidies differently. In
Texas, telephone companies receive fixed monthly amounts to defray the
cost of installing and maintaining the equipment. In other states,
subsidies take the form of payments between carriers to offset their
additional costs of providing basic service to high-cost residential
areas.

    What is clear is that the subsidies aren't always used to install
phone lines in high-cost areas.

    California designated its high-cost areas in 1996 using 1990
census tract data and hasn't addressed those areas since. State
regulators established an installation and maintenance cost for each
tract based on information from carriers and used a complex financial
model that considered the costs of installation, maintenance,
directory assistance, advertising, marketing and profit margins. Any
area that exceeds the average statewide cost incurs a subsidy that is
passed on to all consumers in the form of a small monthly fee.

    Under this formula, phone companies are collecting subsidies for
residential service in Malibu -- the super-rich enclave north of Los
Angeles -- as well as suburbs of Sacramento and sections of the San
Francisco Bay area that have become dense with condominium and
subdivision development.

    California consumer advocates have become increasingly critical of
the high-cost fees, and the state's telecommunications giants have
gone on the defensive, but no concrete action has been taken to roll
back the subsidy.

    A 2004 report from the California Public Utilities Commission's
own ratepayer advocate found the fund amounted to a questionable
subsidy for which "no cost-benefit analysis has been done to
demonstrate that Californians receive value from this increasingly
costly program."

    Among other issues, the advocate found the program "largely failed
to meet its objectives" and was operating under "ineffective and
flawed program rules." The telephone companies were not required to
spend subsidy money on their California networks and the costs they
claimed to have incurred might not be legitimate, the report said.

    That prompted state lawmakers to order the utilities commission to
review the fund, but the legislature's Jan. 1, 2006, deadline for
completing the study passed with no action.

    Finally, in June, the commission opened its study and began
collecting comment from the industry and consumer advocates. Many of
the phone companies filed their information secretly or submitted
heavily censored public versions. The companies say the information --
such as the number of subscribers, their California revenues and
methods of calculating subsidy requests -- is proprietary and would
put them at a competitive disadvantage if revealed.

    When California deregulated telephone rates in August, the high-
cost surcharge fund was left intact, ensuring the subsidies will flow
at least through 2009.

    "We think [the subsidy] should be totally eliminated," said
Cynthia Walker, deputy director of the commission's Division of
Ratepayer Advocates. "It doesn't make any sense for some companies to
get millions in subsidies if you're going to have a level playing
field."

    Christine Mailloux, a telecommunications lawyer with the Utility
Reform Network, a San Francisco consumer advocacy group, says the
subsidy fund is "clearly bloated and mismanaged."

    "Costs are horribly out of character and that gives AT&T a
windfall," she said.

    But her group is in favor of retaining some smaller form of rural
subsidy to ensure those consumers continue to be served. "You can't
just eliminate the fund without first considering rates in rural
areas."

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

Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 12:40:36 CST
From: USTelecom dailyLead <ustelecom@dailylead.com>
Subject: Cisco Posts Profit, Forecasts Better-Than-Expected Sales


USTelecom dailyLead
February 7, 2007
http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/gffYfDtusXlKriCibuddLafu

TODAY'S HEADLINES


NEWS OF THE DAY
* Cisco posts profit, forecasts better-than-expected sales
BUSINESS & INDUSTRY WATCH
* TiVo, Amazon plan video download service
* Podcast: Telecoms face marketing challenges
* MySpace wants to have its eBay and Google deals, too
* Vodafone accesses MySpace
* Ericcson, LG ink licensing deal
* Comcast and Facebook team up on reality series
* Big guns back media-research startup
* T-Mobile unit taps Nokia for managed services
TECHNOLOGY TRENDS
* Europe attracts telecom investors
* Motorola backs wireless-technology provider
* Growth in satellite TV slows
IP DOWNLOAD
* Intel invests in VoIP startup

Follow the link below to read quick summaries of these stories and others.
http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/gffYfDtusXlKriCibuddLafu

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

From: Joe Tibiletti <joetib@cox.net>
Subject: What About Areas Where Alphabet is Not Like Ours?
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 19:12:22 -0600


I raise the question, what does the telephone dial look like in areas
with alphabets different fron our own, such as Cairo, Egypt, or
Beijing, China, or Oslo, Norway?  Before the time of dial phones, how
did operators communicate with multi lengual populations?.
 
I understand that until about 5 years ago there were some crank up
telephones in use -- in West Virginia -- with telephone numbers that
had 4N-1L-2N.  Anyone got sharing on this one?
 
There appears to be a return to two party lines in some areas because
of shortage of lines.  e.g . Round Rock, Texas, north of Austin, TX.
 
Joe Tibiletti
jopetib@suddenlink.net
 

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the era 'before the time of dial
phones', most international calls were routed manually through either
White Plains, NY (to Europe) or Oakland, CA (far east and Pacific
Islands) or Miami, FL (South American points) and Montreal, Quebec for
Iceland, Greenland, northern polar points, etc. Your local operator
was _not_ expected to know other languages, but the operators in those
other cities were expected to have at least a smattering of knowledge
about the languages they were dealing with. And when the AT&T operator
said to the European operator (who had probably originally responded
in her own native language) "this is White Plains (or Oakland)
calling", typically the overseas operator would switch (sometimes in
mid-stream) to English instead of whatever she _had_ been
speaking. They would communicate in English with Oakland or White
Plains, then 'toggle back and forth' between languages as they dealt
with other operators in their country. Other country operators did not
expect very much of AT&T in that respect. You notice I did not include
the dozens of dialects of mostly French spoken in Africa. AT&T did not
commect direct with Africa. Those cables were all the property of
France Telecom, which guarded the cables and they only allowed calls
 from USA or Canada at certain specified times of day (usually during
the night) and those calls were 'booked' by operators in Paris,
France. AT&T had to hand off the call to the Paris operators. 

Now, most international operator-assisted calls are routed through the
Pittsburgh, PA IOC (International Operations Center of AT&T), and it
is a lot the same way: A few operators can speak the most common other
languages (Spanish, German, French) but most of them cannot, so when
foreign city inward answers and hears, "Pittsburgh calling", they
start speaking English when possible.  

If there were crank telephones in use five years ago, it is news to
me. I thought all of those vanished at least 20-25 years ago. Perhaps
you are thinking of Nevada's toll stations, which were in use in a few
areas of that state (and some remote areas in Idaho and California
until sometime in the 1990's.  PAT]
 
------------------------------

From: Joe Tibiletti <joetib@cox.net>
Subject: Telephone Area Codes and Prefixes
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 19:12:22 -0600


I am a 1960'- 70's firstclass radiotelephone licensee and sole
stockholder of radio station KTXN-FM, 98.7 megahertz and 100 kilowatts
in Victoria, Texas, --on the web as http://www.texasmix.com --, which I
started in 1964 while a student -- 21 years old -- in Radio/TV/Film at
the University of Houston, Texas.
 
I have been fascinated with the field of numbers and mathematics in
combinations and permutations for many years.  Thus the use of numbers
in telephone numbers, license plates, etc. has held a particular
fascination for me.  If a teacher wants to give extra credit for
elementary computer programmers, they should ask students to go
through the logic of yes and no alternatives in dialing a local call
with seven digits.  There are a lot of very interesting stops --
disconnects, non local NXX, etc. -- along the way.  I would be happy
to go through it.
 
I have testified before the Public Utility Commission of Texas -- one of the
last states to have this jurisdiction placed in one organization under state
control.   The matter was the breakup of the then 512 area code with
outlying areas to the state capital going to a new code of the N, (2-9), N
 -- EVENTUALLY THE SECRET WAS OUT AS 361.  They had their minds made up as to
the outcome, but I put in my two cents worth.

Here are my suggestions which are still today applicable.

1. Place all government telephones on their own area code    I heard a stuck
pig squeal  as they claimed this would be discrimination. In another
comment cell phones are placed upon special area codes in Chicago and NYC.
2.  Give a fourth number (digit) behind the present area code three digits
based upon the clock: with 0 being north of center of code area or city
center, 3 to the east, 6 to the south, and 9 to the west.
3. Give an additional digit to all numbers based upon use, e.g. 1 for cell,
2 for fax 3 for internet access, etc.l
4.  Add aditional digit behind the present three for uses as listed in
alternative 3. 
 
As to archives and comments of telephone number configurations, the prefix
Zenith was used in the 1950's for non dial telephones in Pacific Palisades
area of LA.  Chicago had in the same period a 2L and 6N in some sub-urban
area numbers in the same period.  Not all possible combinations were used in
all area codes, while several private NXX -- such as KRypton was used in
Houston, Texas, for the Humble Building, and LT (WITH NO MEANING WAS USED
UNTIL MODERN TIMES IN NYC.) 
 
Use of NXX which are identical to area codes.. this really confused
subscribers, for example 512 the former area code of my home city of
Victoria, Texas, prior to 361, was used as an exchange in the LA area in
Gardena, another use of this knid was 708 (Rochester MN).  In Austin, Texas,
my NXX  was 310 -- the area code for Beverly Hills.   Some side lines to
area codes and radio stations would be We Shield Millions at  650 on the
standard broadcast radio dial in Nashville,TN and the area code for
Nashville 615.
 
If one is familiar with telephone numbering issuance one can tell when a
telephone number was issued in many cases.

Issuance of numbers woulds be as follows: at time of dial switchover
5N (N-NNNN) then 1L - 4N -- uncertain whether all letters were used or
not the exchanges 2L-4N followed by 2L-5N, or in Chicago 2L-6N.  Note
the initial digit in 2L-5N was not a 1 or a 0.  then 2L-4N disappeared
and 2L-5N took on 0 or 1 with 4 N, then 7N (except for NXX that were
N(1 or 0) in second position or third position) 624, but not 604 7N
with second digit 1 or 0 being issued with other numbers e.g 510 7N
with NXX including 00 in second and third position. ef.g. 200 break up
of area code.
 
Some challenges exist where a state line crosses through a town and two
area codes are present and there is a need to dial across the state line
without area code being used as is the case in Texarkana AR and TX.

 
Submitted,

Joe Tibiletti
President KTXN-FM
2618 FM 1685
Victoria, TX, 77905
joetib@suddenlink.net


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, the _original_ layout of
area codes was not quite like what you say.  Phones originally had
rotary dials (especially in the 1950-60's era). Area codes were
assigned so that the larger, metropolitan areas had 'quicker' and
'shorter to dial' area codes, i.e. New York had 212 (=5 pulses to 
dial), Chicago had 312 (=6 pulses to dial), Los Angeles had 213 (=6
pulses to dial), Detroit had 313 (=7 pulses to dial) and very few
9xx (= at least a dozen or two dozen pulses to dial) were generally
not assigned. Not in the early days. 

When telephone exchanges were name/words, they were often times
assigned based on geographic considerations. For example, Chicago
used to have FRAnklin (372), DEArborn (332), STAte (782), WABash (922), 
and others downtown; all names familiar to Chicagoans, as well as
GRAceland (472) and MIChigan (642) on the north side. Now, they still
have those prefixes exactly where they always were, along with dozens
of 'newcomers'; all-number prefixes with no name attached or
associated. They are referred to as ANCs or All Number Calling
prefixes. I cannot imagine telco at this late date setting up what
may seem to be a more logical arrangement of numbers; its much too
late in the game to change the rules that much.  PAT]

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

Subject: Re: Private Line History
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 12:45:51 -0600
From: Charles Gray <charles.gray@okstate.edu>


Private Line Services:

I know that this will represent "ancient history" to some
readers, but here goes.

Beginning probably in the 1960s (before my time there) American
Airlines (AA) had what was called a "customer controlled switching
arrangement", or CCSA with AT&T.  Of course, they were the only game
in town in those days.  AA eventually had almost 150 locations "on
net".

In retrospect, the CCSA was a predecessor to the "software defined
network" that was introduced by AT&T, Sprint and MCI in the late
1980s.

At any rate, the CCSA allowed a company to lease private lines (full
period, no per-minute charge) between the AT&T switching centers, with
Centrex-like phone lines to the various AA offices.  I don't know for
sure, but I expect the switches were the Western Electric 4E
tandems. Since calls were not charged per-minute rates the network was
cheaper to operate than just using direct dial.  AA was also one of
the first companies to take advantage of WATS (wide area telephone
service) for calls to about 14 or 15 reservations centers.  Foreign
exchange (FX - a type of private line) service was used to serve
cities where AA flew.

In the early 1970s Collins Radio developed the first automatic call
distributors (ACD) for use outside the phone company.  Unknown to most
people, AT&T had developed their own ACD for internal use, and
possibly for customer use as well, some time before that.  I have a
Bell System "Traffic Facilities Practice" dated May 1965 in my files.
Their "service level" objective was 93% in 20 seconds, or an average
speed of answer in 4-6 seconds.

The Collins (later Rockwell) GVS-750 ACD was equipped for 1,024 ports
and was originally designed for the hospitality industry - airlines,
rental cars, and hotels.  AA installed five ACDs in four locations
(Hartford, CT, Cincinnati, OH, Dallas, TX, and Los Angeles, CA.  The
previous 14-15 reservations centers were consolidated into these four
locations.  A combination of foreign exchange (FX) and WATS lines was
used to route customer calls.  FX was used for cities where AA flew,
and banded WATS was provided for other locations.  There were numerous
WATS numbers in order to keep them in band 3 or less, due to the
relatively high costs at the time.  A full-period (240 hours per
month) band 5 WATS was about $3,500 per month, if my hazy memory is
anyway near correct.  In today's environment $0.25 per minute may seem
astronomical, but we are talking 1970s here.

The original design thinking at Collins was that there would be about
a 2:1 ratio between incoming lines and agent positions.  From a
traffic engineering standpoint that would be true if there were lots
and lots of small trunk (FX) groups.  In actual practice, we used much
larger groups (some up to 100 circuits) so our ratio was more like 1.2
or 1.3 lines (FX plus WATS) to one agent.  This left a lot of unused
ports on the ACD.

In about 1976 AA hired some people who came out of the military and
had been trained by AT&T/Bell as part of a "training with industry"
program.  They saw the possibility of building a private network of
private lines using the "spare" port capacity in the ACDs for tandem
switching.  I came out of the Army, having had the same AT&T/Bell
training a couple of years later than the original guys.  When I came
on board in 1978 we were well along with the transition.  Of course,
by that time MCI and Sprint (OCCs, or other common carriers) were
offering private line service a lot cheaper than AT&T, so we spread
out our service based on cost.  There were other issues, such as
circuit order delays with the OCCs (AT&T did everything they "legally"
could to delay interconnection at the operating company) and some of
the OCC circuit quality was not as good.  We had a lot of trouble
early on with rain/fog fade on MCI microwave circuits until we
convinced them to install quad diversity.

At any rate, we got our private network installed, and one of my jobs
was to analyze the traffic each month and make adjustments to circuit
counts.  We developed an internal analysis system to base provisioning
on cost/benefit, rather than on the traditional mathematical Poisson
or Erlang B traffic formulae.  All of the inter-switch trunks were
four-wire, and we used overflow and diversion techniques to balance
incoming customer calls among the call centers.

We used the FX circuits into the busier cities for "tail end hop off"
for corporate long distance calls.  If a call was going to an off-net
location we routed it to the nearest tandem switch and hopped it off
to the PSTN at that point.  By about the mid-1980s our network average
cost was running about $0.13 per minute.  This was when a direct-dialed
PSTN call averaged about $0.25 per minute.  We were also using "time
assignment speech interpolation" (TASI) equipment that would carry 31
voice paths on 16 private lines.  (FYI, TASI was invented in the late
1950s to increase the capacity of TAT-1, the first trans Atlantic
telephone cable).

In the late 1980s AT&T introduced the Software Defined Network (SDN)
and AA took advantage of the newest offering from AT&T (Tariff 12, it
was called) and we migrated the entire corporate network to AT&T.  The
marketing department was quick to soak up the capacity on the ACDs
that we had been using for tandem switching, so we were still making
maximum use of the ACD capacity.

By the early 1990s I was managing the network and AT&T would
not respond to my requests for certain services -- but they thought they
had a "lock" on our business due to the commitments we had made under
the Tariff 12 agreement.  We had enough "slack" in the economics so that
I could move the corporate network -- which I did.  We kept the
reservations service with AT&T, which by that time was all based on
nationwide 800 service (the new name for WATS), but I took the corporate
network to MCI's Virtual Private Network.  AT&T never invited me to any
"outings" after that, but we saved a pocket full of money by doing it my
way.  The network average cost was down to about $0.08 per minute.

I moved on to other work in 1998, but when I was "invited" to leaveAA/
Sabre in 1999 the VPN was still working.  I do not know what happened
after Sabre was sold to EDS and the world revolved again.

Private lines may still have a place -- it just depends on your
business.  For instance, some alarm companies lease "dry pairs" from
the alarm premises to the monitoring station.  They are still useful
where you want to load-balance between call centers, or have to do
call transfers to another location.  They are still leased (I think)
by the quarter-mile, based on the airline mileage computed using the
V&H coordinate system.

Regards,

Charles G. Gray
Senior Lecturer, Telecommunications
Oklahoma State University - Tulsa
(918) 594-8433


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Since commercial long distance has
gotten _so_ inexpensive in recent years, I cannot think of a single
instance in which a 'private' network would be more economically
viable these days as an alternative. However, many companies and
other institutions continue with private networks out of, IMO, a 
misplaced sense of security, i.e. if the local central office burned
down (its been known to happen) or there were other commotions (again,
also known to happen) "then we would have our private network to fall
back on". But would they really?  Time and again, those 'private
networks of any size and/or consequence are routed over the very same
wire pairs and through the same central office equipment as the 
'exposed and open to danger' lines of the company's "regular" phone
service. After the May, 1988 fiasco in northern Illinois with the
central office fire in Hinsdale, Illinois, people at first were saying
"Well, thank God I have my cellular phone"; or "We can always use our
private system in the office to reach other cities, etc." I am afraid
that was not the case. Those lines were down and out for the duration
also.  

So these days, do private line networks make about as much sense as
'banded WATS lines'?  How many ways can one pinch a penny?   PAT]

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


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