Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa14839; 16 Feb 93 6:24 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA00591 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Tue, 16 Feb 1993 03:55:42 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA19485 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Tue, 16 Feb 1993 03:54:35 -0600 Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 03:54:35 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302160954.AA19485@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #101 TELECOM Digest Tue, 16 Feb 93 03:54:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 101 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Stupid Phone Tricks (Richard Nash) Re: Stupid Phone Tricks (Steve Forrette) Any Experience With Prometheus Home Office Modems? (Chris Norley) Loops and ANI in (206) NPA (Ken Hoffmann) Cellular Phone Questions (Don Wegeng) Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? (Mark Ferris) Tone Decoding (Lance Neustaeter) E1 Lines - What Are They? (Danny Bielik) Third Party Network Connectivity (Ron Beach) Help Needed Finding TDD Relay Service (Richard Osterberg) Using AT&T's Switch on 800/321-0ATT (Paul Robinson) Cellular Switching Question (circuit@convex.csd.uwm.edu) Re: National Data Superhighways - Access? (Richard Nash) Re: Toll-Denial Also Blocks 911 Access; Why? (Richard Nash) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 07:56:37 -0700 From: rickie@trickie.ualberta.ca (Richard Nash) Subject: Re: Stupid Phone Tricks Jim.Rees@umich.edu writes: > Our University has a DMS of some kind. Dialing 91072 gets you an > intercept recording that states, "The number you have reached, > 107-0000, has been changed. The new number is 000-0000." This announcement is most likely not directed from the DMS but rather the Intercept System (AIS) that the intercepted number (107-0000) is going to. In the AIS database, the number is probably referenced to a default status code and new number. When the number was placed on intercept, either one of two things happened. The number was placed on operator intercept route, but the AIS database not updated to reflect correct status, or the number should not have been placed on operator intercept but rather a local mechanical treatment such as "the number you have dialed is not on service". The service order clerk probably just goofed. Richard Nash Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6K 0E8 UUCP: rickie%trickie@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Feb 93 10:58:03 -0800 From: Steve Forrette Subject: Re: Stupid Phone Tricks Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA > [Moderator's Note: Clever response. Since you only make outgoing calls > on those lines occassionally, and never have incoming calls, you > should ask telco to set the lines up as one-way outgoing service only. > Then you'd never see any wrong numbers at all. PAT] Except if you live in the technological backwaters of Pacific Bell, which offers no such service. Nor do they offer other services commonly available elsewhere, such as distinctive ringing. Maybe they will start doing so with their recently-announced modernization commitment. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Feb 93 12:53:18 EST From: E102030@PWAGPDB.pwfl.com Subject: Any Experience With Prometheus Home Office Modems? I am interested in getting a multi-capability modem for my mac at home. The Prometheus Home Office mMdems appear to do everything that I would like/need. does anyone have any experience with these modems or know of a viable alternative? I would like the modem to be able to take voice messages or switch to fax/modem as appropriate. Any information about this would be appreciated! chris norley norleyc@pwfl.com or cnorley@goliath.pbac.edu ------------------------------ From: kenh@pacifier.rain.com (Ken Hoffmann) Subject: Loops and ANI in (206) NPA Organization: Pacifier BBS Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 18:39:49 GMT Hello, all. I am looking for a list of loops and "ANI Numbers", numbers that you call or dial in, and it will return the calling number. Also as for the Digest compiling stuff like this, I agree with PAT. It'd be very difficult to keep current, but it IS possible. Maybe if we had some people from the local BellCo giving us a hand? :) Thanks, Ken [Moderator's Note: Let's everyone try hard to laugh at Ken's little joke about people from telco 'giving us a hand' in compiling 'hear your number' codes. Uh, it was a joke, right Ken? Here is my very own submission for comp.dcom.telecom.humor.funny for today: Maybe the telcos would standardize the number nationally, and ask TELECOM Digest along with {2600} and other fine e-journals for the trade to assist in publicizing it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com (Don Wegeng) Subject: Cellular Phone Questions Reply-To: wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com Organization: Xerox Corp., Henrietta, NY Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 19:24:38 GMT I recently bought a handheld cellular phone for personal use. After some playing and reading, I now have some questions. Background: My contract is with Genesee Telephone, which is the A channel carrier here in the Rochester, NY area. GenTel is affiliated with Cellular One, NACN, and RA (but not FMR). 1. The phone is currently programmed to roam only with A carriers. This probably makes sense for when I'm close to home, but I'm not so sure about whether I should change this when I take the phone out of the area. It probably makes sense to compare roaming rates for the cities where I'll be travelling, and program the phone to use the cheaper one. If I'm travelling in rural areas it may make sense (from a safety perspective) to roam with both the A and B carriers. Is my reasoning correct? 2. The salesperson where I bought the phone suggested that I also purchase a magnetic mount 3dB gain external antenna, for use when I'm outside of the city limits (I have friends who live in the country, but within the GenTel service area). My EE background tells me that an external antenna will probably help, but will the 3dB gain make a significant difference (I realize that 3dB equals 2X). I didn't buy the antenna, since I wanted to see how the phone performed without it first (I haven't had time to try it yet). Any other advice, tips, recommended accessories or recommended reading will be appreciated. Thanks, Don wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com [Moderator's Note: Generally the A and B carriers stick to their own kind when making roaming agreements. You'll usually only see A agree to roaming terms with a B carrier or vice-versa when there is only one (but not both) in a location. This happens now and then, but generally you are wise to stick with the side you are on at home when you roam. You may think their terms are outrageous, but wait until you see what the other side will stick you with if you are not affiliated with one of their sisters. Depending on the metropolitan area, some are so saturated with cell sites (like Chicago) that it hardly matters if you use an antenna on the phone or not. On my CT-301 I use a tiny little dummy load (well almost, it is a thing about the size of my thumb) when I am about town, and my TX/RX is fine. But when you get outside the city, better quality antennas cut to the proper length do make a difference. My dummy load will get me nowhere in Independence, Kansas, but my 'good' antenna lets me TX/RX with ease via the Tulsa, Oklahoma B carrier, with its nearest tower 40 miles away. PAT] ------------------------------ From: markf@atlastele.com (Mark Ferris) Subject: Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? Organization: Atlas Telecom Inc. Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 18:21:39 GMT My mom was asking me about an ad she read recently that was selling a product that allowed a phone jack anywhere an electrical outlet is. It seems to work in a similar fashion to the old BSR (?) home protection boxes that allowed control of lights, etc via the electrical lines. One box was the transmitter, and it would support multiple receivers. The ad mentioned that the phone signal was translated to an FM signal and transmitted via the electrical wiring. Anybody hear about this product? Any comments? Does it actually work? What's the signal/noise ratio via this method? Would this actually be a recommended way to add additional phone lines into a house? Thanks for any info, Mark Ferris EMAIL: markf@atlastele.com Atlas Telecom VOICE: [USA] 1+503.228.1400 x242 4640 SW Macadam Ave. FAX1: [USA] 1+503.228.0368 Portland, OR 97201 FAX2: [USA] 1+503.225.5518 [Moderator's Note: They work okay unless you have flourescent lights or other noise making conditions in the power lines. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Feb 93 08:29:51 PST From: Lance_Neustaeter@tvbbs.wimsey.bc.ca (Lance Neustaeter) Subject: Tone Decoding Has anyone heard of any software which will analyse touch tones (probably sampled from a tape or phone line) and display which numbers are being dialed? I know they have electronic devices which do this, but I was wondering if it could be done with software and if so, how? (If the advice were applicable to an Amiga, that would be even better, but it's not totally necessary -- I'm curious if it's possible in general.) ------------------------------ From: dannyb@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Danny Bielik) Subject: E1 Lines - What Are They? Organization: Sydney University Computing Service, Sydney, NSW, Australia Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 23:40:55 GMT Could somebody please tell me what an E1 line is? Thanks, Danny Bielik ------------------------------ From: BEACHRI@RCWUSR.BP.COM Subject: Third Party Network Connectivity Date: 15 Feb 93 18:46:38 -0600 Organization: BP Research, Cleveland, OH (USA) I'm looking for someone to help me research the issue of one business directly connecting it's internal network to that of another company - a supplier, a business partner, a vendor, etc. We call that 'third party connectivity' within BP (British Petroleum, ne Standard Oil). I need to identify real-world business examples of existing third party connections, identify costs of providing restricted connections, identify what costs would reduce (hopefully) to if the connection was more 'open', and access the cost impact in terms of changes needed to protect 'internal' information or resources or establish 'firewalls' between parts of the 'internal' network-plus any costs for the time of people to make these assements. I know that's a pretty tough order, but if anyone is willing, please send me email at beach@rcwcl1.dnet.bp.com. Please do not answer by replying to this newsgroup. I do not get much opportunity to read the news and likely any reply will be lost!! Thanks, Ron Beach Manager, Telcom and Information Strategy BP Research 4440 Warrensville Ctr. Rd Cleveland, Ohio 44128 beach@rcwcl1.dnet.bp.com [Moderator's Note: Mr. Beach should review Unitel, the internal telecom network for United Airlines. They've got tie-lines off their centrex in Chicago into the centrex of every airport they fly into. At their HQ here, you dial '8', get new dial tone then dial the three digit designator for the city (i.e. 726 = SAN = San Fransisco) then the four digit number on the centrex *out there*. Some of those centrexes then have their own tie-lines going places, such as at Seattle (732 = SEA = I think) where a three digit tie-line code drops you on the centrex at Boeing Aircraft. The oddest example was a three digit code out of Chicago which itself produced new dial tone; dialing zero at that point produced 'operator' who when questioned said she was the switchboard operator for the Las Vegas, NV City Hall. (??). Finally after years and years, Unitel did away with progressive dialing (that is, dial something, get new dial tone, dial something else off that, get new dial tone, dial off that, etc) in lieu of an intelligent switch in their Chicago HQ which simply takes seven digits and makes its own decisions on where to route the call. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Help Needed Finding TDD Relay Service From: osterber@husc8.harvard.edu (Richard Osterberg) Date: 16 Feb 93 02:46:51 GMT A good friend of mine has run into a small problem. She's deaf, so she uses the TDD Relay Service quite frequently. However, her parents are currently in Bulgaria for some time (overseas work), and they can't call into a relay operator from overseas. Each state has its own statewide 800 number to access the relay service, however these can't be accessed when dialing into the US from overseas. Is there some sort of a national/international TDD relay service? It's quite frustrating. Rick ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 23:08:22 -0500 (EST) From: Paul Robinson Subject: Using AT&T's Switch on 800/321-0ATT In Telecom Digest 13-98 Curtis E. Reid wrote: > Can someone give us the procedure for using the AT&T's Switch at > 800/321-0288? TELECOM Moderator noted: > After dialing 800-321-0288, you hear the AT&T tones, and the > robot operator announces, "AT&T ... please enter the number you > are calling, or zero for an operator." After entering the > number you are asked to enter your card number. It is basically the > same as any other credit card call. Persons who have experiences with > this are requested to write. PAT] You punch the number as ten digits WITHOUT DIALING 0 OR 1 FIRST. If the call is international, you punch 01 and the country, city, and local numbers. If you dial it correctly, you get a "bong" and it allows you to punch in your calling card number. Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM ------------------------------ From: circuit@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (The Circuit) Subject: Cellular Switching Question Date: 16 Feb 1993 07:06:35 GMT Organization: University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee I have a question concerning switching tones: I've seen two references to tones that keep other mobile units off a channel. They are the Sieze Tone (1800Hz) and the Gaurd Tone (2150Hz). Now which of the two is actually used? And if both, what is the difference? Also, could someone tell me If I have these other tones correct? Idle: 2000hz Connect: 1633hz Dissconect: 1336hz And last, could someone describe the difference between SAT's 00, 01, and 10? I realize this is alot, but any info would be greatly appreciated. If possible, reply in email too so as not to waste space on here. Thanks much! circuit@csd4.csd.uwm.edu circuit@convex.csd.uwm.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 08:21:17 -0700 From: rickie@trickie.ualberta.ca (Richard Nash) Subject: Re: National Data Superhighways - Access? rlm@indigo2.hac.com (Robert L. McMillin) writes: > Will Martin writes: >> There's been recent news coverage of the new administration's plan to >> set up a data network for general public access that has been referred >> to as "National Data Superhighways". Publicized examples of the way >> such a network would be used include such things as letting school >> students run programs on NASA supercomputers that model weather and >> other such computing-intensive tasks. What nobody ever mentions in >> these news items is just what sort of access control and/or security >> is planned for this environment. > What I want to know is, why aren't the telcos pushing for this? The telcos view such a highway as a monopoly arrangement, something the public has stated they don't want anymore. > But what bothers me even more than the telcos lack of initiative in > this matter are the implications of the Feds running such a network. > Based on the way the FCC has behaved itself in matters of free speech > on the broadcast airwaves, it seems an easy step for the datacops to > come along and shut you off the net if you don't profess politically > correct ideology under the "limited resource" doctrine. In speech- > restricted California, we now have a law that will enable the > PC-minded to arrest fourth graders for calling other kids ugly names. > What's to prevent a similar law against puerile morons doing so on the > digital highway? Sooner or later someone will have to put their foot down on all the stupidity making its way into law. Eventually the laws all start to contradict each other. > A state-controlled "data superhighway" smells like an ingenious way > for the U.S. government to do to two-way digital communications what > the U.K. did to one-way radio broadcasting with the BBC: maintain > control over access, and thus, content. It would be an excellent tool > for snooping on individuals. As with driving privileges, no one is > guaranteed access to the net, but if you sign this form handing over > certain rights to the state, we'll let you on. Networking has so far > been a tool for decentralization and democratization, but it could > just as easily become a device allowing the state even further > encroachments into our lives. > GTE may offer terrible service, but at least they don't come into the > houses of teenage hacking suspects, guns cocked. Aside from the subversive possibilities that allowing the government to set up and run such a data highway would cause, with such a metaphor of the highway, think of the other entities that exist on our roadways. Traffic violators! To address them, a special enforcement agency will have to be established, a couple dozen or so layers of beauracracy, and the makings of a DMV and Data Highway Patrol.:) Maybe some faster cleaner routes could be set up with special *toll* surcharges for those data users who demand uncongested data movements.:) Perhaps someone could add to this metaphor? Richard Nash Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6K 0E8 UUCP: rickie%trickie@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 07:38:35 -0700 From: rickie@trickie.ualberta.ca (Richard Nash) Subject: Re: Toll-Denial Also Blocks 911 Access; Why? Marcus Leech writes: > My sister volunteers for a women's shelter in Squamish, B.C. They've > been having problems with unauthorized long-distance calling, so they > had B.C. Tel put toll-denial on the line. The problem is that B.C. > Tel says this also blocks 911 access. I can't think of any technical > reason for this, and it seems unreasonable. > Is anyone familiar with the CO equipment they use in B.C., and why > there would be this restriction? B.C. Tel has a heavy investment in GTE (Microtel) equipment. GTD #5. Perhaps toll restriction in a GTD is based upon toll-route selection and quite possibly the 911 translation utilizes a toll route? Richard Nash Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6K 0E8 UUCP: rickie%trickie@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #101 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa01460; 16 Feb 93 14:43 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA23570 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Tue, 16 Feb 1993 12:10:30 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA14888 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Tue, 16 Feb 1993 12:10:03 -0600 Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 12:10:03 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302161810.AA14888@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #102 TELECOM Digest Tue, 16 Feb 93 12:10:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 102 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Intel, BellSouth, RAM and Ericsson Sign Agreement (Ericsson Press Release) Re: National Data Superhighways - Access? (Andrew Blau) North Korea Appears To Have Changed Most Telephone Numbers (Jaap Akkerhuis) Re: DS0 Portion of a T1 (Fred R Stearns) Outrageous Hotel Phone Charges (Ed Greenberg) Re: Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? (Scott Dorsey) EasyReach 700 Changes (John J. Butz) Re: E1 Lines - What Are They? (Ken Becker) High-Speed Dial-Ups (John Biederstedt) Re: Cellular Phones Power Control (John Nagle) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Feb 1993 18:38:11 +0100 From: ERICSSON CORPORATE RELATIONS Subject: Intel, BellSouth, RAM and Ericsson Sign Agreement Intel Corporation, BellSouth Corporation, RAM Mobile Data and Ericsson today announced that they have signed preliminary agreements relating to the development of new products and new services for the rapidly emerging mobile computing market. The agreements will expand the market availability and increase the uses of standard Intel processor-based mobile computers performing two-way wireless communications via the nationwide, dedicated public mobile data networks operated by RAM Mobile Data. Later this year, Intel-branded PC enhancement wireless products, coupled with mobile communications services from RAM and BellSouth subsidiaries, will be offered through the more than 6,200 retail outlets that serve Intel. Intel and Ericsson have agreed to work on the joint development of PC enhancement products, utilizing Ericsson's innovative radio technologies. "As the worldwide leader in the computer business, Intel's entry into wireless computing is shifting the growth of this industry into high gear," said Michael K. Harrell, president of BellSouth Mobile Data. "With the convergence of computing and communications, these cross-industry relationships are the crucial ingredients in accelerating the growth of worldwide, wireless mobile computing." "The integration of PC's and wireless communications is an enormous opportunity. With these agreements we don't have to start from scratch," said Intel senior vice president Frank Gill. "The infrastructure already exists in the form of the huge installed base of Intel-processor based mobile computers, the nationwide network from RAM Mobile Data, BellSouth's worldwide mobile communications business and Ericsson's wireless modem technology. This momentum will be a big help as we move forward to integrate Intel processor-based PC's with wireless communications." Intel's wireless products will enable computer users to communicate nationwide on the Mobitex wireless data networks operated by RAM Mobile Data, a partnership between BellSouth and RAM Broadcasting Corporation. RAM Mobile Data operates wireless data networks that cover more than 6,000 cities in the top metropolitan areas of the U.S. "Our networks will provide service to approximately 90% of the urban population by the end of June. They are already being used by mobile professionals to send and receive wireless electronic mail and by corporations to communicate time-critical information," said Carl Aron, chairman and chief executive officer of RAM Mobile Data. Networks incorporating the Mobitex technology are installed in Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland and Norway, and plans are underway to build such systems in France, the Netherlands, Australia, Latin America and Asia Pacific. "The days of one-stop shopping for mobile computing solutions are here," said Ake Persson, vice president of business development for Ericsson GE Mobile Communications Incorporated. "This will ensure that mobile computing customers can purchase at retail a variety of Intel-based computers and enhancements, an array of software applications and RAM Mobile Data's wireless service." Intel and BellSouth will also explore new mobile computing products and services that can be used by professionals worldwide on a variety of communications networks. BellSouth is an Atlanta-based international communications holding company. BellSouth provides local telecommunications services in nine southeastern states, and offers a wide variety of innovative mobile communications services worldwide, including cellular, paging and dedicated wireless data networks. RAM Mobile Data USA Limited partnership is a leader in providing wireless data communications services based on the Mobitex architecture, an open, international standard. Ericsson is an international leader in telecommunications, recognized for its advanced systems and products for wired and mobile communications in public and private networks. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Kathy Egan, Director of Press Relations, The Ericsson Corporation Tel +1 212 685 4030 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 11:06:20 -0500 From: Andrew Blau Subject: Re: National Data Superhighways - Access? In TELECOM Digest, V13, #101, rickie@trickie.ualberta.ca (Richard Nash) writes: > rlm@indigo2.hac.com (Robert L. McMillin) writes:> >> Will Martin writes: >>> There's been recent news coverage of the new administration's plan to >>> set up a data network for general public access that has been referred >>> to as "National Data Superhighways". Publicized examples of the way >>> such a network would be used include such things as letting school >>> students run programs on NASA supercomputers that model weather and >>> other such computing-intensive tasks. What nobody ever mentions in >>> these news items is just what sort of access control and/or security >>> is planned for this environment. >> What I want to know is, why aren't the telcos pushing for this? > The telcos view such a highway as a monopoly arrangement, something > the public has stated they don't want anymore. In fact, the telcos have become *very* involved in this. During President Clinton's Economic Summit after the election, the one moment of reported conflict was when Robert Allen of AT&T challenged Mr. Gore's contention that the superhighway should be a public works project. Allen said, "I believe I have some points to make about who should do what in that respect. I think the government should not build and/or operate such networks. I believe that the private sector can be and will be incented to build these networks...." He held to this even after being challenged by Gore, who seemed to suggest that Allen couldn't have meant what he seemed to be saying. LECs, too, are getting into this quickly. They see data transport as a big part of their future, and notion that the government might come in and build a national infrastructure that isn't the telco infrastructure raises lots of red flags (such as bypass on a massive scale, for one). LECs and Bellcore submitted comments to the NSF on last year's draft solicitation for the next generation of the NSFNet (a/k/a the Interim Interagency NREN). In those comments and through other actions they made it clear that they believe telcos have a _very_ important role to play in the construction and operation of tomorrow's 'data superhighways.' Thus, both LECs and IXCs are in fact pushing here -- pushing to make sure they are included. > Aside from the subversive possibilities that allowing the government > to set up and run such a data highway would cause, with such a > metaphor of the highway, think of the other entities that exist on our > roadways. Traffic violators! To address them, a special enforcement > agency will have to be established, a couple dozen or so layers of > beauracracy, and the makings of a DMV and Data Highway Patrol.:) Maybe > some faster cleaner routes could be set up with special *toll* > surcharges for those data users who demand uncongested data > movements.:) Some of these issues are already before policy makers, and you can bet that more are on the way. Last year, the Congress passed legislation that included provisions to remove the NSF's "Acceptable Use Policy," which restricts traffic on teh government funded backbone. At a hearing two weeks ago, EFF asked the House Science Subcommittee, which oversees the NSF, to ask why that had not happened yet. The problem isn't only one for the government-sponsored networks, though. Private carriers, including LECs as they offer newer services, also impose "acceptable use policies" -- consider examples often discussed in this newsgroup -- and there is no recourse except to go to another network. Finally, I understand that groups such as "Morality in Media" have asked Congressional leaders known to favor restrictions on certain types of controversial speech (e.g., Jesse Helms), to look into some of the information found in some newsgroups. To protect free expression on these info highways, we need to push for common carriage principles (e.g., non-discrimination on content) in the Data Superhighways/Infrastructure debate. As a separate matter, we already have "faster cleaner routes ... with special *toll* surcharges": private networks. The issue is not whether these might get set up; the issue is will the "National Information Infrastructure" be affordable and accessible to all users, will it promote free speech and exchange, and will it have options for interconnection. If somebody then wants to set up special routes, they should be allowed to do that, too. Andrew Blau Electronic Frontier Foundation 202-544-9237(v) Associate for 666 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E. 202-547-5481(f) Telecommunications Policy Washington, DC 20003 blau@eff.org ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 11:56:17 EST From: Jaap Akkerhuis Subject: North Korea Appears To Have Changed Most Telephone Numbers TOKYO (AP) _ North Korea, a bastion of totalitarian rule, has changed many of its phone numbers, a Japanese phone company official said today. A South Korean news report said the move might be aimed at stopping sensitive information from leaking. Takeo Tanaka of Kokusai Denshin Denwa Co., Japan's leading international telecommunications carrier, said North Korea notified the company of the changes by telex in mid-October. The North's message said the reason was a reorganization of the nation's telecommunications system. Tanaka said North Korea has two area codes _ 2 and 81 _ and that numbers beginning with 2 have become unreachable. Five-digit numbers have been replaced with six-digit ones, he said. On Monday, South Korea's national Yonhap News Agency said in a dispatch from Beijing that the hard-line Communist state has changed every single telephone number in the country to block all contact with overseas. Yonhap quoted unnamed observers in China as speculating that the move is to prevent information on "communal turmoil" and the health of North Korean President Kim Il Sung, 80, from reaching the outside world. Several KDD operators today had to spend more than an hour when requested by The Associated Press to get the new number of the North Korean Foreign Ministry from North Korean operators. A ministry official who answered the phone at the new number refused to respond to questions and hung up. Tanaka said North Korea does not publish a telephone directory, apparently because it considers the information secret. Only a handful of people in North Korea have telephones. Newspapers, radio and television are strictly government-controlled. ------------------------------ From: fred@dickens.com (Fred R Stearns) Subject: Re: DS0 Portion of a T1 Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 12:19:40 GMT Organization: Dickens Data Systems, Inc. In article goldstein@carafe.dnet. dec.com (Fred Goldstein writes: > The standard method is Pulse Code Modulation (PCM), with 8000 samples > per second and 8 bits transmitted per sample. > In North America, the low order bit is sometimes "robbed" for > signaling, (1/6 of the time) which limits data to 56 kbps. In North > America, a 12-bit linear sample is compressed to 8 bits via a formula > called mu-255 (note News won't pass Greek letters), while Europe > compresses it using a formula called "A law". Europe also inverts > alternate bits. So the two flavors of PCM are incompatible. Please excuse my math, but if one bit of every 6th byte is stolen, doesn't that make 62.667 kbps? Fred R. Stearns -- fred@dickens.com ------------------------------ From: edg@netcom.com (Ed Greenberg) Subject: Outrageous Hotel Phone Charges Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 13:04:21 GMT Of course, hotel charges of all kinds are outrageous. $18.75 for an average steak dinner? Seven-fifty for a plate of eggs and bacon? When you want it in the room, the dining room prices are inflated by 20-30 percent, and then a service charge is added on top of that. Telephone charges for calls that cost the hotel nothing. .75 or 1.00 for an 800 number. $3.00 to launder a shirt. How about a mandatory $2.00 surcharge for a safe installed in the room, whether you use it or not. I remember one hotel with a charge such as this, where the safe was locked and therefore unusable, but they were charging for it anyway. I don't really place the blame for this at the hotel door though. I place it squarely on american business, especially at the CEO and Vice President level. American executives consume most of the business travel dollars in this country, and they sign the expense reports of the salespeople and other travelling employees. If those holding the purse strings on travel dollars would stop sitting still for such charges, I believe that the market would drive hotel costs back to reality. Edward W. Greenberg | Home: +1 408 283 0511 | edg@netcom.com 1600 Stokes St. #24 | Work: +1 408 764 5305 | DoD#: 0357 San Jose, CA 95126 | Fax: +1 408 764 5003 | KM6CG (ex WB2GOH) ------------------------------ From: kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? Date: 16 Feb 1993 13:49:44 GMT Organization: NASA Langley Research Center and Reptile Farm In article markf@atlastele.com (Mark Ferris) writes: > My mom was asking me about an ad she read recently that was selling a > product that allowed a phone jack anywhere an electrical outlet is. > Anybody hear about this product? Any comments? Does it actually > work? What's the signal/noise ratio via this method? Would this > actually be a recommended way to add additional phone lines into a > house? Yes, these are great. One of the folks in our neighborhood has them, and we can all use their phone line together. scott [Moderator's Note: What a convenient arrangement! I had heard these devices get back as far as the transformer serving the neighborhood, and I guess your experience shows this is true. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 09:55:50 EST From: qchange@hogpa.ho.att.com (John J Butz +1 908 949 5302) Subject: EasyReach 700 Changes Has anyone noticed any changes to the EasyReach 700 service? jZb ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 10:27:07 EST From: kab@hotstone.att.com Subject: Re: E1 Lines - What Are They? Organization: AT&T In article , dannyb@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Danny Bielik) writes: > Could somebody please tell me what an E1 line is? Simple question, simple answer. E1 is the non-US/Japan equivalent of a T1 line. In the US, a DS1 (or T1) signal runs at 1.544 Mb/s, has 24 64 kb/s channels associated with it, and so on as readers of this group know. In Europe (and I'm sure other places) the standard for DS1 is known as "E1" which runs 2.048 Mb/s with 32 64 kb/s DS0 channels. There are other interesting differences: the line code is B3ZS; when not running clear DS1 one time slot holds framing and some maintenance information; there is (optionally) a second time slot that holds signaling information. So, a fully loaded T1 (USA domestic) has 24 time slots (DS0) channels; a fully loaded E1 (Practically everywhere else) has 30 time slots (DS0) channels. There is one interesting difference between T1 and E1: Channelized E1's don't have robbed bit signaling or an equivalent. Therefore, all data (as compared to signaling) DS0's in a channelized E1 are 64 kb/s clear. Ken Becker kab@hotstone.att.com DACS II hardware development ------------------------------ Subject: High-Speed Dial-Ups From: John@msus1.msus.edu (John Biederstedt) Date: 16 Feb 93 11:35:15 -0600 Organization: Mankato State University We have some T1 circuits and would like to provide high-speed dial backup capability. It would be nice to get 56 kb dial-ups. Codex makes such a modem, but it is compressed. Dissapointingly, they are moving to higher-speed asyncronous modems rather than syncronous modems. :-( Does the Internet have any suggestions? Thanks! John@msus1.msus.edu ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: Cellular Phones Power Control Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 18:00:46 GMT tcscs!zeta@src.honeywell.com (Gregory Youngblood) writes: > This is only one reason. I worked in several systems and frequently > had to disable cell sites power control features. Why? Because of > terrain and foilage conditions which changed during the year resulting > in a large number of dropped calls. By disabling this we were able to > get rid of that problem. We had to disable the power stepping in both > directions. And your handheld customers wonder why they get lousy battery life? John Nagle ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #102 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa25369; 17 Feb 93 2:50 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA21154 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Wed, 17 Feb 1993 00:17:44 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA21796 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Wed, 17 Feb 1993 00:17:01 -0600 Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 00:17:01 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302170617.AA21796@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #103 TELECOM Digest Wed, 17 Feb 93 00:17:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 103 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Cellular Phone Questions (Phillip Dampier) Re: Cellular Phone Questions (Rich Greenberg) Re: Cellular Phone Questions (Steve Forrette) Re: DS0 Portion of a T1 (Steve Forrette) Re: DS0 Portion of a T1 (Al Varney) Re: DS0 Portion of a T1 (rfranken@cs.umr.edu) Re: Pacific Bell, Caller ID, and PRIVATE (Dave Niebuhr) Re: Pacific Bell, Caller ID, and PRIVATE (John R. Levine) Re: 'Secure' Motorola CT2 Silverlink (Andrew C. Green) Re: Help Needed Finding TDD Relay Service (Curtis E. Reid) Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State (Bob Longo) Re: BBS Tax Passes Florida Senate (Jeffrey Jonas) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: phil@rochgte.fidonet.org (Phillip Dampier) Reply-To: phil@rochgte.fidonet.org Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 12:41:14 -0500 Subject: Cellular Phone Questions In a message from: wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com (Don Wegeng): > 2. The salesperson where I bought the phone suggested that I also > purchase a magnetic mount 3dB gain external antenna, for use when I'm > outside of the city limits (I have friends who live in the country, > but within the GenTel service area). Having an account with GenTel here in Rochester and one of their basic Motorola handheld units, I have found an external antenna is completely unnecessary. Genesee is in a constant battle with Rochester Tel to build cell cites all over the Rochester LATA. Rochester Tel really gives them a good run for their money. We have competitive cell phone prices here in Greater Rochester (I have their Occasional Call Plan - $16.95 a month plus 15c a minute off-peak (6p-8a), 50c a minute peak. They have other plans that will give you flat rate calling during off peak hours for just a few dollars more.) Because of the competition, I can take my handheld east to almost the outer suburbs of Syracuse with a clear signal, because they have loaded the area will cell sites along the NYS Thruway. I can get past Batavia to the west with no problems either. Western NY cell sites tend to be located close to the NY State Thruway, since much of the east-and-west traffic follows that route, and also north-south along interstates. In Rochester, that means Route 390 south. ------------------------------ From: richg@hatch.socal.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Questions Organization: Hatch Usenet and E-mail. Playa del Rey, CA Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 23:26:29 GMT The outside antenna will make considerable difference in the fringe areas. It may be only 3 db gain, but consider that the built-in whip inside the metal car is at least a 20db loss by comparison. Its a good idea to use it whenever you are in the car. This keeps RF energy away from your body. (RF is said by some to be hazardous to your health.) Rich Greenberg Work: rmg50@juts.ccc.amdahl.com 310-417-8999 N6LRT Play: richg@hatch.socal.com 310-649-0238 What? Me speak for Amdahl? Surely you jest.... ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Questions Date: 17 Feb 1993 00:01:16 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com writes: > Background: My contract is with Genesee Telephone, which is the A > channel carrier here in the Rochester, NY area. > If I'm travelling in rural areas it may make sense (from > a safety perspective) to roam with both the A and B carriers. Is my > reasoning correct? > [Moderator's Note: Generally the A and B carriers stick to their own > kind when making roaming agreements. You'll usually only see A agree > to roaming terms with a B carrier or vice-versa when there is only one > (but not both) in a location. Generally speaking, if an A customer roams onto a B carrier, the B carrier will not be able to bill the A customer's bill directly, and will want to set up a temporary account billed to a major credit card. Most every B carrier I've dealt with has been set up to handle credit card accounts, but this is not very widespread on the A side as far as I can tell. My experience with the credit card temporary accounts is that they are a big hassle. First, there may be limited customer service hours in the city you roam in, so if you arrive in the evening or on a weekend, you may have to wait until the next business day to get set up. The last time I had to do this, it took over 20 minutes on the phone with customer service to give the required information. They want to know your phone's number, ESN, home carrier, home address, social security number, home phone number, credit card, etc, etc. They are really paranoid about fraud, so your regular cell phone's account has to have the same name and address as the credit card and so on. Then, it takes them about an hour to get the account set up in the switch. Also, since it's not a good idea to give out all of that confidential information over the air, you have to be calling from a landline to get set up which defeats a big advantage of having the cellular phone in the first place, especially if you are driving. The last time I did this, the charge was $15 to set up the temporary account, which was valid for up to 30 days. Then you pay whatever the roaming airtime rate is, usually $.99/minute. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com [Moderator's Note: And if all you are doing is passing through the territory on the way to somewhere else, you may as well forget a cell account with the opposite carrier. How long are you going to be in their coverage area when you are driving down the interstate anyway, a few hours perhaps? It isn't worth the trouble to stop and talk to them when you can just use the payphones at the rest stops. PAT] ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: DS0 Portion of a T1 Date: 17 Feb 1993 00:52:46 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article fred@dickens.com (Fred R Stearns) writes: > In article goldstein@carafe.dnet. > dec.com (Fred Goldstein writes: >> In North America, the low order bit is sometimes "robbed" for >> signaling, (1/6 of the time) which limits data to 56 kbps. > Please excuse my math, but if one bit of every 6th byte is stolen, > doesn't that make 62.667 kbps? The problem is that you don't know *which* samples have the 6th bit robbed. Also, each switching element in the connection path may use a different synchronization to choose which sixth of the bits to use. By the time the samples get to you, anywhere between 1/6 to 6/6 of the low-order bits may be changed, and even if you know how many are, you don't know which ones. So, the custom is just to ignore the LSB and use only the seven high-order bits. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 19:50:32 CST From: varney@ihlpl.att.com Subject: Re: DS0 Portion of a T1 Organization: AT&T Network Systems, Lisle, IL In article fred@dickens.com (Fred R Stearns) writes: > In article goldstein@carafe.dnet. > dec.com (Fred Goldstein writes: >> The standard method is Pulse Code Modulation (PCM), with 8000 samples >> per second and 8 bits transmitted per sample. >> In North America, the low order bit is sometimes "robbed" for >> signaling, (1/6 of the time) which limits data to 56 kbps. In North >> America, a 12-bit linear sample is compressed to 8 bits via a formula >> called mu-255 (note News won't pass Greek letters), while Europe >> compresses it using a formula called "A law". Europe also inverts >> alternate bits. So the two flavors of PCM are incompatible. Hmmm, inverts alternate bits?? My references don't mention this explicitly. Do you mean that the A-law table entries are "scrambled" by having the entry for (say) 00000011 represented as 01010110? That doesn't sound right to me -- but I'll check. On the other hand, if you are talking about T1/E1 line coding over the transmission facility using Alternate Mark Inversion (bipolar) to maintain a net DC power of 0, then both systems do "inversion". Note that bipolar coding is part of the transmission system, and not part of the DS1 data stream. For example, fiber doesn't use bipolar to transmit DS1 and higher data rates (probably would if light had a fast, easily-detected polarity not altered by fiber). > Please excuse my math, but if one bit of every 6th byte is stolen, > doesn't that make 62.667 kbps? Thank you, Fred, for the lead-in. (I think every class in digital transmission has someone sharp that asks that question.) There are two facts that no one told you: o- The generator of a 64-kbps (DS0) stream is not synchronized with any higher layer of the digital data system. That is, the generator only has to receive a bit clock from the network and generate bits at that rate. The generator is not aware of when the 6th (robbed) frame is coming, and cannot thus anticipate which bit will be stepped on. Your solution to this problem could be to just send at 62.666 ... kbps and let the DS1 level buffer bits and only insert seven bits into the appropriate sixth frames. o- When the DS1 stream runs through a digital switching system, the 6th frame on the incoming circuit and the 6th frame on the outgoing circuit are not synchronized. Some multiplexors may also do this. Since the signaling bits are independent on the two circuits, and at random positions relative to each other, an eight-bit value that was in frame three on the incoming circuit could be placed into frame six on the outgoing circuit. Now a byte has been damaged. The only answer is to assume the robbed-bit position in EVERY frame could be garbaged, and just send seven bits in each frame. Thus the 56-kbps rate. The unit that places eight-bit samples into each frame just forces the robbed-bit position to be a one. If the system steps on the bit, no one cares. It's ignored at the receiver. (This also insures that all zeroes in the seven bits will not yield eight bits of zero on the DS1 frame. Two such adjacent fields would be treated as a T1 framing failure.) Al Varney ------------------------------ From: rfranken@cs.umr.edu Subject: Re: DS0 Portion of a T1 Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 20:04:48 CST Fred Goldstein said: > The standard method is Pulse Code Modulation (PCM), with 8000 samples > per second and 8 bits transmitted per sample. > In North America, the low order bit is sometimes "robbed" for > signaling, (1/6 of the time) which limits data to 56 kbps. In North > America, a 12-bit linear sample is compressed to 8 bits via a formula > called mu-255 (note News won't pass Greek letters), while Europe > compresses it using a formula called "A law". Europe also inverts > alternate bits. So the two flavors of PCM are incompatible. > Of course, some long-haul transmission systems use lower bit rate > audio, like ADPCM. Actually, this is not (in most cases, at least), the primary reason that data is limited to 56Kbps ... data connections do not typically have one bit robbed for signalling. However, in a T1 data stream, there can not be more than 14 (I think ... it may be 15) consecutve 0's, as this could cause the repeaters to lose synchroziations. In voice lines, this is easy to fix ... just insert a 1 where needed ... human ears won't be able to tell the difference ... but in data, this is unacceptable, so they slow down to 56,000 bps and use one bit in each group of eight bits and set it to 1 always, thus ensuring proper one's density. T1 lines using B8Z8 have another method of eliminating the 0's problemand can be used at the full 64kbps. Also, ADPCM is not generally used on commerical LD (AT&T, Sprint, MCI), as it is not high enough quality. (Its fine for voice, but modems will not train at above 4800bps over an ADPCM trunk, and faxes are also limtied to 4800bps). Brett (rfranken@cs.umr.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 13:37:38 EST From: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) Subject: Re: Pacific Bell, Caller ID, and PRIVATE In TELECOM Digest V13 #99 john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > co057@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steven H. Lichter) writes: >> I would guess that if the return call is Toll or L/D it would appear >> as would any other one of that type. > Pacific Bell has stated that a return call that is toll will appear on > the bill with the last four digits converted to 'X's. Interestingly > enough, that is very useful information. If I suspect that some known > jerk in Hayward is calling me and I use "call return" on him and then > the bill shows up with the Hayward prefix of this person, it would be > strong circumstantial evidence of evil-doing. > Imagine if I actually found out who was annoying me on the telephone. > It drives the activists crazy to think that might be possible! NYTel (at least in the New York LATA (NYC, Long Island, Part of Area Code 914 and a small part of Area Code 203 (Conn.)) lists the number called that was returned with Call Return so long as the call was chargeable in both directions. I haven't used this feature much since I don't receive that many calls that are blocked (mostly from two people that I know). Dave Niebuhr Internet: niebuhr@bnl.gov / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973 (516)-282-3093 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Pacific Bell, Caller ID, and PRIVATE Organization: I.E.C.C. Date: 16 Feb 93 17:07:32 EST (Tue) From: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) > Pacific Bell has stated that a return call that is toll will appear on > the bill with the last four digits converted to 'X's. > [Moderator's Note: If they blocked out the number with XXXX on my > bill, I would persist that since I was paying for the call, I was > entitled to know the number; then not pay for it until they revealed it. You're lucky you don't live in France. (Or perhaps the French are lucky that you live in the U.S.) French phone bills never show the last digits of the phone numbers in the call detail, due to privacy concerns. This includes direct dial calls. The theory is that the digits that they do show are adequate to document the amount that they're charging you. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 13:12:48 CST From: Andrew C. Green Reply-To: acg@hermes.dlogics.com Subject: Re: 'Secure' Motorola CT2 Silverlink Juha Veijalainen (JVE%FNAHA@trenga.tredydev.unisys.com) writes: > Motorola CT2 Silverlink cordless / TelePoint phones are supposedly > digital and transmit data over a 38400 bit/s link to your base station > or Telepoint cell. > Salespersons also tell that 'conversations cannot be eavesdropped'. > What they could not tell me is whether digital transmission itself is > considered 'secure' or is the actual data crypted or scrambled. As it happens, these phones are the exact units in use by Ameritech for their PCS trial here in Chicago. I use one. My understanding based on some conversations with Ameritech and with fellow Telecom reader Stu Jeffery of GTE (Hi, Stu!) is that they are indeed digital. My admittedly incomplete impression of the transmission details is that the data is not encrypted per se; however the frequency of the transmitted signal bounces around within a specific range, with the receiver presumably also tracking the frequency changes to keep up the connection. The theory as explained to me is that this enables many units running separate conversations to share the same spectrum, with a very low possibility of two different paths simultaneously landing on the same frequency by mistake. I don't know whether this is deliberately avoided by algorithm somehow, or whether it's statistically highly unlikely to happen. Security-wise, this has been popular for military applications since an eavesdropping receiver set to one particular frequency would not find anything. Similarly, without the proper algorithm (or whatever the handshake entails), an eavesdropping receiver would be unable to follow the frequency changes. Finally, in the relative chaos of a military field operation, a large number of units would be able to share the same spectrum without having to worry about who should be assigned what frequency, how they would be able to contact others, how many could be on the air at once, etc. I reserve the right to be wrong on some of the fine details above; if Stu Jeffery is reading this, I'm sure he can straighten us out. Andrew C. Green Datalogics, Inc. Internet: acg@hermes.dlogics.com 441 W. Huron UUCP: ..!uunet!dlogics!acg Chicago, IL 60610 FAX: (312) 266-4473 ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 1993 15:35:19 -0400 (EDT) From: Curtis E. Reid Subject: Re: Help Needed Finding TDD Relay Service In a message received on 16 Feb 1993, 07:07 Richard Osterberg wrote to TELECOM Digest V13 #101: > A good friend of mine has run into a small problem. She's deaf, so she > uses the TDD Relay Service quite frequently. However, her parents are > currently in Bulgaria for some time (overseas work), and they can't > call into a relay operator from overseas. Each state has its own > statewide 800 number to access the relay service, however these can't > be accessed when dialing into the US from overseas. Is there some sort > of a national/international TDD relay service? It's quite frustrating. There is no international TDD relay service to the best of my knowledge. If you can tell me which state she is in, perhaps I can find the relay's local number where her parents can call via USA Direct Service. I've read somewhere in previous TELECOM Digests that it is possible to call an 800 number via the USA Direct Service provided that you tell them you are paying for it. I don't know if that works or not. Curtis E. Reid CER2520@ritvax.isc.rit.edu Rochester Institute of Technology/NTID REID@DECUS.org (DECUS) P.O. Box 9887 716.475.6089 TDD/TT 475.6895 Voice Rochester, NY 14623-0887 U.S.A. 716.475.6500 Fax (Business Use Only) ------------------------------ From: Bob Longo Subject: Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State Date: 16 Feb 93 13:26:34 PST Organization: Santa Fe Pacific Pipelines In article , leavens@mizar.usc.edu (Justin Leavens) writes: > In article rlm@indigo2.hac.com (Robert > L. McMillin) writes: >> Which probably means that the switch was SS7-connected, but thanks to >> the California Public fUtilities Commission, EVERYBODY's phone number >> will show up as PRIVACY-enabled. After all, privacy is the same thing >> as anonymity ... NOT! > But the CPUC *approved* CNID with its guidelines. So shouldn't PacBell > (and GTE for that matter) be delivering CNID information where > appropriate (on any line that is not unlisted)? Or are they not > required to do anything that doesn't result in a profit? Absolutely! The lack of CNID is a result of PacBell and GTE acting like spoiled children and NOT a requirement by the CPUC. The CPUCs ruling was great, and I believe it reflected the opinion of the majority of Californians. Californians want CNID, but they also want per-line blocking to be available (which is what PacBell is vigorously opposed to). That is reasonable in a state where 40% of phone customers have unlisted numbers. Bob Longo (longo@sfpp.com) Santa Fe Pacific Pipelines Los Angeles, CA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 13:54:54 EST From: jeffj%jiji@uunet.UU.NET (Jeffrey Jonas) Subject: Re: BBS Tax Passes Florida Senate Hmmm, I am already thinking of ways a BBS could avoid the tax: 1) if the BBS is free, 6% of nothing is nothing. 2) Do non profit organizations have to collect the tax? 3) Or, a way to dance around the tax: the BBS is free for members of the club, and club dues are $xx/month and therefore not taxed. Jeffrey Jonas jeffj@panix.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #103 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa27393; 17 Feb 93 3:45 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA21682 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Wed, 17 Feb 1993 01:16:20 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA18720 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Wed, 17 Feb 1993 01:15:40 -0600 Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 01:15:40 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302170715.AA18720@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #104 TELECOM Digest Wed, 17 Feb 93 01:15:40 CST Volume 13 : Issue 104 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: 1-800-CALL-ATT 'ext. 21' (Laurence Chiu) Exchange Scanning - Enough Already! (Hugh Eaves) Re: What Number do I Dial From My Phone to Get My Phone to Ring? (Forrette) Re: V & H to Latitude/Longitude? (Bill Garfield) Re: Ma Bell Calling (Steven King) Pacific Bell and Out of State CID Delivery (Mark Rudholm) One-Way Outgoing Service (Jeffrey Jonas) Re: Graybar Hotel, Sorry. (Ed Greenberg) Re: Procedure to use 800-321-0ATT (Ed Greenberg) Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones (Mike Riddle) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: LCHIU@HOLONET.NET Subject: Re: 1-800-CALL-ATT 'ext. 21' Organization: HoloNet National Internet Access BBS: 510-704-1058/modem Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 03:39:08 GMT In a message to Comp.dcom.telecom, Tdarcos@access.digex.com had the following to say about Re: 1-800-CALL-ATT 'ext. 21': > The usual practice is for the customer to select the carrier they > want. Or they can often dial 1-0 and the three digit code (usually > called the '10XXX code') belonging to that carrier. Some telephones, > especially private pay stations and hotels, have their lines connected > to a specific carrier (because of commissions paid by the carrier) and > even go so far as to block the '1-0-xxx' code (which is illegal, like > 'red lining' some areas so that people can't use credit cards to some > countries, but it's done anyway). Also, if you are calling from an > office that cannot give you a dial tone to dial a long distance call, > you may have to use an operator and pay more for the call. > So AT&T, like its competitors, implemented a code off of one of its > 800 numbers you could dial into, then when you got to AT&T's "welcome" > message, you could punch in '21' on a touch-tone pad and be given to > AT&T's switch and be able to dial a call directly over AT&T's > facilities. I have a couple of comments and questions on that. Firstly, does anybody know why when you call 1-800-CALL-ATT you get a message, "to complete your call please press or dial 1 now" (or words to that effect). Unless it's some kind of touch-tone determination. I am going to find this a little annoying. 800-CALL-ATT is easy to remember. Plus it's printed on AT&T's calling card. I use this way to gain access to AT&T's network often enough because: 1) 10XXX seems to be blocked from my work phone (though all LD is allowed via our default carrier of MCI) But I don't want to charge personal calls on the company. 2) As many people have pointed out, intra LATA calls can be carried by AT&T if you use this method, whereas if you do 10XXX or rely on a phone's 1+ carrier, you usually get the local telco. At peak times, inter LATA calls via PacBell anyway are outrageously priced. I am going to have to put a little sticker on my calling card now :) Laurence Chiu lchiu@holonet.net ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 1993 22:36:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Hugh Eaves Subject: Re: Exchange Scanning - Enough Already! bill.garfield@yob.sccsi.com (Bill Garfield) writes: (edited) > My employer, at our Houston corporate office, has _all_ of one > exchange plus 3,000 numbers in another exchange. Approximately 4500 > of the total numbers are currently unassigned, reserved for expansion. > Recently, I did a traffic study on calls going to intercept due to > number not in service. I was shocked to discover that we're taking > over 5,000 intercept pegs per day, every day. > SWBT tells me that most of this is due to "scanning" and that there > are legitimate companies that actually perform this "service". > Why is this legal? This to me, constitutes nuisance calling and > harrassment. What can be done to stop it? > [Moderator's Note: It is harassment and nuisance calling to dial a > number, let it ring once and disconnect when done deliberatly as > part of a scan. PAT] Harrasment and nuisance is a misdemeanor in Virginia (it probably is in most states). It is also against federal law. However, as stated in Virginia law: "Any person who, without intent to converse but with _intent to annoy_ any other person, causes any telephone not his own to ring, and any person who permits or condones the use of any telephone under his control for such purposes shall be guilty of a class 3 misdemeanor." It seems that it would have to be proven that the call was made with "intent to annoy" as opposed to information gathering or other purposes. If I remember correctly, though, people have been arrested for scanning. Maybe they were prosecuted under a different law. Does anyone have any better information on the current laws applying to "scanning"? Hugh L. Eaves Internet: hleaves@ruby.vcu.edu Medical College of Virginia Bitnet: hleaves@vcuruby Department of Human Genetics Voice: (804) 371-8754 ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: What Number do I Dial From My Phone to Get My Phone to Ring? Date: 17 Feb 1993 01:06:39 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article oppedahl@Panix.Com (Carl Oppedahl) writes: > According to Part 68 of the FCC regulations, the local telco is > supposed to tell you how to make your line ring back ... so that if > you have installed your own phone jacks you can test them out. > The idea is to put do-it-yourselfers on a level playing field with the > telco inside-wiring installers. Otherwise, if they keep the number > secret, their installers would have an unfair advantage. > [Moderator's Note: Telco need not provide an automated service for > this purpose or tell you how to access the automated service. They > need only to make your bell ring on request. In other words, the > business office could have told you to ask the operator to ring you > back. That would have met the requirements. PAT] Are you sure? If the stated purpose of this regulation is to provide non-telco inside wiring folks a level playing field, then allowing the telco to internally use an automated service, while requiring that non-telco personnel use a manual service through the operator, is NOT providing a level playing field, now is it? Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: V & H to Latitude/Longitude? From: bill.garfield@yob.sccsi.com (Bill Garfield) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 07:00:00 -0600 Organization: Ye Olde Bailey BBS - Houston, TX - 713-520-1569 Reply-To: bill.garfield@yob.sccsi.com (Bill Garfield) One of the new features in the upcoming release of the shareware program 'NPA' by Robert Ricketts addresses this issue. The latest version is currently in final beta. I will be notifying our Moderator here when it is released to the public BBS networks and CI$. NPA author Robert Ricketts is a personal friend of mine who so happens to work at the same company as I. He has provided me with a pre-release beta of the latest version and has tentative plans to release it to the public bbs network sometime within the next three or four weeks. It will also be posted on CI$ at the same time, in the 'Safety Net' I believe. For those not familiar with this program, it is either command line or menu driven lookup of *ANY* NPA-NXX which can sort on any field, city, county, state, NPA, NXX, supports wildcards. The newest version is blazingly fast compared to previous releases. Bill Garfield | Standard disclaimer applies. PBX/Datacom Engineer | Opinions are my own and not Panhandle Eastern Corp. | my employer's. Ye Olde Bailey BBS 713-520-1569 (V.32bis) 713-520-9566 (V.32bis) Houston,Texas yob.sccsi.com Home of alt.cosuard [Moderator's Note: Please do let us know, and I'll put a coy in the Telecom Archives for everyone who wants it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: king@rtsg.mot.com (Steven King, Software Archaeologist) Subject: Re: Ma Bell Calling Reply-To: king@rtsg.mot.com Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Group Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 23:08:27 GMT Donald E. Kimberlin <0004133373@mcimail.com> publicly declared: > Concerning the relative cost of a DDD adventure as a youth in 1957, > John wrote: >> As soon as I realized what it was, I hung up. The charge? $2.00! And >> those were 1957 dollars. (Today it would be what? $.20? Terrible!) > That prompted me to get out a shareware program that's stowed around > here, and see what the current dollar cost of $2.00 expended in 1957 > was. [...] This threw me for a second too, but I believe John was refering to the cost of the call being $.20 these days, not $2.00 in 1957 dollars being worth $.20 in 1993 dollars. It makes a lot more sense if you read it this way! Steven King, Motorola Cellular (king@rtsg.mot.com) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 15:40:18 PST From: rudholm@ruby.aimla.com (Mark Rudholm) Subject: Pacific Bell and Out of State CID Delivery Well, Pacific Bell has never offered CID (as we all know) but *67 has returned a secondary dialtone for at least three years now from my parents' home (213-265) and other COs. It works from my home as well, 213-930. I'd really be interested in spending a few minutes one evening calling someone who has Caller ID service. I'd like to know (and pass on to c.d.t. of course) what happens when I call a Caller ID equipped phone both with and without *67. By the way, I'm scheduled to have Call Return (*69) activated on my phone (213-930) on March 1st! I think it'll really surprise a lot of crank-callers because there has been NO announcement or advertisement made about it as far as I can tell (like most c.d.t. readers, I tend to watch these things pretty closely.) What fun! Now everybody, repeat after me "The CPUC has NOT prohibited Caller ID in California." Understand? Good. Regardless of what Pacific Bell and GTE CA would like you to believe, this is the case. The reason there is no CID here is because both of those carriers claim that they believe that the restrictions would make the service unprofitable to offer. Their biggest complaint is with the requirement that unpublished numbers will default to the per-line-blocked state. Of couse, the customer can have her/his line's blocking status set any way they choose. I honestly think that the telcos are wrong in their thinking that anyone who can block, will block. I think most people will decide that they WANT to announce themselves whith CID when they place a call, especially personal calls (which are most of the calls I place from home by far, anyway.) Sure, with blocking available, CID won't be much good against crank-cals but call-return and call-trace should deal with that pretty well and really, CID's biggest selling point isn't dealing with crank-calls (and I wish telcos would stop acting like it is) it's the fact that you can announce yourself. So if anyone in World Zone 1 has Caller ID and would like to do some experimenting, send me E-Mail. Mark D. Rudholm Philips Interactive Media of America rudholm@aimla.com 11050 Santa Monica Boulevard +1 213 930 1449 Los Angeles, CA 90025 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 18:16:45 EST From: jeffj%jiji@uunet.UU.NET (Jeffrey Jonas) Subject: Re: One-Way Outgoing Service I am curious about this: > [Moderator's Note: Clever response. Since you only make outgoing calls > on those lines occassionally, and never have incoming calls, you > should ask telco to set the lines up as one-way outgoing service only. > Then you'd never see any wrong numbers at all. PAT] Is "one-way outgoing service" an additional cost? I've heard of the opposite (incoming only, to prevent any long distance billing), but no incoming calls -- interesting. Would those lines even HAVE a phone number? Could they all be the same number, and billed based on some imaginary number (trunk/line number just as places with more than one line at the same number)? At home, I have a second line that I'm currently using only for outgoing modem/data calls. Someday I may have a FAX or BBS, so I do not intend to block incoming calls, but it is a curious idea. Could you elaborate why this service is offered? If it is possible to have a phone line with no number, what would Caller-ID report? ANO? I guess that *SOME* number must be associated with every line for billing purposes. Drat -- I'd like to have a number with no ANI so 900 numbers can't bill me. Or was I not supposed to notice that? Jeffrey Jonas jeffj@panix.com [Moderator's Note: Lines equipped for outgoing only service generally have regular phone numbers attached to them. Callers to those numbers either get a busy signal (if the line is in use on an outgoing call) or an intercept message, "The number you dialed, xxx-xxxx is not in service for incoming calls" if the line is not busy. There are other variations: Lines for incoming service only generally provide battery but no dial tone to the subscriber if picked up with no call coming in. Then there is this odd one: "The number you dialed, xxx-xxxx cannot be reached from outside the customer's premises." These are centrex lines which can make or receive calls from other centrex extensions but are blocked from making or receiving calls from outside the local network. A strange one I came across the other day was on an island in the area 809 group of small country/islands: "The number you have dialed is restricted from receiving international calls. This is a Cable & Wireless recording." (C&W is the local telco for a few of those places.). Illiois Bell at least does not charge extra for lines which are restricted in one direction or the other; you just pay the regular monthly fee for having the phone there. I suppose restricted lines (in either direction) are offered because the subscriber does not want to receive incoming calls on those lines or have people making any outgoing calls on them. PAT] ------------------------------ From: edg@netcom.com (Ed Greenberg) Subject: Re: Graybar Hotel, Sorry. Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 04:20:02 GMT In Marin County, CA, the county civic center (the government building) is a famous Frank Lloyd WRight structure. It's pink, Spanish in design and has a bright blue roof. One of the things it houses is the Sheriff and Jail. While local residents sometimes call the Marin Civic Center "Big Pink", the Jail is known as the "Blue Roof Inn." Edward W. Greenberg | Home: +1 408 283 0511 | edg@netcom.com 1600 Stokes St. #24 | Work: +1 408 764 5305 | DoD#: 0357 San Jose, CA 95126 | Fax: +1 408 764 5003 | KM6CG (ex WB2GOH) ------------------------------ From: edg@netcom.com (Ed Greenberg) Subject: Re: Procedure to use 800-321-0ATT Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 04:21:32 GMT My experience with 1-800-321-0ATT is that it's busy a lot. :-( Edward W. Greenberg | Home: +1 408 283 0511 | edg@netcom.com 1600 Stokes St. #24 | Work: +1 408 764 5305 | DoD#: 0357 San Jose, CA 95126 | Fax: +1 408 764 5003 | KM6CG (ex WB2GOH) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 12:00:10 CST From: Mike.Riddle@axolotl.omahug.org (Mike Riddle) Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones Reply-To: mike.riddle%inns@axolotl.omahug.org Organization: Inns of Court, Papillion, NE john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon)) writes: > Scanner laws will be just about as effective as gun laws -- only much > sillier. The FCC is seriously deluded if it thinks it can win a > technological war with anyone. The below-average moron outguns the FCC > in the brain cell department. This may well be true, :-), but as the original post noted, the FCC is under a mandate from our Congre$$ Critter$ to promulgate reguations on this subject. Now if anyone wonders about the collective I.Q. of Congre$$ on technological matters ... PAT has some perfectly dry tunnels under Chicago to sell. Maximus 2.01wb Riddle Law Office (1:285/28) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #104 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa00857; 17 Feb 93 5:08 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA13740 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Wed, 17 Feb 1993 02:40:42 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA31244 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Wed, 17 Feb 1993 02:39:43 -0600 Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 02:39:43 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302170839.AA31244@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #105 TELECOM Digest Wed, 17 Feb 93 02:39:40 CST Volume 13 : Issue 105 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Third Party Network Connectivity (Lars Poulsen) Re: GTE On the "Move" (John Higdon) Re: EasyReach 700 Changes (Dave Rand) Re: Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? (John R. Levine) UK PHoneDAY Details (Linc Madison) What About #? (Jeffrey Jonas) DECT (Digital European Cordless Telecommunication) Info Request (E. Jang) FX Service Across Area Codes (Phydeaux) The War on Pagers (Jeff Hibbard) Beepers and Pagers Question (Molly Geiger) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 23:05:33 PST From: lars@CMC.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: Third Party Network Connectivity Organization: CMC Network Systems (Rockwell DCD), Santa Barbara, CA, USA In article Ron Beach writes: > I'm looking for someone to help me research the issue of one business > directly connecting it's internal network to that of another company > - a supplier, a business partner, a vendor, etc. We call that 'third > party connectivity' within BP (British Petroleum, ne Standard Oil). When I first read this request, I assumed, from my limited perspective, that you were discussing data networks, with an emphasis on TCP/IP protocols. I then noticed that Patrick was answering from the perspective of phone networks, which on a second reading, was equally valid. > I need to identify real-world business examples of existing third > party connections, identify costs of providing restricted connections, > identify what costs would reduce (hopefully) to if the connection was > more 'open', and access the cost impact in terms of changes needed to > protect 'internal' information or resources or establish 'firewalls' > between parts of the 'internal' network-plus any costs for the time > of people to make these assements. One egregious example of third party connection, is attaching the corporate network to the Internet. To do this with some control over the exposure and risk incurred, requires some planning, but the requirements are fairly well understood. In the case of the global TCP/IP Internet, the benefits from the third party connectivity are obvious. The risks are much less understood. Many people worry about random attacks from "malicious hackers"; but while there is some potential for damage from such sources, the real threat is more likely to come from disgruntled employees or ex-employees. To control the risk exposure, you need to partition your network in a fashion similar to how you secure a building; indeed in some cases, the network partitions may parallel building compartments. 1) At the gateways from the outside network to the corporate network, access controls should be instituted on the border routers. Most likely, these will take the form of packet filters, such as: - allow domain name querys to the two name servers - allow incoming MAIL, TELNET and FTP connections only to the three "public gateway" hosts. - allow incoming and outgoing news (NNTP) connections to the public gateways - allow outgoing Gopher, TELNET and FTP from anywhere in the internal network - allow no other traffic to pass 2) Similarly, a company-wide interdepartmental backbone can be identified, with major departments connecting to the backbone in manners similar to the way the company network connects to the Internet. Similar access controls may be imposed at the gateways that link departments to the backbone. 3) Finally, a companywide computer security policy must be in place, which defines what risks one is concerned with, and what acceptable use policies are in effect. Finally, the policy must plan what will be done when violations are detected. RFC1244 provides an outline for such a policy. At my company, we have about 100 employees in our main facility, which is on the internet, as CMC.COM; some smaller offices are connected by dial-up links. Our parent company, Rockwell International, has its own worldwide multiprotocol Internet, with sites connected on T1 and 56kbps links. When we joined Rockwell about five years ago, the Rockwell network was mostly SNA and DECNET. Since then, it has become mostly TCP/IP, and Cisco routers now connect departments to the backbone, which is run by the corporate MIS department. The corporate networking group is of a similar size as the U.S. regional Internet service providers, and charges similar fees to the user departments. > [Moderator's Note: Mr. Beach should review Unitel, the internal > telecom network for United Airlines. Rockwell, like other large companies with multiple sites, provides a corporate telephone network with seven-digit numbers for almost every employee world-wide, and allows most employees to dial these numbers unrestricted while requiring the use of a "calling card" to call numbers outside of this network. Until a few years ago, this network was built on Rockwell-manufactured switches, but it is now implemented by in IXC-provided "Software Defined Network" which is procured competitively (and actually changes suppliers once in a while with no change in phone numbers). I have been very impressed with the translation services provided by the SDN, as well as the accounting features. Considering the amount of tedious data management that must be required to keep our translations in a large number of IXC switches, alongside with the public dialing plan and a few hundred other SDN translation sets, I find it impressive that I have never heard of large-scale mistranslations. Some people complain about connection quality, but mostly I think this dates back to an institutional memory of the days before the network was outsourced. Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer Internet E-mail: lars@CMC.COM CMC Network Products / Rockwell Int'l Telephone: +1-805-968-4262 Santa Barbara, CA 93117-3083 TeleFAX: +1-805-968-8256 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 22:07 PST From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: GTE On the "Move" barnett@zeppelin.convex.com (Paul Barnett) writes: > This is the new reality at GTE Telephone Operations, based in Irving, > where management wants nothing short of a complete culture change -- > from bureaucratic to lean and creative, from a regulated utility to a > telecommunications services company. Institutional propaganda has become the marketing tactic of the nineties. When I read this article, I checked the date. It seems my deja vu was triggered by the fact that Pac*Bell has been talking about this (and doing something about it) for more than five years. Of course, it did not have to move its customer service and repair operations to Texas (or even Thousand Oaks) to stay on top of it. Pacific Gas and Electric (a sorry excuse for a utility if there ever was one -- the GTE of energy) has joined the "competition" frey. In a recent {San Francisco Chronicle} article, spokespersons for PG&E admitted that the company's rates were among the highest in the nation. As a result, many of its largest customers have turned to their own co-generation facilities for electric power. It turns out to be cheaper for a large manufacturing company in California to generate its own electricity than to buy from PG&E, even at "discount" rates. Residence customers have been subsidizing business electric rates for years. But there was another shocker. "Our customers want more reliable service", sayeth a PG&E executive. No excrement, Sherlock! It seems that digital clocks and computers have put PG&E's little "mini-outages" in customers' faces. So what is the plan? Cut the workforce, says PG&E. "We need to become lean and mean." Now, given that PG&E's facilities suffer from gross neglect (causing many of the outages), how does trimming the workforce make the company better? How does moving GTE's facilities to Texas improve that company's service? > In a considerably more competive world, GTE believes that its > Telephone Operations unit must adapt to a fast-moving environment, and > it must do so quickly. So they move it all out of town? If droids in Thousand Jokes had no idea where Los Gatos was, the weenies in Plano, TX, will probably ask if it is in the US. And when I have to make the fifteen callbacks to follow up on repairs, I will have to make sure that my long distance calling plans include Texas, since GTE insists that you do business with the company on your own nickel. (I hope Pac*Bell does not start cutting costs in this manner.) > There's an sidebar with a sampling of the goals of GTE Telephone > Operations, extracted from an employee handbook. I'll follow up with > it later if there is any interest. I will bet that is entertaining reading. > The whole article reads more like marketing propaganda than anything > else, but I thought it was interesting to see "The Phone Company" > admit that they might be doing something wrong. This is just the "new marketing". GTE never does anything wrong. I have been told that thousands of times over the last thirty years. Understand that GTE has to sooth many customers (particularly those served by good phone companies that were taken over by the evil empire) who justifiably feel abandoned when the local offices suddenly sport "For Sale" signs. "We are slapping you in the face and walking out on you and your town so that we can supply better service, blah, blah, blah." Even GTE employees are bummed by the rush out of town. I have always said that GTE was a disease. Now it is beginning to metastasize. But it is nice to see that it took a course in Propaganda and Public Relations. It used to just kick you in the teeth without even so much as a by-your-leave. At least at my residence I will be served by a company that maintains a presence in California. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 264 4115 | FAX: john@ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: dlr@daver.bungi.com (Dave Rand) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 22:09:54 PST Subject: Re: EasyReach 700 Changes [In the message entitled "EasyReach 700 Changes" on Feb 16, 12:10, John J Butz writes: > Has anyone noticed any changes to the EasyReach 700 service? The EasyReach main menu has changed. The forwarding option that allows you to forward your calls to the number you are calling from has been removed, effective 02/01/93. There was no announcment of this prior to the change. This also removes the highly useful ANAC feature (determining the number that you are calling from). Customer service gives two reasons for this change: Many people had complained that using the feature would result in calls being forwarded to the billing number, rather than the extension being called from. This was also cited as a potential security problem, as some businesses apparently did not want their billing number divulged. The second reason has to do with customer service assisting people in programming their forwarding. When calling in via the 800 number, as must be done from time to time due to billing restrictions, COCOT's and the like, the customer service direct number would be used as the target number (of course) rather than the customer's number. The people that I spoke to were knowledgable, and very familiar with the product. They are collecting customer feedback on this change, so if you don't like it -- call them. The customer service number is 800-982-8480. As EasyReach is not (currently) available outside the USA, a direct-dial number is not available. I still use the service, and find it an essential part of my telephone needs. Dave Rand {pyramid|mips|bct|vsi1}!daver!dlr Internet: dlr@daver.bungi.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? Organization: I.E.C.C. Date: 16 Feb 93 17:13:53 EST (Tue) From: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) >[Moderator's Note: They work okay unless you have flourescent lights Hmmn, flourescent lights? I've been able to get flour to explode, but never to glow continuously. Have you told the USDA about this? Surely price supports are needed. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl PS: :-) [Moderator's Note: Sorry about that. After the first 50K bytes of text go across my screen each day, I sometimes get careless. Those lights can cause a lot of noise to communication systems however. I recall an instance in about 1972: A friend was hired to relocate about eight or so six-button, five-line phones for the First Unitarian Church in Chicago, 312-FAIrfax-4100. He asked me to help him. They had four outside lines and a dial intercom on the fifth position. One thing I noticed before and after the relocating of the phones (they had moved their offices around a little) was a very soft 'hum' in the background om each outside line in the second or so the phone was off hook before the dial tone arrived. Likewise, on incoming calls, the caller heard this soft 'hum' instantly on connecting and during the ringing. It went away once a connection was made, and could not be heard when there was conversation on the line. I called repair service to see about getting it cleared up, and shortly thereafter got a call back from a foreman in the CO. This guy croaked like a frog and said to me, "First Church, eh? ... I told you people a year ago to get the electric wires for the ceiling lights in the office out of *my* conduit! No way to get rid of the noise until you vacate the conduit. I'm going to have the Business Office write you another letter on it." All my arguments about conduit-in-common, and various court rulings saying that everyone was entitled to use the *property owner's* conduit including but not limited to telco went over his head. "We had that conduit first! When we pulled pairs through there it was empty. Then you people installed those new lights in the offices and pulled wire right through *my* conduit ... I stood there a year ago and watched them do it." A letter from the Business Office a few days later said that while it was true that conduit was available to all for use, they were 'there first' and would not have used it had they found 'other wiring not their own' inside it. Since it now had other, non-telco wiring in it, we had to live with it or pull ours out. A little experimentation with some filters got the noise to where it was barely audible if you listened very closely. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 21:57:09 GMT From: Linc Madison Reply-To: telecom@hedonist.demon.co.uk Subject: UK PHoneDAY Details [The following is excerpted from British Telecom's brochure about "PHoneDAY", 16 April 1995, on which date significant changes will occur in all numbers in the United Kingdom.] THE COUNTDOWN HAS STARTED TO PH[ONE]DAY On 16 April 1995 all UK area codes starting [0] will start [01]. Here's why. A number 1 will be added to all UK area codes at 1:00am on the morning of 16 April 1995. Manchester's code, for example, will then change from 061 to 0161. This is happening to meet the huge demand throughout the country for new codes and numbers. These changes were decided by OFTEL, the telecommunications watchdog, after lengthy consultation with those most affected, including businesses and customers. The result will be enough codes and numbers to last us well into the next century. Other changes to look out for: There are two other changes taking place on 16 April 1995, in addition to the changes to UK area codes. The first concerns the cities of Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester, and Bristol. They desperately need more numbers as a result of the overall growth in telecommunications services, and the rapid growth of the cities themselves. Each of these cities will therefore get a new area code and an additional digit (an extra 9 or 2) in front of the existing six-digit local telephone number. * Leeds - 0532 xxxxxx becomes 0113 2xx xxxx * Sheffield - 0742 xxxxxx becomes 0114 2xx xxxx * Nottingham - 0602 xxxxxx becomes 0115 9xx xxxx * Leicester - 0533 xxxxxx becomes 0116 2xx xxxx * Bristol - 0272 xxxxxx becomes 0117 9xx xxxx The other change taking place involves the international dialing code. At present it's 010, but a European Community standard requires all European countries to share the same international dialing code. From 16 April 1995, the code will therefore change to 00. There is also a move around the world to adopt 00 as the standard international code. [There follows a Q&A section. Selected excerpts...] Q: Will all numbers change? A: No. Mobile phones will still use the same codes [0831, 0836, 0850, 0860, and others]; only geographic area codes will change. 0800 and 0345 numbers won't change either. Nor will recorded message phone lines beginning with codes like 0891 [and 0898]. Q: Why couldn't these changes have been made at the same time as the London code change? A: London simply couldn't wait for an increase in phone numbers. We had to act by 1990, and OFTEL hadn't made a decision about the National Code Change at that stage. [The brochure also mentions that there will be permissive dialling in effect beginning in August, 1994.] Readers within the UK can dial 0800 01 01 01 for more information. ---------- Linc Madison == Linc@Hedonist.Demon.co.uk == Telecom@Hedonist.Demon.co.uk 59 Stourcliffe Close, London W1H 5AR Tel. +44 71 723 0582 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 13:48:02 EST From: jeffj%jiji@uunet.UU.NET (Jeffrey Jonas) Subject: What About # Dear Elana Beach, I wish to add to Pat's comments on why "#" is not used: What about people using rotary/pulse phones? Since "*" is a prefix, you can dial "11" instead of the "*" (ex: call trace is *57 or 1157). But how can you dial the "#" suffix using numbers only? It's quite ambiguous. So shed those excess pounds! (hmmm, I wonder what would happen if I modified the dialer to give more than ten pulses -- what would I get? Perhaps 11 pulses gives *, 12 pulses gives # so that playing with the dial as it returns could give a hack for dialing * and #). Jeffrey Jonas jeffj@panix.com ------------------------------ From: jang@acsu.buffalo.edu (Euee S. Jang) Subject: DECT (Digital European Cordless Telecommunication) Info Request Organization: UB Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 19:25:43 GMT DECT( Digital European Cordless Telecommunications) information needed: I am considering the DECT for the environment for my experiment. Right now, I am having difficulties in finding out the details in DECT. I got some articles but it is just an introduction. Does someone have any kind of detail in DECT? Also, can anyone recommend some articles on DECT? Erik Jang jang@acsu.buffalo.edu Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering State University of New York at Buffalo ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 12:41:07 PST From: reb@ingres.com (Phydeaux) Subject: FX Service Across Area Codes Hi! I'll soon be moving about a mile, from Springfield NJ (201-376 Millburn CO) to Union, NJ (908-686,687,688,851,964 Union CO). Unfortunately, these are not served by the same CO, and NJ Bell tells me that there is a $410 charge for FX service plus $11.67 for the first mile and $3.35 for each additional mile per month. Is FX service usually this expensive? Are there any other alternatives which I'm overlooking? Trying to hold on to my current 201 number as long as I can, reb [Moderator's Note: FX service becomes expensive when it has to run between two central offices which connect direct to each other. It becomes *very expensive* when it involves tying up a pair full time between two offices not next to each other (meaning it has to pass through some third office). It is *very, very expensive* when it involves different LATAs or some other telco or an LD carrier with intervening offices, etc. At our firm here in Chicago, we have an FX line to New Jersey and one to Los Angeles. They cost BIG $$ monthly. A modern alternative is 'remote call forwarding'. Ask telco to terminate your current 201 number right in the CO where it is now and put it on permanent call forwarding to your new number. That will only cost $15-20 per month plus all calls it forwards at direct dial rates. You'll get a lot of calls for the price of an FX, which is only needed if you feel you must continue to make outgoing calls on the 201 number as well. Despite what may be lower priced calls dialed via 201, you'll need lots of them to justify what the line itself will cost you each month. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jeff@bradley.bradley.edu (Jeff Hibbard) Subject: The War on Pagers Organization: Bradley University Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 20:13:28 GMT > [Moderator's Note: In the Chicago Public Schools, pagers are > considered verbotin and are confiscated from students. This is part > of the War on Drugs. PAT] It's not just Chicago, it's state-wide. Illinois state law allows pagers and cellular phones to be confiscated from anybody (not just students) who brings them onto school property. If I visit my son's school wearing my (employer-supplied) pager, they can keep it. If I drive through the school's parking lot to pick him up, they can confiscate the cellular phone in my car. An adult who gives a student such a device to take to school can do a year in jail and pay a $10,000 fine. Although text in the actual bill passed makes it clear the intent was to forbid cellular phones and pagers, all of the above actually applies to "communication devices", which the law defines as anything designed to receive or transmit radio signals outside of the commercial broadcast band. For example, if I let my son take my Radio Shack "Time Cube" (which can only receive WWV) to show-and-tell, they could confiscate it, fine me $10,000 and lock me up for a year. ------------------------------ From: Molly Geiger Subject: Beepers and Pagers Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 03:00:14 GMT Organization: University of Illinois I am looking for information on radio pagers and beepers. Basically, I need to know how these instruments are being updated to compete with current technologies. Also, what types of communication are being used as alternatives to the beeper? What about PCN? Voice-mail? Post any information please. Thanks! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #105 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa23575; 17 Feb 93 15:40 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA07220 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Wed, 17 Feb 1993 12:45:36 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA20985 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Wed, 17 Feb 1993 12:45:03 -0600 Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 12:45:03 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302171845.AA20985@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #106 TELECOM Digest Wed, 17 Feb 93 12:45:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 106 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson New Directions, New Choices (Rochester Telephone via Phillip Dampier) AT&T Billing Practices --> Illegal? (Christopher Wolf) Boston-CT Delivery, NY Gets FMR (Douglas Scott Reuben) Fiber Optic Television Information Request (Martin Egan) Cellular Switching Question (Gregory Youngblood) Telecom in Banking Industry (Clayton E. Kuetemeyer) Status of Cellular Resellers in California? (Robert Michael Gutierrez) Need Names of Carrier for 800-xxx Number (Glenn McComb) Multi-line Answering Machine (Paul E. Hoffman) Re: White House Phone Factoids (Brian Gordon) Re: Hilton Hotel Telephone Surcharge (Dennis G. Rears) Re: Running Out of Area Codes (Carl Moore) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: phil@rochgte.fidonet.org (Phillip Dampier) Reply-To: phil@rochgte.fidonet.org Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 15:57:31 -0500 Subject: New Directions, New Choices The following text comes from a booklet Rochester Telephone is sending in all telephone bills this month. | NEW DIRECTIONS | | NEW CHOICES | ** New Opportunities for Telephone Customers ** :: Rochester Telephone's "Open Market Plan" is Important to Everyone Rochester Telephone is proposing an "Open Market Plan" which will introduce competition for local telephone service in the Rochester, N.Y. market. It is our response to the reality of competition which faces every business today, including ours. :: Making the Move to An Open Market Competition has changed the telephone industry for the better. From long distance to cellular, competition is the way of the future. Our plan will allow customers, for the first time, to choose their local service company. We envision this will result in a broader selection of products and services for Rochester customers. Accordingly, Rochester Telephone has developed a plan for opening the local market to all competitors. To insure a level playing field and provide customers with the best service at the best price, Rochester Telephone plans to restructure itself by creating two new companies under a parent Holding Company. :: Creating Two New Companies To Meet the Needs of Both Customers & :: Competitors Our plan calls for creating two distinct companies. One company, temporarily referred to as R-Net, will be regulated by the New York State Public Service Commission and act as a wholesale "network" company. It will let competitors use our network services. These competitors will resell these telephone services to area customers. The second company, temporarily referred to as R-Com, will be a real competitive company. It will offer a complete package of telephone products and services to the general public -- directly competing with all other companies which enter the market. Our competitive company will buy from the wholesale network company at the same prices paid by all competitors. The new parent company will be formed to serve as a Holding Company for all our subsidiaries. All three companies will receive permanent names at some point in the future. "I don't want anything fancy. Can I still get basic service from Rochester Telephone?" Yes. You will be able to get basic service from our new competitive company, R-Com. "Will R-Com be like Rochester Telephone today? Will it service both residential and business customers? Absolutely. R-Com will offer basic residential and business dial tone service, along with the extra features you already rely on to stay efficient, like Voice Mail, Call Waiting, and many others. You can also look forward to some very exciting new features and service packages. :: Having More Choices Will Benefit Customers For Rochester Telephone, Open Market restructuring offers us the chance to broaden the scope and quality of our own competitive products and services and to introduce new technologies. Competition typically results in a greater range of choices, lower prices and more attractive products and services. We expect our customers to quickly benefit from the new choices available to them. "Is this good for me?" We think so. By eliminating some regulatory restrictions, we can move faster to offer our customers a wider choice of advanced products and services ... at competitive prices. Long distance offers a perfect example. Competition in the long distance market has lowered rates as much as 45% over the last 10 years. "What will happen to local residential rates?" We have proposed a multi-year Rate Stabilization Plan. Under the plan, Rochester Telephone guarantees no increase in basic residential or Lifeline rates until at least January 1995. After that, rates would increase no more than inflation. Further, any competitor buying wholesale from R-Net and offering residential local service will be required to pass along the same basic rates to customers. :: There'll Be Plenty of Time to Make an Informed Decision Rochester Telephone's Open Market Plan must first be approved by the New York State Public Service Commission. That process begins now and will stretch well into 1993. Once approved, it will take another six or seven months for Rochester Telephone to completely establish its two companies and for competitors to enter the market. During this period, customers will be provided with new product and service information from all competitive companies. So, there'll be plenty of time to make a careful decision. "Will I see any changes right now?" No. This plan is subject to the New York State Public Service Commission's approval, a process which will take several months. Continuing to deliver high quality products and services is our priority throughout the review period and beyond. "Will my phone number change?" Your phone number will stay the same no matter which telephone company you choose to provide your local service. "Why are you doing this now?" Competition is coming to all local telephone service companies -- whether or not we initiate this change now. Competition is accelerating due to changes in technology and as a result of decisions by state and federal regulatory agencies. By taking this action, we will be better prepared to serve customers in the future, as full competition develops. "How do I let you know which phone company I want?" All local customers will receive a ballot to choose the local telephone company they prefer. "Is that like when we picked a long distance company?" Yes. It's very similar. :: Any other Questions? Although we've tried to anticipate many of your questions, if you have others, Rochester Telephone will be happy to answer them for you personally. Simply call (716) 777-1200 to discuss residential service or (716) 777-1234 with inquiries about business telephone service. Rochester Telephone ------------------------------ From: cmwolf@mtu.edu (CHRISTOPHER WOLF) Subject: AT&T Billing Practices --> Illegal? Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 16:40:40 -0500 (EST) I have a question regarding the legality of something that AT&T is doing. It seems to me to be illegal. Last month I ran up charges of $11.77 on my phone. I live in University housing, which uses the AT&T Acus Service, in which each person in the room has a personal identity number which must be entered in order to make a long distance phone call. Supposedly, this keeps everyone in the room from being disconnected when one person does not pay his part of the bill. Anyway. I had $11.77 and sent them a cashier's check for $12.00, only because I could not remember the exact amount of the bill when I was at the bank. The bill for this month came back with the credit for $12.00 on it, and NEW CHARGES for $0.93 Now the fun part. The Acus Service has a policy of charging 10% in late fees if the bill is not paid by the due date. In my case, the following is listed: If PAYMENT IN FULL received by 03/02/93, amount DUE: $0.70 If payment in full NOT received by 03/02/93, amount DUE: $0.79 Now, 10% of $0.70 comes to $0.07 in my book. I called and asked about this. The gentleman I spoke with gave me a bit of a run-around in the respect that every time I asked why it was 12.5% instead of 10% he said that I shouldn't worry because I probably wouldn't get charged anyway, being that my bill was under $5.00. When I pressed, he said the $0.09 was because the late fees are charged on the NEW CHARGES, not the NET BALANCE DUE. If this legal? They're trying to charge me late fees on something I've already paid, namely the extra $0.23. As an aside, I think their policies are horrible on this service. If I don't spend $0.29 on a stamp and $0.20 for a check fees to pay this $0.70 in charges, I get a late fees and possibly disconnection of my service. This applied even if one only owes a few cents. I argued with them about a $0.12 bill one time. Also, he agreed that it shouldn't be $0.09, and asked that I call him back next month with whatever late charges I get. I few cents here, a few cents there, spread across a couple thousand college student could really add up. Christopher Wolf Electrical Engineer cmwolf@mtu.edu ------------------------------ Date: 17-FEB-1993 04:45:21.40 From: Douglas Scott Reuben Subject: Boston-CT Delivery, NY Gets FMR Customers of Cell One/Boston can now get calls in Metro Mobile's CT and Western Mass systems, just as they may currently do in Rhode Island. To initiate Call Delivery, hit *28 (anywhere that accepts it, even in Delaware, although you won't get calls there yet). To deactivate, hit *29. In some areas outside of the "official" areas where you can use *28/*29, you can use *350 (for *28) and *35 (for *29). Remember, you will only get calls in all of Mass, Rhode Island, and Connecticut -- even though the *28/*29 may work in other Motorola-EMX markets, it doesn't mean your calls will be delivered there. You should, however, be able to continue using Call-Forwarding, Call-Waiting, and Three-Way Calling from New Hampshire down to Delaware, with the current exception of Cell One/NY. I'm not sure as to any change in the Atlantic Cellular (CO/VT)/ Cell One Boston "interim/partnership" service in New Hampshire regarding call delivery. I'll check this out next time I'm there. All other features should work fine, though. If you have voicemail active, any unanswered calls in CT or W.Mass will dump back to your voicemail after a few rings. You can of course force calls to voicemail by hitting *29. I believe that there will be a toll delivery charge for calls delivered to CT and W. Mass, ie, the cost of an LD call from Boston to CT. (At least CT customers in Boston will be assesed this charge, and since both are owned by Bell Companies, I suspect the same will be true for Boston customers in CT). The same *28/*29 codes now work for Metro Mobile/CT customers in the Boston system, but calls still don't seem to be delivered into Boston for some reason, and callers are met with the standard Re-Order that a Motorolla delivers when it can't complete a call for technical reasons. On another note, NYNEX/NYC *finally* got Follow Me Slowly ...errr ROAMING ... sorry! :) I *HOPE* they have a sufficient number of "dummy numbers" so that most *18 activations can be processed. The NYNEX/Orange County and whoever does the B side in Syracuse have SO few numbers that they usually run out by three in the afternoon, in which case all subsequent FMR activations will get a confirmation but never take effect. Additionally, BAMS/Philly-NJ will be adding to its automatic Call-Delivery network with Baltimore and DC by April (or so they tell me), and other BAMS properties later on in the year. Thus, there will soon be automatic delivery from NY (I-84) all the way down to Virginia on the B side, which is rather impressive. Note that if you are an SNET/Linx or BAMS/Philly customer, and you activate FMR in some other market, and then come to NYC, you can now avoid the "dead spot" in NY in terms of Call-Delivery by hitting *19. You will need to do this in order to get Call-Delivery IF you have activated FMR elsewhere the same day. Automatic Call-Delivery does NOT supercede FMR (ie, call-forwarding), so FMR must be cancelled with *19 in order for Automatic Call-Delivery to kick in. Finally, I don't think unanswered calls will go to voicemail -- you need to turn your phone OFF if you want calls to go to voicemail. There are no "codes" to force this to happen (although you can have them turn call-delivery off at the switch on a semi-permament basis), but the response is instantaneous, unlike the "A" side's NACN and other delivery systems which may take over two hours after powering OFF before calls go to voicemail (unless you use the *35/*350 "Do Not Disturb" codes). This inability to "take back" a call and route it to voicemail or anywhere is a MAJOR flaw in my opinion, and hopefully they will be able to use IS-41 Rev.A or do *something* to correct this. Well, at least there's been SOME progress! Doug dreuben@eagle.wesleyan.edu // dreuben@wesleyan.bitnet ------------------------------ From: Martin Egan Subject: Fiber Optic Television Information Request Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 22:31:28 GMT Organization: University of Illinois I am doing research on the benefits/disadvantages of the telephone industry using fiber optics to enter the cable television industry. If you have any information, or something similar, please send it. Thank You. ------------------------------ Subject: Cellular Switching Question From: tcscs!zeta@src.honeywell.com (Gregory Youngblood) Reply-To: zeta%tcscs@src.honeywell.com Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 08:15:05 CST Organization: TCS Consulting Services circuit@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (The Circuit) writes: > And last, could someone describe the difference between SAT's 00, 01, > and 10? SAT tones are: none, 5970, 6000, 6030 Here's where I'm going to stick my keyboard in my mouth probably. I don't remember exactly which range these are in. I want to say Hz. I'll look it up in my manuals. Greg TCS Consulting Services P.O. Box 600008 St. Paul, MN 55106-0008 Mail-server requests to: mail-server%tcscs@idss.nwa.com zeta%tcscs@src.honeywell.com or zeta%tcscs@idss.nwa.com ..!srcsip!tcscs!zeta or ..!guppy!tcscs!zeta ------------------------------ From: Clayton E. Kuetemeyer Subject: Telecom in Banking Industry Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 05:35:12 GMT Organization: University of Illinois Doing research on telecommunications in the banking industry. Any information on capabilities or effects on customer service would be greatly appreciated. Also very interested in automated teller machine info. Thanks. ------------------------------ From: gutierre@nsipo.nasa.gov (Robert Michael Gutierrez) Subject: Status of Cellular Resellers in California? Reply-To: gutierre@nsipo.nasa.gov (Robert Michael Gutierrez) Organization: NASA Science Internet Network Operations Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 06:06:58 GMT Does anybody have any status of the CPUC decision on allowing resellers in the Monarchy ... err ... State of California. I understand that the CPUC appeal was lost (3rd hand info, though), but no info on the proposed lawsuit by the carriers against the CPUC for that decision. Secondly: If the decision is standing, is anybody poised to start reselling? I'll be the first in line to sign up, BTW. Thanks in advance. Robert Gutierrez ------------------------------ From: gmccomb@netcom.com (Glenn McComb) Subject: Need Names of Carrier for 800-xxx number Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 08:15:25 GMT I am trying to find out how to get a custom 800 number, say 1-800-268-xxxx. I was told that each carrier owns certain blocks of numbers. How do I find out this one in particular, and in general? It was pleasing to here that you will soon be able to take your 800 numbers with you to another carrier. If anyone know anything about this, please help! Thanks! Glenn A. McComb (408) 725-1448 ofc * 725-0222 fax McComb Research PO Box 220 * Cupertino, CA 95015 gmccomb @ netcom.com MHS: glenn @ mccomb [Moderator's Note: At the time of divestiture, AT&T was the only supplier of 800 numbers. After the split, AT&T kept what 800 prefixes they were using plus a few spares. The rest were put in a pool and distributed to other carriers. I think Bellcore handled the distri- bution. For a list of which carriers got which prefixes, pull some files from the Telecom Archives: 'areacode.guide', '800*'. Use anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu, then 'cd telecom-archives'. PAT] ------------------------------ From: phoffman@orac.holonet.net (Paul E. Hoffman) Subject: Multi-line Answering Machine Organization: HoloNet National Internet Access BBS: 510-704-1058/modem Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 17:17:09 GMT I'm doing research for a friend. She wants five lines worth of outgoing-only answering machines, low cost. Same message on each, and in can be a barge-in system (one repeating tape with people coming in in the middle). -- I know a company called "Skutch" makes some sort of system like this. Does anyone have a tele for them or a rep of theirs? -- Are there industrial-strength single-line systems that are cheap? She doesn't mind duping the tape five times and dropping it in five machines if that's much cheaper and/or more reliable than a five-line system. Please respond in email and I'll summarize the results here. Paul Hoffman ------------------------------ From: briang@Sun.COM (Brian Gordon) Subject: Re: White House Phone Factoids Date: 17 Feb 93 00:07:36 GMT Organization: Sun In article knauer@cs.uiuc.edu writes: > "Contrary to widespread belief the old "hotline" between Washington > and Moscow was not a telephone to warn against an impending doomsday > attack, but rather a teletype manned at the Pentagon." Maybe it's been moved, but the "hot line" _used to_ terminate somewhere other than the Pentagon -- in the dark recesses of No Such Agency ... Brian G. Gordon briang@Sun.COM briang@netcom.COM B.GORDON2 on GENie 70243,3012 on CompuServe BGordon on AOL ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 9:31:43 EST From: Dennis G. Rears Subject: Re: Hilton Hotel Telephone Surcharge TELECOM Moderator notes: > [Moderator's Note: Have you ever considered having a call-extender > type of device put on a line -- with a complex security code -- and an > 800 number in to it to be used for ALL outgoing long distance calls? > That way you would get the direct dial rate on all your long distance > calls no matter where you are when you need to make a call. The > 'surcharge' would be whatever you pay per minute on the 800 line, but > the combination of charges would often times still be less than making > a call via the hotel switchboard with its surcharge, or the surcharge > your calling card requires. Your biggest savings would come on very > short calls where there is no opportunity to spread the surcharge over > several minutes. PAT] Where can one get a "call-extender"? How much do they cost? Can one do this with just two lines? dennis [Moderator's Note: Two lines is all you need; one for incoming calls and one for outgoing calls. You can get them at various telephone supply houses including (I think) 'Hello Direct' 1-800-HI-HELLO. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 9:51:39 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: Running Out of Area Codes A while back, I mentioned the zip-area directory as being of some help. I don't have the publisher's phone number in front of me, but I could supply the address from memory. Let me know if you need it. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #106 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa01342; 17 Feb 93 18:52 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA13525 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Wed, 17 Feb 1993 16:08:25 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA05241 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Wed, 17 Feb 1993 16:07:56 -0600 Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 16:07:56 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302172207.AA05241@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #108 TELECOM Digest Wed, 17 Feb 93 16:06:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 108 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State (John Higdon) Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State (David G. Lewis) Re: Cellular Phone Questions (Don Wegeng) Re: FX Service Across Area Codes (Mark Blumhardt) Re: Running Out of Area Codes (Carl Moore) Re: Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? (Jeffrey Jonas) Re: Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? (Brent Whitlock) Re: Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? (Larry Ader) Re: Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? (Ihor Kinal) Re: Need Names of Carrier For 800-xxx Number (Doug Zolmer) Re: Does Anyone Know Tellab's Phone Number? (John Anderson) Re: Third Party Network Connectivity (Ron Beach) Re: High-Speed Dial-Ups (John K Scoggin, Jr.) Re: DS0 Portion of a T1 (Fred R. Stearns) Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones (Steve Scherer) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 04:23 PST From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State Bob Longo writes: > Californians want CNID, but they also want per-line blocking to be > available (which is what PacBell is vigorously opposed to). That is > reasonable in a state where 40% of phone customers have unlisted > numbers. Perhaps you could site the surveys and studies that back this up? I am damn sick of people pronouncing what Californian's want (based upon absolutely no evidence) when trying to justify the stifling of yet another useful technology. I, for one, do not much care what Californian's want; I know what is useful and desirable and what is available in most of the rest of the country. I also know that none of the doom and gloom, even in areas that have no blocking capability, has been demonstrated in any way. The CPUC is perfectly aware that its restrictions are not standard and that no other state has required default per-line blocking and per-call enabling. Please stop pontificating about how it is just the mean old telephone companies that are being unreasonable. The restrictions were passed with one purpose in mind: to eliminate the offering of CNID in California. It succeeded royally. The activists won this round. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 264 4115 | FAX: john@ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) Subject: Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State Organization: AT&T Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 15:11:17 GMT I don't have an opinion on this issue, but there are some facts I wanted to clarify. In article jack.decker@f8.n154. z1.fidonet.org (Jack Decker) writes: > In message , rlm@indigo2.hac.com (Robert > L. McMillin) wrote: >> kgdykes@Thinkage.On.CA (Ken Dykes) writes: >>> Recently I received a call from the Glendale area of Los Angeles. I >>> live in southern Ontario CANADA. My Caller-ID box instead of showing >>> out-of-area showed PRIVACY. The call to me was made (and answered) >>> twice in the same night; both times PRIVACY ... some sort of >>> call-blocking was enabled by PacBell. >> Which probably means that the switch was SS7-connected, but thanks to >> the California Public fUtilities Commission, EVERYBODY's phone number >> will show up as PRIVACY-enabled. After all, privacy is the same thing >> as anonymity ... NOT! >>> PacBell is being far too kind to the zealots :-) >> It's not Pac*Hell's fault, really. > I think I would take issue with both of these statements. First of > all, it would seem that Pac*Bell would have the choice of not sending > the number at all, rather than sending the number with a "privacy" > flag attached. If Caller ID is not being offered in California, then > there is no reason they should be sending the number out of state, > particularly when they're sending it with the "private" flag, which > means that Caller ID subscribers can't read it anyway. PacBell doesn't have this choice, because the decision of whether or not Calling Party Number is sent is part of the IXC interstate access tariff. If the IXC subscribes to delivery of Calling Party Number, the LEC must send it if it is available. Regardless of whether anyone can read it, the IXC has subscribed to receive it. > Apparently the Caller ID software is already installed, so all they > have to do is turn it on, yet apparently they'd rather do without the > extra income from Caller ID than to even try it the way the PUC > allowed it. The fact that numbers are being delivered to IXCs is not sufficient to indicate that the Caller ID software is available or active in PacBell's switches. Sending CPN does not require the Caller ID feature; it requires only SS7 ISUP. Activating the Caller ID feature requires payment of an additional Right-To-Use fee. David G Lewis AT&T Bell Laboratories david.g.lewis@att.com or !att!goofy!deej Switching & ISDN Implementation ------------------------------ From: wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com (Don Wegeng) Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Questions Reply-To: wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com Organization: Xerox Corp., Henrietta, NY Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 16:27:01 GMT The replies that I have received about roaming and antennas have been very useful, and are much appreciated. There's still one area that I'm still not clear on, namely emergency use of the phone when I'm outside my home service area. Consider the following scenario. At home I have a contract with the A carrier, and have the phone programmed to only roam with A carriers. Now I'm travelling in another state, and come upon a serious car accident. My phone says that there's no cellular service in this area, so I can't use it to summon help, regardless of whether this particular area was covered by a B carrier. In the above scenario, had I programmed the phone to roam on B channels (or roam on both, with priority to A channels) would I have been able to make an emergency call? In other words, will carriers accept emergency calls from any telephone, or will they only accept emergency calls from phones that they recognize? Thanks, Don wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com ------------------------------ From: msb@advtech.uswest.com (Mark Blumhardt) Subject: Re: FX Service Across Area Codes Organization: U S WEST Advanced Technologies Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 19:03:07 GMT > [Moderator's Note: FX service becomes expensive when it has to run > between two central offices which connect direct to each other. > A modern alternative is 'remote call forwarding'. Ask telco to > terminate your current 201 number right in the CO where it is now and > put it on permanent call forwarding to your new number. That will only > cost $15-20 per month plus all calls it forwards at direct dial rates. Let's make this a little more complex: Let's say that I move from location A to B, and A and B are in the same calling area (no toll). Let's also say that C is in the same calling area as B. But C and A are not in the same calling area and would have a toll charge if they called each other. So, if I call forward from A to B, and C calls A, would C be charged for a toll call? Sorry if this is too difficult to follow; a diagram would be easier ... Mark [Moderator's Note: Yes, C would have a toll call to reach A and A would have a local call to reach B. Likewise, if D was a phone sitting right next to C and you had A forwarded to C, then when D called A, the call would wind up on the same desk where it started and you would have two toll charges; one going and one coming back. What A and B do is of no concern to C. C wants to place a call to A, then C pays for a call to A. The fact that A says 'send all my incoming calls to B' is not important. C wants to talk to A, and A is making sure that will occur, but via B. C gets what C paid for, with the added expense charged to A because A wants coverage of his line. Each part of a forwarded call is charged to where it *expects* to wind up; that is the fallacy behind the idea that you can forward your phone to 'some expensive 900 service' and stick the originating caller with the charge. Do it and the joke will be on you. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 13:57:46 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: Running Out of Area Codes From the message sent by co057@cleveland.Freenet.Edu: > "It is my understanding that only the areas that are in the City of > Los Angeles;" I don't understand what this means. Other sources indicate that the City of L.A. is much bigger than just the Los Angeles exchange or the 900xx zipcodes. > "downtown only remained 213 and the others went to 310. Those > areas are West LA and such." Montebello stayed in 213, and the central Los Angeles exchange (which includes downtown, Hollywood, etc., plus the "foreign" L.A. exchanges appearing in what is now 818 and 310) also stayed in 213. Yes, West L.A. is among the exchanges which moved to 310. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 11:31:55 EST From: jeffj%jiji@uunet.UU.NET (Jeffrey Jonas) Subject: Re: Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? [Moderator's Note: What a convenient arrangement! I had heard these devices get back as far as the transformer serving the neighborhood, and I guess your experience shows this is true. PAT] Oh Pat, what a sense of humor you have! In areas of private houses, the pole transformers serve perhaps 3-10 homes (perhaps 20 - I'm not sure). That's hardly the entire neighborhood - just the block or apartment building. I don't think the signals cross between the phases either -- that's why the X10 modules needed some capacitor between the house's phases to let the signal propagate throughout the house. Yes, I agree that the signals are getting out of the house and into neighbors' homes, but like a cordless phone, it's limited enough in range that the risks are acceptable to many people (but certainly not to us!) Jeffrey Jonas jeffj@panix.com ------------------------------ From: bwhitlock@uiuc.edu (Brent Whitlock) Subject: Re: Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 21:38:42 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) writes: > >[Moderator's Note: They work okay unless you have flourescent lights > Hmmn, flourescent lights? I've been able to get flour to explode, but > never to glow continuously. Have you told the USDA about this? Surely > price supports are needed. > Regards, > John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl > PS: :-) Actually, virtually any material can be made to emit photons if enough power is pumped into it. I refer you to the paper on the first edible laser, the "Jello" laser. T. A. Hansch, M. Pernier, and A. L. Schalow, "Laser Action of Dyes in Gelatin," {IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics} QE-7, 47, January 1971. So, here's to those flourescent lights! :-) * * * * * * --> DISCLAIMER: I speak only for myself. <-- * * * * * * Brent Whitlock Beckman Institute for Advanced Science & Technology bwhitlock@uiuc.edu Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ------------------------------ From: lra@Sun.COM (Larry Ader) Subject: Re: Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? Date: 17 Feb 93 06:13:45 GMT Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Mt. View, CA In article markf@atlastele.com (Mark Ferris) writes: > My mom was asking me about an ad she read recently that was selling a > product that allowed a phone jack anywhere an electrical outlet is. > Anybody hear about this product? Any comments? Does it actually > work? What's the signal/noise ratio via this method? Would this > actually be a recommended way to add additional phone lines into a > house? I tried using a pair of them myself. The intent was to be able to use it for connection to a modem in one of my rooms that doesn't have a phone jack. Unfortunately, when I "listened to the line" through a telephone (after dialing one digit) there was a detectable hum on the line. I was able to discover the source of the hum -- I also have several (formerly BSR) X-10 modules in my place. If I disconnected them, the hum went away. I decided that that inconvenience wasn't worth it. I did try to make a modem connection anyway, and I guess the hum was just too much for it (the modem). Anybody want to buy a pair of them (barely used)? Larry Ader Sun Microsystems, Inc. 2550 Garcia Ave. M/S MPK03-201 Mountain View, CA 94043-1100 amdahl!echidna!lra (home) ph. 415/688-9721 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 13:46:10 EST From: ijk@violin.att.com Subject: Re: Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? Organization: AT&T In article , markf@atlastele.com (Mark Ferris) writes: > My mom was asking me about an ad she read recently that was selling a > product that allowed a phone jack anywhere an electrical outlet is. > [Moderator's Note: They work okay unless you have flourescent lights > or other noise making conditions in the power lines. PAT] What concerns me, is the capability that someone could grab the line remotely. I remember that allegedly people use to cruise neighbor- hoods looking for cordless frequencies to dial out on. Nasty hassle to resolve. Is that possible with these devices? Inquiring minds want to know ... Standard disclaimers apply. Ihor Kinal att!trumpet!ijk ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 15:33:00 +0000 From: Doug (D.W.J.) Zolmer Subject: Re: Need Names of Carrier For 800-xxx Number > I am trying to find out how to get a custom 800 number, say > 1-800-268-xxxx. I was told that each carrier owns certain blocks of > numbers. How do I find out this one in particular, and in general? > It was pleasing to here that you will soon be able to take your 800 > numbers with you to another carrier. > If anyone know anything about this, please help! Bell Canada - Ontario region "owns" 800-268-XXXX. There are a lot of TV commercials in Ontario with 800 numbers with that exchange. I doubt very much if Glenn will be able to obtain an 800 number in that exchange since it's in Canada. Doug Zolmer Internet: dwjz@bnr.ca Disclaimer: my opinions only Bell-Northern Research Limited, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Dept. 7N61 - Service Control Point - Routing Services Design Voice: +1 613.763.8217 FAX: +1 613.763.8312 ------------------------------ From: andrsonj@rtsg.mot.com (John Anderson) Subject: Re: Does Anyone Know Tellab's Phone Number? Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Group Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 20:33:46 GMT jasko@park.bu.edu (John V. Jaskolski) writes: > Does anyone know Tellab's phone number? Tellab's Headquarters: 708-969-8800 Tellab's Technical Assistance: 708-505-0099 John D. Anderson, M.S. |Internet: andrsonj@rtsg.mot.com Motorola |uucp: uunet!motcid!andrsonj 1501 W. Shure Drive |Phone: +1-708-632-2103 Arlington Heights, IL 60004, Mail Stop: IL27-2237 ------------------------------ From: beachri@rcwusr.bp.com Subject: Re: Third Party Network Connectivity Date: 17 Feb 93 07:30:02 -0600 Organization: BP Research, Cleveland, OH (USA) In article , BEACHRI@RCWUSR.BP.COM writes: > I'm looking for someone to help me research the issue of one business > directly connecting it's internal network to that of another company > - a supplier, a business partner, a vendor, etc. We call that 'third > party connectivity' within BP (British Petroleum, ne Standard Oil). Dear all - Thanks to those that have replied to me. As hindsight, I should have made it clearer that I meant data networks, not telephone networks. There are no issues with connecting voice systems. We have an international internal data network, and, of course, a secure Internet gateway. We have quite a few current network connections to things like banks, accounting firms, etc , and are considering opening our data network by plugging into the networks of business partners -- for instance joint operation of facilities and sites. The head audit group is helping with the process, and currently supportive. Cost is the issue. If it costs more to the whole organization to open the network than to leave it closed,then we probably won't do it. The businesses are fragmented -- with differing needs for data connectivity. If our network is declared open and insecure, then those business portions who don't like it, or are sensitive (as finance, trading, etc) must spend money to close themselves off. If the aggregate total cost for internal security is greater than the aggregate total of costs of external 'firewalls' needed, and there are no offsetting benefits, then we'll likely not proceed. Any leads to other companies who might have gone through this for direct inter-business links (not via the Internet) would be appreciated. Thanks again, Ron Beach Manager, Telcom and Information Strategy BP Research 4440 Warrensville Ctr. Rd Cleveland, Ohio 44128 beach@rcwcl1.dnet.bp.com ------------------------------ From: John K Scoggin Jr Subject: Re: High-Speed Dial-Ups Date: 17 Feb 1993 12:31:57 GMT Organization: Delmarva Power & Light Company Reply-To: scoggin@delmarva.COM In article 9@eecs.nwu.edu, John@msus1.msus.edu (John Biederstedt) writes: > We have some T1 circuits and would like to provide high-speed dial > backup capability. It would be nice to get 56 kb dial-ups. Codex > makes such a modem, but it is compressed. Dissapointingly, they are > moving to higher-speed asyncronous modems rather than syncronous > modems. :-( Does the Internet have any suggestions? Western Datacom makes a 56KBPS Synchronous modem that will run over dialed lines or leased lines. It uses compression, but they seem pretty confident in it ... John K. Scoggin, Jr. Email: scoggin@delmarva.com Supervisor, Network Operations Phone: (302) 451-5200 Delmarva Power & Light Company Fax: (302) 451-5321 500 N. Wakefield Drive NOC: (800) 388-7076 Newark, DE 19714-6066 The opinions expressed are not those of Delmarva Power, simply the product of an over-active imagination... ------------------------------ From: fred@dickens.com (Fred R Stearns) Subject: Re: DS0 Portion of a T1 Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 12:14:24 GMT Organization: Dickens Data Systems, Inc. > In article fred@dickens.com (Fred R > Stearns) writes: >> Please excuse my math, but if one bit of every 6th byte is stolen, >> doesn't that make 62.667 kbps? Thanks to all of the following people: Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com Brett (rfranken@cs.umr.edu) Al Varney floyd@ims.alaska.edu John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl For pointing out to me that you don't know which of the bytes has a bit stolen, so you must assume that they all do. Fred R. Stearns -- fred@dickens.com ------------------------------ From: steves@csufresno.edu (Steve Scherer) Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones Organization: CSU Fresno Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 15:23:47 GMT In article mike.riddle%inns@ axolotl.omahug.org writes: > john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon)) writes: >> Scanner laws will be just about as effective as gun laws -- only much >> sillier. The FCC is seriously deluded if it thinks it can win a >> technological war with anyone. The below-average moron outguns the FCC >> in the brain cell department. > This may well be true, :-), but as the original post noted, the FCC is > under a mandate from our Congre$$ Critter$ to promulgate reguations on > this subject. Now if anyone wonders about the collective I.Q. of > Congre$$ on technological matters ... PAT has some perfectly dry > tunnels under Chicago to sell. QST Magazine recently published an article on how to build a modification to an existing scanner that would allow scanning of the 800 meg band. There was the usual disclaimer, but we all know how far that will go. steves@csufresno.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #108 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa05000; 17 Feb 93 20:33 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA26384 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Wed, 17 Feb 1993 15:00:54 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA17353 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Wed, 17 Feb 1993 14:59:57 -0600 Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 14:59:57 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302172059.AA17353@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #107 TELECOM Digest Wed, 17 Feb 93 14:59:45 CST Volume 13 : Issue 107 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: ANI on 800 Line w/o T1? (Brent Capps) Re: One-Way Outgoing Service (Al Varney) Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones (John Langner) Re: Meaning of TTL in TCP/IP (was Jack Decker's FTP Problem) (Jack Decker) Re: National Data Superhighways - Access? (Robert L. McMillin) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bcapps@atlastele.com (Brent Capps) Subject: Re: ANI on 800 Line w/o T1? Organization: Atlas Telecom Inc. Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 17:26:13 GMT In article John Higdon writes: > Tas Dienes writes: >> Does anybody know if it is possible to get ANI on an 800 line without >> having to get T1 service? I just have a couple of regular (actually, >> Centranet) lines - local service is GTE, 800 is Sprint. Sprint says >> no, but I was wondering if anybody else can? > In order to receive realtime ANI from a long distance carrier, you > must have a "trunk-side connection". All connections from your telco's > switch are "line-side connections". So the answer is no, you cannot > get realtime ANI without having a direct trunk connection to a > carrier's switch. Correct. MCI offers a "DTMF ANI" service that may mislead some people into thinking that they'll get ANI over a line-side circuit. However, what this service is really designed to do is replace the MF with DTMF so you won't need to order MF receiver circuits for your PBX or ACD gear. You still need a trunk-side circuit. In article tim gorman <71336.1270@ CompuServe.COM> writes: > Third, having said trunk side connections are available from the > telco's switch, it is also necessary to point out that this probably > won't help you in getting your ANI in any way. No switch I am aware of > that is in use in the LEC networks will accept ANI from a carrier so > the telco switches couldn't tandem ANI to you anyway. The telco > switches aren't setup to pass ANI on the trunk side unless you are the > billing office for a toll call, are a 911 PSAP, or are a Feature Group > D interLATA carrier. If your PBX can handle Feature Group D signaling > formats, you want to go through the process of being designated as an > interLATA carrier, want to get an 800 NXX assigned (or wait until May > 1 when 800 portability comes into play), and provide trunks into every > sector where you may receive calls from then this may be a viable > solution. It's not necessary to be designated as a carrier. You are correct about the LECs giving FGD ANI only to IXCs and never accepting it from them, but an IXC can still drop ANI to you over a trunk-side FGD circuit (analog or digital). FGD actually encompasses four different protocols. The one that the IXCs use to terminate to LECs is called the terminating protocol, and it makes no provision for passing ANI information (which is why you've never seen the LECs accept ANI from the IXCs). However, the Exchange Access North America (EANA) protocol used by LECs to terminate to IXCs does provide for ANI signaling, and even though it's not officially defined for IXCs terminating to end-users, it can be and is done all the time, generally to inbound calling centers running large ACD systems. The only carrier I'm aware of that *won't* support this is AT&T, and the reason seems to be that they want you force to buy PRI or BRI if you want to get calling party information. There's one more way to get ANI -- you can order an SMDI data link, which is used by Centrex voice mail systems, and will also work on the 1ESS. However it's much more limited in the ways it can be used than FGD ANI. Brent Capps bcapps@agora.rain.com (gay stuff) bcapps@atlastele.com (telecom stuff) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 11:27:30 CST From: varney@ihlpl.att.com Subject: Re: One-Way Outgoing Service Organization: AT&T Network Systems, Lisle, IL In article jeffj%jiji@uunet.UU.NET (Jeffrey Jonas) writes: > I am curious about this: >> [Moderator's Note: Clever response. Since you only make outgoing calls >> on those lines occassionally, and never have incoming calls, you >> should ask telco to set the lines up as one-way outgoing service only. >> Then you'd never see any wrong numbers at all. PAT] > Is "one-way outgoing service" an additional cost? I've heard of the > opposite (incoming only, to prevent any long distance billing), but no > incoming calls -- interesting. Would those lines even HAVE a phone > number? Could they all be the same number, and billed based on some > imaginary number (trunk/line number just as places with more than one > line at the same number)? > At home, I have a second line that I'm currently using only for > outgoing modem/data calls. Someday I may have a FAX or BBS, so I do > not intend to block incoming calls, but it is a curious idea. Could > you elaborate why this service is offered? See below. > If it is possible to have a phone line with no number, what would > Caller-ID report? ANO? I guess that *SOME* number must be associated > with every line for billing purposes. Drat -- I'd like to have a > number with no ANI so 900 numbers can't bill me. Or was I not > supposed to notice that? Lines without Calling Party numbers are not uncommon -- PBXs can interface that way on some switches, and "rural" or multi-party lines do not have a single number associated with them. Most cellular calls don't have a calling number with the current interfaces. International numbers don't usually get transported, since the current Bellcore specs specify only ten-digit numbers. One way or another, every line has a billing number (and thus has ANI). Multi-party lines get "per-call ANI" assigned by the Operator Number Identification service ("What number are your calling from, please?"). PBXs get one (or more) billing numbers assigned to outgoing facilities. Trunks, except for Private Facilities and PBX/Service Provider trunks, don't have a billing number. > [Moderator's Note: Lines equipped for outgoing only service generally > have regular phone numbers attached to them. Callers to those numbers > either get a busy signal (if the line is in use on an outgoing call) > or an intercept message, "The number you dialed, xxx-xxxx is not in > service for incoming calls" if the line is not busy. There are other > variations: Lines for incoming service only generally provide battery > but no dial tone to the subscriber if picked up with no call coming > in. ...] Bellcore's LSSGR calls the two line capabilities "denied origination" and "denied termination". You can have either or both assigned to a line. (Service denial due to non-payment of bills is normally accomplished using a separate capability that remembers all your old line features. Denied origination requires that all originating features (call forwarding, etc.) be removed first. Anyway, denied origination should give no dial tone, but will appear busy to incoming calls if off-hook. Denied termination should never receive a call (but operator ring-back is permitted), and should NEVER appear busy to a caller, even if off-hook. The appropriate announcement on termination attempts is not suggested by Bellcore. One use for denied termination occurs in COs. Usually at least one line is marked this way, to assure there is always one line available for outgoing calls. That way, they can't all be tied up with spouses calling in with a shopping list, etc. I once was working on a CO problem (remotely), and the WECo installer gave me a number for a later call-back. He didn't know (he claimed) that it was denied incoming calls. Not any worse than giving me the WRONG number, which has happened more than once. Al Varney - just my opinion, of course. [Moderator's Note: In order for the operator to ring back, doesn't she have to already be on the line (and apply ringing voltage) rather than just dialing in? If the operator dials in, won't the response be the same as anyone else dialing in? If she was talking to someone on that line and they hang up (while she still has control of the conn- ection) then she could ring their bell, but the connection has to be there already. Am I correct on this? Regards an outgoing only line never giving a busy signal to a caller when it is in use, I have never seen any in IBT territory which work that way! I always assumed it was the nature of the wiring on that type of service, at least in the older crossbar offices, etc. Lots of payphones here are outgoing only, and when I tested this by dialing the number from the same phone I always got a busy rather than an intercept. Hang up the phone, go to the next one over and dial the first number, then being idle, I got the intercept message saying it was not in service for incoming calls. Lest you think it is me calling myself which generated the busy, I'd get the same response if someone else was using that phone when I dialed the number; busy signal if in use, intercept message if idle. PAT] ------------------------------ From: johnl@avs.com (John W. Langner) Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones Organization: Advanced Visual Systems Inc. Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1993 12:56:13 GMT In article kaufman@cs.stanford.edu writes: > john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: >> Scanner laws will be just about as effective as gun laws -- only much >> sillier. The FCC is seriously deluded if it thinks it can win a >> technological war with anyone. The below-average moron outguns the FCC >> in the brain cell department. > Actually, it's not the FCC by itself in this. In fact, they have > declined to attempt to regulate scanners in the past. If you read the > NPRM, you will see that the FCC is only attempting to set a rule in > accordance with legislation passed by Congress. It's the dummies in > Congress who are short in the brain cell department. Whining about the idiots in Congress won't do any good but a half million letters to the FCC pointing out the problems with Docket 93-1 can't be ignored. So, if you want to express your concern about this issue, please write a letter to the FCC. It will only take a few minutes. Here is a rough draft of what I plan to send. Feel free to use it with little or no modification. John Langner WB2OSZ johnl@avs.com Comments on Docket No. 93-1 --------------------------- < Your address here > Feb. 16, 1993 Office of the Secretary Federal Communications Commission 1919 M Street, NW Washington, DC 20554 Dear Commissioners: After examining the text of Docket No. 93-1, I am convinced this proposed rule would NOT contribute to the stated objective of ensuring "the privacy of cellular telephone conversations." Recent magazine articles on this topic indicate that there are already millions of scanning receivers in use that can receive frequencies in the 800 MHz range. The proposed law would not not take effect for another year, providing ample opportunity for scanner manufacturers to sell many millions more. Even if a scanner isn't capable of receiving signals in this frequency range, a simple converter can be used between the antenna and receiver to shift the frequency of the radio signals. Trying to ban converters with 800 MHz in and some other frequency range out would be a futile effort. These are very cheap and simple circuits that any electronics hobbyist could build. Plans have been published in electronics magazines. Besides having no benefits, this proposed rule creates several problems: (1) The technically ignorant public might get the idea their conversations are suddenly more secure. When they learn the truth they will be bitter and more distrustful of the telephone companies and government agencies that deceived them. (2) Privacy might even be reduced. Before the publicity on this topic, most people didn't realize it was so easy to listen to cellular phone calls. Many who never considered buying a scanner will run out and buy one during the next year. (3) New regulations would place an unnecessary burden on electronics manufacturers who would have to change designs and have them recertified. (4) It would set an unfortunate precedent. If we have a ban on receivers capable of receiving a certain range of frequencies, other businesses will expect the same treatment for "their" frequencies. (5) The regulations could hit unintended targets. For example the 902 MHz band is now experiencing explosive growth for low power commercial and "ham" applications. Surely much of this equipment could easily be modified to pick up signals in the 800 MHz range even if the manfacturer didn't design it with that intention. I'm all for guarding the privacy of cellular telephone conversations but this is not the way to do it. There is only one solution. The cellular telephone companies must make encryption options available. In summary, I urge the Commission to reject the proposed regulations in Docket 93-1 because they would create many problems without making any progress toward the stated goal. Thank you for your attention to this important matter. Yours truly, < Your name here > ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 12:21:15 EST From: jack_decker@f8.n154.z1.fidonet.org (Jack Decker) Subject: Re: Meaning of TTL in TCP/IP (was Jack Decker's FTP Problem) In message , add@philabs.philips.com (Aninda Dasgupta) wrote: > Perhaps Jack Decker will let us know whether he finally succeeded in > his attempts to ftp to mintaka. No, I haven't, but I want to take this opportunity to thank all those who wrote with suggestions. Unfortunately, I don't have the source code for the KA9Q program, and while sources are available, I think the one I am using has been specially modified somehow for use with MichNet (the statewide public data network in Michigan that I'm using) ... I'm not sure of that but do know that I have tried newer versions of KA9Q and for whatever reason, they don't seem to work as well. And even if I did have sources, I have no way to compile them here. There is a parameter that supposedly sets the IP TTL in KA9Q. In fact, my autoexec.net file (a list of commands that is automatically implemented at startup) contained the line "ip ttl 32". I doubled the 32 to 64 with no apparent change (I've even tried considerably higher values temporarily). I do know that someone using the EXACT same software, and also using MichNet (but at a different access port in a different city) is able to reach lcs.mit.edu with no problem. However, it seems that in the Internet, where there is a will there is a way! While I still can't do FTP, I have found a way to at least read some of the files stored in the telecom archives, thanks to a TELECOM Digest reader who told me about this (I don't know if he would want his name mentioned, but I've already thanked him via mail). If you can telnet to a Gopher system (which I can), and if that Gopher allows you to access "other gophers" (most do), you should eventually be able to find one that offers remote FTP access. I've found that it is often buried under some pretty cryptic menu items ... for example, on one such Gopher you have to select "Network Info", then "Internet files (FTP sites)", then you enter the location you want to FTP from and then the Gopher automatically goes out and gets the directories and lets you choose the item you want to read. If you go in through the right gopher system for your initial point of contact, you may even have the option of mailing a copy of anything you find interesting back to yourself (not sure I'd try that with some of the larger archives, though ... some are pretty huge!). I'm not mentioning which gopher(s) have the FTP access because I'm sure that several do, and I don't want any one of them to get overloaded. Try all the gophers in your home state first, then try adjacent states and fan out from there. The closer you get to home, the less delay you should experience (and gophers can be painfully slow at times anyway, so every little bit helps). As a side note, it seems as though there ought to be a newsgroup for gopher users; a place where folks can share their "finds" on the gophers. Many of the gophers have fairly cryptic menus, so it can be a daunting task to find what you are looking for, but there is a real wealth of information out there IF you can find it! I do have one request, if anyone has considerably better access to the archives than I do. I would like to find any references in the archives to the referendums in the states of Maine and Oregon (I believe these were both in the fall of 1986, if memory serves correctly) in which the voters turned down mandatory measured service. I've always wanted to get more information on that, including (if possible) text of the actual initiatives passed by the voters. If you have the capability to grep the files and let me know of any issues in which this information might appear, I would much appreciate it. Of course, I wouldn't mind receiving information on this from other sources as well! Anyway, thanks again to everyone who wrote! Jack Decker | Internet: jack.decker@f8.n154.z1.fidonet.org | Fidonet: 1:154/8 [Moderator's Note: Jack's suggestion about using gophers *does* work! I just now went to the Telecom Archives using gopher and mailed a file to myself. It is slow and cumbersome, but it gets what you want. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 04:20:41 -0800 From: rlm@indigo2.hac.com (Robert L. McMillin) Subject: Re: National Data Superhighways - Access? Andrew Blau writes: >> The telcos view such a highway as a monopoly arrangement, something >> the public has stated they don't want anymore. > In fact, the telcos have become *very* involved in this. During > President Clinton's Economic Summit after the election, the one moment > of reported conflict was when Robert Allen of AT&T challenged Mr. > Gore's contention that the superhighway should be a public works > project. Allen said, "I believe I have some points to make about who > should do what in that respect. I think the government should not > build and/or operate such networks. I believe that the private sector > can be and will be incented to build these networks...." He held to > this even after being challenged by Gore, who seemed to suggest that > Allen couldn't have meant what he seemed to be saying. Three cheers, then, for Robert Allen. We should hold off on the 21-gun salute until AFTER we've heard AT&T's full proposal. > LECs, too, are getting into this quickly. They see data transport as > a big part of their future, and notion that the government might come > in and build a national infrastructure that isn't the telco > infrastructure raises lots of red flags (such as bypass on a massive > scale, for one). It's no surprise that the LECs see digital services in their crystal balls. The question that needs to be asked is this: will these digital services to the residential demarc be affordable? My guess is not, especially if the LECs or the IXCs have anything to say about it. Outrageous pricing of digital services is the reason that EDS is currently sueing AT&T (I believe -- I haven't got the {Forbes: ASAP} article handy) over the issue of so-called "dark" (i.e., redundant and unused) fiber. EDS bargained for use of these dark fiber links, pushing high-volume image data over them. AT&T figured it was losing T1 and T3 business this way, so after a time, tried to cancel its existing "dark fiber" contracts with EDS. But EDS, armed with General Motors' capital and battery of lawyers, fought back under the common carriage laws. Moral: no player with the capital and the equipment wants to see you get cheap two-way digital services. (This story was much better told in the {Forbes: ASAP} supplement that came out several months ago. Therein was presented the reason behind the "dark fiber" conflict, what it means for telephony, and why tunable lasers and cheap fiber optic pipes can let you throw your 5ESS in the dumpster -- at least, in theory. The article forms the kernel of a soon-to-be-published book entitled, {Into the Cybersphere}.) Somebody once said that the triumph of capitalism is not that it can produce silk stockings for the Queen, but that it makes affordable nylons for the secretaries. That is the approach we need to take with digital services: by making them available cheaply, we can spread their benefits widely. All we need is the capital and the vision to apply it. Robert L. McMillin | Voice: (310) 568-3555 Hughes Aircraft/Hughes Training, Inc. | Fax: (310) 568-3574 Los Angeles, CA | Internet: rlm@indigo2.hac.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #107 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa26334; 18 Feb 93 19:32 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA07196 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Thu, 18 Feb 1993 16:44:01 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA17208 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Thu, 18 Feb 1993 16:43:31 -0600 Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 16:43:31 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302182243.AA17208@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #109 TELECOM Digest Thu, 18 Feb 93 16:43:30 CST Volume 13 : Issue 109 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Administrivia: Fax Machine Contact With Digest (TELECOM Moderator) Touch Tone is No Extra Charge (Part 2) (Paul Robinson) South American Phone Service is Better Than GTE (Wayne Lorentz) If GTE's the Disease ... (was: GTE On the "Move") (Robert L. McMillin) National Information Infrastructure Conference (Matt Lucas) Veriphone (Credit-Card Verifier) Protocols? (Russ Nelson) Virtual Private Networks - Users Opinions, Please (Mikko Tapio Lavanti) Help With Stolen Calling-Card Number! Please! (Joel M. Hoffman) Mandatory Measured Service (Steve Forrette) RS449 or V.35 to Fiber Line Driver (Phil Green) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Fax Machine Contact With Digest Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 16:00:00 CST Effective at this time, and for a limited trial period, you may contact me by Fax at 312-743-0002. This machine may or may not stay here. It is only a small machine, not a large commercial one, so please don't send big multiple-page documents without asking me first. My budget for paper, etc is limited. Also, this line is used for *long* outgoing calls by a modem, so there may be times the line is busy for extended periods, mainly late in the evening. If busy, try later. Thanks, Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 13:31:49 -0500 (EST) From: Paul Robinson Subject: Touch Tone is No Extra Charge (Part 2) In a previous issue of the Digest I explained how I have two phone lines and decided to install two more. I thought I'd tell people what happened. Yesterday the installer from C&P Telephone of Maryland came out to put in the two new phone lines. We discovered the following things about my house: 1. The place is so old that, from the days when there was not enough lines running out here, there is a Slick-1 on the network block, unused, for when they had to use subscriber carrier. It was used, not for other phones in the neighborhood, but so that this house could have two phone lines by using subscriber carrier. Also, he notes that C&P has only recently stopped using subscriber carrier as they have sufficient lines out here to handle the traffic. 2. The original two lines were turned on from the office; no installer came out. Otherwise I would have discovered I had no protection against lightning on either line; if there had been a lighting short, it would have fried everything: all phones, my computers, everything. 3. He pointed to the line running across the street to the telephone pole. One of the lines had a splice in it. So he decided to rip out the two lines that ran across the road and replace them and add the two new ones with a brand new SIX pair wire. He even reconnected the two lines he disconnected. Also, he gave me about 50 feet of four-pair wire which he strung at the time he was putting the wire. He installed in the basement, a brand new five-pair network block that have the best GAS DISCHARGE surge protectors. In the event of lightining, they will blow, disconnecting the line. He also threaded the four-pair at the same time he inserted the main wire. He then left the spool on the roof next to my second floor window for me to install. He also did not install the new lines (and I thought he was correct on this point) because the phone wire he gave me was sitting outside, in the rain. Also, because he suggested that because of the construction on the house, I'd be better off having a hole drilled in the siding and add the wire instead of using one of the older holes. The installer stated that if I just wanted to hook up the four-line wire myself, all that would be charged is the installation fee, which would save at least $50 for the additional work. I agreed. I thought it was funny that a while after he started there was a second installer in a cherry-picker also out there on the pole doing my installation. Well, it turns out that the phone company didn't bother to run the additional two lines out to the network box on the telephone pole until after the installer showed up here. He spent about two hours here installing the two lines. I am also the ONLY user of the network box on that telephone pole, as I am the *last customer* at the end of that run. The house across the street uses a pole further up the road. The house on the side uses a pole on the other street in the next central office. The house on the other side is also on the other central office. Also, the network box on the pole has enough room for up to TEN telephone lines. If I ever get to the point I need ten lines I'll get a T1-Line and a codec. Which reminds me: I humorously mentioned about what would happen if I wanted a T1 line (or fractional one). He pointed out that AT&T would have to put it in; C&P doesn't do T1 wiring! I'd order the POP at the central office, but someone else would have to supply the drop. End result; I got the four-pair wire running into my room; he does nice work as the wire had 8 feet of slack. All I've had to pay for was the base installation so I, in effect, got the new wire for "free". I brought the wire in my room and hooked it up downstairs. This morning I hooked the two lines to the two line jack I have in my room. I tried using the 1073214049889664 number from both lines and it read back the xx7-xxxx numbers I was given originally. Calling the main hunt number when it's busy causes the second number to ring. As to whether it works for outgoing calls, this message was posted from my new modem line! Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM [Moderator's Note: Congratulations on getting the job done right! PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: South American Phone Service is Better Than GTE From: waynel@sod.linet.org (WayneL) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 08:13:50 EST Organization: The East Wind +1 201 875 7063 Well, far be it from me to be the only one reading this newsgroup _NOT_ to flame GTE, thus I'm blowing off a little steam. I don't have a problem with the bill, since I only use GTE at work, but I would like to say that I've used telephone setups in South America that were better than what they've provided us. A large percentage (at least 20%) of my calls within the area (914) don't go through. Sometimes I just get a re-order. Sometimes it gives me a busy signal, even though the line isn't (I tested this by calling a phone in another studio that was empty at the time). And if that's not bad enough, many times if I dial xxx-xxxx I get a message saying that I need to dial a 1 before the number. So, I dial the same number, with the "1", and get a message saying that the number cannot be completed as dialed. (grumble grumble) Since I work in the newsroom (at WALL/WKOJ) it's very important that my calls go through the first time. So, each reporter has come up with their own solution ... I always diak 1-914-xxx-xxxx on ALL calls within the area code, even if it's only down the street and in the same prefix. For whatever reason, it works. Another guy uses the social engineering approach: he ALWAYS calls the GTE operator to place the call for him. Every once in a while the operator protests, but it doesn't take long for them to just put it through, anyway. I live in a tiny tiny telephone company (The Warwick Valley Telephone Company) that has only four pay phones in its entire operation, does not allow Equal Access (either by 950-xxxx, or 10xxx), and has less than 5,000 phones (split between 201 and 914). I never thought any telephone company could be worse, then I met GTE. -Flame off- Wayne V.H. Lorentz : WayneL ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 04:38:36 -0800 From: rlm@indigo2.hac.com (Robert L. McMillin) Subject: If GTE's the Disease ... (was GTE On the "Move") John Higdon writes: > I have always said that GTE was a disease. If that's true, is LEC competition the cure? I sure hope so ... Robert L. McMillin | Voice: (310) 568-3555 Hughes Aircraft/Hughes Training, Inc. | Fax: (310) 568-3574 Los Angeles, CA | Internet: rlm@indigo2.hac.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 16:57:59 -0500 From: matt lucas Subject: National Information Infrastructure Conference TeleStrategies Conference Announcement: The National Information Infrastructure Conference April 27-28, 1993 - Washington, DC PLUS "Understanding Information and Network Technologies for Non-Engineers" Monday, April 26, 1993 Tuesday, April 27, 1993 8:30-9:00 Registration 9:00-10:00 KEYNOTE ADDRESS: WHY DO WE NEED A NATIONAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE? What are the decisions to be made and alternatives to be faced? Should the NII be a single national system or specialized networks loosely interconnected? What should federal policy be? Senator Conrad Burns, (R - Mt.) 10:00-10:30 Coffee Break 10:30-12:00 DEFINING THE VISION AND PROVIDING LEADERSHIP The panelists will present a variety of policy views from the perspectives of their constituencies. Jerry Berman, Executive Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation Fiona Branton, Technology Counsel, Computer Systems Policy Project Ken Dowlin, Director, San Francisco Public Library Marc Rotenberg, Director, Washington Office Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility 12:00-1:30 Hosted Lunch 1:30-3:00 WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT? Should the Federal government build the NII, pay for it in order to provide technology transfer, or should it just provide leadership and articulate a national interest point of view? Ralph Andreotta, Director, Technology Infrastructure, AT&T John Clement, Director, Consortium for School Networking Stewart Personick, Vice President, Information Networking and Research, Bellcore Paul Peters, Director, Coalition for Networked Information 3:00-3:30 Coffee Break 3:30-5:00 WHO WILL BUILD THE NII? This session will focus on issues related to building the NII. Panelists will discuss the parts of the infrastructure that are already in place and examine the components that still need to be added. The roles of the following players will be described: TCP/IP network service providers; the Community Learning & Information Network; industry and manufacturing nets (EINet); and the Internet Society and its role in international issues. Rick Adams, Chairman, Commercial Internet Exchange Ken Fiduk, Director, Enterprise Integration Network, MCC Anthony Rutkowskii, Secretary, Internet Society Sam Wyman, Chief Operating Officer Community Learning & Information Network 5:00-6:00 Reception Wednesday, April 28, 1993 8:30-10:00 THE ROLE OF THE NSFNET AND NREN Where do the NSFnet and NREN fit in the context of a NII? How is the role of the NSF changing in terms of the final backbone solicitation? How will (or should) NSF subsidies affect the NSFnet mid-level infrastructure? Gordon Cook, Editor & Publisher, COOK Report on Internet -> NREN Tom Grunder, President, National Public Telecomputing Network John Rugo, Project Manager, NEARnet Steve Wolff, Director, NSFnet 10:00-10:30 Coffee Break 10:30-12:30 THE ROLE OF CARRIERS, CABLE AND WIRELESS A NII will bring new opportunities for delivery of information to the home and business. What are the risks and potential rewards facing the telcos, cable TV, and wireless industries as they make their plans to participate in these new services? Mark Coblitz, Vice President, Strategic Planning Comcast Corporation Bob Doyle, Director, Marketing, Science and Education, US Sprint Lucie Fjeldstad, IBM Vice President and General Manager of been serving as a testbed for new ideas and services. Senator Kerrey has ambitious plans to pick up the pace of Nebraska's involvement by funding a grassroots computer network within the state. Issues involving access to the NII will also be discussed. Carolyn Fuller, Counsel, Office of Senator Kerrey Frank Odasz, Director, Big Sky Telegraph Roy Perry, Network Architect, U S West Advanced Technologies Samuel A. Simon, President, Issue Dynamics Inc. For complete information call TeleStrategies at (703) 734-7050 Conference Hotel: The conference will be held at the SHERATON RESTON HOTEL 11810 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA 22091, (703) 620-9000. THE HOTEL IS LOCATED 15 MINUTES FROM DULLES AIRPORT. Seminar Hours: Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, April 26 and Tuesday, April 27. Seminar hours are 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday, and 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 28 ------------------------------ From: nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) Subject: Veriphone (Credit-Card Verifier) Protocols? Date: 18 Feb 93 02:57:10 GMT Organization: Clarkson University, Potsdam NY Does anyone have the specification used by a VeriFone credit-card verifier? I borrowed a friend's and did a little reverse-engineering on it. It dials a pre-programmed phone number, and connects at 1200 baud. It waits for ENQ, sends the info on the transaction, then waits for ACK followed by something (don't know what). ASCII ENQ -> <- ASCII STX <- Merchant account number <- ASCII FS <- @ <- credit-card number <- ASCII FS <- four digits of expiration date <- ASCII FS <- dollar amount to be verified <- ASCII ETX ASCII ACK -> something??-> russ Businesses persuade; Governments force. ------------------------------ From: s34011b@taltta.hut.fi (Mikko Tapio Lavanti) Subject: Virtual Private Networks - Users Opinions, Please Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 12:43:15 GMT Hello! I'm doing my final thesis on Virtual Private Networks in the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland. I have a lot (about 1000 pages) of written material but most of them are seen from the Operator point of wiew. I'd like to have as well some oppinion from the VPN users. Does anyone here have experience in using VPN (say SDN,Sprint VPN, GVPN or others) What have been the greatest benefits/disadvantages in using VPN? What should be considered in taking VPN in use for the company? Is there any good material seen from this point of view? How about using international virtual private networks? Thanks in advance, Mikko Lavanti ------------------------------ From: joel@wam.umd.edu (Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: Help With Stolen Calling-Card Number! Please! Organization: University of Maryland, College Park Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 15:29:09 GMT Two months ago someone got hold of my calling card number (from AT&T). My bill for last month was well over $500, and included two carriers. My bill for this month is also well over $500, but includes dozens of LD carriers. The phone calls are to such places as Guam and Saudi Arabia; there can be no doubt that the card was used illegally. I'm having three problems resolving this issue. Can anyone help?? 1. Last month I only paid for the calls I made, and wrote a letter to the local telco explaining that the other calls were not made by me. They ignored my letter and sent me a notice that my phone service would be cut off. When I called them about it, they told me that I have to resolve the problem by speaking to someone on the phone; a letter is not good enough! I know this isn't possible. What should I do? 2. The local telco told me that I have to resolve the problem with each LD carrier independently. They will not act as a go-between for my and the LD carriers. Based on my experience in 1. (above), this would entail HOURS and HOURS of work. Is the local telco right? 3. Somehow, one of the LD carriers lists a calling-card call from MY HOME PHONE. I >KNOW< I didn't make that call, because I never use the calling card from home and I've never heard of the LD carrier. How could that have happened? Is it possible that this is an "inside job"? Is there any other explanation? Please help. This has become an administrative nightmare, and I really don't have time to spend hours on the phone and writing letters. MANY thanks in advance! Joel (joel@wam.umd.edu) [Moderator's Note: Let me ask this: Has AT&T now killed the PIN so the card can no longer be used? If so, then it is likely they are investigating the charges. It is really inconvenient for them and telco to put a hold on your bill and send you a manually corrected one, so you may be living with false charges coming through for a couple more months. And, if your call to telco or AT&T came too close to your billing cut off date the first time around, then it is likely the credit did not make it through in time causing your bill to become delinquent and obviously quite large. It is true each long distance company will have to investiogate the phraud calls which pertain to it, but telco can assist by charging back all the phraud as you identify it each month. You did the right thing by paying onyly foe what was yours. See if the billing settles down back to normal over the next couple months. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 19:43:56 -0800 From: Steve Forrette Subject: Mandatory Measured Service There are bills pending in both houses of the Washington State legislature which would permanently ban mandatory measured service in this state. Sounds like a hard thing to argue against, doesn't it? Well, guess who is against the ban? The PUC! That's right, the Public Utility Commission in WA is against a ban on mandatory measured service. They say that it would possibly interfere with their ability to guarantee universal telephone service! Their argument goes that if some point in the future it would become necessary to enact a tariff containing mandatory measured service in order to maintain universal telephone service availiability, that this law would prevent them from approving it. Now I've heard everything. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com [Moderator's Note: Believe me, there are people who prefer measured service because their use of the phone is so minimal. Modem users and telecom 'enthusiasts' like ourselves may find measured service not in our best interests, but for lots of people, it is a great deal. When we went to measured service here several years ago, with the complete elimination of plans which allowed unlimited calling across northern Illinois for a flat fee, a local consumer utility watchdog group gave the new (measured rate) plans a great deal of support because they perceived their constituents to mostly be people with limited financial resources who make limited use of the telephone. For quite a few people here, measured service cut their monthly bill in half. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 10:32:56 MST From: Philip Green Subject: RS449 or V.35 to Fiber Line Driver Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro NM I am looking for a device that will convert a rs422 or v.35 sync signal to fiber. The driver needs to handle up to 1.5mbit/sec. I want to connect a sync high speed line from a T1 mux to a router that is in another building. Thanks, Phil Green green@aoc.nrao.edu NRAO 505.835.7294 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #109 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa11425; 19 Feb 93 3:01 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA07443 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Fri, 19 Feb 1993 00:24:58 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA15163 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Fri, 19 Feb 1993 00:24:31 -0600 Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 00:24:31 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302190624.AA15163@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #110 TELECOM Digest Fri, 19 Feb 93 00:24:30 CST Volume 13 : Issue 110 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Future of North American Numbering Plan (Dave Leibold) A "Handy" Risk for AirTravel? (RISKS via Monty Solomon) Telecommunications Policies (Mike Seebeck) NETSIG / Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing (Skip Addison) Unifi Distributed Call Center Information Wanted (Jim Karkanias) Press Release - Canadian Marconi FAX-X.400 Switch (Bill St. Arnaud) Directory Services Billing (Mark Blumhardt) Correction: Ontario Communications Ministry Merged (Nigel Allen) Satellite Modem For Sale (Al Wong) ISDN Book Wanted (Jim Karkanias) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 01:48:24 -0500 From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Dave Leibold) Subject: Future of North American Numbering Plan I have a copy of "North American Numbering Plan Administrator's Proposal on the Future of Numbering in World Zone 1", 4th January 1993 (second edition).In January 1995, there will be a new "interchangeable" area code (or NPA - Numbering Plan Area) format, where area codes are no longer restricted to having 0 or 1 as the middle digit. This will mean dialing changes throughout most of North America to reflect the loss of distinction between area codes and local number central office (exchange) codes. Some notable items are contained with document sectional references as appropriate. Not everything is covered here in full detail; this is my approximate summary of the document - the official version is available from Bellcore. Direct Distance Dialing started 10 November 1951 in Englewood NJ (sec. 2.1); there was early use of 11X+ codes for long distance, then eventually 1+ long distance dialing. 0+ dialing was started in 1960 for operator assistance; 011+ and 01+ for overseas started in 1970. Bellcore (Bell Communications Research) was assigned the function of administering the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) (sec. 2.2) in 1984 following the U.S. telephone divestiture. The NANP is expected to remain a ten-digit plan for the time being (sec. 3.3.4) that is area code of three digits plus seven-digit local numbers, and will continue to consist of decimal digits (0-9) consistent with CCITT recommendation E.164 (23 Aug 1991) (sec. 3.3.5). Numbers can be classified as "geographic" (the traditional local numbers, with area codes based on geographical boundaries) and "non-geographic" (such as the 800 or 900 area codes which apply throughout the NANP and not necessarily restricted to certain portions of the NANP) (sec. 3.4.1). A non-geographic purpose could also include future systems that assign a single number which can be forwarded to various places in North America (ie. a "lifetime" number that allows for moving to various cities) Section 4 recommends a method of assigning the new area codes: Geographic codes: N2X, N3X Growth/expansion: N4X - N7X Non-geographic codes: N8X, N9X N represents a digit from 2 to 9, X represents any digit. Thus, area codes like 223, 734, 520 would be geographic codes under the proposal, while area codes like 987, 294, 740 would be non-geographic. This middle digit of the area code is referred to as the "B" digit, thus the B digit indicates a new geographic or non-geographic code. As the initial set of geographic or non-geographic codes are used up, expansion takes place by using the nearest available expansion set. Thus, N4X codes are next in line for geographic codes expansion, while N7X codes are next for non-geographic expansion. Ultimately, expansion to more digits will be needed in the distant future, and it is proposed that either the N5X or N6X codes can be used to provide for "expansion" codes to set up a numbering plan of more than ten digits. The Carrier Identification Code (CIC) format of 10XXX+ (to select MCI, use 10222+ or Sprint 10333+) will be expanded to 101XXXX+ "in the near future". Nearly all of the 10XXX codes are assigned at this point. Since some services like Domino's Pizza are setting up 950 numbers like the long distance carriers (ie. dial 950.1430 to order their pizza), there is concern about seven digit "national numbers" and that there isn't enough room to provide these on the current system. (sec.6.3). On 31 December 1996 (referred to as "Time T"), there will be an expansion of the maximum international number length from 12 digits to 15 digits according to CCITT recommendation E.164 (sec. 7.4). There is a clalim that "at least one country has already expanded its numbering format to 13 digits and that additional countries outside WZ1 [world zone 1 ie. NANP] will also be expanding their digit format to exceed the currently allowable 12 digits". There was no mention of which country expanded to the 13 digit format. One carrier in NANP can apparently handle international numbers up to 14 digits already, according to a report footnote. "Overlay" NPA codes (sec. 7.6) are proposed in such cases as metropolitan areas. This means more than one area code can cover a geographic area; New York City already uses the 917 area code as an "overlay" to 212, and eventually more area codes will be needed. Now, section 7.7 states: "It is recommended that the North American telecommunications sector resolve to evolve to ten-digit dialing for station-to-station (network based) calls, *including local*" (my emphasis). The idea is to start in the metropolitan areas using "overlay" NPA codes like New York and perhaps other areas soon. This section also proposes that 1+ be eliminated as a long distance access prefix; in other words, any call in North America would consist of ten digits, whether local, long distance, or to a 900 service, or whatever. Section 9 of the report deals with the formation of steering committees for the NANP, with a proposal for the World Zone 1 Numbering Steering Committee (WNSC) with representation from Canada, U.S., and Caribbean groups. Section 10 is the Action Plan; there will be a Future of Numbering Forum (FNF) meeting 16-18 March 1993 in the Washington DC area. Those contributions to this forum received by Bellcore by 8 March 1993 will be forwarded to participants in the forum. For the complete document, or for more information, contact: NANP Administration, Bellcore - Room 1B225, 290 West Mt Pleasant Ave, Livingston NJ USA 07039 Tel: (201) 740.4596 or fax: (201) 740.6860. Dave Leibold - via FidoNet node 1:250/98 INTERNET: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.FIDONET.ORG ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 23:16:48 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: A "Handy" Risk for AirTravel? Excerpt from RISKS DIGEST 14.33 Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1993 15:42:07 +0100 From: brunnstein@rz.informatik.uni-hamburg.dbp.de Subject: A "Handy" Risk for AirTravel? German newspapers report broadly on risks of hand-held telephones used in flight. Following a report of a new German weekly magazine FOCUS (some sort of Anti-Spiegel published since mid-January 1993, with some remarkably well-investigated articles on IT InSecurities), Germany's federal airtransport authority (Luftfahrt-Bundesamt, LBA in Braunschweig) admitted that major problems with passengers telephoning with "handy" mobile hend-held telephones have recently been experienced in some German airplanes. Newspapers report that hand-held telephones have influenced flight instruments (e.g. indicating velocity) even in landing approach. An LBA manager responsible for analysis of flight systems' security mentioned a B737 approaching Hamburg airport under IFR conditions when slope indicator suddenly began to jump; the pilot interrupted descent and made another (successful) approach. In som. The LBA manager was quoted to say that if velocity indicators be adversely affected by some influence of such a "handy" telephone, the pilot may be tempted to diminish the velocity below the critical value, with catastrophic influence on the plane. When contacted by me, this LBA manager refused some overdrawn citations but admitted that LBA sees serious problems and had warned carriers several times. Meanwhile, passenger instruction concerning emergency exits etc now also mentions risk of hand-held telephones which (according to some old German law) are not allowed to use in-flight. According to him, wires in planes are traditionally "hardened" against some electromagnetic induction; but the order of magnitude of such protection (about 3 Volt/meter) is, according to recent measurements of MBB (part of German Airbus, DASA) significantly lower than the 30 Volt/m which some hand-helds induce. Signal induction may even be worse as effects of reflections and resonances (which may develop in edges and channels below the cabin) may well enlarge the effect in a way hardly to measure. In public debates, such new facts add to the criticism that some overly computerized systems (e.g. Electronic Flight Management Systems, Fly-by-Wire) may enlarge in-flight risks. But at least one more advanced technology may reduce the risk of electromagnetic radiation: German Airbus is preparing to replace one (of 3) wires for some part of A340 communication (at least experimentally) by Fly-by-Light connection; in such a system, risk will remain with opticouplers between electromagnetic and optic parts as well as with traditional non-optical computers but the lines near the passengers parts will become immune against electromagnetic effects. Klaus Brunnstein (Univ Hamburg, February 6,1993) PS: this year, some of you may have missed my traditional report from Chaos Conference. Luckily, I was unable to participate, because several participants independently informed me that NOTHING worthwhile to report happened. Participation was said to be significantly lower than ever before, and even some journalists which are CCC's good friends did not report this year. Moreover, due to very chaotic organisation, CCCs usual electronic articles were not available for FTP. "Downsizing" CCC seems to be in interesting contrast to US hackers (2600) which become more active, as visible from the Pentagon raids. [TELECOM Moderator's Note: I don't think he meant 'Pentagon raids'. I think he meant the Justice Department/FBI activities. PAT] ------------------------------ From: seebeck@rintintin.Colorado.EDU (Mike Seebeck) Subject: Telecommunications Policies Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 00:13:28 GMT I am working on telecomm policies for a corporation. We are looking at all aspects of telephone and data transmission. Subjects of interest are long distance service, cellular use, data links, executive suites, etc. Are there any reference materials or resources available that I can be directed to? Thanks in advance, Michael Seebeck Sr.Telecomm Consultant RMH Group, Lakewood, CO,USA main(303)239-0909 direct 239-2761 ------------------------------ From: saddison@Novell.COM (Skip Addison) Subject: NETSIG / Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Organization: Novell, Inc. Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 01:24:12 GMT Software Entrepreneurs' Forum Networking Special Interest Group *presents* Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Panel including RAM Mobile Data and others 7:00 pm Tuesday, February 23rd, Novell/Sunnyvale Need "Information At Your Fingertips" be restricted either to an office or whereever a phone line can be accessed? NETSIG will host a panel of experts such as Kurt Christofferson, a Product Manager at RAM Mobile Data and a NETSIG participant. He and others from industry players such as GO and RadioMail will tell us where wireless communication is headed and how to take advantage of this burgeoning industry is headed. Admission is free for SEF members; $10.00 for non-members. For more information, contact Skip Addison (408.283.3545). The Novell facility is located at 890 Ross Drive in Sunnyvale, where 101, 237 and Mathilda Avenue converge. Come around to the "Sales Seminar Entrance" at the back of the building. SEF is a non-profit trade association of people involved in the creation, publishing and support of innovative commercial software. For more information about SEF call Barbara or Ellen at 415-854-7219 (and tell 'em Skip sent you ;-). NETSIG normally meets the fourth Tuesday of each month at the Novell Sunnyvale facility. ------------------------------ From: karkan@msdrl.com (Jim Karkanias) Subject: Unifi Distributed Call Center Information Wanted Organization: Merck Research Laboratories Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 01:21:19 GMT I'm interested in any opinions regarding the Unifi Distributed Call Center. It's a software solution to providing automatic call distribution (ACD) by exploiting the processing and other advanced capabilities inherent in ISDN. Anyone care to share any info or experience regarding such devices? Any info. would be grand. Thanks. What's the rated bandwidth/data capacity of ISDN? Thanks. Jim ------------------------------ From: wcsv2k@ccs.carleton.ca (Bill St. Arnaud) Subject: Press Release - Canadian Marconi FAX-X.400 Switch Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 11:33:56 EST CANADIAN MARCONI WINS FAX-X.400 CONTRACT IN DENMARK Canadian Marconi, a member of the VISION 2000 Consortium, has won a major contract to supply its FAX-X.400 Enhanced Facsimile Switching equipment to Fyns Telefon, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tele Danmark A/S, the national telecommunications agency of the government of Denmark. The contract represents Canadian Marconi's second major sale of its FAX-X.400 system to a major European public carrier company. British Telecom was Canadian Marconi's first customer in Europe for this equipment. This new contract secures Canadian Marconi's position as a leading supplier of value added services in Europe. According to Bryan Locker, Marketing and FAX Group Manager at Canadian Marconi: "Our goal now is to extend this success throughout continental and northern Europe." Canadian Marconi's FAX-X.400 Enhanced Facsimile Switching Equipment uses an X.200 OSI layered architecture incorporating X.400 message handling and switching for national and international routing of FAX messages. Canadian Marconi is a world leader in the innovative design and quality production of facsimile, communications, avionics, radar and navigation systems. Canadian Marconi is also an active participant in the VISION 2000 consortium. The VISION 2000 consortium is a Communications Canada and industry initiative to accelerate and foster the development of personal communications in Canada through the use and deployment of new developments in FUTURE FAX technology. For more information please contact: Bill St. Arnaud Tony Oliver VISION 2000 Canadian Marconi Company V: +1 613.567.2000 V: +1 613.592.6500 F: +1 613.567.4730 F: +1 613.592.7427 ---------------- Bill St. Arnaud Internet: wcsv2k@ccs.carleton.ca VISION 2000 INC. X.400: C=CA; A=TELECOM.CANADA; 203-294 Albert St. O=VISION2000; DDA:ID=V2K.EMS Ottawa CANADA Voice: +1 613 567-2000 K1P 6E6 Fax: +1 613 567-4730 VISION 2000 INC: A Department of Communications and industry initiative to foster and accelerate the development of personal communications in Canada. ------------------------------ From: msb@advtech.uswest.com (Mark Blumhardt) Subject: Directory Services Billing Organization: U S WEST Advanced Technologies Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 19:36:45 GMT Just a quick question. When you use directory assistance (1+411), where is billing initiated? The end office where the 411 call was made, or the directory assistance center, or ...? Are AMA records generated? Thanks in advance. Mark Blumhardt [Moderator's Note: It is billed by your CO, based on the charge for the service made by your one-plus carrier (if an inter-lata call) or the local telco (in the case of 411). Yes, call records are kept. When I have had occassion to examine the detailed billing records for my phone lines, '411' and '0' have been listed in the amongst the other calls. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Nigel Allen Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 19:00:00 -0500 Subject: Correction: Ontario Communications Ministry Merged Organization: Echo Beach, Toronto Earlier this month I reported that Ontario's Ministry of Culture and Communications had been merged with the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation. The Communications Division of the former Ministry of Culture and Communications, I have since learned, is *not* part of the new Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation. It is now part of the new Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. According to mail I received from someone at the Communications Division, the address is expected to remain the same for the forseeable future. Nigel Allen nigel.allen@canrem.com 52 Manchester Avenue Voice: (416) 535-8916 Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6G 1V3 Canada Remote Systems - Toronto, Ontario 416-629-7000/629-7044 ------------------------------ From: awong@cns.caltech.edu (Al Wong) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 08:12:22 PST Subject: Satellite Modem For Sale I have a SM-200A Satellite Modem made by Fairchild for sale. The modem appears to be new as it is still in the original bubble wrap packaging. THe modem works in the 52-88 Mhz range. I would be happy to mail/fax the spec sheets to anyone who is interested. Please respond directly to me as I am not subscribed to this list. The modem sells new for at least $10K but I am willing to sell it at a gross discount. Thanks, Al Wong awong@cns.caltech.edu ------------------------------ From: karkan@msdrl.com (Jim Karkanias) Subject: ISDN Book Wanted Organization: Merck Research Laboratories Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 01:27:34 GMT Anyone care to recommend a good book on ISDN? Thanks, Jim [Moderator's Note: Why yes, as a matter of fact, telecom reader Fred Goldstein has written the very book you are seeking. I reviewed it here awhile back, perhaps Fred will write you with details, and send a cc: to the Digest so we can plug his book again to new readers who did not see the earlier review. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #110 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa12249; 19 Feb 93 3:29 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA01254 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Fri, 19 Feb 1993 01:10:28 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA24850 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Fri, 19 Feb 1993 01:10:00 -0600 Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 01:10:00 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302190710.AA24850@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #111 TELECOM Digest Fri, 19 Feb 93 00:10:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 111 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones (Adam Frix) Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones (J. Hanrahan) Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones (Hans Ridder) Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State (Conrad Kimball) Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State (Jeff Sicherman) Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State (Steven H. Lichter) Re: The War on Pagers (Maxime Taksar) Re: The War on Pagers (Adam M. Gaffin) The War on Freedom (Paul Robinson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 23:39:29 EST From: Adam.Frix@cmhgate.fidonet.org (Adam Frix) Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones g9gwaigh@cdf.toronto.edu (Geoffrey P Waigh) writes: > Whenever I have heard of this plan, I have wondered how Americans > will continue to design radio equipment. Is there some clause > that I missed that will allow RF engineers to continue purchasing > spectrum analyzers, mixers and other simple to connect gadgets > for the purpose of testing their equipment? If so, what is > going to stop these devices from being used to scan cellular > communications? It would be amusing if spectrum analyzers > had to be kept under lock-and-key to prevent use by anyone > other than a "certified, responsible entity." > Much like printing presses and fax machines under current Chinese > rule, or under the old Soviet Union. Agreed. I can't wait until law enforcement decides they want to communicate with each other in, say, a certain color of blue. There will be special billboards along the roadside where cops can leave messages to one another. To ensure that Joe Public "can't" read these messages, cops will pass laws stating that it is illegal for any non-law-enforcement agent to see that particular frequency of EMR. Because it's a law, by definition no one will "be able" to read these messages, and therefore such communication will remain private, privileged law enforcement communication. Anyone who dares to see that particular frequency can and will be put in jail, an obvious menace to society. Isn't it great to see what happens when ignorant old fogies, easily boozed and swayed by special interests, are in charge of drafting laws relating to and intertwined with basic laws of physics? Aloha, Adam America OnLine: AdamFrix (okay) Internet: Adam.Frix@cmhgate.fidonet.org. (convenient) OR adamfrix@aol.com (if you must, but try CIS first) Adam Frix via cmhGate - Net 226 fido<=>uucp gateway Col, OH UUCP: ...!uunet.uu.net!towers!bluemoon!cmhgate!Adam.Frix INET: Adam.Frix@cmhgate.fidonet.org Please use bang path until my mail forwarding gets fixed. ------------------------------ From: Jamie Hanrahan Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones Date: 17 Feb 93 21:32:52 PST Organization: Kernel Mode Systems, San Diego, CA john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > Scanner laws will be just about as effective as gun laws -- only much > sillier. The FCC is seriously deluded if it thinks it can win a > technological war with anyone. I know the basics of how cellphones work, but not the "internals", so forgive me if I am displaying my ignorance by asking: Can someone explain why cellphones couldn't gain increased security simply by channel-hopping *within a cell*? Say, every five seconds or so? If you only move one call at a time, you'd only need one free channel in the cell. Granted this would be no defense against a determined eavesdropper (neither is the FCC's proposed rule), but it would certainly make it more unlikely that someone with a standard scanner could hear anything useful. Jamie Hanrahan, Kernel Mode Systems, San Diego CA Internet: jeh@cmkrnl.com, or hanrahan@eisner.decus.org Uucp: uunet!cmkrnl!jeh ------------------------------ From: ridder@zowie.zso.dec.com (Hans) Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation - DECwest Engineering Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 17:32:39 GMT In article John Higdon writes: > Scanner laws will be just about as effective as gun laws -- only much > sillier. The FCC is seriously deluded if it thinks it can win a > technological war with anyone. The below-average moron outguns the FCC > in the brain cell department. Remember, the FCC is only doing what its told to. The real "below-average morons" are *your* elected officials who passsed the law so no one could listen to their phone calls. We have no one to blame but ourselves for putting these idiots into office. :-( Hans-Gabriel Ridder DECwest Engineering, Bellevue, Washington, USA Any opinions expressed are not those of my employer, honest. [Moderator's Note: Actually here in the USA, people who bother voting wind up only voting for less than one percent of the petty tyrants and others who dominate our lives. The rest are appointed or hangers-on; civil 'servants' we call them, but rebellious and willful servants is more like it. That's why I always thought it was such a joke to hear people say 'if you don't like things the way they are, then vote for a new bunch.' When is the last time *you* voted for anyone in the FCC/FBI/IRS/DOD/HUD/NSA/CIA/ETC? I don't blame myself for putting idiots in office. I didn't vote for any of 'em! PAT] ------------------------------ From: cek@sdc.boeing.com (Conrad Kimball) Subject: Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State Date: 18 Feb 93 07:02:04 GMT Organization: Boeing Computer Services (ESP), Seattle, WA In article John Higdon writes: > Bob Longo writes: >> Californians want CNID, but they also want per-line blocking to be >> available (which is what PacBell is vigorously opposed to). That is >> reasonable in a state where 40% of phone customers have unlisted >> numbers. > Perhaps you could site the surveys and studies that back this up? I am > damn sick of people pronouncing what Californian's want (based upon > absolutely no evidence) when trying to justify the stifling of yet > another useful technology. Perhaps you can site surveys that support _your_ desires? It's hardly fair to claim your position should be adopted by default in the absence of evidence to the contrary. The converse position is just as defensible (but obviously _you_ don't like it). I'm damn sick of self-centered techno junkies writing off people that express privacy concerns as being uninformed ignorant boobs. > I, for one, do not much care what Californian's want; I know what is ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This says it all ... Sounds like my four-year old: "Give me what I want!! Give me what I want!! (whine, whine, whine...)." Fortunately, most people's parents managed to properly socialize them. > useful and desirable and what is available in most of the rest of the "Aww, mom!! All the _other_ kids get to do , why can't I?". > country. I also know that none of the doom and gloom, even in areas > that have no blocking capability, has been demonstrated in any way. Let's see ... absence of (reported) negative effects over an observation period of a year or so, therefore: there _are_ _no_ negative effects ... first rate reasoning there. > The CPUC is perfectly aware that its restrictions are not standard and > that no other state has required default per-line blocking and > per-call enabling. Please stop pontificating about how it is just the > mean old telephone companies that are being unreasonable. The > restrictions were passed with one purpose in mind: to eliminate the > offering of CNID in California. It succeeded royally. The activists > won this round. Right on!! Conrad Kimball | Client Server Tech Services, Boeing Computer Services cek@sdc.boeing.com | P.O. Box 24346, MS 7A-35 (206) 865-6410 | Seattle, WA 98124-0346 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 00:50:34 -0800 From: Jeff Sicherman Subject: Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State Organization: Cal State Long Beach In article John Higdon writes: > Bob Longo writes: >> Californians want CNID, but they also want per-line blocking to be >> available (which is what PacBell is vigorously opposed to). That is >> reasonable in a state where 40% of phone customers have unlisted >> numbers. > Perhaps you could site the surveys and studies that back this up? I am > damn sick of people pronouncing what Californian's want (based upon > absolutely no evidence) when trying to justify the stifling of yet > another useful technology. This is a reasonable request, but restricting in the public interest is not stifling by its definition. And in your business you hardly represent the attitudes of the average consumer of telecommunications services. > I, for one, do not much care what Californian's want; I know what is > useful and desirable and what is available in most of the rest of the > country. I also know that none of the doom and gloom, even in areas > that have no blocking capability, has been demonstrated in any way. Yes, the self-righteous rarely care what other people want, but, John, I think you're a lot more intelligent and decent than this; you seem to have a few hot buttons when your own 'expert' view of telecom is challenged. Trouble is, this is not a technical issue at all, it's a civil rights and privacy one; you're technical rights and desires rank quite a bit below that. > The CPUC is perfectly aware that its restrictions are not standard and > that no other state has required default per-line blocking and > per-call enabling. Please stop pontificating about how it is just the > mean old telephone companies that are being unreasonable. The > restrictions were passed with one purpose in mind: to eliminate the > offering of CNID in California. It succeeded royally. The activists > won this round. Please stop pontificating yourself. If you have any proof of this grand conspiracy to stifle caller-id, please present it. Otherwise, we may just take the situation at face value: that there is a difference of opinion as to what privacy rights ought to be with respect to the use of the telephone, and that the phone companies views didn't win. Jeff Sicherman ------------------------------ From: co057@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steven H. Lichter) Subject: Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State Date: 18 Feb 1993 03:02:48 GMT Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA) It did not reflect the majority of the California public, it reflected the few people that took time to go to the hearings or write plus a couple of groups ran by a bunch of fuddy duddies that want us to go back to a manual system. Those were the same people that raised a storm when Catalina Island finally came into the 20th century. They may do a lot of good, but in this case they blew it and people should not support them unless they wake up. This service is available almost across the US and Canada plus a few foreign countries and there has not been the doom prodicted by these people. Besides the PUC has never been receptive to either the companies they regulate or the public. They should be elected or if they are appointed we should be able to vote on them as we do with the Supreme Court in California. Steven H. Lichter COEI GTE Calif. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 14:08:36 -0800 From: mmt@RedBrick.COM (Maxime Taksar KC6ZPS) Subject: Re: The War on Pagers In article , jeff@bradley.bradley.edu (Jeff Hibbard) writes: >> [Moderator's Note: In the Chicago Public Schools, pagers are >> considered verbotin and are confiscated from students. This is part >> of the War on Drugs. PAT] > It's not just Chicago, it's state-wide. Illinois state law allows > pagers and cellular phones to be confiscated from anybody (not just > students) who brings them onto school property. If I visit my son's > school wearing my (employer-supplied) pager, they can keep it. If I > drive through the school's parking lot to pick him up, they can > confiscate the cellular phone in my car. An adult who gives a student > such a device to take to school can do a year in jail and pay a >$10,000 fine. This sounds blatantly unconstituational, being seizure with due process. Has this law had to stand up in court yet? Has anyone been jailed or fined yet? Or is it too new a law, still? It would be interesting to know how long this law has been around and if any other states have it. Just about every public school in the Bay Area that I know of forbids pagers (and, I assume cellphones), and I think that anyone under 18 is forbidden to carry a pager *anywhere*. Sounds like it's time to start sending the ACLU money ... Maxime Taksar KC6ZPS mmt@RedBrick.COM ------------------------------ From: adamg@world.std.com (Adam M Gaffin) Subject: Re: The War on Pagers Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 00:15:51 GMT Here in Framingham, Mass., administrators and teachers have confiscated five or six beepers from students this year. But the principal doubts the students are using them to arrange drug deals. He says his students are wearing them as status symbols -- if they were selling drugs, they wouldn't be dumb enough to wear their beepers where teachers could see them! Adam Gaffin Middlesex News, Framingham, Mass. adamg@world.std.com Voice: (508) 626-3968. Fred the Middlesex News Computer: (508) 872-8461. ------------------------------ From: Paul Robinson Subject: The War on Freedom Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 01:00:02 -0500 (EST) jeff@bradley.bradley.edu (Jeff Hibbard) on the Subject: The War on Pagers In TELECOM Digest Volume 13, Issue 105 wrote: >> [Moderator's Note: In the Chicago Public Schools, pagers are >> considered verbotin and are confiscated from students. This is part >> of the War on Drugs. PAT] Let's call it what it is: the War on the Constitution. Fifty years ago, the U.S. Government used hysteria to put American Citizens in U.S. Government operated Concentration Camps. Now, it is aiming at another group of people: those who have a profile of whatever it doesn't like. And, to add insult to injury, it is using every means it can imagine to deny them any means in law to challenge these acts of terror. Anyone whose property is confiscated in 'civil forfeiture' has essentially zero chance of recovering it; the fact that they are totally innocent of any wrongdoing is irrelevant. > It's not just Chicago, it's state-wide. Illinois state law allows > pagers and cellular phones to be confiscated from anybody (not just > students) who brings them onto school property. If I visit my son's > school wearing my (employer-supplied) pager, they can keep it. If I > drive through the school's parking lot to pick him up, they can > confiscate the cellular phone in my car. An adult who gives a student > such a device to take to school can do a year in jail and pay a > $10,000 fine. > Although text in the actual bill passed makes it clear the intent was > to forbid cellular phones and pagers, all of the above actually > applies to "communication devices", which the law defines as anything > designed to receive or transmit radio signals outside of the > commercial broadcast band. For example, if I let my son take my Radio > Shack "Time Cube" (which can only receive WWV) to show-and-tell, they > could confiscate it, fine me $10,000 and lock me up for a year. This sort of thing needs to be fought and stopped. Write to the FCC. This is a clear interference in interstate commerce since these radios are operated by authorized users communicating with federally licensed carriers. Most people probably feel they don't have the time or the money to mount a court fight but one aught to be made. Laws like this have the nasty habit of being used as a stepping stone for even worse onslaughts on people's rights. First it's $10K for giving someone a pager; how long before it's the death penalty for posession of a single-edge razor blade? ("So what are you on death row for?" "Giving my son a razor to use in arts-and-crafts.") :( The Interstate Commerce Commission might have an issue in this: if a truck with a CB radio drives past a school in Illinois, the truck might be stopped and its radio confiscated. (Most laws prohibiting posession of something in or near a school include as much as 300 feet.) This could interfere with the efficient moving of material in interstate commerce. Try contacting the ACLU, however because they tend to approve of more government controls on the public, they might think the law is a nice idea. Or try contacting the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Or get the media involved: Let them know about this. You may have to gore their ox and point out that this sort of thing could be used against them: Knowing how bad Chicago politics are, you might want to send a note about this to the radio and television stations there: the next time a reporter from a station or newspaper runs articles which are unfavorable to the school board is at a school board meeting, or is doing a report at a school, the security guard confiscates the microwave transmit truck! Think this is unlikely? During the famous "zero tolerance" issues, where the government was taking the policy of confiscating any vehicle entering or leaving a U.S. Border, if it had even miniscule amounts of drugs on it, it was noted that all that would have been necessary was to find a couple of joints in a passenger cabin, and the U.S. Government could have siezed the {Queen Elizabeth II}! Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #111 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa19493; 19 Feb 93 21:19 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA24011 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Fri, 19 Feb 1993 11:43:36 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA25418 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Fri, 19 Feb 1993 11:43:06 -0600 Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 11:43:06 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302191743.AA25418@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #112 TELECOM Digest Fri, 19 Feb 93 11:43:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 112 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Cellular Phone Questions (Gregory Youngblood) Re: Cellular Phone Questions (Steve Forrette) Re: Cellular Phone Questions (David E. Sheafer) Re: 1-800-CALL-ATT 'ext. 21' to be Discontinued (A. Alan Toscano) Re: 1-800-CALL-ATT 'ext. 21' to be Discontinued (Dave Levenson) Re: What Number do I Dial From My Phone to Get Phone to Ring? (F. Schimmel) Re: Running Out of Area Codes (Doug Granzow) Re: BBS Tax Passes Florida Senate (Steven H. Lichter) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Questions From: tcscs!zeta@src.honeywell.com (Gregory Youngblood) Reply-To: zeta%tcscs@src.honeywell.com Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 22:11:34 CST Organization: TCS Consulting Services stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) writes: > In article wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com > writes: >> Background: My contract is with Genesee Telephone, which is the A >> channel carrier here in the Rochester, NY area. >> If I'm travelling in rural areas it may make sense (from >> a safety perspective) to roam with both the A and B carriers. Is my >> reasoning correct? >> [Moderator's Note: Generally the A and B carriers stick to their own >> kind when making roaming agreements. You'll usually only see A agree >> to roaming terms with a B carrier or vice-versa when there is only one >> (but not both) in a location. > Generally speaking, if an A customer roams onto a B carrier, the B > carrier will not be able to bill the A customer's bill directly, and > will want to set up a temporary account billed to a major credit card. > Most every B carrier I've dealt with has been set up to handle credit > card accounts, but this is not very widespread on the A side as far as > I can tell. My experience with the credit card temporary accounts is > that they are a big hassle. First, there may be limited customer > service hours in the city you roam in, so if you arrive in the evening > or on a weekend, you may have to wait until the next business day to > get set up. This also depends on who the carriers are. When I established roaming agreements for one carrier, I kind of made the policy as I went along. As a result, within the main areas of competition (Houston/Galveston/ Conroe TX) we didn't allow A and B roaming, only A. But, anywhere else we always did our best to set up roaming with A and B carriers. My thinking, which was backed up by the bosses, was that our customers deserved the greatest convenience, and since some markets one carrier was far better than the other, so we tried to allow our customers to roam on either one. > The last time I had to do this, it took over 20 minutes on the phone > with customer service to give the required information. They want to > know your phone's number, ESN, home carrier, home address, social > security number, home phone number, credit card, etc, etc. They are > really paranoid about fraud, so your regular cell phone's account has > to have the same name and address as the credit card and so on. Then, > it takes them about an hour to get the account set up in the switch. This is probably because the market(s) where this happened did not have raoming agreements with your home carrier. If they did, then they could bill directly to your phone bill. Actually, when you're roaming, your calls are billed to your carrier in bulk at a fixed rate set in their contracts. The roaming carrier where you're at then sends in their billing tapes, and the billing company sorts all the call records and generates bills for the home customers, and tapes for the rest, which then generate the roaming reports. These tapes, or the data on the tapes, will get to your home carrier's billing company who then include the calls on your personal bill. Before that happens though, the roaming carrier has a series of reports and bills which detail the bulk calls (or whatever the contracts require) to be paid. Last I checked the carriers paid for roaming in a 30 day window, but the calls wouldn't show up on the cellular bills sometimes for 45 to 90 days. They were trying to bring that window of carrier paying carrier down to 15 days. Greg TCS Consulting Services P.O. Box 600008 St. Paul, MN 55106-0008 Mail-server requests to: mail-server%tcscs@idss.nwa.com zeta%tcscs@src.honeywell.com or zeta%tcscs@idss.nwa.com ..!srcsip!tcscs!zeta or ..!guppy!tcscs!zeta ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Questions Date: 19 Feb 1993 01:03:27 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com writes: > In other words, will carriers accept emergency calls from any > telephone, or will they only accept emergency calls from phones that > they recognize? Generally speaking, cellular carriers will always accept calls to 911 or 611 (or whatever the customer service number is). A noted exception to this rule is LA Cellular, which won't let you call anyone, not even 911 or the LA Cellular customer service number, if you're not recoginized. I was stuck in LA for four days in December and was completely without service. I tried to get an account set up with the B carrier, but they were closed because of Christmas and the weekend. At least they would let 911 calls go through, so I was set for emergencies once I figured out that I should switch my phone to B. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: nin15b0b@merrimack.edu (David E. Sheafer) Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Questions Date: 18 Feb 93 20:03:56 GMT Organization: Merrimack College, No. Andover, MA, USA In article , wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com (Don Wegeng) writes: > The replies that I have received about roaming and antennas have been > very useful, and are much appreciated. There's still one area that > I'm still not clear on, namely emergency use of the phone when I'm > outside my home service area. In Mass I've dialed the the state police with a cellphone that was no longer signed up with either carrier and it worked fine. David E. Sheafer internet: nin15b0b@merrimack.edu or uucp: samsung!hubdub!nin15b0b GEnie: D.SHEAFER Cleveland Freenet: ap345 ------------------------------ From: atoscano@attmail.com Date: 18 Feb 93 20:07:46 GMT Subject: Re: 1-800-CALL-ATT 'ext. 21' to be Discontinued In TELECOM Digest Volume 13, Issue 104, lchiu@holonet.net (Laurence Chiu) writes: > I have a couple of comments and questions on that. Firstly, does > anybody know why when you call 1-800-CALL-ATT you get a message, "to > complete your call please press or dial 1 now" (or words to that > effect). Unless it's some kind of touch-tone determination. This was implemented back in November, presumably to accomodate rotory callers. Previously the "timeout defaults" for the 800 CALL-ATT and 800 882-CARD main menus were to route the caller to the Calling Card Customer Service center in Kansas City, MO. (800 CALL-ATT is used for personal/consumer Calling Cards, while 800 882-CARD is used for business/corporate Calling Cards.) These Customer Service Reps, in addition to normal functions, had to handle call completions for rotory callers who could not reach an Operator through traditional means. They did this by transferring the caller to a Kansas City area AT&T OSPS Operator, and relaying billing information about the call while the caller was still on hold. This resulted in slower service to everyone, and inadvertantly, in "call splashing" of a sort, causing poorer connections. With the changes made in November, the "main menus" for both of these 800 numbers were placed behind the initial prompt to which Laurence refers. On 800 CALL-ATT (but not on 800 882-CARD,) for calls placed from Equal Access end offices, the "timeout default" for both initial and "main menu" prompts became AATOS, the Automated Access To Operator Services part of AT&T's Operstor Services network. (Actually it didn't matter what you dialed in response to the initial prompt, thus while the new menus prompted dialing "1-1" to reach AATOS, the older "2-1" continued to reach AATOS as it had before.) Rotory callers would now timeout to AATOS, and subsequently timeout again to an OSPS Operator near the caller's location. This allowed rotory users to be routed to someone well trained in call completion, and eliminated the "splashing" problem for them. (Rotory callers needing to contact Calling Card Customer Service could either ask the Operator to connect them, or call 800 882-CARD themselves and timeout.) The initial prompt reduces the holding time required by a rotory caller before timeout occurs. The 800 CALL-ATT and 800 882-CARD "main menus" have become rather extensive over the years! A timeout on the 800 CALL-ATT "main menu" now takes nearly one full minute! I'd like to add my own thoughts about 800 321-0ATT: As I see it, the introduction of this number represents a FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE in Corporate Policy and thinking on the part of some folks at AT&T. For years, AT&T resisted in implementing an 800 access number. When the FCC issued regulations, persuant to federal legislation, requiring that either an 800 or 950 access number be established, AT&T adapted its Fully Automated USA Direct Service for domestic use, but placed it behind an 800 Call Prompter menu that tutored the caller to first attempt to dial in a preferred way. The service was slowly phased in across the country over a three month period from mid-March of 92, through mid-June. Initially it only served TouchTone callers from Equal Access switches. The changes implemented last November accomodated rotory callers, albeit with some timeout waiting, but not callers from non-Equal Access switchs. The March 10 rollout of 800 321-0ATT provides "universal access" for: TouchTone and rotary callers; (Rotary callers now have an even shorter timeout wait) Equal Access and non-Equal Access callers; Callers from non-compliant (illegally blocking) COCOTS; Callers from most business PBXs - which may legally block 10ATT-0+ (BTW: Many PBXs will allow 9-18003210288 to be stored in Speed Dialing - some, however, may block *all* outside calls from certain stations); Callers from cellular systems - which may also block 10ATT-0+ (Not all cellular systems send 0+ calls to AT&T - I know of none which allow 10XXX-0+ calling); Also, the "tutoring," which may be accessed via 800 CALL-ATT (option "12"), now suggests 800 321-0ATT on an *equal par* with 10ATT-0+. Once some problems with Busy Tones are cleared up, AT&T will finally have in place an access number that I personally believe will serve its customers very well (provided that COCOT/AOS companies don't try to overtly block it - an act that's now apparently a federal offense). I applaud AT&T for providing this long needed access number. Finally, a Usage Tip: After dialing "the number you are calling," press "#" for faster progression. As previously noted, this technique also speeds up "sequence calling." Disclaimer: I do not work for AT&T - I'm just a customer. A Alan Toscano -- Houston, TX -- ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: 1-800-CALL-ATT 'ext. 21' to be Discontinued Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 23:21:14 GMT In article , Paul Robinson writes: > Effective April 1, dialing 1-800-CALL-ATT, then dialing extension 21 > will no longer be available for getting direct access to AT&T's > switch. > Oh horrors! What will we do, what will we do? > Fortunately, AT&T has an answer. They have a new number which is > *exclusively* for connecting to their switch. The new number is: > 1-800-321-0-ATT I have read about this number in several articles on today's issue of the Digest. I have dialed this number repeatedly from my office here in Stirling, NJ, and I always get a busy signal. Does this not work yet? Are all of the readers of this Digest trying it out today and overloading it? I really would like to use this, because I spend a lot of time at a customer site where they block 10288 and force me to use a carrier who doesn't accept my AT&T corporate calling card. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ From: schimmel@gandalf.ca (Fred Schimmel) Subject: Re: What Number do I Dial From My Phone to Get My Phone to Ring? Organization: Gandalf Data Ltd. Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1993 18:44:20 GMT In stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) writes: > In article oppedahl@Panix.Com (Carl > Oppedahl) writes: >> According to Part 68 of the FCC regulations, the local telco is >> supposed to tell you how to make your line ring back ... so that if [some stuff deleted] >> [Moderator's Note: Telco need not provide an automated service for >> this purpose or tell you how to access the automated service. They >> need only to make your bell ring on request. In other words, the [some more stuff deleted] > Are you sure? If the stated purpose of this regulation is to provide > non-telco inside wiring folks a level playing field, then allowing the > telco to internally use an automated service, while requiring that > non-telco personnel use a manual service through the operator, is NOT > providing a level playing field, now is it? Just adding another log to the already incredibly high pile of articles about ring-your-phone numbers and Caller-Id too: I live in southern New Jersey and just subscribed to CLID. When I installed my box, I wanted to test it. (Yeah I know, call a friend and ask them to call you back ... which I had to do, because... Well, after reading about all these people who wanted their phone to ring on command, I decided to try and remember how I used to do it (as a teenager a long time ago). All I remembered was dial 55? and the last four digits of your phone number. So I tried various 55? calls til one gave me something other than a please check the number intercept. The number for (609) (this week anyway) is 553-dddd where dddd is the last four digits of your phone number. This number answers and gives you a high pitched tone, after which you should issue a hook flash (confirmed by an interruption of the tone), then hang up. Your phone should now ring. The tone should be there again so don't bobble the phone on the way back down or it may ring you again. I have gotten this "stuck" where I almost couldn't get rid of the stupid ring test. I also vaguely remember using this number to test the touchtone keypad (it speaks back to you the number you press) but I didn't verify if that feature was there. Also note that this number is busy at times, so try again later. I did my tries at night, not too many phone installers then. Anyway, the finish line is that the ringback did ABSOLUTELY nothing to my CLID box, which caused me to use step number two above, whereupon the CLID did what it was supposed to, and I could amaze my friend that I knew it was him calling, because my CLID said it was his number [etc. etc.]. Sorry about the rambling Pat. Now for the obligitory test number query, does anyone know any other test numbers (like to verify touchtone keypad, etc.)? In this area I do know that xxx-9966 is a quiet termination (you can use this to see if your line has crosstalk) and xxx-9971 gives a 1KHz test tone (I guess at 0dBm0). (yes xxx above is your local exchange prefix) Fred Schimmel my opinions > /dev/null/flames Gandalf Systems Corporation Cherry Hill NJ [Moderator's Note: To test the pad here, we dial the ring back number and have it ring back, but instead of hanging up at that point, hit the digits 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 in that order and if all is well you will hear a short double beep. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dig@pro-cynosure.cts.com Subject: Re: Running Out of Area Codes Organization: ProLine [pro-cynosure] Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 15:01:25 EST denny@alisa.com (Bob Denny) writes: > My kid tells me that it is "in" to have a pager, whether you're a drug > dealer or not. Each of those pagers have their own seven-digit phone > number, and you can buy 'em at the local stationery store. The service > is something like $15/mo. Pagers are not permitted in schools around here. This rule was implemented a few years ago, like PAT said, as part of the War On Drugs. There were to be no exceptions. A friend of mine, who is a volunteer firefighter, was personally told he could not bring his pager to school or any school related events. He didn't pay much attention to their threats, and they never did anything to him. I guess the school officials weren't interested in seeing a newspaper article titled "Student Suspended For Putting Out Fire". > No wonder phone numbers are disappearing so fast!!! This is also a result of wasteful use of phone lines by businesses. Where I work, we have five different computers, each with its own phone line. Most of these computers receive/make one call per day (one of them gets one call per week). It would be cheaper to put them all on the same phone line (it would be cheaper still to put all the programs on one computer), but that would require too much coordination. Doug Granzow dig@pro-cynosure.cts.com or ...crash!pro-cynosure!dig Call: The Cynosure BBS | Free | Internet | 14.4kbps USR DS | +1 410 549 2584 Ask me about the a2-bbs mailing list! ------------------------------ From: co057@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steven H. Lichter) Subject: Re: BBS Tax Passes Florida Senate Date: 19 Feb 1993 03:05:42 GMT Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA) Just look at what happened in California with the tax on newsprint. The free papers had to pay tax even though the paper was free. That was fixed but the way the govenment thought they would try and collect it anyway. Didn't you know we work for them? I was told by the Public Works Director of Riveride, Calif when I asked why they act the way they do and his answer was we are thou. They think they are gods. Steven H. Lichter GTE Calif. COEI ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #112 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa23473; 19 Feb 93 23:09 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA16999 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Fri, 19 Feb 1993 20:55:03 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA29412 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Fri, 19 Feb 1993 20:54:36 -0600 Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 20:54:36 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302200254.AA29412@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #113 TELECOM Digest Fri, 19 Feb 93 20:54:20 CST Volume 13 : Issue 113 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: AT&T Are You Listening? (Jack Decker) Re: AT&T Are You Listening? (John Higdon) AT&T Billing Practices --> Illegal? (Dave Niebuhr) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 02:23:09 EST From: jack_decker@f8.n154.z1.fidonet.org (Jack Decker) Subject: Re: AT&T Are You Listening? In message , John Higdon wrote: > jack.decker@f8.n154.z1.fidonet.org (Jack Decker) writes: >> Why not use both carriers? I would suggest you do this: Switch your >> line to MCI and use them for all your voice calls. > As previously stated, I would suggest the opposite. Keep AT&T as your > PIC. That way you have much easier access to AT&T's vastly superior > operator services. I really hate it when I pick up a phone, dial an > operator assisted call and have one of the "brand X" operators answer. > MY guests never have to deal with that. John, my phone is here for MY convenience, not that of my guests. As a matter of fact, if anyone tries to use my phone to make an operator assisted call, they are going to HAVE to dial a ten-triple-X code first, because I have no default PIC (and I specifically asked for the line to be set up that way!). Maybe you have guests that you feel are so important that they cannot be inconvenienced by having to dial five extra digits in order to use their calling card. Personally, I don't see it as a big imposition, and anyone who makes operator assisted calls with any regularity these days had better know how to reach the carrier of their choice! >> If there is a location that you have consistent problems calling via >> MCI, by all means call up MCI's customer service and complain! > Good luck. MCI droids are worthless. You will never reach a resolution > on the first try. You will be lucky to even ever speak to anyone who > even knows what you are talking about. You should see the hell we go > through ANYtime we have to deal with even the slightest technical > matter with MCI. I will agree with you that the other carriers fall down a lot on communicating with the customer, but as I've mentioned previously, most of us don't have the same demanding telecommunications requirements that John Higdon does! :-) And, all of my recent contacts with MCI have resulted in reaching someone who was quite helpful and fairly knowledgeable. They may not be perfect but I think they are a lot better now than they were a few years ago. >> AT&T spends a LOT of money on advertising to convince you that their >> quality is better. > If your definition of quality is "does the call (eventually) go > through and can I hear the person at the other end?", then I would > agree that such an advertising statement is probably meaningless. But > AT&T is still the only company where you can actually speak to a > knowledgeable technician on the first call and speak to a rep who > actually knows about the service in question and can give you real > answers. I just hope the other carriers are listening to this, because you are making some valid points here. >> If you try a call over MCI and it doesn't work, and you then try to >> complete it over AT&T and it does, that doesn't necessarily mean that >> AT&T is better, it just means you got a different circuit from the >> local telco. Had you tried your second attempt on MCI again, you >> would probably have been just as satisfied with the result. > Not necessarily true. MCI and Sprint outages are legion and legendary. > Sprint is constantly suffering from local outages here in the Bay Area > and MCI's answer to a complaint about calls not going through is for > the caller to dial '10288' before the number. Sure is a good thing > AT&T is there when you REALLY need to call. AT&T has had some notable outages too, and as the saying goes, "the bigger they are, the harder they fall!" I still contend that many of the problems that are attributed to the carriers actually occur in the facilities of the local telcos. I believe that in the few cases where AT&T can really claim superior connections, it is only because they are still using some of the pre-divestiture facilities (Feature Group C?). When all the carriers are on a level playing field, I suspect you will not see a great difference between at least the top two carriers. >> AT&T's new fax commercials really get me ... > Yes, they annoy me as well. But since I do not use media advertising > as a basis upon which to select a carrier (pro or con), AT&T's > commercials do not send me into a tailspin, ignoring reality and the > facts. And the fact is that AT&T remains the most responsive, > comprehensive, and consistently the highest quality IEC in the world. > Its operator services are not even in the same universe as the > pretenders. Yes, MCI, Sprint and a host of other carriers have some > specific services and plans that MAY (but not necessarily) be > incrementally cheaper than AT&T, but for most purposes involving FGD > long distance, the company's services are hard to beat. But, John, if it had not been for the competition, you know that AT&T would still be giving us the same level of service (at the same high prices) as we had in the 70's. I think the reason that the AT&T commercials bother me is because it still shows that in some ways they are not playing fairly ... they are using questionable claims to try and destroy the competition. If they only had, say, 30% of the market share this might be appropriate, but since they are a former monopoly and still the dominant carrier, their ads come off as mean-spirited. It's clear they want all the marbles and would do anything they could to put MCI and Sprint out of business. > MCI and Sprint are slowly (very slowly) getting better and better. But > the truth is that AT&T is also beginning to smell the coffee. Right > now Sprint is hawking its "digital network with the most modern > signaling", etc., etc. The thrust is that it was the leader in digital > telephony. What a laugh. Who do you supposed invented it? AT&T did > misread the importance of "digital quality", and lagged in giving > digital connections to customers. But when Sprint started making hay > with it, AT&T became fully digital in very short order (the network > WAS already in place, long before Sprint even thought about it). Well, if you want to go back into history, let us not forget that when AT&T owned the Bells, we could not even (legally) install our own extension telephones. I don't think Sprint is claiming to have invented digital telephony, but they were the first carrier to have a 100% fiber optic network. If only they had invested as much in upgrading their billing system and in training customer service personnel, they might be at least the number two carrier today. > And advanced signaling? Calls on AT&T complete in a split second; in > about eight seconds with Sprint. Yes, it is because AT&T is connected > via SS7 to my telco and Sprint (for whatever reason) is not. But it > goes to illustrate the stupidity of the advertising and how > intelligence is not to be gained by listening to it. Again, I wonder if this call completion advantage isn't due to the more direct connections to the telephone central office, that aren't available to other carriers? Tell me why, for example, an AT&T operator can hold my line open until she releases the call, while OCC operators cannot? Have these superior connections been made available to other carriers? I think not. Again, once AT&T has to compete on a totally level playing field, I think a lot of these so-called advantages will disappear (when was Feature Group C supposed to be discontinued, anyway?). > Both MCI and Sprint have experienced major billing problems and then > demonstrated a serious lack of ability to handle them. Yes, I had a > billing problem with AT&T that turned out to be Pac*Bell's problem. > But AT&T did not attempt to ruin my credit and turn me over to a > collection agency as Sprint did. (Sprint ended up giving me a $50 > credit over and above all of the disputed amounts as a "good will" > gesture, but I really prefer having it done right to begin with.) Agreed, agreed, agreed! Especially with Sprint. Sprint really mystifies me. They come up with these wonderful calling plans and then shoot themselves in the foot by giving poor customer service. I have to wonder if any Sprint executives have ever called in AS A CUSTOMER to see what sort of treatment they would receive? I would rather be on Sprint's "The Most" plan than on MCI's "Friends & Family", but MCI's customer service people are FAR easier to deal with, in my experience (one caveat ... I gave up on Sprint about three years ago and have NOT tried them recently, and if you recall the article that I posted about a month ago describing how one of their bill collectors tried to dun me for a debt that wasn't even mine, you'll understand why I'm not inclined to try them again!). > I have no stock or interest in AT&T. But every time I have used MCI or > Sprint for whatever reason, some monster rears its head and a major > inadequacy is revealed. I think it's a problem with the whole telephone industry. By the way, John, do you have a personal AT&T rep? It might make a big difference. I will concede that if you spend a LOT of time talking to your carrier's customer service department, then how you are handled there is going to be very important to you. I just wish the other carriers would take these comments to heart. Even someone like I, who is pro-competition and maybe even slightly anti-AT&T, can get VERY frustrated when dealing with incompetent folks on the other end of the phone line. To that end, I'd like to offer the "seven deadly sins" that lose business for the other carriers. 1) Waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting ... on hold, usually while listening to interminably boring music interspersed with commercials for the carrier. 2) Getting transferred from department to department, with each department saying something like "I wonder why they transferred you here" or "Why did they send you back here, couldn't they help you?" (As if *I'm* supposed to know the answer to that!) 3) Service or repair reps who won't even let you finish describing your problem before they put you on hold and go searching for the wrong answer! 4) Giving out just plain WRONG information (e.g. "You have to be a 'dial 1' customer to use that plan" when it really isn't true). 5) The inability or unwillingness to give immediate credit for problem calls ("You'll have to wait until you get your bill and then call us back!"). 6) Repair clerks who make out trouble reports that are then deposited in a "black hole." The trouble doesn't get fixed, you call back and are told "We have no outstanding trouble reports on that problem." Or worse: "Didn't someone contact you about that?" (Obviously not, or I wouldn't be calling back). 7) Finally, what can generally be described as an inability of the folks who answer the phones to do anything meaningful to resolve a problem or to get an immediate answer. When I call with a question, I want an answer NOW, particularly if it's something fairly straightforward (something printed in black and white in the tariffs, for example). When I call repair, I want the person who answers to take some personal responsibility to see that the problem will be fixed (not to just have the attitude of "I'll make out a trouble report and we'll hope for the best!"). In short, you'd think that folks in the business of communications would learn how to communicate with customers. Apparently many of the OCC's are having a big problem in that regard! Jack Decker | Internet: jack.decker@f8.n154.z1.fidonet.org | Fidonet: 1:154/8 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 03:45 PST From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: AT&T Are You Listening? On Feb 19 at 02:23, Jack Decker writes: > I will agree with you that the other carriers fall down a lot on > communicating with the customer, but as I've mentioned previously, most > of us don't have the same demanding telecommunications requirements > that John Higdon does! No, but a lot of people do. And until the OCCs can deliver major long distance to demanding customers rather than those who are impressed by the commercials, they have no hope of being truly major players. I have clients who now have "AT&T-only" policies after being burned big time by MCI and Sprint. In essence, they will not even consider services by OCCs no matter how attractive they sound because of major business-disrupting screwups in the recent past. > AT&T has had some notable outages too, and as the saying goes, "the > bigger they are, the harder they fall!" AT&T has had a couple of major outages. I find these much more tolerable than hundreds of minor outages which are characteristic of the OCCs. "The Great AT&T outage of 1989" which lasted part of one day has not irritated me nearly so much as MCI's outage yesterday for an hour, Sprint's problems last week, etc., etc. > I believe that in the few cases where AT&T can really claim superior > connections, it is only because they are still using some of the > pre-divestiture facilities (Feature Group C?). When all the carriers > are on a level playing field, I suspect you will not see a great > difference between at least the top two carriers. All connection facilities enjoyed by AT&T are available to any OCC. But it takes two to Tango. AT&T is the only carrier offering coin-paid calls from utility (non-COCOT) payphones simply because the other carriers do not want to be bothered with the substantial tooling up required to offer the service. Not enough money in it -- let AT&T do it. If an OCC has inferior connection arrangements, that is squarely the fault of the carrier and none other. > But, John, if it had not been for the competition, you know that AT&T > would still be giving us the same level of service (at the same high > prices) as we had in the 70's. I think the reason that the AT&T > commercials bother me is because it still shows that in some ways they > are not playing fairly... they are using questionable claims to try > and destroy the competition. If you have even read a fraction of my Digest ramblings, you would be fully aware that there is no greater advocate of competition. In fact, the one major area where the Moderator and I disagree is my insistence that divestiture was the greatest thing that has ever happened to telephony. I have no doubt that without competition AT&T would still be a Bad Deal with HoHum service (no features). But the truth is that AT&T IS still the dominant carrier BECAUSE it is competing. The "monopoly advantage" evaporated some time ago. The OCCs would like you to believe the opposite since it would take some of the heat off of them in the competition arena. They would love to maintain the crippling regulations on AT&T. I do not think that anyone at AT&T believes that anything is going to "destroy the competition". It is a competitive jungle out there and AT&T is entitled to use the same tactics that both MCI and Sprint have themselves used. > I don't think Sprint is claiming to have invented digital telephony, > but they were the first carrier to have a 100% fiber optic network. Technical point of order: bits is bits. In digital telephony, it makes no difference whether the data stream is carried via copper, microwave, or fiber. There is nothing magic about the quality of a fiber optic connection over a microwave digital connection. And even so, I will bet that AT&T's fiber facilities are far more massive than Sprint's. > Again, I wonder if this call completion advantage isn't due to the more > direct connections to the telephone central office, that aren't > available to other carriers? Again, these connections are available to everyone. > Tell me why, for example, an AT&T operator can hold my line open > until she releases the call, while OCC operators cannot? Have these > superior connections been made available to other carriers? I think > not. Why would they want them? What you describe is the old TSPS (left over from pre-divestiture). The facilities available now are obviously more advanced. > I think it's a problem with the whole telephone industry. By the way, > John, do you have a personal AT&T rep? No. AT&T is one the forward-thinking companies that has instituted the policy of one-stop customer service. The person that answers the phone has access to all necessary account info, rate info, plan info, and is empowered to make adjustments and changes on the spot. Pacific Bell also handles customer service in this manner (in fact, there were some major write-ups on it in the trades). GTE and the OCCs shuffle you around from one person to another, have to "call you back", and no one seems to have the authority to do anything even remotely unusual to keep a customer happy. My little adventure with Sprint (bogus billing) involved about five people including some upper level managers. In fact, resolution only came when one of those managers happened to read one of my posts on the net. Oh, the OCCs and the telcos read this forum. They know what we are saying. But their market is not people like us. It is the average telephone buffoon whom they perceive will buy into the carefully contrived advertising. AT&T also participates in this, but at least it also has the depth to offer major league service to demanding customers, something still sorely lacking at the OCCs. > I will concede that if you spend a LOT of time talking to your > carrier's customer service department, then how you are handled there > is going to be very important to you. It should be important with everyone. It is all part of the product. > I just wish the other carriers would take these comments to heart. > Even someone like I, who is pro-competition and maybe even slightly > anti-AT&T, can get VERY frustrated when dealing with incompetent folks > on the other end of the phone line. I am not "anti" or "pro" anyone, AT&T or OCCs. I just want a certain product at a fair price. Part of that product is interaction with company representatives. And part of that product is consistent quality of connections. And we have not even talked about price. One would not realize from all the OCC advertising that within the state of California, AT&T has plans that wipe the competition away. AT&T's problem is itself. To find out about those plans, you have to do some digging -- AT&T does not bother to advertise them. > To that end, I'd like to offer the > "seven deadly sins" that lose business for the other carriers. > 1) Waiting... > 2) Getting transferred from department to department... > 3) Service or repair reps who...put you on hold... > 4) Giving out just plain WRONG information... > 5) The inability or unwillingness to give immediate credit... > 6) truble reports that are deposited in a "black hole."... > 7) inability of the folks ... to do anything meaningful... Very good! I could not have made my case any better. > In short, you'd think that folks in the business of communications would > learn how to communicate with customers. Apparently many of the OCC's > are having a big problem in that regard! And until they fix it, they are not in AT&T's league. AT&T may be arrogant, but it is the service that I buy. As long as a company has that to sell, count me in. When the other companies come around, I will give them due consideration. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 264 4115 | FAX: john@ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 08:09:53 EST From: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) Subject: Re: AT&T Billing Practices --> Illegal? In TELECOM Digest V13 #106 cmwolf@mtu.edu (CHRISTOPHER WOLF) writes: [ text about extra charges on phone bills deleted - dwn ] > As an aside, I think their policies are horrible on this service. If > I don't spend $0.29 on a stamp and $0.20 for a check fees to pay this > $0.70 in charges, I get a late fees and possibly disconnection of my > service. This applied even if one only owes a few cents. I argued > with them about a $0.12 bill one time. Also, he agreed that it > shouldn't be $0.09, and asked that I call him back next month with > whatever late charges I get. > I few cents here, a few cents there, spread across a couple thousand > college student could really add up. You bet it does. I'm still going round and round with NYTel about overcharges in billing to one single exchange in the 516 area code. All looked well in November '92 but December saw a fallback to the old charging scheme. I had to get on the phone with NYTel again and complain. January '93s charges to this exchange are now back to where they should be. I suspect that there was a problem with the new ratetables (probably an exchange or exchanges being added, but I don't know for sure) and the old ones were reloaded. In each case, I get a correction on each succeeding month's bill which is usually $.10 to $.20US. PAT - Wasn't it the late U.S. Senator Dirksen who complained one day on the Senate Floor about "a million here, a million there, and it soon adds up to real money." Dave Niebuhr Internet: niebuhr@bnl.gov / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973 (516)-282-3093 [Moderator's Note: Yes, it was Everett Dirksen who coined the phrase. He said it in the Senate, but he had earlier used the phrase when hosting one of the 'College of Complexes' programs we held on Saturday night. The CoC met weekly, and presented a different speaker every week, or sometimes a debate. Time was always allotted for the audience to question/challenge/cheer/boo/hiss the speakers, some of whom were crackpots. When I was involved, in the 1960-70's, Dirksen came to speak a couple times a year. The College charged fifty cents tuition, and that got you one cup of coffee or cola, or a beer. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #113 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa04427; 20 Feb 93 4:51 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA03759 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sat, 20 Feb 1993 02:34:29 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA18543 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sat, 20 Feb 1993 02:34:01 -0600 Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 02:34:01 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302200834.AA18543@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #114 TELECOM Digest Sat, 20 Feb 93 02:34:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 114 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: What Would Be Required to Compile 'Secret #' FAQ? (Terry Kennedy) Re: What Would Be Required to Compile 'Secret #' FAQ? (Kevin Wang) Re: The War on Pagers (Mark Steiger) Re: The War on Pagers (Guy Hadsall) Re: The War on Pagers (Brad Hicks) Re: The War on Pagers (Graham Toal) Re: The War on Pagers (Bob Frankston) Re: The War on Pagers (John Nagle) Re: The War on Freedom (Alan T. Furman) Re: California Caller-ID (Jeffrey Jonas) Re: California Caller-ID (Steve Forrette) Re: Pacific Bell, Caller ID, and PRIVATE (Arthur Ruubi) Re: Pacific Bell, Caller ID, and PRIVATE (Richard Nash) Re: Pacific Bell, Caller ID, and PRIVATE (John Temples) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: terry@spcvxb.spc.edu (Terry Kennedy) Subject: Re: What Would Be Required to Compile 'Secret #' FAQ? Date: 19 Feb 93 23:48:14 EST Organization: St. Peter's College, US In article , TELECOM Moderator notes: > [Moderator's Note: One of the things you'd have to contend with is the > frequency with with which 'ringback' and in particular 'hear your > number' code numbers are changed. 'They' do not like people outside > the telco to know these or use them, thus the routine varies from > community to community, and sometimes from month to month. You would > have a lot of changes in your list on a regular basis. PAT] Well, 958 is popular in this area (New York/New Jersey). I think it may have been a Bellcore recommendation at one time. Most of the other older styles, like 55x-your# for ringback and 200-xxx-yyyy for your number were phased out as the prefixes were needed for expansion. Also, they were set up based on mechanical switches, while the newer stored-program switches can do all of this with a single number. For example, recent 1A generics can be configured with a single number in the reserved space, usually on the first exchange a switch serves, which can be used to return the calling number, determine loop distance, open a line for a brief interval, calculate loss, generate test tones, etc. - far more info than was available with the old methods, and more accurate and faster as well. However, these numbers require a dialed pass- word and have additional restrictions on security-related features like verify. With such a system, a single test number can serve fifty thousand to well over a hundred thousand lines. Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing terry@spcvxa.bitnet St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA terry@spcvxa.spc.edu +1 201 915 9381 ------------------------------ From: kwang@zeus.calpoly.edu (Kevin Wang) Subject: Re: What Would Be Required to Compile 'Secret #' FAQ? Organization: The Outland Riders Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 20:57:17 GMT In comp.dcom.telecom lvc@cbvox1.att.com writes: > In article Chris Taylor > writes: >> RINGBACK: 445 >> HEAR YOUR NUMBER: >> 958 > Maybe I was asleep or something ... could someone tell me why these > services would be useful? If you *MUST* figure out your lines at home, I just dial the operator and ask "is this xxx-yyyy or aaa-bbbb?" and they verify it for me. They can't officially just give it out, but the will verify it for you. Kevin Wang ------------------------------ From: Mark.Steiger@tdkt.kksys.com (Mark Steiger) Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 14:04:58 -0600 Subject: Re: The War on Pagers Organization: The Dark Knight's Table BBS: Minnetonka, MN (Free!) jeff@bradley.bradley.edu (Jeff Hibbard) wrote: > Although text in the actual bill passed makes it clear the intent was > to forbid cellular phones and pagers, all of the above actually > applies to "communication devices", which the law defines as anything > designed to receive or transmit radio signals outside of the > commercial broadcast band. For example, if I let my son take my Radi > Shack "Time Cube" (which can only receive WWV) to show-and-tell, they > could confiscate it, fine me $10,000 and lock me up for a year. Sure hope they don't have any Ham Radio clubs there ... could be a killer if they want anyone to do any demonstrations ... Mark Steiger, Sysop, The Igloo BBS (612) 574-0037 Internet: mark@tdkt.kksys.com Fido: 1:282/4018 Simnet: 16:612/24 ------------------------------ Organization: The American University - University Computing Center Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 09:42:34 EST From: GHADSAL@AMERICAN.EDU Subject: Re: The War on Pagers Most of the national paging concerns have self-imposed rules for new paging subscribers outside of normal credit proceedures. These rules hinge on AGE > 18 and EMPLOYMENT > 6 months. WHY? Because of the national studies and outcries from government and the public have pointed towards these groups as "problems". As competition in the paging/wireless industry had increased in 1983, the "value" of the new subscriber had increased dramatically. Most of the newcomers to the industry started cannibalizing market shares by offering pagers to any new customer. Right or wrong, they need new customers to cover the high overhead costs of developing a paging system. What you see now as the paging industry is comprised of (in my opinion) 80% or more cash power companies, including the Bell companies that have remained. These companies *still* need customers, and sometimes reduce there standards to survive. By the way, the average price of paging service pre-1983 was $35 (Telocator publication) and as of 1992 was $9. The start ups like PageNet, PagePlus, FirstPage, and a few others began with "junk bonds" or at elast risk investment plans. The market has driven the price *way* down; but its THE market and the US is a free market system. Survival of the fittest. Just my $.02. Guy Hadsall ------------------------------ From: mc/G=Brad/S=Hicks/OU=0205925@mhs.attmail.com Date: 19 Feb 93 19:08:25 GMT Subj: Re: The War on Pagers Look, it would take only a very, very minor change to these laws to make them perfectly reasonable. Change the law so that (a) =students= are banned from wearing/carrying communications gear, and (b) all other people are banned from school grounds unless they have a legitimate reason to be there, as determined by the local principal/administrator, and even then, NO LOITERING. I am at a total loss to imagine what legitimate need a high school student or younger has for to have a pager or cellular phone with him or her at school. They are there to learn, period. Never mind the drug angle; if that cellular phone or pager rings during classroom hours, it is an impediment to learning -- and not just for the person who has it. If you need to get a message to a student at a school, call the school. They know where the student is and can relay a message as quickly or as slowly as it requires. (If they don't know where your child is, then you have an even bigger problem.) If a student in school needs to make a telephone call, he or she can either wait until after school or ask the office for permission; I am hard-pressed to think of any legitimate use that can't wait for one or the other. J. Brad Hicks Internet: mc!Brad_Hicks@mhs.attmail.com X.400: c=US admd=ATTMail prmd=MasterCard sn=Hicks gn=Brad ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 21:48:54 GMT From: Graham Toal Subject: Re: The War on Pagers mmt@RedBrick.COM (Maxime Taksar) said: > Just about every public school in the Bay Area that I know of forbids > pagers (and, I assume cellphones), and I think that anyone under 18 is > forbidden to carry a pager *anywhere*. Whereas over here in the wake of a child-kidnapping, parents are being *encouraged* to buy pagers for schoolchildren, so that if they're late picking them up, they can give instructions, and the children are told never to go with anyone unless they've been messaged by their parents. G ------------------------------ From: Bob_Frankston@frankston.com Subject: Re: The War on Pagers Date: Fri 19 Feb 1993 19:47 -0400 Sounds like time to do a story on the good uses of pagers. It's worth noting that all the baby places sell pagers. When the {Boston Globe} did an article on traveling with technology a few weeks ago, they missed the whole topic of mundane use of technology in his concentration on business use. My son wants a pager partially in imitation of me. But it would also be a great way of letting him roam free but still be contactable. If he is expecting me or his mother to pick him up from school, how else can we tell him that we're late? Pairing this with personal 800 numbers (especially when they are the same as the home phone number so even preschoolers can call home from anywhere) provides a very effective means of staying in touch. While it would be nice to give each kid a pocket phone for safety, a pager is a more appropriate technology in terms of cost and size. Next, we've got to figure out why airlines are so scared of portable PC's and cellular phones with dead batteries. Or are they just being nice when I board a plane and want to make sure that I've got a charged battery when I take such a device onto the plane? ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: The War on Pagers Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 07:29:25 GMT Motorola recently introduced a line of decorator pagers, neons and clear, aimed at the high-school market. John Nagle ------------------------------ From: atfurman@cup.portal.com Subject: Re: The War on Freedom Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 15:55:47 PST "No person shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..." -- Amendment V to the U.S. Constitution, deceased As there is no way I could even scratch the surface of a topic like forfeiture without trial while staying inside the boundaries of the TELECOM Digest, I present instead an annotated set of pointers: The International Society for Individual Liberty is now organizing a coalition to challenge the massive escalation of forfeiture without trial now being conducted by governments, courts, and police forces at all levels. Collaborating groups are: The Drug Policy Foundation (which produces the PBS series "America's Drug Forum"), the Institute for Justice (a civil-rights litigating group like the ACLU, focusing on free enterprise and property rights issues), and F.E.A.R (Forfeiture Endangers Americans' Rights, founded by forfeiture victims). For more information, contact ISIL at 71034.2711@compuserve.com Telephone (415)864-0952; snailmail 1800 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94102. The investigative report "Presumed Guilty: The Law's Victims in the War on Drugs" which originally appeared in the Pittsburgh Press, 11-16 August 1991, and was reprinted in other newspapers over the following weeks, is a good starting place to find out about this situation. Reprints cost $5 for the full series of articles. A book called _Spectre of Forfeiture_ by Judy Osburn explores the legal "rationale" of this blatant repudiation of the Bill of Rights. Both are available by mail order from ISIL. Those interested in discussing this suject online can try alt.politics.libertarian on Usenet, or the Internet mailing list Libernet (subscription requests to libernet-request@dartmouth.edu). Alan T. Furman atfurman@cup.portal.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 11:34:42 EST From: jeffj%jiji@uunet.UU.NET (Jeffrey Jonas) Subject: Re: California Caller-ID Steve: I'm mailing this to TELECOM because I don't seem to be explaining myself clear enough. I hope you don't object to making this public, particularly since we've been quite polite and I want to ask others to clarify or correct me. TELECOM: Please help me clarify the situation and correct any of my misconceptions. -- start of e-mail Steve Forrette posted an article in TELECOM asking about caller-id from California callers. TELECOM readers have noted that all calls from CA are delivered either as "out of area" or "private" (sometimes arbitrarily either for the same caller) due to Pac Bell's (mis)interpretation of the ruling banning caller-id. Steve e-mailed me: > If I subscribe to CO-based "block blocking", then this prevents me > from receiving any calls from anyone in California under the present > state of affairs. Considering that all of my family and many of my > friends live in California, this is not a workable solution for me. I replied that my understanding is that "PRIVATE" calls can blocked, traced and returned with call block, etc. "PRIVATE" means that your CO got the number but won't let you get it, but you may access it as a "black box". You can use call block with the "add last number to the list" option but it won't read it back to you when you perform list maintenance. "Out Of Area" calls can't be traced or blocked or anything because no number was received (the call was not SS7 all the way). Oh yes, if call trace, call return or call block is not available at the recipient's CO, that's the real obstacle. If I am correct, then why does Steve fear blocking all of California? Steve wanted CPE (Customer premesis equipment) to perform call screening. Hmm, he knows to use the CPE acronym but one of us is certainly confused about caller-id! > Caller ID can be a useful tool in screening out the garbage, > especially if you have block blocking, or a CPE-based device that will > cause PRIVATE calls to not even ring. I have been thinking about CPE based caller-id processing. There's a real problem with call block. Let's say I get a call and caller-id identifies it as a call I am blocking. What can I do? - not answer the phone? Even if the CPE doesn't ring the phones, I cannot get a dial tone until the caller hangs up, and nobody else can call me since the line is busy. That's denial of service: I can't call out and nobody else can call in while an annoying call is in progress. - go off hook and on hook. That can take 5-20 seconds to clear the line. I still am denied use of the phone line for a while. If the pest keeps redialing me, it would be difficult for me to make calls or receive calls. That's why the CO based call block has a 'home turf' advantage. You can use the "add last call to call block list" command and even "private" numbers can be blocked and not only never ring your phone again, but they cannot even get near your lines (can't even know if your phone is busy or not). CPE cannot block private numbers, CO based call block can. CPE uses the line even for unwanted calls, CO based call block does not let the call get that far. Jeffrey Jonas jeffj@panix.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 14:12:54 -0800 From: Steve Forrette Subject: Re: California Caller-ID Call Trace, Call Block, etc. are NOT acceptable recourses to most annoying calls. What are you going to do, call the police and tell them "Hey, this chimney sweep just called me - throw the bum in jail!"? Nor is Call Block going to be effective, as the same chimney sweep is not likely to call you back again. Again, Call Trace and Call Block are not effective against telemarketers and many other sorts of annoying calls. They only work in cases where the same person calls you many times. A "private" call should tell you that the person calling has specifically requested anonymity, and not that they have done so OR live in California. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Pacific Bell, Caller ID, and PRIVATE From: a_rubin%dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin) Date: 18 Feb 93 18:09:55 GMT Reply-To: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin) In johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) writes: >> [Moderator's Note: If they blocked out the number with XXXX on my >> bill, I would persist that since I was paying for the call, I was >> entitled to know the number; then not pay for it until they revealed it. > You're lucky you don't live in France. (Or perhaps the French are > lucky that you live in the U.S.) French phone bills never show the > last digits of the phone numbers in the call detail, due to privacy > concerns. This includes direct dial calls. The theory is that the > digits that they do show are adequate to document the amount that > they're charging you. Convenient for hackers, or telecom personell using your phone line for their work. (I had several calls to a number in PacBellLand a few years ago, which turned out to be an internal work reporting number.) Arthur L. Rubin: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (work) Beckman Instruments/Brea 216-5888@mcimail.com 70707.453@compuserve.com arthur@pnet01.cts.com (personal) My opinions are my own, and do not represent those of my employer. My interaction with our news system is unstable; please mail anything important. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 09:17:35 -0700 From: rickie@trickie.ualberta.ca (Richard Nash) Subject: Re: Pacific Bell, Caller ID, and PRIVATE Steve Forrette writes: > It seems that telcos (such as Pacific Bell) which do not yet offer > Caller ID in their regions, and are marking all calls that leave the > LATA as PRIVATE so that they don't show up in other areas, are > creating a major impediment for the usefulness of Caller ID. What if > a users in another area subscribes to "block blocking," whereby their > telco will reject any call that's market PRIVATE. This will prevent > any incoming calls from anyone in California! Similarly, I would > imagine that a great deal more people who have Caller ID boxes choose > to ignore calls that come in as PRIVATE. How are you supposed to > differentiate between people who have specifically requested that > their numbers be blocked (who I most certainly DON'T want to talk to) > from those who just happen to live in a state who's PUC knows what's > best for its citizens (many of whom I do want to talk to)? Easy! Demand that Californians have the right of not having their calls blocked with blocked blocking. Demand that the telcos must insert a tag number to be used instead of marking as PRIVATE. ACB and AR would utilize this tag number to look up the real number to be used. Just think of all the new telecom headaches that could be created! :) Richard Nash Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6K 0E8 UUCP: rickie%trickie@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca ------------------------------ From: jwt!john@peora.sdc.ccur.com (John Temples) Subject: Re: Pacific Bell, Caller ID, and PRIVATE Organization: Private system -- Orlando, FL Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 03:01:02 GMT In article rudholm@ruby.aimla.com (Mark Rudholm) writes: > Their biggest complaint is with the requirement that unpublished > numbers will default to the per-line-blocked state. Of course, the > customer can have her/his line's blocking status set any way they > choose. Perhaps PacBell should offer free blocked-call blocking on all lines by default. This would certainly discourage people from choosing per line blocking, since it would be very inconvenient to call almost everyone. John W. Temples -- Preferred: john@jwt.UUCP (jwt!john@peora.sdc.ccur.com) -- Alternate: john@jwt.oau.org ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #114 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa08197; 20 Feb 93 6:30 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA10409 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sat, 20 Feb 1993 04:05:59 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA02591 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sat, 20 Feb 1993 04:05:01 -0600 Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 04:05:01 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302201005.AA02591@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #115 TELECOM Digest Sat, 20 Feb 93 04:04:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 115 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: What Could Happen! (Bangkok, Thailand Telecom Uprising) (Bob Goudreau) Re: Interesting Tricks You Can Do With Your Phone (Patricia A. Dunkin) Re: Salesmen That Won't Quit (Mark Malson) Re: Mandatory Measured Service (Steve Forrette) Re: 1ESS and CNID (Dave Levenson) Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones (M. McCormick) Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones (J. Sicherman) Re: Pac Bell, Caller ID & SS7 (John Pettitt) Re: National Data Superhighways - Access? (Andrew Blau) Re: White House Phone Factoids (Tim Tyler) Re: Curious Local Exchange Problem (Tim Mangan) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 14:32:31 -0500 From: goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) Subject: Re: What Could Happen! (Bangkok, Thailand Telecom Uprising) Tony Pelliccio writes: > Similar things happen here in the US. A few years ago New England > Telephone went on strike and lo and behold, a few of the key fiber > trunks got cut. Ah, but was it ever determined who did the cutting? If the sabotage turned out to be the work of rogue striking telco workers or their sympathizers, then the motivation was simply to bring the company's management to its knees so that it would quickly cave in to union demands. This is quite a different thing than the Bangkok scenario, wherein outraged *customers* were venting their frustration at the whole telco. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 17:39 EST From: pad@groucho.att.com (Patricia A Dunkin +1 201 386 6230) Subject: Re: Interesting Tricks You Can Do With Your Phone In article , HARTTREE@vax1.elon.edu (Matthew Harttree) writes: [ amusing story of unexpected recording on misdial ] > If this type of thing amuses you too, I would love to hear about it. Since you asked, several years ago, I was in a motel somewhere east of the Mississippi, trying to call my sister in Nevada. The otherwise thorough dialing instructions in the room didn't say how to charge a call to a credit card (possibly they didn't want to offer help to guests wanting to avoid surcharges), so I had to experiment a bit before I found the right combination. (Okay, I *could* have called the front desk and asked, but that wouldn't have been nearly as interesting.) One of the misdials connected me to a recording that said something like, "Direct dialing service is not available to the country you are trying to reach. Please call the operator for assistance." I never did figure out which country the switch thought I wanted. ------------------------------ From: kgw2!!markm@uunet.UU.NET (Mark Malson) Subject: Re: Salesmen That Won't Quit Organization: Xetron Corporation, Cincinnati, Ohio Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 23:34:25 GMT In article wagner@utoday.com (Mitch Wagner) writes: > I've always thought that if I ever had a salesman that just wouldn't > stop phoning, even when I asked them to stop, I would inform them that > if they didn't stop calling I would file harassment charges against > them with the police. One way to avoid harrassing phone calls is (if you are willing to spend $20 a year) to join a group called "Private Citizen". They provide your name to all the major phone number vendors and tell them that you are hereby notifying them that you no longer permit them the free use of your telephone and your time for their profit. If they wish to call you anyway, your fee is $500 per call. Or something pretty close to that. I haven't joined the group yet (I just got my package), so I am not ENDORSING them. Anyone interested can call 1-800-CUT-JUNK and talk to them (or their machine). Mark D. Malson Xetron Corporation 40 West Crescentville Road Cincinnati, Ohio 45246 markm@xetron.com ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: Mandatory Measured Service Date: 20 Feb 1993 02:03:45 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) writes: > There are bills pending in both houses of the Washington State > legislature which would permanently ban mandatory measured service in > this state. > [Moderator's Note: Believe me, there are people who prefer measured > service because their use of the phone is so minimal. That's fine. Then those people who prefer it can order measured service. Right now in Washington State, both business and residence customers can choose between measured or unmeasured service. The bills pending in the legislature would only ensure through statute that it stays this way. US West says it currently "has no plans" to phase out measured service, but wants the prohibition to last only 5 years. The PUC wants the authority to ban unmeasured service at any time. Just whose side are they on? Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: 1ESS and CNID Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 01:34:55 GMT In article , john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > I encourage Pac*Bell to not send blocked status on interstate calls. That is a good position to take. In Virginia, the telco offers a customer-controlled per-line option called Anonymous Call Rejection. If you enable this option, you'll still get "Out of Area" calls (calls from non-SS7-connected areas), but you will not receive calls where the calling number is available but its display is blocked. The caller reaches a recording which explains how to enable the transmission of CNID. If callers from California are prevented from reaching parties in Virginia, then Pac*Bell probably ought to be 'encouraged' not to send mandatory anonymous calls. The question is, John, do they ever listen to your encouragement? Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 10:57:44 -0600 From: Martin McCormick > Can someone explain why cellphones couldn't gain increased security > simply by channel-hopping *within a cell*? Say, every five seconds or > so? The idea of channel-hopping to increase security is, on the surface, a very good one. It is another variation on the military-style system of frequency hopping in a pseudo-randomized sequence to thwart eavesdropping. For cellular telephones, as we presently know them, it wouldn't work very well because of the way a cellular telephone receives digital control signals. Presently, once a cell phone is tuned into a talk channel, the only way the switch can get its attention is to send it a burst of data on the actual voice channel. These bursts are presently used to initiate handoffs to the next cell and request changes in output power. They are slightly disruptive to voice communication and extremely disruptive to any data communication which relies on a continuous carrier. That is why data communication through cell phones works best when done with a modem actually designed for this purpose. When a cellular phone receives a control command from the switch, the user may hear a little dropout in audio lasting about 1/4-second. If a frequency hopping scheme were in use, those little dropouts would happen each time a new channel was selected. For most people, this would create an unacceptable degradation of sound quality. The only real solution is to go digital. This would stop casual eaves-dropping since the scanner-owner would just hear a bunch of noise, if that much. Handoffs and other house-keeping commands could be accomplished without even a click since digital buffering would take care of any discontinuity as long as it wasn't too bad. About the only thing that an intelligently-written law can do to enhance privacy is to keep it from being too easy. It probably would make sense to ban manufacture of scanners with a digital demodulator built right in, but that is about all that can be done. If somebody does figure out how to decode the signals, on their own, then what they hear is already covered by the Communications Act of 1934. Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK O.S.U. Computer Center Data Communications Group ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 00:48:37 -0800 From: Jeff Sicherman Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones Organization: Cal State Long Beach In article Esteemed Moderator parades his biases again: > [Moderator's Note: Actually here in the USA, people who bother voting > wind up only voting for less than one percent of the petty tyrants and > others who dominate our lives. The rest are appointed or hangers-on; > civil 'servants' we call them, but rebellious and willful servants is > more like it. That's why I always thought it was such a joke to hear > people say 'if you don't like things the way they are, then vote for a > new bunch.' When is the last time *you* voted for anyone in the > FCC/FBI/IRS/DOD/HUD/NSA/CIA/ETC? I don't blame myself for putting > idiots in office. I didn't vote for any of 'em! PAT] Then again, none of us got to vote for the Telecom Moderator but we have to put up with him. There seems to be an element of tyranny in his management of the responsibilities he has undertaken and I don't always agree with his policies or opinions but I am generally willing to accept that he is human, fallible, quirky, opinionated, stubborn, sometimes self-righteous but also a dedicated and hard-working doer of the moderation task. He does the job as he sees his responsibility to the 'consumers' and to the policies and laws regulating the medium. Frankly, it's hard to see any really essential difference between his role and modus operandi and the public servants he seems to feel some superiority towards. Jeff Sicherman [Moderator's Note: Ah, but there is a big difference. There is an unmoderated forum you can use any time expressly devoted to telecom and Lord knows how many other unmoderated news groups are operating on the net at any given time. Try telling Uncle you're going to take your business elsewhere, to an ungoverned country. You can get away from me anytime you wish ... try avoiding Uncle's hard, staring and watchful eyes. And despite my own biases, which I freely admit to, I print a huge diversity of opinion here including yours. If you think I am disagreeable and hard to get along with, try the ederal ureau of nquisition. Uncle's little worker bees may humor you, but they can afford to: when all is said and done, despite your bravado they know you'll be an obedient and meek citizen when they point a gun at your head. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jpp@StarConn.com (John Pettitt) Subject: Re: Pac Bell, Caller ID & SS7 Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 15:31:11 PST Following on the from the thread regarding numbers from California being marked private, I called Pac Bell and asked them about what happens when I call out of state. The rep said she did not know and somebody would call back. Well they just did. After we got to the same level (yes I understand ANI, SS7, CLASS etc etc) the following is the postion: 1) If I call NY from here (Palo Alto, CA) then depending on which LD company I use they may or may not get my number. 2) Pac Bell is looking for customers to complain about display of numbers out of state so that they can "ask the long distance companies to not pass on the number". 3) When I asked how they were to do this -- the rep did not know and seemed confused as to a) they would discontinue SS7 in an out of CA (I don't believe this) or b) they would mark data private. 4) I asked that my lines not be marked private as I wanted people in the rest of the country to take my calls. This completely confused him. Anyway he promised to go find some papers on the subject and fax them to me. I will OCR anything that arrives and pass it on. Confused? Not as confused as Pac Bell is ! If somebody out of state has a caller ID box I can call we can run some tests and see just what is going on. John Pettitt Mail: jpp@StarConn.com CEO, Dolmus Inc. Voice: +1 415 390 0581 Fax: +1 415 390 0693 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 20:36:12 -0500 From: Andrew Blau Subject: Re: National Data Superhighways - Access? In TELECOM Digest V13 #107, Robert L. McMillin (rlm@indigo2.hac.com) writes: > Andrew Blau writes: >> In fact, the telcos have become *very* involved in this. During >> President Clinton's Economic Summit after the election, the one moment >> of reported conflict was when Robert Allen of AT&T challenged Mr. >> Gore's contention that the superhighway should be a public works >> project. [Allen's quote deleted] > Three cheers, then, for Robert Allen. We should hold off on the 21-gun > salute until AFTER we've heard AT&T's full proposal. Absolutely. I don't think that anything I wrote could or should be construed as a 21-gun salute to Robert Allen or AT&T. It's simply to suggest that telcos have become quite vocal about trying to get in on the Data Superhighway action. > It's no surprise that the LECs see digital services in their crystal > balls. The question that needs to be asked is this: will these > digital services to the residential demarc be affordable? My guess is > not, especially if the LECs or the IXCs have anything to say about it. [...Info about EDS v. AT&T "dark fiber" controversy deleted...] > Somebody once said that the triumph of capitalism is not that it can > produce silk stockings for the Queen, but that it makes affordable > nylons for the secretaries. That is the approach we need to take with > digital services: by making them available cheaply, we can spread > their benefits widely. All we need is the capital and the vision to > apply it. Three cheers, then, for Robert McMillin. I could not have said it better myself. Affordable digital service for residential users so that the benefits of this system can be widely shared is one of the most critical public policy issues in this area, and one that is often overlooked. Moreover, much of the financial capital that Mr. McMillin refers to has already been sunk over the last eight years, if we are talking about the first level of digital services for the home. The real capital that needs to get spent is likely to be political capital, and, following Mr. McMillin, the vision to apply it. Andrew Blau Electronic Frontier Foundation 202-544-9237(v) Associate for 666 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E. 202-547-5481(f) Telecommunications Policy Washington, DC 20003 blau@eff.org ------------------------------ From: tim@ais.org (Tim Tyler) Subject: Re: White House Phone Factoids Organization: UMCC Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 04:03:29 GMT In article briang@Sun.COM (Brian Gordon) writes: > In article knauer@cs.uiuc.edu writes: >> "Contrary to widespread belief the old "hotline" between Washington >> and Moscow was not a telephone to warn against an impending doomsday >> attack, but rather a teletype manned at the Pentagon." > Maybe it's been moved, but the "hot line" _used to_ terminate > somewhere other than the Pentagon -- in the dark recesses of No Such > Agency ... Using a reasonable definition of 'terminate,' you're wrong. The primary 'subscriber' terminals for the CONUS end of the computer and facsimile link are at the Pentagon and White House. Tim Tyler Internet: tim@ais.org MCI Mail: 442-5735 P.O. Box 443 C$erve: 72571,1005 DDN: Tyler@Dockmaster.ncsc.mil Ypsilanti MI Packet: KA8VIR @KA8UNZ.#SEMI.MI.USA.NA 48197 ------------------------------ From: Tim Mangan Subject: Re: Curious Local Exchange Problem Organization: TyLink Corporation Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 03:29:13 GMT More strange phone setups -- I had a phone in college that was set up to not have a dial tone. This prevented anyone from making an outside call from the phone; you could only receive calls. So far so good ... If someone left the phone off the hook when the caller hung up, the next caller would get connected without the phone ringing. As there were several extensions to this phone it would happen quite often. When you gave anyone your phone number, you had to add the instructions that after dialing if they hear hall noises instead of a ring, yell like crazy until someone notices that you are on the line. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #115 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa22410; 20 Feb 93 14:23 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA07566 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sat, 20 Feb 1993 12:09:35 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA04597 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sat, 20 Feb 1993 12:09:00 -0600 Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 12:09:00 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302201809.AA04597@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #116 TELECOM Digest Sat, 20 Feb 93 12:09:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 116 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: ISDN Book Wanted (Pat Turner) Re: ISDN Book Wanted (Fred R. Goldstein) Cost of ISDN Voice Terminals? (Ben Stoltz) Re: AT&T Are You Listening? (David G. Lewis) Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners (sbpress@ic.sunysb.edu) Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State (Bob Longo) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: turner@Dixie.Com Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 11:34 EST Reply-To: turner@dixie.com Subject: Re: ISDN Book Wanted Jim Karkanias writes: > Anyone care to recommend a good book on ISDN? What follows is the biblography from a paper I wrote on ISDN about a year ago. You will find several good books listed in it. Gary Kessler's and Fred Goldstein's are among the better ones. William Stallings' books are also very popular, but as a EE, I think he touches on a few issues he doesn't really understand. Then again, I'm no computer network expert, and only have a BS in electrical engineering. The paper was more concerned with the physical interfaces and lower level protocals than aplications, thus the references are slanted in that direction. A few of these articles deal with fiber optics, privacy issues, or other aspects that may not interest you. [1] S. Hardwich, ISDN Design ; A Practical Approach, Academic Press, San Diego, Ca., 152 pp., 1989. [2] B. G. Kim, Current Advances in LANs, MANs & ISDN, Artech House, Boston, 369 pp., 1989. [3] G. Kessler, ISDN : concepts, facilities, and services, McGraw- Hill, New York, 302 pp., 1990. [4] J. Spragins, Telecommunications : Protocols and Design, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass, 716 pp., 1991 [5] N. Burd and F. Benetti, "A single chip 2B1Q U interface for customer access to ISDN," Electronic Engineering, vol. 62, no.7, July 1990. [6] C. Wolinsky and J. Sylvester, "Privacy in the telecommunications age," Communications of the ACM, vol. 35, no. 2, Feb. 1992. [7] M. Rotenberg, "Protecting Privacy," Communications of the ACM, vol. 35, no. 4, Apr. 1992. [8] W. Stallings, ISDN and broadband ISDN, Macmillan, New York, 633 pp., 1992. [9] W. Stallings, Tutorial : Integrated Service Digital Networks (ISDN), IEEE Computer Society, Washington, D.C., 325 pp., 1985. [11] C. Wilson, "Pacific Bell to upgrade 112 COs to National ISDN-1 standard," Telephony, vol.222, no. 1, Jan. 6 1992. [12] C. Wilson, "The Changing Face of the CO Switch," Telephony, vol. 222, no. 15, April 13 1992. [13] S. Jones, "National ISDN-ONE," Telecommunications, vol. 25, no. 9, Sept. 1991. [14] T. Bartee, ISDN, DECnet, and SNA Communications, H. W. Sams, Indianapolis, Ind, 414 pp., 1989. [15] M. Thomas, "ISDN: Some Current Standards Difficulties," Telecommunications, vol. 24, no. 6, June 1991. [16] K. Marrin, "U Interface silicon crystallizes ISDN standards," Computer Design, vol. 29, no. 44, Nov. 1, 1990. [17] J. W. Lechlieder, "Line codes for digital subscriber lines," IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 27, no.9, Sept. 1989. [18]G. Dicenet, Design and Prospects for the ISDN, Artech House, Boston, 280 pp., 1987. [19] N. Johal, "U Interface tackles non-ISDN applications," Computer Design, vol. 29, no. 44, Nov. 1, 1990. [20] T. Lin, "ISDN Basic Rate Interface Architecture For ADPCM Transmission," Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, vol. 18, no. 1, Nov. 24, 1989. [22] L. Golding, et. al., "VSATs:Expert Views On Future Trends," IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 27, no.6, May. 1989. [23] Y. Yamamoto and T. Wright, "Error Performance in Evolving Digital Networks Including ISDNs," IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 27, no. 4, Apr. 1989. [24] G. Achaibar and M. Pauzer, "NT1: key to basic rate access," Communications News, vol. X,no. 1, Jan. 1991. [25] N. Rogers, "Power controllers for ISDN basic access," Electronic Engineering, vol. 61, no.8, Aug. 1989. [26] G. Lee and C. Un, "Delay Analysis of the ISDN D Channel Access Protocol," Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, vol. 19, no. 1, Sep. 1, 1990. [27] M. Donlin, "Single chip U transceiver provides ISDN echo cancellation," Computer Design, vol. 28, no. 48, Dec. 1, 1989. [28] P. Fletcher, "Telephone With Modular Plugins Paves The Way For ISDN Services," Electronic Design, vol. 39. no. 45, Nov. 7, 1991 [29] Y. Hishino, et. al., "ISDN Telephone Sets With Advanced Voice Features," IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, vol.37, no. 3, Aug., 1991. [30]"ISDN: A World of Services," Electrical Communication, vol. 65, no.1, 1991. [31] B. Baldwin, "Integrating ISDN Lines for Financial Users," Telecommunications, vol. 24, no. 6, June 1991. [32] R. W. O'Dell and M. Kurnick, "Adapt Non-ISDN Terminals To ISDN Data Rates," Electronic Design, vol. X, no. 17, Apr.25 1991. [33] D. Gulick, "ISDN Terminal Adaptor Options," Telecommunications, vol. 25, no. 9, Sept. 1991. [35] A Lindstrom, "RHCs gear up for ISDN marketing challenge," Telephony, vol. 222, no. 11, Mar. 16 1992. [37] J. M. O'Neil, "Videoconferencing: It's more affordable when you use ISDN," Communications News, vol. X, no. 7, July 1991. [38] A. Day, "International Standardization of BISDN," IEEE LTS Magazine, vol. 2, no. 3, Aug. 1991. [39] H. Helgert, Integrated Services Digital Networks : Architectures, Protocols, Standards, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass, 449 pp., 1991. [40] R. E. Basch, et. al., "VISTAnet, A BISDN Field Trial," IEEE LTS Magazine, vol. 2, no. 3, Aug. 1991. [41] H. Bauch, "Transmission Systems for the BISDN," IEEE LTS Magazine, vol. 2, no. 3, Aug. 1991. [42] E. Goeldner and M. Huber, "Multiple Access for BISDN," IEEE LTS Magazine, vol. 2, no. 3, Aug. 1991. [43] N. Ailawadi, et. al., "Broadband Photonic Switching Using Guided-Wave Fabrics," IEEE LTS Magazine, vol. 2, no. 2, May 1991. [44}K. Nakagawa, et. al., "Optical Amplification in Trunk Transmission Networks," IEEE LTS Magazine, vol. 3, no. 1, Feb. 1992. Missing number are for personal contacts. I also erased Fred Goldstein's book by mistake. Pat Turner KB4GRZ turner@dixie.com [Moderator's Note: Even though you erased Fred Goldstein's listing in error, Fred did respond also, and discusses his book in the next message of this issue. PAT] ------------------------------ From: goldstein@carafe.dnet.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein) Subject: Re: ISDN Book Wanted Organization: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton MA USA Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 22:44:50 GMT In article , karkan@msdrl.com (Jim Karkanias) writes: > Anyone care to recommend a good book on ISDN? > [Moderator's Note: Why yes, as a matter of fact, telecom reader Fred > Goldstein has written the very book you are seeking. I reviewed it > here awhile back, perhaps Fred will write you with details, and send a > cc: to the Digest so we can plug his book again to new readers who > did not see the earlier review. PAT] Well, Pat, so long as you asked ... :-) My book is called "ISDN In Perspective", is a 246-page paperback, published by Addison-Wesley with ISBN 0-201-50016-7. It talks about ISDN services, switching and transmission, protocols, B-ISDN/ATM, and various other related matters. And of course it's blatantly opinionated and seasoned with ISDN "folklore". If you want to do me a favor, you can pester your local tech bookseller into stocking it. Fred R. Goldstein goldstein@carafe.tay2.dec.com NOT "dnet"! k1io or goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com voice:+1 508 952 3274 Standard Disclaimer: Opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission. ------------------------------ From: stoltz@Sun.COM (Ben Stoltz) Subject: Cost of ISDN Voice Terminals? Date: 20 Feb 93 00:47:36 GMT Organization: Sun Microsystems Inc., Mountain View, CA What is the lowest cost ISDN voice terminal that you know of for your local ISDN standard? I am trying to compile a list of low cost ISDN voice terminals. It is nice to have HOLD, CONFERENCE, TRANSFER, and DROP buttons as well as 3 call appearances, a speaker, and a display. However, I am also very interested in no-frills versions with a corresponding lower cost. Please send email to stoltz@Eng.Sun.COM. I'll compile a list and post it in a week or so. Thanks, Ben Stoltz Voice: (415) 336-2818 Fax: (415) 965-4903 Email: stoltz@Eng.Sun.COM ------------------------------ From: deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) Subject: Re: AT&T Are You Listening? Organization: AT&T Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 00:43:44 GMT In article jack_decker@f8.n154.z1. fidonet.org (Jack Decker) writes: > In message , John Higdon com> wrote: >> AT&T has had some notable outages too, and as the saying goes, "the >> bigger they are, the harder they fall!" This is very true, especially when you consider the traffic volumes. AT&T has approximately 63% of interexchange traffic, MCI approximately 20%, Sprint approximately 12%, and the remaining carriers split up the rest. Now let's do a thought experiment. Assume that half of the customers out there in the world are knowledgeable enough to dial 10XXX to select an IXC other than their PIC. Assume further that half will try each of the other two major carriers. (Any of these assumptions are open to challenge; I'm using the theorem that says if you don't have any information about a distribution, assume it's uniform.) Now, consider a failure scenario where a given set of callers can't reach a given IXC, whether due to IXC failure, LEC failure, failure on the boundary, or whatever. If the IXC is MCI, using the above assumptions, AT&T's total traffic load will increase by (5/63)%, or a delta of 7% -- less than normal daily variation, probably. If the IXC is Sprint, the impact on AT&T's total traffic volume is even less significant -- an increase of under 5%. If, however, the IXC is AT&T, Sprint and MCI promptly get swamped under the overflow -- MCI's load increases by 80%, and Sprint's by more than 130%. So when AT&T falls, everyone hurts ... >> I still contend that many of the problems that are attributed to the >> carriers actually occur in the facilities of the local telcos. No argument here :-) > I believe that in the few cases where AT&T can really claim superior > connections, it is only because they are still using some of the > pre-divestiture facilities (Feature Group C?). Argument here. There's very little FGC left out there (I don't know hard numbers, but I'd guess less than 5%). The BOCs have had ten years to implement FGD, and they've been pretty agressive. Where there is a difference is in the exchange access routing. AT&T connects directly to many End Offices. Other IXCs connect primarily to Access Tandems, which aggregate their traffic and route it to/from End Offices. If you have another switch and another set of trunks in the path, you're more susceptible to failures. I submit this is a major advantage AT&T has. Of course, we pay for it, because we've got to have facilities to dozens of EOs in a LATA instead of one or two ATs, requiring more small trunk groups instead of fewer larger trunk groups, which are more expensive on a per-trunk basis. > I don't think Sprint is claiming to have invented digital telephony, > but they were the first carrier to have a 100% fiber optic network. (personal gripe): Actually what get's me is Sprint's commercial where the v/o says "If you were going to build the perfect 800 service, you'd do what AT&T did: Follow Sprint." Of course, this disregards the fact that AT&T invented and patented 800 service. >> And advanced signaling? Calls on AT&T complete in a split second; in >> about eight seconds with Sprint. Yes, it is because AT&T is connected >> via SS7 to my telco and Sprint (for whatever reason) is not. But it >> goes to illustrate the stupidity of the advertising and how >> intelligence is not to be gained by listening to it. > Again, I wonder if this call completion advantage isn't due to the > more direct connections to the telephone central office, that aren't > available to other carriers? Yes, and no. The advantage is due to the more direct connections to EOs; those connections are available to other carriers, but they choose not to purchase them. We can't buy anything from an LEC that any other IXC can't buy, if they so choose. > once AT&T has to compete on a totally level playing field, I think a > lot of these so-called advantages will disappear (when was Feature > Group C supposed to be discontinued, anyway?). From my favorite Bellcore document, "Notes": "AT&T must convert their access service to FGD when an end office is converted to equal access. Most end offices have now been converted so the use of FGC is diminishing." No numbers, tho. Note also, though, that AT&T must continue to incure the cost of FGC (CAMA/OSPS) access to support coin-sent-paid calls as carrier of last resort. Claimer: I work for AT&T Communications Services; I'm not in Access and don't work on this stuff normally, but I know some of it from general knowledge. This is not an AT&T ad, but I do take some pride in my employer ... David G Lewis AT&T Bell Laboratories david.g.lewis@att.com or !att!goofy!deej Switching & ISDN Implementation ------------------------------ From: sbpress%engws8@sbcs.sunysb.edu (The Stony Brook Press) Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones Reply-To: sbpress@ic.sunysb.edu Organization: The State University of New York at Stony Brook Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 15:56:45 GMT ridder@zowie.zso.dec.com (Hans) writes: > In article John Higdon com> writes: >> Scanner laws will be just about as effective as gun laws -- only much >> sillier. The FCC is seriously deluded if it thinks it can win a >> technological war with anyone. The below-average moron outguns the FCC >> in the brain cell department. > Remember, the FCC is only doing what its told to. The real > "below-average morons" are *your* elected officials who passsed the > law so no one could listen to their phone calls. > We have no one to blame but ourselves for putting these idiots into > [Moderator's Note: Actually here in the USA, people who bother voting > wind up only voting for less than one percent of the petty tyrants and > others who dominate our lives. The rest are appointed or hangers-on; > civil 'servants' we call them, but rebellious and willful servants is > more like it. That's why I always thought it was such a joke to hear > people say 'if you don't like things the way they are, then vote for a > new bunch.' When is the last time *you* voted for anyone in the > FCC/FBI/IRS/DOD/HUD/NSA/CIA/ETC? I don't blame myself for putting > idiots in office. I didn't vote for any of 'em! PAT] Not only that, In this country you only have a choice between Republicans and Democrats. There isn't that much difference between them, compared with the choices you have in other democracies. Also, our representetives get a lot of presure from lobbiests,that are usually big corporations. the representetives also need financing from these corporations too, so in a large way, they depend on them for their election. All this means that the representetives don't reallyy represent us that much. signature: THE STONY BROOK PRESS The State University of New York at Stony Brook Community's Feature Newspaper Snailnet: The Stony Brook Press | internet: sbpress@ic.sunysb.edu S.U.N.Y. at Stony Brook | bitnet : sbpress%ic.sunysb.edu@cunyvm Stony Brook N.Y. 11794 | Voicenet : (516) 632-6451 alternate e-mail(if sbpress@ic... doesn't work): dglasner@ccmail.sunysb.edu ------------------------------ From: longo@sfpp.com (Bob Longo) Subject: Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State Date: 20 Feb 93 09:58:21 PST Organization: Santa Fe Pacific Pipelines In article , john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > Bob Longo writes: >> Californians want CNID, but they also want per-line blocking to be >> available (which is what PacBell is vigorously opposed to). That is >> reasonable in a state where 40% of phone customers have unlisted >> numbers. > Perhaps you could site the surveys and studies that back this up? I am > damn sick of people pronouncing what Californian's want (based upon > absolutely no evidence) when trying to justify the stifling of yet > another useful technology. Sure. Glad to. I personally attended one of the CPUC's public hearings several months before the ruling where they were soliciting public opinion. A large majority of the individuals that spoke at that hearing were in favor of no CNID at all! A much smaller percentage of the people wanted some flavor of CNID -- ranging from no blocking available at all to a per-line blocking which ended up the be the ultimate (and in my opinion best) compromise. The comments made by the individuals speaking at that (and other hearings conducted throughout the state) are available for review at the CPUC. The only stifling of this technology has come from the phone company. They could offer it today if they wanted to. By trying to force the CPUC to disallow per-line blocking, they expect they can reap more profits because they believe more subscribers will purchase the service. > I, for one, do not much care what Californian's want; I know what is > useful and desirable and what is available in most of the rest of the > country. I also know that none of the doom and gloom, even in areas > that have no blocking capability, has been demonstrated in any way. But your signature indicates that you live in California. It sounds to me that you (being a Californian) DO care. > The CPUC is perfectly aware that its restrictions are not standard and > that no other state has required default per-line blocking and > per-call enabling. Please stop pontificating about how it is just the > mean old telephone companies that are being unreasonable. The > restrictions were passed with one purpose in mind: to eliminate the > offering of CNID in California. It succeeded royally. The activists > won this round. The restrictions passed were based upon popular public opinion. Obviously not popular with the phone companies or a few paranoids who are going to refuse to answer their phone unless they can see a number first -- but popular with those who expressed their opinion to the CPUC. Everyone had the option of expressing their opinion prior to the CPUC ruling at the public hearings or in writing. I don't feel too sorry for those who want unrestricted CNID who didn't bother to express their opinion prior to the ruling. I'm curious -- for those who believe CNID should be forced on everyone to make this technology useful, do you also believe that unlisted numbers should be unavailable? After all, what use is the phone book if everyone isn't in there? To be consistent in their logic, the phone company should stop printing the phone book until the CPUC forces everyone to have listed numbers, right? Bob Longo (longo@sfpp.com) Santa Fe Pacific Pipelines Los Angeles, CA ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #116 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa01414; 20 Feb 93 19:05 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA02973 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sat, 20 Feb 1993 16:51:15 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA28667 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sat, 20 Feb 1993 16:50:45 -0600 Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 16:50:45 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302202250.AA28667@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu Subject: My New Venture: The Orange Calling Card Before you read further, be advised I am going to try to sell you something. I recently resigned my employment of several years and have begun a business of my own as an independent sales agent or contractor for Orange Communications, Inc. of Minneapolis, Minnesota, a small but growing long distance carrier. They offer 1+ dialing and a telephone calling card which has *no surcharge* associated with its use. To use it, you dial an 800 number, then the number you are calling, the ten digit card number and your PIN. It can be used from any phone anywhere, and is particularly useful if you are at a private payphone with high rates or at a phone where choice of carrier is restricted. It is quite useful in hotels where there is a surcharge added for the use of the phone. University phone systems are another example where the Orange Card is useful. If you are at a phone which allows you to call an 800 number, then you can use the Orange Card. Orange Card charges a flat rate of 25 cents per minute, and they bill in six-second increments rather than whole minutes. You can see that the savings in using this calling card come from short (one to ten minute) calls. If your long distance calls are all mostly short, then you'll save quite a bit of money monthly. Orange Card: Has no monthly minimum, no annual fees. Has open account billing; you pay from a statement rendered monthly. Has a customer service 800 number for billing inquiries and assistance with completing calls as needed. Allows calls to anywhere in the USA including Alaska and Hawaii for the flat rate of 25 cents per minute at any time. Allows Directory Assistance calls at the prevailing rate for same. Has a one-time $10 charge to process your application, put your account in the computer and issue your plastic calling card. You can make local calls around town from a payphone using the Orange Card also; bear in mind the savings applies when the calls are short, before the local telco surcharge can be 'spread across' the minutes of a longer call. To get to the point: I'd like you to sign up for an Orange Calling Card. Try it for a month or two as an alternative to the calling card you are currently using. See if it doesn't save you money anywhere you would normally pay a surcharge for calls, such as at payphones, hotels, etc. Profits to me will be used to offset my increasing costs involved in moderating TELECOM Digest and comp.dcom.telecom. You'll save money on your long distance phone bill and I'll make a little money to pay the phone bill here. Is that fair enough? If you write me, I'll send you a brochure and application by mail. You complete it and send it with your $10 signup fee direct to Orange at the address on the application. Thanks for reading this and your support. Patrick Townson The TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 1570 Chicago, IL 60690 or you may fax your request to me at 312-743-0002. or you may email your request to: ptownson@eecs.nwu.edu Please do not respond to the Digest address! PAT   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa08253; 20 Feb 93 22:51 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA27060 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sat, 20 Feb 1993 20:40:57 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA01017 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sat, 20 Feb 1993 20:40:29 -0600 Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 20:40:29 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302210240.AA01017@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #117 TELECOM Digest Sat, 20 Feb 93 20:40:30 CST Volume 13 : Issue 117 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: The War on Pagers (Kyle J. Cordes) Re: The War on Pagers (Matthew Crosby) Re: The War on Pagers (Samuelson S. Rehman) Re: The War on Pagers (Pat Turner) Re: The War on Pagers (Jonathan Bradshaw) Pagers, Cellphones and War on Drugs (Robert Masse) Re: Standard Dialing Plan (Bill Stewart) Re: Standard Dialing Plan (Carl Moore) Re: Meet Me at the Power Line (Matt Healy) Re: N.E.T. and the Phantom Phone Exchange (Richard Nash) Re: Cellular Phone Questions (Bernard Rupe) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kcordes@world.std.com (Kyle J Cordes) Subject: Re: The War on Pagers Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 00:48:02 GMT Well, I can think of a legitimate reason to have a cellular phone at high school: FOR FUN. A few years ago (when I was in high school) a friend of mine had a car-phone. Neatest toy in the world. Yeah, it cost him $0 a month at the time, but it was so neat that it was easily worth it. (In retrospect, that is. Of course, he had a job at the time and I didn't ...) (At our high school, a sizable fraction of the upperclassmen had cars, and in the suburban area where we lived, going anywhere required driving around.) Kyle [Moderator's Note: I am quite sure Kyle made a typo in his message with the cost of the phone being 'zero' per month ... but I have no idea what he meant to put there so I did not change it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: crosby@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Matthew Crosby) Subject: Re: The War on Pagers Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 01:14:08 GMT In article mc/G=Brad/S=Hicks/OU=0205925@ mhs.attmail.com writes: > Look, it would take only a very, very minor change to these laws to > make them perfectly reasonable. Change the law so that (a) =students= > are banned from wearing/carrying communications gear, and (b) all > other people are banned from school grounds unless they have a > legitimate reason to be there, as determined by the local > principal/administrator, and even then, NO LOITERING. > I am at a total loss to imagine what legitimate need a high school > student or younger has for to have a pager or cellular phone with him > or her at school. They are there to learn, period. Never mind the > drug angle; if that cellular phone or pager rings during classroom > hours, it is an impediment to learning -- and not just for the person > who has it. *sigh* Why oh why do people feel that hs students should be treated in a fascist manner? Why do people consider people unable to act responsably just because they haven't had that magic 18th birthday which immediately changes them from an irresponsible teenager to a responsible adult? For the record: I am a freshman in college, so I recently finished high school. Now, when I was in high school, there where several people who had pagers, and had legitimate reasons for having them. A couple needed them for work. A large number where volunteers in various organizations, like fire departments or search/rescue and where regularily on call. Occasionally these would go off. It was certainly no more interruption then, say, a watch. I can't speak for cellular phones, because I didn't know any one who had them. > If you need to get a message to a student at a school, call the > school. They know where the student is and can relay a message as > quickly or as slowly as it requires. (If they don't know where your > child is, then you have an even bigger problem.) If a student in > school needs to make a telephone call, he or she can either wait until > after school or ask the office for permission; I am hard-pressed to > think of any legitimate use that can't wait for one or the other. My high school had about 3500 students. It had five buildings and large grounds. If a student was in class, he could have been found. If he recieved a call during one of his off periods, his chance of being found was virtually nill. He may not have even been on campus, considering most of us where allowed off campus during our off hours. Are you seriously suggesting that the office should have really been able to find a student at all times during the school day? On the broader sense, why must something be banned just because a small minority uses them for illegal dealings? What on earth is it the business of the school administration if we choose to have something that generally has no bearing on the rest of the school? If people where shoes with shoelaces, they can strangle their classmates to death. In addition, many drug dealers wear shoes. Does this mean that shoelaces should be banned? I'm sorry if this comes off as being too much of a flame, or too off topic, but when I was in high school I was sick and tired of people assuming that just because I was a student I must be a violent rowdy drug-dealing irresponsible hooligan, and therefore it was perfectly all right to treat me like that. This attempt to ban pagers is, imho, just another example of the facism of the war on drugs. Matt crosby@cs.colorado.edu ------------------------------ Reply-To: sam@ssr.nca.com From: sam@ssr.nca.com (Samuelson S. Rehman) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 16:31:53 -0800 Subject: Re: The War on Pagers I have been listening for sometime and I'm very confused. Are we so ignorant that we actually think for one second that the best way (or even the only way for some) to help a child grow is not to inspire them, let them understand (not just "remember") what may be right (to us) and what may be wrong (as we look at it), but to merely wipe away everything signs that you dislike or similarities that they have to those "bad" kids? I can understand the fear a loving father might have in seeing his kids growing up with the "style" of a so-called bad person. Or how annoying it could be when a beeper goes off in a most inspiring lesson, both for the teacher and the students. But do you think taking away the pagers will settle their hearts? Or to be more extreme, will taking away the guns stop others from killing? I'll say no. "It's the thought that hurts, not the act." The pager is just a reception device. Televisions are reception devices. Your eyes are reception devices. Ears are reception devices, ... Everyone seems to symbolize problems from time to time, so as to identify them easier. And soon we forget the root of such problems. So we blindly attack the "symbols", instead of the actual matter it represents. And then we make more symbols. And then, again, we attack. And this goes on endless. Best Regards, Samuelson S. Rehman {Systems Programmer - RnD.NCA, Director of NIS Systems} Newspager Corp. of America voice: (415) 873-4422 | fax: (415) 873-4424 | email:sam@nca.com,sam@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: turner@Dixie.Com Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 15:13 EST From: rsiatl!turner@rsiatl.UUCP Reply-To: turner@dixie.com Brad Hicks writes: > I am at a total loss to imagine what legitimate need a high school > student or younger has for to have a pager or cellular phone with him > or her at school. They are there to learn, period. Never mind the > drug angle; if that cellular phone or pager rings during classroom > hours, it is an impediment to learning -- and not just for the person > who has it. When you consider that school property includes the parking lot, the law is a little more unreasonable. I have one friend that kept several pagers and a Wilson land mobile rig in his car when in high school. He worked for a two-way dealer. I don't think cell phones in students cars are a bad idea either, some rural students drive up to 40 miles to high school. I had a two-meter and a CB in my truck for part of high school. How the rules are actually enforced,of course, is up to the teachers. I was sent to the office when I was in high school for carying drug paraphanalia (a set of aligator clip leads I had been using while adding an extension to the school's Merlin.), yet raised no concern about having a Hilti gun in my locker, or running a chain saw in the school lobby (to prune the student council Christmas tree). When I was in high school, there was a pay phone for students to use. One of the teachers tells me it was removed the next year when the school received a bomb threat. The Assistant Principal ran out of the office to call police from another phone, only to hear the girl calling the threat in from the pay phone in the lobby. Ah the life of a high school technogeek. Pat Turner KB4GRZ turner@dixie.com ------------------------------ From: Jonathan Bradshaw Subject: Re: The War on Pagers Organization: University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 16:17:52 GMT In article mc/G=Brad/S=Hicks/OU=0205925@ mhs.attmail.com writes: > Look, it would take only a very, very minor change to these laws to > make them perfectly reasonable. Change the law so that (a) =students= > are banned from wearing/carrying communications gear, and (b) all > other people are banned from school grounds unless they have a > legitimate reason to be there, as determined by the local > principal/administrator, and even then, NO LOITERING. > I am at a total loss to imagine what legitimate need a high school > student or younger has for to have a pager or cellular phone with him > or her at school. They are there to learn, period. Never mind the > drug angle; if that cellular phone or pager rings during classroom > hours, it is an impediment to learning -- and not just for the person > who has it. First, that would ban HAM RADIO which as a high school student I was very involved in. Secondly, I carried a cell phone in high school. Of course, it was turned off during class but I had two jobs, worked 34 hours a week and went to school. I never carried a pager but considered it. At 17 I was a licensed disc jockey so I also carried a SCANNER to monitor the radio station I worked for communications too. (Check the .sig for the station). Lets get off the idea that controlling technology will control problems. HOWEVER, I agree fully with the (b) section of your message. Trouble is, in every school I have seen that IS ALREADY IN EFFECT. So, all that happens is the kids go accross the road during lunch etc. which isn't school grounds to do their deals. Didn't exactly make a difference. And you can hardly ban kids from going outside the school grounds before/after school! Jonathan Bradshaw | jonathan@nova.decio.nd.edu | PGP Key Available On Request Packet: n9oxe@n0ary.#nocal.ca.usa.na | Prodigy: XMSN02B | (Os/2)(DOS)(Linux) WNDU-AM/FM/TV South Bend, IN | Disclaimer "My opinions are not my employers" ------------------------------ From: robert@CAM.ORG (Robert Masse) Subject: Pagers, Cellphones and War on Drugs Organization: Communications Accessibles Montreal, Quebec Canada Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 16:53:08 GMT I attend CEGEP and it is full of kids with pagers. To them, it is 'cool' and neat to have them (age 17-24). Only ten or so have cellular phones. Out of all of them, one guy uses his cellular phone to get messages from his father (his father was a mobster a while ago), what he does now is unknown. In high school (age 12-17) I was the only one to have a cellular phone (for work) and when I first got it I received a lot of flak from teachers who thought the drug trade was going to start in our school. After talking to the principal, I assured them I was not dealing in illicit drugs. Now my old high school is full of kids with them, and I hear that the teachers are getting fustrated of hearing beep-beep-beep or dring dring in class. They aren't doing anything about it either because they are too scared now. Mind you all of these high school kids are using them for status symbols. I hope it doesn't come to outlawing them like previous posters mentioned, where in my opinion a person's right to carry one shouldn't be denied. Robert Masse Computer Consultant Voice (514) 466 2689 robert@cam.org robert@loki.concordia.ca Fax (514) 444 9182 robert@comsec.cam.org ------------------------------ From: news@cbnewsh.att.com Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 02:50:47 GMT Subject: Re: Standard Dialing Plan Organization: Electronic Birdwatching Society In article msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) writes: >> There's nothing more annoying than a telco switch that says "It is >> not necessary to dial 1 and the area code for this number". If telco >> knows what number is intended, why doesn't it just go ahead and >> complete the call?! > It doesn't know what number is intended. It knows what number you dialed. > The message is a polite way of saying "You were about to reach a wrong > number! But luckily we noticed that the number you dialed would be a > local (or in-area) call, while you dialed in a manner requesting a > long-distance (or out-of-area) call. Since everyone knows the extent > of their local calling area (or area code), you must have been calling > the wrong number. Please try again and dial the right number now." ARRGH! There's nothing more annoying than a piece of hardware that thinks it knows what you want better than you do! I go to the San Francisco Bay Area occasionally on business. I often want to call places from pay phones when I do. I have enough trouble keeping track of whether the person I'm calling is in 408, 415, or 510, without also having to keep track of what the often-illegible phone number on the stupid pay phone is, much less having any clue as to whether this is officially a long distance call or a local call or which side of the LATA boundary it's on. If I dial 1-415-NXX-XXXX, then I want to talk to 1-415-NXX-XXXX. And if the pay phone says it's run by Joe's Garage COCOT service and uses FooBar Long Distance, I want to dial 10ATT-0-415-NXX-XXXX and not have some stupid friendly phone tell me I don't need to dial 1 and "Have a Nice Day - Click!" I want to get the AT&T Bong. Bill Stewart 1-908-949-0705 wcs@anchor.att.com AT&T Bell Labs 4M312 Holmdel NJ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 17:27:43 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: Standard Dialing Plan To repeat an old story from me in this Digest: I answered a call at a Newark, Del. pay phone (302-366-9xxx), got an operator (British- sounding voice) who was trying to complete a collect call, and I learned she was trying to reach 203 instead of 302. ------------------------------ From: matt@wardsgi.med.yale.edu (Matt Healy) Subject: Re: Meet Me at the Power Line Organization: Yale University--Genetics Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 15:58:48 GMT In article , nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) wrote: > [text deleted] > distance to the conductors is key. When you are far away from a pair > of wires near each other (like an ordinary power cord) the effects of > the two conductors cancel out. Twisted pairs cancel even better. So > an analysis based on a single-line model isn't valid. > Three-phase lines require more analysis, but I think that the > effects of all three lines cancel similarly, since there's no net > electron flow (the current in all three lines instantaneously sums to 0). The effects had *better* cancel; if not then you have a ground fault. This is, in fact, how ground fault circuit interruptors work. The GFCI has a sensing coil looped around all power-carrying lines in the protected circuit. The path integral of flux around the loop should be zero if the currents balance. A non-zero current in the sensing loop means juice is going someplace it should not go, so the GFCI trips. Close to the wires, there will be local net fluxes, but at a great distance they cancel out. This also is the reason for the old electrician's rule that you make _one_ hole in a metal enclosure for all the power wires of a given circuit. If the wires are run through different holes, so there's a non-zero net current, then you can get lots of eddy-current heating in the enclosure walls. Before I left engineering for science, I designed AC switchgear; after a couple years I decided if you've seen one motor control center you've seen them all. Matt Healy matt@wardsgi.med.yale.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 09:08:16 -0700 From: rickie@trickie.ualberta.ca (Richard Nash) Subject: Re: N.E.T. and the Phantom Phone Exchange scoggin@delmarva.COM writes: > YES! This is the not the first time that a telco has hosed their > routing tables. > One Saturday morning I got a call from our Southern Division Energy > Control Center in Salisbury MD that they could not get any calls from > Southern Delaware. I tried it myself -- Delmarva has an extensive > private fiber net and I have a bunch of OPX lines in various counties > terminating on the sets in the Network Operations Center here. > Sure enough, Kent and Sussex Counties had NO long-distance access > through MCI -- AT&T worked fine. Talked to the folks at MCI -- they > had several open problem reports on the same thing. They were getting > nowhere with Bell of Pennsylvania (MCI has two big DMS250's in > Philadelphia that apparently handle Delaware, as well as eastern PA). > Anyhow, I raised enough hell that I finally spoke to a switchman in > Bell's Market St CO. Finally found that they had installed a new > generic the night before and had forgotten to load some of the > translation tables! Yup, the ONP (One Night Process) from NT strikes again! The group responsible for performing these software loads may be experiencing staffing problems, either due to over-worked individuals, or else from being less than fully trained. NT recently implemented their software *quality* program, (we are now beginning to see the the results from it.:) One of the installation steps requires that the applicator actually has to read the error report generated from the tables transfer routine. (Data from old side copied across to new software side). A lot of applicators ignore these errors, but are usually picked up that a.m., as the troubles start rolling in! :) :) -- Richard Nash Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6K 0E8 UUCP: rickie%trickie@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 09:03:31 CST From: news@gold.rtsg.mot.com From: rupe@rtsg.mot.com (Bernard Rupe) Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Questions Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Group Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 14:59:47 GMT wegeng.henr801c@xerox.com (Don Wegeng) writes: > Consider the following scenario. At home I have a contract with the A > carrier, and have the phone programmed to only roam with A carriers. > Now I'm travelling in another state, and come upon a serious car > accident. My phone says that there's no cellular service in this > area, so I can't use it to summon help, regardless of whether this > particular area was covered by a B carrier. > In the above scenario, had I programmed the phone to roam on B > channels (or roam on both, with priority to A channels) would I have > been able to make an emergency call? In other words, will carriers > accept emergency calls from any telephone, or will they only accept > emergency calls from phones that they recognize? Probably yes. Most systems should allow any phone to make an emergency 911 call (ie. no subscriber validation). Some phones are even set up to allow calling 911 when the phone is locked. Bernie Rupe 1501 W. Shure Drive Room 1315 Motorola, Inc. Arlington Heights, IL 60004 Cellular Infrastructure Group +1 708 632 2814 rupe@rtsg.mot.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #117 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa09851; 20 Feb 93 23:45 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA14232 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sat, 20 Feb 1993 21:35:36 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA00608 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sat, 20 Feb 1993 21:35:00 -0600 Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 21:35:00 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302210335.AA00608@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #118 TELECOM Digest Sat, 20 Feb 93 21:35:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 118 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: National Data Superhighways - Access? (Jon Krueger) Re: What Number do I Dial From My Phone to Get Phone to Ring? (D. Levenson) Re: Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? (Pat Turner) Re: Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? (Harold Hallikainen) Re: Cellular Phone Questions (John Barcomb) Re: Bell Canada Charging For 411 (Bob Goudreau) Re: AT&T Are You Listening? (Andy Sherman) Re: AT&T Billing Practices --> Illegal? (Steve Forrette) Re: Future of North American Numbering Plan (John R. Levine) Re: 150th Anniversary of FAX (Adrian Godwin) Re: A "Handy" Risk for AirTravel? (Graham Toal) Re: North Korea Appears To Have Changed Most Telephone Numbers (Carl Moore) Re: Directory Services Billing (Steve Forrette) Re: Pacific Bell, Caller ID, and PRIVATE (David G. Lewis) Re: E1 Lines - What Are They? (Lynne D. Gregg) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 17:58:14 -0800 Subject: Re: National Data Superhighways - Access? Reply-To: jpk@Ingres.COM Organization: Ingres Corporation, a subsidiary of The ASK Group, Inc. From: jpk@ingres.com (Jon Krueger) Andrew Blau writes: > In fact, the telcos have become *very* involved in this. During > President Clinton's Economic Summit after the election, the one moment > of reported conflict was when Robert Allen of AT&T challenged Mr. > Gore's contention that the superhighway should be a public works > project. Allen said, "I believe I have some points to make about who > should do what in that respect. I think the government should not > build and/or operate such networks. I believe that the private sector > can be and will be incented to build these networks...." Yes, that was a *very* interesting little statement. Mr. Allen chooses his words most carefully. Indeed private enterprise builds highways. Does that mean it owns them? Or that a particular enterprise could have de facto monopoly via its ownership of particular routes? Of course not. Mr. Allen's speech carefully glosses over these differences. As we have seen, they are critical. > LECs, too ... have made it clear that they believe telcos have a > _very_ important role to play in the construction and operation of > tomorrow's 'data superhighways.' The question of course being: what role. The role played by my manager and by my condo's management company, for instance, are usefully different. Jon Krueger jpk@ingres.com ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: What Number do I Dial From My Phone to Get My Phone to Ring? Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 01:38:34 GMT In article , stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) writes: > Are you sure? If the stated purpose of this regulation is to provide > non-telco inside wiring folks a level playing field, then allowing the > telco to internally use an automated service, while requiring that > non-telco personnel use a manual service through the operator, is NOT > providing a level playing field, now is it? I don't see why the regulation requires that the telco provide such a service, manually or automatically. If I choose to be in the telephone installation business, I am free to employ a person at my office who, at the request of one of my installation personnel, will dial any number they want to verify inbound calling. If it must be a device, rather than a person, I am free to build a device which allows my installation force to call in and enter a number at which it subsequently calls them back. In other words, the playing field is level. New Jersey Bell and I are each allowed to provide ringback services, automated or human, for the use of our own service personnel. I am also free to build a device which receives Caller*ID information and voices it back to the calling party -- thus providing automatic number identification to assist installers in circuit identification. (I'm just playing 'devil's advocate' here ... I'm certainly not opposed to having the telco provide these services, but I don't feel that it should be required.) Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ From: turner@Dixie.Com Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 11:36 EST From: rsiatl!turner@rsiatl.UUCP Reply-To: turner@dixie.com Subject: Re: Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? Pat writes: > "First Church, eh? ... I told you people a year ago to get the electric > wires for the ceiling lights in the office out of *my* conduit! No way > to get rid of the noise until you vacate the conduit. I'm going to > have the Business Office write you another letter on it." > All my arguments about conduit-in-common, and various court rulings > saying that everyone was entitled to use the *property owner's* > conduit including but not limited to telco went over his head. "We had > that conduit first! When we pulled pairs through there it was empty. Don't know how the rules were in 72, I was only three then. Today however, this is taboo. According to the NEC, 800-52(c): 1) Communication conductors shall not be placed in any raceway, compartment, outlet box, junction box, or similar fitting with conductors of electric light or power circuits or Class 1 circuits. Two exceptions allow this for the case of a partition separating the conductors or if the electric circuits supply power solely to communication equipiment. Pat, if you had problems then, you ought to try that now with all the switching power supplies and such in modern buildings. Disclaimer: This is from the 1990 NEC, I haven't purchased a copy of the 1993 edition yet. This paragraph was revised in the 90 edition from the 87 edition. Pat Turner KB4GRZ turner@dixie.com ------------------------------ From: hhallika@tuba.calpoly.edu (Harold Hallikainen) Subject: Re: Phone Lines via Electrical Wiring? Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 20:09:12 GMT It seems to me that the conduit should be available for other compatible uses, and AC power distribution would not be a compatible use on two counts: The first is the crosstalk you observed from running several amps at 120 volts in the same conduit as 600 ohm 1 mW voice signals. The second concern would be safety. Is it legal to run AC power in the same conduit as telephone wiring? Harold ------------------------------ From: jbarcom@uswnvg.com (John Barcomb) Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Questions Date: 20 Feb 93 21:41:38 GMT Organization: U S WEST NewVector Group, Inc. Roaming is a really strange animal when it comes to making emergency calls. I recently read an article in a trade magazine where the editor of the magazine was roaming and watched a really bad accident occur. She picked up her phone and dialed "9-1-1" and got nowhere. Next she dialed "0" and had the operator connect the call. The operator assisted call did charge her account for the call. If she were in her "home" area, she generally* would not have been charged if she dialed 9-1-1. I have roamed on both the A and B carriers in different cities depending on coverage and availablity of cells. Your best bet is to call your cellular carriers Roaming Department (if they have one) to find out all of this information BEFORE you leave your home area so that you know. GENERALLY $3.00/day and $1.00 a minute are rates that you can count on for roaming. John ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 19:49:57 -0500 From: goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) Subject: Re: Bell Canada Charging For 411 Charles Stephens writes: >> In most parts of the US it's a fact of life. You're allowed roughly >> five free calls, and then after that it's around 25 cents a pop. > Well Southern Bell only gives you three freebies before they charge > you US$.30!!! Perhaps in Georgia. Here in NC, Southern Bell allots five monthly freebies, after which the charge is *fifty* cents per call. This is just another example of the dangers of generalizing about a particular Baby Bell's activities in the states it covers. Just because something is true in state A doesn't mean it will apply in B or C. State public utilities commissions often have the final say. Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 13:24:58 EST Subject: Re: AT&T Are You Listening? From: andys@internet.sbi.com (Andy Sherman) On 13 Feb 93 20:02:50 GMT, jack.decker@f8.n154.z1.fidonet.org (Jack Decker) said: > AT&T spends a LOT of money on advertising to convince you that their > quality is better. In my mind, this is just about as valid as the > advertising that oil companies used to run to convince you that one > brand of gasoline was better than another. In many cases, all the gas > stations in a town got their gas from the same source! It was the > same gas, yet they all tried to convince the public that theirs was > better! But the analogy doesn't hold. Phone companies don't get their infrastructure from the same source. They lay their own transmission lines, and they deal with different vendors for switching and transmission equipment. To say that with all the variation in supply and design that quality is obviously identical is arrent nonsense. While the local exchange carrier (the fall-guy for quality problems in Jack's original post) is a common factor for all long distance carriers, that doesn't mean that all interconnections are the same. It depends upon what the carrier is willing to pay for. A small carrier may have only one point of presence in a LATA with trunks to only one tandem office while a large carrier may have several, with redundant routing to several tandems. Carriers choose to buy different numbers of trunk groups to the LECS, which may be digital or may still be analog. Their equal footing with the LEC is that they all *may* buy they exact same services, not that they all *do*. If all carriers provide equal quality, why does one carrier have consistantly faster call set-up times? If all carriers provide equal quality, why does one carrier usually provide faster modem and fax throughput? Could it be that all carriers don't provide equal quality? Naaah, there must be some other explanation ... Andy Sherman Salomon Inc - Unix Systems Support - Rutherford, NJ (201) 896-7018 - andys@sbi.com or asherman@sbi.com "These opinions are mine, all *MINE*. My employer can't have them." ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: AT&T Billing Practices --> Illegal? Date: 20 Feb 1993 21:02:07 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) writes: > PAT - Wasn't it the late U.S. Senator Dirksen who complained one day > on the Senate Floor about "a million here, a million there, and it > soon adds up to real money." > [Moderator's Note: Yes, it was Everett Dirksen who coined the phrase.] I thought it was "a billion here, a billion there, ..." Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com [Moderator's Note: I'm sure it was millions; I don't think I ever heard it expressed as billions. Maybe I'm wrong, it was years ago, but the sentiment is true in either case. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Future of North American Numbering Plan Organization: I.E.C.C. Date: 20 Feb 93 16:32:07 EST (Sat) From: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) > In January 1995, there will be a new "interchangeable" area code format, > where area codes are no longer restricted to having 0 or 1 as the > middle digit. Are there any hints yet about who the lucky winners will be who get the very first interchangable area code? I imagine that they may find themselves hard to call for a while. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl ------------------------------ From: agodwin@acorn.co.uk (Adrian Godwin) Subject: Re: 150th Anniversary of FAX Date: 20 Feb 93 15:36:05 GMT Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, UK In article Subject: Re: A "Handy" Risk for AirTravel? Monty Solomon wrote: > FTP. "Downsizing" CCC seems to be in interesting contrast to US > hackers (2600) which become more active, as visible from the Pentagon > raids. > [TELECOM Moderator's Note: I don't think he meant 'Pentagon raids'. I > think he meant the Justice Department/FBI activities. PAT] I think he was referring to a raid of a 2600 meeting *held in* the Pentagon Mall, not a raid by the Pentagon itself ... G [Moderator's Note: Good point, and I stand corrected. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 17:49:23 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: North Korea Appears To Have Changed Most Telephone Numbers The message says there are two area codes in North Korea: 2 and 81. Compare this to the archive file which has country code 850 for North Korea, with only city code 2 listed (that's for Pyongyang, the capital); it says other locations are only reachable via the operator. Where would calls to this area code 81 be coming from? ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: Directory Services Billing Date: 20 Feb 1993 20:20:51 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article msb@advtech.uswest.com (Mark Blumhardt) writes: > Just a quick question. When you use directory assistance (1+411), > where is billing initiated? > [Moderator's Note: It is billed by your CO, based on the charge for > the service made by your one-plus carrier (if an inter-lata call) or > the local telco (in the case of 411). This is not entirely correct. Most inter-LATA calls have the records used for billing purposes recorded within the IXC network. However, it is likely that the originating local CO records the information as well. The IXC has the option of purchasing the records from the local telco, or recording it themselves. US Sprint used to purchase them from the local telco (around 1985), and this contributed to the delays in getting billed for calls that was common back then. Sprint would have to wait for the local telco to process the billing tapes and generate tapes just for Sprint calls and mail them to Sprint. These days, it is much cheaper and more convenient for the IXC to do this themselves. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) Subject: Re: Pacific Bell, Caller ID, and PRIVATE Organization: AT&T Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 19:21:32 GMT In article rickie@trickie.ualberta.ca (Richard Nash) writes: > Steve Forrette writes: >> It seems that telcos (such as Pacific Bell) which do not yet offer >> Caller ID in their regions, and are marking all calls that leave the >> LATA as PRIVATE so that they don't show up in other areas, are >> creating a major impediment for the usefulness of Caller ID. What if >> a users in another area subscribes to "block blocking," whereby their >> telco will reject any call that's market PRIVATE. This will prevent >> any incoming calls from anyone in California! Similarly, I would >> imagine that a great deal more people who have Caller ID boxes choose >> to ignore calls that come in as PRIVATE. How are you supposed to >> differentiate between people who have specifically requested that >> their numbers be blocked (who I most certainly DON'T want to talk to) >> from those who just happen to live in a state who's PUC knows what's >> best for its citizens (many of whom I do want to talk to)? > Easy! Demand that Californians have the right of not having their > calls blocked with blocked blocking. Hey, alright! So now we'll have Calling Number Delivery, Calling Number Delivery Blocking, Calling Number Delivery Blocking Rejection, and Calling Number Delivery Blocking Rejection Override! ;-) You *are* kidding, right? > Demand that the telcos must insert a tag number to be used instead > of marking as PRIVATE. ACB and AR would utilize this tag number to > look up the real number to be used. Just think of all the new telecom > headaches that could be created! :) Great -- let's blow the NANP numbering space even *more* out of the water. David G Lewis AT&T Bell Laboratories david.g.lewis@att.com or !att!goofy!deej Switching & ISDN Implementation ------------------------------ From: Lynne D Gregg Subject: Re: E1 Lines - What Are They? Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 10:58:00 PST dannyb@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Danny Bielik) asked: > Could somebody please tell me what an E1 line is? E1 is the Euro equivalent of a T1 line. Regards, Lynne ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #118 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa16636; 21 Feb 93 2:56 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA28298 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 21 Feb 1993 00:12:14 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA08492 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 21 Feb 1993 00:11:39 -0600 Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 00:11:39 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302210611.AA08492@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #119 TELECOM Digest Sun, 21 Feb 93 00:11:30 CST Volume 13 : Issue 119 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Judge Finds Nynex Guilty in Criminal Contempt Case (NYT via Eric De Mund) Wanna Call Ukraine? (Oklahoman & Times via mvm@cup.portal.com) AT&T Switch Bribe Now Up to $75 (W Schleck KD3FU National and Regional Telecom Newsgroups (Nigel Allen) U.C. Berkeley Short Course on High-Speed Communications (Harvey Stern) CPUC Predispositions (John Higdon) Let's Do a Figure-8 (Jim Gottlieb) Caller ID Display With RS-232 Interface Wanted (Paul Kubinski) Long Subscriber Loop Problems (John Braden) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 22:08:50 -0800 From: Eric De Mund Subject: Judge Finds Nynex Guilty in Criminal Contempt Case Reply-To: Eric De Mund Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services Here is an item of great interest from the {New York Times} this past week. [NYT Wednesday, February 17, 1993] Judge Finds Nynex Is Guilty In Criminal Contempt Case By EDMUND L. ANDREWS Special to The New York Times WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 -- A Federal judge convicted the Nynex Corporation of criminal contempt today and fined it $1 million for willfully selling an electronic information service in violation of the antitrust decree that broke up the Bell System in 1984. Nynex, the parent company of both New York Telephone and New England Telephone, said it had done nothing wrong and would appeal the verdict. Today's conviction, handed down by United States District Judge Harold H. Greene, is the first instance in which one of the"Baby Bell" telephone companies Nynex refused to admit any has been found guilty of criminal contempt. But the verdict is based on a prohibition on the Bell companies that was ended in late 1991 by a Federal appeals court in Washington, meaning it involves actions that would not be illegal today. And whether successfully appealed or not, the case will have little impact on Nynex's profits and virtually none on the rates that its telephone customers pay. The verdict does indicate, however, that Nynex aggressively pushed the boundaries of the law and had little patience for the central restrictions of the decree that broke up the old Bell System. Work for MCI at Issue In a strongly worded verdict, Judge Greene ruled that Nynex officials knew full well they were violating a provision of the decree that barred the regional Bell companies from owning electronic information services. As a result, he said, the company should be punished with a fine that would be taken as more than "mere license fees for illegal conduct." The charges stemmed from a small Tennessee computer company called Telco Research that Nynex bought in 1986 and later sold. The company had developed software that could help long-distance companies design private networks for big corporate customers. One of Telco Research's customers was the MCI Communications Corporation, which mailed data about telephone traffic to the company. Telco Research then processed the information on a computer and used telephone lines to send MCI a network design. The Justice Department, prompted by information brought by Scott J. Rafferty, a Telco Research vice president who had been dismissed, charged that Nynex knew these activities were illegal under the decree and went ahead anyway. Nynex refused to admit any wrongdoing, arguing that at worst it had run afoul of ambiguities in the decree. It adamantly refused to settle the charges out of court, much as another regional Bell company, U.S. West, had settled similar charges in 1991 by agreeing to pay the Government $10 million. Instead, Nynex spent millions of dollars in its defense. Nynex argued that its subbsidiary had essentially been leasing a computer and software, rather than providing an information service, and that its managers thought they were complying with the law. But Judge Greene said that the activities of Telco Research clearly violated the decree and that Nynex officials received clear indications of this from Justice Department attorneys as well as some of their own employees. "Nynex officials were aware that the MCI service bureau presented decree problems," wrote Judge Greene. "While Nynex employees continued to discuss the potential violations, this produced only delay, not a remedy." ------------------------------ From: MVM@cup.portal.com Subject: Wanna Call Ukraine? Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 13:17:55 PST From the _Saturday Oklahoman & Times_, 20 Feb 93, p. 25: Copyright (C) 1993 The Oklahoma Publishing Co. Ukraine Gets AT&T Phone Switch By Bob Vandewater Staff Writer Telephone users in Ukraine are now placing calls through a digital telecommunications switch made at AT&T's Oklahoma City equipment manufacturing plant, officials said Friday. Plant manufacturing Vice President Pete Gannon said an AT&T switch, a highly-computerized electronic call routing system, was placed into service this week in Ukraine. "This is another example where a 5ESS exported from Oklahoma is providing state-of-the-art telecommunications services," Gannon said. "The digital switches made in Oklahoma City are now operating in 36 countries around the world." The Oklahoma City plant is the only domestic AT&T factory that makes and ships completed 5ESS switches. But AT&T has formed joint ventures in some other countries that allow for some 5ESS units that are partially built in Oklahoma City to be completed at plants in those nations, AT&T spokesman Ed Beltram said. AT&T Network Systems and Ukraine have formed such a telecommunications joint venture named UTEL to modernize the country's long-distance network. The first 5ESS unit installed in Ukraine was entirely built in Oklahoma City. UTEL recently signed a $35 million agreement to buy six additional 5ESS switching systems for Ukraine. Final assembly of those additional switches will take place at a joint venture plant in Chernigov in Ukraine. ------------------------------ Subject: AT&T Switch Bribe now up to $75 Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 13:00:38 CST From: Paul W Schleck KD3FU I live in Omaha, use US West, US Sprint, and have Caller-ID. I usually don't pick up the calls that say "Out of Area" too often, but figuring it might be someone important, I picked it up. "Hello, Mr. ?" "Uh Huh" "I'm so-and-so from AT&T, how are you this evening?" I'd usually hang up the phone at this point, but I was bored, and continued with the social pleasantries, and let him get on to the meat of the matter, which was a $75 bribe (not a coupon, a check) in exchange for switching to AT&T. That's right, SEVENTY-FIVE SEMOLIANS (the equivalent of at least several months of long-distance bills for me). I really shouldn't do deals over the phone, particularly telemarketing cold-calls, but as I said before, I was bored, and wanted to get more of the details. When he paused for Q&A, I asked the usual: Q: If I'm at a pay-phone, and your long-distance service is not the default, what is the access code? A: 1-0-ATT (10288, reality check to make sure I'm not talking to "ATNT" or "ATMT" or similar) Q: Do I have to pay the switching fee? A: No, a coupon to reimburse the fee will be sent to you (I had previously gotten a $35 bribe in the mail, but the switching fee was my responsibility). Q: If I agree to the service, how long do I have to stay? A: I can leave in 30 days, and keep the $75 check (forgot to ask if I have to pay to switch back) Q: How soon will the change take effect? A: 4-5 weeks And, in a moment of extreme weakness, I said "yes." I was then connected with a "neutral confirmation representative" (probably an AT&T employee to make sure that their telemarketing firm wasn't pulling an MCI slam-fest on them), who pronounced my name correctly. She confirmed that all the information was correct, and I wasn't some neighbor's kid, or cat-burglar who picked up the phone. What was amusing was that she asked for a "confirmation code," which could be several things, including mother's maiden name (probably have my credit-report on the screen right in front of them). I gave them an incorrect code, which was accepted (if they check them at all, they probably check them off-line). Will be interesting to see what they do with my order, either tear it up, call me back ("Mother's maiden name? Oh, I'm sorry, I though you said *Grandmother's* maiden name?" :-), or drop me a letter. So, am I missing something? Is this whole prospectus for real? I would assume that if the terms are very different in writing than over the phone, I can return the check uncashed and demand to be switched back. I'll take the heat for encouraging telemarketers, but I'd be interested in opinions of this latest AT&T sales pitch. Paul W. Schleck pschleck@unomaha.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 14:34:00 -0500 From: ndallen@r-node.pci.on.ca (Nigel Allen) Subject: National and Regional Telecom Newsgroups Organization: 52 Manchester Avenue, Toronto What national and regional telecom newsgroups exist? I know about uk.telecom from the United Kingdom? Are there any others, in English or other languages? Sites that don't receive the uk.* hierarchy may want to turn on uk.telecom anyway, so that users who are interested in telecommunications can read any uk.telecom articles that are cross-posted to internationally-distributed newsgroups. Nigel Allen, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ndallen@r-node.pci.on.ca ------------------------------ From: southbay@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: U.C. Berkeley Short Course on High-Speed Communications Date: 20 Feb 1993 01:49:50 GMT Organization: University of California, Berkeley U.C. Berkeley Continuing Education in Engineering Announces 2 Short Courses on Communications Technology SONET/ATM-Based Broadband Networks: Systems, Architectures and Designs (May 17-19, 1993) It is widely accepted that future broadband networks will be based on the SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) standards and the ATM (Asynchronous transfer Mode) technique. This course is an in-depth examination of the fundamental concepts and the implementation issues for development of future high-speed networks. Topics include: Broadband ISDN Transfer Protocol, high speed computer/network interface (HiPPI), ATM switch architectures, ATM network congestion/flow control, VLSI designs in SONET/ATM networks. Lecturer: H. Jonathan Chao, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Brooklyn Polytechnic University Gigabit/sec Data and Communications Networks (May 19-20, 1993) This short course provides a general understanding of the key protocols and networking elements needed to design and implement gigabit local area and wide area networks, including the protocols and implementations for HiPPI, SONET, ATM, and FCS. Lecturer: William E. Stephens, Ph.D., Director, High Speed Switching and Storage Technology Research, Bellcore Applied Research For more information (complete course descriptions, outlines, instructor bios, etc.) contact: Harvey Stern U.C. Berkeley Extension/Southbay 800 El Camino Real Ste. 150 Menlo Park, CA 94025 Tel: (415) 323-8141 Fax: (415) 323-1438 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 14:11 PST From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: CPUC Predispositions In a recent article, references were made to the CPUC public hearings on Caller-ID. As an example of the pre-disposed bias contained in these proceedings, allow me to cite the tone at another hearing topic: IntraLATA competition. The method of completing calls within the LATA but with another carrier should intraLATA toll competition eventually be approved has long ago been decided by the CPUC, who caved in to Pac*Bell. There will be no presubscription as there now is with interLATA calling. For instance, after approval if I wish to call San Francisco (in my "service area") on any carrier other than Pac*Bell, I MUST dial the carrier code (10XXX) before the number. The only default carrier allowed is Pac*Bell. Someone at the hearing (was it I?) mentioned that having to dial a five-digit number before every call gave Pac*Bell a distinct competitive advantage for intraLATA traffic. None other than the Administrative Law Judge himself was quick to point out (even to the point of interrupting the current speaker) that inexpensive dialers were available and that it was "a simple matter" to use them to prepend the carrier codes. And this was the prevailing attitude: having to dial a five digit code was a trivial matter and not worth considering. Now let us enter our time and space machine and go to a Caller-ID hearing. Suddenly we find that having to dial *67 before the number of those from whom we wish to hide our phone number is an insurmountable task, capable of being performed by only the most brilliant and technically-minded individuals. The prevailing attitude: it is too hard to remember to dial a three-key code before making an anonymous call, therefore the default should be "private". It is amazing how the pre-disposed agenda changes at the CPUC hearings. And it is funny: the same tired old activists were at both meetings! John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 264 4115 | FAX: john@ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: jimmy@tokyo07.info.com (Jim Gottlieb) Subject: Let's Do a Figure-8 Reply-To: jimmy@denwa.info.com (Jim Gottlieb) Organization: Info Connections, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 09:14:55 GMT goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) writes: > do I detect a little antipathy :-) toward interchangeable area > codes? Seriously, what other dialing plan would you propose instead? I, for one, would seriously suggest a change to eight-digit numbers. Think of it; a simple change where every existing number in the country has a certain digit added to the front of it, and it's done. No more area code splits, at least for the next 20 years. And no problem of dialing a number and finding it disconnected (or answered by an unknown party) because the prefix was changed to some unknown area code. Or worse, you assume the company went out of business. With an eighth digit added, you always know what to do, even five or ten years after the change. Here in Tokyo, where such a change occurred two years ago, there are plenty of signs that still show a seven-digit number. But it's no problem; everyone knows to add a '3' to the front. Contrast that to the situation in Los Angeles, where one now never knows what area code one is in while out of familiar territory (and it matters because 1 + NPA + NXX-XXXX to your own area code is denied). Directory Assistance, as already mentioned in these screens, is another problem. You know that someone lives somewhere in Los Angeles. But if you don't know where in Los Angeles, you'll have to make three directory assistance calls. I would even be so bold to suggest that after the conversion to eight-digit telephone numbers, L.A. go back to a single area code. I often try to feel for those poor souls who don't read Telecom Digest. I look on a piece of equipment here in Japan and call the number printed to ask a question. It's a +1 312 number. When I reach a telco recording, I know to try +1 708 instead. But how many people in Japan know to do that? Eight-digit numbers are the answer. Jim Gottlieb Info Connections, Tokyo, Japan In Japan: Fax: +81 3 3865 9424 Voice Mail: +81 3 3865 3548 ------------------------------ From: syspak@charlatan.Central.Sun.COM (Paul Kubinski) Subject: Caller ID Display With RS-232 Interface Wanted Date: 20 Feb 1993 15:52:28 GMT Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Reply-To: syspak@charlatan.Central.Sun.COM Hello to all, From the responses I've received I'm not sure I framed my question correctly. Here it is once again (with a diagram and brief explanation of the desired integration with the customer application). Backround: Small manufacturing company wants to make their customer service application more "responsive". They would like to pull the Caller-ID of the incoming call and use it to key a database retrieval. They want to do this today, under SunOS, and not use native ISDN connections to their Sun server. The number of incoming customer service lines will be small, probably two or three. Idea: For the most part, Caller-ID is available in the metro area. One can purchase a Caller-ID display unit for $50 or so from several sources (ie. AT&T phone centers, Radio Shack). I've heard that some of the newer caller id display units have RS-232 connections which may be used to capture the calling phone number's digits (in ASCII?) and send this info to a computer or a serial printer. Does anyone know if these devices w/RS-232 output exist? If so, can you point me towards the vendor of this item? Big picture diagram: RS-232 Sun Server--------------caller-id..........incoming phone line | box : | : | telephone | local Ethernet |-------------------------------------| | | | | Sun Client Sun Client Any alternate ideas are welcome. Cheers! PAK ------------------------------ From: braden@lincoln.diag.stratus.com (John Braden) Subject: Long Subscriber Loop Problems Date: 20 Feb 1993 19:16:38 GMT Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc. I've got a problem with high-speed modem communication and I hope somebody can help. My home phones are located at the end of a 56,000 foot. local loop (copper wire) from the central office (as measured by the lineman at the network interface). The signal level I read (using an at%l) from my modem connection is -33 to -34dB down from the 0dBm switch reference level. The lineman's box said 35dB. It also said this is acceptable for a voice-grade line. I checked with the Telecommunications Division of the Massachusetts Public Utilities Department, and was told that there is nothing in the tariff which defines an acceptable signal level for a telphone connection. I've been told by others that typical losses should be about 5dB through the central office and 8db on the local loop. After their visit, the phone company agreed to put a "bridge lifter" (which someone else called bridge clips) in to help the signal level, but I noticed no improvement. As a result of the attenuation distortion present on my lines, I cannot establish a V.32bis LAP-M connection and have some problems with a plain V.32 LAP-M connection. I'm using Zoom V.32bis modems with rev. 2.0 PROMs (Rockwell chip set) on both ends. I need some information and advice on my alternatives: 1. What is a "bridge lifter" (or bridge clips)? 2. Are there ANY modems which do well with -35dBm signal levels? 3. Is there a way I could improve the signal on my side of the network interface? 4. Is there anything I can do to get acceptable signal levels included in the published tariff for Massachusetts? 5. I investigated the cost of a foreign exchange with a closer central office and an analog FDDA circuit from my central office, but these are just too expensive. Is there an alternative I missed? 6. Should I just give up & be glad I can sometimes connect at V.32 speeds? Thanks for your help! John Braden braden@lincoln.diag.stratus.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #119 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa03592; 21 Feb 93 12:41 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA26828 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 21 Feb 1993 09:02:36 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA29423 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 21 Feb 1993 09:02:05 -0600 Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 09:02:05 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302211502.AA29423@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #120 TELECOM Digest Sun, 21 Feb 93 09:02:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 120 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Bell's Application to Amend 411/555-1212 Assist Calls (Adele Ponty) Script Files PcPlus (Chet Pager) C&P Service Notes (Joe Bergstein) Automatic Disconnect on Mexico City Exchanges? (Don Franki) Telco Book and Equipment Advice Needed (Ed Ramsey) Need Graphic Network Tool (Bruce Sullivan) More Telecom Fora? (Olof Lundberg) Caller-ID and DTMF Chips For Sale (John Schuch) Sources For FAX Back Equipment Wanted (Jeff Brown) Need Switch/Relay to Interrupt a Leased Line (Phil Green) 301-303 Revisited (Carl Moore) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Adele Ponty Subject: Bell's Application to Amend 411/555-1212 Assist Calls Organization: UTCC Public Access Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 13:43:17 -0500 On Tuesday February 9th, 1993, I posted news regarding Bell's application to amend LDA (local 411 directory assistance) and LDDA (555-1212 long distance directory assistance) otherwise known as the CRTC Telecom Public Notice 93-14. As I stated then, my main concern over this application was Bell's request to eliminate free directory assistance for the print handicapped, seniors, the disabled and anyone using long distance directory assistance. (Little wonder why Bell did not publically announce their application, unlike what they did recently in the {Toronto Star} with their application for the community calling plan). The CRTC made a press release public on January 29th, informing the public that they had until March 1st to challenge Bell's application for dialing assistance ammendments. Nigel Allen's response to my posting on February 11th included a 1-800 number for Bell Public Affairs. Thinking that I would call this number (1-800-668-2355) to discuss the issues concerning essential services for the disabled which include dialing assistance, I called out of curiosity, even though I knew that any official statements coming from Bell's Public Affairs would be unsatisfactory. To my surprise, the Bell employee I spoke to claimed no knowledge whatsoever of the application to alter the tariffs on directory assistance. Had I not already spoken with the CRTC, I might have been led to believe that the whole issue was simply misinformation. Only after a lot of persistence inflicted on a second Bell employee, was I then referred to the director of Special Needs at Bell Canada, Shayna Maislin. Ms. Maislin informed me that an in-depth study conducted by Bell Canada concluded that telemarketers, with the co-operation of exempt individuals who held directory-assistance exemption cards, were soaking Bell for thousands of dollars. Ms. Maislin claims that the exemptions were being abused by the disabled employees of telemarketers who work from their homes and who make excessive numbers of long distance directory assistance calls. Ms.Maislin could not comment however on my question regarding how these individuals could place a 411 or 555-1212 call for a number if the name needed for the search was on a list, equally unaccessable for them. (I think that Bell has drawn an erroneous conclusion here from a survey that suggests that since both telemarketers/listmakers and the disabled make an above average number of directory assisted calls, then therefore the two groups must have something to do with each other. Interestingly, Angus Reed of Angus Telemanagement Group gave an entirely different statement on CBC Radio regarding Bell's motivation for this application, claiming that it is based on revenues lost to long distance competitors). When I was then told by Ms. Maislin that the Canadian National Institute for the Blind had agreed to decline from challenging the amendments, I decided to call the CNIB myself. The CNIB Public Affairs department first told me that the matter was "confidential" and that they could not discuss it with me. So I decided to speak with the CRTC analyst handling the file, a Mr. Robert Noakes. Mr. Noakes read to me the statements included in Bell's application submission, that claimed that a consumer panel set up by Bell and composed of reps from small, medium and large businesses, the disabled, seniors and low income customers among others, had been consulted with. Bell's application stated that nine specific groups including the CNIB, the United Senior Citizens of Ontario, among others ... had been consulted and basically had no objections to the tariff changes. Mr.Noakes pointed out that Bell wanted to offer 25 free LDA and LDDA calls per month from the exempt individual's home phone (less than one call per day). For many including Alzheimer's patients and the totally blind this could mean real hardship. The "average" caller makes 20 LDA and LDDA calls per month. Meanwhile, access to all new listings not in the book would carry a charge, while the charge per locally assisted call would drop from 60 cents to 50 cents, (despite the $88 million dollar loss Bell claims for the service). How are they going to pay for the service next year? Just when I thought I had heard enough, a Mr. Jim Sanders called me from the CNIB to tell me that he was the appointed liason between the government and Bell Canada. When I asked him if he had been part of the consumer panel that conferred with Bell Canada on their application, Mr. Sanders told me that he had only been contacted a week ago by Ms. Maislin. (Bell's application was filed last September). When I then asked him what the CNIB's position was on the elimination of unlimited directory assistance, he told me that the CNIB was adamently opposed. I then referred to the letter on file with the CRTC regarding the statement of approval given to Bell by the public groups. Mr. Sanders said it was obviously unfounded and a potential source of embarrassment for Bell Canada. The question is now, how many of the other groups mentioned on Bell's application were consulted with and when? Which of these groups will actually show up at the CRTC hearings to dispute Bell's claim? When you couple the above events with the fact that Bell never made this application public (it leaked to the press only a month ago), you get this appalling picture of a corporation that will do anything, it seems, to retain its position as the most profitable organization in Canada. If the most profitable organization says that they cannot afford to provide "essential" services for the needy, then who can, and who will? Bell Canada is setting a dangerous precedent for other greedy groups to follow, including the government. And aside from this, where is the incentive for Bell to maintain current listings in print if they are allowed to charge all of us for access to new listings not in the book? Obviously, unpublished numbers generate more profits. The main point I wanted to make here is that Bell Canada Public Affairs appears to be actively dissuading the public into believing that they have no designs to eliminate directory assistance for anyone while deliberately misleading the CRTC into believing that they have the public's approval to trim services. With tactics like Bell's, who needs lawyers? If anyone is interested in a copy of the CRTC Public Notice then I can FAX it to you. The deadline for written challenges from the public is March 1st. INTERNET: aponty@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca UUCP: wheaties@intacc.uucp (bbs) aponty@nsq.uucp (alternate) BELL: (416) 652-8072 FAX:416-653-1654 ------------------------------ From: shiva@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chet Pager) Subject: Script Files and PcPlus Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 16:38:17 GMT 1) Unfortunately, my Unix system doesn't support zmodem or even xmodem. I have found kermit to be painfully, stupidly slow. My modem handles up to 2400 baud, but I generally use 1200 because there are much fewer errors/noise, and kermit doesn't have to re-send so many packets. But I'm wondering, would a simple ascii screen-dump be faster? I always thought the protocals and compression meant greater speed alongside the error correction, but maybe not ... (Any way to speed up kermit? 1byte cheksum 94 packet size as-is. Why is it so slow, anyway??) 2) Anybody use procomm pcplus? The older version, 1.something? I'm trying to write a script file to: a) Automatically dial a number and invoke a script from the DOS command line prompt; even better if I could tell it pulse or tone from this point as well. b) log on and all that, with some sort of flexibility to skip or repeat steps, because the asp file I have now keeps getting confused (even a wait for fiveDk"Kc(T\/o,Nb']duB?;qRc>mmand which, if [string] is received during those five seconds it will go to [label], and if [string2] is received it will go to [label2] and if neither is received it will continue... c) SEND (using kermit or ascii protocal) *.* from a certain directory, and then RECEIVE a file from unix. > d) If I decide to use ascii screen dumps, I need to find some way for procomm to, "for each file in [directory]", not only send the file but give unix some commands using that filename as a variable, eg "mail [filename]" SEND [filename] "^D" Well, if anyone knows 1) or is bored and would like to enlighten me on 2) (I also use bitcom or comit sometimes), please do! but I don't read news, So please EMAIL responses to chetter@ucthpx.uct.ac.za. Thanks a lot. ------------------------------ From: Joe.Bergstein@p501.f544.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Joe Bergstein) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 22:16:05 -0500 Subject: C&P Service Notes Paul Robinson wrote in msg. on 2/18: > Which reminds me: I humorously mentioned about what would happen > if I wanted a T1 line (or fractional one). He pointed out that AT&T > would have to put it in; C&P doesn't do T1 wiring! I'd order the POP > at the central office, but someone else would have to supply the drop. Your C&P installer was incorrect. C&P certainly does install T-1s. They install entire intra-LATA T-1s, and also the local loop portion of inter-LATA T-1s. If you ever needed an inter-LATA T-1 or FT-1, from AT&T they would arrange for C&P to install the run from the AT&T POP through C&P land to your local CO and to your house. And if you ever had enough lines, and could justify the cost of a T-1 mux, it is possible to get T-1 to connect to the CO switch for local line access. However, since most of the outlying areas from CO's are already served by fiber runs to SLC huts, ordering up a T-1 for local line access really doesn't buy much. > [Moderator's Note: Congratulations on getting the job done right! PAT] Bell Atlantic has embarked on a Quality Improvement program since 1989. They are using the Philip Crosby quality improvement process. C&P Telephone now offers "Service When You Want IT (sm)". That means that when a residential customer orders service, TELCO (C&P) no longer _tells_ you when they'll show up (i.e. the old interval). They will show up when _you_ want them. That means if you call one morning at 9 AM, and ask for installation that afternoon at 3:30, they'll do it! If you ask them to show up Saturday morning at 6:30 AM, they'll do it! Their motto is "Quality is meeting customer requirements". Over the past several years they've reduced the interval for T-1 installation from 45 business days, to two weeks (as of last summer), to about three days right now. In fact, if a business orders a T-1 for a building already equipped with a fiber termination, you can sometimes get the T-1 installed in the same day! How's that for service! What a refreshing change from the old "Ma Bell"! ------------------------------ From: radian!danf@natinst.com(Dan Franki) Subject: Automatic Disconnect on Mexico City Exchanges? Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 15:25:41 GMT Organization: Radian Corp. We are temporarily operating a network router over dial-up lines in Mexico City. The link goes down every few hours and is often difficult to reestablish without changing to another phone line. The link is only used for a few minutes each hour but the intent is maintain the connection continuously. The question arises, do some switching systems automatically disconnect a line after a few hours? All the lines are pulse dialed and as far as I know there is nothing in the way of digital switches involved. I can't feature a bunch of stepping relays having enough savy to decide that a conversation is boring (or pointless) and end it. I do not know the make or model of the switches involved so it is easy to imagine all sorts of 'features' that might make the system tolerant of other problems. Any one know one way or the other? Dan Franki Radian Corporation 512-454-4797 danf@radian.uucp ------------------------------ From: ramsey@fieldofdreams.npirs.purdue.edu (Ed Ramsey) Subject: Telco Book and Equipment Advice Needed Organization: Center for Environmental and Regulatory Info Sys, Purdue Univ. Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 20:59:43 GMT I am looking for a good introductory and troubleshooting text on phone communications and modem operations. I want something that will help me use basic measurements such as signal strength, ring voltages, etc.. in tracking down line noise problems and in isolating marginal modems. I want to understand telephone system issues so I can talk intelligently with our local phone office and modem suppliers concerning large inbound long distance modem pool rotaries and problems we are having concerning line noise, etc ... I would also like information on appropriate (but cheap) test equipment to use in tracking down these problems. Thanks, Ed Ramsey ramsey@ceris.purdue.edu 317/494-0442 FAX/494-9727 CERIS (Center for Environmental and Regulatory Information Systems) Network Services Manager/UNIX Systems Administrator ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 01:56 GMT From: Bruce Sullivan Subject: Need Graphic Network Tool I am looking for graphical tool to 'manage' and document my network equipment, circuits, contacts, etc. I'm currently working with a system (though that's a gracious term for it) that pre-dates my existence at this organization by several years (In other words, I take no blame). It consists of a flat file into which are 'drawn' multiple diagrams, each representing the end-to-end connectivity for a particular location. Here's an example: ______________________ _________________ ___________ ! CENTRAL SITE ! ! REMOTE SITE A ! ! SITE B ! !\ - _ /! ! \ !F! ! ! / ! ! \ ____________ !L! WXX-12345 !D! ____________ C6E123456789 / ! ! \ \ 745 / !M! (WILTEL) !D! \ 745 / (MCI) / ! !740 \ \ NODE / !5! ! !M! \ NODE / ! / 740! ! \ \ 201 / !0! ! !1! \ 202 / ! / ! !NODE \_2 3____!/!____________!0!____1 3_____________/ NODE! ! / \ / !1! 1.544 MBPS !0! \ / !128 KBPS !\ ! ! 5 / \/ !5! !0! \/ ! ! \ 7 ! ! / !0! ! ! ! ! \ ! ! / !_! !_! ! ! \ ! ! / US WEST US WEST ! ! \ !_ ! / FUJITSU DDM1000 ! ! \ ! ! !/ FIBER T3 MUX ! ! \! ! MUX 24HCGS123456 64HCGS123456 ! (US WEST) (US WEST) ___ ! LOCAL LOOP LOCAL LOOP !___!-+ MUX DIAL Makes your head hurt, doesn't it? This one is actually a fairly simple diagram. Others could include Front-end-processors, matrix switch, modems or DSU/CSUs, right down to the end devices (IBM controllers, typically). As you can imagine, I've hated this for a long time. However, we're making a big move in the direction of a client/server based application, along with LANS, routers, et al. I'm attempting to make the point that our old approach simply won't cut it any more. However, I haven't seen anything that will do what I need. It must be more than a paint or draw program such as Corel and the others. I or several others need to be able to update it easily, and it would be nice if it took a database approach to things so that I could do reporting, etc, off of it. I'd appreciate it if anyone on C.D.T has any information on or experience with products such as this that they could share with me. You can email me directly. I can post the results if there's interest. Thanks, Bruce Sullivan MCI Mail: 4544760 (4544760@mcimail.com) CI$:72747,2737 (72747.2737@compuserve.com) ------------------------------ Reply-To: olu@rowan.win.net (Olof Lundberg) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 17:6.8.12 Subject: More Telecom Fora? From: olu@rowan.win.net (Olof Lundberg) Pat, In Digest #115 you refer to an unmoderated telecom forum. Being just recently plugged in to The Internet World it prompts me to ask whether you have a list of other telecom/wireless-related sources on Internet? Olof Lundberg Internet: olu@rowan.win.net Inmarsat CIS User ID: 73330,212 40 Melton St London NW1 2EQ, England Office phone: +44 71 7281200 Home phone: +44 932 843600 Office fax : +44 71 7281627 Home fax : +44 932 859171 [Moderator's Note: Readers, please write Olof with your advice. PAT] ------------------------------ From: mcdphx!schuch@enuucp.eas.asu.edu (John Schuch) Subject: Caller ID & DTMF Chips For Sale Organization: Motorola Computer Group, Tempe, Az. Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 13:13:03 GMT If anyone is interested in buying single or small quantities of either Caller ID Receiver chips, or DTMF decoder chips, E-mail me and I'll send you the details. John R. Schuch - Motorola Computer Group - Manufacturing Engineering N7XVS - schuch@phx.mcd.mot.com - (602) 438-3008 - CompuServe: 70733.3330 ------------------------------ From: edjcb@ariel.lerc.nasa.gov (Jeff Brown) Subject: Sources for FAX Back Equipment? Organization: NASA Lewis Research Center Date: 21 Feb 1993 01:55 EST I'm looking for sources of FAX-Back equipment. I'm interested in various levels of sophistication, from PC based to stand-alone units. Any pointers appreciated. Thanks. Jeff Brown edjcb@scivax.lerc.nasa.gov ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 09:30:46 MST From: Philip Green Subject: Need Switch/Relay to Interrupt a Leased Line Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro NM I need a switch or relay that will interrupt a four-wire leased line. I need to be able to remotely force a modem into its dial backup state. Thanks, Phil Green pgreen@aoc.nrao.edu NRAO 505.835.7294 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 9:51:39 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: 301-303 Revisited 301-303 has now appeared on my phone bill as BERWYN, MD, so it's in 301 and not in 410. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #120 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa03651; 21 Feb 93 12:43 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA25975 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 21 Feb 1993 09:55:43 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA16479 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 21 Feb 1993 09:55:14 -0600 Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 09:55:14 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302211555.AA16479@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #121 TELECOM Digest Sun, 21 Feb 93 09:55:15 CST Volume 13 : Issue 121 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Hotel Surcharges Again -- Survey? (Laird Broadfield) Repair Center Numbers (Dave Niebuhr) Hotlines in Nepal - Literally (Dave Leibold) Quality of Telco Services (was AT&T Are You Listening? (Mike Schenk) Zipcode, City, State, and Area Code List (John Villalovos) Different Rates in Same Home? (Doug Granzow) Scanners That Pick up Cellular Phones (Hans C. Klinger) Cable's Future Role in Telephony (Matt Lucas) Re: 800 Numbers That Charge (Carl Moore) Strange Ringing Behaviour (Linc Madison) Re: Second Line Non-Pub/Unlisted? (Bruce Albrecht) Re: What Number do I Dial From My Phone to Get Phone to Ring? (K. Thompson) A Civil Servant Responds to Moderator Bias (John W. Shaver) Re: National Data Super Highways - Access (George Gilder) Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones (Alan Furman) Re: Pagers, Cellphones and War on Drugs (John Higdon) Re: Bell Canada Charging For 411 (Dave Niebuhr) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: lairdb@crash.cts.com Subject: Hotel Surcharges again -- Survey? Date: 21 Feb 93 11:14:45 GMT Okay, I stayed in *another* hotel with >=$.50 charges for *any* calls (800, CC, local, everything) and I'm getting tired of it. (BTW, the last time I stayed at this hotel it didn't have charges for anything except direct-dialed LD, and they had to revise my bill when I checked out because 10XXX confused the billing program.) I've been thinking for a while about maintaining a list of hotels and chains and their sleazy/good policies; I'm not quite ready to do it mostly because my Usenet mail access is by courtesy of a friend right now and I'd like to keep the traffic down. However, in the interests of exploring this, what am I missing from the following form? HotelName: ChainName: HotelNumber: ChainNumber: Carrier800Surcharge: Other800Surcharge: CCSurcharge: LocalSurcharge: ChainwidePolicy?: Submitter: SubmitterComments: I know some of us (c.d.t et al) travel a lot, and some of us administer phone systems for companies that might be interested; is this a worthwhile project? (Also, would anyone like to leap forward and do the work, now that I've thought of it? :-) Oh yes, the hotel was the Comfort Inn on Diversey in Chicago, part of the Days Inn chain. Laird P. Broadfield lairdb@crash.cts.com ...{ucsd, nosc}!crash!lairdb [Moderator's Note: And Comfort Inn is not even that great of a place. For the first fifty years or so (it is an older building), it functioned as the 'Diversey Arms Apartment Hotel'. I think they only sold the building to Days Inn as of a couple years ago. I do want to remind everyone that I am now marketing the 'Orange Calling Card' to earn money to buy food for myself and my cats. This is a no-surcharge, 25 cent per minute calling card from Orange Communications, and if you would be interested in signing up, write to 'ptownson@eecs.nwu.edu' for an application. It is a great deal for short calls from payphones and hotel phones, etc, and uses an 800 number for access. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 08:24:59 EST From: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) Subject: Repair Center Numbers Some time back (last year, I think) there was a discussion about calling repair service for a home phone problem from an out-of-area phone, ie. another area code. NYTel is publishing two numbers for this: 611 and 1-890-6611 (area code 516 only, I don't know about the other area codes that NYTel serves, nor Rochester Tel.). So, if I were experiencing problems at home and I was in, say Maryland (AC 301), I would call 1-516-890-6611 and should be connected to the NYTel repair center. I was going to post this sooner, but forgot about it at the time of the discussion or didn't have the bill handy. Dave Niebuhr Internet: niebuhr@bnl.gov / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973 (516)-282-3093 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 04:06:44 -0500 From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Dave Leibold) Subject: Hotlines in Nepal - Literally The Independent News Service, by way of {The Toronto Star}, reports of warnings in Nepal regarding connections made between the telephone system and power lines. The Nepal Telecommunications Corportation refers to the incidents as accidental; meanwhile the telco issued bulletins that phones with prolonged ringing are not to be picked up lest it be on the receiving end of 600 volts. At least one Katmandu resident was killed by the crossed connections with other reports of telephones burning up and at least one fax machine melted "to the consistency of yak butter". Dave Leibold - via FidoNet node 1:250/98 INTERNET: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.FIDONET.ORG ------------------------------ Date: 21 Feb 1993 11:12:42 +0000 (GMT) From: M.R.Schenk@research.ptt.nl (Mike Schenk +31 70 33 23926) Subject: Quality of Telco Services (was AT&T Are You Listening?) Organization: PTT Research, The Netherlands In article andys@internet.sbi.com (Andy Sherman) writes: > On 13 Feb 93 20:02:50 GMT, jack.decker@f8.n154.z1.fidonet.org (Jack > Decker) said: >> AT&T spends a LOT of money on advertising to convince you that their >> quality is better. In my mind, this is just about as valid as the >> advertising that oil companies used to run to convince you that one >> brand of gasoline was better than another. In many cases, all the gas >> stations in a town got their gas from the same source! It was the >> same gas, yet they all tried to convince the public that theirs was >> better! > But the analogy doesn't hold. Phone companies don't get their > infrastructure from the same source. They lay their own transmission > lines, and they deal with different vendors for switching and > transmission equipment. To say that with all the variation in supply > and design that quality is obviously identical is arrent nonsense. More importantly, people tend to forget that it's not the quality of the transmission and switching systems that counts. Nowadays, probably all of these systems are of good quality. But what really matters is the way in which operators manage their (often very complex) networks. Ultimately, this will be the distinction between operators and not the quality of their transmission and switching systems. Mike ------------------------------ From: villalj@prism.CS.ORST.EDU (John Villalovos) Subject: Zipcode, City, State, and Area Code List Date: 21 Feb 93 09:45:52 GMT Organization: Oregon State University, Computer Science Dept. Previously I posted a request for a data base listing of Zipcodes to City, State, and Area Codes. I didn't get any answers about it but did get a lot of requests from people asking me to send them info if I found anything. Well ... I wrote a program (in VBDOS) which with the program ZipKey will output two data files. One is a listing of state abbreviations and corresponding full state names (this also includes territories i.e. Guam). The next data file is a listing of all known zipcodes, city, state, and area code. There are around 41000 zipcodes listed with the version of zipkey I used. There is an updated zipkey database which I haven't tried yet. If anyone is interested in the program they could send me some email or preferably someone could give me a site to send it to via ftp. You will also need to locate a copy of zipkey. I found a copy on simtel20.army.mil in the database directory called ZK*.ZIP. There are two files, one is the program and the other the data. Later, John Villalovos (503) 753-7883 villalj@xanth.cs.orst.edu Computer & Network Consulting Mobile Disk Jockey Certified Netware Engineer Parties, Dances, and Weddings ------------------------------ From: dig@pro-cynosure.cts.com Subject: Different Rates in Same Home? Organization: ProLine [pro-cynosure] Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 04:46:47 EST Paul Robinson writes: > Here's the details from C&P Telephone of Maryland: > Unlimited residential service is quoted as $20 a month. I note that > because I already have unlimited local service, the new lines must > also be installed that way; the sales clerk told me that this was the > case. Her exact words were that it was "a violation of tariff > schedules to install measured and unmeasured service at the same > house." Is this true? We have two lines where I live (C&P area). One is a flat monthly rate plus $.09 per call, the other is $20/monthly for unlimited calls. The only difference here is that we get two seperate bills and the lines are registered under two different names. But they are in the same home, and both lines run to all of our phones. Has the phone company allowed us to go against the tariff? Doug Granzow dig@pro-cynosure.cts.com or ...crash!pro-cynosure!dig Call: The Cynosure BBS | Free | Internet | 14.4kbps USR DS | +1 410 549 2584 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 01:48:20 -0500 (EST) From: Hans C. Klinger Subject: Scanners That Pick Up Cellular Phones I was told by a Radio Shack salesman that they sell scanners that can intercept cellular phone transmissions. Then I learned from a reliable source that the scanner does not come out of the box ready to scan cellular frequencies, but rather it has to be modified (clip a diode or something). Can anyone verify this? Can any scanner be modified and what is the procedure for doing so? I realize that creating such a device to listen to phone users is borderline illegal but this is for a research project involving the ease of eavesdropping of cellular phones and I would appreciate any information on how it is accomplished. Thanks, Hans [Moderator's Note: It is not 'borderline illegal' -- it is illegal. I am surprised the RS salesperson openly admitted what could be done. Usually they wait until you buy the unit then mention that 'they heard it could be done ...' and that 'a customer' left 'these notes and schematic here in the store one day ...' or words similar. We have covered this several times here in the past, and yes, modifications to scanners are quite easily accomplished for the most part. I do not know about the unit in question since you did not mention a model number, but with the PRO-34 (now discontinued) it was as simple as pulling a couple diodes (D-3 and D-4) off the circuit board. The radio then lost 30-50 megs as a result, but picked up full 800 coverage. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 00:40:42 -0500 From: matt lucas Subject: Cable's Future Role in Telephony The February issue of {TeleStrategies Insight} features an article by Dr. Jerry Lucas entitled "Cable's Future Role in Telephony: or how the Cable MSO' can eat the RBOC's Lunch." It is an in-depth analysis of where cable is today regarding telephony; why cable companies must partner and who they must partner with to succeed; and how the cable industry should define their business to establish a winning vision for the 21st century. If you're interested in receiving an email copy of this article, send your request to insight@telestrat.com. Thank you, Matt ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 14:09:36 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: 800 Numbers That Charge I tried 1-800-555-4578 from a pay phone which defaults to AT&T, and it said could not complete the call with the area code or number I had dialed. 10222 plus the above said could not be completed with the access code I had dialed. No mention of any charge. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Feb 93 22:41:13 GMT From: Linc Madison Reply-To: telecom@hedonist.demon.co.uk Subject: Strange Ringing Behaviour I recently moved into a shared flat in London, and set about modernizing the telephony of the place. Prior to my arrival, the only instrument in the place was an old, old black rotary-dial desk phone. The first addition to the family was an answering machine, but we noticed that it was very difficult to catch the phone before the machine did. This was causing problems, as the phone and machine were on different jacks and therefore the machine didn't reset when the phone went off-hook. At the same time, though, I also got a telephone for my room, to run off the jack extension I ran for my modem. I kept the ringer off at first, but then turned it on one day. I discovered something quite strange: the "old reliable" set (rented from BT) DOES NOT RING on the first ring! The ringing cadence in the UK is a double burst; the first ring is often just a single burst, but even in cases where it's a double burst the old phone doesn't ring at all. The behaviour is entirely consistent in all observed instances. What could cause the phone not to ring on the first ring? Linc Madison == Linc@Hedonist.Demon.co.uk == Telecom@Hedonist.Demon.co.uk 59 Stourcliffe Close, London W1H 5AR Tel. +44 71 723 0582 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 23:22:18 CST From: bruce@zuhause.MN.ORG (Bruce Albrecht) Subject: Re: Second Line Non-Pub/Unlisted? > barnett@zeppelin.convex.com (Paul Barnett) writes: >> This is indeed specific to the local telephone company. In Mpls-St. >> Paul, which is served by US West, you HAVE to publish the number, or >> pay an extra charge. > That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. So, if I wanted to > avoid paying unlisting charges on my residence lines, the phone book > would look something like this (?): This is not true. I live in St. Paul, and have two phone lines. Only the first line is listed, and I do not pay an extra charge for not listing the second. If I only had one line, I would have to pay for being unlisted. bruce@zuhause.mn.org ------------------------------ From: Ken Thompson Subject: Re: What Number do I Dial From My Phone to Get My Phone to Ring? Date: 21 Feb 93 15:02:32 GMT Organization: NCR Corporation Wichita, KS ) [Moderator's Note: Telco need not provide an automated service for ) this purpose or tell you how to access the automated service. They ) need only to make your bell ring on request. In other words, the ) business office could have told you to ask the operator to ring you ) back. That would have met the requirements. PAT] ... and cost me $1.25. Ken Thompson N0ITL NCR Corp. Peripheral Products Division Disk Array Development 3718 N. Rock Road Wichita KS 67226 (316)636-8783 Ken.Thompson@wichitaks.ncr.com [Moderator's Note: But as a writer pointed out yesterday, you are free to set up your own arrangements if you want to be in the telephone installation and repair business. No one says you have to use telco to do this. You can have your own personnell to ring phones and identify lines like any other repair/installation service. Lots of companies use private vendors for their phones instead of telco. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 21 Feb 93 00:19:22 MST From: Mr John W Shaver Subject: A Civil Servant Responds to Moderator Bias Pat, As an employed Civil Servant, you did not elect me, but you elected idiots who passed laws which make it difficult to do anything in the Government. There are some regulations which civil servants enact or cause to be generated but most of these are in response to the legislators. I probably am just as irritated as you are at stupid government actions, but the source is the lawmaking ability. Sorry Pat, It is still your fault. John W. Shaver 602 538 7622 // DSN 879 7622 // FTS 658 7622 FAX 538 0656 // DSN 879 0656_// FTS 658 0656 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Feb 93 20:34 GMT From: George Gilder <0004091174@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: National Data Super Highways - Access The article described in Robert L. McMillin's entry in V13 #107 discussing the future of Dark Fiber was entitled Into the Fibersphere and appeared in the December issue of Forbes/ASAP. It was written by me, George Gilder, and will be part of my new book Telecosm. The issue of ASAP can be acquired by calling 415-802-6880. ------------------------------ From: atfurman@cup.portal.com Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 16:31:22 PST Mr./Ms. Stony Brook Press writes: > Not only that, In this country you only have a choice between > Republicans and Democrats. Imagine my surprise. I have been voting Libertarian for years, and occasional TELECOM Digest contributor Toby Nixon has been a Libertarian Party candidate for the Georgia legislature. Alan T. Furman atfurman@cup.portal.com [Moderator's Note: My sympathies are with the Libertarians also, but a lot of good it does to vote for them. The television news does not even bother to report the Libertarian election results. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 22:07 PST From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Pagers, Cellphones and War on Drugs robert@CAM.ORG (Robert Masse) writes: > Now my old high school is full of kids with them, and I hear that the > teachers are getting fustrated of hearing beep-beep-beep or dring > dring in class. They aren't doing anything about it either because > they are too scared now. Mind you all of these high school kids are > using them for status symbols. Of course. When in any kind of public meeting situation (movie theater, conference, PUC hearing :-), or staff meeting), I set my pager to vibrate rather than beep. But then that defeats one of the main reasons for a high school student having the thing in the first place. How can you impress your peers if it does not beep once in awhile, particularly during class. > I hope it doesn't come to outlawing them like previous posters > mentioned, where in my opinion a person's right to carry one shouldn't > be denied. I agree fully. But then maybe the kids ought to be informed about "pager courtesy" in public meetings and classroom situations. No place like school to learn about proper real world behavior. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 264 4115 | FAX: john@ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 08:19:23 EST From: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) Subject: Re: Bell Canada Charging For 411 In TELECOM Digest Volume 13 : Issue 118 goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) writes: > Charles Stephens writes: >>> In most parts of the US it's a fact of life. You're allowed roughly >>> five free calls, and then after that it's around 25 cents a pop. >> Well Southern Bell only gives you three freebies before they charge >> you US$.30!!! > Perhaps in Georgia. Here in NC, Southern Bell allots five monthly > freebies, after which the charge is *fifty* cents per call. Come up north to NYTel land where a 411 call is $.48 *per pop*, no freebies, nada, zilch or whatever else you want to call it. Remember that this is the same NYTel that is part of NYNEX which got ripped by Judge Greene, the same NYTel that still can't get it's routing tables straight for some of it's customers. Dave Niebuhr Internet: niebuhr@bnl.gov / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973 (516)-282-3093 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #121 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa28251; 22 Feb 93 0:03 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA08073 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 21 Feb 1993 21:37:39 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA16333 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 21 Feb 1993 21:37:06 -0600 Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 21:37:06 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302220337.AA16333@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #122 TELECOM Digest Sun, 21 Feb 93 21:37:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 122 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson CRTC News Release: Bell, B.C. Tel New Charges (Adele Ponty) Quebec Yellow Pages Controversy (Nigel Allen) Call for Articles: ConneXions (Ole J. Jacobsen) International Calling Services (Jim Sturtevant) More About General Turmoil (Brian D. McMahon) Any Way to Use Cellular Phone on Normal Phone Lines? (David C. Kovar) Re: AT&T Are You Listening? (Robert L. McMillin) Re: AT&T Are You Listening? (Tim Gorman) Re: Long Subscriber Loop Problems (Pat Turner) Re: Long Subscriber Loop Problems (Bruce Sullivan) Re: Let's Do a Figure-8 (Steve Forrette) Re: Procedure to Use 800-321-0ATT (Laird Broadfield) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Adele Ponty Subject: CRTC News Release: Bell, B.C. Tel New Charges Organization: UTCC Public Access Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 15:53:21 -0500 CRTC news release January 29, 1993 BELL, B.C. TEL, APPLY TO INTRODUCE NEW DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE CHARGES OTTAWA/HULL - The CRTC today announced that it has received applications from both the British Columbia Telephone Company (B.C. Tel) and Bell Canada (Bell) to revise their customer charges for directory assistance (Telecom Public Notice CRTC 93-13 and 93-14). Bell and B.C. Tel both propose to apply a directory assistance charge for each requested telephone number, whether it be for a number in Canada or the United States. Specifically, the two companies are proposing to introduce a $0.50 local directory assistance (LDA) charge for requests for local numbers not listed in the current editions of their telephone directories; introduce a long distance directory assistance (LDDA) charge of $0.50 for Canadian telephone numbers outside the subscriber's free calling area, and; reduce the LDDA charge for requests for telephone numbers in the United States from $0.80 to $0.50. Bell also proposes to reduce its LDA charge for listed numbers from $0.60 to $0.50. The proposed changes would also affect the exemption currently available to persons with disabilities and, in the case of Bell, those persons 65 years of age and over. Currently, Bell provides unlimited local directory assistance free of charge to seniors and persons with disabilities. There is also no charge for persons with disabilities for lond distance directory assistance for numbers within Canada. For numbers within the United States, the general limit of 50 free requests per month is applied. Under Bell's proposal, there would not be unlimited free directory assistance but rather a combined maximum of 25 free local and long distancE directory assistance requests per month per residence customer account. B.C. Tel currently allows persons with disabilities unlimited local directory assistance and unlimited long distance directory assistance for numbers within Canada or to the United States. B.C. Tel now proposes to only exempt persons with disabilities from paying local directory assistance charges if he number requested is listed in the company's telephone directory. There would no longer be any free long distance directory assistance. The applications made by Bell and B.C. Tel are available for examination at any of their respective business offices, or at the offices of the CRTC. The Commission invites anyone affected by the proposed changes to submit their comments in writing, by March 1, 1993. Note: Both the public notice and this news release are available in Braille and on audio cassette. Contact: Bill Allen, Director CRTC, Public Affairs, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0N2 (819) 997-0313 - TDD (819) 994-0423 - Fax (819) 994-0218 or one of our regional offices listed below: Halifax,Nova Scotia - (902) 426-7997 - TDD (902) 426 6997 Montreal, Quebec - (514) 283-6607 - TDD (514) 283-831 Winnipeg, Manitoba - (204) 983-6306 - TDD (204) 983-8274 Vancouver, British Columbia - (604) 666-2111 - TDD (604) 666-0778 or the Department of Communications Regional Office: Toronto, Ontario - (416) 973-8215 Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Notice Ottawa, 29 January 1993 Telecom Public Notice CRTC 93-14 BELL CANADA - REVISIONS TO DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE CHARGES Reference: Tariff Notice 4505 The Commission has received an application from Bell Canada (Bell), dated 11 September 1992, for approval of tariff revisions related to directory assistance charges. In its application, Bell proposes to apply a common directory assistance charge of $0.50 per requested telephone number for both local directory assistance (LDA) and long distance directory assistance (LDDA). Specifically, the company proposes to: (1) reduce the current LDA charge from $0.60 to $0.50; (2) eliminate the current free allowance of 50 LDDA calls to the United States per access per month; $0.50; (3) reduce the Canada-U.S. LDDA charge from $0.80 to $0.50; (4) introduce a Canada/Canada LDDA charge of $0.50; (5) introduce a charge of $0.50 for requests for (a) out-of-book numbers (i.e., numbers that are within the same local calling area, but listed in another directory), (b) numbers that are new, changed or not listed, (c) foreign listings, and (d) 800 Service numbers via LDA, and (6) introduce a charge for LDA/LDDA requests from hotel PBX Service, and for requests for Bell numbers and for special instruction-type listings (for example, "if busy call" or "after hours call"). The company proposes to establish a free monthly allowance of 25 LDA/LDDA requests per residence account for (1) persons certified as being 65 years of age or over, and (2) persons who are certified as physically or mentally disabled, functionally illiterate or who inform the company of a temporary handicap or disability preventing them from using the directory. Bell also proposes changes to the exemptions and exceptions to the application of LDA and LDDA charges. In support of its application, Bell has submitted information for which it has claimed confidentiality. An abridged version of this information has been provided for the public record. The Commission addressed interrogatories to Bell with respect to its application. The company responded to these interrogatories on 21 January 1993. The application may be examined at any of Bell's business offices or at the offices of the CRTC, Room 201, Central Building, Les Terrasses de la Chaudiere, 1 Promenade du Portage, Hull, Quebec, or Suite 602, Complex Guy-Favreau, East Tower, 200 Rene-Levesque Blvd. West. Montreal, Quebec. A copy of Bell's application and of its responses to the Commission's interrogatories may be obtained by any person upon request directed to the company at the address shown below. If you wish to comment on the application, please write to Mr. A. J. Darling, Secretary General, CRTC, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0N2, by 1 March 1993 (fax: (819) 953-0795). A copy of your letter should be sent to Mr. B. A> Courtois, Vice President, Law and Regulatory Affairs, Bell Canada, 105 Hotel-de-Ville Street, 6th Floor, Hull, Quebec, J8X 4H7 (fax: (819) 778-3437). ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 10:28:00 -0500 From: ndallen@r-node.pci.on.ca (Nigel Allen) Subject: Quebec Yellow Pages Controversy Organization: R-node Public Access Unix - 1 416 249 5366 Bell Canada's Yellow Pages subsidiary, Tele-Direct (Publications) Inc., makes Quebec companies that want to advertise in the English- language section of the Yellow Pages buy an advertisement of the same size in the French-language section as well, according to {Marketing} magazine (February 15, 1993, p. 3). French-language advertisers don't have to buy English-language advertising, though. This particularly affects small companies in Montreal and Hull that primarily serve the English-speaking community. The policy is apparently the result of a private agreement between Tele-Direct and a Quebec government agency, the Office de la Langue Francaise. As well, Bell Canada only puts the French-language Yellow Pages in Montreal phone booths, the article reports. (That is, the booth would have the white pages and the French-language Yellow Pages, but not the English-language Yellow Pages. In practice, many Bell phone booths don't have any directories at all.) I have capitalized Yellow Pages, as it is a registered trade mark in Canada. In the U.S., it is a generic term. (In the same way, Aspirin is a registered trade mark in Canada, but not in the U.S.) Nigel Allen, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ndallen@r-node.pci.on.ca ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 9:03:17 PST From: Ole J. Jacobsen Subject: Call for Articles: ConneXions Call for Articles ConneXions -- The Interoperability Report is a monthly technical journal which covers all aspects for computer networking and distributed computing. ConneXions seeks articles ranging from technology tutorials and user case studies, to letters, opinions and book reviews. For author guidelines, send a message to ole@interop.com. Authors receive a complimentary lifetime sub- scription. *** PLEASE: Do not include my message in your reply. If you must include it, please do so AFTER your reply rather than before it. Thank you very much.*** Ole J Jacobsen, Editor & Publisher ConneXions--The Interoperability Report Interop Company, 480 San Antonio Road, Suite 100, Mountain View, CA 94040, Phone: (415) 962-2515 FAX: (415) 949-1779 Email: ole@csli.stanford.edu ------------------------------ Reply-To: jimst@cpcjes.win.net (Jim Sturtevant) Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 13:22:43 Subject: International Calling Services From: jimst@cpcjes.win.net (Jim Sturtevant) Pat, I've been monitoring the TELCOM group for quite awhile and enjoy it a great deal. I want to ask if you are familiar with an consultants who are knowledgable on various techniques for providing international callers with inexpensive access to US long distance. For example there are services where you call once from Euorpe, then a return call is placed connecting the caller with their desired party at US intl rates rather than expensive European PTT rates. Also, do you know of a resource (online or printed) to get international rate tables for calls originating outside the US? Thanks for your help, any direction would be helpful. Jim Sturtevant Internet:jimst@cpcjes.win.net The Complete PC CIS UserID: 71333,612 1983 Concourse Dr. San Jose, CA Phone:408.434.0145 Fax:408.434.1048 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 16:51:13 cdt From: McMahon,Brian D Subject: More About General Turmoil I heard yet another interpretation of what the letters GTE stand for from a long-time employee ... Going to Texas Eventually. He then went on to say that he'd jokingly told a switchman that the local CO was moving down south, too. The instantaneous reply: "That already happened. What do you think all those dishes up on the roof are for?" Apparently GenTel is the butt of as many jokes inside the organization as it is on the outside. Gee ... Brian McMahon (BDM13) ------------------------------ From: kovar@world.std.com (David C Kovar) Subject: Any Way to Use Cellular Phone on Normal Phone Lines? Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 18:20:59 GMT I have a Uniden transportable phone that I use occassionally. I was wondering if there was any way of adapting it so I could use it as a normal phone, ie, connected to a house phone jack? I prefer it's handset to the other ones I have and I also would like to have one set of stored numbers rather than two or more. Thanks, in advance. David ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 06:34:17 -0800 From: rlm@indigo2.hac.com (Robert L. McMillin) Subject: Re: AT&T Are You Listening? Jack Decker writes about the Seven Deadly Sins of Telecom. I would propose an eighth: the attitude, common among both MCI and Sprint, and seen elsewhere, that the customer can always prepend 10288 to his calls and get through. It is an excuse for shoddy service, plain and simple. How long was South Carolina out of service before Sprint finally came back on line? ------------------------------ Date: 21 Feb 93 13:46:12 EST From: tim gorman <71336.1270@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: AT&T Are You Listening? In TELECOM Digest V13 #113 jack_decker@f8.n154.z1.fidonet.org (Jack Decker) writes: > Tell me why, for example, an AT&T operator can hold my line open > until she releases the call, while OCC operators cannot? Have these > superior connections been made available to other carriers? I think > not. John Higdon replies: > Why would they want them? What you describe is the old TSPS (left over > from pre-divestiture). The facilities available now are obviously more > advanced. The AT&T operator can hold your line open for exactly the same reason AT&T can provide true coin service -- they are the only carrier willing to invest in the network capability for doing so. This capability has been available for the carriers to order in SWBT since 1989. Thats four years. It would appear to me that the other carriers have no excuses, they just aren't interested in providing the same fully capable service as AT&T does. Economics, I suppose. Tim Gorman - SWBT *opinions are mine, any resemblance to official policy is coincidence* ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 14:30 EST From: rsiatl!turner@rsiatl.UUCP Reply-To: turner@dixie.com Subject: Re: Long Subscriber Loop Problems John Braden writes: > 1. What is a "bridge lifter" (or bridge clips)? To the best of my knowledge: Bridge clips: nickel plated bronze clips used to jumper adjcent terminals on a punchdown (esp 66) block. Bridge lifters: Inductors used on OPX lines. Without loop current, they presented a high impedence to voice frequency. When the line went off hook, the loop current saturated the core of the inductor, lowering the impedence. This isolated the on hook side of the OPX from the in use off hook side. > 3. Is there a way I could improve the signal on my side of the network > interface? There are a number of cards built by Tellabs/Wescom/XEL for this. I can't recommend a specific one because I don't know how they handle ringing. I would call your local Graybar/Anixter/North/Alltel office. Cost will be around $150 for the card and $50 for mounting. > 4. Is there anything I can do to get acceptable signal levels included > in the published tariff for Massachusetts? Not really, they would be unlikely to file a second tariff unless the PUC forces them to. > 6. Should I just give up and be glad I can sometimes connect at V.32 > speeds? Absolutely not, V.32/32 bis modems were designed to function over the public switched telephone network (PSTN). You can't expect the same preformance as someone with a Slick in his/her backyard, but you should be able to connect regardless of tariffs. I would call in another ticket, without mentioning modems. Tell them the problem is "long levels". If they can't help you I would give your PUC a call. > As a result of the attenuation distortion present on my lines, Just for reference, attenuation distortion refers to attenuation vs. freq, usually referenced to 1004 Hz. This is a different problem, but quite likely also happening on you line as well. For POTS lines this is measured with a three tone slope (404, 1004, 2804). Pat Turner KB4GRZ turner@dixie.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 20:15 GMT From: Bruce Sullivan Subject: Re: Long Subscriber Loop Problems > Are there ANY modems which do well with -35dBm signal levels? I doubt it. I don't do much work in the dial-up world, but for a leased circuit, -35db is pretty darned cold. My modems will typically alert me if the RSL goes outside of about -9 to -20db or so, even though we can still pass data beyond that. -35db would definitely get the telco a call from me. When we were ordering a lot analog lines (pretty much DDS only these days..) we paid extra at provisioning time for 'conditioning.' I don't know if this is an option with switched services, since they can't control where you go once you get past your serving CO. Still, *that's* where you problem appears to be, so if they can condition it that far, it might be of some help. There are no doubt others on CDT with far greater knowledge of that than myself. > Is there a way I could improve the signal on my side of the network > interface? Unless the problem exists on your premises, again I doubt it. Even if the problem is there, you'll be taking shots in the dark unless you have the equipment to measure it at various points. Bruce Sullivan (4544760@mcimail.com OR 72747.2737@compuserve.com) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 02:32:55 -0800 From: Steve Forrette Subject: Re: Let's Do a Figure-8 Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article jimmy@denwa.info.com (Jim Gottlieb) writes: > goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) writes: >> Seriously, what other dialing plan would you propose instead? > I, for one, would seriously suggest a change to eight-digit numbers. Wasn't the original reason for thinking of alternatives to the current proposal that some vendors thought it would be too big of a change to their equipment in order to support NXX area codes? Can you imagine how many things in the US would break if the conversion were made to eight digit local numbers (or four digit area codes)? I can't imagine how long it would take the 500+ local carriers, and about as many long distance carriers, to convert. (LA Cellular still does not have the 213/310 split working correctly for roamers in all cases :-() And this does not begin to include all of the private-sector automation that deals with phone numbers. Since the current plan will run out of area codes in less than two years, I don't think this is nearly enough time to make any large-scale changes to the NANP. The FCC has set a 1997 deadline before publicly-accesible PBX's and COCOTs must be replaced to support 10XXX dialing. I would think that at least a similar five-year warning would have to be given to everyone involved before such a change could reasonably be implemented. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: lairdb@crash.cts.com Subject: Re: Procedure to Use 800-321-0ATT Date: 21 Feb 93 10:13:22 GMT Pat writes: > [Moderator's Note: After dialing 800-321-0288, you hear the AT&T > tones, and the robot operator announces, "AT&T ... please enter the > number you are calling, or zero for an operator." After entering the > number you are asked to enter your card number. It is basically the > same as any other credit card call. Persons who have experiences with > this are requested to write. PAT] Slightly amusing story: the "please enter the number you are calling" message confused the bejeezus out of an operator at a hospital I was working at this week; from the phone I was borrowing, any off-premise calls had to be made through the operator, including 800 calls (don't ask me, I don't understand why either.) So, after a number of calls to the operator to get me our corporate voicemail, it happened I needed to make a personal call. So, I called the operator, asked for 800 321 0288, and then we got "please enter the number you are calling". The operator (still on the line) says, in one of the most bewildered voices I've ever heard, "Didn't we just do that?" Laird P. Broadfield lairdb@crash.cts.com ...{ucsd, nosc}!crash!lairdb ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #122 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa29216; 22 Feb 93 0:28 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA00273 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 21 Feb 1993 22:20:35 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA26911 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 21 Feb 1993 22:20:06 -0600 Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 22:20:06 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302220420.AA26911@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #123 TELECOM Digest Sun, 21 Feb 93 22:20:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 123 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: The War on Pagers (Marc Unangst) Re: The War on Pagers (Jim Graham) Re: The War on Pagers (Kyle J. Cordes) Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State (John Higdon) Re: Modems For LEGAL Use in Germany (Steve Pershing) Re: Scanners That Pick Up Cellular Phones (Michael Schuster) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst) Subject: Re: The War on Pagers Date: 21 Feb 1993 13:16:49 -0500 Organization: The Programmers' Pit Stop, Ann Arbor MI In article mc/G=Brad/S=Hicks/OU=0205925@ mhs.attmail.com writes: > I am at a total loss to imagine what legitimate need a high school > student or younger has for to have a pager or cellular phone with him > or her at school. Well, I'm a high school senior here in Ann Arbor (Huron High School). I also carry a pager, both when I'm at school and when I'm not. A few reasons why I find it convenient to have a pager: 1. It makes it much easier for people to get a hold of me when I'm not at home, or when I'm not going to be near a single phone, or when I'm going to be moving around a lot. 2. My parents don't like getting calls on their line after 11:00pm or so. So instead, I just have the person page me, and I call them back. 3. I work after school as a computer technician; sometimes my employer has to get a hold of me. Yes, even at school. 4. My computer at home (a 486 running SVR4 Unix) will soon have a system set up whereby it automatically pages me with one of a special set of codes if various things happen, such as running out of disk, an improper shutdown and reboot, the INN server getting indigestion, or something similar. I might be able to take care of something like that with one of the school's computers and their modem, but it's rather difficult to teach my computer to leave a message with the school office. 5. I do volunteer work with a local computer conferencing system; sometimes other staff members need to get in touch with me to ask an important question or something. Again, paging me is a lot easier and more efficient than having the school relay the message. 6. I do a bit of computer consulting/programming work in my spare time. It doesn't look very professional if your customers don't have a way of getting in touch with you during school hours. 7. I don't have to give any reason at all. If I'm not violating anyone else's rights and not disturbing the learning process (see below if you think pagers do this) through my actions, then I should be allowed to carry out those actions. The school should not be allowed to make arbitrary and capricious rules that adversely affect my ability to make a living and go about my (perfectly legal) business, simply because they can't figure out any other way to control the student body. > if that cellular phone or pager rings during classroom hours, it is > an impediment to learning -- and not just for the person who has it. You obviously aren't familiar with recent pagers. The ones being used around here by most of the paging services (the Motorola Bravo and Bravo Plus) both have vibrating-alert modes. Obviously, I don't leave my pager in "loud and annoying" mode when I'm at school. Cellphones might be a different problem; I'm not sure if the ringer can be turned off independent of the phone. Of course, you could also just leave the phone turned off, and turn it on if you need to make a call. > They know where the student is and can relay a message as > quickly or as slowly as it requires. Of course, that assumes that the school official is qualified to judge how urgent the message is. And it also assumes that the school is able to relay the message; some of the people working in my high school's office would have trouble blowing their nose without assistance, let alone accurately taking a (sometimes technical) phone message and relaying it to me. Besides, the school isn't there to act as my personal answering service and secretary; I should be responsible for taking care of my own phone calls. > If a student in school needs to make a telephone call, he or she can > either wait until after school or ask the office for permission; Well, the school I'm at doesn't let students use the office phones. They have two banks of three payphones each, and students are expected to use those for calls. Unfortunately, those phones are frequently out of order or all in use for an extended period of time (this is especially true during lunch, which is one of the few times that I'd have an opportunity to use them). And, depending on what service plan you have for your cellphone, making the call from the cellphone can be cheaper than making the call from a payphone; this is almost certainly true if you are making an intra-LATA zone call. Marc Unangst, N8VRH mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 10:52:57 CST From: Jim Graham Reply-To: Jim Graham Subject: Re: The War on Pagers In article jeff@bradley.bradley.edu (Jeff Hibbard) writes: >> [Moderator's Note: In the Chicago Public Schools, pagers are >> considered verbotin and are confiscated from students. This is part >> of the War on Drugs. PAT] I wish I'd seen this thread from the start ... looks like it would have been an interesting one. This part makes sense most of the time. There are exceptions (a friend of mine back when I was in high school was one of those exceptions ... he was an EMT, and was on call a lot --- he had special permission to get up and leave at anytime if required, and could make up tests, etc. later), but they're probably rare. > It's not just Chicago, it's state-wide. Illinois state law allows > pagers and cellular phones to be confiscated from anybody (not just > students) who brings them onto school property. If I visit my son's > school wearing my (employer-supplied) pager, they can keep it. If I > drive through the school's parking lot to pick him up, they can > confiscate the cellular phone in my car. This part, on the other hand, seems pretty absurd. What about a doctor who is on call (aren't doctors always on call?) and wants to go to some type of performance his/her child is in, or some other type of school activity on the school grounds? Is this law trying to forbid them from going? But then again, we are talking about Illinois, right? I guess that makes the absurd a lot easier to believe. Y'all wouldn't believe how glad I was to get out of that miserable place (I lived in Chicago for a while, and hated almost every minute of it). > Although text in the actual bill passed makes it clear the intent was > to forbid cellular phones and pagers, all of the above actually > applies to "communication devices", which the law defines as anything > designed to receive or transmit radio signals outside of the > commercial broadcast band. Ok, what about schools that have Amateur Radio clubs? I know that some high schools do have club stations setup where interested students can learn about the hobby, radio, and related issues. What about Amateur Radio activities such as SAREX (Shuttle Amateur Radio EXperiment) that devote part of the time specifically to school kids? Is the government in Illinois trying to say that these are to be eliminated as part of the war on drugs? Oh yes, I can certainly see the logic in that ... Seriously, while this law was probably written with nothing but the best intents, it's yet another case of people writing laws with their heads up their [backsides], and not considering the other, totally innocent areas they impact. Actually, I've got an even better idea than the ones these politicians came up with. Going by their logic, the only people in the world who use cellular phones and pagers are drug dealers, right? So let's just make both of them completely illegal, no matter where you happen to be at the time. After all, the drug problem isn't limited to schools. While we're at it, drug dealers use regular phones too, right? Ok, *ALL* telephones are now illegal. And for anyone who believes that kind of reasoning, umm, I've got some land I'd like to sell ... it's about 25 miles south of Ft Walton. Anyone interested? ;-} (Pretend this is in ultra-tiny print: {You must be a certified diver or have your own submarine.}) Later ... gotta get some stuff done around here. jim #include 73 DE N5IAL (/4) INTERNET: jim@n5ial.mythical.com | j.graham@ieee.org ICBM: 30.23N 86.32W AMATEUR RADIO: n5ial@w4zbb (Ft. Walton Beach, FL) AMTOR SELCAL: NIAL [Moderator's Note: Well, you don't have to worry about Amateur Radio clubs here being hurt by this law; I don't think there are any in the Chicago schools. Most extracurricular activities here were dropped years ago. A few schools still offer some, but mostly the schools here function as holding-tanks for six hours daily. The school bus ride takes an hour each way and having 2000 students go through the single metal detector takes 60-90 minutes each morning. That doesn't leave much time for amateur radio or computer clubs. So you disliked Chicago when you were here? I hate it also. It is a terrible place. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kcordes@world.std.com (Kyle J Cordes) Subject: Re: The War on Pagers Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 20:20:06 GMT kcordes@world.std.com (Kyle J Cordes) writes: > car-phone. Neatest toy in the world. Yeah, it cost him $0 a month Hmmm. I'm still having trouble getting the key binding of this editor down ... I meant $50 / month. Everyone got the point, right? Anyway, there is also the issue of freedom here ... does the school have the right to completely control the communications of students from the moment they enter campus? My high school also attempted to prevent people from bringing radios on campus, with little effect. Kyle [Moderator's Note: In most places, the law provides that during school hours, school administrators have parental rights -- I forget the exact Latin term -- and as such have complete authority over the minor children in their custody. I guess they can set the rules, just as parents can set the rules at home. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 13:37 PST From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State longo@sfpp.com (Bob Longo) writes: [ I wrote: ] >> Perhaps you could site the surveys and studies that back this up? > Sure. Glad to. I personally attended one of the CPUC's public > hearings several months before the ruling where they were soliciting > public opinion. No, I mean reality. If you regularly attended these hearings and had some understanding of the hearing process you would realize two things: 1. The same old tired activists show up time and time again. These people are against EVERYTHING that represents a technological change in the way the telephone works. They were even out in force when the telco wanted to replace the manual office on Santa Catalina Island! 2. The hearing process is a formality that is required by rules and statute, but has little to do with policy making. > A large majority of the individuals that spoke at that > hearing were in favor of no CNID at all! Of course. Not unexpected at all. For various reasons, I still attend these circuses, but the show is totally predictable. First, you have the telcos stating their desires. Then you get a parade of meaning- less, uninformed drivel, punctuated with the usual anti-technology nonsense. And wiping up the rear comes the so-called consumer- activist groups such as TURN giving their tired old garbage about how [you name the proposal] will hurt the Aunt Marthas of the state. Occasionally the Administrative Law Judge or a staff member will ask a stupid question, but the flow is relatively smooth. Go to a couple more hearings and see if I am not correct in my description. > The comments made by the individuals speaking at that (and other > hearings conducted throughout the state) are available for review at > the CPUC. Snore!! > By trying to force the CPUC to disallow per-line blocking, they > expect they can reap more profits because they believe more > subscribers will purchase the service. To do any less would be a disservice to stockholders and other customers. > The restrictions passed were based upon popular public opinion. You have not demonstrated this. > Everyone had the option of expressing their opinion prior to the CPUC > ruling at the public hearings or in writing. I don't feel too sorry > for those who want unrestricted CNID who didn't bother to express > their opinion prior to the ruling. Given the nature and actual effect of the hearings, what is the point? The decision had been made before any of those roadshows were presented. You obviously were taken in, but in some of those hearings it is exceedingly obvious that the Administrative Law Judge and the staff members are going through the motions. At least you were reinforced in your own beliefs and can feel comfortable. > I'm curious -- for those who believe CNID should be forced on everyone > to make this technology useful, do you also believe that unlisted > numbers should be unavailable? I have no problem with per-call blocking. Never have. If someone feels that he MUST keep his number private and he MUST bother me on the telephone (remember, I cannot see his number if he never calls me), then he can take the responsibility to remember to dial *67. Then I have the option to ignore his call. In that way, everyone is served. > After all, what use is the phone book if everyone isn't in there? > To be consistent in their logic, the phone company should stop > printing the phone book until the CPUC forces everyone to have listed > numbers, right? That is nonsense, and what makes arguments against CNID seem so pointless. You cannot make a case on the actual reality of the matter, so you come up with silly and ridiculous faulty analogies. Stick to the issue. It is not about published or unpublished numbers, women's shelters, or anything else. It involves the instantaneous ability for a person to transmit (or not) his number to the called party before the call is answered. If you feel that you must call someone anonymously, then dial *67. Is that such a big deal? I already know the answers: 1. The stupid and lazy must be protected; and 2. You should not have to lift a finger to continue to make anonymous calls. Got it. No more need be said. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 264 4115 | FAX: john@ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Modems For LEGAL Use in Germany From: sp@questor.org (Steve Pershing) Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 00:44:13 PST Organization: Questor|Free Usenet News|Vancouver, BC: +1 604 681 0670 A while ago, sp@questor.org (Steve Pershing - that's me) wrote: > ZyXEL modems are approved for use in Germany, and are sold there. We > will also sell them to almost anyone anywhere in the world, at about a > 10% profit. (The profit goes to support the free aspects of the > Questor site.) > For information on how to use the mail-server (and for a directory of > available files), send e-mail to: > mail-server@questor.org > and enter the following at the left margin of an otherwise blank > message body: > help > dir > end I was mistaken about the fact that they were approved. They are NOT approved *yet*. There are at least three distributors selling them quite successfully in Germany, however. The latest news I have from ZyXEL is that they are *pending approval*. Also, ZyXEL is apparently in process of translating the operating manual into the German language. My apologies for the mis-information and any inconvenience it may have caused anyone. Steve Pershing, SysAdmin The QUESTOR Project FREE access to Environ, Sci, Med, & AIDS news, and more. [also UUCP] on a ZyXEL-U1496S+ => v.42bis, v.32bis, v.33, up to 16,800bps. Fones: (+1 604) Data: 681-0670 Telefax: 682-6160 Voice: 682-6659 ------------------------------ From: schuster@Panix.Com (Michael Schuster) Subject: Re: Scanners That Pick Up Cellular Phones Organization: Panix Public Access Internet & Unix, NYC Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 19:26:41 GMT In article hk0z+@andrew.cmu.edu (Hans C. Klinger) writes: > I was told by a Radio Shack salesman that they sell scanners that > can intercept cellular phone transmissions. Then I learned from a > reliable source that the scanner does not come out of the box ready to > scan cellular frequencies, but rather it has to be modified (clip a > diode or something). Can anyone verify this? Can any scanner be > modified and what is the procedure for doing so? Many scanners sold in the US are also sold abroad, where there is no ECPA and reception of cellular phone frequencies is a selling point. Uniden and GRE, two of the manufacturers of Radio Shack scanners, often take short cuts by enabling full 800 MHz coverage and specifically disabling it for sets sold in the US. This is done using a matrix of diodes which select various features. On the older scanners these diodes were large and had leads which could be clipped. The newer ones (PRO-39 and PRO-43) use surface mount components which are a lot more difficult to handle; but not for the experienced hacker. Even without doing this, most RS scanners can receive cellular frequencies at the base frequency plus two times the second IF. This "image" technique is a legal way of cheating, since it is an undesireable side effect of the design rather than a feature. Mike Schuster schuster@panix.com | 70346.1745@CompuServe.COM schuster@shell.portal.com | MCI Mail,GEnie: MSCHUSTER ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #123 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa23736; 22 Feb 93 12:51 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA05224 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 22 Feb 1993 09:57:47 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA04571 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 22 Feb 1993 09:57:19 -0600 Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 09:57:19 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302221557.AA04571@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #125 TELECOM Digest Mon, 22 Feb 93 09:57:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 125 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Ontario Telepresence Project (Barbara Whitmer) Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones (Bob Longo) Re: Scanners That Pick Up Cellular Phones (William H. Sohl) Re: Quebec Yellow Pages Controversy (Steve Forrette) Re: AT&T Are You Listening? (Steve Forrette) Re: The War on Pagers (Robert L. McMillin) Re: The War on Pagers (Gary W. Sanders) Touch-Tone Database Questions (Chris Hudel) Cellular Phone Questions (Jonathan Shapiro) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Barbara Whitmer Subject: Ontario Telepresence Project Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 09:55:58 -0500 The Ontario Telepresence Project: A Brief Overview Bill Buxton, Scientific Director Ontario Telepresence Project, CSRI University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario Canada M5S 1A4 tel: 416-978-1961 fax: 416-978-4765 Buxton@dgp.toronto.edu January, 1993 The Ontario Telepresence Project Telepresence is the establishment of a sense of physical presence in a geographically or temporally remote location. We are concerned with reciprocal telepresence, that is, situations where people in two or more remote locations have a sense of shared presence. Our interest in this is centred on our desire to support collaboration at a distance, and to create environments that foster a strong sense of community, despite the distance separating those active in it. In short, we are interested in technologies that support a sense of social proximity despite geographical and/or temporal distance. Due to the rapid convergence of telecommunications, computational and audio/visual technologies, new opportunities to support this kind of telepresence are emerging. The Ontario Telepresence Project is a joint government, university and industry project, set up to undertake research to exploit these opportunities. Its intent is to leverage the combined skills of its partners in order to gain rapid strategic advantage. The research is human centred. Our objectives are to develop insights into applications and their usage (usability and usefulness), and the implications of these applications on the delivery infrastructure required for their support. Consequently, a large part of the research involves prototyping new applications, and evaluating them through user testing and field studies. The project exists under the auspices of two Ontario Centres of Excellence: the Information Technology Research Centre (ITRC) and the Telecommunications Research Institute of Ontario (TRIO). The research activities are split between the University of Toronto and Ottawa. The University of Toronto is responsible for social science, field studies, prototyping applications, and user interface issues. The Ottawa site is mainly responsible for the engineering aspects of the project, including developing the experimental platform and multimedia databases. Technology transfer takes place through the direct and active participation of partners in the planning and execution of the research. Such participation is facilitated through the accommodation of industrial researchers on campus and the use of telepresence technologies to enable collaboration at a distance. The project has an international component to the research. Ontario has an association with four provinces, known as the Four Motors of Europe. These are, Baden-Wurttemberg (Germany), Catalonya (Spain), Lombardia (Italy), and Rhone- Alpes (France). This association has collectively decided to undertake joint research in Telepresence, and the Telepresence Project is the Ontario part of that agreement. The main contribution of the European partners is in applications, especially telemedicine and distance education. Through the association with the Four Motors, The Ontario Telepresence Project will have the opportunity to test designs across linguistic, cultural and time zone barriers. The Telepresence Project is precompetitive research. It is based upon the understanding that technologies introduced to the project will be shared openly among the partners. There are two reasons for this: (a) it is assumed that any competitive edge lost will be made up for by the contribution of other partners and the trend to standardization that this approach fosters; (b) to enable the project to be as agile, lean and efficient as possible by minimizing the legal and bureaucratic overhead. The belief is that this will work as long as it is coupled with the understanding that any partner can, on its own, build proprietary technology on top of ideas generated through the partnership. The Ontario project is funded for three years, starting January 1992. Half of the funds ($2.6 Million) come from the Technology Fund of the Ontario Premier's Council. The other half is to come from other sources (such as industry and the federal government) in the form of matching funds, or "in kind" contributions. If you have any further questions, please contact me. Thank you, Barbara Whitmer Ontario Telepresence Project ------------------------------ From: Bob Longo Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones Date: 22 Feb 93 00:48:50 PST Organization: Santa Fe Pacific Pipelines In article , john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > Also, what is the FCC's definition of "easily modified"? I happen to > know someone who has rewritten the firmware for a very popular > handheld phone to allow it to act as a powerful monitor of cellular > communications. Unlike an ordinary scanner, this modified product has > the ability to follow a conversation after a handoff. > Believe me, if I wanted to listen in on cellular traffic I would not > waste any time or effort with my venerable Yaesu. The [name withheld] > "Special Edition" cellular phone would be my weapon of choice! > Scanner laws will be just about as effective as gun laws -- only much > sillier. The FCC is seriously deluded if it thinks it can win a > technological war with anyone. The below-average moron outguns the FCC > in the brain cell department. I was talking to a guy yesterday at the ham radio store on this subject. Apparently the cellular phone industry has a LOT more to be worried about than just who is listening to the calls. He told me that in New York 25% of all cellular calls are fraudulent. Apparently there are devices available that are able to easily pick up a transmitting phone's ID number (or whatever the correct terminology is). They take that number and clone a pile of chips and make calls on it till the phone company disables it. One of these "cloned" numbers in LA recently recieved a bill from PacBell Cellular for $14,000 for one month! PacBell credited the guy all for the bill. Does anyone have any additional information on these bogus cellular numbers? Can anything be done to stop it? Or is it going to get worse when someone invents a phone that the number can be changed dynamically without the need to plug in a chip? The cellular industry seriously underestimated the technical competence and determination of the population when they were designing the current system. Bob Longo (longo@sfpp.com) Santa Fe Pacific Pipelines Los Angeles, CA ------------------------------ From: whs70@dancer.cc.bellcore.com (sohl,william h) Subject: Re: Scanners That Pick Up Cellular Phones Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 14:35:09 GMT In article Hans C. Klinger writes: > I was told by a Radio Shack salesman that they sell scanners that > can intercept cellular phone transmissions. Then I learned from a > reliable source that the scanner does not come out of the box ready to > scan cellular frequencies, but rather it has to be modified (clip a > diode or something). Can anyone verify this? Can any scanner be > modified and what is the procedure for doing so? That's, I believe, essentially the case for most (maybe all) of the scanners made by Radio Shack. There are, however, scanners already available that do not require any modification from other manufacturers. As to the legality, it is NOT illegal to modify and/or own a scanner capable of listening to cellular calls. The existing law (The ECPA) prohibits listening, but does not make ownership/modification of equipment that can listen illegal. There's a new law, passe in November 1992, which will make it illegal to manufacture and/or import a scanner capable of listening to cellular frequencies, but the impact of that law does not take place until November 1993. Even after Nov 93, ownership of a scanner that can receive cellular will not then be illegal. Summary ... it is the act of listening to cellular that is illegal. Owning (or for that matter modifying) equipment capable of listening to cellular is not now, nor will it be after November 1993, illegal. > I realize that creating such a device to listen to phone users is > borderline illegal but this is for a research project involving the > ease of eavesdropping of cellular phones and I would appreciate any > information on how it is accomplished. As you mention, most "modifications" involve removing a diode which is used to block the frequencies of cellular in the internal soft/firmware of the scanner. I do not condone listening to cellular, I'm just reporting the facts as I understand them. > [Moderator's Note: It is not 'borderline illegal' -- it is illegal. I > am surprised the RS salesperson openly admitted what could be done. > Usually they wait until you buy the unit then mention that 'they heard > it could be done ...' and that 'a customer' left 'these notes and > schematic here in the store one day ...' or words similar. We have > covered this several times here in the past, and yes, modifications to > scanners are quite easily accomplished for the most part. I do not > know about the unit in question since you did not mention a model > number, but with the PRO-34 (now discontinued) it was as simple as > pulling a couple diodes (D-3 and D-4) off the circuit board. The radio > then lost 30-50 megs as a result, but picked up full 800 coverage. PAT] Sorry Pat, you got the legality issue on this one wrong. Nothing in the ECPA makes ownership and/or modification of any type of receiving equipment (scanners, etc.) illegal. Furthermore, if modification was illegal, why are there still many scanners available that do not block cellular at all? Additionally, nothing in the new cellular scanner manufacture/import law addresses modification by an individual. The new law directs that manufacturers should only make/import units which can not be "easily modified." If, however, someone figures out a way to modify such a scanner, that act (the modification) is not, in and of itself, illegal. I do not condone listening to cellular, I'm just reporting the facts as I understand them. Standard Disclaimer- Any opinions, etc. are mine and NOT my employer's. Bill Sohl (K2UNK) BELLCORE (Bell Communications Research, Inc.) Morristown, NJ email via UUCP bcr!cc!whs70 201-829-2879 Weekdays email via Internet whs70@cc.bellcore.com ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: Quebec Yellow Pages Controversy Date: 22 Feb 1993 10:22:53 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article ndallen@r-node.pci.on.ca (Nigel Allen) writes: > Bell Canada's Yellow Pages subsidiary, Tele-Direct (Publications) > Inc., makes Quebec companies that want to advertise in the English- > language section of the Yellow Pages buy an advertisement of the same > size in the French-language section as well, according to {Marketing} > magazine (February 15, 1993, p. 3). The policy is apparently the result of a > private agreement between Tele-Direct and a Quebec government agency, > the Office de la Langue Francaise. I have a business associate in Canada who tells me that businesses in Quebec (or some part thereof) are forbidden to answer the phone in English. Reportedly, even a mixed French/English greeting is not allowed -- the person answering can't use English until the caller indicates that they want to speak English. And, (perhaps in the "Office de la Langue Francaise) there are Phone Police (tm) that call businesses at random in order to ensure compliance with these regulations. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: AT&T Are You Listening? Date: 22 Feb 1993 10:26:39 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article 71336.1270@CompuServe.COM (tim gorman) writes: > The AT&T operator can hold your line open for exactly the same reason > AT&T can provide true coin service -- they are the only carrier > willing to invest in the network capability for doing so. Another nice thing about AT&T is that during a calling card call, you can just flash the line to get an operator. This makes it more convenient to get credit for wrong numbers, bad connections, etc. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 07:01:03 -0800 From: rlm@indigo2.hac.com (Robert L. McMillin) Subject: Re: The War on Pagers Marc Unangst , a high school senior (coulda fooled me!), writes about his legitimate reasons for having a pager: > In article mc/G=Brad/S=Hicks/OU=0205925@ > mhs.attmail.com writes: >> I am at a total loss to imagine what legitimate need a high school >> student or younger has for to have a pager or cellular phone with him >> or her at school. > Well, I'm a high school senior here in Ann Arbor (Huron High School). > I also carry a pager, both when I'm at school and when I'm not. A few > reasons why I find it convenient to have a pager: [excellent set of reasons for a high school student to have a pager deleted] The {Orange County Register} recently carried a story about a local teenager whose parents are very conservative Indians (they're from the subcontinent, not misnamed Native Americans) who can't stand the idea of him going out on dates with girls. His solution: prospective dates page him, he goes to the nearest payphone, calls the supplicant back, and together they plan a rendezvous. If mom worries where her boy is, she pages him, and he calls back presently. Everybody's happy. Somehow, I knew there had to be a way to work sex into this. Robert L. McMillin | Voice: (310) 568-3555 Hughes Aircraft/Hughes Training, Inc. | Fax: (310) 568-3574 Los Angeles, CA | Internet: rlm@indigo2.hac.com [Moderator's Note: So why couldn't you have worked a story into it about a call to his pager telling the poor boy to call some 540 number in New York where he would hear some wanton woman, causing his parent's phone bill to be some fantastic amount. We all like those kinds of stories here. :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: gary.w.sanders@att.com Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 15:42:19 GMT Subject: Re: The War on Pagers Organization: AT&T In article nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) writes: > Motorola recently introduced a line of decorator pagers, neons and > clear, aimed at the high-school market. From all references I have seen on the designer pagers it is geared to the medical profession. Nurses were not impressed with the "any color you want as long as its black" choice. I did notice a large number of doctor/nurses wearing them the last time I was at a hospital. I also hear that Motorola is comming out with changeable shells so you can coordiate your pager with your outfit. I just wish big M would come out with a 800mhz watch pager, My vhf model has lots of holes in the building. Gary W. Sanders (N8EMR) gary.w.sanders@att.com AT&T Bell Labs 614-860-5965 ------------------------------ From: Chris Hudel Subject: Touch-Tone Database Questions Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 08:40:06 -0500 (EST) Hello, I'd like to enquire about a phone/hardware system that would allow me to create a "touch-tone" database (of which I hope you're all familiar) so that after dialing my number you hear -- completely automated -- prompts for stuff like: "Press 1 for information about widgets" "Press 1 for service information" "Press 2 for product information" "Press * to go back" "(recorded message)" Possible? Of course! But where? and how? and how much $$? I'm thinking of a suped up PC with some tele-smart software on it but I'm likely stuck in a mindset. Thank you, Chris ------------------------------ From: shapiro@underdog.ee.wits.ac.za (Jonathan Shapiro) Subject: Cellular Phone Questions Organization: Wits Electrical Engineering (Undergrads). Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 07:21:38 GMT I really need some information on cellular phones - how they work, advantages, disadvantages, etc ... If anyone has information for me, I would appreciate it if you would email me (our news service is less than fully reliable :-) Thanks in advance, JON shapiro@underdog.ee.wits.ac.za [Moderator's Note: Well, you've posed some very open-ended questions. The discussion about cellular phones has gone on here for years. Maybe one or more of our resident cellular phone experts here will write you in email and try to answer your basic questions. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #125 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa23857; 22 Feb 93 12:54 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA30121 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 22 Feb 1993 10:18:30 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA11151 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 22 Feb 1993 10:17:56 -0600 Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 10:17:56 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302221617.AA11151@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #124 TELECOM Digest Mon, 22 Feb 93 02:22:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 124 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Caller ID Display With RS-232 Interface Wanted (Al Varney) Re: Caller ID Display With RS-232 Interface Wanted (Abhin Singla) Re: Let's Do a Figure-8 (Al Varney) Re: Different Rates in Same Home? (John Higdon) UK PhONEyday (Richard Cox) Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones (Alan Furman) Re: The War on Freedom (Jim Graham) An ISDN Paper I Wrote (John Landwehr) Hardware For Connecting Two Telephones Together With Dial Tone (S. Ibrahim) Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State (Stephen H. Lichter) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 21:45:57 CST From: varney@ihlpl.att.com Subject: Re: Caller ID Display With RS-232 Interface Wanted Organization: AT&T Network Systems, Lisle, IL In article syspak@charlatan.Central. Sun.COM writes: > Backround: Small manufacturing company wants to make their customer > service application more "responsive". They would like to pull the > Caller-ID of the incoming call and use it to key a database retrieval. > They want to do this today, under SunOS, and not use native ISDN > connections to their Sun server. The number of incoming customer > service lines will be small, probably two or three. > Idea: For the most part, Caller-ID is available in the metro area. One > can purchase a Caller-ID display unit for $50 or so from several > sources (ie. AT&T phone centers, Radio Shack). I've heard that some of > the newer caller id display units have RS-232 connections which may be They have Caller-ID via RS-232 on some versions. However, you could consider another approach. For about $200, you can get a Supra FAXModem Plus that will do Caller-ID, voice cut-through and works as a 9600 baud FAX unit. Whether this is a reasonable method for your application depends on whether the FAX part is useful to you, and whether they support Sun-OS or can provide some "generic" software interface. Supra is on 1-800-727-3443 If you want to explore a TELCo-provided interface, you could look into the one commonly used for Voice Messaging systems. These commonly use an RS-232 interface to the CO and can send combinations of the called, calling and forwarding numbers in ASCII. I don't know if the tariffs on this are beyond the 3-line application, but it's an alternative you could look at. Al Varney - just my opinion, of course. ------------------------------ Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 22:47:51 CST From: U19250@uicvm.uic.edu Subject: Re: Caller ID Display With RS-232 Interface Wanted The device you request does exist. It converts Callerr ID data to ASCII and sends it to an RS232 port. Try MoTron Electronics. (They have a 1-800 number) but I don't have it hear now. Let me know, and I can get it for you. Abhin Singla (u19520@UICVM) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 21:11:32 CST From: varney@ihlpl.att.com Subject: Re: Let's Do a Figure-8 Organization: AT&T In article jimmy@denwa.info.com (Jim Gottlieb) writes: > goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) writes: >> do I detect a little antipathy :-) toward interchangeable area >> codes? Seriously, what other dialing plan would you propose instead? > I, for one, would seriously suggest a change to eight-digit numbers. > Think of it; a simple change where every existing number in the > country has a certain digit added to the front of it, and it's done. > No more area code splits, at least for the next 20 years. The NANP Administration has certainly suggested that NPA splits are to be a thing of the past, assuming "overlay" NPAs like New York's work out. Seems more reasonable to me. > And no problem of dialing a number and finding it disconnected (or > answered by an unknown party) because the prefix was changed to some > unknown area code. Or worse, you assume the company went out of > business. With an eighth digit added, you always know what to do, > even five or ten years after the change. Here in Tokyo, where such a > change occurred two years ago, there are plenty of signs that still > show a seven-digit number. But it's no problem; everyone knows to add > a '3' to the front. > Contrast that to the situation in Los Angeles, where one now never > knows what area code one is in while out of familiar territory (and it > matters because 1 + NPA + NXX-XXXX to your own area code is denied). Again, the NANP folks say 1 + home-NPA denial is stupid -- and I agree. > Directory Assistance, as already mentioned in these screens, is > another problem. You know that someone lives somewhere in Los > Angeles. But if you don't know where in Los Angeles, you'll have to > make three directory assistance calls. DA bureas set up on NPA boundaries are stupid. (IMHO) > I would even be so bold to suggest that after the conversion to > eight-digit telephone numbers, L.A. go back to a single area code. > I often try to feel for those poor souls who don't read TELECOM > Digest. I look on a piece of equipment here in Japan and call the > number printed to ask a question. It's a +1 312 number. When I reach > a telco recording, I know to try +1 708 instead. But how many people > in Japan know to do that? Under the "new" NANP Administration proposal, no number will ever have to change NPAs, because new NPAs will overlay the old ones. In effect, the North American rather unique concept of NPAs will gradually be altered to a ten-digit number whose first three digits has a geographic association -- but a geographic location won't have a unique NPA. > Eight-digit numbers are the answer. Jim, the NANP folks are more far-sighted. They claim: 1) Ten-digit dialing is the answer (no 1+, just ten0 digits in World Zone 1, except for maybe 809) {why do eight digit now, then nine digit, then ten, when ten is doable today for almost no cost?}, 2) Variable-length digit conversion (mixing seven and eight digits, retaining the concept of NPAs as "optional" digits, etc.) is not easily done without mass confusion (when do you dial 1 + NPA + 7 vs. 1 + NPA + 8, and how do the ICs all coordinate their routing with each LEC) {whereas ten-digit dialing doesn't add or change ANYONEs number}, and, 3) The cost to add inter-changeable NPAs is several orders of magnitude less than eight-digit "exchange" numbers, and doesn't change the size of telephone numbers stored in data-bases, etc. So, with old NPA exhaust forcast for 1995 (mid-year), it was clearly quicker and cheaper to go with interchangeable NPAs. No one was willing to even consider the cost of replacement of all those seven-digit/ten-digit software (and hardware) structures in place in the public telephone network, all within a few short years. Al Varney - just my opinion, of course. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 11:56 PST From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Different Rates in Same Home? dig@pro-cynosure.cts.com writes: > The only difference here is that we get two seperate bills and the > lines are registered under two different names. But they are in the > same home, and both lines run to all of our phones. Has the phone > company allowed us to go against the tariff? You may have slid through because of the two different billing names. Also, tariffs vary widely from company to company and state to state. For instance, I have in my home some business service, residential unmeasured service, and residential measured service -- all in my name and even sharing a common Commstar group (mini-Centrex). No problem. The Pac*Bell tariff is silent on this matter. However, if I lived four miles away in GTE territory, this would be prohibited. With GTE, all lines must be the same class of service. Why? I don't know. Why does SWBT limit customers to three residence lines? I don't know about that either. But it is screwy tariffs such as these that will hasten customer acceptance of local dial tone competition. As I have pointed out before, Pac*Bell smelled the coffee long ago. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 264 4115 | FAX: john@ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 00:49 GMT From: Richard Cox Subject: UK PhONEyday Reply-To: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk telecom@hedonist.demon.co.uk (Linc Madison) said: > The result will be enough codes and numbers to last us well into the > next century. Unfortunately it won't. Key area codes are likely to exhaust their present number supply before long as, with the exception of five cities, the change will not create any more numbers under existing area codes. London, which suffered an area code split in 1990, is likely to run out *again* somewhere between 1999 and 2004. If the UK must have a complete change (and with only 3% of the possible numbers actually being used, the need for it is somewhat debatable) then at least the change should be to a numbering scheme that will be stable for a realistic period of time. >> Q: Why couldn't these changes have been made at the same time as the >> London code change? >> A: London simply couldn't wait for an increase in phone numbers. >> We had to act by 1990, and OFTEL hadn't made a decision about the >> National Code Change at that stage. But when the London changes were publicised, BT could have considered telling its customers that further number changes would be necessary. Oddly enough, they didn't seem to even mention the possibility. Richard D G Cox Mandarin Technology, Cardiff Business Park, Llanishen, CARDIFF, Wales CF4 5WF Voice: +44 222 747111 Fax: +44 222 711111 VoiceMail: +44 399 870101 E-mail: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk Not dialable on 511 in mainland USA ------------------------------ From: atfurman@cup.portal.com Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 21:10:52 PST Our Moderator notes: > [Moderator's Note: My sympathies are with the Libertarians also, but a > lot of good it does to vote for them. The television news does not > even bother to report the Libertarian election results. PAT] You are of course quite right. There is a major "catch-22" going on with The Media: no publicity, no wins; no wins, no publicity. But this situation is changing. Tamara Clark was endorsed by the largest-selling newspaper in Nevada when she ran for the state senate last November (and may have won--the election is still in dispute). Here in California, LP dues-paying membership doubled in 1991, and registrations increased by 30,000. Last weekend, a libertarian named Jim Warren, cofounder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, gave a talk at the California LP's convention. At the national level, the LP is verging on bankruptcy after mailing out propaganda in response to the nearly 100,000 telephone inquiries that came in on 800-682-1776 last year. And elsewhere: the Hungarian libertarian party, called FIDESZ, has several seats in Parliament (what a difference proportional representation makes ...). Vaclav Klaus, the prime minister of the Czech Republic, is a libertarian, as are a number of local government officials in St. Petersburg, Russia. (I found all this out, in case you are wondering, from the newsletter of the International Society for Individual Liberty, 71034.2711@compuserve.com). If you, the reader, are tired of the bogus "choice" between the right-wing and left-wing styles of governmental micromanagement of your life, there is an alternative. But you're going to have to check it out yourself; The Media aren't going to bring it to you on a silver platter. Alan T. Furman atfurman@cup.portal.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1993 12:06:36 CST From: Jim Graham Reply-To: Jim Graham Subject: Re: The War on Freedom Since my followup yesterday, and after reading some of the followups since then, I've got some more comments, and an interesting observa- tion to add ... this law actually works *AGAINST* law enforcement ... read on. In article tdarcos@access.digex.com (Paul Robinson) writes: > Let's call it what it is: the War on the Constitution. Yep, that's about the size of it. > jeff@bradley.bradley.edu (Jeff Hibbard) on the Subject: The War on > Pagers In TELECOM Digest Volume 13, Issue 105 wrote: >> [Illinois law that forbids " `communication devices', which the law >> defines as anything designed to receive or transmit radio signals >> outside of the commercial broadcast band" with the intent to "forbid >> cellular phones and pagers"]. Now, here's the interesting part. :-) The police normally have two-way radios, do they not? These are a very important to both their ability to do their jobs and to their safety, no? So, consider this: the cops are called in to check something out at the school ... nope, sorry, can't do that. Have to stay off school grounds with that radio ... too bad. And a slight twist on that one .... you go to pick up your son/daughter, and the school staff wants to confiscate your cell-phone. you refuse, and they call the police. a cop arrives, with his/her radio. guess what ... they just got their radio confiscated, too. Now, consider this one: a kid in school is injured, severely ill, or whatever. An ambulance is called. Nope, sorry ... we can't come on school property because of the two-way radios in here. You'll have to bring the kid to us, and if he/she is immobile, well, there's nothing we can do. At the very best, the EMTs or paramedics (whatever) go to the kid, but can't make any calls to a hospital, etc., until *AFTER* they get off school grounds and back to the ambulance. Doesn't seem like a very good situation to me. Another thing --- the high school I went to (in San Antonio, TX) used two-way radios. All of the faculty members, and even the janitors (if I remember correctly ... it's been a long time) had a radio on them (except when teaching a class). I suppose these are outlawed in Illinois, too? The law obviously applies to all of the above people just as much as anyone else (after all, cops, ambulance drivers, and teachers are not above the law any more than we are), so it seems to me that, if enforced, it could actually do more damage than good, even to those who wanted it in the first place. > This sort of thing needs to be fought and stopped. Write to the FCC. > This is a clear interference in interstate commerce since these radios > are operated by authorized users communicating with federally licensed > carriers. Here's how I look at it, with regards to Amateur Radio. I have a license issued to me by the FCC that authorizes me to use certain types of radio equipment on certain frequencies within the US (and elsewhere, if proper agreements exist and the right paperwork is shuffled around), provided that I stay within the regulations as specified in Part 97. Now, say I walk onto school grounds, and they try to take my HT. I just politely explain to them that I have a license issued by the FCC, and ask if they have the authority to override that license (knowing that they don't), they lose. If they try to STEAL my HT, I defend myself as I would against any other common (unarmed ...) thief. Gee, I wish I'd known about this bs law while I was in Illinois ... I would have walked across some school campus as a shortcut on my way home from work or something ... while in the middle of a conversation on one of the local repeaters. :-) Someone up there, do keep us informed as to how absurd things get if anyone actually tries to enforce this law ... jim #include 73 DE N5IAL (/4) INTERNET: jim@n5ial.mythical.com | j.graham@ieee.org ICBM: 30.23N 86.32W AMATEUR RADIO: n5ial@w4zbb (Ft. Walton Beach, FL) AMTOR SELCAL: NIAL [Moderator's Note: This is all getting just too silly to continue the thread so let's close it off. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 15:41:38 -0600 From: John Landwehr Subject: An ISDN Paper I Wrote Pat, I subscribed to your list a while back, and have found it very interesting. With all of the talk of ISDN, I just thought I would let you know that I wrote a paper on ISDN called: "The Golden Splice, Beginning a Global Digital Phone Network" for an independent study class here at Northwestern last fall. I thought you might want to make it available to people on the list at a ftp site or something. (And since I am graduating in June, maybe I can get a couple job offers from somewhere :-) It was created on a NeXT, but should print elsewhere ... JL [Moderator's Note: John's paper is quite lengthy and has been filed in the Telecom Archives under 'isdn.paper' for interested readers. Use anonymous ftp lcs.edu for access. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sibrahim@pollux.usc.edu (Shahril Ibrahim) Subject: Hardware For Connecting Two Telephones Together With Dial Tone Date: 21 Feb 1993 23:38:16 -0800 Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Hi Fellow Netters, I am looking for some cheap hardware that will allow me to connect two phones together with a dial tone. I am trying to test a voicemail system I've been working on. The box/hardware doesn't have to connect to an outside line. Any help would be much appreciated, Cheers, Shahril sibrahim@pollux.usc.edu ------------------------------ From: co057@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steven H. Lichter) Subject: Re: California Versus CLID Versus Out-of-State Date: 22 Feb 1993 07:58:41 GMT Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA) I can't believe it -- John quoting my statement on the old bitties out a dozen or so years ago when Catalina Island was being brought into the 20th century with a real switch and not just a strip on the San Pedro cord board. By the way there was a system much like that in Santa Barbara when Reagan became President that went in to Santa Barbara Toll. GTE placed a EAX remote out there and boy was there a hoot from the locals. Steven H. Lichter GTE Calif COEI ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V13 #124 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa24905; 23 Feb 93 4:17 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA26030 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Tue, 23 Feb 1993 01:01:38 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA16815 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Tue, 23 Feb 1993 01:01:00 -0600 Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1993 01:01:00 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199302230701.AA16815@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V13 #126 TELECOM Digest Tue, 23 Feb 93 01:01:00 CST Volume 13 : Issue 126 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Phone Outage in Livermore, CA Area (Lin Zuccoin via Mark Boolootian) Toll Station Conversion (was CA CNID Stuff) (John Higdon) Need Help With CCITT Recommendations (Tracy M. Nelson) Just Dial 10-ATT-0 (Dick Rawson) Quirks and Questions on International Dialing (Douglas W. Martin) Executech M0412 Manual Wanted (medimage@garnet.msen.com) RBOC Detail Billing Records Retention; Interesting Case (Mark Seiden) Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones (Mark Walsh) Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones (J. Andrusiak) Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones (J. Marvin) Re: Future of North American Numbering Plan (Ed Hopper) Re: Future of North American Numbering Plan (Carl Moore) Re: Standard Dialing Plan (Mike Seebeck) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: booloo@framsparc.ocf.llnl.gov (Mark Boolootian) Subject: Phone Outage in Livermore, CA Area Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 15:54:11 -0800 (PST) [Moderator's Note: Mark passed along this interesting item. Thanks. PAT] Date: 18 Feb 1993 09:06:10 U From: "Lin Zucconi" Subject: "Telephone Service Cut Off" The {Valley Times} (Feb.18) reported that telephone service was cut off for more than four hours to about 37,000 phone lines in Livermore, CA including "911" and operator "O" lines. The article said that "the significance (of the malfunction) was in having three prefixes that can't reach emergency phone lines. The phone company [Pacific Bell] was stymied in correcting the problem because diagnostic tests of the equipment told technicians that there was no problem. Technicians eventually located the problem in a call processor computer tape and replaced the malfunctioning tape." Luckily for those of us that live here, this is a relatively low crime area and no serious crimes occurred during the outage. Some banks compensated by letting in only a few customers at a time because they were concerned that their alarm systems wouldn't be able to call police. --------------- Mark Boolootian booloo@llnl.gov +1 510 423 1948 Disclaimer: booloo speaks for booloo and no other. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 13:24 PST From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Toll Station Conversion (was CA CNID Stuff) co057@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steven H. Lichter) writes: > I can't believe it -- John quoting my statement on the old bitties out > a dozen or so years ago when Catalina Island was being brought into > the 20th century with a real switch and not just a strip on the San > Pedro cord board. Hey, truth is truth. While I did not attend that particular hearing, the arguments presented were the source of much urban legend. In fact, every time a manual office is about to bite the dust, there is much protest. After all, as a correspondent pointed out, after conversion you lose such features as "voice recognition", "wake up service", "auto call-forwarding", and even a form of Caller-ID. And speaking of manual conversions, does anyone know if the toll stations up toward Sonora Pass have gone away yet? I am speaking of Clark Fork #1, Clark Fork #2, Dardanelle #1, Dardanelle #2, etc. Within the last couple of years the Mojave Desert stations have gone dial (e.g. Ludlow), but it has been awhile since I have had time to go camping up above Pinecrest and Strawberry. (And you can bet the road is closed right now from all the crystalized future drinking water.) John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 264 4115 | FAX: john@ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264 4407 ------------------------------ From: tnelson@telesciences.com (Tracy M Nelson) Subject: Need Help With CCITT Recommendations Organization: TeleSciences CO Systems, Inc. Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 22:21:43 GMT Can anyone tell me what the recommended guidelines for data-quality lines are (regarding attenuation, frequency response, losses between switch points, etc.)? I have gone through much of the CCITT Blue Book (however I *don't* have fascicle III.3, recommendations G.601 through G.654 on transmission media). Most of the references I have read seem more oriented towards measurement of existing conditions. What I need are minimum requirements to ensure a relatively low error rate during V.32 synchronous communication. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I've read EIA-634, but that wasn't quite what I needed. Any help will be greatly appreciated! Tracy Nelson ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 19:48:57 PST From: drawson@Tymnet.COM (Dick Rawson) Subject: Just Dial 10-ATT-0 I'm in the Radisson Plaza Hotel, Raleigh NC, just now, in room 1028. A little earlier I got a good laugh from a wrong number. The phone rang; all I heard when I picked it up was a touch-tone beep. Now look at my room number again! This is one of those hotels that doesn't support 10xxx IEC selection. (And it's a T1S1 meeting; T1S1 does ISDN standards. Oh well.) Dick Rawson, BT North America [Moderator's Note: In 1969-73 I worked in an office where my centrex extension was 7264. Outside calls were placed by dialing 9 and the number. On the first floor of this building was a bar and grill where large numbers of employees went for lunch each day, or they would call downstairs and have lunch delivered up to their offices. The number for the place downstairs was (not on our centrex) RANdolph (726)-4xxx. Every day almost without fail at 11:45 AM my phone would ring. I would answer, a voice on the other end would say 'oh shit' or something similar and hang up. Almost daily, someone would forget to dial the 9 for an outside line. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 08:28:52 -0800 From: martin@cod.nosc.mil (Douglas W. Martin) Subject: Quirks and Questions on international dialing Just some quirks of international dialing: Calling Australia: (61) 5-900-xxxx gets the "telecom announcement" "Subscriber trunk dialing is not yet available to this region." In Diego Garcia, (246) all numbers appear to be four digits, with the first digit always a nine. Any other combination got "Your international call cannot be completed as dialed." In Malaysia (60) dialing 1-xxxxxx got a recording to the effect that it was now necessary to dial (11) instead of just (1) to reach mobile phones in Malaysia. The Zone 6 file in the archives has 60-2 as its first entry. I was unable to connect to either Wallis and Futuna (681) or Papua New Guinea (675); all attempts got the American intercept, "your international call cannot be completed as dialed." Does anyone know of working numbers or intercepts in these places? And another question: Can dialing too many digits cause the call not to complete? e.g. if a country has four-digit numbers, and I dial seven digits, should the call complete on the first four, or could the extra digits cause "your international call cannot be completed as dialed"? Finally, has anyone successfully called the Australian Antarctic Territories? If so, please supply a working number. Thanks, Doug Martin martin@nosc.mil [Moderator's Note: Regarding Antarctica, for some reason a call from thirty plus years ago stands out in my memory. The old 'Rate and Route' bureau in Morris, IL told the local operator to hand me off to the overseas operator in Oakland, CA. That operator in turn looked into the matter and reported that contact with Antarctica was made by the Sydney, Australia radiotelephone operator, and that " ... they allow calls from the USA on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday" at some time of day I've long since forgotten. I remember her saying there was some time available "a couple days from now if you want me to book you for it ..." I understand Scott and Casey bases in Antarctica are now direct dialable. I have no idea what the country code is. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 12:56:32 -0500 (EST) From: MedImage Subject: Executech M0412 Manual Wanted We have a Excutech M0412 phone system and the installers refuse to supply the manual. It has all sorts of programmable features. So, the articles I read about unauthorized use of a company's telephone lines worries me. Also, I know the installers are incompetant and there has to be easier ways of setting up some of the features here. Does anyone have the manual? Can I get a copy? (Rev C, by the way). [Moderator's Note: *Why* do they refuse to supply the manual? Have you asked the company itself (customer service, etc) for copies? PAT] ------------------------------ From: mis@sug.org (Mark Seiden) Subject: RBOC Detail Billing Records Retention; Interesting Case Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1993 00:05:46 GMT I've gotten involved (just as a pro-bono telecom consultant) in an interesting case, which perhaps telecom readers can help with. Please, only make authoritative suggestions based on your expert knowledge of the technology -- no amateur legal advice needed... Without naming names: In 1990, our client, an unsophisticated investor who had inherited some money, lost a lot of it in the market. The claim is her broker, who had discretionary trading authority, churned her account, resulting in sizeable commissions to him. Now, here's the interesting twist: Both the client and the broker are deaf. The broker claims to have (but has not produced) TDD thermal paper messages (when the TDD was acting as an "answering machine" (and a few interactive conversations) from the client showing her specific approval of and substantial participation in the trading. The client claims no such conversations occurred. Her phone bills also show no such calls. We are looking for a mechanism whereby we can establish what calls the broker placed to the client. The phone company, NYTel, claims that detailed records of calls are not available beyond 18 months of the billing date, or perhaps the calling date. This is the factoid I doubt ... anyone know who at the NY PSC could tell me what the proper records retention should be and in what form these records are actually stored? (The period in question would be almost three years ago, mid '90.) I find it incredible that the retention period of phone records wouldn't be at least as long as the statute of limitations for criminal actions. These would not be local calls, but itemized calls between 212 and 516 area codes, so no IXC is involved. We are trying to find out whether the brokerage firm had voice logging or SMD; they disclaim (or haven't produced) detail records of local calls. (Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any records of messages done in real time on a magnetic medium, only on paper ... and at the moment we only have transcripts of them, not the originals.) (If anyone knows of document examiners with special expertise in dating thermal paper, send them my way, we may need them if the original tape is produced ...) mark seiden, mis@seiden.com, 1-(415) 665 8117 (voice) [Moderator's Note: I strongly suspect the records you seek are on microfilm, although possibly in an obscure location somewhere such as a warehouse. But at three years, you are pressing your luck. I'd get them now if they are around at all. PAT] ------------------------------ From: walsh@optilink.com (Mark Walsh) Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones Date: 22 Feb 93 20:41:55 GMT Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA In article , by jeh@cmkrnl.com (Jamie Hanrahan): > john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: >> Scanner laws will be just about as effective as gun laws -- only much >> sillier. The FCC is seriously deluded if it thinks it can win a >> technological war with anyone. The FCC knows this. They are merely implementing the will of our beloved elected representatives. > Can someone explain why cellphones couldn't gain increased security > simply by channel-hopping *within a cell*? Say, every five seconds or > so? > If you only move one call at a time, you'd only need one free channel > in the cell. Do you realize what you are suggesting? Why, this would cause the cellular phone industry to spend several dollars more per phone! It is far, far cheaper for them to continue to buy off our elected officials, and make them pass laws which give the cell phone user an illusion of security. I mean, an illusion is as good as the real thing, isn't it? :-( Mark Walsh (walsh@optilink) -- UUCP: uunet!optilink!walsh AOL: BigCookie -- Amateur Radio: KM6XU@WX3K -- USCF: L10861 ------------------------------ From: John Andrusiak Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 23:24:16 GMT In article Jeff Sicherman, sichermn@ csulb.edu writes: > Then again, none of us got to vote for the Telecom Moderator but we > have to put up with him. There seems to be an element of tyranny in > his management of the responsibilities he has undertaken and I don't > always agree with his policies or opinions but I am generally willing > to accept that he is human, fallible, quirky, opinionated, stubborn, > sometimes self-righteous but also a dedicated and hard-working doer of > the moderation task. He does the job as he sees his responsibility to > the 'consumers' and to the policies and laws regulating the medium. > Frankly, it's hard to see any really essential difference between > his role and modus operandi and the public servants he seems to feel > some superiority towards. The difference is quite clear. Goto the news.announce.newusers group and read "What is Usenet". The answer is that when I disagree with the TELECOM Moderator, I can go and set up comp.dcom.telecom.unmoderated. (Or alt.dcom.telecom. unmoderated if I want to go all out.) Nothing is preventing you from going elsewhere to discuss things you want to. This is a major difference from your average civil servant, who when you suggest how you can "go around" that person quite easily, gets upset and starts listing how many different ways they can have you thrown in jail. As a comparision, go try and set up your own version of the FBI. You'll have much more trouble than trying to set up comp.dcom.telecom.unmoderated. The attitude shows in the policy of the FCC trying to pretend that part of the spectrum is not there. The real solution is quite simple. Encryption. It would not be that difficult to add encryption to the next generation of digital cellular phones. It might not even require the assistance of the carriers. But is would mean the FBI/NSA/CIA couldn't spy on the citizens it's supposedly trying to protect. John Andrusiak - umandru1@umanitoba.ca ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 17:43:39 -0700 From: John Marvin Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Ruling on Scanners That Receive Cellphones Organization: Hewlett-Packard Workstation Kernel, Ft. Collins, CO > Does anyone have any additional information on these bogus cellular > numbers? Can anything be done to stop it? Or is it going to get > worse when someone invents a phone that the number can be changed > dynamically without the need to plug in a chip? Or worse yet (better yet for the criminals), what about a cellular phone that automatically monitored for valid ID's and then automatically used a new one for each fraudulent call? > The cellular industry seriously underestimated the technical > competence and determination of the population when they were ^ criminal > designing the current system. That's the truth! John Marvin jsm@fc.hp.com ------------------------------ From: ehbbs!ed.hopper@uunet.UU.NET Subject: Re: Future of North American Numbering Plan (Ed Hopper) Date: 22 Feb 93 07:08:00 GMT Organization: Ed Hopper's BBS - Berkeley Lake, GA - 404-446-9462 Reply-To: ed.hopper@ehbbs.com (Ed Hopper) > Are there any hints yet about who the lucky winners will be who get the very > first interchangable area code? I imagine that they may find themselves > hard to call for a while. I work in AT&T's internal data processing and telecom organization (IMS). Our job is to provide those services to the various business units. At any rate, we have about 400 switches at different locations around the US. In addition, there are a good number of switches that are owned outright by the business units. We are working hard on NANP conversions. In some cases it's easy, just a software upgrade. Older switches need new hardware. In any event, it has tied up a lot of our resources. If you're responsible for a switch, you better be making plans to insure that it will cope with the changes. Ed Hopper's BBS - ehbbs.com - Berkeley Lake (Atlanta), Georgia USR/HST:404-446-9462 V.32bis:404-446-9465-Home of uuPCB Usenet for PC Board ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Feb 93 12:35:17 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: Future of North American Numbering Plan I thought I saw something in the Digest about 813 (Florida) possibly being split by using one of the NNX area codes. It's apparently too soon to be announcing a new area code in Florida (which now has 1 + NPA + 7D statewide for all toll calls, and I personally saw this posted near Pensacola in area 904). I am wondering how full (at least of NNX) area 703 in Virginia is. I was just back in Winchester after some absence, and the local phone book listed three Winchester prefixes I had not seen before: 336,542,678. Area 703 has N0X/N1X prefixes, but as far as I know they are still not found beyond the Washington DC local calling area. If 703 will have to be split with an NNX area code, my guess is that at least the DC area will stay in 703. Obviously, Maryland, where I am, would not be the first to get an NNX area code. 301/410 split was just fully cut over last November. ------------------------------ From: seebeck@rintintin.Colorado.EDU (Mike Seebeck) Subject: Re: Standard Dialing Plan Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1993 16:03:52 GMT This will soon be a moot point in US West territories and elsewhere. The North American dialing plan is being changed because we have run out of area codes. The solution to this problem is to remove restrictions that require area codes to have a "1" or a "0" in the second digit and central office codes to have digits from "2" through "9" in their second position. The consequence is that area codes and co codes will no longer look different. It will be possible to have a number such as (303)303-XXXX. To deal with this the RBOC will require that area codes be dialed with all toll calls. Numbers that are presently dialed 1-NNX-XXXX wil now be dialed 1-(NXX)NXX-XXXX. This will have an economic impact on many owners of phone sys