Received: from [129.105.5.103] by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa00637; 1 Oct 92 17:06 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA16587 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Thu, 1 Oct 1992 11:35:58 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA08283 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Thu, 1 Oct 1992 11:35:44 -0500 Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 11:35:44 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210011635.AA08283@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #751 TELECOM Digest Thu, 1 Oct 92 11:35:45 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 751 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached (Dan Ganek) Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached (Andrew Klossner) Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached (Stephen Tell) Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached (Steve Forrette) Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached (Bob Sherman) Re: The Smallest US Telephone Company (Gabe M. Wiener) Re: The Smallest US Telephone Company (Shrikumar) Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over (Barry Mishkind) Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over (James VanHouten) Re: Two-Line Switching Device (Bob Frankston) Re: The Round Table (Roger Theriault) Re: Selective Ringing Call Director (Marc Kozam) Re: Last GTE Cord Board Removed (John R. Levine) Re: Thoughts About WFMT Versus WNIB/WNIZ (Ron Newman) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dan Ganek Subject: Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 14:38:57 GMT Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA In article tdarcos@mcimail.com writes: > On page B5 of today's (9/29) {Washington Post}, a place is offering a > cellular phone for a low price provided you take a one year contract > with Cellular One. > In the fine print it notes that "installation and antenna not > included, must be installed by" the selling company. > The current price is $9.95 for the phone. > I know that in places like California and North Carolina, tie-ins like > this are not permitted so phones sell at list price. > [Moderator's Note: Cellular One here in Chicago is always running > deals like you mention. The other day an ad in the paper offered a bag > phone for a penny (yes, one cent!) provided you signed a contract with > Cellular One for some period of time. The most nams I have seen in a > phone was four. That seems to be about the practical, if not > theoretical limit. PAT] Free/cheap cellular phones are the norm here in the NE. I never did understand why CA made such tie-in's illegal. If I'm running some sort of service business and offer to subsidize my customer's equipment, why not? I'm not REQUIRING them to do it. For example, I can get a Mits 1500 transportable for about $200 -- if I sign up for Cell One at $40 plus $21/month for six months. What's a Mits 1500 cost in CA? What are the Cell One minimum sign up and monthly charges? Get a bag phone or transportable, they don't require an antenna or installation. I got a Mits transportable and then installed it myself. (A great way to learn all about automoble manufacturing techniques :-) dan ------------------------------ From: andrew@frip.wv.tek.com (Andrew Klossner) Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 13:28:41 PDT Subject: Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached Reply-To: andrew@frip.wv.tek.com Organization: Tektronix Color Printers, Wilsonville, Oregon > does this seem reasonable if you were planning to use the > particular carrier anyway ..." Sure. I would go so far as to say that you should *never* buy a cell phone without getting a subsidy from a carrier. They paid $300 of my phone's cost in exchange for my agreement to a one-year contract. > "what is the maximum number of nams you've seen for a single > telephone." The OKI 900 has five. Andrew Klossner (andrew@frip.wv.tek.com) [Moderator's Note: You say the cell company 'paid $300 of the phone's cost' but some of us believe the prices of cell phones are artificially inflated so the cell company can then 'offer them at a cheaper price.' In other words, cell phones do not come close to costing $200-300 to manufacture and distribute (which allowing for markup would then get the $400-500 retail price were it not for the cell company offering to 'knock off $300 ...'). Cell phones may cost $20-30 to manufacture. Like all other electronic items, the cost is but a tiny fraction of what it was when they first came out nearly a decade ago. You should be able to buy a good cell phone for $100 or less regardless of signing up with anyone or not. Cellular One in Chicago owns a number of dealers including Leader Communications, a company for whom I have no love lost. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tell@cs.unc.edu (Stephen Tell) Subject: Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached Date: 30 Sep 92 17:05:18 GMT Organization: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill In article tdarcos@mcimail.com writes: > I know that in places like California and North Carolina, tie-ins like > this are not permitted so phones sell at list price. This is no longer the case in North Carolina. Sometime within the last six months the ads all changed from "This price not available in North Carolina" to "Price will be higher without activation. The lowest price for a bag phone with strings attached I've seen is $58. Just for amusement I inquired at Radio Shack and was shown a copy of the contract with Centel. There were about five different plans trading off monthly flat rate for the first X minutes with cost per additional minute. Prices did not seem outrageous if you have a real use for the phone. Steve Tell tell@cs.unc.edu H: 919 968 1792 | #5L Estes Park apts UNC Chapel Hill Computer Science W: 919 962 1845 | Carrboro NC 27510 [Moderator's Note: All the Radio Shack dealers in Chicago were agents for Ameritech for several years. When I bought my CT-301 a couple years ago they sold it to me with Ameritech service. When I went in the other day, they had signs up everywhere saying they are now Cellular One agents as of a month ago. I asked what happened to people who had bought phones prior to that time using Ameritech; they said they'd continue to service them until whatever service contract they buyer had with Ameritech/Radio Shack expired, then offer the customer a new contract with Cell One instead. PAT] ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 02:34:26 GMT In article tdarcos@mcimail.com writes: > Second, for anyone that has an answer, what is the maximum number of > nams you've seen for a single telephone. Because of roaming and dual > carriers, I saw an ad in the {Los Angeles Times} which showed a cell > phone with QUAD nam capability. My OKI 900 (also private-labeled by AT&T) has a five NAM capability. I sleep well at night knowing that I will never run out of NAMs! Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: Bob Sherman Subject: Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached Date: 1 Oct 1992 04:01:23 -0400 In Paul Robinson writes: > Second, for anyone that has an answer, what is the maximum number of > nams you've seen for a single telephone. Because of roaming and dual > carriers, I saw an ad in the {Los Angeles Times} which showed a cell > phone with QUAD nam capability. At least some of the Technophone (sp?) models offer eight nams, but that is the most I have ever seen in any unit. bsherman@mthvax.cs.miami.edu MCI MAIL:BSHERMAN [Moderator's Note: I got a Technophone via Leader Communications when they were offering them for $29 with a tie in to Cellular One (their parent company) two years ago. It worked for a few months then broke down. Leader claimed it could not be fixed and offered to sell me a new phone for $400+ (cheapest one in the store that day) but they refused to knock off the $300 saying I was not a new Cell One activation, even though I offered to sign a new upgraded service contract with Cell One. I told them how badly the whole thing stunk and dropped by Cell One service the same da, putting both my phones on Ameritech where the coverage area and roaming agreements are better anyway. PAT] ------------------------------ From: gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) Subject: Re: The Smallest US Telephone Company Reply-To: gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) Organization: Columbia University Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 15:28:08 GMT In article TELECOM Moderator notes: > the smallest phone company however. There is (or was) a guy in > Colorado who owned a telco with *eight* subscribers. How does he qualify as a telco per se? How does this differ from any organization that buys its own PBX? Or is the distinction that any call outside of the local equipment is long-distance? Incidentally, I've always wondered ... hypothetical: someone moves out to the middle of nowhere ... buys switch and hooks up 30 odd subscribers to old used SxS ... how does he go about getting long distance connectivity? Gabe Wiener - Columbia Univ. gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu N2GPZ in ham radio circles 72355,1226 on CI$ [Moderator's Note: I think he qualifies as a telco instead of a 'PBX' because he has several users who are not associated with each other through any common affinity group, i.e. not all of the same employer; not all of the same residential premises, etc. To get long distance service he cuts a deal with the various carriers. That is how it is done now days. Anyone can be a telco; anyone can be an LD carrier. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 23:57:20 -0400 From: shri%unreal@cs.umass.edu Subject: Re: The Smallest US Telephone Company Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst In article ... > [Moderator's Note: We've discussed Buena Vista here before, and [..] not ... > the smallest phone company however. There is (or was) a guy in > Colorado who owned a telco with *eight* subscribers. Does anyone > remember the name of that one? PAT] Still on my one track ... Which is the smallest long distance company ? I suppose thats an ill-defined question, if ever there was one. So let's say I mean ... Which is the IEC with the smallest turn-over? Smallest investment? Smallest subscriber base (counting default IEC selection for line)? ... and such. shrikumar ( shri@legato.cs.umass.edu, shri@iucaa.ernet.in ) ------------------------------ From: barry@coyote.datalog.com (Barry Mishkind) Subject: Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over Organization: Datalog Consulting, Tucson, AZ Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 07:22:51 GMT TELECOM Moderator notes: > streets closed off, massive traffic jams on the streets still open, > and delays in getting phone installation/repairs for two or three days > before the visit and a couple days afterward while all the phone techs > are assigned to install all sorts of stuff which will be gone two days > later. We had the same thing with Reagan, Carter and Nixon. Personally > I wish those guys would stay away. I don't have any interest in seeing > them personally and I'd much rather be able to follow my normal routes > of transportation, etc. I wish someone could tell me why ten percent > of the phone stuff which gets installed wherever he goes wouldn't be > adequate. Taxpayers certainly do not owe free phone service to the > members of the press. Let them put quarters in pay phones like the > rest of us. PAT] I don't think the press gets free anything from the taxpayer, although I have my suspicion about the amount paid covering the press bus/plane, etc. I think the phones are part of the normal overkill any politician demands due to his inflated opinion of his importance to history. I agree with you ... keep 'em out of my neighborhood. Expensive, inconvenient, and I'd rather not be used as a politician's poster boy. Barry Mishkind barry@coyote.datalog.com FidoNet 1:300/11.3 ------------------------------ From: James.VanHouten@f544.n109.z1.fidonet.org (James VanHouten) Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 07:57:32 -0500 Subject: Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over phil@wubios.wustl.edu (J. Philip Miller) wrote: > I have only heard rumors about the bills associated with all of this, > but it sure seems clear that some combination of the Bush/Quail > organization and our tax dollars are shelling out real money for a 20 > minute speech. Anyone got any idea how much the campaigns spend on > throw away work like this? > [Moderator's Note: Quite a bit of money is spent and inconvenience is > endured by people whenever the president comes through town. Whenever > Bush comes to Chicago the rest of us have to put up with numerous > streets closed off, massive traffic jams on the streets still open, ... Without going in to great detail, I spent eight years with the White House Communications Agency providing telecommunications for the President/VP. The amount of money spend to support the Chief is staggering. You must remember the wireline communications that you see is also backed up by other alternative communications. OBTW Pat, I was on a trip to Chicago in '90 I guess. You are right; when the President comes to town stay home. I used to think of all the people's lives that were put on hold during a Presidential visit. I guess the most memorable is a few trips to NYC. The police close several blocks during the middle of the day. Boy those New Yorkers can sure give you some scary looks as you go driving by!! James Van Houten [Moderator's Note: Harry S Truman used to take walks alone around downtown Washington, DC during his term in office. I don't need an explanation of why that is not feasable these days, but it seems to me there is a massive overkill of protection and telecom services for the President. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bob_Frankston@frankston.com Subject: Re: Two-Line Switching Device Date: Thu 01 Oct 1992 11:58 -0400 I think that Radio Shack used to and might still sell a device designed for sharing an answering machine on two lines. It will respond to a call coming in on either line. I presume that the first line is still the default for outgoing. Unlike the switch box, it would be automatic. Since I never used the device, I might be wrong. ------------------------------ From: theriaul@mdd.comm.mot.com (Roger Theriault) Subject: Re: The Round Table Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 12:53:33 PDT Organization: Motorola, Mobile Data Division, Vancouver, CANADA In a message of <22 Sep 92> by Randy Gellens, he notes that: > Saw the pilot of the new series {The Round Table} last Friday. In > one scene, someone in Georgetown (in the Washington, DC area) makes a > call from a pay phone. The pay phone was clearly a GTE style phone, > not a Bell type, even though the DC area is served by C&P, a Bell > company. I haven't seen the show, but our local papers report that this series is shot here in Vancouver. Possibly it was a BCTel payphone. As for the cruiser's plates, anyone's guess ... BC plates are white with blue letters/numbers (three letters + three numbers for all cars) and our provincial flag in the middle, and a date sticker (like OCT 92) centered along the bottom on the rear plate. Vanity plates all have a special trees and mountains background. But any local antique store can supply the film crew with any variety of license plate, and quite possibly a rental phone booth too! Roger Theriault Internet: theriaul@mdd.comm.mot.com UUCP: {uw-beaver,uunet}!van-bc!mdivax1!theriaul CompuServe: 71332,730 (not too often) I am not a spokesman for Motorola or anyone else besides myself. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 19:38:00 EDT From: mlksoft!kozam@rutgers.edu Subject: Re: Selective Ringing Call Director In reference to Paul Schauble's request for a "Selective Ringing Call Director", I have two starting points: 1. Home Automation Lab (posted in this newsgroup, in fact). I called their number, 1-800-HOMELAB (1-800-466-3522), and they say that they have such a product. I am waiting to receive their catalog. 2. BLACK BOX (R). Their September 1992 catalog lists a product called DRD-4 that automatically routes distinctive ring services from one incoming phone line to up to four devices. $ 139. Phone 1-412-746-5500. No personal experience with either product, but I'm investigating both of them. Marc Kozam UUCP: {media,mimsy}!mlksoft!kozam Internet: mlksoft!kozam@cs.umd.edu ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Last GTE Cord Board Removed Organization: I.E.C.C. Date: 30 Sep 92 23:37:14 EDT From: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) > The first commercial telephone cord board was placed in service in New > Haven, Conn., in January 1878, creating the first exchange. Actually, the first cord board was in Bridgeport. New Haven had the distinction of the first phone book. I lived in New Haven in the 1970's and the local phone books had fancy covers commemorating the centennials of both. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl PS: This may have been the same year the phone book had science facts for filler. My favorite was "Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is also farther away." ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 18:44:20 EDT From: rnewman@BBN.COM Subject: Re: Thoughts About WFMT Versus WNIB/WNIZ Didn't there use to be another classical station in Chicago, WEFM, Owned by Zenith Broadcasting I think? What happened to them? Ron Newman rnewman@bbn.com [Moderator's Note: Ah! Don't get me started! A brief history of the 36 years W dward cCormick was on the air: Owned by the Zenith Radio Corporation, WEFM went on the air in 1941; I believe it was the first FM station in the USA, but others say an experimental station in New York City was first. It was intended as something for the people who bought Zenith's 'new type radio' -- one with the FM band on it -- to have something to listen to. Prior to then all broadcasting was on the AM band. After all, why buy an FM radio if there are no FM stations? The call letters stood for Edward F. McCormick who was the president of Zenith at the time. It operated as a non-commercial station playing strictly classical music from 6 AM to midnight daily. Their only 'sponsor' was Zenith itself. Zenith wanted out of the operation in the middle seventies and the Metromedia organization bought the station, intending to change it to rock music. A lawsuit forced a delay in the change of the format, and Metromedia was put in the position of having to run a classical music station for the two years or so the suit was pending. Metromedia finally prevailed and late in 1977 got permission for the format change. They announced late one evening that the new format would begin the next day, and as the final presentation played Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. They stayed off the air the next day until noon, then came on with with the new format. We had three full time classical stations here from 1955 when WNIB went on the air for 22 years. As part of the lawsuit settlement, WEFM gave its extensive collection of classical records to (then in 1977 still tiny and struggling) WNIB. The FCC required them to run a disclaimer for two weeks following the changeover (hourly the first two days; then several times daily over the next two weeks) advising people of the new format. I'm sure it annoyed the new management to play a cartridge with George Stone (one of the old, classical music station's announcers) hourly saying: "The Federal Communications Commission requires WEFM to broadcast this announcement at intervals. On 1977, the Federal Communications Commission granted approval for a change in format to station WEFM. WEFM is owned and operated by Metromedia, . The Zenith Radio Corporation is no longer responsible for the contents of broadcasts on this station. For continued listening to classical music, we suggest you tune the dial to WNIB at 97.1 or WFMT at 98.6. You are invited to comment on this station's broadcasts by writing to the FCC at
or WEFM at 120 West Madison Street, Chicago 60602." So they had to stop the (otherwise non-stop) rock several times daily and advertise their competitors for two weeks as part of the settlement of the suit against them by 'Friends of WEFM', a citizen's organization which had good connections with the FCC at the time. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #751 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa01487; 1 Oct 92 17:19 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA32062 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Thu, 1 Oct 1992 13:20:02 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA08199 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Thu, 1 Oct 1992 13:19:32 -0500 Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 13:19:32 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210011819.AA08199@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu Subject: ADA Requirements Here is a permanent addition to your reference files. It was too large for inclusion in the Digest. Thanks to Michael H. Riddle for sending it along. PAT Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 10:57:49 -0400 From: bc335@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Michael H. Riddle) Subject: Partial Extract -- ADA Telephone Requirments Reply-To: bc335@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Michael H. Riddle, Esq.) Since my comments about ADA and the AT&T 2000 generated some comments and replies, I thought perhaps I should post some of the ADA requirements. I don't remember seeing anything along these lines. I got my files from Compuserve, but there are other sources available. These documents are available in the following alternate formats: - Braille - Large Print - Audiotape - Electronic file on computer disk and electronic bulletin board (202) 514-6193 For additional information on the ADA contact: Office on the Americans with Disabilities Act Civil Rights Division U.S. Department of Justice P.O. Box 66118 Washington, D.C. 20035-6118 % (202) 514-0301 (Voice) (202) 514-0381 (TDD) (202) 514-0383 (TDD) For more specific information about ADA requirements affecting employment contact: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 1801 L Street NW Washington, DC 20507 800-USA-EEOC (Voice) 800-800-3302 (TDD) For more specific information about ADA requirements affecting transportation contact: Department of Transportation 400 Seventh Street SW Washington, DC 20590 (202) 366-9305 (202) 755-7687 (TDD) For more specific information about requirements for accessible design in new construction and alterations contact: Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board 1111 18th Street NW Suite 501 Washington, DC 20036 800-USA-ABLE 800-USA-ABLE (TDD) For more specific information about ADA requirements affecting telecommunications contact: Federal Communications Commission 1919 M Street NW Washington, DC 20554 (202) 634-1837 (202) 632-1836 (TDD) PUBLISHED IN THE FEDERAL REGISTER JULY 26, 1991 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Accessibility Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities U.S. Architectural & Transportation Barriers Compliance Board 1111 18th Street, N.W., Suite 501 Washington, D.C. 20036-3894 (202) 653-7834 v/TDD (202) 653-7863 FAX ADA ACCESSIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR BUILDINGS AND FACILITIES * * * 3.5 Definitions * * * Text Telephone. Machinery or equipment that employs interactive graphic (i.e., typed) communications through the transmission of coded signals across the standard telephone network. Text telephones can include, for example, devices known as TDD's (telecommunication display devices or telecommunication devices for deaf persons) or computers. * * * 4. ACCESSIBLE ELEMENTS AND SPACES: SCOPE AND TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS. 4.1 Minimum Requirements 4.1.1* Application. (1) General. All areas of newly designed or newly constructed buildings and facilities required to be accessible by 4.1.2 and 4.1.3 and altered portions of existing buildings and facilities required to be accessible by 4.1.6 shall comply with these guidelines, 4.1 through 4.35, unless otherwise provided in this section or as modified in a special application section. (2) Application Based on Building Use. Special application sections 5 through 10 provide additional requirements for restaurants and cafeterias, medical care facilities, business and mercantile, libraries, accessible transient lodging, and transportation facilities. When a building or facility contains more than one use covered by a special application section, each portion shall comply with the requirements for that use. (3)* Areas Used Only by Employees as Work Areas. Areas that are used only as work areas shall be designed and constructed so that individuals with disabilities can approach, enter, and exit the areas. These guidelines do not require that any areas used only as work areas be constructed to permit maneuvering within the work area or be constructed or equipped (i.e., with racks or shelves) to be accessible. (4) Temporary Structures. These guidelines cover temporary buildings or facilities as well as permanent facilities. Temporary buildings and facilities are not of permanent construction but are extensively used or are essential for public use for a period of time. Examples of temporary buildings or facilities covered by these guidelines include, but are not limited to: reviewing stands, temporary classrooms, bleacher areas, exhibit areas, temporary banking facilities, temporary health screening services, or temporary safe pedestrian passageways around a construction site. Structures, sites and equipment directly associated with the actual processes of construction, such as scaffolding, bridging, materials hoists, or construction trailers are not included. (5) General Exceptions. (a) In new construction, a person or entity is not required to meet fully the requirements of these guidelines where that person or entity can demonstrate that it is structurally impracticable to do so. Full compliance will be considered structurally impracticable only in those rare circumstances when the unique characteristics of terrain prevent the incorporation of accessibility features. If full compliance with the requirements of these guidelines is structurally impracticable, a person or entity shall comply with the requirements to the extent it is not structurally impracticable. Any portion of the building or facility which can be made accessible shall comply to the extent that it is not structurally impracticable. (b) Accessibility is not required to (i) observation galleries used primarily for security purposes; or (ii) in non-occupiable spaces accessed only by ladders, catwalks, crawl spaces, very narrow passageways, or freight (non-passenger) elevators, and frequented only by service personnel for repair purposes; such spaces include, but are not limited to, elevator pits, elevator penthouses, piping or equipment catwalks. * * * 4.1.3 Accessible Buildings: New Construction. Accessible buildings and facilities shall meet the following minimum requirements: * * * (17) Public telephones: (a) If public pay telephones, public closed circuit telephones, or other public telephones are provided, then they shall comply with 4.31.2 through 4.31.8 to the extent required by the following table: Number of each type of telephone provided on each floor; Number of telephones required to comply with 4.31.2 through 4.31.81. 1 or more single unit 1 per floor 1 bank2 1 per floor 2 or more banks2 1 per bank. Accessible unit may be installed as a single unit in proximity (either visible or with signage) to the bank. At least one public telephone per floor shall meet the requirements for a forward reach telephone3. 1 Additional public telephones may be installed at any height. Unless otherwise specified, accessible telephones may be either forward or side reach telephones. 2 A bank consists of two or more adjacent public telephones, often installed as a unit. 3 EXCEPTION: For exterior installations only, if dial tone first service is available, then a side reach telephone may be installed instead of the required forward reach telephone (i.e., one telephone in proximity to each bank shall comply with 4.31). (b)* All telephones required to be accessible and complying with 4.31.2 through 4.31.8 shall be equipped with a volume control. In addition, 25 percent, but never less than one, of all other public telephones provided shall be equipped with a volume control and shall be dispersed among all types of public telephones, including closed circuit telephones, throughout the building or facility. Signage complying with applicable provisions of 4.30.7 shall be provided. (c) The following shall be provided in accordance with 4.31.9: (i) if a total number of four or more public pay telephones (including both interior and exterior phones) is provided at a site, and at least one is in an interior location, then at least one interior public text telephone shall be provided. (ii) if an interior public pay telephone is provided in a stadium or arena, in a convention center, in a hotel with a convention center, or in a covered mall, at least one interior public text telephone shall be provided in the facility. (iii) if a public pay telephone is located in or adjacent to a hospital emergency room, hospital recovery room, or hospital waiting room, one public text telephone shall be provided at each such location. (d) Where a bank of telephones in the interior of a building consists of three or more public pay telephones, at least one public pay telephone in each such bank shall be equipped with a shelf and outlet in compliance with 4.31.9(2). * * * 4.1.6 Accessible Buildings: Alterations. (1) General. Alterations to existing buildings and facilities shall comply with the following: * * * (e) At least one interior public text telephone complying with 4.31.9 shall be provided if: (i) alterations to existing buildings or facilities with less than four exterior or interior public pay telephones would increase the total number to four or more telephones with at least one in an interior location; or (ii) alterations to one or more exterior or interior public pay telephones occur in an existing building or facility with four or more public telephones with at least one in an interior location. * * * 4.2 Space Allowance and Reach Ranges. 4.2.1* Wheelchair Passage Width. The minimum clear width for single wheelchair passage shall be 32 in (815 mm) at a point and 36 in (915 mm) continuously (see Fig. 1 and 24(e)). 4.2.2 Width for Wheelchair Passing. The minimum width for two wheelchairs to pass is 60 in (1525 mm) (see Fig. 2). 4.2.3* Wheelchair Turning Space. The space required for a wheelchair to make a 180-degree turn is a clear space of 60 in (1525 mm) diameter (see Fig. 3(a)) or a T-shaped space (see Fig. 3(b)). 4.2.4* Clear Floor or Ground Space for Wheelchairs. 4.2.4.1 Size and Approach. The minimum clear floor or ground space required to accommodate a single, stationary wheelchair and occupant is 30 in by 48 in (760 mm by 1220 mm) (see Fig. 4(a)). The minimum clear floor or ground space for wheelchairs may be positioned for forward or parallel approach to an object (see Fig. 4(b) and (c)). Clear floor or ground space for wheelchairs may be part of the knee space required under some objects. 4.2.4.2 Relationship of Maneuvering Clearance to Wheelchair Spaces. One full unobstructed side of the clear floor or ground space for a wheelchair shall adjoin or overlap an accessible route or adjoin another wheelchair clear floor space. If a clear floor space is located in an alcove or otherwise confined on all or part of three sides, additional maneuvering clearances shall be provided as shown in Fig. 4(d) and (e). 4.2.4.3 Surfaces for Wheelchair Spaces. Clear floor or ground spaces for wheelchairs shall comply with 4.5. 4.2.5* Forward Reach. If the clear floor space only allows forward approach to an object, the maximum high forward reach allowed shall be 48 in (1220 mm) (see Fig. 5(a)). The minimum low forward reach is 15 in (380 mm). If the high forward reach is over an obstruction, reach and clearances shall be as shown in Fig. 5(b). 4.2.6* Side Reach. If the clear floor space allows parallel approach by a person in a wheelchair, the maximum high side reach allowed shall be 54 in (1370 mm) and the low side reach shall be no less than 9 in (230 mm) above the floor (Fig. 6(a) and (b)). If the side reach is over an obstruction, the reach and clearances shall be as shown in Fig 6(c). * * * 4.30.7* Symbols of Accessibility. (1) Facilities and elements required to be identified as accessible by 4.1 shall use the international symbol of accessibility. The symbol shall be displayed as shown in Fig. 43(a) and (b). (2) Volume Control Telephones. Telephones required to have a volume control by 4.1.3(17)(b) shall be identified by a sign containing a depiction of a telephone handset with radiating sound waves. (3) Text Telephones. Text telephones required by 4.1.3(17)(c) shall be identified by the international TDD symbol (Fig 43(c)). In addition, if a facility has a public text telephone, directional signage indicating the location of the nearest text telephone shall be placed adjacent to all banks of telephones which do not contain a text telephone. Such directional signage shall include the international TDD symbol. If a facility has no banks of telephones, the directional signage shall be provided at the entrance (e.g., in a building directory). (4) Assistive Listening Systems. In assembly areas where permanently installed assistive listening systems are required by 4.1.3(19)(b) the availability of such systems shall be identified with signage that includes the international symbol of access for hearing loss (Fig 43(d)). 4.30.8* Illumination Levels. (Reserved). 4.31 Telephones. 4.31.1 General. Public telephones required to be accessible by 4.1 shall comply with 4.31. 4.31.2 Clear Floor or Ground Space. A clear floor or ground space at least 30 in by 48 in (760 mm by 1220 mm) that allows either a forward or parallel approach by a person using a wheelchair shall be provided at telephones (see Fig. 44). The clear floor or ground space shall comply with 4.2.4. Bases, enclosures, and fixed seats shall not impede approaches to telephones by people who use wheelchairs. 4.31.3* Mounting Height. The highest operable part of the telephone shall be within the reach ranges specified in 4.2.5 or 4.2.6. 4.31.4 Protruding Objects. Telephones shall comply with 4.4. 4.31.5 Hearing Aid Compatible and Volume Control Telephones Required by 4.1. (1) Telephones shall be hearing aid compatible. (2) Volume controls, capable of a minimum of 12 dbA and a maximum of 18 dbA above normal, shall be provided in accordance with 4.1.3. If an automatic reset is provided then 18 dbA may be exceeded. 4.31.6 Controls. Telephones shall have pushbutton controls where service for such equipment is available. 4.31.7 Telephone Books. Telephone books, if provided, shall be located in a position that complies with the reach ranges specified in 4.2.5 and 4.2.6. 4.31.8 Cord Length. The cord from the telephone to the handset shall be at least 29 in (735 mm) long. 4.31.9* Text Telephones Required by 4.1. (1) Text telephones used with a pay telephone shall be permanently affixed within, or adjacent to, the telephone enclosure. If an acoustic coupler is used, the telephone cord shall be sufficiently long to allow connection of the text telephone and the telephone receiver. (2) Pay telephones designed to accommodate a portable text telephone shall be equipped with a shelf and an electrical outlet within or adjacent to the telephone enclosure. The telephone handset shall be capable of being placed flush on the surface of the shelf. The shelf shall be capable of accommodating a text telephone and shall have 6 in (152 mm) minimum vertical clearance in the area where the text telephone is to be placed. (3) Equivalent facilitation may be provided. For example, a portable text telephone may be made available in a hotel at the registration desk if it is available on a 24-hour basis for use with nearby public pay telephones. In this instance, at least one pay telephone shall comply with paragraph 2 of this section. In addition, if an acoustic coupler is used, the telephone handset cord shall be sufficiently long so as to allow connection of the text telephone and the telephone receiver. Directional signage shall be provided and shall comply with 4.30.7. ----------- <<<< insert standard disclaimer here >>>> mike.riddle@inns.omahug.org | Nebraska Inns of Court bc335@cleveland.freenet.edu | +1 402 593 1192 (Data) Sysop of 1:285/27 @ FidoNet | 3/12/224/9600 V.32/V42b   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa02598; 1 Oct 92 17:42 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA11078 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Thu, 1 Oct 1992 12:55:24 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA15258 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Thu, 1 Oct 1992 12:55:04 -0500 Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 12:55:04 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210011755.AA15258@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #752 TELECOM Digest Thu, 1 Oct 92 12:55:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 752 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: AT&T Wants $3 For International DA (dbw@crash.cts.com) Re: Funny 800 Number Spelling (Andrew M. Boardman) Re: TASI (was AT&T Announces Encryption Security Device) (Terence Cross) Re: My Favorite Intercepts (Christopher Lott) Re: Internet White Pages (mlbarrow@mit.edu) Re: Info Needed About "Nationwide Long Distance" Company (Ed Greenberg) Re: Delphi via Telnet (John Goggan) Re: Additional Thoughts About Voice Mail Systems (David Rivkin) Re: Local Battery (Gary Wells) Re: Telecom in the MidWest (Ang Peng Hwa) Re: Cellular Interception in Private Talk (Jon Gefaell) Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached (Bill Berbenich) Re: Question About Air Phones (Tom Coradeschi) Re: N0N/N1N Exchanges and 1+ Dialing (Carl Moore) Re: The Smallest US Telephone Company (David G. Lewis) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dbw@crash.cts.com Subject: Re: AT&T Wants $3 For International DA Date: 30 Sep 92 05:11:53 GMT Greetings, My father is trying to resolve a problem with ATT international DA. He tried using the service to get a number in Tokyo. Three times he tried but eventually was disconnected after about 45 seconds; three times he was charged $3. What is the bargain of paying $9 for not getting a number? Calling up the AT&T billing number only results in his being told that a supervisor will return his call, which is never returned. [Moderator's Note: An incomplete DA call billed in error should be handled no differently than any other AT&T call which fails to go through or aborts prematurely. Usually credit is given instantly by an AT&T operator or by the business office later. Why was there a need to get a supervisor involved in the first place I wonder? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 02:31:34 EDT From: andrew m. boardman Subject: Re: Funny 800 Number Spelling John Higdon writes: > I know of no number-issuing entity, LEC or IEC, who will refuse to > give out any number you want if it is available. New York Telephone. An associate once went to fairly great lengths to try to get 914.234.5678, to no avail. It was neither in use nor in a reserved block -- through the standard rep and N levels of supervisors, it was a staunch "we know what's good for you -- you can't have it." The only thing I can think of is that it is such an often wrong number that it was trapped at other 914 switches, but it later turned out that this was not the case. (The individual was, BTW, local to the 234 exchange, and the eventual number received was indeed in 234 -- but not -5678 ...) andrew boardman amb@cs.columbia.edu [Moderator's Note: Although not in a 'reserved block' it still might have been reserved for a few months by some specific individual. That can be done here. Or possibly it had recently been disconnected and not yet available for re-assignment. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 12:24:34 BST From: eeitecs@eeiuc.ericsson.se (Terence Cross) Subject: Re: TASI (was AT&T Announces Encryption Security Device) In article dancer!whs70@uunet.UU.NET (22501-sohl) writes: > I don't know about today, but in the past there was. A system called > TASI was used on international cables to make use of the slices of > silence in each direction. I suspect it has long since been abandoned > as circuit capacity has expanded tremendously since the time it was > used. The acronym TASI was something like: Time A????? Speech > Interpolation I think. Another similar system is called DCME (Digital Circuit Multiplication Equipment). This uses digital speech interpolation (which is like TASI?) and low rate encoding of speech to compress it. One example of DCME will compress (5:1) and concentrate (2:1) ten 2 Mbit/s trunk lines carrying speech over one 2 Mbit/s (1.5 in the US) line to another, distant DCME twin. As you can imagine non-speech data calls through such systems encounter problems and are not compressed so easily. Terence Cross ------------------------------ Subject: Re: My Favorite Intercepts Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 15:45:37 +0100 From: Christopher Lott AGSE In article phil@rochgte.fidonet.org writes: >> The most boring intercepts are those from Germany (right to the >> point), the French outer territories (which always seem to be running >> on the winner of the wow and flutter tape unit award) Ok, I have my own short story about French Telecom and intercepts. First, when you call a number from a pay phone, you have to endure a 45-second advertisement for French Telecom, how wonderful. When you're trying to get through to a busy number and it takes one minute just to dial and get a ring (I timed it), this is NOT acceptable. Paying for a service and then getting hit with an ad that makes the service basically an order of magnitude slower really infuriated me. Second, about an intercept. We were trying to dial Paris from the French countryside. Dialing 16 is necessary, but we didn't know. So for half an hour we kept trying the Paris city code (1) because each time we called (after enduring the ad) the phone gave just the busy signal. No voice, not reorder, just the exact same signal you get for a genuine busy. Cute, huh? I'll take the German "boring and to the point" anytime. Christopher Lott lott@informatik.uni-kl.de +49 (631) 205-3334, -3331 Fax Post: FB Informatik, Bau 57/525, Universit"at KL, 6750 Kaiserslautern, Germany ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 12:08:18 -0500 From: mlbarrow@MIT.EDU Subject: Re: Internet White Pages > [Moderator's Note: I received a few others like this regards the > Internet White Pages message. The information is repeated below. PAT] > ian.evans@bville.gts.org (Ian Evans) wrote: >> I'm sorry, I missed your original posting on this. Could you please >> send me the (corrected) information. > RFC 1202 states that ANYONE with an Internet Mail address is entitled > to have that address listed in the Internet white pages, provided they > send in an application to the registrar with their E-Mail address. [stuff deleted] I sent in a message and they told me that I couldn't be in the directory because they were low on resources. I could only be in there if I was a site coordinator. Anyone have any info on this? mlb [Moderator's Note: This seems to be an ongoing controversy here in recent days: can one, or can one not be listed in the 'white pages'? Maybe someone from the 'white pages' will give a definitive answer. PAT] ------------------------------ From: edg@netcom.com (Ed Greenberg) Subject: Re: Info Needed About "Nationwide Long Distance" Company Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 17:10:37 GMT In article bill@eedsp.gatech.edu writes: > I am very satisfied with Cable & Wireless (10223) and have had them > for almost a year now. Data connections are always good and voice > quality is on a par with the "big three." I am moderately happy with Cable and Wireless. I got them entirely for use as a calling card carrier, since they don't have a CC surcharge, although the rates for such calls are higher. I dunno if the savings really worked out, although I THINK it did. Here are some side comments: 1. They slammed both my lines even though I never asked them too. Nonetheless, it could have been an honest mistake, and Pacific Bell has charged the switching charges back to them. 2. Call setup time is longer than AT&T. 3. No complaints about circuit quality for either voice or data use. 4. Direct dial rates seem higher than AT&T. by a few cents per minute. 5. They don't seem to be charging me the $5/month. (yet.) Ed Greenberg Home: +1 408 283 0511 | edg@netcom.com P. O. Box 28618 Work: +1 408 764 5305 | DoD#: 0357 San Jose, CA 95159 Fax: +1 408 764 5003 | KM6CG (ex WB2GOH) ------------------------------ Organization: Central Michigan University Date: Wednesday, 30 Sep 1992 13:48:24 EDT From: John Goggan <34II5MT@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Subject: Re: Delphi via Telnet Delphi began allowing incoming telnet connections (to delphi.com) about six weeks ago. At that time, there was no surcharge at any time (peak or off-peak) for a telnet connection. About four weeks ago, I heard talk about possibly moving to a $2.00/hour (at any time) surcharge for telnet, but that had not yet been decided upon (since they were still doing a lot of testing with the gateway and everything). I haven't been on Delphi since that time (four weeks ago), so I don't know any more than that. John Goggan (34ii5mt@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu or jgoggan@opus.csv.cmich.edu) ------------------------------ From: davidr@socrates.ucsf.edu (David Rivkin%Kollman) Subject: Re: Additional Thoughts About Voice Mail Systems Organization: Computer Graphics Laboratory, UCSF Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 18:22:20 GMT In article jdgretz@northridge. witchcraft.com (John D. Gretzinger) writes: > I thought I would add some details to the Voice Mail discussions > currently underway. > Most (I used to say all, but after talking to John Higdon have to > revise that) PC based voice servers require the system to be brought > out of service when any service is required. This includes backup of > data, retrieval of billing information, replacement of components, > etc. > GTE uses a mixture of machines in it's COs, but the primary machine is > from Digital Sound Corportation. DSC is not interested in small > sites, and thus does not have a machine for the small business. Also, > their IVR capability is severely limited at this time. They have > announced capabilities for next year that other players have available > now. > If I had my choice, I would buy anything else. My first choice would > be Centigram, then Octel. I really like Centigram's approach to > business, machine management, and IVR development tools. This is not > to say Octel is not real close. Simply my impression and choice. > If you currently want to do IVR with DSC, you need to be very good > with low level C code, 'cause that's what you got now. 1. Do you have good contacts you can refer me to at Centagram and Octel (Phone, Fax, e-mail)? 2. I agree that most developers of PC based Voice Mail have not looked into the aspects that you mention, but that does not mean that everyone has not. In designing Winfon, Because it is run from a multitasking environment like Windows, OS/2 or X on Unix, such backups were included and allowed to happen while the system was still taking calls. Currently we are making the system be admined and user controled over a LAN (even WAN) via e-mail facilities. We have, however, found very little interest in these features that we feel are so very important to how things are done. The Voice Mail industry seems reluctant to get things moving toward integrated information "At your fingertips". We have the solution today, but no one is interested. Just wanted to put in my two cents. David Rivkin UCSF Winfon Engineering davidr@cgl.ucsf.edu ------------------------------ From: gary@percy.rain.com (Gary Wells) Subject: Re: Local Battery Organization: Percy's mach, Portland, OR Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 19:54:28 GMT Out here in the wilds of Ore-e-gone, they had teen-aged boys who drove a horse and wagon around from house to house and changed out the dry cell every month. After a while, with good behaviour, etc, they were generally promoted to installers, etc. Used to work with a guy who started out that way. Weird, but it worked. gary@percival.rain.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Oct 92 10:22:54 SST From: Ang Peng Hwa Subject: Re: Telecom in the MidWest Pat noted: > Even twenty years ago, Tulsa, OK, was considered an ideal place for > telemarketers as was Omaha, NB. Why? Because they had the least > expensive WATS costs of anywhere in the USA. After all, the most you > can go in any direction from Tulsa is 2,000 miles or less,.... I was told that the reason telemarketers chose the MidWest was that they had the most "neutral" accents. Nebraska was said to have been pitching that. I'm told by a Nebraskan that she thinks the accent is neutral except for Washington, which they pronounced "Waa-shington." [Moderator's Note: This is also true. Telemarketers have enough to do trying to get people to stay on the line; listen; and buy their product without worrying about the prejudices people have who they call. Some people might get turned off by the accent. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jon@Turing.ORG (Jon Gefaell (KD4CQY)) Subject: Re: Cellular Interception in Private Talk Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia. Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 03:28:44 GMT > [Moderattor's Note: We have touched upon this several times recently. > Cellular calls are quite easy to intercept on a scanning radio which > covers the 800 mh range of frequencies. The 'technical problems' > consist of sometimes having to make a small modification in the radio > itself. Conversations cannot easily be followed between cells. PAT] I must disagree here. Cellular telephone conversations can certainly be relatively easily followed as the radios switch cells. Frequencies are laid out according to a plan across the cells in any region. By scanning frequencies allocated in cells immediately adjacent to the cell the conversation was last heard in one can reduce the number of seeks required to re-intercept the communications. In practice, one can locate a conversation again following a cell transfer within a few seconds. I suppose the keyword is 'relative' IF you're interested in sitting back in your armchair and hearing conversations without interuption, it's not likely you'll be entirely successful. However, if you're properly motivated, with a little effort and research you can maintain succesful survielance of cellular telephone communications. Of course, I have no practical experience with any of this, and am speaking purely theoreticaly. It is a violation of federal law to intercept cellular telephone communications. Your mileage may vary. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 11:24:48 BST From: Bill Berbenich Reply-To: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu Many Audiovox cellular phones have an unlimited number of NAMs. It is not a pre-programmed, automatic thing, however. All one has to do to change NAMs is to enter the five-digit system ID and ten-digit phone number for the new NAM, then press Func-6. The new NAM will be in effect until it is changed. This works an unlimited number of times. Granted, one must keep track of system IDs and phone numbers, but anyone who uses more than four NAMs would probably be able to keep that sort of thing straight anyway. Bill Berbenich, School of EE, DSP Lab Georgia Tech, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{backbones}!gatech!eedsp!bill Internet: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu [Moderator's Note: I'd think that unless one was *constantly* in various cities around the USA and almost always 'roaming' somewhere there would be a point at which maintaining several accounts with different cell companies (to make the use of multiple nams possible) would exceed the cost of paying for roaming calls. Really, about the only reason for more than one nam is to be able to use the phone in 'local' service in more that one area. At some point the financial bottom line would tip the other way, I'd think. Maybe at four? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 11:58:19 EDT From: Tom Coradeschi Subject: Re: Question About Air Phones Organization: Electric Armts Div, US Army ARDEC, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ Tdarcos@f120.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Tdarcos) writes: > In a movie I saw last night on TV, a woman wanted to call someone and > saw an airplane telephone. She "swiped" her credit card through the > mag card reader, removed the card, then took the handset away. > Is this correct? She ended up with both the handset and the credit > card (she did put the handset back). I thought that the base unit > required that it retain the credit card to prevent someone from > (accidentally or intentionally) walking off with the handset. It sounds weird. The cordless AirFones (typically two to four per plane) capture your credit card. The permanently wired ones (you'll find it in the back of the seat in front of you, typically one fone per three seats) allow a swipe of the credit card, but are, as I said, permanently wired. tom coradeschi <+> tcora@pica.army.mil ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 12:40:37 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: N0N/N1N Exchanges and 1+ Dialing >> In New York and New Jersey, you dial 1+ before an area code. > Not quite correct. Area code 516 which adjoins area code 718 does > not require 1+ dialing for any type of call. It's N0X/N1X-NNX-XXXX > for out of area code and NNX-XXXX. Strictly speaking, it should be N0X/N1X-NXX-XXXX for out of area code; and the NNX-XXXX shown above is within area code (516 not having N0X/ N1X prefixes that I know of). This applies to 516 and also to southern part of 914 (another part of country code 1 still having this method is the San Jose part of area 408 in California). The rest of New York state, as far as I know, has 1 (+area code, if different from where you're calling) + 7D for long distance. I guess that N.Y.state outside of NYC would change to the NYC method (7D within area code and 1 + NPA + 7D for other area codes) to prepare for NXX area codes. ------------------------------ From: deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) Subject: Re: The Smallest US Telephone Company Organization: AT&T Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 16:54:44 GMT In article gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) writes: > In article TELECOM Moderator notes: >> the smallest phone company however. There is (or was) a guy in >> Colorado who owned a telco with *eight* subscribers. > How does he qualify as a telco per se? How does this differ from any > organization that buys its own PBX? To which PAT answers: > [Moderator's Note: I think he qualifies as a telco instead of a 'PBX' > because he has several users who are not associated with each other > through any common affinity group, i.e. not all of the same employer; > not all of the same residential premises, etc. Additionally, in some (or many) states, one would have to register with the Public Service Commission (or equivalent) as a "registered common carrier", indicating that one is willing to abide by all the laws and regulations which apply in the state to telecommunications common carriers. Depending on state regulations, one may also be required to file tariffs, etc. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #752 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa03179; 2 Oct 92 9:58 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA07335 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Fri, 2 Oct 1992 07:53:18 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA24294 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Fri, 2 Oct 1992 07:53:07 -0500 Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 07:53:07 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210021253.AA24294@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #753 TELECOM Digest Fri, 2 Oct 92 07:53:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 753 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Canada to Mexico Link Now Under Teleglobe (Global Connections; D. Leibold) Teleglobe Inaugurates Direct Service With Ukraine (David Leibold) TPC-4 Cable Nearly Ready (Canada, U.S., Japan Traffic) (David Leibold) MCC First Cities in Dallas (Bruce Klopfenstein) Centel of Florida Merging With Sprint Corp. (isjjgcd@prism.gatech.edu) Corporate Internal Networks - Ownership and Maintainance (Sashidhar Reddy) First Night Looking For Multi-Line System (David Leibold) Switch to Connect/Disconnect Phone Line (Richard Tjoa) Recommendations for an Emergency Phone System (John A. Romano) DC Taxi Licenses (Andrew Klossner) Pen Registers (Ray Normandeau) Non-Air Air-Phone (Christopher Wolf) Need PC Programming Software for American Tele (Fujitsu) Focus (C. J. Lord) Ridiculous Prices For Phone Call (John R. Levine) Re: New 540 Scam (Carl Moore) Re: Two-Line Switching Device (Doug Sewell) My Favourite 'Stupid' Intercept (David M. Miller) Re: Favorite Intercepts (Lauren Weinstein) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 01 Oct 92 18:39:43 EDT From: David Leibold Subject: Canada to Mexico Link Now Under Teleglobe From the Aug-Sep '92 {Global Connections} publication from Teleglobe: Teleglobe to carry Canada-Mexico traffic: As of September 1, Teleglobe Canada has carried international telephone traffic between Canada and Mexico. This is the result of an interconnection agreement between Teleglobe and Telmex, Mexico's carrier, and a companion agreement between Teleglobe and Stentor, which represents Canada's domestic telephone companies. Canada-Mexico traffic was traditionally carried by the domestic Canadian telephone companies via American carriers' networks. The agreements will lead to benefits for Canadians such as acceptance of Canadian calling cards in Mexico. Negotiations are under way for a wider variety of services, and the agreements give Teleglobe, Stentor, and other Canadian carriers more flexibility in rate setting, which will likely improve rates for consumers. dleibold@vm1.yorku.ca ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Oct 92 18:49:47 EDT From: David Leibold Subject: Teleglobe Inaugurates Direct Service With Ukraine From {Global Connections}, Aug-Sept 1992: In mid-July, the Ukrainian Ambassador to Canada officially placed the first phone call from Canada to Ukraine which was not routed through Moscow. The telephone call was made during a two-way videoconference between the Ambassador in Montreal and government officials in Kiev. Telephone traffic volume, currently almost 30,000 minutes a week, is expected to triple by year-end; the new direct telephone circuits to Ukraine will be tripled or quadrupled accordingly. dleibold@vm1.yorku.ca ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Oct 92 18:47:01 EDT From: David Leibold Subject: TPC-4 Cable Nearly Ready (Canada, U.S., Japan Traffic) From Teleglobe's {Global Connections}, Aug-Sept 1992 New cable knits Teleglobe's network together: On June 11, the C.S. {Global Sentinel} began laying the shore end of the TPC-4 fiber-optic cable just off Port Alberni, British Columbia. Laying of the 9800 km cable was completed in mid-August. The fiber-optic system will connect Teleglobe's Port Alberni Cable Station with Point Arena (California) and Chikura (Japan) starting October 31, 1992. dleibold@vm1.yorku.ca ------------------------------ From: klopfens@andy.bgsu.edu (Bruce Klopfenstein) Subject: MCC First Cities in Dallas Organization: Bowling Green State University B.G., Oh. Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 23:14:56 GMT I'm told that at a panel at SIGGRAPH, Bruce Sidran from a company called MCC First Cities described an effort to test a video-to-the-home service. Apparently, several communities are going to be used as test sites for varied approaches to providing digital telecommunications/ video to the home. I'm interested in learning more about this project (and other projects like it around the country) as well as anything about this particular company. Thanks for any help. Bruce C. Klopfenstein klopfens@andy.bgsu.edu Department of Telecommunications klopfenstein@bgsuopie.bitnet 322 West Hall klopfens@bgsuvax.UUCP ------------------------------ From: isjjgcd@prism.gatech.edu Subject: Centel of Florida Merging With "Sprint Corporation" Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 19:36:57 EDT Quarter-page advertisement on page 9A in the Thursday, October 1, 1992 edition of the {Tallahassee Democrat}, Tallahassee, Florida: "Notice to Customers of Central Telephone Company of Florida "Notice is hereby given that Centel Corporation and Sprint Corporation have entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger which, if consumated [sic], will indirectly transfer the majority operational control of Central Telephone Company of Florida to Sprint Corporation. Centel Corporation, Central Telephone Company, Central Telephone Company of Florida and Sprint Corporation have filed a joint petition with the Florida Public Service Commission for approval of the acquisition of the stock of Centel Corporation by Sprint Corporation and thereby indirectly transfer the majority organization control of Central Telephone Company of Florida to Sprint Corporation. "The joint petition does not propose a change to the rates of services in effect for Central Telephone Company of Florida." Ok, I'll admit I have no idea whether the "Sprint Corporation" mentioned is the same as US Sprint, the IXC we all know and toward which some of us are ambivalent. If it isn't, though, wouldn't the ad have made that clear? If it is, what next? Merger of AT&T with BellSouth? I just don't get it. [Moderator's Note: I think the Sprint Corporation is one of the various subsidiaries of US Sprint, which itself is a subsidiary, etc. Suffice to say, Central is being bought by Sprint. That's all you need to know; guess who will provide Central's LD service in the future! PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Oct 92 19:33:42 EST From: Sashidhar K. Reddy Subject: Corporate Internal Networks - Ownership and Maintainance I have one simple question. Roughly what percentage of corporate internal networks are * maintained by the carriers; * owned completely by the companies themselves. If you think this is too trivial, reply to me by email. Thanks, sashidhar BITNET: kondared@purccvm INTERNET: kondared@mace.cc.purdue.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Oct 92 23:11:05 EDT From: David Leibold Subject: First Night Looking For Multi-Line System First Night Toronto is looking for a multi-line telephone system, with capability to work with ten or more lines. The intent is to have the system in place to field inquiries and various calls. It appears that what they would be looking for is something of a call distributor type system, more than an extension-based system per se (although they may want separate lines for separate departments or desks). I don't know if they want to go the full "on-hold" or "press 1 for this, press 2 for that, press 0 for actual civilisation", etc, but variable numbers of volunteers to field calls can be expected. By way of introduction, First Night is a New Years Eve community celebration whose main emphasis is the lack of alcohol. It started in Boston years ago and became a huge success in other cities, and now Toronto (the first Toronto First Night was held last New Years Eve). Much of the event depends on corporate donations and the like, and if anyone out there should know of some lonely inbound call equipment (used and usable should be okay), or would like more information on what exactly is needed, or on anything else above, please call First Night Toronto at +1 416 362.3692 (voice). Do not post to the Digest; direct inquiries to First Night are preferred; contact me via net mail as a secondary resort (they don't have e-mail ... yet.) Thanks folks, dleibold@vm1.yorku.ca dleibold1@attmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 23:30:13 -0700 From: tjoa@cory.berkeley.edu (Richard Tjoa) Subject: Switch to Connect/Disconnect Phone Line I was in the process of making a switch for a friend of mine with a speech impairment that would disconnect his TDD when he was just using it to communicate with people in the room. When he turns on and starts typing on his TDD, it renders the phone line busy. What he wants me to do is to put in some kind of switch that will disable or enable the device to communicate over the phone line. So, my question is: What is the best wire to install the switch on? Red? Green? Both? Richard [Moderator's Note: You could split the connection on either the red or green wire or you could use a double-pole double-throw switch and break both wires which might be best if there are other extensions which might want to use the phone when the TDD is not. Either way would probably work fine. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tazman@wam.umd.edu (John A. Romano) Subject: Recommendations for an Emergency Phone System Organization: University of Maryland, College Park Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 18:23:33 GMT Hi! I am looking for recommendations/information on campus-wide emergency phone systems. Right now at the University of Maryland we have a proprietary AT&T system which has been less-than-reliable and terribly time consuming and costly to upgrade. I would like to evaluate some alternative systems which provide the following features: -Display of off-hook and trouble conditions (Some sort of Auto Circuit Assurance); -Monitoring software that runs on a PC; -Easy administration (doesn't require a rocket scientist or a call to the vendor to add a phone); -Remote notification of system trouble; -Ability to handle at least 200 phones; -Either readily available off-the-shelf parts or the availibility to purchase a maintainence contract with 24 hour turn around time. Any and all information would be most helpful. Thanks in advance! John Romano UMCP Communication Services jromano@umdacc.umd.edu tazman@wam.umd.edu ------------------------------ From: andrew@frip.wv.tek.com (Andrew Klossner) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 16:10:05 PDT Subject: DC Taxi Licenses Reply-To: andrew@frip.wv.tek.com Organization: Tektronix Color Printers, Wilsonville, Oregon > "... the "H" series plates always have five digits after them. > They have to. They're for taxicabs." > "Your implication is there are at least 10,000 taxi cabs ..." Not any more so than an implication that 10^16 VISA cards exist. There's no reason to assume that a numeric tag space will be densely filled, and in fact it's a good idea *not* to fill the space. If taxicab licenses were unique in their first four digits and the fifth digit acted as a check digit, single-digit errors in reading the plates could be detected. I wish the North American telephone numbering plan used redundant digits. This would cut way down on completed calls to wrong numbers. Andrew Klossner (andrew@frip.wv.tek.com) (uunet!tektronix!frip.WV.TEK!andrew) ------------------------------ Subject: Pen Registers From: ray.normandeau@factory.com (Ray Normandeau) Date: 1 Oct 92 01:20:00 GMT Organization: Invention Factory's BBS - New York City, NY - 212-274-1243v.32bis Reply-To: ray.normandeau@factory.com (Ray Normandeau) The following is from the PHONES SIG of Invention Factory BBS. > Those of you who have seen the latest DAMARK catalog may have > noticed the Galaxis Call Register. > These are better known by three other names: > 1. (old )Pen Register > 2. (just as old) pen recorder > 3. (the current name) Dialed Number Recorder (DNR) > I've just received the unit ... Stay tuned for details. As more information becomes available I will post here. In the meantime, Damark can be contacted at: 800-729-9000 orders 800-729-4744 Product Information Fax 612-531-0281 ------------------------------ From: cmwolf@mtu.edu (CHRISTOPHER WOLF) Subject: Non-Air Air-Phone Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 8:52:26 EDT When I took the ferry across Lake Michigan from MI to WI this summer, there was a phone or two on board that looked like the phones on air-planes. How does this work being only 100ft off the ground, in the middle of a lake? Christopher Wolf cmwolf@mtu.edu [Moderator's Note: Maybe they were not Airphones but were operated like marine radios. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Charles J. Lord From: cjl@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Charles J. Lord) Subject: Need PC Programming Software For American Tele (Fujitsu) Focus Organization: Triangle R&D Corp,RTP,NC Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 14:45:52 GMT I am searching for the PC (as in "IBM") software package that American Telecom (or Fujitsu) supposively sold as the "Enhanced Database Support System Package" or EDSS. This software allowed you to program the Focus 50/100/200 hybrid EKS/PBX with a common PC rather than the overly expensive console ... all calls have been a dead end, as Sales doesn't deal in obselete equipment like the Focus, and Service doesn't want to give up a cash cow in providing every little programming change at $100/hr. Anyone heard of this beast? Thanks! C. Lord cjl@ecsvax.uncecs.edu ------------------------------ Subject: Ridiculous Prices Organization: I.E.C.C. Date: 1 Oct 92 11:59:27 EDT (Thu) From: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) > [A] 540 number, with a $225/minute charge. Only in New York City would regulators let a telco try to collect $225/minute. Sheesh. On a slightly related note, what's the most expensive real phone call one can make in the U.S.? My candidate is Inmarisat satellite phones, at $10/minute via AT&T or a low, low $9.99 via MCI or Sprint. And how does Inmarisat plan to compete with Iridium, whose rates have been proposed down in the $1/minute range? John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 13:43:14 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: New 540 Scam This apparently refers to calls in NYC and New York suburbs. Do the same numbers on 540 prefix work from all such area codes, or is it possible to have a 540 number working in some but not other such area codes? $225/hour looks VERY steep, even though I have seen late-night ads for "900" numbers. Doesn't anyone review such charges before the numbers on 540 are turned on? As for the scam: Be strict about identifying visitors (for example, phone company people who need to visit homes or businesses have to carry phone company photo ID), and make sure only authorized people place or accept calls (you could offer to make the call yourself, but you'd want to block 540 and/or remember what 540 is). ------------------------------ From: doug@cc.ysu.edu (Doug Sewell) Subject: Re: Two-Line Switching Device Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 20:50:38 GMT Bob_Frankston@frankston.com writes: > I think that Radio Shack used to and might still sell a device > designed for sharing an answering machine on two lines. It will > respond to a call coming in on either line. I presume that the first > line is still the default for outgoing. Unlike the switch box, it > would be automatic. Since I never used the device, I might be wrong. They sense an incoming call on either line (it takes the two-line -- RJ14? -- input and sends output to an RJ11 ... RS also has the 2xRJ11 to one RJ14 cords). Outgoing calls are placed on the line that most recently received an incoming call. They're only $9.95, but I've had two of them fail already (the second one was a replacement for the first one). They seemed ideal for an answering machine or a cordless phone, but they just don't seem to work very well, after a while they refuse to answer one of the lines. I got a cheap answering machine for the second line (it's a listed/data line anyway, without a phone on it) instead, and have been much more satisfied. Doug Sewell, Tech Support, Computer Center, Youngstown State University doug@cc.ysu.edu doug@ysub.bitnet !cc.ysu.edu!doug ------------------------------ Subject: My Favourite 'Stupid' Intercept Date: Thu, 01 Oct 92 20:21:43 -0500 From: dmiller@elli.une.edu.au As some readers may know, the second telecommunications carrier (Optus) is currently setting up shop in Oz. The international access code for Optus is 0099 (versus the "normal" 0011), with service currently to New Zealand only. When one dials 0099 + any country code besides New Zealand, the intercept is: Optus service to the country you have dialed is not yet available. Please try again, and if unsuccessful call the operator on 0100. This is a Telecom announcement. While I appreciate the speed with which the industry progresses, I somehow doubt the message was well thought out ... Best regards, David M Miller Internet: dmiller@elli.une.edu.au PO Box 695 CompuServe: 100032,341 Hornsby NSW 2077 Australia ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 19:25 PDT From: lauren@cv.vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Re: Favorite Intercepts Greetings. There's no question about my all time favorite telco intercept recording. In the early 70's, a Culver City, CA (213-836 plus other prefixes at that time) intercept drum failed and resulted in the playback: "I am sorry. This is a recording." It ran that way for months. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #753 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa02086; 3 Oct 92 2:29 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA07488 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sat, 3 Oct 1992 00:14:15 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA20978 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sat, 3 Oct 1992 00:14:04 -0500 Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 00:14:04 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210030514.AA20978@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #754 TELECOM Digest Sat, 3 Oct 92 00:14:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 754 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Centel of Florida Merging With "Sprint Corporation" (Fred R. Goldstein) Re: Centel of Florida Merging With "Sprint Corporation" (Syd Weinstein) Re: Centel of Florida Merging With "Sprint Corporation" (John R. Levine) Re: Centel of Florida Merging With "Sprint Corporation" (Bill Huttig) Re: Centel of Florida Merging With "Sprint Corporation" (Robert McMillin) Re: Internet White Pages (Otis Brown) Re: Internet White Pages (Page Carter) Re: Internet White Pages (James Deibele) Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached (John McHarry) Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached (Phydeaux) Re: Question About Air Phones (Armando P. Stettner) Re: Question About Air Phones (Gordon Hlavenka) Re: Question About Air Phones (Henry Mensch) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: goldstein@carafe.enet.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein) Subject: Re: Centel of Florida Merging With "Sprint Corporation" Organization: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton MA USA Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 22:28:32 GMT In article , isjjgcd@prism.gatech.edu writes: > "Notice is hereby given that Centel Corporation and Sprint > Corporation have entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger which, > if consumated [sic], will indirectly transfer the majority operational > control of Central Telephone Company of Florida to Sprint Corporation. > Ok, I'll admit I have no idea whether the "Sprint Corporation" > mentioned is the same as US Sprint, the IXC we all know and toward > which some of us are ambivalent. If it isn't, though, wouldn't the ad > have made that clear? If it is, what next? Merger of AT&T with > BellSouth? I just don't get it. Sprint was originally Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Telecommunications, and began public services in the mid-1970s. It was then sold to GTE, who then sold part of it to United Telecommunications, a major holding company for "independent" (non-Bell) telcos. GTE's interest kept dwindling, until last year when UT bought the rest. Then UT, whose local telco operations were smaller than Sprint long distance, changed its corporate name to Sprint Corp. They still operate "United Telephone" in many states, though. And the LD operations are separate from the local ones. So Centel's local telephone operations were bought by the United system, which renamed itself Sprint last year. BTW, the "small" telephone company that serves Disney World, "Vista United Telephone", is (or was) a joint venture of United (now Sprint Corp.) and Disney. Fred R. Goldstein goldstein@carafe.tay2.dec.com k1io or goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com voice:+1 508 952 3274 Standard Disclaimer: Opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission. ------------------------------ From: syd@dsi.com (Syd Weinstein) Subject: Re: Centel of Florida Merging With "Sprint Corporation" Reply-To: syd@dsi.com Organization: Datacomp Systems, Inc. Huntingdon Valley, PA Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 19:44:42 GMT TELECOM Moderator notes: > [Moderator's Note: I think the Sprint Corporation is one of the > various subsidiaries of US Sprint, which itself is a subsidiary, etc. > Suffice to say, Central is being bought by Sprint. That's all you need > to know; guess who will provide Central's LD service in the future! PAT] No, let me set the 'Parentage Straight' ... United Telecom, which does its Local Excange Service under the name United Telephone, recently bought out GTE from the US Sprint Limited Partnership. At that time, the decided to change the name of United Telecom to Sprint, as it has a wider recognition. All the shareholders had to vote on it (as if that mattered, the big blocks decided it I am sure) So: United Telecom became: Sprint Corporation; US Sprint Limited Partnership died as of the buyout and is now just Sprint United Telephone; well, it sounds like they may be moving those to the Spirnt name soon also ... Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP Elm Coordinator - Current 2.3PL11 Datacomp Systems, Inc. Projected 2.4 Release: Oct 1,1992 syd@DSI.COM or dsinc!syd Voice: (215) 947-9900, FAX: (215) 938-0235 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Centel of Florida Merging With "Sprint Corporation" Organization: I.E.C.C. Date: 2 Oct 92 12:34:39 EDT (Fri) From: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) > [a plan to] transfer the majority operational > control of Central Telephone Company of Florida to Sprint Corporation. > Ok, I'll admit I have no idea whether the "Sprint Corporation" > mentioned is the same as US Sprint, ... Last spring, US Telecom finally bought out GTE's share of Sprint long distance (which according to its bills is the "Sprint Communications Company Limited Partnership".) At that time, US Tel changed its name to Sprint Corp. This makes Sprint the only company in the U.S. to have a significant presence in all three of the local, long distance, and cellular markets. Their press releases use the word 'synergy' a lot. I don't know whether they'd be allowed to switch customers to Sprint long distance -- as far as I know, only the RBOCs and GTE are required to provide equal access. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl Cheap shot: There were several messages about this in the Digest, but I guess all that Wagner blasting away has addled poor Pat's memory. :-) [Moderator's Note: Ahem ... (just waking up) ... did I hear my name taken in vain? PAT] ------------------------------ From: wah@zach.fit.edu ( Bill Huttig) Subject: Re: Centel of Florida Merging Wiith "Sprint Corporation" Date: 2 Oct 92 15:02:30 GMT Organization: Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne USA Just a short history on Sprint since PAT missed the change of owner. Sprint was founded by some railroad company and stood for Southern Pacific Railway(?) Internal Network (something like that) They sold it to GTE ... GTE also owned GTE Telenet (packet net). Another company called US TELECOM was owned by United Telephone which owned Unitel (packet net). Back in July, 1986 they merged the four subsidaries into US Sprint Ltd. and used the names US Sprint for the IXC and Telenet for the Packet it was 50% owned by United and 50% by GTE ... over the years GTE sold it percent to United and finally sold the rest this year at that time United Telephone Changed its name to Sprint. Then Sprint decided to merge with Centel ... (I saw a few United Telephone Compnay of Florida Trucks with the Sprint logo on instead of the United logo.) Bill [Moderator's Note: US Telecom should not be confused with Telecom*USA which merged with MCI several months ago. And Sprint was the Southern Pacific Railroad's internal telecom operation. When they upgraded it they decided to sell the excess capacity to the public probably since they had so many phreaks among the public using it anyway; why not make some money from it. :) PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 07:25:06 -0700 From: rlm@indigo2.hac.com (Robert L. McMillin) Subject: Re: Centel of Florida Merging With "Sprint Corporation" [stuff deleted about Sprint buying out Centel of Florida] US Sprint used to be a subsidiary of United Telecom. This latter organization renamed itself after its largest operating entity, namely, Sprint. The "US" was dropped about a year or more ago as being too parochial for a business involved in international telecom services, whatever quality those on c.d.t may find them to be. Robert L. McMillin | Voice: (310) 568-3555 Hughes Aircraft/Hughes Training, Inc. | Fax: (310) 568-3574 Los Angeles, CA | Internet: rlm@indigo2.hac.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Internet White Pages Date: Sat, 3 Oct 92 0:54:16 GMT From: Otis Brown PAT et al, Having just tried to register in the White Pages, the following is the result ... Dear Internet User, Sorry, but we prefer not to register Internet users in the whois database unless they are administrators or contact points for domains, networks, hosts, or ASNs. This policy change has been recently instituted per NSF instructions because, with millions of users on the Internet, a single central directory is no longer feasible. Instead, local sites are encouraged to establish their own whois database. If you are a valid point of contact for an Internet entity and must be registered, please resubmit your data to us with a brief explanation. If you need the user registration template, you may obtain it by anonymous FTP from nic.ddn.mil. It is in the netinfo directory, filename user-template.txt. Regards, Registrar@nic.ddn.mil -------------------- Otis Brown ------------------------------ From: rcarter@gizmo.nic.ddn.mil (Page Carter) Subject: Re: Internet White Pages Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 10:47:27 PST This is to try to clarify, for the moment, the policy on the registration of Internet users at the NIC. The NIC, at the direction of the National Science Foundation (NSF), no longer accepts registration of Internet users, unless they are contact persons for registered networks, domains, hosts, etc. The following is from a recent statement circulated on the "comm-priv" forum by Stephen Wolff, director of the NSF: Subject: Re: the NIC ( aka: "those jokers in the NIC") Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 14:12:56 EDT From: Stephen Wolff Status: OR The NIC's been taking a lot of undeserved heat for what was an NSF decision. DISA has the NIC under contract to serve the DDN. They have augmented the contract to supply **some** services to the rest of the Internet community; this augmentation is paid for by NSF by transferring funds monthly to DISA. When we were negotiating the terms and conditions (and cost) of this augmentation, we said "Don't register hosts, and don't register people." One reason was to save a little money, but the primary reason (as has been alluded to already on this list) is that without central **control** over which hosts and which people use the Internet no one but a fool would accept the (centralized) **responsibility** of keeping such a "registry" up to date. Only a decentralized directory ("registry" sounds too big-brother-ish) of people makes sense. DARPA and NSF have jointly supported the Field Operational X.500 (FOX) experiment, with participation of USC-ISI, SRI, Merit, and Nysernet/PSI. This work has been regularly reported to IETF, and a number of IDs and RFCs have been issued. The experiment is still rather small-scale, as together with the European X.500 trials still (I believe) fewer than a million people are registered worldwide. For a sample, telnet to wp.nyser.net and login as fred. Recently, the NSF conducted a competitive solicitation for Registration/ Information/Directory services for the NREN program and the Internet. This process has nearly run its course, and we hope soon to be able to offer much more comprehensive whois/white_pages service than ever before. Stay tuned. ------------------------------ From: jamesd@techbook.com (James Deibele) Subject: Re: Internet White Pages Organization: TECHbooks of Beaverton Oregon - Public Access Unix Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 01:35:57 GMT FZC@CU.NIH.GOV writes: > [Moderator's Note: I received a few others like this regards the > Internet White Pages message. The information is repeated below. PAT] > RFC 1202 states that ANYONE with an Internet Mail address is entitled > to have that address listed in the Internet white pages, provided they > send in an application to the registrar with their E-Mail address. There's been an ongoing discussion of this on the com-priv (think that's right) mailing list, which is devoted to the commercialization of the Internet. The NIC doesn't want to register anyone except people who are responsible for administering hosts because of the overhead involved in keeping the database up-to-date. If you insist, they'll do it, but they don't really want to. (Somebody from NIC said it's less trouble to enter somebody than to argue with them. ) This was once much simpler than it is now. It's been asserted several times that the Internet is still growing exponentially, which is probably true. With millions of people out there, it's like trying to keep the New York City or Chicago phone books up-to-date. Discussion now is about the prospects of anyone being able to provide an accurate directory of Internet users -- where would it be, who would pay for it, how could you update it as needed, how could you stop people from playing games with other peoples' listings, etc. jamesd@techbook.COM Voice: +1 503 223-4245 PDaXs gives free access to news & mail. (503) 220-0636 - 1200/2400, N81 ------------------------------ From: mcharry@mitre.org (John McHarry(J23)) Subject: Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached Organization: The MITRE Corporation Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 19:02:12 GMT > [Moderator's Note: You say the cell company 'paid $300 of the phone's > cost' but some of us believe the prices of cell phones are > artificially inflated so the cell company can then 'offer them at a > cheaper price.' Last I knew, what was going on was that the cellular provider was paying cell phone retailers a bounty for new subscribers. The going rate was about $250. Since the phones are standardized and made by a number of companies, I don't think the carriers have much control over the equipment pricing strategy. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 12:44:55 PDT From: reb@ingres.com (Phydeaux) Subject: Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached In article tdarcos@mcimail.com writes: > On page B5 of today's (9/29) {Washington Post}, a place is offering a > cellular phone for a low price provided you take a one year contract > with Cellular One. > [Moderator's Note: Cellular One here in Chicago is always running > deals like you mention. The other day an ad in the paper offered a bag > phone for a penny (yes, one cent!) provided you signed a contract with I'll be moving from Chicago to NYC/NJ shortly. I'm looking at getting a second number added to my phone, as well as getting an additional phone in the NYC/NJ area. In my travels it seems that none of the dealers are particularly excited or even interested in signing me up. It's like this is the price, here's the contract, sign it if you want. I've been trying to figure out which company (Bell Atlantic or Cell One) has better service, rates, coverage, etc. None of the dealers even care to discuss this. Does anyone have an opinion as to which carrier is better? In Chicago Ameritech will give you something like $150 of credit if you have a phone and sign up with them. Some dealers have giveaways to customers who have phones and sign up with them. Is there any similar deal in the NYC market? reb -- *-=#= Phydeaux =#=-* reb@ingres.com or reb%ingres.com@lll-winken.llnl.GOV ICBM: 41.55N 87.40W h:828 South May Street Chicago, IL 60607 312-733-3090 w:reb Ingres 10255 West Higgins Road Suite 500 Rosemont, IL 60018 708-803-9500 ------------------------------ From: aps@world.std.com (Armando P. Stettner) Subject: Re: Question About Air Phones Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 18:21:33 GMT There are basically two types of "public airphones:" The older phone is the one on the wall of the cabin (typically up front or in the back of the cabin, by the bathrooms). These units require one to put a credit card into a slide and the card is held while the uncorded handset is released. The newer airphones can be found at your seat, typically in the back of the middle seat in front of you. You use your credit card to unlatch the corded handset. You then swipe the card on the card-swipe unit which is on the seatback. The prices have gone down and the quality is much better though I suspect it has little if anything to do with the actual units. armando ------------------------------ From: cgordon@vpnet.chi.il.us (gordon hlavenka) Subject: Re: Question About Air Phones Organization: Vpnet Public Access Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1992 00:45:13 GMT In article TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM writes: > In a movie I saw last night on TV, a woman wanted to call someone and > saw an airplane telephone. She "swiped" her credit card through the > mag card reader, removed the card, then took the handset away. > Is this correct? There are two types of telephones being operated on airplanes by GTE. One of these is a cordless unit which captures your credit card and returns it when the handset is replaced. The second type is a seatback unit with a cord. The seatback unit does not capture your credit card. The telephones installed by In-Flight Phone Corp. are also seatback mounted and have cords. They do not retain your credit card either. Often, Hollywood modifies reality a bit in order to make the screenplay a little easier. Another glaring example is the fact that upward calling to a commercial airplane just does _not_ exist. (Yet, but that's another post.) Gordon S. Hlavenka cgordon@vpnet.chi.il.us ------------------------------ From: henry@ads.com (Henry Mensch) Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 14:18:01 -0700 Subject: Re: Question About Air Phones Reply-To: henry@ads.com Tdarcos@f120.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Tdarcos) wrote: > Is this correct? She ended up with both the handset and the credit > card (she did put the handset back). I thought that the base unit > required that it retain the credit card to prevent someone from > (accidentally or intentionally) walking off with the handset. When the "base unit" is in the seat back you get your card back since the handset is wired to the seat ... (And yes, they still work poorly. I tried one a few weeks ago. What a rip.) # henry mensch / booz, allen & hamilton, inc. / ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #754 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa03813; 3 Oct 92 3:27 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA07237 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sat, 3 Oct 1992 01:15:26 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA05722 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sat, 3 Oct 1992 01:15:16 -0500 Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 01:15:16 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210030615.AA05722@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #755 TELECOM Digest Sat, 3 Oct 92 01:15:15 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 755 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Wash Post Buys Cable Channel (Washington Post via Paul Robinson) Exchange Codes Near Area Code Boundaries (Philip Gladstone) Port Authority Workers Vote CWA Representation (Phillip Dampier) What's in a NAM (John Gilbert) British Call Waiting (Richard Cox) Cable Companies Shutting Down For Maintainence (Richard Cox) French Telecom Pay Phones (was: My Favorite Intercepts) (Eric Tholome) Network Installation Box Installation Rules (David Ofsevit) Living in the Past (Bob Frankston) SYSLAW: A Review (Mike Riddle) Help Needed With Modem Problem (Dale Leonard) References Wanted to Government Telecom Expenditures (Bert Cowlan) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1992 20:24:26 EDT Subject: Wash Post buys Cable Channel (Wash Post via Paul Robinson) Business Digest, {Washington Post}, October 1, 1992, Page D13 Washington Post Buys Cable Channel. The Washington Post Co. said it has purchased the Pro Am Sports System, a Michigan sports cable television channel, from Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino's Pizza. The company did not disclose details of the sale agreement. PASS has 760,000 subscribers in the state. Other news in the same issue: GSA Re-awards FTS 2000 in same percentages. The GSA re-awarded the government-phone service contract called FTS-2000 to AT&T and Sprint, the two long-distance carriers that have been providing service to the government since 1988, when the contract was first awarded. AT&T will continue to handle 60 percent of the government's voice, data and video network, with Sprint accounting for the other 40 percent. The value of the contract over 10 years is estimated at $25 billion. Separately, AT&T said the federal government's long-distance telephone rates will be reduced by 24 percent under the contract. Hughes sells two satellites. Hughes Communications International won a $258 million contract from the Arab Space Communications Corp. for two satelites to be launched on France's Ariane rocket. Intelsat buys two satellites. Intelsat, the communications consortium, will pay $165 million for two GE Astro-Space satellites under a new contract. US West buys digital cellular equipment. US West agreed to buy equipment for its Seattle cellular network that uses digital technology from Nortel, a joint venture of Northern Telecom and Motorola. The purchase is the first commercial application of the technology. Terms were not disclosed. Opinions not necessarily that of this account owner. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 02 Oct 92 20:00:09 EDT From: Philip Gladstone Subject: Exchange Codes Near Area Code Boundaries While I was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota recently, I looked at the local phone book and I observed an interesting phenomenon. The town of Valley Springs is divided into three parts (all with zip code 57068): Valley Springs, SD in area code 605 S. Valley Springs, IA in area code 712 E. Valley Springs, MN in area code 507 The phone book listed three different exchange codes (755, 757, 777) for Valley Springs. However, the listings did not indicate where the person resided [in fact the most common addresses were (absent) and 'RR'] The phone service is provided by Sioux Valley Telephone Co. The dialing instructions were: From Sioux Falls (list of exchanges) dial just seven digits. From any part of Valley Springs, you dial seven digits (for local calls). From non-local towns, you have to dial the area code for exchange 755 (a/c 507) and for exchange 777 (a/c 712). This all implies to me that these exchange codes are allocated in each area code, and somehow all point to the same exchange. Further, it seems that allocating new exchange codes in this area would use up exchange codes in multiple area codes. I realise that in that part of the country, there is probably a lot of free number space -- but is this a typical approach? Philip Gladstone philipg@onsett.com ------------------------------ From: Phillip.Dampier@f228.n260.z1.fidonet.org (Phillip Dampier) Reply-To: phil@rochgte.fidonet.org Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1992 16:29:09 -0500 Subject: Port Authority Workers Vote CWA Representation PORT AUTHORITY WORKERS VOTE CWA REGISTRATION Communications Workers of America NEW YORK -- Nearly 1,000 clerical and technical employees of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have voted to join the Communications Workers of America in one of the largest labor organizing battles of the year. "This is a significant victory," CWA Vice President Jan Pierce said, "We are looking forward to building a strong union at the Port Authority." Final results of the September 25th election were released today, following a count of challenged ballots, showing a vote of 422 to 355 in favor of CWA representation. According to Anne Janks, assigned by CWA Local 1032 to the organizing project last October, the union expects the Port Authority Employment Relations panel to certify the results on Tuesday, October 6. "We're very proud of our members in CWA Local 1032 to the organizing project last October, who are determined and dedicated to making life better for working people," said CWA President Morton Bahr. "We congratulate them, and our new members, on their victory." The organizing drive began last October, after some Port Authority workers expressed interest in union representation. "They were concerned about lack of raises, fair promotion standards, restrictions on the use of sick time, out of title work without compensation and possible loss of health benefits," Janks said. "Dozens of courageous workers in the female-dominated clerical and technical staffs get the credit for this victory," Janks said. "They kept the campaign alive, by talking up the union, handbilling, answering questions, and conducting workplace meetings." The newly-represented workers are assigned to such diverse locations throughout the greater New York City area as the World Trade Center; the Port Authority Bus Terminal at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue; the Newark, LaGuardia, and JFK airports; the Lincoln and Holland tunnels; George Washington bridge; two office complexes in Jersey City; and several other small locations. Their wages range from $15,000 to $35,000, with titles running from "junior clerk" to "supervising office assistant." The Port Authority is a quasi-public "stand alone" agency that was created to facilitate economic development throughout the greater New York City area, and is supported through rents, fees, and tolls. CWA filed a petition for the election on June 21, 1991 with the Port Authority Employment Relations panel, composed of appointed representatives of both states. Blue collar workers and police at the Port Authority already enjoy union representation but another 2,500 Port Authority workers -- administrative and professional employees -- are still unrepresented, Janks added. In five years, Local 1032 has grown from 3,760 to 5,813 workers, exclusive of the Port Authority win. "We made a year-long commitment to this project," President Pete Cerenzo noted. "Without that kind of commitment, this kind of project wouldn't be possible." ------------------------------ From: johng@comm.mot.com (John Gilbert) Subject: What's in a NAM Organization: Motorola, Inc. Land Mobile Products Sector Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 22:33:05 GMT In article bill@eedsp.gatech.edu writes: > Many Audiovox cellular phones have an unlimited number of NAMs. It is > not a pre-programmed, automatic thing, however. > All one has to do to change NAMs is to enter the five-digit system ID > and ten-digit phone number for the new NAM, then press Func-6. The > new NAM will be in effect until it is changed. This works an > unlimited number of times. I wonder what Audiovox does about the "access overload class," "Systems Station class mark," and "Systems group ID mark" fields that are normally part of a NAM? These fields are normally programmed by the dealer when a phone is put on service. John Gilbert johng@ecs.comm.mot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 22:25 GMT From: Richard Cox Subject: British Call Waiting Reply-To: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk Alan M. Gallatin writes: >> The British have won my award for best call waiting handling anywhere. >> However, if you're going to do it, at least do it with style! And Pat added: >> one that IBT could have charged another dollar a month for! :) In the UK, Call Waiting is currently on promotion, and is therefore offered free of charge. Touchtones here have always been (and will always be) free! Richard 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 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 22:24 GMT From: Richard Cox Subject: Cable Companies Shutting Down For Maintainence Reply-To: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk John Higdon (john@ati.com) asks: >> when was the last time your telephone went dead for several hours for >> "maintenance", even in the middle of the night? Mercury, the only "other" LD carrier in the United Kingdom, (an off-shoot of Cable and Wireless) has indeed shut down parts of its network without warning for maintenance, at night and weekends. It is very unpopular when it does this. Unfortunately parts of the Mercury network have also been shut down during peak traffic times for reasons that they seem reluctant to discuss ...! Richard 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 ------------------------------ From: tholome@bangalore.esf.de (Eric Tholome) Subject: French Telecom Pay Phones (was My Favorite Intercepts) Date: 2 Oct 92 09:47:49 GMT Reply-To: tholome@bangalore.esf.de (Eric Tholome) Organization: ESF Headquarters, Berlin, FRG In article , lott@informatik.uni-kl.de (Christopher Lott AGSE) writes: > First, when you call a number from a pay phone, you have to endure a > 45-second advertisement for French Telecom, how wonderful. When > you're trying to get through to a busy number and it takes one minute > just to dial and get a ring (I timed it), this is NOT acceptable. > Paying for a service and then getting hit with an ad that makes the > service basically an order of magnitude slower really infuriated me. Well, Christopher, I've spent quite a long time in France (around 22 years) and made extensive use of pay phones, and I have no idea what you are talking about. What kind of advertisement? I can only think of the little recording that you get when you call a 05- (the French equivalent to 1-800) number that tells you that the receiver of the call is paying for it (but this is no advertising, is it?), or maybe the "on hold" tunes that you can get for minutes when you call an overloaded service, but this isn' t general at all. Regarding the time it takes to connect, before France went to tone dialing, it would take some time to generate the pulses, but this wasn't special to pay phones. Now that most French pay phones use tone dialing, your number is sent in a couple of seconds, and it usually takes no more that five or six seconds to get the ring. Not a minute ... When did you experience this? (twenty years ago?) On how many calls are you building these statistics? (one, two, ten, a hundred, ...?). Please be more specific, so that we can try to understand what happened, but really, your complaint doesn't reflect AT ALL France Telecom's service quality. Disclaimer: my only relation with France Telecom is as a former (usually satisfied) customer. Eric Tholome ESF Headquarters internet: tholome@esf.de Hohenzollerndamm 152 UUCP: tholome@esf.uucp D-1000 Berlin 33 Ph.: +49 30 82 09 03 25 Germany Fax: +49 30 82 09 03 19 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 09:01:11 PDT From: David Subject: Network Installation Box Installation Rules I just had a second phone line installed in my home, and the Network Interface Box was installed on the outside of the house. This strikes me as a problem, since it leaves the box open to weather, vandalism, and theft of service. Also, my phone number is written inside the box (which does have a hole for a padlock, but which is made of flimsy plastic). When I discussed this with the foreman, he told me that this was standard procedure and mandated by the Mass. Department of Public Utilities. The justification is that they need access to the box for test purposes. I don't seem to have any option to have it installed inside the house. Is this proper? Is this practice universal? Have I worked in computer security too much, and am I just too paranoid?? David Ofsevit ------------------------------ From: Bob_Frankston@frankston.com Subject: Living in the Past Date: Fri 2 Oct 1992 16:32 -0400 One frustrating thing about Telco is that they don't understand anything beyond POTS. For example, when installing a line next door, they took out one of my pairs and claim they can't promise to repair it till 5pm tomorrow. I asked them to busy out the line in the interim since anything more complicated would utterly confuse them. But one would think that after a quarter century of ESS service there would be something better than just busying out a line. Why can't I ask for an interecept to say "A problem has been reported on this line, please call back later". Even better would be the ability to record my own interim message. Naah, that would require a company that has a modicum of understanding a competitive marketplace. After all, if car drivers had no choice but to buy buggy whips, why improve them. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 02 Oct 92 16:42:40 CST From: Mike.Riddle@ivgate.omahug.org (Mike Riddle) Subject: SYSLAW: A Review Reply-To: mike.riddle%inns@ivgate.omahug.org Organization: Inns of Court, Papillion, NE SYSLAW, 2nd Edition A Legal Guide for Online Services First, an announcement: > Newsgroups: misc.int-property > From: elrose@well.sf.ca.us (Lance Rose) > Subject: SysLaw, 2nd ed. - Legal Guide for Online Service Providers > Date: Thu Oct 1 16:27:51 1992 > NEW SYSLAW BOOK! MASSIVELY REVISED AND EXPANDED! > SysLaw, Second Edition: The Legal Guide for Online Service > Providers > by Lance Rose, Esq., and Jonathan Wallace, Esq. > SysLaw provides BBS sysops, network moderators and other online > service providers with basic information on their rights and > responsibilities, in a form that non-lawyers can easily understand. > Subjects covered include the First Amendment, copyrights and > trademarks, the user agreement, negligence, privacy, criminal law, > searches and seizures, viruses and adult materials. SysLaw not > only explains the laws, it gives detailed advice enabling system > operators to create the desired balance of user services, freedom, > and protection from risk on their systems. > SysLaw is available from PC Information Group, 800-321-8285 or 507- > 452-2824, and located at 1126 East Broadway, Winona, MN 55987. You > may order by credit card or by mail. Price is $34.95 plus $3.00 > shipping and (if applicable) sales tax. Price is subject to change > after January 1, 1993. For additional information, please contact > publisher Brian Blackledge at 800-321-8285. Second: I have the book at my office, and (third?) have actually read it. Messrs. Rose and Wallace have done an excellent job in explaining the law as applied to BBSes, including the places where the law is "unsettled." In the places where the law is unsettled, they do a good job explaining the legal, social and sometimes moral considerations that a court would consider if the question arose. They sometimes tell you what they think the result might be, or what they think it should be. They caution at the start that until courts consider several cases, and/or until we get appellate decisions, the users and operators incur some degree of risk in engaging in certain activities, such as XXX.GIF. Overall, well worth the cost. <<<< insert standard disclaimer here >>>> mike.riddle@inns.omahug.org Nebraska Inns of Court bc335@cleveland.freenet.edu +1 402 593 1192 (Data) Sysop of 1:285/27@Fidonet 3/12/24/9600 V.32/V.42bis Ybbat (DRBBS) 8.9 v. 3.13 r.3 inns.omahug.org +1 402 593 1192 (1:285/27.0) ------------------------------ From: Sky.Striker@fquest.FidoNet.Org (Sky Striker) Date: 30 Sep 92 18:08:23 Subject: Help Needed With Modem Problem Is anyone out there using a Macintosh and a MultiTech MultiModemV32 (9600 baud)? I'm trying to figure out what I should have the dip switches and the settings at. I have the book on the modem but for some reason I just can't get it setup right. I will connect fine except when it connects and says "Connect 9600 LAPM" then it will run fine for awhile then it will aways with out warning drop carrier on me. Any help any one could give on figuring out what I'm doing wrong would be greatly appreciated. Thanks ... Sky Striker Dale Leonard The above comments are mine only and not those of fquest.fidonet. org. Any flames should be sent to alt.flames as we don't get that here. And no, we have no IP address. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 06:20:54 PDT From: Public Service Telecommunications Consortium Subject: References Wanted to Government Telecom Expenditures In connection with a research project I am seeking statistics on the (preferably worldwide; I'd be happy finding just U.S.) expenditures for telecommunications (telephone, fax, e-mail, telex, data) by the public sector. For my purposes, public sector includes government, the UN and its agencies, foundations, public health and safety administrators/providers, those concerned with disaster warning/ assistance/relief, etc. To my surprise, more than a dozen calls to various U.S. government repositories of statistics turned up no one who could even tell me what the government's bill is. Would anyone be able to (a) provide figures or, (b) point me to public sources? I am also interested in educational organizations expenditures. In short, the costs for telecommunications for that sector of society, sometimes called the public service sector, which provides, for fee or for free, social services. Many thanks. Bert Cowlan. Public Service Telecommunications Corporation/International, on IGC. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #755 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa05582; 3 Oct 92 4:18 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA03821 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sat, 3 Oct 1992 01:55:40 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA16008 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sat, 3 Oct 1992 01:55:31 -0500 Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 01:55:31 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210030655.AA16008@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #756 TELECOM Digest Sat, 3 Oct 92 01:55:28 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 756 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson 13 Firms Plan Multimedia Consortium (Washington Post via Paul Robinson) Comments on the Multimedia Article (Paul Robinson) Global Connections Subscriptions Available (David Leibold) Lost in Translation (Rich Greenberg) Files Available For Download: 1992 FCC Modem User's Fees (James Leonard) Manufacturers of Phone Patches Wanted (Thomas David Kehoe) Information Needed: IOM-2 Interface (Yee-Lee Shyong) Statistics Needed: How Many PBX's? (Paul Cook) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1992 20:27:04 EDT Subject: 13 Firms Plan Multimedia Consortium 13 Firms Plan Multimedia Consortium By John Burgess, Washington Post Staff Writer {Washington Post} October 1, 1992, Pg D13 A diverse group of 13 U.S. technology companies plans to announce next week that the firms will work together to bring to American homes an array of new electronic services, including movies on demand, electronic newspapers, picture telephones and others, according to industry sources. The "First Cities" consortium will bring together such companies as Apple Computer Inc., Eastman Kodak Co. and Corning Inc., under the auspices of the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corp., a computer industry group in Austin, Tex., that operates with the approval of the U.S. Government. The joint effort reflects heightened momentum toward a merger of disparate computer, entertainment and communications technologies into a new form of sound-and-sight service known broadly as "multimedia." The 13 companies plan to study jointly the technological barriers that continue to block such services and to examine what types of services Americans want and how much they are willing to pay for them. "It's a classic chicken versus egg problem," said Tim Regan, vice president and director of public policy for Corning. "We don't know what services will develop until we build the network itself." Though some sources described the venture as being limited to research, Regan said the long-term goal is to wire about 200,000 homes in 10 to 20 American cities as a test. The homes would be connected so that residents served by the network could communicate with each other in radical new ways. For example, they might be able to transmit exceedingly sharp color photographs of their families. For years, visionaries have talked of an era in which every American home would be equipped to receive a wide range of video, education and shopping services. TV sets, computers and telephones would merge into one unit that might be connected to the electronic services by a fiber-optic cable into the home. Individuals would "interact" with the system by pressing buttons on a hand-held control device. But before they invest in the services, companies want a better understanding of the problems that remain. For example, most homes are now equipped only with copper phone lines or a television cable capable of receiving a few dozen channels -- not sufficient for handling two-way transmissions of huge amounts of data of the kind envisioned in the future. Many feel that for the market to take off, the country must have a new communications network capable of opening a video circuit between any given point and another -- just as today's telephone network does for calls. Highly complex software also will be needed to control and manage new networks capable of carrying large amounts of digital data. Telephone companies such as GTE Corp. already are conducting experiments with early versions of "video on demand." Regan said the consortium hopes to create common technical standards to make for ease of use by customers. But questions remain about whether Americans will want these services. Many Americans are still intimidated by computers, but optimists note that companies such as CompuServe and Prodigy have made inroads into American homes by providing on-line information services. International Business Machines Corp. wants to set up a nationwide system that would use cable TV lines, and is discussing this possibility with the nation's largest cable operators, including Time Warner Inc. and Tele-Communications Inc., industry executives have said. Kodak views an interactive communications system as a way to send photos around the country. Apple is developing hand-held "information appliances" that may be linked to a communications network, according to the Associated Press. Corning is the world's largest maker of fiber-optic cable. Staff writer Paul Farhi contributed to this report. ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1992 20:44:04 EDT Subject: Comments on the Multimedia Article > to study jointly the technological barriers that continue to > block such services People want low-cost means of communicating. BBS systems grew for the same reason mushrooms do: the territory is fertile. Calling BBSs can be quite fun and running one can be exciting. The services have to be special to get people to pay for them, and the demand has to be there. Charge people more than alternatives or provide worse service and you might as well not offer the facility in the first place. > to examine what types of services Americans want and how much they > are willing to pay for them." First figure out what you are going to offer, discover how much it will cost, then offer the services and drop that which is uneconomic. Some things that I know there is a demand for can be gotten into inexpensively, such as internet mail, telnet, FTP, reduced cost long-distance data services for networks to transfer mail, commercialization of the internet backbone, and cheaper means for people to call long distance BBSs. It doesn't take a whole lot (for a large telecommunications company) to offer these services, just patience like the mushroom factor: you plant the seeds and you have to wait for them to grow. But it will take time to see what will work and what won't. And you have to go with the flow of the market. Shoving something down people's throats won't work even if it is superior technology, and it definitely won't work if it isn't. > TV sets, computers and telephones would merge into one unit > that might be connected to the electronic services by a fiber- > optic cable into the home." The problem we have is that we have copper wire (or that cheap substitute I can't remember the name for, DXC, DGC or something) which can't handle large bandwidth. When people switched from outhouses to indoor plumbing, they had to rip holes in their houses to accomodate. The simple fact is that if we continue as an industrial and information-driven society, there will be higher demand for more bandwidth. If communications companies are going to make money servicing this demand, the only answer we have is to tear out the wires and put fiber in. We will buy the capacity as we want it. Just have the capacity there and have it low enough cost to allow anyone who can afford a phone now to get in on this stuff. Note to anyone working for a telephone company: Do us all a favor and oversupply capacity! You should build for a factor of one hundred times current capacity, the equivalent of running a small PBX into each house. I believe that 10 fiber optic (FO) cables are the size of one twisted pair, and one FO cable is the equivalent of something like 5,000 phone lines or 20 tv channels. Figure sending 1/2 of the capacity of a FO cable per house, and you can expect to cover the bandwidth demands of the future and several years from now. You can't go wrong overestimating capacity; if one party doesn't use it, someone else will. > Individuals would "interact" with the system by pressing buttons on > a hand-held control device. Or create decent menus and make the response {fast}. The worst thing about Prodigy is not the ads, nor their censoring mail, nor all the other things they've done. It's their torturously slow response time and painfully inadequate menuing system. I've seen cheap BBS systems that had better traversing capability. > Many feel that for the market to take off, the country must have > a new communications network capable of opening a video circuit > between any given point and another -- just as today's telephone > network does for calls. "Video Dial Tone". You can get it now, it's just too expensive. What we need to do is either increase the bandwidth of the individual users or of major corporate users. If the ability to do this becomes available, it will be because someone figured out that they could make money by selling part of the bandwidth. Question: Is being able to call someone from New York to Los Angeles in full color full motion video (FCFMV) worth $1 a minute? Yes; the demand at that price would overwhelm capacity. Is it worth $20 a minute? Depends on who is buying. Current rates are about $30 a minute if I remember correctly ($1800 an hour, three hour minimum, plus setup and teardown charge). Bring the price down to $5 a minute and a ten minute call could save $500 in plane fees. Bring the price down to $1 a minute and anyone can use it. Let's stop thinking in terms of what people use the space for and instead simply allocate them a block of frequency. If they buy 6MHZ space, they can do FCFMV or they can transmit 500 simultaneous telephone calls. What is expensive is the switching equipment. But it can be done. I'll give someone a very valuable hint. In New York, travel is almost impossible by roads. There is a place where you could sell local FCFMV telephone calls at $1 a minute. Charge someone $300 to install his line on a finance basis, say over a ten month period. Charge $100 a month for the service. If he uses it on a regular basis, it's more productive than trying to schedule meetings he can't get through the city to do. Toss in three additional phone-size channels with it, so he can have a separate phone line for a conference call and a fax machine running both ways. As there is more demand, the volume will allow you to provide the service for less and still make money at it. At first it'll be like a toy as advertising agencies and large companies sign up for it. Make a promise of at least 1,000 customers signed up before the customer has to pay anything. Make it an alternative to local dial tone since you can also allow him to connect into the phone lines too if the call is off-network to a voice line. > Highly complex software also will be needed to control and > manage new networks capable of carrying large amounts of digital > data. I believe this to be true; it therefore behooves all of us that the systems be done small and simple; it makes failures less dangerous. > Telephone companies such as GTE Corp. already are conducting > experiments with early versions of "video on demand." "Is there something wrong with this picture?" :) > Regan said the consortium hopes to create common technical > standards to make for ease of use by customers. But questions > remain about whether Americans will want these services. To reuse an overworked quote from a movie I've never seen, "If you build it, they will come." If the capacity is there, people will find ways to use it that the inventors would never even dream of. When the PC had only 64K, a 640K limit was huge and unreachable. Today, they're talking about 64 MEG of memory for some machines. > Many Americans are still intimidated by computers, but optimists > note that companies such as CompuServe and Prodigy have made > inroads into American homes by providing on-line information > services. Compu$erve charges an arm and a leg and Prodigy has so many problems that it's no more fun bashing it because it's problems are so well known that you can't surprise anyone. > Kodak views an interactive communications system as a way to > send photos around the country. When people were buying video cameras, Kodak was {still} working on still photography. They essentially all but gave away the 35MM market and now they're trying to catch up, with 1940s ideas. *This* is the reason these systems fail: Overpriced and underpowered. We need new ideas and we need to think of new ways to use the technology and the capacity we have. We did not, when steel was invented, build metal copies of wooden bridges; we have new technology, we need new ideas. Paul Robinson These are my opinions, no one else is responsible for them. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 02 Oct 92 21:03:06 EDT From: David Leibold Subject: Global Connections Subscriptions Available Here is the info on how to request free subscriptions to Teleglobe Canada's {Global Connections} which comes out every two or three months, and describes various Teleglobe successes, new services and other relevant developments. A few of the articles have been posted in TELECOM Digest recently. Contact: Patricia Kirby, Editor, Global Connections Teleglobe Canada Inc 1000 de la Gauchetiere St West Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3B 4X5 +1 514 868.7118 Be careful to specify how many copies of each issue are to be sent. I just got a significant wad of G.C. copies this week, and now have to figure out where to distribute them all. dleibold@vm1.yorku.ca ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 22:37:45 PDT From: richg@hatch.socal.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Lost in Translation Pat, I recently got an old laptop from work for use as a portable terminal. Looking thru the tech manual, I came across a listing of the pinouts of the several external connectors. The description of the pinouts for the RJ-14 jack for the internal modem is so far off-the-wall that I would like to share it with the other TELECOM Digest readers. ------------------------------------------------------ PIN SIGNAL NUMBER NAME DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------ 1 - 2 ----- Not Connected. 3 RING Ring. This line carries the ring signal. 4 TIP Tip. This line carries the voice or data signal. 5 - 6 ----- Not Connected. ----------------------------------------------------- Rich Greenberg - N6LRT - 310-649-0238 - richg@hatch.socal.com [Moderator's Note: That's it? That is pretty incredible! PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Files Available For Download: 1992 FCC Modem User's Fees From: traderx@west.darkside.com (TraderX) Date: Fri, 02 Oct 92 22:37:26 PDT Organization: The Dark Side of the Moon +1 408 245 SPAM The files FCCMODEM.ZIP, HR3515.ZIP, HR3515LT.ZIP on my system all concern CURRENT legislation on Telecommunications and Modem Users Fees. FCCMODEM contains, origin, text, sample letters, plus addresses/fax numbers of commissioners and senators. Addresses are pre-addressed, and includes replies received by me from Senators Ford and Kerry. If you need help locating these files contact me on my voicemail 4O8-236-37O6, leave name and data number of your computer or local BBS. I will download anywhere at my expense. FCCMODEM contain's text of Jim Warren's User's Bill of Rights. You may also post E-Mail to me . Sincerely, James Leonard/SearchNet International BBS [Moderator's Note: Well Mr. Leonard, I am happy to post this for you in the event people are seeking the files you have available, but I certainly hope you have NEW and CURRENT information and are not just rehashing the old rumors and stories of a few years ago. If anyone gets copies of your files, I'm sure they will report back here. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 12:29:56 -0700 From: kehoe@netcom.com (Thomas David Kehoe) Subject: Manufacturers of Phone Patches Wanted I'm developing a product for stutterers that will process speech when talking on the telephone. To connect the processor to the phone, I bought a "phone patch" for ham radios, the MFJ Telepatch II, for $69.95. It works fine, but if I get this working well I'd like to sell them. I'd like to find a cheaper phone patch, without the ham radio features I don't need. Are there other manufacturers of phone patches? I have the schematic for the MFJ unit, but if other phone patch schematics are available, I'd appreciate a reference. All I need is audio in and audio out. My processor unit will have volume controls for both. I suppose I should have something to keep the outgoing level below -20dBm, as I understand that the phone company doesn't want levels over this. I don't think I need the microphone or speaker jacks, null adjustment, etc., that the MFJ unit includes. I don't need the circuits to switch between sending and receiving voice, as telephones do both at the same time. Lastly, if I sell more than 20-30 of these, I'll have a complete circuitboard designed with a phone patch on it. If it connects to the handset jack, not the phone line, can I avoid FCC Part 68 certification? I understand that certification costs about $20,000. Will the phone patch circuit be substantially different? Thomas David Kehoe kehoe@netcom.com (408) 354-5926 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 16:35:15 CST From: apollo@n2sun1.ccl.itri.org.tw (Yee-Lee Shyong) Subject: Information Needed: IOM-2 Interface Does anyone know who defined the IOM-2 interface? It also known as ISDN-Oriented Modular rev. 2.2 or GCI ISDN bus. Is it an interna- tional standard or proprietary definition of vendor? Thanks! Apollo ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 18:43 GMT From: Proctor & Associates <0003991080@mcimail.com> Subject: Statistics Needed: How Many PBX's? My boss presented me with some goofy list of statistics he wants me to come up with. Does anyone have any idea where I can find the following numbers, without buying some expensive market research report? I need approximations only, but some source that I can reference. Here are the categories. Email suggestions would be appreciated. 1. How many PBX's are installed in the USA? 2. Of these, how many are over 500 stations? (another statistical point for "large" systems, such as 700 stations or whatever is OK too.) 3. Of these, how many are AT&T System 75, System 85 or Definity systems? Well, thats the telecom part of the list. The rest is a count of hospitals, colleges and hotels/motels in the USA. Paul Cook 206-881-7000 Proctor & Associates MCI Mail 399-1080 15050 NE 36th St. fax: 206-885-3282 Redmond, WA 98052-5317 3991080@mcimail.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #756 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa16269; 4 Oct 92 2:25 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA11694 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sat, 3 Oct 1992 23:58:34 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA25401 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sat, 3 Oct 1992 23:58:25 -0500 Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 23:58:25 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210040458.AA25401@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #757 TELECOM Digest Sat, 3 Oct 92 23:58:30 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 757 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: BU Phone Rates Go Up -- Advice Sought (Joseph Malloy) Re: BU Phone Rates Go Up -- Advice Sought (Henry Mensch) Re: N0N/N1N Exchanges and 1+ Dialing (Leonard Erickson) Re: N0N/N1N Exchanges and 1+ Dialing (Don Lynn) Re: N0N/N1N Exchanges and 1+ Dialing (Curt Lammers) Re: 800 Numbers Restricted by NYTel? (Henry Mensch) Re: 800 Numbers Restricted by NYTel? (Richard Nash) Re: Two-Line Switching Device (Susan Hagan) Re: Two-Line Switching Device (Mike Gordon) Re: Non-Air Air-Phone (Ed Greenberg) Re: Non-Air Air-Phone (Gordon Hlavenka) Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over (Arthur L. Shapiro) Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over (Charles Mattair) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jmalloy@itsmail1.hamilton.edu (Joseph Malloy) Subject: Re: BU Phone Rates Go Up -- Advice Sought Organization: Hamilton College - Clinton, NY Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 02:19:51 GMT In article navsaria@bass.bu.edu (Dipesh Navsaria) writes: > Over the summer, Boston University had contracted with New England > Telephone to modernize BU's phone system. The results of the deal > were as follows: [details omitted] > I ask, what sort of ludicrous mess is this? I absolutely refuse to > pay extra to help subsidize these uneeded services or the modernization > ... it appears BU has a habit of making massive changes without > consulting the people who will be paying for it in the end. You mention that the current rate for this phone is $14/month and while I can understand your objections to having to take this (pretty good) rate (i.e., you have no choice) despite the included special features (call waiting, three-way, etc), I must say it sounds like a good deal. And if you can't access a LD carrier other than AT&T, it's quite possible illegal. OTOH, your beef isn't with NEtel, in my opinion, but with the university administration who made these decision. After all, NE Tel didn't (presumably!) force themselves on the university! I do envy your rates and features, though! A plain touch tone line here (NYTel in the boonies) is about $24/month ... Joe ------------------------------ From: henry@ads.com (Henry Mensch) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 14:16:23 -0700 Subject: BU Phone Rates Go Up -- Advice Sought Reply-To: henry@ads.com navsaria@bass.bu.edu (Dipesh Navsaria) wrote: > I called New England Telephone and discovered that their measured > service rate has _not_ changed ... but since I am a BU student, my > dorm phone service is now more expensive. (I have lived in the same > room through the summer and into this academic year, and therefore > have had the same phone number.) The answer is to move into off-campus housing ... you'll save money on your housing costs as well as your telephone bill. # henry mensch / booz, allen & hamilton, inc. / ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Oct 92 14:10:37 PST From: Leonard.Erickson@f51.n105.z1.fidonet.org (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: N0N/N1N Exchanges and 1+ Dialing I'm going to add to the confusion *again*. Here in Portland (and as far as I know, all of Oregon) we have the "1 means toll" setup. Calling Vancouver, WA (just a few hundred yards acroos the Columbia River, and in the same LATA) requires 1-206-NNX-XXXX. Calling local calls is NNX-XXXX. Toll calls in NPA 503 (regardless of LATA) are 1-NNX-XXXX. Note that there *are* a few points in Oregon where local calls can be made to exchanges in 208 or 708. They are *also* made with NNX-XXXX dialing. And those exchanges cannot be used anywhere in NPA 503 because of this! (I found that out a few years back when I asked about the notation "PROT NPA 208" and "PROT NPA 708" on an exchange list I got from someone at the phone company. Apparenlty due to some sort of technical considerations, we'd have to go to universal ten-digit dialing to allow the use of such office codes (BTW, we currently have only about 50 left, *including* the "protected" ones. I think that a new feature is needed. A code that can be dialed before a number (much like the cancel call waiting code) that will instruct the switch to fail the call if the number is toll. Sort of a "one call" toll restriction. Perhaps even add it to regular toll restriction. So you'd have four possible line types: 1) no toll restriction (current default). 2) no toll restiction with per call blocking. 3) toll restriction with per call override. 4) toll restricted (currently available). I'd be willing to pay a small charge for such a feature, just so I'd *know* that my BBS isn't going to make toll calls without my knowledge. (I just discovered that I'd gotten incorrect information a year or so back, and I had an exchange marked as local, that was actually halfway across the state!) True, similar features can be achieved with "toll blockers" or (in the case of a BBBS or the like) with proper toll tables and software. But those solutions depend on the availability of *accurate* exchange lists. And keeping them updated. It'd work much better on the switch. If anybody at Bellcore is reading this, I hope it gets passed along. uucp: uunet!m2xenix!puddle!51!Leonard.Erickson Internet: Leonard.Erickson@f51.n105.z1.fidonet.org [Moderator's Note: If you just discovered you had received incorrect information from a year earlier, I have to wonder if you bother to reconcile your phone bills each month or check the toll charges on each statement, etc. Did it go unnoticed there for a year? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 12:50:53 PDT From: DLynn.El_Segundo@xerox.com Subject: Re: N0N/N1N Exchanges and 1+ Dialing There was some partial truth and a "non-operative" statement (a lie, although it used to be the truth) in my previous message explaining 1+ and 0+ dialing in the Los Angeles area, which was first to get N0X/N1X exchanges. I mentioned that Pac Bell in the LA area has for many years used timeout after 0 + seven digits to distinguish, for example 0-312-3456 (a number in West Los Angeles) from 0-312-345-6789 (probably a number in Chicago). They changed the dialing instructions in the phone books for this three years ago, without any publicity that I saw. The change is to always dial the area code on 0+ calls, while previously you dialed the area code only when different from your own. The change avoids that need to time out. I suspect that 0 + seven digits still times out and works in some or all areas, but I hardly ever make 0+ calls to check that. The 0+ change occurred in area codes 213, 714, and 818, probably all at the same time. I have to recant on the claim of no N0X/N1X in 714 (area code southeast of LA). Anaheim got the first (and only so far) N0X prefix, which is 802, according to the May 92 phone book. This is a long time after Pac Bell forced us 714 inhabitants to change our 1+ dialing habits (which I explained in my previous message) to open up the use of N0X/N1X prefixes. That 1+ change occurred somewhere in the area of 1980 to 1984; I'm afraid I can't pin it down better than that. Don Lynn ------------------------------ From: JIM.J.MURPHY@gte.sprint.com Date: 2 Oct 92 18:15:00 UT Subject: Re: N0N/N1N Exchanges and 1+ Dialing I think the main reason that a 1 is prefixed first is because that was the only way a mechanical switch knew to send you to a cama trunk and there are still a lot of mechanical switches left. When these were changed to a digital switch, the dialing plan was left intact to not cause confusion. Curt Lammers [Moderator's Note: This message was sent by Curt Lammers but for some reason was sent under the account of Jim J. Murphy. I wish the people at gte.sprint.com would quit using the accounts of Gloria Valle (and now Jim Murphy!) to send messages here and would use their own accounts instead or at least include a return address in their mail so I could adjust the headers manually. Curt gave us no return address for himself. PAT] ------------------------------ From: henry@ads.com (Henry Mensch) Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 13:09:25 -0700 Subject: Re: 800 Numbers Restricted by NYTel? Reply-To: henry@ads.com rhcohen@netcom.com (Robert Cohen) wrote: > Could this be a new 'revenue enhancement' scheme? I'd think it would only be revenue enhancement if I didn't take a sledgehammer to the phone. Winkey smileys, of course. jbutz@homxa.att.com wrote: > Phones block 800 service for a number of reasons. AOS's do it because > 800 calls do not generate any revenue. AOSs don't want callers using > their resources to make free calls, when they typically charge $3 to > $4 for a three minute local call. I know about AOS's; I don't use their phones if I can help it. They never work in the conventional ways, and my time and money are better spent elsewhere. > Blocking 800 is sometimes done for fraud prevention. Then why don't they mark the damned phone "no 800 calls" ... is this too much to ask? # henry mensch / booz, allen & hamilton, inc. / ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 06:54:47 -0600 From: rickie@trickie.ualberta.ca (Richard Nash) Subject: Re: 800 Numbers Restricted by NYTel? Laird P. Broadfield wrote: > In jbutz@homxa.att.com writes: >> Blocking 800 is sometimes done for fraud prevention. One example is >> street drug dealers. They often use payphones as their "office >> phones." Clients usually contact their dealers through a pager, and >> paging companies often use 800 numbers. This may not be a big issue >> any longer, since most pagers display the caller info. Payphones in >> high crime areas often have both calling card blocked, and 800 >> blocked, about the only thing callers can do is to drop in coins or >> call collect. > Wandering a little from the subject, but I'm confused by this. Who > exactly is being "defrauded"? The 800 carrier gets paid by the paging > company, which is happy to do so because they are paid by the paging > customer for the service they provide. > I'm missing something here ... Reading the above description of using a payphone for illegal activities doesn't include anything on how a payphone is used fraudulently. The fraud occurs when telecommunications services are obtained by intentional methods which prevent one or more of the telecom providers from collecting their share of revenue. This fraudulent activity tends to occur in high crime areas. Certian telecom services (such as 800, credit cards) are most commonly targetted for fraud use. Richard Nash Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6K 0E8 UUCP: trickie!rickie@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca ------------------------------ From: shagan@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Susan Hagan) Subject: Re: Two-Line Switching Device Date: 2 Oct 92 13:19:23 GMT Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Bob_Frankston@frankston.com writes: > I think that Radio Shack used to and might still sell a device > designed for sharing an answering machine on two lines. It will > respond to a call coming in on either line. I presume that the first > line is still the default for outgoing. Unlike the switch box, it > would be automatic. Since I never used the device, I might be wrong. Panasonic makes a couple of "Two-Line Answering Machines". They are available from office supply catalogs. We used to have one in the department I used to work in. I don't know the specific model number of the unit but I can find out if there is a real interest. You can set the machine to answer either line or both. All the messages are recorded on one tape and a voice imprint system records the day and time of the call and what line it came in on. Susan R. Hagan (shagan@gandalf.rutgers.edu) Publications Coordinator - User Services Rutgers University Computing Services ------------------------------ From: mwgordon@nyx.cs.du.edu (Mike Gordon) Subject: Re: Two-Line Switching Device Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept. Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 18:35:03 GMT > They sense an incoming call on either line (it takes the two-line -- > RJ14? -- input and sends output to an RJ11 ... RS also has the 2xRJ11 > to one RJ14 cords). Outgoing calls are placed on the line that most > recently received an incoming call. Does anyone know of a way to modify this device so that you can select which line you want to call out on? I'm thinking of a button for each line that would send a momentary voltage on that line's input to trick the switch into thinking that there was just a call on that line, and flip to it. Mike Gordon 99681084@uwwvax.uww.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 12:16:59 -0700 From: edg@netcom.com (Ed Greenberg) Subject: Re: Non-Air Air-Phone Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) I think they were credit card operated cellular. I saw this on the Port Jefferson-Bridgeport ferry, but I must have missed it on the Manitowoc-Ludington Ferry. Too bad, I had a call to make. Oh well. Ed Greenberg | Home: +1 408 283 0511 | edg@netcom.com P. O. Box 28618 | Work: +1 408 764 5305 | DoD#: 0357 San Jose, CA 95159 | Fax: +1 408 764 5003 | KM6CG (ex WB2GOH) ------------------------------ From: cgordon@vpnet.chi.il.us (gordon hlavenka) Subject: Re: Non-Air Air-Phone Organization: Vpnet Public Access Date: Sat, 03 Oct 1992 16:56:29 GMT > When I took the ferry across Lake Michigan from MI to WI this summer, > there was a phone or two on board that looked like the phones on > air-planes. > [Moderator's Note: Maybe they were not Airphones but were operated > like marine radios. PAT] When I was at GTE Airfone, (from their infancy until exactly three years ago) they had ongoing projects to install payphones on Amtrak trains, airport limousines, and west-coast ferryboats. These systems used cellular links to provide the service. It wouldn't surprise me if they used the Airfone cordless handset systems with cellular transceivers to provide ferry service. It's technically not a difficult leap. Gordon S. Hlavenka cgordon@vpnet.chi.il.us ------------------------------ From: MPA15C!ARTHUR@TRENGA.tredydev.unisys.com Date: 03 OCT 92 16:10 Subject: Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over This may be straying a bit from telecommunications, but it's an interesting thread. I lived in Santa Barbara during the Reagan years; his mountain retreat was atop Refugio Road, a miserably steep (I'm a bicyclist) road a few miles north of town. Whenever he sullied our town, there was the requisite traffic inconvenience, but there was one interesting other effect. All over, garage doors would mysteriously go up and down either constantly or sporadically. The appropriate folks in the President's entourage consistently denied any connection, but it got so that people had to disconnect electricity to their openers when a presidential visit was scheduled! I suspect there was enough of an electronic blanket over Santa Barbara that it's a wonder we all didn't keel over from acute cancer. Arthur L. Shapiro ARTHUR%MPA15C@TRENGA.TREDYDEV.UNISYS.COM Software Engineering Unisys Corporation Speaking as a civilian, rather than for Mission Viejo, CA Unisys, unless this box is checked: [ ] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 13:52:26 CDT From: mattair@sun44.synercom.hounix.org (Charles Mattair) Subject: Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over Organization: Synercom Technology, Inc., Houston, TX > [Moderator's Note: Harry S Truman used to take walks alone around > downtown Washington, DC during his term in office. I don't need an > explanation of why that is not feasable these days, but it seems to me > there is a massive overkill of protection and telecom services for the > President. PAT] Totally off the subject of telecom but Barbara Bush decided to take a walk in Hermann Park (the largest park in Houston proper) during the Economic Summit a couple of years ago. They cleared the park. The convention wasn't too bad although the area around the Dome became somewhat of a Ptomkin village with all the cleanup. Kinda makes you think of the blessing for the Tsar from "Fiddler on the Roof." "May the Lord bless and keep the Tsar. Far away from Me." Charles Mattair mattair@synercom.hounix.org Any opinions offered are my own and do not reflect those of my employer. [Moderator's Note: Whatever happened to government of the people, by the people and for the people? Surely she could have walked in the park, perhaps with an agent or two and been perfectly safe without causing all that annoyance to everyone else who was using the park. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #757 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa14197; 4 Oct 92 16:38 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA14308 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 4 Oct 1992 13:52:39 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA18776 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 4 Oct 1992 13:52:27 -0500 Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 13:52:27 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210041852.AA18776@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #758 TELECOM Digest Sun, 4 Oct 92 13:52:30 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 758 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Update on U.S. Cable TV Re-Regulation Bill (Nigel Allen) More on Cable TV and Radio Stations (Garrett Wollman) Re: Digital Cable Radio / DMX (Kris Harris) Re: Digital Cable Radio (Bill Pfeiffer) Re: Thoughts About WFMT Versus WNIB/WNIZ (R. Kevin Oberman) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nigel.Allen@lambada.oit.unc.edu Subject: Update on U.S. Cable TV Re-Regulation Bill Date: Sun 4 Oct 92 2:57:05 EDT [Moderator's Note: The Sunday papers said Bush vetoed the cable bill Saturday afternoon. PAT] Here is a press release from the National Association of Broadcasters. Consumer Federation, National Association of Broadcasters Update Status of Cable Bill Contact: Gene Kimmelman, 202-387-6121, of Consumer Federation of America; Eddie Fritts or Lynn McReynolds, 202-429-5350, of the National Association of Broadcasters; or Bob Chlopak, 202-296-2777 News Advisory: The fate of the cable TV bill will be determined this weekend or early next week at the latest. Here are the most recent developments: -- President Bush must sign or veto the bill by midnight Saturday. If he fails to act the bill will automatically become law on Sunday. The Senate will vote first to override a presidential veto, and the vote could come within hours of a veto since both houses are expected to work through the weekend. -- Stories in the 10-2-92 {New York Times} and {Washington Post} claim that the White House does not appear to have the votes to sustain a veto. The Times reports that the administration may be reconsidering its position. If the president vetoes the cable bill, he could be overriden for the first time in 34 tries. -- The White House lobbying effort has focused on Republican senators with a goal of changing nine votes. The Post reports that the president is making a straight forward request for party loyalty in personal meetings and phone calls with target senators. It also reports that the president is asking senators to change their votes while he is unwilling to change his position and is making an issue of Gov. Clinton's alleged flip-flops. -- Opponents of the bill may try to filibuster the override vote in the Senate in the hope of killing the bill by delaying tactics at the end of the session. Such tactics would be unprecedented; there has never been a filibuster of an override veto. -- Finally, the latest indication of the momentum building for the cable bill came yesterday from an unlikely source, the National eligious Broadcasters. These conservative allies of the president urged him not to veto the bill and pledged to work for a veto override if it was necessary. Following is the {Washington Post} article of Friday, Oct. 2: "Key Group Opposes Bush on Cable Bill" by Ann Devroy, staff writer: The National Religious Broadcasters group, ally of President Bush on family values and abortion issues, has told him that it will work against him on legislation to overhaul the cable industry. This adds to burdens that Bush must overcome on what aides said could be Congress's first successful veto override in his administration. In a letter to the White House yesterday, the broadcasters contended that cable operators arbitrarily exclude Christian stations from cable systems, seriously undercutting their audiences. The broadcasters have mounted what they call an "all-out campaign" against an intensive White House effort in the last week to persuade nine Republican Senators to switch votes and side with Bush in an override fight. With little public notice and no fanfare, Bush, White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III, and others in the administration have taken aim primarily at the nine Republicans. A senior administration official said their argument is "pure loyalty. If the president loses his first override in four years three weeks before Election Day, it will add another nail to his political coffin." The cable bill, which Bush must sign or veto by midnight Saturday, reregulates basic cable rates and equipment, provides certain minimum customer-service standards and promotes competition in the cable industry. After House passage by a wide margin, the Senate passed the legislation Sept. 23, 74 to 25, a veto-proof margin unless nine votes switch. Consumer representatives said the wide margins in both chambers were indicative of public discontent with cable industry pricing and service records. Since 1986, when prices were deregulated, household cable rates have increased an average of 56 percent. Bush opposed the legislation as imposing "a wide array of costly, burdensome and unnecessary requirements" on the industry and government regulators. Consumer rates will increase, Bush said, because of such burdens. The president pledged in a formal letter to veto the legislation, and many of his aides are saying he is in what one called "a real box." This is the case, aides said, because while Bush cannot switch to the pro-consumer side of the dispute without being accused of flip-flopping, he is asking senators to change their votes in deference to his reelection problems. According to administration officials, Bush met last Friday with five Republican senators, and he and Baker have called each at least once and in some cases more often to make the loyalty plea. Sen. James Jeffords (R-Vt.), one of those being lobbied, said he told the White House that, "out of deference to the president," he would reconsider his vote but that "it is hard to turn around on this one." Jeffords said Bush and Baker had made the "obvious political case" that "to lose a veto for the first time in four years right before the election would be unfortunate." In their letter to Bush, the religious broadcasters said, "We prefer not to oppose you in a veto override" but "we will support an override if it is necessary." Pat Robertson, a member of Bush's religious-broadcasting coalition, is on the other side of the issue, according to administration officials, and has asked Bush to stick to his veto. Robertson and his son are principal owners of cable's Family Channel and are seeking to buy into another cable operation. If Bush fails to gain nine vote changes, it will mark the first time in his presidency that he could not muster the one-third of votes needed to stop a congressional action. The veto has been a major Bush tool. On 34 separate battles about highly charged issues ranging from family leave to abortion to China policy, the president has always been able to make a persuasive case to his own party members and avoid an override. White House officials said major lobbying campaigns for and against cable legislation have raged all year and have been escalated in recent days as the veiws of both sides appeared in television advertising. Cable-system owners and the motion-picture industry are the major opponents of the legislation. Consumer groups, unions and local government associations have been major supporters. Following is the {New York Times} article of Friday, Oct. 2: "Bush Considers Signing Cable TV Bill" by Edmund L. Andrews: WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 -- Confronted with the likelihood of a defeat in Congress, White House officials are exploring the possibility that President Bush should reverse himself and sign a bill regulating cable television prices. Mr. Bush has vowed to veto the legislation, which passed the House and Senate by veto-proof margins, contending that it would impose costly, burdensome and unnecessary regulations on the cable industry. But some advisers are almost certain that he will be overridden, and they have been looking at options. On Tuesday, a White House official called the Republican Mayor of Jefferson City, Mo., Louise Gardner, to discuss what she called the "possibility" of a signing ceremony for the bill in her city. Campaign Battleground In 1989, Jefferson City was among municipalities that battled cable companies to restrain prices or stimulate competition. Missouri is the state of Senator John C. Danforth, a Republican who is one of the bill's sponsors, and it is a battleground in the Presidential campaign. "It was discussed, the possibility of a signing ceremony," Mayor Gardner said, emphasizing that she had been given no indication that Mr. Bush had decided to sign the bill. She said the call came Tuesday from Jim Snyder, a special assistant to the president. Democrats have used the cable television issue to charge that Mr. Bush is indifferent to consumers and a prisoner of corporate interests. But switching positions on the cable bill would expose Mr. Bush to charges that he is indecisive and weak, and the potential political costs are so high that a veto remains very likely. "As of right not, senior advisers are still recommending a veto," said Laura Mellilo, a White House spokeswoman. Another White House official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, said the Administration was trying to craft a veto message that might open a new debate on the issue. The official said the President would propose allowing telephone companies to compete in the cable television business, hoping that the prospect of a new bill would persuade enough lawmakers to reverse their earlier votes. Most lawmakers say the administration has only a slim chance of preventing Congress from overriding a veto of the cable bill, which would be the first time it has overridden a veto by Mr. Bush. The President has successfully vetoed nearly three dozen bills since taking office, but in both houses, the cable television measure received more than the two-thirds majorities needed to override. Mr. Bush put his reputation on the line two weeks ago, vowing to veto the bill in a letter to Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, the minority leader. Denouncing the measure as full of "costly, burdensome and unnecessary regulations," Mr. Bush said it would restrain innovation, cost jobs and drive prices up rather than bring them down. F.C.C. Pricing Formula He must send the bill to Congress by midnight Saturday, or it becomes law without his signature. The bill would require the Federal Communications Commission to establish a formula by which local governments can set the price for a basic package of cable channels. The bill also prohibits large cable companies that produce popular programming from refusing to license their shows to rival distributors, like satellite companies. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 13:24:27 -0400 From: Garrett.Wollman@UVM.EDU Subject: More on Cable TV and Radio Stations Two items: Last Wednesday, there was a power outage that affected most of the city of Burlington (Vermont), my building excepted. I, of course, didn't know about it until I called my cable company to complain about loss of signal, and they told me that there was a power outage in Burlington. My response, of course, was, "That's odd, I'm in Burlington and I have power ..." As it turned out, it was only eastern parts of the city (the "Hill Section") that was affected, but it was enough to snow out cable service throughout the entire city. It seems clear that if the cable companies ever want to compete with the existing telco, they will have to adopt the same paranoid attitude that telcos have towards other utilities that they could potentially depend on. On a completely different subject ... this area is one of the few television markets in the country where a good half of the audience is located in Canada. This has the interesting result that during many of the more popular TV programs, our local stations run ads for Canadian (mostly Montreal) companies intended for Canadian (mostly Montrealer) consumers. Recently, a Montreal radio station, calling itself "MIX 96", started a new ad campaign of the Joe Isuzu variety, where an unseen announcer tells viewers how wonderful this station is, and various subliminal messages flash by in the video portion. I was able to catch some of these messages: "The best bare naked Twister and free bagels" was one, and another was "Send in-laws to Chibougamau." Interesting sales technique ... Garrett A. Wollman wollman@emba.uvm.edu uvm-gen!wollman UVM disagrees. ------------------------------ From: kah005@acad.drake.edu Subject: Re: Digital Cable Radio / DMX Organization: Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, USA Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 01:55:25 GMT The recent article describing Digital Cable Radio (DCR) sounds exactly like Digital Music Xpress (DMX) that is run by International Cablecasting. Our system (A recent TCI acquisition, formerly Heritage CableVision of Des Moines) got it last June. I started subscribing this August when I got back to school, and I too think it is excellent. It is nice being able to listen to just music, and leave the DJ's in the car radio. There are, however a few differences between DCR and DMX. DMX has 30 channels, as opposed to 29. There is no toll free number to find out what is playing, but the optional remote has an LCD display on top which will tell you everything. Point the remote to the tuner and press view. An infa-red signal is sent FROM THE BOX, TO THE REMOTE with the song title, album name, composer name, and record label/ID data. It will then display all the info on the display. The remote can also control most popular cable television tuner boxes (SA, Tocom, Jerrold, Oak, Zenith) The tuner box is Scientific Atlanta, and not only has left and right line-leval RCA type outputs, but also has direct digital output, for newer AMPs that have their own D/A coverters. (I do not know if DCR uses similar equipment.) Prices are a bit high here, but what can you expect from TCI?? Service - $5.00/month Tuner Box 4.95/month or purchase for $95.00 Remote 2.95/month or purchase for $29.95 I suppose I should mention that a simple remote is included with tuner box rental, but does not display any info, nor controls cable television tner boxes. It just turns unit on/off, mutes, and changes channels. I have nothing to do with any cable company, nor am I trying to sell the DCR or DMX service. I am just sharing my experience. Kris Harris - PO BOX 2410 - Des Moines, IA 50311-0410 - (515) 254-2117 ------------------------------ From: Bill.Pfeiffer@gagme.chi.il.us (Bill Pfeiffer) Subject: Re: Digital Cable Radio Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 10:16:17 CDT In a recent TELECOM Digest, john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > mc/G=Brad/S=Hicks/OU=0205925@mhs.attmail.com writes: >> * a 24-hour toll free number to call to get the current selection and the >> two previous selections on any of the channels, listing artist, selection >> title, CD title, and publisher. > The system on my cable provides the current selection information > (title, composer, artist, record label and number) right on the remote > control in real time. That service is called DMX (Digital Music Xpress) and although our slouch cable company will not offer it, I agree, it is superior to DCR for the very reason John mentions. The ability to 'see' the selection playing. DMX is affiliated with TCI who runs the cable system 'across town' and I belive that is why our cable company (Prime Cable of Chicago) does not carry it. I think this type of system is great and would gladly subscribe if I could. If there IS a ghod, let him/her/it bring me DMX. William Pfeiffer Moderator - rec.radio.broadcasting - Internet Radio Journal To subscribe, send e-mail to rrb@airwaves.chi.il.us ------------------------------ From: oberman@ptavv.llnl.gov Subject: Re: Thoughts About WFMT Versus WNIB/WNIZ Date: 4 Oct 92 17:01:42 GMT In article , TELECOM Moderator notes: > [Moderator's Note: Ah! Don't get me started! A brief history of the 36 > years W dward cCormick was on the air: Owned by the Zenith > Radio Corporation, WEFM went on the air in 1941; I believe it was the > first FM station in the USA, but others say an experimental station in > New York City was first. I can explain this. WEFM was the first FM station in the country using the current FM system. FM was invented by Armstrong and he won approval to start broadcating in the 1930s. David Sarnoff (RCA) had a VERY strong dislike for Armstrong (a former employee) and he put intense pressure on the FCC to withdraw approval for the Armstrong system. The FCC went along with RCA and approved an almost identical, but incompatable system using the current FM band. While Armstrong could have easily modified his transmitter for the new system, that would have left all of the receivers sold by Armstrong Radio obsolete. Sarnoff also formed a consortium of manufacturers (including Zenith) who all refused to pay Armstrong any royalties for his FM patents. Armstrong spent most of the rest of his life fighting Sarnoff and deForrest over patents rights, went broke paying legal fees and committed suicide. This information is mostly from a recent PBS program on the pioneers of radio. R. Kevin Oberman Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Internet: koberman@llnl.gov (510) 422-6955 Disclaimer: Don't take this too seriously. I just like to improve my typing and probably don't really know anything useful about anything. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #758 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa03234; 5 Oct 92 1:27 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA06759 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 4 Oct 1992 22:31:47 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA27041 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 4 Oct 1992 22:31:38 -0500 Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 22:31:38 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210050331.AA27041@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #759 TELECOM Digest Sun, 4 Oct 92 22:31:40 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 759 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: AT&T Public Phone 2000 (Henry Mensch) Re: AT&T Public Phone 2000 (Roy M. Silvernail) Re: Telecom in the MidWest (Dave Niebuhr) Re: Quick New York Telephone Repair (Sort Of ...) (Andrew C. Green) Re: About the Internet White Pages (Paul Robinson) Re: ADA Requirements (Tony Harminc) Re: British Call Waiting (was My Favorite Intercepts) (Laurence Chiu) Re: Funny Phone Behaviour ... Restatment of Problem (Brent Capps) Re: A Good Way to Play a Micro Tape Over the Phone? (Jon Sreekanth) Re: Funny 800 Number Spelling (John David Galt) Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison (John David Galt) Re: A Good Way to Play a Micro Tape Over the Phone? (Laird Broadfield) Re: Local Battery (Richard Cox) Re: Modem <-> Digital Telephone System (Eric Jacksch) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: henry@ads.com (Henry Mensch) Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 14:14:14 -0700 Subject: Re: AT&T Public Phone 2000 Reply-To: henry@ads.com stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) wrote: > The bill for the call comes in two parts: One for the call, which > appears on your regular calling card bill, and a separate bill for the > terminal rental. Nope ... the calls and the terminal rental appear on the same bill (in my case), which comes from that special place Chosen Just for This Purpose. # henry mensch / booz, allen & hamilton, inc. / ------------------------------ Subject: Re: AT&T Public Phone 2000 From: cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail) Date: Sun, 04 Oct 92 19:43:14 CDT Organization: Villa CyberSpace, Minneapolis, MN egg@inuxy.att.com (Edwin G Green) writes: > The Public Phone 2000, when equipped with a keyboard, can be (and > almost always is) a Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD). That makes me wish I had had the time to further explore the features. I didn't notice a TDD option on the LAX or Salt Lake City phones, but it may well have been offered from a menu page I didn't inspect. A pat on the back for AT&T. You say "when equipped with a keyboard" ... are there installations that do not include keyboards? What might be the rationale? (I have only seen the keyboard-equipped model, and not in Minnesota.) Roy M. Silvernail |+| roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 15:47:54 EDT From: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) Subject: Re: Telecom in the MidWest In TELECOM Digest V12 #752 Ang Peng Hwa writes: > Pat noted: >> Even twenty years ago, Tulsa, OK, was considered an ideal place for >> telemarketers as was Omaha, NB. Why? Because they had the least >> expensive WATS costs of anywhere in the USA. After all, the most you >> can go in any direction from Tulsa is 2,000 miles or less,.... > I was told that the reason telemarketers chose the MidWest was that they > had the most "neutral" accents. Nebraska was said to have been pitching > that. I'm told by a Nebraskan that she thinks the accent is neutral > except for Washington, which they pronounced "Waa-shington." Another reason for good telephone service in Nebraska is that Omaha was the home of the former Strategic Air Command of the US Air Force and top-notch telecom service was needed. At least that was one of the reasons I was told when I grew up there. If PAT doesn't mind, I'd like to point out that Nebraska's abbreviation is NE not NB. Dave Niebuhr Internet: niebuhr@bnl.gov / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973 (516)-282-3093 [Moderator's Note: Thanks for the postal code abbreviation correction. And as 'they' say, the abbreviation for the area along the south shore of Lake Michigan from southeast Chicago eastward to Gary is PU. :) PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 04 Oct 1992 13:27:44 CDT From: Andrew C. Green Reply-To: acg@hermes.dlogics.com Subject: Re: Quick New York Telephone Repair (Sort Of ...) Our Esteemed Moderator notes: > I'm one of those people who when they see or experience a pay > phone out of order actually calls it in to repair service. It > is interesting to go past a week later and see how many of the > called in repairs have actually been done and how many of the > pay phones are still out of order. PAT] Hmph. In this city (Chicago) it seems like the repairs will still be un-done a week later, to judge from my attempts. After three or four calls to 611 over about three weeks, I gave up. Why don't we all get together on this and have another attempt?! It's a pedestal-mounted pay phone on the sidewalk outside 110 North Wacker Drive downtown. It is the only pay phone in sight on this very important and busy downtown street. For months it has gone unrepaired; its handset and cord are gone. Its phone number is (312) 641-9644. My first call to Repair Service got me a prompt promise to fix it by the close of business the next day. A week later, they told me they couldn't find any record of the order, and resubmitted it. About a week after that, I pressed a bit further. "Sir, I don't show any listing for that number; it's been disconnected." "Well, of course it's disconnected; parts of it are missing." "It's not a pay phone in service, so I would have to submit it as a Non-standard Request [or some such term]." "Fine! Let's do that, then ..." Of course, nothing happened. Perhaps the collective power of TELECOM Digest readers can get some action. ("We'd better fix the phone on Wacker Drive ... people in Los Angeles are calling to complain!") Andrew C. Green Datalogics, Inc. Internet: acg@dlogics.com 441 W. Huron UUCP: ..!uunet!dlogics!acg Chicago, IL 60610 FAX: (312) 266-4473 [Moderator's Note: Well, I just now dialed it and 641-9644 *is* a disconnected number. That may have not been the correct number for the phone in the first place. If repair has no record of the phone, they have no way to submit a request for service on it. :( PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Sun, 04 Oct 1992 16:57:21 EDT Subject: Re: About the Internet White Pages I received the following clarification. Based on this, it looks like I just "slid under the wire" in getting MY name registered with NIC. Paul Robinson TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM == Forwarded Mail == From: rcarter@gizmo.nic.ddn.mil ( Page Carter (Network Solutions)) Subject: Re: About the Internet White Pages To: tdarcos@mcimail.com Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 15:12:03 PST Cc: rcarter@gizmo.nic.ddn.mil ( Page Carter (Network Solutions)) Paul, I just saw your message in TELECOM Digest, and things have changed in spite of what RFC 1202 says. The following message was recently posted on the commercialization-privatization-of-the-Internet list by Stephen Wolff, director of the NSF: "DISA has the NIC under contract to serve the DDN. They have augmented the contract to supply **some** services to the rest of the Internet community; this augmentation is paid for by NSF by transferring funds monthly to DISA. "When we were negotiating the terms and conditions (and cost) of this augmentation, we said "Don't register hosts, and don't register people." One reason was to save a little money, but the primary reason (as has been alluded to already on this list) is that without central **control** over which hosts and which people use the Internet no one but a fool would accept the (centralized) **responsibility** of keeping such a "registry" up to date. Only a decentralized directory ("registry" sounds too big-brother-ish) of people makes sense. "DARPA and NSF have jointly supported the Field Operational X.500 (FOX) experiment, with participation of USC-ISI, SRI, Merit, and Nysernet/PSI. This work has been regularly reported to IETF, and a number of IDs and RFCs have been issued. The experiment is still rather small-scale, as together with the European X.500 trials still (I believe) fewer than a million people are registered worldwide. For a sample, telnet to wp.nyser.net and login as fred. "Recently, the NSF conducted a competitive solicitation for Registration/ Information/Directory services for the NREN program and the Internet. This process has nearly run its course, and we hope soon to be able to offer much more comprehensive whois/white_pages service than ever before. Stay tuned." In other words, the NIC will no longer register individuals unless they are contacts for registered domains or networks. Hope this clarifies the situation. Page Carter, NIC Staff ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 04 Oct 92 23:35:51 EDT From: Tony Harminc Subject: Re: ADA Requirements The AT&T Public Phone 2000s that I have seen all fail at the least the height, reach, and handset cord length requirements of the ADA. I am fairly sure they did not have a TDD mode either. Tony Harminc ------------------------------ From: lchiu@animal.gcs.co.nz (Laurence Chiu) Subject: Re: British Call Waiting (was My Favorite Intercepts) Organization: GCS Limited, Wellington, New Zealand Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 04:12:39 GMT In article alan@acpub.duke.edu (Alan M. Gallatin) writes: > The British have won my award for best call waiting handling anywhere. > A week or so ago, I was talking to a friend who lives outside London. > In the middle of our conversation, she got what she thought to be a > call-waiting beep (this was the first time she encountered > call-waiting over there ...) -- anyway, I hear her say "hold on" > followed by a click. A few seconds later, I hear (in a VERY proper, > English voice), "I'm sorry, but the other person is temporarily > engaged on another call. Please hold the line." This cycled a few > times with a good ten seconds between repeats. The recording got > interrupted by another click and my friend returning to the line. > I, for one, hate call waiting (I got it under protest, but enough > pepole that I talk to insisted that I get it). I despise the idea of > making someone wait. However, if you're going to do it, at least do > it with style! > [Moderator's Note: At one point Illinois Bell was considering music on > hold for the held party in a call-waited conversation. Nothing ever > came of it, but it might have been a pleasant addition, and certainly > one that IBT could have charged another dollar a month for! :) PAT] In New Zealand, the waiting party hears either a ringing tone, or distinctive long short tone sequence, depending upon when the exchange had the software installed. The long short sequnce is certainly not heard anywhere else so can't be mistaken, the normal ringing tone could be confusing. Music on hold would be better! Laurence Chiu lchiu@animal.gcs.co.nz ------------------------------ From: bcapps@atlastele.com (Brent Capps) Subject: Re: Funny Phone Behaviour ... Restatment of Problem. Organization: Atlas Telecom Inc. Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 17:23:47 GMT In article shri%unreal@cs.umass.edu writes: [problems with Panasonic Easa-phone] I have also experienced problems with the Easa-phone (the older El Cheapo squarish-ones, not the newer ones with the rounded edges). It involved an interaction between the speakerphone and the mute button, and the symptoms were: Easa-phone: offhook on speakerphone, dial VRU. VRU: answers, prompts for DTMF digits. Easa-phone: enter DTMF digits. Mute lite comes on without being pressed, but mute feature isn't really active. VRU: loud female voice says "you have reached the mailbox of subscriber OH ONE OH OH OH OH... Easa-phone: drops call suddenly The recorded voice is too loud and the OHs are very staccato, but I could never figure out for the life of me why the Easa-phone would be experiencing a talk-off problem when it isn't supposed to be listening for digits...the newer ones have a fix for this problem but I'm curious about what caused it in the first place. Any guesses? Brent Capps | I am not responsible bcapps@atlastele.com | for the views bcapps@agora.rain.com | of my employer. ------------------------------ From: jon_sree@world.std.com (Jon Sreekanth) Subject: Re: A Good Way to Play a Micro Tape Over the Phone? Organization: The World Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 15:18:33 GMT In article aa571@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Gail M. Hall) writes: > 1. Can you reverse that little gadget to go through the phone line > by PLAYing it instead of on record to play the tape from the office > in order to avoid room noise, etc.? > 2. If not, is there somewhere an INEXPENSIVE gadget that will do the > same thing? My dictation system dealer does not know of such a You might try out a Music-on-Hold adapter. As the name suggests, it has a phone connector and a earphone connector for connecting in a cassette player. They go for < $50 if you look around in electronic or department stores, office product suppliers, Radio Shack, etc. Hello Direct (1-800-HI-HELLO) has one for $39.95, but they're not usually price leaders, so you might find a better price. But your clients would need to have plain analog phones, this won't work if they have a digital PBX. Jon Sreekanth Assabet Valley Microsystems, Inc. Fax and PC products 5 Walden St #3, Cambridge, MA 02140 (617) 876-8019 jon_sree@world.std.com ------------------------------ From: John_David_Galt%portal@cup.portal.com Subject: Re: Funny 800 Number Spelling Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 09:22:24 PDT It took a friend of mine in Palo Alto over four months to get Pac Bell to give him the unused number xxx-1234. Their initial story was that "mnemonic sequences" like that and xxx-0000 are reserved for business customers only. ------------------------------ From: John_David_Galt%portal@cup.portal.com Subject: Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 09:25:43 PDT I have used MCI for everything, since before the breakup, and have never had any problems with it. I wouldn't be surprised if the people with problems are calling to or from some rural location that only AT&T has wired yet. ------------------------------ From: lairdb@crash.cts.com Subject: Re: A Good Way to Play a Micro Tape Over the Phone? Date: 4 Oct 92 18:18:20 GMT In aa571@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Gail M. Hall) writes: > Here is the situation. I have a call-in dictation system that doctors > can use to call in to dictate their reports for me to type. [...] > Normally this is a very unsatisfactory process because the machine > they use is very "low-fi" and then with the relatively low fi from the > phone line, what we end up with is a mess. No solutions, but an idea for some of you analog types out there; I've thought about this exact situation in the past, and wondered if it would be feasible to play the tape through the phone, through some sort of direct interface, but at a substantially higher speed. Sixty-to-one would be nirvana, but 15-to-one would make a more than acceptable product. (Come to think of it, this might be a digital question after all.) Laird P. Broadfield lairdb@crash.cts.com ...{ucsd, nosc}!crash!lairdb ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 22:24 GMT From: Richard Cox Subject: Re: Local Battery Reply-To: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk Gabe Wiener (gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu) writes: >> In a local-battery phone, how was the battery charged? > It wasn't. When you found that you started to have difficulty hearing > the calling party, you opened up the phone and replaced the battery. Nope, the battery was for the microphone circuit. It was when the *other* party couldn't hear you, that you changed the battery. It's only in very recent years (relatively speaking!) that incoming speech has been amplified. Richard 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 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Modem <-> Digital Telephone System From: jacksch@insom.eastern.com (Eric Jacksch) Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 10:28:16 -0400 shri@freal.cs.umass.edu writes: > In article jacksch@insom.eastern.com > writes: >> We have electronic key set telephones; the four wire ones which plug >> into RJ-11 jacks and allow you to select from a set of lines, an >> intercom, etc. After playing around trying to build an acoustic ... > How did it work? Very well. > Or am I missing some crucial wisdom about key telephones? Yup ... it isn't a ring-and-tip pair, it's straight audio. It isn't connected to anything until you select a line using the keys on the telephone. > I have two lines at home ... now if only I could put together some > similar $10 in parts and have the answering machine on one line answer > calls on both lines, (while both lines are separate for all other > purposes.) You can buy one at Radio Shack, but it's a bit more than $10. Take Care, Eric Jacksch jacksch@insom.eastern.com Data/Fax: (416) 601-9112 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #759 ******************************   Received: from [129.105.5.103] by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa22129; 5 Oct 92 10:47 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA24699 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 5 Oct 1992 07:31:27 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA14434 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 5 Oct 1992 07:31:19 -0500 Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 07:31:19 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210051231.AA14434@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #760 TELECOM Digest Mon, 5 Oct 92 07:31:22 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 760 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: AT&T Wants $3 For International DA (Dave Leibold) Re: Living in the Past (John Higdon) Re: Cellular Interception in Private Talk (Louis A. Mamakos) Re: Exchange Codes Near Area Code Boundaries (Eugene R. Schroeder) Re: Sidetone (was LD Transmission Quality Comparison) (Richard Nash) Re: Network Installation Box Rules (1012breuckma@vmsf.csd.mu.edu) Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached (Ron Dippold) Re: Two-Line Switching Device (Shrikumar) Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over (Clark B. Merrill) Re: Non-Air Air-Phone/ (Cellular Roaming Cost in PEI) (David E. Sheafer) Re: A Good Way to Play a Micro Tape Over the Phone? (Ron Bean) Re: N0N and N1N Exhanges and 1+ Dialing (Tony Pelliccio) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1992 02:45:09 -0400 From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Dave Leibold) Subject: Re: AT&T Wants $3 For International DA As far as I can tell, getting international DA in Canada is relatively free, though I've encountered the odd occasion where the operator demands that this coincide with an actual call. One wonders how long this might last under the opened competiton, although Canadian overseas calling remains a monopoly under Teleglobe. But at $3/call, I would wonder whether it is possible to dial the DA operators overseas more cheaply? This would not be cheaper for the more primitive operations that require 15-20 minutes to get an operator, but surely a DA operator can be summoned rapidly from Australia, the UK or some other places. (this Fidonet address, or c/o dleibold@vm1.yorku.ca) Dave Leibold - via FidoNet node 1:250/98 INTERNET: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.FIDONET.ORG [Moderator's Note: Directory service is fast and very effecient in the UK and Australia to name just two places. You can get on and off in a minute or so with either place. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 02:42 PDT From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Living in the Past Bob_Frankston@frankston.com writes: > One frustrating thing about Telco is that they don't understand > anything beyond POTS. For example, when installing a line next door, > they took out one of my pairs and claim they can't promise to repair > it till 5pm tomorrow. I asked them to busy out the line in the > interim since anything more complicated would utterly confuse them. Which Telco is this? It does indeed sound like something out of the past in an era when the customer was not to know anything about how "the system worked". What happened to the pair history and service records? Sounds like heads need to roll. > Naah, that would require a company that has a modicum of understanding > a competitive marketplace. After all, if car drivers had no choice > to buy buggy whips, why improve them. Again, which telco is this? Pac*Bell has apparently resigned itself to the inevitability of a competitive environment. For the past couple of years, there has been a wonderment of "can do" flexibility. One can now get digital entrance facilities for POTS for no extra monthly charge. Installs happen same day as the order. Repair service is nothing short of miraculous. When I order temporary service for a radio station event, it takes less than three minutes to get an order number, telephone number, and disconnect order number. (Another well known telco who claims to do business in this region cannot take the order in this manner. First, one must explain what a "one-emm-bee" is. Then, since the person who answers the phone is completely powerless, someone has to call you back. Then there a discussion as to why the service will only be connected for three days. This unnamed telco cannot take a disconnect order at the same time as an install order, so one has to remember to call back to have it disconnected AFTER the event. And on and on. Since I have been roundly critisized for speaking ill of this telco, the name will remain unmentioned.) If you think telcos are bad now, you should have seen them in the "good old days". 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: louie@sayshell.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos) Subject: Re: Cellular Interception in Private Talk Organization: University of Maryland, College Park Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 15:15:37 GMT > [Moderattor's Note: We have touched upon this several times recently. > Cellular calls are quite easy to intercept on a scanning radio which > covers the 800 mh range of frequencies. The 'technical problems' > consist of sometimes having to make a small modification in the radio > itself. Conversations cannot easily be followed between cells. PAT] Why assert that conversations cannot easily be followed between cells? It is not as if the mechanism for handoffs is secret; it is done in band and someone with sufficient motivation should easily be able to decode and interpret this information. While its true that Joe Blow with a scanner won't be able to, it is by no means difficult enough to to give anyone a sense of security. [Moderator's Note: But by and large it is Joe Blow with his scanner who causes the privacy violations of cell phone users. Therefore, if Joe Blow can't do to, for all practical purposes it can't be done. Naturally, spies and other persons specially trained in surveillance can get around the complications, but Joe Blow isn't among them. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 11:57:21 EDT From: ers@cblpe.att.com (Eugene R Schroeder) Subject: Re: Exchange Codes Near Area Code Boundaries Organization: AT&T In article Philip Gladstone writes: > This all implies to me that these exchange codes are allocated in each > area code, and somehow all point to the same exchange. Further, it > seems that allocating new exchange codes in this area would use up > exchange codes in multiple area codes. I realise that in that part of > the country, there is probably a lot of free number space -- but is > this a typical approach? This sounds like "protected codes," an arrangement where you can call across an NPA boundary with 7d dialing. The term "protected" means that the NXX code cannot be assigned in the caller's NP, to prevent ambiguity. This was done when there is a community of interest split by an NPA boundary, to simplify dialing. It does consume NXXs, though, and I believe that Bellcore recommends againt establishing any more of these. Gene ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 07:09:11 -0600 From: rickie@trickie.ualberta.ca (Richard Nash) Subject: Re: Sidetone (was LD Transmission Quality Comparison) Hans-Gabriel Ridder writes: > In article John Higdon ati.com> writes: > I seem to remember reading (in an ITT manual, I believe) that the > sidetone was generated by *intentionally* unbalancing the hybrid > transformer. Also, a friend of mine once had a phone with a "broken" > hybrid which produced *no* sidetone at all (or at least very little). > This always annoyed me as it fooled me into thinking the phone had > gone dead. In the good old days, the 2500 set could be ordered up without sidetone. This was some kind of a military specification that improved communications in less than ideal environments. Richard Nash Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6K 0E8 UUCP: trickie!rickie@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca Amatuer Radio Packet: VE6BON @ VE6MC.AB.CAN.NA VE6BON.ampr.org [44.135.147.206] ------------------------------ From: 1012breuckma@vmsf.csd.mu.edu Subject: Re: Network Installation Box Installation Rules Date: 4 Oct 1992 20:56:49 GMT Organization: Marquette University - Computer Services Reply-To: 1012breuckma@vmsf.csd.mu.edu In article , David writes: > I just had a second phone line installed in my home, and the > Network Interface Box was installed on the outside of the house. This > strikes me as a problem, since it leaves the box open to weather, > vandalism, and theft of service. Also, my phone number is written > inside the box (which does have a hole for a padlock, but which is > made of flimsy plastic). > ... I don't seem to have any option to have it installed > inside the house. Here (SE Wisconsin) I've seen the Network Interface placed both inside and outside. New construction seems to be mainly outside. If you don't have one on an old installation and request one, they usually put it inside right next to the protector. It would seem to be a security problem to me also, wandering teenagers with telephones calling 900 numbers from your line. I would at least erase/eradicate the number written inside. Maybe you could build a more substantial box around theirs. ------------------------------ From: rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) Subject: Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached Organization: Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 21:24:50 GMT ganek@apollo.hp.com (Dan Ganek) writes: > Free/cheap cellular phones are the norm here in the NE. I never did > understand why CA made such tie-in's illegal. If I'm running some sort > of service business and offer to subsidize my customer's equipment, > why not? I'm not REQUIRING them to do it. It's California. We apparently lead the nation in Stupid People Who Must Be Protected From Themselves, given the number of similar laws which also reduce the options of the competent. It is morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 13:26:39 -0400 From: shri%unreal@cs.umass.edu Subject: Re: Two-Line Switching Device Organization: UMass, Amherst, MA 01002 + Temporal Sys & Comp Net, Bombay, India >> Radio Shack .. sell a device .. for sharing an answering machine >> on two lines. [...] presume first line is the default for outgoing. In article , doug@cc.ysu.edu said: > They sense an incoming call on either line ... > Outgoing calls are placed on the line that most recently received an > incoming call. > They're only $9.95, but I've had two of them fail already (the second > one was a replacement for the first one). They seemed ideal for an > answering machine or a cordless phone, but they just don't seem to > work very well, after a while they refuse to answer one of the lines. > Guess its a small latching relay with a ring voltage trip. I just saw it at Rat-shack yesterday, it was listed at $21.95, and the store keeper did not know which line it would grab on outgoing, so I did not buy it. (I want my roommate's answering machine to grab those few calls that I might get when I'm not home, but I want our outgoings not to be messed up.) Lucky, since you have such a bad experience with them. shrikumar ( shri@legato.cs.umass.edu, shri@iucaa.ernet.in ) ------------------------------ Date: 04 Oct 1992 03:35:10 -0400 (EDT) From: Clark Subject: Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over mattair@sun44.synercom.hounix.org (Charles Mattair) > Totally off the subject of telecom but Barbara Bush decided to take a > walk in Hermann Park (the largest park in Houston proper) during the > Economic Summit a couple of years ago. They cleared the park. > [Moderator's Note: Whatever happened to government of the people, by > the people and for the people? Surely she could have walked in the > park, perhaps with an agent or two and been perfectly safe without > causing all that annoyance to everyone else who was using the park. PAT] What has happened is that the secret service has totally taken over the presidential security detail. I don't agree with how they protect out leaders, but look at it from their prospective. In the last 30 years they have had one president killed, one president shot, one president that would of been shot from close range except for the gun jamming, and one presidential candidate crippled from a gunshot wound. Another thing that makes me wonder why anyone would want that job! The Secret Service had gotten paranoid. It seems that they want the same amount of security for unannounced stuff as the do for the stuff on the public calendar. I saw Reagan come back from a trip once and land at the Pentagon instead of the White house. A six lane road leading into DC was closed off. And there were officers stationed everywhere. There was no way to get anywhere near him. I was one of five people that stopped and watched the landing from the Pentagon parking lot. Another thing I've found slightly amusing is that when presidents go to sporting events, they never get to see the end of the game. Another thing that makes me wonder why anyone would want that job! Clark B. Merrill Space Telescope Science Institute Baltimore, Maryland merrill@stsci.edu ------------------------------ From: David E. Sheafer Subject: Re: Non-Air Air-Phone/ (Cellular Roaming Cost in PEI) Date: 5 Oct 92 06:58:24 GMT Organization: Merrimack College, No. Andover, MA, USA In article , cmwolf@mtu.edu (CHRISTOPHER WOLF) writes: > When I took the ferry across Lake Michigan from MI to WI this summer, > there was a phone or two on board that looked like the phones on > air-planes. > How does this work being only 100ft off the ground, in the middle of a > lake? When I took a ferry in Canada to Prince Edward Island, the phones were cellular (IsleTel Cellular I believe) on the Ferry. As an aside, when I was on PEI and used my Cellphone, the roaming costs were cheap, I had a couple of two and three-minute calls, each call was billed for a total of $1.25 CND (not 1.25 /minute but per call), and there was no daily charge. By the way I'm a NYNEX/Boston Customer, and was told that the charges would be 1.25/minute plus 3.00 per day. So I'm not complaining. David E. Sheafer internet: nin15b0b@merrimack.edu or uucp: samsung!hubdub!nin15b0b GEnie: D.SHEAFER Cleveland Freenet: ap345 ------------------------------ From: astroatc!vidiot!madnix!zaphod@spool.cs.wisc.edu (Ron Bean) Subject: Re: A Good Way to Play a Micro Tape Over the Phone? Organization: ARP Software Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 23:16:02 GMT aa571@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Gail M. Hall) writes: > However, some doctors still like to use their little dictating > machines that they can carry in their pockets and would like their > secretaries to play the tape over the phone into my system. > Normally this is a very unsatisfactory process because the machine > they use is very "low-fi" and then with the relatively low fi from the > phone line, what we end up with is a mess. If the micro-tape machine has an earphone jack, you may be able to plug in a better (larger) speaker. I used to do this kind of thing with transistor radios when I was a kid, and it really does make them sound better. I doubt if you could buy one, you'd have to build it yourself. All you need is a speaker, a plug, some wire, and some kind of box to put it in. zaphod@madnix.UUCP (Ron Bean) uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!zaphod ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 04 Oct 92 17:51:39 EDT From: Tony Pelliccio Subject: Re: N0N and N1N Exhanges and 1+ Dialing Dialing in the Rhode Island area requires the following: NNN-XXXX To dial a local number 1-NNN-XXXX To dial a toll call 1-NPA-NXX-XXXX To dial an inter-lata call The peculiar parts follow: To call the following exchanges in MA from a Providence telephone number: Exchanges: 252, 379, 399, 761 You dial it as a local 7-D number. The strange part is that you can also dial 1-508-NXX-XXXX and get the same thing. Oh ... the part I love: DA for RI and MA. In the directories 252, 379, 399 and 761 are listed as part of Providence and Vicinity but call DA and they tell you to dial 1-508-555-1212 and pay the 65 cents. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #760 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa22631; 5 Oct 92 11:00 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA10084 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 5 Oct 1992 08:02:05 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA04495 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 5 Oct 1992 08:01:56 -0500 Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 08:01:56 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210051301.AA04495@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #761 TELECOM Digest Mon, 5 Oct 92 08:02:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 761 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson ZyXEL ROMs v:5.02 Available From Mail-Server (Steve Pershing) Unhappy With the AT&T Attitude (John Higdon) Re: X.25 Connections From Commercial BBS's? (Joseph Bergstein) Re: NYTel Problems (Barton F. Bruce) Cheap Cellular Phones in California (Steven H. Lichter) Re: Information on Diskfax (Richard Cox) About a Bad Cellular Connection (Paul Robinson) Confused About T1 Bandwiths (Matt Szela) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: sp@questor.wimsey.bc.ca (Steve Pershing) Subject: ZyXEL ROMs v:5.02 Available From Mail-Server Date: 4 Oct 92 18:40:13 GMT Organization: Questor|Free Usenet News|Vancouver, BC: +1 604 681 0670 The latest release of ROM firmware for ZyXEL 1496S and 1496E modems has been received from ZyXEL USA, and are available by mail-server request from Questor as ZOO archives. > (If you do not have access to an EPROM programmer, we may be able to > help with that... > Please ask by sending e-mail to: system@questor.wimsey.bc.ca > and we will respond promptly.) The Questor mail-server automatically uuencodes binary files, with xxencoding available as an option. To request either set of ROM binaries, send e-mail to: mail-server@questor.wimsey.bc.ca and in an otherwise blank body text, insert the following line(s): /GET prodinfo/zyxel/rm1496e.zoo /GET prodinfo/zyxel/rm1496s.zoo ---> If you require XXencoding, use the following format: /GET prodinfo/zyxel/rm1496e.zoo xxencode - or - /GET prodinfo/zyxel/rm1496s.zoo xxencode Questor also *sells* ZyXEL and Telebit modems at *very* reasonable prices. For a copy of the current price list, add the following line to your request: INFO USACOST (for USA prices) INFO WLDCOST (for World prices) INFO CDNCOST (for Canadian prices) A complete file listing (including TIFF images of spec sheets) is also available by adding the following line: INFO FILINDX The following is a copy of the release note for version 5.02 ROMs. It is also include in the ZOO archive: Firmware 5.02 release note ----------------------------------------------------------- 1. AT detection has been tuned for plus model. 2. "RINGING" response is restored, set bit 6 of s42 can disable this function. 3. Fast Rate re-Negotiation fall back/forward range change from 16800-7200 to 16800-4800. 4. Improve the silence/quiet detection in voice mode. 5. Fix Caller ID and distinctive ring bugs. 6. Can send to fax machine which has no answer tone. 7. Correct response messages associated with ATX2 & ATX3. 8. Fix compatibile problem with some fax machchine which can not response to MPS signal correctly without some delay between fax message and MPS. 9. Add Austra country code (233) for 120 ms flash time. 10. Add Japan country code (234) for 20 pps pulse dial and ring detector spec. 11. Correct remote digital loopback problem in async non error control mode. 12. Correct frequency range problem of ring detector. 13. Correct 1300 Hz calling tone to be recognized as fax calling tone problem. Steve Pershing, System Administrator, The QUESTOR Project FREE access to Environ, Sci, Med, & AIDS news, and more. [also UUCP] on a ZyXEL-1496S v.42bis, v.32bis, v.33, up to 16,800bps. POST: 1027 Davie St., Box 486, Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6E 4L2 Fones: (+1 604) Data: 681-0670 FAX: 682-6160 Voice: 682-6659 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 22:13 PDT From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Unhappy With the AT&T Attitude Some time back, I recounted a situation where calls to the UK were appearing on my telephone bill. These calls showed as being made on a weekly basis on a line that is not used in any way for outgoing calls. As mentioned, AT&T very reluctantly removed the charges, indicating in essence that since the calls were "direct dialed" they had to have been made from my residence, with or without my knowledge. And now, the rest of the story. Each month the frequency and duration of the "calls" increased to the point where the monthly amount was pushing $100. And each month AT&T became snottier and snottier about removing the charges, until finally I was informed that there would be "no more credits". AT&T's position was that the calls were being made and there was no room for error. My position was that I did not make any such calls; no one in my house made any such calls; and I was not going to pay for calls that I had nothing to do with. On September 10, Pac*Bell found the problem that involved some crossed lines. I was informed that Pac*Bell had identified the source of the calls and the party responsible. End of problem, or so I thought. Today I received my September 26 bill. There were no bogus UK calls, but AT&T had failed to remove previous charges for these phony billings causing a past-due balance and late charges. I called AT&T. The rep informed me that since "Pac*Bell has found no difficulty, the billing stands." At that point I demanded a supervisor, and when he came on the line I three-wayed a Pac*Bell rep into the conversation. (Is it not nice that both AT&T AND Pac*Bell do business on Saturday? Unlike another telco that I will not name whose business office is open 8AM to 5PM Monday through Friday PERIOD.) The Pac*Bell rep informed the AT&T supervisor that there had indeed been a problem with my lines and that it had been corrected. The AT&T supervisor issued an immediate credit (and Pac*Bell removed the late charges). I thanked the Pac*Bell rep for her help and then I reamed the AT&T supervisor a new orifice. Throughout this whole affair, AT&T has been arrogant and uncooperative. It had even promised to follow up on the actions taken by Pac*Bell to determine if there were technical problems with the line. It did not. Somehow I prefer not to do business with a company that just assumes that I am lying, or attempting to evade lawful and appropriate charges. Each and every frontline rep at AT&T with whom I spoke sported an attitude that there was no question that I had made the calls in question. To them, that was a "fact" that was not even negotiable. All we were discussing, from their point of view, was how "generous" AT&T would be in "forgiving" those charges. As mentioned previously, I do substantial business with AT&T each month. Considering the size of my bills, the idea that I would attempt to weasel out of even $100 is absurd. The supervisor today was put on notice that considering the wretched treatment that I received and the lack of effort AT&T put forth in resolving the problem, my search for a carrier that would offer even remotely similar rates/service has been intensified. AT&T blew it with this one. No, the problem of erroneous charges was not due to any mistake or negligence on its part. But there was a legitimate technical problem. And even though it involved Pac*Bell, AT&T might have operated from the position that it needed to look after its customer's interests just a little. And even though the technical glitch was in Pac*Bell's facilities, Pac*Bell always treated me with great respect and with the attitude that there was something that needed to be corrected. The proof was in the pudding: Pac*Bell technicians pursued it until it was found. I was given progress reports and was immediately contacted upon resolution. Apparently AT&T could not have cared less, particularly since no one there believe there was a technical problem in the first place. 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: Joseph.Bergstein@p501.f544.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Joseph Bergstein) Date: Sun, 04 Oct 1992 17:22:19 -0500 Subject: Re: X.25 Connections From Commercial BBS's? Joel M. Hoffman asks: > Does anyone know if there are commercial BBS's (like CompuServe, > etc.that provide outgoing X.25 connections? If so, what are the > typical fees? I would think it's cheaper for low-volume usage than > requesting X.25 service from the local telco. Anyone have specific > information? What do you mean by outgoing X.25 connection? Do you mean X.25 outdial service? Check with Compuserve, BT Tymnet, and Sprint (Telenet), and possibly GE. If you mean support for a BBS, Compuserve offers an X.25 link plus PAD to multiple host ports (i.e. your BBS). If you have enough COmpuserve users who log on and use Compuserve connect time to access your BBS, then Compuserve will provide the X.25 link, plus modems, and the PAD for free. The advantage to your BBS users is that an hour of Compuserve connect time can often be cheaper than one hour of long distance fees, depending on distance. Also, if you have many users, then access via X.25 becomes distance insensitive (i.e. flat hourly rate for any users within U.S.) Check with Compuserve sales rep for details. I am not sure if BT or Sprint have similar offerings. ------------------------------ From: Barton F. Bruce Subject: Re: NYTel Problems Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. Date: 5 Oct 92 03:59:17 EDT In article , dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) writes: > In TELECOM Digest, Volume 12, Issue 735 Douglas Scott Reuben > writes: >> On 24 Sep 92 16:52:40 GMT, henry@ads.com (Henry Mensch) wrote: >> Then, the next day, call 611. Report the payphone and the problem. >> Since this is NYNEX, there is a 70% chance they won't fix it. > Let's make that 90% as per my experience. >> Isn't NYNEX just SO competent? And some people say GTE is bad ...:) > NYNEX/NYTel is USELESS! The 'office-of-the-President' hot line number in MA is via the main switchboard at 617-743-9800 -- ask for 'Executive Appeals'. I am NO great lover of NYNEX or its 'children', but they *ARE* changing -- give them some credit. Our company is 'served' by NET&T here in MA and by NYTEL in NY. Though I agree NYTEL may have its records/billing/repair systems badly messed up, and they have high TT charges when others are dropping them and they have many other problems, they DO HAVE SOME *GOOD* features! Those good features are brought to you by some younger/newer management that is trying very hard to change the company and who are daily more frustrated by it than you possibly ever could be. We have DDS-II (aka BDS or non-hubbed DDS) that is available intra-LATA and on FCC tariffs at a fraction of the price of the old DDS rates. We have NRS available that actually lets you log in to THEIR DACS and reconfigure where each of your DS0s connects to. Do you have these? And now there is Frame Relay (in use in NY, in field trial in MA -- but will be available soon). 56 kb F/R costs DDS-II normal charges to the nearest DACS -- if it is in your local CO, that means $80. Then you add a $67 port charge into the F/R net -- that is it. You get the first virtual circuit included. The next five or so are $10, then next five are $5, and all rest are $1. An Internet access provider can feed a T1 into the F/R net off a single cisco port and then feed *HUNDREDS* of modest traffic 56kb users for far less than ever before. There is no mileage component other than getting to the nearest DACS. This is goodness. Do you have it in your state? NET&T has a user's group that meets periodically. NYNEX management folks from White Plains come to talk and listen. And they DO listen, and they do give candid no BS answers. Does your telco do this? NET&T is even getting connected to the Internet via NEARNET! So bitch and natter all you want, but be aware of what is changing; GO TO DPU hearings; stand up and SPEAK; ask your local politician why the MBTA (that owns some abandoned rail lines being converted to bike paths) seems to obstruct bypass carrier's attempts to bury fiber on such routes (might they have NET&T 'friends'?), and in general get involved. TELCOs can change, and you can help :-) ------------------------------ From: steven@alchemy.uucp Date: 5 Oct 92 00:02:00 UT Subject: Cheap Cellular Phones in California Well that seems to be changing. Radio Shack was advertising their hand held phone for a lot less then it has been in the past. The problem was you had to pay $100.00 more for it if you did not get their service (LA Cellular). Since I had PacTell Cellular, and have never had any problems with it I saw no reason to change. I was shown the costs for the phone in other states and it is a lot more. By the way, North Carolina appears to have gone the way of the other states. I bought an OKI 900 for a fair price had it programmed at the selling price and paid PacBell $15.00 for an ESN change. I also found out that a phone sold by Circuit City, Silo and so on as XXX by and a brand name phone are made for them and may not be as good. Also if you don't want to sign up for the service they really don't want to sell you one. Steven H. Lichter COEI GTECA Mad Dog (Steven) Sysop: Apple Elite II -- an Ogg-Net BBS UUCP: steven@alchemy.UUCP (714) 359-5338 1200-2400 bps 8N1 [Moderator's Note: This is another example of mail coming from gte.com under the name of Gloria Valle. I had to change it to the address shown above. I *wish* correspondents from GTE would show the correct address when writing here. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 22:25 GMT From: Richard Cox Subject: Re: Information on Diskfax Reply-To: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk shrikumar (shri@legato.cs.umass.edu, shri@iucaa.ernet.in) asks: > The product he's talking about "takes a computer disk and sends it as a > fax" or somesuch thing. Whats this thingummy? Anybody used it? The Diskfax is a remote disk duplicating system, using an integral modem and proprietary protocol. The idea is that you can "transmit" the contents of a floppy to another similar machine, somewhere else, without human intervention where it is "printed out" on a blank floppy. In other words it does for disks what fax machines do for documents. Hence the name. It does work, but is not cheap (close to $1000) and not many were sold. There are therefore few places that you can "fax" disks to, which is probably why so few were sold. Most people that bought them, did so for use to/from a specific partner machine, rather than for general use. Richard 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 ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Sun, 04 Oct 1992 22:35:13 EDT Subject: About a Bad Cellular Connection A funny thing happened today. One of the executives called into this office from Europe and had a connection that made me think they were calling locally. Really clean call. Later on, one of the mid-level people calls in on a cellular phone that made me think he was calling from Mars or Jupiter, or at least during a sunspot attack. Really bad. So I mentioned to him that his connection was {worse} than one that came in from Europe. So I asked him, "By the way, which phone system are you using, Crapula One or Barf Atlantic?" :) He thought it was funny too ... Paul Robinson These opinions are MINE, MINE, MINE. ------------------------------ From: mats@devildog.att.com (Matt Szela) Subject: Confused about T1 bandwiths Organization: AT&T IMS - Piscataway, NJ (USA) Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 04:13:20 GMT Data Comm Folks, I am confused about the T1 usable rates. My understanding is that the T1 lines can come in two speeds: 1. 1,344 Kbps i.e. 24 channels @ 56 Kbps each; OR 2. 1,536 Kbps i.e. 24 channels @ 64 Kbps each. Now, what do I need to do in order to get the higher 1,536 speed: Is this the function of the terminating CSUs, the phone company circuit or both? The difference is 192 Kbps which is quite a lot and we would like to take advantage of this extra bandwith if possible. Do I need to tell the phone company when I order the circuit that I want the 1,536 Kbps line? My understanding also is that if the two CSUs are connected back to back via an in-house circuit less then 6,000 long they can indeed get the 1,544 Kbps usable bandwith rates since no framing bits are needed. Thanks in advance for any info on the subject. Matt mats@devildog.att.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #761 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa25386; 6 Oct 92 3:14 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA32269 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Tue, 6 Oct 1992 00:58:05 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA21277 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Tue, 6 Oct 1992 00:57:56 -0500 Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 00:57:56 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210060557.AA21277@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #763 TELECOM Digest Tue, 6 Oct 92 00:58:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 763 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Comments on the Multimedia Article (David G. Lewis) Re: Brooklyn Bridge Phone Episode (Will Martin) Re: Confused About T1 Bandwidths (rfranken@cs.umr.edu) Re: Confused About T1 Bandwidths (Bruce L. Friedman) Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over (Laird Broadfield) Re: Living in the Past (Bob Frankston) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) Subject: Re: Comments on the Multimedia Article Organization: AT&T Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 17:13:11 GMT In article TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM writes: > We will buy the capacity as we want it. Just have the capacity > there and have it low enough cost to allow anyone who can afford a > phone now to get in on this stuff. > Note to anyone working for a telephone company: Do us all a favor and > oversupply capacity! You should build for a factor of one hundred > times current capacity, the equivalent of running a small PBX into > each house. Unfortunately, as you touch on in the previous paragraph, there is a cost issue involved. You can not put in a factor of 100 overbuild in capacity without an increase of cost. Even if economies of scale can somehow provide a factor of 10 improvement, you're still talking a cost ten times current cost. Are you willing to pay $100/month for a POTS line just so the capacity can be there sometime in the future? > I believe that 10 fiber optic (FO) cables are the size of one > twisted pair, and one FO cable is the equivalent of something like > 5,000 phone lines or 20 tv channels. Size of the cables is the least concern; the biggest cost element in a fiber optic system is the cost of the electronics hanging on either end. A 12-fiber cable (the smallest I've seen used in my, albeit limited, experience) is probably no bigger than a piece of CATV coax (remember, you've got to have the physical support built into the cable -- it's not just ten fibers in a sheath). Those six pairs of fiber can get you anywhere from one DS1 (1.544 kb/s) (using a single pair) to 72 DS3s (over 20Gb/s), at a cost ranging from about $5000 to, oh, somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 million. When you're dealing with these numbers, cable size gets kind of lost in the noise. Don't get me wrong; fiber's great, and one of the things that makes it great is the fact that you can yank out the existing electronics and upgrade the capacity of the link by orders of magnitude without having to change out the cable plant. But when you're talking about running to the home, the electronics cost is *the* significant cost factor. > Figure sending 1/2 of the capacity of a FO cable per house, and you > can expect to cover the bandwidth demands of the future and several > years from now. Using your 5000 phone lines per (I'm guessing you mean) fiber pair, at 64kb/s for a phone line, you're talking sending 160Mb/s to each house. Let's use 155Mb/s, since that's an STS-3 SONET/SDH rate. Anyone know what an STS-3 FOT is going for these days? I don't have any up-to-date information (and if I did, I probably wouldn't be allowed to post it), but I'd guess that $30k/link (both ends) is correct within an order of magnitude. Even if using ring architectures and ADMs can drop your costs by a factor of two (unlikely to impossible), you're talking $15k electronics costs per house. Even if the cost of overlaying the fiber itself goes to zero, you've just incurred a $15k per subscriber incremental cost. At a 50,000 line CO, that's an investment of $750 million dollars. For capacity which will, basically, sit there until people figure out how to use it. Try selling that to your local PSC. > You can't go wrong overestimating capacity; if one party doesn't use > it, someone else will. But who pays for it?? > We did not, when steel was invented, build metal copies of wooden > bridges; we have new technology, we need new ideas. Actually, when iron and steel were first used as structural members in bridges, we built metal copies of stone and wooden bridges. It took some years before the engineers designing bridges got sufficiently creative to understand the paradigm shift. (Then they went too far the other way and got too radically different; witness Tacoma Narrows and the hideous side beams on the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge -- but that's another story ...) Agreed, we need new ideas. And I would agree, up to a point, that one element of these new ideas is to overlay fiber in sufficient quantity that one or two fiber pairs can be dropped at each home, on spec. But I'd find it hard to justify pulling a fiber pair into each home and terminating it with the electronics to support any amount of bandwidth, unless I could charge at least ten times the going rate for a POTS line -- and even that might not cut it. Disclaimer: my opinions; AT&T has nothing to do with them. In fact, my colleagues over in Network Systems have this great Fiber To The Curb product, the SLC(R)-DT ... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 Oct 92 14:21:36 CDT From: Will Martin Subject: Re: Brooklyn Bridge Phone Episode > The family tries to arrange a code with the grandparents, who live > downstairs: when the family should go down to the grandparents, the > grandparents are to call, hanging up after the second ring. This is > to avoid a toll. I thought a charge for a local call was something > new, made possible by new technology which could meter all calls. Is > this not true? Were local calls charged for in the fifties (I think > this is when the show is set)? Or were the characters confused about > local vs toll? > [Moderator's Note: No indeed. We've had measured service in Chicago > for a half-century; so has New York City. Until the past few years > they could not tell you *exactly what number* you dialed ... just > that you did. If you protested, the next month they'd put a pen > register on the line to keep track of it for you. PAT] I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding here based on the definition of "measured service". Back in the '50s, my parents had just this sort of arrangement with my grandparents, who lived a block away. The grandparents would call and let the phone ring twice, and then hang up. We would then call them every time the phone rang twice and then stopped. (Of course, that meant that you'd always have to wait till the third ring to pick up the phone, even if you were standing there right next to it.) This was because the grandparents had the minimal-cost service of a party line with a limit of 30 (or so -- don't recall the exact numbers) uncharged [and also untimed] calls per month. Any calls over the 30 were charged at ten cents each [I think]. We had a party line too, but had a more-generous limit of a larger number of calls per month before a per-call charge would set in, because we paid more. Note that each call had no timing and no duration limit; there was simply a counter for completed calls. So a two-minute call and a two-hour call each counted the same, and, if over the numeric limit and thus charged for, would each cost ten cents. I do not know if long-distance calls counted against this limit, or did not because they went through the operator. (I do not recall if we had direct-dial LD at this time; Long Distance was something one just did not do. One wrote letters. :-) This was in St. Louis, MO. This type of service is probably equivalent to some forms of the "Lifeline" service for the elderly that some telcos now offer. Back then, it was just a lower-cost residential option, which we frugal Midwesterners chose to save a few bucks per month. I do not think this type of service can be bought now, but perhaps a few long-time subscribers still have it in place. It was grandfathered in place at least up to the late '60s, because at that time, when I began working and had a paycheck, but still lived at home, I told my parents that I would pay the phone bill from then on, and changed the service to regular single-party unlimited flat-rate calling. (Checking the current White Pages here reveals that "Lifeline" is offered, but appears to be a discount off the bill only, not a special class of service. It is defined as a discount of $3.50 per month, plus the $3.50 Federal End User Common Line Charge is waived. Also a discount of up to 50% on installation chages is available. No definition of who is qualified for this is given, though; one has to call the Business Office for information. What is interesting is that there is no specification as to limits of class of service the Lifeline subscriber can choose, so it seems they can have either measured or flat rate service with the discount taken off.) Regards, Will wmartin@st-louis-emh2.army.mil OR wmartin@stl-06sima.army.mil ------------------------------ From: rfranken@cs.umr.edu Subject: Re: Confused About T1 Bandwidths Date: Mon, 5 Oct 92 16:17:30 CDT > Data Comm Folks, > I am confused about the T1 usable rates. My understanding is that the > T1 lines can come in two speeds: > 1. 1,344 Kbps i.e. 24 channels @ 56 Kbps each; OR > 2. 1,536 Kbps i.e. 24 channels @ 64 Kbps each. > Now, what do I need to do in order to get the higher 1,536 speed: Is > this the function of the terminating CSUs, the phone company circuit > or both? The difference is 192 Kbps which is quite a lot and we would > like to take advantage of this extra bandwith if possible. > Do I need to tell the phone company when I order the circuit that I > want the 1,536 Kbps line? > My understanding also is that if the two CSUs are connected back to > back via an in-house circuit less then 6,000 long they can indeed get > the 1,544 Kbps usable bandwith rates since no framing bits are needed. A T1 line represents 1's by alternating between high and low voltage (called Alternate Mark Inversion) -- that is, 0's are represented by 0 volts, and 1's are represented by +voltage (if the previous 1 was represented by a negative voltage) or by -voltage (if the previous 1 was represented by positive voltage). This allows repeaters, which must get their timing from the line, to remain in sync over long streams of 1 bits (since there will be a voltage change between two consecutive 1's). However, any more than 14 straight zeros, and the repeater may lose sync (since there is no voltage change between consecutive zeros). In a T1 carrying voice, 1's can be inserted where needed to maintain 1's density (since you won't likely notice the difference), but that is obviously not acceptable in a digital high-speed data circuit. There are two ways around this: 1) Use only 56KBps of each 64KBps DS0 channel. This means seven out of every eight bits are used. The eighth bit is set to 1, ensuring 1's density. 2) Use B8ZS coding. What this does is replace any 00000000 byte with 10011010 (I don't think thats the correct bit pattern, but it will suffice for this explanation). Since no 00000000 streams occur, sufficient 1's density will be maintained. But, when the receiver received 10011010, how does it know if the original byte really was 10011010 or 00000000? When 10011010 is sent in place of 00000000 the sender deliberately causes a bi-polar violation on the fifth bit. Normally, 10011010 should be sent (voltage wise) as +00-+0-0 or -00+-0+0. If a substitution for 00000000 is occurring, then +00--0+0 or -00++0-0 is sent. The receiver then detects this bipolar violation and substitutes 00000000. (A third method is to guarantee that your source will never send two many zeros consecutively. This is generally not possible with computer data, which could be anything.) So, you need to get a circuit from the telephone company that is set up for B8ZS. (If the circuit is a direct line connected by repeaters, then you can probably use B8ZS, as most repeaters don't care about anything but a voltage transition at least once every 15 bits. But, this is rarely the case. Usually the telco will have some other equipment in the line that will show an error on the line (becasue of all the bipolar violations) if it is not configured for B8ZS. For a fast serial line, framing bits are never needed (the computers take care of figuring out where a byte starts). If nothing inbetween the sender and receiver cares about framing, and you had a CSU that would support it, then you could use the full 1.544 (most repeaters don't care about framing, but, for example, a DACS probably would). Brett (rfranken@cs.umr.edu) ------------------------------ From: brucef@vpnet.chi.il.us (B.L. Friedman) Subject: Re: Confused About T1 Bandwiths Organization: Vpnet Public Access Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1992 00:16:13 GMT In article mats@devildog.att.com (Matt Szela) writes: > I am confused about the T1 usable rates. My understanding is that the > T1 lines can come in two speeds: > Do I need to tell the phone company when I order the circuit that I > want the 1,536 Kbps line? Matt, The short answer is that the telco transmission equipment and your own terminal equipment are the driving factor. You must be able to use the B8ZS zero-code suppresion standard to achieve 64Kbps data rates on a per channel basis. See below for the long answer. The data rate over each channel of the T1 carrier is dependent on a couple of items, one being the use of "in-band" signalling, and the other being the zero-code suppresion standard being used. Each of these uses will occupy/corrupt one data bit in the data stream. By "in-band", also referred to as "robbed-bit", I am referring to the trunk supervision signalling protocol (on-hook/off-hook) status. Every sixth frame, the least significant bit in each channel is used to indicate the on-hook/off-hook status of the trunk. This is used for call setup and release in some applications. In the US, most calls probably will be using common channel signaling (CCS) and will not steal that bit. Also for data calls, (ie. your application), the robbed bit signaling should not be enabled. The other place data is lost is the zero-code suppresion standard being used. There is a standard called B8ZS (binary 8-bit zero substitution), which allows for no bit stealing to prevent long strings of eight zeros. An older standard, called zero code suppression for lack of a better term, will corrupt one bit to prevent a long stream of zeros. The reason that a long stream of zeros must be prevented is that the T1 carrier signal is a self-clocking signal, ie. the data carrier also includes the timing. This self clocking encoding doesn't work on the zero bit encoding, but just on one's. A long stream of zeros can throw off the clocking of the receiver. > My understanding also is that if the two CSUs are connected back to > back via an in-house circuit less then 6,000 long they can indeed get > the 1,544 Kbps usable bandwith rates since no framing bits are needed. I can't help you with the in-house application without framing. Good luck on your quest. Regards, Bruce Friedman ------------------------------ From: lairdb@crash.cts.com Subject: Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over Date: 5 Oct 92 19:28:16 GMT In mattair@sun44.synercom.hounix.org (Charles Mattair) writes: > Totally off the subject of telecom but Barbara Bush decided to take a > walk in Hermann Park (the largest park in Houston proper) during the > Economic Summit a couple of years ago. They cleared the park. > [Moderator's Note: Whatever happened to government of the people, by > the people and for the people? Surely she could have walked in the > park, perhaps with an agent or two and been perfectly safe without > causing all that annoyance to everyone else who was using the park. PAT] No, no, you're confusing this with Britain, a constitutional monarchy with a number of terrorist organizations active, where (until pretty recently, when the press have been such a bother) it was not at all rare to see one of the Royals pop out for an afternoon's shopping. Laird P. Broadfield lairdb@crash.cts.com ...{ucsd, nosc}!crash!lairdb ------------------------------ From: Bob_Frankston@frankston.com Subject: Re: Living in the Past Date: Mon 5 Oct 1992 19:53 -0400 It is NET (Nynex). The problem seems to have been in the cable between the pole and my house which probably died due to work on the pole and old age rather than a stolen pair. My real point about competitive environment is not so much the question of willingness to cooperate as the limits on innovation. In this particular case, does ANY telco offer to provide your own message during a temporary outage? (A private OOS message) I realize that I'm begin unfair in that even in competitive environment there are many "obvious" services that are simply not available. While the majority is probably due to failures of imagination as much as lack of competition some of the problems still occur in competitive environments where are particular service though valuable doesn't offer an immediate competitive advantage so gets little or no priority. Still, my feeling is that the presence of competition increases the probability of useful features being made available. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #763 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa25536; 6 Oct 92 3:19 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA32031 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Tue, 6 Oct 1992 00:32:09 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA18114 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Tue, 6 Oct 1992 00:32:00 -0500 Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 00:32:00 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210060532.AA18114@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #762 TELECOM Digest Tue, 6 Oct 92 00:32:06 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 762 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Manufacturers of Phone Patches Wanted (Richard Nash) Re: Select Ringing Call Director Needed (Bill Petrisko) Re: Two-Line Switching Device (Steven S. Brack) Re: 800 Numbers Restricted by NYTel? (Mike Coyne) Re: AT&T Public Phone 2000 (Edwin G. Green) Re: What's in a NAM (Jim Rees) Re: X.25 Connections From Commercial BBS's? (Joel M. Hoffman) Re: Network Installation Box Installation Rules (Jim Rees) Re: Non-Air Air-Phone (Christopher Wolf) Re: Non-Air Air-Phone (Nigel Allen) Re: Non-Air Air-Phone (Darren Alex Griffiths) Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison (John Higdon) Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over (Dave Niebuhr) Re: Cellular Interception in Private Talk (Jon Gefaell) Re: Cellular Interception in Private Talk (Jacob DeGlopper) Re: My Favorite Intercepts (Claus Tondering) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 09:51:25 -0600 From: rickie@trickie.ualberta.ca (Richard Nash) Subject: Re: Manufacturers of Phone Patches Wanted > I'm developing a product for stutterers that will process speech when > talking on the telephone. To connect the processor to the phone, I > All I need is audio in and audio out. My processor unit will have > volume controls for both. I suppose I should have something to keep > the outgoing level below -20dBm, as I understand that the phone > company doesn't want levels over this. > Lastly, if I sell more than 20-30 of these, I'll have a complete > circuitboard designed with a phone patch on it. If it connects to the > handset jack, not the phone line, can I avoid FCC Part 68 > certification? I understand that certification costs about $20,000. > Will the phone patch circuit be substantially different? Might I suggest modifying a cheap telephone which could have a couple of RCA or similar jacks mounted onto it? Find someone locally who knows how to properly piggy-back onto the network components to gain access to the correct signals. I had performed this operation on a friend's Meritor (tm) keyset phone he uses in his recording studio business. Amazingly, the trans-hybrid loss was phenomenaly good. Signals could be fed from the studio microphone, into the phones' line, and at the same time, the studio performer could hear the distant telephone user via the return path. No feedback! Total parts count = four. I used two non-polarized 2 mf., capacitors and two bantam jacks (so that the console patch bay patch-cords could be utilised). Richard Nash Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6K 0E8 UUCP: trickie!rickie@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Select Ringing Call Director Needed From: petrisko@evax2.engr.arizona.edu (William Petrisko) Date: 5 Oct 92 04:07:57 MST Reply-To: petrisko@evax2.engr.arizona.edu Organization: University of Arizona, College of Engineering and Mines, Tucson In article , pls@cibecue.az05.bull.com (Paul Schauble) writes: > I'm looking for a call director that can direct a call to various > devices based on selective ringing. I'd like to find a device that can > attach three or four devices. Sources? MISCO now has a unit that will do just that. It is called the Ring Decipher (misco part #fl-3622). The only other identification in the ad is "ASAP RD-4000". I'd like to know who makes it, and alternate sources. Supposedly, it will provide a standard ring signal on any one of the four outputs determined by the incoming ring pattern. Price $99. bill petrisko petrisko@evax2.engr.arizona.edu aka n7lwo ...!uunet!4gen!warlok!gargle!omnisec!thumper!bill ------------------------------ Date: 05 Oct 1992 11:59:47 -0400 (EDT) From: sbrack@jupiter.cse.UTOLEDO.edu (Steven S. Brack) Subject: Re: Two-Line Switching Device In article Bob_Frankston@frankston.com writes: > I think that Radio Shack used to and might still sell a device > designed for sharing an answering machine on two lines. RS also sells a sharp-looking answering machine that answers two lines. I haven't used it myself, but it certainly *looks* better than the normal "stuff" RS puts out in the consumer end of their operation. Steven S. Brack sbrack@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu 2021 Roanwood Drive STU0061@uoft01.utoledo.edu Toledo, OH 43613-1605 brack@uoftcse.cse.utoledo.edu +1 419 GR4 1010 MY OWN OPINIONS sbrack@maine.cse.utoledo.edu ------------------------------ From: CCEB001@UTXVM.CC.UTEXAS.EDU Subject: Re: 800 Numbers Restricted by NYTel? Date: 5 Oct 92 16:35:20 GMT Organization: The University of Texas at Austin In jbutz@homxa.att.com writes: > Blocking 800 is sometimes done for fraud prevention. One example is > street drug dealers. They often use payphones as their "office > phones." Clients usually contact their dealers through a pager, and > paging companies often use 800 numbers. This may not be a big issue > any longer, since most pagers display the caller info. Payphones in > high crime areas often have both calling card blocked, and 800 > blocked, about the only thing callers can do is to drop in coins or > call collect. Laird P. Broadfield expresses confusion at this. I am confused too. Is this not clearly in violation of the alleged[1] public policy of universal access. I might be able to see blocking specific numbers where there is a repeated problem, but blocking 800 and calling card is not allowable. Mike.Coyne@utxvm.utexas.edu: [1] allegation: A lie that has attained the dignity of age. Art Buchwald ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 Oct 92 08:41:27 EDT From: egg@inuxy.att.com (Edwin G Green) Subject: Re: AT&T Public Phone 2000 Organization: AT&T roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail) writes: > You say "when equipped with a keyboard" ... are there installations > that do not include keyboards? What might be the rationale? (I have > only seen the keyboard-equipped model, and not in Minnesota.) Yes, there are installations that do not include keyboards. Which features are turned on or provided in each installation is dictated by the agent (airport authority, hotel, airline, etc.) and local regulatory agencies. I guess some agents just want a fancy credit-card phone and are uninterested in the keyboard and TTD capabilities. If you are interested, I can provide you with the locations of MN installations (if any exist). (I suggest we use email since specific information like that is probably of limited interest to the rest of this group.). Edwin G. Green AT&T Bell Laboratories Indianapolis, Indiana, USA INH 1E-506 17-845-3659 egg@inuxy.att.com ------------------------------ From: rees@pisa.citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees) Subject: Re: What's in a NAM Reply-To: Jim.Rees@umich.edu Organization: University of Michigan CITI Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 16:14:01 GMT In article , johng@comm.mot.com (John Gilbert) writes: > All one has to do to change NAMs is to enter the five-digit system ID > and ten-digit phone number for the new NAM, then press Func-6. The > new NAM will be in effect until it is changed. This works an > unlimited number of times. I wonder what Audiovox does about the "access overload class," "Systems Station class mark," and "Systems group ID mark" fields that are normally part of a NAM? These fields are normally programmed by the dealer when a phone is put on service. The Station Class Mark depends on the phone, not the system, and will normally be the same for every NAM in a given phone. SCM sets the max number of channels (666 vs. 832), max power (.6, 1.2, 3), and VOX enable (which you can always turn off if you don't know whether the system supports it or not). The Group ID Mark gives the significant bit mask for the system id. If you set it too big, your phone will think it's home when it's really roaming, and if you set it too small, it will be the other way around. I'm not sure what the results will be in actual use if you set it wrong but it's probably not catastrophic. The Access Overload Class is assigned by the service provider. I think you can just pick one at random and your phone will still work, although the provider may not be happy (if the provider even understands what this is for, which is not likely). I would also be concerned about setting the MIN Mark and the local use bit correctly. The limits on user NAM programming are a crock designed to protect lazy cell service providers. A cell system should never give service to a phone it doesn't know, and ESNs should never be sent in the clear over the air. Rather than implement real security, the cellular industry tries to legislate the problem away, then bills the legitimate users for losses due to abuse. They've taken the same morally bankrupt approach to eavesdropping. Rather than provide a secure channel, they lobby for laws making it illegal to listen. They're trying to shirk their responsibilities as common carriers rather than solve the problem. ------------------------------ From: joel@wam.umd.edu (Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: Re: X.25 Connections From Commercial BBS's? Organization: University of Maryland, College Park Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 17:03:28 GMT In article Joseph.Bergstein@p501.f544. n109.z1.fidonet.org (Joseph Bergstein) writes: > Joel M. Hoffman asks: >> Does anyone know if there are commercial BBS's (like CompuServe, >> etc.that provide outgoing X.25 connections? > What do you mean by outgoing X.25 connection? Do you mean X.25 > outdial service? Check with Compuserve, BT Tymnet, and Sprint > (Telenet), and possibly GE. Yes, that's what I mean. And CompuServe doesn't offer it. Joel ------------------------------ From: rees@pisa.citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees) Subject: Re: Network Installation Box Installation Rules Reply-To: Jim.Rees@umich.edu Organization: University of Michigan CITI Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 16:25:23 GMT In article , David writes: > I just had a second phone line installed in my home, and the > Network Interface Box was installed on the outside of the house. This > strikes me as a problem, since it leaves the box open to weather, > vandalism, and theft of service. Anyone who taps into my network interface box (which is unlocked) had better have an ISDN set capable of operating on the U interface. ------------------------------ From: cmwolf@mtu.edu (CHRISTOPHER WOLF) Subject: Re: Non-Air Air-Phones Date: Mon, 5 Oct 92 13:08:50 EDT Many seem to think that the phones are cellular, but I thought the range of cellular was only a few miles with many towers. How do they get the signal all the way across Lake Michigan, some 60-80 odd miles? Christopher Wolf cmwolf@mtu.edu ------------------------------ From: Nigel.Allen@lambada.oit.unc.edu Subject: Re: Non-Air Air-Phone Date: Mon, 5 Oct 92 1:27:14 EDT In Volume 12, Issue 753, Christopher Wolf (cmwolf@mtu.edu) wrote: > When I took the ferry across Lake Michigan from MI to WI this summer, > there was a phone or two on board that looked like the phones on > air-planes. > How does this work being only 100ft off the ground, in the middle > of a lake? On the ferries owned by the British Columbia government that operate between Victoria and Vancouver, there are pay phones of two kinds: conventional radio-telephones operated by the British Columbia Telephone Company (B.C. Tel, half-owned by GTE Corporation), and cellular pay phones, operated by B.C. Cellular, which I believe is a subsidiary of B.C. Tel. I think that the charge for calls from the cellular phone was about $1 (Canadian) a minute a year ago. I didn't try it out. Nigel Allen nigel.allen@lambada.oit.unc.edu ------------------------------ From: dag@ossi.com (Darren Alex Griffiths) Subject: Re: Non-Air Air-Phone Organization: Open Systems Solutions Inc. Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 20:25:35 GMT cmwolf@mtu.edu (CHRISTOPHER WOLF) writes: > When I took the ferry across Lake Michigan from MI to WI this summer, > there was a phone or two on board that looked like the phones on > air-planes. > How does this work being only 100ft off the ground, in the middle of a > lake? They have phones similar to this on the San Francisco -- Oakland ferries. In our case they are simply cellular phones with credit card attachments. BTW, the most civilized way to get home in the evening is a quiet ride across the bay with glass of wine and a slow breeze. It sure beats the Bay Bridge during rush hour, but don't tell anyone or it will get to crowded on the boat. Cheers, Darren Alex Griffiths dag@nasty.ossi.com Open Systems Solutions Inc. (510) 652-6200 x139 Fujitsu Ltd. Fax: (510) 652-5532 6121 Hollis Street Emeryville, CA 94608-2092 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 Oct 92 11:07 PDT From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison John_David_Galt%portal@cup.portal.com writes: > I have used MCI for everything, since before the breakup, and have > never had any problems with it. I wouldn't be surprised if the people > with problems are calling to or from some rural location that only > AT&T has wired yet. I find PEP connections over MCI to suffer a substantial loss in throughput. Granted, many including myself consider San Jose (California, for those outside the state) to be a cow town (formerly a One Horse town). The other parties are in places such as Los Angeles (California) and San Diego (California). I understand that LA is coming right along in its efforts to become a big town. 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, 5 Oct 92 15:32:01 EDT From: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) Subject: Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over In TELECOM Digest Volume 12 : Issue 760 Clark writes: > mattair@sun44.synercom.hounix.org (Charles Mattair) writes: >> Totally off the subject of telecom but Barbara Bush decided to take a >> walk in Hermann Park (the largest park in Houston proper) during the >> Economic Summit a couple of years ago. They cleared the park. > What has happened is that the secret service has totally taken over > the presidential security detail. The way I think that this happened is that the Treasury Department was assigned the task of protecting the President after one was assassin- ated (sp) and the Secret Service was the branch of that department selected for the job. This was in the late 1800s and the job has expanded to the point that the the President, his immediate family, the Vice-President and his family and any Presidential candidates get this protection via a law or executive order signed by signed by the late President Lyndon Johnson after the assassination of Senator Robert Kennnedy of New York in 1968. Dave Niebuhr Internet: niebuhr@bnl.gov / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973 (516)-282-3093 [Moderator's Note: Yeah, we know how it was set up, but I still think there is a massive overkill. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jon@Turing.ORG (Jon Gefaell (KD4CQY)) Subject: Re: Cellular Interception in Private Talk Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia. Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 21:15:05 GMT In article louie@sayshell.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos) writes: >> [Moderator's Note: We have touched upon this several times recently. >> Cellular calls are quite easy to intercept on a scanning radio which >> covers the 800 mh range of frequencies. The 'technical problems' >> consist of sometimes having to make a small modification in the radio >> itself. Conversations cannot easily be followed between cells. PAT] > Why assert that conversations cannot easily be followed between cells? > It is not as if the mechanism for handoffs is secret; it is done in > band and someone with sufficient motivation should easily be able to > decode and interpret this information. While its true that Joe Blow > with a scanner won't be able to, it is by no means difficult enough to > to give anyone a sense of security. > [Moderator's Note: But by and large it is Joe Blow with his scanner > who causes the privacy violations of cell phone users. Therefore, if > Joe Blow can't do to, for all practical purposes it can't be done. > Naturally, spies and other persons specially trained in surveillance > can get around the complications, but Joe Blow isn't among them. PAT] I tried to respond the original 'Moderator's Note' above, but it didn't make it past the moderation point. I'll state it again, since it needs clarification. Joe Blow CAN and DOES intercept and TRACK cell phone conversations between cells. The allocation of frequencies among cells allows this to be a relatively simple operation. Trust me, I do it all the time ... (I mean, I _could_ do it all the time, I'd never actually break a law ...) ------------------------------ From: deglop@louie.EEAP.CWRU.Edu (Jacob DeGlopper) Subject: Re: Cellular Interception in Private Talk Date: 5 Oct 1992 17:36:52 GMT Organization: Dept. of Electrical Engineering, CWRU, Cleve. OH In article louie@sayshell.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos) writes: > Why assert that conversations cannot easily be followed between cells? > It is not as if the mechanism for handoffs is secret; it is done in > band and someone with sufficient motivation should easily be able to > decode and interpret this information. While its true that Joe Blow > with a scanner won't be able to, it is by no means difficult enough to > to give anyone a sense of security. Indeed, "someone" makes a suitcase for just this purpose. The version I saw contains five AR-2500 scanners controlled by a laptop computer; the laptop monitors the control channels and switches the others to recieve a desired conversation as it moves around. The price tag for the system was in the neighborhood of $10,000. Jacob DeGlopper, EMT-A, Wheaton (MD) Volunteer Rescue Squad -- CWRU Biomedical Engineering - jrd5@po.cwru.edu -- ------------------------------ From: ct@dde.dk (Claus Tondering) Subject: Re: My Favorite Intercepts Organization: Dansk Data Elektronik A/S Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 08:09:10 GMT A British friend of mine had this experience once he visited Washington, DC: He was trying to make a phone call, but being unacquainted with the US telephone system, he wasn't aware that he was supposed to dial an initial 1 in front of the area code. The phone responded with a recording saying: "You have a problem. Please replace the receiver and dial again." This offended him somewhat, because in his particular dialect of English, "You have a problem" implies something like: "Try using a deodorant!" Claus Tondering Email: ct@dde.dk Dansk Data Elektronik A/S, Herlev, Denmark [Moderator's Note: But at least the recording did not say something like 'please check your deodorant and spray again, or ask your former friends for assistance ... this is a recording PU-U2. :) PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #762 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa26881; 6 Oct 92 4:11 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA23172 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Tue, 6 Oct 1992 01:53:17 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA17710 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Tue, 6 Oct 1992 01:53:07 -0500 Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 01:53:07 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210060653.AA17710@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #764 TELECOM Digest Tue, 6 Oct 92 01:53:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 764 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: A Good Way to Play a Micro Tape Over the Phone? (Jack Decker) Re: The Smallest US Telephone Company (Jack Decker) Re: What Does a DS-3 Circuit Terminate at? (Karl Denninger) Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison (Greg Andrews) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 5 Oct 92 16:20:19 CST From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: A Good Way to Play a Micro Tape Over the Phone? In message , aa571@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Gail M. Hall) wrote: > Here is the situation. I have a call-in dictation system that doctors > can use to call in to dictate their reports for me to type. > However, some doctors still like to use their little dictating > machines that they can carry in their pockets and would like their > secretaries to play the tape over the phone into my system. > Normally this is a very unsatisfactory process because the machine > they use is very "low-fi" and then with the relatively low fi from the > phone line, what we end up with is a mess. Audio-to-audio coupling (holding the speaker of the recorder to the telephone microphone) is almost guaranteed to produce poor results. > I have seen those little gadgets in stores that can attach to the > phone line and that you can attach a recorder to to record a > conversation over the phone. What I am wondering is: > 1. Can you reverse that little gadget to go through the phone line > by PLAYing it instead of on record to play the tape from the office > in order to avoid room noise, etc.? Only maybe. Depends on the circuitry inside the unit. Try plugging the microphone plug into the earphone/speaker output on the recorder, and adjust the volume while you listen in on another phone on the line. If you can hear the audio clearly, it should work. When sending down the line, the audio you hear on your end should be slightly ABOVE normal conversational volume (the same as when someone else is talking on an extension phone on your line ... normally, you hear them at a much louder volume than the person on the other end of the call). > 2. If not, is there somewhere an INEXPENSIVE gadget that will do the > same thing? My dictation system dealer does not know of such a > product. They make the little hand-held machines, the transcribers, > and the phone-in dictation systems, but not a thing like I am > interested in. > This would need to be an inexpensive item. Doctors are not going to > want to pay big bucks for this as they have enough big bucks expenses > to worry about. Yeah, those tennis club memberships and greens fees aren't cheap! :-) (My apologies if you work for some good doctors. At this point, I hold doctors as a class in only slightly higher esteem than attornies ... but there is a difference ... there ARE a few good DOCTORS still around.) :-) Seriously, here is a circuit I've used with good results, for both recording AND playback of tapes from/to the phone line: +-------+---------)||(------------||----------> phone line | | )||( .1 uf | .02 = 8 ohm )||( Hi Z | uf | )||( .1 uf o---O-------+---------)||(------------||----------> phone line plug transformer Parts List (and explanation): plug - plug to fit the earphone/speaker and/or microphone jacks on recorder .02 uf capacitor, any available voltage... helps eliminate radio frequency noise (from nearby transmitters, floursecent lights, etc.) from the recording. Probably not necessary on playback only unit. .1 uf capacitors (2) - prevent DC from the phone line from saturating the transformer. Mylar capacitors are recommended, and should be rated at 200 volts or higher. Higher values (e.g. .5 uf or even 1 uf) are probably even better as long as the voltage rating is high enough AND the capacitors are non-polarized (don't use electrolytics!). However, you don't want to go TOO high or you may drain off so much of the audio signal that you'll be unable to hear on the phone. Audio transformer - one side is 8 ohm (typical impedence of a speaker) and the other side is a higher impedence. The unit I used came out of an old tube-type television set and I believe had an impedence of 10K or so on the Hi-Z side, but I imagine other high values might work. If you have an old audio transformer lying around and you know which side drove the speaker, by all means try it (the speaker side should be the Lo-Z side). Note that you DON'T want to try to the phone line if you're using this as a recording device, since matching the phone line would cause a loss in audio level on your telephone. HOWEVER, if you are using the unit for PLAYBACK ONLY, then you may want to try making the Hi-Z side of the transformer 600 ohms and eliminating the two .1 capacitors... this should allow the user to hang up the phone while playing back the tapes. Electronic purists will probably be having fits at my callous disregard to impedence matching, but all I can say is that the unit as pictured has worked very well for me in the past! If you don't feel you have the expertise to build one, ask any ham radio operator or electronics wizard you know for help ... this should be a pretty easy circuit to construct for anyone who knows how to handle a soldering iron (I was building stuff more complicated than this when I was 12 years old!). > When doctors can use the phone my setup works very nice. There are > some, though, that would really rather use their hand-held machine and > let the secretary send the whole tape via phone at one time. That should not be a problem as long as they use some sort of direct connection to the phone line. By the way, if you want to get REALLY cheap and dirty, and can't find anyone to build the above circuit, and have phones where the mouthpiece can be unscrewed and the tape recorders are BATTERY OPERATED (very important! You don't want them connected to the AC power line if you try this!), you could go to Radio Shack and get a "patch cord" with one end that has a plug that fits the speaker/earphone output on the recorders, and the other end with two alligator clips. Try plugging the patch cord into the recorder, unscrew the phone mouthpiece, and clip the alligator clips across the exposed microphone contacts. Then adjust the volume as required by listening to the earpiece (in this case you're looking for a normal volume level). If THAT doesn't produce good results, you could also try unscrewing the EARPIECE and clipping across the two screw terminals on the earpiece and see if that sounds any better. But even if it works, eventually you're going to want to find a better method of injecting the audio into the phone line. DISCLAIMER: Since none of the suggestions involve FCC registered equipment, I will not even attempt to guarantee that the above advice is both legal and does not violate telephone company tariffs. So, either try these suggestions on a private phone system, or understand that some phone companies might not care for you trying these things on their lines. Also, be aware that shoving excessive audio signal down the line could cause crosstalk and other undesirable effects, so use only a high enough volume setting to produce a comfortable listening level. Jack Decker jack@myamiga.mixcom.com FidoNet 1:154/8 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 Oct 92 16:23:00 CST From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: The Smallest US Telephone Company In message , gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) wrote: > In article TELECOM Moderator notes: >> the smallest phone company however. There is (or was) a guy in >> Colorado who owned a telco with *eight* subscribers. > How does he qualify as a telco per se? How does this differ from any > organization that buys its own PBX? Or is the distinction that any > call outside of the local equipment is long-distance? One distinction (at least in Michigan) is that you have to get a license from the Public Service Commission to be a phone company, and one of the documents you have to file is a map or geographic description of your exchange boundaries. An organization that has its own PBX most likely will already be within the service area of a licensed carrier, and thus is not eligible to form their own phone company (at least until the law is changed to allow local competition). Now, if you are with a company that really wants to be its own local exchange carrier, come up to East Lake in Michigan's beautiful Upper Peninsula. You'll probably be required to provide local service to the 30 or 40 residents that want phone service in the area, but I can guarantee you that no one will object to you starting a local phone company there (East Lake is like an albatross around the neck of the PSC in this state ... it's a problem that won't go away!). Only one problem, you may have difficulty acquiring enough privately owned land for your operation since most of the land is national forest. > Incidentally, I've always wondered ... hypothetical: someone moves out > to the middle of nowhere ... buys switch and hooks up 30 odd > subscribers to old used SxS ... how does he go about getting long > distance connectivity? Ah, there's the rub! Used to be you just went to the nearest major carrier (usually the nearby Bell or GTE company) and they were more than happy to acquire new customers. Now, however, Bell actually wants money to provide this connectivity. For providing long distance service to East Lake (a distance of about 10 to 15 miles from their nearest exchange ... and their fiber optic toll cable actually runs THROUGH the affected area), they wanted over $100,000. Were it not for that, the folks in East Lake might have phone service today. (One other wrinkle on this story: I found out a couple months ago that GTE North purchased a $2 million wireless rural system to provide service to some unserved customers in their territory, that would also have been capable of serving the folks in East Lake. Only thing is, East Lake is only about 40 miles or so from the Canadian border, and nobody at GTE bothered to get the necessary approval from the Canadian government (required by some treaty) before purchasing the system. I hear they've put in the application now, but if the Canadian government turns thumbs down, GTE just bought a $2 million boat anchor, for all practical purposes. PLEASE NOTE that I got this info secondhand from a source at the PSC, so please don't ask me for any more details on this, and don't quote it as absolute fact to anyone else without checking the details first). > [Moderator's Note: I think he qualifies as a telco instead of a 'PBX' > because he has several users who are not associated with each other > through any common affinity group, i.e. not all of the same employer; > not all of the same residential premises, etc. To get long distance > service he cuts a deal with the various carriers. That is how it is > done now days. Anyone can be a telco; anyone can be an LD carrier. PAT] I'd still like to know if there is ANY place in the United States where there is REAL competition for local dial tone for RESIDENTIAL customers. If there is no such place, then I would say that the statement that "anyone can be a telco" rather oversimplifies the true situation. Jack Decker jack@myamiga.mixcom.com FidoNet 1:154/8 ------------------------------ From: karl@ddsw1.mcs.com (Karl Denninger) Subject: Re: What Does a DS-3 Circuit Terminate at? Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 01:59:21 GMT Organization: Macro Computer Solutions, Inc., Chicago, IL In article mmt@redbrick.com (Maxime Taksar) writes: > In article , Peter M. Weiss psu.edu> writes: >> According to the _Link Letter_ March/April 1992 - Vol. 5 No.1, lead >> article "T3 Network Nears Full Production": >> "Merit obtains NSFNET backbone services from ANS which >> provides a major national network that operates at T3 speeds >> using circuits provided by MCI and central networking >> technology based on the IBM RS/6000 (TM)." > I stand corrected. Aparently my information is outdated and ANS has > now upgraded to rs/6000s. In any case, I'm certainly glad to hear it! Considering that CISCO can now terminate T3s with HSSI interfaces, are you >sure< you are glad of that? I have to wonder which is the better box for this application. It would be interesting to see some comparative statistics in terms of backplane capacity, packet switch speeds, latency, etc. Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, !ddsw1!karl) Data Line: [+1 312 248-0900] Anon. arch. (nuucp) 00:00-06:00 C[SD]T Request file: /u/public/sources/DIRECTORY/README for instructions ------------------------------ From: gerg@netcom.com (Greg Andrews) Subject: Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 06:06:36 GMT Looks like I've fallen behind in my TELECOM Digest reading. Apologies for responding to a message posted so many days ago ... john@zygot.ati.com recently wrote: > ruck@zeta.ee.ufl.edu (John R Ruckstuhl Jr) writes: >> Can I safely extrapolate -- AT&T LD quality is superior ? > Regarding modem communications, apparently the answer is 'yes'. I have > six modems that are communicating with modems around the country and > occasionally overseas around the clock. Each day I send and receive > tens of megabytes over long distance circuits. > Every so often, I find that a better rate can be had from MCI or from > Sprint by using some plan or another. Each time I have started routing > calls over anyone other than AT&T, all hell breaks loose. I find > failed conversations aplenty. UUCP sends me messages right and left > peppered with 'LOGIN FAILED' or 'CONVERSATION FAILED' or 'LOST LINE'. > Frequently, throughput falls from 1400 CPS to something like 300-400 > CPS. And invariably, my overall bill goes WAY up. Why? First there is > the lower throughput. Then there are the billing errors. I can't speak to the billing errors, but the modem symptoms you describe seem to this Telebit technician like a well-known interaction between Telebit's PEP modulation and the echo cancellers used my MCI, Sprint, and others. When this problem first appeared, the first conclusion everyone drew was that the line was bad. However, the line was perfectly functional and of high quality, as Telebit's own tests confirmed by holding the line open and switching the modems to a V.32 connection. The modems were able to hold the line effortlessly, even with a sensitive modulation like V.32, on a line that caused PEP to constantly retrain until the modems gave up. Rather than poor quality, the problem was being caused by the echo cancellers interfering with the modem transmissions. When the modems stopped sending data to train themselves to the line conditions, the echo cancellers would turn themselves off. The difference in the modem 'conversation' between data transfer mode and training mode was enough for the echo cancellers to change their behavior. The modems saw an undisturbed line when they trained, so they couldn't adapt. Why didn't AT&T lines do this? They used different brands of echo cancellers. (Perhaps because their network hadn't used fiber optics until very recently?) Telebit worked with the engineers from a couple of the echo canceller manufacturers for several months. Eventually a solution was found where the modems would be able to keep the echo cancellers disabled. The modem firmware was updated to add the 'echo canceller mods' starting with version 7.00 (BC7.00, GE7.00, and GF7.00, though the T1000 uses FA2.10). In most cases, the modems on both ends of the phone line needed the new firmware, though a few calls could get by with just one. Unfortunately, a compatibility issue with an old version of TrailBlazer Plus firmware caused many people to turn off the echo canceller mods by setting S120=16. If your modem or the other modem has older firmware, or has the echo canceller mods turned off, you could have been experiencing this problem when you used Sprint or MCI. The point I've been trying to make is that your connection troubles might have been caused by this interaction and not by the quality of the LD carrier. It would be unfair to criticize the LD carrier because the original PEP modems couldn't keep their echo cancellers off the line. Greg Andrews UUCP: {amdahl,claris}!netcom!gerg Internet: gerg@netcom.COM ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #764 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa08913; 7 Oct 92 3:28 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA12141 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Wed, 7 Oct 1992 01:27:00 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA08950 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Wed, 7 Oct 1992 01:26:50 -0500 Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 01:26:50 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210070626.AA08950@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #765 TELECOM Digest Wed, 7 Oct 92 01:26:39 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 765 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Happy With MCI (Was Unhappy With the AT&T Attitude) (Paulo Santos) Health Costs and Telecommunications (J. Philip Miller) Caller-ID Boxes (Home Use) Information Request (Chris M. Beery) Caller-ID in Massachusetts, Again (John R. Levine) And NOW, For a Limited Time Only, Caller-ID in Denver (Shing P. Benson) Host Controlled Data Switches Wanted (Thomas E. Lowe) Loudness (Jack Winslade) Potential Telescamming at the OC Swap Meet (Robert L. McMillin) College Phone System (Jeff Dubin) Help With BCH Sought For BCH Codes (William Y. Lai) dBm0. dBmr? (Terence Cross) GTE Addresses on Outgoing Email (David Lesher) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: pas@cc.gatech.edu (Paulo Santos) Subject: Happy With MCI (Was Unhappy With the AT&T Attitude) Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 17:38:35 GMT John's story of how AT&T handled a good customer (John himself) who was having a problem involving Pac*Bell leads to my story of an average MCI residential customer (myself) having a problem with Southern Bell. Only MCI provided a much better service to me than AT&T did to John. My residential line has dial-1 service from AT&T. On Saturday, Oct. 3rd, at about 11:20 p.m., I attempted to place a direct-dialed call from home [that's (404) 233-xxxx, Atlanta, Georgia] to (407) 846-xxxx (Kissimmee, Florida) on MCI by dialing the 10222 access code. I could not get through, and I was getting a fast busy. I made many other attempts, including various combinations of 10xxx-[0|1]-407-xxx-xxxx. Always the same result. By then I was pretty sure that Southern Bell was blocking all 10xxx calls from my exchange to area code 407. I tried 10xxx calls to a couple other area codes and got through just fine. I tried calling area code 407 on AT&T and it worked too. So I decided to call Southern Bell and complain. Their answer was always that it was a long distance problem, and the most they would do would be connect me to the long distance operator of my choice. I called Southern Bell Repair at 611 and reported the problem, but was told repeatedly by the repair droid that it was not a Southern Bell problem. I knew it was a problem with Southern Bell involving the tables in (404) 233, but in the middle of a Saturday might there was no one technically competent to understand it. As I was getting nowhere with Southern Bell, I decided to give MCI the opportunity to handle the problem. I called customer service. After explaining the problem, the representative realized that I knew what I was talking about and connected me to their technical folks in Atlanta. The technical person (Peter) three-way called to the Southern Bell terminal, but obviously there was no answer. They would not be open until 8 a.m. on Monday. At 8:15 Monday morning, an MCI tech (Laurie) called me to find out if I was still having the problem. Obviously I was, as Southern Bell never did anything about it. She said she would press Southern Bell to solve it, and left her number and extension. She kept me informed of the progress throughout the day. At 3:50 p.m. she called to say that Southern Bell had finally fixed the problem. It was a translation problem in the local exchange -- as anticipated. She thanked me for notifying MCI of the problem, and invited me to call her number directly if I ever had any technical problems involving MCI. This is what I call great technical service from MCI. Even though it was not their problem, they pursued it with Southern Bell and kept me informed all along. Kudos for MCI. At 5:30 p.m., some clueless person from Southern Bell called "We understand you are experiencing some problem, but we can't understand what it is. Would you care to tell us what the problem is?". Right. Paulo Santos Internet: pas@cc.gatech.edu Georgia Tech, College of Computing uucp: ...!gatech!cc!pas Atlanta GA 30332-0280, U.S.A. Voice: (404) 853-9393 [Moderator's Note: This is precisely the same problem I experienced with a call to a place in Wisconsin a few months ago. Finally someone from AT&T had to lean hard on Illinois Bell to get them to do anything. He told me frankly that part of his job involved getting telcos to correct these things as they were discovered, and " ... with Illinois Bell, they will *always* argue and find reasons not to do what I tell them ... it would take them less time to fix something than they spend arguing with me about why it is not their problem ..." And about the same time, IBT payphones had one rate for calls to Cell One phones and another rate (cheaper!) to Ameritech phones. That also got fixed after asking several times. PAT] ------------------------------ From: phil@wubios.wustl.edu (J. Philip Miller) Subject: Health Costs and Telecommunications Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 23:11:42 CDT The following was posted to several health related lists - but I thought that the readers here might be interested in the study. Discussion should probably be continued on other lists, not here. phil Forwarded message: From: SABBATINI@CCVAX.UNICAMP.BR TELECOMS: A HEALTH CARE REMEDY? Soaring US health care costs can be reduced by more than $36 billion using telecommunications, according to a report by Arthur D. Little Inc., commissioned by eight major US telecoms companies. The study found that electronic management and transport of patient information offers the greatest savings in terms of money and time. Among these applications are home-based terminal systems for patients to transmit self-administered test results such as blood pressure over the telephone to a physician, reducing trips to and lenght of stay at hospitals. The transmission of fixed images such as X-rays between remote locations and hospitals has also been effective. Nynex Corp., for example, has provided Massachussetts General Hospital with a fiber optic network for quick transfer of images and records among sites in three Massachussetts cities. Finally, the electronic management of patient data reduces the number of of errors and tracking of files associated with manually written records. Another health care-telecoms solution is electronics claims processing (CWI, 10 Aug). More than four billion claims are submitted annually. By automating the process, according to the Arthur D. Little report, patients are reimbursed more quickly than with paper claims filed by mail. Likewise, electronic data links between hospitals and suppliers can speed the inventory process. Electronic data interchange reduces the amount of time spent placing and expediting orders for hospital supplies by providing electronic purchase orders, confirmations, invoices, fund transfers, and price and sales catalogs. Videoconferencing has also been increasingly used, specifically for remote consultations and education, according to the report. For example, the Medical College of Georgia is using a broadband network service provided by Bell-South Corp. to allow specialists at its teaching hospital in Augusta, GA, to examine patients 130 miles away with biomedical telemetry devices, such as electronic stethoscopes and digitized X-rays, and interactive video equiment. (Transcribed from Communications Week International, Issue 91, August 1992 (C) 1992 CWI Inc.) FROM: SABBATINI@CCVAX.UNICAMP.BR POSTED TO: MEDINF-L, MEDNETS, HSPNET-L, VETINFO, NRSING-L, SBIS-L COCAMED *** PLEASE DO NOT CROSS-POST TO THESE LISTS *** J. Philip Miller, Professor, Division of Biostatistics, Box 8067 Washington University Medical School, St. Louis MO 63110 phil@wubios.WUstl.edu - Internet (314) 362-3617 [362-2694(FAX)] ------------------------------ From: cmb@ico.isc.com (Chris M. Beery) Subject: Caller-ID Boxes (Home Use) Information Request Organization: INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS CORPORATION - BOULDER Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 15:03:01 GMT I am interested in finding out some info on Caller_ID boxes as the feature is soon to be offered in the Denver, CO area. My primary question is: Does any manufacturer make one that prints the data on a spool of paper rather than use an LCD display? (A combination would also be fine). Alternatively, I'd like to know what type of stores carry these devices (of any style). Thanks for the info in advance. Chris cmb@ico.isc.com INTERACTIVE Systems Corporation A Kodak Company ------------------------------ Subject: Caller-ID in Massachusetts, Again Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 12:13:23 EDT From: John R. Levine While talking to a nice lady at New England Tel about residential ISDN this morning, she mentioned that NET has re-filed for calling number delivery, but didn't know what blocking options were to be offered. Does anyone else have the details? She was remarkably well-informed -- "Is the interface 2B1Q?" "No, your CO is still just AMI but should be equipped for 2B1Q next year." The basic rate is just $8/month above POTS, which includes both B channels equipped for voice, with the same rates as for POTS calling, i.e., free local calls. Data is $5/month extra and all calls are charged at the message rate, 1.6 cents/minute plus 1 cent per call. I told her that like everyone else I'd probably disguise my data as voice, live with 56KB and occasional dropped frames, and save big bucks. She said that the tarriff said I wasn't supposed to do that but agreed there was no way they could tell. Regards, John Levine, comp.compilers moderator johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us or {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl ------------------------------ From: shing@spot.Colorado.EDU (SHING PUI-SHUM BENSON) Subject: And NOW, For a Limited Time Only, Caller-ID in Denver) Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 00:21:28 GMT You may not know, but Denver's Public Utilities Commision (PUC -- often known as PUCK for no other reason than a neat name) did NOT want US West to install Caller ID in the Denver metro area due to too many people who insisted that it was an invasion of privacy, an annoyance, and just another option to make people pay more on their bills. Denver's PUC was really serious about not letting this go through, but it seems they and US West have come to an agree- ment. From what I hear, USW will install CID temporarily, and offer free CID blocking to those who ask for it before it's up and running. Below are two briefs from the newspaper: {Rocky Mountain News} 'Corporate Clips' pg 138 Sun., Oct. 4, 1992 U S West Inc. The Colorado Public Utilities Commision last week approved a compromise agreement between U S West and the Colorado Consumer Counsel that will allow in Denver within 90 days. U S West said that consumers will have 90 days to apply for free line blocking, which prevents outgoing calls being monitored by the Caller ID service. ------------- {Rocky Mountain News} 'Colorado Report' pg 138 Sun., Oct. 4, 1992 U S West's controversial Caller ID service Wednesday got the go-ahead for the Denver metro area. The Colorado Public Utilities Commision approved a compromise agreement that will bring Caller ID -- which lets people know who's calling them -- to Denver on a trial basis in 60 to 90 days. ------------- And what *I* want to know is, if I buy a decoder and US West kills CID, do I get my money back? (Actually, I won't buy from USW, but the thought is still there for other customers ...) Shing [Moderator's Note: Don't worry ... they won't kill it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: telb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (thomas.e.lowe) Subject: Host Controlled Data Switches Wanted Organization: AT&T Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 23:41:20 GMT I am looking for a potentially large data switch that will allow me to have a host computer controlling everything it does. The host would be able to tell the switch to connect port X to port Y, then later connect port X to port Z. Of course the different ports might have different parameters such as baud and parity, so the switch would have to handle that. The trick is I don't want the user to initiate or change the connections. If anyone can suggest any vendors that may be able to supply such a beast, I'd appreciate some email or a phone call. Thanks in advance! Tom Lowe tlowe@attmail.com or tel@hogpa.att.com 908-949-0428 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Oct 92 22:01:22 CST From: Jack.Winslade@ivgate.omahug.org (Jack Winslade) Subject: Loudness Reply-To: jack.winslade%drbbs@ivgate.omahug.org Organization: DRBBS Technical BBS, Omaha > One thing that really bothers me is that now that everything is > digital, volume levels on many calls seem a lot lower than they used > to be, regardless of carrier used (and I've noticed this in several > cities, using several different types of phones including Back in the early 70's, Omaha's last panel office was converted to a #1 ESS . My boss at the time was on that office and lived close to the CO. His wife had a slight hearing problem, and they remarked to me that when the CO equipment was changed, they noticed a definite drop in loudness. (I believe this was due to the fact that the newer switch compensated for the short loop, where the stone-age switch did not.) I did some tests, and confirmed that short loop signals on two #1 crossbar offices in the same building were significantly louder than those on the ESS offices. (There were four NNX's served from that CO. Two were panel and two were #1 Xbar. The panel was junked and replaced with ESS, but the Xbar remained, for a while.) He tried to get TPC to switch him to a 556 or 558 line (#1 Xbar) but nobody at TPC would listen to him, and kept insisting that there was no loudness difference between the old and new offices. I finally corrected the problem by installing an amplified handset on one of their sets. Good day JSW Ybbat (DRBBS) 8.9 v. 3.14 r.1 (1:285/666.0) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 08:10:01 -0700 From: rlm@indigo2.hac.com (Robert L. McMillin) Subject: Potential Telescamming at the OC Swap Meet Last weekend, I went to the Orange County Swap Meet. This affair goes on both weekend days in the parking lots at the OC Fairgrounds, except on those days where the fair actually runs -- about two weeks out of the year. They have a number (more than 200, I would guess) of tented stalls where you can buy new merchandise, sometimes at pretty good deals, sometimes not. The people cleaning out their garages long ago were priced out of the "Swap Meet" by fairly high rents and by small businesses that generate real profits; for that reason, the operators of the weekly event renamed it to the "Orange County Marketplace". Some vendors have had permanent stall numbers for many years now. These businesses are quite professional, and most take major credit cards. The trouble is that the people doing this simply call in the cards for verification using cellular voice lines. It seems to me that this would be a terrific source of both telecom and credit card fraud were anyone in the neighborhood to hang out with a scanner, particularly the sort that fetches the phone ID ... ------------------------------ Organization: The American University - University Computing Center Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 12:10:42 EDT From: Jeff Dubin Subject: College Phone System Hi all, I'm a student at the American University and have a few q's about the phone system here. Here's some background: Local calls are free, not even a monthly charge for local service. This is great, but there are a few disadvantages: Can't call time or weather services. Apparently, the university blocks them, but no one seems to know why. For long distance, we have ACUS service which prompts us for a personal ID code after we dial the number. The advantage of this is that there is a personal bill for each person, not each room, and I can dial anywhere on campus. Now, the system is obviously a PBX-ish system, because if I try to get a C&P operator (AU is in Wash. D.C.) I get an error tone. The only operator available is the campus operator, who is only there 9-5. We have nice stuff such as call-waiting (which only works when you did not originate the call for some bizarre reason), three-way, etc. For some _other_ reason, people off campus sometimes get a busy signal when trying to reach me when I am not on the line. Is there any way to get a real operator? Weather? Etc.? I've tried talking to the telecom department but they seem real protective and I feel as if they're hiding something from me. Also, I suspect that if I dialed an ANI or CallerID equipped phone, "my" number wouldn't show up, but another would. Whatever. Thanks for all your help! Jeff Dubin jdubin@world.std.com jd2859a@american.edu [Moderator's Note: What happens when you dial 9-0, or 9-00? Do you get an operator that way, or re-order? What about 9-10xxx-0? What about combinations like 9-411, 9-611 and 9-911? What about 9-0-, then timing out to an operator? If the phone service is free, maybe they have time and temp blocked because it is a premium service or they otherwise consider it a waste of money. If people Direct-Inward-Dial to your extension and all the common equipment in the campus phone switch is in use then the caller will possibly get a busy instead of a fast busy (no circuit) tone. PAT] ------------------------------ From: lai@seas.gwu.edu (William Y. Lai) Subject: Help With BCH Sought For BCH Codes Organization: George Washington University Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 17:37:45 GMT I have to write a proprietary protocol implementation, and the ECC needed is a n=63, k=7 BCH code. The polynomial was given to us as: X^7 + X^6 + X^2 + 1 My problems is that it has been years since I looked at these stuff, and I can't remember how to generate/check the code. Is there a better way to implement it in SW rather than doing a shift-register type of algorithm? Any pointers, algorithm, and codes :-) are greatly appreciated! Regards, William Lai email: lai@seas.gwu.edu Dept. of Electrical Eng. George Washington Univ. Washington, D.C. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 18:38:18 BST From: eeitecs@eeiuc.ericsson.se (Terence Cross) Subject: dBm0. dBmr? dBm is decibel relative to one milliwatt, so 1 mw is zero. But what is dBm0 and dBmr? Are there different values in each country and how do you get these values? Terence Cross ------------------------------ From: David Lesher Subject: GTE Addresses On Outgoing Email Date: Tue, 5 Oct 92 11:33:13 EDT Reply-To: wb8foz@skybridge.scl.cwru.edu (David Lesher) Organization: NRK Clinic for habitual NetNews abusers - Beltway Annex > [Moderator's Note: This message was sent by Curt Lammers but for some > reason was sent under the account of Jim J. Murphy. I wish the people > at gte.sprint.com would quit using the accounts of Gloria Valle (and > now Jim Murphy!) to send messages here and would use their own > accounts instead or at least include a return address in their mail so > I could adjust the headers manually. Clearly, their news host is ill-configured, and can't handle such CLASSical features as individual accounts. Maybe they can get help from a guy I met who seems to know all about those computer things -- I've got his name here somewhere {flip, flip, flip..} Ah-Ha, here it is -- John Higdon ... :-} wb8foz@skybridge.scl.cwru.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #765 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa10729; 7 Oct 92 4:57 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA18998 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Wed, 7 Oct 1992 02:35:30 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA21574 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Wed, 7 Oct 1992 02:35:18 -0500 Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 02:35:18 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210070735.AA21574@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #766 TELECOM Digest Wed, 7 Oct 92 02:35:20 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 766 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson "First Cities": Where? When? (Sandy Kyrish) Videoconference Costs: NOT! (Sandy Kyrish) Retail Videoconferencing? (Laird Broadfield) Highway Call Boxes (Paul Gloger) Time For a Distinctive Ringing FAQ (John R. Levine) Distinctive Ringing Availability on #1ESS (Jack Decker) Programming Motorola Cell Phones More Than Three Times (Andrew Klossner) "...Because There is a Difference..." (Paul Robinson) Question About ROLM PBX Telephones (Rick Spanbauer) Question About Caller ID Information Display (Bill Romanowski) Which States Have Caller ID? (Bruce James Robrert Linley) For Sale: Curtis NAMFAX, 2nd Edition (Bill Berbenich) COCOT Certificate (Carl Moore) Program to Send Alphanumeric Pages (MS Windows, Free) (Steven Warner) Cellular Phones With Scramblers Attached (Scott Coleman) Source For Installation Equipment Wanted (James Gustave) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 18:21 GMT From: Sandy Kyrish <0003209613@mcimail.com> Subject: "First Cities": Where? When? Does anyone have any information about where the "First Cities" consortium (the 13 high tech companies organizing under MCC to investigate video dial tone) will be located? Will it be in Austin, at MCC? Is it still on the drawing board, or has it begun to form? Any specific information will be appreciated. Respond to the Digest or to my e-mail box. Thanks, Sandy Kyrish 320-9613@mcimail.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 19:12 GMT From: Sandy Kyrish <0003209613@mcimail.com> Subject: Videoconference Costs: NOT! Paul Robinson, in his comments regarding the Washington Post article about the "First Cities" article, makes a lot of good points. But he is far, far off base about one element: that of videoconferencing transmission costs. It's not $30 a minute -- in many cases, it's more like $30 an HOUR for 112 kb/s service. And for bigger data rates, like 384 kb/s, depending on how many hours a month you use, what kind of network arrangements, blah, blah, blah, the cost is still going to be in the ballpark of anywhere from $150 an hour to $500 an hour. Now some international links will cost you $2000/hour, but that's a whole different thing. I took these numbers not from published tariffs but from anecdotal knowledge based on my experiences as a member of the videoconferencing industry. Don't try them at home! ------------------------------ From: lairdb@crash.cts.com Subject: Retail Videoconferencing? Date: 6 Oct 92 19:35:05 GMT Reminded by someone else's post hypothesizing full-motion switched service, I've been wondering for a while why there aren't services out there that provide a meeting room with a videoconference setup, on a by-the-hour basis. (Maybe there are, and I just haven't found them.) I end up doing quite a bit of traveling just in order to resolve technical issues face to face, and I would think that I could substitute videoconferencing for a lot of that, if I could just tell the other people (mostly in other major metros) to go to thus-and-such an address at thus-and-so time, and we'll "meet." Am I overestimating the demand, or have I not found the supply? Laird P. Broadfield lairdb@crash.cts.com ...{ucsd, nosc}!crash!lairdb [Moderator's Note: For many years, the Bell Telcos all had 'Picturephone' studios in their larger offices which they rented to the public. I do not know why they never were very popular. For that matter, why is videoconferencing catching on now, but Picturephone never did. Or is videoconferencing doing any better financially? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 00:39:37 PDT From: Paul_Gloger.ES_XFC@xerox.com Subject: Highway Call Boxes Along the highway, out in the country in California anyway, there are emergency telephone call boxes, with phones which connect you directly to the Highway Patrol or some such agency. The boxes have no apparent wire connections to the rest of the world. They have mounted on them what may be a small (eight inch?) photocell, and a small whip antenna. Are these indeed radio phones powered off a battery which is charged by the photocell? What radio frequency and kind of transmission do they use? Thanks, Paul Gloger ------------------------------ Subject: Time For a Distinctive Ringing FAQ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 12:28:44 EDT From: John R. Levine I see that at least twice a week people ask where they can get a ring leader, a box to be used with distinctive ringing, counts the rings on an incoming call and connects one of two or three devices. I hereby volunteer to collect a list of suppliers of ring leader boxes and compile a FAQ file for the Telecom Archives. My box is an ITS Autoline Plus (which works well.) I've heard of others from Lynx Automation, the HAL and Hello Direct catalogs, and now Black Box. (The price for the Black Box was only $99, surprising since most of their other stuff costs twice what anyone else charges.) Send me your ring leader experience and I'll neaten it up into a FAQ along with some other miscellaneous distinctive ringing lore. Oh yes, it'd be useful to have the newspeak names used by all the RBOCs. Here are the ones I know: Nynex: RingMaster Bell Atlantic: IdentaRing (Add (R), (TM), (SM), etc., to taste.) There must be at least five more such names. Send them along, too. Regards, John Levine johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us or {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl [Moderator's Note: Everyone send your information on this to John. John, when it gets compiled send it to 'telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu' with a note and I will put it in the archives. Thanks for helping. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 17:03:11 CST From: Jack Decker Subject: Distinctive Ringing Availability on #1ESS Here in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan (906 area code, 632/635 exchanges) our local Michigan Bell ("Ameritech Pages Plus") telephone directory mentions, in the "Optional Services" section, the availability of Multi-Ring Service (this is the same service known as "distinctive ringing" or "RingMaster" in other parts of the country). Anyway, a lady up here wanted to order it and was told that it is not yet available in this area (apparently the "Optional Service" page is a generic one that goes into all Michigan Bell directories, even when some or all of the mentioned services aren't offered in the area covered by the directory). In doing some further checking, I found out that Sault Ste. Marie is served by a 1ESS switch (I know that the same switch has been in use since at least 1979, and probably at least a couple of years prior to that). A Michigan Bell official (at their executive offices) tells me that it is not possible to offer Multi-Ring service on a 1ESS switch; that you have to be on a digital ESS for such service to be available. They also say that they are planning on converting the Sault to digital by the third quarter of 1994, although this date might be moved up a bit. My question is, is the claim that Multi-Ring cannot be offered on a 1ESS true or false? And, if it is false, is it possible that the cost of the upgrade might be prohibitive, to the point where Michigan Bell would be justified in not purchasing it when the expected remaining useful life of the switch is only two years or less? Or is it a capability that could be added easily and inexpensively, and they are just choosing not to do it? Any informed comments on this would be much appreciated. As it is, the lady is now going to have to order a second line just to be able to receive the very occasional unattended FAX transmission (please note that a device that answers the phone and then determines how to route the call would not be suitable here, since if the shared line solution were used it would probably be placed on a business line, and many customers would not appreciate the added delay, nor being charged for incompleted calls when she isn't there to answer the phone). I guess I should ask one other question, regarding the interaction between Multi-Ring and Call Waiting. Is it usually possble to order these features so that only calls to the primary number will activate call waiting (put the call waiting beep on the line), while calls to the second number go directly to a busy signal if the line is busy? I guess another way to say that would be, is it possible to have call waiting only for calls to the primary number? It would not be so good if calls to the FAX number caused the call waiting to beep, since you would probably not want to interrupt a voice conversation to take a FAX call. Jack Decker jack@myamiga.mixcom.com FidoNet 1:154/8 [Moderator's Note: The way it is set up here, Distinctive Ringing brings with it Distinctive Call-Waiting tones. The tones sound similar but you can tell the difference in the cadence just as you can with the ringing line. I do not know about splitting off call-waiting on the one side only, but here we can have Call Forwarding handle both lines or just the main line, with the Distinctive Ringing line ringing through even if the main line is being forwarded. PAT] ------------------------------ From: andrew@frip.wv.tek.com (Andrew Klossner) Subject: Programming Motorola Cell Phones More Than Three Times Date: 6 Oct 92 20:49:23 GMT Reply-To: andrew@frip.wv.tek.com Organization: Tektronix Color Printers, Wilsonville, Oregon In file cellular.program-motorola in the Telecom archives, we read: > "Your cellular telephone can be programmed up to three times. > After that, it must be reset at a Motorola-authorized service > facility ... If this message does not appear, it may be ... The > maximum number of times that your cellular phone can be > reprogrammed from the keypad may have been reached. Contact the > personnel where you obtained your cellular telephone if > reprogramming is required." What magic do the "personnel where you obtained the phone" do to allow reprogramming after three changes? And more generally, what purpose is served by allowing only three changes between service calls? Andrew Klossner (andrew@frip.wv.tek.com) [Moderator's Note: Their 'magic' consists of jumping two pins (I think Local to Ground, but don't hold me to it) then reinserting the battery and doing a couple key sequences which flushes the register that holds this count. I can't find my Motorola manuals right now or I would give you more data. I'm sure someone will send you the specifics. Why is the cell phone locked out after three number changes? Mainly to prevent idle hands from becoming the Devil's workshop ... and to make it hard on cell phone phreaks who try to find cellular phone numbers used for adminstrative purposes by the carrier which often as not have no ESN validation done on them when a call is placed. Consider the Radio Shack dealer in your town with his collection of cell phones on display and for sale: even with (obviously) a different ESN in each unit, he can let you make calls from the single cellular phone number assigned to his store for demos from any phone. How? The carrier does not check the ESN on those numbers either. If you find out that number, go home and program your phone accordingly, you can make all your calls on the demo and/or cell company administrative line(s) also. Of course it is illegal, and you'd be embarassed if they called your mother and ask if she recalled who she spoke with at a certain time on a certain date ... discretion advised! PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1992 17:35:07 EDT Subject: "...Because there is a difference..." "...Because there is a difference..." The AMC theater chain uses that servicemark to identify its movie service. The same term could be applied here to Touch-Tone* on Centrex supplied by C&P Telephone Co. Here's why. Currently, in this area, one can block Caller-ID by dialing *67, even on Centrex. (This has to be done BEFORE dialing 9 for an outside line.) If you are on a pulse dial phone, you dial 1167. Diaing *67 gives a "stuttered" dial tone. But Touch-Tone dialing of 116 gives reorder. From a phone that can generate pulse or tone, pulse dialing 116 gives the stuttered dial tone, as does *67. (Apparently since return call and other *6x codes are not used, it doesn't require or permit the 7 to be dialed; on the other hand 116 could be a feature group; where *72 and *73 are used on other phones to set up and tear down call forwarding, 172 and 173 must be typed from a Touch-Tone phone. So it is interesting that depending on whether the phone can generate Touch-Tone or not determines whether 11 before a code works. This difference is not evidenced on my POTS line at home where I can use * or 11 on Touch-Tone to signal a feature group. Paul Robinson TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM * Touch-Tone is a trademark of AT&T. These opinions are my responsibility alone and nobody else's. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 16:21:08 -0400 From: rick@sbcs.sunysb.edu (Rick Spanbauer) Subject: Question About ROLM PBX Telephones Does anyone know offhand what sort of signalling scheme ROLM uses between a telephone deskset and their digital pbx? A cursory inspection of the innards of my telephone reveals an impressive array of custom transformers, two big LSI chips (one by Exar, one by TI), and the usual mess of discretes. Is the signalling they use compatible with either ISDN S/T attachment, or perhaps like the Motorola UDLT format (B+D rather than 2B+D)? The basic signalling cell seems to be about four microseconds. Rick Spanbauer State University of New York ------------------------------ From: billabs@nic.cerf.net (Bill Romanowski) Subject: Question About Caller ID Information Display Date: 6 Oct 92 21:15:07 GMT Organization: CERFnet Well, we have Caller ID service here in Lebanon, Indiana (30 miles from Indy). I first found out from a postcard sent by Indiana Bell talking about number blocking (dial *67). I called 'em up and they said it's $6.90 per month. They don't sell the boxes but gave me an 800 number of a company to call(800 742-4258) that sells 'em. SO now I want to know how it works. I suspect DTMF after 1st ring??? No doubt an FAQ but any info would be appreciated. bill romanowski prairie research ------------------------------ From: linley@netcom.com (Bruce James Robrert Linley) Subject: Which States Have Caller ID? Organization: NetCom- Cheaper than Compu$erve (isnt everything, though?) Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 05:52:29 GMT My modem claims to support caller ID but California does not (yet). Can someone please tell me which states do support caller ID. I am particularly looking for western states (OR,NV,AZ,etc). Thanks in advance. Bruce James Robert Linley Comp Sci & Engr, UCLA ------------------------------ From: wabwrld!bill@gatekeeper.mis.tridom.com (Bill Berbenich) Subject: For Sale: Curtis NAMFAX, 2nd edition Date: 6 Oct 1992 19:23:54 -0500 Organization: Shaque d'Amour For sale - one Curtis NAMFAX manual, 2nd edition. This book is a comprehensive guide to cellular telephone handset programming procedures. Includes A/B select, lock and unlock procedures, and programming and reset codes. The book is sold as-is. The upgrade to the 3rd edition HAS already been used, that's why I'm selling this one. Best offer over $30. Price is $179 new or $89.50 from an upgrade. Please reply by e-mail or phone (404)899-5199. Bill [Moderator's Note: See a message earlier in this issue for a prospective buyer. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 15:16:25 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: COCOT Certificate Place: U.S.1 just off I-85 in Wise, North Carolina, just south of the Va./N.C. border. Pay phone (919-456-3135) at that location lists Triangle Telephone Co., P.O. Box 5730, Cary, NC 27512. Also displayed is "North Carolina Utilities Commission has issued COCOT Certificate No. SC-172". I take it "COCOT" has made it into some official documents? ------------------------------ From: sgw@boy.com (Steven Warner) Subject: Program to Send Alphanumeric Pages (MS Windows, Free) Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 8:50:45 PDT Now Available! Send alphanumeric pages using IXO protocol, with swIXO! Swixo is a MS Windows based utility that enables you to quickly and easily send messages to anyone who has an alphanumeric pager. Swixo has configuations that allow tailoring for a variety of modems, and paging options. Support for GSC and POCSAG pagers is included. Swixo remembers the last ten pages sent for quick recall, and it remembers defaults, so your most common pages can be sent quickly. Swixo can sit on the desktop as an icon, to be ready to go at any time. Requirements: Microsoft Windows 3.1, Any windows compatible modem, and someone to send pages to. Use of this program is FREE, and you are encouraged to distribute it to others, for free. To obtain your copy of swIXO, send email to: rtfm@boy.com and ask for product swixo. Steven Warner sgw@boy.com ------------------------------ From: tmkk@uiuc.edu (Scott Coleman) Subject: Cellular Phones With Scramblers Attached Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 16:41:33 GMT I was watching a re-run of thirtysomething yesterday (please, no flames ;-) The main characters were involved in a hostile takeover attempt of their ad agency. The outfit which was attempting to buy out the agency gave their "inside man" a cellular phone with a built-in scrambler, since they were concerned that the office phones might be monitored. Do scrambled cell phones really exist, or was this just another Die-Hard-esque fudge on the part of the show's writers? ------------------------------ From: speth@cats.ucsc.edu (James Gustave) Subject: Source For Installation Equipment Wanted Date: 6 Oct 1992 22:18:05 GMT Organization: University of California; Santa Cruz Does anyone know of a source for telephone installation equipment? I'm not talking about radio-shack crimpers and plugs, but rather the fun stuff that the telco people have. Like linesperson's handsets, or the things-they-hook-to-the-lines-that-go-BEEP. Someone must know what I'm talking about. Either a source in the Bay Area or something mail-order would be great. Thanks. Jim Speth speth@cats.ucsc.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #766 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa09499; 9 Oct 92 3:29 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA32317 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Fri, 9 Oct 1992 00:59:19 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA00398 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Fri, 9 Oct 1992 00:59:10 -0500 Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 00:59:10 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210090559.AA00398@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #767 TELECOM Digest Fri, 9 Oct 92 00:59:15 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 767 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Confused About T1 Bandwidths (Joseph Bergstein) Re: Confused About T1 Bandwidths (Thomas J. Roberts) Re: Confused About T1 Bandwidths (Roger Fajman) Re: Highway Call Boxes (Mike Morris) Re: Highway Call Boxes (Darren Alex Griffiths) Re: Highway Call Boxes (Arthur Rubin) Re: Highway Call Boxes (Robert S. Helfman) Re: Highway Call Boxes (Rich Greenberg) Re: Highway Call Boxes (Lars Poulsen) Re: Highway Call Boxes (Jacob DeGlopper) Re: Highway Call Boxes (Maxime Taksar) Re: Question About Caller ID Information Display (Paul Robinson) Re: Question About Air Phones (Grover McCoury) Re: Question About Air Phones (Mitch Wagner) Re: Distinctive Ringing Ability on #1ESS (Mark C. Baker) Re: Distinctive Ringing Ability on #1ESS (John Higdon) Re: Distinctive Ringing Ability on #1ESS (Terry Kennedy) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joseph.Bergstein@p501.f544.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Joseph Bergstein) Date: Fri, 09 Oct 1992 01:55:44 -0500 Subject: Re: Confused About T1 Bandwidths Matt Szela mentions: > T1 lines can come in two speeds: > 1. 1,344 Kbps i.e. 24 channels @ 56 Kbps each; OR > 2. 1,536 Kbps i.e. 24 channels @ 64 Kbps each. And then asks: > Now, what do I need to do in order to get the higher 1,536 > speed: Is this the function of the terminating CSUs, the phone company > circuit or both? The difference is 192 Kbps which is quite a lot and we > would like to take advantage of this extra bandwith if possible. You must order the T-1 circuit as B8ZS (also known sometimes as clear channel). On older circuits every eighth bit was set to one to ensure for timing. This reduced each 64KB channel to 56KB. You must order your T-1 with B8ZS (which I believe stands for bit eight zero suppression) and be sure that your CSU's and other related CPE supports this also. The IXC's offered this some time ago, but many local telcos took awhile to offer this as well. It should be pretty much universally available, at least from the RBOCs. > Do I need to tell the phone company when I order the circuit > that I want the 1,536 Kbps line? Yes. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Oct 92 01:17:56 CDT From: tjrob@ihlpl.att.com (Thomas J Roberts) Subject: Re: Confused About T1 Bandwidths Organization: AT&T rfranken@cs.umr.edu wrote: > (A third method is to guarantee that your source will never send two > many zeros consecutively. This is generally not possible with > computer data, which could be anything.) Actually, it is quite common to do this. Any protocol using inverted HDLC (or any of its variants) will automatically satisfy the 1-density requirements. This includes X.25, which is probably the most popular access protocol in use today (and also X.75, its inter-network variation). Tom Roberts att!ihlpl!tjrob TJROB@IHLPL.ACC.COM ------------------------------ From: Roger Fajman Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1992 12:31:07 EDT Subject: Re: Confused About T1 Bandwidths > (A third method is to guarantee that your source will never send two > many zeros consecutively. This is generally not possible with > computer data, which could be anything.) Sometimes there is a way to do that. If you are using HDLC or SDLC, a zero bit is stuffed in after every five one bits, in order to keep flags (zero, six ones, zero) from occurring in the data. So if you can invert the data stream, you will meet the ones density requirements for T1. Roger Fajman Telephone: +1 301 402 1246 National Institutes of Health BITNET: RAF@NIHCU Bethesda, Maryland, USA Internet: RAF@CU.NIH.GOV ------------------------------ From: morris@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Mike Morris) Subject: Re: Highway Call Boxes Organization: College Park Software, Altadena, CA Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 05:14:57 GMT Paul_Gloger.ES_XFC@xerox.com writes: > Along the highway, out in the country in California anyway, there are > emergency telephone call boxes, with phones which connect you directly > to the Highway Patrol or some such agency. The boxes have no apparent > wire connections to the rest of the world. They have mounted on them > what may be a small (eight inch?) photocell, and a small whip antenna. > Are these indeed radio phones powered off a battery which is charged > by the photocell? What radio frequency and kind of transmission do > they use? They are self-contained cellular phones. The type of antenna varies with the location, some use a whip, others (notably the beach area of Ventura county) use directional antennas with gain. The solar panel charges a rechargeable battery inside the phone. Supposedly they have tamper and tilt-over switches, but I doubt it -- there's been one laid flat in Eagle Rock (near Pasadena) now for almost two weeks. The solar panel disappeared on day four. There's no wires coming out of the concrete going into the support pipe (or, in reality, where the pipe used to be before it was hit ...). I don't know any more as I've never used one. Rumor says that CalTrans (California Department of Transportation) has a deal with LA Cellular for phone service, but I have no facts. Mike Morris WA6ILQ PO Box 1130 Arcadia, CA. 91077 All opinions must be my own since nobody pays me enough to be their mouthpiece. 818-447-7052 evenings ------------------------------ From: dag@ossi.com Date: 8 Oct 92 01:14:24 GMT Subject: Re: Highway Call Boxes Paul_Gloger.ES_XFC@xerox.com writes: > Along the highway, out in the country in California anyway, there are > emergency telephone call boxes, with phones which connect you directly > to the Highway Patrol or some such agency. The boxes have no apparent > wire connections to the rest of the world. They have mounted on them > what may be a small (eight inch?) photocell, and a small whip antenna. > Are these indeed radio phones powered off a battery which is charged > by the photocell? What radio frequency and kind of transmission do > they use? I read an article about them some months ago in one of the San Francsico dailies. They are actually cellular phones with a solar cells to keep them charged. Each phone has a unique number (same as it's telephone number?) that is automatically transmitted to a highway patrol communications center when a call is made so they no exactly where you are; of-course there is no keypad to speak of, when you pick the phone up it automatically calls a preset number. I think these things are neat idea. The article mentioned that the extra cost for the equipment, when compared to standard emergency phones, was saved by the fact that no telephone lines had to be installed to the site. I believe they quoted less than two hours to install each phone, which is pretty good. They are also more resilient to natural distaster such as weather and earthquakes since there are no phone lines to be pulled down. Cheers, Darren Alex Griffiths dag@nasty.ossi.com Open Systems Solutions Inc. (510) 652-6200 x139 Fujitsu Ltd. Fax: (510) 652-5532 6121 Hollis Street Emeryville, CA 94608-2092 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Highway Call Boxes From: a_rubin%dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin) Date: 8 Oct 92 19:39:53 GMT Reply-To: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin) I can't confirm at the moment, but I read that those are solar-powered cellular phones. 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) [Moderator's Note: The consensus is that you are correct. PAT] ------------------------------ From: helfman@aero.org (Robert S. Helfman) Subject: Re: Highway Call Boxes Date: 7 Oct 1992 16:30:55 GMT Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA The antenna appears to be the same size as a cellular phone antenna. I believe they are just solar-powered cellular phones which are hard-coded at the switch to be a 'you-can-only-call-this-special- number' cellular (you can buy that as a specific cellular service feature -- it's used for outside personnel to be able to only call their office. I'm sure PAT knows the exact name of the feature.) A solar charger would be more than enough to keep a cellular battery up. [Moderator's Note: Many/most cellular phones can be programmed to only allow calling to one or more of the 'speed dial numbers' and to ignore things entered from the pad itself. I think 'call restriction' is the name of the feature. PAT] ------------------------------ From: richg@hatch.socal.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: Highway Call Boxes Organization: Hatch Usenet and E-mail. Playa del Rey, CA Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 14:05:30 GMT They are cellphones. Rich Greenberg - N6LRT - 310-649-0238 - richg@hatch.socal.com ------------------------------ From: lars@spectrum.CMC.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: Highway Call Boxes Organization: CMC Network Systems (Rockwell DCD), Santa Barbara, CA, USA Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 19:01:50 GMT These are stationary cellphones. Neat, huh? We have them every mile or so on US 101 right through downtown Santa Barbara. In fact, I think they are only half a mile apart in the urban area. Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer Internet E-mail: lars@CMC.COM CMC Network Products / Rockwell Int'l Telephone: +1-805-968-4262 Santa Barbara, CA 93117-3083 TeleFAX: +1-805-968-8256 ------------------------------ From: deglop@dewey.EEAP.CWRU.Edu (Jacob DeGlopper) Subject: Re: Highway Call Boxes Date: 8 Oct 1992 00:39:10 GMT Organization: Dept. of Electrical Engineering, CWRU, Cleve. OH Yep, they're radio phones powered by photocells and rechargable batteries (in places with lots of sun) or sometimes landline power. Transmissions are usually normal FM voice; frequencies vary by state but are probably VHF/UHF allocated to the highway department for callboxes. Jacob DeGlopper, EMT-A, Wheaton (MD) Volunteer Rescue Squad -- CWRU Biomedical Engineering - jrd5@po.cwru.edu -- ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Highway Call Boxes Date: Wed, 07 Oct 92 11:20:25 -0700 From: mmt@redbrick.com > Along the highway, out in the country in California anyway, there are > emergency telephone call boxes, with phones which connect you directly > to the Highway Patrol or some such agency. The boxes have no apparent > wire connections to the rest of the world. They have mounted on them > what may be a small (eight inch?) photocell, and a small whip antenna. Some have a whip, some have the tradional cellular antenna with the helix in the center. > Are these indeed radio phones powered off a battery which is charged > by the photocell? They sure are. I have no idea what sort of capacity the batteries have, but I imagine it need not be huge, since the phones don't really get heavy use > What radio frequency and kind of transmission do they use? The ones that look like they'd be cellular phones -- are. The ones with the whips, I believe are trunked 450 MHz. (This latter one I'm not absolutely sure of ... I just remember being told this at one point or another. If someone more authoriative info, I'd like to hear it, too.) Maxime Taksar KC6ZPS mmt@RedBrick.COM ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1992 20:35:38 EDT Subject: Re: Question About Caller ID Information Display In a message From: billabs@nic.cerf.net (Bill Romanowski) on 6 Oct 92 21:15:07 GMT: > So now I want to know how it works. I suspect DTMF after first ring? > No doubt an FAQ but any info would be appreciated. Here is some generic information I've picked up. Someone else will no doubt have the exact answer. Approximately just before the second or third ring (depending on the system), the information is sent as a data stream about 300 baud between rings. In short, this is why modems can be built to take the caller ID information. Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM This is my (uninformed) opinion and nobody else is (stupid enough to be) responsible for it. [Moderator's Note: I think it is 1200 baud. PAT] ------------------------------ From: gcm@fns-nc1.fns.com (Grover McCoury) Subject: Re: Question About Air Phones Organization: Fujitsu Network Switching Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 16:57:26 GMT In article aps@world.std.com (Armando P. Stettner) writes: > The prices have gone down and the quality is much better though I > suspect it has little if anything to do with the actual units. Airfone prices: $2.00/minute domestic(USA) calls (this includes 800 numbers) Just $.02 worth from ... Grover McCoury @ Fujitsu Network Switching Of America, Inc. 4403 Bland Road Raleigh, NC 27609 audio: 919-790-3111 electronic: ...!mcnc!fns-nc1!gcm ------------------------------ From: wagner@utoday.com (Mitch Wagner) Subject: Re: Question About Air Phones Organization: OPEN SYSTEMS TODAY Date: Thu, 08 Oct 92 17:34:03 GMT In article cgordon@vpnet.chi.il.us (gordon hlavenka) writes: > Often, Hollywood modifies reality a bit in order to make the > screenplay a little easier. Another glaring example is the fact that > upward calling to a commercial airplane just does _not_ exist. (Yet, > but that's another post.) A point which killed the willing suspension of disbelief for me in DIE HARD II. I'm no nerd when it comes to movies. If Our Hero Dirk Cleft wants to glance at a sheet of computer printout and say, "Oh My God that's the Computer Virus that ate Manhattan!" I'll just keep munching popcorn and wait for the next cool gunfight. But all that phoning back and forth to the airplane in flight was getting to be a bit much in DH II. -- mitch w. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 07:34 CDT From: ihlpk!mcb (Mark C Baker) Subject: Re: Distinctive Ringing Availability on #1ESS > In doing some further checking, I found out that Sault Ste. Marie is > served by a 1ESS switch (I know that the same switch has been in use > since at least 1979, and probably at least a couple of years prior to > that). A Michigan Bell official (at their executive offices) tells me > that it is not possible to offer Multi-Ring service on a 1ESS switch; > that you have to be on a digital ESS for such service to be available. > My question is, is the claim that Multi-Ring cannot be offered on a > 1ESS true or false? Yes, it appears that there is a 1 ESS switch in Sault Ste. Marie. The 1 ESS switch was first put into service in 1965 and does not have Multi-Ring or any CLASS features built into its generic program. The 1A ESS switch (also analog) which was introduced in 1976 is fully CLASS and Multi-Ring capable. The 1A ESS switch is simply the 1 ESS switching system with a more modern (mid-70's vs. early 60's) central processor. Mark Baker - AT&T Network Systems ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 10:37 PDT From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Distinctive Ringing Availability on #1ESS Jack Decker writes: > A Michigan Bell official (at their executive offices) tells me > that it is not possible to offer Multi-Ring service on a 1ESS switch; That is true. A 1ESS has insufficient program-store to provide even distinctive ringing on internal/external calls on a Centrex group. It is also incapable of providing "Cancel Call Waiting" and of course, any CLASS features. > that you have to be on a digital ESS for such service to be available. This is NOT true. A 1AESS (analog) can provide all of these things, including CLASS features. However, it is extremely unlikely that a 1AESS would be used to upgrade a 1ESS. > Or is it a capability that could be added easily and inexpensively, > and they are just choosing not to do it? The feature ("multi-ring") cannot be added to a 1ESS, period. 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: Terry Kennedy Subject: Re: Distinctive Ringing Availability on #1ESS Organization: St. Peter's College, US Date: 8 Oct 92 21:31:52 EDT Well, both the 1ESS and the 1AESS are "computer controlled" switches, while the 5ESS is a true digital switch. Anyway, the official name for the feature you're interested in is "Multiple Directory Numbers Per Line With Distinctive Ringing" (now you know why the RBOC's pick "cute" names for services like this 8-), and is described in detail in AT&T Pub 231-390-395. The feature is available on the 1AESS starting at 1AE9.05. While not incredibly ancient, I wouldn't call that release "current" as I believe 1AE12 or 1AE13 is current. So, the question boils down to whether you really have a 1ESS or a 1AESS serving your line. I think it rather unlikely that it's a basic 1ESS, as the savings on the 1A should cover the upgrade. However, only your phone company knows for sure. Regarding the interaction with Call Waiting, the interaction summary says: "... The dependent DN's access all the features associated with the master DN. ..." 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 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #767 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa12590; 9 Oct 92 5:18 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA03773 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Fri, 9 Oct 1992 02:45:42 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA03622 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Fri, 9 Oct 1992 02:45:32 -0500 Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 02:45:32 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210090745.AA03622@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #768 TELECOM Digest Fri, 9 Oct 92 02:45:30 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 768 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: College Phone System (Eli Mantel) Re: College Phone System (Maxime Taksar) Re: GTE Addresses On Outgoing Email (Stephen Lichter) Re: GTE Addresses On Outgoing Email (Jim J. Murphy - Really this time!) Re: Cellular Phones With Scramblers Attached (Paul Robinson) Re: Cellular Phones With Scramblers Attached (John McHarry) Re: Cellular Interception in Private Talk (Thomas J. Roberts) Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached (Dave Ratcliffe) Cellular Antennae Extenders (Matt McConnell) Cellular Rates (Thomas K. Hinders) Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over (Jim Thornton) Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over (David E. Bernholdt) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Eli.Mantel@lambada.oit.unc.edu (Eli Mantel) Subject: Re: College Phone System Organization: Extended Bulletin Board Service Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 01:45:38 GMT In article JD2859A@AMERICAN.EDU (Jeff Dubin) writes: > ...there are a few disadvantages: Can't call time or weather services. > Apparently, the university blocks them, but no one seems to know why. > [Moderator's Note: ... maybe they have time and temp blocked > because it is a premium service or they otherwise consider it a waste > of money.] Being as this is the Washington, DC metropolitan area, I think that time and temperature are offered as non-premium services (844-2525 for time, 936-1212 for temperature, if things haven't changed in the last couple of decades). I find it unlikely that they would have the temerity to judge the value of calls, so I offer an alternative explanation for the call blocking: Stupid PBX administrators! Yes, incompetence in the phone service is not limited to employees of the telephone company. There is a tendency on the part of PBX administrators to block anything they aren't familiar with. Perhaps they have a directive to block "information service" exchanges, where the intent is to avoid premium charges. The underlying problem is that the people who are hired haven't spent half their lives playing with phones; heck, most of them probably don't even know about this newsgroup. Naturally, this flame doesn't apply to any PBX administrators who read this newsgroup. Now to possibly answer Jeff's question: First, you can try and find the boob who misprogrammed the PBX, offer him a case of beer, or do whatever else is necessary to convince him to reprogram the PBX. Second, you can use the information service number offered (usually) in the front of the Yellow Pages (I believe this service is offered in Washington, DC), or you can use the {Washington Post's} information service number. I don't know for a fact that these offer time and weather services, but usually these free information services do. Eli Mantel (eli.mantel@bbs.oit.unc.edu) The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service. internet: bbs.oit.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80 [Moderator's Note: Even if those services in DC do not carry premium charges ala 976, don't they still cost a message 'unit' or some small amount of money per call? Maybe the administrators there feel even at that low rate it is a waste of resources. :) PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 11:04:29 -0700 From: mmt@redbrick.com (Maxime Taksar) Subject: Re: College Phone System In article : > [Moderator's Note: What happens when you dial 9-0, or 9-00? Do you get > an operator that way, or re-order? What about 9-10xxx-0? What about > combinations like 9-411, 9-611 and 9-911? ^^^^^ Please don't try this just as an experiment! Most of us know that it is in bad form to call 911 "just to make sure it works," but not everyone would know this. (And shame on you PAT for not including such a disclaimer.) Maxime Taksar KC6ZPS mmt@RedBrick.COM ------------------------------ From: steven@alchemy.uucp Date: 8 Oct 92 17:23:00 UT Subject: Re: GTE Addresses On Outgoing Mail Sorry but the account is used by a number of us for company communications that do not require it to know who the sender is since we put it within the message. I have no need for my own box and have never asked for one. I do have Internet/UUCP access and at times do use that. John may know a lot of things, but just look at his address, something about cows? Steven H. Lichter GTE Calif COEI Mad Dog (Steven) Sysop: Apple Elite II -- an Ogg-Net BBS UUCP: steven@alchemy.UUCP (714) 359-5338 1200-2400 bps 8N1 ------------------------------ From: JIM.J.MURPHY@gte.sprint.com Date: 9 Oct 92 02:00:00 UT Subject: Re: GTE Addresses On Outgoing Email We will submit future postings to this group with as much information and complete addresses as we can give. We're sorry if this caused any problems, especially to our Moderator. We thought the message was more important than the header or other electronic addresses. We've been hooked on TELECOM Digest since it was made available to through our GTE Telemail service about 1 1/2 years ago. TELECOM has been an education to us for many topics, some that were completely over our head and others that we could relate to. It's been amusing and informative, and we even look forward to reading a Higdon observation. Our access to Internet, or more specifically, to TELECOM Digest, is through GTE Telemail. I have the Telemail account that we use. I suppose Curt could get an account of his own, but it wouldn't gain us much. Let me explain that Curt and I report to the same building for work. Curt is a Switching Systems Technician and works on the GTD5 CO. I am a Facility Maintainer and work outside on deregulated customer equipment as well as regulated network cable, etc. In this small town we can work together when the need arises, such as helping to run some jumpers or testing a cable pair with the CO. It's natural that we share our TELECOM Digest access. It would be like each department having it's own post office box. We could have a box for switching, one for service, and another for construction. In a large city this might be necessary, but here in rural Iowa it's not. All the mail for GTE comes to one PO box. Likewise, we use one Telemail address. It's not that we're ill-configured, it's just not needed. We are aware of the Gloria Valle reference and I think theirs is the same thing on a bigger scale. Since this started out as a comment on our electronic address, I would like to ask for more information about these things. How exactly are we connected with these gateways, why are some addresses so complicated, how can we access the TELECOM archives from Telemail with only a dumb terminal, how do you prefer us to address submissions to this group, what is X.25, X.400, and the hardest question, can you explain this in beginners terms? Please reply to this directly to me so as to not take Pat's valuable time. BTW, even though we are the scourge of the Earth, GTE in this community does strive to provide customer service. After all, around here the customers have our home phone numbers. They know where we live! Jim Murphy Curt Lammers AA0JG SST Internet - JIM.J.MURPHY@gte.sprint.com Telemail - J.J.Murphy America Online - Big Daddy8 [Moderator's Note: I'll defer to others to answer your questions about mail and gateways in more technical detail. My original observation was only meant to be this: About 90 percent of this Digest is handled automatically by a computer and software. The Table of Contents at the top of each issue is made up from the Subject and From lines in the articles. I have to go back each time and remove Gloria from the lines where it appears. If people do not include their actual name at some point in the article or the header, then I can't always tell for sure who wrote the piece and have to use just an email address without a name where the author's name would usually go. If you write from a GTE site using a generic mailbox name (or anywhere with a similar situation) please put your actual name in the signature or somewhere where I will find it. As for GTE people writing to this Digest, *please continue doing so* -- you are just as welcome as anyone else here and don't need to clear anything before you send it along. PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1992 20:37:18 EDT Subject: Re: Cellular Phones With Scramblers Attached In a message from: tmkk@uiuc.edu (Scott Coleman) on Tue, 6 Oct 1992 16:41:33 GMT: > I was watching a re-run of [expletive deleted]. The outfit > which was attempting to buy out the agency gave their "inside > man" a cellular phone with a built-in scrambler, since they > were concerned that the office phones might be monitored. > Do scrambled cell phones really exist ... Yes. I remember reading about it because there was a man who wrote an on-line article somewhere about the abysmal stupidity of the law which makes listening to a non-encrypted radio transmission a federal criminal offense, and he offered to demonstrate the scrambling capability on HIS cellular phone if someone wanted to call and hear what it sounded like. He was in the San Francisco Area, I believe. He pointed out that encryption is not very expensive if you want to protect your conversation, it's that the cellular providers and phone makers don't want to pay the cost of upgrading their switches and equipment to offer it for the few that want it. (My guess is he sells cellular phone scramblers!) Somewhere I remember reading in a book about a means to build for landline wire telephones, a *cheap* effective scrambler by using a common radio signal to combine the signal against, which would be usable against anything short of NSA class equipment, and probably sufficient for most ordinary calls. The only problems were that both parties had to have the scrambler device activated, and that the same radio signal had to be available at both ends, which meant you either needed a national broadcast or had to be local to each other. Now you know why so many people who want private phone calls listen to Larry King's radio show or WSM. :) Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM This is my (uninformed) opinion and nobody else is (stupid enough to be) responsible for it. ------------------------------ From: mcharry@mitre.org (John McHarry(J23)) Subject: Re: Cellular Phones With Scramblers Attached Organization: The MITRE Corporation Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 13:07:32 GMT In tmkk@uiuc.edu (Scott Coleman) writes: > Do scrambled cell phones really exist, or was this just another > Die-Hard-esque fudge on the part of the show's writers? They do indeed. There are STU-III cellular phones available. I believe the commercial versions use DES encryption. Manufacturers include Motorola, I believe AT&T, and maybe others. I have no idea what restrictions there are on their sale, however. John (McHarry@MITRE.org) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 11:01:56 CDT From: tjrob@ihlpl.att.com (Thomas J Roberts) Subject: Re: Cellular Interception in Private Talk Organization: AT&T From article , by louie@sayshell. umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos): >> [Moderator's Note: >> [...] Conversations cannot easily be followed between cells. PAT] > Why assert that conversations cannot easily be followed between cells? > It is not as if the mechanism for handoffs is secret; it is done in > band and someone with sufficient motivation should easily be able to > decode and interpret this information. [...] But you forgot the reason calls are handed off between cells in the first place: the different cells cover a different geographical area. In general, you need to move your scanner (or its antenna) in order to follow the intercepted caller (who is moving between cells). This is NOT easy. Even if you are mobile, how do you determine where to go? Sometimes (often?) you could probably still hear your target in an adjacent cell. But after the target is more than one cell away, I doubt you could still monitor effectively. After all, that is why cells were invented in the first place: to re-use the same frequency bands in multiple areas (somebody else in your cell may be using the same frequency as your target -- the system is designed so that you will hear the nearby caller, not the distant target). Tom Roberts att!ihlpl!tjrob TJROB@IHLPL.ATT.COM ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Cellular Phones With Deals Attached Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 20:08:32 -0400 From: Dave Ratcliffe Andrew Klossner says: >> "what is the maximum number of nams you've seen for a single >> telephone." > The OKI 900 has five. The Uniden CP 5500 only has 2. > [Moderator's Note: You say the cell company 'paid $300 of the phone's > cost' but some of us believe the prices of cell phones are > artificially inflated so the cell company can then 'offer them at a > cheaper price.' This is certainly the case with most cell companies. They charge what the market will bear and pity the poor customer who doesn't know the ropes before going in to see about signing up. > Cell phones may cost $20-30 to manufacture. Like all other > electronic items, the cost is but a tiny fraction of what it was when > they first came out nearly a decade ago. You should be able to buy a > good cell phone for $100 or less regardless of signing up with anyone > or not. Cellular One in Chicago owns a number of dealers including > Leader Communications, a company for whom I have no love lost. PAT] Our first excursion into the world of cell phones started at Sears where they were running a special. Buy a Motorola America series transportable (in a bag w/ battery, hands-free mike, window antenna bracket) for $150 and they sign you up with Centel Cellular. Further inducement was no start-up fee, 100 free minutes air-time, first month free. The salesman filled out the paperwork and sent the unit to Centel for programming. We picked it up two days later and found Centel had screwed up the A/B selection (it was always on ROAMING even in our home area). I took it in to Centel to have them set it up correctly and found out that same day that Sprint was proposing the purchase of Centel. After a little panic (I've had poor experiences with Sprint in the past) we decided to switch to Cellular One. I figured there would be a problem knowing the history of low-cost phones tied to long-term contracts. Imagine my surprise when I CLOSELY read the contract we signed at Sears and found that the clause describing a minimum subscription time was CROSSED OUT BY THE SALESMAN! We switched to Cellular One by the end of the week and have been satisfied with the service. The interesting thing here is that Centel tried some strong arm tactics to force us to pay $35 which they said was only fair since we canceled so soon. I talked to several different sales droids and got a different story each time. They finally sent a "Final Notice" bill and I had my wife return it with a copy of the contract with the deleted portion clearly marked. About a week later we got a new bill. Account credited for $35, balance $0, account closed. They haven't bothered us since and I've just recently picked up a portable (the Uniden mentioned above) for myself. BTW, the same Motorola unit without the bag, battery and hands-free mike is now listed in the Sears catalog at $69.00 and the usual fine print indicates it's tied to a one year contract with "a local provider". Here, at least, it's still Centel. ...uunet!wa3wbu!frackit!dave -or- | Dave Ratcliffe | frackit!dave@uunet.UU.NET -or- dave@frackit.uucp -or- | Sys. <*> Admin. | vogon1!compnect!frackit!dave@psuvax1.psu.edu | Harrisburg, Pa. | ------------------------------ From: Matt Organization: Idaho State University Date: 8 Oct 92 17:10:21 MDT Subject: Cellular Antennae Extenders For those of you with Hello Direct catalogs turn to page 49. I noticed in the Hello Direct catalog these antenna extenders for handheld and portable cellular phones. One is a Y-Star antenna that connects to a car window via suction cups and then screws in place of the regular antenna. I can understand this. The other two are cordless antennas. "The patented passive repeater design restores the cellular signal inside the car, providing a full 3dB bidirectional gain for your handheld cellular phone." One clips onto the window and this makes it portable. The other uses adhesive pads which mounts it on the window. My client tends to use his time on Friday mornings to attend board meetings via conference calls using his Motorola Ultra Clasic. He's on the governing board of 24 hospitals so he does this every week. He likes to drive out to his cabin at the same time. So he enters the fringe areas. The cellular system he is on is rural. Don't know if that helps. So the cell covers about 20-30 miles. He also drives a urban tank aka Suburban. He already uses the battery eliminator so doesn't want another cord attached to the phone. Do these cordless antennas really work? How so? Matt McConnell mccomatt@ba.isu.edu <--- Stuff that can't wait. mcconnellm@csc.isu.edu <--- Stuff that CAN wait. Idaho State University Telecommunications/Computers/Medical Consultant to Sterling Medical Group, Doctors Plaza, Covington Inc. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Oct 92 06:53:51-0900 From: /PN=Thomas.K.Hinders/OU=CCMAIL/O=CHAN.IS/PRMD=MMC/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=US/@sprint.com Subject: Cellular Rates I'm curious ... is it possible that a cellular call can be cheaper than a LD or intra-state toll call? Are cellular rates regulated, and if so are the rates set or compared to the rates for wire based services? Thomas K Hinders Martin Marietta Computing Standards 4795 Meadow Wood Lane Chantilly, VA 22021 703.802.5593 (v) 703.802.5027 (f) ------------------------------ Date: 8 Oct 92 17:46 -0600 From: Jim Thornton Subject: Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over I recently read a book which included a story about special telecom preparations for a presidential visit to New York. In "Emergency!", Saundra Shohen recounts experiences as administrator of the Emergency Department at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital, New York. One of these experiences began with a visit by two secret Service Agents who informed her that the president was coming to the city to visit the theatre and that a phone would be installed in her E.R. and directly connected to the White House. She was told that no staff member was to touch the phone, even if it rang. Later in the day, the new phone began to ring and continued to ring until the staff could not stand it. A nurse finally answered the phone, only to be screamed at: "We TOLD you not to touch THE PHONE!". [emphasis in original]. The chapter concludes with some description of other preparations made for the president's medical care. There are two additional points of telecom interest. First, the author claims that the setup connecting the White House to the host city's Emergency Department varies with the administration in office. Finally, the author states that arrangements are made for the phone even when the president is merely flying over the city. Jim Thornton, thornton@cs.ubc.ca University of British Columbia ------------------------------ From: bernhold@qtp.ufl.edu (David E. Bernholdt) Subject: Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over Date: 8 Oct 92 14:24:25 GMT Organization: Quantum Theory Project, University of Florida We just had a visit from a presidential _candidate_ and his entourage. They had a rally on campus, right in front of my office in fact. People (mostly campaign roadies, I think) worked through the night to set up platforms (for the candidates, speakers, TV cameras, etc.), barricades, and such. I did _not_, notice any unusual telecom goings on, though -- that suprised me little. Sure he's not the president yet, but it sounds like most of the telecom gear discussed in this thread was for the media rather than the president. There were, of course, a fleet of satellite uplink trucks growing all over the lawn by the morning of the event, but that's about it. Security is similar, though. Lead story in our campus newspaper the following day included a description of Clinton and Gore jogging through town and campus the night before the rally and of restroom stop just after the rally which played up the clearing of the path. Even Tipper Gore rates a cleared, searched, guarded restroom. Hard to reconcile this with the idea that they were just standing in front of 20,000 people without any precautions other than the eyeballs of the Secret Service. During the rally, they wouldn't let anyone on the roof of my building, which would have been a good vantage point, but they didn't stop people from going to the windows. David Bernholdt bernhold@qtp.ufl.edu Quantum Theory Project bernhold@ufpine.bitnet University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611 904/392 6365 [Moderator's Note: In August, 1968 at the infamous Democratic National Convention here (yes folks, I was there on Michigan Avenue the night of the riot in front of the Hilton Hotel; another story for another time but I saw it all from a few feet away), President Lyndon Johnson used a bathroom at the Merchandise Mart during a visit with the relative of the Kennedy family who was general manager of the Mart at that time. Afterward someone part of his entourage identified the precise stall in which LBJ had been seated. Soon thereafter, grafitti appeared on the wall of that stall saying that 'LBJ took a sh-- here, August ??, 1968'. That message remained on the wall, with numerous addendums and postscripts both witty and crude for several years. At one point, the toilet seat itself disappeared; apparently stolen by someone who unscrewed the hinges and carried it away, eager for some bit of history that would be worth money later on. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #768 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa24600; 10 Oct 92 13:53 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA15006 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sat, 10 Oct 1992 11:47:26 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA18683 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sat, 10 Oct 1992 11:47:17 -0500 Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 11:47:17 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210101647.AA18683@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #769 TELECOM Digest Sat, 10 Oct 92 11:47:20 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 769 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Voting from Ireland by Fax (Linc Madison) Use N-1-1 Codes for Relay Services: FCC Docket 92-105 (Curtis E. Reid) Call For Presentations - Low-Cost Remote LAN Access via ISDN BOF (D Martin) Seeking Advice on Remote Telecom System (Chris Kennedy) Toronto Police Charge Teen in 911 Calls (Toronto Star via Nigel Allen) Re: Source For Installation Equipment Wanted (Joseph Bergstein) Seek Commercial Telnet Access Site in New York (Mike McCurdy) 10252 as a Code For Sprint (Carl Moore) SLC 96 and Tip/Ring Polarity (Gordon D. Woods) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 18:09:27 BST From: Linc Madison, Oracle Europe Subject: Voting from Ireland by Fax Well, hello, everyone! I'm off in Ireland on the student work-abroad thing, having now finished my degree at Berkeley. I can't read the Digest (no USENET access, and my employer grumbles enough about personal e-mail I can't subscribe to the list), but I can still post! With the day following the first Monday of November fast approaching, my good old red-white-and-blue blood cells are getting a strong urge to VOTE. Trouble is, it's getting rather late in the season to start the process. Fortunately, I'm already registered at my "legal address for voting purposes." I contacted the U.S. Embassy here in Dublin about the rest of the process, and it turns out I can do much of the work by fax. [The policy on faxing voting materials varies from state to state in the U.S. Your mileage may vary.] I got the brochure that explains that all I have to do is fill out my FPCA (Federal Post Card Application -- accepted by all the states for registering and requesting a ballot, although the specifics vary somewhat) and fax it to Autovon 223-5527, or to (800) 363-8683. Umm, excuse me? I can't call an "800" number from here, and I'm not anywhere near an Autovon phone. In fact, I've never even seen one. (Incidentally, that's 1-800-DOD-VOTE) The appendix to the information brochure does list POTS/PSTN numbers at the Pentagon to call or fax for information, but their fax machine doesn't work! Apparently, the U.S. government considers military personnel the only overseas voters worth much concern or effort for voting purposes. A friend back in California called the local registrar for me, and the clerk had never heard anything about faxing in the absent voter request. So I called up, got the same answer, and told the woman that I had in my hand information specifically for the State of California, provided by the US Embassy. She put me on to "the front office," where the woman gave me the number, without hesitation. Now we'll see if they fax back the blank ballot like they're supposed to. While I'm here, a couple of other musings about the phone system here in Ireland and in the U.K. The phone plugs in Ireland are standard RJ-11, the U.S. kind, not the strange things they have in the U.K. I haven't yet had the opportunity to confirm the report I read in the Digest about the line one/line two wiring being reversed here. The phone rates are bloody outrageous, to the point that there is an ad in today's {Irish Times} for MCI Call America with Friends and Family. On almost any call over two minutes, you save by dialing on your home-country-direct number (MCI, AT&T, or Sprint), even without the F&F discount. Cheapest rate here is 89p/minute (one 11.17p "unit" every 7.5 sec., plus VAT at about 12.5%, but Telecom Eireann pays the first 10% for residential customers; payphone units are 18p incl. VAT, or as little as 16p with a stored-value card) which is about $1.63/minute, compared to about $0.60 direct-dial in the other direction. HC-direct runs about $1/minute at all times of day, plus $3 fee. The public phones do odd things, too: they're ALL pulse dial, but they automatically cut over to DTMF on answer supervision, so I can access my voice-mail at work. However, AT&T USA Direct doesn't make the cut over (it's a freephone 1800 number -- not 1-800, but 1800), so you can't use the automated system from a payphone. Circuits take a long time to complete, with a loud beeping noise as the system hunts for an open line to complete your call. Dublin itself is in the process of adding a seventh digit to all local numbers. The agency I work through is at 679-xxxx, but their fax is 77-xxxx. Exchanges are quite geographically specific. Ireland also switched to "00" for international access as of April, and has done away with special codes for dialing the U.K., except for Northern Ireland. Well, cead mile failte and all that kind of stuff. Regards, Linc Madison Oracle Europe Manufacturing Limited lmadison@ie.oracle.com P. O. Box 34, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland Tel. +353 1 283.4700 ext 415 Fax +353 1 295.8963 Direct-dial 283.6216 ext 415# Home +353 1 288.6082 (until 22.30pm local) ------------------------------ Date: 10 Oct 1992 09:44:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Curtis E. Reid Subject: Use N-1-1 Codes for Relay Services: FCC Docket 92-105 I am quoting an article from the newsletter, _GA-SK_Newsletter_, Summer, 1992 (but I just received it last week). _GA-SK_Newsletter_ is sent to all members of the Telecommunications for the Deaf, Inc. (TDI), a non-profit organization devoted to promoting telecommunications use for and by the deaf people in the world. The article appears on page 5. I am typing it as excatly printed. MAKE OUR RELAY LIVES EASIER! DIAL 7-1-1 OR 5-1-1 FOR RELAY?!! Pamela Ransom It has been a little over a year now since the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title IV -- Telecommunications Relay Services -- was signed into law. We have had some time to step back, take a look at the "big picture" and decide where we want to go from here. One of our goals is to make accessing Telecommunication Relay Services (TRS) quick and easy. The Problem: At present there are more than 40 statewide relay services -- each with its own telephone number. For a person travelling from state to state it becomes a near impossibility to remember all the different numbers. Also the relay telephone numbers are usually ten digits, so it takes a long time just to dial into the TRS. A solution: T.D.I. is working together with a coalition of national disability rights organizations represented by the National Center for Law and Deafness. The coalition has asked that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reserve two of the remaining N-1-1 telephone numbers for national access to telecommunication relay services (TRS), 5-1-1 for voice initiated relay calls and 7-1-1 for TTY/TDD initiated relay calls. Dialing 5-1-1 or 7-1-1 from anywhere in the country to access a state's relay service will be easy to remember, quicker, and will bring us closer to the ADA goal of equal access to the telephone for people who are deaf, hard-of-hearing or have speech disabilities. What you can do: The FCC is in the process of making its decision based on legal documents that have been filed and letters that it receives. A letter of support from you will help! Please include in your letter that you are writing about Docket 92-105, "Use of N-1-1 Codes" and send your letter to: Secretary Donna Searcy Federal Communications Commission 1919 M Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20554 and a copy to TDI. If you need assistance, call TDI. Your letters will help make a difference! 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 716.475.6500 Fax ------------------------------ From: dem@nhmpw2.fnal.gov (David E. Martin) Subject: Call For Presentations - Low-Cost Remote LAN Access via ISDN BOF Date: 9 Oct 92 20:39:07 GMT Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, IL, USA Reply-To: dem@fnal.fnal.gov Interop Birds-of-a-Feather Announcement Low-Cost Remote LAN Access via ISDN Wednesday, October 28, 1992, 7:30-9:30 PM Room 121, Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco Open to All Computer users are increasingly dependent upon LAN network services such as X Windows, electronic mail, remote printing, and remote file access. Unfortunately, the current model of remote computing from a home or auxiliary office is still that of logging in as dumb terminal, despite powerful PC's and X-terminals being highly available outside the local environment. Basic Rate ISDN promises to extend traditional LAN services outside normal geographical boundaries by making high-bandwidth connectivity widely available upon demand. This BOF will be a lively discussion, led by those currently using ISDN, of topics such as ISDN terminal equipment, obtaining ISDN service, software to support IP and DECnet via ISDN, and performance of applications. Come ready to discuss such neat technological tricks as turning your home PC into a highly networked workstation. Discussion Topics: - Deployment of ISDN - Bridging Ethernet across ISDN - Bridging Appletalk across ISDN - Dynamic Bandwidth Management using ISDN - PPP over ISDN - Security - Performance of X-Windows over ISDN - SNMP Management of ISDN links - Bridging vs. PPP over ISDN - Routing vs. Bridging - Call-back schemes with ISDN - How to Order ISDN - Terminal Equipment - US and International ISDN Connectivity - Commercial Internet Access via ISDN - Performance of Applications over ISDN - PRI Hubbing of ISDN Access Lines I am looking for people to make a short (5-15 min) presentation to spark discussion on any of the above or related topics. A formal presentation is not required, the intent is to share experiences or desired/implemented features. A viewgraph projector and flip-chart will be available. Please contact me via phone, fax, or e-mail if you would like to give a presentation or bring up a topic for discussion. Even if you do not have anything specific to say, however, I encourage you to attend and be part of the discussion. Neophytes are welcome. David E. Martin National HEPnet Management Phone: +1 708 840-8275 Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory FAX: +1 708 840-8463 P.O. Box 500, MS 368; Batavia, IL 60510 USA E-Mail: DEM@FNAL.FNAL.Gov ------------------------------ From: mainecoon!chris@bit.bit.com (Chris Kennedy) Subject: Seeking Advice on Remote Telecom System Date: Fri, 9 Oct 92 12:00:39 PDT I recently purchased a hunk of land in more or less the middle of nowhere and am seeking alternatives to simply paying line extension charges in order to meet my telecom needs. By way of background my current residential telecom mix consists of five voice and one 56Kb ADN line, all of which I'll gladly trade for ISDN if and when I can convince PacBell to either upgrade the Siemens/Stromberg-Carlson we've currently got to support ISDN (or preferably admit to the fact that they haven't a clue how to manage the switch and install something like a 5E instead). I need to preserve more or less this level of service in whatever solution I finally select. The building site in question is several miles from the nearest PacBell copper, which in turn is a SLC away from the CO. Cellular service is unavailable in the area and the cellular carriers can't even find this *county* on their planning maps. FM prop characteristics in the area are good and with modest work I can get line-of site to a commercial tower where rent is cheap and a PacBell presence in place. I've requested a quote for the installation of a bunch of centrex lines in order to discover the line extension charge, but after several weeks the (one) engineer in the local planning department is still having problems putting the quote together. He's making grumbling noises about the ADN line and given past experience I've got visions of a solution which incorporates load coils, bailing wire and chewing gum ;-). Seems like a good time to ask the net for alternatives. Many thanks, Chris Kennedy | +916 283 4973 | chris@bit.com BIT (Quincy), Inc. | +916 283 0625 fax | Standard disclaimers, etc. 1580 E. Main St, POB 4094| +916 283 5133 home | Quincy, CA 95971 USA | +916 283 5140 fax | ------------------------------ From: Nigel.Allen@lambada.oit.unc.edu Subject: Toronto Police Charge Teen in 911 Calls Date: Fri, 9 Oct 92 17:36:24 EDT Here is a press release that I received from the Metropolitan Toronto Police. The {Toronto Star} ran a story (based on the press release) on its front page today. 1992 October 06, 1950 hours Teenage Computer Hacker Nabbed by Police Detectives from the Major Crime Squad at Police Headquarters have arrested a 15-year-old North York boy and charged him with a number of computer-related crimes. Investigations have revealed that on some occasions his pranks paralyzed the Metropolitan Toronto 911 emergency telephone system. Last July, a young man called the 911 emergency number from a location in the west end of Metropolitan Toronto and reported a number of medical emergencies which caused units from the Metropolitan Toronto Police, ambulance services and local fire departments to respond. All of these calls were determined to be false. On one occasion, he totally monopolized the 911 system and rendered it inoperable thereby denying citizens access to the 911 lifeline throughout the Metropolitan Toronto area. Bell Canada security officers assisted police in their search for the source of the calls. Acting on a Criminal Code search warrant, police today entered a North York home, seized a quantity of computers and arrested a teen-age boy. He is to appear in Youth Court, 47 Sheppard Avenue East, North York, Friday, November 6, 1992, charged with theft of telecommunications, 24 counts of mischief and 10 counts of convey false message. Investigations are continuing. (end of press release) ------------------- Note from NDA: More information may be available from the public affairs office of the Metropolitan Toronto Police at (416) 324-2222 or from Detective W. Johnston of the Major Crime Squad at (416) 324-6245. "Convey false message" is how the charge appears in the police press release; it is evidently police shorthand for the charge of conveying a false message. ------------------------------ From: Joseph.Bergstein@p501.f544.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Joseph Bergstein) Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 01:31:18 -0500 Subject: Re: Source For Installation Equipment Wanted In reply to message from James Gustave on 06OCT: > Does anyone know of a source for telephone installation equipment? > Like linesperson's handsets, or the things-they-hook-to-the-lines > -that-go-BEEP. Someone must know what I'm talking about. Try GrayBar or Anixter Brothers, both of which are national firms with distribution locations in most major metro areas. For best selection try: Jensen Tools: 602-968-9662 Specialized Products: 1-800-866-5353 These two firms specialize in selling all manner of "real" telephone installation equipment: test sets, tone generators, tone detectors, cable splicers, wire strippers, toolbelts, punch down tools, etc. etc. you ame, they probably carry it. They also sell complete tool kits. They've got lots of stuff available, but prices are steep. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 15:08:00 GMT From: news@hercules.SDSU.EDU (McCurdy M.) Subject: Seek Commercial Telnet Access Site in New York Organization: San Diego State University - Dept. of Redundancy Dept. Looking for suggestions/recommendations for a commercial Telnet access site in New York. So far, we have information on Panix and PSI. Any help appreciated ... thanks. Mike McCurdy Disclaimer: VAX Systems Management San Diego State University "Everything I say may be wrong." mccurdy@bestsd.sdsu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 04:37:10 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: 10252 as a Code For Sprint I made a long distance call from a Red Roof Inn room recently and found that 10252 access code got Sprint. The archive file occ.10xxx.access.codes says "Long Distance/USA". ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Oct 92 10:29:06 EDT From: gdw@gummo.att.com (Gordon D Woods) Subject: SLC 96 and Tip/Ring Polarity Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories There was a discussion a few days ago about a problem with a tip/ring reversal on a SLC 96 and people wanted to know why SLC 96's were still designed to be polarity sensitive. Well, according to some experts in the business: 1. Ground start lines must distinguish between tip and ring correctly in order to handle the ground start protocol. 2. Early CO channel units were polarity sensitive and the ringing detector was on one side to ground. This made the channel unit appear to have a different resistance to ground on tip versus ring. This resistive "DC signature" is used by testing systems to verify that a good channel unit is installed. Therefore, the DC signature was grandfathered for subsequent designs even if they could be polarity insensitive. In fact, today there are many DC signatures for detecting many services such as POTS, coin, PBXs, etc. 3. Proper installation is very important in the telephone business because there is a lot of "churn" (service changing). If a line is installed with the wrong polarity and an insensitive channel unit used on it, then if service is changed in the future, (say from loop start to ground start) it would delay the installation while the previous trouble is fixed. This is a significant problem because frequently different craft are used for the initial office wiring versus just plugging in circuit packs for service. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #769 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa27178; 10 Oct 92 15:14 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA21894 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sat, 10 Oct 1992 13:15:20 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA21856 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sat, 10 Oct 1992 13:15:09 -0500 Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 13:15:09 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210101815.AA21856@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #770 TELECOM Digest Sat, 10 Oct 92 13:15:08 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 770 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson FCC Acts on Satelite Radio Plan (Washington Post via Paul Robinson) Caller ID Approved In Arizona (Jim Carpenter) FCC Moves on Wireless Phone Service (Washington Post via Paul Robinson) Bell Canada to Use GTE Billing Software (David Leibold) Switch Back to AT&T? NOT! (Thomas Lapp) Does Phone Company Log Calls to a 'Busy' Line? (jwi@world.std.com) Use of Single Mode Fiber For Video (John Holman) Cellular Internationally? (Sarah Johnson) NECA 4 Online/CD-ROM? (James R. Saker Jr.) Fax Store-and-Forward Service Wanted (Fred E.J. Linton) Surrepticious Recording of Calls in Federal Agency (5066432@mcimail.com) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Fri, 09 Oct 1992 21:39:01 EDT Subject: FCC Acts on Satelite Radio Plan {Washington Post}, October 9,1992, Page F8) {Agency Urges Setting aside of Frequencies} By John Burgess, Washington Post Staff Writer Federal regulators yesterday moved to clear the way for a new generation of radio entertainment services in which satelites would beam compact-disc quality directly to cars and homes. The five member Federal Communications Commission proposed setting aside enough radio frequency to allow several services to go into operation. At present, there is only one applicant, the tiny District company Satelite CD Radio Inc. It hopes to launch satelites and begin service in 1996 but it must first raise nearly $200 million and get final FCC approval. Another obstacle is that today's radios can't receive the signals. Listeners would have to buy special equipment to receive the service. Satelite CD Radio would offer 30 channels of music and entertainment, without commercials, for a subscription rate of $5 to $10 a month, said Robert D. Briskman, its president. The entertainment industry has experimented for years with delivering services to homes directly from space, but so far has had little success. The FCC approved television broadcasting from satelites more than a decade ago but, because of heavy costs and competition from cable and video rentals, no industry has grown up. Satelite radio's promoters contend that a major new market will emerge from the technology, especially among motorists, who could tune to a single station while driving coast to coast. Sound would be superior to FM or AM radio, and static-free, because it would be transmitted using the digital technology of computers, which converts sound into streams of electronic ones and zeroes. Skeptics say the radio business is firmly grounded in local information such as traffic reports, news and advertising. Moreover, the huge costs of launching satellites and creating a national marketing organization might make the ventures collapse under their own weight. Meanwhile, another small Washington company, AfriSpace, is working to launch a satelite that would beam radio broadcasts to listeners in Africa and the Middle East. The FCC's action marks a new milestone in the world's gradual transition to digital technology in all types of communication and information services. Fiber-optic telephone lines, compact discs and personal computers already employ this basic approach. In general, it offers higher quality, greater capacity and lower costs than "analog" systems such as FM radio, records and television. Owners of conventional radio stations are experimenting with ways to turn their broadcasts digital, once thought to be a technically hopeless task. In the meantime, they have opposed granting frequency for satelite broadcasts, on the grounds that national services would undermine the U.S. tradition of local broadcasters serving local communities. The broadcasters' critics, however, contend that they are simply trying to keep out legitimate competition. ------------------------------ From: gtephx!carpenterj@enuucp.eas.asu.edu (Jim Carpenter) Subject: Caller ID Approved In Arizona Date: Fri, 9 Oct 92 9:59:44 MST Reply-To: carpenterj@gtephx.att.com [Moderator's Note: Unfortunatly, Mr. Carpenter did not tell us *where* this article came from. It appears to be issued by US West, but neither the date or source was given in the article sent here yesterday. PAT] The days of anonymous phone calls may be nearing an end. The Arizona Corporation Commission on Wednesday approved "Caller ID", a controversial device that flashes the caller's name and number on a screen when a phone begins ringing. The commission also approved several other new services for U S West Communications, including the option to block the identification. U S West is scheduled to begin the service on Feb. 1 in the Phoenix area and sometime in 1994 in Tuscon. But the commission also will require U S West to conduct a widespread education campaign and offer free line blocking until early May. "I still think it's just another intrusion in people's private lives," said Terrance Mead, an attorney who represents the Arizonal Coalition Against Domestic Violence. But Tony Seese-Bieda, director of public relations for U S West, said the company is doing everything it can to protect privacy. All customers can keep themselves from automatically being identified by dialing "*67" before the number, he said." -------- The article continues to discuss the privacy issue, gives a history of caller ID in Arizona, and incudes basic Q & A's on Caller ID usage and the associated SS7 features (e.g. "Selective Call Forwarding"). Jim Carpenter, AG Communication Systems, Phoenix, AZ, USA ** my opinions are only my opinions ** ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Fri, 09 Oct 1992 21:40:21 EDT Subject: FCC Moves on Wireless Phone Service FCC Moves On Wireless Phone Service {Washington Post}, October 9, 1992, pg. F1) Three firms granted 'Pioneer Preference' By Paul Farhi, Washington Post Staff Writer A partnership affiliated with the Washington Post Co., and two other companies received a major boost from federal regulators yesterday in its effort to win licenses to offer a new wireless telephone service. The Federal Communications Commission tentatively granted American Personal Communications "pioneer preference," meaning APC may receive preferential treatment when the government begins awarding licenses. APC, which is 70 percent owned by The Post Co., is one of dozens of companies conducting tests of personal communications services, a new mobile telecommunications technology that employs small radio transmitters to send and receive calls from tiny wireless phones. APC has been operating an experimental system in the Washington-Baltimore area for the past year. Proponents of the technology believe it has vast potential. Only a limited number of companies will be licensed to offer service in each market because PCS systems use scarce frequency space. But the value of the future PCS licenses won't be clear until the FCC gives final approval to the new technology and resolves key questions about the size of the markets and the number of competitors in each market, communications attorneys said. Final action by the FCC is expected in the first half of next year, but the timetable could be thrown off by legal or regulatory challenges from unsuccessful competitors for the licenses. In addition to APC, the FCC granted tentative pioneer preference to Cox Enterprises and Omnipoint Communications yesterday, and turn down requests for similar status from 53 other applicants. The agency said the three companies deserved licensing preference because each had developed special services and equipment using their PCS trials. Specifically, APC has developed a technology that permits a PCS provider to share part of the spectrum with another user. Atlanta-based Cox demonstrated that PCS micro-cells can be linked with a cable TV system -- potentially enabling cable TV operators to offer phone service. And Omnipoint, created equipment now broadly used in PCS sets. The awarding of pioneer preferences to companies testing other communications technologies has proven to be a controversial practice because of the difficulty in determining which of numerous applicants are deserving. Post Co. officials said the practice could be challenged in court. Indeed, FCC commissioners Andrew C. Barrett and Ervin S. Duggan expressed reservations about the commission's decision, in view of the number of competing applicants. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Oct 92 19:18:33 EDT From: David Leibold Subject: Bell Canada to Use GTE Billing Software Some news from {The Toronto Star} features an announcement by Bell Canada that it will be using billing software from GTE in a strategic alliance. The intent is to provide a more flexible billing package for Bell customers. The GTE software was chosen to provide custom bills for businesses, and has the capability to bill on pay-per-use basis, such as for local calls. Bell Canada has no plans for local measured service, and would have to slug that one out with the regulator (CRTC) and certain public opposition. The business community seemed cautiously optimistic about this announcement. It seems to be a wait and see attitude from what the article described. There are also mixed feelings expressed by one communications consultant regretting the fact that the software couldn't be Canadian-developed, while conceding that an "off-the-shelf" package like GTE's would be cheaper than an in-house job by Bell. dleibold@vm1.yorku.ca ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 07:51:12 EDT From: Thomas Lapp Subject: Switch Back to AT&T? NOT! I was talking to a friend who relayed a most humourus story to me. He received a call that was so noisy and scratchy, that all he could understand was "I can't hear anything, I'll call you right back." The phone rang again, and again the connection was very noisy. Again, "I'll try again to get a better connection." The third time, the connection was better, but not fantastic. But he could understand the lady on the other end. According to my friend, he nearly collapsed in laughter when the lady identified herself finally: she was a telemarketer working for AT&T and wanted to know if they could get him to come back (from his current Sprint 1+). She realized her point was fruitless and finally said, "I don't suppose you have this (noise) problem with your current carrier?" "No." "Oh." End of conversation. tom internet : mvac23!thomas@udel.edu or thomas%mvac23@udel.edu (home) : lapp@cdhub1.dnet.dupont.com (work) OSI : C=US/A=MCI/S=LAPP/D=ID=4398613 uucp : {ucbvax,mcvax,uunet}!udel!mvac23!thomas Location : Newark, DE, USA ------------------------------ From: jwi@world.std.com (Jazzman) Subject: Does Phone Company Log Calls to a 'Busy' Line? Organization: Nexus Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 21:10:06 GMT I know that most phone companies log the telephone calls made from one point to another. My question is: if I tried to make a local call and got a busy signal, would my call attempt show up on the phone company (or anyone elses) log? In case it matters, the system I'm using is NYNEX in the greater Boston area. Also, theres nothing special about my phone: not monitored, tapped, or anything like that! Thanks in advance, John (jwi@world.std.com) [Moderator's Note: I do not think they usually bother unless the subscriber has some interest in the information. I do know that many large inbound call centers (reservations, customer service, credit authorizatioins, etc) ask for that information in an effort to have an adequate number of lines available. Many years ago at the Amoco/Diners sales authorization center (when it was in Chicago) they had numerous little meters they would read hourly to measure the traffic. Whenever all trunks in a given group were busy, a counter would increment by one; and whenever IBT gave a busy signal to a caller then they (IBT) would send a pulse down a special line which caused another counter in the Amoco office to increment by one. Still another special circuit from IBT would send a pulse whenever IBT disconnected a call which had not yet 'supervised', that is, a 'lost call' in Amoco terminology: one where the call had been abandoned by the caller without waiting for an answer, mostly because of a delay in getting a response. When I operated my recorded message service twenty years ago, I also had IBT do a 'busy' study for me. They kept track of that data for a couple months to help me decide if I had enough lines on my system. PAT] ------------------------------ From: holmanj@uwwvax.uww.edu (John Holman) Subject: Use of Single Mode Fiber for Video Date: Friday October 9, 1992 The University of Wisconsin System is about to undertake a nine campus fiber optic backbone project. The inital design calls for 16 strands of multi mode fibers to Residence Halls and low technology use buildings and 32 strands to higher IT Buildings. The plan calls for a star configuation with the posibility of pulling in ten strands of single mode where conduit space allows. I would be interested to hear from other campuses that have installed interbuilding fiber backbones as to what their cable configuration includes. The system plan seems to arbitrary to me. The project is explained to utilize four stands for voice, four for data, four for video and four for building controls. The single mode fiber, which was donated by MCI, is expected to be used for video. Is anyone out there using single mode fiber for video in a campus environment? ------------------------------ From: sra@henson.cc.wwu.edu (Sarah Johnson) Subject: Cellular Internationally? Organization: Western Washington University Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 15:20:07 GMT I was wondering how Cellular telephones have progressed internationally. Specifically, are other countries following the technology used here in the US? Will there be atime when I can take my cellular phone to Europe and use it with out a hitch? (I realize there may be problems with local carrier / account sort of thing, but my question is primarily with the technology compatibility thing.) Sarah ------------------------------ From: jsaker@cwis.unomaha.edu (James R. Saker Jr.) Subject: NECA 4 Online/CD-ROM? Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 16:32:09 GMT Is anyone aware of the NECA 4 tariff being offered either through online services (for dialup) or on a CD-ROM library? Jamie Saker jsaker@cwis.unomaha.edu Network Costing Analyst Business/MIS Major Telenational Communications Univ. Nebraska at Omaha (402) 392-7548 ------------------------------ Date: 10-OCT-1992 14:45:26.88 From: Fred E.J. Linton Subject: Fax Store-and-Forward Service Wanted The "Subject:"-line asks it all -- if there are any fax-transmission store-and-forward services (doing for FAX what MCI's Messenger and AT&T's voice-store-and-forward do for voice), how do I find them? (I'm tired of running into busy trunks, busy recipient fax-machine, or recipient fax machine's ring-no-answer signals outside office hours in connection with a fax I'm trying to send to Zimbabwe University.) [The paper mail version I sent two days ago may get through quicker than its fax counterpart, at the rate I'm going.] Many thanks. Fred E.J. Linton Wesleyan U. Math. Dept. 649 Sci. Tower Middletown, CT 06459 E-mail: ( or ) Tel.: + 1 203 776 2210 (home) or + 1 203 347 9411 x2249 (work) [Moderator's Note: Illinois Bell has offered 'fax mailbox' for a couple years now. This is just like voicemail, but for faxes. You can either use it as an overflow to your existing fax line (IBT sets up 'transfer on busy/no answer' on that line) or as a stand-alone place to have your fax messages left; that is, fax senders can dial direct to the mailbox. You need not even tell them that is what it is since you program your 'answerback' in the box yourself, just like a voicemail greeting. If used as an overflow, then the system tries to call your regular fax line every minute or two to deliver the fax once your machine is available. Or you can tell it to hold all mail in the box for your pickup; then you use any fax machine of your choice to call the mailbox. Naturally, passwords are used to insure privacy and all system features are user programmable. People without a fax machine at all can use it to store incoming faxes which they then pick up from a public fax machine, or one in an office they are visiting, etc. Costs about $10 per month I think, maybe less. Like voicemail, faxmail is virtually non-blocking, busy signals are rare, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 00:52 GMT From: 0005066432@mcimail.com Subject: Surrepticious Recording of Calls in a Federal Agency I have a question I am posting from my own Internet account (which I pay for out of my own pocket) so I can state this specifically and ask a public question which might be inappropriate for me to ask from a government account. I am a private employee of a contractor to a government agency. I work out of that agency but I am not a government employee. Some rumors have been floating around to the effect that this agency is now and/or was recording (unannounced to anyone) telephone calls at this agency, either calls made from the agency, calls made to the agency, or both, and perhaps only on certain phone lines. The rumor has it that in one instance a person (a former federal employee) got to hear a playback of a recording of some personal calls they made where they were not supposed to be doing so. For obvious reasons, unless I have solid legal grounding to know whether or not this form of activity is legal or otherwise, I would like to get some background from a telecom digest reader who knows what the law says, or has a copy of the laws dealing with this. Please note that I am *NOT* referring to SMDR taping or pen registers, which is what I thought the person who told me this was referring to (which would record phone numbers dialed; that is not what I am talking about; I am talking about the (surrepticious) recording of the audio content of telephone calls.) Question: Even for a government agency, is it legal for them to record calls without notification to the parties involved? I believe this not only violates the 1968 Federal Wiretap Act but might also violate the more recent Electronic Communications Protection Act. I for one don't have anything to worry about; the most I've done is call MCI's 800 number -- which is okay since the agency isn't charged for the call -- but I wonder about the legality of this. Also, I note that this agency does have a special reports office to accept calls from the public and reports to the agency by employees, people under its jurisdiction, and the public, and the first thing the person on that line does when he or she answers is to report that the line is recorded. Which strikes me as odd, if the rumor I'm hearing is true. I thought the only time where a call could be recorded without the knowledge of the people on the call -- even in a federal agency -- is either if there is a wiretap order from a court or it's a security or law enforcement agency such as the FBI, NSA, CIA or other such. This agency is not generally a law enforcement agency. Could someone tell me if I'm wrong and this type of activity is legal? These opinions ARE those of the owner of this account and nobody else's. [Moderator's Note: This is better suited for continued discussion in the comp.privacy forum (where I think you also posted it), but I place it here for people who might not have seen it so they can reply to you direct or via comp.privacy. Rules pertaining to employers listening to calls in the conduct of their business are a bit different than rules pertaining to third parties just simply snooping illegally on others. I do not think employers have to announce each and every call they listen to as long as it is generally known by employees that the employer may monitor the phones from time to time in an effort to improve call handling effeciency, etc. This would even apply in the case of the government *as an employer* I think, although obviously there are safeguards in place such as you describe when the government *as a governor* listens to your calls. The difference between being *employed* by the government and being *governed* by the government is simply that while you have no practical choice in the latter case (thus are afforded consititutional protections against abuse) in the former case no one is guarenteed or entitled to government employment (or employment by anyone else for that matter). The employer (or anyone who pays for the telephones) is entitled to supervise phone use. You say your personal calls may get overheard also? Well, your personal calls have no place on the employer's phone system. If this is a problem, make personal calls from the payphone in the hallway; your employer is NOT permitted to listen to those calls ever! PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #770 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa28678; 10 Oct 92 15:50 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA18523 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sat, 10 Oct 1992 13:58:09 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA25267 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sat, 10 Oct 1992 13:58:01 -0500 Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 13:58:01 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210101858.AA25267@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #771 TELECOM Digest Sat, 10 Oct 92 13:58:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 771 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Comments on the Multimedia Article (James Hanlon) Re: More LATA Nuttiness (David Esan) Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison (Andy Sherman) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: tcubed@ddsw1.mcs.com (James Hanlon) Subject: Re: Comments on the Multimedia Article Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 16:51:45 GMT Organization: ddsw1.MCS.COM Contributor, Chicago, IL FZC@CU.NIH.GOV (Paul Robinson) writes: > The problem we have is that we have copper wire (or that cheap > substitute I can't remember the name for, DXC, DGC or something) which > can't handle large bandwidth. When people switched from outhouses to All the above is true enough, but I can get a 500Mhz bandwidth pipe to my house tomorrow for ten dollars (sometimes less during promotions). It's coax, but it's 50,000X the bandwidth of tip-ring, and 300X that of T1. The issue is not "copper is slow, fiber is fast", it's that telco thinking invariably excludes options that don't involve sending billions of dollars to them to Rewire America. > servicing this demand, the only answer we have is to tear out the > wires and put fiber in. We will buy the capacity as we want it. Just > have the capacity there and have it low enough cost to allow anyone > who can afford a phone now to get in on this stuff. How much is an RF modem, bandwidth of 1MHz or so? 50 bucks? How complex are RF multiplexors? Can you go RF to T-1 or T-3? (MCI seems to). > Note to anyone working for a telephone company: Do us all a favor and > oversupply capacity! You should build for a factor of one hundred There is so much excess capacity today that moneymaking organizations routinely send crude text messages (required bandwidth: roughly 300 baud) down 6MHz-wide channels 24 hours a day. They know they have bandwidth to burn. >> Many feel that for the market to take off, the country must have >> a new communications network capable of opening a video circuit >> between any given point and another -- just as today's telephone >> network does for calls. > "Video Dial Tone". You can get it now, it's just too expensive. What Or, by changing our perspective, we can merely alter an existing video communications network from unidirectional to bidirectional capability. > terms of what people use the space for and instead simply allocate > them a block of frequency. If they buy 6MHZ space, they can do FCFMV > or they can transmit 500 simultaneous telephone calls. What is > expensive is the switching equipment. But it can be done. Just how expensive are video matrix switches? Who makes them? > FCFMV telephone calls at $1 a minute. Charge someone $300 to install > his line on a finance basis, say over a ten month period. Charge $100 > a month for the service. It is currently about $10/$25 for coax-to-the-home; 300/100 is a tough sell. >> Highly complex software also will be needed to control and >> manage new networks capable of carrying large amounts of digital >> data. > I believe this to be true; it therefore behooves all of us that the > systems be done small and simple; it makes failures less dangerous. The software to allocate, track usage of, and bill for, 50,000X chunks of bandwidth-time, is not 50,000X more complex than that for X chunks. Any software developer that quoted me 2X, in fact, would be in for a cross-examination of his motives. > To reuse an overworked quote from a movie I've never seen, "If you > build it, they will come." If the capacity is there, people will find > ways to use it that the inventors would never even dream of. When the A duchess once said: "You can never have too much bandwidth." > We need new ideas and we need to think of new ways to use the > technology and the capacity we have. Some ideas: RBOCs forbidden by law to subsidize the rebuilding of the Venezuelan phone system, or to dream up new, expensive ways of delivering video to my home when I already have an old, cheap way. Jim Hanlon tcubed@ddsw1.mcs.com ------------------------------ From: de@moscom.com (David Esan) Subject: Re: More LATA Nuttiness Date: 8 Oct 92 19:29:44 GMT Organization: Moscom Corp., Pittsford NY In article johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) writes: > While we're looking at pointless LATA statistics, the Atlantic City > LATA appears to be the smallest one in the country based on the number > of prefixes, of which it only has 64, and probably number of > subscribers. Are there any other smaller ones? It may also be the > smallest in land area, since it takes only an hour on the Parkway to > drive from Barnegat at the north end to Cape May at the south end. Pointless V&H statistics are my business. :-). Attached are a list of LATAs and the number of exchanges in each. It is possible that there are minor errors here, since this information is transcribed from a tape to my database, and in doing 50,000+ of these some errors will creep in. But, it should be close. The smallest LATAs have just one entry: 999 is in NPA 504 and is labelled as "OFF SHORE". I assume that it is the offshore drilling platforms. 930 is EPPES FORK, VA. Anyone know anything about it? 921 is FISHERS ISLAND, NY. One exchange on one island. 981 is in Utah. It includes three exchanges, for HALCHITA, MONUMENT VALLEY, and MONTEZUMA CREEK-ANETH. My guess is a small independant company. The largest is 730, the monster that takes in a large part of southern California and a piece of Arizona. A complete list of NPA/LATA combinations is below the count list. LATA NXX LATA NXX LATA NXX LATA NXX LATA NXX LATA NXX LATA NXX 730 2405 234 435 538 275 252 196 546 147 374 100 376 65 830 1980 632 431 834 272 230 192 478 147 953 94 977 64 460 1889 628 417 134 266 634 191 133 146 828 92 960 61 132 1856 324 414 848 262 344 189 668 144 624 92 973 57 854 1696 832 412 350 257 728 183 426 144 436 90 850 57 358 1277 952 409 326 257 352 182 626 142 370 90 736 57 722 1198 348 401 232 257 638 181 440 141 526 89 550 57 858 1154 732 388 676 250 124 181 130 139 432 87 826 54 238 1053 532 388 354 249 738 179 368 137 362 86 364 54 552 987 528 382 140 248 846 178 544 135 956 85 521 52 438 924 636 378 652 242 670 177 474 135 740 85 428 51 458 894 356 369 122 241 254 175 488 133 240 85 938 48 236 822 482 364 450 237 464 174 256 132 366 82 824 48 128 791 844 353 490 236 630 173 126 132 322 82 570 45 560 777 640 352 454 236 568 172 564 127 446 81 484 45 224 777 939 351 468 233 244 171 338 126 548 79 456 45 228 765 660 350 226 231 648 170 724 122 961 78 937 40 340 686 120 347 852 230 558 166 342 120 562 78 856 39 520 672 452 340 466 228 658 165 242 120 530 78 932 36 566 607 644 335 448 228 654 165 444 119 734 77 980 24 674 586 726 323 222 223 650 165 334 117 330 77 928 24 842 569 534 320 462 221 430 165 556 115 246 76 963 22 524 563 664 319 646 215 325 162 346 114 420 75 862 19 840 550 470 309 248 210 332 161 492 110 360 72 927 16 656 547 320 305 958 207 721 158 442 110 976 70 822 11 920 496 974 302 424 206 138 152 949 109 250 70 929 10 536 492 422 296 522 205 923 150 542 109 220 69 981 3 666 456 476 293 328 205 434 149 480 108 978 67 999 1 860 450 136 293 486 204 951 147 477 107 924 66 930 1 672 442 922 283 635 203 720 147 472 107 540 66 921 1 336 437 620 278 820 200 554 147 This is a list of LATAs and the NPAs that they include. NPAs may contain more than one LATA, and LATAs may contain more than one NPA. LATA NPA LATA NPA LATA NPA LATA NPA LATA NPA LATA NPA LATA NPA 120 207 250 919 376 217 474 606 538 918 636 605 670 503 122 603 252 804 420 704 474 615 540 505 636 701 670 916 124 802 252 919 422 704 474 704 540 915 638 406 672 206 126 413 254 304 422 803 476 205 542 915 638 605 672 503 128 508 254 703 422 919 477 205 544 806 638 701 672 509 128 617 256 304 424 919 477 601 546 405 640 307 674 206 130 401 256 412 426 919 478 205 546 505 640 308 674 509 132 203 320 216 428 803 478 912 546 719 640 402 676 208 132 212 322 216 428 919 480 205 546 806 640 406 676 503 132 516 322 412 430 704 480 601 548 817 640 507 676 509 132 718 324 614 430 803 480 904 550 915 640 605 720 503 132 914 325 216 432 803 482 205 552 214 640 701 720 702 132 917 326 313 434 803 482 318 552 817 640 712 720 916 133 717 326 317 436 803 482 504 552 903 644 308 721 702 133 914 326 419 438 205 482 601 554 501 644 402 722 408 134 413 328 513 438 404 482 901 554 903 644 605 722 415 134 518 330 812 438 706 484 504 556 817 644 712 722 510 136 315 332 219 438 912 484 601 558 512 644 816 722 707 136 607 334 219 440 803 486 318 560 409 646 303 724 916 138 607 334 419 440 912 486 501 560 713 646 307 726 916 138 717 336 217 442 404 486 903 562 409 646 308 728 209 140 716 336 219 442 706 488 318 564 210 646 605 730 213 140 814 336 317 442 803 490 504 564 512 646 913 730 310 220 609 338 812 442 912 490 601 566 210 648 208 730 602 222 609 340 313 444 912 492 504 566 512 648 406 730 619 224 201 340 517 446 912 520 314 568 210 650 307 730 714 224 609 342 715 448 205 520 618 568 512 650 406 730 805 224 908 342 906 448 904 521 314 570 409 650 701 730 818 226 215 344 517 450 904 522 316 620 319 652 208 730 909 226 717 346 517 450 912 522 417 620 507 652 307 732 619 226 814 348 517 452 904 522 501 620 515 652 503 734 805 228 215 348 616 454 904 522 918 620 605 652 702 736 408 228 302 350 414 456 904 524 712 620 712 652 801 738 209 230 814 350 715 458 407 524 816 624 218 654 208 740 805 232 215 352 612 458 904 524 913 624 715 654 303 820 809 232 717 352 715 460 305 526 417 626 218 654 307 822 809 232 814 354 608 460 407 526 501 626 605 654 308 824 809 232 908 354 815 462 502 526 918 626 612 654 406 826 809 234 412 356 414 462 606 528 314 628 612 654 605 828 809 236 202 356 815 462 812 528 501 630 402 654 801 830 809 236 301 358 219 464 502 528 901 630 507 656 303 832 907 236 410 358 312 464 615 528 918 630 605 656 308 834 808 236 703 358 414 464 901 530 318 630 712 656 719 840 403 238 301 358 708 466 606 530 501 632 319 656 801 842 604 238 410 358 815 466 615 532 316 632 507 658 719 844 204 240 301 360 608 468 502 532 405 632 515 660 303 846 506 240 304 360 815 468 601 532 417 632 712 660 602 848 709 240 717 362 618 468 901 532 719 632 816 660 702 850 403 240 814 364 815 470 205 532 918 634 309 660 801 850 819 242 301 366 217 470 502 534 308 634 319 664 505 852 902 242 410 366 309 470 615 534 402 634 608 664 915 854 416 244 615 366 815 472 205 534 719 634 815 666 602 854 519 244 703 368 309 472 404 534 913 634 816 666 619 854 613 246 703 368 815 472 615 536 405 635 319 666 801 854 705 248 804 370 217 472 704 536 806 635 507 668 505 854 807 250 804 374 217 472 706 538 316 636 218 668 602 856 902 858 416 920 203 923 614 937 317 952 813 960 208 976 217 858 418 921 516 924 814 937 513 953 904 960 406 977 217 858 514 922 513 927 703 938 217 956 615 960 509 977 309 858 519 922 606 928 804 938 812 956 703 961 915 978 618 858 613 922 812 929 703 939 813 958 402 963 406 980 602 858 819 923 216 930 804 949 919 958 712 973 619 981 801 860 306 923 419 932 304 951 919 958 913 974 716 999 504 862 403 923 513 932 703 David Esan de@moscom.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Oct 92 09:32:01 EDT From: andys@internet.sbi.com (Andy Sherman) Subject: Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison On 6 Oct 92 06:06:36 GMT, gerg@netcom.com (Greg Andrews) said: > john@zygot.ati.com recently wrote: >> Every so often, I find that a better rate can be had from MCI or from >> Sprint by using some plan or another. Each time I have started routing >> calls over anyone other than AT&T, all hell breaks loose. I find >> failed conversations aplenty. UUCP sends me messages right and left >> peppered with 'LOGIN FAILED' or 'CONVERSATION FAILED' or 'LOST LINE'. >> Frequently, throughput falls from 1400 CPS to something like 300-400 >> CPS. And invariably, my overall bill goes WAY up. Why? First there is >> the lower throughput. Then there are the billing errors. > I can't speak to the billing errors, but the modem symptoms you > describe seem to this Telebit technician like a well-known interaction > between Telebit's PEP modulation and the echo cancellers used my MCI, > Sprint, and others. > Rather than poor quality, the problem was being caused by the echo > cancellers interfering with the modem transmissions. When the modems > stopped sending data to train themselves to the line conditions, the > echo cancellers would turn themselves off. The difference in the > modem 'conversation' between data transfer mode and training mode was > enough for the echo cancellers to change their behavior. The modems > saw an undisturbed line when they trained, so they couldn't adapt. > Why didn't AT&T lines do this? They used different brands of echo > cancellers. (Perhaps because their network hadn't used fiber optics > until very recently?) First off, AT&T has had *some* optical fiber in the network for some time. But the particular medium of digital transmission should matter not one whit for how to do echo cancellation. The propagation delays are the same for all terrestrial links. Yes AT&T uses an echo cancellation scheme that is different from that used by the other carriers. Wanna take a guess as to which brand? Most of the AT&T long distance network is switched by #4 ESS(R) switches, which have integral echo cancellation on all trunks that are greater than some given distance. (Some one of my former colleagues can tell us if that number is proprietary). These echo cancellers automatically drop out as soon as a modem guard tone is detected. That's why none of the modems had a problem on AT&T. (It was once alleged in this forum, by some dweeb or another, that AT&T never had a modem problem because AT&T didn't do echo cancellation, but that was B.S.) > Telebit worked with the engineers from a couple of the echo canceller > manufacturers for several months. Eventually a solution was found > where the modems would be able to keep the echo cancellers disabled. > The modem firmware was updated to add the 'echo canceller mods' > starting with version 7.00 (BC7.00, GE7.00, and GF7.00, though the > T1000 uses FA2.10). Had the echo cancellers done the right thing to begin with, Telebit would never have had the problem. > The point I've been trying to make is that your connection troubles > might have been caused by this interaction and not by the quality of > the LD carrier. It would be unfair to criticize the LD carrier > because the original PEP modems couldn't keep their echo cancellers > off the line. Really? I consider the inability of echo cancellers to detect a modem to be a quality issue. It is not a quality, customer driven solution to force customers to modify their CPE because the network infrastructure is of inferior quality. Remember that there was one carrier whose infrastructure never had the problem and whose network could and can deal with the unmodified Telebit modems. The problem was not that the PEP modems couldn't turn off the echo cancellers, the problem was that the echo cancellers couldn't (and can't) detect the PEP modem without forcing the modem manufacturer to add non-standard stuff. You don't consider that a quality metric? I do. Besides all that, every now and then somebody posts a throughput test for the big three carriers, and AT&T almost always wins. That also is John Higdon's experience, but I don't know if he's ever posted the numbers or any $$/KB_transferred figures derived from them. Needless to say, I speak for neither my former nor current employers. 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." ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #771 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa18431; 12 Oct 92 9:30 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA11531 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 11 Oct 1992 23:21:55 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA08808 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 11 Oct 1992 23:21:40 -0500 Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 23:21:40 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210120421.AA08808@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #772 TELECOM Digest Sun, 11 Oct 92 23:21:44 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 772 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Operator -- Live or Memorex? (Lauren Weinstein) Question For Michigan Residents (Damon A. Koronakos) ADPCM Speech Encoder/Decoder IC (Neezam Mohd Bohari) Personal Communications Services: Washington Post Co. (Nigel Allen) Questions About Token Ring Bridge (yyang@access.digex.com) Seeking Information on SS7 Packets (Raum Pattikonda) "Movie On Demand" Service Tested (Washington Post via Paul Robinson) Old Telephone Wiring at Network Interface (Arnold de Leon) Fiber to the Home (Leonard Erickson) Private PBX Installation (Don Smith) Craig Shergold (Ken Dykes) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 11:07 PDT From: lauren@cv.vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Operator -- Live or Memorex? Greetings. The first few times, I couldn't put my finger on what was bothering me about the calls. Something had changed when I called the AT&T (0-0) operator, possibly sometime within the last couple of weeks. After a few more calls I realized what seemed odd. Operators were answering with "This is (name) with AT&T -- how may I help you?" But the pause between the first and second phrases was often a wee bit too short -- like an audio edit that had been made a little too tightly. And listening carefully, I realized that the volume level between the opening phrases and my conversation with the operators sometimes varied just a litte. That was it -- the opening phrases were recorded! Apparently the ID and "how may I help you" were (presumably digitally) recorded separately, and were being played back in sequence, with the operator actually cut in and listening at the end of the second phrase. When I asked a couple of operators about this, they immediately confirmed that the intros were recorded. They said that this was being done to give them a bit more rest time between calls. This makes sense--it allows the operators to rest their voices a little while not delaying the handling of any calls. It doesn't actually increase call capacity (since the operator position must be free before the recordings are played, since the caller must already be attached to that position before the playback). Another benefit of the system is that it assures a uniform answering message from each operator which includes their name. So, the next time you call your 0-0 operator, listen carefully. Is the greeting live, or is it ...? --Lauren-- [Moderator's Note: Actually this is not new. Illinois Bell operators have used these recorded greetings for a few years now. In many cases they do not have to speak at all as in the case of a call to DA where the recording greets the caller, the caller gives his request and the operator merely types it in, then the computer announces the number the operator selected from the listings. I thought AT&T had been using this for quite awhile also, although not with a standard response in the system. (It was up to each operator to record what they wanted to say there.) PAT] ------------------------------ From: damon@sunburn.stanford.edu (Damon A. Koronakos) Subject: Question For Michigan Residents Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University. Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 02:07:11 GMT Hi Michigan hackers out there.. A friend of mine in Kalamazoo recently got an IBM-compatible machine. I would like to be able to exchange electronic mail with him if possible. Does anyone have any suggestions about how I might establish net access for him? Is there something like netcom.com in the Bay Area in the Kalamazoo area (a cheap service which provides net access)? I don't know if Prodigy/Compuserve-type services provide email access to the net, how much extra (if any) this costs, etc. Any suggestions much appreciated!! (pls send replies to damon@cs.stanford.edu). Damon Koronakos baa-clone@cs.stanford.edu ------------------------------ From: neezam@seas.gwu.edu (Neezam Mohd Bohari) Subject: ADPCM Speech Encoder/Decoder IC Organization: George Washington University Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 02:58:30 GMT I am looking for an ADPCM Speech Encoder/Decoder I.C in small quantity (two or three pieces). This IC is basically compresses the toll quality voice signal (like in telephone line) and decompresses later on. The input signal is serial digital PCM data stream from Compander I.C and it generates the compressed bytes in parallel, so you can feed it to PC bus etc, and vice versa. So far, I had came across with NEC Electronics product ic # uPD7730 (old version and its production is discontinued). # uPD77C30 new version, but currently not available, even for sampling (as far US regions is concerns). The best I can do is to place an order and wait the next 16 weeks, which is something I can't stand for. If any of you out there know where-how I can get this I.C. please inform me as soon as possible, or had some extras or spare regardless the old version or new one I AM WILLING to buy from you (please consider a gift anyway). Those folks who know any cross-product for this IC PLEASE help me. e-mail neezam@seas.gwu.edu phone : (202) 296-9577 Thanks in advance. ------------------------------ From: Nigel.Allen@lambada.oit.unc.edu Subject: Personal Communications Services: Washington Post Co. Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 23:43:02 EDT Here is a press release from the Washington Post Co. and American Personal Communications. Washington Post Co. Receives FCC 'Tentative Pioneer Preference' for Personal Communications Services Contact: Guyon Knight of the Washington Post Co., 202-334-6642, or Albert Grimes, 410-825-4221, or W. Scott Schelle, 202-296-0005, both of American Personal Communications WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 -- The Washington Post Co. announced today that its affiliated limited partnership, American Personal Communications (APC), has received from the Federal Communications Commission a tentative pioneer's preference for Personal Communications Services. This preference, if finalized, will give APC one of two or more licenses for a market area yet to be defined by the FCC. APC had applied for a pioneer's preference for the PCS licensing area encompassing the Washington/Baltimore markets. The pioneer's preference decision today will be subject to further comment, and a final decision on the preference grants will be made at the time PCS services are authorized by the FCC, a step expected to occur in the first half of next year. APC is a partnership of The Washington Post Co. and principals of Schelle Cellular Group, Inc. Since November 1991, APC has been operating personal communications systems in Washington, D.C., northern Virginia, and the Baltimore region under an experimental license authorized by the FCC in February 1990. Wayne Schelle, chairman of APC, said: "Personal Communications Systems will be one of the major international growth industries of the 1990s. The FCC's actions represent a significant step in enabling American manufacturing and service companies to be major factors in the new business. We're delighted we have been able to participate in this industry from its inception." Martin Cohen, vice president of The Washington Post Co., said: "This tentative award from the FCC reflects the creative and thorough work done by the APC staff, especially in the area of technological innovation. Market and field testing, which are ongoing, also are contributing greatly to the advancement of the process." Personal communications services embrace a range of wireless telephony products that will be relatively inexpensive, small in size and that will provide a range of voice and data services. They immediately will use digital technology, which permits clearer conversation with less interruption and more privacy than traditional radio phones. Alan Spoon, chief operating officer of The Washington Post Co., said he was very pleased and excited by the tentative pioneer preference award, but cautioned that the FCC's rule-making process still must be completed in a timely manner to permit the new industry to roll out. ------------------------------ From: yyang@access.digex.com (yyang) Subject: Questions About Token Ring Bridge Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 03:51:17 GMT I have some problems bridging two IBM token rings together. We have two token ring network running at two different buildings. We try to use fiber optic cable to bridge them together. The problem is the cable come out of the LAM on both side is T1 type. Is there a device that converts it into fiber optic? We have AS/400 and PCs on both rings. What kind of hardware and software do we need to do the bridge? I'm not very familiar with bridge and router. Are there any books and technical references that discuss in details about bridge hardware products as well as software protocals? ------------------------------ From: raum@isoa3.ba.ttu.edu (Raum Pattikonda) Subject: Seeking Information on SS7 Packets Organization: Texas Tech University Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 18:36:50 GMT I am not very familier with SS7 protocols. I would like to know if the SS7 packets contain the calling card number information for the calls made using the calling card. Can someone also please sugest a good book on SS7. Thanks in advance. Raum Pattikonda Internet: raum@isoa3.ba.ttu.edu Dept. of Computer Science Texas Tech University ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 21:42:05 EDT Subject: "Movie On Demand" Service Tested (Washington Post Business Digest, October 9, 1992, Page F2) Three communications giants launched a $10 million, 18-month test south of Denver that may determine the future of home movie viewing. Spokesmen for AT&T, Tele-Communications and US West said to determine what people will watch and how often, 300 Littleton, Colo., residences are being hooked up to one of two services: a "movie-on-demand" service called Take One, or an enhanced pay-per-view service called Hits at Home. ------------------------------ From: arnold@Synopsys.COM (Arnold de Leon) Subject: Old Telephone Wiring at Network Interface Organization: Synopsys, Inc. Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 06:15:47 GMT I just had a second line installed at our house. Since a second line has never been installed here before PacBell installed a new network interface box for the second line. The house is 39 years old. I had decided to do my own inside wiring. My plan was to simply tie in the second line to the existing wiring on the second pair (yellow and black). When I opened the old network interface I had trouble finding the yellow/black pair. I eventually found the yellow wires connected to a screw connector. There is also a wire running from this connector to the new network interface. The wire does *not* go to any of the connectors used for phones. Is it some sort of ground? Was it used for powering Princess phones? On the old cables I could not find the black wire. Was it standard practice to clip it? Every jack inside that I've opened has it. I haven't checked in the crawl space yet for a junction. I did find one cable at the old network interface that had all four wires (It appears that there are three runs to feed the jacks into the house). It appears to have been a more recent addition. It had the yellow/black wires simply unconnected. I was able to use that to bring the second line into the house. Can I simply take the yellow wire from the other cables and use them for the second line? I am assuming that I can find the black in the sheath. Should/can I ask PacBell to move both my lines to the new network interface box? It's so much easier to work with. The old boxes were obviously from the days when MaBell owned everything. Any general comments? Any recommended reading for someone doing inside phone wiring? Arnold de Leon arnold@synopsys.com NCS Synopsys Inc. (415) 694-4183 700 E. Middlefield Road Mtn. View, CA 94043-4033 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 06:25:45 PST From: Leonard.Erickson@f51.n105.z1.fidonet.org (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Fiber to the Home In TELECOM Digest V12#763 deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) writes: > Using your 5000 phone lines per (I'm guessing you mean) fiber pair, at > 64kb/s for a phone line, you're talking sending 160Mb/s to each house. > Let's use 155Mb/s, since that's an STS-3 SONET/SDH rate. Anyone know > what an STS-3 FOT is going for these days? I don't have any > up-to-date information (and if I did, I probably wouldn't be allowed > to post it), but I'd guess that $30k/link (both ends) is correct > within an order of magnitude. Even if using ring architectures and > ADMs can drop your costs by a factor of two (unlikely to impossible), > you're talking $15k electronics costs per house. > Even if the cost of overlaying the fiber itself goes to zero, you've > just incurred a $15k per subscriber incremental cost. At a 50,000 > line CO, that's an investment of $750 million dollars. For capacity > which will, basically, sit there until people figure out how to use > it. On the other hand, how *cheap* could a 64kb/s interface be? That's all it'd take to supply a "regular" phone line. And in the quantities involved, I'd expect the cost to drop *fast*. For the sake of argument, call it $50. (I've seen RS-232 to fiber adapters in that range). At this price, the PUC could likely be talked around. And if you need extra capacity, instead of running more lines, you replace the interface box at the user premises. I'm not sure whether the CO end of the fiber would be better served by a box capable of handling a range of line capcities, or by a dedicated box. Either way, at some point, in the course of upgrading, it'll be necessary to "move" the fiber to a different box. While this is not as simple as splicing copper, I doubt that it'd be *that* expensive. The hard part is dealing with the fiber between the user and the exchange. In urban areas, boosters can be avoided. In the suburbs we have a problem. Because I can't see an amplifier that will uniformly handle all the different signals that could be present on a fiber given my scheme above. But I don't really know enough about fiber to know if my feeling is correct on this point. uucp: uunet!m2xenix!puddle!51!Leonard.Erickson Internet: Leonard.Erickson@f51.n105.z1.fidonet.org ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Oct 92 15:17:06 -0400 From: smith@parrot.maya.com (Don Smith) Subject: Private PBX Installation Looking at a Panasonic KXT-1232 Key system that uses the KXT-7000 series phones. We would like to know any advantage/disadvantages of the system. Any recommendations on other Key systems would be welcome. Send E-mail to smith@maya.com Thanks, Don Smith ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Oct 92 17:21:43 EDT From: ken@Thinkage.On.CA (Ken Dykes) Subject: Craig Shergold Modem tax? did someone say modem tax? :-) -ken, thinkage ltd. >From: bscott@isis.cs.du.edu (Ben Scott) >Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny >Subject: Craig Shergold >Date: 3 Oct 92 23:30:02 GMT This just in -- FCC official Craig Shergold has announced new regulations to add a fee to phone lines used for telecommunication, including bulletin boards and public network services. Critics say he is still bitter from a childhood experience during which he was buried underneath several tons of get-well cards, largely due to the well-meaning efforts of computer users all over the world, and this has sparked his current crackdown. Everyone reading this message would be affected by a tax on modem lines! It's vital that we make ourselves heard, and stop this FCC ruling. Please, forward this message to as many bulletin boards and services as you can, and encourage everyone you know to sign petitions against this plan. Send them to Mr. Shergold at the FCC in Washington, DC. (United Wire Services, July 2002) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #772 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa19458; 12 Oct 92 9:56 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA21314 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 12 Oct 1992 00:33:44 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA30089 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 12 Oct 1992 00:33:32 -0500 Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 00:33:32 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210120533.AA30089@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #773 TELECOM Digest Mon, 12 Oct 92 00:33:30 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 773 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson What is WSM? (Was Cellular Phones With Scramblers) (5066432@mcimail.com) Michigan Bell: Business vs Residential Rates (Ken Jongsma) Phone Network Simulator (Andrew Klossner) Detection of Pulse Dial Codes by Information Response Systems (Mark James) Touch Tone Question (Tom Kovar) "It's a New NPA in Georgia..." (Paul Robinson) "...is the Highest Law of the Land..." (Paul Robinson) ATM Technical Information Wanted (Josh Cohen) Another List of Cellular Phone Prices (Paul Robinson) 911 Calls from Remote Locations (Joseph Bergstein) Caller-ID Privacy Question (Jason Hunsaker) Email to Serbia (Yugoslavia) (Kirill Tchashchin) Huh? (John Higdon) LEC Repair Disservice (Steven S. Brack) Smart Equipment? (Carl Moore) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 11 Oct 92 14:48 GMT From: 0005066432@mcimail.com Subject: What is WSM? (Was Cellular Phones With Scramblers) Carl Moore (Cmoor@@brl.mil) asked what is WSM ... WSM is a clear channel radio station that operates out of the Grand Old Opry in Nashville. I've never had the opportunity to listen to it (and I don't really care for country music anyway) but I understand it can be heard in some 23 states. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 10:32:08 EDT From: Ken Jongsma x7702 Reply-To: jongsma@esseye.si.com Subject: Michigan Bell: Business vs Residential Rates In a recent bill insert from Michigan Bell (News and Views), a small article caught my eye. The article was promoting the installation of a second phone line. This is nothing new. However, one paragraph read as follows: "Home based workers who use their phone lines for business more than 50% of the time need a business line." At first glance, this seems to be a pretty reasonable compromise on class of service billing. How one determines 50% may be open to discussion, but it beats the attitudes of some companies that want to bill business rates if you so much as publicise your phone number. Kenneth R Jongsma jongsma@esseye.si.com Smiths Industries 73115,1041@compuserve.com Grand Rapids, Michigan +1 616 241 7702 ------------------------------ From: andrew@frip.wv.tek.com (Andrew Klossner) Date: Sun, 11 Oct 92 12:26:11 PDT Reply-To: andrew@frip.wv.tek.com Subject: Phone Network Simulator I want to test a modem's network interface without connecting to a live telephone network. I've heard that there are devices with several RJ-11 jacks that simulate network interfaces, but I don't know where to look for them. Can you give me pointers to such devices? Andrew Klossner (andrew@frip.wv.tek.com) ------------------------------ From: mrj@moria.cs.su.oz.au (Mark James) Subject: Detection of Pulse Dial Codes by Information Response Systems Reply-To: mrj@cs.su.oz.au (Mark James) Organization: Basser Dept of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Australia Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 08:25:50 GMT I dialed an airline automated infomation system the other day and it allowed responses to be either tone or pulse encoded. The tones could be detected at any time, but you had to wait till after a beep for the pulse code to be recognised. What mechanism to they use to detect the pulses? Can you buy equipment that will respond to tones and pulses? Are pulses only able to be detected on an incoming analog line, or could they also be detected on an ISDN line from a call originating in the POTS network? Thanks for your help, Mark James | EMAIL : mrj@cs.su.oz.au | Basser Department of Computer Science, F09 | PHONE : +61-2-692-4276 | The University of Sydney NSW 2006 AUSTRALIA | FAX : +61-2-692-3838 | ------------------------------ From: tom@bim.itc.univie.ac.at (Tom Kovar) Subject: Touch Tone Question Organization: Inst.of Theor.Chemistry,Univ.of Vienna,Austria Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 13:30:46 GMT I've got a problem with touch tone. Our nice city has parts of its telephone network already on the touch tone system, parts without it. I am living in a touch tone district; our institute is still in the pulse dialing region. But the internal network of the institute is touch tone, again. And this is the problem. I want to reach my replying machine at home, and send it some touch tone signals. Unfortunately, our institute's "gateway" transforms all outgoing touch tone signals into pulse sequences, thus the remote end gets just the first trace of the beep, interrupted by the pulsing. And, naturally, does not react. Nobody knows here, how (if??) I can force the gateway to stop the transformation of the beeps into pulse sequences. Is there any standard defined method for that? I'd be very grateful for any help. Desperately, Tom (+43/1) 436141 670 (+43/1) 214-0608 priv. [Moderator's Note: Does your system continue pulsing even after the connection has been established? You might try hitting the * or # keys first, then the answering machine commands. Some systems will quit pulsing and just pass along the tones if they get the * or # first as a signal to not pulse but just pass along what is heard. Other than that, you may have to get one of the handheld touchtone pads which you hold up to the receiver and press ... and that is assuming your system won't start pulsing when it hears those tones also. Incidentally, in the regular course of dialing, what does the * and # produce? Sometimes they act like repeat dial, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 21:26:51 EDT Subject: "It's a New NPA in Georgia..." (With apologies to Ray Charles...) "It's a new area code in Georgia, Looks Like a new area code in Georgia, Feels like I'm dialing all over the world..." According to a map I have received, all of Georgia which is currently in area code 404 will move to area code 706 except for the following: Entirely in 404: Cobb, Gwinnett, De Kalb, Clayton, Henry, Rockdale, Fulton, and Douglas Counties. Split between 404 and 706 are the following: Spaulding, Carroll, Cowita, Fayette, Walton, Barrow, Forsyth, and Cherokee Counties Area code 912 does not change. Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM These (uninformed) opinons are my own, and no one else is (stupid enough to be) responsible for them. ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 21:50:21 EDT Subject: "...is the Highest Law of the Land..." Here's a little tidbit I forgot about. Many years ago I lived in California and did some research into State Constitutional provisions and discovered something interesting that is rarely mentioned. It is also unusual in that it is a feature which no other state provides for, and is an extremely strong provision. Two sections of the California Constitution provide that the highest law of the state is not the State Constitution, but the Public Utilities Code. The State Legislature may create any provisions in the Public Utilities Code and as long as those provisions are applicable to the regulation of Public Utilities, if those provisions conflict with the State Constitution, the provision of the Public Utilities Code will override the State Constitution. Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM These (uninformed) opinons are my own, and no one else is (stupid enough to be) responsible for them. [Moderator's Note: That is a very interesting finding ... where the state constitution is a bit hard to change, public utility commissions are bought and sold all the time. :( PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Oct 92 22:38:02 -0400 From: Josh Cohen EMT Subject: ATM Technical Information Wanted Do you have or know where I can get any technical information on ATM machines/cards or other magnetically encoded card systems? I am currently taking a proseminar course at Lehigh University in Computer Engineering and that is my topic. Unfortunately up to now, I have not been able to find much information at all. Please help :-) jrc5@lehigh.edu jrc5@pl122a.eecs.lehigh.edu [Moderator's Note: Actually, the banks, credit card processors and a few others would prever that you not find out much information about the topic ... but TELECOM Digest readers will come to the rescue I am sure with all you ever wanted to know on the topic. PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 21:59:54 EDT Subject: Another List of Cellular Phone Prices Three cellular phone offers appear in Luskin's {Washington Post} ad, October 9: Quad Nam, Antenna and Cigarete Lighter included, Transportable Hands Free, $49.00 (Why does a cellular phone include a cigarette lighter? :)) GE Hand-Held Cellular phone, $169.00 Neither of these mention any tie-in requirements. Motorola "tote" Cellular Phone, "Transportable from car-to-car, Antenna & Cigarette Lighter, Full 3 watts, No Installation Required, Certain Cellular Telephone Company Restriction may apply." $0.01 (That is correct, one cent.) Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM These (uninformed) opinions are mine alone (because nobody else is stupid enough to have them). [Moderator's Note: I think that was a typographical error and meant to say 'cigarette lighter adapter plug', ie. you can charge or operate the phone from the car battery. Even though those two you mentioned did not include a cellular company contract in them, are you certain that somewhere in small print it was not otherwise mentioned in the ad? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joseph.Bergstein@p501.f544.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Joseph Bergstein) Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 12:20:10 -0500 Subject: 911 Calls From Remote Locations As an added note to discussion of PBX originated 911 calls, I submit the following cautionary story. I've heard that an area firm has a main office with a large PBX, and several remote satellite offices with small key or hybrid systems. The small remote office systems are connected to the main PBX via OPX lines, and have no direct outside calling capability at those locations. All outbound calls are routed via the OPX lines to the main PBX where they then go out either on local CO trunks, or T-1 service to the IXC. Well, some months ago, as the story goes, a 911 call was placed from a remote location because someone appeared to have had a heart attack. The county dispatcher used the E911 data to determine where to dispatch police and ambulance. Well, you guessed it! They showed up at the main office, because that's what the ANI indicated for the CO trunks; not ten miles away at the remote location where the call originated. The story concluded with note that the police dispatcher was supposed to (and failed to) verbally verify the address before dispatching the ambulance. I'm not sure it's possible, but if you manage a similar configuration, you should try to contact the E911 telecom manager to see if the database for your home office CO trunk ANI's can be flagged to force the dispatcher to verify address prior to dispatch. This can be life threatening in the wrong circumstances. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Oct 1992 20:33:29 -0600 (MDT) From: Jason Hunsaker Subject: Caller-ID Privacy Question Organization: Utah State University Maybe I'm missing the point, but if blocking caller-ID is such a big issue of privacy, what's wrong with having call blocking made available as part of unlisted and/or unpublished number services? That is to say, if one requests an unlisted and/or unpublished number, the caller-ID block is automatic. If one has a regular listed, published number, there is no blocking. It seems so obvious to me. What loop-holes or problems does this solution have? The people for whom privacy is such a big issue probably already have unlisted or unpublished numbers, and thus caller-ID blocking would be obvious for them. For the rest of us, what's all the concern about? Businesses selling your phone number? If it's already in the phone book, what difference does it make? What would be the difference between that and the 800 call tracking that business can already get? Someone enlighten me please regarding this. Jason Hunsaker -|- Logan, Utah -|- Internet: slhw4@cc.usu.edu [Moderator's Note: We pretty much gave up on Caller-ID pro/con and privacy discussions here a couple years ago because they were going no where and I was overloaded with messages all the time. I published this message from Mr. Hunsaker so that people who want to do so can contact him personally in email. And of course the comp.privacy group moderated by Dennis Rears will entertain these messages also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kirill@newsbytes.msk.su (Kirill Tchashchin) Subject: Email to Serbia (Yugoslavia) Reply-To: kirill@newsbytes.msk.su Organization: Newsbytes News Network / Moscow Bureau Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 00:10:17 GMT Hi: As far as I know, EUnet has discussed the implementation of the Serbian embargo (disconnecting the mail link, literally speaking). I know that Russians tried to keep the link alive, as it's rather better to have them beating each other in the flame war, not in actual war. But this did not work and EUnet has decided to disconnect. I don't know for how long it will stay in this state. Will appreciate any further information. Kirill Tchashchin Newsbytes News Network ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Oct 92 00:28 PDT From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Huh? Latest Sprint commercial: "We interrupt this commercial for this important message. An independent consumer organization has found that among unrestricted calling plans, Sprint often offers the lowest rate with the least restrictions." So let us take a look at this (for those who shop by listening to commercials rather than looking at rates) statement and see what it tells us. It says that what Sprint calls "unrestricted" actually has restrictions. Sometimes those restricted calling plans (which Sprint refers to as "unrestricted") have lower rates than the competition (but not always). Pretty heavy stuff. Guess I should immediately "switch to Sprint"! 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 [Moderator's Note: Speaking of interuptions for important messages, the Chicago papers had an clever and funny advertisment Sunday. Channel 50 ran a full page ad showing the three presidential candidates and a caption saying "at six pm central time tonight, seven television networks will be showing you these three men. Here at Channel 50, we will be showing you these three guys instead." Then immediatly below the caption was a picture of the Three Stooges. I thought that ad was pretty funny. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 11 Oct 1992 17:31:45 -0400 (EDT) From: sbrack@jupiter.cse.UTOLEDO.edu (Steven S. Brack) Subject: LEC Repair Disservice (was Happy With MCI) I recently called Ohio Bell to report that one of their machines that generated SIT recordings wasn't operating correctly. No matter how many times I repeated myself, in successively simpler (non-telecom) language, the teledroid at the other end couldn't understand what trouble I was reporting. I finally had to resort to the "let me speak to your supervisor" approach to get anywhere. The specific problem: on calls to invalid numbers, the recording was quite garbled. What the CSR at Ohio Bell thought the problem was: 1) Are you sure it's not in your equipment? 2) It's probably a problem with your long-distance company. I honestly don't know how some people get jobs in the telecom industry. Steven S. Brack sbrack@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu 2021 Roanwood Drive STU0061@uoft01.BITNET Toledo, OH 43613-1605 brack@uoftcse.cse.utoledo.edu +1 419 GR4 1010 MY OWN OPINIONS sbrack@maine.cse.utoledo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Oct 92 16:44:41 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Smart Equipment? It has been discussed here that Bellcore recommends that 1 +NPA + 7D be useable for all calls, not necessarily meaning that 7D for local calls should be dropped. The equipment would have to be smart enough to recognize those prefixes which are local. A public reference to smart equipment was made on a Philadelphia TV station when the "no 1" announcement was made (i.e., change from 1 + 7D to 7D for long distance within 215). It was said then that the equipment was smart enough to spot the exchange and know what kind of call it was. That announcement about 215 area did not mention the quirk I found later for Adamstown and Denver, which are out on the fringe of 215. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #773 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa16306; 13 Oct 92 0:26 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA03933 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 12 Oct 1992 22:03:16 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA08975 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 12 Oct 1992 22:03:07 -0500 Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 22:03:07 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210130303.AA08975@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #774 TELECOM Digest Mon, 12 Oct 92 22:03:10 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 774 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over (John Holman) Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over (Barry Mishkind) Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over (Dave Levenson) Re: Highway Call Boxes -- Radio, But Not All Cellular (Lauren Weinstein) Re: Highway Call Boxes (Sue Miller) Re: Highway Call Boxes (John Gilbert) Re: Highway Call Boxes (Steve Forrette) Re: Highway Call Boxes (Hon Wah Chin) Re: Highway Call Boxes (Bob Turner) Re: Cellular Phones With Scramblers Attached (Ted Hadley) Re: Cellular Phones With Scramblers Attached (John Gilbert) Re: Cellular Phones with scramblers attached (Rob Bailey) Today's Price on Cellular Phones (Paul Robinson) Re: Cellular Interception in Private Talk (Macy Hallock) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Holmanj@uwwvax.uww.edu (John Holman) Subject: Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over Date: Mon, Oct 12, 1992 I just heard on the radio that the city of Milwaukee spent $25,000 for security alone for a Bush visit on Labor Day and $8,000 for a Clinton visit. The president was also just in another city (Fond du Lac) in Wisconsin and a friend of mine went to the rally with this report, "Anyone wearing a campaign button that was not the President's had to remove them!" Some were anti-Bush buttons were confiscated and people were told they could get them backafter the rally. ------------------------------ From: barry@coyote.datalog.com (Barry Mishkind) Subject: Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over Organization: Datalog Consulting, Tucson, AZ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 04:50:07 GMT Jim Thornton writes: > Finally, the author states that arrangements are made for the phone > even when the president is merely flying over the city. With all the travel due to the election, I wonder what all this costs? Barry Mishkind barry@coyote.datalog.com FidoNet 1:300/11.3 [Moderator's Note: It costs plenty. Of course with a deficit of umpty- trillion dollars, I guess it is a small outlay by comparison. Do you know how Perot got to the debate Sunday night? He flew on a commercial airline with a couple aides, and took a taxi from the airport to the hall. On the plane, he greeted people who came up to him to wish him well, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 03:33:48 GMT In article , MERRILL@stsci.edu (Clark) writes: > I saw Reagan come back from a trip once and land at the Pentagon > instead of the White house. A six lane road leading into DC was > closed off. And there were officers stationed everywhere. There was > no way to get anywhere near him. I was one of five people that > stopped and watched the landing from the Pentagon parking lot. I happened to be in New York City a few weeks ago when President Bush also happened to be in town. I was heading home to New Jersey, in the midst of the evening rush-hour, and had waited almost 45 minutes in line to enter the Holland Tunnel (it goes under the Hudson River, from lower Manhattan to NJ). When I was three cars from the tunnel entrance, three NYC police cars arrived from several directions, a dozen officers hopped out and stopped all traffic entering the tunnel. Nothing further happened for about five minutes (probably to allow the traffic already in the tunnel to reach the far end). Then a motorcade consisting of several NYPD cars, several un-marked cars with U.S. Government plates, a limousine, and several more U.S. Government cars entered the tunnel. Nobody else was allowed into the tunnel for another five minutes. Then a police car entered the tunnel, and drove slowly, straddling two lanes, in case anybody should try to pass, and the rest of us piled in behind him. When I reached the NJ end of the tunnel, I noticed that the motorcade was visible ahead, entering the NJ Turnpike. It continued, in splendid isolation, all the way to exit 14 (Newark International Airport). All six lanes of the turnpike, from about a half-mile ahead to a half-mile behind, were kept empty. If they wanted to hide what they were doing, they did a lousy job of that! But I suppose it is necessary. I found myself wondering if this was the real thing, or if it was a diversion, deliberately designed to attract attention, while the real president was whisked away with less fanfare, by another route. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 00:25 PDT From: lauren@cv.vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Re: Highway Call Boxes -- Radio, But Not All Cellular Greetings. Not all of the call boxes with the short antennas are "cellular phones" -- at least not in the conventional sense. Around the L.A. area, there has recently been a massive upgrade of the call box system. Along major freeways, where there have mostly been wired call boxes for many years, the new radio/solar units were recently installed and the older units pulled. At the same time, identical radio call boxes appeared in some canyon areas which have never had call boxes before. However, since there is no cellular coverage in at least some of the areas where these canyon boxes are located, they must be other than cellular phones. Presumably they operate in a commercial or government service band. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ From: sue@netcom.com (Sue Miller) Subject: Re: Highway Call Boxes Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 15:17:51 GMT In article lars@spectrum.CMC.COM (Lars Poulsen) writes: > These are stationary cellphones. Neat, huh? We have them every mile or > so on US 101 right through downtown Santa Barbara. In fact, I think > they are only half a mile apart in the urban area. Yeah -- real neat. We have them on US 101 in the SF Bay Area also. Tried one last May when my car blew its head gasket. No answer!! Maybe they are just for show. ;-) ------------------------------ From: johng@comm.mot.com (John Gilbert) Subject: Re: Highway Call Boxes Organization: Motorola, Inc. LMPS Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 15:31:45 GMT In addition to cellular, 800/900 Mhz trunking is available for call boxes. This would be a less expensive solution for a customer who already has a trunked radio system, such as a large corporate campus or university. John Gilbert johng@ecs.comm.mot.com ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: Highway Call Boxes Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 17:27:08 GMT In article morris@grian.cps.altadena. ca.us (Mike Morris) writes: > Paul_Gloger.ES_XFC@xerox.com writes: >> Along the highway, out in the country in California anyway, there are >> emergency telephone call boxes, with phones which connect you directly >> to the Highway Patrol or some such agency. > They are self-contained cellular phones. Supposedly they have > tamper and tilt-over switches, but I doubt it -- there's been one laid > flat in Eagle Rock (near Pasadena) now for almost two weeks. The > solar panel disappeared on day four. They do indeed have tamper alarms. There was a case a few months back of someone on I-580 in the Altamont Pass area taking them down to steal. When the CHP dispatcher saw the tamper alarms going off in succession for a few of the boxes, they got an officer out there pronto, who found a pickup truck with various call box parts in the bed. The driver was apparently stealing them for the metal recycling value rather than the cellular equipment. Either way, he got a free ride to the Greybar Hotel (appropriate for a phone thief, no? :-)) Here's another tidbit on the California cellular call boxes: I have a friend who is a civil engineer with CalTrans. He was lamenting that the wonderful California legislature passed a law saying that whereever these boxes are installed, they must be at intervals no further than two miles apart. This makes it not cost effective to install in very rural areas, where a box even every four or five miles would be a lot better than no boxes. But, as is the case in many instances the CA legislature knows what's best for the residents of the Golden State. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 11:46:23 PDT From: hwc@louis.pei.com (Hon Wah Chin) Subject: Re: Highway Call Boxes Reply-To: hwc@pei.com I used one last Monday on 101 in Menlo Park. It automatically called CHP. I described my location and they read back the ID number painted on a sign next to the phone, so I don't know whether they had the ID transmitted or from my location description. The most interesting thing is that the hanger for the handset (with noise canceling mike) did not appear to move for off-hook indication. I wasn't in a mood to investigate further but hypothesized some kind of magnetic sensor to activate an internal switch. ------------------------------ From: turner@udecc.engr.udayton.edu (Bob Turner) Subject: Re: Highway Call Boxes Organization: Univ. of Dayton, School of Engineering Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 00:45:22 GMT In article lars@spectrum.CMC.COM (Lars Poulsen) writes: > These are stationary cellphones. Neat, huh? We have them every mile or > so on US 101 right through downtown Santa Barbara. In fact, I think > they are only half a mile apart in the urban area. At a few of the NENA (Natl Emergency Number Assoc) (the E911 Industry and Gov Assoc) and APCO (Assoc of Professional Comm Officers aka Dispatchers) conventions I have seen GTE showing off their cell call box. Apparently, they work with local goverment to give a significant discount for usage charges. Alot of phones with low relative utilization. The sales droid didn't (or wouldn't, I can't remember) say what typical charges and costs were. Bob Turner System Engineer and Programmer 5134342738 turner@udecc.engr.udayton.edu CommSys, Inc. 77 West Elmwwod Drive, Suite 101, Dayton, OH 45459 ------------------------------ From: tedh@cylink.COM (Ted Hadley) Subject: Re: Cellular Phones With Scramblers Attached Organization: Cylink Corp. Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 16:20:50 GMT In article mcharry@mitre.org (John McHarry(J23)) writes: > In tmkk@uiuc.edu (Scott Coleman) > writes: >> Do scrambled cell phones really exist, or was this just another >> Die-Hard-esque fudge on the part of the show's writers? > They do indeed. There are STU-III cellular phones available. I > believe the commercial versions use DES encryption. Manufacturers > include Motorola, I believe AT&T, and maybe others. I have no idea > what restrictions there are on their sale, however. We At Cylink also have SecureCell, a DES-encrypted cellular phone. It is compatible with our other DES telephone encryptors. As for restrictions on their sale, I believe anyone in the US or Canada can purchase them. The only restrictions I know of are for export outside [US | Canada]. Ted A. Hadley tedh@cylink.COM Cylink Corporation, 310 N. Mary Ave., Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA 408-735-5847 All opinions expressed are my own, and probably not liked by my employer. ------------------------------ From: johng@comm.mot.com (John Gilbert) Subject: Re: Cellular Phones With Scramblers Attached Organization: Motorola, Inc. Land Mobile Products Sector Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 15:24:36 GMT In article mcharry@mitre.org (John McHarry(J23)) writes: > They do indeed. There are STU-III cellular phones available. I > believe the commercial versions use DES encryption. Manufacturers > include Motorola, I believe AT&T, and maybe others. I have no idea > what restrictions there are on their sale, however. All STU-III phones are comsec controlled items and are only available from the manufacturers after obtaining NSA approval. Motorola does make several models of wireline phones that use the same encryption types available in the land mobile products. These phones look like the STU-III phone, but are available to commercial users. Several flavors of encryption are available depending on who you are and where the equipment will be used. Last I heard the "STU-III Dynasec" cellular phones were not available off-the-shelf, but were made for a specific government contract. John Gilbert johng@ecs.comm.mot.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 02:12:06 EDT From: kiser@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil Subject: Re: Cellular Phones With Scramblers Attached Answer to question: YES. In the mall here someone (Schlage, I think) sells a scrambler that attaches to the cell phone handset. I don't know what technology it uses. Side note: I drive a ... well ... interesting looking car. It's a black Volvo 780 (the two-door Volvo sports sedan that you've probably never seen before) with five antennas on the trunk and back windows, and a big metal star on the license plate. To say the least, it slows down traffic on the interstate (the X-band transmitter doesn't hurt that any ;^). Anyway ... one day I was driving through town and happened to notice a very stereotypical dark-suit/dark-Chrysler/Dodge type car parked along side the road and a the suit-wearer talking into the adjacent pay phone. He looked at my car and followed me with his eyes the entire time I was in sight. Since I thought this a little suspicious/interesting, I rounded the block for another pass. Same response as before, but I noticed that attached to the payphone's handset was what appeared to be a cross between an overgrown calculator and one of those handheld inventory scanners that grocery stores use, replete with keypad. Anybody know what this thing was? Some top-secret scrambler/descrambler, or was this just some well-dressed grocery store clerk downloading the latest produce inventory? Hmmmm ... (for) Rob Bailey reply to: 74007.303@compuserve.com ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 19:16:37 EDT Subject: Today's Price on Cellular Phones In an ad in the Friday 10-9-92 {Washington Post}, Circuit City is selling a GE Transpak 5000 bag, rate $57.97, with Phone Company (Bell Atlantic) contract of 90 days. Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM I alone am (stupid enough to be) responsible for these opinions. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 08:53 EDT From: fmsys!macy@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu (Macy Hallock) Subject: Re: Cellular Interception in Private Talk Organization: The Matrix In article jrd5@po.cwru.edu writes: > In article louie@sayshell.umd.edu > (Louis A. Mamakos) writes: >> Why assert that conversations cannot easily be followed between cells? > Indeed, "someone" makes a suitcase for just this purpose. There is a company in CA that makes a modified Panasonic handheld cellular phone that does this and much more. Although its intended use is for law enforcement, its been used by a couple of cellular providers for diagnostic use. With a good enough antenna, this unit will track calls between cells. You can key in a phone number, ESN, channel number and lock on to a call, or you can scan calls and lock onto one as well. There was a provision for an external tape recorder, and provision for a DAT interface that would also record the data stream as well as audio was in development. Price of the unit was around $3500. It worked very well. I saw it demonstrated in the Washington D.C. area, and was thoroghly impressed. I almost bought one. I was also surprised at the content of some of the calls we picked up. Cellular encryption is available in D.C. from the carriers, and you'd think it would be used more that it apparently is. Some people never learn. Regards, Macy M Hallock Jr N8OBG 216.725.4764 macy@fmsystm.uucp macy@fmsystm.ncoast.org [No disclaimer, but I have no real idea what I'm saying or why I'm telling you] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #774 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa18014; 13 Oct 92 1:19 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA22230 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 12 Oct 1992 23:00:23 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA13795 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 12 Oct 1992 23:00:14 -0500 Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 23:00:14 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210130400.AA13795@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #775 TELECOM Digest Mon, 12 Oct 92 23:00:20 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 775 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: College Phone System (Steve Forrette) Re: College Phone System (Jeff Dubin) Re: College Phone System AGAIN! (Bob Kupiec) Re: College Phone System (Bob Clements) Re: College Phone System (Carl Moore) Re: GTE Addresses On Outgoing Email (Bob Frankston) Re: GTE Addresses On Outgoing Email (Ed Greenberg) Re: GTE Addresses On Outgoing Email (Steve Forrette) Re: Retail Videoconferencing? (Bruce Taylor, IV) Re: Retail Videoconferencing? (Sandy Kyrish) Re: Question About ROLM PBX Telephones (Martin McCormick) Re: Question About ROLM PBX Telephones (Lars Poulsen) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: College Phone System Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 17:40:29 GMT In article mmt@redbrick.com (Maxime Taksar) writes: >> combinations like 9-411, 9-611 and 9-911? > Please don't try this just as an experiment! Most of us know that it > is in bad form to call 911 "just to make sure it works," but not > everyone would know this. I once had an occasion where I needed to test 911. I called the non-emergency number for the answering agency and explained my situation. They said that a test would be fine as long as I called the non-emergency number first to let them know that I would be testing. This was in a smaller town where it was likely that the same person would answer all of the calls, though. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ Organization: The American University - University Computing Center Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 15:19:36 EDT From: Jeff Dubin Subject: Re: College Phone System A) Thanks for all of your responses! B) No, I didn't try 0-911. Actually, to call 411, you have to enter the access code to your account. It costs something like $.65! C) Apparently, someone passed a hard copy of that message to the director of telecommunications here at AU, who in turn called me to answer my questions. Turns out that having however many students live on campus dialing wx or time would just cost too much. Very nice guy, but when I asked him if call-waiting could be temporarily disabled (for modeming ...) he said that call-waiting was an all or nothing system. They control it at the switch. When I informed him that there was this temporary call-wait turn off feature on other (non-campus) phones (at least in Boston area -- does C&P offer this? To turn off call-wait temporarily in Boston just dial *70 then you get a second dial tone) -- he seemed amazed and said that he did not know of such a feature. I don't love this system -- people calling in often get busy signals because of full trunks here. In fact, I hate it. A normal phone system would be much preferred over this, but this is obviously impossible with the number of people here. Oh yeah ... when I dial 0 + number I get the signal to enter my code. Haven't gone through with it and put my code in though. Can imagine a charge 3x higher than usual if I did. Thanks again, all! Jeff Dubin jdubin@world.std.com jd2859a@american.edu ------------------------------ From: kupiec@hp800.lasalle.edu (Bob Kupiec) Subject: Re: College Phone System AGAIN! Date: 12 Oct 92 22:14:58 GMT Organization: LaSalle University, Philadelphia, PA In , JD2859A@AMERICAN.EDU writes: > Hi all, I'm a student at the American University and have a few q's > about the phone system here. Same situation here at LaSalle University. We have been running on two PBX's (one for campus offices, one for campus dorms) and AT&T ACUS for the dorms for the past few years. We were equipped with free local calls, free 800, Call Waiting, Three-Way Calling and Call Forwarding with all the frills. Now things have changed ... Everything was fine until I returned for the fall semester. They decided to consolidate the two switches into one NCR switch. So far there has been nothing but trouble. 800 access to all 800 numbers are BLOCKED (except for the 445 ACUS prefix) and without an ACUS plan you can't call 800! What about calling card users? The Telecom Operations guy gave me the useless "800 numbers were forwarded to 900 numbers and we don't want to be stuck with the bill" response. Call Waiting sometimes does not work for incoming off-campus calls. There is NO way to block Call Waiting! This give me a fit, because how am I supposed to use the modem?! Also, the Telecom Operations person told me one of the tie lines seems to be messed up because some on-campus calls connect with very faint audio. He also can't seem to find which one it is to disable it either. No Three-Way and no Call-Forwarding enabled. Also, and the previous poster mentioned, there is NO WAY to get a local or LD Operator! NO 9-0 and no 9-00. Only the campus operator. I just hope that 9-911 works in case of an REAL emergency! (How should I test this?) The latest development is the ACUS codes don't even work! For the last few days there has been no way to call home from the campus telephones. I think I should ask for my "phone service" deposit back because I sure don't get any. Bob Kupiec - Amateur Radio: N3MML Internet: kupiec@hp800.lasalle.edu ------------------------------ Subject: Re: College Phone System Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 12:58:45 EDT From: clements@BBN.COM In the discussion of blocking access to time/temperature numbers from a college's PBX, our esteemed Moderator suggests: > [Moderator's Note: Even if those services in DC do not carry premium > charges ala 976, don't they still cost a message 'unit' or some small > amount of money per call? Maybe the administrators there feel even at > that low rate it is a waste of resources. :) PAT] No smiley about it. Let me relate some ancient history. Back in about 1961 I was a wee tad at MIT. Every time the weather was bad a very large fraction of the outside lines were kept busy by people calling the weather number (617-936-1212). And all those calls cost message units. And since most of the trunks were two-way, people got busy signals when calling the MIT switchboard (617-UNIversity-6900). This was long before direct inward dialing. The chief architect of the phone system, the late Carlton E. Tucker, Professor of EE, decided this had to be fixed. He talked with the telco folks and negotiated a price for a permanent trunk from the telco weather recording to MIT. He then whipped up a design that would play that audio onto a block of internal MIT extensions (x5211-521n). Now you could get the weather without tying up outside lines and without running up message units. A side benefit was that you could get the weather without having a "dial-9" class of service on your phone extension. So we at the radio station (then WTBS, now WMBR) saved some message units on our separate outside line, too. All this of course required custom hardware work and some arm-twisting at the state DPU, because the MIT phone system was all owned by Telco and all the services had to be tariffed. But this was no big deal because Prof. Tucker was doing this sort of thing all the time. He held a number of patents on relay and Strowger phone gizmos and the phone company and DPU loved him (at least part of the time). At that time, the MIT PBX was a huge Strowger system with a many-position cord board much like the one PAT describes from his past. I was never formally employed to run the MIT one but I did get on good enough terms with one of the night operators to try out some of the interestingly-labeled jacks once in a while. Bob Clements, K1BC, clements@bbn.com [Moderator's Note: When I was an operator at the University of Chicago from 1958 through about 1962, they had (WEather-4) and (CAThedral 8000) -- the latter for the time of day -- blocked from all extensions. It was a Strowger system also, and there were three groups of cordboards, one group for the main campus (MIDway 0800) with about nine operator positions, one group for the hospitals (MUseum 4-6100) with eight or nine positions and one group for the Computation Center (NORmal 4700) with two or three positions. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 10:14:11 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: College Phone System Local calls in the DC area, other than the extended-area-local from Va. suburbs to Prince William County, are untimed, although I recall reading that some service plans levy a charge per local call beyond the initail allotment of calls. I do NOT recall 844 and 936 being any different from other local DC-area calls. ------------------------------ From: Bob_Frankston@frankston.com Subject: Re: GTE Addresses On Outgoing Email Date: Mon 12 Oct 1992 09:06 -0400 I also appreciate all (well, most?) submissions and want to encourage them. As an email advocate I feel some obligation to education. The key is that once one starts submitting to telecom, one is no longer a passive reader of a shared bulletin board but rather an individual with an identity. To continue on the analogy with phones, a single TELECOM Digest access at each site is like a single phone at each site. Incoming callers must speak to an receptionist to reach a given person. This might be tolerable for voice but not when one attempts automated access to a Fax machine. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 09:35:03 -0700 From: edg@netcom.com (Ed Greenberg) Subject: Re: GTE Addresses On Outgoing Email Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) This note is to Steven@alchemy.uucp writing about why GTE employees don't need their own accounts. Steven, You DO need an account for yourself. Everyone who posts to the net should have his own account. Two reasons: 1. Accountability. If everyone can log into the same account, and if one person abuses it, all will be under suspicion, and will be tarred with the same brush. Most of us who are security aware would not ever want to be associated with a password that others know. 2. Courtesy and politeness. When a message pops up, I first look at the return address line to see who it's from. When I see that silly reply address, I know nothing more. In a sense, your company is saying, we'll do it our way even though the whole rest of the net does it another way. We don't care. If John Higdon wants to name his machine after a cow, that's his privelege, but if he wants to post messages with non-standard headers, that's not. "MOO!" --John Higdon Ed 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) [Moderator's Note: Well you know who else is fond of doing things their own way? The various commercial services which deign to permit their users to read and write to/from Internet. They all must think they are doing *us* the favor by interconnecting ... for the longest time, mcimail.com was incapable of (or unwilling to) handle incoming mail from Internet according to standards. If an envelope had dozens of names (as the one from this Digest does) and they were unable to deliver to one name on the envelope ... well, they would just dump the whole load undelivered. Maybe they changed it now; I've not had any trouble with delivering the Digest there in several weeks. If it is now fixed, I publicly thank them. PAT] ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: GTE Addresses On Outgoing Email Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 23:13:02 GMT In article JIM.J.MURPHY@gte.sprint.com writes: > Let me explain that Curt and I report to the same building for > work. Curt is a Switching Systems Technician and works on the GTD5 > CO. I am a Facility Maintainer and work outside on deregulated > customer equipment as well as regulated network cable, etc. In this > small town we can work together when the need arises, such as helping > to run some jumpers or testing a cable pair with the CO. I hope that when you call Curt to help run jumpers or do other CO work, that it's for your regulated network cable responsibilities, and not your deregulated customer equipment tasks. This type of situation shows why it is not really possible for a watchful PUC to ensure that the deregulated side of a telco cannot really be operated at "arm's length" such that it has no advantage over competitors. There will always be cases where informal arrangements like this can be used to the advantage of the unregulated side, and the only way to prevent it is to not allow regulated telcos to operate in competitive nonregulated markets. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com, I do not speak for my employer. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 12:40:32 -0400 (EDT) From: Bruce Taylor, IV Subject: Re: Retail Videoconferencing? Laird, Sprint has a network of public and private videoconference rooms. Some are operated by Sprint, others by Sprint customers. Here in Pittsburgh, costs are in the range of $100/half hour, plus communications charges. Try calling the Sprint Meeting Channel reservation center for more information: 800-669-1235. AT&T is affiliated with an entity called the Affinity Group, which operates a number of public video conferencing rooms. Try calling 508-768-7480. Mandatory disclaimer: I'm a customer of both AT&T *and* Sprint, so I guess I'm biased fairly evenly... :-) Bruce Taylor (blt@cmu.edu) (412) 268-6249 New Projects Coordinator, Telecommunications, Carnegie Mellon University ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 14:50 GMT From: Sandy Kyrish <0003209613@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Retail Videoconferencing Indeed there is a thriving business in public videoconferencing rooms. By far and away the most successful is U.S. Sprint's "The Meeting Channel", with hundreds of rooms across the US and the world. You can rent rooms by the hour at quite reasonable costs. Also, videoconferencing itself is a fairly healthy business, though not of course "blanketing the world" as it was always excessively hyped to do. There are more than 2500 rooms in more than 500 institutions in about 32 countries, and these numbers are about a year old so I'm sure they're conservative. Total revenues for all teleconferencing are about $1 billion per year these days. The industry recently adopted a CCITT standard for coder/decoders and has seen dramatic price reductions in these devices, from $150K to $75K to $30K and now much lower than that. The availability of switched 56 and switched 384 opens up plenty of options too, and declining transmission prices for these offerings helps a lot. Multipoint control units allow true "conference calls" among many sites. Anyone interested in the field should contact the International Teleconferencing Association in Washington DC at 202-833-2549. The main points about videoconferencing, IMHO, are (1) it will never live up to its ridiculous billing and it shouldn't have to; (2) any improvement in digital transmission offerings will benefit videoconferencing; (3) one should NOT strictly limit one's evaluation of videoconferencing to travel reduction. There are many soft dollar benefits that can be directly converted to hard dollar savings (see Meyer and Boone's book "The Information Edge" for a very enlightening look at this subject). Travel reduction is nice and all but it is just like saying you should cost-justify your fax machine only in terms of the postage you don't spend. When videoconferencing is proposed simply as a "travel displacement appliance", it is not only potentially dangerous (what if the project you justified it for goes away), but it is hardly the kind of thing that gets upper management very turned on. As Mary Boone (of above) likes to say, "if you go to a CEO and ask him/her what the biggest challenges facing the company are, he/she is not going to say travel costs." Things like shortening the decision making cycle and bringing a product to market faster are much more beneficial to focus on. All opinions are mine, don't reflect the ITCA or Dean Meyer and Associates, and are welcome to be questioned at: 320-9613@mcimail.com Sandy Kyrish ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Question About ROLM PBX Telephones Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 10:11:00 -0500 From: martin@datacomm.ucc.okstate.edu In article rick@sbcs.sunysb.edu (Rick Spanbauer) writes: > Does anyone know offhand what sort of signalling scheme ROLM uses > between a telephone deskset and their digital pbx? A cursory > inspection of the innards of my telephone reveals an impressive array > of custom transformers, two big LSI chips (one by Exar, one by TI), > and the usual mess of discretes. The Rolm PBX'S are made by Seimens, as far as I know. The signaling format is proprietary and, as you said, totally digital. Digital phones must have an anallog to digital/digital to analog converter set to handle the transition from the analog world of the handset to the digital world which exists in the switch. In addition, low-pass filters are required to remove audio above the 3.1 to 4KHZ used as the top end of the pass-band for voice-quality communications. The Exar chip is probably a phase-locked loop for recovering the data clock. The transformers are for impedance matching and isolation. There is a lot of activity going on in a digital phone. Besides the audio I/O the phone must have the logic to receive and send all necessary display and control signals. This prompts me for a question, also. How electronically similar are the Seimens/Rolm phones to those used on the Ericsson MD110 type switches? Many of the descriptions of the inside and outward appearance of the two brands of phones are strikingly similar. Even some of the glitches such as certain phones loosing track of the digits being dialed if one pushes too many buttons in too short a time sound very similar. Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK O.S.U. Computer Center Data Communications Group ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 12:49:57 PDT From: lars@CMC.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: Question About ROLM PBX Telephones Organization: CMC Network Systems (Rockwell DCD), Santa Barbara, CA, USA In article is written: > Does anyone know offhand what sort of signalling scheme ROLM uses > between a telephone deskset and their digital pbx? A cursory > inspection of the innards of my telephone reveals an impressive array > of custom transformers, two big LSI chips (one by Exar, one by TI), > and the usual mess of discretes. Is the signalling they use > compatible with either ISDN S/T attachment, or perhaps like the > Motorola UDLT format (B+D rather than 2B+D)? The basic signalling > cell seems to be about four microseconds. There are many different models of ROLM systems, and each of them can be coinfigured with different line cards to communicate with different types of desk sets. Without specific model numbers, I doubt that anyone can help you. As you may know, ROLM has been the subjects of takeovers and divestitures. At one time it was swallowed by IBM, and then sold to Siemens. At the present time, I believe it is still owned by Siemens, but does business under the Rolm name again. The system that we use here, is a Siemens series 2000 PBX. Most of our desksets are 2500-clones manufactured by Stromberg for Siemens (the faceplate says Siemens) with message-waiting light. The more featureful desksets are Panasonic KX-T2342 Easa-Phone speakerphones with alpha display. They are definitely not ISDN sets: A standard 2500 set works on the same outlet. I suspect that these are similar to the sets used with the small Panasonic hybrid PBX/KSUs (although they are not compatible with the 308 and its sisters): The first pair is an analog voice circuit, the second pair is a digital data link for the "advanced" features. 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 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #775 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa19944; 13 Oct 92 2:21 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA03376 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Tue, 13 Oct 1992 00:12:07 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA15382 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Tue, 13 Oct 1992 00:11:57 -0500 Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 00:11:57 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210130511.AA15382@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #776 TELECOM Digest Tue, 13 Oct 92 00:12:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 776 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Does Phone Company Log Calls to a 'Busy' Line? (Bill Campbell) Re: Does Phone Company Log Calls to a 'Busy' Line? (Richard Nash) Re: Local Battery (Steven S. Brack) Re: Local Battery (John W. Shaver) Re: And NOW, For a Limited Time Only, Caller-ID in Denver) (Richard Lucas) Re: Question About Caller ID Information Display (Robert S. Helfman) Re: Question About Caller ID Information Display (Art Hunter) Re: Caller ID Approved In Arizona (Bill Everts) Re: British Call Waiting (was My Favorite Intercepts) (Seth Breidbart) Re: British Call Waiting (was My Favorite Intercepts) (Charles Mattair) Re: 800 Numbers Restricted by NYTel? (Norman Nithman) Re: 800 Numbers Restricted by NYTel? (Shrikumar) Re: Fax Store-and-Forward Service Wanted (John R. Levine) Re: Fax Store-and-Forward Service Wanted (Tony L. Hansen) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bill@Celestial.COM (Bill Campbell) Subject: Re: Does Phone Company Log Calls to a 'Busy' Line? Organization: Celestial Software, Mercer Island, WA Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 15:36:06 GMT In jwi@world.std.com (Jazzman) writes: > I know that most phone companies log the telephone calls made from one > point to another. My question is: if I tried to make a local call and > got a busy signal, would my call attempt show up on the phone company > (or anyone elses) log? Bell Atlantic Cellular sure kept track in 1987 and 1988. They would charge $0.10 for attempts to call a busy line! I always considered this a rip, particularly when the busy was due to lack of lines at Bell Atlantic. I was always glad to get back to US West Cellular. Bill INTERNET: bill@Celestial.COM Bill Campbell; Celestial Software UUCP: ...!thebes!camco!bill 6641 East Mercer Way uunet!camco!bill Mercer Island, WA 98040; (206) 947-5591 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 08:52:45 -0600 From: rickie@trickie.ualberta.ca (Richard Nash) Subject: Re: Does Phone Company Log Calls to a 'Busy' Line? John (jwi@world.std.com) writes: > I know that most phone companies log the telephone calls made from one > point to another. My question is: if I tried to make a local call and > got a busy signal, would my call attempt show up on the phone company > (or anyone elses) log? Our Esteemed Moderator noted some instances ... Another instance when calls to a busy line are recorded, is for police requested call trace, apparently used in criminal investigations to link someone to a crime. Richard Nash Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6K 0E8 UUCP: trickie!rickie@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca ------------------------------ Date: 12 Oct 1992 09:42:21 -0400 (EDT) From: sbrack@jupiter.cse.UTOLEDO.edu (Steven S. Brack) Subject: Re: Local Battery In mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk () writes: > Gabe Wiener (gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu) writes: >> In a local-battery phone, how was the battery charged? > The battery was for the microphone circuit. It was when the > *other* party couldn't hear you, that you changed the battery. If the battery provided DC between the phone and the local exchange, then: a) Why was it that the batteries were located at the phone, rather than at the exchange? (Probably an obvious, but unseen by me, answer) b) How could it power the microphone circuit without also powering the talk path, which is bidirectional? Steven S. Brack sbrack@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu 2021 Roanwood Drive STU0061@uoft01.utoledo.edu Toledo, OH 43613-1605 brack@uoftcse.cse.utoledo.edu +1 419 GR4 1010 MY OWN OPINIONS sbrack@maine.cse.utoledo.edu [Moderator's Note: The very old (early twentieth century) rural service phones with the magneto crank on the side had large 1.5 volt dry cell batteries in them also. The magneto crank supplied the current needed to signal the operator or other parties on the line but the actual talking was done over the 'telephone cells' as they were called. You can still buy them in some hardware stores where batteries are sold; in fact I use them in my Western Union clocks. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 12 Oct 92 11:01:26 MST From: Mr John W Shaver Subject: Re: Local Battery On the old telephones before breakup, a local battery was two or three 1.5 volt A-Cells. As noted earlier, when you could not be heard, you changed the batteries. I was amazed to find in later years that the 50V central battery became about four volts across the carbon microphone. I have in my possession a WE 1.5 volt wet cell. Does someone know how the lid on these cells was attached to the glass cell. If there was material, it has long since disappeared. John W. Shaver 602 538 7622 // DSN 879 7622 // FTS 658 7622 FAX 538 0656 // DSN 879 0656_// FTS 658 0656 ------------------------------ From: rlucas@bvsd.co.edu (Richard Lucas) Subject: Re: And NOW, For a Limited Time Only, Caller-ID in Denver) Organization: Boulder Valley School District Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 02:20:08 GMT In article shing@spot.Colorado.EDU (SHING PUI-SHUM BENSON) writes: > You may not know, but Denver's Public Utilities Commision (PUC -- > often known as PUCK for no other reason than a neat name) did NOT want > US West to install Caller ID in the Denver metro area due to too many > people who insisted that it was an invasion of privacy, an annoyance, > and just another option to make people pay more on their bills. > Denver's PUC was really serious about not letting this go through, but > it seems they and US West have come to an agree- ment. From what I > hear, USW will install CID temporarily, and offer free CID blocking to > those who ask for it before it's up and running. My understanding of the matter doesn't match this description. The US WEST offering was a bot different than most in that the device displayed not only the number but a listing as well. As a result there were some pretty drastic privacy concerns voiced by a number of people. After the hearings the Colorado PUC approved Caller ID, but only with a mandatory per-line blocking (rather than the per-call only blocking). US WEST was willing to offer per-call blocking, but didn't want the per-line option to be available -- they 'rejected' the PUC decision and said they were going to withdraw the filing. PUC response was that they legally couldn't withdraw it after the decision had been reached (or some such reasoning), and the final decision resulted from negotioations to break the deadlock that resulted from the opposing opinions. My wife still works for US WEST (I used to), and watching the dispute in the local papers and company bulletins was the most fun I'd had since pointing out to the PUC several years ago that a local rate case to set up calling zones in Denver lacked rate reciprocity (calling from point B to A cost more than calling from point A to point B) -- and that the PUC's home exchange was the one that would be on the wrong end of the discrepancy more than any other exchange in the area. I was amazed that a case lacking reciprocity was even filed. Knowing that had happened made me less amazed than I should have been that US WEST tried to pull the Caller ID filing when they did. I'm pretty sure I have the Caller ID details right, and I welcome any corrections if I don't. Rick Lucas (rlucas@bvsd.co.edu) Debate Coach, Fairview HS, Boulder, CO ------------------------------ From: helfman@aero.org (Robert S. Helfman) Subject: Re: Question About Caller ID Information Display Date: 12 Oct 1992 19:56:35 GMT Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA In article TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM writes: > In a message From: billabs@nic.cerf.net (Bill Romanowski) on 6 Oct 92 > 21:15:07 GMT: >> So now I want to know how it works. I suspect DTMF after first ring? >> No doubt an FAQ but any info would be appreciated. > Approximately just before the second or third ring (depending on the > system), the information is sent as a data stream about 300 baud > between rings. In short, this is why modems can be built to take the > caller ID information. >[Moderator's Note: I think it is 1200 baud. PAT] Note, however, that it's Bell 202 specs, NOT Bell 212, which is why, if you couple it to a typical 1200 baud modem, it doesn't work. [Moderator's Note: As I found out after some experimentation several months ago. See the article "Me and My Crazy Ideas" in an issue of the Digest earlier this year. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Question About Caller ID Information Display From: art@aficom.ocunix.on.ca (Art Hunter) Reply-To: art@aficom.ocunix.on.ca (Art Hunter) Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 08:23:49 -0400 Organization: AFI Communications - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada > Approximately just before the second or third ring (depending on the > system), the information is sent as a data stream about 300 baud > between rings. In short, this is why modems can be built to take the > caller ID information. The Caller-ID message is 1200 bps and resides between rings one and two. There are two other ways that the specification says it can come. One is when the handset is on-hook and is NOT ringing and the other is when the handset is off-hook and not ringing. The latter is designed so that you can obtain the identification of the calling party (like call waiting) while you are talking to someone else. To date, I am only aware of the message between rings one and two as being implemented by the telcos. It is just a matter of time for the other two applications to be implemented. ------------------------------ From: bill@phoenix.az.stratus.com (Bill Everts) Subject: Re: Caller ID Approved In Arizona Date: 12 Oct 92 20:00:02 GMT This is probably a typical question, but if you don't want me to know who you are, why the &*^# are you dialing my phone number? everts bill@az.stratus.com Expressing my own opinion. [Moderator Getting Nervous Again: Will readers who wish to express an opinion of their own to Bill Everts expression of his opinion will please do do in email or via comp.privacy. It is my opinion we don't need any more of it here. Thanks. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sethb@fid.Morgan.COM (Seth Breidbart) Subject: Re: British Call Waiting (was My Favorite Intercepts) Organization: Morgan Stanley & Co., New York, NY Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 19:25:06 -0400 The major advantage of anything-on-hold during call waiting comes when both parties get calls. You put me on hold to take your second call; while I'm waiting, another call comes in for me, and I take it. Now, when you return to my call, you get silence, and will often hang up :-( Seth sethb@fid.morgan.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 10:52:15 CDT From: mattair@sun44.synercom.hounix.org (Charles Mattair) Subject: Re: British Call Waiting Organization: Synercom Technology, Inc., Houston, TX In article mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk writes: > Touchtones here have always been (and will always be) free! I can understand why the US telco's initially charged for touchtone (or at least the rationale) but what's the excuse now? Don't they have to add additional equipment to convert pulse to TT for most switches? Charles Mattair mattair@synercom.hounix.org Any opinions offered are my own and do not reflect those of my employer. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: 800 Numbers Restricted by NYTel From: norman.nithman@aquila.com (Norman Nithman) Date: 12 Oct 92 15:41:00 GMT Organization: Aquila BBS - Aurora, IL - 820-8344 Reply-To: norman.nithman@aquila.com (Norman Nithman) I have had problems with private pay phones blocking 800 info (800-555-1212). Seems like they programmed them to charge $0.65 for any call to 555-1212, no matter what the prefix. Norm [Moderator's Note: How about $3.65 per *minute* for calls to 800 or the zero operator from the COCOT in the laudromat near me ... PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 00:55:36 -0400 From: shri%unreal@cs.umass.edu Subject: Re: 800 Numbers Restricted by NYTel? Organization: UMass, Amherst, MA01002 + Temporal Sys & Comp Net, Bombay, India In article henry@ads.com... ... in answer to ... >> AOSs don't want callers using their resources to make free calls, >> when they typically charge $3 to $4 for a three minute local call. says ... > I know about AOS's; I don't use their phones if I can help it. They Ok, question time again ... I know AOS stands for "Alternative Operator Serivices" (I read so from a publication from the MA Dept of Public Utilities.) What services does an AOS typically provide ? How would I recognise an AOS phone ? It is plainly obvious that you dont mean COCOTs here, and while going thru the literature from the PUC, I could not quite guess what an AOS really was, in familiar terms. Also, at least in MA, the Department of Public Utilities needs to license you (and your dog :-) before you can offer any IXC/LD service even as a reseller. Is that true for all the 50 states? Thats a lot of paperwork ! shrikumar ( shri@legato.cs.umass.edu, shri@iucaa.ernet.in ) [Moderator's Note: One thing all payphones (genuine Bell or COCOTS) need is an operator to handle special billing and person-to-person calls. In their eagerness to stay away from anything-Bell, the COCOTS will generally have the operator service for their phones handled through a service bureau offering AOS (alternate operator services.) In other words, a non-telco operator. If you see a COCOT phone, you are most likely looking at an AOS behind it. If you have questions about this when using one of these phones (it is just like me riding the subway in Chicago -- sometimes I have an immediate need to use the bathroom and have to use the filthy subway toilets; very distasteful experience but it can't be helped) then when the operator answers ask point blank "are you an xxx-Bell operator?" or "are you an AT&T operator?" and if the answer is negative, be prepared for the worst, and do as I try to do: either take care of it before leaving home or wait until you get back. If you can't wait, then pay the price. Even then sometimes the COCOT/AOS operators lie about it and claim to be genuine. Like the Chicago Transit Authority public toilets, avoid COCOTS if at all possible. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Fax Store-and-Forward Service Wanted Organization: I.E.C.C. Date: 12 Oct 92 19:07:50 EDT From: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) In article is written: > The "Subject:"-line asks it all -- if there are any fax-transmission > store-and-forward services (doing for FAX what MCI's Messenger and > AT&T's voice-store-and-forward do for voice), how do I find them? A recent article in TELECOM Digest announced AT&T's Fax Mailbox service. They assign you a ten-digit fax mailbox number, which is typically the number of your office or fax machine. Then callers can send you a fax by calling +1 314 298 8010, dialing the mailbox number, optionally leaving a voice message, and sending the fax. If you have a beeper, they can call it when a fax arrives. You pick up faxes by calling an 800 number, listening to the messages, and telling it the number to which to forward stored faxes. You can discard unwanted faxes if you want, and everything seems to be discarded after eight days. The charge is 30 cents to listen to the message, and 70 cents/page to retrieve a fax, plus a fairly hefty surcharge if forwarded outside the U.S. There is no charge for faxes that you don't choose to deliver, and no monthly fee. It's all charged to your AT&T calling card. Call (800) 446-2452 to sign up. If you have an AT&T card, you can sign up immediately. I've signed up but haven't had occasion to use it. (I have a fax card on my PC, so it'd only be useful to collect faxes while I'm travelling.) Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 19:27:03 EDT From: hansen@pegasus.att.com (Tony L Hansen) Subject: Re: Fax Store-and-Forward Service Wanted Organization: AT&T > The "Subject:"-line asks it all -- if there are any fax-transmission > store-and-forward services (doing for FAX what MCI's Messenger and AT&T's > voice-store-and-forward do for voice), how do I find them? Call AT&T EasyLink Services (1-800-624-3672) and ask about their Enhanced Fax service. It does exactly what you want. Tony Hansen hansen@pegasus.att.com, tony@attmail.com att!pegasus!hansen, attmail!tony ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #776 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa22162; 13 Oct 92 3:18 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA00380 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Tue, 13 Oct 1992 00:44:04 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA28074 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Tue, 13 Oct 1992 00:43:55 -0500 Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 00:43:55 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210130543.AA28074@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #777 TELECOM Digest Tue, 13 Oct 92 00:44:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 777 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Telecom in the MidWest (Tim Russell) Re: Telecom in the Midwest (Jack Winslade) Re: Fax Store-and-Forward Service Wanted (Nigel Allen) Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison (Richard Nash) Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison (John Hidgon) Re: Network Installation Box Installation Rules (Macy Hallock) Re: Sidetone (was LD Transmission Quality Comparison) (Julian Macassey) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: trussell@cwis.unomaha.edu (Tim Russell) Subject: Re: Telecom in the MidWest Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 14:52:03 GMT dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) writes: >> I was told that the reason telemarketers chose the MidWest was that they >> had the most "neutral" accents. Nebraska was said to have been pitching >> that. I'm told by a Nebraskan that she thinks the accent is neutral >> except for Washington, which they pronounced "Waa-shington." This is very true, Nebraskans do indeed have VERY neutral accents. I would say that the "Wa" sound tends more toward the "War" pronunciation, though not so badly that "wash" sounds like "warsh", just different. Being an Air Force brat, I find it refreshing since my accent (almost complete lack thereof, actually) doesn't stand out at all. > Another reason for good telephone service in Nebraska is that Omaha > was the home of the former Strategic Air Command of the US Air Force > and top-notch telecom service was needed. Definitely. I'm not familiar with the specifics, but I do know that Omaha has TONS of trunks coming in from all over everywhere. Now that SAC is Stratcom and Langley AFB in Virginia has taken over quite a bit, I would think phone capacity will be even higher. One thing I always chuckle at is Omaha's constant trumpeting that the unemployment rate is WAY below the national average, hovering somewhere around 2%. They neglect to note that this would most certainly not be the case were it not for telemarketing, though. Tim Russell Omaha, NE trussell@unomaha.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 12:23:58 CST From: Jack.Winslade@ivgate.omahug.org (Jack Winslade) Subject: Re: Telecom in the Midwest Reply-To: jack.winslade%drbbs@ivgate.omahug.org Organization: DRBBS Technical BBS, Omaha > [Moderator's Note: That has been the case for many years. Even twenty > years ago, Tulsa, OK was considered an ideal place for telemarketers > as was Omaha, NB. Why? Because they had the least-expensive WATS > costs of anywhere in the USA. After all, the most you can go in any > direction from Tulsa is 2000 miles or less, unlike being located on > the coasts where calls to the opposite coast travel 4000 miles and > cost considerably more. PAT] Not only is Omaha (that's NE, not NB, Pat ;-) close to the wire center of the US, but it is known for a high literacy rate, thus articulate speech, and the lack of any regional accent. (I might restate, with several various emoticons, that Omaha has what might be considered the 'Columbia School of Broadcasting' accent. ) Seriously, Omaha is north enough to avoid the 'twang' which is obvious even from residents as close as Kansas City, south enough to avoid the 'ooot' (out) and 'abooot' (about) that's common north of here, and, of course exempt from the Bwooklynese 'toity-toid and toid' which is spoken in some eastern states and some parts of New Awlans. (Flames to bit.bucket@black.hole, please. ;-) On the negative side, I've been told that Omaha is known in the Teleslime industry for complacent non-union workers who are more than willing to rent their voice for close to minimum wage. In many communities, a clear, distinct voice is an asset that is quite marketable, and worth more than poverty wages. On the positive side, however, almost anyone in Omaha who wants to work and can speak can get a job almost any time. It's probably not a very promising career choice, but telemarketing jobs are almost always available, especially right before the holiday season. Good day! JSW Ybbat (DRBBS) 8.9 v. 3.14 r.1 (1:285/666.0) ------------------------------ From: ndallen@nyx.cs.du.edu (Nigel Allen) Subject: Re: Fax Store-and-Forward Service Wanted Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 6:28:50 MDT Organization: Echo Beach > (I'm tired of running into busy trunks, busy recipient fax-machine, > or recipient fax machine's ring-no-answer signals outside office > hours in connection with a fax I'm trying to send to Zimbabwe > University.) I wonder whether someone at Zimbabwe University turns the fax machine off after 5 p.m. to save electricity, assuming that nobody else in the country would be likely to be sending a fax message outside business hours, and forgetting that people in other time zones (such as Fred Linton) might want to send a fax message. It's also possible that the fax number is no longer used by a fax machine. It might be wise to double-check the fax number, possibly against a university calendar. I think the most reliable solution, assuming the fax machine at Zimbabwe University is working properly and you have the correct number for it, is to use the outbound fax service of MCI Mail. (Perhaps AT&T Mail offers a similar service.) If all you want to send is text, the MCI Mail or AT&T Mail services should be adequate. And if nothing else works, you could send a cablegram, but cablegrams are quite expensive. Nigel Allen nigel.allen@bbs.oit.unc.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 10:25:33 -0600 From: rickie@trickie.ualberta.ca (Richard Nash) Subject: Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison andys@sbi.com writes: > On 6 Oct 92 06:06:36 GMT, gerg@netcom.com (Greg Andrews) said: >> I can't speak to the billing errors, but the modem symptoms you >> describe seem to this Telebit technician like a well-known interaction >> between Telebit's PEP modulation and the echo cancellers used my MCI, >> Sprint, and others. >> Rather than poor quality, the problem was being caused by the echo >> cancellers interfering with the modem transmissions. When the modems >> stopped sending data to train themselves to the line conditions, the >> echo cancellers would turn themselves off. The difference in the >> modem 'conversation' between data transfer mode and training mode was >> enough for the echo cancellers to change their behavior. The modems >> saw an undisturbed line when they trained, so they couldn't adapt. >> Why didn't AT&T lines do this? They used different brands of echo >> cancellers. (Perhaps because their network hadn't used fiber optics >> until very recently?) Detecting the guard tone is the basis under which all echo-cancellers work. What isn't described, is when do they drop back in? As soon as the modem guard tone is once again detected? >> Telebit worked with the engineers from a couple of the echo canceller >> manufacturers for several months. Eventually a solution was found >> where the modems would be able to keep the echo cancellers disabled. >> The modem firmware was updated to add the 'echo canceller mods' >> starting with version 7.00 (BC7.00, GE7.00, and GF7.00, though the >> T1000 uses FA2.10). > Had the echo cancellers done the right thing to begin with, Telebit > would never have had the problem. The above statement is rather arrogant! Echo cancellers have been around for several decades and the operational specifications for them are well known by telco engineering standards groups. Telebit PEP modulation scheme has not. Perhaps the echo canceller manufacturers should be issued with crystal balls that allow them to see how future contraptions will affect their product? Only an engineer, would have the audacity to presume that a marketed product *they* designed was free of problems. Almost everyone who has attempted to use a modern modem has encountered some degree of operational difficulty with it. As is well known, data transmission greater than 1200 baud on a switched circuit is a recent thing. Modem manufacturers have spent considerable R&D to engineer products with faster data rates *around* the limitations of the switched network. Some modem designs are better thought out than others. Obviously the engineers at Telebit never took the echo canceller interaction into account because they were unaware of it! As described, the problem was corrected by Telebit. This scenario of revising a product to address a previously unanticipated problem is very common as anyone in the manufacturing industry knows. Adaptability! > Really? I consider the inability of echo cancellers to detect a modem > to be a quality issue. It is not a quality, customer driven solution > to force customers to modify their CPE because the network > infrastructure is of inferior quality. Remember that there was one > carrier whose infrastructure never had the problem and whose network > could and can deal with the unmodified Telebit modems. The problem > was not that the PEP modems couldn't turn off the echo cancellers, the > problem was that the echo cancellers couldn't (and can't) detect the > PEP modem without forcing the modem manufacturer to add non-standard > stuff. You don't consider that a quality metric? I do. Sounds like the Total Quality movement has hit your company, eh? This kind of thinking reminds me of the time I was on a hardware course, and the work assignment was to manually enter a small hand written program. A fellow student had quickly coded the program and dumped it into the core. When he attempted to execute the program, it failed to run properly. Being a rather hyper type of person, he immediately afixed the blame on the computer rather than his hand loop. In case you haven't noticed, Telebit modems do their own thing. My v.32bis modem doesn't talk to the Telebit in it's native tongue. The never ending battle over whose product will become the defacto standard is an issue that will only die when the demand for the product also dies. Perhaps when data modulation is no longer required? (ISDN?) Richard Nash Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6K 0E8 UUCP: trickie!rickie@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 02:47 PDT From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison gerg@netcom.com (Greg Andrews) writes: > The point I've been trying to make is that your connection troubles > might have been caused by this interaction and not by the quality of > the LD carrier. It would be unfair to criticize the LD carrier > because the original PEP modems couldn't keep their echo cancellers > off the line. I bought into this once. In fact, we ended up upgrading every single modem in our domain to BC7.00. And after we went through all of that (on the urging of Sprint AND the Telebit service department), it made not one bit of difference. What it DID do was ruin the ability of our modems to talk to some of our neighbors who had lower versions of firmware, but it did not significantly affect the poor throughput on MCI and Sprint. (When I upgraded to BC7.00 it caused the connection to my newsfeed site, from which I receive as much as 16 meg per day, to continually fail. We suffered with this until he upgraded also.) Logic tells us that AT&T uses echo cancellers. The question that I ask is, how can AT&T do it and MCI and Sprint cannot? Someone from Sprint even had the gall to tell me that the problems were caused by the modems because "AT&T uses older equipment and the newer Sprint equipment requires certain standards that these OLDER modems are not meeting". Yeah, sure. 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, 12 Oct 92 20:55 EDT From: fmsys!macy@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu (Macy Hallock) Subject: Re: Network Installation Box Installation Rules Organization: The Matrix In an attempt to put some factual information back into this thread, I present the following: In general, Network Interface rules are goverened by: FCC rules National Electrical Code PUC rules Telco policy Local telco whim (Not neccessarily in that order, BTW) The current trend is toward the Minimum Point of Penetration (MPOP) rule. The idea being that the telco's regulated facilities should end at the MPOP into a customer location. Normally this is the entrance or point of contact within the building in question. In residential facilites, especially single family dwellings, the trend is to locate the Network Interface (NI) in a weatherproof enclosure on the side of the dwelling, outdoors, for both aerial and buried entrances. I find this "rule" to be somewhat flexible, though. In the case of a buried entrance, we often prefer a completely concealed entrance for security reasons. If we work with the telco, i.e. open the trench area next to the dwelling and cut a hole throught the block basement wall, the telco will usually cooperate and install the NI in the basement right next to the entrance through the wall. Many telco installers actually prefer this method, if someone else does the dirty work [grin]. For aerial entrances, there is less flexibility. In years past we would be able to gain telco cooperation in relocating the NI or protector in the attic area. Due to access problems, and the increased sensitivity to grounding concerns on the part of telco personnel, this is much more difficult to accomplish these days. Where security is an issue, we now arrange for a new buried entrance, rather than attempt attic placement of an NI. In commercial establishments and in multifamily buildings, interior location of the MPOP and NI is common. This is often due to the use of buried conduits for these type of buildings. In existing structures, the multipair cable is usually already constructed to an interior multipair protector, and the telco considers this to be the MPOP and located all NI's there. I have seen a few exterior NI's on commercial sites, but usually where only one or two phone lines are involved and the feed is drop wire as opposed to multipair cable. Where the jacks or other termination is distant from the NI, such as in an apartment/multifamily dwelling, all wiring, whether existing or new, is regarded as customer owned inside wiring. The regulated telco facility ends at the NI. This has proven to be somewhat problematical in the case of T1 circuits and other sensitive data facilities, BTW. Where the desired point of demarcation is different from the MPOP, the NI is at the MPOP and the wiring to the demarc is treated as customer owned inside wire. This means that charges for inside wire installation are incurred if the demarc is not at the same location as the MPOP/NI. It also means that if you don't pay for inside wire maintenance and the demarc is distant from the MPOP, then billable service charges can be applied by the telco for sometimes very flimsy reasons. Macy M Hallock Jr N8OBG 216.725.4764 macy@fmsystm.uucp macy@fmsystm.ncoast.org [No disclaimer, but I have no real idea what I'm saying or why I'm telling you] ------------------------------ From: julian%bongo.UUCP@nosc.mil (Julian Macassey) Subject: Re: Sidetone (was LD Transmission Quality Comparison) Date: 12 Oct 92 15:20:55 GMT Reply-To: julian@bongo.info.com (Julian Macassey) Organization: The Hole in the Wall Hollywood California U.S.A. In article rickie@trickie.ualberta.ca (Richard Nash) writes: > In the good old days, the 2500 set could be ordered up without > sidetone. This was some kind of a military specification that > improved communications in less than ideal environments. There was a simple reason this set had no sidetone. It had no hybrid. It was a four wire device for use on a four wire system. You got no sidetone, no echo and no singing. So yes, it worked in crummy throw em up in a hurry environments. And as I am sure Mr. Higdon can tell us, nulling a hybrid for 0 sidetone -- or the best you can get -- is a tricky act. The null will shift for every call made requiring a null every time a call is established. Modern DSP hybrids such as the Telos used in call in shows does this on the fly. Julian Macassey, julian@bongo.info.com N6ARE@WA6FWI.#SOCAL.CA.USA.NA 742 1/2 North Hayworth Avenue Hollywood CA 90046-7142 voice (213) 653-4495 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #777 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa23403; 13 Oct 92 3:53 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA04043 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Tue, 13 Oct 1992 01:34:23 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA24088 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Tue, 13 Oct 1992 01:34:08 -0500 Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 01:34:08 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210130634.AA24088@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #778 TELECOM Digest Tue, 13 Oct 92 01:34:09 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 778 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Why No Sprint Service Here Since Thursday? (Ben Harrell via H. Shrikumar) GTE <> Pac*Bell SS7 Update (John Higdon) Answering Machine CPC? (Henry E. Schaffer) Alltel Open House (Pat Turner) Global Networking (Grover McCoury) Dialing From Bronx to Queens Within 718 Area Code (Adrienne Voorhis) PC Communications (Ross Dargahi) T-1 for Datacom (Vance Shipley) A Small Tutorial on Some Networking Stuff (Lars Poulsen) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 17:49:54 MDT From: shri@nyx.cs.du.edu (H. Shrikumar) Subject: Why No Sprint Service Here Since Thursday? Organization: UMass, Amherst, MA 01002 + Temporal Sys & Comp Net, Bombay, India [Moderator's Note: This was passed along to the Digest by Mr. Shrijumar who saw it in alt and thought others would want to see it.] In article in alt.dcom.telecom bharrell@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu wrote: timmons@npmv11.enet.dec.com (Ray Timmons) writes: > The Greenville, SC area has not been able to access Sprint since > Thursday. What? When you call the operator, they say that Sprint has > requested that customers be referred to AT&T and MCI. To make matters > worse, 1-800 service (with all carriers) has been out so far today. > What gives? It's due to the recent torrential rains in western SC, that flooded a Sprint DMS-250 switch (that was underground I believe). Will take quite a while to get things back to normal. We are affected here in central and eastern NC as well. My primary private net and 800 service is with Sprint. Ben Harrell cmebh01@nt.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 16:56 PDT From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: GTE <> Pac*Bell SS7 Update After talking to spokespeople at Pac*Bell and GTE today, I can give a report on the progress of SS7 connectivity (and CLASS feature compatibility) in California. As has been pointed out, there is currently no SS7 connectivity between Pac*Bell and GTE. In northern California (Bay Area), this is insignificant since the bulk of the telephone service is provided by Pac*Bell. However Los Gatos is in my local calling area so I was curious about how long it would be before features, such as my Select Call Forwarding, would work with Los Gatos phone numbers. In southern California, this lack of SS7 connectivity really impacts the value of Pac*Bell's CLASS features since GTE serves major areas of the greater Los Angeles area (including parts of Los Angeles itself). Here is the scoop (from Thousand Oaks spokespersons): GTE is currently in the final testing phase of SS7 within its own service area. Depending on the final outcome of those tests (which should conclude within several weeks), negotiations should finalize with Pac*Bell paving the way for SS7 connectivity between the two companies. This could happen by mid-1993, just in time for Pac*Bell's proposed offering of Caller-ID (finally!). So it appears that GTE will possibly have SS7 connectivity with Pac*Bell within the year. In the meantime, it is interesting to note that a nearby outpost of little Contel already has SS7 connectivity with Pac*Bell. And indeed, my CLASS features work perfectly with Gilroy numbers. 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: hes@ncsu.edu (Henry E. Schaffer) Subject: Answering Machine CPC? Organization: North Carolina State University Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 21:07:36 GMT A telephone answering machine which used to hang up quickly when the calling party disconnected (even during the OutGoing Message) started stopped hanging up. Someone said "It's the CPC." and found that a hidden switch had CPC-Off, changed it to CPC-On and the answering machine resumed hanging up quickly. What does "CPC" mean? What does it detect (battery reversal?) Why would an answering machine allow this to be switched off? Is "CPC" a common answering machine capability/feature? henry schaffer n c state univ hes@ncsu.edu [Moderator's Note: CPC means 'called (calling?) party control'. It has to do with getting the line released immediatly when one party or the other disconnects. Yes, it detects changes in the voltage. The reason it is switchable on/off is because if a line is also equipped with call waiting, then the voltage drop from a call waiting signal would also trick the answering machine in to disconnecting. If the line got call-waited while the answering machine was doing its duty, then the machine would hang up on the party currently talking to it. Thus the switchable condition; take your pick: fast disconnect when the voltage change is detected, ie no dial tone and 'please hang up now' messages on the tape while the machine is continuing to its timeout point or the other choice of not having call waiting on the line with the answering machine or risking losing a call now and then when a second one arrived in the midst of the first one. You can't have it both ways and the switch lets you the user decide. PAT] ------------------------------ From: turner@rsiatl.UUCP Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 18:35 EDT From: rsiatl!turner@rsiatl.UUCP Reply-To: turner@dixie.com Subject: Alltel Open House For you people on the left coast: I received an invitation from Alltel Supply in LA to attend a vendor products showcase involving over 50 vendors. Most major telecom vendors, save AT&T, are listed. It's Thursday, Oct 22, 1992 3 pm to 7 pm with a BBQ dinner at 5 pm. Alltel LA Counter Sales Center 2525 Workman Mill Rd. Whittier, CA. What's funny is that it was mailed to me in Alabama from the Alltel office in Norcross, GA (outside Atlanta). I guess Alltel confuses the original LA (Lower Alabama) with it's better known counterpart on the west coast :-). Pat Turner KB4GRZ turner@dixie.com ------------------------------ From: gcm@fns-nc1.fns.com (Grover McCoury) Subject: Global Networking Organization: Fujitsu Network Switching Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 18:45:56 GMT From "Information Week", October 5, 1992: "Carrying a Global Message" Six of the largest international telecommunications carriers signed an agreement last week to share undersea fiber-optic capacity in an attempt to improve the flow of global voice, video, and data communications. Under the pact, called the Global Networking Project, AT&T, BT, Deutsche Bundespost Telekom, France Telecom, Australia's OTC, and Japan's Kokusai Denshin Denwa will combine portions of their transcontinental cables to create a shared-facilities network. Many of the details have yet to be worked out. The digital cross-connect equipment and management systems for the project are being developed to operate with the current transmission systems as well as Synchronous Digital Hierarchy systems. And AT&T Bell Laboratories is working with the carriers to develop the technical specifications and guidelines for the project. The parties hope to have the Global Networking Project running by the end of next year. Grover McCoury @ Fujitsu Network Switching Of America, Inc. 4403 Bland Road Raleigh, NC 27609 audio: 919-790-3111 electronic: ...!mcnc!fns-nc1!gcm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 10:02:25 -0400 (EDT) From: Adrienne Voorhis Subject: Dialing From Bronx to Queens Within 718 Area Code In TELECOM Digest Volume 12 : Issue 750 I ran across the following quoted material, from : > In the 212, 718, and 917 areas, all calls within and among 212, 917, > and 718 happen to be local (or at most message units) so there's no > issue of 1+ for toll, and in fact you dial 1 + 718 + number to make a > local call from Manhattan to Queens, or 1 + 917 + number to call a > beeper or fax machine within Manhattan. Not only that, if I make a call from the Bronx to Queens (both within 718), the call will not go through unless I dial 1 + 718 + seven digit number. I imagine this is also true for calls from the Bronx to Brooklyn. Queens and Brooklyn broke off to 718 (from 212) years ago. The Bronx has only been added to 718 (from 212) since July. Adrienne Voorhis Albert Einstein College of Medicine Bronx, New York I'm only speaking for myself. ------------------------------ From: rdargahi@wilkins.iaims.bcm.tmc.edu (Ross Dargahi) Subject: PC Communications Date: 12 Oct 1992 21:13:26 GMT Organization: Baylor College of Medicine Reply-To: rdargahi@wilkins.iaims.bcm.tmc.edu (Ross Dargahi) I have a project which has presented me with a dilemma. Let me briefly outline what the application needs to do: 1) contact NSB via modem and sync clock with atomic clock 2) connect to several bbs via modem and download data 3) validate data (for data entry error on bbs side) 4) merge data into a database (Foxpro) The app must be robust enough so that communication failures such has modem hangups, lost carriers will not effect it. i.e. it should be able to recover from such scenarios. The keyword for this system is robustness. I have thought of several scenarios: 1) code the whole nine yards myself. This would include the xmodem /xmodem crc stuff, low level comm libraries etc.. etc.. 2) get hold of libraries that give me serial communications functionality, file transfer funcitonality etc... 3) Buy a package/packages that let me do most of this stuff Time as always is a factor, so solution three is most attractive followed by two then one. Coming from a Unix background, I am not a PC/DOS guru so I would really appreciate any and all input from you experts out there. Thanks for your help in advance. Ross Dargahi rdargahi@bcm.tmc.edu ------------------------------ From: vances@xenitec.on.ca (Vance Shipley) Subject: T-1 For Datacom Organization: SwitchView Inc., Waterloo, Ontario Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 16:05:06 GMT In article rfranken@cs.umr.edu writes: > For a fast serial line, framing bits are never needed (the computers > take care of figuring out where a byte starts). If nothing inbetween > the sender and receiver cares about framing, and you had a CSU that > would support it, then you could use the full 1.544 (most repeaters > don't care about framing, but, for example, a DACS probably would). This is something I've long wondered about. If I have a Cisco (for example) router connected to another router somewhere with a T-1 circuit is it one serial stream at 1.54Mbs or is it broken into 24 channels? I would guess that if they supported the 24-Channel arrangement they would also have an option to have one stream. I guess the question is then; does datacom commonly use T-1 in a 24 channel arrangement? Vance Shipley vances@xenitec.on.ca vances@ltg.uucp ..uunet.ca!xenitec!vances ------------------------------ From: lars@spectrum.CMC.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: A Small Tutorial on Some Networking Stuff Organization: CMC Network Systems (Rockwell DCD), Santa Barbara, CA, USA Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 06:15:44 GMT In article JIM.J.MURPHY@gte.sprint.com writes: > How exactly are we connected with these gateways, why are some > addresses so complicated, how can we access the TELECOM archives from > Telemail with only a dumb terminal, how do you prefer us to address > submissions to this group, what is X.25, X.400, and the hardest > question, can you explain this in beginners terms? Although Jim asked for replies to be sent directly to him, I will give Pat a chance to put it in the Digest if he wants to. I'm feeling in the mood to teach/preach today; I had a run-in with GTE 611. I was trying to get directory assistance for the next city down the cost, which I think is a Pac Bell area. And since GTE has often chastised my for using 411 for non-local directory assistance, I tried to dial 1-805-555-1212, only to get an intercept that said "It is not necessary to dial 1 or the area code in front of the number you are calling". But 555-1212 did not work either: It went to fast busy after 555. The poor, underpaid, undertrained girl at the tech service end of the menu-monster reached by 611 could not understand why I would think this was a problem, and she felt abused by my attempts to get her to record a suggestion to route 555-1212 to directory assistance. "Why don't you just dial 411 like normal people?". Anyway, back to the questions. WHAT IS X.25 ? In its simplest form, data communication is about moving databytes from one computer's memory to another's without loss or errors. In general, we like to get the costs down, and so we generally want to have several simultaneous connections share the wire. When we do that, we need to make sure that one stalled connection doesn't prevent the others from getting their work done. The technical terms for these features are error control, multiplexing and flow control. In the early 1970's, it was demonstrated (by researchers working on a small government-funded research network called ARPAnet) that it was quite practical to set up a network with fast, permanent lines, and share these lines between many users, instead of setting up individual lines for each user like we do/did with telephone calls. The procedure of getting the same effect out of the shared network as if you had dialed a temporary connection was called packet switching, as opposed to the then normal circuit switching. It was decided that this was a good thing, and that since people would soon be calling on telephone companies to provide such services, CCITT should standardize the protocols and procedures by which such networks might be built and connected to each other. X.25 is the reference number for a CCITT document that describes how a computer might connect to such a network over a synchronous line such as a DDS-1 (56 kbps) link. It soon turned out, however, that the greatest number of connections were not between two computers, but between a user at a terminal on one end, and a computer on the other end. Thus, a specification was written up for a small computer that might be deployed next to the X.25 packet switch, which might be reached by people with asynchronous ascii terminals, and which then connected on behalf of the terminal user to the computer on the other end. This specification came in three parts, numbered X.3 (what services to provide), X.28 (the user commands), and X.29 (what the bits on the wire looked like between the two computers). Such an auxiliary machine was called a Packet Assembler/Disassembler, or PAD for short, and most people that talk about using X.25 are really talking about using an X.29 PAD. The first two large commercial X.25 networks were Telenet, (which was started by some BBN people that had worked on the ARPAnet, but soon sold out to GTE) and TYMNET, which was owned by a computer service bureau called TYME-SHARE, and was originally mostly used to access that service, which was the Compu-Serve of its time. (Today, I think TymShare is gone, and only the network is left.) When X.25 first came out, we all thought it was horribly complicated. Today, we can appreciate the simple elegance by which it provides many services in a modular manner; it just happened to provide so many more services than what we had ever seen before. X.25 is still alive and well, but the way in which it is used today (except for X.29 PADs) uses very few of those services. Accordingly, a "leaner and meaner" multiplexing protocol has sprung up, called Frame Relay, which gives better performance over today's faster links. WHAT IS X.400 ? One of the most valuable things that people use networks for, is electronic mail. Only problem is, many people have done it differently. CCITT decided to cut through it and define a new standard, which would be suitable for a telco-provided central place that all of these all-different systems could use as a neutral celaringhouse. The X.400 book of standards describes this system. The only problems are: (1) The world doesn't look like that. There are already multiple, interconnected, independent networks, and there is no clear place for a clearinghouse to fit in. (2) The standard was designed by several committees over several years, and everybody wanted to put something in that would be easy for them to do, plus something that would be hard for the competition to do. The result is a stack of paper about 4 inches high. Any practical implementation is slow, expensive and hard to set up. (3) There already was a defacto clearinghouse standard. The ARPAnet had grown, evolved, and spawned clones, that had interconnected with each other and with FIDOnets and other bulletin boards, using a different but much simpler Internet specification called RFC-821 and RFC-822. Slowly, but surely, X.400 is collapsing under its own weight. RFC-822 says an address has an "@" sign in the middle; to the right of that is the name of a computer, and to the left of that is a description of a mailbox that that computer will know how to interpret. X.400 says mail is addressed to a person; that person has a Given_Name, a Surname, sometimes a Common_Name. The person belongs to an organizational unit, which may be a part of yet another organizational unit, within an organization, which is of course located in a country. While X.400 was supposed to be easier for people to deal with (and might actually be easy, when and if there is a global, distributed, interconnected database for both the users and the computers to look each other up in), RFC-822 deals with the world the way the computers are already set up. Usually, an RFC-822 mailbox address is either the person's login name, or their full name as defined when the account was set up, but sometimes it will be a pointer to a user on a different system, which cannot be reached directly. In such cases, it is common to stick a "%" sign in the middle, and have the name of the next system to the right, and on the left, whatever that machine can deal with. HOW DO I GET TO THE ARCHIVES ? Your mailbox on TeleMail is about as limited as anyone can get. All you can do is send mail. To really get to the archives, you must have access to the Internet, and you can then just copy files across. There are, however a few systems that have "robots" that you can send mail to, and they will copy the file, and mail it to you. Pat describes this procedure about once a month. Sine I don't need it, I generally don't save it. 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 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #778 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa13316; 14 Oct 92 4:45 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA18797 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Wed, 14 Oct 1992 02:41:03 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA30598 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Wed, 14 Oct 1992 02:40:54 -0500 Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 02:40:54 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210140740.AA30598@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #779 TELECOM Digest Wed, 14 Oct 92 02:41:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 779 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson SPRINT Outage (Matthew Waugh) AT&T vs A Cable Company (John Higdon) East German Pay Phone (Mark Brader) Data Services to the Home (Gerry Lawrence) Stolen Cell Phone (Monte Freeman) Where Can I Get: Digital Matrix Switches, Craft Tools, RF Links (P Turner) Help Needed With Communications and Computers (Michael Hauben) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: waugh@rtpnet05.rtp.dg.com (Matthew Waugh) Subject: SPRINT Outage Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 20:07:20 GMT Organization: Data General Corporation, RTP, NC. I haven't seen anything on this, and I'd expected people to be jumping all over it. Sometime on Thursday evening 10/8/92 the SPRINT switching centre in Fairfax, South Carolina, went down completly. Various "rumors" abound, most of which involve the switch being under 18 feet of water. We're located in North Carolina, and all our SPRINT switched service is routed via that switch. Certainly on Friday people in the area with SPRINT 800 service were not getting any calls sent their way. It's 16:00 EDT on 10/13/92, still no service. We have dial-tone on the trunk, and get an all circuits are busy if we try and make a call. Refresh my memory, didn't Congress go ballistic after the AT&T outage around New York? Here we are going on the third business day, and not a peep out of any news organization. Matthew Waugh waugh@dg-rtp.dg.com RTP Network Services Data General Corp. RTP, NC. (919)-248-6034 [Moderator's Note: I put a short article about this in the Digest on Tuesday. I don't know how deep the water is, but yes, the underground switch was flooded. Apparently Sprint had no provision for backup routing of any sort. The word is the service will be out for a long time; maybe a month or more. A lot of the customers affected have simply made arrangements to switch their service over to AT&T or MCI permanently. For the life of me, I cannot understand why any telco would bury their switch underground knowing how vulnerable they are to dampness and other conditions. Even here in Chicago, when we try to call over to that part of the country if we use Sprint to start the trip from here the calls are just bombing out. We get a rapid busy signal. You'd think Sprint might at least pick off their traffic going that way and hand it off to AT&T or someone else to make things a little easier. Would anyone from Sprint care to comment? I'll give the article priority attention here if they do. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 18:47 PDT From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: AT&T vs A Cable Company In the last month, I have had two problems with "wire companies". One was with my cable company (TCI Cablevision of San Jose); the other with AT&T. The difference in response between the two companies is remarkable. My complaint with cable was the disruption of service in the wee hours to do "maintenance". You will recall that I mentioned this practice in a recent post, which I faxed to TCI. TCI's response was a full-page letter from the general manager fully explaining the situation, including measures taken to prevent recurrance, and apologizing for the annoyance that it caused. As a "peace offering", I was informed that there would be a credit on my next statement representing one free month of the DMX service including box rental. The AT&T matter involved charges for hundreds of dollars worth of calls never made. It took many calls, including three-way conferences with Pac*Bell, to get AT&T to agree to issue a credit. Throughout the whole affair, I was treated as some sort of deadbeat who was trying to avoid paying my bill. One rep barked, "The calls WERE made from your residence, whether you were aware of them or not. There is no mistake with direct-dialed calls." I would not mind seeing that person fired. I sent a letter to a number of the executives of AT&T including Bob Allen. AT&T's response? Absolutely none. Obviously my business is of no concern to anyone at AT&T. In fact, I was informed by someone in the company that my complaints and observations were indeed brushed off. AT&T may have good products and services, but it has a lot to learn about customer relations. The next time you consider cable companies to be slime and telephone companies to have class, please remember these two notable exceptions. 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: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 16:59:00 -0400 From: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) Subject: East German Pay Phone > The most interesting thing is that the hanger for the handset did not appear to move for off-hook indication. That reminds me. At the end of May I was in what used to be East Berlin, and made a call from a pay phone there (specifically, it was in one of the city center S-Bahn stations, either Friedrichstrasse or Alexanderplatz). That phone, too, had no obvious moving parts for off-hook detection. The hanger was metal, and the other end of the handset rested against a small metal plate, so I wondered if it was be passing a small current through the handset, but the handset seemed to be plastic. Anyone know how it worked? There were no directories, so I needed to call directory assistance to get the number. The only information about special numbers was a plate with pictograms, which I read even less well than I do German. One showed a picture of a telephone handset, and another showed a telephone handset with eight radiating lines near one end of it, like an eight-pointed asterisk. What *is* the intended meaning of these symbols anyway? Having no idea what either symbol meant, I called one of them and asked if they spoke English. I was told to call the other one. I called it and gave the name and address. I knew East and West Berlin were still separate for telephone purposes, but I was still surprised when they were surprised that I didn't say "West Berlin" when I gave the address. They gave me the number and I asked if I had to dial a code before it to reach West Berlin. They said yes and gave a two-digit code (74, I think). I dialed the code and started dialing the number, and the phone said, "Kein Anschluss mit diese Nummer", or some such -- no connection with this number -- and returned my coin. After several repetitions of this, I pulled out the guidebook I was carrying and found the *3*-digit code that *it* had given for dialing West from East Berlin (849, I think). I tried this and it worked. The mind boggles. Now that I think of it, it also rather boggled at the fact that, unless my hotel listing included some out-of-date numbers, West Berlin telephone numbers could be five, six, seven, or eight digits long ... Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 11:40:07 EDT From: gwl@eng.ufl.edu Subject: Data Services to the Home Leonard.Erickson@f51.n105.z1.fidonet.org (Leonard Erickson) writes: > On the other hand, how *cheap* could a 64kb/s interface be? That's all > it'd take to supply a "regular" phone line. And in the quantities > involved, I'd expect the cost to drop *fast*. For the sake of > argument, call it $50. (I've seen RS-232 to fiber adapters in that > range). Math Associates make ethernet on multimode fiber trancievers for about $200. That's 10 Megsbits/sec. Of course, the distance is limited to less than 1km. This is the rub. Bandwidth is always distance limited. It's easy (and therefore cheap) to get a bazillion bits/second if the distance is across the room; across the world is a different story. Of course, TPC has no idea whatsoever of what the public needs or wants in data services be it on fiber or copper. All they're are interested in is getting a monopoly on the service, no matter how bad it is. Witness ISDN. You, I, and everyone else that has ever paid a phone bill has helped foot the huge cost of development for ISDN. All to get 64KB/S. These days you can get about the same data rate with off the shelf modems on regular phone lines. Can you say BILL OF GOODS? Fortunately the public is not as naieve as it once was. It's clear that TPC does can not provide what it has always claimed to provide: security, reliability and speed. People will go elsewhere to get the services that they need, if they can. Unfortunatly it is our legal system that will ultimately decide who gets what slice of the pie. As long as the lawyers get the biggest slice they don't give two s*#$s and a holler for the public's demand for service. I say network revolution NOW. Just say no to the phone company. Get an amateur radio licence and some packet switching hardware and just say NO to MA BELL! So what do we need? True competition at the door? You bet, the time is now. A "fiber company" could provide TV, Phone, and high speed data all on the same wire, but this "fiber company" would face both TPC and TCC (the cable comany) as competitors. Unless all their cable is sealed in concrete vaults I suspect many "accidental" cuts to their system. TPC and TCC would also fight them at the legel level, claiming all kinds of unfair advantage. But the public will ultimately demand these services, just as it demanded cheap TV's, Cheap autos, subsidized roads and gas, etc etc. A luxery once tasted becomes a neccesity. TPC is counting on the public's unsaitiable desire for luxeries, and their ability to con them into thinking it's the only one who can provide them. Gerry Lawrence University of Florida -- Engineering Computer Services ------------------------------ From: ccoprfm@prism.gatech.edu (Monte Freeman) Subject: Stolen Cell Phone Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 2:27:56 EDT Pat, Over this past weekend, someone broke into my car. The two items they removed (they wanted the whole car, but the alarm system prevented them from getting that. ) were my OKI 700 cellular phone and a Yaesu FT-727 dual band hand-held ham radio. I realize that I'll probably never see the HT again; but I was wondering what you and/or the rest of the readers think my chances of getting the phone back are? I called Pactel and told them what had happened. They turned off service to the phone immediately. I've heard that there is a database of stolen phone ESNs that the different service providers keep. What I'm not sure about is if this database is local to each area, or if it's a nationwide thing ... If I report a phone stolen here in Atlanta, are the cellular service providers in Chicago or L.A. likely to know about it? If the phone does show up "active" on a cell somewhere, is it possible (or more importantly is it done) to try and track it down? One more thing. I think that the OKI 700 is no longer made ... :( Anyone got any recommendations on replacements that I can give to the insurance company? Thanks, Monte Freeman -- Operations Department / Information Technology Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 Internet: ccoprfm@prism.gatech.edu Bitnet: ccoprfm@gitvm1.bitnet [Moderator's Note: I think the chances of recovering the phone are almost zilch. Yes, there is a nationwide negative listing that all the carriers see. Most likely when the thief discovered the phone would not work any longer he sold it to some cell phone phreak for ten dollars ... :( that person will try and modify the ESN or possibly use the phone for scrap parts, etc. Sorry about your bad luck. PAT] ------------------------------ From: turner@rsiatl.UUCP Date: Sun, 11 Oct 92 18:35 EDT From: rsiatl!turner@rsiatl.UUCP Subject: Where Can I Get: Digital Matrix Switches, Craft Tools, RF links Reply-To: turner@dixie.com There have been a number of the "where can I get" questions and I thought I would tackle a few now that I am home, and can pull the info from my files: 1) I think Tim Lowe asked about an RS-232 matrix switch. When I checked my mail, I had a catalog from Phoenix Telecom. Test Equipment in Huntsville, AL. In addition to the standard lineup of VF and digital test equipiment, they sell a digital matrix switch that does RS-232, 422, 449, V.35, T1, E1, or T1 "hitless" (unframed?) depending on the model. Comes with 16 ports, expandable to 256. Model 3250 Matrix Switch Phoenix Microsystems, Inc 1-(205) 922-1200 1-800-866-8480 2) Craft Tools: James Gustave writes: > Does anyone know of a source for telephone installation equipment? > I'm not talking about radio-shack crimpers and plugs, but rather the > fun stuff that the telco people have. Like linesperson's handsets, or > the things-they-hook-to-the-lines-that-go-BEEP. Someone must know > what I'm talking about. > Either a source in the Bay Area or something mail-order would be > great. Thanks. The buzzer is called a tone generator. Most were made by PEI. The receiver is called an inductive line aid, AKA banana. Try Greybar, Anixter, North Supply, and Alltel Supply in your local phone book. In addition to SPC and Jensen mentioned in todays issue of the digest, try : Time Motion Tools (619) 689-7272 Techni-Tool (213) 941-2400 For a good buy on new and used telecom tools try: Western Tel-Com Surplus Co. 1-800-543-5916 They have reconditioned rotary butt sets for $25, TS-21's for 125/150 new. 3) Chris Kennedy writes: > I recently purchased a hunk of land in more or less the middle of > nowhere and am seeking alternatives to simply paying line extension > charges in order to meet my telecom needs. By way of background my > current residential telecom mix consists of five voice and one 56Kb > ADN line, > FM prop > characteristics in the area are good and with modest work I can get > line-of site to a commercial tower where rent is cheap and a PacBell > presence in place. Look at 900 MHz Spread Spectrum links. One company that comes to mind is Cylink (1-408-735-5800). They make several fractional T1 links. My guess is that will work if you are LOS to the tower (<20 miles). Their systems have a loss budget of around 120 dB, which shouldn't be hard to meet with Yagi antennas. They also make 5 GHz radios and others sell 2.5 GHz radios such as Western Multiplex Corp. (1-415-592-8832) that are SS. I would avoid these as they will require a fortune in feedline. Most users point them out a window or mount them on a roof top where long feedlines aren't needed. If you need a source for high gain antennas on these frequencies let me know. Dishes, Yagi's and omni's are available, but at least one company (Marti Electronics) recommends against the latter two at these freq's. Pat Turner KB4GRZ turner@dixie.com ------------------------------ From: hauben@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Michael Hauben) Subject: Help Needed With Communications and Computers Date: 14 Oct 92 03:56:35 GMT Reply-To: hauben@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Michael Hauben) Organization: Columbia University I am taking a Computers and Society class and the following is the proposal I handed into my teacher. I will appreciate it if anyone has any comments on it, or if they can help me with references and / or a better clarification or sharpening of a topic. Thanks, -Michael Computers & Society Term Paper Proposal Computers and concurrent technologies have had a significant impact on communications. I am interested in writing on the impact that this combination is having and will have on people's lives. The combination of computers and communications has led to enormous networks that transmit and carry numerous different types of information and data. In Computers, Communications and Society, Murray Laver wrote: "Cost apart, territorial distances are no longer a barri- er ... If the present trend continues, then by 1980 more than 90% of the world's computers would be linked to communica- tion systems. This combination promises to be exceptionally important because its effect will not be confined to one section of technology, nor to technology alone. The collec- tion and exchange of information underlies all that we do, and the structures and functions of industrial society depend absolutely on its prompt and ample supply. A major change in information techniques is bound to affect every aspect of out lives -- economic, social, political and domes- tic -- and we need to be alert and aware of what is happening if we aspire to direct its course." (Oxford, 1975, p 1) This flow of information can selectively be accessed, allowing the individual to make the information suit him or her. This is a fundamental change from the traditional mode of the mass media making the individual conform to it. The world is becoming more accessible while at the same time growing in size. New international communities are forming (based on common interests, backgrounds, and abilities.) The combined efforts of people interested in communication has led to the development and expansion of the global communica- tions system. Ithiel de Sola Pool in Technologies Without Bound- aries wrote: "The system becomes part of the largest machine that man has ever constructed -- the global telecommunications network. The full map of it no one knows; it changes every day." (Cambridge, 1990, p 56) This system has grown because of the interest people have in communicating with the world outside of themselves. The voluntary nature of this system has lead to an enormous collection of generally helpful resources in other people and collections of information. A current material example of the fundamental powers of this communications and information revolution is Eastern Europe. Much of the changes there were assisted through the opening up of information and communication. The organized form of Usenet News assists in the connections. This example might possibly serve as a foundation for my premises. A useful pointer is the following quote from "The Information Technologies and East European Societies" in East European Politics and Societies: "The perception of serious technological backwardness, and the desire to end it, lie at the heart of Eastern Europe's economic, political, and social upheaval...The computer and its related technologies have contributed most to the indus- trial world's rapid economic restructuring and have high- lighted Eastern Europe's economic deficiencies most clear- ly." (vol 5, no 3, Fall '91, p. 394) My research will consist of materials from books and my personal experiences. Along with this, I will interact with the Net and think of interviewing people involved with the develop- ment of various parts of the global communications network, along with personal observations from people who participate in Usenet. As an example of the helpful resources, I posted a message in several newsgroups to gain help in figuring out a useful and interesting topic. In response I received over ten email responses from around the world offering help. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #779 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa24764; 15 Oct 92 2:20 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA32167 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Wed, 14 Oct 1992 23:55:04 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA06253 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Wed, 14 Oct 1992 23:54:55 -0500 Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 23:54:55 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210150454.AA06253@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #780 TELECOM Digest Wed, 14 Oct 92 23:55:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 780 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Fibre Cables Not That Immortal (Don Kimberlin) Re: Fiber to the Home (David G. Lewis) How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs? (Toby Nixon) Cost Accounting Software (Craig A. Brown) Different Rings For Different Things? (Justin Leavens) It's Back - FBI Wiretap Bill (Ron Dippold) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 00:14:42 -0400 From: Don.Kimberlin@f730.n250.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Don Kimberlin) Subject: Fibre Cables Not That Immortal [originally posted in Fidonet BROADCAST conference, with some spelling corrections] Here's a just a bit of "real world" about fiber optic cable and those overblown statements about the apparent invincibility of fiber optic cable ... those things that trumpet phrases like, "Impervious to harm and interruption ... non-metallic and interference-proof!"... and so on. In fact, practical fiber optic cable of the type planted in the ground for intercity use has at least two important natural enemies, both of which have caused, and continue to cause failures of those cables, gophers and lightning. Both have been significant causes of failure of preceding cable technologies in the twisted copper pairs and coaxial cables of the earlier analog era. A recent edition of "Lightguide Digest" published by AT&T technologies tells quite openly how AT&T's RL series of fiber optic cable is constructed to attempt to avoid both kinds of natural enemies. First addressing the gopher threat, the article describes it as a "gnawing problem" that "is growing." It says, "the fact is well established that rodents such as gophers will gnaw through unprotected buried cables. Information collected in the 1950s indicated that gopehrs infested more than 60 percent of the continental U.S." An accompanying figure shows a distribution of gopher areas to include almost all the area west of the Mississippi River plys most of Florida, Georgia and about a third of Alabama. The article goes on, "To grind down incisors which grow approximately 12 inches per year, gophers spend 10 percent of their time, which means more than 90,000 bites per week, gnawing various items including fiber optic cable." The bite pressure exerted by a gopher on fiber optic cable is said to reach as high as 18,000 pounds per square inch. The habits of the gopher are described as a creature that keeps a home territory of several hundred square feet, saying that cables buried through gopher territories are the victims of repeated gnawing attacks. Reports have been made of gophers completely severing all-dielectric fiber cables in Ohio, an area not previously thought to be in the "gopher zone," and Colorado reports indicate gophers there are a widespread threat to unprotected fiber optic lines. Two methods are the only ones known to be effective against gopher attack: One is to place the nominal 1/2-inch diameter fiber cable in a 2-1/2 to 4 inch diameter rigid PVC conduit, an expense communications companies would rather avoid. The other is to use a cable with a stainless steel sheath around its fiber optic contents ... which makes the cable conductive, increasing the risk of lightning striking the cable and literally blowing the cable in pieces. Indeed, the article reports that one Mountain Bell fiber cut was caused by gnawing through a two-inch outer conduit, anyway. Larger cement or ceramic conduit might be used, but that would increase costs of placing cable evern more. To attempt gopher protection, AT&T has two calbe designs in its RL series. The first, for direct burial in rural areas, is called Primary Rodent- Lightning (Primary RL) Sheath. It consists of a corrugated stainless steel armor layer bonded to an outer polyethelyne jacket that contains a surrounding layer of wire strength members. The visual representation of this cable winds up looking very much like transoceanic deep-sea cables that have evolved over more than 130 years of submarine telegraphy around the world, the only difference being that the center of the cable is hollow, providing for a variety of forms of fibers inside. The other type, called the Lightguide Express Entry Rodent-Lightning LXE-RL Sheath, has but two strength- member wires in its jacket and a layer of "Water-Blocking/Lightning Tape" located under its stainless steel jacket. The article goes on to describe how such cable types are actually tested and rated for gopher resistance. A sample of cable is buried in a closed-off area (underground barricades to contain the gophers within a confined area) with ten gophers that have nothing else to gnaw on. Ratings of one to five indicate whether any given gopher managed to inflict damage ranging from cutting the outer jacket to completely biting the cable in two. The final rating of a given cable is the averaage of the scores of the ten different gophers placed in the area to attack the cable. The gophers used for the test are provided by the Denver Wildlife Research Center of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the gopher most often supplied is the common plains "pocket gopher" called Geomys Bursarius, a small animal only 7 ot 9 inches in length that rarely weighs more than half a pound. The other hazard that arises to intercity fiber optic cables, since metallic sheaths must be used to prevent gopher damage, and wires along the cable must be added to provide "strength" so the cable can be pulled and handled, is lightning. One of the lesser-understood factors about buried metallic conductors is that since they are often more conductive than the surrounding soil they are buried in, they are better, more attractive conductors to lightning than the dirt that surrounds them. This means that lightning can, and is, actually attracted to even buried cable, and that momentary lightning currents in the metallic members of those cable can rise high enough to actually melt a hole in the cable. Indeed, buried fiber optic cable can be struck in open rural areas, resulting in failure of the cable until the damaged section is replaces. One notable such case happened to MCI in a buried cable west of Jacksonville, Florida, where a lightning bolt that seemed to appear out of nowhere stabbed down into a buried fiber cable in an open field. Even more dramatic is the piece of damaged RL cable on display in the Charlotte, NC office of AT&T, which can be seen to have split open from the forces exerted on it when struck by lightning. That piece of damaged cable was struck with such force when it was buried four feet under an open soybean field near Davidson, NC. The cableman who repaired it stated that on the surface, a hole about the size of a golf ball had been made in the dirt, with spherical balls of dirt thrown back up around the hole where the lightning struck the ground on its way down to reach the metallic elements of the fiber cable. So, now you have some facts to bear in mind the next time you hear some salesman touting the apparently impervious, uniterruptible nature of fiber optic cable plant. It has the same sort of failure potentials that previous cables have had for decades! Don Kimberlin - via FidoNet node 1:250/98 INTERNET: Don.Kimberlin@f730.n250.z1.FIDONET.ORG ------------------------------ From: deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) Subject: Re: Fiber to the Home Organization: AT&T Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 17:40:46 GMT In article , Leonard.Erickson@f51. n105.z1.fidonet.org (Leonard Erickson) writes: > In TELECOM Digest V12#763 deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) > writes: >> Using your 5000 phone lines per (I'm guessing you mean) fiber pair, at >> 64kb/s for a phone line, you're talking sending 160Mb/s to each house. >> Let's use 155Mb/s, since that's an STS-3 SONET/SDH rate. Anyone know >> what an STS-3 FOT is going for these days? I don't have any >> up-to-date information (and if I did, I probably wouldn't be allowed >> to post it), but I'd guess that $30k/link (both ends) is correct >> within an order of magnitude. Even if using ring architectures and >> ADMs can drop your costs by a factor of two (unlikely to impossible), >> you're talking $15k electronics costs per house. >> Even if the cost of overlaying the fiber itself goes to zero, you've >> just incurred a $15k per subscriber incremental cost. At a 50,000 >> line CO, that's an investment of $750 million dollars. For capacity >> which will, basically, sit there until people figure out how to use >> it. > On the other hand, how *cheap* could a 64kb/s interface be? That's all > it'd take to supply a "regular" phone line. And in the quantities > involved, I'd expect the cost to drop *fast*. For the sake of > argument, call it $50. (I've seen RS-232 to fiber adapters in that > range). That's a different question than the one I was answering. I was responding to a statement to the effect that "capacity is free, so the telco should overbuild by a factor of 5000 because someday someone will find a use for it." My point was that capacity is most emphatically *not* free; even though the cost *for fiber* is no different whether one or 5000 equivalent phone lines is run over that fiber, the cost of the fiber is by no means the only cost factor -- and may not even be the dominant cost factor -- in determining the cost of providing large amounts of capacity to a user. We could probably discuss for hours (and people do, regularly) the economics of fiber to the home/fiber to the curb/fiber in the loop. I'll just make some observations: * Most RS-232 to fiber converters use multimode fibers and LED transmitters, which are considerably less expensive than semiconductor lasers for use with single-mode fiber. And if you're building to allow megabandwidth in the future, you'll build single-mode fiber. * Depending on whose studies you believe, fiber in the subscriber loop as far as a pedestal serving four to eight residence customers, with copper drops from there to the demark, is somewhere between 25% above (and dropping) to 25% below total copper distribution, on an installed first cost (IFC) basis. This architecture has the advantage of pushing fiber into the loop to a certain point, with the possibility of running it the rest of the way to the residence when the economics improve. * Also depending on whose studies you believe, fiber to the home is anywhere from three to ten years away from matching copper on an installed first cost basis. * Regardless of whose studies you believe, all these IFC comparisons omit from consideration cost and other factors both for and against fiber, like cost of operations support system upgrading (against), improved operational capabilities of fiber (for), improved quality and reliability (for), ease of upgrading (for), and the fact that the copper distribution plant is already there (big against). * Telcos will generally act on whoever's studies *they* believe. Ameritech has placed a large order for fiber in the loop equipment, which leads me to believe that they believe that it's cheaper than copper in some scenarios. In general, you can expect that telcos are somewhat intelligent when it comes to building networks, and if something's cheaper than what they're doing now, it won't take them *too* long to latch onto it. > And if you need extra capacity, instead of running more lines, you > replace the interface box at the user premises. Indeed, this is one large advantage of fiber. > I'm not sure whether the CO end of the fiber would be better served > by a box capable of handling a range of line capcities, or by a > dedicated box. A "box" capable of handling a range of capacities without changing any hardware is, currently, a myth. Some systems (like AT&T's DDM-2000) use one system framework (processor, low-speed interfaces, common elements, etc.) with several different varieties of optical interface for different line speeds (e.g. OC-3 and OC-12), but if you change the line speed, you have to at least change out the optical interface. > Either way, at some point, in the course of upgrading, it'll be > necessary to "move" the fiber to a different box. While this is not as > simple as splicing copper, I doubt that it'd be *that* expensive. Actually, done right, it's easier than splicing copper; if done right, the outside plant (OSP) fiber terminates in a splice tray and is spliced onto a connectorized jumper; the jumper is then connected to whatever equipment you want. You want to change the equipment, you move the jumper. Of course, you have to coordinate things so you don't bring the user down ... Typical Disclaimer: I don't work with this stuff, and I never did at AT&T, so I don't necessarily know what I'm talking about, and even if I do, it's not necessarily what my company's position is. Anywhere. Ever. ------------------------------ From: Toby Nixon Subject: How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs? Date: 15 Oct 92 01:30:06 EDT Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA My wife and I are considering building a new house (well, having it built for us) for ourselves and our five kids. Before we know it, those kids are going to be teens, with heavy telecom demands. Although we currently have just two standard POTS circuits, I want to look ahead and get the house wired up-front to handle our needs far into the future (maybe a mini-PBX, maybe ISDN, an intercom, whatever). What I'm think of is having three or four-pair twisted pair cable run from each room separately (not daisy-chained the way they normally do it) to a punch-down block in some central location, so we can hook things together anyway we want. Is that a good idea? Do you have any other advice for us? Thanks in advance. Toby Nixon, Principal Engineer | Voice +1-404-840-9200 Telex 401243420 Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc. | Fax +1-404-447-0178 CIS 70271,404 P.O. Box 105203 | BBS +1-404-446-6336 AT&T !tnixon Atlanta, Georgia 30348 | UUCP uunet!hayes!tnixon Fido 1:114/15 USA | Internet tnixon@hayes.com ------------------------------ From: craigb@craigb.uark.edu (Craig A. Brown) Subject: Cost Accounting Software Organization: University of Arkansas Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 15:47:38 GMT The University of Arkansas is presently using the TeleMate call accounting software from Complementary Solutions for capture and billing of institution long distance calls. We are considering providing our own, billable service to students. Based upon the length of time it currently takes to generate billing and management reports from TeleMate on a 486/25, we are somewhat concerned about the impact of the additional load. We have received material from Styker System Incorporated for their MegaBase product which they claim is the world's fastest large database cost accounting software. Have any of you had any experience with this product? Thanks in advance for any information. ------------------------------ From: leavens@mizar.usc.edu (Justin Leavens) Subject: Different Rings For Different Things? Date: 14 Oct 1992 10:25:54 -0700 Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA CLASS features such as the "Repeat Dialing" and "Priority Ringing" that are being offered now. I am curious to know if there are any specifications or standard in place so that these special rings could be picked up by a modem (one in the future specifically designed to look for these rings) or a terminal communications program. Justin Leavens Microcomputer Specialist University of Southern California ------------------------------ From: rdippold@qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) Subject: It's Back - FBI Wiretap Bill Organization: Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 00:28:53 GMT According to {EE Times} this week (Oct 12.), the FBI has sent Congress another version of the legislation to make it easier for them to listen to any phone conversation. "Both the House and enate are expected to act quickly on the bill when Congress returns early next year. "The bill is a slightly rewritten version of legislation submitted last spring, which was dropped after both lawmakers and the telecommunications industry complained." Then there's more whining from the FBI that they're apparently incompetent to handle wiretapping with digital technology, Unfortunately, the "slightly rewritten" isn't detailed, so there's no specifics as to what changed. It goes on to say that industry is opposed, mostly because of the cost of fitting and retrofitting everything so that the FBI can spy on people. The FBI claims it will "only" cost "$300 million, or around 1.5 percent of the industry's total yearly acquisition budget." Any government estimate of taxation is going to be way too low, especially when applied to an industry with the resources of the telecom industry, so we apparently have a lower cost floor of $300 million. "Industry has been talking to the FBI to try to get some agreement on a private level rather than through legislation. But the FBI says these talks are moving too slowly and it wants its legislation to go ahead." I can't see any of the three major candidates vetoing something like this once they take office, so we may have to swamp Congress again. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #780 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa25099; 15 Oct 92 2:41 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA22571 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Thu, 15 Oct 1992 00:10:03 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA00162 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Thu, 15 Oct 1992 00:09:31 -0500 Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 00:09:31 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210150509.AA00162@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu Subject: 19th Century Telegraphers (Book Review) I received this interesting book review in my mail today and thought it worthwhile sharing with TELECOM Digest readers. PAT From: haynes@cats.UCSC.EDU (Jim Haynes) Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 18:20:09 -0700 Subject: 19th Century Telegraphers (Book Review) Book Review The American Telegrapher: a social history 1860-1900 Edwin Gabler Rutgers University Press, 1988 ISBN 0-8135-1284-0 (hardbound), 0-8135-1285-9 (paperback) I seem to read a lot of books which are at the same time both interesting and tedious. This is one such book. Written by an academic historian for reading by other academic historians, it is long on footnotes, theories, and statistics and short on flesh-and-blood storytelling; yet there is enough of the latter to entertain the casual reader. Part I of this review is an attempt to convey the general message of the book. Part II is for fun: a selection of stories about the lives and times telegraphers a century ago. Part I There are five chapters: a history of the Great Strike of 1883 as an introduction to the world of the operators; a description of the telegraph industry and especially Western Union; a social portrait of the telegraphers; a study of women telegraphers; and a summary of the labor movement and politics of telegraphers. An epilogue compares the situation of telegraphers in the 1880s with that of the air traffic controllers a hundred years later. Telegraph and railroad companies following the Civil War represented an entirely new kind of business, one in which the company's assets are strung out for hundreds or thousands of miles with offices and employees sprinkled along the lines. There were other affinities between the two kinds of companies. Railroads used telegraphy to support their own operations. Railroad rights-of-way were ideal places to run telegraph lines, affording easy access for construction and maintenance at a time when there were few roads. Telegraph business was likely to be found in the same places the railroads served. In many small towns the railroad station served as the public telegraph office, as there was not enough telegraph business to support an office for telegraph alone. Some railroads such as B & O operated their own public telegraph businesses. (cf. Southern Pacific a century later getting into the communications business.) Other railroads had contract arrangements with the telegraph companies, principally Western Union, for use of rights of way, interconnection of circuits, and providing public telegraph service at the railroad stations. These new kinds of businesses needed a new kind of management. The military became their model. Many of the top managers were alumni of the Civil War military telegraph system. The companies had divisions, rule books, general orders and special orders, and chains of command. Management style was authoritarian. As is the case with some companies today, the telegraph and railroad companies then were headed by a mixture of people who knew the business and those who were primarily financial wizards. Telegraph operators represented the beginning of a new social class, the lower-middle-class white-collar employees of large corporations. Many were the children of farmers or of city blue-collar workers. A great many were of Irish lineage. For all of these telegraphy offered a step up the social ladder as well as an escape from hard physical labor and city slums or rural isolation. Telegraphy was an occupation open to women, although the majority of operators were male (and, like the women, young and unmarried). The national economy was fairly flat or even deflationary during the period 1860-1890. Western Union profits rose handsomely throughout the period. The operators did not share in this prosperity. For one thing, there was an oversupply of them. First-class operators, who could send and receive thirty to forty words per minute for hours on end, were assigned to press and market reporting circuits. They could command pay two to three times as great as that of the second-class operators who made up the bulk of the force. Many operators learned the craft by hanging around small railroad and telegraph offices; others worked their way up from messenger and clerk jobs in larger offices; still others were trained at a number of schools that sprang up around the country. Most of the latter seem to have been disreputable if not completely fraudulent, operating for profit and promising high pay and mobility to rural youth. They were the century-ago counterparts of the for-profit data processing schools of our own times, the kind that advertised on matchbook covers and turned out an oversupply of under-qualified graduates for high tuition fees. Another financial problem for the telegraphers resulted from their new social class. Telegraphers' pay was on a par with that of skilled blue-collar workers; but their living expenses were greater. With the move to suits and ties and shined shoes they felt a need to live in middle-class housing, eat middle-class meals, and partake of middle-class entertainments. A few of the operators' perceptions of mistreatment by the companies were more apparent than real. The 1840s through 1860s had been a period when telegraphy was just getting started. Job opportunities were abundant and promotions were rapid. As the industry matured there were fewer spectacular success stories; telegraphy even seemed to be a dead-end job. Other complaints had a more solid foundation. Mergers of telegraph companies eliminated jobs. An economic downturn in the 1870s caused Western Union to institute across-the-board salary reductions, which were partially offset by monetary deflation. Operators tended to move around a lot, which allowed the company to hire cheaper replacements for those who left. The first attempt of telegraph workers to organize was the National Telegraphic Union of 1863. This was more of a mutual benefit society than a labor union. It provided members with sickness and funeral benefits and aimed to elevate the character of the members and promote just and harmonious relations with employers. With conditions for telegraphers growing worse after the Civil War the Telegraphers' Protective League was formed in 1868 as a very different kind of organization. It was a secret organization, because there was nothing at the time to protect its members from the unbridled power of their employers. Rather than relieving the sick and burying the dead it proposed to raise the members to a financial position in which they could take care of themselves. The TPL felt strong enough by January, 1870 to risk a strike against Western Union. It failed after about a week. There were just too many operators seeking work, especially in the winter season; the company was too strong; and the union was too poorly organized. The operators' situation continued to deteriorate through the 1870s as Western Union reduced wages, the number of would-be operators increased, and the company absorbed its competitors. An attempt to form another union in 1872 fizzled. In 1881 Jay Gould took over Western Union, moving the company closer to being a true national monopoly. By the summer of 1882 a number of regional labor organizations put aside their differences to form the Brotherhood of Telegraphers of the United States and Canada under the aegis of the Knights of Labor. The Brotherhood, unlike its predecessors, accepted the female operators as members. In July, 1883 the Brotherhood presented a list of grievances to Western Union and some other firms, hoping for at least a compromise settlement and at worst a short strike. When the company made no meaningful concessions the telegraphers walked out on July 19. At first things looked good for the Brotherhood. About three fourths of Western Union operators honored the strike. Public opinion was much on the side of the telegraphers, at least to the extent that it was against the side of Jay Gould and the W.U. monopoly. One competing telegraph company settled quickly with the union; and another (B & O) came close to, but never close enough. Union leaders worked hard to keep the public on their side, urging the strikers to be models of dignity and sobriety. The women were as valiant as the men, if not more so, in upholding the strike. Still, public sympathy did not feed the hungry; and the strike dwindled until it was officially called off August 17. Operators wishing to return to work had to sign a pledge of loyalty; those considered militant unionists were blacklisted by the company. Still, it appears the company was somewhat humbled by the power of the union and made a few concessions to the operators. Failure of the strike led to some ill feeling in the larger labor movement. The telegraphers accused the Knights of insufficient support; the Knights leadership felt the telegraphers had acted impulsively and without sufficient preparation. The Brotherhood soon withdrew from the Knights; and union activity reverted to local groups. Yet by 1885 there was a new organization, the Telegraphers' Union of America, which rejoined the Knights in 1886. This seems to have faded away by the early 1890s along with the Knights. Railroad telegraphers formed the Order of Railway Telegraphers in 1886. An Order of Commercial Telegraphers was formed in 1890 but never amounted to much, and allied itself with the railway telegraphers in 1897-98. The next attempt to form a union didn't happen until 1907, with the Commercial Telegraphers' Union of America, which also suffered disaster in a strike against Western Union. Gabler concludes with a discussion of a number of labor and political issues affecting telegraphers. One of the Brotherhood's demands had been equal pay for equal work, male and female. This seems to have been widely hailed as the Right Thing to do. I wonder whether the male telegraphers supported the demand because it was right; or if they supported it because they knew if the companies had to pay men and women the same they would hire only men. Some wanted a craft union, with membership limited to telegraphers, with an apprenticeship program that would raise the quality of operators while reducing their numbers. There was some interest in government licensing of operators. Others favored an industrial union, open to all Western Union employees. Some objected to the secret fraternal rites that were a feature of the Knights of Labor; Catholic workers were forbidden to become members of secret organizations of any kind. The operators wanted to protect their new middle-class image by being models of respectability and sobriety; some of the linemen on the other hand had no scruples about cutting wires to increase pressure on the companies during a strike. Some felt that telegraphy should be a government monopoly, as was and still is the norm in Europe. Some saw salvation in a worker-owned cooperative, if they could only convince the banks or the government to put up the money necessary to establish the system. Others sought to improve the status of the working classes through political action; quite a number were attracted to the United Labor Party of Henry George. A hundred years later issues like these are still with us. Part II Dr. Gabler had access to a vast amount of material: census records, archives of the telegraph companies, contemporary newspaper accounts, magazines published for the edification and amusement of operators, and even novels in which telegraphers were used as characters. The footnotes and bibliography take up 48 pages. One page in the book is an illustration of advertisements in a telegraphers' magazine of 1883. They include a book on shorthand, a book of money-making secrets, a book on the mysteries of love-making, a book on fortune telling, watch charms with microscopic pictures, a book of advice to the unmarried, a package of stationery, a book on politeness, a book of letters for all occasions, playing cards with marked backs, a book of magic tricks, a book on business, and a book on ballroom dancing. The theme is that these appealed to working-class young adults who felt a need to learn how to behave properly as members of the middle-class. A number of telegraph operators rose to prominence. Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie are the best known; Theodore N. Vail was a founder of AT&T; others found success in business or politics; and almost all the upper management of Western Union was drawn from the ranks of operators. In 1885 there were five doctors and one dentist moonlighting as telegraph operators -- maybe medicine and dentistry didn't pay all that well in those days. Thomas Edison, as a young telegrapher in the 1860s, would work a full day and then stay in the office at night, listening to a press circuit to get high speed code practice. Later he worked the Boston end of a New York circuit with an operator named Jerry Borst. Operators formed friendships with their counterparts at the other end of the wires. The telegraph companies insisted that operators should work at whatever circuits they were assigned. Edison and Borst conspired to change three characters of the code, so that nobody else could copy their transmissions and they could always work together. Cockroaches were such a problem in the office that Edison devised a bug zapper to protect his lunch from the little beasties. Friendships over the wires were nourished during lulls in traffic by exchanges of jokes and local news, and by checker games. Sometimes love and courtship blossomed too. At other times operators were rude to one another. On one occasion two operators got so angry at each other that they arranged to meet at a town halfway between their posts and settle the matter with fists at 1:00 AM. "Salting" (sending too fast for the receiving operator) was a frequent source of irritation. Salting was also part of the common practice of hazing new operators. Operators frequently got privileges, such as free passes to theaters and on trains. With the chronic oversupply it was common for operators to travel back and forth across the country looking for work, or for better conditions. Operators didn't get vacations, paid or otherwise; but in the summer months telegraph offices would open in the resort towns where the rich took their vacations, and operators could find work there. In 1883 Western Union employed 444 telegraphers in New York City, 96 in Boston, 88 in St. Louis, and 83 in Chicago. This seems to support a conjecture of mine that W.U. was weakened all its life by overattention to serving New York City and insufficient effort to develop the business in other parts of the country. There was friction between the city operators and the rural operators. The city operators were proud of their skills, and wanted to move the traffic. They resented they way country operators would frequently interrupt transmissions. The country operators, usually working in railroad depots, countered that telegraphy was but a small part of their duties. They had to answer questions from the public, sell tickets, meet trains, tend switches and signals, handle freight, and keep the lamps burning. They commonly worked shifts as long as twelve or even sixteen hours. Development of duplex and then quadruplex operation greatly increased the pressure on operators, as the receiving operators could not interrupt the senders. Gender stereotyping held that only male operators had the stamina to handle these heavily-loaded circuits; yet the book cites a number of examples of women who worked these circuits. Women were consistently paid less than men. The companies were well aware that women were a bargain compared with men, and continually tried to replace men with women. Nellie Welch had full charge of the telegraph office in Point Arena, California in 1886. She was eleven years old. Western Union and the Cooper Union Institute in 1869 jointly started a free eight-month telegraphy course for women. It lasted through the early 1890s, turning out about 80 graduates a year. They would first take non-paying jobs assisting regular operators, and then be hired as operators on lightly loaded city circuits. This school was much despised by men for its contribution to the oversupply problem, thought it probably hurt the opportunities for women more than those for men. Beginner and less-skilled operators were called "plugs" or "hams." (Note the endless controversy over the origin of the term "ham" for amateur radio operators.) The schools that turned out these operators were called "plug factories." Craft magazines sought to shame operators who taught telegraphy. They were urged to pass on the secrets of Morse only to brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. At least one railroad operator quit his job rather than cooperate with a student placed with him by the company. ---------------- [Moderator's Note: My thanks for this very interesting article. Digest readers are encouraged to send book reviews and other special articles like this to Telecom for distribution on the net. PAT]   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa26745; 15 Oct 92 3:23 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA03667 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Thu, 15 Oct 1992 00:43:41 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA13051 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Thu, 15 Oct 1992 00:43:25 -0500 Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 00:43:25 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210150543.AA13051@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #781 TELECOM Digest Thu, 15 Oct 92 00:43:20 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 781 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: East German Pay Phone (Martin McCormick) Re: East German Pay Phone (Dick Rawson) Re: East German Pay Phone (Tom Coradeschi) Re: East German Pay Phone (Eric Tholome) Re: College Phone System AGAIN! (Scott Fybush) Re: College Phone System AGAIN! (Jeff Dubin) Re: N-1-1 Codes for Relay Services (Curtis E. Reid) Re: N-1-1 Codes for Relay Services (Ralph Hyre) Re: Why No Sprint Service Here Since Thursday? (Tom Streeter) Re: Why No Sprint Service Here Since Thursday? (David G. Lewis) Re: Seeking Information on SS7 Packets (Alan L. Varney) Re: Seeking Information on SS7 Packets (Jack Adams) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: East German Pay Phone Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 11:54:54 -0500 From: martin@datacomm.ucc.okstate.edu A few ways one could have a hook switch with no moving parts are: The ear piece of the handset could have a reed switch in it and the hanger could be magnetic. When the receiver was on the hook, the reed switch could be pulled open. Another variation on that idea would be to have a Hall-effect transistor as the switching device and the magnet in the hanger, as before. I have actually seen such a chip. It is a three-terminal device. You put power on one pin, ground another, and the third one is open until a magnet is brought near, at which time it suddenly goes to ground. It's really neat. Finally, it's possible that there could be a photo cell in the hanger with a light source so that the handset blocks it when in place. My own belief is that it is a magnetic switch. It's quite possible that the switching element is in the metal plate near the hanger and that the permanent magnet in the ear piece of the handset is what actuates it. If a reed switch is used, the metal plate near the hanger would be a better location for it because those things tend to open and close when beat on. The normal movements of a handset in a user's hands would probably cause this to happen all the time which would be quite frustrating to say the least. Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK O.S.U. Computer Center Data Communications Group ------------------------------ From: drawson@sagehen.Tymnet.COM (Dick Rawson) Subject: Re: East German Pay Phone Date: 14 Oct 92 18:58:58 GMT Organization: BT North America (Tymnet) >> The most interesting thing is that the hanger for the handset did >> not appear to move for off-hook indication. > That reminds me. At the end of May I was in what used to be East > Berlin, and made a call from a pay phone there ... > That phone, too, had no obvious moving parts for off-hook detection. > ... Anyone know how it worked? Speculation: perhaps the phone box detects the permanent magnet that is likely to be in the handset's earpiece. A reed relay would be low-tech and reliable (like the burglar-alarm door switches), but I question if it is sensitive enough. A Hall-effect flux detector would work, but is it economical enough? A metal panel shouldn't bother a STEADY magnetic field, although it attenuates an alternating field. Dick ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 9:22:37 EDT From: Tom Coradeschi Subject: Re: East German Pay Phone Organization: Electric Armts Div, US Army ARDEC, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) writes: > The most interesting thing is that the hanger for the handset did > not appear to move for off-hook indication. > That reminds me. At the end of May I was in what used to be East > Berlin, and made a call from a pay phone there (specifically, it was > in one of the city center S-Bahn stations, either Friedrichstrasse or > Alexanderplatz). > That phone, too, had no obvious moving parts for off-hook detection. > The hanger was metal, and the other end of the handset rested against > a small metal plate, so I wondered if it was be passing a small > current through the handset, but the handset seemed to be plastic. > Anyone know how it worked? Magnetically operated reedswitch would be my guess. (Magnet in handset, reedswitch in phone housing, driving a relay if needed [shouldn't be].) > There were no directories, so I needed to call directory assistance to [...] > After several repetitions of this, I pulled out the guidebook I was > carrying and found the *3*-digit code that *it* had given for dialing > West from East Berlin (849, I think). I tried this and it worked. > The mind boggles. Now that I think of it, it also rather boggled at > the fact that, unless my hotel listing included some out-of-date > numbers, West Berlin telephone numbers could be five, six, seven, or > eight digits long ... Typical, actually. I've had occasion to deal with US Army installations in Germany (former West Germany, naturally:-}). One guy, in particular, has a ten-digit phone number and an eleven-digit fax number (different exchanges, although within the same city). tom coradeschi <+> tcora@pica.army.mil ------------------------------ From: tholome@bangalore.esf.de (Eric Tholome) Subject: Re: East German Pay Phone Date: 14 Oct 92 13:50:24 GMT Reply-To: tholome@bangalore.esf.de (Eric Tholome) Organization: ESF Headquarters, Berlin, FRG In article , msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) writes: > [stuff deleted] I knew East and West Berlin > were still separate for telephone purposes, but I was still surprised > when they were surprised that I didn't say "West Berlin" when I gave > the address. Well, I thought I'd let you know that the two (east and west) Berlin telephone networks are now pretty much integrated. We (in West Berlin) recently received a letter telling us that from now on, we wouldn't have to dial any special code to reach East Berlin. In other words, at least from the west, one can dial ANY Berlin number after the dial tone, without having to figure out in which part of the city it is. I assume that either your experience is a couple months old, or it isn't symmetric, i.e. people calling from East Berlin still have to differentiate the two types of calls. I must admit I've never given a call from East Berlin ... [stuff deleted] West Berlin telephone numbers could be five, six, seven, or eight digits long ...] I believe this is true in all Germany. They like to be able to give short telephone numbers to big advertisers or companies. I must say I don't really like it: you never know whether you got all the digits! Also, people never know how to group the digits. For example, my number at work has eight digits, which I can write 82 09 03 25, but my home number only has seven digits, which I usually write 262 51 22. Some people write them differently (e.g. 820 903 25). That's kind of confusing. Eric Tholome ESF Headquarters internet: tholome@esf.de Hohenzollerndamm 152 UUCP: tholome@esf.uucp D-1000 Berlin 33 Ph.: +49 30 82 09 03 25 Germany Fax: +49 30 82 09 03 19 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 21:10 EDT From: fybush@unixland.natick.ma.us (Scott Fybush) Subject: Re: College Phone System AGAIN! kupiec@hp800.lasalle.edu (Bob Kupiec) writes: > ...at LaSalle University. We have been running on > two PBX's (one for campus offices, one for campus dorms) and AT&T ACUS > for the dorms for the past few years. We were equipped with free > local calls, free 800, Call Waiting, Three-Way Calling and Call > Forwarding with all the frills. This reminds me of my experience at Brandeis University, from which I graduated this past May. Single PBX there, free local calls, call-waiting for $25 a semester (a bit steep compared to $2.58 a month from NETel), free 800, no other frills. > Now things have changed ... > Everything was fine until I returned for the fall semester. They > decided to consolidate the two switches into one NCR switch. So far > there has been nothing but trouble. > 800 access to all 800 numbers are BLOCKED (except for the 445 ACUS > prefix) and without an ACUS plan you can't call 800! What about > calling card users? The Telecom Operations guy gave me the useless > "800 numbers were forwarded to 900 numbers and we don't want to be > stuck with the bill" response. When the first of the 800-to-900 scams appeared in 1991, I paid a visit to the system administrator (someone who it's good to know ... if you can get this person to tell you the truth, they can be extremely valuable) to let her know the scam existed. Her response wawas to block that single number. Better than your campus' solution, to be sure, but still mostly a reactive solution. The campus system manager almost has to get burned by a number before knowing that it should be blocked. And of course the current user of Mystic Marketing's old 800 number is now inaccessible from Brandeis. > Call Waiting sometimes does not work for incoming off-campus calls. > There is NO way to block Call Waiting! This give me a fit, because > how am I supposed to use the modem?! At least Brandeis gives students the option of not buying the service. Now that I have REAL phone service from NETel, I do have Call Waiting (not my choice :-), but I can turn it off with *70. > Also, the Telecom Operations person told me one of the tie lines seems > to be messed up because some on-campus calls connect with very faint > audio. He also can't seem to find which one it is to disable it > either. > No Three-Way and no Call-Forwarding enabled. Also, and the previous > poster mentioned, there is NO WAY to get a local or LD Operator! NO > 9-0 and no 9-00. Only the campus operator. > I just hope that 9-911 works in case of an REAL emergency! (How > should I test this?) 9-911 is probably blocked, but for good reason. If there's an emergency on campus, you should be calling your campus public safety dispatcher. They can contact ambulance, fire, or local police if needed. However, a well-designed system should intercept 911 or 9-911 and send them to the campus dispatcher. How many people remember that the campus emergency number is, in my case, 3333? > The latest development is the ACUS codes don't even work! For the > last few days there has been no way to call home from the campus > telephones. I think I should ask for my "phone service" deposit back > because I sure don't get any. You have my condolences. My feeling in reading the last few posts on this thread, as well as in my dealings with Brandeis Telecom (check the archives for plenty of griping about them!) is that campus telecommunications needs should be handled by professionals. If the campus can't afford to hire someone who can manage the system properly -- and that means making sure there are enough trunks in and out to handle all traffic, ensuring access to all available telecom services that an "off-campus" user would have access to (and this includes 800, 900, 700, 10XXX-0, 950, weather and time/temp lines, and international direct dialing), fixing problems with the system quickly and properly, and at the same time providing protection against fraud -- then the campus should leave the job to the pros at the local telco. I'd rather pay $15 or $20 a month for decent, reliable, telco POTS service than have to put up with the really cruddy "service" that so many of these campus systems seem to offer. I'm paying a total of about $30 a month for service now (not including toll charges and taxes), and it is far superior in all regards to the Brandeis system. ------------------------------ Organization: The American University - University Computing Center Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 13:32:25 EDT From: Jeff Dubin Subject: Re: College Phone System AGAIN! You have a problem with faint audio also? Twice a week or so, I'm talking normally and all of a sudden I can't hear the other person, even though s/he can hear me fine. I guess my phone service isn't so bad after comaring it to yours! If you don't already, I'd demand a pay phone on your floor. At least that way you can call somewhere! Jeff Dubin jdubin@world.std.com jd2859a@american.edu ------------------------------ Date: 14 Oct 1992 09:34:33 -0400 (EDT) From: Curtis E. Reid Subject: Re: N-1-1 Codes for Relay Services In a message received on 12 Oct 1992, 18:28 attmail.com!cinpmx! cdid!rhyre%cubs@attmail.com wrote: >> Dialing 5-1-1 or 7-1-1 from anywhere in the country to access a >> state's relay service will be easy to remember, quicker, and will > Wouldn't this be a case where a 950-XXXX number is warranted? > (950-TRS1 or 950-TDD1). One could even imagine the XXXX mapping > the the LD carriers which seem to provide these relay services > in many states. > This would seem to be easier to implement for most LECs, and > it would also consume less of the remaining number space. An > added benefit is that 950 numbers typically incur no message > unit charges or other toll charges. You're probably right; however, I believe that 950-xxxx is a local implementation and so is the N-1-1. It still requires the FCC to make them consistent throughout the country. Also, it's easier to remember the N-1-1 than the 950-xxxx number which is probably why TDI made the proposal to FCC. As a matter of fact, there is one state that did a similar implementation: Maine. The Relay Service numbers for Maine Residents are: 955-DEAF and 955-DPRS. 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 716.475.6500 Fax ------------------------------ From: cinpmx!cdid!rhyre%cubs@attmail.com Date: 14 Oct 92 12:47:52 GMT Subject: Re: N-1-1 Codes for Relay Services > Dialing 5-1-1 or 7-1-1 from anywhere in the country to access a > state's relay service will be easy to remember, quicker, and will Wouldn't this be a case where a 950-XXXX number is warranted? (950-TRS1 or 950-TDD1). One could even imagine the XXXX mapping the the LD carriers which seem to provide these relay services in many states. This would seem to be easier to implement for most LECs, and it would also consume less of the remaining number space. An added benefit is that 950 numbers typically incur no message unit charges or other toll charges. ------------------------------ From: streeter@cs.unca.edu (Tom Streeter) Subject: Re: Why No Sprint Service Here Since Thursday? Organization: University of North Carolina at Asheville Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 20:57:39 GMT In article shri@nyx.cs.du.edu (H. Shrikumar) writes: > It's due to the recent torrential rains in western SC, that flooded a > Sprint DMS-250 switch (that was underground I believe). Will take > quite a while to get things back to normal. We are affected here in > central and eastern NC as well. My primary private net and 800 service > is with Sprint. Hmmmmmmm ... odd. I'm with Sprint in Asheville (western NC) and haven't had any problems. We're just 50 miles or so from Greenville. I *am* glad it quit raining, though. Tom Streeter | streeter@cs.unca.edu Dept. of Mass Communication | 704-251-6227 University of North Carolina at Asheville | Opinions expressed here are Ashevillen, NC 28804 | mine alone. ------------------------------ From: deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) Subject: Re: Why No Sprint Service Here Since Thursday? Organization: AT&T Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 13:58:24 GMT In article waugh@rtpnet05.rtp.dg.com (Matthew Waugh) writes: > I haven't seen anything on this, and I'd expected people to be jumping > all over it. > Sometime on Thursday evening 10/8/92 the SPRINT switching centre in > Fairfax, South Carolina, went down completly. Various "rumors" abound, > most of which involve the switch being under 18 feet of water. We're > located in North Carolina, and all our SPRINT switched service is > routed via that switch. Certainly on Friday people in the area with > SPRINT 800 service were not getting any calls sent their way. > It's 16:00 EDT on 10/13/92, still no service. We have dial-tone on the > trunk, and get an all circuits are busy if we try and make a call. Funny, I haven't seen that Sprint commercial lately. You know, the one where Candice Bergen says "Sprint didn't go down and leave a kazillion people stranded ..." ;-) David G Lewis AT&T Bell Laboratories david.g.lewis@att.com or !att!goofy!deej Switching & ISDN Implementation ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 10:00:29 CDT From: varney@ihlpk.att.com (Alan L Varney) Subject: Re: Seeking Information on SS7 Packets Organization: AT&T Network Systems, Lisle, IL In article raum@isoa3.ba.ttu.edu (Raum Pattikonda) writes: > I am not very familier with SS7 protocols. I would like to know if the > SS7 packets contain the calling card number information for the calls > made using the calling card. Can someone also please sugest a good > book on SS7. Standard SS7 "packets" (this is telephony, so they are called "messages") do not currently contain CC#. However, T1S1.3 is well along in the process of standardizing the encoding and transport of this information, and delivery via ISDN. I'm not aware of any standards for determining the need for or method of collection, etc. that would result in such transport/delivery; that's probably viewed as an Operator Systems issue, so far. I won't recommend any books specifically, but most of the very recent ones on "ISDN" have a good section on SS7. The local Barnes & Noble usually has a few in the Computer Communications section, and can order others. Note that these are tutorial-level and are not a replacement for the real ISDN standards, available in the Q.7xx CCITT "Blue" book or as series of T1 standards from ANSI. Bellcore clients (the "RBOCs" generally) also use a collection of requirements that are more "services" oriented; briefly, the main ones for voice calls are TR-NPL-000246 (basic SS7), TR-TSY-000317 (intra-LATA voice via SS7) and TR-TSY-000394 (inter-LATA voice via SS7). Al Varney - MY opinion, of course. ------------------------------ From: vixen!jadams@uunet.UU.NET (22475-adams) Subject: Re: Seeking Information on SS7 Packets Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 14:00:21 GMT In article , raum@isoa3.ba.ttu.edu (Raum Pattikonda) writes: > I am not very familier with SS7 protocols. I would like to know if the > SS7 packets contain the calling card number information for the calls > made using the calling card. Can someone also please sugest a good > book on SS7. For Alternate Billing Service (ABS) or Line Information Data Base (LIDB) queries, yes, the calling card number is included in the Transaction Capabilities Part (TCAP) of the SS7 message. Different applications CLASS(R), 800, LIDB, and AIN construct their message components differently according to published BELLCORE Technical Requirements documents. In terms of recommending *A* good book, I am clueless. Perhaps, if enough interest exists, I (all co-authors are welcome to contribute) might want to undertake the effort. If there exists one or more good texts on the subject, I'd rather not. Jack (John) Adams Bellcore NVC 2Z-220 (908) 758-5372 {Voice} (908) 758-4389 {Facsimile} jadams@vixen.bellcore.com kahuna@attmail.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #781 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa27511; 15 Oct 92 3:56 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA11897 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Thu, 15 Oct 1992 01:42:55 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA09663 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Thu, 15 Oct 1992 01:42:46 -0500 Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 01:42:46 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210150642.AA09663@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #782 TELECOM Digest Thu, 15 Oct 92 01:42:35 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 782 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Question About Caller ID Information Display (Darren Alex Griffiths) Re: Questions About Token Ring Bridge (Pat Turner) Re: Question For Michigan Residents (Arthur Rubin) Re: Question About ROLM PBX Telephones (Joseph Bergstein) Re: Touch Tone Question (Tom Kovar) Re: Touch Tone Question (Richard Cox) Re: Answering Machine CPC? (Bill Pfeiffer) Re: Answering Machine CPC? (Arthur Rubin) Re: Help Needed With Modem Problem (Bob Ackley) Re: PC-Based Voicemail Systems (Michael Rosen) Re: FCC Acts on Satelite Radio Plan (Frederick G.M. Roeber) Re: "...is the Highest Law of the Land..." (Steve Forrette) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Question About Caller ID Information Display Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 12:27:54 PDT From: dag@ossi.com art@aficom.ocunix.on.ca (Art Hunter) writes: > The Caller-ID message is 1200 bps and resides between rings > one and two. There are two other ways that the specification says it > can come. One is when the handset is on-hook and is NOT ringing and > the other is when the handset is off-hook and not ringing. The latter > is designed so that you can obtain the identification of the calling > party (like call waiting) while you are talking to someone else. > To date, I am only aware of the message between rings one and > two as being implemented by the telcos. It is just a matter of time > for the other two applications to be implemented. Is there a provision to send the infomration to a voice mail service? I have PacBell's Message Center service on my phone and if the PUC and PacBell ever get their respective acts together I would like to have a voice recording of the calling party's phone number before messages are received. Cheers, Darren Alex Griffiths dag@nasty.ossi.com Open Systems Solutions Inc. (510) 652-6200 x139 Fujitsu Ltd. Fax: (510) 652-5532 6121 Hollis Street Emeryville, CA 94608-2092 ------------------------------ From: turner@Dixie.COM Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 16:02 EDT From: rsiatl!turner@rsiatl.UUCP Reply-To: turner@Dixie.COM Subject: Re: Questions About Token Ring Bridge > We have two token ring network running at two different buildings. We > try to use fiber optic cable to bridge them together. The problem is > the cable come out of the LAM on both side is T1 type. Is there a > device that converts it into fiber optic? Several companies make what you need. AT&T makes the FT1 which will support B8ZS and AMI. It's avaiable in both single and multimode models. ADC also makes a similar product also called FT1 (I think). Fibermux makes a model called the Fiber [in?] Loop Convertor. Pat Turner KB4GRZ turner@dixie.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Question For Michigan Residents From: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin) Date: 14 Oct 92 15:36:47 GMT Reply-To: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin) In damon@sunburn.stanford.edu (Damon A. Koronakos) writes: > A friend of mine in Kalamazoo recently got an IBM-compatible machine. > I would like to be able to exchange electronic mail with him if > possible. > Does anyone have any suggestions about how I might establish net > access for him? Is there something like netcom.com in the Bay Area in > the Kalamazoo area (a cheap service which provides net access)? I > don't know if Prodigy/Compuserve-type services provide email access to > the net, how much extra (if any) this costs, etc. > Any suggestions much appreciated!! This seems to be an FA(sked)Q here, but not FA(nswered). I the best answer is to check the NIXPUB (comp.bbs.misc or alt.bbs), NETPUB and/or PDIAL (alt.internet.access.wanted,alt.bbs.lists, news.answers) lists for info. CompuServe, MCI Mail, (but not Prodigy) provide network E-mail. See the Inter-Network Mail Guild posted occasionally on comp.mail.misc. I don't recall exactly Compuserve's or MCI Mail's prices, but MCI Mail charges 75 cents for sending an E-mail message of 500-5000 characters (according to my last bill), and has a free 800 number. There is also an annual mailbox fee ($25?) and a graphics registration fee for generation of paper mail ($25 per signature or letterhead). I believe MCI Mail is the least expensive of the services I subscribe to for E-mail only access. 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. ------------------------------ From: Joseph.Bergstein@p501.f544.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Joseph Bergstein) Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 01:26:14 -0500 Subject: Re: Question About ROLM PBX Telephones In a message from Martin McCormick, he states: > The Rolm PBX'S are made by Seimens, as far as I know. ROLM PBX'x have been made by the Rolm Company since they were founded. As I recall, ROLM actually started out manufacturing MILSPEC Nova (Data General) computers in the early '70s. I recall seeing them as the console computer on early Amdahl 470 mainframes. Rolm PBXs up to and including the current 9751 are still made by ROLM. Since the ROLM - Siemens merger, and subsequent acquisition, the two firms indicate that they are merging their technology platforms, but so far Siemens does not make ROLM PBX's, per se (other than now owning the ROLM company). ------------------------------ From: tom@bim.itc.univie.ac.at (Tom Kovar) Subject: Re: Touch Tone Question Organization: Inst.of Theor.Chemistry,Univ.of Vienna,Austria Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 17:11:20 GMT TELECOM Moderator notes: > [Moderator's Note: Does your system continue pulsing even after the > connection has been established? You might try hitting the * or # > keys first, then the answering machine commands. Some systems will > quit pulsing and just pass along the tones if they get the * or # > first as a signal to not pulse but just pass along what is heard. > Other than that, you may have to get one of the handheld touchtone > pads which you hold up to the receiver and press ... and that is > assuming your system won't start pulsing when it hears those tones > also. Incidentally, in the regular course of dialing, what does the * > and # produce? Sometimes they act like repeat dial, etc. PAT] Hitting */# does not change anything (either on the phone, or on the handheld pad) - both simply send their beep, and the gate continues pulsing. That's apparently the problem -- the gate seems not to have noticed that the connection has been established, and pulses on and on. I have fould a very silly solution in the meantime -- I switch (mechanically :-) ) the phone into the pulsing mode and dial; in this case, the gate accepts me as a pulser, and doesn't switch into the converting mode. After the connection is established, I switch into the touch tone mode, and the beeps are passed through. But this solution is not very smart. Anyhow, thanks, Tom ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 20:10 GMT From: Richard Cox Subject: Re: Touch Tone Question Reply-To: mandarin@cix.compulink.co.uk Tom asked about suppressing tone-to-pulse-conversion. We do it where necessary by using the PABX hold facility, and then picking the call back up from hold. At that stage the "register" that detects the MF digits will have been dropped, and your MF should go out unimpeded. *Should*, I said! Richard 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 ------------------------------ From: Bill.Pfeiffer@gagme.chi.il.us (Bill Pfeiffer) Subject: Re: Answering Machine CPC? Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 20:40:30 -0500 (CDT) In a recent TELECOM digest, hes@ncsu.edu (Henry E. Schaffer) writes: > What does "CPC" mean? What does it detect (battery reversal?) Why > would an answering machine allow this to be switched off? Is "CPC" a > common answering machine capability/feature? > [Moderator's Note: CPC means 'called (calling?) party control'. It > is switchable on/off is because if a line is also equipped with > call waiting, then the voltage drop from a call waiting signal would > also trick the answering machine in to disconnecting. ... > take your pick: fast disconnect when the voltage change is detected, > IE no dial tone and 'please hang up now' messages (etc). You can't have > it both ways and the switch lets you the user decide. PAT] Actually, you can have it both ways, sort of. Many machines have a three position switch labeled (something like) CPC-off-A-B. The idea is that there are really two cpc pulses, of differing duration, one long and one short. The shorter one is sent out immediately upon the disconnection of the calling party, the other (longer duration) is sent out just before the new dialtone (or intercept 'please hangup now' message) comes on the line. The call waiting CPC is closer to the initial, shorter pulse. So with your CPC in the 'B' position, it supposedly will ignore the shorter, immediate pulse, and wait for the longer one. Result? A bit of line noise after the hangup, but no dialtones or hang up messages, and the machine will not dump on call waiting tones.. I understand that with newer digital call waiting, (the quiet kind that does not have the traditional 'cachunk' on the other end) there is no CPC pulse. William Pfeiffer Moderator - rec.radio.broadcasting - Internet Radio Journal To subscribe, send a request to rrb@airwaves.chi.il.us ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Answering Machine CPC? From: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin) Date: 14 Oct 92 16:10:08 GMT Reply-To: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin) On my home phone answering machine, if the machine is active, additional callers get a busy signal even though we have call waiting. I don't know exactly why. BTW, as stated in one of my answering machine manuals, CPC doesn't work well in some exchanges where the line voltage is not properly regulated. They suggest you turn it off if people complain that the answering machine is hanging up on them. 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. [Moderator's Note: It is interesting you mention that callers get a busy signal while the answering machine is taking a call. Usually subscribers with call waiting will only return busy signal to callers (instead of ringing tone and them receiving a call-waiting tone) when the called subscriber is off hook (or otherwise connected to the network but not off hook such as being signalled) and not supervised. For example in the short period when you go off hook to dial a number but before you have been 'supervised' by the central office then an incoming call will receive a busy signal. Likewise this occurs if someone is ringing your phone when a second party also calls you. And it won't even function like a 'real' busy signal at that; forward on busy (for example to voicemail) will not work, nor will call waiting, although hunting will. I have to wonder if somehow your answering machine is tricking the network into thinking there has not been an answer, in the style of the old (were they called?) 'black boxes'? That would indeed be a curious bit of workmanship. Incidentally, I have noticed in some Chicago CO's that if you are connected with a phone number that does not usually supervise (such as the number for the remote access call forwarding service) that incoming calls to you during that time will get a busy signal in the same way. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 01:51:26 CST From: Bob.Ackley@ivgate.omahug.org (Bob Ackley) Subject: Re: Help Needed With Modem Problem Reply-To: bob.ackley@ivgate.omahug.org In a message of <30 Sep 92 18:08:23>, Sky Striker (11:30102/2) writes: > Is anyone out there using a Macintosh and a MultiTech MultiModemV32 > (9600 baud)? I'm trying to figure out what I should have the dip > switches and the settings at. I have the book on the modem but for > some reason I just can't get it setup right. I will connect fine > except when it connects and says "Connect 9600 LAPM" then it will run > fine for awhile then it will aways with out warning drop carrier on > me. Any help any one could give on figuring out what I'm doing wrong > would be greatly appreciated. Thanks ... If it connects at all it's set up properly, all we're doing now is tweaking. You are probably getting a noise burst on (either side of) the line long enough to cause the modem (at one end or the other) to think it's lost the carrier, so it hangs up. There should be a DIP switch or a command to tell the modem to wait a bit longer after losing carrier before it hangs up. msged 1.99S ZTC Bob's Soapbox, Plattsmouth Ne (1:285/1.7) ------------------------------ From: mrosen@nyx.cs.du.edu (Michael Rosen) Subject: Re: PC-Based Voicemail Systems Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci. Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 03:33:45 GMT I'm looking into possibly getting a voice mail system myself. I've been told that the Complete Communicator is the best (at least in the area of fax/modem & voice mail I guess). They have their CC Gold that I was looking at, but it's only a 9600 baud modem and I'd like to jump up to 14.4K. Does anybody know of a fax/modem voice mail card that incorporates 14.4K modem speed as well? I've heard of ZyXEL -- supposedly they have a new upgrade that has voice mail added to their fax/modem. Can anyone attest to the quality of this brand of fax/modems? Thanks, Michael Rosen Tau Epsilon Phi - George Washington University mrosen@nyx.cs.du.edu Michael.Rosen@bbs.oit.unc.edu or @lambada.oit.unc.edu ------------------------------ From: roeber@vxcrna.cern.ch Subject: Re: FCC Acts on Satelite Radio Plan Reply-To: roeber@cern.ch Organization: CERN -- European Organization for Nuclear Research Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 21:11:59 GMT In article , FZC@CU.NIH.GOV writes: > Federal regulators yesterday moved to clear the way for a new > generation of radio entertainment services in which satelites would > beam compact-disc quality directly to cars and homes. > Skeptics say the radio business is firmly grounded in local > information such as traffic reports, news and advertising. Moreover, > the huge costs of launching satellites and creating a national > marketing organization might make the ventures collapse under their > own weight. [...] This is a much more popular idea in Europe, where the popular radio stations tend to be national (e.g. BBC), and languages vary over short distances. I don't think it will work in the states; as the article mentioned, European-style direct-broadcast satellite TV has been approved for a decade, and it still hasn't taken off. Frederick G. M. Roeber | CERN -- European Center for Nuclear Research e-mail: roeber@cern.ch or roeber@caltech.edu | work: +41 22 767 31 80 r-mail: CERN/PPE, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland | home: +33 50 42 19 44 ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: "...is the Highest Law of the Land..." Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 05:30:44 GMT > [Moderator's Note: That is a very interesting finding ... where the > state constitution is a bit hard to change, public utility commissions > are bought and sold all the time. :( PAT] The state constitution may be hard to change in many states, but not in California. One of the ways is a simple majority of the voters on a ballot initiative. Some constitution! Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #782 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa19312; 16 Oct 92 3:01 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA10279 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Fri, 16 Oct 1992 00:45:25 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA09146 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Fri, 16 Oct 1992 00:45:16 -0500 Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 00:45:16 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210160545.AA09146@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #783 TELECOM Digest Fri, 16 Oct 92 00:45:20 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 783 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Unhappy With the AT&T Attitude (Steve Forrette) Re: Unhappy With the AT&T Attitude (Jack Adams) Re: Old Telephone Wiring at Network Interface (John Higdon) Re: Old Telephone Wiring at Network Interface (Shrikumar) Re: Old Telephone Wiring at Network Interface (John Rice) Re: More LATA Nuttiness (Eppes Fork, VA and Raleigh, NC LATAs) (Eli Mantel) Re: More LATA Nuttiness (Carl Moore) Re: GTE Addresses On Outgoing Email (Jim J. Murphy) Re: "...is the Highest Law of the Land..." (Andrew Klossner) Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over (Tom Adams) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: Unhappy With the AT&T Attitude Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 22:55:06 GMT In article John Higdon writes: > Some time back, I recounted a situation where calls to the UK were > appearing on my telephone bill. These calls showed as being made on a > weekly basis on a line that is not used in any way for outgoing calls. > As mentioned, AT&T very reluctantly removed the charges, indicating in > essence that since the calls were "direct dialed" they had to have > been made from my residence, with or without my knowledge. [unfortunate story about bad attitude from AT&T deleted] I had a similar problem a few years ago when my carrier was Sprint. Crossed lines with Pacific Bell caused someone else to have an "extension" to my line upon which they decided to place lots of long distance calls. Sprint's attitude was the same that John got from AT&T: "If the computer says you made the calls, then you made the calls." I can somewhat understand their stance. I'm sure the percentage of times people claim to not have made certain calls versus the time when they really didn't is incredibly high. But, as was the case for both John and I, it would stand to reason that they would take into account a longstanding customer's history of large bills and prompt payments as a sign that they may be telling the truth. I wanted to share a recent experience I had with the business side of AT&T where they gave truly outstanding service in relation to the other carriers, and which convinced me that there is (still) only one carrier that can provide the highest levels of service that some of us demand. I was planning a special promotion that would be advertised on short notice on the radio. As such, I needed to get 800 service installed in less than a week. Because I had previously used Cable & Wireless's Programmable 800 service, and really liked the fact that I could change the routing myself instantly at any time, I gave them a call. After explaining my rush, they promised to set me up with their "expedite 800" program, where they can get it working in 24 hours. This was on a Friday. On Tuesday morning, they called me back to tell me that HQ had rejected the order because it did not have the nine digit ZIP code for the billing address. Apparently, the sales offices are required to submit the nine digit ZIP code on all orders, and when they do not, HQ just bounces the order back to them. I thought this was a pretty lame excuse for delaying an "expedite 800" order, but gave them the information (they apparently don't have a ZIP+4 directory nor are able to call the post office themselves), and took them at their word that it would be working that day. As of Wednesday morning, it still was not working. On Tuesday, after I got the first call back from C&W, I began looking elsewhere. I called Sprint, and they faxed me some information and a form to sign and said it would take about a week. Also, even though I had requested only their 800 service, they tried to get me to sign a letter of agency which authorized them to switch all of my 1+ traffic to them. When challenged, they said "Well, why would you NOT want to switch? You save at least 20% off of AT&T rates with our Business Clout. blah blah blah". Then they told me that the letter of agency was necessary in order for them to tell my RBOC how to route the 800 calls to my regular lines, which of course is hogwash. On Wednesday morning, in a panic since the ad was to run the next day, I called AT&T, and humbly explained that I had tried in vain to get 800 service in a hurry from other carriers. After taking down some information, they said they would get it working as soon as possible. About 50 minutes later, they called to tell me that my 800 number was installed, working, and tested. And the cost difference was so small that it was not worth even worrying about other carriers. Why could AT&T get something installed in 50 minutes that would take the other guys a week to do? And the other guys then wonder why AT&T maintains such a large percentage of the market, and claim it is because of "unfair" advantages left over from pre-divestiture. Maybe when they are able to provide anywhere near the level of service to business customers that AT&T can, they will get more business. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com, I do not speak for my employer. ------------------------------ From: vixen!jadams@uunet.UU.NET (22475-adams) Subject: Re: Unhappy With the AT&T Attitude Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 12:54:09 GMT In article , john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > As mentioned previously, I do substantial business with AT&T each > month. Considering the size of my bills, the idea that I would attempt > to weasel out of even $100 is absurd. The supervisor today was put on > notice that considering the wretched treatment that I received and the > lack of effort AT&T put forth in resolving the problem, my search for > a carrier that would offer even remotely similar rates/service has > been intensified. I empathize with John on this. However, from personal experience, I know that almost *ALL* of the big three seem to have this attitude to one degree or another. Ironically, I find AT&T to be the best ;^} of the lot from a customer respect perspective. Jack (John) Adams Bellcore NVC 2Z-220 (908) 758-5372 {Voice} (908) 758-4389 {Facsimile} jadams@vixen.bellcore.com kahuna@attmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 09:46 PDT From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Old Telephone Wiring at Network Interface arnold@Synopsys.COM (Arnold de Leon) writes: > On the old cables I could not find the black wire. If the cable is old enough, it will not have a black wire. The very old station cable had only three wires in it. > Can I simply take the yellow wire from the other cables and use them > for the second line? I am assuming that I can find the black in the > sheath. I would not do this if I were you. Ordinary jacketed station wire is not "twisted pair" and its use for two lines over any distance is an invitation for crosstalk. If you go back through the issues of the Digest, you will find article after article complaining about crosstalk between two lines in the home and the cause in most cases turns out to be the use of D station wire for two lines. > Should/can I ask PacBell to move both my lines to the new network > interface box? There is a down side to the new box. It has circuitry in it that enables telco to isolate the pair from your equipment. Sometimes this circuitry becomes flaky and is itself a cause of trouble. If there is no trouble with the old protector, telco may charge you to replace it. > Any general comments? Any recommended reading for someone doing > inside phone wiring? If you are going to run multiple lines around the house in the same cable, be sure that the cable is "twisted pair". This is usually identified by wires bearing the colors: white/blue, white/orange, etc. If it has red/green/yellow/black, do NOT use it to carry more than one line. 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, 16 Oct 92 03:34:12 -0400 From: shri%unreal@cs.umass.edu Subject: Re: Old Telephone Wiring at Network Interface Organization: UMass, Amherst, MA 01002 + Temporal Sys & Comp Net, Bombay, India In article arnold@Synopsys.COM wrote: > When I opened the old network interface I had trouble finding the > yellow/black pair. I eventually found the yellow wires connected to a > screw connector. There is also a wire running from this connector to > the new network interface. > The wire does *not* go to any of the connectors used for phones. Is > it some sort of ground? Was it used for powering Princess phones? The wire yellow and black got to A/A1 for (I think thats what its called) Answer supervision, used on exclusion key phones. Thats mumbo-jumbo for I'll short A to A1 when I pick up the call. I had exactly the same network interface configuration in my apt when my second line was installed as you describe. That is what led to the EASA-phone problem I bugged people on this list with a week or so ago. :-) So I can share some acquired wisdom. The old network interface, inside your house, has an extra RJ11 in the bottom to which the phone line comes, and this is jumpered to the main RJ11 jack in the middle of the panel. If the main RJ11 seems bad, you are supposed to be able to plug you phone directly to the bottom RJ11 and get it to work there for instant debugging -- "See its not MaBell's problem there!" (I don't understand really what great end this achieves :-) Maybe they thought then that the RJ11 female was the major failure point ... !) Anyway ... The NET tech who wired my phone for me wired my existing line into the bottom RJ11 and the new line into the front-main RJ11. So the Red-Green goes to the bottom RJ11, the yellow-black go to the main RJ11. Only, the yellow-black from the bottom RJ11 continued to be remain where they were screwed in, ie right on the lugs that were now used for the new lines tip-and ring, ie. the yellow-black from the new network interface in the basement. That's fact one ... ( I discovered the facts the hard way, in reverse! :-) Now fact two ... My answering machine on my old line seems to do that A/A1 short whenever it picks up the phone. Now remember, by fact one, the old lines yello-black for A/A1 was screwed with my new line tip/ring!. Thus it would just short the tip and ring on my new line, whenever it picked up the call on the old line. For a long and very painful week I was wondering why my EASAphone on the new line would go dead only when the answering machine on the old line picked up an irrelavant call! Moral: when you wire the phone to the jack, disconnect everything, isolate the yellow-black pair from each RJ11 and tape or clip them. Then connect the red-green of each RJ11 to the red-green or yellow-black of the telco line. And to think my wiring was done by the NET techie, who made that gaffe!! Oh, BTW, do all answering machines do that A/A1 short? Specifically does the Uniden model AB480B do it? (single micro cassette phone cum ans machine, beeperless remote VOX/CPC, Toll saver, memo etc, in recent COMB catalog ?) I could really use this feature for some neat an-swearing messages! shrikumar (shri@legato.cs.umass.edu, shri@iucaa.ernet.in) ------------------------------ From: rice@ttd.teradyne.com Subject: Re: Old Telephone Wiring at Network Interface Organization: Teradyne Inc., Telecommunications Division Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 12:46:42 GMT In article , arnold@Synopsys.COM (Arnold Leon) writes: > I just had a second line installed at our house. Since a second > line has never been installed here before PacBell installed a new > network interface box for the second line. The house is 39 years old. > I had decided to do my own inside wiring. My plan was to simply tie > in the second line to the existing wiring on the second pair (yellow > and black). When I opened the old network interface I had trouble > finding the yellow/black pair. I eventually found the yellow wires > connected to a screw connector. There is also a wire running from > this connector to the new network interface. In the 'deep dark distant past', the Bell Standard for Domestic Inside Wiring, was three wires (Red, Green and Yellow). The Yellow was a ground, which was usually used for party line ringing (Tip to ground, or Ring to ground). You won't find a black wire in the cable at all. > Any general comments? Any recommended reading for someone doing > inside phone wiring? I ran into this same thing when I bought my last house (built in the early 50s). The only existing wiring was all three wire. I had to re-wire the whole place. I'd recommend you replace all the 'three wire' with quad or multi-pair if you want to distribute both lines throughout the house. John Rice K9IJ "Did I say that ?" I must have, but It was MY opinion only, no one else's...Especially Not my Employer's.... rice@ttd.teradyne.com ------------------------------ From: Eli.Mantel@lambada.oit.unc.edu (Eli Mantel) Subject: Re: More LATA Nuttiness (Eppes Fork, VA and Raleigh, NC LATAs) Organization: Extended Bulletin Board Service Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 01:57:36 GMT In article de@moscom.com (David Esan) writes: > 930 is EPPES FORK, VA. Anyone know anything about it? Every North Carolina phone book published by Carolina Telephone (part of United Telephone) contains a map showing all the LATAs in North Carolina, and then lists the exchanges within each of the LATAs served by United Telephone. These three LATAs are **Eppes Fork**, Fayetteville, and Rocky Mount. While Fayetteville and Rocky Mount each have several columns of exchanges listed, the Eppes Fork LATA is listed as follows: Eppes Fork LATA Henderson (Eppes Fork) 252 That's Henderson, NC, by the way. The area code directory in the same phone book lists Henderson as being in area code 919, while presumably there are parts of the Eppes Fork LATA in the 804 area code, yet on the same telephone exchange. Another curiosity I noticed, in looking at the LATA map, is that the Raleigh, NC LATA is discontiguous. It includes Raleigh and Goldsboro, but these two cities are totally separated from each other by parts of the Rocky Mount and Fayetteville LATAs. Eli Mantel (eli.mantel@bbs.oit.unc.edu) The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service. internet: bbs.oit.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 10:20:36 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: More LATA Nuttiness You mentioned "EPPES FORK, VA". I saw (in the Buggs Island telephone directory, which serves South Hill, Va.) that Epps Fork (notice the minor spelling difference) is served by Carolina Telephone on the 252 prefix, and I cannot yet determine if it is actually in Virginia (804 area) or North Carolina (919 area). ------------------------------ From: JIM.J.MURPHY@gte.sprint.com Date: 16 Oct 92 03:00:00 UT Subject: Re: GTE Addresses On Outgoing Email Steve Forrette's comments about working regulated and de-regulated jobs together puzzle me. In Iowa we are not split into a regulated and a deregulated work force. I'm not sure why not, but it's fine with me. It means more job security by having more work to do, and provides a nice variety of work experience. There have been days when I have been dispatched to plow a drop wire (a regulated job) and sent next to work on a PBX system at our small local hospital (a de-regulated job). Other times I might have a service order for a new install. The customer has asked for a jack and wire to be placed in his new house. I first work on the regulated cable to terminate the pair at the customer's house. Then I enter the house and work on a de-regulated inside wire and jack. I charge my time accordingly. There's no advantage in our work environment here simply because we do both regulated and de-regulated jobs. The important point I wanted to make is that different work groups can work together. In this day of "It's not my problem", attitude, it's nice to be able to work together. Jim Murphy AA0JG Internet - JIM.J.MURPHY@gte.sprint.com Telemail - J.J.Murphy America Online - Big Daddy8 ------------------------------ From: andrew@frip.wv.tek.com (Andrew Klossner) Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 15:09:37 PDT Subject: Re: "...is the Highest Law of the Land..." Reply-To: andrew@frip.wv.tek.com Organization: Tektronix Color Printers, Wilsonville, Oregon > "where the state constitution is a bit hard to change, public > utility commissions are bought and sold all the time." Just as scary, and on a wider scale: the US Constitution provides that all treaties have equal standing with the Constitution: "This constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding." This is why some people get so excited about seemingly obscure treaties. The President signs it, the Senate ratifies it, and suddenly it overrides any federal or state law with which it conflicts. Andrew Klossner (andrew@frip.wv.tek.com) ------------------------------ From: tadams@wedge.sbc.com (Tom. Adams 529-7860) Subject: Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over Organization: Southwestern Bell Technology Resources, St.Louis, MO Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 13:27:50 GMT In St. Louis we've had several presidential visits. Most involve shutting down a major interstate for 30 minutes, often during rush hour. Even the Vice President rates closing the Interstate. After Sunday's debate, the President spent the night in the city. Monday between 6AM and 7AM a police car was parked at every overpass and every entrance ramp along a 20 mile stretch of the Interstate. Pedestrian bridges had police stationed on foot. St. Louis didn't have the money to plow snow from most city streets last winter. I wonder if we can afford street lights and sewage treatment now. Tom Adams tadams@sbctri.sbc.com adams@swbatl.sbc.com 314-529-7860 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #783 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa22556; 16 Oct 92 4:30 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA26980 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Fri, 16 Oct 1992 02:00:03 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA08586 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Fri, 16 Oct 1992 01:59:54 -0500 Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 01:59:54 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210160659.AA08586@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #784 TELECOM Digest Fri, 16 Oct 92 02:00:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 784 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison (Steve Elias) Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison (Andy Sherman) Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison (John Higdon) Re: Stolen Cell Phone (Craig Heim) Re: Stolen Cell Phone (Olivier M.J. Crepin-Leblond) Re: Stolen Cell Phone (John Gilbert) Re: Stolen Cell Phone (Steve L. Rhoades) Re: Fax Store-and-Forward Service Wanted (Steve Elias) Re: Fax Store-and-Forward Service Wanted (Shrikumar) Fax Mail Service Offered by C&P Telephone (Paul Robinson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 12:01:10 PDT From: eli@cisco.com andys@internet.sbi.com (Andy Sherman) wrote: > First off, AT&T has had *some* optical fiber in the network for some > time. But the particular medium of digital transmission should matter > not one whit for how to do echo cancellation. The propagation delays > are the same for all terrestrial links. This cannot be correct. Propagation delay depends on media type. The signal propagation speed in fiber is slower than that in coax cable, for example. It must be different for pure copper wire, also. > Besides all that, every now and then somebody posts a throughput test > for the big three carriers, and AT&T almost always wins. I recall Sprint winning a number of these sorts of tests. Lately, in terms of audio quality, the big three are all neck and neck, to my ear. eli ------------------------------ From: andys@internet.sbi.com (Andy Sherman) Subject: Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 15:40:10 EDT On Thu, 15 Oct 92 12:01:10 PDT, eli@cisco.com said: > This cannot be correct. Propagation delay depends on media type. The > signal propagation speed in fiber is slower than that in coax cable, for > example. It must be different for pure copper wire, also. By how much? All of these should have propagation speeds in the neighborhood of c. Is the variation enough to change the echo cancellation, or will the trunk length dominate? But I really probably overstated the case. The original assertion was that the presence of fiber in the trunk path made a difference as to whether or not you need echo cancellation. That is false. Any voice circuit, analog or digital, of sufficient length will need echo cancellation to undo the effects of the hybrids at each end. >> Besides all that, every now and then somebody posts a throughput test >> for the big three carriers, and AT&T almost always wins. > I recall Sprint winning a number of these sorts of tests. Lately, > in terms of audio quality, the big three are all neck and neck, to my > ear. Since I and most of the people who call me use the same carrier I have no basis for comparison. Probably they all sound similar unless you have a very good ear. But Higdon's modems, apparently have very good ears, since they know the difference. 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." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 13:08 PDT From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison On Oct 15 at 15:40, Andy Sherman writes: > Since I and most of the people who call me use the same carrier I have > no basis for comparison. Probably they all sound similar unless you > have a very good ear. But Higdon's modems, apparently have very good > ears, since they know the difference. There is one variable that must be tossed in here. The Bay Area is atypical of other areas of the country. All of the LD carriers (including AT&T) treat this region as some sort of backwater outpost. We were the last to "hear the pin drop" as it were. All are still using some sort of antiquated signaling between POPs and LEC tandems. Example: in the LA area it takes about a half-second for an AT&T call to go through to almost anywhere. Here it takes 8 to 10 seconds. Sprint has regular outages (from my telephone anyway) and offers no explanation. Only recently did AT&T have digital connections between here and other parts of the state. And you could grow old waiting for an MCI call to complete. The point is that the best of the big three is definitely not offered here. Perhaps the reason AT&T comes out ahead is that its low grade crap is better than MCI's or Sprint's low grade crap. 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: cheim@lectroid.sw.stratus.com (Craig Heim) Subject: Re: Stolen Cell Phone Date: 15 Oct 92 13:26:03 GMT Reply-To: somebody@somehost.edu Organization: Stratus Computer Inc. In article , ccoprfm@prism.gatech.edu (Monte Freeman) writes: > Over this past weekend, someone broke into my car. The two items they > removed (they wanted the whole car, but the alarm system prevented > them from getting that. ) were my OKI 700 cellular phone and a Yaesu > FT-727 dual band hand-held ham radio. > I realize that I'll probably never see the HT again; but I was > wondering what you and/or the rest of the readers think my chances of > getting the phone back are? I called Pactel and told them what had > happened. They turned off service to the phone immediately. > I've heard that there is a database of stolen phone ESNs that the > different service providers keep. What I'm not sure about is if this > database is local to each area, or if it's a nationwide thing ... There are actually two "Nationwide Negative Files". One was formed by GTE Telecommunications Services (GTETS) that services *primarily* the B-band carriers. The other was formed by Appex (now EDS Personal Communications Corporation) that services *primarily* the A-band carriers. There are other smaller services, but these two are the real players. In order for carriers to set up roaming agreements with other carriers, it is a requirement to subscribe to a fraud protection service. GTE offers PVS (Positive Validation Service) and EDS PCC offers PRV (Positive Roamer Validation). Basically, these services connect to each switch and listen for roamer calls. Each roamer ESN is checked against the Nationwide Negative File of invalid numbers. If the number is negative, the verification service sends a command to the switch which handled the call to bar that number. Once a number is barred on the switch, future calls are blocked (or even better, routed to the carriers fraud control department). Note that one successful call was made before the shutdown occurred. It is possible for a bandit to traverse the country making one call at each switch. There is a gateway between GTE and EDS PCC used to keep the Nationwide Negative Files in sync. If an A-band customer roams in a B-band-only area, the validation service may validate the ESN. > If I report a phone stolen here in Atlanta, are the cellular service > providers in Chicago or L.A. likely to know about it? Atlanta will inform the verification service of the stolen phone ESN. That will result in an entry in the Nationwide Negative files. > If the phone does show up "active" on a cell somewhere, is it possible > (or more importantly is it done) to try and track it down? There have been cases where the police/FBI tracked down drug dealers using a device to locate the phone. It is difficult, but possible. Sorry, but I don't think the FBI is going to go after your particular phone. Craig R. Heim |Stratus Computer, Inc. |My opinions are my own, Software Engineer |55 Fairbanks Blvd. |not necessarily are cheim@lectroid.sw.stratus.com |Marlboro, MA 01752-1298 |they Stratus's. ------------------------------ From: c.crepin@ic.ac.uk (Olivier M.J. Crepin-Leblond) Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 00:47:21 +0100 Subject: Re: Stolen Cell Phone A friend of mine had his hand-held cell phone stolen two weeks ago. It was grabbed from his hand as he was walking in the street and the thief was running too fast for my friend to catch him. Knowing that he'd never see his phone again, my friend immediately went to a public phone box and called his cellular number. The thief answered and after my friend showered him with insults, they had a brief conversation about getting the phone back otherwise the number would be cut by the phone company. The thief answered that whether with a line or without a line, that phone was worth a lot to him and it was tough luck for my friend before hanging-up. My friend immediately called the cellular company and got the number cut. Sad day. Olivier M.J. Crepin-Leblond, Digital Comms. Section, Elec. Eng. Department Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London SW7 2BT, UK Internet/Bitnet: - Janet: WARNING: Please send any reply to above addresses, NOT to FROM-field !!! [Moderator's Note: Yes indeed, a sad day, but an all too common scenario these days. Unfortunatly here in the United States, particularly in urban areas, violent crime is growing by leaps and bounds through perverse though popular ways of interpreting our Constitution by some powerful legal organizations here. Someone *tried* to steal my cell phone several months ago; but the way I wrap the strap around my neck and across my shoulders, they'd have to pull my head off to get the phone! :) During the few seconds he was grabbing at me I got my little cannister of Mace (attached to my key ring) from my pocket and gave him a liberal squirt in the eyes and up his nose. That was enough to put him down for the minute or so it took me to hail a cab and (admittedly) leave the scene in a hurry. PAT] ------------------------------ From: johng@comm.mot.com (John Gilbert) Subject: Re: Stolen Cell Phone Organization: Motorola, Inc. Land Mobile Products Sector Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 22:25:57 GMT > [Moderator's Note: I think the chances of recovering the phone are > almost zilch. Yes, there is a nationwide negative listing that all the > carriers see. Most likely when the thief discovered the phone would > not work any longer he sold it to some cell phone phreak for ten > dollars ... :( that person will try and modify the ESN or possibly > use the phone for scrap parts, etc. Sorry about your bad luck. PAT] A co-worker of mine had his phone stolen and recovered TWICE! The trick is to make sure that the phone is over the dollar limit that allows it to go on the National Crime Information Computer (NCIC) data base. Since the phone was one of the early (expensive) units it qualified and was returned by the police when it turned up at busts for other offenses. The police seem to be interested in returning phones if incidental to other work, but have no interest in tracking down a $300 phone by itself. I don't know what the minimum dollar limit for property to be posted on NCIC is. John Gilbert johng@ecs.comm.mot.com ------------------------------ From: slr@cco.caltech.edu (Steve L. Rhoades) Subject: Re: Stolen Cell Phone Date: 15 Oct 1992 23:21:05 GMT Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena In article ccoprfm@prism.gatech.edu (Monte Freeman) writes: [Stuff about getting his OKI 700 cellular phone stolen deleted] > I called Pactel and told them what had happened. They turned off > service to the phone immediately. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I'm on my third car phone now, the previous two having been stolen. I've always wondered if instead of the provider turning off service to the phone, what about just leaving it on for about a week and see who he/she calls? (Maybe put it on a special class of service so that long distance would be restricted, reducing the loss to the provider.) If the thief were a teenager, chances are he'd be calling all his friends to impress them with his new "toy". Comments? Steve L. Rhoades | Voice: (818) 794-6004 Post Office Box 1000 | Mt. Wilson, Calif 91023 | Internet: slr@cco.caltech.edu [Moderator's Note: Good idea! When two guys picked my pocket on the subway a four years ago (one distracts you while the other gets in your pocket) they got my telco calling card among other things. Although I went back to the station where it happened, found one of the animals and violated his civil liberties by assaulting him in the process of holding him for police who were on the way, the one who actually got my wallet was long gone. I notified IBT the next morning and they turned it off, but when the bill came I skip-traced a few of the phone numbers. I found one place where calls had originated that was a private residence here in the city. I called the number, raised cain and told them off. I also gave that address and phone number to IBT and the police for their report and investigation -- what a joke! :( PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Fax Store-and-Forward Service Wanted Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 11:55:22 PDT From: eli@cisco.com If you are talking about a Fax S&F system where you could dial it, enter a phone number, and have it send you a particular fax, boxes which do this are available through Brooktrout Technology, 617 449 4100. It is called their "flashfax" system. Demos are available by calling 617 449 9010. A simpler solution for you might be to get a fax board or external modem for your PC, or use a service similar to the IBT service Patrick described. Also note that the "faxback" type of fax S&F is patented by Brooktrout. Other industry players have refused to pay royalties and instead persist in trying to derail this patent. Apprently yet more patent court action is forthcoming. Brooktrout defeated ATT in the first patent interference suit about the "faxback patent". eli ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 23:53:41 -0400 From: shri%unreal@cs.umass.edu Subject: Re: Fax Store-and-Forward Service Wanted Organization: UMass, Amherst, MA 01002 + Temporal Sys & Comp Net, Bombay, India In article ndallen@nyx.cs.du.edu wrote: > I wonder whether someone at Zimbabwe University turns the fax machine > off after 5 p.m. to save electricity, assuming that nobody else in the Perhaps not to save electricity, but to save the (expensive) fax machine. Each minute it is powered on, it is eating operational life and also each minute carries the risk of that surge or spike on the power line that will carry the fax to heavens of delight, from which they sometimes never like to return. And an outage of the fax machine means service charges, probably difficulty in getting spares, and letting that clumsy local repairman put his dirty hands into the machine ... they tend to be an addictive sometimes :-) Also perhaps, everything in the office is turned off anyway in the evening, and by force of habit ... People in the US do tend to forget power line surges, lack of support and competent repair ... and oh, please dont make then sound so cheap ! :-) ;-) ,-) '-) Besides the big carriers, are there any private operators who provide store-fwd fax services ? shrikumar ( shri@legato.cs.umass.edu, shri@iucaa.ernet.in ) ------------------------------ Reply-To: tdarcos@mcimail.com From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 22:17:54 EDT Subject: Fax Mail Service Offered by C&P Telephone In an advertisement on page D13 of today's (10/15) {Washington Post}, C&P Telephone announced that it will offer Bell Atlantic Fax Mailbox service for receiving faxes, in a manner similar to voice mail for messages. I called one of the sales people to get more information about this service, and here are the details based on the questions I could think to ask. Also, their 800 number was answered at 7:55 at night, which was a nice change. The clerk will send me more information about it, but here's what I got so far: Pricing: - No installation charge. However (as noted in a separate paper that I received with my phone bill), the phone company is offering "amnesty" (even if they don't call it that) for service change charges during October whether this service has no installation charge next month is another thing. - $19.95 a month. - No charge to call in and retrieve messages. - If used to send faxes, it's 40c per minute (about 2 pgs/minute) - If a fax is transferred to another fax mailbox, it's 25c untimed (and the system will tell you if the destination is just a phone number or if it's a local fax mailbox) - Will signal a pager or voice mailbox (if it's one of Bell Atlantic's or compatible with it, natch) when you get a fax. Features: - User is assigned a separate telephone number for this service. - User can ask for a specific area code (in this area being 202/301/703), 703 being easier. Sales clerk said he also sold this service to someone in the Philadelphia area, so it might also be available there, too. - If the service is used to send or broadcast faxes, it will do automatic retries. - Incoming documents can be stored. - You can either call in and retrieve received messages from a fax machine, or transfer them someplace else. Capabilities: - You can send a document to a maximum of 15 entries. - You can set up a list of people, and send to the list. - You can place up to 15 entries on a list. - You can set up up to ten lists. (Probably equivalent to the 0-9 buttons on the Touch-Tone pad.) - In theory I suppose you could send a single fax to up to 155 people at once, assuming you used all ten lists plus an additional five numbers. - 50 Page Capacity of "active" documents, (The sales clerk can't say what happens if a single received document is larger than 50 pages.) - Can forward a received document to someplace else. - 25 page capacity of saved documents. Unknown, but will be told to me: - What happens if a single incoming document is longer than 50 pages. - If the answerback given out by the called number can be programmed. Paul Robinson, TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM These (uninformed) opinions are exclusively my own, and no one else is (stupid enough to be) responsible for them. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #784 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa23370; 16 Oct 92 4:52 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA17182 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Fri, 16 Oct 1992 02:33:07 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA00561 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Fri, 16 Oct 1992 02:32:57 -0500 Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 02:32:57 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210160732.AA00561@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #785 TELECOM Digest Fri, 16 Oct 92 02:33:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 785 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Michigan Bell: Business vs Residential Rates (Gordon Burditt) Re: Cellular Antennae Extenders (Pat Turner) Re: E-Mail for Michigan Residents (Paul Robinson) Re: Phone Network Simulator (Paul Cook) Re: LEC Repair Disservice (was Happy With MCI) (Henry Mensch) Re: 911 Calls From Remote Locations (Marc Unangst) Re: Calling Card Fraud on "48 Hours" (Ron Bean) Re: Another List of Cellular Phone Prices (Laird P. Broadfield) Re: Highway Call Boxes (Laird P. Broadfield) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: gordon@sneaky.lonestar.org (Gordon Burditt) Subject: Re: Michigan Bell: Business vs Residential Rates Organization: Gordon Burditt Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 09:02:37 GMT > "Home based workers who use their phone lines for business more than > 50% of the time need a business line." > At first glance, this seems to be a pretty reasonable compromise on > class of service billing. How one determines 50% may be open to > discussion, but it beats the attitudes of some companies that want to > bill business rates if you so much as publicise your phone number. The way I read it, they could STILL want you to get a business line if you publicize your phone number. I think this is aimed at people who work at home (or do a lot of overtime work at home) and spend most of the day logged in to the company computer or have lots of telephone conferences with other workers. It just might manage to snag some lonely wife who calls her husband at work a lot and has a home business but never makes any phone calls related to that business. It might also snag some guy who takes a lot of work home with him, receives a USENET feed from UUNET (but he originates the calls) on his personal machine, calls in sick once every month or two, and makes few other calls. If they REALLY wanted to get picky, this could cover some poor guy who receives more telephone solicitation calls than he makes or receives personal calls. They might even be trying to define "a business call is a call which terminates at either end at a business line", which is one way they COULD measure it without listening to the calls. That could cause cascade reclassifications -- if my line has to become business, then people who call me a lot are at risk of being reclassified also. Eventually, there are no residential lines. Gordon L. Burditt sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon ------------------------------ From: turner@rsiatl.UUCP Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 18:36 EDT From: rsiatl!turner@rsiatl.UUCP Reply-To: turner@dixie.com Subject: Re: Cellular Antennae Extenders Matt McConnell writes: > Do these cordless antennas really work? How so? The principal is sound, basicly one antenna pulls in a lot of the signal due to it's large "effective area" (gain) and transmits through the other antenna outside the car. To get the 3 dB increase that was claimed, the passive repeater would have to radiate a field just as strong at that that was passed through the windows. I have used this technique before with a Diamond X-500 (11.7 dB at UHF) installed upside down inside a steel building linked to a 11 element beam on the roof (13.2 dB gain) with a foot of 1/2" hardline (for low maintainance). It worked like a charm to enable the receptionist in another building to be able to talk with employees inside this one particular building which was partialy underground and had no openings facing the main office. Having said this, I would urge you to read the letters to the editor in the June 1992 issue of {Mobile Radio Technology}. Scott Wilson, a RF engineer and manager of Cellular Technical Support for Murata, tested several passive repeaters with a screen box inside a screen room using a spec-an. He found "barely measurable" emmisions from the passive repeater with the screen box door shut. Mr. Wilson does say that many people report improved results with the repeater and that this is the true bottom line. I personaly would prefer a mag mount antenna. While I am distrustful of "Currents of Death" arguments, I don't mind spending 30 dollars and time to change antennas to get a 10 dB or so increase in max. ERP and get the transmitter away from my eyes and brain. A side note on cellular power levels: Since I have a slug for my Bird Wattmeter in the cellular band, I decided to leave it in line to watch power levels as I change locations. At one point I was just uphill of a cellular site in TN and my phone was transmitting with three watts. As someone (Greg Youngblood?) mentioned aparentally some RSA's do not back off on power levels. Who was I calling? MCI, to report a 4W leased line had 78 dBrnco of noise. They tried to find the problem, but I couldn't even hear their feeble attempts to loop the line. I offered to do a tip tip - ring ring hard loopback and their tech got all kinds of crazy results. As the day warmed up the problem "was fixed". MCI's response was that the tech wasn't working the DAC right, and that they couldn't find any problems now. At one point I measured +1.5 dBm with a 3 KHz flat filter. MCI wasn't interested as they only spec C msg noise :-) The problem, of course, was the LEC's OSP not MCI, but they are the ones we have to deal with. I'll just have to wait until next time it happens and try my luck with the LEC, as I have since gotten the number for the serving CO toll test board. Pat Turner KB4GRZ turner@dixie.com ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 16:58:01 EDT Subject: Re: E-Mail For Michigan Residents On Sun 11 Oct 1992 02:07:11 GMT, Damon A. Koronakos (Damon@sunburn. stanford.edu) writes: > A friend of mine in Kalamzoo [Michigan] recently got an > IBM-compatible machine. I would like to be able to exchange > electronic mail with him ... See if he can find a local BBS in the area on Fidonet, which has a matrix area. If it does, he can use the matrix area to send a message to the local server which provides internet access for that fidonet region. If you are not sure, send a message to me on Fidonet and I'll find out who is in your area. My address is: Paul.Robinson@f417.n109.z1.fidonet.org Fidonet addresses are in the form z:f/n, for example, the BBS I use is 1:109/417 in the Washington DC area. (You can see how it matches up.) Zone 1 is North America. Other zones are for other parts of the world or for non-Fido networks. Fidonet is claimed as "fully integrated" which means anyone on Fido has an internet address. Whether the local sysop allows internet mail to reach them is another matter. Whether that sysop allows them to send internet mail is yet another. I've used all three types of Fidonet systems: no internet mail, incoming only and full e-mail. The other possibility are the pay networks. AT&T Mail has a lousy interface, a poor method of transferring messages, doesn't support Kermit or Zmodem, but only charges $3 a month for a mailbox. MCI Mail is probably the "premier" E-Mail service, and it has several options: Pay $36 a year and get an E-mail and telex address with no message unit charge, pay $10 a month and get the first 40 message units, or pay $25 a month and get the first 250 message units, plus you can add up to five additional mailboxes for $5 a month each to this account. I have studied my account on MCI often enough that I decided to change to the $10 a month plan since I'm not sending that many units, but I'm paying more than $10 a month in usage because of the number of messages I do send. MCI Mail includes telex send AND RECEIVE (which AT&T charges $25 a month to obtain) otherwise both are about the same pricing structure. Mr. Koronakos also says: > I don't know if Prodigy/Compuserve-type service provide email access > to the net, how much extra (if any) this costs, etc. Compu$erve does provide internet access but their rates are at least $12.50 an hour to send or receive messages, and I believe they also charge for messages sent. On the other hand Compuserve is offering a $7.50 a month special access plan which allows a certain number of messages sent per month. It was announced in this month's {Computer Shopper} that Prodigy is bowing to repeated demands of its customers that it will offer a gateway to Internet, first for customers using IBM computers, and next for Macintosh users. But a gateway cuts both ways. I wonder what happens when someone figures out how to have the ALT.SEX newsgroup sent to them as mail. (At this time, you can't, to the relief of a lot of people. :) ) Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM These (uninformed) opinions are mine alone, nobody else is (stupid enough to be) responsible for them. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 18:16 GMT From: Proctor & Associates <0003991080@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Phone Network Simulator andrew@frip.wv.tek.com (Andrew Klossner) writes: > I want to test a modem's network interface without connecting to a > live telephone network. I've heard that there are devices with > several RJ-11 jacks that simulate network interfaces, but I don't know > where to look for them. Can you give me pointers to such devices? Sorry to blow our own horn again, but my employer now makes THREE different telephone demonstrators that realistically simulate telephone lines per Bellcore specs for North American signalling. The 49250 Phone Demo II simulates two lines, and handles tone dialing only. It has real dial tone, ringback tone, and ringing, and you just go off hook on one jack, dial any seven-digit phone number (or #) and it rings the other line. The price is $259.95, FOB Redmond, WA. The next one is the 49200 Telephone Demonstrator. It sells for $475.00, has four lines (each with its own two-digit phone number), handles both pulse and tone dialing, and is the one used in displays at many AT&T phone stores. Our new one is the 49300 Centrex Demo. It sells for $685.00, simulates four lines, has Caller ID (with number only) and can be programmed for any seven or ten digit phone numbers, and to simulate standard Centrex features in either a 5ESS or DMS environment. It can be programmed with a telephone, but due to the large number of programmable options, menu driven programming software (including serial cable) is available for $49.00. Contact Proctor & Associates at any of the addresses (internet, USPS, fax, etc) below for more information. Paul Cook 206-881-7000 Proctor & Associates MCI Mail 399-1080 15050 NE 36th St. fax: 206-885-3282 Redmond, WA 98052-5317 3991080@mcimail.com ------------------------------ From: henry@ads.com (Henry Mensch) Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 11:44:00 -0700 Subject: Re: LEC Repair Disservice (was Happy With MCI) Reply-To: henry@ads.com sbrack@jupiter.cse.UTOLEDO.edu (Steven S. Brack) wrote: > The specific problem: on calls to invalid numbers, the recording was > quite garbled. What the CSR at Ohio Bell thought the problem was: > 1) Are you sure it's not in your equipment? > 2) It's probably a problem with your long-distance company. > I honestly don't know how some people get jobs in the telecom industry. Ditto. I inquired about leased-line service to my home and gave up in disgust. I imagine there is some Pac*Bell trademark word that I could use which will make their eyes light up, but no joy was to be had that day ... henry mensch / booz, allen & hamilton, inc. / ------------------------------ From: mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst) Subject: Re: 911 Calls From Remote Locations Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 03:08:36 GMT Organization: The Programmer's Pit Stop, Ann Arbor MI In article Joseph.Bergstein@p501. f544.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Joseph Bergstein) writes: [Tale describing the 911 dispatcher improperly interpreting the ANI information and dispatching the ambulance to the wrong address, due to the PBX configuration being used.] Ham radio operators frequently run into this when making a call to the police or the 911 dispatcher through a repeater autopatch. Usually, the ham making the call will be nowhere near the actual termination point of the line, since they're calling through a radio link. I've heard many stories of police/fire department/EMS showing up at an antenna tower or a mountaintop repeater site because that's where the ANI said the call originated from. If you know, or suspect, that you will be connected to a E911 dispatcher who has ANI info for the number you're calling from, but you aren't at the physical termination point of that number, it's usually a good idea to explicitly tell the dispatcher that the ANI info is wrong and that you're really at location. Hams also find it useful to tell the dispatcher that they are calling over a radio link, to impress upon them that the link is half-duplex and that they must say "over" or "go ahead" when they're finished speaking. Unfortunately, some E911 dispatchers will ignore both these items and dispatch to the wrong location anyway, but at least you tried. Marc Unangst, N8VRH mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us ------------------------------ From: norvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!zaphod@uunet.UU.NET (Ron Bean) Subject: Re: Calling Card Fraud on "48 Hours" Organization: ARP Software Date: Thu, 15 May 1992 10:03:51 GMT polk@girtab.usc.edu (Corinna Polk) writes: > The CBS show "48 Hours" ran a show last week on scams and their lead > story was on calling card fraud and how prevalent it was in bus and > train stations, and in airports. They had a camera hidden on a bank of > phones and had a reporter go in to use a phone and gave the operator > her calling card number vocally. It was unreal to see all the people > who leaned in towards her as she began to recite the digits. Maybe we should have cards that just play the DTMF digits into the phone, like those electronic Christmas cards that play music. They could be programmed electronically, or maybe by punching holes in the card to break wires inside. Then you'd just have to worry about people with tape recorders and parabolic micrphones ... You could also have your business card play your 800 number, or give one to your kid that plays your home phone number (like the gadget that was described here recently). Humorous Christmas card anecdote: A few years ago a woman I worked with got one and the switch inside broke and it wouldn't stop playing. They finally stuffed it under a sofa cushion so they wouldn't have to listen to it. I heard this story on a Monday, and it had been playing all weekend! (Imagine flipping through your rolodex and some guy's card starts beeping at you ...) zaphod@madnix.UUCP (Ron Bean) {harvard|rutgers|ucbvax}!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!zaphod ------------------------------ From: lairdb@crash.cts.com Subject: Re: Another List of Cellular Phone Prices Date: 15 Oct 92 20:55:26 GMT In FZC@CU.NIH.GOV writes: > Three cellular phone offers appear in Luskin's {Washington Post} ad, > October 9: > Motorola "tote" Cellular Phone, "Transportable from car-to-car, > Antenna & Cigarette Lighter, Full 3 watts, No Installation Required, > Certain Cellular Telephone Company Restriction may apply." $0.01 > (That is correct, one cent.) > [Moderator's Note: I think that was a typographical error and meant to > say 'cigarette lighter adapter plug', ie. you can charge or operate > the phone from the car battery. Even though those two you mentioned > did not include a cellular company contract in them, are you certain > that somewhere in small print it was not otherwise mentioned in the > ad? PAT] As the Moderator says, I'm sure these include a contract, but the question is: "what is the minimum dollar value of the contract, i.e. if you bought one, and never used it, what would you pay by the end of the no-cancel period?" Or, at least, that's the key question for those of us in Kalifornia, where the PUC has decided we're not smart enough to understand such arrangements, and must therefore pay $300 or so for that same bag phone. (And higher cell rates, too, but that's a function of everyone and their nine-year-old having a cellphone.) Laird P. Broadfield lairdb@crash.cts.com ...{ucsd, nosc}!crash!lairdb ------------------------------ From: lairdb@crash.cts.com Subject: Re: Highway Call Boxes Date: 15 Oct 92 21:03:07 GMT In hwc@louis.pei.com (Hon Wah Chin) writes: > I used one last Monday on 101 in Menlo Park. It automatically called > CHP. I described my location and they read back the ID number painted > on a sign next to the phone, so I don't know whether they had the ID > transmitted or from my location description. The most interesting > thing is that the hanger for the handset (with noise canceling mike) > did not appear to move for off-hook indication. I wasn't in a mood to > investigate further but hypothesized some kind of magnetic sensor to > activate an internal switch. Um, wait a minute. Admittedly, these could be different manufacturers, but here's what I recall from my one use: When I opened the door, there was a handset hanging in a dead hook (as Chin said) but there was also a big flashing button that said "Press Me" or some such. When I pressed it, the instrument made DTMF noises, waited through some clicks (connection now established?) and then (perhaps in response to the other end?) made *more* DTMFs (*not* seven digits, as I recall). My guess was that the second set was after a connection had been made to CalTrans, but before a human was on, and it identified the instrument. Laird P. Broadfield lairdb@crash.cts.com ...{ucsd, nosc}!crash!lairdb ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #785 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa13303; 18 Oct 92 16:19 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA22778 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 18 Oct 1992 13:49:14 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA20693 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 18 Oct 1992 13:49:05 -0500 Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 13:49:05 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210181849.AA20693@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #786 TELECOM Digest Sun, 18 Oct 92 13:49:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 786 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Standardizing the Information Number (Carol Preston) Re: Source For Installation Equipment Wanted (Bill Garfield) Re: Cellular Internationally? (Dan DeClerck) Business Lines -- Add One Today! (Tony Pelliccio) Re: Identa-Ring Decoding Box (Ron Bean) Re: Living in the Past (Jack Winslade) Information For a Paper Needed (Stephen Caron) Re: Question About ROLM PBX Telephones (Steven L. Johnson) Telecommunications Jitter (Yee-Lee Shyong) Re: Detection of Pulse Dial Codes by Info Systems (rfranken@cs.umr.edu) Re: ATM Technical Information Wanted (Maxime Taksar) Specs For Portable Cellular Car Kit Interfaces (Steve Schear) Message Center and Call Waiting (Justin Leavens) Transition 2000 (Gary Wingert) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: clp@okam.corp.sgi.com (Carol Preston) Subject: Standardizing the Information number Organization: Silicon Graphics Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 13:14:28 GMT Does anybody know if there are any plans to standardize the local number to call for information? If not, does anybody know what the algorithm is? Where I now live, I always dial 411 for local information and XXX-555-1212 for long distance. When I visit my parents in Michigan, it's 555-1212 for local and 1-XXX-555-1212 for long distance. While in Colorado, I tried various combinations of the above, and was unsuccessful until I asked somebody walking down the street who informed me that the local information number is 1-411, and long distance is 1-XXX-555-1212. BIzarre. Carol Preston clp@sgi.com Silicon Graphics Telephone: (415)390-2182 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd, MS 11L-960 Mountain View, CA 94043 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Source For Installation Equipment Wanted From: bill.garfield@yob.sccsi.com (Bill Garfield) Date: Sun 18 Oct 92 12:15:00 -0600 Organization: Ye Olde Bailey BBS - Houston, TX - 713-520-1569 Reply-To: bill.garfield@yob.sccsi.com (Bill Garfield) Jim Speth writes: > Does anyone know of a source for telephone installation equipment? > I'm not talking about radio-shack crimpers and plugs, but rather the > fun stuff that the telco people have. Like linesperson's handsets, or > the things-they-hook-to-the-lines-that-go-BEEP. Someone must know > what I'm talking about. The telephone "buff" can find virtually all of the real McCoy toys and tools in a catalog from Specialized Products Co. in Dallas, TX. The Arrow T-18 stapler for quad IW can be ordered from Davenport Scale & Staple Co. in Davenport, IA. Specialized Products Co. has virtually everything a {real} telephone installer/lineperson needs. ...and perhaps a word of caution is called for: while the breakup of AT&T revolutionized the telephone industry, allowing just about anyone to get into the business, you can/will get yourself into _very serious_ trouble impersonating a telco employee or tampering with MA Bell's outside plant and distribution network or equipment. ------------------------------ From: dand%isdgsm@rtsg.mot.com (Dan DeClerck) Subject: Re: Cellullar Internationally? Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 10:21:25 CDT > I was wondering how Cellular telephones have progressed > internationally. > Specifically, are other countries following the technology used here > in the US? Will there be atime when I can take my cellular phone to > Europe and use it with out a hitch? (I realize there may be problems > with local carrier / account sort of thing, but my question is > primarily with the technology compatibility thing.) Europe, in the past has had numerous incompatible cellular standards, TACS, ETACS, NMT 450 NMT 900, to name a few. Most of Europe is embarking on a new standard, GSM, which is entirely digital. Europe is the first area where fully digital cellular is in general use. GSM will not be available in the North American continent. The US standards are AMPS (most popular) NAMPS (narrowband AMPS), USDC (TDMA based digital cellular) and the new CDMA. These standards are completely incompatible with any of the European standards, So, unfortunately, your cellular phone won't work there. Your best bet would probably be to rent a phone at the airport, but the price may be prohibitive. Dan DeClerck EMAIL: dand%isdgsm@rtsg.mot.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 06:19:44 EDT From: Tony Pelliccio Subject: Business Lines -- Add One Today! New England Telephone (and probably New York Telephone since they're both part of NYNEX) just sent a little flyer to all business in the area saying how adding another line to your present configuration would actually save you money. They've agreed to drop installation charges if you respond to the offer by such and such a date. I think the big thing with telephone companies now is to offer services that you wouldn't normally need to bolster their profits. Lets face it, call-waiting is almost $4.00 a month here in Rhode Island as are the other services like three-way, call-forward and speed dial. That could represent a large increase in profits for local phone companies. On the bright side though, New England Telephone finally dropped the $1.40 a month charge for Touch-Tone (TM) ... is it true that our "bought" P.U.C. is finally doing something? Tony PJJ125@URIACC.URI.EDU N1MPQ@ANOMALY.SBS.COM TONYPO1@DELPHI.COM ------------------------------ From: norvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!zaphod@uunet.UU.NET (Ron Bean) Subject: Re: Identa-Ring Decoding Box Organization: ARP Software Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1992 03:35:46 GMT sar1952@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Steven A Rubin) writes: > I currently have a phone line with two different numbers, with > distinctive ringing letting me determine which number the person is > calling on. I purchased an Autoline Plus box from ITS that 'listens' > to the rings and routes the call to the proper device. The problem > (more like a frustration) is that the box takes three rings to > determine where to send the call. Is there a device that can do the > routing on less rings yet still be reliable? I was just thinking that the Caller-ID technology could be used for this purpose, if it sent the *called* number instead of the calling number. Of course, you couldn't have both at once, but it would allow you to answer in 1.5 rings. zaphod@madnix.UUCP (Ron Bean) {harvard|rutgers|ucbvax}!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!zaphod ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 01:15:16 CST From: Jack.Winslade@ivgate.omahug.org (Jack Winslade) Subject: Re: Living in the Past Reply-To: jack.winslade%drbbs@ivgate.omahug.org Organization: DRBBS Technical BBS, Omaha In a message dated 05-OCT-92, John Higdon writes: > (Another well known telco who claims to do business in this region > cannot take the order in this manner. First, one must explain what a > "one-emm-bee" is. Then, since the person who answers the phone is > completely powerless, someone has to call you Speaking of this well-known telco, last weekend when I attended a regional system operators' conference, one of the speakers remarked of a current run-in with their local phone company. He has two lines, one for voice, and the other for data. His data line is lower, numerically, than the voice line, but since he did not specify which he wanted listed, they made the first (lowest) one listed and the other the data (unlisted) line. He wants to use the low one for data and the high one for voice, so he inquired about getting the listing changed. They (phone company) said that the ONLY way for them to do that was to disconnect the service and reconnect it again the other way around, thus charging him for a new installation. I asked him if his phone company was a certain well-known three-letter one that tends to irritate a certain guy who hides out in the desert. ;-) He confirmed that it was indeed the case. I suggested to him that he mention another three-letter name in his next conversation with the phone company, that being PSC. Is that company capable of doing ANYTHING ????? He also mentioned that they were going to close the local business office and run all of their business out of some town in Egypt, at least that's what I thought I heard him say. The city was Bum-something, but I forget exactly. Maybe their customer service number can be 286-3825. ;-) ;-) ;-) Good day. JSW bbat (DRBBS) 8.9 v. 3.14 r.1 (1:285/666.0) ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 1992 00:12:09 -0700 (PDT) From: cvads008@vmsb.is.csupomona.edu Subject: Information For a Paper Needed Organization: California State Polytechnic University, Pomona I, along with a fellow student, am working on a paper about networked or flat type organizations. These are organizations in which suppliers and or subcontractors are linked together and share information with each other. Examples of this type of organization would be the Baxter-American Hospital Supply ASAP system or EDI in general. Just about all of our information we have found in our research deals with the managerial benefits and detriments of this type of organizational set up. However, since we are Computer Information Systems majors with a emphasis in Telecommunications, we would like to find more information of a technical nature. In a nutshell, just how are the elements in a particular flat organization linked together? i.e. What type of hardware are they using? Do they use leased lines? T1? Any help in locating information such as this would be greatly appreciated. Case studies, recent articles or books, if you have seen something that may help let me know. Stephen Caron CIS major Cal Poly Pomona cvads008@vmsa.is.csupomona.edu ------------------------------ From: johnson@tigger.jvnc.net (Steven L. Johnson) Subject: Re: Question About ROLM PBX Telephones Organization: JvNCnet Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 07:46:42 GMT lars@CMC.COM (Lars Poulsen) writes: > As you may know, ROLM has been the subjects of takeovers and > divestitures. At one time it was swallowed by IBM, and then sold to > Siemens. At the present time, I believe it is still owned by Siemens, > but does business under the Rolm name again. Rolm was sold in chunks to Siemens and for a while there was both a Rolm Systems and a Rolm Company. Now they are back to just one Rolm, although I'm not sure of its current proper name. There are lots of 'Siemens' phones as Stromberg-Carlson, TelPlus, and Rolm (among others) were separate acquisitions and are still relatively independent. Even within a particular operating company I'd suspect a variety of different digital interfaces if for no other reason for compatibility with older product lines versus new designs. Steve ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 16:18:54 CST From: apollo@n2sun1.ccl.itri.org.tw (Yee-Lee Shyong) SubjectL Telecommunications Jitter What's the JITTER in telecommunications? How is it measured? Thanks. Apollo [Moderatpr's Note: I think it is caused by the Jitterbug, a well known form of music from the early years of this century. :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: rfranken@cs.umr.edu Subject: Re: Detection of Pulse Dial Codes by Info Systems Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 15:09:56 GMT Organization: University of Missouri - Rolla In article mrj@cs.su.oz.au (Mark James) writes: > I dialed an airline automated infomation system the other day and it > allowed responses to be either tone or pulse encoded. > The tones could be detected at any time, but you had to wait till > after a beep for the pulse code to be recognised. > What mechanism to they use to detect the pulses? > Can you buy equipment that will respond to tones and pulses? > Are pulses only able to be detected on an incoming analog line, or > could they also be detected on an ISDN line from a call originating in > the POTS network? Pulses are momentary on-hooks, which are not sent over the network. (Only a long on-hook is sent over the network, as a disconnect). However, whenever a phone pulse dials, it creates clicks on the line. These clicks are not used by the local telco switching equipment (which senses the on-hook), but the airlines equipment could sense the clicks and act on them. I wonder if all their options had high numbers (say above five) so their pulse sensing equipment could detect the regular pattern of clicks. (If they had an option one, a momentary noise hit might be mistaken for a click) Brett (rfranken@cs.umr.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 10:25:15 -0700 From: mmt@redbrick.com (Maxime Taksar) Subject: Re: ATM Technical Information Wanted In article , PAT writes: >> been able to find much information at all. > [Moderator's Note: Actually, the banks, credit card processors and a > few others would prefer that you not find out much information about > the topic ... but TELECOM Digest readers will come to the rescue I am > sure with all you ever wanted to know on the topic. PAT] Actually, magnetic card encoding is *far* from a big secret. A couple (if not all) of the schemes are ISO standards. What you probably want to do is find some companies that make the encoding/decoding equipment and get some spec sheets from them. Maxime Taksar KC6ZPS mmt@RedBrick.COM ------------------------------ From: schear@cylink.COM (Steve Schear) Subject: Specs For Portable Cellular Car Kit Interfaces Organization: Cylink Corp. Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 16:43:21 GMT Does anyone on the net know where to obtain the electrical/protocol specs for the base connectors found on cellular portable's? I know that there is no single standard, so I'd appreciate info on any of the most popular brands and models. sds ------------------------------ From: leavens@mizar.usc.edu (Justin Leavens) Subject: Message Center and Call Waiting Date: 18 Oct 1992 13:16:48 -0700 Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Does anyone have any idea why calls which go unanswered for, say three rings, Can be automatically forwarded to my Pac Bell Message Center mailbox, but if I am on a call already (and I have call-waiting) a call-waiting call unanswered will not be forwarded? Pacific Bell told me that my only other option was to get rid of call- waiting and have busy calls go directly to my voicemail. Somehow that doesn't seem right ... anyone know why this is? Is this universal? Justin Leavens Microcomputer Specialist University of Southern California [Moderator's Note: You do NOT have to 'get rid of call waiting'. All you have to do is suspend call waiting for the duration of the call on which you would rather not be disturbed. The idea seems to be that for most users, if they are there when the phone rings they want to get the call rather than have it go to voicemail. If you are on the phone when a call comes in, obviously you are there. So telco presumes that you want the new call. They do not send it to voicemail since possibly you are delayed in getting off the first call (within three rings) or trying to find a logical break so you can put the first call on hold, etc. If you do NOT want the disturbance of a second call, then indicate this by inserting *70 before dialing the first call or flashing the hook and inserting it at some point in the first incoming call. The *70 will trigger the busy condition needed to force newly arriving calls to forward to voicemail. PAT] ------------------------------ From: garyw@borland.com (Gary Wingert) Subject: Transition 2000 Date: 18 Oct 1992 16:30:29 -0500 Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway In the July '92 issue of {Playboy}, page 157, is an ad for the Transition 2000 telephone: "Guess Who? Transition 2000 uses microprocessors to change voices from male to female and female to male, providing convincing clarity and 16 programmable disguises. o Complete anonymity on all incoming and outgoing calls o Traditional phone features in a contemporary design for single line use o Screens annoying phone calls o Security for people at home alone o "Invisible receptionist" for small business o Great amusement $89.95 plus $5.00 for shipping and handling in USA. To order, call 1-800-367-1400 or send check or money order to: Questech International, Inc. P.O. Box 79229, Tampa, Florida 33619-0229 Visa/Master Card only" Anyone hear of this/experience this phone? I think it would be a great gag, but I'm not sure about the quality, etc. I called the number and asked for a demo, and they gave me the customer service number: 1-800-966-5367. I called, and a woman answered, then began speaking to someone in rapid-fire Spanish. It almost sounded like someone's home, but it could be a small office. I asked for a demo, and some guy was supposed to call me back, but it never happened. The photo shows a black phone with a touch-tone pad. Below the * and # keys are what appears to be two black buttons or knobs. Between them, below the Oper key is what appears to be a light, though it might be a button. Under the handset are two two-position slide switches, but I can't read the legends on them. Any info is appreciated! Thanks, gary wingert garyw@borland.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #786 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa13850; 18 Oct 92 16:28 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA10049 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 18 Oct 1992 14:30:34 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA20856 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 18 Oct 1992 14:30:25 -0500 Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 14:30:25 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210181930.AA20856@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #787 TELECOM Digest Sun, 18 Oct 92 14:30:30 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 787 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Old Telephones Advertised For Sale (Nigel Allen) Re: Caller-ID Boxes (Home Use) Information Request (Dave Strieter) Need Info on Applied Spectrum Tech Modem (Curtis Brown) Length of Phone Numbers in Europe (was East German Pay Phone) (Wolf Paul) DC to DC Convertor Needed (acct069@carroll1.cc.edu) Book on Universal Phone Service (Steve Cisler) Re: ATM Technical Information Wanted (Joseph Bergstein) Help - Noisy Trunk Preventing Modem Connections (Don Barstow) Re: Caller-ID in Massachusetts, Again (Joel B. Levin) Interesting Problem With Cellular No-Answer Transfer (Steve Forrette) Contacts Wanted (John Pettitt) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nigel.Allen@lambada.oit.unc.edu Subject: Old Telephones Advertised For Sale Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 00:19:06 EDT A company in California is selling old, "lovingly restored" dial telephones by mail. I saw the company's ad in the {New York Times Magazine}. You probably won't find any bargains in the company's catalog, but you might find some nice phones for yourself or to give as gifts. To request a catalog, send $3 to: Ring My Bell 500 South Douglas St. El Segundo, CA 90245 telephone 1-800-877-1920 When I asked if the company would be willing to ship to Canada, the person answering the phone said yes. However, I don't think the company does much international business. I haven't ordered anything from "Ring My Bell" yet, and I don't know anything about the company. Still, I bet they have some interesting stuff for sale. ------------------------------ From: gtephx!strieterd@enuucp.eas.asu.edu (Dave Strieter) Subject: Re: Caller-ID Boxes (Home Use) Information Request Organization: AG Communication Systems, Phoenix, Arizona Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 19:44:09 GMT In article , cmb@ico.isc.com (Chris M. Beery) writes: > My primary question is: Does any manufacturer make one that prints the > data on a spool of paper rather than use an LCD display? (A combination > would also be fine). I don't know about spools of paper, but could you use a Caller-ID board that plugs into an IBM-compatible PC? You could then view the log on your PC screen, print it on your printer, etc. I have seen several varieties advertised, including the WindowPhone (TM) from AGCS. By the way, WindowPhone does not need the PC to be turned on in order to record your call data. Dave Strieter, AG Communication Systems, POB 52179 Phoenix AZ 85072-2179 *** These are not my employer's positions...just my ramblings. *** UUCP: {...!ncar!noao!enuucp | att}!gtephx!strieterd +1 602 582 7477 INTERNET: gtephx!strieterd@enuucp.eas.asu.edu | strieterd@gtephx.att.com ------------------------------ From: brownc@CS.ColoState.EDU (curtis brown) Subject: Need Info on Applied Spectrum Tech Modem Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 06:49:04 GMT Organization: Colorado State University, I managed to snag a modem made by Applied Spectrum Technologies, Inc. It has DIP switches that say it can run up to 19.2K bps ($20, flea market, what the heck). I can hook up power to it and when I type something on the keyboard, the (external modem) lights flash. However, My assumption came true when I realized that "this modem dosen't recongize AT commands". Sigh. Can I still use this? And how? Maybe this was only made for network stuff? Other info: Has lights labeled: ERR, CTS, DCD, RD, TD, LB, PWR with one switch labeled: LLB & RLB standard RS-232 socket and two phone line(RJ-11) jacks labeled LINE & PHONE model number: not sure (DVM-400 ?) PC: 486 pc-compat. running procomm plus 2.0 Please excuse my ignorance; my knowledge of modems is very limited Any questions/comments/suggestions/flames/donations much appreciated. Curtis Brown brownc@cs.colostate.edu ------------------------------ From: cc_paul@rcvie.co.at (Wolf Paul) Subject: Length of Phone Numbers in Europe (was East German Pay Phone) Reply-To: cc_paul@rcvie.co.at (Wolf N. Paul) Organization: Alcatel Austria - Elin Research Center, Vienna Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 09:30:52 GMT In article msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) writes: > The mind boggles. Now that I think of it, it also rather boggled at > the fact that, unless my hotel listing included some out-of-date > numbers, West Berlin telephone numbers could be five, six, seven, or > eight digits long ... That is not so unusual. In most European countries phone numbers can be of differing length. Here in Vienna, most phone numbers used to be 6-digit for "full lines" and seven-digit for "quarter lines" (party lines with complex switching to avoid cross-overs and billing problems). A few large companies however had shorter numbers, to accommodate their long PBX extension numbers within the CCITT maximum length of a phone number. Now that they are slowly switching to digital exchanges (modified NT DMS-100 and Siemens EWSD), most numbers are seven-digit, and shorter numbers for PBX customers are becoming more common -- the more extensions on your PBX, the shorter your subscriber number. And moving on to smaller towns and villages you can find anything from three to seven digits in various parts of Austria. Area codes used to be 0 + three digits for larger towns, and 0 + four digits for the rest of the country; they have now assigned Vienna the area code "1" for calls from outside the country, again to accomodate the CCITT limit on the overall length of a phone number. Some time in the future this is supposed to work from within Austria as well, and we may then also see single-digit area codes for a couple other larger places. Wolf N. Paul, Computer Center wnp@rcvie.co.at A L C A T E L | Alcatel-Elin Research Center +43-1-391621-122 (w) --------------------+ Ruthnergasse 1-7 +43-1-391452 (fax) ELIN RESEARCH A-1210 Vienna-Austria/Europe +43-1-2246913 (h) ------------------------------ From: Ron Subject: DC to DC Convertor Needed Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 6:17:19 CDT My company is in search of a low cost DC to DC convertor that will take -48VDC from the central office battery feed and convert it to a regulated +12VDC at around 1 Amp, plus or minus 1/2 Amp. The cost we are trying to get is somewhere between $40 and $60 dollars per piece. What we are looking for would be something like a small box that is PCBoard mountable and less than nine square inches. If you have any information on something like this, please e-mail me at the following address. Thanks, Ron | Lightning Systems, INC. acct069@carroll1.cc.edu | (414) 363-4282 62megs carroll1!acct069@uwm.edu | 14.4k HST/V.32bis ------------------------------ From: sac@Apple.COM (Steve Cisler) Subject: Book on Universal Phone Service Date: 18 Oct 92 11:53:08 GMT Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA Readers might be interested in this recent work: Universal Telephone Service: Ready for the 21st Century? From the Institute for Information Studies (a joint program of Northern Telecom and the Aspen Institute, Wye Center, Box 222 Queenstown, MD 21658 Chapters by different policy people: Private Networks and Public Objectives, Eli Noam What About Privacy in Universal Telephone Service? Daniel Brenner Technologies of Universal Service, Susan Hadden Universal Service and NREN, Barbara O'Connor Toward a Universal Definition of Universal Service, Herbert Dordick Globalization of Universal Telecomms Services, Joesph Pelton Copyright 1991. No price ------------------------------ From: Joseph.Bergstein@p501.f544.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Joseph Bergstein) Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 01:26:27 -0500 Subject: Re: ATM Technical Information Wanted > Do you have or know where I can get any technical information on > ATM machines/cards or other magnetically encoded card systems? I am > currently taking a proseminar course at Lehigh University in > Computer Engineering and that is my topic. Unfortunately up to now, I > have not been able to find much information at all. Try the ATM machine manufacturers (e.g. IBM, NCR, Diebold, Fujitsu, etc.). Also there may be some documentation available from the A.B.A. (American Banker's Association) regarding standards for magnetic encoding because of interoperability issues among different ATMs and different banks. You could also try contacting vendors of Point of Sale (POS) equipment, particularly those inexpensive units made to attach to PCs. ------------------------------ From: dhb@ksr.com (Don Barstow) Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 15:17:46 -0400 Subject: Help - Noisy Trunk Preventing Modem Connections I am having a problem getting a connection to the modems at work. I believe the problem is in a telephone trunk. First, I took my modem in to work, and called out from an outside line back into the incoming modem line and was able to establish a 14.4 connection with correction and compression. Second, I have been able to establish 9600 and 12000 baud connections to other modems in other geographic areas from home. Third, other people are able to call in to work from other areas around Boston and get 14.4 connections. However, when I call Waltham, Ma., from Chelmsford Ma., (a distance of 15 miles) I am unable to establish any connection at 14.4. At 9600, the protocols usually negotiate, and the line drops two to ten seconds afterwards. Only at 4800 am I able to get a connection that stays up, and even this one usually drops once an hour or so. In addition, I have two phone lines at home, and have experienced the same problem with both. I have also played with many combinations of v.42, v.42bis, and MNP5 at the high baud rates, all to no avail. So, I don't think it is a problem between the two modems (mine is ZOOM, work is a T3000), or a problem in my phone lines, or the phone lines in the building at work. The only conclusion I can come to is that there is some very noisy trunk somewhere between Chelmsford and Waltham. Any comments? Is there anything I can say to the phone company to get them to do something about this (while staying with just a voice grade line)? Thanks for any assistance, Don Barstow dhb@ksr.com ------------------------------ From: levin@bbn.com (Joel B Levin) Subject: Re: Caller-ID in Massachusetts, Again Date: 18 Oct 1992 15:14:41 GMT John R. Levine writes: > While talking to a nice lady at New England Tel about residential ISDN > this morning, she mentioned that NET has re-filed for calling number > delivery, but didn't know what blocking options were to be offered. > Does anyone else have the details? Correct, according to this morning's {Boston Globe}. Months ago, the Mass. DPU nixed Caller-ID without blocking, and NET went away in a snit saying they just wouldn't do it. Now they have changed their minds, and they will have per-call and per-line blocking. There was no indication whether there would be per-call enabling on blocked lines. So in your state, don't let a telco say they'll pick up their marbles and walk away if the have to provide blocking. It's a bluff (at least in New England). JBL Internet: levin@bbn.com | USPS: BBN Systems and Technologies Division UUCP: levin@bbn.com | Mail Stop 6/5A Telco: (617)873-3463 | 10 Moulton Street N1MNF | Cambridge, MA 02138 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 14:27:16 -0700 From: Steve Forrette Subject: Interesting Problem With Cellular No-Answer Transfer I've been having a problem with my Cellular One of Seattle service recently which I thought the TELECOM Digest may be interested in reading about. Recently, they installed a second Erricson switch, and my prefix was one of those moved over to the new one. Since they offer free no-answer and busy transfer, my cellular number is the only one I give out. Most of the time, I don't take calls on the cellular phone, though, and have it forwarded to either my home or office number. So, most of my incoming landline calls go through the Cellular One switch. Shortly after the switchover, I would often, but not always, have a problem where my landline phone would ring, I would answer with "Hello" and hear no response. After a couple of seconds, I would say "Hello?" again, and the caller would say "I already said Hi!". In a couple of cases, where the caller had background noise at their location, I could clearly hear their talk path cut through a couple of seconds AFTER I answered the call. After a few more times of this happening, I had narrowed down the source of the problem: all of the calls where this was happening were in cases where the caller was calling long distance via AT&T. Since I knew that AT&T had implemented a change in their network such that the forward talk path is not enabled until after answer supervision is received from the callee, and knowing that MCI, Sprint, and the RBOCS do not do this, I concluded that the problem was related to answer supervision in some way. Thinking further, it seemed that the most likely source of the problem was with Cellular One. Since my incoming calls go through their switch, when I answer the call, they get the answer supervision indication. The cellular switch then has to recognize this, and then return supervision on the incoming trunk where the call originally came from. If this process was delayed in the cellular switch for a couple of seconds, it would produce exactly these symptoms, and only with inbound AT&T long distance calls. So, I called Customer Care at Cellular One, and explained that I had an unusual problem and that I thought I knew what the problem was. Fortunately, even though the customer service representative didn't quite understand what I was explaining, they treated me with respect and conceded that it sounded like I knew what I was talking about (instead of the usual assumption that the customer can't possibly know anything about how things work), and promised to pass the information on to the techies and call me back. Two weeks later, with no response, I called back. After explaining the problem again, the rep surprised me by saying that I was absolutely correct, that it is a known problem that they tracked down recently, and that they were working with Erricson to get a software update that would correct the problem. This was last night, so as of yet it is not fixed, but I'm sure glad that it sounds like they are aware of the problem and its solution. It is interesting to note that their first switch, which is also an Erricson, did not exhibit this behavior. Apparently, this was happening to Craig McCaw on HIS cellular phone, and I can imagine that when he calls with a problem, it is given prompt and thorough attention! (For those of you who don't know, Mr. McCaw owns McCaw Cellular, which is the largest franchisee of the Cellular One service mark in the US, and I believe owns more cellular franchises than anyone else, with the possible recent exception of GTE Mobilnet.) So here's my question: It would seem that this sort of problem could happen in many places where there is some sort of "pass-through" forwarding arrangement, now that AT&T blocks the forward talk path until after supervision. Are there other documented cases of a switch which delays passing the supervision signal causing this problem (as opposed to the problem of a switch never returning supervision, which have been documented here before)? Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: jpp@StarConn.com (John Pettitt) Subject: Contacts Wanted Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 12:14:20 PDT By way of introduction here is the first section of my resume: ENGINEERING and OPERATIONS PROFESSIONAL with ten years of successful domestic and international experience developing high-technology products and organizations in high-growth environments. Effectively integrating a knowledge of systems engineering with excellent strategic marketing skills, I have created multiple product families generating multi-million dollar revenues, including products which have become the singular success templates in their respective market segments. In addition, by combining a strong entrepreneurial drive with an uncommon ability to identify marketplace opportunities, I have developed efficient, effective, and profitable organizations, most recently building from scratch a $20 million company with seven offices on four continents. Currently, I am seeking an executive management position within a high-growth, high-tech company, where I can focus on profitable marketplace opportunities and beat the competition's product-to-market time to ensure continuing growth and increasing profitability. I am exploring the corner of the industry where networking, computing and telecommunications meets with a view to either starting another company or joining an early stage company/division. To do this I am looking for people to talk to who can increase my knowledge in a number of areas. In particular I am looking for senior level contacts within the following companies: NET, Octel, PictureTel, Auspex, Premisys Communications, Ultra Network Technologies, Wireless Access. I am not asking for specific leads to a job opportunity (although if you know of one I would be glad to hear of it). I am, however, looking for people to talk to on an informational interview basis either face to face (if they are in California) or on the telephone. If you have any questions, want to see a full resume or suggestions of people I should talk to please call, fax or email. Thanks. John Pettitt Mail: jpp@StarConn.com Voice: +1 415 967 UNIX Fax: +1 415 967 8682 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #787 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa16864; 18 Oct 92 18:07 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA25048 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 18 Oct 1992 16:05:27 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA25854 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 18 Oct 1992 16:05:12 -0500 Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 16:05:12 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210182105.AA25854@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #788 TELECOM Digest Sun, 18 Oct 92 16:05:15 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 788 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Call-Advice (was College Phone System AGAIN!) (Shrikumar) PCBX Information Wanted (Thomas Tengdin) Patent # 4,918,722 by Brooktrout on FaxBack Type Service (Michael Shiels) Pilot Frequency (Terence Cross) Re: SPRINT Outage (Paul Eggert) Re: ATM Technical Information Wanted (Michael G. Katzmann) Vital Suffolk County, NY Phones Out (Newsday via Dave Niebuhr) A Few Questions About N11 Codes (Ramakrishna Chamarthy) Caller-ID in Massachusetts (Bob Frankston) PBX Fraud (Carl Wright) Re: British Call Waiting (Rolf Meier) What is the "Operator Assistance Network"? (Bill Sommerfeld) Low Pay - High Job Satisfaction ;^> (Rob Bailey) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 03:26:10 -0400 From: shri%unreal@cs.umass.edu Subject: Call-Advice (was College Phone System AGAIN!) Organization: UMass, Amherst, MA 01002 + Temporal Sys & Comp Net, Bombay, India In article kupiec@hp800.lasalle.edu wrote: > There is NO way to block Call Waiting! This give me a fit, because > how am I supposed to use the modem?! Here's to announce to the world "Call-Advice" :-) A new feature which lets you use a modem for those long long sessions and yet be advised of calls which await your attention. You decide case by case, if you wish to log out gracefully and attend to that new call, or you cant offord to log out, so you just ignore the call. This feature is as-yet available only in the precints of my castle -- my home ! :-) NET, my telco, thinks they have provided me with Call-Waiting. Now I have set my modem to *not* drop a call on loss of carrier less than 400 msec. It does dip the CTS and CD lines however, on loss of carrier. A Rat-Shack Piezo-beeper and a 1N4001 diode to protect against reverse polarity delivers a loud 95dBi double beep, "beeeeeeep-bip" when a call arrives. This beeper is connected between CTS and CD and is set to beep when CTS is De-asserted and CD is active. I can then make a decision, and within reasonable time, during which my new caller is getting ring-back all the while, close my editor, quit the debugger, saving state, etc ... and log out and then de-assert DTR from my terminal. Now the modem drops the call. The phone now rings and I pick it up! Of course, you can do this only when the EIA interface and the modem's behaviour properly implemented by the modem manufacturer. And the DTR semantics is properly implemented by the terminal software/firmware writer. Lucky I have some older-generation modem and terminal that do do this very correctly! Since the modem I am calling also does not drop the call, either it seems that the call waiting beep does not seem to corrupt the part of the spectrum with the modem originate tones, and does not seem to interrupt it either, or that modem also has a longer Carrier-loss timer setting. I am not sure which, either or both. Additional benefits, -- affirmative beep for connection and disconnection. Helps when you leave your terminal logged in with a long compile going on, and want to be alerted if the connection breaks. How about that!! shrikumar (shri@legato.cs.umass.edu, shri@iucaa.ernet.in) [Moderator's Note: Your scheme is all well and good provided the data being passed in either direction is not critical and corruption can be easily detected and corrected. What if I am in the midddle of up or downloading a big humongous binary file which is hard enough to read and decipher under any conditions? I would not need a buzzer to tell me a call had arrived; I could look at the garbage on my screen. In simple ASCII text jobs such as this Digest, that sort of accuracy is not required. I can see obviously garbled text and reconstruct it. But if I did any really critical or complex computing -- I do not -- then call waiting on the line would be out of the question entirely. And in my estimation you are very lucky the distant modem does not drop you instantly when it sees you gone for even a second ... it must be set up a few notches also. Do all the places you call via modem respond as patiently to your interupptions? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 08:06:49 pdt From: Thomas Tengdin Subject: PCBX Information Wanted I am considering using one of the PC based switches from a company called PCBX systems on a project here. Does anyone have any first hand information on these things? Do they do a reasonable job? Do they seem to be reliable? Thanks in advance, Tom Tengdin Monterey Bay Aquarioum Research Institute. ------------------------------ From: mshiels@TMSoftware.Ca (Michael A. Shiels) Subject: Patent # 4,918,722 by Brooktrout on FaxBack Type Service Organization: MaS Network Software and Consulting Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 19:30:50 -0400 Does anyone have any more information about this patent? I called them and asked why if they have this patent that there are lots of people offering faxback services. The response was they are all getting letters from the lawyers to cease etc, etc. They are sending me a copy of the patent text so maybe we can go from there. Michael A. Shiels mshiels@masnet.uucp MaS Network Software and Consulting mshiels@tmsoftware.ca ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 09:57:30 BST From: eeitecs@eeiuc.ericsson.se (Terence Cross) Subject: Pilot Frequency Hi, I am enquiring about a thing called 'pilot frequency' used in transmission systems. This pilot frequency is as pilot lamps/lights etc. are in other things, like gas cookers, and are used to sense a break in a line or a blocking of the line by the next switch. Can these 'pilot frequencies' exist in all types of signalling systems, e.g. SS 5, SS 6, SS 7? Or are they generally only used with older type signalling systems? Terence Cross +353 902 74601 AXE Operation & Maintenance ECN: 830 1498 Ericsson Expertise Irl. Ltd. eeitecs@eeiuc.ericsson.se Athlone, Ireland eeitecs@memo.ericsson.se [Moderator's Note: Your question brings to mind something I saw about 25 years ago and never had thought about since. I used to go spend time during the overnight hours with a friend who was employed by WHPK, a little FM radio station at the University of Chicago. On a shelf they had a radio receiver with a red light on it. I asked what it was for and the explanation I got was that it was constantly tuned to another station, WMAQ, 670 kc (the NBC affiliate here) and that if the red light came on, it meant that for some reason WMAQ had gone off the air. Other than Monday mornings between 1:00 AM and 5:30 AM when it was always off the air (forcing a weekly reset of the relay which drove the little red light when the WHPK people would see it/get around to it) the only time WMAQ would be likely to sign off the air we were told was when CONELRAD took over the 670 and 1230 frequencies. If that happened -- CONELRAD took over those frequencies -- then a national emergency was going on and other stations would want to monitor the situation so they could report to their listeners as well. WHPK staff *expected* to have to reset the relay every Monday morning; they did *not* expect it otherwise. So the day the Vietnam war protestors marched into the Merchandise Mart transmission facilties for WMAQ and pulled the main fuses out to protest whatever their grievance was with the National Broadcasting Company, of course the loss of carrier caused a few little red lights to go on in various two-bit college radio stations! :) The expected confusion resulted when the one sole person on duty at WHPK spent several minutes trying to figure out what was going on after confirming there was no signal on 670 kc. We expect certain things to happen at certain times: the old 'air raid sirens' we had in Chicago were tested for one minute precisely at 10:30 every Tuesday morning. When they were set off deliberatly as a prank one time, the citizenry was convinced we were at war again ... ditto when the little red lights monitoring the WMAQ signal flashed on. PAT] ------------------------------ From: eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert) Subject: Re: SPRINT Outage Organization: Twin Sun, Inc Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 17:02:28 GMT The flooded Sprint switching center also affected UUNET, a major Usenet and Internet hub. On Monday, Tamara S. Bowman of UUNET reported ( in the uunet.status newsgroup) that customers in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas were affected. Sprint is rerouting lines, but Bowman writes, "because of the number of lines being served by this node the recovery process is slow." Full service will be restored by Thursday at the earliest, i.e. it's taking Sprint at least a week to fix things. [Moderator's Note: Is service restored as of Sunday afternoon? PAT] ------------------------------ From: vk2bea!michael@arinc.com (Michael G. Katzmann) Subject: Re: ATM Technical Information Wanted Date: 18 Oct 92 18:22:09 GMT Reply-To: vk2bea!michael@arinc.com (Michael G. Katzmann) Organization: Broadcast Sports Technology, Crofton. Maryland. In article jrc5@pl122a.eecs.lehigh.edu (Josh Cohen EMT) writes: > Do you have or know where I can get any technical information on ATM > machines/cards or other magnetically encoded card systems? I am > [Moderator's Note: Actually, the banks, credit card processors and a > few others would prever that you not find out much information about > the topic ... but TELECOM Digest readers will come to the rescue I am > sure with all you ever wanted to know on the topic. PAT] I know this has come up in TELECOM Digest before. I have a copy of the Australian Standard 2623. "Credit Cards Part2 - Magnetic Stripe Encoding for tracks 1, 2 & 3". It sites several ISO standards: ISO 1864, Information Processing- unrecorded 12.7mm wide magnetic tape for information interchange-8 and 32 rpmm NRZI and 63 rpmm, phase encoded. ISO 2894, Embossed credit cards - Specifications, numbering system and registration procedure. ISO 3554, Bank cards - Magnetic stripe data content for track 3. Perhaps another reader knows the ANSI equivelents to these standards. (ANSI standards are no doubt easier to lay your hands on than ISO.) Michael Katzmann Broadcast Sports Technology Inc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Crofton, Maryland. U.S.A Amateur Radio Stations: NV3Z / VK2BEA / G4NYV / AAR3VK opel!vk2bea!michael@uunet.uu.net ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 08:08:05 EDT From: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) Subject: Vital Suffolk County, NY Phones Out {Newsday} for Wednesday, October 14 had this article: "The lines to emergency, police, fire and some government offices in Suffolk County were down for almost two hours yesterday (Oct. 13) morning because of an internal power problem resulting in many calls not going through. But Suffolk County police said no disasters occurred during the time that the lines were down, and callers still could be put through with the assistance of an operator. An internal power problem affected the switch that serves police and fire emergency calls to 911, said Maureen Flanagan, a New York Telephone spokeswoman. The exchanges of 8-5-2, 8-5-3 and 8-5-4 (why the dashes, I don't know - dwn) for police, fire and government offices were also affected, she said. Flanagan said the problems surfaced at 6 a.m. at the central office for 911 calls on Suffolk Avenue in Brentwood. Workers immediately began to reprogram the switch, so that calls would be routed accurately (I wish NYTel would do this with my routing problem - dwn). Some lines were reopened by 7:30 a.m., and things were back to normal by 8:40 a.m., Flanagan said. Throughout the 100-minute outage, callers could have been connected by the operator, Flanagan said. Workers were still studying the breakdown last night to prevent it from recurring, Flanagan said. The police department did not receive any calls later indicating it had missed important emergencies in the interim." -------------- Dave Niebuhr Internet: niebuhr@bnl.gov / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973 (516)-282-3093 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 09:37:16 EDT From: rkc@maestro.bellcore.com (Ramakrishna Chamarthy) Subject: A Few Questions About N11 Codes Can someone please answer a few questions about N11 codes? What service does each of the N11 codes represent? Have all of them (services and the associated codes) been identified/defined? I know that (only in US, I suppose): 411 - Directory Inquiry service 911 - Emenrgency Attention/Help (in life threatening situations) service What about other countries? What type of services (I am more interested in this) and what are the codes? Are they same countrywide/continentwide (e.g., Europe?)? How are the N11 codes decided for each of the service, in terms of user factors such as ease of use, less likelihood of misdial by interswitching the adjacent digits, not dialing N11 (by mistake) when you do not want to etc., for the ones that are used in critical situations (Emergency) as opposed to the ones used in relatively casual situations (Directory Inquiry)? For example, in case of Emergency Attention/Help, How is 911 better than any other 9 X1 X2 (X= 0-9, X1 may not be equal to X2)? Who administers these codes in US? Thanks, Ramakrishna E-mail: rkc@maestro.bellcore.com [Moderator's Note: I think your employer Bellcore administers them. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bob_Frankston@frankston.com Subject: Caller-ID in Massachusetts Date: Sun 18 Oct 1992 09:52 -0400 According to recent (i.e., a few days ago) newspaper stories, NET has decided to offer Caller-ID here. Does anyone know the details? Will there be a separate code to enable and disable? Did they change the policy because the appropriate rev of software became available as opposed to any real policy decisions? ------------------------------ From: wright@ais.org (Carl Wright) Subject: PBX Fraud Organization: UMCC Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 14:19:22 GMT Could someone please explain why companies seem to think that the carriers are responsible for PBX fraud? There are many analogous crimes where we don't blame the equipment manufacturer or the service provider? ------------------------------ From: meier@software.mitel.com (Rolf Meier) Subject: Re: British Call Waiting Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 13:28:19 -0400 Organization: Mitel. Kanata (Ontario). Canada. In article mattair@sun44.synercom. hounix.org (Charles Mattair) writes: > (or at least the rationale) but what's the excuse now? Don't they > have to add additional equipment to convert pulse to TT for most > switches? Not additional equipment, but hardware which is there anyway. Dial pulses are detected by counting transitions on the switch hook indicator, and DTMF is detected by a DSP. Both processors are there anyway doing other tasks. Service is changed by typing on a keyboard. The easiest is to default to both pulse and DTMF, and disable DTMF only to get somebody to subscribe to the service. Rolf Meier Mitel Corporation ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 11:39:22 -0400 From: Bill Sommerfeld Subject: What is the "Operator Assistance Network"? Anyone ever hear of these people? They appear to be operating out of the Pacific Time Zone. I got a phone bill recently which contained a line item from them, charging me roughly $5.00 for a two-minute credit card call, placed from a payphone in a restaurant in Norwalk, CT, to Cambridge MA. The bill mentioned "Billed on behalf of AMNET", or something like that (I don't have it in front of me at the moment). The kicker is that the call was never completed (the person we were calling wasn't home, and they don't have an answering machine). I called up the customer service number, and they agreed to cancel the charge. Has anyone had any problem with getting credits from OAN to go through? Other horror stories? Send mail to me at "sommerfeld@apollo.hp.com", and I'll summarize if there's interest and/or quantity. Bill [Moderator's Note: OAN is just another alternate operator service with the same attitude all of 'em have: ripoff the coin phone users of America as much as possible. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 92 01:49:31 EDT From: Rob Bailey <74007.303@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Low Pay - High Job Satisfaction ;^> All this talk of credits people are getting on their accounts and problems with carriers reminded me of how dealing with a fly-by-night or new, inexperienced company can be a small benefit. I was about one hour from installing a cellular mobile phone (CMT) in my auto many years ago when I found out that claims by the salesman of local calling area had been greatly exaggerated (the local calling area now in West Virginia is substantially larger than any "normal" phone's, so it is frequently cheaper to use my car phone than to pay C&P's rates for 50 or 60 miles). I called the carrier (Independant Cellular Network -- a little landline carrier from Florida) and cancelled the install. Guess what came in the mail next month ... a bill for one month's service PLUS the $40 installation fee I had been assured anyway would be waived. Hmmm ... one lie leads to two more which leads to a bogus bill. I was glad then I had backed out. To make a long story shorter, MANY phone calls over successive months demanding to be REMOVED from their computer continually resulted in one month's credit, but then next month's bill would appear with new charges. Finally, someone got the idea of crediting my account for the month that hadn't come around yet so my rantings would at least be postponed a month. Sure enough..next month a bill that said "CREDIT: $35.53". I wrote on the bill "SEND CHECK" and returned it. You'll never guess what I got one week later! Although $35 for about five hours of very frustrating work isn't good pay, it sure was the last laugh to have them pay me when I had never done ANY business with them ;^> I'm a Cellular One customer now, by the way. Rob 74007.303@compuserve.com (still trying to get those Caller*ID packages together, folks!) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #788 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa19239; 18 Oct 92 19:16 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA01837 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 18 Oct 1992 16:58:22 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA28246 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 18 Oct 1992 16:58:11 -0500 Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 16:58:11 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210182158.AA28246@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #789 TELECOM Digest Sun, 18 Oct 92 16:58:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 789 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Stolen Cell Phone (Joel Upchurch) Re: Stolen Cell Phone (Craig Heim) Re: Stolen Cell Phone (Robert L. McMillin) Re: Stolen Cell Phone (David Lesher) Re: Stolen Cell Phone (apd104@psuvm.psu.edu) Re: Operator -- Live or Memorex? (Andy Sherman) Re: Operator -- Live or Memorex? (Kris Harris) Re: How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs? (S. Forrette) Re: How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs? (G. Hlavenka) Re: AT&T vs A Cable Company (Joseph Malloy) Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison (Steve Elias) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Stolen Cell Phone From: upchrch!joel@peora.sdc.ccur.com (Joel Upchurch) Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 04:18:55 EDT Organization: Upchurch Computer Consulting, Orlando FL TELECOM Moderator notes: > Constitution by some powerful legal organizations here. Someone > *tried* to steal my cell phone several months ago; but the way I wrap > the strap around my neck and across my shoulders, they'd have to pull > my head off to get the phone! :) During the few seconds he was > grabbing at me I got my little cannister of Mace (attached to my key > ring) from my pocket and gave him a liberal squirt in the eyes and up > his nose. That was enough to put him down for the minute or so it took > me to hail a cab and (admittedly) leave the scene in a hurry. PAT] You were lucky. In some cities if the police showed up they might have took the mugger to the hospital and thrown you in jail for assault. :-( Also peoples reaction to Mace vary a lot, and in a lot of cases it doesn't work at all or it may just make them madder. Next time you Mace somebody, run away and catch a cab around the corner. (If your mail bounces use the address below.) Joel Upchurch/Upchurch Computer Consulting/718 Galsworthy/Orlando, FL 32809 joel@peora.ccur.com {uiucuxc,hoptoad,petsd,ucf-cs}!peora!joel (407) 859-0982 [Moderator's Note: What you say is sad but true. There are people working hard in the USA to insure the rights of criminals are never in any way violated ... but Mace *is* a legal product here. At my age, I can't run very far very fast. PAT] ------------------------------ From: cheim@lectroid.sw.stratus.com (Craig Heim) Subject: Re: Stolen Cell Phone Date: 18 Oct 92 12:43:15 GMT Organization: Stratus Computer Inc. In article , slr@cco.caltech.edu (Steve L. Rhoades) writes: > In article ccoprfm@prism.gatech.edu > (Monte Freeman) writes: > [Stuff about getting his OKI 700 cellular phone stolen deleted] >> I called Pactel and told them what had happened. They turned off >> service to the phone immediately. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > I'm on my third car phone now, the previous two having been stolen. > I've always wondered if instead of the provider turning off service to > the phone, what about just leaving it on for about a week and see who > he/she calls? (Maybe put it on a special class of service so that > long distance would be restricted, reducing the loss to the provider.) > If the thief were a teenager, chances are he'd be calling all his > friends to impress them with his new "toy". In fact, many cellular carriers go one step further. Instead of *blocking* the calls, the carrier changes the origination class of service to route *ALL* calls regardless of dialed digits (except for 911) to the carrier's fraud control department. Usually, the termination class of service is set so the phone cannot receive calls. This works only on the home switch. When the phone roams, the verification service handles it by barring the ESN on the roam switch. The technique used on the local switch is also used for subscriber's who haven't paid their bill. The carrier routes all calls to the credit department. Craig R. Heim |Stratus Computer, Inc. |My opinions are my own, Software Engineer |55 Fairbanks Blvd. |not necessarily are cheim@lectroid.sw.stratus.com |Marlboro, MA 01752-1298 |they Stratus's. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 05:29:42 -0700 From: rlm@indigo2.hac.com (Robert L. McMillin) Subject: Re: Stolen Cell Phone The Moderator notes: > [Moderator's Note: Good idea! When two guys picked my pocket on the > subway four years ago (one distracts you while the other gets in your > pocket) they got my telco calling card among other things. Although I > went back to the station where it happened, found one of the animals and > violated his civil liberties by assaulting him in the process of > holding him for police who were on the way, the one who actually got > my wallet was long gone. I notified IBT the next morning and they > turned it off, but when the bill came I skip-traced a few of the phone > numbers. I found one place where calls had originated that was a > private residence here in the city. I called the number, raised cain > and told them off. I also gave that address and phone number to IBT > and the police for their report and investigation -- what a joke! :( PAT] All the more reason drugs and other victimless crimes should be legalized. Along with this, we need a more general review of that which we criminalize. The problem law enforcement faces is that we now have far too many laws and not enough cops. Either we get serious about enforcement -- and pull out the National Guard every day, not just during riots (talk about community policing!) -- or we reduce the number of laws on the books and start to more realistically assess what we can and cannot control. Common thievery should get much more attention than it has, simply because of its great implications for the poorest people. We know what needs to be done. We are Americans. All we need is the strength to admit our mistakes, and the will to change the laws. 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: There is no such thing as a 'victimless crime'. All crimes have victims. That's why the acts thus described are called 'crimes', because some one or more people, or perhaps an entire community were harmed. Just because there are instances where victimization is a long, very slow and almost indiscernable process does not mean victimization does not occur -- just that you cannot easily detect it without perhaps a good knowledge of history and a scope of view which extends beyond your own immediate interests. PAT] ------------------------------ From: David Lesher Subject: Re: Stolen Cell Phone Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 18:29:59 EDT Reply-To: wb8foz@skybridge.scl.cwru.edu (David Lesher) Organization: NRK Clinic for habitual NetNews abusers - Beltway Annex Note that the 'hot lists' only work in the U S of A. Many phones head south of the border to countries where such details are not bothered with. wb8foz@scl.cwru.edu ------------------------------ Organization: Penn State University Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 16:03:28 EDT From: APD104@PSUVM.PSU.EDU Subject: Re: Stolen Cell Phone Well, like some people have been saying, the chances are that you won't get your phone back, unless the thief is an idiot, like some of the thieves in some other posts are. The thief either knows what he's doing, or he doesn't. If he doesn't, he'll sell the phone to someone who does know about cell phones. If he does, he'll attempt to re-program the NAM (numeric assignment module), which contains the ESN and SID; both of which have to be altered to mask the true source of th e fone ... also the MIN (mobile identification number) has to be reset. ...but really this is no big deal, and is done all the time ... pC ------------------------------ From: andys@internet.sbi.com (Andy Sherman) Subject: Re: Operator -- Live or Memorex? Date: Sun, 16 Oct 92 14:46:42 EDT Lauren Weinstein noticed a difference in volume between an AT&T operator's greeting and the rest of the conversation. He guessed (and verified with an operator) that the greetings were recorded. Pat replied: > [Moderator's Note: Actually this is not new. Illinois Bell operators > have used these recorded greetings for a few years now. In many cases > they do not have to speak at all as in the case of a call to DA where > the recording greets the caller, the caller gives his request and the > operator merely types it in, then the computer announces the number > the operator selected from the listings. I thought AT&T had been using > this for quite awhile also, although not with a standard response in > the system. (It was up to each operator to record what they wanted to > say there.) PAT] The ability to record some number of phrases is a feature of the OSPS Operator's Console, which has been in use at AT&T for several years. The use of this feature is considered a convenience, so it is up to an individual operator to use it or not as s/he sees fit. If you're noticing it more, then the feature must have gained more acceptance and is being used more. (Note that when I was trained to be a strike replacement OSPS operator, they did not even attempt to teach us how to use this feature). I've heard tell of an operator who recorded a whole bunch of phrases and then had competitions with herself to see if she could get through an entire shift without actually speaking! 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: kah005@acad.drake.edu Subject: Re: Operator -- Live or Memorex? Organization: Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, USA Date: Sun, 16 Oct 1992 03:13:38 GMT An interesting note to pre-recorded operator greetings: Once I called the 00 Operator and heard the female greeting. I asked for an area code and the reply came from a man!! I wonder if the operator changed genders all of a sudden ... This was this summer in the Chicago area where I live, but here in Iowa the AT&T 00 operator still had to say the greeting for each caller. Same for US WEST 0 operator and DA. Oh well, someday not-so-new technology will reach us. Kris Harris PO Box 2410 Des Moines, IA 50311-0410 (515) 254-2117 kah005@acad.drake.edu ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs? Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 20:48:27 GMT In article tnixon@hayes.com (Toby Nixon) writes: > What I'm think of is having three or four-pair twisted pair cable run > from each room separately (not daisy-chained the way they normally do > it) to a punch-down block in some central location, so we can hook > things together anyway we want. Is that a good idea? Do you have any > other advice for us? Thanks in advance. I think some would advocate more than just four pairs. 10BaseT will take four pairs all by itself, so if you want to plan for that in the future, you will need more than four pairs. Recently, I've been considering moving, and have been looking around at various apartments. The inside wiring situation is not good as you can imagine. Earlier this year, I got a brochure from US West which describes what requirements inside wiring should meet. For new construction, they say that the absolute *minimum* should be four pair wire, with each pair individually twisted. But, in my looking at new apartments, none of them seem to be built to the so-called minimum requirements for new construction. So, this must not be covered in any sort of enforcable building code. What I have found is a lot of quad wire, which can be particularly bad in an apartment situation where you can have a long run from the apartment to the demarc. Some at least use telephone wire for the telephone wiring (imagine that!) that has each pair individually twisted. Do the telcos have any power to enforce their minimum inside wiring requirements for new construction, such as (threatening to) refuse service if the requirements are not met? It's not like four pair telco wire is a lot more expensive than two pair -- I think that contractors need just a bit of a push in the right direction. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: cgordon@vpnet.chi.il.us (gordon hlavenka) Subject: Re: How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs? Organization: Vpnet Public Access Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 03:29:12 GMT > What I'm think of is having three or four-pair twisted pair cable run > from each room separately (not daisy-chained the way they normally do > it) to a punch-down block in some central location, so we can hook > things together anyway we want... I just redid the wiring here. Our "new" (to us) house had just been remodeled, and they installed all new four-conductor station wire :-( We had massive crosstalk, because the new wire wasn't twisted-pair ... I pulled a home run from each room down to the entry point in the basement. Used AT&T-made network wiring; 4 UTP rated for 10BASE-T. So I can esaily have two lines in each room, with two pairs spare. I could even run ethernet and phone, although somebody's sure to tell me there will be a problem with that. Each room is punched down to its own 8 positions on the right side of a punchdown block, and the phone lines are punched down on the left side. Things then get connected with bridging clips in the middle. It all looks very clean and impressive, and (most importantly) it WORKS. No more RGYB birds'-nest in the rafters for me! Gordon S. Hlavenka cgordon@vpnet.chi.il.us ------------------------------ From: jmalloy@itsmail1.hamilton.edu (Joseph Malloy) Subject: Re: AT&T vs A Cable Company Organization: Hamilton College - Clinton, NY Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 17:08:08 GMT In article John Higdon writes: > In the last month, I have had two problems with "wire companies". One > was with my cable company (TCI Cablevision of San Jose); the other > with AT&T. The difference in response between the two companies is > remarkable. [summary: cable good, AT&T bad] > The next time you consider cable companies to be slime and telephone > companies to have class, please remember these two notable exceptions. In the localities in which I've had both cable tv and telephone service (with AT&T always my LD provider), I have never had a complaint with AT&T. I have yet to find a cable company that was half as responsive as AT&T. Heck, I have yet to find a cable company that's half as good as New York Telephone, and I have a list of complaints about them! My two cents: AT&T good, cable TV *real* bad ... Joe ------------------------------ Subject: Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 13:31:27 PDT From: eli@cisco.com andys@internet.sbi.com (Andy Sherman) wrote, quoting me: >> This cannot be correct. Propagation delay depends on media type. The >> signal propagation speed in fiber is slower than that in coax cable, for >> example. It must be different for pure copper wire, also. > By how much? All of these should have propagation speeds in the > neighborhood of c. Is the variation enough to change the echo > cancellation, or will the trunk length dominate? The variation is enough to force interestingness in ethernet implementions on fiber. (Ethernet distance limit is dependent on propagation speed.) I think the difference is something like .03c between fiber and coax. > But I really probably overstated the case. The original assertion was > that the presence of fiber in the trunk path made a difference as to > whether or not you need echo cancellation. That is false. Do you mean trunk path as in CO or LD POP to your ear? If so, sure that's false. But do you assert that the presence of fiber in either the trunk or long haul path *will not affect* the desired echo cancelling algorithms in any way? > Any voice circuit, analog or digital, of sufficient length will need > echo cancellation to undo the effects of the hybrids at each end. > Since I and most of the people who call me use the same carrier I have > no basis for comparison. Probably they all sound similar unless you > have a very good ear. But Higdon's modems, apparently have very good > ears, since they know the difference. But aren't all Higdon's modems Telebits? Do all manufacturer's modems like ATT best? eli ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #789 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa20693; 18 Oct 92 20:01 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA31970 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 18 Oct 1992 17:54:07 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA05501 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 18 Oct 1992 17:53:58 -0500 Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 17:53:58 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210182253.AA05501@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #790 TELECOM Digest Sun, 18 Oct 92 17:54:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 790 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: GTE Addresses On Outgoing Email (John Higdon) Re: GTE Addresses On Outgoing Email (Steve Forrette) Re: Help Needed With Modem Problem (Thomas K. Hinders) Re: Help Needed With Modem Problem (Keith Smith) Re: Help Needed With Communications and Computers (Anonymous by Request) Re: East German Pay Phone (Joseph Malloy) German Phone Numbers (was East German Pay Phone) (Harris Boldt Edelman) Re: Length of Phone Numbers in Europe (was East German Phone) (G. Wollman) Re: 911 Calls From Remote Locations (Gregory Youngblood) Re: 911 Calls From Remote Locations (Dick Rawson) Re: Stolen Cell Phone (Jim Rees) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 10:31 PDT From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: GTE Addresses On Outgoing Email JIM.J.MURPHY@gte.sprint.com writes: > In Iowa we are not split into a regulated and a deregulated work > force. > There's no advantage in our work environment here simply because we do > both regulated and de-regulated jobs. The important point I wanted to > make is that different work groups can work together. In this day of > "It's not my problem", attitude, it's nice to be able to work together. This is all very nice and cosy, but as a former employer of some size it disturbs me to imagine just who is picking up the cost of having you on the payroll. Every employee represents some major fixed costs: health insurance, fixed-rate employer contributions for Federal programs, and miscellaneous health and safety provision. In addition, tools, test equipment, and other issue must be provided to each employee doing plant work. Now then, just who provides all of this? Would it be the "unregulated" side of the telco? That would not make much economic sense to any business. Why would a company want to ruin its competitiveness by bearing a price structure that would support those able workmen? You can bet the farm that the costs of supporting ANY employee that does ANY regulated work at all comes 100% out of the regulated ratebase. Can you imagine the record keeping that would be involved if the fixed costs were distributed fairly between the de-regulated and the regulated sides of the business? And you can bet that few PUCs could sort it all out. So while you may think that it is just ducky that you work on "both sides of the fence", the regulated customers of your employer are being taken to the cleaners. 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: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: GTE Addresses On Outgoing Email Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 07:51:42 GMT In article JIM.J.MURPHY@gte.sprint.com writes: > Steve Forrette's comments about working regulated and de-regulated > jobs together puzzle me. > In Iowa we are not split into a regulated and a deregulated work > force. I'm not sure why not, but it's fine with me. It means more > job security by having more work to do, and provides a nice variety of > work experience. Perhaps I misinterpreted what you meant in your original post. What I invisioned was you doing unregulated and so-called "competitive" PBX installations, and using your contact inside the "regulated" part of GTE to your advantage. You can see how a "competing" company in the same area who also sells PBXs would not have the same level of contact and flexibility with the regulated side of the telco as you do. This sets up an inherently uneven playing field, which is supposedly not supposed to happen when telco gets involved in unregulated, "competitive" areas of the industry. I suppose the same argument could be made of your inside wiring duties, although it would be stretching it to say that contact with the regulated telco side helps you do inside wiring better. But it would most definately be of use in the installation and maintenance of a PBX. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com, I do not speak for my employer. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 92 13:01:10-0900 From: /PN=Thomas.K.Hinders/OU=CCMAIL/O=CHAN.IS/PRMD=MMC/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=US/@sprint.com Subject: Re: Help Needed With Modem Problem With regards to modems and the Macintosh. The "standard" Apple supplied modem cable does not support RTS/CTS flow control (often referred to as hardware flow control). As a test, set the communications software to XON/XOFF (often referred to as software flow control) and see if your results are different. Also, try configuring the modem for low speed operation (with both types of flow control). I do not have a pinout of properly wired cable, we discovered the problem when hooking up a Shiva Telebridge, and we found that it would only work with the Shiva provided cable. Shiva's explanation was that the Apple supplied modem cable was not wired correctly for hw flow control. Thomas K Hinders Martin Marietta Computing Standards 4795 Meadow Wood Lane Chantilly, VA 22021 703.802.5593 (v) 703.802.5027 (f) ------------------------------ From: keith@ksmith.uucp (Keith Smith) Subject: Re: Help Needed With Modem Problem Organization: Keith's Computer, Hope Mills, NC Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 18:52:29 GMT In article bob.ackley@ivgate.omahug.org writes: > In a message of <30 Sep 92 18:08:23>, Sky Striker (11:30102/2) writes: [MT 932 ...] >> except when it connects and says "Connect 9600 LAPM" then it will run >> fine for awhile then it will aways with out warning drop carrier on >> me. Any help any one could give on figuring out what I'm doing wrong >> would be greatly appreciated. Thanks ... > tweaking. You are probably getting a noise burst on (either side of) > the line long enough to cause the modem (at one end or the other) to > think it's lost the carrier, so it hangs up. There should be a DIP > switch or a command to tell the modem to wait a bit longer after > losing carrier before it hangs up. The MultiTech modems *ALSO* have a maximum number of retransmits function that is default at 12. After 12 packet re-transmits the line will drop. This is defeated by saving AT$R1 (I think. The book is at home write again if you don't have it.) Keith Smith uunet!ksmith!keith 5719 Archer Rd. Digital Designs BBS 1-919-423-4216 Hope Mills, NC 28348-2201 ------------------------------ From: Telecom Reader Date: 18 Oct 92 18:51:39 GMT Subject: Re: Help Needed With Communications and Computers I keep seeing this silly notion, from everybody from Tim Leary to Ted Turner, that communications technologies and "samizdata" made the revolutions in eastern Europe "inevitable." If that's so, then which communications technologies did the anti-Communist rebels in Europe have that the pro-democracy organizers in China don't? When the Soviet tanks rolled up to the Russian Capitol during the coup, were there any more fax machines or video cameras there than there were when the Chinese tanks rolled into Tienenmen Square? No, there weren't. So why did the Red Chinese tanks roll over their protesters and the Soviet tanks not? Communications and computers? Fat chance. No, it has a lot more to do with the fact that Premier Gorbachev had already failed to suppress dissent so many times, as in the frequent coal miners' strikes, that President Yeltsin had had time to organize, build recognition, and so he was able to rally the people to a common leadership. And even more than that, it had to do with the fact that since the Soviet Union had pursued political liberalization more enthusiastically than economic liberalization, not to mention the idiocy of trying to keep up with our SDI spending, that their economy was in such a sad state that the tank commanders sincerely believed that Yeltsin was more likely to keep them employed and fed. Deng Xiaopeng and his successors are much, much smarter than that. They've ruthlessly, relentlessly crushed all hints, no matter how minor, of yearning for political freedom or democracy. (The tanks may not have run over that one brave student, but I suspect that the torturers in the slave labor camp he's been sent to are less compassionate.) At the same time, they've run full-tilt ahead with economic liberalization, and standards of living are rising steadily. So when THEY give an order to tank commanders to run over the occupied sleeping bags of unarmed students, the tank commanders know that if they obey, they'll get paid, and if they don't, they'll get crushed, so they do it. It may also have something to do with the fact that the Chinese government has done a much better job of disarming its people than the Soviet government ever did. But it had nothing at all to do with how many laptop computers or modems or radios or television sets or Polaroid cameras or fax machines or VCRs or photocopiers the people had, and everything to do with to whom the army felt the most loyalty. P.S. I am sending this in anonymously because I work for a multinational that is very, very deeply in bed with the national Bank of China. A couple times a week I walk past a trophy they gave us to thank us for our friendship and loyalty. What I am saying would be looked at very, very askance by my current employer. I am usually proud of where I work ... but when I think of how we've cuddled up to the Butchers of Beijing, the genocidal invaders of Tibet, I'm sad and somewhat embarrassed at what I'll do to stay off the breadlines. [Moderator's Note: The author is known to me, and is a regular writer here, but he requested that the header be altered to obscure his identity. I don't usually like to do this. Exceptions are rare. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jmalloy@itsmail1.hamilton.edu (Joseph Malloy) Subject: Re: East German Pay Phone Organization: Hamilton College - Clinton, NY Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 12:53:25 GMT In article Tom Coradeschi writes: > Typical, actually. I've had occasion to deal with US Army > installations in Germany (former West Germany, naturally:-}). One guy, > in particular, has a ten-digit phone number and an eleven-digit fax > number (different exchanges, although within the same city). German phone numbers are amusing. In larger cities such as Berlin, they often seem to be in a format just like US phone numbers (i.e., xxx-xxxx). But smaller cities, with fewer people, have shorter phone numbers (a friend in Tuebingen has a five digit number). The difference is in the area code (Vorwahlsnummer): in major cities it may be only two digits, in smaller cities it can be five or more (Tuebingen's area/city code is 07071, not all that different from their local equivalent to 911, by the way!). As an aside, I once spent some weeks in Halle, in what was then still the German Democratic Republic (i.e., in the good old communist days) and wanted to make a call to my spouse at home in the US. The only place I could do this from was the main post office. I went, asked about it, and was told that since they closed at 6 PM and it was now already almost 4 PM there probably wouldn't be enough time to get the call through. I asked if we could try anyway, and they were happy to oblige, thought it took the counter clerk, her supervisor, and that supervisor's supervisor to figure out how to do it. Well, I waited, and about 45 minutes later, as I was wandering around the P. O. looking at whatever was there, I heard this cry, "USA Zelle 2" (i.e., USA connection in booth 2). As one might imagine back then, *every* head turned to see who the renegade was ... Worst connection of my life. I kept it short since they didn't know the rates ("Berlin will call us and tell how much to charge you when you're done" -- how's that for service?). Turned out to be 39 Marks (which, at the forced exchange rate, was about $24 -- for less than 2 minutes!). Makes even Sprint look good! Joe jmalloy@hamilton.edu [Moderator's Note: Hey that even makes COCOTS and AOS outfits look pretty good! :) Makes me wonder why the alternate operator services and COCOTS have not tried to get into places in Europe where they would be right at home ... the citizens wouldn't know any better. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 07:20:51 UT From: Harris Boldt Edelman Subject: German Numbers (was East German Pay Phone) I remember the first seven-digit numbers coming into use in Berlin-Zehlendorf in the Spring of 1971, when I was there as a foreign exchange student. The instructions from Deutsche Bundespost Berlin were explicit: write the numbers in groups of two proceeding from right to left, letting the odd, seventh digit stand alone. Eric's home number would thus be written 2 62 51 22. Some months beforehand, telephone service from West to East Berlin had resumed on an operator-handled basis after having been discontinued years before (I don't know whether service had remained in place until the borders were sealed on 13 August, 1961, or whether it had already been discontinued by then). The calls were routed via a long path, from West Berlin through West German points, thence through East German points and back to East Berlin. Newspaper reports of the service in its first days gleefully noted that as the manual call setups were completed, the long-distance operators greeted each other with "Berlin, this is Berlin." At the time, I predicted to friends there that Germany would be reunited in twenty years. They laughed, told me I was dreaming ... Harris ------------------------------ From: Garrett.Wollman@UVM.EDU (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: Length of Phone Numbers in Europe (was East German Pay Phone) Organization: University of Vermont, EMBA Computer Facility Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 20:32:16 GMT I can remember when I was in Finland, that this was quite common. In Helsinki and environs, the "area code" was (9x) [the 9 being the equivalent of 1 in most of the US, and x was either 0 or 1, I forget which]. The exchange code was three digits, and the subscriber number could be from one to four digits. For example, the University of Helsinki's main switchboard was (9x) 191 1; but extension 1234 was 191 1234. In the other populated areas, area codes were 9xx and local numbers were mostly six digits, and in really rural areas, area codes were 9xxx plus five digits. At the time when I was there (88-89), WATS service was just starting up; AT&T USA Direct was (9800) 100 10. All the operator and special service numbers were quite long; I remember being surprised that to get an international operator required dialing 92022. And there were always street maps of the local area in the front of the phone books. Maybe there's someone out there with friends at PTL who can tell us a bit more about the numbering scheme there. Garrett A. Wollman wollman@emba.uvm.edu uvm-gen!wollman UVM disagrees. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: 911 Calls From Remote Locations From: zeta%tcscs@src.honeywell.com (Gregory Youngblood) Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 23:11:43 CDT Organization: TCS Consulting Services, St. Paul, MN mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst) writes: > In article Joseph.Bergstein@p501. > f544.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Joseph Bergstein) writes: [Tale describing the 911 dispatcher improperly interpreting the ANI information and dispatching the ambulance to the wrong address, due to the PBX configuration being used.] > If you know, or suspect, that you will be connected to a E911 > dispatcher who has ANI info for the number you're calling from, but > you aren't at the physical termination point of that number, it's > usually a good idea to explicitly tell the dispatcher that the ANI > info is wrong and that you're really at location. > Hams also find it useful to tell the dispatcher that they are calling > over a radio link, to impress upon them that the link is half-duplex > and that they must say "over" or "go ahead" when they're finished > speaking. Unfortunately, some E911 dispatchers will ignore both these > items and dispatch to the wrong location anyway, but at least you > tried. Unfortunately this is also happening in a lot of cases where cellular phones are used to call 911. In some cases there is a 'flag' that the operators see telling them the phone is cellular, and to ask for a location. In other cases where I personally have had to call 911 during a hurricane in Galveston, Texas where a bicyclist (yes a bicylcist in the middle of a hurricane ... threw me also) was blown into or hit by a car. I was on the phone with the operator for three or four minutes trying to impress upon them that the accident was at x location and not y. If I would have been one of our customers then, and didn't realize what was going on, it could have been much worse. I've worked with a couple of 911 coordinators in several areas, and if the phone company is organized right, and the 911 coordinators are able to set things up properly, a lot of the confusion is avoided. Special numbers are used in some cases, instead of routing 911, the switch will actually dial a special number for 911 emergency. In one state I had to break up the towers in to regions and then route 911 calls to special number for each area so that the calls would be handled at the closest 911 center to the actual cellular caller. As technology continues to go towards mobile communications, 911 technology is going to have to learn to adapt, and 911 operators need to be trained in how to ask the right questions. About four years ago, I believe Houston Texas was trying something like that. Greg TCS Consulting Services P.O. Box 600008 St. Paul, MN 55106-0008 zeta%tcscs@src.honeywell.com ..!srcsip!tcscs!zeta ------------------------------ From: drawson@sagehen.Tymnet.COM (Dick Rawson) Subject: Re: 911 Calls From Remote Locations Date: 18 Oct 92 15:48:00 GMT Organization: BT North America (Tymnet) > Ham radio operators frequently run into this when making a call to the > police or the 911 dispatcher through a repeater autopatch. Usually, > the ham making the call will be nowhere near the actual termination > point of the line, since they're calling through a radio link. You might try stating that you are not (or no longer) at the scene; that's quite plausible for a traffic accident, because you could have driven past it, and gone somewhere else to phone. In Silicon Valley, the ham repeaters used most often for emergency autopatch calls generally do not call 911, but the specific seven or ten digit emergency number for the appropriate jurisdiction (out of dozens). There are two reasons: the problem of the misleading E911 location display; and the delay caused by calling the 911 center appropriate for the repeater site, and waiting for the operator to transfer the call to the correct (if you're lucky) jurisdiction. Dick Rawson, N6CMJ ------------------------------ From: rees@pisa.citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees) Subject: Re: Stolen Cell Phone Date: 18 Oct 1992 15:49:45 GMT Organization: University of Michigan CITI Reply-To: Jim.Rees@umich.edu In article , cheim@lectroid.sw. stratus.com (Craig Heim) writes: > There are actually two "Nationwide Negative Files" ... Why is this system so lame? It's clear that the right way to do this is a data base that maps [ESN, phone no] pairs to billing info. This data base would be queried on every call attempt. The ESN should obviously never be transmitted in the clear. My understanding of the Negative File is that every call (or at least the first call, which is all you need with a tumbler) is assumed valid unless the ESN is on the negative list. The current system is so obviously prone to fraud (tumblers, ESN theft, etc) that it borders on negligence on the part of the service providers. I suspect the answer is that it's cheaper for the service providers to bill honest customers for fraud losses than for them to provide the proper level of security. As an honest customer, I resent having to pay for the service provider's negligence. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #790 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa21638; 18 Oct 92 20:27 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA27147 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 18 Oct 1992 18:16:58 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA02265 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 18 Oct 1992 18:16:48 -0500 Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 18:16:48 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210182316.AA02265@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #791 TELECOM Digest Sun, 18 Oct 92 18:16:45 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 791 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: A Small Tutorial on Networking Stuff (Brad S. Hicks) Re: More LATA Nuttiness (Eppes Fork, VA and Raleigh, NC LATAs) (B Harrell) Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison (Pat Turner) Re: Michigan Bell: Business vs Residential Rates (Ben Harrell) Re: E-Mail For Michigan Residents (David H. Close) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: mc/G=Brad/S=Hicks/OU=0205925@mhs.attmail.com Date: 18 Oct 92 17:05:33 GMT Subject: Re: A Small Tutorial on Networking Stuff I think I can clarify Lars Poulsen's explanation of X.400 just a bit, and eliminate some confusion between X.400 and X.500 in the process. Lars's explanation of an RFC822 ("Internet mail") address is quite coherent and complete. It consists of @, where is the chain of systems, as a hierarchy, that mail would have to go through to get there from one of a relatively small number of widely known hosts or gateways, like ".edu" (the domain controller for US colleges), or ".nl" (the PTT in the Netherlands). Each step in the path is a short non-case-sensitve ASCII string, no spaces (not much punctuation at all permitted, I think), separated by periods. The idea is that if you're you@x.y.z.com, and you're sending to me@q.y.z.com, your mailer will realize that we have "y.z.com" in common and just send it direct, but if your mailer hasn't the foggiest idea how to reach "y.z.com" or even "z.com", by all the Godz, at least it knows how to reach "com"! X.400 works a lot like that. It has nothing to do with directory services or central administration thereof (that's X.500, which is still experimental). An X.400 address is a set of fields, of which three are mandatory: country, "domain", and last name (X.400 calls it surname). Country and domain identify an electronic mail service, like country "US" and domain "MCIMAIL". So if you're the only person on the ParaMail system in Parador with the last name of Snorkelmeyer, your address would probably be country "PD", domain "PARAMAIL", surname "Snorkelmeyer". Note that in RFC822, you can have multiple domains within a country, and everybody everywhere is assumed to know where they are. I suspect that it chafes at some PTT-type-folk that the US has multiple domains that they have to keep track of; why can't we make those ".com.us" and ".edu.us" and ".bitnet.us" and be like everybody else? Well, in the X.400 spec, they got their revenge. The lowest common denominator there IS the country code. First Address Complication: The X.400 committee differentiates arbitrarily between domains that sell mailboxes to anybody (PTTs, big e-mail vendors) and domains that are company e-mail systems. It calls the former administrative domains (I have no idea why), usually abbreviated ADMD, and the latter private management domains, or PRMDs. So if your last name is still Snorkelmeyer but you've moved to the US and gone to work for ACME, and ACME gets its X.400 gateway via Three Initial Corporation, your address is country "US", ADMD "TIC", PRMD "ACME", surname "Snorkelmeyer". There are other fields, entirely optional and loosely defined, that e-mail vendors CAN use to differentiate between mailboxes. They include given name (first name), initials, generation ("Jr.", "III", etc.), and up to five levels of corporate hierarchy, called organization and organization units 1-4. Second Address Complication: Notice that this does NOT include anything like user IDs or any other numeric identifier, or any other fields. The X.400 committee defined on field as semi-free-form text, up to 255 characters, of the form != pair with semicolons. SoftSwitch uses = or ="" pairs separated by spaces ... except where they use commas instead. MCI Mail uses =, one to a line, except that the ADMD is entered on the External Mail System prompt and it won't let you enter a country code. (Where two or more PTTs have the same ADMD name, MCI Mail makes up its own pseudo-ADMDs for them. Sigh again.) And the abbreviations for the field names aren't even vaguely standardized, especially generation (g, gen, ge, gq) or organizational unit 1 (org1, ou1, o1, u1, unit1). So if you don't know how your e-mail system abbreviates them, you can have a hard time there, too. The better X.400 client software packages just present a full-screen form and let you fill in the fields. (Here at MasterCard I wrote a HyperCard stack that lets you fill in the fields, makes sure you have the mandatory ones, and then translates this into an X.400 address in SoftSwitch's preferred abbreviations, inserts quotes and carriage returns as necessary, and copies it to the clipboard. Sigh.) Final Address Complication: And if that doesn't even begin to address the fact that there are several conflicting "standards" for how to translate an address between RFC822 and X.400. Sprint uses /=/ groupings to the left of "@sprint.com". AT&T uses your choice of that or !_@mhs.attmail.com. If you use the latter, then any fields other than country (assumed "US"), ADMD (assumed "attmail"), PRMD (sometimes abbreviated), givenname, and surname get sandwiched in before the "@" in the "slash" format. This should explain why my mail sometimes arrives from "mc!Brad_Hicks/OU1=0205295" and sometimes as "mc/GN=Brad/SN=Hicks/OU1=0205295" ... and why I usually give it, any more, as mc!Brad_Hicks@mhs.attmail.com, since the org unit 1 isn't needed to establish a unique address at our PRMD. Novell, at least, came up with an official way to translate X.400 addresses into MHS addresses. They use a defined format for the extended addressing field: you put anything you want in the mailbox field, fill in your gateway for the post office field, and then fill in the extended address field, so my address would be (from memory, I could be wrong) something like "BHICKS@GATEWAY (Brad Hicks) { X400: C=US, A=ATTMAIL, P=MASTERCARD, SN=HICKS, GN=BRAD }". It is, I admit highly redundant. And the MHS gateway developers I've heard from are mad, because they wanted to use the extended address field for their own purposes and resent Novell's taking it away from them, the way they did the comment field. So much for standards. (I won't even go into the irritations you find when you try to gateway an X.400 e-mail system in QuickMail, which absolutely will not let you have an address longer than 140 bytes, and sometimes gives you trouble with anything over 32 bytes.) There are also X.400 specifications for the body of a message, and how to handle attachments, and how to send them in batches from one mail system to another or from a mail system to a user interface. Unlike RFC822, they are NOT based on the lowest common denominator of ASCII text files; this means that to handle some "exotic" message type like voice or multimedia or graphics, instead of having to go through the gyrations the Internet is with RIME, all they have to do is define a new "body type" value. (Of course, being an international committee, it takes them about as long to agree on a single integer and a file format as it took the Internet Engineering Task Force to figure out how they wanted to encode odd file types in ASCII. It took them four years, 1984-1988, just to agree to use body type 14 for unformatted binary data. Sigh one last time.) J. Brad Hicks Internet: mhs!mc!Brad_Hicks@attmail.com X.400: c=US admd=ATTmail prmd=MasterCard sn=Hicks gn=Brad I am not an official MasterCard spokesperson, and the message above does not contain official MasterCard statements or policies. ------------------------------ From: bharrell@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (Ben Harrell) Subject: Re: More LATA Nuttiness (Eppes Fork, VA and Raleigh, NC LATAs) Organization: North Carolina State University Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 23:41:05 GMT Eli.Mantel@lambada.oit.unc.edu (Eli Mantel) writes: > In article de@moscom.com (David Esan) > writes: >> 930 is EPPES FORK, VA. Anyone know anything about it? > Every North Carolina phone book published by Carolina Telephone (part > of United Telephone) contains a map showing all the LATAs in North > Carolina, and then lists the exchanges within each of the LATAs served > by United Telephone. > These three LATAs are **Eppes Fork**, Fayetteville, and Rocky Mount. > While Fayetteville and Rocky Mount each have several columns of > exchanges listed, the Eppes Fork LATA is listed as follows: > Eppes Fork LATA > Henderson > (Eppes Fork) 252 > That's Henderson, NC, by the way. The area code directory in the same > phone book lists Henderson as being in area code 919, while presumably > there are parts of the Eppes Fork LATA in the 804 area code, yet on > the same telephone exchange. I happen to know something about this curiosity, because I was Program Planning Engineer for Carolina Telephone from 1980-1983. We redrew all of our Exchange Area Maps during this time, and in addition I wrote the LATA justification filings for the Rocky Mount, Fayetteville, and Eppes Fork LATA's. Eppes Fork is on a jut of land that sticks up into on of the man-made lakes on the Roanoke River, where the lake crosses the North Carolina-Virginia border. So it and a couple of other juts of land are in Virgina, but are connected to the NC side of the lake. It is a long way around that lake, so Contel of Virginia (used to be Continental Telephone Company -- now its GTE) which has the legal franchise to serve the area from the Virgina PUC, many many moons ago contracted with Carolina Telephone of NC to serve the area, which is adjacent to its Henderson, NC, exchange (for a fairly healthy fee of course ...). Because it is in VA, it has to be part of the 804 area code. Therefore, all toll switches in the country have always been programmed to send toll calls to the Henderson, NC, switch (which is in the 919 NC area code, when the terminating DN is the 804-NXX-XXXX for Eppes Fork. It has to be treated as a separate LATA, because all intrastate toll revenue collected by all telcos in NC is still "pooled" and then divided up between the telcos based on their investment costs and expenses -- the old pre-divestiture separations process that still lives on. > Another curiosity I noticed, in looking at the LATA map, is that the > Raleigh, NC LATA is discontiguous. It includes Raleigh and Goldsboro, > but these two cities are totally separated from each other by parts of > the Rocky Mount and Fayetteville LATAs. Not exactly true. The Selma, NC, exchange (just north of Smithfield, NC) bridges the two much larger Southern Bell exchange areas, but is only about five miles wide from north to south, although it is much wider from east to west. It is just to narrow to show up on most LATA maps I've seen. Ben Harrell cmebh01@nt.com Senior Manager, Costing and Tariffing Northern Telecom Inc. Research Triangle Park, NC ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 12:15 EDT From: rsiatl!turner@rsiatl.UUCP Reply-To: turner@Dixie.COM Subject: Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison Andy Sherman writes: >> This cannot be correct. Propagation delay depends on media type. The >> signal propagation speed in fiber is slower than that in coax cable, for >> example. It must be different for pure copper wire, also. > By how much? All of these should have propagation speeds in the > neighborhood of c. Is the variation enough to change the echo > cancellation, or will the trunk length dominate? First let me say I agree with Andy, the problem will be there regardless of prop. velocity, as the distances vary by several orders of magnitude. Regardless, I decided to look up Vp of fiber as I can't recall having to set it when using an Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR) as you do when using a TDR. Anyway from the CRC HB of Chemistry and Physics quartz glass has an index of refraction of around 1.45 for wavelengths slightly shorter then those used for fiber optics. I would assume this would be close to the results one would get from silca glass. For coax, the closest numbers I can find are from Myat, Inc for 7/8" 50 ohm rigid aluminum transmission line for the broadcast industry. V in this line is 99.7% of c. This compares with 66% for RG58 (10BASE2 ethernet) coax. For microwave (digital or analog) V would be very close to 1. (Neglecting of course the circular and rectangular waveguides at each repeater site which might make the link slower than coax if multiplexing on the circular waveguide is used). Thus: Medium Velocity Factor Single Mode Fiber .670 Coax .997 Microwave 1 So does this prove AT&T's network only sounds better because they lack the superior high tech outside plant of MCI and Sprint. I think not. Remember when Sprint ran the ads showing them blowing up the tower because they were going to fiber optic quality. Forgeting the LEC tail circuits, can anyone hear the diffrence in BER between fiber and digital microwave*. Again I think not. Can anyone guess as to the loss of redundancy that comes with an "all fiber optic network". * Remember that the ad was for PIC / FON card service not ISDN or DDS. Speaking of Sprint, someone mentioned them being an IXC, LEC and cellular carrier. They also own North Supply, which puts them in the CPE market as well. This may get to be real interesting as United craftspeople refer to Sprint the IXC as "us". Actual comment: "He quit using us [the IXC] and went to MCI, then bitched that we [the LEC] couldn't move his 56's fast enough. The craftsperson said the problem was a late work order from MCI. I know how this works; right now I have a new leased line (not Sprint) that is out of spec. I almost sure that the problem is that the Tellabs card is set up for unloaded cable while the loop is loaded. Regardless it will be a week before United will dispatch a tech to the site. This is on a new circuit that they were supposed to test. Pat Turner KB4GRZ turner@dixie.com ------------------------------ From: bharrell@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (Ben Harrell) Subject: Re: Michigan Bell: Business vs Residential Rates Organization: North Carolina State University Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 23:15:35 GMT gordon@sneaky.lonestar.org (Gordon Burditt) writes: >> "Home based workers who use their phone lines for business more than >> 50% of the time need a business line." >> At first glance, this seems to be a pretty reasonable compromise on >> class of service billing. How one determines 50% may be open to >> discussion, but it beats the attitudes of some companies that want to >> bill business rates if you so much as publicise your phone number. [text deleted] > They might even be trying to define "a business call is a call which > terminates at either end at a business line", which is one way they > COULD measure it without listening to the calls. That could cause > cascade reclassifications -- if my line has to become business, then > people who call me a lot are at risk of being reclassified also. > Eventually, there are no residential lines. Across the country, the local exchange tariffs of the telcos define residential and business service by the use of the customer premise being served, not by how much the line is used. This results in definitions such as the one above, or the fact that you advertise a number as a business. This is completely illogical from a cost causation standpoint and harks back to the days of government mandated "universal service at the lowest possible cost to the average residential user". The great, great majority of people in this country do not understand that local phone line rates structures have been set -- by historical design -- to be exactly the opposite of their cost to provide, ie the residential line user, on average, is the most expensive to provide; the business line user is the next most expensive to provide; and the PBX trunk user is the cheapest to provide. The tariff rates on the other hand are just the opposite, except it a few stated in the NYNEX, Bell Atlantic, and Ameritech regions that enforce local usage charges equally on all three types of services and enforce the same basic charge for each. Hope this helps a little. Ben Harrell cmebh01@nt.com Senior Manager, Costing and Tariffing Northern Telecom Inc. Research Triangle Park, NC ------------------------------ From: dhclose@cco.caltech.edu (David H. Close) Subject: Re: E-Mail For Michigan Residents Date: 18 Oct 1992 18:41:53 GMT Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena FZC@CU.NIH.GOV writes: > The other possibility are the pay networks. AT&T Mail has a lousy > interface, a poor method of transferring messages, doesn't support > Kermit or Zmodem, but only charges $3 a month for a mailbox. AT&T Mail, as many of us know, also includes a "UNIX" interface option at the same $3 per month. This eliminates the problem of their user interface since the user interface is controlled by your local system. All you need is uucp capability. And they will call you when mail is received, eliminating the delay inherent in polling them. For the longest time, I could never find anyone at AT&T knowledgeable or willing to discuss a UNIX connection. However, in the last few months at least, just mentioning "UNIX" is sufficient to get to a person who can take care of uucp connection needs. Dave Close, dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu, BS'66 Ec ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #791 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa23040; 18 Oct 92 21:14 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA16465 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 18 Oct 1992 19:07:42 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA07709 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 18 Oct 1992 19:07:28 -0500 Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 19:07:28 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210190007.AA07709@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #792 TELECOM Digest Sun, 18 Oct 92 19:07:30 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 792 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Electronic Access to ITU (e.g. CCITT) Documents (Robert Shaw) The Campaign is Online in Area 516 (Dave Niebuhr) E911 Problem in Area 516 Fixed (Dave Niebuhr) Pay Per View Uses 810 Prefix in DC Area (Paul Robinson) Voice/Data Over Same T1 Line (Philip Green) SS7 Standards (Tarl Neustaedter) Help Needed With Old Kellogg Phone (Ron Heiby) AT&T Wins Two Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Awards (AP via P Robinson) Westinghouse, Bell Join in Venture (Washington Times via Paul Robinson) Notes on the Network (Pat Turner) Information Request: Audiovox Prestige Cell Phone (Doug Fields) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 09:52:43 +0100 From: ROBERT.SHAW@IS.SG.itu.arcom.ch Subject: Electronic Access to ITU (e.g. CCITT) Documents The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a United Nations Agency based in Geneva, Switzerland, has announced a new electronic document distribution service called Teledoc. The ITU consists of five permanent organs including the General Secretariat, the International Frequency Registration Board (IFRB), the International Radio Consultative Committee (CCIR), the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (CCITT) and the Telecommunications Development Bureau (BDT). The Teledoc service makes available public ITU documents in a database called the ITU Document Store. The ITU Document Store organizes ITU documents into hierarchical groups: each group can contain additional groups and/or documents. Remote access to the ITU Document Store is planned via: - electronic mail (auto-answering mailbox) - interactive VT interface (planned for early 93) - Internet FTP (planned for early 93) The first available interface is the Teledoc Auto-Answering Mailbox (TAM), an X.400-based document server. Mail messages can be sent to: (X.400) S=teledoc; P=itu; A=arcom; C=ch or (Internet) teledoc@itu.arcom.ch Commands to the TAM must be placed in the mail message body (not in the subject field). The commands are simple. For example: HELP LIST CCITT LIST CCITT/REC will send the TAM help file and a list of the contents of the CCITT and CCITT Recommendations group (only lists of CCITT Recommendations and some summaries are available as of Oct 92). The HELP file describes how to retrieve individual documents. For additional information about Teledoc, please contact: Robert Shaw Teledoc Project Coordinator Information Services Department International Telecommunication Union Place des Nations 1211 Geneva, Switzerland Voice: +41 22 730 5338/5554 FAX: +41 22 730 5337 Internet: shaw@itu.arcom.ch X.400:G=robert;S=shaw;P=itu;A=arcom;C=ch MCI: rshaw ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 09:13:12 EDT From: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) Subject: The Campaign is Online in Area 516 {Newsday} is offering the presidential campaign in an online format. It works like this: 1. From a PC with a modem and telecom software, dial (516) 665-7878; 2. Once connected, type HH (caps only) and press the ENTER key; 3. At the *, type 2129250058 and press the ENTER key; 4. Follow the prompts to view the files of your choice. You can read the files online or, using your telecommunications program capture and print them for reading later. There is no charge for the services (probably the call forward but there will be one for the initial call if exchange 665 isn't in a person's "free" calling area. The number (516) 665-7878 is NYTel's packet switching number and does a call-forward to (212)925-0058 In Manhattan. Essentialy the final number is for {Newsday's} online news service. Five options are given once one is finally connected: 1. Bush's Position Papers 2. Clinton's Position Papers 3. Excerpts from Perot's Book 4. My Comments 5. Exit I chose number four and was presented with a number of prompts: First Name: Last Name: Street Address: Town: State: Telephone Number: I answered the first and second and ignored the rest (what a great way to gather information for a subscription database via telemarketing). If they do call me and ask for me by my listing name (not my real name) then I'll know that they recorded the phone number even though I paid for the call myself (the 665 number is a charge of 13.3 cents minus a discount of 65 percent per minute). If on the other hand, if I receive a call from {Newsday} using my real name, then I'll know that NYTel gave it to {Newsday}. A third possibility arises: {Newsday} calls me on my second line (which I used) and asks for me or tries to sell me a subscription using my real name (which I used), then I'll know that they are gathering database information. Another question arises: I'm using 2400 baud so I'm assuming that the answering modem is auto-baud. Is that a correct assumption? I'd love to try this at work at 9600 baud but I have to have an account number for dial-out calls via computer. BTW: The name and address in the sig below are real, not ficticious. Dave Niebuhr Internet: niebuhr@bnl.gov / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973 (516)-282-3093 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 186 Oct 92 09:18:20 EDT From: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) Subject: E911 Problem in Area 516 Fixed I reported the other day that Suffolk County, New York's, 911 service was disrupted due to a breakdown in the switch in a central office. This problem also affected calls to certain exchanges containing county phones. NYTel and the County agreed after this happened and instead of wasting time trying to isolate the problem, that NYTel would immediately install a #4ESS switch in that CO and use it as a backup. Only then would they address the first problem. According to the report in {Newsday}, the police, fire and emergency services couldn't determine if any calls for assistance were missed. I like to take potshots at NYTel now and then, but this time I'm going to thank them for their response to what could have been a serious problem if it had gone on longer than it did. Dave Niebuhr Internet: niebuhr@bnl.gov / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973 (516)-282-3093 ------------------------------ From: tdarcos@attmail.com Date: 18 Oct 92 15:18:06 GMT Subject: Pay Per View Uses 810 Prefix in DC Area [The following comment was originally written November 27, 1991] With the introduction of the 410 area code in Maryland and C&P Telephone's subsequent list for of which prefixes are local and which are distant 301 numbers, I had to create a local exchange list for changing numbers. In the middle of doing this, I discovered in the telephone directory for the Metropolitan area there is a local exchange listed as an entry: 810 Pay Per View While it is not present in the list of Washington, DC exchanges, it is also listed for area code 703. This number, however, conveniently is NOT in the 301/410 prefix splits also published by C&P Telephone. Now the question comes up; will this be a "triplex" exchange in which the same number dialed from any of the three jurisdictions in Washington call the same place, like time, weather, telephone repair or a 976 number, and is thus "pay per view" in that respect, or is it to be like the current 800 numbers with ANI (automatic non-blockable caller-id) being used in it will be established on 810 numbers such that the connection is never made; you simply call it and the telephone company's computer generates a signal for an order of some kind and says "your order has been processed"? I think this is a way for the telephone company to generate new business; they want to get some of the money going to 800 service companies that provide ANI to Cable-TV companies (and other point-of-purchase processors) that allow them to have people automatically order a service. If I'm correct, in other words, it's set up as an "explosive" line: many more circuits and a lot more lines to handle extra-heavy traffic. Los Angeles had one of those: 213-520-xxxx was used for extremely heavy call in numbers so that people didn't clog up circuits used for ordinary business or residential lines. By having lots of extra circuits, it keeps the ordinary people from being squeezed by the extra-heavy users. At that time I dialed operator; she had no listing for 202, 301 or 703 for an 810 exchange even though it's listed in the C&P book for 301 and 703. From a Maryland telephone I dialed 810-1000 and 810-0000. Instead of getting three-tone and "Sorry your call cannot be completed ..." I got three-tone and "all circuits are busy now." I did, however, get the first recording on dialing 703-810-1000. Interesting. Looking back at this, I dialed the number 810-1000 and 810-0000 from a Maryland telephone. Now it is giving off the "cannot be completed" recording. ------------------------------ From: Philip Green Subject: Voice/Data Over Same T1 Line Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro NM Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 16:39:13 GMT I am currently looking into combining voice and data between two sites approximately 50 miles apart. Each site has a PBX and routers. It appears to me that I have two choices; #1 Buy something along the lines of a ADC Kentrox drop/add units that will provide v.35 connections to my routers and pass the rest to the PBX at T1 rates or, #2 Since one of the PBXs may not support a T1 interface we would need to have a device that would supply the routers with a v.35 connection plus the analog connections to the PBXs. We could use a multiplexor for this but they are much more expensive that the drop/add units. Are there any other choices and is there something that exists between the multiplexors and drop/adds that can be used? Thanks, Phil Green pgreen@aoc.nrao.edu NRAO 505.835.7294 ------------------------------ From: tarl@lectroid.sw.stratus.com (Tarl Neustaedter) Subject: SS7 Standards Date: 18 Oct 92 22:56:55 GMT Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc. There was a question on books describing SS7 in an earlier post. I emailed a response, but figured it would be worthwhile posting a specific description of the standards involved: There are two variants of SS7 -- ANSI and CCITT (as well as a hybrid in use by a certain phone system that I won't talk about). The standards of interest with the ANSI version are: ANSI T1.111 - MTP, Message Transfer Part ANSI T1.112 - SCCP, Signalling Connection Control Part ANSI T1.114 - TCAP, Transaction Capability Application Part There are also T1.110 (overview) T1.113 (ISDN) and a couple of others relating to administration and testing, but I don't have copies of them so I don't know what they really contain. To order from ANSI, call them at 212-642-4900. Or write to American National Standards Institute, 11 West 42nd Street, New York, NY. They require payment in advance, so you'd better call to find prices ($28.00-$50.00 per standard). The standards of interest with the CCITT version are known as the blue books. The ones relating to SS7 are: CCITT Blue Book Volume VI, Specifications of Signalling System No. 7; Fascicle VI.7, Recommendations Q.700-Q.716 (overview, MTP & SCCP) Fascicle VI.8, Recommendations Q.721-Q.766 (TUP, DUP, ISDN, ISUP) Fascicle VI.9, Recommendations Q.771-Q.795 (TCAP & test specifications) The blue books are particularly intimidating; They are each around 500 pages of dense type and incomprehensible diagrams. But they are invaluable for dealing with a customer who says that his TFP with an invalid OPC didn't generate the correct response (that is, "none" :-). And in the back of each of the blue books is a glossary of abbreviations with cross-reference, which lets you bark acronyms with the best of them. If you are going to be writing applications sitting on top of SS7 (my guess at the larger portion of interest on this group), you are probably interested only in the overview and TCAP. Tarl Neustaedter tarl@sw.stratus.com SS7 project leader Stratus Computer, Marlboro, Mass. Disclaimer: My employer is not responsible for my opinions. ------------------------------ From: heiby@chg.mcd.mot.com (Ron Heiby) Subject: Help Needed With Old Kellogg Phone Organization: Motorola Computer Group, Schaumburg, IL Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 20:36:28 GMT A friend of mine recently purchased a very old telephone, and would like to get any information about it that he can. The phone claims to have been made by "Kellogg Switchboard & Supply Co." of Chicago, IL. The Inspection Sticker has "Code # F2358". The same number is embossed into the wood case. It looks like a number "2" was originally under the "5". The main box is a wood box about 7x9x4 inches in size, with hand crank and bells. Attached to it is a "candlestick" unit. There is no dial. The back of the mouthpiece says, "PAT'D - NOV.26.1901- MARCH 19.1907.- APRIL 14.1908". The back of thw switch-hook says "F118". Inside, there are screw-posts for "T", "G", and "R" (which I assume are Tip, Ground, and Ring), and for "B1", "2", "4", and "B". Of particular interest to him is how he can hook this phone up in any way to the normal IL Bell home service that he has. I assume that he will have to disconnect at least the magneto, and probably the bells, but I don't really know what I'm talking about. Any info or help would be appreciated. Thanks! Ron Heiby, heiby@chg.mcd.mot.com Moderator: comp.newprod ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 02:22:02 EDT Subject: AT&T Wins Two Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Awards Associated Press (Pg D11 - Edited) New York, Oct 14 - AT&T won two Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Awards, becoming the first company to do so in the same year, the Commerce Department said today. The first one was to the Transmission Systems unit of Morristown NJ, the other was AT&T Universal Card of Jacksonville, Fla. The phone company's Transmission Systems unit makes telephone equipment such as electronic devices that send phone calls over fiber-optic lines. The Universal Card is a combination credit card and AT&T phone-charge Card. The awards are named for the late Commerce Department secretary. The award is not given for specific products or services, but rather for the processes the company uses to ensure the quality of its output. Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM I alone am (stupid enough to be) responsible for the content of these messages. ------------------------------ Reply-To: tdarcos@mcimail.com From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 17:45:29 EDT Subject: Westinghouse, Bell Join in Venture Westinghouse, Bell join in venture {Washington (DC) Times} Oct 6, 1992, Page C3 Bell Atlantic Corp of Philadelphia and Westinghouse Electronic Systems of Linthicum said they will introduce a new two-way data transmission system in Baltimore using cellular telephone technology. The technology sends bursts of data during the spaces in voice communications and is more reliable than other cellular methods, the companies said. Westinghouse, which will buy the service and resell it, plans to market the system first to cargo haulers for tracking pickups and deliveries. The service should start early next year. ------------------------------ From: turner@Dixie.COM Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 01:20 EDT Reply-To: turner@Dixie.COM Subject: Notes on the Network I'm finally going to break down and order a copy of Notes on the BOC/IntraLATA Network. As the current edition was written in 1990 and published in 91, I was wondering if any of the Bellcore people on the net are aware of any plans to revise the book. I would hate to spend 400 dollars only to find out that a new edition is in the works. Most of the info would be unchanged, but still ... Also if anyone has any a suggestion on a good digital telephony textbook or manual for a friend with a EE degree. He wants more then MIS/ William Stallings type books, but something a little less dry then the CCITT blue books. I don't seem to have come across any thing like what he wants. As far as ISDN, I loaned him Fred Goldstein and Gary Kesler's books on the subject. What I think he wants is something that covers line codes (B8ZS, AMI, and prehaps HDB3), SF and ESF framing, codecs, etc. What he doesn't need are conputer network texts or "The Joys of T1" type books. Any sugestions? Pat Turner KB4GRZ turner@dixie.com ------------------------------ From: fields-doug@CS.YALE.EDU (Doug Fields) Subject: Information Request: Audiovox Prestige Cell Phone Organization: Yale University, CS, New Haven, CT, Admiral's Account Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 08:16:24 GMT First off, I never envisioned that I'd ever get a cellphone, so I've always ignored that topic here, so forgive the questions. Obviously, though, I did get one: an Audiovox Prestige hand held. It's a nice unit, and seems to work well, although the battery life is nowhere near as advertised. I had two questions: 1) Does anyone have the programming instructions for this phone? I Have enough to get me into the "program" mode but I do not know what happens once there. Also, any other information on this phone, undocumented features, etc., would be greatly appreciated. 2) Could someone point me to an archive of information relating to cellular technology? I'd like to learn how the system works, what the various switches's features are, etc. I'm currently Metro Mobile (A-side) in CT, but that shouldn't affect anything. And some more specific questions: In the phone's info mode, where it shows the channel, signal strength, etc., it also shows a "color code." What is this? Does anyone have this phone? Any drawbacks, notes, hints on its use? Thanks in advance for any replies. Cheers, Doug Fields fields-doug@yale.edu 203-436-3082 VOICE PP-ASEL doug%admiral.uucp@yale.edu 661-2996 FAX N1NJN fiedoup@yalevm -2873 DATA ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #792 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa18095; 19 Oct 92 9:57 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA27298 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 19 Oct 1992 07:12:19 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA03776 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 19 Oct 1992 07:12:10 -0500 Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1992 07:12:10 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210191212.AA03776@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #793 TELECOM Digest Mon, 19 Oct 92 07:12:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 793 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Please Explain "Crossed Lines" (Will Martin) Need Advice on Home Phone/Intercom (Larry DeMar) Number Three Sprint May be Gaining Ground (Washington Times via P Robinson) Re: AT&T Public Phone 2000 (Ron Jarrell) No Dial Tone; What's a Guy to Do? (Adam Shostack) Merlin 1030 System (Allan D. Griefer) Signalling on T1 Lines (Mike Klopfer) "Intercom-Plus" and AT&T 5E Switches (kph@cisco.com) International Country Code System (Georg Schwarz) Wanted: Recommendation For IBM-PC DTMF Board (David Neal) Having the Media Over (Sean Donelan) FCC Modem Tax Scare Plagues Local BBS ...>Again< (Clint Fleckenstein) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 9:54:23 CDT From: Will Martin Subject: Please Explain "Crossed Lines" Recent postings, such as Mr. Higdon's, described incorrect billings due to the local telco having "crossed lines" which somehow linked the posters' local line with that of another person. I must confess to not quite understanding just how this works ... could someone explain just what is happening with this situation? I can understand it if there are two different pairs just simply paralleled, but this seems to be different or more complicated. If this happened to me, I would expect that the phone on the line in my house would be just like an extension to the phone in the other location, and vice-versa. Calls to either number would ring both phones. If I picked up the line when the other party was talking, I'd hear their conversation. (Of course, if there is just a modem on the poster's line, this would be harder to notice.) Any toll calls made from either phone would appear to come from both of them in this case. Calls from me to that other number would always get a "busy" signal, and vice-versa. But the situation described appears to be more complex. No one mentioned that they were getting calls on the crossed-line phone for another party. They didn't hear other peoples' conversations on their phones. All that happened was that calls made from the other phone showed up on their bill. What is happening to cause this, but yet *not* cause the other aspects I mentioned? Were these calls being billed to BOTH phones, the one that actually made them and the other one, the posters' line? Are we speaking here of some problem in the billing and accounting process, not in the actual telephone connections in the switch or in the field? Is the billing software charging these calls to the wrong phone because it hits a match in a table first, or the number is numerically lower, or some reason like that? Or what? And how was the problem fixed? In software or in a hardware repair? Regards, Will wmartin@st-louis-emh2.army.mil OR wmartin@stl-06sima.army.mil [Moderator's Note: A cable from the CO coming down the street or on the poles behind your house will have maybe a couple hundred 'pairs' on it to serve the neighborhood. Each pair branches off -- in other words is spliced into -- at numerous places along the length of the cable. This maximizes the use of each pair of wires; if you are not using that pair, then someone else can instead. They give up their service and you ask for additional service: the same wire pair which served them last month serves you instead this month. All that has to be done is the splice into the pair at your house gets connected to the pair inside the cable and the people down the street are supposed to have their access to that particular pair cut off. Picture an electrical outlet in the wall: When I no longer want to have my radio plugged in there, I take it away; you plug your computer in the same socket instead. In common parlance, this type of wiring on phone cables is called 'multiples'. We say the pair is multipled at various locations back to the CO. Now sometimes the installers forget to 'open up' the pair at the place where it previously was in service, and once you get dial tone turned on at your house, the same dial tone is going to pop up on some pair of wires at the place down the street because the installer did not cut the splice or branch of the pair off at the pole. Maybe it goes unnoticed for awhile, then one day the people living down the street are looking at *their* phone line and they discover not only is there dial tone on the pair assigned to them, but lo and behold, there is dial tone on the yellow/black pair of wires in their modular box also. They've only got one legitimate line and dial tone; the other one would not be there at all had the installer disconnected that particular pair of wires outside their house or in the basement of their house or wherever it is 'multipled' in addition to where it belongs at the time, namely at your place. So maybe these folks (or do you say pholks?) are sneaky and they only use the newly discovered dial tone to make long distance calls or premium 900 calls, and then only late at night when they assume the rightful owner will probably be in bed asleep. Or maybe the rightful owner is at work all day, etc ... You are correct in what you say that if you happened to go off hook while *they* were making a call on the stolen pair/dial tone, you would hear each other. But it is rare both would go off hook at the same time. If they left a phone plugged in on their newly discovered illicit pair, then when you got a call their phone (on the illicit pair) would ring also. Then there are cases where new service is being installed and the installer comes out to the premises to look for the right pair. He finds a pair with dial tone all right -- *your* pair! -- but he thinks it is the pair for the new subscribers. Outside plant records are very inaccurate at some telcos. So the new subscribers make their outgoing calls in good faith on your dial tone; what do they know about the phone network? The number which was actually assigned to them got derailed in the process and is still ringing open to the wires on the pole in the alley because the installer grabbed the wrong pair when he was up there opening one splice (or multiple) and connecting another for the new people. We are seeing more and more of this kind of careless and inaccurate pair selection since the ruling was made which allows subscribers to hook things directly to the demarc ... a demarc which may have dusty, old and unlabled pairs on it running all over the neighborhood! In any large urban area, a older (40-50 year) high- rise building will have a rat's nest of a demarc in the basement with a couple hundred pairs used between the tenants of the high-rise and the rest of the people in the neighborhood. Often times the demarc is left unlocked; you guess the consequences! If the general public knew how unsecure their telephone service is against snoopers and dial tone thieves there would be a big uproar. The reality is most people are still ignorant about the workings of their phone and the wires which get service to them. PAT] ------------------------------ From: larry@chinet.chi.il.us (Larry DeMar) Subject: Need Advice on Home Phone/Intercom Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 16:41:54 GMT I'm looking for advice on two (or more) line phones that also provide intercom functions for a house that is wired in parallel point to point (no "home run" wiring). There is such a phone shown by DAK this month on page four of their catalog (made by a company called "TT systems"). The DAK phone allows you to call any extension by number, and has a "page" button that will put your voice out of the speaker of each phone (each unit is also a speakerphone). Not bad for $150, however, my experience is that most of DAK's stuff is over-runs and close-outs. If anyone has seen this phone, or knows about other phones with similar capabilities, please send e-mail with this information. Also, has anyone come out with a two-line 900 MHz phone? I have a Tropez, and while it has gotten low marks from some people in this group, I have been thrilled with its performance. Larry DeMar Email: chinet!larry@clout.uchicago.edu ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 22:35:07 EDT Subject: Number Three Sprint May be Gaining Ground Number Three Sprint May be Gaining Ground By Kent Gibbons The {Washington Times}, (10/14, Pg C1) Sprint may have made the most headway in long distance lately. Though still number three in the U.S. market for carrying interstate calls, Sprint Corp. said yesterday its long-distance business measured in minutes of calls rose in its fiscal third quarter. Though the growth was just 3.2 percent over the second quarter, it was probably enough to gain market share in the tightly contested battle with American Telephone & Telegraph Co. and MCI Communications Corp., analysts said. The call volume led Kansas City-based Sprint to what it said was a quarterly record for profits: $115 million or 52 cents per share of stock on $2.33 billion in revenues. That excludes $6 million, or 3 cents per share, charged for retiring some debt early. The same period last year, Sprint made $97 million, or 44 cents per share, on $2.21 billion in revenues. Sprint's stock rose 75 cents yesterday, closing at $25 per share. AT&T and MCI shares also rose. MCI, based in Washington [DC], is scheduled to release its earnings next Wednesday. AT&T will probably announce its quarterly results within two weeks. John Bain, who follows the industry for Raymond James & Associates in St. Petersburg, Fla., said Sprint is "finally going in the right direction." He added that Sprint's efforts are motivated partly by timing: it wants Centel Corp. shareholders to approve a controversial acquisition of that company by Sprint. Centel holders would get Sprint stock for their shares, so the higher Sprint's stock, the more likely they are to bless the merger. Sprint said it gained ground partly with new products, including its "The Most" plan for residential customers and its "Clarity and Business Clout" plans for businesses. Sprint said it also did a better job of hanging on to the customers it already had. ------------------------------ From: jarrell@vtserf.cc.vt.edu (Ron Jarrell) Subject: Re: AT&T Public Phone 2000 Date: 18 Oct 92 19:20:52 GMT Organization: Virginia Tech (VPI & SU) I made a data call back to to the office while at a conference on one of these beasties. Four months later one of our internal telecom people call me to discuss something wierd with my phone billing. After four weeks of going back and forth, calling AT&T to find out what in hell this charge was, they finally got the answer that it was a data call on a public phone 2000, which I had charged to my office phone's C&P card. Our people were REALLY disgruntled over the billing, and even more so over the fact that it took them over a month to get AT&T to EXPLAIN the charge to them. AT&T ended up cancelling the charge and apologizing. Ron Jarrell Virginia Tech Computing Center jarrell@vtserf.cc.vt.edu ------------------------------ From: adam@endor.uucp (Adam Shostack) Subject: No Dial Tone; What's a Guy to Do? Organization: Aiken Computation Lab, Harvard University Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 23:05:48 GMT Today, I returned home from work, and for the third time in a two months, had no dial tone on my voice line. Last week, the dial tone disapeared around 7PM Friday, and was restored noon on Sunday. A few weeks prior, service disapeared and was not restored for about a week. I was told they were having major problems, and each day that the line would be available the next day. Each time, I have asked for a message to be put on the line, or that the calls be forwarded to what is normally my modem line. Each time, NET has refused to do so, claiming that they are incompetent. (By which I mean they can't figure out if the problem is in the switch or in the wiring somewhere.) What are my options? The service stinks, the business office doesn't want to cut a rebate (even for days I am without service), and worst of all, I can't switch to an alternative local telephone company. Do I call the PUC? Do I flame my way up NET's "service" structure? Do I shoot random telco employees? :) Should I politely decline to pay for service not recieved? Can they cut off my line (more than usual) if I don't pay for time I don't get a dial tone? Please give me some advice. Adam Shostack adam@das.harvard.edu ------------------------------ From: adg@netcom.com (Allan D. Griefer) Subject: Merlin 1030 System Equipment Wanted Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 23:48:19 GMT I'm looking for all sorts of used (CHEAP!) equipment for a Merlin 1030 system for the local Boy Scout office. If anyone has some available, please send me E-mail on it. Thanks. Al Griefer, KC6ZTW adg@netcom.com EMT-1A, AHA CPR Instructor San Jose, CA ------------------------------ From: klopfer@natinst.com (Mike Klopfer) Subject: Signalling on T1 Lines Date: 18 Oct 1992 22:00:24 -0500 Organization: National Instruments, Austin, TX I am interested in finding out what standard my local telephone company uses for signaling on a multiple voice channel T1 connection. Is this standardized nationwide or is it up to local LECs. I would appreciate any information on such standards and how I might get access to them. Also I'm interested in the service that I believe is called direct inward dialing where the telephone company provides you with the last four digits of the number being dialed so it can be routed automatically. Thanks. klopfer@natinst.com ------------------------------ Subject: "Intercom-Plus" and AT&T 5E Switches Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 13:47:53 MST From: kph@cisco.com Pac*Bell offers a custom calling feature called "Intercom-Plus" which lets you dial *51, *52, or *53 and hang up, giving a distinctive ring-back so that you can use your phone to talk to somebody at another station. Yesterday, I called up Pac*Bell to order this service, and they told me that it wasn't offered in my service area. This surprised me, since I knew that I was served by a 5E switch, and I thought that 5E switches supported all features that 1A switches supported. Well, I had a specialist call me back, and she told me that from her list, only AT&T 1AESS switches suported this feature, and this was the only feature that she knew of that you could get on a 1A but not a 5E. Does anybody know why this is? It seems strange that a software feature on 1A switches wouldn't be on 5E switches. Kevin ------------------------------ From: georg@marie.physik.tu-berlin.de (Georg Schwarz) Subject: Internatational Country Code Numbering System Organization: ZRZ/TU-Berlin Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 18:50:03 GMT Does anyone know when the international country code system (with +49 for Germany, +81 for Japan etc.) was introduced? [Moderator's Note: It was at least 20 years ago. When the first central offices in Chicago were converted to ESS back in 1972-73 they had international dialing capability. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hdnea@usho92.hou281.chevron.com (David Neal) Subject: Wanted: Recommendation For IBM-PC DTMF Board Organization: Chevron Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 02:47:53 GMT I'm trying to put together a BBS based aircraft scheduling system. It would be on an IBM PC running MS/DOS or UNIX. Ideally, I would like to also offer a touch-tone interface to the database. Clearly, I need a board that has a TSR I can communicate with while running other software, or an interface defined well enough that I can write my own TSR or Unix device driver. I can summarize if there is enough interest. David Neal -- hdnea@hou281.chevron.com ------------------------------ From: sean@cobra.dra.com Subject: Having the Media Over Date: 18 Oct 92 18:32:24 CDT Organization: Data Research Associates, Inc. Last week Washington University in St. Louis hosted a presidential debate. In addition to having President Bush, Gov. Clinton, and Mr. Perot running around our fair city (actually it was in Clayton, a suburb where I also live), we had several thousand "media" folk. In a period of 6-1/2 days 3,000 phones, a new cellular tower, and additional power transformers were installed at the debate site. In addition a hundred additional lines were installed in the hotels where the Bush and Clinton campaigns were spending the night (Clinton the night before the debate, Bush the night after the debate). No mention of where Perot was staying, which seemed to frustrate the media. I suspect most of the telecommunications were installed for the use of the media and campaign rather than any national security reasons. At the debate site there was very little diversity in the routing of the phone lines. Basically they all went to the basement of KETC Channel 9 (the local PBS station) located adjacent to the debate site to hook up to the fiber optic trunk going on to Southwestern Bell's system. One interesting thing was the difference between the reported number of phones (3,000) and the reported number of lines (600). While normal traffic may justify this, I thought the "event" nature of the debate would mean that every phone would be in use with reporters filing stories. Of course, I got this information from published news reports, so the information could just be wrong. Southwestern Bell seemed to have 10-20 trunks on site the entire week before the debate (any time of the day or night that I drove by there was always some kind of activity going on). No mention was made whether the cellular tower was installed by the wireline carrier, or the "B" carrier, but I suspect it was SWBT's. While I'm sure it was all done legally, I still think it is amazing how they could have gotten all the permits required for all the construction, radio towers, etc in such a short time. A note about the motorcades, and blocking off traffic. All of the debate participants received the motorcade treatment. Perot's was only three cars, while the President's seemed to have dozens of cars stretched out almost a mile. The streets aren't blocked for secrecy (way too many people know), and it only provides a minor amount of security. The biggest reason is to prevent traffic accidents, both with the motorcade and among drivers as the motorcade passes. While there was the time a teenager drove into the side of the President's motorcade (the teenager had the green light at an intersection), the accidents are usually among cars not involved with the motorcade. The problem is drivers stop watching where they are driving and watch the motorcade and tend to drive into cars front of them. I believe (and who knows maybe the Secret Service would even agree with me) a better solution would be to make the President's motorcade smaller, but the political realities (not security) require the press, local mayors, congresspeople, chief of police, party faithful, etc to ride along. Getting that number of vehicles through traffic is going to cause problems anyway you do it. Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Domain: sean@sdg.dra.com, Voice: (Work) +1 314-432-1100 ------------------------------ From: fleckens@plains.NoDak.edu (Clint Fleckenstein) Subject: FCC Modem Tax Scare Plagues Local BBS ...>Again< Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 03:15:25 GMT Organization: North Dakota Higher Ed Computing Network Well, here's the scoop. Local users are posting new posts, as part of Docket 89-79 "Open Network Architecture Basic Service Element Pricing". These posts once again purport a charge to Extended Service Providers on a per minute basis, which, of course, would then be passed on to the consumer, etc, etc, etc. I've been on the net for almost six years, and have seen this kind of crap come up again and again. This guy supposedly cites sources, but I haven't seen this anywhere else. The poster says he got the info from a network somewhere. What's the deal? I remain skeptical ... how do I prove/disprove this? Is there a source of information regarding this, or is it just one of those 'send this sick kid postcards' things that gets posted everywhere? I'd like to put this to rest for once and for all. Clint Fleckenstein Master Control/Operations, KFYR TV 5 / KQCD TV 7 .5k EX Pilot My login and conduct don't belong to Meyer Broadcasting. DoD #5150 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #793 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa20239; 19 Oct 92 10:32 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA24502 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 19 Oct 1992 08:03:33 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA06420 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 19 Oct 1992 08:03:24 -0500 Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1992 08:03:24 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210191303.AA06420@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: "\\telecom"@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #794 TELECOM Digest Mon, 19 Oct 92 08:03:30 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 794 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs (Steve Welch) Re: How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs (Stangenberger) Re: Unhappy With the AT&T Attitude (John R. Ruckstuhl Jr.) C&W Attitude (was Unhappy With the AT&T Attitude (Mark W. Schumann) Re: PC-Based Voicemail Systems (Will Gridweed) Re: Answering Machine CPC? (Shrikumar) Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over (J. Philip Miller) Epps Fork, VA (William D. Bauserman) Re: Another List of Cellular Phone Prices (John Higdon) Followup on Viking Ringdown Boxes (Lars Poulsen) Re: Phone Network Simulator (Jon Sreekanth) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: smw@sage.cgd.ucar.edu (Steve Welch) Subject: Re: How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs? Organization: Scientific Computing Division/NCAR Boulder, CO Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1992 06:05:11 GMT In article cgordon@vpnet.chi.il.us (gordon hlavenka) writes: >> What I'm think of is having three or four-pair twisted pair cable run >> from each room separately (not daisy-chained the way they normally do >> it) to a punch-down block in some central location, so we can hook >> things together anyway we want... [stuff deleted] > I pulled a home run from each room down to the entry point in the > basement. Used AT&T-made network wiring; 4 UTP rated for 10BASE-T. > So I can esaily have two lines in each room, with two pairs spare. I > could even run ethernet and phone, although somebody's sure to tell me > there will be a problem with that. You might want to go ahead and try it, no matter what they say. I chickened out and installed Ethernet transceiver cables, which have been totally problem free (but quite expensive). What scared me off was not telephone inteference, but TV and radio inteference, which my installer (who seemed very competent) warned me about first. Also, thin Ethernet is no harder than CATV wire to pull, and if you can afford a star configuration to a smart hub, that might be a good way to go if the noise or EMI is too bad on the phone wire. > Each room is punched down to its own eight positions on the right side of > a punchdown block, and the phone lines are punched down on the left > side. Things then get connected with bridging clips in the middle. > It all looks very clean and impressive, and (most importantly) it > WORKS. No more RGYB birds'-nest in the rafters for me! I hear you on the no more rafters. However, I'd strongly recommend anyone doing this much work to pull six-pair, at least. I started out with three lines in, and went to four lines a couple of years later. The six pair to the punchdown blocks has been extremely handy. For instance, I've got a fax/modem switch in a central location, and with the six pair, I can run the fax line first to the switch only, and have the three seperated lines come out of it back to the punchdoen block (fax, modem and downstream voice calls). This requires seven pair, really, but I don't run one of the voice lines to that point. So, you see six pair is only just enough for me. Steve Welch Voice: 303-530-2661 National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO USA also: Complex Systems Research, Niwot, CO Fax: 303-581-9820 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 20:52:03 PDT From: forags@insect.berkeley.edu (Al Stangenberger) Subject: Re: How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs? For new construction, my advice would be to install conduit (1/2" or 3/4" EMT) from each room back to a central point. Then the choice of cable is not nearly as critical, and there is room for new technology such as fiber. Maybe someone familiar with fiber could recommend a minimum radius for a conduit bend if fiber installation is anticipated (of course this depends on the size of the cable). Al Stangenberger Dept. of Forestry & Resource Mgt. forags@violet.berkeley.edu 145 Mulford Hall - Univ. of Calif. ------------------------------ From: ruck@zeta.ee.ufl.edu (John R Ruckstuhl Jr) Subject: Re: Unhappy With the AT&T Attitude Organization: EE Dept at UF Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 00:22:49 GMT In comp.dcom.telecom, john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > As mentioned previously, I do substantial business with AT&T each > month. Considering the size of my bills, the idea that I would attempt > to weasel out of even $100 is absurd. The supervisor today was put on > notice that considering the wretched treatment that I received and the > lack of effort AT&T put forth in resolving the problem, my search for > a carrier that would offer even remotely similar rates/service has > been intensified. Recently, I was billed by AT&T for a 3:20 LD call. I didn't remember the call, but I recognize the called number, and it is quite likely that I did make a call to the number as billed. But I thought it was highly !unlikely! that one of my calls could be of such duration. I called customer service and asked about possible explanations for what I thought was an error. The customer service rep couldn't provide any good explanation, and maybe she believed that I was having a memory fault, but when I claimed I didn't think such a call from me could last more than an hour, and she checked my call history for the past few months, she credited my account for 2:20 of the 3:20 call in question. I'm satisfied -- I didn't think my claim sounded very persuasive, and it's easy for me to believe that I did call that day for between 0:30 and 1:00. And she was polite. :) So, here's my telecom question: If one recognizes the called number on the bill: 1. How likely is it that the call was not even made? I think it is very unlikely. 2. If the call was indeed made, how might the duration billed be incorrect? Anecdotes? Best regards, John R. Ruckstuhl, Jr. ruck@alpha.ee.ufl.edu Dept of Electrical Engineering ruck@cis.ufl.edu, uflorida!ruck University of Florida ruck%sphere@cis.ufl.edu, sphere!ruck ------------------------------ From: wariat!catfood@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 19:49 EDT Subject: C&W Attitude (was Unhappy With the AT&T Attitude) Organization: Akademia Pana Kleksa, Public Access UNI* Site stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) writes: > Because I had previously used Cable & Wireless's Programmable 800 > service, and really liked the fact that I could change the routing > myself instantly at any time, I gave them a call. [story about C&W's stupidity in failing to complete the order in a remotely timely manner deleted.] C&W has permanently lost any chance of obtaining my business based on their remarkably poor attitude on a billing problem I had recently. I had been on hold for Borland Tech Support for about half an hour (!) and was then suddenly disconnected, with a message that directed me to call a certain 800 number for further information. "Hot Dog!" says I, "Borland must be handing out toll-free support to make up for the long wait!" No such luck. It was a C&W customer service number, where the rep told me that either Borland must have hung up on me, or I had dialed 1 and timed out. In neither case would they compensate my employer for the half-hour's worth of wasted LD time. Both scenarios seem to me to be (to put it politely) hogwash. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, though, why on earth would I get a C&W customer service message when my party hangs up on me? I dunno. Mark W. Schumann/3111 Mapledale Avenue/Cleveland, Ohio 44109-2447 USA Preferred: mark@whizbang.wariat.org | Alternative: catfood@wariat.org [Moderator's Note: Why do you feel that when the party you were calling left you on hold for half an hour that the carrier who handled the call for you owes you for the half hour call? Wouldn't that be the responsibility of Borland? They're the ones who mishandled the call. After the connection was broken for whatever reason (because Borland then carelessly disconnected, etc) and you remained off hook anyway for a minute or so longer, then you got the message to call the 800 number if you were having trouble of some kind. At least I think so. PAT] ------------------------------ From: gridlock@cats.ucsc.edu (Will Gridweed) Subject: Re: PC-Based Voicemail Systems Date: 19 Oct 1992 02:29:17 GMT Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz mrosen@nyx.cs.du.edu (Michael Rosen) writes: > Does anybody know of a fax/modem voice mail card that incorporates > 14.4K modem speed as well? I've heard of ZyXEL -- supposedly they > have a new upgrade that has voice mail added to their fax/modem. Can > anyone attest to the quality of this brand of fax/modems? I have their plain 14.4k v32bis/fax modem(no voice mail) and it works great. They now have a 16.8k protocol in the new roms(I don't have them though), as well as caller id support and distinctive ring support. They cost more than the supra/boca v32bis modems, but the upgradability and quality make it worth it for me. Will gridlock@cats.ucsc.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 02:10:26 -0400 From: shri%unreal@cs.umass.edu Subject: Re: Answering Machine CPC? Organization: UMass, Amherst, MA 01002 + Temporal Sys & Comp Net, Bombay, India In article a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com writes: > On my home phone answering machine, if the machine is active, > additional callers get a busy signal even though we have call waiting. > [Moderator's Note: ... machine is tricking the network into thinking > there has not been an answer, in the style of the old (were they > called?) 'black boxes'? That would indeed be a curious bit of > workmanship. Is that possible at all? Come to think of it, can I disable call waiting when I am *recieving* a call? (As different from *67 before originating a call.) I sure can't enter *67 before I pick up the handset, and I'd surely not do that after I have picked up the handset ... the tones would mildly surprise the caller, DTMF is non-harmonic and very very jarring :-) especially when you hear that instead of a "hello" ! shrikumar ( shri@legato.cs.umass.edu, shri@iucaa.ernet.in ) [Moderator's Note: Many phone switches are set up to allow the person receiving a call to flash at any point in the connection, receive new dial tone, enter *67 and be reconnected to the conversation which was in progress. This is especially true if the called party has three-way calling which would allow another 'call' to be placed anyway. Try it on your phone the next time you get a call and see if it works. PAT] ------------------------------ From: phil@wubios.wustl.edu (J. Philip Miller) Subject: Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 0:29:53 CDT > [Moderator's Note: It costs plenty. Of course with a deficit of umpty- > trillion dollars, I guess it is a small outlay by comparison. Do you > know how Perot got to the debate Sunday night? He flew on a > commercial airline with a couple aides, and took a taxi from the > airport to the hall. On the plane, he greeted people who came up to > him to wish him well, etc. PAT] I suppose Perot has flown commercial, but the local stories in St. Louis were that he flew in his private jet. J. Philip Miller, Professor, Division of Biostatistics, Box 8067 Washington University Medical School, St. Louis MO 63110 phil@wubios.WUstl.edu - Internet (314) 362-3617 [362-2694(FAX)] [Moderator's Note: News reports here were that he just showed up at the auditorium when it was time without a big entourage -- just a few people. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 92 14:16:00 UT From: WILLIAM.D.BAUSERMAN@gte.sprint.com Subject: Epps Fork, VA Epps Fork/Trading Post area of Virginia is served by Carolina Tel under an agreement with Contel of VA (dba GTE Virgina now). If you are familiar with the area you know that, while this area is part of VA it is on the "North Carolina side" of the lake. This made the cost of placing facilities unreasonable (at the time of the agreement) so a contract was reached that Contel would own (and pay for) the OSP facilities and CTT would provide the maintenance and service (to make a long story short). These 300 or so people have EAS to Henderson, Norlina, and Warrenton NC. The exchange is 252 out of Henderson. FYI, currently there are negotiations under way for GTE/VA to take back total control of these customers (by their petition, Mr. Higdon :).) Usual Disclaimers apply. Bill Bauserman william.d.bauserman@gte.sprint.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 10:52 PDT From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Another List of Cellular Phone Prices lairdb@crash.cts.com writes: > Or, at least, that's the key question for those of us in Kalifornia, > where the PUC has decided we're not smart enough to understand such > arrangements, and must therefore pay $300 or so for that same bag > phone. (And higher cell rates, too, but that's a function of everyone > and their nine-year-old having a cellphone.) I will tell you who is making out like a bandit on the California deals: the dealers. Even though they are not allowed to tie service into the price of a phone, the service providers STILL give a $300 kickback to the dealer for signing you up. And even with that healthy incentive, most have the nerve to charge the customer an ADDITIONAL $25 for an "activation fee". So when I went in to Western Appliance and bought my Motorola bag phone last year for $250, there were some mildly long faces when I announced that I would be using a current account and would not need "activation". But then as a face-saving measure, the saleman asked which carrier it would be used on. When I told him GTE Mobilnet, he produced complete programming instructions which even gave the unique system data for GTE. (Had I said Cellular One, he would have given me those instructions as well.) So in California, since you are going to have to pay full price for the phone AND rip-off cellular rates, you might try negotiating a piece of that sign-up incentive fee that the dealer will get after you have left the store. But Mr. Broadfield is correct: this is another example where the customer gets screwed as the result of bumbling regulatory effort. Just more of the usual from the good old CPUC. 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: lars@spectrum.CMC.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Followup on Viking Ringdown Boxes Organization: CMC Network Systems (Rockwell DCD), Santa Barbara, CA, USA Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 05:32:15 GMT A couple of months ago, I reported that I had found some very useful, inexpensive ringdown boxes made by Viking Electronics. They were only $106/each. Well, it turns out that you get what you pay for. The big problem with these boxes was that they would occasionally burn up. Melted plastic, acrid smoke, you know the situation. After burning three, we discovered that the power supply is not current limited, and when both sides go off-hook at the same time, it overloads. The boxes might still be useful for some one-way applications (elevators etc), but for our intended use, this won't do. We have returned all our boxes for a full refund. Our modem test area will be using a couple of Panasonix KX-T30810 switches instead .... Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer Internet E-mail: lars@CMC.COM CMC Network Products / Rockwell Int'l Telephone: +1-805-968-4262 Santa Barbara, CA 93117-3083 TeleFAX: +1-805-968-8256 ------------------------------ From: jon_sree@world.std.com (Jon Sreekanth) Subject: Re: Phone Network Simulator Organization: The World Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 16:19:48 GMT In article 0003991080@mcimail.com (Proctor & Associates) writes: Teltone (800-426-3926 or 206-487-1515) makes line simulators TLS-3 and TLS-4. The cheaper -3 has two RJ11's and can have one conversation; the -4 has four jacks, and can have two independent conversations. We bought a couple of TLS-3's earlier this year (about $300-something). Apart from the fact that the on-hook battery voltage is 24V, not 48V, and the ring is square, not sinewave, it's a fairly nice unit. > The 49250 Phone Demo II simulates two lines, and handles tone dialing > only. It has real dial tone, ringback tone, and ringing, and you just > go off hook on one jack, dial any seven-digit phone number (or #) and > it rings the other line. The price is $259.95, FOB Redmond, WA. We considered this, and liked it better because the battery voltage was 48, but what killed it for us was we use # as a command introducer in the gadget we were demo'ing. We were afraid that if the 49250 responded to the # and started ringing the other outlet, it would cause great confusion. The Teltone uses * instead of #, and that was OK with us. It was minor, but it swayed the decision. Maybe a good idea to have a few dip-switch customizations on a product like this. Jon Sreekanth Assabet Valley Microsystems, Inc. Fax and PC products 5 Walden St #3, Cambridge, MA 02140 (617) 876-8019 jon_sree@world.std.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #794 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa27400; 20 Oct 92 4:20 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA24538 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Tue, 20 Oct 1992 02:10:08 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA15097 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Tue, 20 Oct 1992 02:08:26 -0500 Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1992 02:08:26 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210200708.AA15097@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #795 TELECOM Digest Tue, 20 Oct 92 02:08:30 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 795 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Question About ROLM PBX Telephones (Mike Morris) Re: Highway Call Boxes (Mike Morris) Re: Retail Videoconferencing? (Mark Cheeseman) Re: E-Mail For Michigan Residents (Mark W. Schumann) Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison (John Rice) Re: DC to DC Convertor Needed (Rich Greenberg) Re: Modem Question (Tony Pelliccio) Re: N-1-1 Codes (Tony Pelliccio) Re: SPRINT Outage (Matthew Waugh) Re: Message Center and Call Waiting (Shrikumar) Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over (Michael Peirce) Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over (Barry Mishkind) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: morris@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Mike Morris) Subject: Re: Question About ROLM PBX Telephones Organization: College Park Software, Altadena, CA Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1992 21:46:07 GMT Joseph.Bergstein@p501.f544.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Joseph Bergstein) writes: > In a message from Martin McCormick, he states: >> The Rolm PBX'S are made by Seimens, as far as I know. > ROLM PBX'x have been made by the Rolm Company since they were founded. > As I recall, ROLM actually started out manufacturing MILSPEC Nova > (Data General) computers in the early '70s. I recall seeing them as > the console computer on early Amdahl 470 mainframes. Correct. I have an old sales brochure for a Rolm version of the Nova 4. And when I got a tour of the MCI switch in downtown LA years ago (long before MCI had 950- access, and way before 1+ access) the controlling computers were Rolms. Mike Morris WA6ILQ PO Box 1130 Arcadia, CA. 91077 818-447-7052 All opinions must be my own since nobody pays me enough to be their mouthpiece ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 14:34:39 PDT From: morris@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Mike Morris) Subject: Re: Highway Call Boxes Paul_Gloger.ES_XFC@xerox.com writes: > Along the highway, out in the country in California anyway, there are > emergency telephone call boxes, with phones which connect you directly > to the Highway Patrol or some such agency. I wrote: > They are self-contained cellular phones. Supposedly they have > tamper and tilt-over switches, but I doubt it -- there's been one laid > flat in Eagle Rock (near Pasadena) now for almost two weeks. The > solar panel disappeared on day four. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com wrote: > They do indeed have tamper alarms. There was a case a few months back > of someone on I-580 in the Altamont Pass area taking them down to > steal. When the CHP dispatcher saw the tamper alarms going off in > succession for a few of the boxes, they got an officer out there > pronto, who found a pickup truck with various call box parts in the > bed. Well, that call box (specifically #134-122) is still flat, at about three weeks now. Thursday night the box was still on the pole, Friday morning it was gone -- but the pole was still there. And Friday morning the first callbox west of the 101-5 junction on the westbound 101 was flat (I couldn't read the number). This morning the solar panel is missing ... I can't belive that nobody notices things like this. Supposedly the Highway Patrol has it's "beats" set up so a officer covers a beat every two or three hours. CalTrans (CA. Dept of Transportation -- the freeway builders / fixers) has a maintenance station less than five miles away. Somebody from there has to drive that route to get to work. Nobody cares to report this stuff? The tamper alarms are disabled at the central site? And somebody has to realize that LA has a high techie-to-general populace ratio, and that a solar panel that's free for the taking from a downed call box is going to evaporate. It wouldn't take much to have a tilt-over/tamper alert be sent to the nearest CalTrans maintenance station (which are all over the place) who could send out a two-man crew and a big pickup truck to pick up the entire assembly before the technological vultures got to it. No special equipment needed, just wheels, muscles and a little bit of brains. Oh yeah -- that's what is missing -- brains. (Sarcasm intended). Mike Morris WA6ILQ PO Box 1130 Arcadia, CA. 91077 818-447-7052 All opinions must be my own since nobody pays me enough to be their mouthpiece ------------------------------ From: Mark Cheeseman Subject: Re: Retail Videoconferencing? Organization: Your Computer Magazine, Sydney, Australia Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 10:15:01 GMT In article lairdb@crash.cts.com writes: > Reminded by someone else's post hypothesizing full-motion switched > service, I've been wondering for a while why there aren't services out > there that provide a meeting room with a videoconference setup, on a > by-the-hour basis. (Maybe there are, and I just haven't found them.) Here in Australia, our now ex-monopoly, Telecom, has such a service between capital cities (and maybe other centres as well). Its popularity soared during a domestic pilots strike a few years back, but dropped back again when it became easier to fly again. I think most people would rather travel interstate than across the city to the teleconferencing studio (I certainly do). Mark Cheeseman, Your Computer. cheese@runx.oz.au Fido: 3:712/412.0 Phn: +61 2 353 0143 Fax: +61 2 353 0720 AMPRnet: coming RSN! ------------------------------ From: wariat!catfood@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 19:40 EDT Subject: Re: E-Mail For Michigan Residents Organization: Akademia Pana Kleksa, Publi Access UNI* Site In article TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM writes: > Mr. Koronakos also says: >> I don't know if Prodigy/Compuserve-type service provide email access >> to the net, how much extra (if any) this costs, etc. > Compu$erve does provide internet access but their rates are at least > $12.50 an hour to send or receive messages, and I believe they also > charge for messages sent. On the other hand Compuserve is offering a > $7.50 a month special access plan which allows a certain number of > messages sent per month. That "special access plan" is now the only available plan for new users. It allows a certain number of free email messages per month and charges after that. For members who chose not to switch over to the new billing plan, there is no charge per message, only for online time. Mark W. Schumann/3111 Mapledale Avenue/Cleveland, Ohio 44109-2447 USA Preferred: mark@whizbang.wariat.org | Alternative: catfood@wariat.org ------------------------------ From: rice@ttd.teradyne.com Subject: Re: LD Transmission Quality Comparison Organization: Teradyne Inc., Telecommunications Division Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 23:41:51 GMT In article , eli@cisco.com writes: > andys@internet.sbi.com (Andy Sherman) wrote: >> First off, AT&T has had *some* optical fiber in the network for some >> time. But the particular medium of digital transmission should matter >> not one whit for how to do echo cancellation. The propagation delays >> are the same for all terrestrial links. > This cannot be correct. Propagation delay depends on media type. The > signal propagation speed in fiber is slower than that in coax cable, > for example. It must be different for pure copper wire, also. Huh? Did they just repeal the speed of light? Where did you hear this? But I agree, that the medium has no effect on echo cancellation. J.R. [Moderator's Note: While the 'speed of light' is approximatly 186,000 miles per second -- about seven times around the earth in a second I guess -- I think that depends on it going in a straight line without any bends, curves, etc in its path. Don't things like that cause it (light) to slow down a little? Certainly the fiber bends and twists along its path a little from time to time. Might that matter? PAT] ------------------------------ From: richg@hatch.socal.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: DC to DC Convertor Needed Organization: Hatch Usenet and E-mail. Playa del Rey, CA Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1992 00:32:48 GMT In article Ron writes: > My company is in search of a low cost DC to DC convertor that will > take -48VDC from the central office battery feed and convert it to a > regulated +12VDC at around 1 Amp, plus or minus 1/2 Amp. That's going to take something like 1/4 amp from the phone line. (Ignoring conversion losses.) If there is any wire distance getting to the CO or PBX, there will be a significant voltage drop there. I doubt the local telco would appreciate this. Rich Greenberg - N6LRT - 310-649-0238 - richg@hatch.socal.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 21:53:09 EDT From: Tony Pelliccio Subject: Re: Modem Question In reference to brownc@cs.colostate.edu's question about the modem he has.... Lets see ... CTS is clear to send, I suspect ERR is error correction active, DCD is probably Data Carrier Detect, PWR is obvious, but LB ... hmmmm... couldn't tell you what that one is. I know this HST has a whole bunch of lights but at least it tells you what they are on the bottom. :) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 22:05:57 EDT From: Tony Pelliccio Subject: Re: N-1-1 Codes As for N11 codes the following have been used since the early part of this century: 411 - Directory Assistance 911 - Emergency 611 - Repair Service 211 - Way, way, way back before direct dial was available you dialed 211 for ALL long distance calls. I like the use of 611 for repair, and it shows through with RI's repair number ... 1-555-1611. [Moderator's Note: Before 911 was for emergencies it along with 511 and 711 were frequently used as temporary gateways between subscribers with automatic dialing and manual service customers in the same local calling area. (The '0' operator only assisted the customers with dialed call completion, like now.) 811 was used for 'priority long distance during the Second World War by military and government people with sufficient rank to demand an immediate connection even if all circuits to some place were busy. After the war ended, 811 was kept around for long distance calls originating in hotels, institutions and other places where a PBX operator had to keep the time and charges for billing back to the individual calling extension. PAT] ------------------------------ From: waugh@rtpnet05.rtp.dg.com (Matthew Waugh) Subject: Re: SPRINT Outage Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 02:41:55 GMT Organization: Data General Corporation, RTP, NC. > [Moderator's Note: ....... The word is the service will be out for a > long time; maybe a month or more. Our service came back late this week. A few translation problems in call handling still exist. I have no idea if we were re-routed to another switching centre, but since we use a VPN from SPRINT I cannot imagine we were slammed. However, I do believe that residential customers in some parts of North Carolina were slammed to alternative carriers. The big question is, will they get slammed back? By slammed I mean their default long distance carrier was changed without notification, regardless of it being for their own good. I guess the Baby Bells still do know what's best for you. So did they slam everyone to AT&T, or did they use some complicated formula, or did they just divide everyone up. What happens when people who didn't know they got changed to AT&T refuse to pay their long distance bills -- I mean they chose SPRINT for it's rates and quality of service, why should they pay AT&T's rates and get it's service quality when they didn't choose to :-). So many questions, so little time. Matthew Waugh waugh@dg-rtp.dg.com RTP Network Services Data General Corp. RTP, NC. (919)-248-6034 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 02:12:41 -0400 From: shri%unreal@cs.umass.edu Subject: Re: Message Center and Call Waiting Organization: UMass, Amherst, MA 01002 + Temporal Sys & Comp Net, Bombay, India In article leavens@mizar.usc.edu wrote: > Does anyone have any idea why calls which go unanswered for, say three > rings, can be automatically forwarded to my Pac Bell Message Center > mailbox, but if I am on a call already (and I have call-waiting) a > call-waiting call unanswered will not be forwarded? > [Moderator's Note: You do NOT have to 'get rid of call waiting'. All > you have to do is suspend call waiting for the duration of the call on > which you would rather not be disturbed. The idea seems to be that for I am not sure what, but there is something in our Moderator's comment makes me want to add a line ... :_) As somebody pointed out to me by E-mail, there are two varieties of Call-forward-on-busy, and if you talk to the telco persitently enough, and sound knowledgable enough (in other words sledge-hammer your way thru) you can get call forwarding-on-busy set up to transfer after three beep-beeps on call waiting. At least so it seemed when I almost got call-fwd-on-busy on my other line in the house from NET, before I decided at the very last moment that I do want it all that bad. And whats more, you can do this separately for each differential ring number that you own. PAT, we must remember that conversations are not flat, they are not even monotonic (tho' they canbe monotonous :-) so there are moments when I want an interruption and moments when I don't within the *same* call. And when I am going thru a sensitive part of one conversation, I would rather have the new incoming call transfer to the voice-mail, than to lose it altogether. Maybe the moral is "not to get into a situation where you are likely to have the possibility of two sensitive conversations at the same time :-)" What I don't know is does the differential ring-service also imply a differential beep-beep in call-waiting? Also, I wonder if its possible to specify no call-waiting if the call I picked up was for my data-number, but call waiting active if I answered a call on my voice number, if I have both call-waiting and Ring-mate serive. Or maybe it is ... BTW, how can I disable call waiting on a call I recieve? Say, I have one line for voice, and a fax machine that picks up the call when I am not around ... there does not seem anyway for the fax machine to say, "I'm picking up this call, so no call waiting". Seems to be all or nothing. shrikumar ( shri@legato.cs.umass.edu, shri@iucaa.ernet.in ) [Moderator's Note: Yes, there is a different call waiting signal for calls on the distinctive ringing line. They call it distinctive call waiting. Seriously ... the 'beep beep' has a little different cadence to it, just as the ring does. You install suspspend call waiting on a call you receive by flashing the hook, dialing *67 and getting dropped back into the call which was in progress automatically in places which offer that feature. Some COs require you to have three way calling in order to use *67 on incoming calls; otherwise there would be no reason for flashing the hook. Some CO's let you flash just for the *67 part with or without three way calling. In Chicago, the distinctive ringing numbers (you can have two plus the main number) can be programmed at the CO to either follow along with the main number on whatever it does or to act independently. I have my distinctive ringing number set up to NOT follow the call forwarding on the main line. It will just 'ring through' regardless. I have it programmed to interupt with call waiting however. Some people just have it return a busy signal if it or the main number is in use. My distinctive ringing number also follows the main number into voicemail, but only on a 'true busy', that is, when *67 has been activated. If the main line is off hook without a connection or being run, etc, then calls on the distinctive ringing line also get a busy signal. PAT] ------------------------------ From: peirce@outpost.SF-Bay.org (Michael Peirce) Subject: Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 14:13:52 PST Organization: Peirce Software Reply-To: peirce@outpost.SF-Bay.org (Michael Peirce) In article (tadams@wedge.sbc.com), wrote: > In St. Louis we've had several presidential visits. Most involve > shutting down a major interstate for 30 minutes, often during rush > hour. Even the Vice President rates closing the Interstate. After > Sunday's debate, the President spent the night in the city. Monday > between 6AM and 7AM a police car was parked at every overpass and > every entrance ramp along a 20 mile stretch of the Interstate. > Pedestrian bridges had police stationed on foot. St. Louis didn't > have the money to plow snow from most city streets last winter. I > wonder if we can afford street lights and sewage treatment now. Here in Silicon Valley they've been shutting down a freeway for about an hour for the last couple of days simply for an airshow! US-101 is right next to Moffet Naval Air Station and the Blue Angels are practicing for this weekend's show. They have a couple of maneuvers that take them right over the highway and they don't want people to be startled into having an accident. BTW: This is last airshow at Moffet since it will soon no longer be a Naval Air Station. Michael Peirce -- peirce@outpost.SF-Bay.org Peirce Software -- Suite 301, 719 Hibiscus Place -- San Jose, California USA 95117 voice: (408) 244-6554 fax: (408) 244-6882 AppleLink: peirce & America Online: AFC Peirce ------------------------------ From: barry@coyote.datalog.com (Barry Mishkind) Subject: Re: What it Costs to Have the President Over Organization: Datalog Consulting, Tucson, AZ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 02:47:05 GMT tadams@wedge.sbc.com (Tom. Adams 529-7860) writes: > In St. Louis we've had several presidential visits. Most involve > shutting down a major interstate for 30 minutes, often during rush > hour. Even the Vice President rates closing the Interstate. After Maybe, right after the "no new taxes" pledge, we could get candidates to pledge to make their visits less "regal" ? Barry Mishkind barry@coyote.datalog.com FidoNet 1:300/11.3 [Moderator's Note: Lots of luck with that idea! :) PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #795 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa26232; 21 Oct 92 4:18 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA11585 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Wed, 21 Oct 1992 01:53:08 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA10436 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Wed, 21 Oct 1992 01:52:23 -0500 Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1992 01:52:23 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210210652.AA10436@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #796 TELECOM Digest Wed, 21 Oct 92 01:52:27 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 796 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Picturetel Video Conference Experience (Brad Houser) Credit For Dropped Handoff Calls (sridhas@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu) Strange Beeping Noises (Roger Black) Cordless Phones: Handset to Base Handshake? (Eric E. Snyder) Need Help With Jack For Second Line (Bob Sloan) High European Phone Rates (was East German Pay Phone) (Wolf Paul) Why I Stick With AT&T (John Higdon) AT&T International Information Now Dialable From Canada (Dave Leibold) Eat Here and Get Gas (Paul Robinson) 911/611 1/0+700 (Shing Pui-Shum Benson) Phantom CO'S (Ray Normandeau) Charity Begins at Home, and Ends With the Phone Bill (David Leibold) What is Van Eck Phreaking? (10u6579@csdvax.csd.unsw.edu.au) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bhouser@sc9.intel.com (Brad Houser) Subject: Picturetel Video Conference Experience Reply-To: bhouser@sc9.intel.com Organization: Intel Corporation, California Technology Development Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1992 15:01:57 GMT I had the pleasure/frustration of using Picturetel Video Conferencing last week. The system is set up with special conference rooms Intel's Santa Clara headquarters. There are two large (>= 27") monitors at one end of the room and a "cyclops" camera on a box above one monitor. The camera can be controlled from a console in front of the main speaker. It allows left/right/up/down panning, plus zoom. Four presets allow you to store settings for different people. Normally one monitor (closest to the middle) is for watching the "far end" and the other is for watching your self. The controls allow you to also control what you are watching at the "far end". There is a 1/4 second delay, for both video and audio when you are connected to the other end. The video is much lower quality than regular video, but then again it is being digitized (and compressed?) to squeeze over the phone lines. There is a document camera in the ceiling which can send live video, or a "snapshot" can be sent and stored in video memory at the other end. When dialing another site, a menu stores 30 something numbers, and one can direct dial. The interesting thing was that there are two numbers required, both to a 700 area code. (All the numbers in the menu, regardless of their geographic location use 700). I was told by our technical guy that there are two modes, 56kb and 112kb. I guess that depends on how many lines you use or the equipment at each end. We had problems connecting to the other end. The connection went through, and they could see us, but we couldn't see them. Sound worked fine. Our main monitor had an error message that said something like "Data rate too low for second channel". After repeated attempts to dial, there were setup failures. Finally, they gave us a new set of numbers, and we were able to connect, but again with only video in one direction. One thing I learned is that if I dialed the two numbers in the wrong sequence, I got a picture of myself (with the time delay) similar to what I could see by dialing a test loopback number. Is this how two sites send pictures to each other, each using one line? I am encouraged by the technology, but it still has it's problems. For some reason, the people we were calling could only answer calls, as they go through some distribution center or something like that. I would be interested in learning more about the technology. Does anyone know where I can find more info? [Brad Houser Intel: Home of the Pentium (TM) ] [ bhouser@sc9.intel.com ] [+1-408-765-0494 Woof!] ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 1992 10:14:34 -0500 (CDT) From: SRIDHAS@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu Subject: Credit For Dropped Handoff Calls Hi, Can someone enlighten me on credit given for dropped handoff calls when using cellular phones? Who gets the credit -- the initiator or the receiver? What happens if the initiator is not a cellular subscriber but the receiver is? Does the credit depend on the duration of call before it was dropped? Are there any articles dealing with credit policies? Thanks. Sridhar (sridhas@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu) ------------------------------ From: jrblack@csn.org (Roger Black) Subject: Strange Beeping Noises Organization: Colorado SuperNet, Inc. Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1992 16:55:36 GMT Recently I received a strange phone call. It consisted of four or five low-pitched beeps of about one second duration separated by 1.5 to two seconds of silence: beep ... ... beep ... ... beep ... ... beep ... ... beep This was followed by about about twenty seconds of silence and then a dial tone. I am not the only person in this area to receive such calls. I only got two of them, about five minutes apart, but I know one person who has received dozens of them. Does anyone have a clue what this might be? James Roger Black jrblack@csn.org [Moderator's Note: It was probably a fax machine misprogrammed to call your number (or the other numbers where you have been told the calls were received.) If it only happens once in a while, you really don't have any practical recourse -- just treat it as a wrong number. The beeping is the machine's way of asking for another machine to 'speak' to it. As for the person who has received 'dozens of calls', I suggest he make an effort to stop the problem by getting telco to track down the originator. Call Trace might be one technique he could use. PAT] ------------------------------ From: eesnyder@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Eric E. Snyder) Subject: Cordless Phones: Handset to Base Handshake? Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Date: 20 Oct 92 17:03:57 GMT What prevents a near-by party with a cordless phone from dialing out using my base unit and making charges on my phone line? Since, there are only ten pairs of cordless phone frequencies, what ensures that only my handset can talk to my base unit? Is there some sort of ID code transmitted between the units or is it only distance which prevents neighbors from using my phone line? Any pointers to how security is maintained would be appreciated. Thanks, Eric E. Snyder Department of MCD Biology University of Colorado, Boulder Boulder, Colorado 80309-0347 [Moderator's Note: Many years ago, the only protection against this problem was distance. There was only one frequency in use; I think it was around 1730 KC. People could even tune in cordless phones on regular AM radios if the tuning dial was warped a little. As more folks got cordless phones, the distance between them disappeared, and the solution was to go to 46-49 megs with ten channels, the assumption being it was unlikely any two nearby cordless users would have units on the same channel (the phones were packaged and sold randomly on the different frequencies). Security was so bad for awhile that 'cruising for dial tone' -- that is, driving down the street with your remote unit up to your ear listening for someone else's line so you could sneak a call in -- was a common thing. Now there is something like an ID code -- a sort of ESN for cordless phones -- that is passed between the base and the remote and must be satisfied before the two will talk to each other at all. There are thousands of code combinations; these plus the choice of ten frequencies make the theft of phone service via cordless phone a lot more difficult although still not impossible. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sloan@turing.eecs.uic.edu (Bob Sloan) Subject: Need Help With Jack For Second Line Organization: Dept. of EECS, University of Illinois at Chicago Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1992 19:27:06 GMT I've just moved into a Chicago high-rise build in 1971 and I want a second line. I've paid the local phone company to set it up, but wanted to do my own wiring. We have old-style four-prong jacks, and I was told that if I was lucky, I could plug in a four-to-modular converter, then plug a one-line to two-line modular converter to that, and then plug in the phones. I'm not lucky. Both phones are on the same number. I open up the plate, and I find an old round jack with screws at 3, 6, 9, and 12 and no labels whatsover. Each screw has a loop of wire with insulation scraped off in the middle attached to it. The colors don't match the standard code or any alternates listed in the ATT phone book. I seem to recall white with blue bands, white with brown bands, gray and green. (I think they had bands as well.) To add to the fun, all the phone jacks in this apartment are fush mounted next to an electric outlet, with one long plate covering all three. The jack is physically attached to a 2" x 2.25" metal frame, which is screwed into a bracket in the wall at two opposite corners. Questions: 1. Am I correct in assuming that these are indeed the classic red, green, yellow, and black wires, and I just have to figure out which one of the four! mappings is going to work? 2. Is there any place in the world where I could buy a flush mounted modular jack of the same size to replace these with? 3. Alternatively, if I try all 24 different ways of connecting these wires to this jack, and use the four-prong to modular converter plus the modular one line to two line converter, is one of them likely to make my two lines work? (The current jack looks very symmetric, so I'm a bit worried.) 4. Advice? [Moderator's Note: The trouble is you will hear misleading dial tones and think all is well when it isn't, for example getting tip one and ring two or ring one and tip two connected to the phone. I think a good starting place would be to make the assumption that the wires on 3 and 12 go together and the wires on 6 and 9 go together. That would keep your symetry intact if it does exist as you say. You might also assume the color combinations are red/green for line one, yellow/black for line two, and white/blue for line three. The reason I suggest the 3/12 and 6/9 combinations is because that would be similar to the modular plugs currently in use which go (1/6, 2/5, and 3/4) or (1/4, 2/3) if it only has four contacts in the plug. Above all, listen closely as you work. Dial some test number: do you hear two dial tones, one maybe a split second later arriving than the other? When dialing do you hear the call being set up twice, or ringing and busy at the same time? If so, then you've got the two pairs tied together in error somehow. Have someone call each of your lines, one at a time. If they hear ringing for a second then 'popping' or a switch from ringing to rapid busy tone, etc ... you've got the wires from one pair mixed with the other pair somewhere. See if these suggestions help. PAT] ------------------------------ From: cc_paul@rcvie.co.at (Wolf Paul) Subject: High European Phone Rates (was East German Pay Phone) Reply-To: cc_paul@rcvie.co.at (Wolf N. Paul) Organization: Alcatel Austria - Elin Research Center, Vienna Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1992 08:00:32 GMT Commenting on an article by jmalloy@itsmail1.hamilton.edu (Joseph Malloy), our esteemed Moderator notes: > [Moderator's Note: Hey that even makes COCOTS and AOS outfits look > pretty good! :) Makes me wonder why the alternate operator services > and COCOTS have not tried to get into places in Europe where they > would be right at home ... the citizens wouldn't know any better. PAT] What idiots do you take us for? We only put up with these rates because telecommunications in many places is a government monopoly (by constitutional law, which would take a two-thirds majority in the legislature to change), which is exactly why COCOTS and AOS outfits cannot get in any more than legitimate alternate phone companies which might cause rates to go down ... Wolf N. Paul, Computer Center wnp@rcvie.co.at Alcatel-Elin Research Center +43-1-391621-122 (w) Ruthnergasse 1-7 +43-1-391452 (fax) ELIN RESEARCH A-1210 Vienna-Austria/Europe +43-1-2246913 (h) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 21:40 PDT From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Why I Stick With AT&T Recently I recounted a serious glitch in the way AT&T's front line customer handling. As a result, I have received much e-mail recommending various other carriers. Now let me dump on Sprint just a bit. Tonight while attempting to establish a new UUCP connection to a site on the east coast, we found that calls in the eastbound direction were screwing up. So I enabled my modems' speakers and listened. (I was using my secondary Sprint account for the calls.) Instead of being connected to the distant modem there was a recording: "We're sorry. Your long distance service has been temporarily discontinued. Please call customer service for assistance. 48-8-70" A call to Sprint customer service was next to useless. First she could not find my account from any of my phone numbers. After digging in my "paid invoices" shoebox, I managed to obtain the account number. She had me answer "dummy" questions such as "did you dial 10333 before the area code and number?", etc. After determining that there were no delinquent bill problems and that the eight phone numbers were correct, she told me that they would look into it. In the meantime, it is not fortunate that there is always AT&T to fall back on? 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: Wed, 21 Oct 1992 00:37:18 -0400 From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Dave Leibold) Subject: AT&T International Information Now Dialable From Canada AT&T's assistance line for international calling, 1 800 874.4000, is now dialable from Canada. This is the service which provides things like country codes and city codes for given places, plus other information on international calling. There is also a regular number which can be called collect from outside North America, but that number doesn't seem handy at the moment. for faster replies: dleibold1@attmail.com or dleibold@vm1.yorku.ca Dave Leibold - via FidoNet node 1:250/98 INTERNET: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.FIDONET.ORG ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1992 21:08:08 EDT Subject: Eat Here and Get Gas In Bethesda, MD, at the corner of East/West Highway and Wisconsin Avenue, a place is selling cellular phone tie ins. If you drove over there, you would say that you don't understand how, when the only things on that corner are a post office, a police station, a building for rent and a Chevron gasoline station. In front of one of these places is a sign: "Free Cellular phone with any brake job." Obviously they aren't giving these phones away and taking a loss on them, considering the competition in gas stations, I don't think they can raise something else to cover the difference. This implies that the kickbacks the cellular companies are paying for subscribers are so lucrative that the gas station can pay the full cost of the phone. This is becoming almost as funny as those taglines on messages that say "Free Bank with purchase of a toaster." Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM These (uninformed) opinions are mine alone, nobody else is (stupid enough to be) responsible for them. [Moderator's Note: 'Eat here and get gas' reminds me of the old Pixley and Ehlers restaurant chain in Chicago thirty years ago, when there were as many of them around as there are McDonald's today. Gawd, those places were horrible! Getting a bad case of gas was the least of the problems one might encounter from those all night eateries with winos and bums laying asleep at the tables with the one cup of coffee they bought entitling them to sit in there out of the cold. PAT] ------------------------------ From: shing@spot.Colorado.EDU (SHING PUI-SHUM BENSON) Subject: 911/611 1/0+700 Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1992 04:49:27 GMT I recently saw a few posts about 611, and on a local BBS someone mentioned that 611 here (in 303) is the same as 911. Well, no one here really knows what's up, so I wonder if you might be able to tell me why the phone companies have another 911? Also, someone here mentioned poking the 700 area code. Well, I recall a few companies and (not to mention any names) high billing conferences accessed from 700, but I think those began with 0+700, while I hear different things are accessed with 1+700. Is this becoming another 800/900 thing? Is 0+ or 1+700 correct? Will there be a 600 soon? Sorry if it seems like I'm asking too much, but I've just pondered these for a while, and no one else here locally seems to know the answers either. Thanks for any responses. Shing [Moderator's Note: 611 is *not* the same as 911. If it so happens that in some community calls to 611 wind up with 911 then there is a problem. 611 is used for repair service by many telcos. Maybe in 303-land repair service needs some repairs done, eh? :) There are both 0+700 and 1+700 style numbers, doing different things, and yes, there are some high-priced calls there, but 700 is not instrinsically a premium service as is 900/976. And unlike all other telephone numbers where the terminating point for the number is agreed upon by all carriers; ie dialing 312-PIG-4000 will connect you with the Chicago Police HQ regardless of carrier used to place the call; each carrier has complete control over the 700 number space to use as desired. What a 700 number gets you on AT&T is not what it will get you on Sprint. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Phantom CO'S From: ray.normandeau@factory.com (Ray Normandeau) Date: 20 Oct 92 15:35:00 GMT Organization: Invention Factory's BBS - New York City, NY - 212-274-1243v.32bis Reply-To: ray.normandeau@factory.com (Ray Normandeau) andrew@frip.wv.tek.com writes: > I want to test a modem's network interface without connecting to a > live telephone network. I've heard that there are devices with > several RJ-11 jacks that simulate network interfaces, but I don't > know where to look for them. Can you give me pointers to such > devices? Command Communications ("Inventor of the original Fax switch") Phone 303-750-6434 Fax 303-750-6437 makes something called the PHANTOM CO which lists for $159.00 It should do what you want. I own their ASAP TP-300+ Phone/Fax switch with which I am very happy. Their Fax switches are available thru many discount outlets, but I doubt that the Phantom CO is. I would like a Phantom CO to connect my Fax to my IBM PC Fax card as I use my Fax machine as a graphic scanner; but I don't want to pay $150.00. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 23:30:06 EDT From: David Leibold Subject: Charity Begins at Home, and Ends With the Phone Bill A report from the Canadian Press notes that Penny Brock of London, Ontario, opens her home to the homeless to help them get on their feet again. Unfortunately, one of the boarders decided to place 346 calls to the Dominican Republic as well as other long distance charges, resulting in a $4000 phone bill for Brock, and a skipping boarder she and her lawyer cannot find. This is mild compared to last year when Brock's home was destroyed by another boarder who decided to light up some grease on a stove and consequently burned down the house. Another boarder smashed Brock's car up one time. Bell Canada Terms of Service 9.1 section states: "Customers are responsible for paying for all calls originating from, and charged calls accepted at, their telephones, regardless of who made or accepted them." dleibold@vm1.yorku.ca [Moderator's Note: The USA tariffs all read about the same way noting that the subscriber is responsible for the use of his instruments. Telco does not take sides in disputes ... just pay the bill! PAT] ------------------------------ From: 10u6579@csdvax.csd.unsw.edu.au Subject: What is Van Eck Phreaking? Date: 20 Oct 92 18:08:13 +1000 Organization: University of New South Wales Hi, Just a quick query. Can someone explain to me what is Van Eck phreaking? Best Wishes, Henry University of NSW, Sydney Australia. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #796 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa27068; 21 Oct 92 4:46 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA08420 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Wed, 21 Oct 1992 02:18:39 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA28018 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Wed, 21 Oct 1992 02:18:09 -0500 Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1992 02:18:09 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210210718.AA28018@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #797 TELECOM Digest Wed, 21 Oct 92 02:18:15 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 797 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: A Small Tutorial on Networking Stuff (Syd Weinstein) Re: A Small Tutorial on Networking Stuff (Randal L. Schwartz) Re: A Small Tutorial on Networking Stuff (Tony Harminc) Re: A Small Tutorial on Networking Stuff (Brad S. Hicks) Re: How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs? (Jim Rees) Re: How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs? (Andrew Dunn) Re: How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs? (Maxime Taksar) Re: How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs? (A. Klossner) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: syd@dsi.com (Syd Weinstein) Subject: Re: A Small Tutorial on Networking Stuff Reply-To: syd@dsi.com Organization: Datacomp Systems, Inc. Huntingdon Valley, PA Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1992 13:46:50 GMT mc/G=Brad/S=Hicks/OU=0205925@mhs.attmail.com writes: > Lars's explanation of an RFC822 ("Internet mail") address is quite > coherent and complete. It consists of @, where > is the chain of systems, as a hierarchy, that mail would have > to go through to get there from one of a relatively small number of > widely known hosts or gateways, like ".edu" (the domain controller for > US colleges), or ".nl" (the PTT in the Netherlands). Each step in the > path is a short non-case-sensitve ASCII string, no spaces (not much > punctuation at all permitted, I think), separated by periods. The > idea is that if you're you@x.y.z.com, and you're sending to > me@q.y.z.com, your mailer will realize that we have "y.z.com" in > common and just send it direct, but if your mailer hasn't the foggiest > idea how to reach "y.z.com" or even "z.com", by all the Godz, at least > it knows how to reach "com"! I'd like to correct a small mistake here. FQDN's (Fully Qualified Domain Names) are translated to either an Internet Address (dotted quad as in 127.0.0.1) or a MX (Mail Exchanger address (again a dotted quad). The mailer connects directly to the dotted quad address for delivery. There is no 'forwarding' (not counting the MX concept, its a direct delivery to the MX). What is handled right to left via the FQDN is translation of the name to number. If your Domain Name Server (DNS) knows (has cached) the full name, it will return the dotted quad immediately. If not, IT (not the MAILER) will start pulling off left hand parts asking who to ask to know more about the name. Eventually, after putting them back together, it has an answer on what dotted quad to pass back to the mailer. All the mailer sees is the dotted quad (plus perhaps its equivalent name) and works with that. Its the DNS that does the lookup. Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP Elm Coordinator - Current 2.4PL02 Datacomp Systems, Inc. Projected 3.0 Release: ??? ?,1994 syd@DSI.COM or dsinc!syd Voice: (215) 947-9900, FAX: (215) 938-0235 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: A Small Tutorial on Networking Stuff Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 08:16:23 -0700 From: Randal L. Schwartz > Note that in RFC822, you can have multiple domains within a country, > and everybody everywhere is assumed to know where they are. I suspect > that it chafes at some PTT-type-folk that the US has multiple domains > that they have to keep track of; why can't we make those ".com.us" and > ".edu.us" and ".bitnet.us" and be like everybody else? Well, in the > X.400 spec, they got their revenge. The lowest common denominator > there IS the country code. Because it was supposed to go the *other* way. There's no need for ".com.nl" and ".com.au" and ".com.uk". The top-level domains of com, org, edu, mil, net, and gov were clearly intended from the beginning to be international in scope. It was the silly PTTs that started deciding that they weren't going to let the Americans have the root nameservers for *their* commercial domains that created the country codes. In fact, ".us" is merely a hack so that the small UUCP systems and one-man shops could get a domain in the early days, and is targeted to go away as soon as everyone there has migrated to the com or org domain. (Most small shops are starting out in com now, rather than even considering .us.) Sigh. So much bickering. Randal L. Schwartz / Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 merlyn@reed.edu (guest account) merlyn@ora.com (better for permanent record) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Oct 92 20:34:05 EDT From: Tony Harminc Subject: Re: A Small Tutorial on Networking Stuff lars@spectrum.CMC.COM (Lars Poulsen) asked: > WHAT IS X.25 ? > X.25 is the reference number for a CCITT document that describes how > a computer might connect to such a network over a synchronous line > such as a DDS-1 (56 kbps) link. > The first two large commercial X.25 networks were Telenet, (which was > started by some BBN people that had worked on the ARPAnet, but soon > sold out to GTE) and TYMNET, which was owned by a computer service > bureau called TYME-SHARE, and was originally mostly used to access > that service, which was the Compu-Serve of its time. (Today, I think > TymShare is gone, and only the network is left.) In fact the first commercial X.25 network was Datapac, which started business in 1977. Telenet and Tymnet, although they had both been in business for some years before that, offered only their own proprietary interfaces and didn't offer X.25 services until around 1980. For reasons I've never understood X.25 is often called a "European protocol" by many people. But is essentially what was developed by Bell Northern Research (BNR) in Ottawa under the name SNAP (Standard Network Access Protocol) in the early 1970s. Tony Harminc ------------------------------ From: mc/G=Brad/S=Hicks/OU=0205925@mhs.attmail.com Date: 20 Oct 92 20:48:57 GMT Subj: Re: A Small Tutorial on Networking Stuff Thank you to all of you who wrote to compliment me on my little X.400 mini-tutorial, but even bigger thanks to the few of you who whacked my pee-pee for screwing up my description of RFC822 mail handling. They say that you never really know a subject until you try to explain it to somebody else. To clarify my clarification: In the example I gave, where you're trying to send to "somebody@x.y.z.com"; if your machine doesn't know how to find x.y.z.com, it doesn't send the message to y.z.com, or to z.com, or to com, to be routed. What I =think= it does is queries the y.z.com, or z.com, or com name server for the TCP/IP address of x.y.z.com, and then it sends the mail direct. If this is still wrong, discipline me again, please. :-) Or, to clarify the clarification of the clarification: I'm not directly connected to the Internet, and know little about it that I didn't read in a book somewhere. If, after knowing this, you believe me on that subject, you deserve to. ;-) It occurred to me that there's one more VERY important difference between RFC822/Internet electronic mail and X.400, and it was worth sending in. The =real= Internet is, for all practical purposes, one big LAN. Everybody's on the same addressing scheme, and it's all-points- addressable through packet switching. Which implies that if you plug a box that's Internet mail capable (RFC822 under TCP/IP) anywhere into the Internet, it is =by definition= able to send mail to and receive mail from everywhere on the Internet, right? In the wonderful world of X.400, this is emphatically =not= true. X.400 mail is not packet switched, or anything like it, and connecting to one ADMD does =not= guarantee that you can connect to all of them, and nothing like it. Let's suppose a new ADMD appears in the world. Let's pick on Embarc Systems, since they're new. Embarc got a domain (country "US", ADMD "EMBARC") and interconnected with GE's X.400 email service (I forget the ADMD). I get my mail via country "US", ADMD "ATTMAIL"; some of you are on ADMD "MCIMAIL". We can both send to GE. And GE can send to ADMD "EMBARC". Can we send mail to people on ADMD "EMBARC"? Not yet. You see, X.400 mail systems block and return all mail that they don't have explicit routing instructions for, and those routing instructions are just plain never put in until both parties are in full agreement on who pays for what, how much, and when. So the setting up of a new ADMD is a =big deal=. Eric Arnum's newsletter, {Electronic Mail and Micro Systems} or {EMMS}, publishes a list a couple times a year showing all of the known, registered ADMDs and which ones are interconnected. It's getting so that everybody connects to almost everybody else, even in Europe where every PTT is (at least one) ADMD. But it's important for anybody thinking about X.400 to understand that X.400 interconnection is =not= automatic, and it's not commutative, either. When choosing an X.400 ADMD, ask what ADMDs they're connected to. Then there's the other non-interconnects that have to do with security. ATTMAIL and MCIMAIL are interconnected, but that doesn't mean that MCIMAIL X.400 users can send to (for example) country "US", ADMD "ATTMAIL", surname "Hicks", domain-defined attribute "ID!fax(b)3142756228". Why not? Because "ID!fax(b)" is what AT&T Mail uses to let those of us who are PRMDs under them to send faxes. A few common address translations, here in the United States: CompuServe 76012,300 "J. Brad Hicks" translates to country "US", ADMD "COMPUSERVE", PRMD "CSMAIL", surname "Hicks", DDA "ID!76012.300". AT&T Mail !jbhicks (if it existed, and it doesn't) would translate to country "US", ADMD "ATTMAIL", surname "Hicks", DDA "ID!jbhicks". MCI Mail J. Brad Hicks (407-3044) should translate to country "US", ADMD "MCIMAIL", surname "Hicks", given name "J. Brad", DDA "ID!0004073044". Surname and given name are enough for some addressees, but only if they're unique. I know it works for other people, but the odd first name seems to throw off MCI's X.400 translator, as I have never successfully gotten mail through to it from AT&T Mail. If there are more, I'd love to hear it, but as far as I know, those are the only US public e-mail services that are also X.400 ADMDs or PRMDs. It seems to me that GEnie could, but as far as I know they don't. When I asked them a few months ago, both America Online and AppleLink said they had no plans to interconnect with any X.400 ADMDs. J. Brad Hicks Internet: mhs!mc!Brad_Hicks@attmail.com X.400: c=US admd=ATTmail prmd=MasterCard sn=Hicks gn=Brad I am not an official MasterCard spokesperson, and the message above does not contain official MasterCard statements or policies. ------------------------------ From: rees@pisa.citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees) Subject: Re: How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs? Date: 20 Oct 1992 16:36:29 GMT Organization: University of Michigan CITI Reply-To: Jim.Rees@umich.edu [ various stories of house phone wiring... ] Pre-wiring is for sissies. I live in an old house, and with a combination of conduit, pull strings, and junction boxes, along with my cordless drill, I can pull new cable anywhere in the house. I have ISDN, three analog lines, an intercom line, and two lines for power (-48 and 10 vac for lights on the Princess, Trimline, and six-button key sets) going everywhere. I never pull less than four pair, it's not worth the effort. I use coax for networking (ethernet and Apollo token ring) to avoid the RFI problems of 10-base-T. ------------------------------ From: Andrew M. Dunn Organization: A. Dunn Systems Corporation, Kitchener, Canada Subject: Re: How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs? Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 17:51:15 GMT In article stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) writes: > In article tnixon@hayes.com (Toby > Nixon) writes: >> What I'm think of is having three or four-pair twisted pair cable run >> from each room separately (not daisy-chained the way they normally do >> it) to a punch-down block in some central location, so we can hook >> things together anyway we want. Is that a good idea? Do you have any >> other advice for us? Thanks in advance. > I think some would advocate more than just four pairs. 10BaseT will > take four pairs all by itself, so if you want to plan for that in the > future, you will need more than four pairs. 10BaseT only takes two pairs. One for transmit (TX+, TX-) and one for receive (RX+, RX-). Typical 10BaseT wiring does use an eight-circuit RJ45 connector, but only pins 1, 2, 3 and 6 are actually used. Four-pair should give you room for a 10BaseT network and two voice circuits, or some such combination. Andy Dunn (amdunn@mongrel.uucp) ({uunet...}!xenitec!mongrel!amdunn) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 19:16:52 -0700 From: mmt@redbrick.com (Maxime Taksar KC6ZPS) Subject: Re: How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs? In article , stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) writes: > I think some would advocate more than just four pairs. 10BaseT will > take four pairs all by itself, so if you want to plan for that in the > future, you will need more than four pairs. I beg to differ. *My* 10BaseT that I've been working with only uses two pair. I certainly agree with you that one would want more than just four pair running around a house, but two pair *should* be sufficient for Ethernet. (Or is there some other 10baseT that requires more than two pairs?) Maxime Taksar KC6ZPS mmt@RedBrick.COM ------------------------------ From: andrew@frip.wv.tek.com (Andrew Klossner) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 92 13:43:20 PDT Subject: Re: How Should I Get My House Wired For Future Phone Needs? Reply-To: andrew@frip.wv.tek.com Organization: Tektronix Color Printers, Wilsonville, Oregon Toby Nixon writes: > What I'm think of is having three or four-pair twisted pair cable run > from each room separately (not daisy-chained the way they normally do > it) to a punch-down block in some central location, so we can hook > things together anyway we want. Is that a good idea? Yes, that's what I just did. I ran three-pair wire from a wall of punchdown blocks in the attic to each of 52 phone outlets throughout the house I just built. I won't actually plug in 52 phones, but I applied the philosophy behind placement of electrical power outlets: there should always be one close by in case you need it. For the time being, I've connected them all together at the punchdowns and installed dual-RJ11 wallplates for my two POTS lines. I have the flexibility to put a small PBX in the attic, and/or run AppleTalk on some lines. In retrospect, I should have run four-pair wire instead of three-pair. > Do you have any other advice for us? I ran an RG-58 coax cable loop throughout the house for Ethernet 10Base-2 (thinnet). I ran two RG-6 video cables from the attic to each of 20 boxes for universal TV/FM-radio antenna access: one wire for cable TV, one wire for the rooftop antenna. I also ran a good deal of three-pair wire to a central point for a security (burglar alarm) system. Steve Forrette writes: > I think some would advocate more than just four pairs. 10BaseT will > take four pairs all by itself, so if you want to plan for that in the > future, you will need more than four pairs. But you can't use 10Base-T in the home if you live in a populated area. The emissions from 10Base-T violate FCC limits. If your network causes interference on your neighbor's television set, the FCC says it's your responsibility to stop emitting, i.e., shut down the network. That's why I ran 10Base-2 throughout my house. > For new construction, they say that the absolute *minimum* > should be four pair wire, with each pair individually twisted." Absolutely. Untwisted wire has no place in the system. > But, in my looking at new apartments, none of them seem to be > built to the so-called minimum requirements for new construction. So, > this must not be covered in any sort of enforcable building code." That's right. The enforced building codes (in the US) are silent on the topic of telephone wiring, other than to specify grounding at the interface. Andrew Klossner (andrew@frip.wv.tek.com) (uunet!tektronix!frip.WV.TEK!andrew) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #797 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa19237; 22 Oct 92 4:02 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA01092 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Thu, 22 Oct 1992 01:16:38 -0500 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA31190 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Thu, 22 Oct 1992 01:15:56 -0500 Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 01:15:56 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210220615.AA31190@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #798 TELECOM Digest Thu, 22 Oct 92 01:16:00 CDT Volume 12 : Issue 798 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Integratel Sticks Me With Charges (TELECOM Moderator) Voice/Data Over Same T1 Line (Myron Hattig) Fiber Optics (Lori A. Tracewell) Living With Fiber (Chris Kennedy) T-1 For Datacomm (Myron Hattig) Area Code 610 (Spyros Bartsocas) Working Assets Resells What? (Ted Shapin) SS7 Information Correction (Jack Adams) Charged-For Services (was British Call Waiting) (Jack Decker) Help me Find Protocols, Please (Clarke Stevens) MCI For Those Who 'Gotta Have It' (Paul Robinson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 00:18:54 -0500 From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Integretel Sticks Me With Charges On my personal phone bill this month, I got a page in the long distance section from an outfit called "Integratel" with some collect calls made to me -- or so they claim. Three calls were charged to me on 9-16 and 9-18 at odd hours in the middle of the night. There were two interesting things about this; one, that Integratel was unable to tell me *the name* of the person calling and two, the price of the calls. These calls all came from 'South Dade, FL' and were priced at merely two dollars *per minute*. Two of the calls were one minute each and one was three minutes. Yes, I know the first minute might be the most expensive considering an operator surcharge, but they were $2.00 each and the three minute call was $6.00, so apparently the additional minutes are $2.00 as well ... kind of steep I think, considering AT&T gets 11-12 cents per minute during the night for the same call. All they could tell me was that they are the billing agents for various small long distance companies, and they would have no way of knowing who placed the call. I asked them in that case, what is the name and phone number of the long distance company you are dealing with on this call? The answer I got was "American Tel-Net", 160 Saratoga Avenue, Santa Clara, California 95051. No telephone number available. A check with 408 directory assistance revealed no such company listed in Santa Clara. To add to the mystery, the calls were all from "South Dade, FL". I checked with 305 directory assistance and found a listing for "American Tel-Net" in South Dade, but when I called the number, a computer answered me (in voice) and asked for my password ... Back to Santa Clara to check out the 160 Saratoga Avenue Building. The lobby directory had these listings: From the lobby directory at 160 Saratoga Avenue: First Floor 30 JSL Financial Services 38 Liberty Systems, Inc. 46 Santa Clara Sports Therapy Second Floor 32 Kreider and Schmalz, CPA's 40 Bacon & Associates 41 Metaplus 42 Paul J. Roy, Ph.D Donald D. St. Louis, D. Min. Linda Surrell, M.A. Sue Patigalia Shoff, Ph.D Denise Priestley Roy, M.A. Mitch Saunders, L.M.F.C.C. 44 VRS Billing Systems 50 Jean Bayard, Ph.D Robert T. Bayard, Ph.D Lydia M. Norcia, M.S. Lois Smallwood, L.C.S.W Barbara Reeves, M.S. This is the complete listing of occupants in the building. Numbers 38, 40, 41 and 44 from the above list look interesting to me, but for the total charges on my bill of $14.00 I am not going to spend much time looking further into this. I told Integratel that since my lines have called number screening on them, and collect or third number billings are not accepted, they would have to remove the charges. The lady told me they did not subscribe to the national data base that the big carriers use, so they had no way to prevent the calls on my bill from being there, but they would add me to their own data base of phone numbers not to be charged in the future. I then called Illinois Bell and told them I would not pay for that portion of my bill which came from Integratel. They said I would have to get Integratel to issue the credit, which I had already demanded from that company anyway. We'll see how long the charges sit there before getting removed. One thing to remember in situations like this is that your local telephone company cannot disconnect your service for failure to pay a long distance carrier. They can request that you specifically identify the part not being paid so that your short-payment gets applied correctly and not just across the whole account. I also suggested to IBT that if they are going to bill for all these outfits then at the very least they ought to require the carriers to observe the national data base of screened numbers in the process. The IBT rep said to me they were not allowed to dictate those terms to the other carriers, AND they had to accept them for billing purposes no matter if they were schlock outfits or not. The IBT rep also thought $2 per minute on long distance calls in the middle of the might from Florida to Chicago was a bit steep. We'll see if Integratel credits the account or if next month I really have to get nasty with them. They claim someone specifically said to 'call collect' and that when called, the person accepted the calls. Seems a bit odd to me, with my 800 lines, inexpensive AT&T rates and all. Patrick ------------------------------ From: kentrox!myron@uunet.UU.NET (Myron Hattig) Subject: Voice/Data Over Same T1 Line Organization: ADC Kentrox, Portland OR Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1992 17:25:11 GMT Phil, What type of port is on your PBX? Myron Hattig myron@kentrox.com Phone:(503)643-1681,FAX(503)641-3321 ADC Kentrox, 14375 NW Science Park Drive, Portland, OR 97229 ------------------------------ From: ltracewe@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Lori A Tracewell) Subject: Fiber Optics Organization: The Ohio State University Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1992 18:40:36 GMT I am working on a report on Fiber Optics at Ohio State University and am getting confused. If you have any opinions or information which may be helpful to me please feel free to respond. I am also looking for the social impact which converting to fiber may have. Thank you. Lori Tracewell ------------------------------ From: bit!mainecoon!chris@uu.psi.com (Chris Kennedy) Subject: Living With fiber Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 9:16:24 PDT Given the recent discussion regarding the virtues (or lack thereof) of using fiber in local loopish applications I thought I'd share my experience living with such a system. Between '83 and '89 I lived in Alameda, CA, which until '87 or so had a fiber CATV system vended by Times Fiber. Fiber backbones connected to largish cabnets which contained subscriber cards of roughly a VME form factor. From each subscriber card a *pair* of fibers ran to a "football", basically an enclosed bulkhead from which the customer drops were made. On the customer side the fiber pair terminated in a wall mounted enclosure which sported a connector for the wall-mounted power wart, coax and a RJ45 connector. The RJ45 was used to connect to the display/keypad box which you were supposed to stick on top of your TV; however given the obscene monthly fee for remotes most people simply stuck the keypad near their viewing position and learned not to trip over the cable. When powered up the subscriber card shipped the selected channel and FM (if subscribed) down one fiber to the termination point where it was converted to RF; the other fiber carried commands from the termination point to the subscriber card. In the absence of commands the termination point would generate keep alive pulses; if the subscriber card timed out waiting for a command or keep alive it decided that you'd turned off the "converter" and would supress the video feed. The system suffered from overengineering; in particular the four fiber segments per subscriber drop was somewhat incompatable with the skill level of the people who installed the stuff. Three people showed up to install my drop; one guy would dress a connector onto a fiber, another would shine a light down the far end, and the third ran back and forth carrying messages to the tune of "he still can't see the light/he sees the light now". Watching these guys work was amazing ... The keypad was labeled with the promise of then-wonderous things: yes/no/vote keys, PPV support. Unfortunatly support for such features was never offered. The system was intolerant to weather; when it got hot the low VHF band would vanish; when cold the FM band would sink into the noise. Channel-selection to authorization time was the better part of a second; it got worse on the hour when the networks would break for commercial and everyone in town started hitting the channel up/down buttons. In '87 TCI bought out Alameda cablevision and proceeded to "upgrade" the fibre system by replacing it with coax. Removal of the fibre system was straightforward; two trucks drove down a street; the first cut loose the fibre; the second tossed the fibre into the back of the truck; when they came upon a subscriber card enclosure a guy would climb the pole and *kick* it off into the back of the truck. Chris Kennedy | +1 916 283 4973 | chris@bit.com BIT (Quincy), Inc. | +1 916 283 0625 fax | Standard disclaimers, etc. 1580 E. Main St, POB 4094| +1 916 283 5133 home | Quincy, CA 95971 USA | +1 916 283 5140 fax | ------------------------------ From: kentrox!myron@uunet.UU.NET (Myron Hattig) Subject: T-1 For Datacomm Organization: ADC Kentrox, Portland OR Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1992 18:28:32 GMT In article vances@ltg.uucp wrote: > This is something I've long wondered about. If I have a Cisco (for > example) router connected to another router somewhere with a T-1 > circuit is it one serial stream at 1.54Mbs or is it broken into 24 > channels? I would guess that if they supported the 24-Channel > arrangement they would also have an option to have one stream. I > quess the question is then; does datacom commonly use T-1 in a 24 > channel arrangement? A Data Service Unit (DSU) is used to pass data over a T1 line. A DSU can have one or more Data Ports. Each Data Port could be connected to a different source of data (e.g. a LAN through a router). A DSU must be configured so the data coming from the data port is mapped into some combination of the 24 channels. The Data Port port rates are either multiples of 56Kbps or 64Kbps which is a single DSO channel rate at 1.544Mbps. (64kbs of data x 24) + (8kbps framing/signaling/fdl bits) = 1.544 Mbps. The maximum port rate on a Data Port is (64kbs x 24) = 1.536 Mbps. The data coming into the data port is copied into the first available bit of the first available channel mapped to that data port. This allows data from more than one data port or even voice data from a PBX to be mapped into different channels of the same T1 line. Many of these applications require a point to point connection or Fractional T1 because it is required for the Data Ports on each end of the T1 or FT1 to be the same type of data and bandwidth. Direct answers to your questions above: If you send serial data at 1.544Mbps it is not T1 because the framing, signalling, and Facility Datalink bits are not transmitted. No device can connect to a T1 service without these overhead bits. Datacomm does use all 24 channels quite commonly. The router example above is probably the most common. The only draw back is the T1 or FT1 data can only go to one destination. SMDS, ATM, and Frame Relay encode their packets into the T1 channels. The CO providing the SMDS, ATM, Framed Relay service decodes the T1, looks at the fast packet and switches it to one of many locations. Companies can save a lot of money using SMDS, ATM, or Framed Relay because these technologies require fewer T1 and FT1 lines. SMDS, and ATM get really neat when used over a T3 line. By the way, a Channel Service Unit (CSU) just retransmits the data portion of a T1 signal after striping the received framing bits. This is voice data from a PBX, a channel bank, or some other type of T1 Mux. The FCC requires a CSU to be between Customer Premise Equipement (CPE) and the Network to provide the correct T1 signal into the Network. This requirement prevents CPE from taking down the Network. In regards to an earlier comment, if an application did not need framing bits, it would not be going over a Public Network and would not need a CSU. A Digital something? Cross Connect something? (DACS) must have framing because its purpose in life is to rearrange or cross connect the 24 DS0 channels. The DACS must have framing bits to determine where the DSO channels are. Myron Hattig myron@kentrox.com Phone: (503) 643-1681, FAX (503) 641-3321 ADC Kentrox, 14375 NW Science Park Drive, Portland, OR 97229 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 09:08:32 +0200 From: spyros@isoft.intranet.gr (Spyros Bartsocas) Subject: Area Code 610 Recently the Greek newspapers are filled with ads of '900' type of services located in Australia and North America. Examples of prefixes used are 609-490, and 609-426. Are these local 976 type prefixes? A lot of these are 610-204-xxxx numbers. Where is 610 located? Spyros Bartsocas spyros@isoft.intranet.gr [Moderator's Note: There are a bunch of internationally based phone services in New Jersey advertised to people all over the world. The newspapers in Spain have ads for a Tarot practictioner in New Jersey and some astrologers, etc. The services directed to Americans are located in the Netherland Antilles and one is in Georgetown, Guyana. Those guys make a profit on their free services ('no charge to the calling party except the cost of an international call' is the way many of them advertise) by getting kickbacks from the international long distance carriers and the telecom administrations of the world who want to play that game. 610 is in Canada and is used for the old TWX (typewriter exchange) service that Western Union used to operate and I guess Bell Canada operates now. 610 is not dialable from voice telephones in the USA or Canada; it can be dialed from the Telex and TWX (now known as Telex II) networks. The overseas places advertising phone phun on 610 probably have it wired a special way in their networks; it probably translates to some other number and winds up here in the States, quite possibly in New Jersey with the others. They may have it on 610 (with some special tricks on their end) to deliberatly keep it unavailable to USA people on whom there would be no money made if the service is here in the States. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tshapin@beckman.com (Ted Shapin) Subject: Working Assets Resells What? Date: 21 Oct 92 21:48:14 PDT Organization: Beckman Instruments, Fullerton, CA Working Assets Long Distance claims rates lower than AT&T, MCI, and Sprint. But they must be a reseller, eh? Whose lines do they resell and how can they be lower? Ted [Moderator's Note: I think the consensus here recently was they resell Sprint, and they buy network space from Sprint in such quantity that they get it cheap enough they can underprice (regular) Sprint service and still make a profit. PAT] ------------------------------ From: vixen!jadams@uunet.UU.NET (22475-adams) Subject: SS7 Information Correction Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 14:18:56 GMT A few days ago, I responded to a post concerning the availability of a "book" on SS7 and stated that I was unaware of such a book's existance. On reconsideration, I found the April, 1992 issue of Proceedings of the IEEE which featured six articles on SS7 ranging from an excellent overview to specific applications and various user's perspectives. Hopefully, this will help the original poster with his quest. Jack (John) Adams Bellcore NVC 2Z-220 (908) 758-5372 {Voice} (908) 758-4389 {Facsimile} jadams@vixen.bellcore.com kahuna@attmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 22:39:25 CST From: Jack Decker Subject: Charged-For Services (was British Call Waiting) In message , mattair@sun44.synercom. hounix.org (Charles Mattair) wrote: > I can understand why the US telco's initially charged for touchtone > (or at least the rationale) but what's the excuse now? Don't they > have to add additional equipment to convert pulse to TT for most > switches? I have wondered the same thing. Many state PUC's have seen fit to eliminate the charge for Touch Tone but others (such as the Michigan Public Service Commission) have not. I wish that all Michigan readers would take the time to write the MPSC and ask that the chrage for Touch Tone be eliminated, particularly since we have one of the highest charges in the nation here (about $2.50 per month on Michigan Bell lines). And, Touch Tone is one of the few aspects of telephone service that is still regulated by the MPSC under our new telecommunications act. But I'll mention one other charge that I question, and that is the charge for unlisted numbers. Why should the telcos charge extra money for NOT providing the service of listing your number? Now, I can understand that at one time having an unlisted number meant that directory assistance would probably get many calls from folks wanting your number, so the unlisted charge helped cover those expenses. Now, however, directory assistance is charged for in most areas and is a real cash cow for the phone companies, so you'd think that it would actually benefit them when people have unlisted numbers (unless they don't charge for the call when the number cannot be provided, and to my knowledge that's done only in Canada. Pity). (Canadian readers will recognize that line from an old commercial for a brand of tea that was only available in Canada ... but I digress ...) Given the increasing privacy concerns of folks and the valid desire to not have your number published as sucker bait for every telemarketer who can get his hands on a phone book, I would like to see PUC's re-think the idea of the extra charge for an unlisted number. I know there are free ways to achieve NEARLY the same effect (listing a phoney name in the book, for example) but you really shouldn't have to go through that, or pay an extra charge in order to refuse the "service" of being listed in the directory. Jack Decker jack@myamiga.mixcom.com FidoNet 1:154/8 [Moderator's Note: The BOCs maintain, that contrary to what some people may think, the use of the paper directory to look up numbers is the default for the vast majority of their customers. Only a few subscribers use directory assistance they claim, and some of these are serious abusers, thus the charge started in recent years. Now with non-published numbers, there will be nothing in the directory, thus forcing many subscribers who would otherwise look there first to call directory assistance. This in turn, they claim, causes a heavier work load for DA, thus the charge to make up for the 'extra work' non-pub customers cause DA. Of course now they are collecting from both ends; the non-pub customer who 'causes them extra work' and the inquiring party they are trying to teach a lesson to my making *them* pay as well in exchange for not having to use the book. I'd say the BOCs should not be able to have it both ways. PAT] ------------------------------ From: clarke.stevens@gtri.gatech.edu (Clarke Stevens) Subject: Help me Find Protocols, Please Date: 21 Oct 92 19:52:35 GMT Organization: GTRI/AERO Can anyone tell me where to find (preferably an ftp site) information on G.722 (apparently a compression protocol) and H.221 (a transmission protocol?)? If there is no online source, a written source or brief explanation would be helpful. I would really appreciate it. Thanks, J. Clarke Stevens | Georgia Tech Research Institute clarke.stevens@gtri.gatech.edu | (404) 528-3254 ------------------------------ Reply-To: TDARCOS@MciMail.com From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1992 17:00:13 EDT Subject: MCI For Those Who 'Gotta Have It'. In another product tie-in, if you purchase certain Pepsi Products, such as Mountain Dew, you can get 1/2 hour of free calls on MCI, subject to various fine print. In other related news: In another point, a few people asked me what the connection between the gas station giving away a cellular phone and the title of the article - "Eat here and Get Gas". It was a pun on the combination of gas stations and restaurants where you could buy food and get gasoline at the same place; it became a pun in that people would eat at a place and get stomach gas, so I was using that as the description of a gas station that ties an unrelated business into its operation. On a related point which Pat brought up, unfortunately some restaurants on public highways that truck drivers had to eat at had food which was as bad as the Pixley and Ehlers restaurants of Chicago. As a result, truck drivers on CB radios tend to refer to ANY restaurant as a 'choke and puke.' Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM These (uninformed) opinions are exclusively mine; no one else is (stupid enough to be) responsible for them. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #798 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa09721; 25 Oct 92 3:55 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA30990 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 25 Oct 1992 01:24:35 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA00499 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 25 Oct 1992 01:24:08 -0600 Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1992 01:24:08 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210250724.AA00499@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #799 TELECOM Digest Sun, 25 Oct 92 01:24:00 CST Volume 12 : Issue 799 ^^^ Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Administrivia: Fall Behind; Usually I Stay That Way (TELECOM Moderaotor) Re: Integretel Sticks Me With Charges (Doug Sewell) Re: Integretel Sticks Me With Charges (Paul Robinson) Re: Integretel Sticks Me With Charges (Bruce Carter) Re: Integretel Sticks Me With Charges (Tom O'Connell) Re: Integretel Sticks Me With Charges (Gregory Youngblood) Re: Integretel Sticks Me With Charges (Jerry Sweet) Re: Integretel Sticks Me With Charges (Joseph Bergstein) Re: Integretel Sticks Me With Charges (Carl Moore) VRS Billing Systems is Probably the Culprit (TELEOCM Moderator) Telephone Scams (was Anyone Heard of a Marketing "Promotion") (M. Solomon) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Administrivia: Fall Behind; Usually I Stay That Way Date: Sun 25 Oct 1992 06:00:00 GMT Don't forget this is the day we fall behind, as in spring ahead, fall behind. Places observing Daylight Savings Time in the USA turn their clocks back to Standard Time as of this morning. Speaking of falling behind :) ... due to circumstances beyond my control I was unable to work on any Digests for two days. Sometimes other tasks just build up to the point they have to be given my priority attention. I'll try to get a few issues out Sunday evening and Monday morning to you. Let's say the extra hour Sunday morning mad it possible for me to get this issue out. :) PAT ------------------------------ From: doug@cc.ysu.edu (Doug Sewell) Subject: Re: Integretel Sticks Me With Charges Organization: Bush in 92 ? NOT! Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1992 02:54:03 GMT telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: > On my personal phone bill this month, I got a page in the long > distance section from an outfit called "Integratel" with some collect > calls made to me -- or so they claim. > Three calls were charged to me on 9-16 and 9-18 at odd hours in the > middle of the night. There were two interesting things about this; > one, that Integratel was unable to tell me *the name* of the person > calling and two, the price of the calls. [$2/minute] $2/minute collect call? This sounds familiar. While I can assume that PAT isn't a regular user of the various dial- up-and-chat and similar services, I stumbled across an ad for one yesterday. It had a 1-800 number and didn't require a credit card. The fine print said that the call would be billed as a $2/minute collect call from some innocuous-sounding firm. I guess this is the latest idea of the dial-a-porn and dial-a-friend services for separating people from their money. Doug Sewell, Tech Support, Computer Center, Youngstown State University doug@cc.ysu.edu doug@ysub.bitnet !cc.ysu.edu!doug ------------------------------ From: tdarcos@attmail.com Date: 25 Oct 92 16:05:35 GMT Subject: Re: Integretel Sticks Me With Charges In Telecom Digest 12-798, in a message of: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 00:18:54 -0500 Patrick Towson > On my personal phone bill this month, I got a page in the long > distance section from an outfit called "Integratel" with some > collect calls made to me -- or so they claim. > I told Integratel that since my lines have called number screening > non them, and collect or third number billings are not accepted, > they would have to remove the charges. The lady told me they did > not subscribe to the national data base that the big carriers > use, so they had no way to prevent the calls on my bill from > being there, but they would add me to their own data base of > phone numbers not to be charged in the future. I wonder about this. It it very expensive to subscribe to this national data base? My suspicion is that failing to do so would give a company an excuse for all sorts of fraud. How expensive can it be to subscribe to this? > I then called Illinois Bell and told them I would not pay for that > portion of my bill which came from Integratel. Lucky you. (See below) > They said I would have to get Integratel to issue the credit, which > I had already demanded from that company anyway. We'll see how long > the charges sit there before getting removed. > One thing to remember in situations like this is that your local > telephone company cannot disconnect your service for failure to > pay a long distance carrier. They can request that you specifically > identify the part not being paid so that your short-payment gets > applied correctly and not just across the whole account. BZZZZZT. This is probably true in Illinois. It is not necessarily true elsewhere. I had an issue like this about two years ago. There were two phone lines in my apartment, one mine, one belonging to a relative, both on separate bills; he pays his and I pay mine. The relative decided to cancel phone service, so they stopped paying the bill and made all the calls they wanted to. The phone company (C&P Telephone of Washington, DC) sent a notice that it was going to disconnect the service. They did not. In fact they sent out four separate notices but never disconnected until three months went by. By then, the relative had a phone bill of $3,000. Even the relative was surprised, HE expected the service to be stopped after the first notice. Cut to about two months later. I find my phone service has been cut off. I went to a pay phone and discover that because that relative is at the same address, C&P decided it can cut off MY phone service because the relative didn't pay their bill. The C&P rep told me that they had a tariff that permitted this. I asked her about the fact that we live over a doctor's office at the same address. Are they planning to cut off HIS bill? And if this person was working at the Pentagon, would they cut off THEIR phone service? I was astounded. I went down to the telephone company office, and after the usual pulling teeth routine (phone companies routinely discourage people from reading them), I was able to get to read the tariff schedules. Two things stood out. One is that C&P Telephone CAN disconnect a phone for non-payment of carrier charges. The second thing was that they did NOT have a tariff allowing them to disconnect one person's service for nonpayment by another. When I pointed this out, they checked and said my service would be restored in an hour. It was. > I also suggested to IBT that if they are going to bill for all > these outfits then at the very least they ought to require the > carriers to observe the national data base of screened numbers > in the process. The IBT rep said to me they were not allowed to > dictate those terms to the other carriers, AND they had to accept > them for billing purposes no matter if they were schlock outfits > or not. I suppose IBT has never heard of tariff requirements for Inter eXchange Company (IXC) billing services. I note how interesting it is that telephone companies are oh-so-careful to have lots of tariffs to protect themselves against liability, but when it comes to protecting customers against being defrauded, the idea of a tariff to require this seems to be unthought of. ------------------------------ From: bcarter%claven@uunet.UU.NET (Bruce Carter) Subject: Re: Integretel Sticks Me With Charges Organization: Boise State University - CBI Product Development Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1992 06:13:31 GMT Greetings Patrick, In article TELECOM Moderator writes: > On my personal phone bill this month, I got a page in the long > distance section from an outfit called "Integratel" with some collect > calls made to me -- or so they claim. > 44 VRS Billing Systems Integratel and VRS Billing both handle the party line dial a kink kind of thing with a minor twist. You call an 800 number, pick your poison, then a machine calls you back collect (at whatever per minute, some have gone over to saying $x/half minute to make it sound like less, I guess). If you accept the call, it hooks you into whatever your pleasure was, usually a party line with a bunch of horny guys and maybe one paid operator. Integratel (and at least one other outfit called Pilgrim Communication) bills back those (usually $2.00/minute) calls on your phone bill. VRS (and another outfit called IBS) apparently bills people directly who use a credit card instead of via the normal credit card billing. We had a bunch of these return collect calls coming to our central operator due to the fact that any phone on the campus phone system (Ericsson MD110) returns the main number as the called from location to Caller ID or anything else off campus. As it is an 800 number, the telecom people are having trouble justifying blocking it. I think they are trying to get the dorm numbers blocked at the other end now. Bruce Carter, CBI Product Development bcarter@claven.idbsu.edu Simplot/Micron Instructional Technology Center amccarte@idbsu (Bitnet) Boise State University, Boise, ID 83725 (208)385-1851@phone ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 25 Oct 92 10:06:00 PDT From: TOCONNELL@pcgate.csuchico.edu Subject: Re: Integretel Sticks Me With Charges I hate when that happens ... I coordinate the billing of dormitory students here at our University, and every month you can bet we see charges from good ole Integretel. And last month, we too had collect calls from South Dade, Florida. What you're looking at is an adult entertainment number where the caller phones them up, gives their name and number, and the service calls them back collect to talk about whatever it is they talk about at very high rates. We have been successful in having them remove charges but I can see how they would be more skeptical if it was an individual calling. I wish you luck. Tom ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Integretel Sticks Me With Charges From: srcsip!tcscs!zeta@src.honeywell.com (Gregory Youngblood) Date: Sun, 25 Oct 92 11:59:27 CDT Organization: TCS Consulting Services TELECOM Moderator writes: > The IBT rep also thought $2 per minute on long distance calls in the > middle of the might from Florida to Chicago was a bit steep. We'll see > if Integratel credits the account or if next month I really have to > get nasty with them. They claim someone specifically said to 'call > collect' and that when called, the person accepted the calls. Seems a > bit odd to me, with my 800 lines, inexpensive AT&T rates and all. Perhaps they are gouging since the hurricane. So. Dade County, FL, wasn't that part of the hardest hit areas? Something to think about. Pehaps ... Greg TCS Consulting Services P.O. Box 600008 St. Paul, MN 55106-0008 ..!srcsip!tcscs!zeta ..!src.honeywell.com!tcscs!zeta ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Integretel Sticks Me With Charges Date: Sun, 25 Oct 92 15:52:18 MDT From: Jerry Sweet I had a similar problem with Integretel: they billed me for a long distance call made before I even *had* my current phone number. Although the charges appeared on my Pac*Bell invoice, Pac*Bell would take no responsibility for Integretel's billing. I called Integretel's billing inquiry number and thirty days later they sent me a voucher to give to Pac*Bell to cover the charges, EXCEPT for the taxes (three cents). Aargh. Well, it's not worth my time to deal with three cents, but knowing that they were counting on that put my back up. So I demanded the three cents too. I called Integretel once every month for three months. They take calls only during regular business hours, and it is many minutes before you get to the front of the queue. Each time I called, an Integretel representative promised "the check's in the mail." Eventually, someone there admitted that they won't issue checks for less than ten cents. I insisted. A month later, a hand-written check for three cents arrived. So persistence pays off. But Integretel deserves a noogie for putting me through all that in the first place. Pac*Bell (or perhaps the PUC) deserves a noogie for refusing to deal with the problem. ------------------------------ From: Joseph.Bergstein@p501.f544.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Joseph Bergstein) Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1992 00:21:50 -0500 Subject: Re: Integretel Sticks Me With Charges What about filing a complaint with your state PUC or the FCC? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 25 Oct 92 00:11:51 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: Integretel Sticks Me With Charges The archives has the earlier story about me getting a call charged for the second time by Integretel. Recall that a voucher was issued from the San Jose/Santa Clara area in California. (I don't have the archive reference in front of me as I write this.) ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: VRS Billing Systems is Probably the Culprit Date: Sun, 25 Oct 92 1:14:08 CDT I think the outfit I am looking for is VRS Billing Systems. Business Office: 408 296-7420 Billing Inquiries: 800 729-2800 Several readers have heard of these people. They are slime. ------------------------------ From: Monty Solomon Subject: Telephone Scams (was Anyone Heard of a Marketing "Promotion") Date: 25 Oct 92 15:04:06 GMT Followup-To: ne.politics Organization: Kronos Inc. / Waltham, MA [Moderator's Note: This message was originally posted elsewhere. One reply has been sent along which should be of interest to TELECOM Digest readers, but responses should go where directed. PAT] I wrote: >> Then they can use a third-party chargeback scheme via the phone >> company, rsalz@osf.org (Rich Salz) writes: > I do *not* believe this. Please post proof. Proof would be rather difficult to provide, and without going through a court case, it'd probably be unethical or illegal to post specific allegations. But my assertion that it _can_ be done should be believable; I've previously posted the scenario involving my March and April phone bills. Here's a synopsis: - Company XYZ sends a postcard with an 800 number on it, offering some promotional gimmick. - Recipient calls the 800 number; ANI logs the call in real-time into the recipient's data bank. - Company XYZ, under contract with company ABC which is under contract with company DEF which has a billing arrangement with New England Telephone and other providers, says "Thank you for your call, we will notify you." - Minutes or days later, company XYZ calls back and makes a sales pitch. Company DEF logs this call as collect, unaware of any specific business arrangements between ABC and XYZ. - 6 or 8 weeks later, I receive a bill with a $48 collect call from some number in area code 212. Given the number of billing parties, it's impossible for me or New England Telephone to investigate many specifics without incurring far more cost than the call. Company XYZ goes on about its business knowing it can get away with it for several months, before collapsing itself and reforming under a new name. - New England Telephone throws in the towel and credits my account, eating the loss but only after I complained. Many other people simply pay up. This happened to me. The above is not exactly "proof", and some of the details above could easily be altered to suit any particular con artist's style, but my point is simply that given the proliferation of billing parties on the long-distance network coupled with the lack of any legal requirement for indisputable billing authentication (such as a signed charge slip or PIN code), there is big room for abuse. ANI only makes this kind of abuse easier; it's not a necessary component. Followups to ne.politics; this discussion probably should involve matters of public policy. rich [Moderator's Note: We here at TELECOM Digest know of course that this type of thing is very common indeed. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #799 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa10248; 25 Oct 92 4:12 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA01006 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 25 Oct 1992 01:48:30 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA01095 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 25 Oct 1992 01:48:04 -0600 Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1992 01:48:04 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199210250748.AA01095@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V12 #800 TELECOM Digest Sun, 25 Oct 92 01:48:00 CST Volume 12 : Issue 800 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: ATM Technical Information Wanted (Christian Weisgerber) Internet Mail Routing Revealed! (was Small Tutorial) (Robert L. McMillin) SS7 Training Courses (Followup) (Wynn Quon) Re: Old Telephone Wiring at Network Interface (Brent Capps) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1992 00:14:46 +0100 From: Christian Weisgerber Reply-To: naddy@mips.ruessel.sub.org Subject: Re: ATM Technical Information Wanted In , Maxime Taksar write: > Actually, magnetic card encoding is *far* from a big secret. A couple > (if not all) of the schemes are ISO standards. What you probably want Here we go ... taken from 'ISO CATALOGUE 1992', p.64 f. 0150 Identification and credit cards ISO 4909:1987 Bank cards-Magnetic stripe data content for track 3 Ed. 2, 10 p., Code E, TC 68 ISO 7501:1985 Identification cards-Machine readable passport Ed. 1, 12 p., Code F, JTC 1 ISO/IEC 7501-1:1991 Identification cards-Machine readable travel documents- Part 1: Machine readable passport Ed. , 1 p., Code A, JTC 1 ISO 7580:1987 Identification cards-Card originated messages- Content for financial transactions Ed. 1, 13 p., Code B, JTC 1 ISO 7810:1985 Identification cards-Physical characteristics Ed. 1, 3 p., Code B, JTC 1 ISO 7811-1:1985 Identification cards-Recording technique- Part 1: Embossing Ed. 1, 24 p., Code M, JTC 1 ISO 7811-2:1985 Identification cards-Recording technique- Part 2: Magnetic stripe Ed. 1, 8 p., Code D, JTC 1 ISO 7811-3:1985 Identification cards-Recording technique- Part 3: Location of embossed characters on ID-1 cards Ed. 1, 8 p., Code D, JTC 1 ISO 7811-4:1985 Identification cards-Recording technique- Part 4: Location of read-only magnetic tracks- Tracks 1 and 2 Ed. 1, 2 p., Code A, JTC 1 ISO 7811-5:1985 Identification cards-Recording technique- Part 5: Location of read-write magnetic track-Track 3 Ed. 1, 2 p., Code A, JTC 1 ISO 7812:1987 Identification cards-Numbering system and registration procedure for issuer identifiers (registration authority: see p. 14) Ed. 2, 6 p., Code C, JTC 1 echnical Corrigendum 1:1988 to ISO 7812:1987 Ed. 1, 1 p., Code , JTC 1 ISO 7813:1990 Identification cards-Financial transaction cards Ed. 3, 4 p., Code B, JTC 1 ISO 7816-1:1987 Identification cards-Integrated circuit(s) with contacts- Part 1: Physical characteristics Ed. 1, 4 p., Code B, JTC 1 ISO 7816-2:1988 Identification cards-Integrated circuit(s) with contacts- Part 2: Dimensions and location of the contacts Ed. 1, 7 p., Code D, JTC 1 ISO/IEC 7816-3:1989 Identification cards-Integrated circuit(s) cards with contacts- Part 3: Electronic signals and transmission protocols Ed. 1, 14 p., Code G, JTC 1 ISO 8484:1987 Magnetic stripes on savingbooks Ed. 1, 6 p., Code C, JTC 1 ISO 8583:1987 Bank card originated messages-Interchange message specifications-Content for financial transactions Ed. 1, 33 p., Code Q, TC 68 ISO 9019:1987 Securities-Numbering of certificates Ed. 1, 2 p., Code A, TC 68 ISO 9564-1:1991 Banking-Personal Identification Number management and security- Part 1: PIN protection principles and techniques Ed. 1, 28 p., Code N, TC 68 ISO 9564-2:1991 Banking-Personal Identification Number management and security- Part 2: Approved algorithm(s) for PIN encipherment Ed. 1, 1 p., Code A, TC 68 ISO 9807:1991 Banking and related financial services-Requirements for message authentication (retail) Ed. 1, 11 p., Code F, TC 68 ISO 9992-1:1990 Financial transaction cards-Messages between the integrated circuit card and the card accepting device- Part 1: Concepts and structures Ed. 1, 5 p., Code C, TC 68 ISO 10202-1:1991 Financial transaction cards-Security architecture of financial transaction systems using integrated circuit cards Part 1: Card life cycle Ed. 1, 9 p., Code E, TC 68 Christian "naddy" Weisgerber, Germany naddy@mips.ruessel.sub.org ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 25 Oct 92 00:33:47 -0700 From: rlm@indigo2.hac.com (Robert L. McMillin) Subject: Internet Mail Routing Revealed! (was A Small Tutorial) Several people have written missives recently on TELECOM Digest concerning how X.400 and RFC822 work. One Randal L. Schwartz writes: > There's no need for ".com.nl" and ".com.au" and ".com.uk". The > top-level domains of com, org, edu, mil, net, and gov were clearly > intended from the beginning to be international in scope. It was the > silly PTTs that started deciding that they weren't going to let the > Americans have the root nameservers for *their* commercial domains > that created the country codes. > In fact, ".us" is merely a hack so that the small UUCP systems and > one-man shops could get a domain in the early days, and is targeted to > go away as soon as everyone there has migrated to the com or org > domain. (Most small shops are starting out in com now, rather than > even considering .us.) I'm not so sure this is true. In Donnalyn Frey and Rick Adams' book, {!%@:: A Directory of Electronic Mail Addressing and Networks} ((c) 1990 Donnalyn Frey, O'Reilly & Associates), the authors discuss .com, .edu, etc., and have this to say about the .us top-level domain: ---- start of quoted text ---- US Top-level Domains You will ... come across top-level domains that don't fit into either the {country} or {pseudo} classes: com Commercial edu Educational gov Governmental mil Military net Networking organizations org Other organizations [Perhaps the people at eff.org can clarify this classification for us -- rlm] These top-level domains belong to subnetworks of the North American network Internet and still exist for historical reasons due to the major influence of the former ARPANET on the evolution of networks and networks today. These domains should ideally be subdomains of the top-level domain US,* but at the time the domain system was "invented," the inventors didn't think of network life outside the United States. --- * Agreement to this arrangement seems to be highly correlated with living outside the United States [:-)]. ---- end of quoted text ---- The authors go on to state that "in 1988 the US UUCP network began to encourage the use of the then-dormant top-level domain US." Now, they do not mention whether this had caught on at the time of publication (1990). Neither do they state that .us is a "hack so that the small UUCP systems and one-man shops could get a domain in the early days ..." Active use of the .us domain would seem to be a fairly recent event in Internet history. As to HOW mail routing is performed ... again, here's Frey & Adams, from Appendix E: How Internet Addresses are Handled by UUCP Sites: ---- start of quoted text ---- For hosts running IP on the real, physical Internet (as distinct from the pseudo-, nonphysical internet of hosts capable of using this kind of addressing), routing to reach a domain address is done in what can be called {real time}. For example, the mailer sees that you have written mail to user@some.where.edu and so it queries a program called nameserver running on the system. The nameserver asks the authoritative root servers who handles mail for some.where.edu. The root servers return, not the actual address, but pointers to other servers that really know all the details of hosts inside the organizational entitiy where.edu. These pointers are ns (NameServer) records, and they point to servers that perform lower-level nameservice. The mailer now queries those servers, asking which host handles mail for some.where.edu, and (one presumes) and address is returned by these servers. Then the mailer, knowing where to deliver mail an dhow to do so, connects with the remote mailer and delivers the mail via a protocol called SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol). If a host is not physically connected to Internet (and thus is not directly reachable), a mailer gets back, not addresses, but rather another type of pointer called an MX (Mail eXchanger) record. MX records indicate the hosts that have advertised a willingness to be the mail exchanger for the indicated destination. For instance, if there were a site zebra in Denver registered as zebra.den.co.us and you sent mail to it, the approximate sequence of events would be: 1 The mailer accepts the mail message from the user agent. 2 The mailer asks the local nameserver, "How do I get mail to zebra.den.co.us?" 3 The nameserver doesn't know, so it asks the root servers, "Who's in charge of Colorado?" [Of course, this assumes that the person sending e-mail is in the United States. -- rlm] 4 Root servers, via NS records, return the information, "venera.isi.edu is the host in charge of Colorado." 5 The nameserver then asks venera, "How do I push mail in the direction of zebra.den.co.us?" 6 venera opens, "Mail addressed to zebra.den.co.us should be handed to boulder.colorado.edu.*" 7 The nameserver returns this answer to the mailer and caches a copy of the answer in case it's asked again in the near future. 8 The mailer opens an smtp connection to boulder.colorado.edu and sends the mail. It assumes that the mail exchanging hosts knows how to detect the destination hosts for which it serves as MX (usually syntactically) and that it will then convert the mail to some other transport (probably UUCP in this case). * boulder.colorado.edu is used as an example only. ---- end quoted text ---- So there you have it. The left to right 'tearing apart of addresses' that Brad Hicks is approximately, but not quite, correct. But I will refrain to take up his call to discipline him, as this is TELECOM Digest and not alt.sex.bondage :-). Robert L. McMillin | Voice: (310) 568-3555 Hughes Aircraft/Hughes Training, Inc. | Fax: (310) 568-3574 Los Angeles, CA | Internet: rlm@indigo2.hac.com ------------------------------ From: quonw@software.mitel.com (Wynn Quon) Subject: SS7 Training Courses (Followup) Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1992 16:29:29 -0400 Organization: Mitel. Kanata (Ontario). Canada. This is a long-delayed followup to a question I asked almost a year ago about recommendations for an SS7 training course. Many of the responses I got suggested the Bellcore SS7 courses and that's where I eventually went this August. They have a general SS7 overview course and a number of administration/maintenance courses that cover the SS7 implementations on the major switches (DMS, 5ESS etc). The course that caught my eye though was the CCS Network Operations and Maintenance course. Our group has been going through the SS7 specs and we're quite familiar with the protocol from the 'paper' point of view. What we needed was the 'real world' story. The CCS/NORM course fit the bill in just about every way. It's a 10-day affair that's 50% lecture and 50% lab. The lab work consists of hands-on sessions working with HP protocol analyzers on SS7 message sequences that were generated in their captive SS7 network (a fairly sophisticated setup with DMS100, 5ESS, 1AESS, Tekelec-MGTS, and DSC-Megahub nodes). The lecture material covered the protocol itself, network architecture, 800 DB, LIDB and CLASS, brief overview of vendor implemenations, SS7 routing and SS7 maintenance issues. The lectures were quite good in filling out the details which were missing or unclear in the specs - especially the details of SS7 message routing and network architecture. I left the course with a good comfortable "gut feel" for SS7 which I was missing before. Highly recommended for folks in SS7 design and field support. Might be overkill if you just want to get an overview of the protocol though. Cost for the course was $4400 including room and board (fairly decent living and rec facilities) at the training centre in Lisle, Illinois which is just outside of Chicago. Thanks to the following for their responses to my initial request for recommendations. Russ Nelson rcj1@ihlpf.att.com (Raymond C Jender) vances@xenitec.on.ca (Vance Shipley) If you're interested in this or any of their other courses their number is 800-832-2463 (USA), 708-960-6300, 800-638-3382 (Canada) Wynn Quon Mitel Corp. Kanata, Ontario ------------------------------ From: bcapps@atlastele.com (Brent Capps) Subject: Re: Old Telephone Wiring at Network Interface Organization: Atlas Telecom Inc. Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1992 00:07:54 GMT In article John Higdon writes: > arnold@Synopsys.COM (Arnold de Leon) writes: >> Can I simply take the yellow wire from the other cables and use them >> for the second line? I am assuming that I can find the black in the >> sheath. > I would not do this if I were you. Ordinary jacketed station wire is > not "twisted pair" and its use for two lines over any distance is an > invitation for crosstalk. If you go back through the issues of the > Digest, you will find article after article complaining about > crosstalk between two lines in the home and the cause in most cases > turns out to be the use of D station wire for two lines. [...] > If it has red/green/yellow/black, do NOT use it to carry more than one > line. 1. As John points out, distance is a factor. The thing to remember is that even twisted pair comes unwraveled sometimes, especially when you're cross connecting, and that those short spans of untwistedness don't cause a problem. You can run a second line over quad as long as you keep the distance short; say 50' or so to be on the safe side. 2. If you're concerned about crosstalk, avoid wiring up the second line to every jack in the house. Run it only to the jack nearest to your computer. Extra El Cheapo phones plugged into other jacks in the house can contribute to a crosstalk problem, even while they're on-hook, because they sometimes bleed signal between the pairs. I use quad for my second modem line in my 1922 home and have never had a crosstalk problem. Of course, my office is within 50' of the POP in the basement, too. Your installer will probably want to run the POP for the new line outside somewhere, which is going to make it a pain for you to cross-connect if yours is also in the basement; but if you stand your ground with the installer and act like you know your stuff, they will probably give in and run the POP into the basement for you. Mine did. An oldie but a goodie is Lee's ABCs of the Telephone, Volume 2, "Station Installation and Maintenance" which describes older wiring in how-to detail. Typically you will find the yellow wire tied to ground and the black wires all tied together. BE AWARE that the black wire (accessory) was occasionally used as a lazy repairman's substitute for tip or ring when the green or red wire broke somewhere inside the walls of your house. Make sure it's not hot or you'll screw up both your lines. Brent Capps bcapps@agora.rain.com (gay stuff) bcapps@atlastele.com (telecom stuff) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V12 #800 ******************************